Gleaming memories
I want to throw in my two cents regarding Professor David Stratton of the history department [Winter 2023]. I was a Cougar undergrad in the early ’90s, minoring in history.
It was an absolute treat to listen to Stratton teach on the characters of the frontier American West such as Jedediah Smith. He did so in his cardigan sweater with a grandfatherly, joyful gleam in his eye. He would also play part of the lesson on a little record player to help embellish the topic.
He was a gem of a professor. It was teachers like him that made my WSU experience both memorable and worthwhile. I’ve always remembered him.
Steve Goodman ’94 English
Mountlake Terrace
The nice [Summer 2024] article on Rex Davis brought back memories. I sat next to Rex in several of our large, required freshman classes. We were seated alphabetically so John Davis and Rex Davis were usually seated next to each other.
John (Jack) Davis ’53 Busi.
Mount Vernon
Watershed history
I enjoyed the [Summer 2024] article about the Waterworld exhibit at Expo ’74. That exhibit was one of my favorite parts of the expo, especially the watershed model. And speaking of that, I can provide an update about the model.
The watershed model was made of four-inch layers of Styrofoam that were glued together; carved into the shape of mountains, valleys, and such; and then joined in sections. In the spring of ’76, a number of the mechanical engineering students agreed to hold a hovercraft design competition for our senior design project. After the expo, the model was stored in pieces in the hydraulics lab, and we got wind of that. We were given permission to repurpose the Styrofoam pieces to construct our hovercrafts.
On our team, we used a large sheet of the Styrofoam suspended beneath the deck to meet the flotation requirement, and we carved layers of it to form the duct around the lifting fan. The layers can be seen in the above photo (with me driving, by the way…too fun). As can be seen, other components included plywood, chicken wire, plastic tarp, rope, and duct tape. To verify hovercraft performance, we held the competition in the pond behind the Chief Joseph Village Apartments, where the photo was taken. Another team used layers of the Styrofoam to make the entire hull of their hovercraft, with ducts and flaps inside the hull to steer it. Alas, it proved too heavy to lift.
Gary E. Spanner ’76 Mech. Eng.
Lane Ficke (’82 Comm.) and daughter Michelle Ficke (’09 Intl. Busi.) joined family members on a February 2024 trip to Portugal. They proudly displayed the cougar flag at the Pena Palace in Sintra, Portugal. Says Lane: “We felt honored to show off this amazing logo for our beloved school in Europe. Go Cougs!”
Pasco