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Alumni

Spring 2011

Video: Canjo – John Elwood plays the Cougar fight song, “Shortnin’ Bread,” and his dulcimer

John Elwood, a maker of fine musical instruments and a 2001 graduate of Washington State University, crafts banjos from WSU cheese cans (like the iconic Cougar Gold).

Watch John play his “canjo” below and read more about his work.

 

Cougar fight song played on the canjo:

 

“Shortnin’ bread” played on the canjo (listen for the lyrical twist):

 

In addition to canjos, John plays folk music and creates whimsical and beautiful instruments like the goblin dulcimer in the … » More …

Spring 2011

True to his school long after graduating

Robert Williams ’79, a banking executive, is the current president of the WSU Alumni Association. He started volunteering with the University in the 1980s by joining the advisory board for the College of Business and later found his way to the Alumni Association. He is also on the Board of Trustees for the WSU Foundation. Recently, Williams met with WSM’s Hannelore Sudermann to talk about his time as a student and what he enjoys about volunteering with the Alumni Association.

Why did you choose WSU? In high school, I was a four year track and field letterman. … » More …

Spring 2011

George Nethercutt Jr. ’67—Knowing our nation

George Nethercutt Jr. ’67 may not be in Congress anymore, but he still yearns to shorten the distance between Washington, D.C., and his home state of Washington.

The effort has kept the Spokane native busy since he left the House of Representatives in 2005, when he transformed a project from his office into the George Nethercutt Foundation, a nonprofit organization to promote civic literacy and foster leadership qualities.

“We as Americans just don’t know the story of our country. And it troubles me. As a citizen, it bothers me,” says Nethercutt as we meet one afternoon last fall in Seattle, where he’s visiting on … » More …

Spring 2011

Kim Fay ’88—Communion: A Culinary Journey through Vietnam

Any prospective reader of Kim Fay’s book about Vietnamese food should be forewarned. Her descriptions are awfully good. In the city of Hue, following her first exposure to com hen, or clam rice, which was served to her Vietnamese-hot, well beyond the four-star scale, she returned the next morning for a lower heat version.

“It had not rained in the night,” she writes, “and so this com hen was topped with thin slivers of star fruit. Their tartness sparked against the dry crunch of the wonton sticks. The clams were light, and just a bit gritty from the alluvial bed of the Perfume River. The … » More …

Spring 2011

Nicole Braux Taflinger ’66, ’68—Season of Suffering

Nicole Braux (now Taflinger) was 13 years old when Germany invaded France in 1940. Years later, having survived the occupation with her mother, married an American airman, and moved to Pullman, she has written a lovely and moving memoir.

First written for her children, Season of Suffering: Coming of Age in Occupied France, 1940–45 (WSU Press) recalls the occupation of Nancy, the severe shortages, collaboration, disappearances, and despair and hope from the perspective of a teenage girl.

“The first week of the war ended my childhood,” she writes, “as if a fairy touched me with a magic wand.”

Stationed … » More …

Spring 2011

Canjo

You’ve enjoyed the cheese, but what do you do with a Cougar Gold can?

John Elwood ’01 builds fine stringed instruments—dulcimers, mandolins, banjos, harpsichords— so using the iconic tin Cougar Gold can to craft a banjo seemed a logical choice. The Palouse-area resident created a canjo, a fretless, tunable instrument for all ages.

“These are three-string, robust instruments, have the scale dimensions of a violin, and are inexplicably pleasant to the ear,” says Elwood. “I blame it on the excellence of the cheese.”

His affection for WSU’s signature cheddar developed early as he helped his father, Lewis Elwood ’65, clean … » More …

Spring 2011

Nature Boy reads on

We received a wonderful letter recently from Clarence Schuchman ’38 about tuition costs and music.

Referring to published comments by President Floyd about rising tuition costs, Mr. Schuchman recalls visiting Bursar Kruegel’s office and “plunking down thirty-two dollars and some odd cents” for his second semester tuition, then finding a job—washing windows of the bursar’s office—for which he would receive fourteen and a half cents an hour.

Mr. Schuchman’s letter is just one of the many journeys into the past that frequent my days here.

The past indeed seems “a foreign country,” as novelist L.P. Hartley observed. “They do things differently … » More …

Spring 2011

Letters in the Spring 2011 issue

 

Civility 

Professor Cornell Clayton’s article in the winter issue, “Understanding the Civility Crisis” is thought-provoking. However, he betrays the liberal bias common to the majority of today’s college professors. All of the examples he mentions depicting “incivility” in political discourse are attributed to conservative commentators or politicians, as if the right had a monopoly on it.

Hardly. He fails to mention, for example, the current king of media incivility, MSNBC’s character assassin Keith Olbermann, who regularly violently trashes anything conservative and has in the past called President Bush a liar and told him to shut up. The current climate of political discourse was … » More …

Spring 2011

Gary Brinson ’68—Investing in the world

As businesses became more international and markets around the world grew increasingly interconnected over the last three decades, a forward-thinking investor could succeed with a global portfolio. Gary Brinson was one of the earliest of those investors.

He recognized in the 1970s that the markets outside the United States were not, as conventional wisdom dictated, excessively risky. In the right balance, he reasoned, they could actually lead to greater diversification and solid returns.

Brinson ’68 received the University’s highest honor last fall, the Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award, because of his achievements in institutional investing and his pioneering approach to global … » More …