1960s
Dan Birdsell (’60 Ag.) has announced high school sports for 60 years, including 23 state tournaments and 11 state track meets. He started in 1962 at Endicott High School, where he announced basketball and football games, wrestling matches, track and field meets, and more. He spent the last 50 years announcing sports for Deer Park High School. Birdsell also announced WSU track and field events from 1996 to 2001.
1970s
Karen Molenaar Terrell (’78 Ed.) wrote two books in 2021: Cosmic Connections: Sharing the Joy and Scrapbook of a Year and a Day: January 19, 2020 to January 20, 2021. The books detail small moments of connection that create friendships and her life during the COVID-19 pandemic, respectively. Terrell is also the author of two books detailing her adventures with her centenarian father, the late mountaineer Dee Molenaar.
1980s
Sheryl McGinnis (’81 Home Econ., Teach. Cert.) retired as superintendent of Geraldine Public Schools in Montana after more than three decades in education. McGinnis taught in the clothing and textiles department at WSU while working on her master’s degree. She received advanced degrees in curriculum and instruction and education leadership after moving to Montana. She taught family and consumer science and middle school math in Fort Benton before becoming vice principal of the combined middle and high school there.
Lloyd Walker (’81 Ag. Ed.) was awarded an honorary FFA degree after 39 years of teaching agriculture at Winlock High School. Walker retired in 2020 but continued to volunteer with FFA, coordinating career development events and advising students. He first joined FFA, formerly known as Future Farmers of America, as a high school student in the 1970s. Out of the 116 people who received the 2021 national award for exceptional service, he is the only one from Washington.
Mike Connell (’85 Busi.) is vice president for advancement and CEO of the WSU Foundation. He started his career as a development coordinator for WSU Spokane and has 33 years of experience in a range of advancement positions at WSU.
1990s
Ryan Cripe (’99 Busi. Admin.) is chief financial officer for Sea & Shoreline, a Florida-based aquatic restoration firm.
2000s
Christina Torres Garcia (’03 MBA, ’09 PhD Ed.) is the director of the Latin American Studies program and assistant professor in the World Languages and Cultures Department at Central Washington University.
Katy Belokonny (’05 Comm.) is a member of the board of directors at Identity Clark County, a nonprofit group of business leaders working to improve the community. She holds a one-year honorary term in the Ed Lynch Seat, created in honor of a longstanding ICC chairman. The position honors one rising business star each year. Belokonny leads public affairs for PointNorth Consulting Inc. in Vancouver.
Ben Mahnkey (’05 Psych.) is a Bothell city council member. He works as an employee relations investigations manager for Amazon’s worldwide operations organization and first got involved with the City of Bothell as chair of the civil service commission in 2014.
Roxanne “Roxie” Trunnell (’08 Psych.) and her horse, Dolton, earned two gold medals and one bronze in the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo. She is the highest ranked para-dressage athlete in the world.
Michael Keyser (’09 Busi.) is the chief executive officer for the National Renewables Cooperative Organization, a utility company based in Carmel, Indiana.
2010s
Corey Rathgeber (’11 Comm.) stars in the third season of 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way, a TLC reality TV show that follows Americans moving abroad to get married. Rathgeber married Ecuadorian Evelin Villegas off-screen in 2019, but the couple is filming their ceremony and reception for the show.
Cameron Frederick (’12 Spanish, Bioeng.) has entered residency at the University of Kansas School of Medicine’s Wesley Medical Center program. He completed medical school at Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine in Miami, Florida.
Audrey Miller (’12 Pub. Affairs, ’15 MPA) is the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network’s 2021 Grassroots Professional of the Year for her cancer advocacy work in public policy. Her work with volunteers across Oregon helped pass a ballot measure to raise the state’s cigarette tax and implement the state’s first tax on e-cigarettes. Miller also led her volunteer team to triple Oregon’s fundraising goal for Lights of Hope, an event focused on honoring loved ones affected by cancer.
Taylor (Morris) Stevens (‘12 MA Speech & Hearing Sci.) received a $1,000 grant from Four Peaks for Teachers, a charity that provides free school supplies to teachers. She is a speech and language instructor at Arizona State University Preparatory Academy in Phoenix and plans to use the funds to support struggling readers and students from low-income families.
Steve Schmitz (‘13 Arch.) is an architect and project lead with Jackson Main Architecture in Seattle. He previously worked at DLR Group as a project manager and received the American Institute of Architects Henry Adams Award in 2014.
Allen Gonzalez (’15 Nursing, ’21 DNP) is a nurse practitioner resident at the Yakima Medical-Dental Clinic.
Kara (Kozemzak) Smith (’15 Nursing) is a nurse practitioner resident at the Yakima Medical-Dental Clinic.
Christine Brodie (x’17) is Miss Washington USA 2021.
Kyle Simchuk (’17 Comm.) is a broadcast journalist at KREM, the CBS affiliate in Spokane. Previously, he was a reporter at KXLY, Spokane’s ABC affiliate.
T.J. Weber (’17 PhD Busi.) is the recipient of Northern Michigan University’s 2021 Outstanding Young Alumni Award. He is an assistant professor of marketing at California Polytechnic State University, where his research focuses on the role of political values and online misinformation in decision-making related to vaccines, global warming, and consumption.
Hanna Badger (’19 Biol.) received the Southern College of Optometry Honors Endowed Scholarship and Dr. Charlie Williams Memorial Endowed Scholarship, making her part of a record-breaking group of first-year students at the Memphis, Tennessee, institution.
2020s
Connor Weiss (’20 Busi.) is proposal coordinator for Ahtna Engineering
Services in Spokane Valley.
Cristalina Ramirez (’21 Socio.) is an intern with the National Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association in Washington, D.C. The nonprofit serves children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Ramirez was a participant
in Washington’s Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, which supports low-income students navigating high school and college. Her parents are migrant workers from Mexico.
Analiese Wenger
(’21 DVM) is a veterinarian at Mid-Columbia Veterinary Clinic in Goldendale.