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Winter 2017

Peace Weavers: Uniting the Salish Coast through Cross-Cultural Marriages

Candace Wellman ’68

WSU Press: 2017

Clara Tennant Selhameten was born the daughter of Lummi tribal leader in what became Whatcom County, and eventually married John Tennant, the son of a famous Methodist minister around 1859. Tennant established the first permanent farm in the region, on Lummi land. In later years, she and John traveled as missionaries and built many churches. It was clear that the couple were true partners in both spiritual … » More …

Winter 2017

Class notes

1950s

Don Trunkey (’59 Zool.), a professor emeritus of surgery at the Oregon Health Science University, received the WSU Alumni Association’s Alumni Achievement Award in recognition of his influential career and contributions to medical education, surgical methods, and trauma care. During his career, he has served in a multitude of leadership positions regarding surgery and trauma. A few of these include chief resident for the University of California hospitals, chief of surgery for the University of San Francisco, and professor and chairman of surgery at Oregon Health and Science University. His public service has included president of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, … » More …

Fall 2017

Streaming solutions

High in the Cascade and Olympic Mountain snowfields, pristine rivulets trickle into brooks that descend through forest, farmland, and town. Streams merge into rivers and sweep through cities until finally breaking into Puget Sound and the marine waters of the Pacific.

There, in the southern arm of the Salish Sea, the waters mingle in a fertile estuary teeming with biodiversity.

“Looking out at the waters of Puget Sound, you see the sunset, the beautiful mountains, and people think, ‘Everything is good, we’ve got the orca.’ But we have invisible problems,” says Chrys Bertolotto, natural resource programs manager at the Washington State University Snohomish County … » More …

Fall 2017

Class notes

1940s

Charlotte Wirth (’48 Phys. Ed., ’55 MAT) and Marda McClenny (’74 Phys. Ed.) were inducted into the Washington State Girls Basketball Coaches’ Hall of Fame. McClenny coached the Walla Walla girls basketball team to three state tournaments and Wirth coached Walla Walla prior to Title IX. Wirth is also known for working to get equal practice time and equipment for the developing girls sports programs during the 1960s and 1970s.

1950s

Paul C. Anderson (’55, ’60 MA Poli. Sci.) taught political science at Yakima Valley College from 1961-94 and then retired to Port Townsend. He was a Delta Chi and lettered in golf at … » More …

Fall 2017

Talkback for Fall 2017

Even more Olympic connections

In “Cougs at the Olympics” in the Talkback section of our Fall ’16 issue, Don Brust asked the question regarding what other Cougs had the opportunity to go to the Olympic Games. Another response:

In 1978 the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) moved its headquarters from New York to Colorado Springs. At that time I was working there for CPAs Haskins & Sells. The USOC’s business manager/controller did not want to relocate, so I decided to apply and was lucky enough to be selected. The end result was that I was able to attend two Pan American Games (San Juan … » More …

Fall 2017

Steve Smart reads from Whispers of the Greybull

Steve Smart ’75 had spent much of the hot summer day making the rounds of the various landscaping and construction projects his company had underway throughout the Inland Northwest.

Back at his office atop a commercial nursery just outside Spokane, he agreed to take a break and read a selection from his first novel, Whispers of the Greybull. He’d have preferred to stay out on the work sites but got cleaned up and took a seat.

The novel, which Smart wrote while recovering from a near-fatal accident, is set in the Depression-era Midwest and was a recipient of a Will Rogers Medallion for inspirational … » More …

Summer 2017

We’re number one

My name is Krystle Lyric Arnold and I am a first-generation college student.

To nearly 70 percent of the college population nationwide, those words mean little, but to those of us who are the first in our immediate families to pursue a college degree, the description carries weight, and for good reason.

Nearly 90 percent of first-gen students fail to obtain their college degrees. The majority of first-gen students are also low-income and the U.S. Department of Education says only 9 percent of students from the lowest income brackets graduate with a four-year degree, whether or not they are first-gen.

While everyone has their own … » More …

Summer 2017

Careers that really clicked

As she stepped up to the employee store counter to pay her bill, LEGO® specialty products manager Katie Regan’08 pulled out a credit card bearing Washington State University’s famous logo. Jordan Paxton ’04, behind her in line, let out a shout of recognition. “Bumping into Cougars on the East Coast is a big deal,” explains Paxton, a consumer service specialist at LEGO. “It rarely happens, so when you come across a Cougar, you’re instant friends.”

Regan and Paxton soon learned they had more than Cougar pride in common. The two attended WSU at the same time, then both accepted jobs with The Walt Disney … » More …

Summer 2017

Class notes

1960s

Carol Lemon Allen (’61 English) and her husband Jim have both received Writers of the Year Award from the Arizona Game and Fish Department for their print and online publications Arizona Boating & Watersports/Western Outdoor Times.

Retired hotel developer and manager Larry Culver (’64 HBM) was honored with the WSU Alumni Achievement Award in recognition of his career as an innovative leader in the hospitality industry and his service to WSU. After managing hotels and restaurants throughout the United States, he helped found Innco, a developer and manager of hotels in the Midwest. He later founded InnVentures, a hotel development and management company with … » More …

Summer 2017

AI

One of the most memorable moments of Matthew Taylor’s life so far would look to most people like just a jumble of numbers, brackets, and punctuation strung together with random words on a computer screen.

IF ((dist(K1,T1)<=4) AND
(Min(dist(K3,T1), dist(K3,T2))>=12.8) AND
(ang(K3,K1,T1)>=36))
THEN Pass to K3

And so on. Line after line of computer code flowing like a digital river of expanding possibilities.

Although sophisticated and wonderfully complex, it wasn’t so much the code itself that made this such a pivotal moment.

It was what came next.

Taylor, a graduate student in Texas at the time, … » More …