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Winter 2014

Celebrating a half century, and more

Some traditions are worth breaking.

After 65 years of springtime reunions, the Washington State University Alumni Association has moved the events for Golden (50 years) and Diamond (60 years) graduates to the fall.

In September, students from the classes of 1954 and 1964 (and one student from 1944) returned to campus for three days filled with memories, conversation, and exploration. Between luncheons, dinners, and “classes without quizzes,” the alumni toured the new Football Operations Building and the Student Rec Center, attended a memorial service for veterans, stopped by Ferdinand’s Creamery, and visited with students.

The Alumni Association has rescheduled the reunions to build on campus … » More …

Ted Tremper
Winter 2014

Ted Tremper ’04—The art of improv

Ted Tremper ’04 discovered his dream as a Washington State University student joining Nuthouse, WSU’s then fledgling improv group.

Now, more than a decade later, he’s an actor, a web television filmmaker, veteran of the improvisational comedy troupe The Second City, editor, director, and, in his words, “God knows how many other things.” Tremper finds that reality can be every bit as fun and funny as his dream.

Four years ago his web program Break-ups: The Series won critical acclaim for its originality. His five-minute scenes of break-up vignettes filmed around Chicago has drawn hundreds of thousands of views. He followed that up with Shrink, … » More …

Gettysburg
Winter 2014

Joanne Hanley ’80—Preserving public treasures

Joanne Hanley ’80 never expected that a master’s degree in environmental science would lead her to Gettysburg—one of the most significant sites in American history—or to supporting and creating several other memorials along the way.

During a 32-year career with the National Park Service, Hanley worked at more than a dozen historically and environmentally significant locations throughout the country. She oversaw the fundraising, design, and construction of the Flight 93 memorial to commemorate the September 11, 2001, crash. And, after serving as superintendent of the National Parks of Western Pennsylvania for a decade, she turned her energies to the field where a pivotal battle … » More …

Mapmaker Mystery photoillustration
Winter 2014

Mapmaker mystery

The Palouse, in its way, is a perfect place. A land of soft, rolling hills framed by rivers, mountains, forests, and desert, this agricultural hinterland feels all four seasons fully, and in all likelihood grows enough food to feed its inhabitants and visitors with ease. It’s home to scholars and farmers, and its story begins in the ice ages and continues today with an unrelenting flow of research from two major universities.

Despite such beauty and bounty, the Palouse has not received the artistic consideration that has Yosemite or Hudson Valley. I’ve never seen anything like that, at least until a day last winter when … » More …

Winter 2014

The scrambled natural world of global warming, a travelogue

Jesse A. Logan ’77 PhD is hiking up a mountainside in Yellowstone National Park and walking back in time. He starts at 8,600 feet above sea level, in a forest thick with the scent of fir and lodgepole pine, and with almost every spry step, the scenery changes. There’s an understory of grouse whortleberry, then accents of mountain bluebells and higher still, the whitebark pine, one of the oldest organisms of the Interior West.

Finally, the vegetation gives way to large swatches of scree. Logan’s 70-year-old legs have gone up 2,000 feet and back more than 10,000 years, from the lush vegetation of the twenty-first … » More …

Caviar and sparkling wine
Winter 2014

Holiday sparklers and caviar

Holiday Sparklers

by Hannelore Sudermann

At Karma Vineyards, where grapevines pour down the hillside toward the southern shore of Lake Chelan, a 3,000-square-foot cave holds the next few years’ of sparkling wine.

Three different grapes from the 14 acres of vines go into the bubbly: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. They’re treated much the same way they would be in the Champagne region of France, where the complex and labor-intensive method of making sparkling wine was perfected.

“The méthode champenoise is worth the work,” says Julie Pittsinger ’06, who owns Karma with her husband Bret. They opened Karma’s doors in … » More …

Geronimo
Winter 2014

Lessons from Geronimo

When Mike Leach, coach of WSU’s football team, was a boy, he was in thrall with the story of Geronimo, a warrior who led a small group of Chiricahua Apache in defending tribal lands from invasion by Mexican and American settlers. A reader from an early age, Leach discovered the story at a public library in Cody, Wyoming.

“There was this book on Geronimo, the biggest book there. My mom said, ‘Maybe we should get a smaller book, maybe a book with pictures,’” says Leach. “It had footnotes, bibliography, and everything. It’s not something that belongs with a second-grader. But like a trooper, my mom … » More …

Cori Kane
Winter 2014

Diving deep in a unique tropical paradise

Cori Kane calls it “underwater skydiving.” She’ll be out in the middle of the North Pacific, more than 1,000 miles from Honolulu and most anything else that might be called civilization. Flopping out of a perfectly good boat, she will rocket down nearly 300 feet in just a few minutes, encountering a strange and largely unexplored layer of ocean that’s less familiar to science than the deep sea. It’s the ecosystem of the mesophotic reefs, which lie at a depth often called the “Twilight Zone.”

“When you jump in, it’s like you’re transported to this other world,” says Kane. “There are fish everywhere. There are … » More …

Jason Gesser
Winter 2014

The right color back on

Ask Jason Gesser ’02 about the finest decision he’s made and his answer is as pinpoint as each of the 70 career touchdown passes he threw at Washington State.

“Coming to Washington State was the perfect and best decision I made in my life,” he says. “Besides marrying my wife,” Gesser is quick to add, with a laugh. He married his college girlfriend Kali Surplus ’02, a former WSU volleyball player, and the couple has three children.

In his new role as the assistant director of development with the Cougar Athletic Fund, the fundraising arm of the Washington State University Athletic Department, his … » More …