1950s
Lloyd Fries (’56 Pharm.) received the 2009 PGM Robert W. Rush Award for Outstanding Dr. of Smiles from the Grottoes of North America Humanitarian Foundation, which provides dental care for children with special needs. Fries has volunteered with the organization for eight years and has helped the program grow from 50 patients to 270 in a year’s time. He lives in the Portland, Oregon-area with his wife Marjorie.
Joe P. Zeeben (’58 Mech. Engr., ’60 MS) was recognized in August with the WSU Alumni Association Alumni Achievement Award for his accomplishments in aerodynamics engineering. He has had a 34-year-long career with Boeing working with the commercial and military airplane groups. He helped launch the Boeing 757 airplane program, and designed a method for calculating engine emissions. He has also been recognized for his volunteer work with the PTA and the Boy Scouts of America. He lives in western Washington.
1960s
Mike Thorne (’62 Ag.) and his wife Jill x’62 are living in Pendleton, Oregon, where they are helping organize the celebration of the 100th Pendleton Roudup in September 2010.
Grant Thorsett (’62 Sciences) retired after 41 years teaching genetics at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. He earned his PhD in 1969 from Yale University. As a scientist he focused on molecular techniques in microbial ecology. He chaired the biology department at Willamette U. for 14 years.
Darrell Aune (’66 Comm.) is the voice of Western Oregon University’s sportscasting on KLOO AM. He will announce the school’s football and men’s and women’s basketball games. He had been the voice of the Oregon State Beavers from 1970 to 1999, and sports director at KEX radio in Portland. Recently he has announced football and basketball for Linfield College. He lives in Monmouth, Oregon, with his wife Catherine.
Stanley Nelson (’66 Engr. and Arch.) retired from the Southwest Region of the Washington State Department of Transportation after 25 years, on July 1, 2009. He was a region-wide facilities architect for the DOT.
1970s
Jack Nevin (’73 Sociology) is a Pierce County District Court judge as well as a brigadier general in the Army Reserve. He works on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice teaching lawyers overseas the basics of prosecuting and defending criminal cases. He has also helped write bar examinations, trained judges, helped develop public disclosure laws, and advised on rebuilding legal systems in countries struggling to reestablish their legal systems. When he’s not traveling, Nevin lives in University Place with his wife Cheryl French Nevin (’74 Ed.).
Chip Hanauer (’76 Ed.), retired unlimited hydroplane racer, had the fastest lap around Lake Washington during Seafair last July in the Boeing U-787 hydroplane that runs on biofuel. It was just a test lap since Hanauer, who is a special education teacher, has no plans to get back into racing.
Kelvin Soldat (’77 MS Env. Engr.) retired from the environmental sector at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory after 32 years with the organization. He and his wife Meg Lujan Soldat (’80 Office Admin.) live in Richland.
1980s
Robert J. Palmquist (’80 Crim. J., ’82 MA), a warden at the Federal Bureau of Prisons Federal Detention Center in Seattle, was recognized in September with the WSU Alumni Association Alumni Achievement Award. After graduating from WSU, Palmquist went to work as a correctional officer in California, and later moved to Oregon, Arizona, and New York. He then became chief of the Federal Bureau of Prison’s Office of Security and Technology in Washington, D.C. He moved to his post in Seattle in 2003. He is a youth minister and music minister at his Catholic church in Federal Way, and has volunteered with the Boy Scouts of America, the Rotary Club, and the Sheridan City Planning Committee. He lives with his family in Des Moines.
Peter Snell (’82 PhD Ed.) was recently knighted by the New Zealand governor, not long after being named New Zealand’s sportsman of the 20th century. Snell, who competed for his native New Zealand, won an Olympic gold medal for the 800 meters in Rome in 1960, and two more in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. He lives in Dallas, Texas, where he is on faculty at Southwestern Medical Center.
Francis Dodoo (’83 Econ., ’86 MA) is head of the Ghana Olympic Committee. He was a track and field athlete at WSU and went on to compete in the long jump and triple jump. The four-time Olympian is a sociologist at Pennsylvania State University and chairman of the Ghana Athletics Association.
Jim Browitt (’87 Comm.) has been the sports editor of the Lewiston Tribune since 2002 and has worked at the newspaper for 17 years. He recently decided to leave newspapers for law school.
1990s
Kerri (Lufkin) Schwab (’90 Ed.) was hired at Everett Community College as a tenure-track faculty member in developmental education. She lives in Everett with her family.
Tyler Jones (’92 Hotel and Rest. Admin.) is the new general manager at the Palouse Ridge Golf Club in Pullman. He has been working as general manager of the Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach for the past five years. In 2007, the Monterey Herald named him one of the five most influential people in golf on the Monterey Peninsula.
2000s
Jeremy Thielbahr (’01 Soc. Studies, ’07 MIT) is coaching running backs and special teams for the football team at the University of Idaho. After graduating from WSU in 2001, Thielbahr worked as a grad assistant for the Cougars. Then in 2004, he joined Montana State where he worked with tight ends and the defensive line. He returned to the Palouse in 2006.
Evelyn Hirt (’02 Engr. Mgmt.) is the 2010 president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. She was also awarded the Robert S. Walleigh Distinguised Contributions to Engineering Professionalism Award for her leadership and contributions to the professional society. Hirt is an expert in systems and controls for Battelle Memorial Institute at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland.
Paul Case (’03 Bus.) and Erinn Rogers (’06 Nursing) were married July 18, 2009, in Spokane. Case is a naval aviator flying the EA-6B Prowler out of NAS Whidbey Island and Rogers is a registered nurse at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
Josh (’03) and Shawna (Geier) Labberton (‘03 Psych.) welcomed their daughter Kira Cosette on September 1, 2009.
Richard Meyer (’03 Bus.) married Stacie Boness on July 18, 2009. The couple lives in western Washington.
Jeff Olson (’03 Construction Mgmt.) married Samantha Stafford (‘03 Social Sci.) on August 8, 2009, in Silverdale, Washington.
Kim Carlson (’04 Comm.) has joined the Coeur d’Alene Resort sales team, working from King County. She had previously worked at the Salish Lodge and Spa as well as the Edgewater Hotel. She volunteers with Seattle Children’s Hospital and lives in the Seattle area.
Tim Chappell (’04 Theater Arts) and Aleisha (Allen) Chappell (’02 Engl.) welcomed Abileen Florence Chappell on July 29, 2009.
Anna (Hewitt) Unruh (’04) and husband Ryan welcomed their daughter, Lillie Anna Unruh, on February 7, 2009.
Wesley McMahon (’05 Psych.) received his juris doctor degree from New England Law/Boston last spring. He is hoping to practice in New York.
Jay Tust (’06 Comm.) is sports director at Lewiston’s KLEW TV. He had been working at Fox Sports Northwest as an associate producer.
Alison (Lawrence) Foliart (’07 Lib. Arts) is the new executive director with the nonprofit agency Perinatal Treatment Services. The organization, which has sites in Seattle and Tacoma, is a chemical dependency treatment program for pregnant women and mothers with children under age six.