magazine.pacificu.edu/pacificu.edumagazine
pacific THE MAGAZINE OF PACIFIC UNIVERSITY OREGON
COLLEGE OF OPTOMETRY
College Leaders Saw A Path To The Future
PACIFIC IN A PANDEMIC OUTSTANDING ALUMNI Fall 2020 5 Students continue learning amid changes 21 Alumni award recipients represent the best HOMECOMING 2020
Join us for a reimagined Homecoming Oct. 9–10, 2020. Stock up on your favorite food and beverages, make sure to wear your Boxer gear, and take a virtual tour of campus before connecting at virtual events designed to support lifelong learning and connection. } pacificu.edu/homecoming
SCHEDULE FRIDAY, OCT. 9 11 a.m. – noon HST • 2–3 p.m. PDT • 5–6 p.m. EDT Alumni Book Club 2–3 p.m. HST • 5–6 p.m. PDT • 8–9 p.m. EDT The Alumni Book Club will read and discuss the 2020 First Welcome & Alumni Association Highlights Year Seminar selection, Make Your Home Among Strangers, The Alumni Association Board of Representatives will a novel by Jennine Capó Crucet. present a look back at the last year, including an update on who we are, where we are and what we have studied, Noon – 12:30 p.m. HST • 3–3:30 p.m. PDT • 6–6:30 p.m. EDT along with a snapshot of Alumni Association goals for Student Life in the Time of Hashtags, the coming year. Protests & Coronavirus Much like their predecessors in the early 1970s, students SATURDAY, OCT. 10 today focus on academics, athletics and social interactions. 7–8 a.m. HST • 10–11 a.m. PDT • 1–2 p.m. EDT Students today also learn and grow in a climate fraught Alumni Forum with President Hallick with divisive struggles, just like those who attended college President Hallick will present a State of the University 50 years ago. But this year they are doing it all with face tailored just for alumni in this adapted version of her masks and social distancing. Join representatives from the undergraduate student government, who will share an annual breakfast forum. Guests will have the opportunity account of what life is like on a college campus in 2020. to ask about the present and future of Pacific University.
8–9 a.m. HST • 11 a.m. – Noon PDT • 2–3 p.m. EDT 1–2:30 p.m. HST • 4–5:30 p.m. PDT • 7–8:30 p.m. EDT Class of 1965 Happy Hour — Pacific & ‘60s Trivia Study & Sip — For Keeps Get your favorite beverage ready and prepare for a heavy Our host Rachael Woody ’05 is an independently dose of nostalgia. Cam Perry ’65 will host this special 55th employed consultant for archives, museums and heritage reunion and lead guests in a game of trivia designed just for organizations. During Study & Sip, Rachael will use insights alumni who appreciated mid-century modern furniture, bell- from the world of historical museum archiving to walk bottoms and the Fab Four the first time guests through the process of deciding which personal they were popular. items should be kept for posterity. She will help answer the question, “are we tossing too much out or keeping 1–2:30 p.m. HST • 4–5:30 p.m. PDT • 7–8:30 p.m. EDT too many things?” She will also aid guests in processing Class of 1970 Happy Hour how to keep heirlooms for our families and how to come Members of the Class of 1970 are invited to gather online to to terms with the mementos we leave behind. view a slideshow designed to spark great college memories, followed by a chance to visit as a group. We look forward to 9–10 a.m. HST • noon – 1 p.m. PDT • 3–4 p.m. EDT an in-person celebration and Golden Guard induction when Athletics Hour with Keith Buckley circumstances allow. Athletic Director Keith Buckley will present the latest information on Boxer sports. NUTS & BOLTS 10–11 a.m. HST • 1–2 p.m. PDT • 4–5 p.m. EDT There is no charge for participation in virtual Back to Class with Professor Jim Moore Homecoming events. All events will be offered With just three weeks to election day, our very own via a secure Zoom channel. Advance registration is political pundit, Jim Moore, will present a lecture titled, required. Registered guests will receive Zoom links “The 2020 Election: Three weeks before Election Day, can and additional details the week of Homecoming 2020.
we do better at predicting than in 2016?” } pacificu.edu/homecoming 1
Letter From The President
Seventy-five years ago, in the midst of World War II, Pacific University was struggling. Enrollment had plummeted with young men enlisted in the war effort, and with it had gone stability and security. Even as potential students returned home, it was hard to imagine how Pacific would take its next steps forward. But the university persevered, taking advantage of an opportunity to bring on a local optometry school and launch its first graduate degree. It was a strategic risk — attempting growth in a time of uncertainty, investing in a new kind of education after nearly 100 years of focus on the liberal arts. It paid off. Today, as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the College of Optometry, the foray into health professions and graduate programs seems portentous. Pacific has become heralded for its unique blend of undergraduate, graduate and professional pathways for students, as well as its diversity of healthcare expertise and service. The College of Optometry has extended the university’s reputation and reach internationally. Faculty and alumni have earned distinction as leaders in the profession in every state. In 2018, Pacific was named the National Optometric Association’s School of the Year. It is an interesting moment to look back on our history. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are again at a moment of uncertainty. We have all had to explore new ways of working, teaching, learning and living. Here at Pacific, that has meant temporarily shifting to more online delivery of courses, re-examining day-to-day business practices, and creating new support systems for our students and alumni, employees and communities — often at a distance. I believe we will, again, persevere. This fall, despite so many changes to campus life and the world around us, most of our students returned — eager to continue to pursue the opportunities that a Pacific education affords. Our faculty and staff stepped up to transform learning environments and find creative ways to continue to forge the personal, nurturing relationships that are core to our mission. Our alumni and friends committed to supporting students through hardship with more than $136,000 in donations to the Student Emergency Fund. The challenges are not behind us. We continue to need to adapt and innovate — and we will. We continue to need to support our students and our Boxer family through circumstances beyond any of our control — and we will. But we must also continue to build on our foundations and our successes, because Pacific is committed to helping create a brighter future — and we will.
Lesley M. Hallick, President [email protected] 2 Extras Contents VISIT US ONLINE A thread that ties together several generations of Pacific optometric care is the Carkner family. It started with Clarence “Clary” Carkner ’41, who, along with Newton Wesley ’39, Hon. ’86 and Roy Clunes ’39 owned the charter for the North Pacific College of Optometry. Julian Bunch ‘21 observes new guidelines as he prepares READ MORE | Carkners’ contributions for his senior year on Pacific } pacificu.edu/magazine University’s Forest Grove Willard “Wid” Bleything ‘51, Campus on Aug. 19, 2020. OD ‘52, MS ‘54 was dean of the College of Optometry and a pioneer in establishing new clinical experiences NEWS & COMMUNITY for students and international Pacific Rises To Meet The Pandemic...... 5 partnerships that continue today. In a Pacific has made numerous adjustments to welcome 2016 interview, he told us some stories students back to campus during the novel coronavirus about the development of the College pandemic. It’s a new school year like none in living memory. of Optometry. LISTEN | Wid Bleything oral history Line Up ...... 6 } pacificu.edu/magazine The news in Boxer Athletics is all off the field. The Northwest Conference, to which Pacific belongs, has Pacific provides a range of canceled all sporting competitions until at least Jan. 1. healthcare services to its student- athletes, from optometric screenings to Briefly Noted...... 6-7 injury rehabilitation. LEARN MORE | Caring for student-athletes Honors & Awards ...... 7 } pacificu.edu/AthleteCare
See the College of Optometry’s Class Notes ...... 25 EyeVan in action Online } pacificu.edu/KeepInTouch WATCH | The EyeVan serve the community Email } [email protected] } pacificu.edu/EyeVan In Memoriam ...... 31
Pacific Gear! Boxer spirit products Editor’s note: This issue of Pacific magazine was scheduled to go are now just a few clicks away. to press in May 2020, but the pandemic forced a change of plans. BUY | Find Pacific gear here As a result, many of the class notes and in memoriam published
} pacificu.edu/PacificGear in this issue were submitted as long ago as the fall of 2019.
Virtual Events | DETAILS & REGISTRATION INFORMATION } pacificu.edu/AlumniEvents
SEPTEMBER NOVEMBER 19 College of Optometry 12 Alumni Remembrance Ceremony } Class of 1995 Virtual Reunion 14 Alumni & Faculty Authors Series 19 Athletics Hour } Featuring Tim Tran ’74 } with Athletic Director Keith Buckley 14 Athletics Hour 26 Alumni Writers Group } with Athletic Director Keith Buckley } Online. Register today! DECEMBER OCTOBER 12 Study & Sip 9-11 Virtual Homecoming } The Beatles } pacificu.edu/homecoming pacificu.edu/magazine 3
FEATURES 8 How Optometry Came To Pacific...... 8 The optometry program launched at Pacific in 1945 as a result of a combination of postwar challenges and unexpected opportunities. The needs of a small, temporarily shuttered optometry college in Northeast Portland helped meet the demands of a university that had limped through the war years. The outcome was the beginning of Pacific’s focus on the health professions.
He Was Driven Away, But Wesley Stuck With Pacific...... 10 The remarkable Newton Wesley ’39, Hon. ’86, born Newton Uyesugi to immigrant parents, was a founding father of the College of Optometry. Forced from his home by Japanese-American internment policy during World War II, Wesley nevertheless laid the foundation for the College of 12 Optometry and became a giant in the field of contact lenses.
Pacific Optometry: The Years We Made Contacts...... 12 The earliest contact lenses were made of glass and could be worn only for a few hours at a time. Today’s contact lenses are engineering marvels, and Pacific’s College of Optometry is at the vanguard of contact lens research and design.
Taking It To The Streets: Vision Care On The Move...... 14 Pacific has built on a tradition of taking eye care to the community, where students and faculty provide real-world vision screening and treatment to underserved members of the community. The most visible symbol of this outreach is the Pacific EyeVan, an advanced mobile clinic that sees patients in church parking lots, migrant camps and schools. 14 Pediatric Eye Care Leads To Early Intervention For Children.... 16 When it comes to detecting problems with vision, it pays to start early, before brains are hardwired. In InfantSEE, a public health program in which Pacific participates, the patients may be as young as 6 months old.
Eating For Eye Health...... 17 Sandra (Coutts) Young ‘82, OD ‘84 created a business called Visionary Kitchen, which connects nutrition with eye health. She is the author of Visionary Kitchen: A Cookbook for Eye Health.
Sports Vision Puts Focus on the Field...... 18 Within the field of optometry, sports vision has emerged as a fast-moving | DETAILS & REGISTRATION INFORMATION } pacificu.edu/AlumniEvents specialty. And within sports vision, Pacific is a leader. 17 Eye Care Offers A Window To Athletes’ Concussions...... 19 DeAnn Fitzgerald ’81, OD ’84 of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has become well known for her focus on using optometry as a way to manage athletes’ concussions. She has developed protocols for young athletes who suffer head injuries, and her work has been widely shared and emulated around the country.
Alumni Awards...... 21 Selected by their peers, this year’s alumni award winners include Dennis Carline ’79, MST ’88; Breanne McGhee OD ’16, MEd ’16, PhDEL ’21; Matthew Meyer ’75; and Scott Pike ’68, OD ’70. 4
PACIFIC UNIVERSITY STUDENT EMERGENCY FUND
IN THE WAKE OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC, Pacific University students are struggling. For many, stay-home orders have resulted in lost jobs, unexpected moves, and changes to family finances. Since March, more than 250 Pacific University students have applied for emergency assistance to help with rent, food, utilities, medical costs, and childcare. And the Pacific community has stepped up. Your generosity — coupled with reallocation of student activity funds — has provided more than $136,000 for the Pacific University Student Emergency Fund. But the challenge isn’t behind us. While students have already received that money, there are at least $50,000 worth of needs remaining — and the impact of this pandemic is far from over. Every gift to the Pacific University Student Emergency Fund goes to a student in need. Your support helps our students not only make ends meet, but also stay in school and continue on their pathway to careers in education, healthcare, and community leadership. ■ MAKE A GIFT TO THE STUDENT EMERGENCY FUND TODAY
pacificu.edu/StudentEmergencyFund
As president of the Undergraduate Student Senate, Fernando Lira ’21 helped lead the reallocation of student activity dollars to the Student Emergency Fund. He didn’t imagine he would actually need help himself. In April, he moved home to Brookings, Ore., to continue his finance and marketing studies online and help in his family’s Mexican restaurant. Stay-at- home orders hit the family business hard, and Lira found himself applying for an emergency grant to help pay bills and buy food. “I don’t really need much. I just want to be able to help my family,” Lira said. “It was ROBBIE BOURLAND extremely awesome.” 5
News & Notes
Pacific Rises To Meet The Pandemic ROBBIE BOURLAND When Savannah Tran PA ‘22 started her spaces with lots of cleaning, physical studies in Pacific University’s physician distancing and other precautions. assistant program back in May, it was “Being on campus has definitely under unusual circumstances, to say been a unique experience,” Tran the least. said. “The students are spaced six In mid-March, the university had feet apart from each other in the quickly moved all courses online due classroom, and there are arrows on to the COVID-19 pandemic. For most the floor throughout the building to of Pacific’s students, that meant about direct foot traffic into, around, and six weeks of online courses to finish up out of the building. Once we have the academic year. completed our classes for the day, we use the provided cleaning supplies But some of Pacific’s graduate programs to wipe down our workspaces and run year-round — and brand new follow the taped arrows to exit the PA students were set to begin their classroom and building.” program in May, just as other students were wrapping up for the summer. And yet, the vast majority of students have chosen to return “Our cohort started all online back in to school in person, eager to May, so we have not been able to face the modifications in order physically meet each other or be in the to keep moving forward same classroom together since starting toward their goals — which our program,” Tran said. for Tran means preparing to Gradually over the summer, some help fight the disease that health professions programs has so changed her world. resumed limited in-person activities “Continuing my education — specifically those clinical skills that during this time means students must learn in a hands-on that I am one step closer setting to become healthcare providers. to being able to join the Now, Pacific’s campuses are opening community of healthcare back up more, though still with lots providers currently of modifications. Classes that can be working hard to care delivered effectively remotely remain for those who need online, but there are courses meeting them most during this on Pacific’s campuses — in modified pandemic.” ■ 6
Line Up
GAMES OFF THE NORTHWEST CONFERENCE HAS POSTPONED COMPETITION AND CHAMPIONSHIPS IN ALL SPORTS THROUGH JAN. 1, due to concerns about health and safety amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The NWC is working to develop a schedule for competition for these sports in the spring. At Pacific, student-athletes are focusing on their studies, as the Athletic Department prepares protocols that will allow them to begin practices and team activities. Stay on top of athletics news at goboxers.com, and watch for information about new regular virtual get-togethers with Athletic Director Keith Buckley.
WELCOME NEW & FAMILIAR FACES KEITH BUCKLEY TOOK THE REINS JULY 1 AS THE NEW DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS, succeeding the retiring Ken Schumann. Buckley joined Pacific in 2009 to lead the return of football to the Boxer roster. In 2018, he was appointed assistant athletic director, leading the department’s student-athlete success initiatives. In the wake of the transition, former Assistant Head Coach IAN FALCONER, who has been with the Boxer football program since 2010, takes NO. 2 SEED over as head coach. Pacific also is pleased BACK IN FEBRUARY, THE BOXER WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM, seeded No. 2 in the to welcome new men’s soccer coach Northwest Conference, hosted George Fox for an NWC Tournament game. It was the first BRANDON PORTER ’09 and new sports time the Boxers reached the tournament since 2009 and the first time they hosted a game information director MIKE SMITH. since 1996. The Boxers finished third in the conference after the tournament.
Briefly Noted pathways to teacher licensure at its Therapy tied for 36th out of 198 schools campuses in Forest Grove, Eugene and nationally and was the only Oregon OUTSTANDING EDUCATION | Woodburn. The Eugene Campus — also program ranked in its field. The School Pacific University’s teacher preparation home to Pacific’s master of social work of Physical Therapy ranked 71st of 239, programs have received three program — recently relocated to the or in the top third of all physical therapy commendations from Oregon’s Teacher Lane Community College campus, where programs in the country — and No. 1 Standards and Practices Commission. students now have access to a broader in Oregon. And the master of speech- The commission singled out Pacific for range of student services and more direct language pathology program was in its “real-world focused and practice- pathways from community college to the top half of the nation’s comparable based learning experiences, the work advanced degrees and career licensure. programs. U.S. News last fall ranked of its faculty data team in developing Pacific as one of the top universities teaching instruments collaboratively, and EXCELLENCE IN HEALTHCARE | U.S. in the nation, ahead of all other for “setting a high bar” for candidates News & World Report ranked three Pacific Oregon private universities. It called by requiring double the mandated University graduate programs among the out Pacific as one of the best values for minimum student-teaching time. Pacific best graduate health programs in the college education, one of the best for offers undergraduate and graduate United States. The School of Occupational veterans, and one of the top schools for pacificu.edu/magazine 7
Honors & Awards
DR. HELEN SHARP, PAUL SNELL, Politics and DEBRA GWARTNEY, MFA Pacific has welcomed several Communication Sciences Government, has emerged as Nonfiction, is an Oregon new leaders in recent months. and Disorders, was a national voice in proposing Book Award in Creative RICK KIMBROUGH is vice awarded the 2020 a civilian board of police Nonfiction finalist for president of University Distinguished Service commissioners for the City of 2020. Gwartney’s novel, I Advancement, overseeing Award for her individual Portland in the wake of the am a Stranger Here Myself, Pacific’s fundraising, marketing service to the American May 25 murder of George is a hybrid memoir-history & communications, alumni and Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Floyd. The nine-member of 19th century western community engagement, and Association. Her service commission would hire or expansion, and what it conference and event planning with the association fire police chiefs, control means to be a woman work. SCOTT KORB is director the police budget, review includes eight years on the of the West. MFA Poetry of the MFA program, where he police complaints and make has been teaching since 2013. board of directors, ACPA instructor DORIANNE discipline recommendations. NARCE RODRIGUEZ, Chief president in 2014, 11 years LAUX was selected as Fellow Politics & Government Equity, Diversity & Inclusion as the ethics and health a finalist for the 2020 Professor JULES BOYKOFF Officer, is now also the Student policy section editor of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry has been both a participant Affairs vice president. In her Cleft Palate-Craniofacial for her collection, Only and commentator on the new role, Rodriguez, who Journal, and service on 11 as the Day Is Long: New social unrest in Portland. joined Pacific in 2017, oversees committees and task forces. and Selected Poems, a “Democracy is incredibly student services including the collection of 20 odes that Pacific’s CSD program was messy,” he said in a July dean of students, the Student pay homage to Laux’s recently ranked near the interview with The Oregonian. Counseling Center, on-campus mother, an ordinary and top third in U.S. News & Boykoff also published an housing, Residential Life, extraordinary woman of World Report’s ranking interview June 25 in The Outdoor Pursuits, Accessibility the Depression era. of 2021 Best Speech- Nation with Kent Ford, & Accommodation Services, Language Pathology founder of the Black Panther and Student Support Services. Programs. Party’s Oregon Chapter.
aiding social mobility. Also this spring, part of the College of Arts & Sciences, August’s Commencement exercises GradReports, a data-driven research has consistently been one of the most- also recognized the university’s first product out of Washington, ranked pursued majors at Pacific, graduating graduating classes in the bachelor of Pacific’s dental hygiene program as between 40 and 60 students a year. applied vision science program — a No. 1 in the country based on the partnership with institutions in China program’s cost-to-student-debt ratio WELCOME NEW ALUMNI | In May and Taiwan designed to train medical and graduates’ median salaries. and August, Pacific celebrated virtual professionals in what is an emerging commencement ceremonies, marking optometry field there — and in the REVAMPING KINESIOLOGY | Pacific’s the graduation of more than 1,100 PhD in education and leadership undergraduate major in exercise new alumni. In May, about 380 program, a low-residency program to science has been renamed kinesiology, undergraduates earned bachelor advance the careers of experienced emphasizing the program’s strong degrees, while more than 440 earned teachers and administrators in focus in the natural and social sciences master’s and doctorate degrees. In education and healthcare. The virtual and aligning to a curriculum update August, about 300 students graduated commencement ceremonies are focused on making the program more from health-related fields, primarily available to watch on Pacific’s YouTube accessible to students. The program, from the College of Health Professions. channel at youtube.com/pacuniv. n 8
Advanced equipment enhances collaborative learning. Left to right: Artin Monghate ‘23, Shelby Borstmayer ‘23, Avisa Mohammad-Hassani ‘23 BY MIKE FRANCIS ROBBIE BOURLAND
How Optometry Came To Pacific
In 1945, Pacific University faced On Sept. 19, 1945, students started Optometrists suffered “constant dramatic change — and some taking the first optometry classes in attacks” by medical groups as part of momentous choices. Marsh Hall on Pacific’s Forest Grove “their efforts to eliminate Optometry Campus in what would eventually as a profession,” wrote Albert Fitch World War II had come to an end, and in his 1955 memoir My Fifty Years in a tidal wave of young people, mostly become the College of Optometry, Optometry. Fitch was among a band of men, were coming home. The promise Pacific’s first health professions program. optometrists who fought to turn back of a college education, abetted by the Optometry Practitioners an effort by organized medicine to take new G.I. Bill, beckoned. Fight Headwinds over optometry as “a minor branch of But many universities, like Pacific, In the middle of the 20th century, medical practice.” weren’t prepared to enroll all of them. optometry was still seeking acceptance A 1914 letter to “brother optometrists” Universities in the United States had as a legitimate form of healthcare. by Albert Myer, president of the struggled through the war years. At Earlier in the century, optometrists were American Optical Association, sounded Pacific, enrollment had languished. generally sneered at by the medical a call to arms. “Tell your patrons that Faculty and staff wages stagnated. establishment, which thought of them we are a body of technical experts who Building repairs were deferred. as glorified jewelers. Indeed, early are developing a very important science But opportunity was emerging. optometrists frequently operated inside — vitally important to them,” he wrote. jewelry shops, offering corrective lenses “That the proud lineage of Optometry In Northeast Portland’s Hollywood while their colleagues hawked bracelets dates back to Copernicus and Galileo, District, the North Pacific College and pendants. and must not be shackled to Medicine.” of Optometry sat shuttered after a couple of decades of operations. The owners, including Newton Willard “Wid” Bleything ’51, OD ’52, MS ’54 earned three Wesley ’39, Hon. ‘86 (Page 10), degrees from Pacific University on his way to becoming an wanted to revive it by affiliating optometrist. He served in the Air Force and Air Reserves, it with a recognized institution of retiring as a colonel, and he also worked in private practice higher learning. They offered the for many years before eventually returning to Pacific, charter, along with about $5,000 where he became the dean of the College of Optometry. worth of equipment, to Pacific. In He helped overhaul the college’s clinical experiences for exchange, Pacific would operate students and launched international partnerships that the college, which was thought continue to thrive today. In 2016, we sat down with to be able to educate from 75 to Bleything to record some of his memories. Listen to his 125 new students. stories online pacificu.edu/magazine pacificu.edu/magazine 9
The optometrists’ resistance paid off. Eyes Forward WOMEN IN OPTOMETRY The practice gained stature, and In the 75 years since the College of Men made up the bulk of the accredited schools began to emerge. Optometry opened at Pacific, the enrollment for the Pacific University Major universities like The Ohio university has not only become a College of Optometry for its first State University and the University of respected leader in research and several decades, but in the mid-1970s California-Berkeley began opening practice, producing optometrists that started to change. optometry colleges of their own. When who practice around the world, but When Kathleen S. Torrey ’74, OD ’75 Pacific University absorbed the North also in graduate and professional first enrolled in the College of Pacific School of Optometry, it was the programs from healthcare to Optometry, she was the only ninth such school in the United States. education to business. woman in her class. Another couple Part of the push for more optometry of women joined soon afterward, From its hardscrabble origins, colleges was the profession’s recognition and then the picture began to shift optometry has become a $17 billion that it needed new recruits. The Oregon in a big way. industry, according to IBIS World, a Optometrist, the publication of the By 1999, the 50th anniversary market research firm. More than Oregon Optometric Association, said of the College of Optometry, 37,000 people practice optometry in in 1945 that “optometry is losing 40 women were in the graduating the United States, earning a mean ground, there being fewer optometrists class. Today, 387 students are enrolled annual wage of about $120,000, in the programs of the College of today than they were 15 years ago.” If according to the U.S. Bureau of Optometry. Of these, 243 — nearly Pacific University could produce more Labor Statistics. two-thirds — are women. optometrists, the editors argued, the entire Northwest would benefit. Pacific’s College of Optometry Pacific’s women optometrists have has awarded more than 5,000 made a mark on the college and Yet even at Pacific, optometry wasn’t degrees, many of them doctorates in on their profession. Among them: wholeheartedly embraced. The optometry. It also counts among its Anna Berliner was an optometrist, university faculty at the time prided ranks 41 graduates from 1927 visual researcher, itself on offering a traditional liberal arts to 1944. psychologist, education and worried that by opening anthropologist and the doors to a school of optometry, Today, the college serves about sociologist who Pacific would become a trade school. 400 students, including students taught at Pacific on the doctor of optometry track, President Walter Giersbach, who had from 1949 to 1963. as well as in vision science master’s pacificu.edu/ presided over the university during the and PhD programs and in an AnnaBerliner difficult war years, lamented this attitude. emerging bachelor of applied vision He noted that the optometry school had sciences program that is providing Jenny Coyle ’90, OD ’93, MS ’00, 200 applicants, but had capped the first former College of optometry training for doctors in class at 50. Optometry Dean, China, where optometry is not yet was the first “Two hundred students could have been a distinct profession. female president brought on the campus. At $350 each, “We have a global view. We teach the of the Association for instruction alone, the income of full scope of optometry,” said Interim of Schools and the university would increase $70,000 Dean Fraser Horn ’00, OD ‘04. Pacific Colleges of per year,” he wrote in his 1945 report. also has established a strong focus on Optometry, Oregon He called for Pacific to be bolder as it vision therapy as well as a “contact Optometrist of the Year, chair of entered its second century. “We have lens team is one of the best in the the Oregon Optometric Physicians the vision of a new day in education. Association Advocacy Committee, nation, if not the world,” he said. We have the plans. We have the sturdy and one of Vision Monday’s 50 history so often coveted; what we need Optometry has become a cornerstone Most Influential Women in Optical. now are resources to make tangible the in a diverse spectrum of graduate and pacificu.edu/JennyCoyle professional programs that build on ideas and ideals which possess us.” Carol Zolkewitz Rymer OD ’92, Pacific’s liberal arts base. Students and Willard “Wid” Bleything ’51, OD ’52, now associate dean faculty collaborate closely with the MS ’54, and later dean of the College of of clinical programs College of Education, where future Optometry, praised Giersbach’s vision. in the College of optometrists can specialize in the Optometry, was “He saw the future,” Bleything said. “The impact of vision on learning, and the the first woman vision people saw its value. The English College of Health Professions, where optometrist to Literature people didn’t understand. We optometry students connect with achieve the rank of weren’t training technicians: We were other allied health professionals as full colonel in the training people who care about people.” part of a comprehensive care team. ■ U.S. Army. pacificu.edu/CarolRymer 10 BY MIKE FRANCIS photos courtesy of Roy Wesley He Was Driven Away, But Wesley Stuck With Pacific Wesley Book
On The Way Newton Wesley ’39, Hon. ‘86 never was a The three young men operated the school Newton Wesley’s student at Pacific University, nor was he a faculty until the summer of 1942, when they were biography, written by member. Yet he was one of the most remarkable forced to close. Just after the bombing of his son, Roy Wesley, figures in the history of the university’s College Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government began of Optometry. He had a transformational role will be published later interning people of Japanese descent in in its establishment and was a leader in the isolated camps, particularly along the this year by Pacific contact lens field, all at a time when he also was West Coast. University’s Bee Tree persecuted as a Japanese-American amid and Books imprint. “I never following World War II. Wesley, the first licensed Japanese-American got to know my father in optometrist in Oregon, was forced into the Wesley was born in Westport, Ore., in 1917, Portland Assembly Center in north Portland, the way that I wanted,” as Newton Uyesugi. As a youth, he was a top on the site of the present-day Expo Center. the younger Wesley, a youth athlete, particularly in basketball. But research scientist and he suffered from declining eyesight due to a With help from advocates with the doctor of optometry, told progressive eye disease known as keratoconus, Japanese American Student Relocation which results in distorted vision. Councils, which helped inmates in American the Windy City Times internment camps relocate to colleges in the His family moved to Portland in 1925, and 11 in 2017. “I decided to Midwest and East Coast, Newton and his years later, Uyesugi enrolled at the North Pacific write his biography brother Edward were accepted into Earlham College of Optometry. Following his graduation, on his 100th birthday College in Richmond, Ind. he opened his practice in Portland in 1939, as a way of coming to changing his last name to Wesley, he said, so his His parents remained in the Minidoka grips with who my dad patients could find his name in the phone book. internment camp in Idaho. was as a person.” Roy Just a year later, he was offered an unexpected “There was a time when I could not discuss Wesley completed the opportunity: His former teacher, Harry Lee evacuation — it made me choke up inside manuscript this spring, Fording, offered to sell North Pacific College of me,” Newton Wesley told an audience and Dean of University to Wesley for $5,000. Then only 22, Wesley in Indiana in 1943, a year later. “Time Libraries Isaac Gilman joined two classmates, Roy Clunes ’39 and has been a great healer and I can look at says he expects the Clarence Carkner ’41, in purchasing the school it more objectively.” in 1940. Wesley ’39, Hon. ’86 taught classes book to be in print by Wesley attended Earlham for two years, the end of 2020. there in the mornings and ran his own practice in the afternoons. then transferred to Loyola College in Chicago. Even at a distance, he remained involved in efforts to bring optometry to Pacific. His vision for the school was always to see it gain accreditation from the National Association of Accreditation of Colleges. He also advocated for awarding of a doctorate in optometry, something that was uncommon at the time. In Oregon, partner Clarence Carkner continued to connect with Pacific, until the university took on the optometry program in Forest Grove. All graduates of North Pacific were granted alumni status by Pacific University. (Page 8)
Newton Wesley ’39, Hon.’86 with demonstration contact lenses, about 1970 Optometrypacificu.edu/magazine Through11 The Decades
He Was Driven Away, 1921 North Pacific College of Optometry founded in But Wesley Stuck With Pacific Northeast Portland 1940 Alumni Newton Wesley ‘39, Hon. ’86, Roy Clunes and Clarence The Wesley brothers Carkner ’41 buy North Pacific’s never returned to charter, operating practice optometry in the school until 1942 the Northwest, but Newton Wesley’s 1945 Pacific University agrees to influence on the acquire the shuttered school, offers profession continued, first classes in Marsh Hall driven by his own deteriorating vision. 1947 Pacific issues first doctor of optometry degree “Newton had an Newton Wesley ’39, Hon.,’86 observes as his wife, Cecilia Uyesugi, idea to use contact gives a young girl corrective optical exercises. lenses to treat his 1952 Jefferson Hall opens as new keratoconus just as home for College of Optometry one would use a truss to treat a hernia,” Wesley died in 2011 at age 93. He explain historical papers collected at was widely mourned by professional 1975 AMIGOS Earlham. “This treatment necessitated optometrists, who offered tributes such Eye Care, a nonprofit extended wear of lenses of the eye as the one written by Cary Herzberg, an organization of students, doctors and and was not possible with technology optometrist who ran NERF for a time. lay people affiliated with the College at the time.” He credited Wesley, among others, for of Optometry, is established. It will pushing the practice of orthokeratology become one of the largest Few shared his interest in the idea, — using contact lenses to temporarily eye care providing organizations but it would make him one of the reshape the cornea of the eye — into the in the world, now affiliated with foremost researchers and developers in optometric mainstream. The government VOSH International contact lenses. first opposed the practice, but eventually Wesley partnered with George Jessen, gave regulatory approval. That initiative, 1986 Newton Wesley ’39, raising money and building a business Herzberg wrote in 2011, “brought us into Hon. ’86, awarded called the Plastic Contact Lens Company, the exciting era we now reside in.” honorary doctor of science degree later Wesley-Jessen. Herzberg, who had professional The company pioneered gas-permeable disagreements with Wesley, also honored Vision Performance lenses that could correct distorted vision the man’s energy and kindness. 2002 Institute founded (originally at The and be worn for extended periods. They “My best memories of Newton however Ohio State University, though it developed and sold a variety of fitted had to do with his graciousness,” he would later move to Pacific) contact lenses, including bifocals. They wrote. “Whether you were invited to also developed a device called the one of his many dinners he held or a College of Optometry guest visitor at his foundation he never 2003 photoelectronic keratoscope, which launches its first EyeVan, a optometrists used to measure the eye. let you leave without a personal word retrofitted delivery van that served from himself and a robust handshake. Wesley-Jessen was later acquired by as a mobile clinic Attending the NERF meetings in Las CIBA Vision, an industry giant, while Vegas every October were lots of fun and Wesley and Jessen went on to create Pacific dedicates learning because Newton would have it 2017 the National Eye Research Foundation brand new EyeVan, a 33-foot no other way.” n (NERF), which worked to create affiliates recreational vehicle that provides and partnerships to spread the fitting of Earlham College maintains the Uyesugi care for underserved contact lenses around the world. Japanese American Collection, documenting people in Oregon and the experiences of Japanese-Americans who Southwest Washington In 1986, Pacific University bestowed were forcibly interned during World War II. upon Wesley an honorary doctor of The collection is named for Newton Wesley’s 2018 College of Optometry science degree. brother, Edward. named School of the Year by the National Optometric Association
2020 College of Optometry confers its first three bachelor’s in vision science degrees
Wesley-Jessen designs for bifocal and multifocal contact lenses. 12
Common Vision Defects Pacific Optometry: The Years We Made Contacts Common eye defects showing the handling of parallel input rays, as if from a very distant Humans have corrected their imperfect vision with object. This diagram presumes a relaxed eye. eyeglasses for as many as 10 centuries, but for some, eyeglasses weren’t adequate. “There are a number of corneal conditions that can only be corrected with contact lenses,” said Patrick Caroline, a council member of the International Society for Contact Lens Research, as well as a member of the International Association of Contact Lens Educators and the American Association of Optometric Educators. Caroline is also the cofounder and proud proprietor of the Farsighted | Insufficient refractive power Contact Lens Museum, located just across the street from to focus rays on retina Pacific University’s Forest Grove Campus. The museum, though compact, houses a collection of contact lens artifacts that Caroline has been collecting for decades. The artifacts, from evolving versions of contact lenses to exam chairs to a vintage machine used to mold contact lenses, tell the story of advancing research and technology. “I started getting involved in contact lenses and found it was a passion that grows and grows,” he said. “I’m a crazy, crazy collector.” It’s no mystery why the museum is just steps from Pacific Nearsighted | Excess refractive power University’s College of Optometry, where Caroline is an focuses rays before they reach the retina associate professor and member of one of the pre-eminent contact lens teams in the country. In its 75-year history, the college has been connected to some of the most notable names in the field. Newton Wesley ’39. Hon. ’86 was one of the owners of the North Pacific College of Optometry in the 1940s and had a significant role in bringing the college to Pacific. (Page 10) He also was the cofounder of Wesley-Jessen, which created lenses that could be worn for extended periods of time. (Previously,
Astigmatism | Asymmetric refraction focuses light in different planes at different points
Source: National Keratoconus Foundation pacificu.edu/magazine 13
BY MIKE FRANCIS JAREN KERR ’22
Pacific Optometry: The Years We Made Contacts
contacts were made of glass, “I started getting rested on the eyeball, and could only be worn a couple of hours at involved in contact a time.) Wesley’s son, Roy, is on lenses and found it the board of the museum. was a passion that Fraser Horn, the interim dean of grows and grows. I’m a the College of Optometry, said crazy, crazy collector.” the university’s contact lens team is the equal of any team in the — PATRICK CAROLINE country, and possibly the world. It has long been an incubator for groundbreaking work. Kenji Hamada OD ’72 is one of the foremost researchers to study and teach at Pacific. Until retiring, Hamada ran a thriving optometry practice in Southern Oregon and served as an adjunct professor at Pacific, while also primary investigator for 50 contact lens studies for at least eight different contact lens manufacturers. A sought-after expert on contact lenses, he remains a supporter of Pacific’s College of Optometry. He has been named Young OD of the Year, OD of the Year and three-time President’s Award winner by the Oregon Optometric Physician Association, received the 2001 National Distinguished Service Award from the American Optometric Association, and was inducted into the National Academies of Practice as a Distinguished Practitioner in Optometry. Today, Pacific University faculty conduct research through the Vision Performance Institute, enhancing product development, support and clinical care in optometry, with specialties that include contact lenses. The college also offers a competitive post-graduate residency program in cornea and contact lenses. The Contact Lens Museum, meanwhile, documents the evolution of a technology that continues to change how people see. n
Artifacts in the Contact Lens Museum include early lenses and a vintage optometrist’s chair and equipment. 14
BY MIKE FRANCIS ROBBIE BOURLAND
Optometry student Nhung Do OD ’21 provides an eye exam for Martin Hill as a part of Project Taking It To The Streets: Homeless Connect on Jan. 24, 2020, at Sonrise Church in Hillsboro, Ore. Vision Care on the Move The woman standing at the demonstrate that effective healthcare — optometry table was picking out and real-world education opportunities a pair of eyeglass frames. — happen in the community, not only in “I’ll be too hard on these,” she said, brick-and-mortar clinics. They can occur at testing the temples of a pair of sample nearby churches and community centers, glasses. She picked up another pair. “Do or anywhere around the world. you think this shape is good for me?” The EyeVan, a state-of-the-art mobile clinic she asked an optometry student. run out of a converted RV, is probably Learn more about the College It was one small encounter among many the most visible way Pacific’s College of of Optometry’s EyeVan at the 2020 Project Homeless Connect Optometry reaches into the community. and see how it serves the event in Hillsboro. The outreach program At events like Project Homeless Connect, community. You’ll see that conducted by the Pacific University veterans stand downs, the Special the EyeVan takes eye care College of Optometry, School of Dental Olympics and others, optometry students to underserved populations Hygiene, and School of Occupational bring patients in for evaluations where including children, seniors Therapy, which collaborated to provide they do a kind of triage. and migrant workers. no-cost health services to Does this person need a more extensive pacificu.edu/EyeVan underserved members medical examination? Do his eyes reveal of the community. incipient diabetes? Can her vision be Faculty and students easily corrected, or should she be referred in the College for more specialized evaluation? of Optometry “As you might imagine, the outreach and the College program is such a valuable resource for of Health our community and an enriching learning Professions experience for our students,” said Jamy regularly Borbidge, assistant professor and director pacificu.edu/magazine 15
of community outreach for the College of Optometry. “We do see a lot of disease on the EyeVan because we are reaching people who frequently don’t have access to healthcare. In particular, we see a high rate of diabetic eye complications, cataracts and glaucoma, all of which need to be treated or closely monitored.” For many people, a visit to the EyeVan is the first time they realize they have an eye problem. “We have people come to the EyeVan with vision at the level of legal blindness that our students are able to correct to 20/20 with a simple pair of glasses. This can change a person’s life,” Borbidge said. While the EyeVan is closely associated with the College of Optometry, it’s also an illustration of the way Pacific’s health professions programs collaborate. For example, the EyeVan often finds itself in the company of the Smile Care Everywhere vehicle, another RV-sized van where dental hygiene students and faculty members can provide dental care to underserved clients. Thanks to generous support from donors and sponsors, the EyeVan went into service in December 2016; the dental van started operating in February 2018. In 2019-2020 academic year, the EyeVan’s third full academic year, the Optometry Outreach Program provided vision screenings to more than 2,200 people, many of them elementary and preschool-aged children. The program also distributed more than 640 no-cost eyeglasses to those who sought eye care. Students volunteered almost 3,000 hours of community service time. That’s even with a four-month shutdown because of the novel coronavirus. But Pacific optometry students also provide service outside the Pacific Northwest, visiting underserved areas of China, Senegal, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Thailand, Belize, Romania and elsewhere through AMIGOS Eye Care, a non-profit consisting of students, faculty members and others affiliated with the College of Optometry. It regularly sends teams of students and faculty to faraway Project Homeless Connect brings a variety of critical services places where eye care isn’t readily available. On average, to individuals and families struggling with homelessness. students spend about eight to 10 hours per day over three to four days helping patients during an AMIGOS trip. In May last year, AMIGOS was named the Volunteer Optometric Two of this year’s four Alumni Award recipients are Services to Humanity International (VOSH/International) Student optometrists using their profession to give back to Chapter of the Month. The recognition came after AMIGOS their community. had conducted four overseas trips. “No doubt the experiences for students have been invaluable for Breanne McGhee OD ’16, MEd ’16, PhDEL ’21, winner their clinical practice as well as instilling a life-long commitment of the Pacific University Alumni Association’s 2020 to the kind of humanitarian efforts long supported by VOSH,” Emerging Leader Award } Page 22 the organization wrote in bestowing the award. “And no Outstanding 2020 Outstanding Alumni Award winner doubt you had great joy and sheer fun in your adventures while Scott Pike ’68, OD ’70 } Page 24 impacting the lives of more than 1,700 patients.” n 16
BY MIKE FRANCIS ROBBIE BOURLAND & PARRISH EVANS ’11
WHEN TO GET EYE EXAMS FOR KIDS The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent clinical body, recommends all children have a vision screening between the ages of 3 and 5 to detect any vision problems. The American Optometric Association encourages an even earlier start, calling for screenings for infants between six and 12 months. Through InfantSEE, a public health program managed by the AOA foundation, participating Children’s vision issues optometrists nationwide are not just matters of the (including Pacific University’s eyes, but of the brain. EyeClinics), provide no-cost screenings for infants across the country. Here are some of the signs Pediatric Eye Care Leads To that a baby may have a vision problem: Early Intervention For Children Excessive tearing may indicate blocked tear ducts Pacific’s College of Optometry has a that guides them to peer through lenses. message for parents: Don’t wait until A comprehensive exam for a baby means Red or encrusted eyelids your child can read before taking him placing the baby on a familiar lap, using could indicate an infection or her to the optometrist. A visit with toys and excessively friendly tones of Constant eye turning may very young patients can reveal issues voice to hold her attention, and making a signal a problem with that otherwise wouldn’t be discovered diagnosis based on a baby’s physical cues, muscle control until later. such as a glance to the side. Extreme sensitivity to light may That’s because children’s vision issues In another initiative, Pacific researchers indicate elevated eye pressure are not just matters of the eyes, but of are participating in a national study A white pupil may indicate the brain. called CHAMP, for Childhood Atropine the presence of an eye cancer “As a baby grows and develops, if they for Myopia Progression, which seeks to slow or stop the progression of childhood If parents notice any of these have good eyes, those eyes will provide myopia, or nearsightedness, through the signs, they should consult an a good image to the brain and the use of eye drops. optometrist immediately. brain learns … how to process that information,” Professor J.P. Lowery OD Myopia cases around the world have Sources: The American Optometric Association, Pacific University, ‘93, MEd ‘96, chief of pediatric services skyrocketed, and in some cases, patients the USPSTF for Pacific’s College of Optometry, said will go on to develop more serious in an earlier interview. “But if they’re eye diseases. In the study at Pacific, born with one eye that’s weak or an researchers are studying children ages eye that’s cloudy because of cataracts, 3 to 10. The children receive their that eye will literally be left out of the treatments and exams for free, along brain’s wiring as the brain develops.” with a yearly allowance for glasses or Lowery and others on the optometry contact lenses. team practice infant optometry through “We want to catch kids as early as programs like InfantSEE, an initiative of possible,” said Pacific CHAMP Study the American Optometric Association project lead and associate professor that provides comprehensive exams to Chunming Liu OD, PhD. babies free of charge. As the National Institutes of Health puts Pediatric optometry isn’t like adult it: “The good news is that early treatment Kyle McLain ’10 holds his daughter, optometry, where well-behaved works well and usually prevents long- Ellen, during an infant optometry exam. patients put their faces up to a device term vision problems.” pacificu.edu/magazine 17
Pacific optometry students work with children through the Master of Education/Vision Function in Learning (MEd/VFL) program, a joint program offered by the College of Optometry and the College of Education. It focuses on the way vision problems can affect children’s ability to read and learn. It’s intended for students who expect to work in schools, or with pediatric patients. “Without this, I probably would have seen peds, prescribed glasses and they would have been out the door,” Nikita Katoozi OD ’18, MEd ’18, said Photo from Visionary Kitchen: A Cookbook for Eye Health in a 2017 interview about the Visual Function and Learning program. “But I wouldn’t have ever thought, ‘Are they wearing them in school? Does Eating For Eye Health their teacher know when they have to Sandra (Coutts) Young ’82, OD ’84 took her optometry degree in a wear them, why they wear them? Do non-intuitive direction: She created Visionary Kitchen, a business devoted to teachers even understand how this kid promoting eye health through nutrition. It’s work that combines her love for Pediatric Eye Care Leads To is functioning?’” cooking with her professional practice. Katoozi said the way the program The asparagus and bell pepper frittata recipe here is drawn with permission builds relationships between optometry Early Intervention For Children from her cookbook, Visionary Kitchen: A Cookbook for Eye Health. students and teachers would “change my care of pediatrics completely, for Dr. Young explains: “Egg yolks have important nutrients for eye wellness: the better.” lutein, zeaxanthin and DHA omega-3 fatty acids. In fact, the deeper yellow/ Along with students from other orange the yolk is, the more lutein and zeaxanthin present in the yolk. programs, including occupational Lutein and zeaxanthin accumulate in the lens and macula of the eye, where therapy, pharmacy, physical therapy, they act to reduce oxidative stress and help absorb blue and UV light. dental hygiene and others, optometry DHA omega-3 supports brain and retinal tissues with the added benefit of students also provide care to children healthier tears and less inflammation. Eat with and for your eyes!” through events such as Give Kids a Smile. That’s when mobile dental care and vision care vans roll out to Asparagus And Bell Pepper Frittata | Serves 6 churches, schools and community Ingredients Steps centers to offer services provided by In a mixing bowl, whisk together Pacific students and faculty members. 7 omega-3 enriched eggs, 1. such as Organic Valley eggs, water, parsley, scallions, salt On those occasions, half the mission Smart Eggs and pepper. Set aside. Preheat oven is to acquaint children who may be to 375 degrees. medically underserved with the idea 2 Tbsp water 2. Preheat a 10-inch, nonstick, oven- of someone shining lights in their eyes, 3 Tbsp fresh parsley, minced safe skillet to medium. Sauté bell probing their mouths and conducting pepper, asparagus, and garlic in 3 scallions, finely minced other medical routines. That helps set olive oil until softened, 2-3 minutes. lifetime habits that can improve health. ¼ tsp sea salt 3. Reduce heat to medium-low and As well as providing glasses, dental care ¼ tsp black pepper pour egg mixture into the pan. and other pediatric treatments, another Gently stir eggs occasionally, tilting part of the mission on those one-day 1 orange bell pepper, diced the pan to allow the uncooked events is to catch problems that might 7 spears asparagus, diced eggs to run to the edges until they otherwise have gone undiagnosed, begin to set. such as diabetes and certain cancers. 1 garlic clove, finely minced 4. Decorate with tomatoes and An optometry exam, while perhaps not 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil sprinkle with cheese. Bake in oven a window to the soul, can indeed be until puffed and golden, about a medically helpful way to see more 1 Roma tomato, diced 10-12 minutes. deeply into the body. ¼ cup freshly grated Romano 5. Slice frittata into 6 wedges. Garnish And it’s never too early to begin. ■ or Parmesan cheese with additional parsley, if desired. 18
BY MIKE FRANCIS ROBBIE BOURLAND
BY MIKE FRANCIS DOMINIC SAMPAULESI ’19
Sports Vision Puts Focus On The Field
Think of it: What could be “The sports vision elective course in December 2019 in Vision a greater challenge for offered at Pacific was the first of Development & Rehabilitation. your eyes than picking out the its kind anywhere, and I believe Horn, the interim dean, also operates seams on a 95 mph fastball, or was first offered in 1979 or Sports Vision Pros, a sports vision responding to developing plays on 1980,” Erickson said. resource, with three partners. He a soccer field in real time? It started, like many things has consulted with Nike, provided The science of sports vision is all in the College of Optometry, screenings and serves as team about optimizing the body’s agility because Alan Reichow ‘78, OD optometrist for Boxer athletic teams. and responsiveness to rapidly ‘81, MAEd ‘95 was particularly When he was an undergrad, he was changing game activity. It aims to interested in the topic, along on the golf team, and his enthusiasm improve a person’s with colleague Bradley Coffey for sports vision is apparent still in depth perception, ‘79, OD ‘81. At the time, sports even the most casual conversation. hand-eye vision was little-discussed in the “I just enjoy working with athletes to coordination, standard optometry curriculum. help them reach their visual potential and concentration, It’s not little-discussed anymore. and to learn from my colleagues,” Horn said. among other things. It Reichow, now professor emeritus, can be important for high- cofounded Pacific’s sports vision Sports vision, said Erickson, “is a performance athletes, as well as program, the first of its kind in passion for many of us who work anybody who drives a car, takes the world. While working with in this area.” ■ photographs or performs other footwear and apparel giant routine but complex tasks. Nike Inc., he published multiple Caring for Student-Athletes At Pacific’s College of Optometry, papers and was awarded patents faculty members like Graham for everything from visual testing At Pacific, student-athletes benefit from the skills Erickson ’88, OD ‘90 and Interim under stress conditions to taught in the College of Dean Fraser Horn ’00, OD, ‘04, motion graphics on soccer balls. Optometry, as well as other The Sports Vision program at have pioneered new approaches university programs. Athletic Pacific has grown ever since. to treating, enhancing and competitions are postponed maintaining vision for athletes. Erickson began teaching Pacific’s this fall due to the COVID-19 Their work has involved testing and sports vision elective in 2001. He pandemic, but check out this treating athletes, while helping has published a series of papers 2017 feature about Caring for in the development of improved on sports vision, including, Student-Athletes at Pacific. soccer balls, sports vision goggles recently “Nutraceuticals for pacificu.edu/AthleteCare and other vision products. Visual Performance,” published BY MIKE FRANCIS pacificu.edu/magazine 19
Eye Care Offers A Window To CONCUSSION PROTOCOLS Athletes’ Concussions Here are some signs and symptoms of concussions For DeAnn Fitzgerald ‘81, OD ‘84, The Ultimate Concussion Conference in in young athletes, along optometry isn’t just about eye care, Hollywood Beach, Fla., in 2016. with care recommendations. but about the mysteries beyond. At the conference, she praised the “The eyes are the windows to the National Football League, long criticized The athlete says: body,” she tells audiences. “One for overlooking or obscuring football’s I have a headache, or I feel hundred percent of our brain is damaging effects on the brain. pressure in my head dedicated to vision in some fashion, “I’m very appreciative of the NFL. The I threw up, or I feel like 80 percent of all sensory goes through NFL has put concussion on the board,” I’m going to vomit eyes. … We need to be at the table of she told attendees, applauding the I’m dizzy, or my vision rehab services.” league’s adoption of concussion is blurry, or double While operating a thriving optometry management protocols for its players. Sounds seem loud, and practice in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, She went on to say more people suffer lights seem too bright Fitzgerald has become a leader in brain injuries in routine ways — by I feel groggy developing concussion protocols for falling, or in vehicle accidents — but athletes in Iowa and far beyond. sports injuries get the headlines. I can’t remember what I was doing After graduating from Pacific, where She’s the vice president of the she played softball and studied Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation I’m not feeling right visual science and Association, or NORA. optometry, Fitzgerald The organization’s fall Others observe: moved to Cedar Rapids Vision conference, which has She can’t remember and eventually opened been moved online, things that happened her own practice. That impairments will focus on the ways before or after the hit practice has expanded practitioners in different are often the He seems dazed to include three clinics, disciplines, including including one called first signs or optometry, can work They forget what Active Evolution Studio together to achieve they were told, for high-performing symptoms of better results for or seem confused athletes, people a traumatic patients, she said. She’s moving clumsily recovering from brain That is necessary He’s answering injuries and others. brain injury. because brain injuries questions slowly Much of the damage involve so many They lost consciousness of a concussion occurs disciplines, from after the initial impact, as the primary neurology to occupational therapy. She is behaving differently, injury sets off a string of biological Optometry offers a way for providers to or is in a different mood changes that can continue for weeks, assess the extent of the damage and to according to the American Optometric monitor a patient’s improvement. What to do: Association. And vision impairments In addition to being in demand as an Take the athlete out are often the first signs or symptoms expert on sports vision and concussion of the competition of a traumatic brain injury. protocols, Fitzgerald founded Spanda Seek medical attention In Iowa, Fitzgerald led the Inc., a nonprofit that provides eye care immediately development of a widely accepted in Iowa and around the world. Consult with a medical baseline screening protocol for young “I have always appreciated my professional about whether football players. Her Active Evolution education at Pacific both undergrad and when an athlete can Studio also has trained amateur and and grad,” she wrote in an email. “And return to play. (The athlete professional sports teams to improve am very grateful I am getting to do shouldn’t return until she their ability to compete. As the studio’s what I thoroughly enjoy — practicing is back to doing regular website puts it, “an athlete’s ability to optometry and being able to offer activities and not showing see, think and react quickly can make patients therapies that enrich their life, symptoms.) all the difference between winning whether it’s a thorough routine eye and losing!” Be familiar with state exam, prescribing glasses and contacts, laws for sideline care in She is nationally recognized for her and offering therapies for people organized sports. work as a sports vision optometrist that have a more difficult life because and on concussion protocols. She was of concussion, TBI, stroke or neuro- Source: The U.S. Centers for a keynote speaker, for example, at degenerative disease.” ■ Disease Control and Prevention 20
Pacific University offers its sincere thanks to the sponsors who are helping us celebrate the 75th Hamada Family Trust anniversary of the College of Allergan, Inc.
Optometry. Though a gala event Essilor of America, Inc. marking the occasion was canceled this month, these loyal supporters VSP Global continue to contribute to the future Paragon Vision of the college and the profession Sciences, Inc. through their generosity. IRIS The Visual Group pacificu.edu/magazine 21 OUTSTANDING ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
BY MIKE FRANCIS Carline Reached Kids At Risk Of Failure Dennis Carline ’79, MST ’88 remembers the day the basketball world almost lost Mfon Udoka. The 6-foot-tall Nigerian-American student at Portland’s Benson Polytechnic High School had just experienced a brutally tough sequence under the basket: She had outjumped everyone to win a rebound, then went up again for a layup, and missed. Six straight times. Carline, one of the 2020 recipients of the Pacific University Alumni Association’s Outstanding Alumni Achievement Awards and coach of that Benson women’s basketball team, clearly remembers watching the frustration of his sophomore student-athlete. She walked away from the floor to the bench. Don’t put me back in, Carline said she told him. I missed six layups, she said. “You got six rebounds,” Carline reminded her. But he knew her confidence was shattered. The next day, she didn’t show up for practice. Carline saw Udoka standing and watching the practice, but decided not to say anything until practice ended. When he approached her afterward, she told him “I didn’t want to come. I’m thinking about quitting.” He told her he understood. But, he added, “if you quit now, you’re throwing it all away. You’re going to be a Division I player.” Udoka returned to the team. She went on to become an all-state, first-team selection in high
DENNIS CARLINE ’79, MST ’88 school, then played four years for DePaul University in Chicago, then was drafted into the Women’s National Basketball Association. She went on to play professionally in the United States, Spain, Israel, Russia and China. She played on the Nigerian Olympic team and now coaches high school basketball in Texas. Carline made a long career coaching sports and counseling kids at all levels of Portland-area school systems, focusing on schools with underserved students. He coached and taught for 39 years. He has been named coach of the year multiple times and also has been honored with teaching and service awards given by parents and students. “A lot of coaches misinterpret those kids,” he explained of Udoka and hundreds of others like her. “I never turn my back on them. I think that’s the art of coaching — reaching the kid.” Coaching, commuting and chaperoning was a huge commitment of time, but when he married his wife Debra Low ‘80, whom he met at Pacific, she knew what she was getting, he said. Debra and the couples’ children, Denetia, Daedra, Delissa and Dennis Jr., have been supportive at every step. Carline, in fact, has coached his kids along the way, so his coaching included a lot of family time. For Carline, working with kids involved a lot more than sports. He’s been a health and physical education teacher, a drug and alcohol counselor, a student advocate, an integration specialist, and a mentor. He donated a $5,000 coaching award from NBC Comcast to sending student- athletes to sports summer camps, an opportunity many wouldn’t have otherwise. Now that he is mostly retired, Carline has taken on a role as a teacher of Black history. When he visits a class, he tells the students, “Everybody in this room has greatness in them.” n 22
2020 EMERGING LEADER AWARD
BY MIKE FRANCIS McGhee’s Life Is Guided By ‘Graceful Persistence’ Nobody who knows Breanne McGhee OD ’16, MEd ’16, PhDEL ’21 would be surprised to know how she responded to a COVID-19 setback. Because of the business closures mandated by the pandemic, she was temporarily furloughed this spring from her job as an optometrist in her native New Orleans. So she volunteered at a food bank. “I like to plan for rainy days. I’ll be OK,” she said in a phone interview at the time. “Other families were not.” McGhee is a born helper. And encourager. And hugger. And the pandemic is cramping her style. “I can’t really hug people,” she lamented. “I am definitely a hugger.” For her leadership as an optometrist, a mentor and volunteer, McGhee was named the winner of the Pacific University Alumni Association’s 2020 Emerging Leader Award. When she got the news, she said, “it was a shock.” Only to her. Faculty members in the College of Optometry smile at the mention of her name. “She was one of my favorite students,” said Scott Pike ’68, OD ’70, who until the just- concluded school year was a professor in the college. McGhee was nominated for the award by former Dean Jenny Coyle ‘90, OD ‘93, MS ‘00, who wrote, “She has shown graceful persistence, maturity and dedication not only to the profession of optometry, but the greater world around her that is unique and infectious.” When the pandemic restrictions first were imposed in New Orleans, McGhee joined the volunteers helping to manage the crush of people wanting to be tested for the novel coronavirus. She would show up early at the testing sites, where 200 to 300 cars would line up for tests. Because initially tests were scarce, it fell to McGhee and others to screen the people waiting in their cars. Did they have symptoms? How bad are they? She had to turn a lot of people away. Testing capacity since has improved and the number of people being screened has declined. McGhee has returned to her job and is no longer is needed as a screening volunteer, but she’s ready for the next opportunity to lend a hand. This fall, she started teaching part time with the College of Optometry. McGhee founded and operates a nonprofit called E.Y.E.S., which offers free comprehensive eye exams and eyeglasses to disadvantaged, underserved community members. She also plants the seeds in students who might someday be optometrists themselves. For McGhee, the road to kindness and volunteerism started even before she was born. “My parents instilled in me at an early age, you go so far in life by helping other people,” she said. “You get joy, literally, by helping somebody else.” “I am the first college graduate in my family, and the first graduate doctor,” she said. “My grandmother was the daughter of two sharecroppers,” and the granddaughter of slaves, said McGhee. “She was a maid her whole life.” Her grandmother got as far as second grade. Her mother got as far as high school. BREANNE MCGHEE OD ’16, ME d P h DEL ‘21 “All I have to do is run the road,” McGhee said. “It’s like a relay race, passing the baton. I have the easy stretch.” n pacificu.edu/magazine 23
DAVID & SANDY LOWE OUTSTANDING SERVICE AWARD
BY MIKE FRANCIS A Lifelong Volunteer, Meyer Gives Back To Pacific Matthew Meyer ’75 is the consummate Pacific University alumnus and volunteer. He leads campus tours for young kids, serves faithfully on the University Council, and says he delights in the opportunities to rub shoulders with university luminaries like Lesley Hallick, Ann Barr-Gillespie and John Miller. For his unflagging engagement with and devotion to Pacific, Meyer has been named the 2020 recipient of the Alumni Association’s David and Sandy Lowe Outstanding Service Award. The University Council is not exactly high on drama or entertainment value. It serves largely to ratify decisions made by deans, vice presidents and others who work in the weeds of university governance. But the council acts as an essential backstop and last check on changes in academic programs, new policies and other matters of university interest. Meyer is the Alumni Association representative on the council. Meyer says he wouldn’t miss the chance to serve. In his full-time job as a southwest
MATTHEW MEYER ’75 MATTHEW Portland-based property appraiser, he sometimes finds himself gnashing his teeth about the need to drive to other quadrants of the city. But he says he never resents driving to Forest Grove for meetings, tours or other business. “There’s never been once when I’d rather be doing something else,” he said in a Zoom interview. The minutes of University Council meetings show that Meyer arrives thoroughly prepared. He can tell you how many condolence cards were sent to the families of deceased alumni, how many people attended PUB Night, and who’s scheduled to speak at the next meeting of the Alumni Book Club. It’s part of his job to give the council an update on the activities of Pacific’s alumni. Meyer says when he talks about his experience as a leader of K-8 campus tours, it grabs the attention of other council members. “When I tell them about how the kids responded to a tour, everybody’s eyes are up and they’re listening,” he said. The tours are uplifting, both for Meyer and, he hopes, for the kids, mostly young middle- schoolers. When Meyer shows them around Pacific’s Forest Grove Campus, he knows he’s introducing many of them to the very idea of attending college. “I tell them, ‘You don’t need to know what it costs. But if you work hard and get good grades, it can happen,’” he said. “We’re planting seeds.” For Meyer, being a Pacific student was generally a happy experience. He met his future wife on campus, and “we’re still clicking” 45 years later. He played basketball, blessed with skill, interest and a 6-foot-5 frame. And now he’s completing his fifth term on the University Council. Being honored with the David & Sandy Lowe Outstanding Alumni Service Award is “so humbling,” he said. As a volunteer, he says, he never expects acclaim, but knows he is well appreciated. “You’re doing it because you’re a volunteer,” he said. “Doing right feels good.” n 24 2020 OUTSTANDING ALUMNI AWARD
BY MIKE FRANCIS
Pike Found His Life’s Course In Guatemala For Scott Pike ’68, OD ’70, it started almost as a fluke; a one-off favor for a man in Guatemala whose uncorrected vision was funneling him into a life that would become more and more limited. Their chance meeting would eventually lead Pike to form a nonprofit, providing vision care and healthcare worker training in the country’s Ixcán region. Thanks to that commitment to care, Pike will receive Pacific University’s 2020 Outstanding Alumni Award. In 1996, Pike paid a visit to a friend in Ixcán, where he met Pedro Chom, who was being interviewed for a history project. It was immediately apparent to Pike that Chom’s life would change for the worse, simply because he needed reading glasses and there was no easy way in Ixcán to get them. When Pike got home to Portland, he set about crafting a pair of glasses for Chom. SCOTT PIKE ’68, OD ‘70 “They didn’t have the ability to get things that are so simple for us,” Pike said in a Zoom interview from his Hillsboro home. “Down there, you realize how life- changing a pair of glasses can be.” Moved by Chom’s plight, which he knew represented that of many of his fellow Guatemalan citizens, Pike started arranging to return to the region regularly, settling into a routine of making two visits a year, usually in February and August. The February trips were mainly for the training of eye health promoters. He led the August trips under the banner of AMIGOS Eye Care, taking a delegation of Pacific University optometry students. They’ve been going to Ixcán every year since 2003 — until this year, when the novel coronavirus stalled their travel plans. Pike hopes to return again in February and to resume taking students next summer. In 2006, Pike formed a nonprofit called Enfoque Ixcán to provide eye care in the remote region, separated from the capital city by 10 to 12 hours by bus. In 2016, in conjunction with a Guatemala City-based opthalmology clinic, it became a nonprofit in Guatemala. Today the nonprofit employs three Guatemalan eye health promoters who provide basic eye care year round. As of late May, Pike said, the eye health promoters, along with AMIGOS Eye Care, had examined the eyes of almost 20,000 Guatemalan people, provided 9,200 pairs of eyeglasses, and funded more than 800 surgeries, which were performed first in Guatemala City and later, in northern Guatemala. When he surveys the arc that took him from a conventional professional career in the United States to a continuing presence in a remote part of Guatemala, Pike said he dwells on the words of Joseph Campbell, who was quoted in a posthumous collection as saying: “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” “That’s pretty much on the money for me,” Pike said. n pacificu.edu/magazine 25
magazine.pacificu.edu pacific magazine.pacificu.edu THE MAGAZINE OF PAC IFIC UNIVERSITY pacificOREGON THE MAGAZINE OF PAC IFIC UNIVERSITY Class Notes OREGON
resource centers, A Tragic Collision of Cultures 1964 1973 Pacific appraises its role in the Forest Grove Indian Training School
spring 2019 GOOD TIMES donating bowls to 8 AT HANDBALL U Combined team wins WHAT DOES COLLEGE REALLY COST?
national title … again 18 And when does a Women Who Made Pacific Carmen (Michaels) Kalvin Garton ’73 degree pay off ? Fall 2019 8 NOT SETTLING FOR STEREOTYPES help raise funds. Educators, thinkers and pioneers 20 BOXER MAKERSPACE leave their mark New lab makes space fo Bryant ’64 has been retired from Garton & r innovation appointed to the Associates Realtors, LLC. 1979 Which way do you read Pacific magazine? Lausanne North Robert Meisel Steve Paranto Front to back or back to front? Anecdotal evidence America Group for OD ’73 was awarded ’79, MST ’84 was suggests that most readers start with class notes. ISM (International the San Diego County featured on Fox 12 Help us keep you connected with your Student Ministry), Optometric Society News, highlighting classmates by submitting a class note or a which promotes and 2019 Optometrist of his pickleball career. memorial for a departed alumni for publication creates resources for in the next issue of Pacific magazine. You will the Year Award. Meisel He moved to the churches to become even get a gift from the Alumni Association in retired in 2007 but Willamette Valley to involved in providing honor of marriages, births and adoptions, or was honored for his attend Pacific and play services for international new jobs! We honor those who have passed continued involvement pickleball. Paranto with the quarterly Alumni Remembrance students. Bryant and her in the optometry has also created Ceremony. } pacificu.edu/alumni-events husband, Don, live in field, exemplified by the business ProLite, Hillsboro, Ore., where running clinics across which sells composite Send Us Your Updates she continues to work the world to ongoing pickleball paddles. Online } pacificu.edu/KeepInTouch full-time for Missions volunteering, among Email } [email protected] Door, a non-profit based other accomplishments. Robert Rothbard ’79, We publish class notes and in memoriam online all in Denver. OD ’81 published a year, and submissions received by Oct. 16, 2020, Ken Scott ’73 finished new optometry book will be published in our winter edition. 1967 the creation of his November 2019, Bob Crane ’67 and fourth and final Looking Good: My airplane. Scott lives Vic Pickering ’67 recently Passion for Optometry DeAnn Fitzgerald ’81, OD on an airstrip with his 1981 connected to reminisce and the Lives I’ve ’84 has been wife. He has built three on their time at Pacific, Changed. Kathy Cole ’81 was serving the eye care U.S. Army days, mutual airplanes, and his last hired as the tribal Howard Sullivan ’79, community for more acquaintances and one was made with the librarian in Grande MST ’84 retired from than 35 years. Fitzgerald much more. assistance of some of Ronde, Ore. Cole his role as director runs a primary care Scott’s neighbors. It was has worked for the of the Forest Grove/ clinic where she 1968 flown in February 2019. Confederated Tribes Cornelius Chamber provides comprehensive Mary (Lay) Schuster ’68 Steven Shute ’73, of Commerce. of Grand Ronde for eye exams and treats published a new book, OD ’74 has built an the past 16 years vision diseases and The Victim’s Voice in optometry legacy with 1980 as a Chinuk Wawa disorders. Over the the Sexual Misconduct his family in Central language teacher, John Jewett ’80 years, she has expanded Crisis: Identity, Credibility, Valley, Calif. A member instructing students presents his new blog the resources and and Proof, which of Shute’s family has project J Howard in preschool through programs available discusses sexual attended each of three adult classes. Cahill, dedicated to to her patients to harassment, laws and optometry colleges on expressions of the include concussion Title IX requirements the West Coast. In total, Lincoln Daynes ’81, OD human imagination management, low- and standards. Shute has been serving ’83 has been helping through poetry, haiku, patients for more than patients with their vision aids, multi-system imagery, stories, 1969 45 years. vision for 35 years. therapy and massage legends and myths. therapy. Fitzgerald’s Clara Louise ’69 is retired Daynes owns and from Ventura County 1974 Jake Von Scherrer operates a practice focus on sports Library in Ventura, Richard Rowland ’74 ’80 has been named with his brother in vision performance Calif. Louise resides in earned his bachelor’s as the 2020-2021 Tucson, Ariz. When and concussion California. She enjoys in ceramics, then president of the he isn’t at his practice, management stems spending time with traveled the world Florida Interscholastic Daynes travels to from her own her family, including before settling in Athletic Administrators Mexico yearly to background in her four children, three Astoria, Ore. There, Association, which conduct eye exams competitive sports, grandchildren and her Rowland has taken serves more than and provide children when she played niece and her niece’s part in a bowl-making 700 athletic directors in orphanages with softball for Pacific. two children. project for women’s in Florida. glasses. (Page 19) 26
Class Notes
Eva (Johnson) experience launching LaBonte ’91 was a product at the pacificu.edu/PacificGear named assistant beginning of COVID-19 ORDER ONLINE NOW! director of the and the solutions Washington County he is using to boost Pacific Gear | Wherever you are, you (Ore.) Department of his company into a can show your Pacific spirit in your Support Services. She stronger position during daily life by picking up products from joined Washington quarantine. the PacificGear page. You’ll find a County in 2015 as line of Boxer products designed and manager of the risk Blake Timm ’98 was inducted into marketed by Pacific students, alumni management division, the College Sports and staff. We regularly refresh the then became human Information Directors of resources manager. In product lineup for you, your family, America (CoSIDA) Hall her new role, she will friends and pets, too. Order online of Fame. today and bookmark the page for later. continue to oversee human resources and Amy Waterman ’98 can } pacificu.edu/PacificGear risk management as be heard on the online well as emergency Rocket Languages management and Spanish courses. support services Waterman creates story about a volunteer February 2020. Geiler administration. friendly interactive 1982 project to collect data has partnered with audio lessons for the Brenda (Heinke) about short-eared the City of Prescott 1996 program. Montecalvo ’82, owls in Montana. and Arizona Game Dawn (Kuhlmann) OD ’85 was featured and Fish to create Harflinger ’96 will 1999 in a podcast April 1989 a Kids Free Fishing become CEO Kristin McVay PT ’99 2020 on Dailyauthors. Marie Kernie OD Day, showcasing his and president of transitioned her career com, discussing visual ’89 was featured enthusiasm for the Lili‘uokalani Trust in as a physical therapist secrets for school in a South Sound outdoors. February 2021. She is from skilled care to success. Montecalvo is magazine article currently executive vice outpatient. McVay Dean Wetzel ’90, the author of “Visual that included tips for president and chief started at Infinity Rehab OD ’92 is an Secrets for School protecting your eyes operating officer. in 2002, providing optometrist at Mayo Success: Read Faster, while working from skilled care, and then Clinic Health System, Write Better, Master home. The tips include 1998 moved to outpatient seeing patients in Math and Spelling.” avoiding glare, eating Dorota Haber-Lehigh care, which hadn’t been Eau Claire, Wisc., fruits and drinking ’98 created artwork fully established at the Caledonia, Minn., 1983 lots of water. featured in the time. Kristin became and Onalaska, Wisc. Frank Giardina ’83, OD Columbia Memorial the outpatient clinical Kathryn (Walters) Hospital Medical director at Country ’86 earned certification has 30-year 1991 Koch ’89 Group located in the Meadows in in medical optometry anniversaries to boast Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie Seaside, Ore. Outlet Woodburn, Ore. from the American about this year. She ’91 is the Chicago Mall. Haber-Lehigh Board of Certification will celebrate 30 years Jane (Terrazas) Murphy Theological Seminary’s uses colored pencils in Medical Optometry. of marriage Sept. 2020 Distinguished MAT ’99 has retired and watercolor to Certification requires 22, 2020. And as of Alumni Award from teaching. Before create artworks an optometrist to March 15, Koch has recipient. Currie is pursuing her MAT that focus on the complete an accredited worked 30 years at the director for the Pacific at Pacific, Murphy unique culture of the postgraduate residency Portland Water Bureau. University Center for worked for 16 years Oregon Coast. training program Peace and Spirituality, in accounting and and pass a written 1990 university chaplain Tony Rocklin PT ’98, five years in business examination. Todd Geiler ’90, OD and assistant professor PT ’09 was featured management. ’91 was approved of religious studies. in a podcast on The 1988 by the Arizona He previously spent Podcast Factory. The 2000 Toni Collins ’88 State Senate to an 17 years working podcast, “Oh sh*t, I Kelly Garrett ’00 was featured in a appointment on the on issues related to launched 2 weeks received a 2020 Oregon Blaine County Journal Arizona Game and homelessness and before the virus!,” Literary Fellowship. News-Opinion (Mont.) Fish Commission in housing. discusses Rocklin’s Her debut young adult pacificu.edu/magazine 27
novel, The Last to Die, works for Hewlett- Staci Walters OD ’03 for the sports medicine was a 2018 Oregon Packard and has had helped open a new 2006 and orthopedics Book awards finalist. the opportunity to practice of Space Patrick Dacquel ’06 departments. “I She has signed a work in HP offices Coast Ophthalmology joined St. James do work with a three-book deal with around the world, in Viera, Fla., in Hospital in Hornell, very broad range Kensington Books in including Barcelona, September. Walters N.Y., as an emergency of patients, as our New York to publish where she resides with is a Fellow of the medicine physician. hospital mission is to American Academy her first mystery for her family. Chris Frazier OD especially service the adults. The first book of Optometry and underserved people of Christopher Casey PA ’06 was selected to in her Ground Rules a Diplomate of the Hawai‘i, which I really ’02 was spotlighted join the SageWest series will publish in American Board of enjoy a lot,” he wrote. in an online article in Health Care Board April 2021. Optometry. For more on Moore Physician Assistants of Trustees. Frazier visit pacificu.edu/ for Global Health is an optometrist at 2004 RyanMoore 2001 in 2017. The article Riverton Vision Center Alecia Sundsmo MS Bonita (Smeby) was focused on in Dubois, Wyo., and ’04, PsyD ’08 is the Burke ’01 won an physician assistants is joining the board to 2008 director of Counseling All-Inclusive Award for who are employed help expand services MaryBeth and Psychological showing outstanding internationally. Casey and advance the (Shoemaker) Bailey Services at Cornell achievement in the grew up in the UK mission of making ’08 and Marcel Bailey Health. As part of the advancement of and now practices in communities healthier. ’09 welcomed son Ellis leadership team at Employee Resource such farflung locations Jerome Bailey on Aug. Cornell, Sundsmo will Groups (ERGs). Burke as Madagascar and 2007 15, 2019. He joins is an assistant leader provide oversight for Albania. Molly Fischer ’07 big sister Kiara, who of the Counter- mental health services and Audra (Lavender) turned 2 in December. Weapons of Mass Amanda (Miller) for students and work Stave ’09, MS ’13, PsyD and Destruction Group Iverson ’02 was chosen with peers in medical Bob ’08 Lacy ’16 enjoyed a day at MIT’s Lincoln as one of Tucson’s 40 services. Todd Fitzmorris ’08 hiking together in the welcomed the birth of Laboratory. The Under 40. The award Sandia Mountains of their daughter, Benta All-Inclusive Awards recognizes young 2005 New Mexico. The two Mae, on Nov. 2, 2019. are put on by Color leaders in Tucson, Amanda (Bender) Ariz., who have made alumni are best friends. magazine, which is Olson ‘05 was featured Michelle Lee ’08 an impact on the based in downtown on the Mountain Land Jeannine (Hall) Gailey and Benjamin Morris Boston. community. Iverson Physical Therapy & MFA ’07 had a poem, married Aug. 5, 2018. was selected for her Rehabilitation podcast. “Irradiate,” published In attendance was Katie (Shields) Felix professional career The podcast discussed in the Spring 2020 the maid of honor, ’01 is an HP Teaching and involvement home pelvic therapy issue of Ploughshares, Brittany Cuff Carvalho Fellow, a position that in the community, devices and the an award-winning ’09, and fellow alumni will help her teach which includes her research that backs journal of new writing Kellie Ivison ’09 and young students about more than 15 years it up. from Emerson College. Mindy Ingebretson- the importance and of experience in the Wolowicz ’09. usage of technology. financial accounting Erin Shepherd MAT ’05 Ryan Moore ’07, Lee and Morris Felix is a kindergarten and retirement plan was appointed federal PT ’10 was named welcomed the birth teacher at Point service industry. programs director for 2019 Employee of the of their first child, Defiance Elementary the Gresham-Barlow Year by The Queen’s Patrick Morris, on in Tacoma, Wash. 2003 (Ore.) School District. Medical Center in Jan. 11, 2020. She has also been Robert DeCou ’05 Rachael Woody ’05 Honolulu. At Pacific, recognized as a travelled to India in announced the Moore used his Caitlyn Tateishi ’08 Microsoft Innovative January with HOPE61 publication of her undergraduate degree is a 2020 Olympics Educator Expert and a to help provide second book, How in exercise science marathon trials Skype Master Teacher. human trafficking to Select, Buy, and as a platform to get qualifier. She runs prevention trainings. Use a CMS Museum, into the School of marathons regularly, 2002 The trip kicked off a which explains how Physical Therapy’s and placed first in both Rebecca (Johnson) year-long campaign to search for, select, doctorate program. the Hilo to Volcano Campbell ’02 is a committed to fighting buy, implement and He has worked at 50k run and the pioneer for women human trafficking maximize the value of The Queen’s Medical Baltimore Marathon in the 3D printing in partnership with a museum collections Center for seven years in 2016. Tateishi ran industry. Campbell Rotary National. management system. as a physical therapist cross country and track 28
Class Notes
at Pacific. When she professionals focuses on PT Leanna Olennikov is not running, she working in a special 2011 utilization for knee ’12, OD ’15 Leanna is either working as collections library, Juno Ann Apalla osteoarthritis. Olennikov ‘12, OD a legal operations archive or other ’11 is performing ‘15 is an optometrist Claire Foster MFA ’12 business analyst or cultural heritage arts manager at with Virginia Eye was featured in The exploring the outdoors institution in the University of Hawai‘i Consultants in Norfolk, Shair Podcast about with her husband United States. Pride is Kauai Community Va. Her specialties are gender identity and and dog. a reference librarian College. Apalla has vitreoretinal disease, living life true to at the New York returned to the diabetes and macular Callie Vandeweile ’08 yourself. She also Public Library. performing arts field degeneration, peri- and Dr. Cornelis Drost after working in released a new operative and ocular married on Oct. 6, 2010 finance, banking and collection of short emergency care. 2019, in Ambleside, healthcare. stories, “Shine of England. Family and AJ Gaulton ’10 the Ever,” set in Jesse (Max) Price ’11, friends from over is the business Blair (Tyler) Hamel MS Portland, Ore. MAT ’12 and Brandi a dozen countries development and ’11, PsyD ’14 was cited (Palmer) Price ’12 attended. events director in an article in Christopher Hewitt welcomed son Bailey for Civic Park in Her Family about OD ’12 and Nicole Rex Price on Aug. 4, Lehua Watanabe Eugene, Ore. Gaulton the benefits of (Holihan) Hewitt OD 2019. ’08 and Bryson Vivas oversees rentals, co-sleeping. ’12 became the new ’10 welcomed son sponsorship, events, owners of Sooke Elizabeth Levinson Rydge Ikaikamauloa and other operations Optometry Practice, MFA ’11 published on Jan. 21, 2019. at Civic Park. effective September Photo Index } Rydge joins big “The Waters: 4 Poems” 2019. They have Mallory Goldammer on Entropy, a website brothers Ryder, 9, practiced optometry 1 Crane ’67, and Bryden, 6. ’10, MAT ’11 is the girls’ featuring literary in Sooke, British Pickering ’67 basketball coach at content. Levinson Columbia, since expects to publish her 2009 Tigard (Ore.) High 2015. 2 Meisel OD ’73 second chapbook in Kitty Jospe MFA ’09 School. She was October 2020. Keleigh Kremers ’12 3 Fischer ’07, had a poem published previously varsity was featured in an online in Zingara assistant and also Stave ’09, 2012 article in Voyage LA Poetry Review. The coached at Glencoe magazine about her MS ’13, PsyD ’16 poem “Ugliness Came High School for three Sophia Cardwell life and career in film. Up” was posted on seasons. PharmD ’12 was 4 Moore ’07, PT ’10 chosen as one of Kremers wrapped Nov. 20, 2019. Ellen Michaelson The Pew’s Charitable production July 2019 5 Bailey ’08, Bailey ’09 LeAnna Nash ’09 and MFA ’10 will publish on her first feature Trusts’ Stand Up 6 7 Lee ’08 Frankie Guros ’09 her first book, The To Superbugs film, The Pharm. married Oct. 5, 2019, Care of Strangers in Ambassadors. 8 Watanabe ’08, Emma (Jacobsen) in Troutdale, Ore., November. It follows Cardwell is one of Lawsen ’12 is the U.S. Vivas ’10 after 10 years together. a friendship that takes 40 other and international Sarah Azril ’09, Adam place in a Brooklyn 9 Schalow ’10, ambassadors who college applications Azril ’09, Kyle Barksdale hospital, where a will work to increase coordinator at King’s Kent ’10 ’09, Korey Yost ’09, young woman learns funding to fight the College London Rhonda Yost ’10, Valerie to take charge of her 10 Skuce MFA ’15 growing threat of Mathematics School, Kitamori ’11, OD ’15 life after taking care 11 antibiotic-resistant helping students Dickens ’16, MHA ’19, and Kelly Hartley ’08 of others. Her novel infections. seek out global attended. also was the winner PharmD ’19, opportunities for of the 2019 Miami Meredith (Brunette) Stutzman MSW ’21 university. Lawsen Bridgett Pride ’09 Book Fair/de Groot Christiansen PT ’12 also sits on the 12 is an Andrew W. Prize. has been honored by Hasan MAT ’18 Mellon Fellow for the American College Service Committee 13 Szabo OT ’19 Diversity, Inclusion Ashley Schalow of Rheumatology as at the college & Cultural Heritage. ’10 and Perry Kent an individual who to encourage Submit your class note and The fellowship ’10 welcomed their has made significant opportunities to use photo for the next issue of provides professional daughter, Juliet contributions to their research to help Pacificmagazine by Oct. 16. development Zenith Kent, on June the community. communities beyond opportunities for 13, 2020 in Seattle, Christiansen’s traditional roles of } [email protected] early-to-mid career Wash. research currently education. } pacificu.edu/KeepInTouch pacificu.edu/magazine 29
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Class Notes
Cups of Tomatoes. The Kate Sheeran Swed exams, featured on Andrew Waite MFA ’16 2013 poems are interspersed MFA ’14 published a the website Life of climbed Mount Rainer Aaron Bergman MA ’13, with watercolor new book titled “Alter Dr. Mom. wearing the same gear MS 15, PhD ’19 joined portraits that act as Ego.” The novel is as John Graham, a UMass Emergency visual extensions of labeled as a twisty Kyle Dickens ’16, Harvard student who Medicine Research her poetry. superhero saga and is MHA ’19, PharmD ’19 climbed Denali in 1963. and in a post-doctoral the first in the League Sarah Stutzman married Molly (Billingham) fellowship with 2014 of Independent MSW ’21 the departments of in May 2020 in Weinbender PT ’16 Jodi (Ozaki) Armstrong Operatives series. Emergency Medicine a “microceremony” joined Big Sky Physical ’14 and husband Adam Swed was recently that was officiated, Therapy in November and Psychiatry. His welcomed son Cullen featured in an photographed 2019. She specializes clinical interests include Armstrong on April 9, interview in Baj and witnessed by in treating pelvic implementation 2020. Goodson’s blog. science and behavioral Pacific alumnae. floor dysfunction, health. Bryan Mills ’14 was 2015 Due to COVID-19, including incontinence, hired as Eastern Oregon the couple had pelvic pain, leakage Riley Grandinetti ’15 David James MFA ’13 University’s football to downsize their with exercise, and is the head men’s published a new defensive coordinator. wedding plans. postpartum conditions. basketball coach at chapbook, Flip Mills brings more Weinbender also Southwestern Oregon Requiem, containing a than seven years of Kailey Falcon MS ’16 treats a variety of Community College. joined Play Works in wide range of poetry, experience to EOU. musculoskeletal He was the assistant Hood River, Ore., as a from haiku to jazz, conditions, such as Julie Paradine ’14, coach for the past five speech team member. with content such as lumbosacral dysfunction OD ’16 joined the staff seasons. Play Works is a meditations on aging and hip pain. and the beauty of the of Virden Eye Care in pediatric therapy clinic Carly Trepagnier Flynn natural world. Virden, Manitoba. The that provides speech Daniel Yazzolino ’16, MFA ’15 is admissions eyecare center also and language therapy, MBA ’20 was featured and alumni director Corey Kisser OD ’13 and went through some among other services, on the Instagram for St. Charles Catholic Amanda Klinger MS ’09, renovations recently for children with channel for Young High School in Laplace, PsyD ’12 married on with the expansion behavioral disorders. Professionals in La., within the Feb. 2, 2020. of office space, so Business Aviation. He is Archdiocese of New Paradine’s new Nicole George ’16 the fixed base operator Bryan Lang PT ’13, Orleans. She is a 2009 started a position as position will benefit and facilities manager MHA ’14 was featured graduate of the school. a Tlingit Language the growing clinic. at Hillsboro Aviation. in an online series Project coordinator through ArtStation Heather Hale ’15 Sara Rauch MFA ’14 at Sealaska Heritage Magazine offering accepted a position as 2017 won an award for Institute in Juneau, tips for working from a behavior intervention Garrett Brown ’17 was her debut collection Alaska. home. In the post, of 11 stories, “What specialist for Twin accepted into the Third Lang demonstrates in Shines from It: Stories,” Rivers Unified School Lana Helm MFA ’16 Rail Repertory Theatre eight videos massages which won the Electric District in Sacramento, published her poem 2019-2020 Mentorship and exercises to do Book Award and was Calif. “Canis” in the Were- program. It is a for pain that can arise Traveler, an e-zine competitive program published in March 2020 Traci Skuce from sitting in one dedicated to short that allows people by Alternating Current MFA ’15 published her fiction. to shadow and work position and looking Press. She was featured first story collection, at computer screens in an online interview on with well-regarded Hunger Moon, Alec Lugo ’16 acted as for extended periods theatrical artists. Fiction Writers Review, comprised of 13 Horton in Seussical of time. discussing finding her emotionally charged June 2020, in an Joshua Huppert AuD inspiration in the literary Janelle Rainer MFA ’13 stories, all of which online production ’17 was featured in an arts, the role of writers released her second set out on a quest for the Northwest article that highlights in the public sphere and poetry collection, to satisfy emotional Children’s Theater unconventional showing how we’re all Woke to Birds, hunger. and School. Lugo has paths to becoming connected. focusing on abstract wanted to perform an audiologist. The anxieties, such as Justin Roney ’14 and 2016 this role for over article was published faith, spirit and his wife, Alicia Olson, Kennedy Antoniuk a decade. His last online by the Student mortality. Woke to welcomed baby ’16, OD ’19 wrote an performance was at Academy of Audiology Birds follows Rainer’s Maverick Dean Roney optometry article NWCT last season, as and focuses on the first collection, Two on Aug. 30, 2019. about children’s eye Bert in Mary Poppins. journeys of students. pacificu.edu/magazine 31
In Memoriam
Jennifer Saunders team as the practicum is centered on the MFA ’17 was the student from the PhD cathedral in Chartres, Friends winner of the 2020 clinical psychology France, the damage Dr. Bob “Doc” Bonn, former men’s Gregory O’Donoghue program at Pacific. it sustained during basketball coach and athletic director International Poetry World War II, and how at Pacific University, died June 26, Erin Guidarelli ’19 Prize judged by it was restored over 2020, at age 68. Bonn most recently is working through Kim Addonizio. Her time. served as athletic director for Carthage poem, “Crosswalk,” Work-Fit, an onsite College, where he retired in 2018 after Jeffery Szabo was featured in the injury prevention and an illustrious career. Before moving to OT ’19 and his spouse March 2020 edition management program Carthage, Bonn served as head men’s welcomed daughter of Southword, an at the Boeing Defense basketball coach and athletic director at Jemma Joyelle Szabo online journal. She and Space Program Pacific from 1984 to 1992. When Bonn on May 2, 2020. was unable to read in Seattle, Wash. She joined Pacific’s athletics staff in 1984, he her work at the 2020 also was accepted 2020 took on a men’s basketball program that Cork International a position on the had gone 0-26 the previous season. Over Poetry Festival in Washington Athletic Alvin Leung PharmD the next eight years, the team won two Cork, Ireland, because Trainer’s Association ’20 was awarded the Northwest Conference Championships. it was canceled Public Relations Samuel H. Kalman He was named Northwest Conference due to the novel Committee. Scholarship by the Coach of the Year in 1991 and ranks third American Pharmacists in all-time wins in the history of men’s coronavirus. Adam Katz ’19 opened basketball at Pacific. He also advocated for a dog training Association Foundation. increased athletics recruiting efforts to help 2018 business called Katz He was active in the American Pharmacists grow the College of Arts & Sciences at Amanda Hasan K9. In his business, Association Academy Pacific and to increase the competitiveness MAT ’18 welcomed son Katz will train dogs for of Student Pharmacists of Pacific’s sports programs. Bonn later Musa Mohamed on rehabilitation, tracking, locally and nationally, served as the National Association July 13, 2019. scent detection and of Athletic Development Directors protection. serving as chapter Haley McKinnon ’18 president. He also president in 2001-2002. Last year, he was had a poem “the way Patrick Lagier ’19 serves on the 2019- honored with the organization’s Lifetime to a man’s heart is was featured in an 2020 National Achievement Award as well as induction through his stomach” interview on a film Standing Committee into the National Association of Collegiate featured on the website, Potboiler on Policy. Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame. poetry website Story Co. The article is a Mike Charles, longtime Pacific University Elephants Never. talked about Lagier’s Annie Yu OD ’20 full-time optometrist education professor, died March 6, 2020, filmmaking endeavors Teo Mungaray at Seattle’s Broadway following a lengthy battle with cancer. since graduation, MFA ’18 had a Vision Source, where He was a caring and beloved teacher, which include starting poem, “Jackhammer,” she worked as a colleague and friend who spent the last to work at Potboiler, published in the technician before 19 years as a member of Pacific’s College and traveling to January 2020 online earning her OD. of Education. Previously, he was a K-6 places such as Nepal edition of Glass: A Yu is a member of teacher in Phoenix, Ariz., and a faculty for filming. Journal of Poetry. the Optometric member at Eastern Michigan University. Josh Oppenheim PA Honor Society, Charles was known for his innovation and 2019 ’19 started a new job Beta Sigma Kappa. dedication to improving education for children and for future teachers. At Pacific, Nicole Barney MFA ’19 at Prism Health. He is Dr. Jasmine Dhesi OD he designed and led global study abroad wrote an online hybrid working in LGBTQ+ ’20 joined Valley Vision interview for CRAFT primary care, HIV and experiences in New Zealand and Ecuador Optometry in Port interviewing author gender affirming care. that included immersive time in schools. Alberni, B.C., as an Garth Greenwell. He was also instrumental in developing Victor Pollak MFA ’19 associate optometrist. CRAFT is a website a dynamic partnership with Forest Grove published his debut During her training, High School to offer the Pacific Geospatial that explores the art of book, Saving the Dhesi volunteered Semester, which provides Forest Grove fiction. Barney also is Light at Chartres: How with AMIGOS Eye High School students with the opportunity writing a novel. the Great Cathedral Care, a non-profit to learn how to use GIS technology to Tyree Dingle ’17 and Its Stained-Glass organization that research real-world issues and obtain joined Portland Treasures Were took her to Senegal college credit. Some of these projects have Psychotherapy in 2019. Rescued during World and Belize to provide received national recognition. He was a Dingle joined the War II. The book eye care. n mentor to students and devoted extra 32
In Memoriam time to his role as an advisor, helping Sandra Garcia, a longtime Pacific married Amy Furukawa, and they undergraduates in particular see their University Japanese instructor, died settled in Spokane, Wash., where way to becoming teachers. Whenever March 8, 2020, after a lengthy illness he operated a barber shop for 57 traveling either for pleasure or for and recent stroke. Garcia, known to years. He was preceded in death by the university, Charles would look up her students as Garcia sensei, came to his parents, aunt, three brothers, and Pacific alumni and visit with them in Pacific University in 1987. She briefly three sisters. He is survived by his their classrooms, coming back excited taught introductory Spanish here, wife, Amy; sons Brian (and Nancy), to share stories of their successes. but she is best known for her passion Larry (and Marylin), and Mark (and It was rare to not see him in the and leadership in teaching Japanese. Laurie); daughter Linda (and Gene) stands at sporting events, theater In addition to teaching at Pacific, she Yamashita; seven grandchildren; performances, and concerts, cheering also taught students kanji (Japanese three great-grandchildren; sisters-in- on Pacific students and reveling in writing) outside of class and taught law Fujie and Sadie; and numerous their accomplishments. at Banks High School and Clark nieces and nephews. Community College. Her students Jimmy Conway, former Pacific remember her dedication, creativity 1949 University men’s head soccer coach, and enthusiasm for teaching. died Feb. 14, 2020, at age 73. He Mary Ruth (Erdmann) Christensen ’49 She also served on the National died June 29, 2020 in McMinnville, fought a decade-long battle against Council of Japanese Language Ore. She attended high school trauma-induced dementia. Conway Teachers, the Confederation in in both Banks and Forest Grove, coached the Boxers for five seasons, Oregon for Language Teaching, graduating in 1945. Mary then beginning in 1983. By the time he and the Association of Teachers of attended Pacific studying pre- arrived in Forest Grove, Conway Japanese in Oregon for many years, nursing. She went on to earn a already had Hall of Fame credentials holding leadership positions in each nursing degree at the University as both a player and coach in top-tier organization. The Confederation of Oregon in 1950. Mary married leagues in the U.S., England and in Oregon for Language Teaching Stanley Christensen in 1951. She his native Ireland. Conway began granted her its Lifetime Achievement was a nurse at various hospitals and his senior career in 1964 with his Award the day before her death. She care centers in the Salem area and hometown Bohemian FC, before also was instrumental in the City of Yamhill County, Ore. Christensen was a move to the Football League in Forest Grove’s relationship with its preceded in death by her husband; 1966 with Fulham FC, one of the – sister city in Nyuzen, Japan, as well parents; sisters Martha A. Cheney major London clubs. He spent 10 as for supporting official and youth and Sarah Roberta (Bert) Flabetich; seasons with the Cottagers, then delegations between the United and brother, William (Bill) F. Erdmann. moved to Manchester City for two States and Japan. She is survived by daughters, Janice years. In 1978, the Portland Timbers (and Howard) Bellows, Lora (and signed him as both a midfielder and 1945 Tarry) Brockman, and Lynn Slater captain and he led the club back to Charles Furumasu ’45 died June 8, of McMinnville; sons, Jerry (and the playoffs with a 20-10 record. In 2020, at the age of 98. He attended Janna) and Lyle (and Cynthia); 10 1980, his final year as a player, the Pacific in 1941, until his family was grandchildren; and eight great- club gave him the added responsibility ordered to move or be interned as grandchildren. of assistant coach. In 1981, Conway Japanese-Americans during World became director of coaching for the War II. His family chose to move to Juanita (Shinn) Klusman ’49 died Oregon Youth Soccer Association. Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho. While many March 25, 2020. After attending He held the job for 28 years, guiding friends were held in internment Pacific, Klusman received her BA elite youth teams in regional play and camps, Furumasu joined the U.S. from Southern Oregon College and training parents in proper coaching Army, rising to the rank of sergeant taught at Central Point Elementary techniques. In 1983, he took over first class and earning the Bronze School in Central Point, Ore. for the Pacific program, finishing as the Star. He served with the famed 442nd many years. She later opened a Boxers’ second-winningest coach Regimental Combat Team, the famed fabric store and operated it until in program history with a 51-37-9 “Go For Broke” unit that consisted her retirement. Klusman and her record. After leaving Pacific, he was mostly of Japanese-American men husband, Bob, were active within hired as Oregon State University’s who fought in Europe. He and other their local church community and first head coach of its men’s varsity surviving members of the 442nd within the canine community, raising program, a position he would retain were awarded the Congressional and training Labrador retrievers for for 11 years. He is survived by his Gold Medal, the nation’s highest hunting and fielding. Klusman was wife of 50 years, Noeleen; sons Paul civilian honor, in 2011. After the honored as one of two surviving and Mark; daughter Laura; eight war, he returned to Gaston, Ore., founding members of the Umpqua grandchildren; and 10 siblings. to farm with his family. In 1950, he Valley Republican Women at the pacificu.edu/magazine 33
Oregon Federation of Republican enlisting and fighting in World War daughter Tessa; stepchildren Cyndi Women Convention banquet. II, Hilbourne graduated from Pacific and Mike; step-grandsons Lane and Klusman was preceded in death by with a doctorate in optometry. Neal; brother Ron; and sister Jo. her husband, Bob. She is survived Kaiser Permanente immediately hired by her son, Thomas Klusman; Hilbourne as its first optometrist. 1954 grandchildren Benjamin Klusman, When he wasn’t working, Hilbourne Martin Laderman ’54, OD ’55 died May Joseph Klusman, Cassandra Sundholm was skiing. He became the president 5, 2020, at age 88. After graduating and Caroline Foulard; and brother of Oregon’s Cascade Ski Club in 1960. from Pacific with a degree in Charles C. Shinn. Hilbourne is survived by his wife, Irene; optometry, Laderman moved to New sons Jason and Zachary; grandchildren York, where he met his wife. They Jesse Miller OD ’49 died on Feb. Kai, Sam, Tristan and Cyrus; and two moved to Phoenix, where he practiced 7, 2020, at age 95. After serving nieces and three nephews. optometry until retiring in 2002. in World War II, Miller decided to Laderman served as the president of follow in his father’s footsteps and Richard Devine ’50 died Dec. 10, the Arizona Optometric Association study optometry. After graduating 2019, at age 92. DeVine served in and was also on the board of many from Pacific, he was one of only two Italy during the end of World War II other optometry associations in optometrists in the Navy. Miller and and then attended Pacific. He went the state. Laderman is survived by his wife settled in Springfield, Ore., on to the University of Washington his wife, Willa; brother Stanley; where he opened his own practice, to complete his BA in business. daughters Sandra, Ellen and Anne; focusing on developmental vision and He settled with his wife, Clare, in sons-in-law; grandchildren; and one vision therapy to overcome reading Fircrest, Wash., where they raised great-grandchild. and learning difficulties. Miller is three children. DeVine built his survived by his wife, Phyllis Beisma; lifelong career with Raleigh, Mann 1955 his five children, Mervin Miller, Mark and Powell insurance brokerage firm Caroll Heusser-Collard ’55 died Dec. Miller, Myrna Miller, Myron Miller in Tacoma, Wash. DeVine is survived 8, 2019, at age 86. Heusser-Collard and Myrna Miller; as well as many by his wife; sister Virginia Fitzpatrick; had a long singing career, starting loving grandchildren and great- daughter Victoria DeVine; son Craig with singing along with her mother grandchildren. Terri) Samuel, Sheri DeVine; daughter Sally Wright; and three aunts, harmonizing at (and Tim) Jones, and Marianne (and 10 grandchildren; and two great- church services. Her first solo was at Scott) Stone; five grandchildren; five grandchildren. great-grandchildren; and brother 10 or 11, singing O Holy Night for Robert (and Terry) Samuel. the Odd Fellows Lodge Christmas 1952 program. Heusser-Collard was a long- Roberta “Jean” Pullen ’49 died Dec. Lael (Peters) Kovtun ’52, OD ’53 time alto one soloist and member 29, 2019, at age 90. Pullen earned a died April 5, 2020. Kovtun and her of the Ensemble à Coeur Joie de bachelor’s degree in religion. She later husband settled in San Diego, where Toulouse, under the directorship of enrolled in Portland State University’s she devoted herself both to her work Alix Bourbon. Heusser-Collard was Division of Continuing Education and to her community. Kovtun spent preceded in death by her sister. She with the certificate program in social nearly every weekend for the past 40 is survived by her three children, services. Pullen spent her life working years attending fundraising events of four grandchildren, two great- for Adult and Family Services, and her numerous charitable organizations. grandchildren, and her brother. career spanned many branches and Kovtun is survived by her husband, programs across Gresham, Portland Jay; son Gordon; and grandchildren 1956 and Salem. She was proud of her Melina, Mikael and Nikolas. Charles “Chuck” Samuel ’56, OD ’57 work with the refugee program. died June 29, 2020, at age 84, after a Pullen is preceded in death by her 1953 long battle with pancreatic cancer. At husband, Ken; her parents; and Jerry Groff ’53, OD ’54 died March the time of his death, his home was her brother, John Culverson. She 22, 2020. He was an optometrist for in Bullhead City, Ariz. He married his is survived by her three children, more than 60 years, first in the U.S. high school sweetheart, Donna Jean David (Joanne) Pullen, Ann Pullen Army and later in private practice Pickett, in March 1956. He served in and Barry (Deanne Froehlich) Pullen; in Winlock, Wash. His next private the U.S. Air Force from 1957 to 1968 four grandchildren; five great- practice opened in Goleta, Calif., as an optometrist and radio operator. grandchildren; and her brother where he also enjoyed many years of He later worked as a manufacturing Kenneth Culverson. community engagement. Groff was a engineer at Tektronix. In 1971, he volunteer with three different groups opened his own optometric practice 1950 throughout his life that provided free in Tigard and Beaverton. He was Jack Hilbourne ’50, OD ’51 died eye care to the poor in remote areas. executive secretary of the Oregon June 14, 2020, at age 95. After Groff is survived by his wife, Marian; State Board of Optometry from 1977 34
In Memoriam to 1983. In 1987, he joined Kaiser 1956, stationed in England as a Permanente N.W. Division as the 1960 high speed radio operator. He then Chief of Optometry, from which he Jack Fenton ’60 died on Jan. 20, 2020, attended the University of South retired in 1999. He is survived by his at age 85. After Fenton’s discharge Dakota, before studying optometry at wife of 64 years, Donna; children from the Army, he came to Pacific, Pacific. Trevillyan served three years Chris (and Terri) Samuel, Sheri (and where he met his wife, Louise Hill as an optometrist in the Army at Ft. Tim) Jones, and Marianne (and Scott) Fenton ’59. They eventually settled Wainwright, Alaska. Terry and his wife Stone; five grandchildren; five great- in Dallas, Ore., to raise their family. later moved to Hermiston, Ore., where grandchildren; and brother Robert Fenton was preceded in death by he served his community through his (and Terry) Samuel. his mother, father, and sister, Donna optometry practice. After retirement in Glee. He is survived by his wife, 1999, Trevillyan moved to the Oregon 1957 Louise; son Jeffrey; daughter Jennifer; Coast, where he lived out the rest of Wallace Henry Ruch Jr. ’57, OD ’58 died brother Allen Fenton; sister Neva Jo his life exploring. He is survived by Oct. 1, 2019, at age 90. After Pacific, Suhadolnik; granddaughter Anne Alice, his wife of 58 years; son Mike he returned to Modesto, Calif., to begin Fenton; and grandson Jay Fenton. Trevillyan; daughter Sherri (and Greg) his optometry practice, which he ran for Romano; grandchildren Silvan, Trevan, 40 years. Ruch and his wife Catherine 1961 and Halli Romano; and brother-in-law raised three sons and three daughters Robert J. Fadhl ’61, OD ’62 died July Keith Prestis. and were active in their community. He 22, 2019, in Surprise, Ariz., at age was a member of the choir at St. Paul’s 80. Fadhl worked in an optical lab 1962 Episcopal Church, as well as a board before receiving his optometry degree. Kay (Kienstra) Cushman ’62 died Jan. member and president of the Modesto Thereafter, he committed 20 years to 18, 2020, at age 79. Cushman worked Community Concert Association. He is the Army. Bob loved playing cards, as a Presbyterian minister for most of survived by his six children, Wallace III boating, and most of all story telling. her life and retired 15 years ago. She (and Kathi), Stephen (and Kathleen), Fadhl was preceded in death by his was preceded in death by her parents John (and Leah), Elizabeth (and parents and sister Betty Lund. He is and her husband, Charles Cushman. Dave) Gates, Louise (and Anthony) survived by his wife, Nancy Fadhl; She is survived by her children, Thomas Wortham, and Mary (and David) children Jon Fadhl, Michael Fadhl, Cushman and John Cushman; a sister, Cline; 17 grandchildren; and 11 Paula Fadhl-Pohl, Kimberly Fadhl- Diane Robins; and three grandchildren. great-grandchildren. Blood; and five grandchildren. Larry Sanders ’62 died Dec. 10, 2019, 1958 Richard Mannila ’61 died Oct. 23, at age 84. After serving in the military 2019, at age 81. He paid for his own Janet (Zimmerman) Markee ’58 died and marrying his wife Mieko in Japan, college education at Pacific with a Sanders moved to Forest Grove, where April 5, 2020, at age 83. Markee football scholarship and multiple jobs, studied history at Pacific, while also he received a bachelor’s degree in history including firefighting. In 1968 Mannila participating on the cheer team and from Pacific. He began a teaching and served in Vietnam as Company as her class’s Homecoming Queen. coaching career in Oregon. Sanders Commander of Alpha Company She spent her career teaching at and his family finally settled in the Los 1st Battalion 4th Marines. He was many junior high and high schools in Angeles area, where he continued wounded in action near Khe Sanh. Ca. and Ore. Her interests included to coach and teach. Sanders was Mannila was awarded a Bronze Star poetry, making documentaries, hiking preceded in death by his wife, Mieko. Medal with Combat ”V“ for Valor and and photography. Markee is survived He is survived by his sons, Terry (and a Purple Heart before medically retiring by her husband, Mike; their five Motoe), Gary (and Yumiko), and from the USMC as a major In 1969. children and partners; and their nine Larry (and Elizabeth), as well as many He also was a successful restaurateur. grandchildren. grandchildren, great-grandchildren and He opened and ran seaside family great-great-grandchildren. 1959 restaurants, the 22nd Landing Seafood Grill and Bar in San Pedro. Mannila died Aug. 17, 1963 Neil Bowden ’59, OD ’60 was predeceased by his parents and 2019, at age 83. Bowden received his Michael Armstrong ’63 died May 4, his brother, John. He is survived by his doctorate in optometry from Pacific 2020, of complications related to wife, Anita; daughters Amy and Missy; and went on to practice in Vancouver COVID-19. He was 79. His wife, granddaughter Adelyn; and extended and Kamloops, B.C., Canada. Bowden Dnynia, died of the same disease a family members. was preceded in death by his brothers, month earlier. Armstrong majored Ian and Daryl, and his sister Louise. He Terry Trevillyan ’61, OD ’63 died in journalism and political science at is survived by his sister, Doreen, and Oct. 14, 2019, at age 85. Trevillyan Pacific, where he met his first wife, his nieces and nephews. served in the Army from 1954 to Anita Lee Taylor ’63. He was the sports pacificu.edu/magazine 35
editor for the Forest-Grove News Mars. Ihrke was preceded in death Todd Langford, David Langford, Janae Times, The Oregonian and The by his wife, Sandy Ihrke; his parents; Langford, Douglas (and Michelle) Columbian newspapers. In his senior a granddaughter; and a brother. He Langford, and Elisabeth (and Ray) year, he served in the Army National is survived by his children and their Barlow; mother June Oakey Langford; Guard, and he worked for the spouses, Julie and Kevin Kennedy, sister Carol Ann (and Richard) Dayton; university as assistant public relations Scott and Delana Ihrke, and Shelly 18 grandchildren; three great- director. After his graduation, he and Alan Schultz; seven grandchildren; grandchildren; and many nieces, received his master’s degree at and sister Betty Hoeft. nephews, and cousins. Boston University, then went to died Jan. 5, 2020, at New York City, where he took a 1965 Michael Ben ’71 age 70. He was a retired director for job in public relations. In 1970, he Fred Willis ’65 died Aug. 1, 2019, ran a congressional campaign and at age 76. Willis graduated with a the County of Hawai‘i Department of later ran as a candidate for New degree in mathematics from Pacific, Human Resources and founding board York Assembly. Armstrong started while also earning 11 varsity letters member of the Holualoa Foundation the Brooklyn Phoenix and owned in three sports. Later, he went on to for Arts and Culture, among many it through the early 1990s. Also, earn a master’s degree in teaching other accomplishments. Ben is survived in 1977, Armstrong took over The from the University of Oregon before by his wife, Betty Ben; brothers Gerald Villager, Greenwich Village’s weekly becoming an educator for the rest Ben and Robert Ben; sister Cheryl Ben- newspaper, owning it until 1992. of his life. Willis is survived by his Brady; and many nieces and nephews. In 1981, Armstrong married Dnynia wife, Tonya; daughters Wendy and Bauman, who was working at the Amy; sisters and brothers and other 1973 Phoenix on the advertising and family members. Roger De Leon ’73 died April 29, 2020, business side. They would spend at age 68. After graduating from the rest of their lives together. After 1968 Pacific, De Leon moved to the Treasure leaving journalism, he used his public Steven Wagner OD ’68 died March Valley area of Idaho until 1982, when relations talents while working for 4, 2020. Wagner served as an Army he returned to Oregon. De Leon was Brooklyn Borough President Howard optometrist at Fort Gordon then had preceded in death by his mother, Golden for nearly 10 years and began a brief stint in private practice before Pauline; father Rogelio; son Michael; his own consulting firm, Armstrong joining Kaiser Permanente. During brother Gilbert; and sister Alice. He is & Associates. He is survived by his his lifetime, he explored the seven survived by his wife, Joan; daughter daughter, Arija Noel; stepson Aram continents with his camera in hand. Cassandra; son Rogelio; three brothers; Bauman; stepdaughter Aisha Ricca; Other passions of his included baking, a sister; and many nieces, nephews brother Steve Armstrong; and sister woodworking and kayaking. Wagner and grandchildren. Jan Strickland; six grandchildren; and is survived by his wife, Mary Wagner; William Erickson ’73 died May 28, four great-grandchildren. sons Richard and Michael; and brothers Jim and Kelly Wagner. 2020, at age 68. After graduating Yolanda “Yolie” (Lewandowicz) from Pacific, Erickson went on to Randlett ’63 died Nov. 12, 2019. 1971 become a respected electrician, working on countless commercial During her time at Pacific, Randlett was James “Jimmy” Warren Langford OD projects throughout his career. He a Theta sorority sister. Randlett was ’71 died June 23, 2020, at age 78. also the first ever artificial heart valve He spent most of his school years in also built three homes during his recipient at OHSU. Randlett is survived Cokeville, Wyo., and served a mission lifetime, first on his family farm, by her husband, John Randlett ’62. for the Church of Jesus Christ of followed by the house he built with Latter-day Saints from 1961 to 1964. his wife to raise their daughter, and 1964 He then earned his bachelor’s degree finally a beachfront home in Ocean Gerald Ihrke OD ’64 died on Dec. from Utah State University in pre- Park, Wash., where he and his wife 23, 2019, at the age of 81. After dental zoology and went on to earn retired. Erickson spent his time at receiving his doctorate in optometry his doctorate from Pacific University his beachfront house clamming, from Pacific, Ihrke moved to Le College of Optometry. He provided crabbing, fishing and enjoying time Mars, Iowa, to become a partner eye care with the Indian Health Service out on the open water. Erickson at an optometry clinic, where he in New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, was preceded in death by his parents, remained until retirement at age and Idaho, where he retired after his brother and his sister-in-law. 62. He also served as the president 33 years. He was preceded in death He is survived by his wife, Jan; of the Iowa Optometric Association by his father, Ralph Leslie Langford. daughter Abigail; sister Ardis; and on the boards of Floyd Valley He is survived by his wife, Yvonne; brother Robert; and several nieces, Hospital and Westmar College in Le children Carrie (and Glade) Howell, nephews and cousins. 36
In Memoriam 1977 1990 2001 Grant Nakamoto ’77 died July 19, Lisa Howlett ’90 died March 9, William Lynch III MAT ’02 died 2016, at age 60. He was a self- 2020. After graduating from Pacific Sept. 29, 2019, at age 46. After employed businessman. Nakamoto was University, Howlett began a career in receiving his degree from Pacific, preceded in death by his mother, Lillian social services. She also spent much Lynch went on to become a Nakamoto. He is survived by his father, of her time volunteering with the beloved English teacher at Lincoln Henry Nakamoto; brother Crayton Maui Academy of Performing Arts. High School in Portland, Ore. Nakamoto; sisters Doreen Ranne and Howlett is survived by her parents, He was Teacher of the Year and Cynthia Shimabuku; and many nieces Jim and Linda Howlett, and many also represented Oregon at a and nephews. family and friends. ceremony in Washington, D.C. Lynch was preceded in death by his 1978 1992 grandparents, William H. and Jean James Ruch ’78, OD ’80 died Jan. 28, John Galindo MS ’92, PsyD ’98 died Babbitt Lynch, and Anthony C. 2020, at age 65. After graduating with Nov. 10, 2019, at age 68. Galindo and Raffaelina DeBellis; and his a doctorate in optometry from Pacific, went back to school later in life. His father, William Lynch II. He is Ruch moved back to his hometown of passion was helping others. An avid survived by his mother, Deanna Britton, SD. He practiced at Vision Care golfer, Galindo found any excuse to Lynch; brother Jeffrey Lynch; children Associates until 1982, then continued to get out on the course. This past year Hazel and William Henry Lynch IV; practice optometry in Nebraska, Kansas, he achieved his lifelong dream of a and nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles Texas and Arizona. Ruch was preceded hole-in-one. Galindo was preceded and many cousins. in death by his son, father, stepfather in death by his mother and his and grandparents. He is survived by his grandmother. He is survived by his 2005 wife, sister, nephews, aunts, uncles and wife, Nancy; children Sarah (and John) Joseph Halloran MAT ’05 died Nov. cousins, as well as his two pugs. and Laura; four grandchildren Isabel, 18, 2019, at age 69. After serving Maya, Laylah and Quincy; and his in the military, Halloran spent the 1979 brother, Dale (and Shirley). majority of his career with Nalco Geoffrey Rath ’79, OD ’81 died April Chemical Company and, in 2004, Secily Malia (Meyer) Gray ’92 died Jan. 10, 2020, at age 62. Rath practiced retired to follow his dream of 4, 2020, at age 49. A life-long hula optometry, serving the towns of teaching. Halloran received his dancer, she embodied the essence Oakes, Ellendale, Forman, LaMoure master’s in teaching in 2005, then and vibrancy of the mele she danced. and Ashley, ND. Rath also enjoyed taught for five years. Halloran is Gray is survived by her husband, golfing, fly-fishing and traveling. Rath survived by his wife, Ellie Halloran; Todd; son Akili; daughter Meleana; is survived by his wife, Dorothea; sons daughters Nicole Williamson and parents Lyman and Delleen Meyer; Tyler, Andrew and Geoffrey; mother Sarah Pierson; and grandchildren. sisters Danene and Kaleinani; Delores; and brother Greg. brother Kaniau; and numerous 2010 1983 nieces and nephews. Kristin Diaz Hang PharmD ’10 died June 1, 2020, at age 37, due to Ronald Cuevas ’83, OD ’86 died Dec. 1995 pregnancy complications. She was 16, 2019, at age 58. After receiving Christina Smith OD ’95 died Aug. 31, known as a woman of integrity, his doctorate in optometry at Pacific, 2019, at age 50. Smith received commitment and passion. She loved Cuevas went on to practice in Eugene, her doctorate in optometry from the simple things in life and spending Ore., for more than 30 years. Pacific, then went to raise her family time with her precious family. She Karen Jaggar PT ’83 died Nov. 20, 2019, and start an optometry practice in loved to help those in need. Diaz is at age 59. Jaggar graduated from Pacific Black Mountain, NC. She organized survived by her daughter, Sofia, and with a BS in science-physical therapy, many optometric mission trips over her husband, Sov. and was awarded the President’s Award her lifetime, traveling to places of Highest Academic Achievement. like Grenada and Trinidad to help 2016 She moved to the California Bay area bring better vision to underserved Alison Shafer PharmD ’16 died to further her education and work as a populations. Smith is survived by her June 4, 2020, at the age of 44. physical therapist. Jagger was preceded husband, Chris German; sons Sean She was an engaged alumna of in death by her father, Samuel Jaggar. and Will; parents Ann and Richard Pacific’s pharmacy program and She is survived by her brother, Charles Smith; sister and brother-in-law Julia returned to Pacific in February as Jaggar; her mother, Nancy Black; and and Jacob Caselli; and many other a guest speaker to teach first-year stepfather Harvey Black. loving family members. students about oncology. n Looking For Your Next Great Read? There’s no better time to pick up a new book! Check out what’s on our reading list right now, and find even more suggestions at the Alumni Association’s Goodreads.com/BoxerAlumni. Plus, join us for the Alumni Book Club for monthly reads and discussions or register for our newest virtual events, a series featuring alumni and faculty authors events. pacificu.edu/AlumniEvents
American Dreamer: How I Escaped Communist Vietnam and Built a Successful Life in America By Tim Tran ‘74 Published through Pacific University, American Dreamer is the memoir of Pacific alumnus and trustee Khiem “Tim” Tran ‘74, tracing his path from rural Vietnam to his escape to America and his rise as CFO of a multi-billion-dollar company. Tran will be the guest author at Pacific’s first alumni and faculty author event, a virtual gathering Nov. 14.
Leaving the Boys: A Story of Motherhood and Career, Feminism and Romance By Mindy Cameron ‘65 Alumna Mindy Cameron ’65 made her name as a journalist in the Northwest. Now, she tells the rest of the story. After retirement and a seven-year stint as chair of the Pacific University Board of Trustees, she returned to Pacific as a student in the MFA in Writing Program. The result is this captivating memoir illuminating the tension between motherhood, desire, and regret. Cameron will be the guest author at Pacific’s second alumni and faculty author event, a virtual gathering on Jan. 16.
Make Your Home Among Strangers By Jennine Capó Crucet This debut novel focuses on a first-generation college student who struggles with feelings of belonging. Pacific students in First-Year Seminar have read the book over the summer and will discuss it as part of their introductory coursework at Pacific, and it also will be the selected reading for the Alumni Book Club meeting during virtual Homecoming on Oct. 10.
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MAGAZINE STAFF Executive Editor | Jenni Luckett Managing Editor | Mike Francis Writing & Editing | Rosie Fiallo, Ella Cutter ‘22 Design | Alex Bell ’13, Joyce Lovro Gabriel Video & Photography | Robbie Bourland
CONTRIBUTORS Photography | Parrish Evans ’11, Jaren Kerr ’22, Dominic Sampaulesi ’19, Roy Wesley, Pacific University Archives
ADMINISTRATION & UNIVERSITY ADVANCEMENT President | Lesley M. Hallick Vice President University Advancement | Rick Kimbrough Senior Associate Vice President Principal & Planned Gifts | Jan Stricklin Associate Vice President Engagement & Operations | Martha Calus-McLain ’03 Associate Vice President Marketing & Communications | Jenni Luckett Assistant Vice President Development | Zachary S. Wallace Director of Conference & Event Support Services | Jill Thornton
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JG 20200917 30.250M We want Boxer back! C’mon. repurpose or recycle this magazine.