Alex Ramsburg didnt set out to be an icon. He was just on his way to a job interview.

Rewind to 2001. It was Spring Commencement at West Virginia University, and Ramsburg was as elite as could be.

He was one of just four graduates in WVU s then-new Forensic and Investigative Science Program, and that was worth celebrating for the Romney native who already earned a bachelors degree in biology from here.

But while his classmates were doning their caps and gowns, he was flying coach to Phoenix for job interviews at two crime labs in the American West. Thats how fast word had spread of the program thats an icon in its own right at the newly refurbished Oglebay Hall.

Dr. Keith Morris, the programs director, wasnt here then, but he shakes his head and chuckles appreciatively at the story. He can identify.

It didnt take long for the program to sprout some very long legs,Morris said.Thats why Alex was on that airplane instead of walking across the stage at the Coliseum. Its the same for me.

Morris, too, logged some time in transit to get to Morgantown. He came here from South Africa, where he headed that countrys national crime lab system.

And he isnt shy about singing praises for a program that truly has its fingerprints on the industry.

We have the finest program and finest facilities in the world,he asserts,and I can say that.

Ramsburg, who opted for a job closer to homehes a forensic scientist with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigationreadily offers up his own testimony on the strength of program.

I took an amazing variety of courses taught by leading professionals in the forensic community who came to WVU on the strength of the program,Ramsburg said.I had a great internship. I cant even begin to put a value on it. I do know I came away well-qualified. I do know I was able to interview with confidence because of my training at WVU .

Training,it is. Students take in part in a rigorous curriculum that rivals any pre-medicine program, and they practice what they learn in three fully outfittedcrime scenehouses and a forensic garagewhere they work though graphic scenarios that take in everything from unattended deaths to murder-suicides and drive by shootings.

They even get learn about blood spatters by way of an inspired avenue of innovation by Michael Bell, a former crime scene analyst with the New Mexico State Police who oversees operations at the houses and garage.

Heres how it works: Bell employs a regulation WVU Mountaineer football helmet topped with a wig and a sponge soaked in cows blood from the agriculture school. One student snaps on the contraption while another wails on it with a baseball bat.

Other students then chart andreadthe resulting blood spatters. Its safe, Bell said, while beingas realistic as we can possibly make it.

Then there are the internships: Iowa, Illinois, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, the District of Columbia and other locales across the country.

The labs in the $23.5 million refurbished Oglebay are right in line with the internship sites, giving more layer of scholarship to WVU s sleuths-in-training.

April Shea is a testament to that. Shes now a microbiologist with Washington, D.C.s Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, and like Ramsburg, she stayed on in Morgantown for post-graduate forensic study after notching a B.S. in biology.

Once a WVU -trained forensic professional, always a WVU -trained forensic professional.

Case in point: Shea watched in dismay three years ago as local investigators pored over the scene of her friends car that had been torched in his driveway.

She made note of what the investigators didnt do, which was collect DNA from bottles and cans in the garbage. She wasnt surprised when the crime went unsolved.

If it was me, I would have collected the cans,she told The Chronicle of Higher Education in a 2005 profile of the program.Theres no such thing as the perfect crime.

One of Sheas WVU mentors is Dr. Suzanne Bell, a former New Mexico forensic chemistshes married to Michael Bellwho is also on the faculty here.

Bell smiles appreciatively every time that story comes up.

Thats just good, solid police work,she said.Thats what we like to hear.

From that graduating quartet in 2001, the WVU program has grown to 500 majors, who hail from 35 states and five countries. Some 70 percent of them are women.