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Summer 2024

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Summer 2009

Conexión rises to a burgeoning market

Where demographers see change, Lauri (Smith) Jordana ‘88 sees opportunity.

Jordana is the founder of Conexión Marketing in Seattle, which is dedicated to marketing companies to the rapidly growing Hispanic/Latino market.

When Jordana graduated from Washington State University in foreign language and literature, she immediately left for Spain, which she’d fallen in love with during her year abroad, intending to spend the rest of her life there. But her life plans were pre-empted when she got homesick and returned to Washington after a year.

Back home, with fluent Spanish, she embarked on a series of positions with various companies, helping them reach Hispanic consumers. She … » More …

Summer 2009

In from the fields

A dozen preschoolers puff into plastic wands, shrieking as soap bubbles kite across the classroom. Sylvia Guzman, 29, sits cross-legged on the floor, next to a poster showing ways to calm down (put hand on tummy, take deep breaths). She reads aloud in Spanish: “There are three amigos.” She points to the book. The children flock around. She turns the page. “Four armadillos. How many armadillos? Let’s count them.” They count together—“Uno, dos, tres, cuatro”—as one boy stomps errant bubbles. “Look. Five cows,” she says. “What does a cow say?” Everyone moos in unison.

Guzman, a Distance Degree Program student at Washington State University, has … » More …

Summer 2009

Mixing it up

Not since white settlers surged west, overwhelming the native population, has Washington been at all diverse in its population, at least if one defines “diverse” by ethnicity rather than European country of origin. By 1890, whites represented 97 percent of Washington’s recorded populace, and that number remained static for decades. Now that mix has started to change. Just recently, the white (not Hispanic) portion of Washington’s population dropped below 80 percent, for the first time since the mid-19th century.

Annabel Kirschner, a professor in the Department of Community and Rural Sociology and an extension specialist, recently released “Increasing Diversity in Washington State 2000–2008,” the … » More …

Summer 2009

Living Large: In search of the elusive large animal veterinarian

Nearly 500 counties in the United States have large herds of cattle, but no veterinarians to care for them. Although veterinary student Sam Nielson claims that it’s the life of the large animal veterinarian that he’s after, not money, fewer and fewer feel that way, moving to other types of practices that offer both better working conditions and compensation. » More ...
Spring 2009

Wallis Beasley, 92 – Sociologist, administrator, interim WSU president

From young faculty member to acting president, Wallis Beasley had a profound influence on the direction of Washington State University.

Beasley died at age 92 of age-related causes at Bishop Place in Pullman on May 20, 2008.

He was born in Red Bay, Alabama, on October 8, 1915, the youngest of seven children born to J. T. and Emma Shamblin Beasley. He attended Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, where he met Totsie Smith, whom he married. They had more than 40 years together.

After serving for a brief time as a minister of the Church of Christ, he enrolled at Peabody University in Nashville, … » More …

Spring 2009

Roger McClellan – A suitable combination

As a teen, Roger McClellan ’60 D.V.M. went to work at his high school farm. By helping manage a flock of sheep that were a control group in a Hanford nuclear facility study, he became part of a major research project on radioactivity in animals. The work put him in touch with Leo Bustad, at the time the research veterinarian at Hanford and later the dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University.

Bustad’s study focused on ungulates consuming the radioiodine that had been deposited on pasture land on the Hanford site, which was then run by General Electric. Bustad would often … » More …

Spring 2009

Robert Helm, 65 – Acclaimed Northwest artist, teacher

Robert Helm, an acclaimed Northwest artist known for surreal imagery and exquisite craftsmanship, died October 21, 2008. He was 65.

Helm was born in Wallace, Idaho, and attended North Central High School in Spokane, where he met Tamara Kimpel. They married in 1966 and had a daughter, Brenna, and a son, Boone. He earned his M.F.A. degree at WSU in 1969 and taught at the University of Colorado before returning to teach at WSU from 1971-84.

Robert Helm, Iron Ground, 1991Robert Helm’s Iron Ground (1991)
From … » More …

Spring 2009

Jason Ambrose ’99 – Counting beans in Costa Rica

Jason Ambrose learned to drink coffee as a college freshman. “Then it was more about function than flavor,” he admits.

These days, Ambrose starts his morning with a French press. He heats milk for his son Jackson, who is not yet two, and water enough to make two big mugs of Ethiopian-grown coffee for himself and his wife Julie (Dertinger, ’94).

It’s a far cry from the cafeteria cups he first sampled back at WSU, he says.

Moving to Seattle after graduating from Washington State University in 1999, Ambrose couldn’t help but get caught up in the coffee culture. Today the 33-year-old Starbucks employee … » More …