INDICATES UOAA MEMBER
1940s
Ray Clark Dickson, ’42, who was selected the first poet laureate of San Luis Obispo, California, in 1999, is still writing “a couple poems a day” at age ninety. His tenth book of poetry, Wingbeats After Dark (Red Hen Press), was published in November 2009.
Kay Gott Chaffey MA ’51, of Medford, received the Congressional Gold Medal at a March ceremony in Washington, D.C., where all Oregon Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were honored. She served from 1942 until 1944, when the branch was disbanded by Congress. She came to Eugene as a teaching assistant and taught dance and physical education at Humboldt State University until she retired in 1982.
Joseph Karel Lambert, MS ’52, professor emeritus of logic and philosophy at UC Irvine, was recently listed as “one of the great philosophical logicians of the twentieth century” in The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers. He has published a number of books, including An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science.
Thomas M. White ’53 retired from his position as school psychologist and has joined the U.S. Coast Guard Bagpipe Band. He marched and piped in Savannah, Georgia’s 2010 Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. He lives in New Bern, North Carolina.
Duncan Ferguson ’59, MA ’64, earned his PhD in religious studies at the University of Edinburgh and has had a career in church-related higher education. Also see Bookshelf, page 14.
STEPHANIE BURCHETT, THE GREELEY TRIBUNE
CLASS NOTABLE
George Hypes ’54 and his wife, Carol, were recently the subjects of a front-page article in The Tribune of Greeley, Colorado, “Greeley couple kindly dismisses digital, sticks to classic cameras and film.” The article details the couple’s fascination with film-only cameras (they own fourteen models dating back to the 1920s) that has resulted in a collection of more than 36,000 color slides and nearly as many negatives. One photo (of their son) appeared in Life magazine in 1966. When the Tribune reporter asked George about digital cameras, he replied, “We don't use swear words in this house.”
T. Jeff Williams ’60 returned to Cambodia in May 2010 as part of memorial ceremonies honoring dozens of international and Cambodian journalists killed from 1970 to 1975 as the Khmer Rouge took over the kingdom. Williams slipped into the country just prior to the March 18, 1970, coup to cover the expanding conflict. The events are covered in his book A Cambodian Odyssey and the Deaths of Twenty-five Journalists (IUniverse, 2001) coauthored with CBS cameraman Kurt Volkert.
Alaby Blivit ’63 was in Reykjavík participating in the Iron Chef Iceland competition (“I was doing everything I could to disguise the flavor of our secret ingredient, this ghastly, foul-smelling fermented shark they call hákarl”) when the massive volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull prematurely ended the charity event.
Joe M. Fischer, MFA ’63, was recently awarded a commission to create a 6- foot by 4-foot historical painting for the Longview Country Club in Washington.
Jon Jay Cruson ’64, MFA ’67, had a retrospective show of his works from 1970 to 2010 in July and August at the Jacobs Gallery in Eugene. A related book is available through Blurb. com. In September, he had a show at Hanson Howard Gallery in Ashland, and his work will be on display as part of the “Oregon Series Show” at the Salem Conference Center until July 2011.
In May, Terry Melton, MFA ’64, was awarded Idaho State University’s Professional Achievement Award in Pocatello, Idaho. He is retired from several executive positions in the arts, and has served on numerous arts commissions including the National Endowment for the Arts. He has exhibited paintings, drawings, and photos in more than fifty exhibitions, and has work in eight museum collections. His serigraph prints were exhibited this summer at Willamette University’s Hallie Ford Museum of Art in Salem.
Arthur C. Spencer, MA ’64, MLS ’69, is retired from thirty years as a librarian, archivist, and researcher in Portland. He now works part-time as a Multnomah County ballots processor and volunteers at Saint Mark’s Anglican Church, at Northwest Portland Ministries, and at Loaves and Fishes senior dining centers.
Edward Thomson ’64, MFA ’65, has retired from his position as global events manager for Xidex Corporation. He lives with his wife, Karen Garfield, in Palm Springs, California.
J. Dan Rothwell, MA ’69, PhD ’77, was recently awarded the Ernest L. Boyer International Award for Teaching, Learning, and Technology, cosponsored by the National Council of Instructional Administrators and Florida State College at Jacksonville. Rothwell is chair of the communication studies department at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California. Two of his textbooks were reedited and released in 2010.
The Esther Honey Foundation, founded by president and CEO Cathy Sue Ragan-Anunsen ’70, was honored for offering one of the world’s 100 best volunteer vacations to enrich your life in National Geographic’s 100 Best Vacations series in 2009. The foundation uses “volun-tourism” to humanely control animal populations and has provided veterinary and education services for South Pacific nations since 1995. The program is grateful for the UO’s international internship program IE3, which has sent interns to the Cook Islands clinic since IE3’s inception in 1996.
Fred Lang, MBA ’72, was elected to the grade of fellow in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in recognition of his exceptional engineering achievements.
Dave Donley ’76 retired from service with the State of Alaska after sixteen years as a representative and senator in the Alaska legislature, and five years with the Division of Workers’ Compensation. At the UO, Donley was a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity, the UO debate team, and the Incidental Fee Committee. He and his wife Jamie recently had twins—a boy and a girl—and live in Anchorage.
It’s a year of milestones for John Cremer ’80: This year he will celebrate thirty years as a working film and video producer, twenty-five years of happily married life with Anne Batmale, and fifteen years with the State of California, where he is the director of video services for the State Compensation Insurance Fund (worker’s compensation). He says: “I love my wife, my family, and on one or two days a month, I love my job. Life is good.”
Laurie Childers, MFA ’81, lives in Corvallis with her professor husband and two teenage children. She teaches ceramics, organizes monthly benefit concerts, and writes and performs music. She recently collaborated on a music video that has been translated into the Farsi language. View “Singing Freedom with Iran” online at youtube.com/watch?v=Peosyo_F2tI.
Lezlie Botkin, MA ’85, earned her PhD in musicology from the University of Colorado at Boulder in spring 2010. Her dissertation is titled, Jerome Kern’s Musical Style from Oh, Boy! (1917) to Show Boat (1927): An Analysis of Musical and Integrative Techniques.
Jim Marr ’86 and his wife, Rhona Hamilton Marr, welcomed their first child, Davis James Marr, in August 2008. The family lives in Portland
John Ramirez ’86 is the director of the Environmental Health Bureau for the Monterey County Health Department in Salinas, California. Ramirez is responsible for administering public health and safety programs for thirteen cities and communities in the unincorporated county.
Elisabeth S. Gray ’93 has joined the law firm of Middleton Reutlinger in Louisville, Kentucky. She has developed a practice in cyberlitigation (involving use of computers, e-mail, or the Internet) and other matters relating to e-discovery issues.
Teresa F. Kellim ’93 has earned her Oregon state license to practice architecture. Kellim is area manager of CSHQA’s satellite office in Roseburg. She is a member of numerous architectural associations. Her professional focus is health care as well as public and private sector commercial projects.
Julie Sparlin ’94 recently completed a residency in anesthesiology at the University of Buffalo, and has been selected for a fellowship in pain management.
Matthew Henry ’95 has just completed a doctor of ministry degree from Drew University, Madison, New Jersey. His dissertation research was based on a psycho-spiritual process that makes use of six diagnostic assessments to ascertain relative health of intercongregational relationships. He currently pastors the Canyonville and Myrtle Creek United Methodist churches in southern Oregon.
Brett Campbell, MS ’96, has been awarded the 2010 European Union-Northwest Journalist Fellowship by the University of Washington, which will send him to Brussels and Amsterdam to report on cooperation between European cities and Portland in urban planning.
Lenore M. Hanisch ’96 is a board member and coexecutive director of the Seattle-based Quixote Foundation, a progressive nonprofit organization that supports environmental equity as well as reproductive rights, election integrity, and media reform. She is actively promoting the group’s philanthropic “spend up” effort. Details: www.quixotefoundation.org.
Adrienne Mitchell ’97, MA ’00, MEd ’02, began her translation of Rosa Montero’s novel Beautiful and Dark as a graduate student in Romance languages at the UO—the translation was recently published by Aunt Lute Books.
Donovan Pacholl ’97 owns Embark Adventures, an adventure travel company that focuses on safaris, treks, and expeditions in the remote corners of the world.
Jenel Stelton-Holtmeier ’98 is associate editor of Modern Distribution Management, a specialized business newsletter for wholesale distribution executives. She was recently awarded first place in analytical reporting at the Specialized Information Publishers Foundation 2010 Editorial and Marketing Awards. She and her husband, Matthew, live in Boulder, Colorado.
Lorena Turner ’98, MFA ’99, teaches photojournalism at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Her series “New Americans”—portraits of new U.S. citizens taken at naturalization ceremonies in 2009—was exhibited at Sylvia White Gallery in Ventura, California, in July.
P. Thomas Pinit, MS ’99, his wife, Kirstin, and their son, Casey, recently welcomed a second child, Griffin Sati Pinit, into the world. The Pinits live in Portland.
Autumn DePoe ’02 married Neil Hughes of Cleethorpes, England, in May in Nagoya, Japan, where the couple resides. DePoe is the official voice of the ceiling in Tufco Industrial Flooring’s advertisements (www.tufcoindustrial.com/index.php) and has starred in a number of English theater and video productions in Japan.
Retail outlet A Trade for a Trade was started by Johnathan Shaw ’05 and his wife, Kendra, in January 2010. They sell eco-friendly, handmade, recycled, and fair-trade products from around the world to help preserve culturally unique crafts in countries like India, Japan, and Nepal.
Aaron Rathbone ’06 relocated to Orange County, California, to pursue his lifelong dream of designing clothes for the surf industry. For two years, he has worked for leading wetsuit manufacturer O’Neill Clothing, and he loves every minute of it!
Eric T. Cook ’07 is the human resources director at the law firm of Stahancyk, Kent, Johnson & Hook in Portland. He enjoys scuba diving and water polo, and is actively involved with left-handed advocacy and interest groups.
Erik R. Noren ’07 received his MS in physiology and biophysics from Georgetown University in 2009. He is working with the Nike Sports Research Laboratory and will begin medical school in fall 2010.
Alice Wedemeyer Sedgwick ’34 died last February in Portland; she was ninety-eight. She was a member of the Alpha Phi sorority and the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. She spent several years in Europe serving in American embassy positions and returned to Portland in 1943, where she met and married her husband, Jack. The couple formed a family property investment business, raised three children, and lived and worked in The Dalles and Portland throughout their marriage.
Billie Hammett Robertson ’36 died in December 2009 at age ninety-five. At the UO, she was a Pi Beta Phi and later worked for ten years in the UO’s Office of the Dean of Students until she retired. She took up golf at age sixty-five and played until she was in her eighties. She was a lifelong fan of Duck football and basketball.
Jay B. Stott ’41 died in May 2009 at age ninety. After graduating from the UO, he served with a reconnaissance squadron in the U.S. Army Air Corps. After the war, he founded Jay B. Stott Outdoor Advertising in Chico, California, which he operated until his retirement in 1991. He learned to snow ski and play tennis while in his fifties, and played the golf course at St. Andrews, Scotland, on his seventy-seventh birthday.
Edward Sargent Jackson ’50, MS ’55, died in May in Napa, California, at the age of eighty-four. He enjoyed a lifelong career as a teacher and librarian, and served in the U.S. Army from 1946 to 1947.
Fitzhugh “Fitz” Brewer ’53 died of cancer in October 2009 at the age of seventy-eight. Brewer was a star defensive end for the Medford High School Black Tornado and also played football at the UO. Brewer was vice president and a partner in an investment firm that eventually became Umpqua Investments. He was very loyal to the Medford community, assisting with fundraising efforts for local sports programs in the schools. He also loved the UO, served on the UO Foundation Board of Trustees, and was an avid supporter of the Duck’s sports teams. In 1985, he founded an annual golf tournament at Rogue Valley Country Club to benefit the Oregon Club of Southern Oregon, which he also founded. The tournament has been renamed in his honor: The Fitz Brewer Duffin’ Fore the Ducks Tournament, which has funded an athletic scholarship endowment.
Diana Elaine (Morrison) McCrossin ’53 died in June at her home in Berkeley, Califonia; she was seventy-eight. Diana married Clifford Wayne McCrossin ’51 in 1953. She worked in the bookstores at Diablo Valley College and Contra Costa College. After her retirement, she worked as a book buyer. She and Clifford moved to Berkeley in 1977 and enjoyed watching the Ducks and the Bears games. Clifford preceded her in death in 1993.
William C. Cheesman ’55, MS ’57, died in February. He was a retired mining engineer and geologist, and had lived and worked in many remote locations including Jamaica, Africa, and Greece. Cheesman was a World War II veteran and served as a Navy submarine radio man. Before his death, he acknowledged UO professors Lloyd Staples and Ewart Baldwin for their support during his academic years
Alejandro Sroka Garza (Alex Sroka) ’99 died in a car accident in May. He was born in Mexico City and grew up in San Diego, but most recently lived in Pennsylvania, where he worked in sports marketing and television advertising. Alex was a member of the Philadelphia Ad Club, and supported the Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. He was an avid surfer and soccer fan, and deeply enjoyed spending time with his family and friends.
Nan Gray Hawke (Lester) ’03, MS ’05 died in Virginia on May 6. She was an advocate, organizer, and educator who focused on Asperger syndrome. She was the founder of the Asperger Advocacy Coalition and Asperger Counseling Northwest.
John E. de Jung died in April at age eighty-six. He joined the UO education faculty in 1963, conducting research on topics including high school absenteeism and drop-out rates. He was a Fulbright scholar who worked in American Samoa, Sri Lanka, and Guam. Following retirement, he was named professor emeritus.
Former UO wrestling coach Art Keith, PhD ’67, died in May at his home in Fairmont Hot Springs, British Columbia. He was seventy-six years old. Keith spent most of his life in the Pacific Northwest and attended high school in Canby, where he won three state wrestling titles. He coached at several Oregon high schools then attended the UO for his doctorate, simultaneously serving as the head coach for the Ducks’ wrestling program. He authored four books on wrestling, and in 1997, Keith was honored by the Oregon Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame with its Lifetime Service to Wrestling award.
Adell McMillan MS ’63, age seventy-six, died in May of a stroke. In 1955 she became program director at the Erb Memorial Union and was named EMU director in 1975. She served in that position until retiring in 1991, and was thereafter named director emerita. The EMU’s Adell McMillian Gallery honors her for her many years of service.
Peggy Pascoe, fifty-five, died July 23 of ovarian cancer. Pascoe, who came to the UO in 1996, was Beekman Professor of Northwest and Pacific History and professor of ethnic studies. Her research and teaching focused on the history of race, gender, and sexuality, with particular emphasis on law and the history of the American West. Pascoe’s most recent book, What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America (Oxford University Press, 2009), won five major awards from professional organizations. She was named a recipient of the UO’s 2009 Martin Luther King Jr. Award for her contributions to diversity and equity efforts in the University community. The Peggy Pascoe Graduate Student Fund in History has been established with the UO Foundation.
Decades
Reports from previous Autumn issues of Old Oregon and Oregon Quarterly
1930 New students arriving on campus for University Week go through the induction process, which includes a thorough physical and medical exam, a lecture by Dean James Gilbert ’03 on “Habits of Study and Scholarship,” a psychological test to help predict collegiate success, discussion of vocational objectives with an advisor, and registration at Mac Court, all capped by the Saturday night banquet where all freshmen hear the University president deliver a keynote address.
1940 The tense global political situation is in the air: UO faculty members unanimously pass a resolution “to hold ourselves in readiness to serve the State and the Nation in the cause of national defense,” while in “A Far East Report,” Old Oregon correspondent Yosuke Matsuoka ’00 writes from Tokyo that Japan’s current military and political activities are aimed at creating “a new order of peace and life for all people in the Far East.”
1950 A record 100 foreign students arrive on campus for fall term, a total that ranks the UO first among major American universities in ratio of foreign students to total enrollment.
1960 The upcoming football season is a subject of much campus discussion and concern—not helped by a widely circulated photo showing head football coach Len Casanova nervously puffing a cigarette.
1970 With the current popularity of long hair for men, barbers are in less demand than they were in the days of more closely cropped styles. Consequently, half the student union barbershop is being converted into office space.
1980 Fifty pieces from of the UO Museum of Art’s permanent collection travel for exhibition at the Portland Art Museum in a show titled A Glimpse of Grandeur of the Manchu Court.
1990 “Dorm food,” the bland object of much spicy derision, isn’t what it used to be—at least at the UO—where the 1.4 million meals served annually now include salad bars, low-calorie and low-salt options, and even a fast-food takeout service (“Hammy’s”) for on-the-go students—all at an average meal cost of $1.73.
2000 The UO Alumni Association approves $250,000 to establish a UO Presidential Scholarship endowment to help attract and support fifty of the state’s brightest high school students each year.
