Search Results

Spring 2006

What I've Learned Since College: An interview with Rebecca Miles

Last May, Rebecca Miles became the first woman and, at age 32, the youngest person to be elected chairman of the Nez Perce tribe. In her one-year post representing the 3,000 members of the tribe, Miles has traveled the country speaking on issues like salmon recovery and the 150th anniversary of the Nez Perce treaty. She has also worked hard at home to address local issues, raise her two sons, and serve her community. A 1997 criminal justice graduate of Washington State University, Miles went on to earn a graduate degree in organizational leadership from Gonzaga University. She spoke with Hannelore Sudermann November 15, 2005, … » More …

Spring 2006

Faith and imagination transform a Pullman landmark

Faith and imagination came into play last spring when Jillian Potts (’06 Pol. Sci./Pre-Law) signed an agreement to lease a unit at the Greystone Church Apartments sight unseen. Not there was anything to see. It was months before the walls of her apartment would even be built.

Still, with just the blueprints as a guide, Potts committed to one of the most exciting projects Pullman has seen of late.

Greystone Church, a long-neglected century-old landmark on College Hill, found new life last fall as an apartment house for 47 tenants, the majority of them Washington State University students.

The challenge for the new owners—Glenn Petry, … » More …

Summer 2008

Letters – Summer 2008

The lonely flower

Your most interesting article about “The Orphan Flower” intrigued me. What a lovely and unique flower and leaf. Thank you for sharing its appearance with us.

I may say also, that having discovered Washington State Magazine in my today’s mail, I spent the entire afternoon enjoying each article. What an exciting place is Washington State University. Receiving this publication is always stimulating and certainly makes me proud of the work being done there. Please extend my congratulations to each one making this a better place in which to live.

Marley Austin Jesseph ’47
Bloomington, Indiana

School in the woods

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Summer 2008

A sense of who we are

Although I think freely of Washington as home,  I must confess to a technicality. I actually live in Idaho, on a farm we moved onto the same year I started working at Washington State University, 19 years ago.

When I drive to work by the various back roads between Pullman and our home, I never quite know when I’ve crossed from Idaho into Washington. There are no signs, no point where my brain says okay, I’m in a different state. Examined from Twin Falls to Aberdeen, however, Idaho and Washington obviously have very different identities. Idaho has no Ho Rain Forest, no Pacific shoreline, no … » More …

Summer 2008

Sam Ham – The adventures of

The first time Sam Ham ’74 was in the Galapagos Islands, he took a two-foot-long telephoto lens to capture nature up close. He was thrilled when, on a hike with a graduate student, he came across a stunning brown Galapagos hawk. Ham raised his camera, aimed, and discovered he was much too close. “I had to back up practically 50 yards to get it in focus,” he laughs, noting how “up close” nature in the Galapagos can sometimes be.

Ham, a natural resources professor at the University of Idaho, has been bumped by sea lions while snorkeling, has watched nesting sea turtles from a few … » More …

Summer 2008

An interview with Edward Heinemann – a life of horse sense

Ed Heinemann was just a freshman in the spring of 1936, when the students at Washington State decided to strike. A group calling themselves the Student Liberty Association wanted more freedom from the administration’s puritanical social regulations, particularly those imposed by the dean of women, who set dress codes and early curfews.

Heinemann remembers walking on campus one May morning to see posters on buildings and doors announcing, “Strike.” To his surprise, the faculty joined in, cancelling classes. In the wake of the upheaval, the dean of women was dismissed, and the rules were gradually loosened.

Heinemann, who … » More …

Summer 2008

What a dive

The Washington State University biologist, who retired in 2001 after decades of studying marine worms, was shorebound when the stubby little submarine called Alvin first carried humans to the bottom of the sea.

Schroeder remembers the excitement in his lab when scientists aboard Alvin discovered vents in the ocean floor, where three-foot-long tube worms and other weird-looking animals lived on the mineral exhalations of the earth’s interior.

“I had a graduate student working on worms then,” he recalls, “and it was in Time magazine, these guys with these giant worms, and [my student] came running into my office and said, ‘What the hell are these … » More …

Summer 2008

A home for hotel history

One day in the late 1920s, hoteliers Severt W. Thurston and Frank Dupar met by chance in a coffee shop in Yakima, Washington. Unbeknownst to one another, each had gone to Yakima to make separate hotel deals. But by the time they parted company that day, the two had decided to go into business together. In 1930 they joined with the Schmidt Brothers, who had hotels in Olympia, Seattle, and Bellingham, to form Western Hotels Inc., the foundation of what would become the Westin hotel chain.

That first year they had 17 properties, including the Roosevelt and Waldorf hotels in Seattle, the Marcus Whitman in … » More …

Summer 2008

Dahlias

When Dan Pearson was eight years old, his father brought a batch of brown tubers home and planted them in the yard. Intrigued, Dan helped tend the vigorous plants that sprang from them and watched them bloom into flashy, brightly hued flowers, some as big as a dinner plate. He memorized the names of all 30 varieties.

The next spring, tickled by his son’s interest, Chester Pearson ’59 planted even more. Their yard was so full of color that cars would slow as they drove by. One day when a car stopped, Dan offered to sell some blooms for a dollar. Pretty soon it was … » More …

Summer 2008

Signing Day Central

During the early morning hours of Wednesday, February 6, Rich Rasmussen enters the Washington State University football office carrying two boxes, each containing a dozen donuts, and places them on the front counter.

Rasmussen opens the door to his office, where, taped on its outer side, is a piece of paper:

Core Values for WSU Football 2008:
Compete – Compete to win
Execution – Attention to detail
Effort – Relentless on every rep
Encouragement – Positive response to all situations

Rasmussen turns on his computer, checks his e-mail, and waits for the future of WSU football to commence.

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