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Summer 2024

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Winter 2002

From Belgrade to Pullman—Living the American dream

There are times when Radmila Sarac would give anything for a bite of a burek or the chance to watch Nenad Lecic perform again. Nearly six years after coming to Washington from her Republic of Serbia homeland, the 24-year-old Washington State University grad admits she has even had dreams of the flaky Yugoslavian pastry, and she often bends an ear to the subtle sounds of the classical pianist from Belgrade, where she grew up.

“Of course I miss the food and many things from back home,” Radmila says. “But if I went home, then I’d miss the things here.”

Here is the Seattle suburb of … » More …

Winter 2002

Columbia Valley wineries double

 

Arthur Linton, center, assistant dean and director of Washington State University’s Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center (IAREC) in Prosser, and Julie Tarara, a USDA research horticulturist, explain the effects of temperature on grape yields to Washington secretary of state Sam Reed during his visit in July. The IAREC is home to WSU’s Viticulture and Enology Program. During the past decade, the number of Columbia Valley wineries has doubled, making Washington the second largest wine-growing region in the nation behind California. Reed, who holds two WSU degrees (’63 Social Studies, ’68 M.A. Political Science), traveled to China on a trade mission in September 2001 … » More …

Winter 2002

Living and gardening in the Pacific Northwest

In Washington State, it has been over 200 years since indigenous peoples described where they lived as “the place where camas blooms” or “the place where wild onions nod.” In other parts of the country, it has been even longer.

Where Native Americans lived-and the plants and animals that lived there-determined if they lived. Survival required intimate contact with the natural world. Without guidebooks, maps or Internet access, they knew weather patterns, ocean tides, hydrology, topography, and the life cycles and habits of plant and animals in the places they lived. They had a very strong “sense of place.”

Now, most Americans are able to … » More …

Winter 2002

Same dance, different tune

Buy low, sell high. Investors understand this basic goal of investing. This idea appeals to the intellectual side of our brain. However, it is the emotional, not the intellectual, side of our brain that usually motivates action. That is why advertisements and sales pitches appeal to our feelings more than our intelligence.

 Unfortunately, our emotions and psychological biases make buying low and selling high difficult. Consider the actions of many investors. The great bull market of the late 1990s brought millions of new investors into the stock market. The continual rise of the stock market was a trend that investors projected into the future. Assuming … » More …

Winter 2002

Lone Star Dietz left a football legacy

“That was the game which was to change the face of New Year’s Day in the years to come.”—Rose Bowl historian Rube Samuelsen

In the first four decades of the 20th century, hardly a week went by during football season when the name of William H. “Lone Star” Dietz’s didn’t appear in the nation’s sports pages. Today it’s rarely heard in Pullman, or anywhere else. In spite of that near silence for 60 years now, the one-time Washington State College football coach (1915-1917, 17-2-1 record) left a legacy that could land him in the College Football Hall of Fame next year.

He began his coaching … » More …

Winter 2002

Volleyball—European tour builds lifetime memories

In August Coach Cindy Fredrick and the Washington State University volleyball team spent 12 days in Europe, sightseeing and playing eight matches. While winning all its matches was special, it wasn’t everything, Fredrick said of the tour. She agreed to keep a journal. Here’s her report.

Saturday, August 10

We arrive in Munich at 9:30 a.m. after departing Pullman Friday at 3 a.m. Our guide, Cory, meets us at the airport. Frank, our bus driver, takes us to the City Square. The first place we see is McDonald’s. We have a break, so we walk through the large shopping area. Being with 15 young women, … » More …

Winter 2002

A compass, not a roadmap

“Guided by a plan that hundreds of WSU people worked on for more than a year, we have maintained stability in one of the toughest years in our history.”—V. Lane Rawlins

Recently, I spent a day in Kongsberg, Norway, at a company that is the world leader in development and production of dynamic stabilizers. These technological wonders are installed on ships and oil platforms in the stormy North Sea to stabilize them so that the oil fields can be worked. I was amazed at a video showing ships sitting still in a rough sea, accomplished, I was told, by precisely measuring all of the turbulence … » More …

Winter 2002

A summer job that meant something

An entomology undergrad combats the worm in the apple

When they hatch, they’re so tiny you can barely see them. Then they eat. They bore their way inside an apple and consume it from within. After two weeks, they’re half an inch long, pinkish orange, and engorged, with tiny dark heads. They’re also translucent, so if you look closely, you can see their food moving along their digestive tracts.

They’re codling moth larvae, the number one adversary of Washington apple orchard growers and the subject of her fascinating summer of research at the Washington State University Tri-Cities’ Food and Environmental Quality Lab. With faculty members … » More …

Winter 2002

A common reader: Trouble in Dusty Gulch

I really should be more worried about this. It’s my living, after all. For 20 years I’ve been presenting a kind of music so wildly varied in time (seven centuries and more), in style (Morris dances, Joplin rags, Mahlerian stairways to heaven, Copland cowboy ballets), and in instrumentation (shawms and zithers along with the violins and cellos), that the term “classical” is as inadequate in describing it all as calling the United States of America, Dusty Gulch, Nevada, just to avoid the complexities. But we call the music Dusty Gulch anyway, and there’s trouble in Dusty Gulch. Always has been, to tell you the truth.

… » More …