WSM Fall 2005

Fall 2005

Cougars abroad

With more and more Europeans on the roster of NBA teams, Americans like Jan-Michael Thomas ’01 have to look outside the United States if they want to continue their hoop careers.

As a Cougar basketball player, Jan-Michael Thomas (’01 Bus. Mgt.) was one of the top long-range shooters in the country. Now he’s a lot farther than a three-point shot from his American roots.

Thomas spent this past basketball season playing for a pro team in Szolnok, Hungary, about an hour southeast of the capital, Budapest.

“It is a great country, in terms of basketball, for someone who wants to get the opportunity to play,” … » More …

Fall 2005

A life of science and beauty: 1953–2005

We were all stunned and saddened by the death, from an aneurysm, of Vincent Franceschi. The director of both the School of Biological Sciences and the Electron Microscopy Center, Franceschi built a rich and diverse career in his 52 years. As a plant cell biologist, he worked on structure-function relationships in plants. Microscopy was a major tool in his work, and the beauty that he recorded of the microscopic plant world will remind us of his skill and perception.

Click here for more on Franceschi.

Click here for an article by Franceschi about plant microscopyin … » More …

Fall 2005

Home run at the bottom of the world

When I was completing my last semester at WSU 10 years ago, I never imagined I would end up in Antarctica, providing computer network support for the U.S. Antarctic Program. I work on the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer (NBP), an icebreaker that is contracted by the National Science Foundation for scientific research in Antarctica. The ship spends several months a year in the waters and sea ice surrounding the world’s coldest, driest, and most remote continent.

I am currently working on a science cruise called SHALDRIL-Shallow Drilling Along the Antarctic Continental Margin. Core drilling from a single, unassisted icebreaker has never been done before in … » More …

Fall 2005

Dillard finds the world in a village in Africa

In June 2001, at the village of Mpeasem in Ghana, West Africa, Cynthia Dillard was enstooled as Nkosua Ohemaa Nana Mansa II.

“To be enstooled,” she explains, “I was bathed and dressed, then to music and dancing, joined in a procession of the local chiefs as they seated me on the stool that symbolizes that authority. I was named for an early queen mother of the village. It was an intense honor.”

For Dillard, an associate professor at The Ohio State University (OSU), the roots of that experience extend back to Washington State University, where she received a master’s degree in 1987 and a doctorate … » More …

Fall 2005

Operation Chow Hound

In 1945, the German occupation had Holland on its knees. The Dutch were starving, because the Germans were not supplying them with food. Adelderd Davids of Nijmegen, Holland, six years old at the time, lived in Rotterdam. “It was awful,” he recalls. “We ate tulip bulbs. Some people ate rats, because there was absolutely nothing. We had two or three potatoes for 10 people. Our mother would ask after dinner, ‘Who is still hungry? You can eat the peelings.’ On a feast day they made a torte out of the bulbs.”

England’s Royal Air Force and the United States 8th Air Force joined together to … » More …

Fall 2005

Cracking the Code

Nevins talks quickly and waves his hands when describing his own special tools, the challenges of making rings out of fragile marble … “I get daily requests for plans,” he says.

Justin Nevins loved all the riddles in The DaVinci Code, the secret of the Holy Grail, the messages the Renaissance master had hidden in his paintings. But what really grabbed him was the marble cylinder box in which secret messages were locked. From the moment he heard it described on a book on tape, he wondered how it would work.

But that was a year and a half ago, and Nevins had other things … » More …

Fall 2005

What I've Learned Since College: an interview with Judy Dann

Judy Dann graduated from Washington State University in 1985 with a degree in engineering and soon found a job with the City of Tacoma. Her life changed dramatically one day when she was hit by a car while crossing a street in Seattle. The accident damaged her brain stem, affecting her eyesight, speech, and mobility. She now uses a walker and a wheelchair and lives independently in a small community south of Tacoma. The following is excerpted from an interview with Washington State Magazine’s Hannelore Sudermann, April 8, 2005, in DuPont.

Life can change at any time.

I got a job at the City of … » More …

Fall 2005

I never said thank you.

May 2005

Inside the First Samoan Congregational Church in Oceanside, California, the Rev. Junior Tupuola is addressing his congregation, when he notices a figure in white moving across the back of the sanctuary. To Tupuola, it resembles an angel.

As the figure reaches the end of the aisle, Tupuola can see that it’s clad in jeans, the blue color of which stands out against the brightly colored clothing of the islanders sitting in the pews.

The figure stops and turns toward Tupuola. The white resolves into a Washington State University jersey. Crimson numerals take shape.

No. 19. Rod Retherford’s jersey number.

From the pulpit, Tupuola … » More …

Fall 2005

Noam Chomsky

The surprising thing about Noam Chomsky in person was what he was not. Even though I was not intimately familiar with either his linguistics or his political writing, I had imagined him as stern and austere, too absorbed in thought to bother with either social grace or chitchat.

Rather, he’s like your favorite uncle-albeit the one who has perfect recall and is amazingly smart and has the ability to explain big ideas in everyday language. No jargon. No evasiveness.

A professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chomsky is the most influential and best-known American linguist. Even more familiar … » More …

Fall 2005

Bounty on the bluff

The small farming community of Green Bluff lies nestled in the foothills of Mt. Spokane. Its bucolic setting belies the fact that it’s just 15 miles north of Spokane. Take a meandering drive around “the Bluff,” and you’ll pass by dozens of family farms, each with its own roadside fruit stand. Stop at any one for fresh fruit and locally made jam, wine, cider, pie, and other harvest bounty.

Green Bluff has been a production area for fruit, berries, and vegetables since the early 1900s. Back then, farmers could ship their produce from a nearby rail station to customers clear back in Eastern cities. Many … » More …