Winter 2015
WSM 2016 Calendar
Our 2016 calendar representing photography from recent issues of Washington State Magazine.
Washington State Magazine
Winter 2015
Why do bees make hexagons in their hives?
Winter 2015
Ancients among us
Safeguarding our future
The arid soil on the mile-high Hopi Mesa trickles through clenched fingers like sand. If you visit this isolated corner of northeastern Arizona, you might find it hard to believe it is home to one of the oldest civilizations in the Americas.
For more than 2,000 years, the Hopi and their ancestors have carved a living out of the rough terrain. They survived drought, famine, war, and a fluctuating climate that drove many of their ancient southwestern neighbors elsewhere in search of more fertile lands.
One key to the Hopi’s longevity is a variety of drought-tolerant corn they have adapted over the … » More …
Winter 2015
Emerging disease: A case study
Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at WSU
1999
Hundreds of people, cats, dogs, porpoises, birds, and other animals on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, fell victim to what was diagnosed as a rare fungal infection called Cryptococcus gattii. Though physicians and veterinarians were familiar with the more common Cryptococcus neoformans, C. gattii was considered a tropical disease found only in places like Australia.
Upon deeper investigation, B.C. health officials were alarmed to discover that C. gattii had established itself in the native trees and soil—and was especially prevalent in decaying wood. Epidemiologists speculate that climate change and warmer summers helped create favorable habitat for the … » More …
Winter 2015
The lasting impact of Tom Foley
Thomas S. Foley was a political gentleman. The Speaker of the House lived and worked from principles that defined his political career: civility, honesty, and integrity. Even though he lost his seat in Congress, Foley’s legacy continues to encourage many others to follow his path, through his namesake institute at Washington State University.
No one on the reelection team was emotionally prepared for Foley’s defeat in 1994. A sitting Speaker had not been defeated since the Civil War era. John Pierce remembers Foley as “sad, stunned about the election results, but not vindictive.” Pierce had been a congressional fellow with Foley before beginning a 24-year … » More …
Winter 2015
First ’16 Rose Bowl
WSC banged, smashed, bulled, and pounded their way to a 14–0 victory that started a storied football tradition.
Washington State supporters wondered, sometimes aloud, if President E. A. Bryan had made a grievous mistake in entrusting the football program to William “Lone Star” Dietz shortly after the sharp-dressed man arrived on September 1, 1915.
Dietz emphasized conditioning over running plays, then a radical approach. He inherited eight experienced players and three teams of untested candidates, none of whom were familiar with the single- or double-wing formations Dietz—as Pop Warner’s protégé—brought with him from Carlisle Indian School. Hopes sank when the varsity squeaked by the alumni … » More …
Winter 2015
Still searching for Amelia
A Mount Vernon high school teacher gets pulled into one of the greatest mysteries of the twentieth century
Dick Spink ’85 never intended to hunt for Amelia Earhart’s airplane. He specializes in boats.
He put himself through Washington State University designing and fabricating aluminum boats. He now holds on to a day job teaching at Mount Vernon High School, but he’s also a naval architect and licensed master. He sells boat kits all over the world, from Singapore to Africa, and often builds clients’ boats on site. Which is how he found himself in the north Pacific, in the Marshall Islands, and deep into … » More …
Winter 2015
Dream maker
“My earliest memories of school were full of hope,” says Amy Eveskcige ’13 EDD, the new superintendent of Chief Leschi Schools and the first Puyallup Tribe member to hold the position. She’s eager to instill that same hope to the kids attending her schools. Chief Leschi Schools, operated by the Puyallup Tribe, is one of the largest Bureau of Indian Education schools in the nation. That she even became superintendent took support of her own teachers.
As a child, her hopes were slim. Her dreams, muted. Her father died when she was three. Her mother was an X-ray technician but spent most of her time … » More …
Winter 2015
Take to the sea
Four years ago, at a wedding in Spokane, Cathy Simon ’71 was seated across from a woman named Kay LeClair. Like Simon, LeClair was in her 60s. Unlike Simon, she had recently climbed to the 29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest.
It made Simon think, “I’m not done. I need to do something more.”
A sailor, she started exploring her options and lit upon the World Cruising Club’s World Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, a 26,000-mile circumnavigation of the earth. Speaking to her husband, Charles Simon ’89 MS, she said, “We’re going to need a new boat.”
This May, the couple sailed their 58-foot sailboat into Rodney … » More …
Winter 2015
Ozette: Excavating a Makah Whaling Village
Ruth Kirk
University of Washington Press: 2015
Although the professional literature is rich and extensive, not enough had been written for the public on the extraordinary archaeological exploration at Ozette, the ancient whaling village on the Olympic coast between Neah Bay and La Push. There is Hunters of the Whale, by Northwest chronicler Ruth Kirk, written for young readers in 1974 when the expedition was barely half finished. Archaeology in Washington, coauthored by Kirk and WSU … » More …