"She's here!" Students stationed outside Prince Edward County Middle School ignore teachers" orders and rush up to Dr. Jane as she climbs out of the Longwood van. For a legend, she looks small and tired, and, for a moment, unsteady, but she recovers quickly. Then she shakes each child's hand (several of them are taller than she) and, reading name tags, greets each one by name. This graciousness impresses them more than the "chimp lady" videos they have seen, more than reading her name in Time.
  Dr. Jane Goodall, pioneer primatologist and possibly the best-known scientist in the world, is in Farmville thanks to the Longwood Alumni Association, the Student Government Association and Longwood student Yared Fubusa (see the sidebar).
  She takes minutes for lunch, then walks into a gymnasium full of middle schoolers, hoots a chimp greeting and shows them slides of their species" closest living relatives. She has good news and bad: that chimps are mistreated as pets and as victims of medical research. They are, in some areas, hunted for food. These chimps, each with so much personality and almost-human eyes, are a threatened species.
   Even in a gymnasium, Jane Goodall diminishes the distance between herself and her audience. Observing that smaller children can't see, she invites them to the front. When some students must leave, she admonishes them not to disturb the others. She patiently waits for and answers questions from the students. When there are no more questions, the students leave as Dr. Jane talks with a reporter from WWBT–NBC Channel 12 in Richmond.

Next