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Winter 2008

A Season for seeds

STRANGE THINGS sprout in Skagit Valley’s fields: Monster plants with six-foot stalks covered with yellow flowers, delicate ferny-leaved things with round white heads holding hundreds of tiny blossoms, and unruly tangles of leaves, spears, and spikes.

John Roozen ’74, whose family’s name is synonymous with Skagit Valley tulips, keeps careful watch on these fields. He swings his pickup over to the side of the road and dives into a field, a curly, hairy mess of green. He plucks off the tip of a plant and hands it over. See that, he says, pointing at the dozens of small green nuggets clustered along the stem, those … » More …

Winter 2008

Letters for Winter 2008

Coming home

I am one of the lucky. After years of looking out onto a sea of suburban rooftops, my husband and I have been gifted the opportunity of returning to Cougar Country with our three boys and now watch nature at work as the seasons change the fields of the Palouse from winter gray to roborant green to an elegant and rich gold that glistens as it dances to the tempo set by the winds.

The winds and colors change and so do I. In this return to Pullman, I am learning to appreciate a saying I heard many times from my mother’s … » More …

Winter 2008

Murrow’s door

First came the doorknob.

The workers in the office of Washington State University’s school of communication didn’t know what to expect when the first of two shipments arrived from New York last spring. But they opened the box, took out the old doorknob and passed it around, wondering what sort of door it belonged to, wondering whose hands had touched it.

A few weeks earlier Darby Baldwin, an assistant in the dean’s office, had called two CBS retirees on the East Coast because the husband had written a thoughtful opinion piece about his time working with Edward R. Murrow. It turned out that Joe … » More …

Winter 2008

Unstoppable Rueben Mayes

On a raw, wet fall afternoon in Eugene, Oregon, in late October 1984, Rueben Mayes’ feet carried him to what was at the time the greatest accomplishment of any NCAA running back.

Just a week earlier, Mayes ran for 216 yards at Stanford in a rally that brought Washington State University from a 28-point third quarter deficit to a 49-42 win.

“The game against Stanford was one of his greatest efforts as a college player,” says Mark Rypien, quarterback of the ’84 team. But then he did one better. “The numbers that he had against Oregon were unbelievable.”

It’s a performance that can be … » More …

Winter 2008

Meaningful glimpses

Little of what goes on at a university is the stuff of breaking news. The general formula for what gets reported about a university is pretty much the same as for politics and world affairs: money gained and lost, a result here, a conclusion there, a gaffe, a little scandal now and then. But the really interesting stuff, the stuff that matters, seldom gets much attention.

Yet on any given day here on campus, a reknowned herpetologist might, as Ken Kardong did earlier this fall, summarize his life’s work to a good-sized and feisty crowd of faculty and students. He demonstrated how over evolutionary time, … » More …

Winter 2008

Everybody reads

When Mary Roach was researching her book on human cadavers, she attended a seminar where plastic surgeons practiced techniques on severed human heads. She also visited a body farm in Tennessee to see remains in various states of decay. And she stood at an operating table to witness an organ harvest from a brain-dead patient whose heart was still beating.

While doing all these things, Roach simply followed her curiosity as it led her into some extraordinary places.

Jay Barton, a pre-med student, is one of 3,400 freshmen invited to participate in … » More …

Winter 2008

Special delivery

Cliff Berkman is taking aim at prostate cancer.

The Washington State University chemist is using part of the cancer cells themselves as a bull’s eye, targeting a protein that occurs on prostate cancer cells and nowhere else.

The protein, called PSMA (Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen), shows up as soon as prostate cells become cancerous. PSMA is different from PSA, the prostate protein that is currently used to diagnose prostate cancer. PSA is released by prostate cancer cells into the bloodstream. PSMA stays attached to the cancer cells, like a neon sign saying “CANCER HERE!”

Since PSMA is so specific to prostate cancer cells, Berkman thought … » More …

Winter 2008

Measuring a career in elephant years

Rose-Tu warily eyes the stranger shuffling toward her. He is moving slowly and grasping the arm of a human she sees almost daily. As Matthew Maberry (D.V.M. ’47) plants his cane inside the Oregon Zoo’s elephant compound, he lifts his eyes and returns the look.

“The only trouble with elephants,” says Maberry, the Portland zoo’s first staff veterinarian, “is you can fall in love with them.”

Maberry—”Doc” to some—is eager to get started. Now up close to Rose-Tu, the 90-year-old presses an instrument against the elephant’s wrinkled belly. Inside, the first Asian elephant baby to be born at the zoo since 1994 is finishing … » More …

Winter 2008

Ferdinand’s turns 60

This brief item appeared on the front page of the Daily Evergreen on Monday, October 11, 1948:

Dairy Dept. to Open Counter in Troy Hall

The department of dairy husbandry will start operating a dairy counter serving ice cream, plain and chocolate milk on the first floor of Troy hall near the north entrance.

Assistant professor L. J. Manus will be in charge, assisted by dairy manufacturing students. All products served will be made in the department, and prices will be comparable to those charged downtown.

Later on, when obsolete equipment has been replaced, milkshakes, cheese and … » More …

Winter 2008

Who moved my cupola?

During a quiet weekend last July, a crew came to campus to steal away one of the University’s oldest landmarks–the Ferry Hall cupola. The quaint 12-foot by 12-foot Georgian-style structure had already survived more than a century and a major relocation. Now it was on the move again.

A lot of Washington State University’s history is tied up with the architectural element, starting with the original Ferry Hall, the University’s first dormitory, occupying the south end campus. Men and women lived on separate floors there until Stevens Hall, the residence dedicated for women, went up on the opposite end of campus.

While he liked the … » More …