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WSM Spring 2009

Spring 2009

Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe’s work to help people with memory loss

Whether the problems stem from normal aging, diseases like Alzheimer’s, or traumatic brain injury, impaired memory can turn even routine tasks into major challenges. The main focus of Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe’s work is finding ways to help people with memory loss cope better with everyday tasks, enabling them to live independently as long as possible.

In one recent project, she coached volunteers with memory loss in the use of a notebook that resembled a detailed day planner. They recorded what happened as each day went along, including what they did, when, and with whom. That helped them with content, source, and temporal ordering memory. They also … » More …

Spring 2009

Yucatecan lentil soup recipe (Tim’s interpretation)

 

Ingredients

lard

medium yellow onion, chopped fine

large clove garlic, minced
(I actually use much more than this, but don’t want to scare people off)

2-3 slices of good thick bacon, chopped

a little Mexican oregano

1 chipotle pepper (canned in adobo sauce)

1 cup pardina lentils

large tomato, chopped, or 8 oz. canned chopped tomato

6 cups water

plantain

hard boiled egg

Melt a couple of tablespoons lard over medium heat in medium dutch oven. Cook onions and garlic until translucent, 5-10 minutes. Add bacon and cook for 5 minutes. Add tsp. or so of Mexican oregano and stir. Add … » More …

Spring 2009

Gallery: Annotated pages from early English editions of Montaigne’s Essays

Selected sections of pages from copies of Montaigne’s Essays from Will Hamlin.

 

Here is an excerpt from Privacy and the Words of the Dead by Will Hamlin

…It’s very unlikely that these long-forgotten readers expected anyone to scrutinize their thoughts–anyone, that is, beyond their own immediate audience, which was often an audience of one. Yes, it’s true that the social construction of privacy varies tremendously from one culture to another, and it may be the case that seventeenth-century English readers felt that they were improving Montaigne when they filled his book with questions, clarifications, and anecdotes drawn from their lives. … » More …

Spring 2009

Gallery: Photos and letters from Xerpha’s trunk

A gallery of selected images, items, and memorabilia from Xerpha Gaines’ trunk.

 

From “The Love Letters” by Hannelore Sudermann:

…Summer 2008 the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Edward and Xerpha Gaines returned to eastern Washington. They talked and laughed, piecing together their own memories of Edward and Xerpha, and mentioning the bundle of letters that gave them the details of their grandparent’s romance.

At the end of the reunion, they delivered to Washington State University an astonishing gift–Xerpha’s steamer trunk which holds nearly a century of private papers detailing the life of a woman whose story is not only threaded through the University’s, but … » 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 …

Spring 2009

Hotel at the Top

Pioneer James “Cashup” Davis dreamed big. At a time when most Washington settlers were carving farms out of the Palouse, he was so awed with the panoramic views of the Palouse from Steptoe Butte, he decided to build a hotel at the top.

Davis’s first career was as a well-to-do stonemason in England, but he left that life in search of adventure. In 1872, at the age of 57, he settled in Washington and built a bustling farm as well as a stage coach stop and dance hall.

While most Washington State University students only know of the butte as a landmark east of … » More …

Spring 2009

A long-term biofuels strategy for Washington

In 2007, the Washington State Legislature passed legislation “relating to providing for the means to encourage the use of cleaner energy.” The final of four chapters of the renewable energy act directed Washington State University to explore the development of biofuels in Washington. The final result, Biofuel Economics and Policy for Washington State, released in late 2008, does not quite match what some state policy makers had expected, notes lead author Jon Yoder, a natural resource economist at WSU.

In short, the report recommends that Washington not try to force itself into the current biofuel market. With what are considered “first-generation” biofuels, such as ethanol, … » More …