FW: news release: World`s Largest Thank You...

["Mickey P. Rowe" <mrowe@indiana.edu>]

I have a cousin whose husband works for SAS.  However, all I know of
the following is contained in the following, so don't ask me more
about it.  I reformatted the message to make it easier to read, but I
don't think I change any of its content (aside from the removal of
some header material):

-------------------

From:   Claire McCullough [SMTP:sasbcm@UNX.SAS.COM]
Sent:   Tuesday, April 21, 1998 7:54 AM
Subject:        news release: World`s Largest Thank You...
Sender: News Releases/Marketing Communications <NEWREL-L@VM.SAS.COM>
Subject:      news release: World`s Largest Thank You...
To: NEWREL-L@VM.SAS.COM

The following news release was issued to Business Wire. It will be
placed on the Institute's internal and external Web sites.

World`s Largest Thank You...

April 20, 1998

RALEIGH, N.C.-- Instead of flowers, Museum presents rare dinosaur as
thanks for company's million dollar donation

In appreciation of SAS Institute Inc.'s $1 million contribution to the
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the Museum today publicly
unveiled for the first time a skeletal replica of the rare dinosaur,
Acrocanthosaurus, in the lobby of the company's research and
development building.

"SAS Institute's donation to the Museum is the largest corporate
contribution our capital campaign has received," said Museum Director
Betsy Bennett. "We wanted our thank you to the company to be equally
impressive."

Until April 23, Acro will terrorize the more than 3,000 headquarters
employees at SAS Institute, the world's largest privately held
software company. Children from the Institute's child care centers
will be visiting Acro throughout the week, making them some of the
first people in the world to ever view the dinosaur skeleton in its
entirety. Dale Russell, the Museum's senior curator of paleontology,
will also present two programs on the "Terror of the South" to
Institute employees. The dinosaur will be a featured exhibit in the
new $60 million Museum, opening in the fall of 1999.

"Sticking a huge dino in the middle of the workplace may be totally
weird to some companies," said Betty Fried, director of corporate
communications for SAS Institute, "but, culturally, we're a little
different. Our employees really get into community events and programs
no matter how small, or in this case, large."

At 40 feet long and 13 feet tall, Acro was the largest predator of its
time.  Acro roamed the Earth 112 million years ago -- 45 million years
earlier than Tyrannosaurus Rex, to whom the giant carnivore is often
compared.  Known from only four specimens, the NC Museum of Natural
Sciences specimen is by far the most complete.

Nationally recognized for its progressive work-life programs, in 1997
SAS Institute was acknowledged by Business Week, FORTUNE and Working
Mother magazines as one of the 10 best places to work in America.

A dinosaur in the lobby is simply a much older - and larger - example
of another tenet of the Institute's business philosophy: making the
company a place where employees enjoy coming to work. The company's
200-acre, collegiate-like campus includes a 35,000 square-foot fitness
center, two child care centers, an employee health care center and
cafeteria.

SAS Institute's renowned corporate culture has been instrumental in
helping the company attract and retain employees in an industry where
corporate loyalty is all but extinct. The Institute's turnover rate
hovers around 4 percent in an industry where the average is closer to
20 percent.  Co-founded and incorporated in 1976 by Dr. James
Goodnight and John P. Sall, the company employs more than 5,100 people
worldwide in 42 countries supporting 3.5 million users. SAS
Institute's customers cross the lines of industry, government and
education and include 97 of the FORTUNE 100 companies.

The Institute's $1 million dollar gift was earmarked for the Mountains
to the Sea exhibit, the centerpiece exhibit in the new,
200,000-square-foot Museum under construction in Raleigh. The Museum's
nonprofit support group, the Friends of the Museum, began their
first-ever capital campaign in October 1995. Since then, their
creative techniques have successfully raised $20.6 million of a $28.8
million goal to fund exhibits in the new building.  The Museum of
Natural Sciences is expected to draw 500,000 visitors a year from
across the country.

(End of Advance for release Monday, April 20)

CONTACT: Museum of Natural Sciences 
| Karen Kemp, 919/733-7450, ext. 304 |     
 or 
| SAS Institute Inc. | John Dornan, 919/677-8000, ext. 5234 |
sasjod@wnt.sas.com | http://www.sas.com