Michael R. Miller ’68
Triple-D Book Publishing: 2015
More than 40 years ago, Michael R. Miller ’68 was passing through a Sacramento antique shop when he came upon a carved duck decoy. It was a pintail drake. Carved from a single piece of redwood, it had an elegantly pointed bill and tail and subtle shades of gray, black and off-white. Like so many of its ilk, it was just outside the ordinary … » More …
Immortal of the Cinder Path: the Saga of James “Ted” Meredith
By John Jack Lemon ’78
2015
In this first tribute to early twentieth-century athlete James “Ted” Meredith, Lemon introduces a mostly forgotten, and sometimes heartbreaking, story of a world-record breaking runner, Olympic gold medalist, and all-around sports star.
Hope
By Suzanne D. Lonn ’67
WestBow Press: 2014
This third novel from Lonn explores family dynamics through adoption, obsessive compulsive disorders, and salvation. Hope is a sequel to Lonn’s earlier novel The Game of Hearts (2003 Exlibris). She also published Mixed Nuts in 2008, a novel about elder abuse, alcoholism, depression, and dementia.
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High school counselor Kim Reykdal ’94 doesn’t wait around for students to make appointments. She searches them out.
Whether it’s scholarship applications, information about opportunities with the U.S. military, or the latest on specialty or technical colleges, Reykdal is known to work the lunchroom, if necessary, to get students setting goals for life after high school.
That commitment to student achievement earned Reykdal a trip to Washington, D.C. in January as one of four 2016 national Counselor of the Year finalists, where first lady Michelle Obama praised her efforts in a White House ceremony. The recipients also met with lawmakers and attended a congressional … » More …
After World War II, Bill Fitch left the Army, packed his duffel in Seattle and, with the U.S. government’s guarantee of free college tuition, headed to Pullman. When he and Al Smith, a fellow veteran and high school classmate, arrived at Washington State College, they found themselves on a campus crowded with thousands of GIs.
Spurred by unprecedented growth in student numbers from the “GI bulge” in the late 1940s, the small rural state college was becoming a modern higher education institution, and a decade later would bloom into a full-blown university. Wave after wave of student-veterans, a faculty newly empowered to govern itself, and … » More …
Before broadcaster Robert Mott founded NPR, he helped bring Washington State’s communication education into the television era.
National Public Radio cofounder and former Washington State professor Robert Mott briefly appeared on a large projection screen before the video image froze and then disappeared. Again.
Mott waited patiently in his San Diego home as some of his former broadcast students, now in their 60s and 70s, double-checked the video chat settings from the Yakima conference room where they’d gathered. He wasn’t too worried.
Their bond, after all, had been forged in an era of technological innovation, though that was a half century earlier when many problems … » More …
He was the old guy in airborne training at Fort Benning, Georgia, a U.S. Army veterinarian holding his own with soldiers half his age, preparing to leap from a plane.
JOHN L. POPPE ’86 DVM had parachuted recreationally back in his Pullman days but was taking command of a special airborne veterinary unit in 2001 and wanted to be jump ready.
“I was determined to do it,” recalls Poppe, now a brigadier general and chief of the U.S. Army’s multifaceted Veterinary Corps.
He was a 42-year-old lieutenant colonel back in jump school and his commitment to readiness was no academic exercise. Two years later, … » More …
Mary Jean Craig ’68 couldn’t wait to join 4-H. Her mother and a friend started a pre-4-H club that got her interested, and Craig squeaked into the local fair with a sewing project. After 60 years of involvement in the organization, she knows it was worth it.
Craig, who lives in Moscow, Idaho, was inducted into the National 4-H Hall of Fame last October for her lifetime achievements and contributions.
After 11 years in the club, Craig continued as a member of the “Crimson Clovers” collegiate 4-H chapter at WSU and then as a volunteer leader. She became an extension professional in Idaho in 1980, … » More …
The ‘lost’ apples of the Palouse entice a detective to sleuth for their rediscovery
Dave Benscoter’s obsession began innocently—as a favor to a neighbor, Eleanor, a retired missionary. Resettled near Chattaroy, and now beset with complications from childhood polio, she asked Benscoter ’78 to harvest some apples for her from the old orchard above her house.
“Every apple was too high for me to pick,” he says of his initial effort.
“One of the trees was 40 to 50 feet high. The trunk was split, and I couldn’t get my arms around either trunk.”
Determined to deliver Eleanor’s apples at some point, he started pruning … » More …
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 …
“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 …