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Andrea Vogt

Spring 2003

Sherman Alexie: “It’s all good”

It may look the same today, but as Sherman Alexie walked down the aisle of the Kenworthy Theater in Moscow, Idaho, he realized his last memory of the place was, well, a little bit hazy.

“I was just recalling with a friend of mine who I went to school at Wazzu with that this is the first time I’ve been in this theater sober,” Alexie said, glancing around the old theater at the Palouse premier of his second movie, The Business of Fancydancing, last September. “And I’ve been sober a long time.”

Eleven years, actually, he says with pride, urging other young tribal members in … » More …

Winter 2001

Hot shot

“Nothing beats a hot shot crew. You are like the green berets, the special forces of fire. It’s a camaraderie like no other.”

WHEN CHRIS BOLZ came looking for summer work nine years ago, the fire boss took one look at the athletic 19-year-old and said, “Son, this is your lucky day.”

Bored out of his wits in Tonasket, Washington, Bolz had walked into the nearest Forest Service office at his father’s insistence. They said they could use him right away on a blaze in Wenatchee, so Bolz agreed to go. Then the fire boss reached into his pocket for a book of matches, and … » More …

Winter 2001

SR 26 Revealed

“The task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.” —Arthur Schopenhauer

THERE ARE LANDSCAPES that move us and landscapes through which we simply move.

State Route 26 has always been considered one of the latter: a notoriously dull 133 miles between Vantage and Colfax that has for decades been the main transportation link between the West Side and Washington State University.

It’s the asphalt welcome mat for more than 10,000 WSU students who travel this highway between their homes in Western Washington and WSU, along with thousands … » More …

Spring 2005

Conference Brings Plateau Tribes and WSU a Few Steps Closer

To get here, most elders at Washington State University’s conference honoring the Plateau Tribes had to pass by places defined now only by what they used to be.

From Oregon and Washington, they drove along the Columbia, past dams where once abundant fish runs sustained them as “salmon people.”

From Idaho and Montana, they passed land that belonged to no one, by root-digging prairies and camas fields now gated and signed, “no trespassing.”

“As I traveled up here, I pointed out things along the river to my son,” said Wilfred Jim, a 67-year-old enrolled Yakama who lives in Warm Springs, Oregon . . . this … » More …

Winter 2007

The Cougar wears Prada

FLORENCE, ITALY—She’d perused the vintage vendors on London’s Portobello Road and seen the Chanel logo stamped onto the most prestigious silk in the world in Como, Italy.

By her first morning in Florence, with its supple leather, luxury textiles, and elegant, well-heeled locals, Katy Daly’s fingers were getting restless.

“I really need a needle, thread, and some fabric right now,” said Daly, of Kent, Washington. By afternoon, she was winding through the narrow cobblestone alleys in the shadow of Giotto’s bell tower with a small scrap of paper on which she had penciled the word merceria in hopes of finding an Italian haberdashery shop with … » More …

Winter 2008

L’Américain en Provence

A story about an expatriate—and about his wine. Provence is a world away from Bellevue, where Denis Gayte '97 grew up. And French winemaking is another world away from the public relations career he abandoned. So there he was, with his French heritage and a newly minted "young French winemaker" degree—but still referred to (and always affectionately) as l'Américain. » More ...