WSM Winter 2003

Winter 2003

Niva, Cox named WSU regents

Connie Millard Niva and Angela S. Cox were named by Governor Gary Locke this summer to Washington State University’s 10-member Board of Regents. Cox will serve as the student member, a position created in 1998.

Niva (’62 Bact. & Public Health) makes her home in Everett. She served on the Everett City Council, 1986-89, and on the Washington State Transportation Commission for 10 years, including three as chair.

As a regent, she says, she’d like to see WSU continue making progress in creating the best undergraduate experience and in nurturing a world class environment for research, scholarship, and graduate education. She also wants WSU to … » More …

Winter 2003

Philip Phibbs's legacy

“No decisions are easy, particularly when you are a university president and you are changing an institution.”—Philip Phibbs

More than a decade removed from the presidency of the University of Puget Sound, Philip M. Phibbs remembers the job as tough and demanding. But he loved it.

Many decisions he made, he acknowledges now, were difficult. They affected academic programs and peoples’ lives. Through it all, he’s confident the UPS is better today for his efforts.

Phibbs shared thoughts about his presidency during a late April visit to Washington State University. He and Gwen, his wife of 49 years, returned to Pullman to celebrate the 50th … » More …

Winter 2003

Is there life after basketball?

Donaldson finds it in business and community

James Donaldson would like you to know that he’s fine not playing basketball. Sure, the former Washington State center spent 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association and on the European circuit. And yes, it brought him some nice paychecks and an opportunity to compete at the highest levels of professional basketball. But it’s never been a case of “basketball is life.”

Now don’t get the wrong picture. Donaldson still misses the competition. Still misses the practices–really–and the nightly face-off in games.

But here’s the ugly side of pro sports—it’s cutthroat. Younger players are always … » More …

Winter 2003

Benzel helped set state education reform in motion

Brian Benzel embraces the challenge of helping every child master key educational skills. As superintendent of Spokane Area Schools, the second largest school district in Washington, he oversees a $264 million annual budget, more than 30,000 students, 3,500 employees, and 50 schools.

“I’m excited about what we’re trying to do with education in Spokane, in the state, and in America,” he said earlier this year from his downtown office.

“Clearly society has moved to a place where high school [education] alone is not sufficient today. It’s stated as a goal for the country that all children should be able to master those core skills—math, reading, … » More …

Winter 2003

Working to prevent another Chornobyl

“While it is devastating to see the impact of the Chornobyl accident—both economically and socially—international nuclear safety has advanced significantly because of this incident.”—Susan Senner

Teams of communications professionals at the Hanford Site in Richland, Washington, juggled shifts to respond to hoards of news media calls in April 1986 about a catastrophic accident at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Susan McKenna Senner worked with this group, responding to questions about Hanford’s N-Reactor, which had some design similarities to the ill-fated Chornobyl plant. The Hanford crew manned phones and provided reassurance that multiple safety systems in place at N-Reactor would prevent such an accident … » More …

Winter 2003

On top at last: John and Jess Roskelley scale Everest together

“The goal you set for yourself is to stay the course . . . to stay focused. At any time you get tired of the glare off the snow, the dust, the miles of glacial terrain, the travel, the lack of sleep, the altitude. The altitude just takes a huge toll on you.”—John Roskelley

After four failed attempts, the last one 10 years ago, John Roskelley must have wondered if he’d ever get another chance to conquer 29,035-foot Mount Everest. Or even if he wanted to.

Never underestimate Roskelley’s resolve.

The Spokane County commissioner has been climbing since 1965. For years he was among the … » More …

Winter 2003

Pacific Northwest sagebrush steppe

Though it is the most widespread of plant ecosystems in eastern Washington, covering 24,000 square miles, the sagebrush-steppe is probably the least understood, and therefore the least appreciated, especially among gardeners. By nature, gardeners like to make things grow, and by the looks of things, not much grows in that desert-like region, except sagebrush. But the sagebrush-steppe region is home to some of most adaptive and intriguing plants on earth, and gardeners can learn much here to apply to eco-friendly rock gardens and xeriscapes.

The region is most strongly defined by its dryness. Lying entirely east of the Cascade Mountains, it receives only eight to12 … » More …

Winter 2003

Matt Potter puts positive spin on Cougar soccer

Matt Potter is a disciple of the school of positive thinking. His life’s philosophy and his approach to coaching are interwoven. Teaching and soccer are his passion. “In combining the two, we can learn a lot about life,” says the Mere, England, native. “Really, it’s about becoming the best we can be individually and as a team.”

That is what he seeks for himself and for the women who comprise the Washington State University soccer team. He was promoted from assistant to head coach in June, succeeding Dan Tobias, who moved on to the University of Arizona. Two days before WSU was to make its … » More …

Winter 2003

Blackouts: How often do we want them?

Living in a subdivision where the power lines are strung on poles in our back alleys, we have had more than our usual share of power outages this summer. This has been blamed on the rapid expansion of the neighborhood squirrel population because of the loud pop of the short-circuit that preceded every incident. On August 14, my wife wondered aloud how big the squirrel must have been to have popped everything from Detroit to New York City.

The blame game for the massive outage is just starting. We’ll hear about the operators who didn’t open circuit breakers in time, the engineers who didn’t design … » More …

Winter 2003

Low prices bog down cranberry growers

In the not-so-old days, circa the mid-1990s, a small farmer along Washington’s southern coastline could rake enough cranberries—and money—from just 10 acres of bogs to send the kids to college and maybe have enough cash left to spend Christmas in Hawaii.

Since the late 1990s, however, some cranberry farmers have been bogged down in another shade of red: debt.

“Now,” says Kim Patten, Washington State University Extension’s cranberry specialist based on the Long Beach Peninsula, “both husband and wife better be working outside jobs and having the kids go to college on their own—and never have a day off.”

An expanding supply of cranberries outran … » More …