Untold Stories: Forty Years of Field Research on Root Diseases of Wheat

By R. James Cook

American Phytopathological Society Press: 2017

Throughout the compelling stories and personal experiences shared by Jim Cook, a retired research plant pathologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service and emeritus professor of plant pathology at Washington State University, readers can find practical crop management techniques and other beneficial information that can be used in the field and the lab. Cook also chronicles many of his insightful experiences—and imparts his philosophy, wisdom, and practical guidance.

 

Living on the Edge: Adventures of a Hunter

By Shannon L. Kollmeyer ’66

2017

Kollmeyer guides readers through a spectrum of hunts of over 50 species in four countries, 20 locations, different cultures, and every type of terrain and weather imaginable, with an eye to how hunting plays a role in conservation. A self-described “mild-mannered real estate and banking guy” from Chelan, he has stalked animals from caribou to Cape buffalo. Kollmeyer notes that hunters help fund government agencies that manage North America’s rich wildlife resources, which in turn leads to the ability to experience the danger and excitement of hunting.

 

Why the Undocumented Belong to America: The Experience of Rosa Robles Loreto and Eleven Million Others

By Denise Holley ’00 

2017

Journalist Denise Holley tells the story of Rosa Robles Loreto, who worked hard cleaning houses until a minor traffic incident led to her deportation. Holley’s book explains how the United States has criminalized immigration, and how undocumented farmworkers employed in the orchards of Washington and the vineyards of California underpin our economy despite what Holley describes as arbitrary immigration policies.

 

We Are Aztlán! Chicanx Histories in the Northern Borderlands

Edited by Jerry García ’99 PhD 

WSU Press: 2017

Ten essays reach beyond the lives of Chicanos and Chicanas in the well-studied southwestern United States to concentrate on cultural, historical, and gendered experiences of Chicano communities in Washington, Oregon, and Michigan during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The research, both academic and nonacademic, covers art, history, immigration, gender, labor, literature, sociology, education, and religion among Chicanx in the north. García, formerly with Eastern Washington University, contributes an article on his own childhood experiences in the predominantly white communities of Quincy and Seattle during the ’70s and ’80s.

 

Carry Forth the Stories: An Ethnographer’s Journey into Native Oral Tradition

By Rodney Frey 

WSU Press: 2017

As an ethnographer and anthropologist for over 40 years, Frey forged close relationships with Crow, Couer d’Alene, Nez Perce, and Warm Springs Native communities, interacting with elders and participating in tribal activities. He shares his personal stories, as well as those told by tribal members, to provide insight into the power and value of story, storytelling, and empathy.