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Winter 2013

Gabriel Fielding

A night at the Barnsley house on Monroe Street guaranteed that the guest would be entertained, enlightened, and well fed. For the couple of decades following his joining the English faculty at WSU in 1966, Alan and Edwina Barnsley hosted the liveliest salon in Pullman. Both were erudite and funny, full of wit and counsel. Dina died just last year, and Alan in 1986.

But Alan lives on as Gabriel Fielding, the pen name under which he wrote many marvelous novels. Three of those novels—Pretty Doll Houses, The Birthday King, and In the Time of Greenbloom—were released in digital form this August by Bloomsbury Publishing. … » More …

Winter 2013

Watching the sea

The paint has barely dried at the new Salish Sea Research Center near Bellingham, but the $2.2 million facility is already in use. Student scientists dip into a freezer full of recently collected shellfish, a Zodiac boat and a collection of waders are drying in the back mud room, and several projects to study acidity in the water and the health of the aquatic organisms are already underway.

The Northwest Indian College was established in 1973 to train technicians who would work in Indian-run fish and shellfish hatcheries throughout the region. More recently it has expanded to include two- and four-year college degrees. And today … » More …

Winter 2013

Tiny seed, big prospects

As small, relatively obscure seeds go, quinoa has a lot riding on it.

It measures about 3 millimeters across, and its worldwide production is about 1/20,000th of wheat, but foodies, researchers, farmers, grocers, and food policy experts can’t get enough of it. Packed with protein, adaptable, and hardy, it’s an emerging option in the quest to improve farm incomes while feeding a growing planet with impoverished soils and warming temperatures. The United Nations General Assembly has even given it its own year: 2013, the “International Year of Quinoa.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last February said it is “truly a food for the Millennium Development Goals,” … » More …

Winter 2013

Posts for Winter 2013

Water to the Promised Land

I thoroughly enjoyed the article on the Columbia Basin Irrigation project in the recent issue of WSM. It brought back so many memories. I farmed for a year (1953) with a partner, Vern Divers, a bit south of Quincy. Subsequently, while a research associate in the Agricultural Economics department, I did research on the economics of different systems of irrigation in the Basin.

Interesting to read of the research by Whittlesey and Butcher. I was a member of the Agricultural Economics faculty with them and always respected them, professionally and personally. I retired in 1986.

Ralph A. Loomis

Edmonds

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Winter 2013

Glenn Terrell, WSU President 1967–1985: Recollections

Glenn Terrell served as Washington State University’s seventh president, from 1967 to 1985. He passed away in August at his home in Sequim. He was 93.

Terrell earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Davidson College in North Carolina, his master’s degree in psychology from Florida State University, and his doctoral degree from the University of Iowa. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and was one of the American soldiers who marched down the Champs-Elysee with Charles de Gaulle.

He began his academic career as an instructor in psychology at Florida State, later moving to the University of Colorado … » More …

Winter 2013

The Community of the Oyster

On a Saturday night in late August, the oyster community of Willapa Bay has gathered in the Raymond Theater to watch themselves on the screen. Local boy Keith Cox had gone off to Hollywood, but then returned to document his home and the life of Willapa Bay and its oystering.

Every seat in the elegant old theater is full, and the room is buzzing.

Cox is premiering the eighth in a series of documentaries on the bay, on oyster farming, on the oystermen themselves. What started out as an innocent project intended to summarize the industry has led to over 130 interviews, over 350 hours … » More …

Fall 2013

A small discovery

The giant limestone statue fondly nicknamed “Nature Boy” by Washington State students in the late 1940s was recently reunited with his four-foot-tall scale model.

The plaster maquette was created by sculptor Dudley Pratt as a preliminary step in carving the larger, 25-ton limestone statue that has hung on the west wall of the library since 1949. The model had been at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Spokane almost since the late 1940s when it was given to WSU Board of Regents member Charles McAllister. He was dean to the cathedral at the time and hung it on the wall of the library … » More …

Fall 2013

Ten years of teamwork

In September 2003, Tim Pavish ’80 left Seattle and a 20-year career in advertising to return to Pullman and become the executive director of the WSU Alumni Association (WSUAA). He was eager to do something more for his alma mater, after all that it has given him over the years.

“I owe a lot to WSU, not the least of which is it’s where I met my wife, Carin (Hull) Pavish,” he says. “I made many of my closest friends at WSU and through WSU. I received a great education here and learned valuable life lessons outside the classroom. And now my two kids … » More …

Fall 2013

Charles Argersinger 1951–2013: Equilibrium

Charles Edward Argersinger, emeritus professor of music at Washington State University and a resident of the Palouse area since 1988, died April 16, 2013, in Pullman, after a long illness. He was 61.

Charles was born October 15, 1951, in Schenectady, New York, and his family traded snow for sun a few years later, moving to Phoenix, Arizona. After graduating from Central High School, he attended Arizona State University, earning his bachelor’s and then, in 1977, his master’s degree in music. During his college years, he played saxophone in a rock band called Christopher Blue. In 1977, Jana Jennison, who fell in love with him … » More …

Fall 2013

Eugene Rosa 1942–2013—Working for people and the planet

When you fill out a career pushing the limits of knowledge, rising to “pioneer in your field” status, things are bound to get pretty technical.

Gene Rosa, environmental sociologist, lived that reality, penning papers with terms like “biosociology,” “post-normal risk,” and acronym-rich analytical tools like STIRPAT. In spite of the technical thickets of his work, say friends and colleagues, Rosa kept his eye on the increasingly threatened natural environment and the people in it.

“Gene was not just interested in the environment for its own sake, but rather he had a deep desire to see a better world, one with greater quality of life and … » More …