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Spring 2024

Alumni

Tim Pavish at WSU Lewis Alumni Centre
Fall 2013

Ten years of teamwork

In September 2003, Tim Pavish ’80 left Seattle and a 20-year career in advertising to return to Pullman and become the executive director of the WSU Alumni Association (WSUAA). He was eager to do something more for his alma mater, after all that it has given him over the years.

“I owe a lot to WSU, not the least of which is it’s where I met my wife, Carin (Hull) Pavish,” he says. “I made many of my closest friends at WSU and through WSU. I received a great education here and learned valuable life lessons outside the classroom. And now my two kids … » More …

Jennifer Merschdorf
Fall 2013

Jennifer Merschdorf ’96—A young survivor

Fresh from an early morning TV appearance, Jennifer Merschdorf ’96 grabs a seat in the lobby of her Seattle hotel and pulls out a phone to check in with the office in New York. Next on her schedule is our interview, then lunch with her mother, and then time to meet up with a few old college friends. This day is a balance. Some work, some family, and some fun. It’s all at the threshold of an intense few days of the national conference for Young Survival Coalition, a not-for-profit organization for young women facing breast cancer.

As CEO of … » More …

Fall 2013

Kathleen McChesney ’71—Agent of change

One day during Kathleen McChesney’s senior year, an FBI recruiter came to campus. Everyone was impressed with the smart looking fellow in the three piece suit. His pitch dazzled the class. “We all wanted to apply,” says McChesney. “But then he passed out the applications. He gave one to each student until he got to me. Then he said, ‘I can’t give you one. The FBI doesn’t have women as agents.’”

It was an inauspicious beginning for the girl from Auburn who would eventually become the highest ranking woman in the agency. The next year J. Edgar Hoover died and the policy was changed. But … » More …

Butch with attendees at CougsFirst!
Fall 2013

A Cougar trade show

A stroll through the grand ballroom at Bellevue’s Hyatt hotel one weeknight last spring took visitors into something that was part business networking event, part WSU Cougar reunion. The occasion, a CougsFirst! trade show, offered a chance to see and sample from an assortment of about 40 WSU alumni-owned businesses.

It was also as a time to catch up with old friends. Gary Wood ’79, sat at a table lined with beers and flyers for his business Great Artisan Beverage Company, a craft and specialty beer wholesaler. As Wood set up his samples, he explained that after school and a few jobs, he found his … » More …

Fall 2013

Apple-a-Day

Danielle ’12 and Megan ’13 LaRiviere could sell iceboxes to Eskimos. Or coals to Newcastle. Even apples to Yakima.

Three years ago, prompted by their insurance agent father who bemoaned the lack of good snack food, they started visiting businesses around their hometown of Yakima offering to provide them with a steady supply of apples. Subscribers get a small cooler stocked weekly with the best apple varieties available.

From the start, their Apple-a-Day service got a “pretty good response,” they say.

Good enough, that is, that when it came time to return to school for fall semester, they bought a van, hired a delivery driver, … » More …

Dynamic Duo
Fall 2013

Dynamic duo

As seniors at Lewis and Clark High School, Eric Brandon ’12 and Nick Linton ’13 often skipped lunch to create plans for a zero carbon emission housing development.

“Our friends would come and ask if we were ready to go to lunch, and we’d say just 10 more minutes, or 15 more minutes” Brandon says, replaying the conversations. Linton interjects with his own reenactment, “We have to finish this last little façade.”

In 2008 Brandon and Linton entered their proposed sustainable housing development, called Green Ridge, in Washington State University’s inaugural Imagine Tomorrow competition. The competition brings students together in interdisciplinary teams to address energy … » More …

Constant Coffee
Fall 2013

Constant Coffee

If there’s a liquid for which Olympia is more known than rain, it’s coffee.

With several roasters, and dozens of cafes, the community is pretty much fueled by caffeine.

Roaster Batdorf & Bronson arrived in the 1980s in the middle of the pack of Northwest coffee companies, some of which are now international names. While others have grown exponentially, even internationally, Larry Challain’s company has stayed constant—an Olympia presence, a craft roaster with carefully selected beans, and a community landmark.

From his childhood, Challain ’73 has vivid coffee memories. The smell of canned commissary coffee was a daily presence in his family kitchen. And the … » More …

WSU Vancouver building
Fall 2013

Posts for Fall 2013

 

The story behind the sign

Many signs display Cougar pride on the way to Pullman, but only one stands 27 feet high and 400 feet long. The “Go Cougs” shed 12 miles east of Othello on Highway 26 was created in 1998 by Coug brothers Orman and Gavin Johnson.

“We needed to build a potato storage,” Orman says.

It was that simple.

“We’d drive to football games and we’d see small signs,” he says. “We thought, ‘we should do that’.”

And so the process began. Orman and Gavin say they knew they wanted to use sheet metal so there wouldn’t be any upkeep, but … » More …

Jeff Groat with cougar license plate “ARRRGH.”
Summer 2013

Cougars pounce on new plates

Frequent sightings of the new Cougar license plates all around Washington prove that the WSU Alumni Association’s three-year endeavor to get the plate approved has paid off.

Since the release of the crimson-colored plates with the WSU Cougar logo in January 2012, more than 7,000 alumni and friends have purchased them. More than half are first time WSU plate holders, 4,200 and counting.

That’s good news for Cougar fans and even better news for students. The new plates have generated more than $110,000 in new scholarships.

While many sport letters and numbers assigned by the state, a number of Cougs and fans have doubled up … » More …