INDICATES UOAA MEMBER
1940s
Jacqueline (Burdick) Duffy ’44 wrote in to answer our call for 1940s grads. She is still alive and well in paradise, she writes, living in sunny Sarasota, Florida.
Donald Shaffer ’48, a member of Sigma Nu fraternity, married a Chi Omega, Elaine Taylor ’47, sixty-one years ago. Congratulations!
Frank K. Walsh ’51, M. Ed. ’65, is a member of an advisory team working to reestablish the Sawmill Tribal Trail, a historic trail between North Bend and the Empire district of Coos Bay, which was originally used by Coos Indians and then workers at the Asa Simpson Sawmill and Shipyard in North Bend.
Oregon Coast Council for the Arts named John H. Baker ’56, M.F.A. ’66, the 2009 Community Legend. Baker, a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity, and his wife, Carol, raised three children, Gordon, Larry, and Ellen Franklin ’07 in Lincoln City.
Alan C. Brunk ’59, a painter, and his wife Jane, a quilter, own the Twosome Art Studio in Toutle, Washington, a stop on the ARTrails of Southwest Washington tour.
Martin Scheffer ’61, M.S. ’63, has published In Post-Communist Worlds: Living and Teaching in Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan (iUniverse 2009) about his four-year, four-country experience as a visiting professor in the former Soviet Union. Scheffer and his wife, Judy, enjoy an active retirement split between travel, gardening, and grandchildren at their home in Nampa, Idaho.
Alaby Blivet ’63 and wife Sara Lee Cake ’45 recently traveled to Ukiah, California, to compete in the eighth annual ukiaHaiku festival. “ukiaHaiku?” said Blivet. “Weird, spell it backwards . . . it’s still . . . ,” he paused, meditatively stroking his wispy beard, “ukiaHaiku.”
“Sisters Rodeo,” a painting by Joe M. Fischer, M.F.A. ’63, was acquired by John Laevitt, past president of the Sisters Rodeo Association.
Terry Melton, M.F.A. ’64, reports that, unlike Joe M. Fischer, M.F.A. ’63, he has sold nary a painting this quarter.
Holistic health pioneer Mahima R. Kundu, M. Ed. ’66, Ph. D. ’67, retired to a career as a consultant and lecturer in yoga science, holistic heath, and life management. Kundu is a frequent guest lecturer on cruise ships.
Margie McBride Lehrman ’66, a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, won an Emmy as part of the NBC news team selected for its 2008 election-night coverage. After thirty years at NBC, Lehrman retired in June.
CLASS NOTABLE
Happy 105th Birthday! In November, Flavia Marie (Ritter) Sherwood ’27 celebrated her 105th birthday. A music major in the days of the lindy hop, she still loves music, dancing, NASCAR racing, and reading OQ.
James Kelley ’70, M.Ed. ’71, wrote Cyclotron Factor (Bluewater Press, 2009), a preteen novel about Buddy Alexander, who visits a government-run particle accelerator where he gains the capacity to travel backward and forward in time, leading to many crazy adventures as he learns to use and misuse this ability.
The Gaian Odes (Evening Street Press, 2009), the fourth book of poems by Howard W. Robertson ’70, M.A. ’78, won the Sinclair Prize for Poetry.
Philip (“Mike”) Reilly ’71, a former Bowerman runner, writes in to report that his son, Mike, directed the dramatic film Road to Victory, which deals with concussions and the allegations of steroid abuse in college football.
Marel (Pander-Lynch) Kalyn ’72, M.F.A. ’79, taught papermaking and book arts for twenty-five years before undertaking her latest adventure as a certified activities facilitator with older adults. Her two sons, artists Jacob and Arnold Pander, shot a feature film, Selfless, in Portland. The film has received several awards, and will be shown on Comcast On-Demand in 2010.
John (“Jack”) Minan, J.D. ’72, professor of law at the University of San Diego, has coauthored The Little White Book of Baseball Law (ABA, 2009), which examines the rules of the game as well as actual cases involving issues such as player free agency, fan misbehavior, new stadium construction, and ticket scalping.
David A. Sonnenfeld ’73 coedited his third book, The Ecological Modernization Reader: Environmental Reform in Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2009), a volume aimed at classroom, scholarly, and policymaking audiences. Sonnenfeld is a professor and chair of the environmental studies department at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse.
Ruth Tiger ’75 wrote The Away Place (Eloquent Books, 2009), a poignant story of a special bond between a man with Down syndrome and an idealistic doctoral student. Tiger lives with her husband, children, and grandchildren in Tacoma, Washington.
Lynne M. Webb ’75, Ph.D. ’80, a member of Delta Delta Delta sorority, is spending the spring semester 2010 as visiting professor in communication at Hong Kong Baptist University.
After careers in banking and with the Lane County government, Susan Huff ’77 has spent the past nine years merchandising with Prologix in Sacramento, California.
John Harrison, M.A. ’78, a public information officer for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in Portland, wrote A Woman Alone: Mona Bell, Sam Hill, and the Mansion on Bonneville Rock (Frank Amato Publications, 2009). Harrison and his wife, Dawn Ohrling Harrison’74, an elder-law attorney in Vancouver, raised two sons, John and Andrew.
Denyse McGriff, M.S. ’78, M.U.P. ’79, has been elected to the Board of Advisors of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. McGriff, who lives in Oregon City, will serve as advisor to the national nonprofit preservation organization for an initial three-year term.
Rosanna Bowles, M.A. ’79, has published Coming Home: A Seasonal Guide to Celebrating Family Traditions (Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 2010), which former UO president Dave Frohnmayer called “an immensely practical book with a wonderfully poetic feel.”
Rob Closs ’79 is vice president of investments with Wells Fargo Advisors in Portland. He also provides color commentary during televised Oregon Sports Network coverage of UO men’s and women’s basketball games.
Landscape architect James Peter “JP” Shadley ’83 of Shadley Associates in Lexington, Massachusetts, became a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architecture.
Annette Gurdjian ’84 won the Mayor’s Choice Award in the 2009 Mayor’s Art Show in Eugene for “Pioneer Couple,” a composition of oil and photographs on paper.
David J. Tangvald ’89, a member of Sigma Chi fraternity, is the president of the Portland Metropolitan Association of Realtors and a branch manager for Prudential Northwest Properties.
Michael Jordan ’90 is a senior vice president with the professional services firm Jones Lang LaSalle, where he heads the corporate energy and sustainability services business. Jordan and his wife Kim are raising their four sons in West Linn.
Henry A. Ebarb, J.D. ’92, earned a Ph.D. in sustainability education from Prescott College at the age of sixty-nine.
Brian Kelly ’92 has been editor of the South Whidbey Record newspaper of Whidbey Island, Washington, for five years. The paper won fifteen state awards from the Washington Newspaper Association in October.
Marcy Jean Everest, Ph.D. ’94, cowrote Commonsense Guide to Current Affairs (Pickwick Publications, 2009) with Vincent Frank Bedgone. Everest and her family live in central Florida.
Edward Sean Foxley ’94 received his Ph.D. in medical physics from the University of Chicago in 2008.
Lila Marz Harper, Ph.D. ’96, edited a Broadway edition of Edwin Abbott’s mathematical fantasy, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, originally published in 1884. (See Upfront section.)
Portland lawyer Diane Schwartz Sykes ’97 is the new leader of the Oregon Department of Justice civil rights program.
Heather Moye Schader ’98 works in public relations and marketing with the Tempe, Arizona-based Pat Tillman Foundation, which was founded in memory of Tillman, a former NFL player with the Arizona Cardinals who enlisted in the aftermath of 9/11 and was killed while serving the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. Schader has been working in marketing for almost a decade.
DUCKS AFIELD
PHOTO COURTESY KURT SAITO
Fans Across the Water Kurt Saito ’93 (second from right) and Tei Gordon ’92 (fourth from left) join Duck-crazy friends in the Roppongi district of Tokyo to celebrate Oregon’s football win over USC. Partially obscured by wires is Japan’s tallest structure, the 1,091-foot Tokyo Tower.
In Ducks Afield OQ publishes photos of graduates with UO regalia (hats, T-shirts, flags, and such) in the most distant or unlikely or exotic or lovely places imaginable. We can’t use blurry shots and only high-resolution digital files, prints, or slides will reproduce well in our pages. Send your photo along with details and your class year and degree to quarterly@uoregon.edu.
Inspired by a business class project at the UO, Matt Thomas ’02 started Townshends Tea, a tea company based in Portland.
Cassandra Manuelito-Kerkuliet, Ph.D. ’05, is president of Seattle’s Antioch University.
Jessica (Gilbert) Ryder ’06, a kindergarten teacher, married Bradley Ryder, a California Highway Patrol officer, in June 2009 at Black Butte Ranch in Sisters. The couple is making their home in San Jose, California.
Sally-Shannon Scales ’07 is the television adviser for the United States Senate office of Republican leader Senator Mitch McConnell.
Alisha Wimberly ’09 is the owner, manager, and nutritionist at KORU Health Center in Eugene.
Kenneth W. Cole ’38, a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, died at the age of ninety-three. After serving in the U.S. Army as a first lieutenant during World War II, Cole worked as both a certified public accountant and a member of the Oregon State Bar.
Barbara Lois (Ketchum) Proebstel ’38, a member of Alpha Omicron Pi sorority, died at age ninety-two. Ketchum married Richard D. Proebstel and later became an active Cub Scout den mother with their son John’s group. After her husband died in 1960, Ketchum Proebstel worked for nearly a decade as an elementary school librarian. She enjoyed spending time with her family as well as playing bridge.
Charles “Chuck” Anderson ’47, a member of Kappa Sigma, died from postpolio syndrome at the age of eighty-five. Anderson served in World War II on a submarine chaser and later served as the executive officer on the USS Pinola during the Korean War. Anderson moved to Olympia, Washington, where he began a successful career in real estate. Later, he started Charles Anderson and Associates, a real estate appraisal company. Nicknamed “Skipper,” he enjoyed sharing his passion for boating and his intimate knowledge of the local waters, gained over a lifetime of cruising from Puget Sound to Alaska.
Eugene native Roy Lincoln Smith ’50 died recently from heart disease. After serving in the U.S. Army Signal corps during World War II, he married Louise Rickabaugh ’45 and had a twenty-five-year career with Gerber Products Company in Eugene. Smith was a member of Toastmasters International and Trinity United Methodist Church. He was a devoted member of the Emerald Empire Gun Club and held a national record in cast-bullet shooting.
Edward Ragozzino ’53, M.A. ’57, died January 30 of cancer at age seventy-nine. A Navy veteran who served in the Korean War, Ragozzino taught theater at South Eugene High School for twelve years. A national television and radio voice-over talent, he was the founder and head of the performing arts department at Lane Community College for nearly two decades and founder, director, and producer of the Eugene Festival of Musical Theater.
Albert A. Cohen ’56, a member of Phi Kappa Psi, died at the age of seventy-four. He worked for Alaskan Copper and Brass in Seattle for more than twenty years, selling stainless steel pipe and fittings until retirement in 2000. He is survived by his wife, Judy (Johnson) Cohen ’59, a member of Delta Gamma, a son, and two grandsons.
Cornelia Fogle ’58, formerly of Springfield, died at home in Ashland at the age of seventy-three due to Lou Gehrig’s disease. While attending the University, Fogle worked as the features editor at the Oregon Daily Emerald. For almost thirty-five years, Fogle worked with Lane Publishing Company and Sunset magazine in Menlo Park, California. Since retiring in 1995, Fogle immersed herself in her passions: gardening, cooking, and travel.
Patricia A. Rogers, M.A. ’63, former associate director for the Department of Physical Education, Athletics, and Recreation at the State University of New York, Albany, died in August.
Bruce H. Clark ’67 died at age sixty-three due to prostate cancer. Clark was a real estate investor and a lover of the arts. In 1979, he set up an endowment fund for the Eugene Symphony that has grown to more than $2 million today.
Poet and Boise State University professor Anthony Thomas Trusky ’67 died at age sixty-five. Trusky’s four decades of service at BSU included founding and editing cold-drill magazine, the university’s award-winning literary publication, from 1974 until 1995 and directing the Idaho Film Collection and the Idaho Center for the Book. One of his many lasting legacies was initiating the BSU master’s program in creative writing in 1998. Students and colleagues alike remember Trusky for the outstanding energy and creativity that he exuded and inspired in others.
Isabelle C. Littman, Ph.D. ’71, child and educational psychologist, died at the age of eighty-nine in November. Littman worked at Eugene’s Pearl Buck Center, where she established and ran a preschool program for children with special needs. She was active in political, professional, and community groups devoted to improving the lives of young people, inside and outside of educational institutions.
Patricia Mulder ’72, M.A. ’74, former executive director of the Corvallis Chamber of Commerce, died at age sixty-two. She was active with the First Presbyterian Church in Corvallis, where she was the administrator in charge of building and finances.
Ronald Meade ’76, M.S. ’77, died in March 2009 of colon cancer at the age of fifty-four. Meade worked in the financial industry in Portland, where he lived with his partner of eighteen years.
Eva Balderree, M.Ed. ’54, D.Ed. ’70, a member of Alpha Chi Omega sorority, died in Medford last May. Balderree was a clinical psychologist for Eugene public schools and later worked as a professor of special education at the UO. She loved to travel and took several trips around the world. She especially liked visiting Jagodnaja Poljana, Russia—the home of her ancestors.
Vernon Barkhurst ’49, M.A. ’51, former director of admissions and associate dean of students, died at age eighty-seven. After serving in the South Pacific during World War II, Barkhurst was awarded the Purple Heart. He was active in the UO and local community—among his many connections he served as a lane judge for the Oregon Track Club for more than thirty years and was a docent at the Museum of Natural and Cultural History.
Jane Marie DeGidio, M.S. ’74, Ph.D. ’80, a longtime UO faculty member, died at age sixty-three due to complications from breast cancer. DeGidio began her tenure at the UO as a counselor and later held positions that included dean of students, director of the office of student retention programs, and associate vice president for student academic affairs.
Former philosophy department chair Frank B. Ebersole died at age ninety. His philosophical views were unique and continue to provoke interest today. In addition to publishing three collections of philosophical essays, Ebersole was a poet, photographer, and bird expert.
Thomas R. Hart, UO professor emeritus of Romance languages, died in January after a short illness. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Navy. Hart had a productive academic career of more than fifty-five years, beginning his work at the UO in 1964 and retiring in 1990. In a long association with the journal Comparative Literature, he served as assistant editor, editor (1972–1995), and editor emeritus.
Longtime business professor Catherine M. Jones ’45 died at age ninety-five. She was a passionate Ducks fan, an avid hiker, and a lifelong traveler. Jones was active in the Eugene community for many years, delivering for Meals on Wheels and working at the Fish food cupboard. In addition to her involvement with the First United Methodist Church of Eugene, Jones was also a member of the Obsidians hiking club and the Mount Pisgah Arboretum.
Emeritus professor of journalism and communications Roy Paul Nelson ’47, M.S. ’55, died in January at his home in Durham at age eighty-six. He worked as an advertising copywriter, a reporter for United Press, and the assistant editorial director and district manager for American Forest Products Industries before returning to the UO to earn a master’s degree. He was one of the nation’s leading authorities on design, layout, and magazines, having published more than twenty books and written a monthly column on design for Communication World magazine for twenty-five years.
Decades
Reports from previous Spring issues of Old Oregon and Oregon Quarterly
1920 The Oregon-Harvard Rose Bowl game draws every alumnus who is “fortunate enough to be living in California, or had suddenly been called south on business,” according to Old Oregon. Among the cheering throng is Judge R. S. Bean ’78 of Portland, head of the Oregon Board of Regents and member of the UO’s first graduating class.
1930 Geology department head Warren Smith is hard at work on a “geological motorlogue” highlighting the state’s roadside points of geological interest, to be printed in a magazine of Oregon automobile enthusiasts.
1940 Tickets are available for five conference basketball games to be played at Mac Court: general admission, $0.55; reserved seats, $0.85.
1950 The Oregon Alumni office is now one of the best equipped in the country with the recent addition of an automatic envelope feeding machine capable of addressing more than 300 envelopes per hour.
1960 Some campus fads seem to run in cycles; the latest fad is cycles, bicycles, that is—crowds of bicycles, rolling around campus, causing pedestrians to keep a wary eye out for what might be silently approaching.
1970 With Earth Day preparations in full swing, ecology is the talk of campus, and the consensus among activists and professors is that all problems—air and water pollution, depleted agricultural soils, overcrowded cities—stem from a single cause: overpopulation.
1980 Repercussions continue even years after the end of the Vietnam War as University Veterans members seek to raise consciousness about war, Agent Orange, the draft, and militarism; volunteer for local social service activities; participate in therapeutic “rap sessions”; and host conferences.
1990 Eugene’s live music scene is hopping—some bands that have recently played on or near campus: Badass Daddies, The Blubinos, Chemakill, Crawdadz of Pure Love, Dogwater, The Falling Spikes, RawheadRex, Small and Strange, Sugar Boom, and Sweaty Nipples.
2000 While we somehow dodged the impending techno-apocalypse that was Y2K, not all fears have abated: according to Daniel Wojcik, UO associate professor of English and folklore and author of The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America, “About 20 percent of Americans really think the world will end in their lifetimes.”
