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Spring 2024

Washington State Magazine

Mapmaker Mystery photoillustration
Winter 2014

Mapmaker mystery

The Palouse, in its way, is a perfect place. A land of soft, rolling hills framed by rivers, mountains, forests, and desert, this agricultural hinterland feels all four seasons fully, and in all likelihood grows enough food to feed its inhabitants and visitors with ease. It’s home to scholars and farmers, and its story begins in the ice ages and continues today with an unrelenting flow of research from two major universities.

Despite such beauty and bounty, the Palouse has not received the artistic consideration that has Yosemite or Hudson Valley. I’ve never seen anything like that, at least until a day last winter when … » More …

Winter 2014

The scrambled natural world of global warming, a travelogue

Jesse A. Logan ’77 PhD is hiking up a mountainside in Yellowstone National Park and walking back in time. He starts at 8,600 feet above sea level, in a forest thick with the scent of fir and lodgepole pine, and with almost every spry step, the scenery changes. There’s an understory of grouse whortleberry, then accents of mountain bluebells and higher still, the whitebark pine, one of the oldest organisms of the Interior West.

Finally, the vegetation gives way to large swatches of scree. Logan’s 70-year-old legs have gone up 2,000 feet and back more than 10,000 years, from the lush vegetation of the twenty-first … » More …

Spokane fountain
Winter 2014

Art in public places

In the late sixties, Harold Balazs ’51 helped build a public arts tradition in our region. Along with several members of the Washington Arts Commission, including artist Jacob Lawrence, he created Washington’s Art in Public Places program. Starting in 1974, the program began directing one-half of one percent of all state building budgets toward purchasing contemporary art. The pieces would be owned by the state but could reside at the site of the project.

Having traveled in Spain and Italy, Balazs had realized that the United States could easily support more arts and culture. “Countries in Europe do so much more than one percent,” he … » More …

Interfaith House
Winter 2014

A place for faith and support

For many, the Interfaith House was a home away from home, whether it was through the services offered by the Common Ministry, a place for meetings for student groups, or just as a hangout in the coffee shop.

The building on the northern edge of campus at 720 NE Thatuna has served the University and its students from the time it was built in 1925.

But time and circumstance bring change. Last spring the Presbyterian Synod put the building up for sale, and sold the Interfaith House to Washington State University for $1.2 million. Citing its location and connection to campus, the Board of Regents … » More …

Geronimo
Winter 2014

Lessons from Geronimo

When Mike Leach, coach of WSU’s football team, was a boy, he was in thrall with the story of Geronimo, a warrior who led a small group of Chiricahua Apache in defending tribal lands from invasion by Mexican and American settlers. A reader from an early age, Leach discovered the story at a public library in Cody, Wyoming.

“There was this book on Geronimo, the biggest book there. My mom said, ‘Maybe we should get a smaller book, maybe a book with pictures,’” says Leach. “It had footnotes, bibliography, and everything. It’s not something that belongs with a second-grader. But like a trooper, my mom … » More …

Cori Kane
Winter 2014

Diving deep in a unique tropical paradise

Cori Kane calls it “underwater skydiving.” She’ll be out in the middle of the North Pacific, more than 1,000 miles from Honolulu and most anything else that might be called civilization. Flopping out of a perfectly good boat, she will rocket down nearly 300 feet in just a few minutes, encountering a strange and largely unexplored layer of ocean that’s less familiar to science than the deep sea. It’s the ecosystem of the mesophotic reefs, which lie at a depth often called the “Twilight Zone.”

“When you jump in, it’s like you’re transported to this other world,” says Kane. “There are fish everywhere. There are … » More …

Jason Gesser
Winter 2014

The right color back on

Ask Jason Gesser ’02 about the finest decision he’s made and his answer is as pinpoint as each of the 70 career touchdown passes he threw at Washington State.

“Coming to Washington State was the perfect and best decision I made in my life,” he says. “Besides marrying my wife,” Gesser is quick to add, with a laugh. He married his college girlfriend Kali Surplus ’02, a former WSU volleyball player, and the couple has three children.

In his new role as the assistant director of development with the Cougar Athletic Fund, the fundraising arm of the Washington State University Athletic Department, his … » More …

Narcissa Whitman's hair
Winter 2014

Hair and history

On the first day of class this semester, Kristine Leier, a senior majoring in history and anthropology, returned one of the more macabre items owned by the WSU Libraries: a lock of hair from the murdered missionary, Narcissa Whitman.

Hair is not something we at WSU’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections still collect. And how it came to be here, and where it has been for the last half century, turned out to be an intriguing story.

Narcissa Whitman’s name is familiar to many in the Northwest. She and her husband, Marcus, established their mission to the Cayuse Indians near Walla Walla in 1836. … » More …

Barn
Winter 2014

The roots of tilth

In 1974, a group of Washington farmers, gardeners, and concerned citizens formed one of the nation’s first organized efforts for sustainable agriculture.

It was in the midst of a burgeoning back-to-the-land movement, and not long after the founding of Earth Day. The time was ripe for Washington, its farmers, consumers, and researchers to change agriculture.

On his way home from a Spokane conference on “Agriculture for a Small Planet,” author and activist Wendell Berry started a letter that would catalyze the movement. He praised the thoughtful and knowledgeable group who had organized the event, and wondered if they might work together to shape “a coherent … » More …