1930s
Paul B. Hansen (’37 Chem. Engr.), Neenah, Wisconsin, writes, “It seems hardly possible that it’s been 64 years since my graduation. I’m still kicking fairly high, as is my wife Jane.”
Sylvia Haapala (’38 Home Ec., ’38 Educ.) is a charter member of Winlock Lioness Club and a member of Grange #737, Garden Circle, Toledo Lone Yew Sewing Club and Winlock Finnish Lodge.
Albert L. Ayars ’39 and Louise Schaaf Ayars (’41 Home Ec.), Kirkland, marked their 60th wedding anniversary this summer. They were married June 21, 1941, in Pullman. After a 43-year career as an educator, Albert retired in 1983 as superintendent of schools in Norfolk, Virginia. He holds four degrees from WSU, including an Ed.D. earned in 1956. He was president of the WSU Alumni Association in 1949-50. The couple has eight children and 16 grandchildren, and they have visited 65 countries.
Patria Johnson Kobervig (’39 Speech), Burlington, writes, “I have just returned from a very interesting cruise around part of South America and the cape.”
Lewis Elmer Danes (’39 Elect. Engr.), Smithsburg, Maryland, writes that he and his wife, Helen, own their own home in Washington County, not far from Hagerstown. He writes, “I enjoyed reading Hilltopics and newsletters from the electrical engineering department.”
1940s
Dr. George Ott (’44 D.V.M.) and his wife, Ruth, Kelso, were featured in a Longview Daily News story in January 2001. They met as students at Washington State College in 1940 and married in 1944. He retired from his veterinary practice in 1984 but continued to be active for a number of years, inspecting animals at fairs in Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties. “Our hearts are still in eastern Washington,” Ruth says. “Sometimes, we really get lonesome.”
1950s
Richard J. Waters (’50 Bus. Adm.) is retired in Anacortes. He started the Waters Insurance Market Financial Group in Crystal Lake, Illinois, when he was 50. During World War II, he flew 38 missions as a bombardier with the Army Air Corps and received the Distinguished Flying Cross.
A party was held for Betty L. Krutzfeldt Wegner (’50 English) to celebrate her 50th anniversary as head of the Architecture-Urban Planning Library at the University of Washington. “My library roots were planted in February 1947 when I began a 3-year career as a student assistant in the WSC Library. It’s been a grand journey from then to now,” she writes from Seattle.
Francis R. LeBlanc (’51 Hort.), Redwood City, California, is assistant golf professional in the Stanford Athletic Department. “I always look forward to both the WSU men and women’s golf teams making their annual journey to the Pac-10 tourney at Stanford.” Francis visits New England, land of his origin, about once a year.
Robert Eschbach (’51 Botany, ’51 Educ.) and Margaret Eschbach (’51 Bus. Adm.) founded the Central Washington Agricultural Museum in Union Gap and remain active in its development.
William O. Pruitt, Jr. (’51 M.S. Agri. Engr.) writes from Davis, California: “My wife, Ada, and I thank WSU for the time we had attending the 50th anniversary of the Class of ’51. The two-and-a-half days on campus were special. The people heading up the Golden Grad reunion did a super job.”
Lynn Gearheart (’51 Agri.) and Hazel Gearheart celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary October 20, 2000. Lynn has been engaged in farming and related agricultural businesses in Sunnyside, Othello, and Mattawa.
David E. Allen (’52 English), Cambridge, Massachusetts, writes, “I have just celebrated my 40th anniversary of Life Profession in the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, a monastic community of the Episcopal Church.”
Claude N. Nelson (’53 Fine Arts), Seattle, a retired technical illustrator for Boeing, continues painting and sketching and is planning a trip to Europe.
Donald King (’54 Psych.), a professor of law at Saint Louis University, is co-author of the second edition of a book on sales law with Dean Robert Scott of the University of Virginia Law School. The book references proposed law reforms as well as existing law.
1960s
Carolyn Malnes (’60 Soc. St.), Lynn-wood, was appointed chair of the Music Teachers National Association. She served on the Foundation Committee on Teacher Enrichment Grants and is a past president of the Washington State Music Teachers Association.
Philip M. McDonald (’60 Forestry) has retired from a career with the U.S. Forest Service that began in 1961. Since 1965, he had been assigned to the Silviculture Laboratory in Redding, California. His areas of expertise include seed production, natural and artificial regeneration, seedling growth, and growth of root-crown sprouts in California forest-zone hardwoods. In 1980 he and a colleague began research in post-planting vegetation management that eventually became recognized as the most extensive in North America. “I always felt good about the undergraduate program in forestry at WSU. Professors Milt Mosher and John Dingle were outstanding,” McDonald writes.
Retired Air Force Col. Richard M. “Dick” Johnson (’62 Bus. Adm.) was elected to a new four-year term on the Oro Valley, Arizona, city council. He also serves on the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Board and the Greater Tucson Economic Council, as well as the Arizona State Task Force on Effluent Water. Last spring he completed an eight-year term on the WSU Alumni Association Board of Directors.
For the past 10 years, Robert L. Smith (’62 Hum. Res.) has been facilities security manager for the Oregon Arena Corp./Trail Blazers, Inc. in Portland. His wife, Lois, is an executive assistant for the International Wackenhut Corp. They write, “We are enjoying life with our ‘almost’ six grandchildren and the beautiful Oregon territory.”
Joan Kennedy Blumeyer (’63 Off. Adm.) is an associate professor at Paloma College in San Marcos, California. Her husband, Max Blumeyer (’64 Physics), is an engineer with General Atomics in La Jolla.
John Oftebro (’65 Pharm.), Redmond, owns four pharmacies in the Seattle area. His current activities include all areas of pharmaceutical care. He offers a residency program that is in its second year. The program averages 10 pharmacy students annually from WSU and the University of Washington. He is president of the Washington State Pharmacy Foundation.
Larry Smith (’66 Forestry) retired January 1, 2001 from the Washington State Department of Natural Resources as a resource protection forester in Lewis County after 32 years. He lives in Curtis.
James Coffey (’66 Soc.) is the risk manager for Boise State University. He and his wife, Elaine, live in Nampa, Idaho.
Carroll Hayden (’68 Bus. Adm.) retired September 4, 2001 after 33 years at WSU. From 1968 to 1978, he was program advisor for ASWSU, working with a variety of student organizations. He brought a host of concerts and dance performances to WSU, including the Bill Cosby sellout show in 1978. Through 2000, he was program director for campus recreation and assisted with the referendum process and design and development of the new WSU Recreation Center. For a dozen years, he organized the popular Dad’s Weekend “Vehicle Display” on the Terrell Mall.
Owen V. Johnson (’68 Hist.) and Ann Coonradt Tryson (’67 Educ.) were married May 12, 2001 in Bloomington, Indiana. Owen teaches journalism and history at Indiana University. Ann is working for the national headquarters of Parents as Teachers, a non-profit early childhood group. Their blended family includes five children.
Lou Hobson ’68 was one of five recipients of the state’s Jefferson Award in May. He and the other winners were feted at a luncheon in the Sheraton Seattle Hotel and Towers. The award has been called “the Nobel Prize for public service.” A high school basketball coach and co-founder of the Youth Education & Sports Foundation, Hobson uses a basketball court to instill the importance of academic scholarship and personal goals in young athletes. He says, “basketball is a carrot to get them into the gym.” There, he teaches social skills and other valuable lessons about life.
Rutledge M. Dennis (’69 M.A. Soc., ’75 Ph.D. Soc.) has received the Joseph Sandy Himes Award for a Career of Distinguished Scholarship from the Association of Black Sociologists (ABS). He was recognized for the work done over the course of his career to advance theory and research related to the social conditions of African Americans. The professor of sociology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, is a past president of the ABS.
Together Barbara Harman (’69 Gen. St.) and Kiyomi Talaulicar received a $1,000 scholarship to participate in the mentor program of the Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota. The program enables artists in the early stages of their career to benefit from the wisdom and experience of established artists.
1970s
Joseph Soldati (’72 English), Portland, is professor emeritus of English at Western Oregon University. He retired in 1997. He received the 2000 Icarus International first-place award for poetry for his poem, “Moon on the Wing.”
Donald O. Schreiweis (’72 Ph.D. Zool.) is director of professional health studies and associate professor of biology at Saint Louis University. In March 2000 he was elected national treasurer of Alpha Epsilon Delta, the national honor society for premedical students.
Kit Latta (’72 Educ.), a teacher at the Spokane Valley Alternative Education Program, was named Eastern Washington University’s Teacher of the Month (December 2000). The teacher program was organized in 1987 by the EWU education department to focus attention on quality teachers and to support student-teacher relationships throughout the region.
Dennis Rea (’73 Ag. Econ.) farms wheat, peas, alfalfa, and cattle in Milton-Freewater, Oregon. His wife, Laura Rea (’74 Nursing), was the 1999-2000 March of Dimes Oregon Ambassador.
In May 2001 Garry Grau (’73 M.A. Educ.) was awarded the doctor of education degree in educational leadership by East Tennessee State University. His dissertation topic was “The Assessment of Tennessee Community Colleges’ Roles in Business Incubator Development, as Perceived by Administrators and Incubator Tenants.”
Barbara Smith Kubik (’74 Hist.) and Steven G. Lee (’00 Acct.) have been elected president and treasurer, respectively, of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation. The trail will celebrate its bicentennial in 2003. For more than 30 years, the foundation has stimulated public appreciation of the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s contribution to America’s heritage. Kubik is a contract research historian and author in Vancouver. Lee, a Colton resident, is an accountant in the WSU Finance Office.
Lee Henry (’74 Speech) provided all the special finishing touches and carved the plaster for the Bug Show Theater in Disney’s California Adventure Park in 2000.
Dennis Ray Rehberg (’77 Polit. Sci.), a rancher and former lieutenant governor of Montana, is a new U.S. Congressman from that state. His wife, Janice Lenhardt Rehberg (’78 Polit. Sci.), practices law in Billings.
Angela Marie Dorgan Seeds (’78 Bact.), Dalphe, Alabama, writes, “I have recently divorced and gone back to school. I’m hoping to enter the Physicians Assistant Program at the University of South Alabama.”
Mike Blair (’78 Physics), Seattle, has been promoted to head Boeing’s commercial aviation services business. He is responsible for 8,000 employees worldwide who staff the company’s 24-hour technical support, spare parts, and customer training centers, as well as other operations.
In July Al Keck (’78 Comm.) was appointed sports anchor/reporter at WFTS-TV in Tampa Bay, Florida. For the past 13 years, he has served as sports director/anchor at WTSP in Tampa Bay. He continues his role as television play-by-play announcer for ESPN and Fox Sports and provides commentary for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Radio Network.
After 16 years of practicing medical litigation in Spokane and Seattle, Katharine Witter Brindley (’79 Nursing) has joined the Seattle law firm of Helsell Fetterman. Her practice concentrates on health and hospital law, risk management and medical staff relations, medical malpractice, and licensing matters involving health care professionals.
Former Cougar and professional basketball player James Donaldson (’79 Soc.) is president of The Donaldson Clinic. He founded his first physical therapy clinic in Mill Creek 11 years ago and has since added clinics in Cashmere and Tacoma. He serves on the WSU Alumni Board.
Neal J. Cummings (’79 Arch. St.), Astoria, Oregon, writes, “I’ve owned my own video and entertainment store since 1985. We specialize in foreign, midnight (or cult) films, and hard-to-find movies.”
Bill Gruber’s collection of essays, On All Sides Nowhere, received the creative nonfiction award from the Middlebury (Vermont) College Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference last June. Since 1980, Gruber (’79 Ph.D. English) has been teaching drama and theatre history at Emory University, where he is professor of English and chair of the department. He and his wife are co-authors of a number of stories for children.
1980s
Ann Teberg (’80 Educ., ’98 Ed.D.) is in her ninth year as a faculty member in the education department at Eastern Washington University. Her specialty is preparing others how to teach youngsters to read. Earlier this year, she was named Best Teacher in the Inland Northwest by Inlander newspaper in Spokane.
Frank Blecha (’81 Ph.D. Animal Sci.) was honored as a distinguished professor by Kansas State University. He is a professor of immunophysiology and head of anatomy and physiology at KSU. For 20 years, he has looked at improving livestock management and preventing disease. He holds three patents, has written 24 book chapters, and is the author of nearly 200 publications.
Randy Gregg (’81 Elect. Engr.) and Steve Hunter (’86 Elect. Engr.) were promoted by the Benton Public Utility District. Gregg is director of power management. Hunter is director of engineering.
Joanne Dunn Smith (’81 Psych.) has been certified as an accredited purchasing practitioner and promoted to manager of technical services for Fluor Federal Services in Richland.
Demetrios Theophylactou (’82 Comm.) is director of the press office at the High Commission of Cypress in Australia.
Barbara Krogstad (’83 Home Ec.) is coordinator for Community Health Care in Buckley. She teaches parents of young children about good nutrition. She and her husband also have a home-based business helping other people start businesses on and off the Internet.
Christopher Schappel (’83 Bus. Adm.) is employed in the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department. He moved to Madison in 1998 after nearly five years with the University of Arizona Athletic Department.
After 16 years with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, Kurt Mettler (’84 Forestry) took the position of forest manager with the Spokane Tribe in October 2000.
Dwight J. Van Vleet (’84 Bus. Adm.), Auburn, and Peter D. Wick (’85 Soc. St.), Seattle, Lutheran Brotherhood district representatives, have qualified for membership in the organization’s 2000 Leaders’ Club and the 2000 Executives’ Club, respectively. The honors are given to district representatives and executives who are successful in helping their clients link faith, values, and finances.
Kevin Boldt (’85 Bact.) has opened a real estate franchise in Spokane. He reports the arrival of a son, Christian Boldt, born June 27, 2000.
Jeffrey J. Lewis (’85 Hotel & Rest. Adm.) is a front-desk agent at the Phoenix Inn Suites Hotel in Olympia. He writes, “I’m using my hotel degree to propel me into upper management of a hotel within the next few years.”
Timothy Devine (’85 Music, ’87 M.A. Music) is a self-employed musician and adjunct faculty member at Chabot College in California. He has performed at San Francisco’s Orpheum and Golden Gate Theatres and in concerts with Liza Minelli, Joe Williams, James Moody, and Louie Bellson.
Graphic designer Jennifer Ward (’89 Comm.) owns Pick of the Litter Design in Marysville.
1990s
Dr. Beno Mohr (’93 Biol.) returned to Pullman summer 2001 to practice internal medicine. The University of Washington Medical School graduate received the Seattle Society of Internal Medicine’s outstanding senior award. He sees patients who have severe, chronic, or specific illnesses such as asthma or diabetes that require in-depth specialized care.
Roderick Davis (’94 Comm.) and his wife, Tina, have moved from Monterey, California, to Bend, Oregon, and write that they are “happy to be back in the Northwest.” Tina is a partner in Two Chicks Marketing, which was relocated to Bend. Rod does freelance public relations.
Carl Baber (’95 Hotel and Rest. Adm.) is general manager of the Sawtooth Grill in Spokane’s River Park Square. Kitchen manager is Jim Harbour (’99 Hotel and Rest. Adm.). “We’ll take more WSU grads when other Sawtooth restaurants open,” Baber says.
Nicole Weippert (’95 Polit. Sci.) joined the Spokane law firm of Lukins & Annis as an associate. She previously worked for Halverson & Applegate in Yakima.
Tina McCoach Williams (’95 Soc. Sci.) and her husband, Clarence “Butch” Williams III (’95 Rec. and Lei. St.), Olympia, report the birth of a daughter, Maisy, May 27, 2000. She joins Clarence Williams IV. Butch Williams is in his fifth year with the Washington State Patrol and in his second year with the motorcycle unit.
Leslie Rowe (’95 Geol.) is a geologist for Geomatrix Consultants in Costa Mesa, California. She and her husband, Devon, reside in Santa Ana. They were married December 30, 2000, in Haliburton, Ontario.
Lisa Schab (’96 Elem. Educ., ’96 Special Educ.) accepted a position with Children’s Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle. She teaches children who have long-term medical stays.
Since graduating, Carrie Horton (’97 M. Educ.) has been working in various roles for the Community Colleges of Spokane “from a family advocate to a program coordinator for an English as a Second Language program,” she writes from Cheney. She currently is a parent education instructor for a family literacy program.
Keri Shoemaker (’98 Comm.) is an account executive with Pacific Rim Resource, a communications, marketing, creative design, and public affairs consultant agency in Seattle.
Christian Seavoy (’99 Env. Sci.) has been named an agent for the Country Companies insurance group in Kennewick.
Amber Lynn Brown (’99), a Starbucks Coffee manager, writes from Bothell, “I’m traveling to other states and other countries opening new Starbucks and training people in our policies and procedures. I love it.”
Angela Slade (’99 Bus. Adm.), an accountant, and her husband, a nuclear technician, live in Kennewick.
Scott Randall (’98 Kinesiology, ’99 M. Ed.) works for the WSU athletic department. His wife, Sharae Schulke Randall (’99 Bus. Adm.), is employed by the WSU Creamery mail order department.
Byron Seney (‘99) is employed by Seney Farms in Dayton, where he lives with his wife, Kimberlea Crothers, a State Farm Insurance employee.
Beth Britt (‘99 Ph.D. Comp. Sci.) has joined Aurora Consulting Group Inc. as president/chief executive officer in Spokane. She also teaches computer technologies at Eastern Washington University.
Kamryn Merrill (‘99 M.A. Spe. and Hear. Sci.) is a speech-language pathologist in Fortuna, California.
Jamie Kern (‘99 Bus. Adm.), Des Moines, was the final female contestant “banished” from the household in last season’s CBS television show, Big Brother. She was voted out in a phone-in viewer poll, leaving three male finalists. Originally, 10 contestants had been confined to a house where video cameras allowed them little privacy. They also had no interaction with the outside. Kerns, who frequently appeared on the show in a WSU sweatshirt, failed to qualify for the $500,000 grand prize. She was the reigning Miss Washington in 2000.
Rob Geary (’99 Finance) is a financial analyst for Boeing in Everett. His wife, Aimee Walters Geary (’99 Hotel & Rest. Adm.), is food service director with ARAMARK in Renton.
2000s
Misty L. Holt Lawrence (’00 Biol.) is a mission and community relations coordinator at Lourdes Medical Center in Pasco. Her husband, Richard “Rick” Lawrence (’00 Ag. Tech.) is an equipment operator for Blue Ridge Farms. They live in Kennewick.
Jeff Evans (’00 Comm.) is assistant sports information director at Arizona State University. His main responsibilities include covering the baseball and women’s volleyball teams.
Calley Vandegraft (’00 Fine Arts) is a petty officer and a reserve photographer for the Navy.
Kristi Lyn Van Batavia Tippet (’00 Elem. Educ.) is a substitute teacher in the Tri-Cities. Her husband, Ryan Tippet (’00 Crop Sci.), is employed by H & R Agriculture in Pasco. They live in Kennewick.
Stacy Slade (’00 Bus. Adm.) is a corporate account manager with the Columbus (Ohio) – Crew of Major League Soccer.