Two University of Wisconsin alumni will be featured on
United States Postal Service stamps that will debut in late February and early
March.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings will
be featured as this year?s representative of the ?Literary Arts? series. The
stamp will be released Feb. 21, when there will be a ceremony to commemorate
the stamp at the site of Rawlings? Florida home.

Another UW alumnus, physicist John Bardeen, will also be
honored with his own stamp as part of the USPS ?American Scientists? series.

According to Marge Oehlke, Wisconsin spokesperson for the
USPS, the postal service only releases one ?Literary Arts? stamp per year.

?That individual is chosen from a field of very renowned
individuals for that category,? Oehlke said.

?

Being honored with her own stamp puts Rawlings in the
company of writers such as Dorothy Parker, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin
and Ayn Rand.

Rawlings graduated from UW in 1918 and won a Pulitzer Prize
for her novel that takes place in the backwoods of Florida, ?The Yearling.?
According to Oehlke, Rawlings? stamp features a drawing of her face in front of
a scene of a fawn in the Florida scrub-country.

Oehlke added there are currently no plans to hold a ceremony
for the stamp?s release on the UW campus, but said they are working on
organizing one. She said USPS will have to talk to someone from UW to get
approval.

According to Jim Mruk, USPS Great Lakes Area manager of
communications, Bardeen, who taught as a professor at the University of Illinois,
was a Madison native and graduate of UW where his father was a professor.

UW named the medical laboratories building after his father.

Mruk said the scientists series will be released March 6 at
a ?mega stamp show? in New York City that will be attended by Edward Hubble, of
Hubble telescope fame.

Bardeen was co-inventor of the transistor, which many
consider to be the most important invention of the twentieth century, according
to Mruk.

?The ?American Scientists? series acknowledges events and
achievements that are important to our country, history and culture,? Mruk
said. ?Before these stamps, I wasn?t even aware of Mr. Bardeen.?

Oehlke said she is very proud there are two different UW
alumni being honored this year.

?To have two this year is highly unusual,? she added. ?That
really says a lot about the UW System.?

According to Oehlke, people may have to act quickly to get
the stamps. She said the stamps are only good until the next rate increase,
which will be May 5.

She added she does not know if the stamps will be
re-released after that.