Pat and Nancy Artis worked their way through school; now they become major benefactors of Virginia Tech

When Pat Artis was a young boy, he built a rocket, launched it, and promptly blew a hole in the family's truck window. His unlikely cohort in the crime - his father - shielded him by telling Pat's mother that a rock hit the vehicle. Pat continued tinkering with rockets and eventually won a research and development award from the National Association of Rocketry. He was still a teenager.