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Spring 2026

Staff

Black and white photo of a young college-age smiling man in a newspaper editorial room
Fall 2025

My best and toughest journalism professors at WSU

 

Written by Pat Caraher (’62 Soc. Sci., ’66 Comm.) in 2009. Read a remembrance of Caraher in the Fall 2025 magazine.

 

Without a doubt the best years of my life so far were spent at Washington State University—11 semesters as a student and 35 bonus years as an employee.

My best professors were the most demanding. The journalism program in the ’60s seemed to have a corner on them—Charles O. Cole, Maynard Hicks and Tom Heuterman. Each taught for three decades or more at WSU. Two others in communications also left their mark on me—Bob Mott and Bill Hall.

It’s been a … » More …

Dick Fry with radio equipment in black and white photo
Summer 2023

WSU stories by and about Dick Fry on his 100th birthday

Richard B. “Dick” Fry devoted 70 years of his life, good humor, and storytelling skills to Washington State University. The Coug legend turned 100 on February 12, 2023.

Fry was WSU’s sports information director from 1957 to 1970, the university’s director of news and information services until 1985, and author of the definitive book on Cougar sports, The Crimson and the Gray: 100 Years with the WSU Cougars. He continued to write stories for Cougar football game-day programs well into the 2000s.

Here are some stories about Fry and a few of the stories he wrote about WSU sports.

 

Happy … » More …

Spring 2022

The cheesemaker

“When I get introduced to people for the first time and I tell them I make Cougar Gold cheese, they don’t believe me,” says Sarah Beale, head cheesemaker at WSU Creamery. “It’s kind of fun. Especially locally, everyone knows Cougar Gold.”

Beale has managed WSU’s day-to-day cheese-making operations for three years. One of the most difficult parts of the job: training and scheduling the approximately 40 student employees.

“Scheduling is crazy,” Beale says. “If we’re doing a double-batch day, a cheesemaker and pasteurizer need to be here by 3:45 a.m. on Mondays and 4:45 a.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The rest come in … » More …

Paul Johnson
Summer 2021

Paul Johnson remembered

Paul Johnson was an instructional supervisor in the Department of Veterinary and Comparative Anatomy, Pharmacology and Physiology at Washington State University, where he spent 36 years overseeing the Worthman Anatomy Teaching Museum while also creating display specimens. He passed away peacefully at his home on November 14, 2020.

Browse a gallery of PJ and his time at WSU, and read the memories from a few of the many veterinary medicine students he helped over the years.

Photos courtesy WSU College of Veterinary Medicine

 

 

Memories of PJ
Veterinary students share their memories of Johnson over the years…

 

Kyle Frandle … » More …

Summer 2017

Robert Smawley 1928–2017

Bob Smawley, “Mr. WSU,” embodied what it meant to be a Cougar for generations of Washington State University students, staff, and alumni, through his selfless service to the University, his caring nature, and his deep knowledge of WSU history, all delivered with a dry sense of humor and true compassion.

For over six decades, Smawley worked under six WSU presidents in several departments, volunteered and led in the Alumni Association, taught many the history of WSU through engaging slideshows, and mentored thousands of students.

“He was the heart of WSU,” says Malia Martine Karlinsky ’92. “Bob had a magical way of making you feel … » More …

Dan Maher
Spring 2017

Dan Maher ’78

Everywhere you go on the Palouse, there’s Dan Maher ’78. He’s playing at the Co-op in Moscow, the farmers’ markets in Pullman and Moscow, on Terrell Mall on the WSU campus—if there’s acoustic live music, Dan Maher, his guitar, and his guide dog can’t be far.

But, says Maher, the music scene is nothing like what it once was. “When I was a student here in the early ’70s there was a guitar every 30 feet. Everybody played guitar! We used to go to the basement of the K-House and jam every night.”

 

Even if you’ve never seen Maher play live, you may have … » More …

Fall 2016

The glassblowers

Glass is a snob, and that’s a good thing for science. For the most part, glass doesn’t interact with other substances. Essentially inert, glass is perfect for containing the otherwise uncontainable: strong acids, bases, and solvents.

Glass is, of course, also fragile. That’s why Norbert Kruse, a chemical engineer at WSU, had to take a glassblowing class when he was a chemistry student in Berlin in the early 1970s.

“We had to do our own repairs!” Kruse recalls. These days, researchers at WSU don’t have to know glassblowing to keep their labs running. Scientific glassblower Aaron Babino takes care of that.

WSU contracts with Babino, … » More …

Greg Blanchard at WSU
Summer 2013

Greg Blanchard—On timing and taste

Greg Blanchard is making dinner for 224. From the cramped confines of the CUB kitchen, he and his staff have just a few hours to create three different types of crostini, chicken parmesan and linguine, garlic bread, Caesar salad, and strawberry shortcake, with exceptions for vegetarians, the lactose intolerant, avoiders of gluten, and one person who just doesn’t like cheese.

Come 6:30, student waiters and waitresses in black ties will serve the food on individual plates, a timing play that ups a chef’s game from, say, a buffet. If the food is ready too soon, lettuce will get flat, chicken will get dry, strawberries will … » More …