No.1, 2011 I $5
Where’s Warren? Retired-but-never-retiring architect can do as he pleases
I A MOTHER’S LOVE I HONEYBEE H ELP
Contents | January 2011
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COVER STORY For Jessica Stung A daughter’s struggle, a MacArthur grant-winner Measure of a Man mother’s love and a definition Marla Spivak’s fascination with Warren Corman had a hand of happiness that’s far from honeybees drives her quest to in the design and construc- textbook. help the threatened pollinators tion of some of KU’s most help themselves. iconic buildings. As he closes By Jennifer Lawler the books on a long career, By Steven Hill the 84-year-old architect has himself become a bit of a KU icon.
By Chris Lazzarino
Cover photograph by Steve Puppe
Established in 1902 as The Graduate Magazine ISSUE 1, 2011 | 1 Volume 109, No. 1, 2011 Lift the Chorus
2 | Kansas Alumni January 2011
64 Publisher Kevin J. Corbett, c’88 Editor Jennifer Jackson Sanner, j’81 Creative Director Susan Younger, f’91 2 Lift the Chorus Letters from our readers Associate Editors Chris Lazzarino, j’86 Steven Hill Sta Writer Terry Rombeck 5 First word e editor’s turn Editorial Assistant Karen Goodell Photographer Steve Puppe, j’98 Graphic Designer Valerie Spicher, j’94 6 On the Boulevard KU & Alumni Association events
Advertising Sales Representative Whitney Eriksen, c’08, j’08 8 Jayhawk Walk ri y threads, lizard dinner, the Field House beat and more Editorial and Advertising Oce KU Alumni Association 10 Hilltopics 1266 Oread Avenue News and notes: Gov. Brownback sworn in; Lawrence, KS 66045-3169 West Campus gets a high-tech incubator. 785-864-4760 • 800-584-2957 www.kualumni.org 16 Sports [email protected] Alumnus Sheahon Zenger is new athletics director.
KANSAS ALUMNI MAGAZINE (ISSN 0745-3345) is published by the KU 38 Association News Alumni Association six times a year in January, March, May, July, Sep- Nominations sought for board, Fred Ellsworth tember and November. $55 annual subscription includes membership in the Alumni Association. O¡ce of Publication: 1266 Oread Avenue, Medallion; legacy scholarship made permanent. Lawrence, KS 66045-3169. Periodicals postage paid at Lawrence, KS.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Kansas Alumni Magazine, 1266 42 Class Notes Oread Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66045-3169 © 2011 by Kansas Alumni Pro les of a civic leader, a world-class spokesman Magazine. Non-member issue price: $7 and more 60 In Memory Letters to the Editor: Deaths in the KU family Kansas Alumni welcomes letters to the editor. Our 64 Rock Chalk Review address is Kansas Alumni magazine, 1266 Oread Avenue, KU theatre brushes up its OP Shakespeare; Lawrence, KS 66045-3169. E-mail responses may be sent Sean Sheridan captures Africa’s struggles. to the Alumni Association, [email protected]. Letters appearing in the magazine may be edited for space and clarity. For letters published, we’ll send a free gift of 68 Glorious to view the KU Magnet Game, a $15 value. Scene on campus
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 3
by Jennifer Jackson Sanne r First Word
STEVE PUPPE
Younger, the woman who so handily stretched and spliced tape measures in Corman’s basement, relishes a creative challenge. After redesigning this magazine a decade ago, she decided it was time to refresh the look. She and Valerie Spicher, j’94, our graphic designer, meticulously researched countless magazines and design theories over the past several months to find the most appeal- ing typefaces and page designs in which to package our prose. We are thrilled by the results. And, I must confess, I feel my age. Years ago, I didn’t understand the concerns of older readers who sometimes found type too small or too light to see clearly. Now that I, too, wear bifocals, I can personally attest to the readability of our new design. In our second profile, Steve Hill tells the story of KU’s latest winner of the prestigious scholarly awards from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. One of the 2010 prizes, each of which includes a $500,000 grant, went to Marla Spivak, who studied with KU’s resident bee expert, Professor Orley arren Corman has climbed his share of scaffolds during his “Chip” Taylor. Spivak, PhD’89, has made a name for herself as an Wsix decades as an architect, so crawling on the floor wasn’t eminent scholar and innovator at the University of Minnesota, completely bizarre. where she has developed a new strain of honeybees in an effort But for a photo shoot in his own home? Whatever happened to to protect the imperiled insects so essential to agriculture and the just sitting pretty and saying “cheese”? food supply. The 84-year-old University architect was puzzled as Susan Our third feature resulted from an ultimatum issued by Diane Younger, Kansas Alumni creative director, and Steve Puppe, our Silver, a freelance writer and frequent contributor to Kansas photographer, began stringing metal tape measures every which Alumni. Silver, normally ever-so-polite in pitching a story, said way, creating a wacky maze through which Corman, e’50, needed we must write about Jennifer Lawler, who had recently shared the to crawl before smiling for the camera. At one point, he hollered story of her daughter, Jessica, in an online essay. Silver pointed us upstairs to his wife: “Mary! You gotta come down here and see to Lawler’s essay, and once we started reading, we couldn’t stop. what these crazy kids are doing!” We soon decided that instead of writing about Lawler, c’88, g’94, Later that day, when I thanked him for spending most of his PhD’96, we wanted her writing to appear in these pages. We asked morning with Younger, f’91, and Puppe, j’98, the still-smiling for the rights to publish her essay, and she agreed, setting about Corman pretended to rant: “Good grief! It took them forever— the tough task of editing it to fit our format. In thanks to our must have been an hour and a half! I thought those guys would eagle-eyed freelancer, we asked Silver to introduce the essay. never leave.” Weeks later, we still can’t stop reading Lawler’s wrenching, Of course, as I explained to Corman, a cover model deserves wondrous account of life with her daughter, who since birth has extra time and creative effort: especially the man who played a key faced life-threatening illness. Although their daily challenges may role in so many KU landmarks—a guy we wish would never leave. differ from yours, the fierce love, nagging fears and sheer joys of In our profile by Chris Lazzarino, j’86, you’ll learn the stories family life are universal. This is one of the most powerful pieces behind the favorite projects of the affable architect who knows Kansas Alumni has ever published, and we are grateful and proud KU buildings inside and out. to share it with you.
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 5 On the Boulevard
The Montana Repertory Theatre (left) brings to the Lied Center its revival of “Bus Stop,” by William Inge, c’35; and magicians Kevin and Cindy Spencer present their “Theatre of Illusion.” COURTESY LIED CENTER (2) COURTESY
Exhibitions 26-27 “The Time Machine,” 15 Alexander String Quartet 29 KU Symphony Orches- by H.G. Wells, adapted for 17 KU Symphony Orchestra tra and Choirs perform “Dan Perjovschi Central the stage and directed by “Elijah” Court,” Spencer Museum of Dennis Christilles 19 William Inge’s “Bus Stop” Art, through Feb. 6 24 The Spencers: “Theatre “Conversation IX—Media of Illusion” Murphy Hall events Memes: Images, Technology Lied Center events 25 School of Engineering & Making the News,” Spen- presents Engineering JANUARY cer Museum of Art, through JANUARY Expo 2011: “A Century KU Opera, “Ruddig- Feb. 7 27-29 26 Joyce Castle, Celebration” ore,” Swarthout Recital Hall mezzo-soprano and KU professor of voice, free MARCH FEBRUARY University Theatre concert 3-5 Rock Chalk Revue 10 Carine Gutlerner, piano, FEBRUARY Swarthout Recital Hall FEBRUARY 4-5 James Higdon: Celebra- tion of 30 Years Teaching at 18 Composer’s Guild, 10-15 “Undergraduate 6 KU School of Music KU, Bales Organ Recital Hall Swarthout Recital Hall Projects: Black Box,” Inge Prairie Wind Festival Theatre 6 Kansas City Symphony 20 KU French Horn 8 Black Violin 24-26, March 4-6 “The 9 “An Evening with Ensemble, Swarthout Beaux’ Stratagem,” by 13 Kansas City Music Garrison Keillor” Recital Hall George Farquhar, directed Teachers Association 13 “Carnival of Animals” by John Staniunas presents “Musikopoly: From Rags to Riches” and “Peter and the Wolf”
6 | KANSAS A LUMNI 23 Amir Khosrowpour, Alumni events Kansas Honors Directory piano, Swarthout Recital Hall Program JANUARY n Adams Alumni Center ...... 864-4760 27 Collegium Musicum, 25 Boulder: KU vs. JANUARY Swarthout Recital Hall Colorado pregame event 31 Pittsburg n Athletics .....800-34-HAWKS n MARCH 27 Denver Alumni Breakfast Booth Hall FEBRUARY of Athletics ...... 864-7050 17 KU Opera Scenes, Robert 27 Washington, Baustian Theatre D.C.: KU Night at the 7 Beloit n Dole Institue of Smithsonian American 7 Iola Politics ...... 864-4900 Art Museum 9 Great Bend n Kansas Union ...... 864-4596 n KU Info ...... 864-3506 Special events FEBRUARY 10 Larned n KU main 1 Lubbock: KU vs. Texas 17 Blue Rapids FEBRUARY number ...... 864-2700 Tech pregame event 23 Holton 3 University Women’s n Lied Center ...... 864-ARTS Club, featuring Susan L. 12 Sacramento: KU Night 23 Paola n Gronbeck-Tedesco, with the Kings University Theatre Tickets ...... 864-3982 Kansas Union 13 Bay Area: KU Night with MARCH n the Golden State Warriors 2 Highland Spencer Museum MARCH of Art ...... 864-4710 26 Topeka: Capital City 23 Atchison 3 University Women’s Club, Luau featuring Kathy Swanson 26 Norman, Okla.: KU vs. and Courtney Ricketts, Oklahoma pregame event Kansas Union
MARCH PUPPE (3) STEVE Lectures 14 Washington, D.C.: KU Night with the Wizards FEBRUARY 31-April 1 Lawrence: School of Journalism Alumni Event 9 Susan Harris, Humanities Lecture Series, Kansas Union
MARCH 10 Mae Ngai, Humanities Lecture Series, Kansas Union JEFF JACOBSEN Academic calendar
JANUARY 21 Spring classes begin
MARCH JEFF JACOBSEN 21-27 Spring break With basketball season upon us, here’s a nod to alumni and fans through the years who have taken their school spirit to the extreme. Alumni
Association chapters nationwide host watch parties for many basketball games, and the Association will host pregame rallies at selected games and throughout postseason play. Visit www.kualumni.org for the latest on all alumni events.
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 7 Jayhawk Walk .
Lizard, very rare O like Ngo Van Tri would think twice Wardrobe malfunction about the genetic makeup of a restaurant menu item. After years examining reptiles in Students prepping for job Southeast Asia, he was struck interviews and career fairs can by the unique appearance of look to the University Career lizards served at a remote Viet- Center for more than resumé help namese eatery. In early 2009, and interview tips: They can find he sent photos and samples to something to wear, courtesy of a his American colleagues Jesse clothing drive sponsored by Delta Grismer, a KU doctoral student Epsilon Iota. researching the Leiolepis genus, The career-focused student and Jesse’s father and fellow honor society set out donation herpetologist, L. Lee Grismer. The team quickly realized this bins on campus this fall and lizard was exceptional. gathered a closetful of “Tri dropped a gem in my professional attire, including lap when he e-mailed me,” says ties, dress shoes and shirts,
LARRY LEROY PEARSON LEROY LARRY Jesse Grismer, who sequenced and suits. They received the DNA and discovered the “more obscure items” too, says population was closely related DEI president and senior to other asexual species. He Nate Phillips. and his father found that every A stocking cap. A bag of gym Meaning? sample was female and seemed clothes. A knee-length floral-print dress “Loud colors, crazy patterns. to reproduce by self-cloning Phillips dubbed “the Mrs. Doubtfire Corduroy.” (not so odd in the lizard outfit.” And (talk about business casual) a Items eventually will be cataloged on world, as it turns out), one-piece “karate costume” patterned in UCC’s Web page, but for now student but they found no black and red diamonds. job-seekers who must dress to impress record of this par- “The majority was exactly what we were can stop by the center at 110 Burge Union. ticular strain. looking for, but we definitely laughed a few The drive is done, but donations are times,” says Erin Wolfram, g’07, assistant still welcome, especially from alumni. director at UCC and DEI adviser. “We got Even those from the ’80s. And remember: a lot of stuff from the ’80s.” “You look mahvelous, dahling.”
Heard by the Bird: Shortly after KU’s 70-68 victory over USC, a Dec. 18 game that will be long remembered for the 21 points and game-winning three-pointer Josh Selby scored in his collegiate debut, Bill Self was asked whether the sensational freshman guard had inadvertently sat in Self’s chair following a time out. Self at first said he hadn’t noticed, but, flashing his famous grin, grabbed at the chance for a good-natured jab: “Makes two shots,” the coach said, playing up his soft Oklahoma drawl, “and the guy thinks he should coach the team.” Asked whether raucous fans helped KU overcome the {}determined Trojans, Self replied, “They won the game ... well, and Selby.”
8 | KANSAS A LUMNI fying a VW Beetle to achieve cal engineering who oversees ants during frequent stops. The 100 miles per gallon [“A bug the project. “We found that an heaviest loads typically come “It’s really neat when remade,” Rock Chalk Review, electric vehicle makes perfect early in the route, when battery issue No. 3, 2009] is now refur- sense for them because it fits charge is highest. And best of you’re out in the wild bishing a GMC Jimmy to serve their driving cycle perfectly.” all, friction created by braking and you’re holding a as a battery electric mail truck. Specifically, the stop-and-go, recharges batteries that power “Campus mail heard about up-and-down, short-mileage the electric engine, putting lineage of life that no the Beetle and contacted routes play to the strengths of gravity’s pull to good use. one in the world has us,” says Chris Depcik, an an electric vehicle. There’s no Who knew that all those hills ever seen.” assistant professor of mechani- running engine to spew pollut- had such an upside? —Jesse Grismer Lessons learned in con- verting a VW Beetle to The Grismers booked plane battery power are helping tickets to Ho Chi Minh City. Austin Hausmann, e’10, After a harrowing eight-hour graduate student in me- motorcycle ride through south- chanical engineering, and ern Vietnam, the Grismers and his fellow Ecohawks build Tri arrived at the restaurant to an electric-powered SUV find that their specimen had for campus mail delivery. been cooked and served to PUPPE (2) STEVE hungry customers. With help from knowl- edgeable locals, the scientists captured more of the unusual Drummer’s seat can’t be beat lizards for study. “It’s really neat when you’re hris Carter is a sophomore math major snares the other leads the band, switching out in the wild and you’re Cwho doesn’t even camp out before men’s o every few songs. holding it in your hand,” says basketball games, and yet he confidently The main drawback of the otherwise Grismer, “and you know that argues that his is the best seat in all of Allen perfect seat is that it’s directly in front of the you’re holding a lineage of life Field House. horn section. As for ear protection, Carter that no one in the world has That’s because there’s only one stool scos, “You just gotta live in that environ- ever seen.” behind only one drum set, perched on a ment, appreciate the tones, appreciate that The Grismers named the platform with a perfect view overlooking the it’s the loudest place in the country to watch new species after their indis- south end of Naismith Court. college basketball.” pensable colleague, and the Carter is one of two Basketball Band drum- That’s a reference to a study, commis- Leiolepis ngovantrii entered mers, along with junior music education sioned by ESPN The Magazine, that declared the scientific body of knowl- major Taylor Babb; while one slam dunks the KU’s the country’s loudest arena, with edge. “the perfect combo of dimension, students- Seems a celebration feast is to-court proximity and low-absorption in order. materials.” STEVE PUPPE STEVE And don’t forget band-to-court proximity. Carter takes pride in playing “really hard, full Hauling the mail of energy,” but notes that it’s not all about loud: “As the drummer, you’re the only visual M on Mount representation of the band. Everybody else, Oread will get a lot greener you can maybe see their fingers moving, but once the KU Ecohawks finish you can’t see what sound they’re making.” their latest project, converting Whether it’s the sight or the sound, an old SUV into a electric ve- the rhythm and the Rock Chalk are hicle for campus mail services. gonna get you. The student group that un- Carter dertook the challenge of modi-
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 9 Hilltopics by Steven Hill
Stormy weather forced inaugural TERRY ROMBECK TERRY ceremonies for Gov. Sam Brown- back indoors at the state capitol— and seemed an apt symbol of higher education’s funding outlook in a time of continuing budget deficits.
more space is needed. The Kansas Board of Regents is calling on the Legislature to provide $5.4 million to be split among KU, Kansas State and Wichita State to increase the number of engineering graduates. • Achieving NCI designation. The multi- year drive to obtain National Cancer Insti- attracting talented young people to the tute designation for the KU Cancer Center state or persuading Kansans who moved would attract top researchers and give the Tough sell away to return. 13,000 Kansans annually diagnosed with As the Legislature convened in January, cancer local access to the latest treatments Funding tops KU’s wish list, the University shared its top priorities for and most advanced care. KU is expected to but tough times and shifting the upcoming session. The most pressing submit its application for NCI designation political winds could hinder goal concerns include: in September. Also a top legislative prior- • Increasing the number of engineer- ity is elevating the national ranking of the ing graduates. Collaborating with K-12 School of Medicine. The University will be t a time of sweeping political change schools to boost interest in the field has asking the Legislature to invest in both of Ain Topeka, the University headed into worked, driving enrollment in the School these goals. the 2011 legislative session hoping to shore of Engineering to a 21-year-high. The • Avoiding further cuts to the higher- up support from lawmakers for several school has tripled the number of PhD ed budget and securing an “inflationary initiatives already well underway. students, doubled research awards and is increase” to keep funding steady. After The November elections increased awarding higher numbers of undergradu- suffering more than $42 million in cuts Republican majorities in the House and ate degrees, but its ability to train addi- brought on by the economic crisis and Senate to historic levels, and ushered in a tional engineers needed by Kansas com- resulting state budget shortfalls, KU new governor, Sam Brownback, l’83. panies is hampered by a lack of space. A supports the Board of Regents’ call for a “Our administration will focus on the new 40,000-square-foot building partially 2.73-percent budget hike to offset infla- basics,” Brownback said during his Jan. 10 funded by a $12.3 million federal stimulus tion. That increase would add about inauguration as the state’s 46th governor. grant is now under construction, but even $20 million in state support for higher “I want Kansas to be known as a state of hope. Whoever has the most hope has the biggest dreams.” “ Great educations grow great futures. Yet our public Brownback told the Associated Press that he is working on a plan to buy down universities have suered severe cuts and stagnant the student loans of college graduates rankings at a time when the Kansas economy needs who move to shrinking communities. The proposal would require states and { better educated students and ascending institutions.” counties to share program costs, and it } —Gov. Sam Brownback would target nonresidents in the hopes of
10 | KANSAS A LUMNI education. In all the Economic Growth initiative feet of economic engine. Regents are calling for to increase jobs in key sectors “What we have here is a system for restoration of half of such as aviation, cancer research, building companies,” says McClorey, direc- the $100 million cut animal health and engineering. tor of the new center and president and last fiscal year. Each university would be required CEO of the Lawrence Regional Technology It will be a tough to provide 50 percent of the Center, which manages the business incu- sell. Brownback program cost by raising private bator and provides development services takes office facing money or redirecting existing to its tenants. “We’re building an entre- yet another budget funds. preneurial environment where software deficit—this time a Jayhawks for Higher Education, businesses, drug development companies, $550 million pro- a group of KU alumni who advo- advanced manufacturing businesses and jected shortfall for the Brownback cate for KU in the Statehouse, will information technology companies can get fiscal year that begins support the University as it makes up and going here in Lawrence.” in July. At the same time, the November its case to lawmakers during the 2011 ses- Four tenants have moved in since the election increased the Republican major- sion. For more information on becoming building opened in August: Propylon, ity in the House from 76-49 to 92-33, the a legislative advocate through JHE, visit an Irish company that markets content- largest in more than 50 years. Conservative www.kualumni.org. management software for legislative members of that majority want to repeal a bodies; EHR, a local partnership between statewide 1 percent sales tax instituted last Lawrence Regional Technology Center year. If that repeal is successful, the budget and Bert Nash that markets an electronic deficit would increase to $850 million. Growth spur patient records and billing system; Sunlite There has also been talk of cutting income Science and Technology, an LED lighting taxes and providing business tax breaks to New West Campus company founded by a KU alumnus; and generate economic growth. business center links Garmin, the global maker of navigation In his “State of the State” address Jan. research and marketplace and communication devices. 12, Brownback said his budget proposal The radically different products and to the Legislature would increase funding sizes of the tenant companies illustrates for K-12 and stabilize state support for ampus visitors who stumble upon the the center’s “diversified” strategy, says higher education for the first time since CBioscience and Technology Business McClorey, g’99, l’99. the recession began. Saying his number Center may see just one more new build- “This is not strictly a life sciences one priority is job growth, he also pro- ing on KU’s rapidly growing West Cam- facility. This is aimed at technology and posed a three-year, $105 million University pus. Matt McClorey sees 20,000 square knowledge-based companies across
UPDATE EWS eter Rohlo¤, a physician problem of early childhood packets delivered to African ABC N Pwith Wuqu’ Kawoq—a stunting, early childhood children by the United Guatemala relief group chronic malnutrition, Nations would be equally founded by KU graduate is really the solution to e¤ective in Guatemala; students Anne Kraemer breaking the cycle of ABC asked viewers to help Diaz, g’08, and Emily poverty.” Two days later, raise $25,000 to fund Tummons and featured in Rohlo¤ was a guest on supplements for an entire issue No. 4, 2010 [“The Christiane Amanpour’s village for a year, and FedEx Gloom of Doom”]—took Sunday-morning ABC show, is helping to fund and ship part in the Dec. 17 episode and Kraemer Diaz says the supplements for children in of ABC’s yearlong series national exposure has had vulnerable areas served by “Be the Change: Save a Life” a “fantastic impact” on Wuqu’ Kawoq. See www. to illustrate Guatemala’s Wuqu’ Kawoq’s fundraising wuqukawoq.org for more malnutrition crisis. Said appeals. information. Rohlo¤, “Dealing with the Ready-to-eat nutrition
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 11 Hilltopics
The West Campus facility, at 2029 Becker Dr., is about 40 percent occupied, Best for vets: Military Times Edge ranks and a second building at 15th and Wakar- usa Drive, home to KU spinoff CritiTech, KU among the top 10 public universities is about 25 percent full. Once those build- for veterans. The magazine for soldiers, ings reach capacity, plans call for a second building on West Campus that could bring sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast total incubator space to 50,000 square Guardsmen surveyed more than 4,000 feet. A research park in the mode of North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park might
EA colleges and universities about their even be a possibility down the road. RL R IC HA RD “I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can see SON programs, policies and resources for veterans, a dynamic, entrepreneurial environment awarding KU five stars (on a five-star scale) for academic flexibility, where people are collaborating, where 4.5 for financial assistance and support services, and 3.5 for campus products and technologies are being developed and getting to market,” culture. KU was the only school in Kansas listed, and the second- McClorey says of the center’s future. highest rated university in the Big 12. Pointing to the School of Pharmacy and the Multidisciplinary Research Build- ing outside his window, McClorey says, “Across the street is research and develop- ment. Here it’s about getting products various technology disciplines. It’s not on West Campus to offer companies access and technologies and services to the exclusively for startups, but for spinoffs to the University’s research expertise and marketplace.” from KU, emerging high-growth technol- other resources, and to attract existing ogy businesses we recruit, and collabora- companies and local startups that can tions between large corporations and KU find commercial markets for KU research researchers.” developments. The cost of The Lawrence Douglas County Biosci- “Companies want to be on campus ences Authority and its state and local because they want access to talent,” doing business partners funded the center to provide McClorey says. “They want to develop the kind of office and lab space that can relationships to hire people to help their Tuition spending report attract companies in rapid-growth fields. business grow, and they want to collabo- finds broad compliance, The goal is to grow the local economy rate with KU researchers. If you take this room for improvement while providing high-paying jobs and building off campus, it doesn’t have the increasing the local tax base. They built it same appeal to industry, to entrepreneurs.” chool of Business differential tuition Sfunds were spent appropriately “for the most part,” according to an independent review undertaken to address student con- cerns over how the extra course fees were STEVE PUPPE STEVE being used. But the report also found the Matt McClorey leads school’s system for monitoring differential the new Bioscience and funds “cumbersome,” and concluded that Technology Business fair management of the plan in the future Center, a West Campus depends on student input and more open incubator that fosters reporting of expenditures. high-tech companies The report prepared by the accounting and promotes firm BKD for the Office of the Provost commercialization of examined how the School of Business KU research. accounted for and spent $31 million generated by the differential tuition plan implemented in 2004. BKD identified approximately $60,000—about $28,000
12 | KANSAS A LUMNI The School of Business appropriately spent Milestones, money the vast majority of money raised by course STEVE PUPPE STEVE fees but erred in discontinuing the student and other matters advisory board intended to oversee the program, according to an independent accounting firm’s report. n It now takes 120 credit hours to graduate—down from 124. The Kansas Board of Regents approved the change, The School of Business implemented eective immediately, in October. The a course fee of $75 per credit hour in Regents noted that 30 states, including 2004. With yearly increases, that fee now all those bordering Kansas, have a 120- stands at $84 for master’s students and hour minimum. $102 for undergraduates. The extra course fees account for more than 40 percent n Three KU of the school’s budget. The BKD report alumnae made Forbes noted that many promised changes have magazine’s list of the been fulfilled with the increased fund- world’s most power- ing. Achievements include new majors ful women. Cynthia in marketing, information systems and Carroll, g’82, chief management, and strengthened majors in executive ocer of Carroll accounting and finance. Master’s programs Anglo American, one in business and accounting have added of the world’s largest more electives and opportunities for mining companies, in faculty salaries and about $32,000 experiential learning have been boosted. ranked 14th. Sheila in other operating expenditures—that The school has upgraded technology and Bair, c’75, l’78, chair appear to be contrary to the differential facilities while also hiring new faculty. of the Federal Deposit tuition proposal presented to students and According to a separate report issued Insurance Corporation, approved by the Kansas Board of Regents. by the provost’s office, the School of the ranked 15th. Bair That represents about two-tenths of one Arts and all 10 professional schools on the Kathleen Sebelius, percent of the school’s differential tuition Lawrence campus have instituted differen- g’80, secretary of the fund expenditures. tial tuition fees, which range from $16.50 U.S. Department of The report also noted that the differ- per credit hour for the William Allen Health and Human ential tuition proposal is broadly written, White School of Journalism and Mass Services and former which can lead to conflicting interpreta- Communications to $211.50 per hour Kansas governor, tions of how the money should be spent. for the School of Law. Campuswide, the ranked 23rd. That makes participation of a student course fees have raised $76.3 million since Sebelius advisory committee “an important com- 2003, the report said. The money has been n U.S. Rep. Dennis ponent to oversight of DT spending,” the invested in additional faculty and instruc- Moore, c’67, donated report states. A student advisory com- tional staff (43.8 percent), advising and papers from his six congressional terms mittee was disbanded in 2006, but a new support staff (12.5 percent), scholarships to the Spencer Research Library. Moore, student oversight group has now been and student employment (11.9 percent), who did not seek re-election in Novem- formed. student and instructional support materi- ber, represented Kansas’ 3rd District The report also noted that the proposal als (11.2 percent), lab and instructional from 1999 to 2011. He will also serve promised a semi-annual account of dif- support staff (9.4 percent), supplemen- as a Dole Fellow at the Robert J. Dole ferential tuition spending from the dean tal education experiences (5.3 percent), Institute of Politics this spring. Join- to all business students, but that such a faculty support (2.8 percent), and facilities ing him as a Dole Fellow is Walt Riker, report has not historically been created. (1.8 percent). c’70, j’78. Riker served on Capitol Hill as press secretary for Bob Dole from 1981 to 1993, and worked for 17 years at Mc- Donald’s, the final nine as vice president ead the BKD report at www.news.ku.edu/2010/ november/11/pdf/bkd_report_ of global media relations. Moore and Rdtevaluation_final.pdf. The provost’s report is at www.news.ku.edu/ 2010/ Riker will lead study groups for students november/11/pdf/kudi¤erential_tuition_report_final111110.pdf and the public starting in February.
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 13 Hilltopics
Denise Linville, a veteran lecturer in the School sons Clay, 14, and Tony, 13.
STEVE PUPPE STEVE of Journalism, won both the HOPE and Mortar “It’s kind of tough to impress teenagers, Board awards for outstanding teaching. but I think they actually may have been a little bit moved by the experience,” she says. “It’s really gratifying to have my sons see that what I do is valued, beyond a pay- KU’s Nov. 20 football game, then three check. at’s a great lesson for them.” days later was in Allen Field House for an on-court presentation of the Mortar Board Honor Society Outstanding Educator MEDICINE Award at a men’s basketball game. “It was a very emotional week,” says Regents approval opens door Linville, who has taught at KU for 27 for School of Public Health years. “It took me by surprise. e fact that they are both student awards and that the students felt strongly enough about what T K B R has happens in my classroom to acknowledge endorsed KU’s plan to reorganize four me in that way was really gratifying.” departments at the School of Medicine e HOPE Award, established by the into a new School of Public Health. TEACHING Class of 1959, solicits nominations from Calling the move “a monumental step the senior class. e top ve nominees forward,” Gary Sherrer, Regents chair, said, Journalism professor are interviewed by members of the Board “KU’s proposal couldn’t come at a more wins teaching twofer of Class O cers and its Senior Advisory critical time for our state. ese eorts to Board. e Mortar Board, which has promote public health will save lives and J Denise Linville presented its teaching award since 1974, money.” had plenty to be thankful for this relies on nominations from the student e new school will comprise the Thanksgiving. honor society’s members, who choose the departments of biostatistics, health policy In the days leading up to anksgiv- winners. and management, and preventive medi- ing break, Linville, PhD’93, accepted the e outpouring of good wishes from cine and public health in Kansas City; and Honor for an Outstanding Progressive students and colleagues past and present the department of preventive medicine Educator (HOPE) Award on- eld during aected her whole family—including and public health in Wichita.
VISITOR WHEN: Dec. 3 ANECDOTE: Frakes recalled stopping in
Sports Illustrator WHERE: Big 12 Room, Lecompton while a PUPPE STEVE Kansas Union. student to photograph ill Frakes, j’85, sta¤ Leroy Hatch, a local Bphotographer for Sports BACKGROUND: Frakes was man whose expres- Illustrated, shared his favorite on the Miami Herald sta¤ sive, deeply lined face photographs and multimedia that won the Pulitzer Prize caught his eye. The stories from a career that has for coverage of Hurricane photo ran on the front spanned nearly 30 years. His Andrew, and his photojournal- page of the Daily presentation capped a three- ism and advertising work in Kansan, and years day multimedia workshop at more than 100 countries has later a relative tracked KU for high school and college attracted numerous honors. Frakes down to request a copy moments of Leroy Hatch’s photojournalists. He has been a key player in of the photo, which Hatch still life. It was only three minutes Sports Illustrated’s embrace carried in his wallet. of my life, but he has had SPONSOR: William Allen of multimedia storytelling that photograph in his pocket White School of Journalism for the World Wide Web and QUOTES: “I realized that was for 30 years. You can have a and Mass Communications tablet computers. one of the most significant pretty big impact if you care.”
14 | KANSAS A LUMNI Milestones, money and other matters EARL RICHARDSON
n KU Hosptal increased its financial commitment to the School of Medicine by 21 percent to $66.4 million. The jump came after total revenue for the 2010 fiscal year rose by 7 percent to $805 million, reflecting an 8 percent surge in patient volumes. The hospital released “Local communities, employers and a favorable report of its July visits to two its audited 2010 financial report during state government need graduates with sites targeted for doctor training pro- the November meeting of the University these skills,” said Barbara Atkinson, execu- grams. of Kansas Hospital Authority Board. tive vice chancellor at the medical center. As previously reported in Kansas “Our School of Public Health’s mission Alumni [“Doctors in the house,” Hill- n Higuchi-KU Endowment Research will be to help train these desperately topics, issue No. 4], KU will establish a Achievement Awards for 2010 were needed public health care professionals four-year doctor training program in presented to two professors from KU and improve health outcomes across the Salina and will expand from two to four and two from K-State. Hagith Sivan, state and region.” years the training program at the School professor of history at KU, won the e expansion, in the planning stages of Medicine-Wichita. With approval from Balfour Jerey Award in the Humanities for four years, is part of a larger eort by the Board of Regents secured and donors, and Social Sciences. Christian Schöne- KU, Sherrer noted. buildings and teaching sta lined up, the ich, professor and chair of pharmaceu- “By creating a School of Public Health, accrediting agency’s examination of the tical chemistry at KU, won the Dolph expanding its School of Medicine Pro- school’s infrastructure, faculty, student Simons Award in Biomedical Sciences. grams in Wichita and Salina, and aspiring services, nances and ability to implement T. G. Nagaraja, University Distinguished to earn National Cancer Institute designa- a curriculum represented a nal hurdle. Professor of Diagnostic Medicine/ tion, the Medical Center is accomplishing Both locations will welcome the rst Pathobiology in the College of Veteri- something colossal in a very short period classes of eight students next fall. Class nary Medicine at K-State, earned the of time.” size in Salina will remain at eight, but Irvin Youngberg Award for Applied Sci- e med center plans to raise $2.5 Wichita will eventually accept 28 students ences. Chii-Dong Lin, University Distin- million to recruit a dean and $2 million each fall. e expansion allows the School guished Professor of Physics at K-State, for an endowed chair position. of Medicine to train 211 students each won the Olin Petefish Award in Basic year, up from 175 now. Another goal is to Science. The program was established address shortages of rural physicians, says by the late Takeru Higuchi, a distin- MEDICINE William Cathcart-Rake, m’74, a Salina- guished professor at KU from 1967 to based oncologist who will direct the KU ’83, and his late wife, Aya, to recognize Accreditors give green light School of Medicine-Salina. outstanding research at KU and other for med school expansion “ e whole mission of the Salina Board of Regents institutions. campus is to train physicians in non- T S M ’ to metropolitan areas of the state and show n A $1.176 million grant from the expand its reach across the state passed an these young medical students that life can National Science Foundation will fund important test this fall when the Liaison be good and practice can be challenging bandwidth upgrades to KanREN, the Committee on Medical Education issued outside of the big city.” data network linking researchers at KU, K-State and Wichita State. The boost in computing power will benefit many research projects in the state, includ- “The iPad for us has been a pretty big ing two initiatives on climate change and renewable energy at the game-changer. It certainly has changed National Science Founda- tion’s EPSCoR oce at KU, the way I work every day.” —Bill Frakes where the grant will be {} administered.
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 15 Sports by Chris Lazzarino
Greeted by a standing ovation STEVE PUPPE STEVE Jan. 5, Sheahon Zenger told the field house faithful, “Tonight, I am the luckiest man on earth.”
Under Zenger’s leadership, Illinois State in 2009 won its second Missouri Valley Conference All-Sports Trophy in three years, and the Redbirds last year won seven conference titles. They also posted record- high grade-point averages each of the last four years, and membership in the athlet- ics scholarship fund grew by 65 percent. There is precedent for KU hiring an Home-field advantage athletics director from Illinois State: The late Bob Frederick, d’62, g’64, EdD’84, was Alumnus Zenger lands ‘dream job,’ pledges ISU’s athletics director from 1985 to ’87, ‘coach-centered’ athletics department until returning to KU to succeed Monte Johnson, b’59, g’67. heahon Zenger might not have been reactions to scandals that rocked the late Before joining Illinois State, in 2005, Sthe first choice to become KU’s next stages of Perkins’ tenure, Zenger’s con- Zenger was associate athletics director for director of athletics, but he was the last, by tract requires that all travel on University development at Kansas State, his under- all appearances the best, and certainly the aircraft be approved in writing by the graduate alma mater. He’d also worked most enthusiastic. chancellor’s office, and that any excep- as K-State’s assistant athletics director “About 10 seconds,” Zenger replied tions to a prohibition on spousal travel on for major gifts and as a fundraiser for the when asked how long he needed to con- University aircraft be approved in writing business college. Shortly before earning sider the job offer from Chancellor Berna- by the chancellor herself. his undergraduate degree, Zenger in 1987 dette Gray-Little. “I want to be here.” It is expected that such precautions will launched his football coaching career at In mid-December, many news outlets, not prove necessary. Manhattan High School, then found a col- citing unnamed sources, claimed Kansas “Our single biggest criteria had to be lege coaching job at Drake University. had offered its vacant A.D. job to Bubba high integrity, exhibited every place the He returned to KSU in 1989 as a Cunningham, athletics director at the candidate had been, with a level of ethics 23-year-old director of football opera- University of Tulsa, and that Cunningham that was uncommonly superior,” said Ray tions for coach Bill Snyder. He completed had accepted. Instead, Cunningham and Evans, b’82, g’84, who chaired the six- a journalism master’s degree in 1992, Tulsa on Dec. 16 announced a contract member search committee. “Several names spent two years as editor of a national extension. kept emerging, and one that kept coming coaching magazine, then came to Kansas The search for a replacement for Lew up more and more was Sheahon Zenger. for his doctoral degree. Here he wrote Perkins then went quiet until Jan. 2, when In our first conversation, we talked for an his dissertation on what he identified as Gray-Little’s office announced that Illinois hour and a half, and I sensed right away an underappreciated aspect of education State athletics director Sheahon (pro- his ethics, his sincerity, that he’s exception- leadership: interim leaders, focusing on nounced SHAY-un) Zenger, PhD’96, who ally bright, a terrific businessperson and Del Shankel, now chancellor and professor lived in Lawrence as a child and returned that he has terrific people skills. emeritus, who twice served KU as interim for his doctorate in educational policy and “One of the terms that came up with chancellor and later guided the Alumni leadership, would become A.D. Feb. 1. Sheahon early on was ‘Eagle Scout.’ We Association as interim president before the Zenger signed a four-year contract, liked that. It intimated significant levels arrival of Kevin Corbett, c’88. worth $450,000 annually. Among other of integrity.” Professor Jerry Bailey, faculty athletics
16 | KANSAS A LUMNI representative and the adviser who con- vinced Zenger to pursue his PhD on the Hill, said after Zenger’s first news confer- ence, “He works awfully hard, he’s awfully “We will rise above and be a family, a team of bright, he has a great way with people, he disciplined individuals moving together as one.” is down to earth, he is truly a Kansan and he knows his roots. I think he’s going to do —incoming athletics director Sheahon Zenger great.” Asked whether an Eagle Scout-type { } can endure the grueling tests of national- caliber collegiate athletics, Bailey replied, “I would not want to be on the other side by Zenger’s ideas and energy and that he he grew up, Zenger insists he’s always of an argument with Dr. Zenger.” hopes to stay on after his duties as interim retained affection for Lawrence. Zenger returned to coaching after leav- A.D. end Feb. 1. “We look forward to reacquainting him ing KU, as recruiting coordinator at South “I plan to be here and support with KU and our passionate alumni,” the Florida and then Wyoming, where in 1998 Sheahon,” Lester says, “and I want to Alumni Association’s Corbett says. “The he was named assistant head coach. Seeing learn from him.” search committee should be congratulated that he was invariably the coach’s liaison Born in Salina, Zenger says his earliest and thanked by all alumni and fans for at- with administration, he realized that his memories are of attending KU basketball tracting someone of Dr. Zenger’s creden- likeliest path to success wasn’t on the side- and football games as a boy, when his tials and obvious love of KU and the state lines. Yet Zenger’s experiences as a coach family lived on 21st Street Terrace, just a of Kansas.” are evident in his conversations, especially few blocks south of Allen Field House. He Says Zenger, “Some people in this pro- when discussing his “core philosophy” of always chose No. 10 for his youth-sport fession dream of places like Notre Dame, athletics administration. jerseys, in honor of KU quarterback Bobby Michigan or USC. I dream of the Uni- “We will be a coach-centered athletics Douglass, and he wore a Gale Sayers versity of Kansas. It doesn’t get any better department,” he said, announcing that jersey for his fourth-grade school picture. than this.” he’ll expect athletes, coaches and staff to Though his family moved to Hays, where be “assignment correct, fundamentally sound and mentally tough, on the field of play, in the classroom, and in our A star is born personal lives.” He also cited a need to “always remember those who went before Freshman Selby thrills crowd us, who laid this great foundation,” and with game-winner in debut added, “When the world is full of bureau- cracy and gridlock and victimization, we will rise above and be a family, a team of hortly after the NCAA announced disciplined individuals moving together SNov. 19 that superstar freshman guard as one.” Josh Selby, perhaps the most prized recruit When he starts work here Feb. 1, Zenger in Bill Self’s eight seasons, must sit out will launch a 90-day plan, broken into 30- nine games for accepting impermissible day segments. The first will be dedicated to getting to know athletes, coaches and staff, as well as members of the University
and local communities. Next will come a PUPPE (2) STEVE thorough review of contracts and policies, and then he’ll spend a month revisiting the department’s master plan. Throughout that process, Zenger pledges, he’ll meet with donors and alumni, “one by one, in person, looking them in the eye, finding out what the issues are.” Josh Selby scored on his first field-goal Interim Athletics Director Sean Lester, attempt as a collegian (right), a trey with 13:27 who assumed control immediately after remaining in the first half Dec. 18 vs. USC, Perkins’ resignation, said after Zenger’s and capped his 21-point night with the game- introduction that he’d been impressed winner with 26 seconds left.
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 17 Sports benefits, fans, teammates and even Self crowd into a frenzy. himself immediately circled the Dec. 18 But he saved the best for last: a catch- EFF JACOBSEN home game against Southern California. and-release three-pointer off a pass from J Self predicted Selby’s debut would be Marcus Morris, giving KU a 69-68 lead one of KU basketball’s most anticipated with 26 seconds remaining (later boosted games, and yet even he couldn’t have an- to 70-68 on a Tyrel Reed free throw with ticipated exactly how right he was. four seconds left). Selby finished with a Selby is a 6-2 guard from Baltimore with team-high 21 in his debut. all the right moves: a feather-soft outside “Marcus was like, ‘Are you ready to shot, speed and toughness to drive the shoot? Because I have a feeling they’re lane, a team-first mentality that diverts going to double-team me. Don’t hesitate accolades and attention toward team- to let it go.’ So when he said that, I didn’t mates. Yet Dec. 18 was all about Selby, hesitate to shoot the ball and it just went and he knew it. in.” Said Self, “He bailed us out. He saved When he entered the game to an ear- us.” splitting roar at 15:53 of the first half, he Following a nationally televised over- glanced up at the video board and saw his time victory Jan. 9 at Michigan, Self’s Jay- mother, Maeshon Witherspoon, who had hawks were undefeated at 15-0 and ranked driven 18 hours with family and friends No. 3 in the nation. Through his first six to watch her son’s debut. Selby promptly games, Selby had scored 16 or more four Women’s basketball zoomed to a 13-1 start, hit his first shot, a three-pointer, and then times and averaged 13.3 points and 3.8 thanks in large part to 19.1 points a game by another, working the Allen Field House assists. Houston sophomore Carolyn Davis.
UPDATES
Coach Bonnie Henrickson’s ... Coach Bill Self on Jan. 10 for ticket operations around the seventh KU basketball team cleared senior guard Mario country,” said Interim Athletics went 13-1 in nonconference Little to rejoin the team after Director Sean Lester. ... Highly EFF JACOBSEN play, its best mark since J he was suspended following touted QB Brock Berglund, of 1993-’94, before losing its an o¤-campus fight Dec. 16. “I Valor Christian High School in conference opener Jan. accept responsibility for what Colorado, signed with KU and 8 at home to Texas Tech. took place that evening and will join coach Turner Gill’s Sophomore forward Carolyn have learned from it and feel squad for spring practice. Davis had three consecutive awful about it,” said Little. “The ... The men’s basketball double-doubles and averaged last four weeks have given me team will participate in the 19.1 points through the first 15 time to reflect and re-evaluate a Champions Classic over games. Over a six-game span lot of things with myself.” the next three seasons with from Dec. 12 at Alabama to Henrickson ... Doug Hopkins, the Kansas Kentucky, Michigan State and the conference opener, Davis City Chiefs’ director of ticket Duke. KU plays Kentucky Nov. averaged 20 points while operations since 1994, accepted 15, 2011, in Madison Square making 73.3 percent of her for $3.8 million. Including the the same job at KU. “We could Garden; Michigan State Nov. shots. The Jayhawks were buyer’s premium, the final price not have chosen a better person 13, 2012, at the Georgia Dome; fourth nationally with a team at the Dec. 10 Sotheby’s auction to ensure that Kansas Athletics’ and Duke Nov. 12, 2013, at field-goal percentage of was more than $4.3 million. ticket o¡ce becomes a model Chicago’s United Center. 49.2 percent. Junior forward Booth has stated that he Aisha Sutherland was second intends for the rules, put up for
in the Big 12 with 9.5 rebounds auction by James Naismith’s SOTHEBY’S per game. grandson Ian, to eventually be ... David, c’68, g’69, and displayed at KU, presumably Suzanne Booth purchased in the Booth Family Hall of the original rules of basketball Athletics.
18 | KANSAS A LUMNI
Sports P hotographs by Steve P uppe
Markie¤ Morris (21), named Big 12 Player of the Week Dec. 27, and Thomas Robinson (0) are two of the “bigs” that coach Bill Self will rely on for a run at KU’s seventh-consecutive Big 12 championship—which would surely bring more smiles from Josh Selby and the Morris twins.
20 | KANSAS A LUMNI
OREAD WRITER
22 | KANSAS A LUMNI by Jennifer L awler
while back, a friend of mine For Jessica and I were talking about a study she’d just read, which concluded that having children W J L about the sky crashing to the doesA not increase your happiness, as mea- ground and a secret club that can only be entered through grief and “an appreciation for sured by things like “satisfaction with life” dark humor,” her words went viral. In six days, the page was viewed more than 112,000 and “feeling rewarded by your work.” times. More than 450 comments were posted and hundreds of people sent e-mails At which all I could do was burst out directly to Lawler, c’88, g’94, PhD’96. laughing. Because, well, Duh. If there’s an She wrote the post, “For Jessica,” in a single night. The next morning, she revised and occupation more likely to make you feel published it on her blog Finding Your Voice, which normally deals with the business of incompetent and unrewarded than parent- writing. Lawler had just learned that her 13-year-old daughter needed another opera- ing, I have never heard of it. tion. After a lifetime of struggling with a disorder that causes tumors to form throughout If you weren’t a researcher, you might her body, Jessica had developed another life-threatening condition. define happiness as the experience of be- ing fully alive: to know grace and despair, When she wrote this in July, Lawler had already been a freelancer for 15 years. She bitterness and failure, and kindness from had written the popular Dojo Wisdom series of books and two novels, and authored or the most unexpected quarter. Things you’d co-authored more than 30 other books. She had been a magazine editor, writing coach, never know if you hadn’t had your daugh- college instructor and literary agent. Nothing, though, prepared her for what happened ter. If the medical resident hadn’t sat down when “For Jessica” appeared. while you held your baby girl in the neo- Links to the post popped up around the world. The piece caught the attention of the natal intensive care unit and said, “Your Christian Science Monitor, which called it a prime example of an author using a blog to daughter’s brain is massively deformed.” circumvent publishers. Lawler and her agent had already failed to find a publisher for a The daughter you loved even before she book about Jessica. (“We have received many rejections,” Lawler writes, “mostly on the was born. When she was an abstraction, grounds of ‘it’s too painful; it won’t find an audience.’”) a positive sign on a pregnancy test, before The Nieman Storyboard, a project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at she kicked you in the ribs, long before Harvard University, named the post one of its Notable Narratives of the year. she ever drew her first breath. Love you did not know you were capable of feeling, And yet all of this acclaim isn’t the reason “For Jessica” should be read. Nieman primal and angry and powerful. You would Storyboard wrote: “A very hard read, Lawler’s piece attempts nothing less than to kill ten men and Satan if you had to. redefine the idea of happiness.” But the universe doesn’t ask that from I hate to disagree with the good folks at Nieman, but I do, rather vehemently. While you. notable, Lawler’s essay doesn’t seek redefinition of happiness; it seeks explication. I think When your daughter is nine months that’s why so many people reacted so strongly. “For Jessica” is rooted in the knowledge old, a neurosurgeon will say to you, “We that real life and real happiness aren’t made of puppy dogs and teddy bears. believe resecting the left side of her brain Real life rushes at us all. No matter what circumstances we face, life crashes into us at will help control the seizures.” inopportune moments. The gears grind. Metal snaps. And we find ourselves sitting dazed The seizures that she has all day, every on the ground, looking up at the sky and realizing how achingly blue it looks. day, dozens, hundreds; she was born with I am blessed to have a healthy child, but I identified with every word Lawler wrote. a massively deformed brain, what did I think her intensely personal essay is universal, but that’s just how I feel. Read it, and you expect? You realize the doctor is saying they judge for yourself. are going to take out half your daughter’s —Diane Silver brain and throw it away, so much trash, Silver is a freelance writer and and you’re supposed to sign the consent editor in Lawrence. form for this.
ISSUEISSUE 1,1, 20112011 || 23 And after the surgery, when the sei- best you can, and you climb down off the zures come back, you will sit across the ladder, and you’re at peace with your work. table from the man who is now your You wish it could be better, but there’s ex-husband, the man you adored, but life only one of you, and the sky is so vast. It can kick the ass out of any romance, even takes a while to put it back together again, yours, and you will order a very large glass and you did the best you could. of tequila, and you will say, “What the hell And you just went through all that are we supposed to do now?” work, and here is the goddamned sky And you hope the answer is going to be scattered all over the carpet again. about slaying ten men and Satan, because The neurologist describes the new you’re capable of that. But the answer is, problem, like having a massively deformed you are going to go home and do the best brain is not enough for one child to bear. you can to make a life out of what you’ve You process what he is saying: There’s been given. she makes up her mind. a hole in your daughter’s spinal cord. He You raise your daughter, and she is three Well, screw them. calls it a channel, and he gives the medical years old before she learns to walk, seven You say that a lot. Screw them. name for it, so you can look it up on the years old before she learns to use a toilet, So, no, most times you’re not thinking computer and give yourself a heart attack, and mothers all around you are blathering about how happy this is making you. and then he says he would like a neurosur- their worry that their babies aren’t talking You would do anything to make your geon to consult, and you say, Sure, because by twelve months, and you don’t even daughter whole, and to promise her that what are you going to say? I can’t do this know what universe they live in. she will never have to go to the hospital anymore? You just got back from the hospital the again, but despite all the effort and prac- So you tell your daughter she has a hole fourth time or maybe the sixth time your tice, you’re just not that good at lying. in her spine, and she takes the news grace- daughter’s shunt has had to be revised— When you bring her to the hospital fully, the way she has taken everything that is, yanked out and a new one put in for the eighteenth time, or maybe it’s the you’ve ever told her about herself: you because it stopped working, which means twentieth, and she says, “I want roses, like have a massively deformed brain, you have the pressure builds inside her skull, which a princess. Red ones,” you make sure she seizure disorder, there is no cure for your could kill her—and you find out that yet has them, even though it destroys your disease and, oh yes, your all-time favorite, another friend isn’t returning your calls. budget for the month. When you bring surgeons took out the left side of your brain This is a story you will go through more your daughter home from the hospital, when you were nine months old. agonizing times than you can count, with and she says, “Next time I want carna- There is one secret thing you never tell friends, with family, with work, with men tions,” you know there will be a next time, her. You never tell her how afraid you are who don’t trust you when you say all you and it makes your heart hurt. that this is the last time. The last birthday. really want is to just get laid. They will Still, you are so not ready when the next The last kiss good night. The last time you all say it differently, but you know why time comes. will ever sing the Mockingbird Song to they’ve cut and run. Hell, you would have, She goes to the hospital for a routine her, the way you have done every night for too. If someone had told you ahead of MRI, and the next day, when you hear the thirteen years. time what was going to happen now? Baby, neurologist’s voice on the phone, you hold The neurosurgeon is a pleasant man, you would have been on the next plane to tight. Please don’t say it, you think. Please which is a change from the usual run of Bolivia and fighting extradition every step don’t say it please don’t say it please don’t neurosurgeons, and he describes what of the way. say it. sounds to you like a horrifyingly high-risk But they didn’t tell you ahead of time, But he does. He says, “There’s been an surgical procedure, and which he calls an and by the time you figured out that being unexpected finding,” and it catches you in intervention that he has performed before. her mother was going to make your life the gut and you sit down, hard, and you You don’t ask, How many times? Because look like a nuclear bomb had detonated think I can’t stand it. you don’t want to know. Because it will in the middle of it, it was too late. Because The sky has fallen down many times in break your heart or terrify you, and you she’s your daughter and you loved her your daughter’s short life, the sky with all don’t have the stamina for that. Not today. even before she was born, so you’re a little the stars in it, and you have picked up the He turns to the computer, calling up biased and you can’t always see her clearly, pieces more times than you can remember, the MRI, and he wants you to look at the and what you see is a high-spirited, ebul- and you have climbed the ladder and put image on the computer, but the image lient girl with a stubborn streak. Other them back in place, where you think they makes you want to throw up, you don’t people see a slow-moving, cognitively should go, and you get things in back- want to look at it, but the doctors always impaired kid who can’t be budged once wards and out of sequence, but you do the make you look.
24 | KANSAS A LUMNI photographs by S teve Puppe
And you see the place where they took Yes, you say. Yes. It will be required. You “Thirteen,” you say, because that is her out the left side of her brain and threw it hug her, and she says, “You have your stars favorite number, and she smiles at you. away, and he shows you the hole in her on.” A long time ago you stopped raging spinal cord that goes on and on and on, Those are your earrings, and the very at the universe for doing this to your tracing it the length of her spine, and first time you wore them, your daughter daughter, and years before she was born you can’t stand it anymore, not even to exclaimed with delight, “Now we can wish you stopped believing in a benevolent god, be polite, so you stare at the floor, and upon a star every day! Twice!” but right now you would like to hurl some you notice your sandal is scuffed and you And so you wish upon the stars, right curses at a supremely powerful being, to wish you wish wish wish he hadn’t made there in the examining room, that you will have the satisfaction of getting an answer you look, and you hope you can hold it live happily ever after, and have good work together until he leaves, and you can bolt to do—the wishes you always wish—and to the nearest bathroom and be sick. then you go home. He smiles kindly and schedules surgery At home, you try not to think about Au- for August 10th, which is too soon, much gust 10th. You know it will come too soon, too soon, because you can’t even conceive and not soon enough. You make a note to of what he is going to do, and it is going buy more crossword puzzles, because that to take you a long time to wrap your mind is all you can do when your daughter is around it, and it’s also too far away, much undergoing an intervention the surgeon too far away, because you would like to has performed before, and you didn’t have sleep until it’s over, and there’s just no pos- the courage to ask him how many times. sibility that you can get away with staying At dusk, your daughter says, “Time for in bed that long. fireflies!” You look up at your daughter, and you And you know the drill: You can’t watch see her face is stark white, and you know the fireflies without a snack, so you ask back. You would take on Satan and ten she is scared out of her mind. She has if she would like ice cream or a cookie, men, but no one asks you do to that. No understood everything, and it was so and she says, “I would like ice cream and one has ever asked you to do that. a cookie, and some Diet Coke, and I will They asked you to do this instead, this want my princess figures, and I will get the infinitely harder thing. And you think “You would take on Satan and door for you,” and you don’t even try to about that study, and you laugh out loud ten men, but no one asks you argue about the ice cream and the cookie, again, and your daughter asks why you or suggest that milk would be better than are laughing, and you say, “Sometimes, do to that. No one has ever Diet Coke. What if this is the last time you girlfriend, I can’t believe how badly people asked you to do that.” look at the fireflies together? You don’t miss the point.” want to be the jackass who screws it up. She’s accustomed to your moods, so she She gets the door, and you bring the nods, and she turns on the radio. “It’s your much easier when she was little, and she cookies and the ice cream, and go back for favorite song!” she says. “Isn’t that lucky?” didn’t, and she would just smile at her the Diet Coke and the princess figures, and And you hug her hard, but she’s used hands and coo. she settles onto the patio chair with a sigh to that, too, and she lets you, and even You are trying to think of what to say of contentment. And you look up at the lets you sing along without complaining to your daughter, and all you can think is stars in the sky, and you wish you knew (“This time only, Mom!”), and you are I don’t want to lose you, baby girl, I don’t something about astronomy, because then lucky, probably the luckiest woman living, want to lose you I don’t want to lose you lose you could tell your daughter which one and happier than you have ever been, you lose you. was the evening star, and you would tell but not in any way a researcher would Which doesn’t seem particularly helpful. her that that is the star to wish upon. But understand or even conceive. Your joy is So you shake hands with the doctor, and you don’t know; they all look alike to you. bigger than the universe and contains all before you leave, you tell your daughter And maybe it’s better that the stars you the sorrow of a lifetime and has nothing that the surgeon is going to try to keep the wish upon are the ones you can see when- whatsoever to do with feeling sufficiently hole in her spine from getting worse, and ever you want to, wherever you are, even if rewarded for your work. that means some surgery, and maybe five it’s the intensive care unit on the fifth floor days in the hospital. And you must do a of the children’s hospital. Jennifer Lawler, c’88, g’94, PhD’96, pub- good job of not communicating your deep “I see a firefly!” she shouts. “The first lished an expanded version of this essay on dread and fear, because she says, “OK. Will one tonight! How many do you think her blog, “Finding Your Voice,” on July 19, people bring me presents?” there will be?” 2010. jenniferlawler.com/wordpress/
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 25
easure of a Man
Architect Warren Corman leaves a career built on boundless energy, wit and wisdom
THEY SWARMED BY THE HUNDREDS to architect Warren Corman’s retirement party, but they didn’t come to the Adams Alumni Center only to share best wishes with Warren and his wife, Mary, or to swap a few laughs and stories. Sure, there was a bas- ket of party favors—tape measures custom printed with “Warren Corman,” a little going-away jab at co-workers who made off with countless tape measures over the years—and food and drink and excitement over the KU-Memphis basketball game that would tip that evening at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. All good, to be sure, but if the friends, family and colleagues were honest about the matter, most would probably have to admit they showed up Dec. 7 to witness the impossible: Warren Corman, retiring? Come again?
By Chris L azzarino Photographs by S teve Puppe
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 27 EARL RICHARDSON
HALL CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH BUILDING Although never sentimental about buildings that Thanks to Corman’s foresight, the $40 million, have outlived their usefulness, Corman is justifiably 106,000-square-foot MRB—constructed on proud of preserving the limestone arches of the schedule in 15 months despite the brutal winter of oldest existing structure on campus, a powerhouse 2004-’05—was designed as a utilities hub to allow and maintenance shop built in 1887, for the Hall for rapid growth on West Campus. Center for the Humanities, dedicated in April 2005.
“Well, kid,” Corman would start, with sity architect and special assistant to the bad as that. Let’s get back to work.’ a little laugh and a twinkle of his blue, chancellor, at the Kansas Board of Regents “That’s sort of the magic of Warren, the 84-year-old eyes, never quite addressing in Topeka. capability to get everybody on task and the matter head on but more in a War- With a laugh or a story, a bounce in his keep them there when time is short and ren sort of way, explaining about the long step and a passion for life so intense that conditions are tough.” list—and boy does he make lists, lists of he literally includes it on his resumé— lists, in fact—of things that are meaningful it’s right there under “Personal,” the last to him. “The job I’ve had the last 14 years entry on p. 2: “Enjoy life and people very he magic of Warren isn’t only about is probably the best job an architect could much”—Warren Corman is that rare bird Tkeeping expensive, important con- ever have. It’s just a great place to work. who always makes you glad he found his struction projects on schedule—“‘On The people are wonderful. We really like way into your day, whether it’s to pass a Time And Under Budget’ is his middle each other.” few minutes reminiscing or for a gentle name,” cracks former Chancellor Robert He’s speaking about the Office of the lecture aimed at getting a multimillion- E. Hemenway—but it sure is a big part of Chancellor, including Mary Burg and Jeff dollar project underway. the man. Weinberg and Gay Lynn Clock and the rest “When we were planning the Multi- Corman was born in Kansas City, Kan., of the staffers who make the place run, but disciplinary Research Building,” recalls “in 1926, at an early age,” as he says with a he’s also talking about his beloved KU. Don Steeples, distinguished professor of laugh that never tires of the old one-liners. It’s impossible to imagine that anybody geology and former senior vice provost (His stepson, Bill Britain, b’86, who was could lend more skill and passion to KU for scholarly support, about a $40 million 13 when his father died and 15 when his and Kansas higher education than has West Campus project from 2005 that had mother, Mary, c’73, married Warren, re- Warren Corman, e’50. In a changing and to go up in 15 months, “there were about calls that whenever a friend phoned, War- confusing world, the steadying keel was 20 of us all packed into a construction ren would announce that Bill was unavail- always right there in the chancellor’s office trailer and voices were getting raised and able because he was out sunbathing with on the second floor of Strong Hall, or, for things were getting pretty tense and War- Bo Derek. “He would say that over and 31 years before his 1997 hiring as univer- ren says, ‘I was in Okinawa. This is not as over and over again,” Bill says, laughing at
28 | KANSAS A LUMNI ROBERT J. DOLE INSTITUTE OF POLITICS A World War II combat veteran like his friend Bob Dole, Corman is especially fond of the Dole Institute of Politics, dedicated in July 2003. The front’s white marble, reflecting pool and American flag represent Washington, D.C., while limestone walls forming the rest of the exterior evoke Dole’s Kansas heritage.
the memory. “That was his favorite.”) Marines eager to join accurate, but not Warren’s father, Emmett, a’25, couldn’t the fight in the South the whole story. find work in Kansas City during the Pacific. After refueling “Our object,” Cor- Depression, so he moved the family to in the Marshall and man recalls, “was to build Topeka. There Emmett Corman landed Gilbert islands, the ship’s airfields out of this corrugated a cherished job as an architect on Works 52-day journey ended at metal. We built three while we were Progress Administration projects Okinawa. there, getting ready for our bombers to statewide. Corman and the other Seabees were take off for Japan. We figured about half Warren and his father shared dreams right behind the Marines, scrambling over of us would be killed in the assault [of the of one day opening an office together, the gunwale, down the climbing nets and Japanese mainland], so when we found but war intervened and Warren was just into landing crafts, to invade the coveted, out Japan had surrendered we fired off so 17 when he joined the Navy in fall 1943, and heavily defended, island. Corman’s much stuff—everything we had, mortars, while still a senior at Washburn Rural family says he didn’t talk about that day everything—that it was about like the war High School. After graduation he left for for another 40 years, and even now his had started again.” flight training at Jacksonville Naval Air descriptions are to the 82-day Battle of That was June 1945; because he didn’t Station, but the Navy soon had different Okinawa as blueprints are to buildings: yet have a wife or children, Corman didn’t plans for the architect’s son: a Seabees con- struction battalion, and from that day to this, Corman proclaims, he lives his life by the Seabees’ motto: “If it’s difficult, we do it immediately; if it’s impossible, we take Corman lives his life by the Seabees’ motto: “If it’s dicult, we several days.” do it immediately; if it’s impossible, we take several days.” In 1945 Corman shipped out from San Francisco, aboard a troopship stacked with bunks six high, ferrying sailors and
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 29 “We had no idea it would turn out to be such a traditional place to play,” Corman says of Allen PENCER RESEARCH LIBRARY PENCER RESEARCH S Field House. “It was just a big damn barn, way out in a cornfield, away from campus. Everybody said it’s too big, it’s so far away, they’ll never fill it. And we thought so, too.”
have the necessary points to transfer Marshall, a friend of his late father. Corman says. “It was just a big damn home. Instead he remained on Okinawa When he joined Marshall’s office full barn, way out in a cornfield, away from until the following spring, arriving back in time after graduation, one of Corman’s campus. Everybody said it’s too big, it’s Topeka on Mother’s Day 1946. His father first projects was to help design K-State’s so far away, they’ll never fill it. And we died of cancer while Warren was fighting Ahearn Fieldhouse, a 90,000-square-foot- thought so, too.” the war; he later lost his first wife, Juanita, ball basketball arena that led the envious to the disease, as well as his mother and KU coach Phog Allen to request an arena brother. “Everybody died of cancer but twice as big be built on Mount Oread. ormer Chancellor Hemenway, who me, for some reason,” he acknowledges The Legislature was won over, and, with Fnow works out of a small office in a quietly. “I don’t know why.” funding secured, state architects designed quiet corner of the Hall Center for the Like other GI’s back from the war, a 180,000-square-foot, 17,000 seat, $2 Humanities, a 2004-’05 project that both Corman hustled through his education as million fieldhouse with what was then the he and the architect he hired hold dear, quickly as possible, studying both archi- biggest rigid-frame structure attempted in recalls that shortly before the July 2003 tecture and engineering and completing Kansas. Corman, then 25, is the only man dedication of the Dole Institute of Politics, five years of coursework in four, thanks to left alive who had a hand in Allen Field he and his wife, Leah, were out for one of a string of 18-hour semesters. By the time House’s creation, and he was still around their evening power walks when they de- he graduated with a degree in architectural to supervise its recent, $42-million top-to- toured through West Campus to check in engineering, in 1950, Corman had already bottom renovation. on harried preparations for the building’s worked three years of weekends and “We had no idea it would turn out to dedication. Corman, then a few weeks shy vacations for the state architect, Charles be such a traditional place to play,” of his 77th birthday, was wearing a bathing
30 | KANSAS A LUMNI ISSUE 1, 2011 | 31 felt compelled to tell his new boss that the architects, who were then chosen thanks to political connections—a patronage system halted by legislation Corman helped write—had concocted a monstrosity that couldn’t possibly be built for its $4.5 mil- lion budget. “It’s impossible,” Corman recalls advis- ing Bickford. Indeed, bids weren’t close to meeting the budget, the chancellor fired the architects, and another firm ended up designing what became Wescoe Hall. “Well, they got it in on budget and all that,” Corman says, “and it’s been ugly ever since. But that’s another story.” Corman instituted crucial planning policies that remain in place to this day: Begin with a close analysis of the academic need a proposed building is supposed to fulfill, then set schedules and budgets— both of which must be met. But his real skill proved to be politics. As in, he didn’t play them. suit, wading and swimming in the Dole just as he’d won a bid to design a school, Whenever called upon, whether by Institute’s newly filled reflecting pool, but Corman made his way back to Topeka governors, lawmakers, Regents, university clearing it of construction debris. in 1959 and over the next seven years leaders, faculty, alumni, students or tax- Recalls Hemenway, “I said, ‘Warren, worked for two different firms, both of payers, Corman always gave what he saw what are you doing out there?’ And he which made him partner. as honest counsel. “My boss said, ‘Warren, said, ‘Somebody’s got to do this!’ He went to work for the Board of you can’t make everybody happy, so here’s Typical Warren.” Regents when the secretary, Max Bickford, what you do: Make everybody equally Hemenway recognizes that hiring a pal from Rotary, said over lunch, mad.’ And that was pretty good advice.” Corman away from the Regents, where he “Warren, I need to hire an architect, and With nearly three decades of trust estab- was director of facilities, was one of the I don’t know anybody but you, so I’m go- lished with policymakers in every corner wisest moves of his chancellorship; an out- ing to hire you.” Corman says he was of state higher education, Corman capped side consultant in 1998 described it in a interested, but not entirely convinced. “I his tenure at the Board of Regents by confidential memorandum to Hemenway said, ‘What in the hell do the Regents do?’ helping then-Gov. Bill Graves convince the as “a stroke of genius.” He told me, and I said, ‘Well, let’s try it for Legislature in 1996 to fund $160 million It perhaps seemed unlikely at the time a few months and see.’ So I left my firm for the Crumbling Classrooms initiative. that Corman would leave the Board of and stayed there for 31 years.” Campuses across the state suddenly had Regents. Although he had moved to Law- Corman recalls the Regents’ office of money to take on long-delayed proj- rence when he married Mary in the late 1966 with the same affection he later felt ects, and Hemenway saw that he needed 1970s, Corman and the Regents’ office in for the Office of the Chancellor. There somebody like Corman—or, better, Cor- Topeka seemed inextricably intertwined. were only four paid staff members then, man himself—to oversee KU’s pending He’d been lured away from the state and they shared rides to and from work, construction boom. architect’s office in 1957, when a Navy took lunch together, and generally enjoyed One day over lunch in 1997 he sensed buddy sold him on the glories of working each other’s company. “It was a real nice that the time was right, so he offered for DuPont, which offered jobs for life at place to work,” he says. “More like a small Corman a job as his special assistant and twice the pay. So Corman and his young family.” University architect. Corman accepted, family packed up and moved to Delaware, One of his first tasks as the Regents’ staff taking from Hemenway a few pages of and six months later a depression hit the architect, Corman says, was to examine hand-written notes on projects that East Coast, DuPont closed its architectural plans for a 26-story classroom and office needed his attention. office and Corman’s lifetime job was done. building that would tower over the heart Corman was 70 then, and he likens He stayed on in Wilmington, working for of KU’s campus. The project was about to the transition to a politican, who, know- an architect who’d suffered a heart attack go out for construction bids, and Corman ing he won’t ever run another campaign,
32 | KANSAS A LUMNI stops trying to make people happy and does only what he thinks is right. Though Hemenway hired Corman in part to help “My boss said, ‘Warren, you can’t make everybody happy, so KU negotiate Topeka bureaucracy, Cor- here’s what you do: Make everybody equally mad.’ And that man bluntly told the chancellor that KU’s was even worse. was pretty good advice.” “He said, ‘I don’t believe that.’ And I said, ‘Trust me, chancellor, I know.’ I spent a lot of time straightening that out.” On his first day on the job as the chan- “Why don’t you get with Warren, make campus admirers are probably aware. cellor’s special assistant, Corman exam- sure he doesn’t fall or something.” “A lot of that comes about from his ined his to-do list, and two projects that Neither had noticed that Corman was religious faith,” Locke says. “I think that’s a had languished in committees caught his already approaching the ladder, and both strong component of his makeup. It’s not attention: identifying sites for the Korean gasped as he grabbed the two steel-pipe something he wears on his sleeve, but it War memorial and a new Hilltop Child handrails and slid straight down, just as a comes through in a practical manner.” Development Center. So he walked out of Navy man should. “Keep in mind, he was Says Hemenway, “Warren is a very Strong Hall and went for a stroll. He found basically 80 then,” Steeples says, adding centered, stable person, who is driven to both sites that afternoon. that he also knows from personal experi- do a good job. And he attracts people— “It wasn’t any problem,” Corman recalls. ence that if you start a conversation with contractors, architects and engineers— The original list shrank, but new proj- Corman down by Memorial Stadium, by who share that feeling. The net result is ects and problems were continually added. the time you reach the Campanile only that you get a lot of good work done, in What both men envisioned as a two- or one of you will still be talking. such a way that everyone can feel very three-year tenure became a permanent “If you want to find out how out of good about it.” position, so long as Corman felt like com- shape you are,” Steeples says, “go for a walk ing to work. And he always felt like coming across campus with him.” to work, at 6:30 a.m. sharp, after his daily Professor and former dean of engineer- orman’s 63-year architecture career 3-mile run. ing Carl Locke became close with Corman Cended Dec. 10, which, appropriately, Hemenway left the chancellorship in during construction of Eaton Hall. He was Stop Day on campus. 2009, and Chancellor Bernadette Gray- tells the same stories always heard, about A couple of weeks before, sitting in an Little understood that she, too, needed to Corman’s guidance in choosing architects, empty office once filled with maps and keep Corman close by, although their early dealing with contractors, keeping the plaques and plants and even a lamp made relationship was mostly formed in work- budget under control and scrutinizing from a WWII artillery shell, Corman ex- ing together on improvements for The the smallest details to identify potential plains what he has in mind for retirement: Outlook, the chancellor’s home. problems early, always enlivening the po- “I’m going to do whatever I damn “Warren is very proud of this campus tentially stressful grind with his easy-going please, that’s what I’m going to do.” and the University,” she says. “He is always manner and good-natured humor. Yet he concedes he’ll still get up at 5:30 friendly, always helpful, always happy. He But Locke knows another side, too. for his morning run, regardless of weather, has lived through different phases in the The Lockes and Cormans attend the and he might even climb into his car, just University’s history as well as the history same church, First Presbyterian, and out of habit. But more likely he’ll stay of this country, but it doesn’t make him Locke suggests it is more of a bedrock contentedly at home with Mary, finally seem outdated in any way. He is still very of Corman’s personality than his many the sedate man of leisure. much a current person.” Or not ... Steeples recalls the day four “Actually,” says Corman’s son, Dave, or five years ago when he and e’79, “he told us he’s going to talk to their Corman drove off-campus to homeowners’ association about taking inspect a building they were care of the trees.” considering purchasing for Suddenly comes the image of the laboratory space. They had to 84-year-old retiree walking the neigh- climb 15 feet up a metal ladder borhood in search of a work crew, attached to the side of the build- approaching with a bounce in his step ing to inspect machinery on the and offering with a smile, “Hey there, roof, and when their work was kid, need a hand?” done the building’s owner sidled Retirement? Warren Corman? Nope. up to Steeples and whispered, Never happen. Impossible.
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 33 34 | KANSAS A LUMNI An early passion for bees inspires MacArthur winner’s world-class research
by Steven H ill
arla Spivak was 18, a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility. student at Prescott College There she learned all she could from in Arizona, when she fell in researchers, admiring their ability to ask love with honeybees. big questions but feeling the academic life MShe found a bee book written by a was not for her. Too restrictive. Too theo- naturalist back in the 1940s and stayed retical. Too much headwork, not enough up all night reading. In the morning, she hands-on. marched into her adviser’s office and Now 55, Spivak long ago reconciled her declared she had to see the inside of a conflict between beekeeping and science. beehive. The adviser found a New Mexico Unsure which road to take, she forged a keeper who took her on, and Spivak spent new route. And that, says Orley “Chip” a semester learning the ins-and-outs of a Taylor, professor of ecology and evolution- commercial bee operation. ary biology, has made all the difference. It wasn’t the paraphernalia that caught “She came from a nonacademic back- her fancy, the suits and hoods and smokers ground, and she knew the life of being that keepers use to prevent stings and calm between a beekeeper and a scientist,” says bees. It wasn’t the honey. It was the bees Taylor, who hired Spivak, PhD’89, as a and the keepers themselves. beekeeper when he was studying African- “Here were these insects that were very ized bees in South America in the 1980s. social and the beekeepers were so unusual He later taught her in graduate school. “To and fun,” Spivak says. “They prefer to be a certain extent, she’s still riding that rail, outside working and they don’t mind get- and that’s the reason for her success. She’s ting stung.” still a beekeeper and she’s a damn fine Spivak didn’t mind getting stung, either, scientist.” and seeing in the outdoors, hands-on life Already a McKnight Distinguished of a beekeeper an identity she could em- Professor in entomology at the University brace for herself, she became a keeper too, of Minnesota and an international leader working for two commercial outfits and a on honeybee research, Spivak this COURTESY MACARTHUR FOUNDATION MACARTHUR COURTESY
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 35 September was named a (with a crop value of $18 a person who found herself in a system— 2010 MacArthur Fellow by KU’s MacArthur Fellows billion) is dependent on academia—where things are usually done the John D. and Catherine bee pollination. a certain way, and out of necessity she had T. MacArthur Foundation. Paul Ehrlich, g’55, PhD’57, Studying how bees to carve out a different way. The $500,000 no-strings- environmental scientist respond to such threats, In her first semester of graduate school, attached grant—which and author of Spivak learned they use Spivak learned she was pregnant. She targets artists, scholars, The Population Bomb their sense of smell to bat- made “a really hard decision” to continue scientists, teachers and tle disease and parasites— school as a mother and eventually—after entrepreneurs of excep- Ann Hamilton, f’79, the bees literally sniff out her marriage ended—as a single mother. tional creativity, original- infected pupae and remove She had to negotiate graduate school in ity and dedication—will sculptor and installation them from the colony. The her own way and at her own pace, she says, allow her to pursue some artist findings contribute greatly but she didn’t let it hold her back: When “wild ideas” she has been to scientists’ understand- her son was 4 they decamped for Costa entertaining. David Hillis, g’83, g’86, ing of basic bee biology. Rica, where she spent two years research- “One of my big dreams PhD’86, evolutionary By selectively breeding for ing her dissertation. is to build a bee research biologist these genetically deter- She shares the experience to remind center, a place where the mined hygienic behaviors, women—and men—“there’s more than public can see honey Wes Jackson, g’60, she then produced a line one way to skin a cat, more than one way extracted or look out the of bees that keep their own around a system that can pay window and see bee hives environmental historian nest clean, giving bee- off.” Says Spivak, “I look on the roof,” Spivak says. and founder of the keepers a way to fight around every day, in The center would include Land Institute disease without the every faculty meeting, research space, working need for pesticides. and go, ‘Uh-oh, I’m colonies and landscaping Kent Whealy, j’68, Helping bees not doing this like that represents the plants founder of Seed Savers help themselves everybody else bees need to survive as is the “big is.’ But it seems well as the crops they pol- Exchange theme” of her to be working linate. “I don’t want it to research, which out.” be a place people just come also looks at and look and go away. I’d rather have them how bees benefit from propolis, get ideas for landscaping or a garden or a a tree resin with antimicrobial school project, something they could do at properties that they use to line the home or school to help and promote bees.” interiors of their nests. Spivak’s research, says Allen Levine, “I like to say I’m helping bees dean of the College of Food, Agricultural stay on their own six feet,” Spivak and Natural Resource Sciences at the Uni- says. “I’m more interested in what versity of Minnesota, “is extraordinarily bees can do to keep themselves creative. I’d say it’s ingenious. She just does healthy, rather than chemical and things in a way others would not think of human interventions we impose doing, and she’s very good at communi- on bees. That’s what really cating to the general public how important fascinates me.” bees are.” For a scientist whose research Drawing on her work experience and approach colleagues and students close relationship with commercial bee- describe as quiet but inventive, the keepers, Spivak developed the “Minnesota high profile that comes with winning a Hygienic” line of bees to help combat so-called “genius grant” has been perilous declines in honeybee numbers. disruptive. In the past several years, bee colonies “That’s been the worst part,” were ravaged by mites, viral and bacterial she says of the genius tag. diseases and other threats to their health. “A genius? No, I’m not The stakes are extraordinarily high: An a genius.” Instead, estimated one third of the American diet Spivak says, she’s
36 | KANSAS A LUMNI COURTESY MACARTHUR FOUNDATION MACARTHUR COURTESY “I have great confidence in the Alumni Association’s leadership and programs, and am so impressed by the volume of events that the sta conducts each year. They do an outstanding job of promoting the loyalty and pride we all feel as Jayhawks. ”
Lori Anderson Piening Austin, Texas Life Member
Your membership is the single most powerful way to make all of KU stronger. Take the next step and become a Life Member. Everything we do strengthens KU, thanks to you.
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ISSUE 1, 2011 | 37 Association
• Have a 3.25 or above high school grade-point average. There are three tiers of scholarships: VALERIE SPICHER VALERIE • ACT score of 26 to 29 (1,170-1,320 SAT, math and critical reading only) = 12 percent out-of-state tuition waiver. • ACT score of 30 to 33 (1,330-1,480 SAT, math and critical reading only ) = 20 percent out-of-state tuition waiver. • ACT score of 34 to 36 (1,490-1,600 SAT, math and critical reading only) = 30 percent out-of-state tuition waiver By offering incentives to out-of-state Jayhawks, KU is more competitive with neighboring states, which also offer vari- ous discounts to out-of-state children and grandchildren of alumni. The program year test began in 2008. also strengthens the entire Jayhawk Nation Lasting incentive In approving a permanent program, the as alumni families continue their tradi- Scholarship for out-of-state Regents also added a top tier of additional tions through new generations. “As one tuition discount for students who score 34 dad told me, these students are walking students with KU lineage to 36 on their ACT or 1,490 to 1,600 on billboards advertising KU, no matter becomes permanent their SAT. where they live,” Maxwell says. Through the program’s first two years, The deadline to apply for the Jayhawk he Jayhawk Generations Scholarship, 127 students received the schol- Generations Schol- Twhich as a two-year pilot program arship as freshmen. “Now that arship is July 1 for has provided tuition discounts to aca- it is permanent,” Maxwell says, students entering in
demically qualifying out-of-state students “the tradition will grow stron- PUPPE STEVE fall 2011. If you have from KU families, is now permanent. The ger. And the Association will questions, please Kansas Board of Regents approved the continue to work to make KU contact Maxwell at program last December. more affordable to out-of-state 913-897-8445 or “The fact that the scholarship has students from KU families. Our jmaxwell@kualumni. become permanent is a true testament work is not finished.” org, or KU Financial to the work of alumni. This will benefit To receive the scholarship, a Aid and Scholarships countless students down the road,” says student must: at 785-864-4700. Joy Larson Maxwell, c’03, j’03, assistant • Be an admitted first-time Online information director of Kansas City Programs for the freshman whose parents, step- is available at why. Alumni Association. Maxwell, who worked parent, legal guardian, grand- ku.edu/costs/financial for the KU Office of Admissions before parent or step-grandparent aid.shtml. joining the Association staff in 2008, is the earned a degree at KU. Maxwell liaison to the University for recruitment of legacy students. In 2007, the concept of offering discounts to academically qualifying “The fact that the scholarship has become permanent out-of-state Jayhawks became a priority is a true testament to the work of alumni. This will for the Association’s national Board of Directors. Association and University benefit countless students down the road.” leaders collaborated to create a proposal { —Joy Larson Maxwell for the Kansas Legislature, and the two- }
38 | KANSAS A LUMNI COURTESY BRAD KORELL COURTESY AN ASSOCIATION MEMBER Nominate TO SERVE ON THE BOARD
We need your assistance in nominating future members of the KU Alumni Association’s National Board of Directors.
To nominate a fellow Jayhawk, please complete the form at www.kualumni.org/board, or call 800-584-2957 and a form will Korell be mailed or faxed to you. All nomination materials should be sent to the Association by March 1. True believer With your help, the Association will continue to recruit directors Longtime volunteer funds who represent the diversity of the KU family and the student, alumni programs dedication that has been a hallmark of rad Korell grew up in St. Joseph, Mo., KU alumni service through the years. Band graduated from the University of Missouri. For law school he chose Kansas, and his experience as a young Jayhawk graduate in Dallas cemented his KU allegiance. “What won me over was the immediate connection to other KU alumni in the area,” Korell recalls. “I didn’t know a single soul, and the Jayhawk com- munity was welcoming and comforting. They made it feel like a second home. Now the vast majority of my very close friends are KU people I didn’t know when I was in Lawrence. Korell, l’97, a Life Member, was an eager volunteer. In 1998, he began leading the Dallas alumni chapter and, from 2002 to 2007, he led the KU contingents in both Dallas and Austin. After turning over the reins in Dallas, he still leads the chapter in Austin, where he founded the law firm of For any additional Korell & Frohlin. questions, contact Through the years, he has organized the Association at or hosted numerous alumni events and 800-584-2957 represented KU at college admissions or visit fairs, where he saw the value of connecting www.kualumni.org students and alumni. He volunteered for the Alumni Association’s Hawk to Hawk mentor program, and he served on the KU Memorial Unions Corp. board from
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 39 Association
2005 to 2010. He also has created a scholarship for out-of-state students in the School of Law. In 2006, he became a member of the Association’s national Board of Directors. Student Alumni He will complete his term this year, but his connection to the Association will endure through the Brad Korell Student Leadership Board and Alumni Programming endowment. Korell has committed ROMBECK TERRY members Paige $100,000 over five years; half of his gift will create the permanent Blevins, Great Bend endowment and the other half will continue his membership in the Presidents Club, the Association’s donor group that has junior, and Hunter helped expand student recruitment and alumni programs to Hess, McPherson more than 500 events annually. junior, received the “I doubt there has ever been anyone Brad’s age who has done more for the University in terms of volunteerism and charitable Judy L. Ruedlinger Award for their giving,” says Kevin Corbett, c’88, Association president. “The time Hess and Blevins and resources Brad continues to give to KU and the Alumni Asso- service to the Student ciation could not be more genuine in intent—he has never asked Alumni Association. Blevins leads the SALB as for anything other than seeing positive impact.” Korell wants the Association’s recent growth to continue, espe- president, and Hess is vice president of adminis- cially in outreach to students. “In this day and age, with so many tration. The award, which includes scholarship different opportunities to become involved, it’s so important to funds, honors the memory of Ruedlinger, an plant those roots with students and young alumni while they are still here. ... Those bonds are more likely to last. Association staff member who founded the “This is something I’m passionate about. It is crucial to our Student Alumni Association in 1987 and created success as an Association and a university. Living outside Kansas, the fund to encourage future student leaders. I see that our alumni are the best recruiters we have.”
Honor a Loyal Life members J AY HAW K he Association thanks these Jayhawks, who began their Life NOW ACCEPTING NOMINATIONS FOR THE TMemberships Nov. 1 through Dec. 31. For information, visit kualumni.org or call 800-584-2957. Fred Ellsworth Medallion Patsy Gardenhire Anderson Kyle R. Hartman Since 1975 the Fred Ellsworth Medallion Norma Conkle Archung H. D. Hodge has honored individuals “who have provided Stephen A. Baldridge Marcella J. Holliday unique and significant service to KU.” Zoe Baldwin Peter H. Holmes Michael J. Baltezor John M. Impens Fred Ellsworth Medallion recipients are Steven A. Bergstrom Anna K. Johnson honored by the Association in the fall and Christine M. Bivins Aaron J. & Holly Heckathorn introduced during a home football game. Mary Gans Boomer Kabler Monique M. Brooks Past winners have been leaders in Kansas Jane Windham Kamstra & O. Gilbert Brown higher education, members of University Mark R. Kamstra boards and committees, consultants for KU David L. Bruyn Gordon J. Kauman projects and donors to the University. Alan D. Campbell James W. Kensett III Michael J. Cattaneo Andrea Knickerbocker If someone you know has continually shared Deborah Davies Paula M. Koenigs time, talents and resources to benefit KU, Victoria J. Dorr Kirk V. Kole submit a nomination today! Jerey W. Gettler Christina E. Kroeger Robert G. Gish John E. Lastelic To submit a nomination, contact the Stuart W. Gribble Lincoln L. Lewis KU Alumni Association by March 31 at Jeni Anderson Gri n Byron C. Long 800-584-5397 or visit www.kualumni.org. Susan C. Gro-VanArendonk Susanna S. Loof
40 | KANSAS A LUMNI Everything we do strengthens KU. Your membership in the KU Alumni Association is the single most powerful way to make all of KU stronger, including the value of your own degree.
Board of Directors Scott R. Seyfarth, b’83, Hinsdale, Illinois Brenda Marzett Vann, c’71, g’72, CHAIR Kansas City Jay Howard, b’79, Austin, Texas Je L. Wolfe, b’83, Meridian, Ohio
STEVE PUPPE STEVE CHAIR-ELECT Jerey P. Briley, d’74, Overland Park Administrative Sta
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Kevin J. Corbett, c’88, President Jerey P. Briley, d’74, Overland Park ALUMNI CENTER Howard E. Cohen, b’79, Leawood Timothy E. Brandt, b’74, Director of Ray D. Evans, b’82, g’84, Leawood Adams Alumni Center Sheri Welter Hauck, b’81, Arroyo Grande, California ALUMNI, STUDENT & Jay Howard, b’79, Austin, Texas MEMBERSHIP PROGRAMS Bradley G. Korell, l’97, Austin, Texas Michael Davis, d’84, g’91, Senior Sue Shields Watson, d’75, Wichita Vice President for Alumni, Student John, b’73, and Cindy Ballard, assoc., Overland Park, will chair the and Membership Programs 2011 Rock Chalk Ball April 16 at the Overland Park Convention DIRECTORS TO 2011 Nikki Epley, Director of Reunion Center. The black-tie event has been a Kansas City Chapter Jerey P. Briley, d’74, Overland Park Programs tradition since 1996. Invitations will be mailed at the end of Howard E. Cohen, b’79, Leawood Heath Peterson, d’04, g’09, February; visit kualumni.org for more details. Jay Howard, b’79, Austin, Texas Assistant Vice President for Bradley G. Korell, l’97, Austin, Texas Alumni and Student Programs Curtis R. McClinton, Jr., d’62, Kansas City, Missouri COMMUNICATIONS Becky Monnard Loosen Cynthia A. Scheopner Winifred S. Pinet, c’80, g’82, David Johnston, j’94, g’06, Director Howard D. & Emily Forsyth Kate A. Schmidt Plymouth, Michigan of Internet Services and Marketing Lubliner Nathan H. Schriner Chris Lazzarino, j’86, Associate Kevin G. Lydon Robert B. Simpson DIRECTORS TO 2012 Editor, Kansas Alumni Magazine Tammy Pracht May William T. & Karen M. Simp- Paul “Bud” Burke, b’56, Lawrence Jennifer Sanner, j’81, Senior Vice Harry G. McMahon III son Ray D. Evans, b’82, g’84, Leawood President for Communications and Mollie E. McQueen Darrell D. Stansberry Jr. Karen M. Humphreys, c’70, l’73, Corporate Secretary Joshua W. Mermis Richard L. Stevenson Wichita Susan Younger, f’91, Creative Director David A. & Julie Updegra Matthew K. Tingle James A. Trower, b’77, Salina Mikols Marc A. Turner & Linda Wein- DEVELOPMENT Lucas B. Miller stein Turner DIRECTORS TO 2013 Ellen Chindamo, f’92 Frank W. Murphy III Erica S. VanRoss Sheri Welter Hauck, b’81, Arroyo Senior Development Director Patrick D. Myers Cary D. Watson Grande, California omas E. O’Connell Jake White Je Kennedy, j’81, Wichita FINANCE Severiano W. Palacioz Rebecca Barber White Henry Menghini, c’87, Pittsburg Jodi Nachtigal, Controller Timothy S. Patterson Janet J. Woerner Dwight Parman, Senior Vice David W. Peck DIRECTORS TO 2014 President for Finance and Human Charles E. Persinger Douglas C. Miller, b’71, l’74, Resources and Treasurer Brandon J. Petz Mission HIlls Christopher M. Pivonka Debbie Foltz Nordling, d’79, Hugoton HOSPITALITY SERVICES Mary Katherman Post Camille Bribiesca Platz, c’96, g’98, Bryan Greve, Senior Vice President Donald L. Presson Dallas, Texas for Hospitality Terrie L. Price & Gary E. Price Richard E. Putnam, c’77, l’80, RECORDS Marc C. Prouve Omaha, Nebraska Bill Green, Senior Vice President Benjamin J. Rayome Larry D. Stoppel, c’73, Washington for Information Services Chris Robe DIRECTORS TO 2015 Stefanie Shackelford, Vice President Sharon Young Schar Paul L. Carttar, c’76, Lawrence for Alumni Records
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 41 Frederic Siegel, g’58, PhD’61, wrote by Karen Goodell Class Notes e Exploding Population Bomb: Societies Under Stress, which recently was pub- lished. He’s a professor emeritus at George Washington University, and he makes his Willis, b’43, g’48, and Marie Larson Corman, c’73, h’74, make their home in home in Washington, D.C. 43 Tompkins, b’46, celebrated their Lawrence. 65th anniversary last year. ey make their Richard Heiny, e’50, a retired chemi- Lynn Miller, c’59, g’62, wrote Cross- home in Kansas City. cal engineer with Dow Chemical, lives in 59 ing the Line, a novel published by Midland, Mich., with his wife, Suzanne. AuthorHouse. He is a professor emeritus Betty Austin Hensley, c’44, Don Jones, e’50, makes his home in of political science at Temple University, 44 attended the National Flute Oxnard, Calif., where he’s a retired civil and he lives in Philadelphia. Association meeting in Anaheim, Calif., engineer. last year. She lives in Wichita and owns John Boesche, b’60, is retired in Flutes of the World, a collection of ethnic Marcene Dameron Grimes, c’51, is 60 Holiday Island, Ark. and antique utes. 51 executive director of the Topeka Jazz Fred Pendergraft, d’60, is retired a er Claudine “Scottie” Scott Lingelbach, Workshop. She lives in Tecumseh. 32 years of teaching and three years work- b’44, recently attended a ceremony at KU’s James Zimmerman, e’51, a retired civil ing as a truck driver. He lives in Lansing, Dole Institute of Politics at which her late engineer, makes his home in Topeka. Mich. husband, Dale, was posthumously award- Roger Stanton, c’60, l’63, practices law ed the Bronze Star for his service during William Hougland, b’52, is retired in Overland Park. He and Judy Duncan World War II. Scottie lives in Lawrence. 52 in Lawrence. Stanton, a’61, live in Prairie Village.
Daniel Chase Jr., e’45, b’48, makes Roger Warren, c’54, m’57, was Jesse Carney, a’61, lives in Law- 45 his home in Bella Vista, Ark., 54 honored last fall for 50 years of 61 rence, where he’s a retired teacher where he’s retired vice president of manu- medical practice and administration at and coach. facturing with Colgate Palmolive. Hanover Hospital. He and Linda Duston James Hoy, ’61, edited Cowboy’s Warren, c’66, m’70, make their home in Lament, published by Texas Tech Univer- Richard Schiefelbusch, g’47, lives Hanover. sity Press. He lives in Emporia. 47 in Lawrence, where he’s a KU dis- Robert McLean, c’61, is a mentor for tinguished professor emeritus of speech, Elizabeth Wohlgemuth Duckers, gi ed students in the Lincoln, Neb., public language and hearing. 55 j’55, is retired in Salina. school system. James Moorhead, a’55, lives in Lone Tree, Colo., where he’s retired a er a 53- Ronald Rubin, c’62, m’66, a retired year career in architecture. 62 pediatric surgeon, makes his home Carol Stutz Schmidt, d’55, g’69, keeps in West Newton, Mass. busy during retirement with volunteer activities and travel. She and her husband, Peggy Martin Ball, d’63, coordi- Gene, ’75, live in Topeka. 63 nates sales for NSA in McPherson, Max Kliewer, e’49, a retired petro- where she and her husband, Eddie, live. 49 leum engineer, makes his home in James, d’56, g’66, EdD’75, and William Gordon, b’63, serves as trustee Anacortes, Wash. 56 Sandra Muntzel Foster, d’76, make of the Fort Worth Retirement Fund. He their home in Olathe. and Patricia Ross Gordon, d’64, live in Warren Corman, e’50, retired in Jeanne Fish Levy, g’56, PhD’60, works Fort Worth, Texas. 50 December as Kansas University as a docent at the Nelson-Atkins Museum Jack Thomas, d’63, a retired teacher architect and special assistant to the of Art in Kansas City. and coach, lives in Bogue. chancellor. He also had been director of facilities for the Kansas Board of Pat Moon Ranson, d’57, owns John Pruitt, g’64, owns e Frame- Regents, which he served as interim 57 Utility Consultants in Wichita. She 64 works, a custom picture-framing executive director in 1993. He was named lives in Independence. business, in Carrollton, Texas. a distinguished alumnus by KU’s schools of architecture and engineering, and he Clair Raney, c’58, wrote All for Larry Armel, b’65, l’68, is inde- received a National Distinguished Service 58 Nothing, a historical novel 65 pendent director of the Marshall Award from the Association of University about the Vietnam War. He lives in Funds. She lives in Leawood. Architects. Warren and Mary Crissman Titusville, Fla. Carolyn Hall Gilhousen, ’65, and her
42 | KANSAS A LUMNI husband, Frederic, m’66, own Glenn Grove, Ill., with Jennifer Nilsson Erck, Thomas Burton, c’70, e’70, works Books in Lake Quivira, where they live. d’68, g’70. 70 as an engineer with the U.S. Nucle- Stephen Matthews, b’65, chairs the Frank Janzen, c’68, g’05, teaches Eng- ar Regulatory Commission in Rockville, board of Haviland State Bank. He lives in lish for AMIDEAST in Yemen. His home Md. He and Colette Bushnell Burton, c’71, LaCygne. is in San Jose, Calif. g’80, live in Montgomery Village. Patrick Ruckh, b’68, is executive vice James Czupor, j’70, co-founded the John Friesen, PhD’67, recently president of First Horizon National Cor- InterPro Group in Denver. 67 began his 44th year as professor of poration. He lives in Cordova, Tenn. Debra Sheppard Evangelidis, n’70, is education at the University of Calgary in Mary Jeannine Kerwin Strandjord, county coordinator and sta nurse for Alberta. b’68, lives in Leawood, where she’s retired Hospice Services. She lives in Smith Howard Pankratz, j’67, recently from Sprint. Center with her husband, Demetre. received an American Gavel Award for Nancy Knox Todd, d’70, serves in the Distinguished Reporting About the Judi- Kelvin Flory, e’69, g’70, is a systems Colorado Legislature, where she is com- ciary. He is a reporter for the Denver Post 69 administrator for the state of Kan- pleting her third term as a representative. and makes his home in Lakewood, Colo. sas. He commutes to Topeka from Ottawa. Nancy and her husband, Todd, ’84, make Tina Olson Shoemaker, f’67, directs Ted Harding, b’69, works as a data their home in Aurora. quality improvement for Snoqualmie Val- engineer for Texas World Commerce. He Kenneth Van Blaricum, l’70, practices ley Hospital in Snoqualmie, Wash. lives in Crockett. law in Pratt. David Learned, m’69, practices Stephanie Caple Doughty, c’68, medicine in Kenner, La. Daniel Lyons, c’71, l’77, is assistant 68 owns Electronic Realty Associates. Kenneth Ruthenberg Jr., b’69, is man- 71 general counsel for Kinder Morgan She and her husband, John, c’68, live in aging attorney with Chang, Ruthenberg Energy Partners in Houston, where he and Kaneohe, Hawaii. & Long in Folsom, Calif. He lives in Gold Maryanne Medved Lyons, d’71, g’77, make Maj. Gen. Wayne Erck, d’68, g’70, River. their home. recently was inducted into the KU Army Eric Stinson, b’69, l’73, is vice president Lamoine Miller, EdD’71, lives in ROTC Wall of Fame. He lives in Mulberry of Lario Oil & Gas in Wichita. Hutchinson, where he’s a retired professor.
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 43 Class Notes
Thomas Palmer Jr., g’71, owns Tom Doncella Klamm Robertson, d’73, g’78, Ellen Tyler Hanson, c’75, was rec- Palmer Communications in Newton High- and her husband, Steven, d’75, g’77, live in ognized as Woman Law Enforcement lands, Mass. Sun City Carolina Lakes, N.C. Executive of the Year by the National Mark Pentz, c’71, g’73, g’80, retired Kenneth Wallace, c’73, is a sales repre- Association of Women Law Enforcement last summer as city manager of Chandler, sentative for ChaDa Sales in Lawrence. Executives. She is chief of police in Ariz., where he continues to live. Lenexa. Paul Raymond, c’71, works as a pub- MARRIED Sharyl Bradley Kinney, c’75, works as lisher at Blue Door. He lives in Oceanside, David Healy, j’73, to William Dean, an administrator for the Cleveland County Calif. April 24 in Washington, D.C., where Health Department in Norman, Okla. Mary Torrence, c’71, l’74, works as David practices law. James Lahmann, b’75, retired last fall as revisor of statutes for the state of Kansas. director of purchasing and risk manage- Her home is in Topeka. Robert Colvin, c’74, founded Com- ment at Kansas City Kansas Community Mark Willis, e’71, retired from a 74 munity Bank Funding Company. College. He lives in Kansas City. 30-year career with Morton Salt, lives in He lives in Wichita. Jill Sobel Quadagno, g’75, PhD’76, was Athens, Ga., with Hilde Siegmann David Courtwright, c’74, wrote No elected to the Institute of Medicine of the Willis, f’73. Right Turn: Conservative Politics in a National Academies. She’s a professor of Liberal America, which recently was sociology at Florida State University in Rebecca Wieland Crotty, d’72, published by Harvard University. David is Tallahassee. 72 serves as Shawnee County District John A. Delaney Presidential Professor of Thomas Wiggans, p’75, was appointed Court judge of the third judicial district. History at the University of North Florida chairman of the board of directors of She lives in Topeka. in Jacksonville. Excaliard Pharmaceuticals in Carlsbad, David Hodges, d’72, directs bands at Calif. His home is in Olathe. McNary High School in Keizer, Ore. Kimberly Wright, d’75, is a career-man- Terri Howard Jarboe, d’72, lives in agement consultant in Bethlehem, Pa. Olathe, where she’s a retired reading specialist. Stephen Canfield, c’76, lectures Hannah Johnson Meredith, d’72, works 76 in the English department at John as a dental hygienist in Portland Ore. She David Glunt, b’74, is president of Carroll University in University Heights, and her husband, Michael, c’72, live in Supermarket Concepts in Maryland Ohio. Lake Oswego. Heights, Mo. He lives in Kirkwood. Kathryn Kosier Chrobot, n’76, directs John Thompson, b’72, is managing Ronald Green, p’74, works as a clinical regulatory services for Scott & White director of UBS in Leawood. pharmacist at G. Rodel. He lives in Scotts- Healthcare. She lives in Temple, Texas. Lowell Tilzer, c’72, m’76, g’78, is chair dale, Ariz. Rich Frankenfield, b’76, e’76, manages of pathology and clinical medicine at the Charles Jeeris, b’74, is audit manager design for CH2M Hill in Corvallis, Ore. KU Medical Center in Kansas City. at Stanford University. He and Sandra John Hughes Jr., b’76, recently became David Wysong, j’72, recently was Carlson Jeeris, c’74, live in Jericho, Vt. senior vice president of the Winkenwerder named Johnson Countian of the Year. He Gary Lasche, b’74, is regional nance Co. in Alexandria, Va. He lives in lives in Mission Hills, where he’s a retired manager for Wells Fargo in Minneapolis, Alpharetta, Ga. state senator. Minn. Julie Moore Langton, c’76, works as a Patrick Murphy, c’74, m’77, practices receptionist at Heartland Animal Hospital MARRIED medicine at Children’s Mercy Hospitals in Wichita. Stephen McComas, j’72, to Brenda and Clinics and is a clinical professor Linda Paul-Elem, g’76, PhD’80, is co- Palmquist Smith, July 19. ey live in of urology at the KU Medical Center in director of Building Blocks Developmental Leawood. Kansas City. Preschool in Commack, N.Y. Eric Sundquist, c’74, is a professor of Louis Price, b’76, owns Pleetoox in Alan Braun, c’73, m’76, practices English at Johns Hopkins University in Kansas City. 73 medicine at the Mercy Arthritis Baltimore. and Osteoporosis Center in Des Moines, Denise Wolfs, e’74, serves as counsel Sidney Bacon, c’77, g’79, is the Iowa. for ExxonMobil. She lives in Horseshoe 77 editor of the Journal of Speech, Robert Medford, EdD’73, is retired in Bay, Texas. Language and Hearing Research. He’s an Pittsburg. auditory psychophysicist at Arizona State Gary Nickel, e’73, retired recently from David Cicotello, c’75, g’77, is University, and he lives in Phoenix. a 22-year career at the NASA Johnson 75 associate vice provost of admissions Rita Charlton, j’77, owns Charlton Space Center in Houston. He and his wife, at Middle Tennessee State University in Enterprises, which provides life coaching Jeanne, live in Rockwall, Texas. Murfreesboro. services. She lives in Scottsdale, Ariz.
44 | KANSAS A LUMNI ISSUE 1, 2011 | 45 Class Notes
Bill Clarke, b’77, practices law with Jen- of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program Library. She lives in Yorba Linda, Calif. nings Strouss & Salmon in Phoenix. O ce in Washington, D.C. Frederick Goenner, b’79, l’82, manages Jean Denning Festa, f’77, was inducted Latin American contracts and negotiations into the American Occupational erapy Steven Anderson, b’78, l’81, l’10, for Shell Oil in Houston. Association’s Roster of Fellows. She is 78 has a law practice in Overland William Graveman, e’79, is president of retired in Unionville, Conn. Park. He and Carole Twork Anderson, Biomedical Devices and vice president of Mark Lowes, c’77, is vice president of b’78, live in Lenexa. Novian Health. He lives in Tonganoxie. litigation at KBR in Houston. Stephen Paddock, j’78, works as a sales John Stagich, c’79, owns Stagich So - Deborah Markley, e’77, works as a representative for Alcatel-Lucent in Over- ware Consulting in Germantown, Tenn. senior reservoir engineer for SM Energy in land Park. Midland, Texas. Jerey Shadwick, c’78, wrote a novel, Kelly Burke Barnett, c’80, prac- Ann Rossman McCort, d’77, manages e Second Condition, which recently 80 tices dentistry at Barnett Family human resources for Crawford Sales in was published. He is senior counsel for Dental in Ozark, Mo. She was inducted Olathe. Andrews Myers Coulter & Hayes in into the American College of Dentists. Russell Smith, c’77, b’77, is a senior Houston. Margaret Barry, j’80, is a freelance vice president and managing director of Christopher Standlee, l’78, is executive writer and editor in Austin, Texas. UMB Bank in Kansas City. vice president of Abengoa Bioenergy U.S. Kathleen Conkey, j’80, c’80, wrote Katherine Davis Weatherholt, d’77, Holding in Chester eld, Mo. Counseling Content Providers in the g’86, works as an assistant compliance Daniel Stanley, h’78, m’84, works as an Digital Age: A Handbook for Lawyers, o cer for George K. Baum & Co. in anesthesiologist at Rocky Mountain Anes- which was published by the New York Bar Kansas City. thesiology in Ogden, Utah. Association. She owns a law practice in Michael Williams, c’77, lives in New York City. Leavenworth, where he’s retired. Kathryn Potter Crask, f’79, d’79, Barbara Kinney, j’80, works as a pho- John Works, c’77, is a senior invest- 79 performed in concert recently with tographer in Seattle. ment o cer with the U.S. Department the Laguna Brisas piano trio at the Nixon Jeery Mason, c’80, l’83, is a partner in the Goodland law rm of Vignery & Mason. David Scott, c’80, works as a practi- tioner and educator for Inner Works in Wichita. Robert Scott, c’80, g’84, serves as president of the Kansas Federation of the Council for Exceptional Children. He’s studying for a doctorate in special educa- tion at Kansas State University in Manhat- tan, where he lives. Thomas Tingle, a’80, a’82, is vice presi- dent of business development for Intelli- gent Engineering in Shawnee.
John Heim, d’81, is executive 81 director of the Kansas Association of School Boards in Topeka. He lives in Shawanee. Diane Flott Senne, d’81, makes her home in Lawrence, where she’s retired from a career with State Farm Insurance.
Kent Gaylor, e’82, g’84, works as a 82 communication system engineer at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. Gregory Kueker, a’82, is assistant sales manager for Midwest Wholesale Hardware in Kansas City.
46 | KANSAS A LUMNI John Booker, c’83, recently became ington, D.C. He lives in Fredericksburg, Va. o cer for the Department of Homeland 83 deputy director of the Pine Ridge Frank Reeb, c’83, l’92, lives in Law- Security. His home is in Overland Park. Job Corps Center in Chadron, Neb. rence, where he directs human resources Janine Gracy, d’85, g’91, directs Health- Donna Butler, ’83, wrote an ebook, at KU. SET in Denver. Manifesting Daddy. She makes her home Richard White, l’83, is lead attorney at Steven Hughes, m’85, is medical in Olathe. the MoKan Personal Injury Group in Kan- director of Overlake Medical Clinics in Richard Drew, ’83, works for MGD sas City. He and his wife, Catherine, d’99, Issaquah, Wash. Water Systems. He lives in Elwood, Ill. live in Lawrence, where she teaches h Loraine Wright Turec, j’85, is vice Zack Mansdorf, PhD’83, is a consultant grade at Prairie Park Elementary School. president of sales and marketing with Blue with Sustainability Consultants in Boca Ocean Consulting. She lives in Olathe. Raton, Fla. Joel Davidson, c’85, works as an Joseph Moore, c’83, works as a man- 85 audit manager for Koch Pipeline in Jacqueline Johnson Fields, b’86, agement and program analyst for the Wichita. 86 is a senior research consultant for Department of Veterans Aairs in Wash- Patrick Gaston, l’85, is an adjudications Radian Group Consulting in St. Louis.
PROFILE by Whitney E riksen
Special agent traverses there are some facets of a military organi-
zation,” says Hearn, who lled a vacancy OFFICE FBI PRESS COURTESY a new world of crime in the organized crime division. “I was ready for it, though. I was young enough aphne Hearn entered the FBI as a that I could adapt to a completely dierent D27-year-old Kansas transplant. While culture from private industry.” training in Quantico, Va., she set her sights Since her rst position in Bualo, on the West Coast, but in 1991 she was several promotions have moved Hearn placed in Buffalo, N.Y., to begin a career in around the country. As a new expert in organized crime investigation, for which organized crime investigation, she held she had no prior experience. positions in Chicago and at FBI Head- Two decades later, a er watching the quarters in Washington, D.C. It was at world change and the bureau change headquarters that she witnessed the trag- with it, she con dently begins her newest edy on September 11, 2001. challenge as special agent in charge of the “We set up a command post,” she re- counterintelligence/cyber/ administrative calls. “I think I stayed there for three days During her year as special assistant to division in Los Angeles. straight before I went home. at event the director, Daphne Hearn shared Robert Hearn’s rst job a er earning a busi- changed the way the bureau does business Mueller’s demanding schedule and extensive ness degree was at the Goodyear Tire and fore v e r.” travel to the Middle East. “It was grueling,” she Rubber Company in Topeka. A er two As the FBI shi ed its focus from crimi- says, “but I wouldn’t trade that experience for years, she moved to Denver for a sales job nal investigation to counterterrorism, anything.” at NCR. Hearn entered the world of cybercrime “Denver was better for my personal investigation with a job that took her back life,” says Hearn, b’87, “but the sales job to her hometown, Kansas City. learn more about counterintelligence, and was not rewarding so I kept looking.” “ at move was easy because I knew prevent the proliferation of weapons of As she considered going to law school, the area and had friends there,” she says. mass destruction with the help of a new she met an FBI agent whose love of the “As I get older, I look less forward to mov- regional forensics lab. It is a challenge career piqued her interest. Although she ing to places I’ve never been.” worlds away from the Goodyear plant in had never considered law enforcement, Her latest move to L.A. may be the last Topeka. she began the application process and 18 in her FBI career. Hearn has grown fond of “ roughout my career, I’ve always months later entered the Federal Bureau of the big city. With four years le until she is strived to not think about what’s next,” she Investigation as a special agent. eligible to retire, she will oversee hundreds says. “Right now I just think about L.A. I “It was a bit of a culture shock because of employees in seven California counties, have a lot of ideas.”
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 47 Class Notes
Kristopher Kuehn, b’86, l’89, is a found- com in Washington, D.C. She lives in Lisa Miguelino Duchman, c’91, owns ing partner of Warden Grier in Kansas City. Spring eld, Va. Duchman Family Winery in Dri wood, Karen Mayberry, l’86, serves as a U.S. Douglas Sumner, d’89, g’95, is superin- Texas. Air Force deputy sta judge advocate at tendent-elect of Desoto USD 232. He and Christine Reinolds Kozelle, j’91, directs Langley AFB. She lives in Newport Monica Scoggins Sumner, d’95, g’01, live news and editorial services for Berry News, Va. in Olathe. College in Mount Berry, Ga. Jana Whitehair Ultsch, n’89, is a Jason Martin, b’91, is vice president of registered nurse anesthetist with Anesthe- underwriting for Asurion in Kansas City. sia Consulting Services in Wichita. Georey Stalker, c’91, is a wealth- management adviser for Northwestern Kathleen Hannigan, j’90, co- Mutual Wealth Management in Wichita. 90 authored e Good Fun! Book: 12 Eric McCurley, g’86, lives in Wichita, Months of Parties that Celebrate Service, Russell Fieger, j’92, is CEO and where he’s a managing partner for the Wil- published by Blue Marlin Publications. She 92 CIO of Cornerstone Securities in lis Group. lives in Chicago. Overland Park. Jodi Breckenridge Petit, d’90, g’93, Mark Heimer, g’92, was appointed chief BORN TO: PhD’98, and her husband, Brian, live in of the Abilene Police Department. John Shaw, c’86, m’93, and Letty, son, Fort Leavenworth. Christine Keehn, j’92, is account direc- Ian Patrick, March 10 in Hutchinson. Nancy Winchester, c’90, PhD’94, is alli- tor and partner in Hat Trick Creative in Ian joins sisters Molly and Emily; John is ance manager for Chevron in e Wood- Englewood, Colo. a general surgeon with the Hutchinson lands, Texas. Curtis Marsh, j’92, lives in Lawrence, Clinic. where he’s program director of KU Info. Kevin Baughman, j’91, directs busi- Col. John Burdett Jr., c’87, serves 91 ness development for the Valley David Bean, b’93, is a CPA with 87 as chief of DAMO-CIC for the U.S. Hope Association in Norton. 93 Bean Consulting in Topeka. Army at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. He lives in West River, Md. Tiger Craig, c’87, is a resource-develop- ment consultant with HPG Resources. He lives in Cheney. Enrique Espinosa, c’87, is a corporate trainer and professor at Conestoga College in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Daphne Hearn, b’87, recently moved to Los Angeles, where she’s an FBI special agent in charge of the intelligence division of the Los Angeles eld o ce. Bradley Proctor, e’87, manages techni- cal sales for IBM in Leawood. Velvet Loomis Shogren, h’87, works as an occupational therapist for SunDance Rehabilitation. She lives in Hesston.
Sally Stre Buzbee, j’88, was 88 named Washington, D.C., bureau chief for e Associated Press. Mary Allard Dair, j’88, is an account executive o cer for Travelers Insurance in Greenwood Village, Colo. Gregory Kahrs, m’88, practices medi- cine at the Medical Plaza of Park City in Wichita.
Anna Davalos MacDonald, j’89, is 89 executive producer of energyNOW.
48 | KANSAS A LUMNI
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50 | KANSAS A LUMNI Pamela Dawson, a’93, a’96, g’10, works language arts and chairs the English mands the U.S. Marines Wing Communi- as an architectural designer at HJM department at McAllen Memorial High cation Squadron 28. He lives in Emerald Architects in Kansas City. School in McAllen, Texas. She was a Texas Isle, N.C. Darin Stephens, c’93, is senior regional Teacher of the Year State Nominee last fall. Erich Steinle, c’94, is an associate director of e Gap in Toronto, Ontario, Susan Jackson Harden, c’94, a’94, is professor of chemistry at Missouri State Canada. vice president of planning and design at University in Spring eld. David Trevino, j’93, c’94, l’07, is a RBF Consulting in Irvine, Calif. partner in the Lawrence law rm of Wisler Angela Macke Hudgins, c’94, manages Kyle Beran, PhD’95, is an associ- & Trevino. human resources for RaceTrac Petroleum. 95 ate professor of chemistry at the She lives in Slidell, La. University of Texas of the Permian Basin Michelle Page Gaines, g’94, is a Cory Lagerstrom, c’94, g’98, l’98, is in Odessa. 94 sta anesthetist with Westlake president of Frontier Wealth Management Sandra Wiley Gahn, PhD’95, is an Anesthesia Group in Austin, Texas. in Kansas City. associate director at Iowa State University Rachelle Luther Grace, d’94, teaches Lt. Col. Gregory Puntney, j’94, com- in Ames.
PROFILE by Steven Hill
Alumna’s Title IX battle Passed in 1972, Title IX targeted gender
discrimination at federally funded institu- ANNE LEVINSON COURTESY led to life in public service tions. Levinson was inspired by her Title IX fight to attend law school at North- nne Levinson had no idea what Title eastern University, which stresses public AIX was when she came to Mount service law. While there, she won her Oread in 1976. Promised a field hockey complaint. scholarship, she arrived to find KU was That the victory came too late to benefit dropping field hockey, along with most of her didn’t matter. “The whole point was to its women’s athletic teams. make sure those who came after me had “That just didn’t seem right,” says a fairer shake, that young women would Levinson, c’80. “I started organizing to have a chance to compete and experience try to effect positive change. I just felt it the positive things sports can do and not needed to be done; I didn’t know where it be second class.” would lead.” After helping Seattle land its first It led, eventually, to law school and women’s sports franchise, the Seattle a long and remarkably varied career in Reign, Levinson became part of the first “The field hockey experience toughened Anne public service for Levinson, deputy mayor all-women group to buy a WNBA team, and made her a very robust competitor and a under two Seattle mayors and an active playing a key role in keeping the Seattle strategic thinker,” says former Seattle mayor participant in the city’s civic life. Storm in town after the Sonics moved to Norm Rice of Levinson, who found in her early Levinson filed one of the nation’s first Oklahoma City. Last year the Storm Title IX fight inspiration for a career in public Title IX complaints after protests she orga- swept the playoffs to win the WNBA service. nized won only a one-year reprieve from championship. administrators determined to cut most “Both boys and girls were wearing the women’s teams. She acted on advice from jerseys of their favorite players,” she recalls. ties and Transportation Commission; and classics professor Elizabeth Banks. “When I grew up the only posters on the as one of the city’s first openly gay political “Being young and inexperienced and wall were men. To know these kids are leaders spearheaded the successful Refer- not well-versed in the world, I said, growing up watching women and thinking endum 71, which made Washington the ‘I’m not sure I know what Title IX is,’” nothing of it is rewarding.” first state with a public vote to support le- Levinson recalls. “And she said, ‘Well, why Levinson served as a municipal judge, gal rights for same-sex families. No longer don’t you go learn about it and come back founding one of the nation’s first men- a Storm owner, she now serves as Civilian and talk with me’—exactly like a good tal health courts; safeguarded consumer Police Auditor on the board that oversees teacher should.” rights as chairman of Washington’s Utili- the Seattle Police Department.
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 51 Class Notes
James Rives, PhD’95, g’99, PhD’07, medicine at Preferred Pediatrics. Ryan Cunningham, b’98, is an owns Jemez Road Mobile Home Park in 98 account executive for Micro- Santa Fe, N.M. He lives in Lawrence. Eisha Tierney Armstrong, c’96, Strategy. He lives in Rosemont, Ill. Scott Shields, g’95, PhD’04, is associate 96 recently became regional owner of Benjamin Rayome, d’98, lives in director and chief curator of the Crocker Mom Corps Cincinnati, a national Waupaca, Wis., where he’s principal of Art Museum in Sacramento, Calif. sta ng company. She and her husband, Waupaca Middle School. Patrick Simons, e’95, is a senior Timothy, live in Cincinnati with their son, Bret Rhodus, b’98, recently became engineer for the Idaho Power Co. in David, 4. managing director of Resources Global Boise. Donna Devine, s’96, is a program Professionals in Kansas City. manager for KU’s Edwards Campus in Michael Ruef, PhD’98, is a professor at Overland Park, where she lives. California Polytechnic State University in Damian Glaze, b’96, works as a senior San Luis Obispo. project estimator for Kitchell CEM in Phoenix. BORN TO: Alok Srivastava, b’95, g’99, l’99, works Mark Wiley, c’96, m’00, is an inter- Matthew, b’98, g’03, and Allison for Sprint Nextel, where he’s a director and ventional cardiologist at the KU Medical Arbuckle Taylor, j’98, daughter, Grace senior attorney. His home is in Overland Center in Kansas City. Katherine, Sept. 15 in Prairie Village, Park. where she joins a brother, Luke, 3. Mat- Whitney Vliet Ward, ’95, is vice presi- Jerey Brown, b’97, practices law thew is a nancial adviser with Merrill dent of Redstone Design Development in 97 with Bell Nunnally & Martin in Lynch in Leawood. Wichita. Dallas. BORN TO: Jennifer Davenport, c’97, m’01, directs Debra Curn, c’99, p’02, works as a Noel, c’95, m’99, and Anne Haines pediatric interventional cardiology at 99 pharmacist at Wal-Mart. She lives Graham, c’95, daughter, Meredith Pediatrix Cardiology Associates of New in Olathe. Liesel, June 10 in Shawnee Mission. Mexico in Albuquerque. Kendall Day, c’99, serves as an anti- ey live in Lee’s Summit, Mo., with Peter Getz, d’97, is principal at Sequoia corruption adviser in Belgrade, Serbia, for their son, Elliot, and Noel practices Charter School in Santa Clarita, Calif. the U.S. Department of Justice.
52 | KANSAS A LUMNI Brian Friedman, d’99, directs organi- lives in New York City. ment specialist for Contract Land Sta. He zational development for the Agriculture MARRIED lives in Sugar Land, Texas. Future of America in Kansas City. He Owen Grieb, c’00, g’05, l’08, to Yoko Ashley Bowen Cook, j’01, recently was commutes from Lawrence. Eto, March 28 on Aoshima Island, o the promoted to associate vice president of the Alice Sayman, c’99, manages projects coast of Miyazaki, Japan. Owen works for Greteman Group in Wichita. for United American Insurance. She lives Deloitte-Touche in Tokyo. Elisabeth Garwick, d’01, directs in Spring Hill. Timothy O’Donnell, d’00, to Chelsea Accelerated Physical erapy in Jessica Zellermayer, j’99, writes for Krohe, Oct. 8. He’s a commercial insur- Birmingham, Ala. WGN-TV in Chicago. ance broker with Haas & Wilkerson in James Kaplan, j’01, supervises accounts Fairway, and she’s an account manaer with for Cramer-Krasselt in St. Paul, Minn. MARRIED Zillner Marketing in Lenexa. ey live in Amy McClure, g’01, teaches physical Anne McAlister, b’99, and Layne Overland Park. education at Mill Valley High School in Meyer, g’08, June 12 in Lawrence, where Shawnee. She was named 2010 Outstand- they live. She’s an assistant district man- BORN TO: ing School Health Educator by the ager at First Management, and he teaches Wendy Wyman Kovich, j’00, and American School Health Association. and coaches baseball at Free State High Matthew, e’01, a son, Cole, and a daugh- Michelle Morse, l’01, directs develop- School. ter, Camryn, Sept. 1. eir home is in e ment for Jackson County CASA in Woodlands, Texas. Kansas City. BORN TO: Cory Starr, d’01, is head athletics John, b’99, g’00, and Emilee Hermreck Kristine Baranski, e’01, is a project equipment manager for Missouri State Katzer, j’03, son, Austin John, Sept. 3 in 01 engineer for Cardinal Engineering University in Spring eld. Denver, where he joins a brother, William, in Edmond, Okla. MARRIED 2. John is a senior manager with Deloitte. Erika Buessing, c’01, g’03, works as Travis Abicht, c’01, m’05, and Elise a speech-language pathologist for the Schnose, m’10, Sept. 18 in Lawrence. Jarrod Isham, d’00, does Marysville school district. She lives in He’s a cardiothoracic surgery fellow at 00 equity trading for Dreman Value Beattie. Northwestern University in Chicago, and Management in Jersey City, N.J. He Christopher Clemence, c’01, is a docu- she’s an obstetrics and gynecology
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 53 Class Notes resident at the University of Illinois Jason Lehtinen, g’03, directs Mariner Children and Aging in Kansas City. Medical Center. Private Equity in Leawood. Chalisa Gadt-Johnson, PhD’04, is a Juliann Mitchell, d’01, g’04, to Erik Melissa Nguyen, c’03, works as a psychologist at Colmery-O’Neil Veterans Maurer, May 1 in Lawrence. She’s a program consultant for the Kansas Juve- Administration Medical Center in Topeka. health-program coordinator for Northrup nile Justice Authority in Topeka. She lives She lives in Lawrence. Grumman in St. Augustine, Fla., and he’s a in Lawrence. Adam John, b’04, works as an energy banker with Bank of America in Jackson- Natalia Reynolds Shorten, a’03, man- broker for Lincoln Energy Group in Chi- ville, where they live. ages Old Navy store design for e Gap in cago. Crispian Paul, s’01, s’03, to Matthew San Francisco. Julie Bunn Pine, c’04, l’07, is a share- Jenkins, Sept. 4 in Derby. eir home is in Timothy Stebbins, c’03, m’07, does holder in McDowell, Rice, Smith & Buch- Wichita. emergency medical services advising for anan in Kansas City. Crawford County. He lives in Pittsburg. Lori Duncan Schwartz, n’04, g’09, works BORN TO: Brian Toms, b’03, is a nancial adviser as a family nurse practitioner at St. Paul Michael, c’01, and Erin Shultz for Allstate Financial Services in Radiology. She lives in Mendota Heights, Bittinger, c’02, daughter, Sophia, Conroe, Texas. Minn. April 6 in Lafayette, Ind., where she Tony Vyhanek, b’04, works as a tech- joins a sister, Ava, 2. nology sales representative for Oracle. He Cory, c’01, and Mandi Chace Ingham, lives in Austin, Texas. c’01, son, Calvin Sage, July 8. Cory and Mandi are both environmental scientists MARRIED for the Kansas Department of Agriculture Samuel Constance, f’04, g’07, and in Topeka, and they make their home in MARRIED Elizabeth Stephens, ’11, May 30 in Lawrence. Mary Bratt, d’03, to Andrew Flory, Kansas City, where they live. He’s Jayme, c’01, and Elizabeth Aldridge Sept. 5 in Udora. ey make their home in creative-project manager for InTouch Uden, d’01, g’05, daughter, Darby Eliza- rural Lawrence. Solutions, and she’s a medical student beth, June 3 in Lawrence, where she joins Mark Kohls, d’03, g’08, and Sarah Best, at the KU Medical Center. a brother, Brady, 3. Jayme is assistant d’10, Aug. 28 in Topeka, where they make Brian Legg, b’04, and Jackie Allred, director for residence life at KU, and Beth their home. c’07, July 17 in Kansas City, where they teaches at Prairie Trail Junior High School Corbett Mermis, c’03, to Caroline live. He works for the Cerner Corp., in Olathe. Baldwin, April 30 in Austin, Texas. ey and she studies for a degree in medicine live in Houston. and a master’s in bioethics at Kansas April Adkins, c’02, recently joined Danny Stos, c’03, to Amanda Conley, City University of Medicine and 02 the clinical sta of Prairie View, Sept. 11 in Tulsa, Okla., where Danny Biosciences. where she’s a psychologist. She lives in practices at Gentle Family Dentistry. Carol Toland, c’04, l’08, to Brian Napp, Wichita. July 17. ey live in Columbus, where Katharine Milberger Haynes, c’02, b’02, BORN TO: Carol is a research associate for the Ohio l’05, practices law with Husch Blackwell in Nikki Washle Barrett, b’03, and Matt, Legislative Service Commission. Kansas City. son, Brendan, April 17. ey live in James Jordan, c’02, is a senior loan Waverly. Anna Clovis, c’05, j’05, is an associ- o cer at Colonial National Mortgage in Ryan, c’03, and Lyndsey Chamberlain, 05 ate with the Kansas City law rm Austin, Texas. p’04, daughter, Brynna Jalyn, May 27 in of Siegfreid Bingham Levy Selzer & Gee. Eureka, Calif. Ryan is a paralegal at the Monica Delaorra, j’05, g’10, works as MARRIED Humboldt County Sheri’s Department, a senior writer and editor for Hallmark Norman Bouwie, b’02, g’07, and Erica and Lyndsey is a clinical pharmacist at Cards in Kansas City. Weston, g’06, July 17 in Lawrence. ey St. Joseph’s Hospital. Kristin Rome Kesinger, c’05, works as a live in Cincinnati, where he’s an internal Carolyn Rhoades, c’03, m’07, and processing specialist for KU’s Visitor auditor for Kroger. Benjamin Powers, m’07, son, William Center in Lawrence. She lives in McLouth. BORN TO: Cornelius, Sept. 16 in Forest Park, Ill. Aaron Koelzer, g’05, manages local Kristina Hadl Dye, b’02, and Robert, events and development for the Kansas son, Camden Blaine, Aug. 27. ey live i Dustin Brown, e’04, manages City Sports Commission and Foundation. n Tonganoxie, and their family includes a 04 projects at KU’s Computer Center. He lives in Olathe. son, Cael, 4. He and Maren Faye Bradley, c’03, live in Michael Lee, c’05, is assistant director Lawrence. of basketball operations at the University Sungwon Jung, e’03, is CEO of Seil Carlos Casas, c’04, directs public rela- of Oregon in Eugene. 03 Lighting. He lives in Busan, Korea. tions for the Christian Foundation for James Lewis, c’05, is a territory man-
54 | KANSAS A LUMNI ager with Miele in Princeton, N.J. His May 1 in Olathe, where she’s a nurse at the cal data coordinator at Quintiles, and home is in Richmond, Va. Olathe Medical Center. she’s a resident in obstetrics and Karla McGaugh Vialle, g’05, is vice Ashley Lafond, c’05, to Shawn Brack- gynecology at St. John Providence president of operations for the Child bill, June 12 in Lawrence. ey live in Health System. ey live in Royal Oak, Health Corporation of America in Brooklyn, N.Y. She’s a music publisher Mich. Mission. with Domino Publishing, and he’s a music Jaclyn Schlaikjer, c’05, manages Grad- MARRIED and fashion photographer. Sta in Minneapolis, Minn. Megan Fisher, s’05, to Robert Rodri- Charles Pohl, c’05, and Kate Harding, Michelle Speer, s’05, g’07, is an o cer guez, Sept. 5 in Huntington Beach, Calif. f’04, g’08, June 5 in KU’s Danforth Chapel. recruiter for the U.S. Navy in Urbandale, Janele Huelet, d’05, to Keiran Roche, He’s a dentist in Topeka, and she’s an archi- Iowa. She lives in Ankeny. June 19 in Mobile, Ala. ey live in tect with Treanor Architects in Lawrence, Melinda Bretthauer Toumi, c’05, Tucson, Ariz., where she’s a high-school where they live. PhD’10, and Richard, ’07, son, Robert athletic trainer and he’s a teacher. Grant Rempe, h’05, and Jamie Gall, Jon, June 11 in Lawrence, where he joins a Heidi Huston, c’05, to Derrek Hogan, c’05, Aug. 14 in Topeka. He’s a senior clini- sister, Charlotte, 6.
PROFILE by Terry Rombeck
Wiltfong trades TV news “Chappelle’s Show,” and was on the cast of several feature films, including “The for comedy career Hoax.” He figures he got his job at the “Daily ob Wiltfong is the “World’s Greatest Show” producing satirical news, in part, COURTESY BOB WILTFONG COURTESY BSpokesperson in the World.” Granted, because of his background in reporting his competition includes a caveman and a actual news. gecko. “‘The Daily Show’ gets to make all the Wiltfong, j’93, has assumed that title for jokes and pursue all the jokes that we the past year for Nationwide Insurance. talked about in the TV newsroom but It’s a role that has his face frequently on never got to say on air,” Wiltfong says. national TV—an opportunity he’s hoping As the “World’s Greatest Spokesperson ultimately will catapult his comedy career in the World,” Wiltfong plays a pitchman but, in the short term, he’s grateful to have character who is pulled from retirement, an ongoing job. after 20 years in the wilderness. “To be working in this economy is like, Though he admits there’s a constant ‘Thank you, Lord,’ let alone to be working “push and pull” between company execu- on a big campaign,” he says. “The analogy tives and the comedy writers and talent, is it’s like winning the lottery. I’m thankful Wiltfong believes the Nationwide adver- Bob Wiltfong relishes the national exposure every step of the way now.” tisements stand on their own as entertain- he has received as the “World’s Greatest Wiltfong grew up in Omaha, Neb., and ment. Spokesperson in the World,” a role he plays for studied TV journalism at KU because he “I’m very proud of this Nationwide Nationwide Insurance ads. didn’t think comedy was a viable career campaign,” he says. “If we were left to choice. He spent eight years at television our own devices, the director, writer and stations in Lake Charles, La., and Wichita myself would aim for the cutting edge and like he’s a shark—he’s always moving. At before accepting a gig at News 12 on Long be comedic. At the same time, we need to press time, he was in negotiations to host Island, N.Y. It was there he began taking serve the purposes of Nationwide.” a show on the Discovery Channel, had improv comedy classes, and after the Sept. Wiltfong says pursuing the life of an recently auditioned for an AT&T commer- 11 terrorist attacks, which killed a co- actor is difficult. He now lives in the Los cial and was co-writing a screenplay. worker, he decided to quit his day job and Angeles suburb of Culver City with his “It’s very up and down, and you save pursue his first love, comedy. wife and three children, and he sometimes money when you can,” Wiltfong says. “But Wiltfong eventually landed stints with goes weeks or months without a paycheck. I have happiness in my life. I enjoy what TV’s “Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and That’s why he says he treats his career I’m doing for a living again.”
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 55 Class Notes
Nicole Hall, d’06, serves as a U.S. Shannon Brown Hilding, c’07, practices Pictures contest for her feature, “Madness,” 06 Army physical therapist in Iraq. law with South & Associates in Leawood. which is being developed by a production Her home is in Killeen, Texas. She and her husband, Dennis, d’05, g’07, company. She lives in Los Angeles. Christa Keel, c’06, manages develop- live in Lawrence. Lance Mall, b’08, is a senior auditor at ment for Teach For America in Timothy Isernhagen, e’07, b’07, is a Deloitte & Touche in Chicago. Milwaukee. reservoir engineer for ExxonMobil. He Sara Stieben, l’08, works as an associate Robyn Kelton, c’06, is a training and lives in Keller, Texas. with Otis Coan & Peters in Fort Collins, technical assistance specialist for the Lauren Viscek, d’07, works as a nurse at Colo. McCormick Center for Early Childhood St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City. Meghan Sullivan, c’08, j’08, manages Leadership in Wheeling, Ill. She lives in Mike Zagurski, c’07, was called up from projects for MMG Worldwide in Chicago. the Triple-A team in Lehigh Valley last Kansas City. Lindsey Kinkelaar, c’06, works as a June to pitch for the Philadelphia Phillies. MARRIED senior applications specialist for Paciolan He lives in Omaha, Neb. Carl Hinchey, c’08, and Julie Brynds, in Irvine, Calif. ’10, July 22 in Estes Park, Colo. He works Lauren Mall, c’06, n’08, is a nurse with MARRIED at Ericcson in Boulder, and she works at Nurse nders. She lives in Clay Center. John Freeman, b’07, and Kimberly Golden Hill Family Dentistry in Lake- Mary Mohr, b’06, works as a Hiller, ’08, April 10 in Kansas City. He’s an wood. human-resources generalist for the Dallas account manager at CDW in Chicago, and Sam Mitchell, e’08, to Danielle Finley, Market Center. She makes her home in she’s a nurse at the Resurrection June 5 in Wichita. eir home is in Lee’s Dallas. Life Center. Summit, Mo. Hayes Thompson, c’06, is a team lead Jacob McKee, c’07, and Kalli Bennett, Adam Pierson, e’08, and Taryn Wilson, with ServiceSource International in Nash- s’08, Aug. 7 in Lawrence, where he’s a ’07, June 26 in Wichita, where he’s a so - ville, Tenn. homeless-outreach specialist at Bert Nash ware engineer at Aeroex and she teaches Community Mental Health Center and English at Wichita East High School. MARRIED she’s a case manager for Cottonwood. Jonathan Lusk, e’06, g’08, and Miriam Matthew Moran, f’07, to Nicole Cruise, Earl Amerine, e’09, is a security Toledo Subirana, g’10, July 30 in Santa June 5 in Lawrence. eir home is in 09 engineering o cer with the U.S. Cruz, Bolivia. ey live in Wichita, Mission. Department of State in Washington, D.C. where he works at the National Institute Lacey Anderson, g’09, works as a for Aviation Research and she’s Troy DeDecker, g’08, recently human-relations counselor at the James completing her doctorate in civil 08 became chief operating o cer River Correctional Center. She lives in engineering from KU. at Bartow Regional Medical Center in Jamestown, N.D. Bartow, Fla. Brandon Bean, l’09, serves as a captain Natalie Durda, s’08, is an administra- in the U.S. Army JAG Corps at Fort Riley. tive assistant at Zeller Realty Group in Kimberly Blassingame, g’09, is a nurse Chicago. at Stormont-Vail HealthCare in Topeka. Katie Jahnke, c’08, received the 2010 Shane Hauschild, e’09, is a project engi- Lowell Jacobson Scholarship Award from neer at J.E. Dunn Construction. He lives in Margaret Morris, c’06, j’06, to Nathan- the American Counsel Association. She’s Prairie Village. iel Mick, Sept. 18 in Lancaster, Ky., where a student at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Amelia Hund, h’09, works as a medical they live. She directs development for the Law. technologist at the KU Medical Center in Lexington Children’s eatre. 1st Lt. Adam Jenkins, c’08, serves as Kansas City. Tyson Pyle, a’06, and Ashley Bolton, a pilot in the U.S. Air Force. He lives in Phillip Linville, b’09, is a nancial ana- j’08, Aug. 21 in Lawrence. He’s an associate Corpus Christi, Texas. lyst with SWS Group in Dallas. at OKW in Chicago, and she’s a product Tara Sweany Kroenke, b’08, works as Kendall Matous, j’09, interns with the rollout coordinator at Lee Enterprises a nancial analyst for the Kansas Insur- Northern California Golf Association in Kaitlin Staniforth, j’06, to Ryan ance Department in Topeka. She lives in Pebble Beach, Calif. He lives in Seaside. Westho, Sept. 18. ey live in Prairie Lawrence. Emilee Miller, j’09, is an account Village, and she’s director of public Matthew Lindberg, j’08, is a sports manager with Intouch Solutions in relations and marketing at St. Luke’s editor at the Montrose (Colo.) Daily Overland Park. Hospital. Press. He and Sarah Strathman Brett Morris, c’09, works as a nancial Lindberg, c’09, celebrated their rst adviser with Wells Fargo in Kansas City. Susanne Goericke, g’07, is a anniversary last fall. Bailey Pike, f’09, recently won an essay 07 senior associate at Digitas in Teresa Lo, c’08, won the grand prize prize from the Antiquarian Booksellers New York City. in the 2010 Script Pipeline Into Motion Association of America’s National
56 | KANSAS A LUMNI ISSUE 1, 2011 | 57 Class Notes
Collegiate Book Collecting Contest. She lives in Olathe.
MARRIED Nicholas Jerkovich, c’09, and Elizabeth Beisner, b’10, Aug. 14 in Lawrence. eir home is in Overland Park. Matthew McGinley, c’09, to Andrea Coleman, July 10 in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. He’s an associate property claims representative for Farmers Insurance in Olathe, where they live, and she teaches school in Blue Valley. Erin Niedenthal, f’09, and Aleksander McElroy, c’10, Sept. 4 in Olathe. ey live in Athens, Ga., and Erin studies for a master’s in ne arts at the University of Georgia. Brandon Riel, c’09, and Sarah John- son, ’10, April 26 in Kapalua, Hawaii. ey live in Lawrence.
Katherine Armbruster, c’10, coordi- 10 nates accounts for Ameba Market- ing in San Diego. Jason Brinkley, l’10, recently became an associate in the Omaha, Neb., rm of Baird Holm. Joseph Day, e’10, is a production engineer with Occidental Oil and Gas in Houston. Laura Foster, g’10, lives in Dallas, where she’s an architect with Good Fulton & Farrell. Anne Frizzell, c’10, works as an ad- missions counselor at KU. She lives in Lawrence. Bring the Hill to your home Ashleigh Garcia, c’10, teaches at the New England Center for Children in with the KU Campus Gallery Westborough, Mass. Kelsy Jones, e’10, is a process engineer SouthWind Gallery of Topeka, in collaboration with the KU Alumni Association, with Occidental Petroleum in Houston. invited artists to participate in a “plein air” painting event April 26, 2008, on the John Lavin, c’10, works as a geology Lawrence campus. On that day, 63 artists set up easels and captured the beauty of the KU campus. The result is an amazing body of work rendered in various styles assistant at the Kansas Geological Survey and media. The prints are available in three sizes. Gifts from the KU Campus Gallery in Wichita. are perfect for o¡ce and home for any KU enthusiast! Ayesha Mehdi, l’10, g’10, is execu- tive director of Hope Care of Nevada and an adjunct professor at the University of Association Members receive special pricing Nevada-Las Vegas. 8x10 prints: Non-member $30 | Member $27 | Jayhawk Society or Life $24 Jaclyn Miller, s’10, lives in Dodge City, 11x14 prints: Non-member $55 | Member $50 | Jayhawk Society or Life $44 where she’s a social worker with St. Francis 16x20 prints: Non-member $85 | Member $77 | Jayhawk Society or Life $68 Community Services. Book: Non-member $35 | Member $32 | Jayhawk Society or Life $28 Christa Patrick, c’10, manages promo- To order: www.kualumni.org | 800-584-2957 tions and is on-air talent for Star 99.9 WEZN-FM in Milford, Conn.
58 | KANSAS A LUMNI Andrew Poulin, b’10, e’10, is a process for Santa Clara University. He lives in cow/calf operation in Byers, where they engineer for Horizon Systems in Cupertino, Calif. live. Lawrence. Katherine Tanking, d’10, to Craig Hei- e Rev. Mark Preus, g’10, is associate MARRIED man, May 22 in St. Benedict. ey live in pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Wylie, Andrew Jurgensmeier, m’10, and Topeka. Texas, where he lives. He also teaches Barbara Ludwig, ’11, June 12 in Kansas theology, Latin and the classics at Faith City. He’s a family-practice resident at BORN TO: Lutheran High School in Plano. Renton Community Hospital, and they Benjamin Miller-Coleman, l’10, and Julie Schoeneck, c’10, interns with live in Kirkland, Wash. Valerie, daughter, Lucinda Jane, Aug. 25 the Susan B. Anthony List. She lives in Nicole Kramer, g’10, to Brandon Curtis, in Lawrence, where they live. Benjamin Arnold, Md. June 5 in Seneca. She’s an accountant with is assistant attorney general in the Kansas Michael Spero, b’10, broadcasts sports Security Bene t in Topeka, and he runs a Attorney General’s O ce in Topeka.
PROFILE by Chris Lazzarino
Deyton leads FDA mission programs. President Barack Obama named Deyton to his new job in August
against deadly tobacco 2009, two months after signing the DEYTON LAWRENCE COURTESY Tobacco Control Act. tanding before a hotel ballroom filled The historic legislation grants the FDA Swith statewide activists who gathered wide ranging authority over tobacco man- for a tobacco summit last October in ufacture, marketing and distribution. On Topeka, Lawrence Deyton, first director of his first day on the job, Deyton outlawed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s all fruit- and candy-flavored cigarettes, new Center for Tobacco Products, outlined and his regulatory schedule promises to a few statistics with which the assembled only intensify. experts were surely familiar: The center has already outlawed usage Tobacco is, by far, the country’s leading of “light,” “low” and “mild” when used cause of preventable death and disease, as health claims. By 2012, manufacturers with more than 440,000 annual deaths must disclose all harmful or potentially attributable to cigarette smoking. Progress harmful “constituents” in cigarette Lawrence Deyton is the first director of the in cutting adult and youth smoking rates tobacco and smoke. FDA’s new Center for Tobacco Products, which stalled in about 2004 and the rates stub- “It’s an astounding thing,” Deyton has broad authority to regulate industry and bornly remain at about 20 percent; each says, “but cigarettes are probably the only responsibility to educate the public. “There is day 4,000 American children will smoke mass-consumed product that we don’t no such thing,” Deyton says, “as a safe or safer their first cigarette and 1,000 will go on to know what’s in it.” cigarette.” become regular smokers. Deyton was allowed to design his own Then Deyton, c’74, dropped on the major, in “urban health,” while a KU group a localized number that thundered undergraduate still intending to study “This new law adds a fundamental home the crisis: 54,000 Kansans who are medicine. Instead he earned a master’s new set of tools to improve overall public right now under the age of 18 will die in pubic health from Harvard, worked in health,” he says. “Tobacco use is the lead- prematurely from smoking. the field for five years, and didn’t enter ing cause of disease, disability and death “That,” Deyton says, “is a profoundly medical school at Georgetown University in the country, more than accidents, HIV/ disturbing figure to any of us.” until he was 29. AIDS, drug abuse and 10 other things all Deyton came to FDA from the U.S. Deyton continues to see patients, and combined. Department of Veterans Affairs, where, remains active at the Washington, D.C., “Who wouldn’t want the opportunity to as chief public health and environmental community clinic and AIDS service orga- help form the tools that will drive down hazards officer, he oversaw anti-tobacco nization he founded in 1978. disease and death rates?”
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 59 Lawrence, where he was a retired physi- In Memory cian. He is survived by a daughter, Mimi Frink Kaplysh, c’66; two sons, one of whom is James, d’96; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Hubert “Hub” Hall, c’49, 82, Sept. 25 Frances Strait Brown, c’38, 94, three daughters, Betsy Wiksten McKil- in Lawrence. He lived in Lecompton, 30 Sept. 16 in Wichita. A memorial lop, n’67, Diane Wiksten Gordy, n’70, and where he was retired from a career as a has been established with the KU Endow- Barbara Wiksten Millard, n’75; 11 grand- petroleum geologist with ExxonMobil. He ment Association. She is survived by a children; and 16 great-grandchildren. chaired the KU Geology Advisory Board sister and many nieces and nephews. and the KU Natural History Museum George Davis Jr., c’37, m’41, 93, Sept. Virginia Winter Anderson, f’48, Board. He and his wife established the 6 in Davidson, N.C. He had a private 40 84, Oct. 19 in Ottawa. She was Hall Nature Preserve in rural Lecompton psychiatric practice in Houston for many co-founder of the Kansas chapter of the through a gi of 116 acres to the KU years, and he was a clinical associate Learning Disabilities Association and Endowment Association. He is survived professor at Tulane and Baylor medical served as a director of the national orga- by his wife, Kathleen McBride Hall, d’49; schools. Survivors include his wife, Mar- nization. Survivors include two daughters, and two brothers, Benjamin, c’54, and guerite; a son, William, s’73, s’74; Janet Anderson Bradbury, ’73, and Carol William, e’48. two daughters, Dorothy Davis Duncan, Anderson Armstrong, d’74, g’78; two Vance Hall, b’47, 88, May 10 in ’69, and Marguerite Davis Scott Johnson, sons; a brother, Winton Winter, b’52, l’56; Amarillo, Texas, where he owned Vance c’67; two brothers, one of whom is Robert, eight grandchildren; and four great- Hall Sporting Goods. He is survived by e’49; seven grandchildren; and nine grandchildren. his wife, Peggy, three sons, two daughters great-grandchildren. John Franklyn Baumgartner, b’42, 90, and six grandchildren. Betty Eidson Fallin, ’38, 94, Sept. 23 Sept. 20 in Mount Pleasant, S.C. He had Rex Hay, e’49, 88, Feb. 9 in Prairie in Oklahoma City, where she had written a long career in the grain business and Village, where he had a long career as an for the society section of the Oklahoman. had served as president of the Kansas City electrical engineer with Black & Veatch. She is survived by a son, Joseph Jr., ’69; Board of Trade. Surviving are his wife, Ada He is survived by two sons, James, e’68, two sisters, Julia Eidson Christenson, d’40, Fuller Baumgartner, f’42; two daughters, and John, c’71; a daughter; a stepson, and Sarah Eidson Watson, assoc.; and two one of whom is Barbara Baumgartner Sean McIntosh, c’08; a stepdaughter, grandchildren. Brewer, c’69; a brother; four grandchil- Erin, h’10; nine grandchildren; and 19 Howard “Tony” Immel, c’38, l’38, 95, dren; and eight great-grandchildren. great-grandchildren. Oct. 27 in Lawrence. He practiced law Phyllis Wickert Benefiel, c’44, 87, July Kenneth Hiebsch, l’48, 89, Oct. 23 in in Iola for many years and had served 11 in Glendale, Calif. A son, two daughters Wichita, where he was a retired lawyer. He in the Kansas House of Representatives and six grandchildren survive. is survived by his wife, Vena, three sons, a and in the Kansas Senate. He also was Robert Blackwell, b’46, 87, Sept. 17 in daughter, 14 grandchildren and 10 great- past president of the Kansas Chamber of Phoenix. He had a 64-year career with grandchildren. Commerce, the KU Alumni Association, W.J. Small Inc., and is survived by his wife, Priscilla Colin Jones, ’46, 88, Sept. 26 in and the board of governors of the KU Beverly Frizell Blackwell, c’46; a daughter; Leawood. She is survived by two daugh- School of Law and was a former trustee a son; and ve grandchildren. ters, Melissa Jones Gould, ’84, and Martha of the KU Endowment Association. In Barbara Zuercher Cooper, c’47, 85, Jones Dupecher, c’69, PhD’77; two sons, 1976, he received KU’s Ellsworth Medal- June 28 in Albuquerque, N.M. She is sur- one of whom is Scott, ’73; and six grand- lion for unique and signi cant service to vived by her husband, Robert, e’50; three children. the University. Survivors include his wife, daughters, two of whom are Sara Cooper William Kump, c’47, m’50, 83, March Sue Reid Immel, c’39; two sons, John, b’65, Hutsell, c’76, and Susan Cooper Guin, ’79; 13 in Lake Elmo, Minn. He had been chief l’68, and James, b’62, l’65; ve grandchil- a brother, Sam Zuercher, c’58; ve grand- of radiology at North Memorial Medical dren; and eight great-grandchildren. children; and a great-grandchild. Center in Minneapolis, where the radiol- Al McClure, b’36, 96, Oct. 8 in Wichita, Charles Foster, e’47, g’48, 89, Oct. 23 in ogy department was named in his honor. where he built the Pawnee, Westport and Tulsa. He had been a research scientist for Two daughters, two sons and six grand- Landmark drive-in theatres. Surviving are Continental Oil, chief plant designer for children survive. his wife, Margaret Pyle McClure, ’37; two Petrochemical Argentina South America Benjamin Matassarin, c’42, m’45, 90, daughters; four grandchildren; and seven and later manager of process engineer- Oct. 25 in Wichita. He is survived by great-grandchildren. ing for Conoco. Surviving are a daughter, two daughters, Linda Matassarin Buth, Ruth Reed Wiksten, n’37, 94, Sept. 1 in Marcia, c’85; two sons; four grandchildren; c’68, and Kathy, c’74; a son, Gary, c’72, Topeka, where she had lived for 70 years. and two stepgrandchildren. g’78; a brother, Richard, ’52; and ve She is survived by her son, David, c’66; Russell Frink, c’41, m’49, 91, Sept. 13 in grandchildren.
60 | KANSAS A LUMNI Mary Homan McDonald, c’47, 85, two daughters, a sister, two grandchildren of business administration at Lehigh Oct. 11 in Kansas City. Survivors include a and a great-grandson. University. He is survived by his wife, daughter; two sons, one of whom is John, Peggy Whitney Hobbs, d’56; a daughter; a f’76; and a brother, Reed Homan, b’46. Neil Arasmith, c’51, 80, Sept. 26 sister, Alice Hobbs Boyce, c’48, g’49; and a Philip Oldberg Jr, e’44, 87, Oct. 10 in 50 in Topeka. He is survived by three brother, Robert Hobbs, b’56. Leawood, where he was retired from a sons, two of whom are David, a’75, and Marylyn Dalton Kelso, n’56, 77, Sept. career with Marley Cooling Tower Co. Timothy, e’84; a daughter, Susan Arasmith 16 in Olathe. She is survived by three He is survived by his wife, Muriel Swanson Esau, ’92; a brother; a sister; 13 grandchil- daughters, two of whom are Susan Kelso Oldberg, c’46; four sons, one of whom dren; and 10 great-grandchildren. Brown, d’80, and Nancy Kelso Bernhardt, is Mark, b’75; two daughters; a sister; a William Curtis, e’51, 82, Sept. 13 in h’75, g’10; a son; and nine grandchildren. brother; nine grandchildren; and four Houston, where he was retired from a Robert Lynch, m’57, 78, June 20 in La great-grandchildren. career in petroleum engineering. He is Jolla, Calif., where he was a psychologist Alice Ayers Schmidt Otten, c’41, 92, survived by his wife, Billie Stover Curtis, and the statewide psychiatric consultant Aug. 6 in Helena, Mont., where she was j’51; a son; two daughters; a brother; two for the California Department of Rehabili- retired a er a 40-year teaching career. sisters; and ve grandchildren. tation. He is survived by his wife, Gloria, a She is survived by two stepdaughters; a Donald Feller, ’59, 78, Oct. 22 in son, a daughter, a sister and three grand- brother, Edgar Ayers, e’30; and several Abilene, where he was a retired teacher children. stepgrandchildren. and coach. He is survived by his wife, Roland Ostlund, m’50, 86, July 25 in Carl Perkins Jr., e’43, 88, Sept. 28 in Mary Sanborn Feller, d’58; a son, Michael, Portland, Ore. ree sons and eight grand- Prairie Village, where he was a retired b’82, g’86; three daughters, two of whom children survive. research mechanical engineer with AT&T. are Deanne Feller Martini, c’84, and San- Melvin Rice, b’50, d’60, 82, Aug. 26 in He is survived by his wife, Bobbie; a dra Feller Lembeck, d’90; two sisters; and Snohomish, Wash., where he was retired daughter, Janet, f’90; two sons, one of eight grandchildren. a er teaching at Norton Community High whom is Brian, b’75; two stepdaughters, Margaret Mary Green Gastl, d’57, g’57, School for 30 years. He is survived by two Janell Jones, g’94, m’10, and Lisa Kirk 75, Sept. 21 in Laramie, Wyo. She is sur- daughters, Diane Rice Taylor, c’74, and Nason, ’88; eight grandchildren; three vived by her husband, George, c’60, g’62; a Lori Rice Powlas, b’76; and three grand- stepgrandchildren; and ve great- son; a daughter; and two grandchildren. children. grandchildren. William Hand Jr., e’51, 85, Oct. 23 in Wes Santee, d’54, 78, Nov. 14 in Robert Piller, b’49, 85, Oct. 7 in Belle Isle, Fla., where he had been mayor Eureka. e KU track legend won three Lawrence, where he was former presi- for many years. He is survived by his NCAA titles and led the cross country dent of O’Connor Co. Inc. and of J.M. wife, Mary, two sons, a daughter, a sister, team to the 1953 NCAA championship. O’Connor Inc. He is survived by two sons, seven grandchildren and four great- He was one of three men in the 1950s Lynn, c’72, and omas, a’74; two daugh- grandchildren. vying to break the 4-minute mile, and he ters, Helen Piller Seymour, c’76, g’93, and Lee Haworth, e’52, g’54, 82, Sept. 17 set the world record in the outdoor 1,500 Judith Piller Feldner, ’82; three sisters, in Salina, where he owned Lee Haworth meters, the indoor mile record (twice), Helen Piller Davis, c’50, Catherine Piller Construction Co. He is survived by his and the indoor 1,500-meter record. He Ball, ’48, and Joan Piller Lubary, c’54; wife, Louise Bolte Haworth, assoc.; a competed for the United States in the 1952 eight grandchildren; and two great- daughter; a son, Robert, ’81; a sister; Olympics and was a retired colonel in grandchildren. and three grandchildren. the U.S. Marine Corps. Survivors include Philip Smith, b’49, 83, Oct. 20 in Ful- Lawrence Hayes, m’57, 82, June 15 in a daughter, Susan, ’10; two sons, one of lerton, Calif., where he was co-founder Kansas City, where he practiced medicine whom is Edward, ’79; and a grandson, of Interfresh, a national supplier of fruits for many years. He is survived by his Edward, c’07. and vegetables. He is survived by his wife, wife, Risa; three sons, one of whom is Jean Schanze, f’55, 78, Sept. 23 in Martha Holman Smith, ’52; two sons; a David, m’85; a daughter; eight grandchil- Kansas City. He lived in Leavenworth, daughter; a sister, Suzann Smith Wilson, dren; and three great-grandchildren. where he ran Schanze and Banks, an f’60; and three grandchildren. Jack Howard, b’51, 82, Oct. 21 in insurance and real-estate agency. A Verlee Reece Stone, ’45, 86, Sept. 2 in Salina. He was a retired vice president memorial has been established with Topeka. She is survived by her husband, of Smoot Grain Company in Salina. He the KU Endowment Association. He is John, ’43; two sons, one of whom is John, is survived by his wife, Shirley, d’51; a survived by a son, Sterett, c’88; two ’66; a daughter; nine grandchildren; and daughter, Jan Howard Denning, d’76; a stepsisters; and three grandsons. eight great-grandchildren. son, Jay, b’79; and three grandchildren. Carl Steeby, e’52, 85, Sept. 23 in Pana, Richard Van Gundy, e’49, 84, Oct. 1 in James Hobbs, g’57, 80, Sept. 13 in Ill. He lived in Ramsey and is survived by Round Rock, Texas. He owned Van Gundy Bethlehem, Pa., where he was a profes- his wife, Ilena, two sons, two daughters, & Associates, an engineering rm in Ells- sor emeritus, former director of the MBA a stepson, a stepdaughter, two brothers, worth, for many years and is survived by program and a distinguished professor two sisters, nine grandchildren and three
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 61 In Memory great-grandchildren. coached football and taught social studies Neal McCoy, c’62, 69, Sept. 25 in Richard Stevens, e’56, 82, Oct. 24 in at Shawnee Mission East High School Oxford, Md., where he was retired manag- Winter Park, Fla., where he was retired and at Indian Woods Middle School. He ing partner of the Washington, D.C., law from Stevens Engineering. He is survived is survived by his wife, Carolyn; a son; o ce of Skadden Arps. He earlier had by his wife, Betty, three sons, a daughter, two daughters; a stepson; a stepdaughter; been chief counsel and associate director 18 grandchildren and four great-grand- two brothers, one of whom is Gib, d’62; of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Com- children. a sister; four grandchildren; and two mission’s Division of Corporation Finance. Niles “Doc” Stout, m’50, 93, Sept. 14 stepgrandchildren. Surving are his wife, Catherine, and a in Lyndon, where he practiced medicine cousin, omas McCoy, ’58. for many years. He is survived by his wife, Charles Bassett, PhD’64, 78, Oct. Arthur McGowan III, c’62, m’66, 69, Florence; four sons; four daughters, three 60 19 in Waterville, Maine. He was a June 24 in Lakewood, Calif., where he of whom are Patricia Stout Flood, e’74, retired professor of English and American had practiced anesthesiology. He is Carol Stout Culbertson, d’76, and Janet studies at Colby College. A son, a daughter survived by his wife, Bonnie Callaway Stout Wolford, ’83; a sister, Annetta Stout and three grandchildren survive. McGowan, ’62; a son; a daughter, Jill Ensch, d’48; 19 grandchildren; and 13 Norman Benson, b’63, 71, Oct. 6 in McGowan Gaoghagan, m’89; and four great-grandchildren. Lebanon, Pa. He had a 30-year career grandchildren. Cliord “Smokey” Stover Jr., e’59, with Southwestern Bell and later became James Moore II, c’69, 64, Aug. 15 in 78, Feb. 10 in Ontario, Calif. He was an an avid astronomer. Surviving are his wife, Beloit, where he was a retired psychiatric aerospace engineer at NASA and Jewel, two sons, a daughter and caseworker at the Beloit Youth Center. His at Interstate Electronics. Surviving are ve grandchildren. wife, Margaret McKinney Moore, d’69, his wife, Peggy, three sons, a daughter Robert Burke, c’60, 78, Sept. 25 in survives. and 10 grandchildren. Kansas City, where he was president of Nina Burdette Pierson, g’69, 98, Oct. 11 Beulah Ward Stutz, c’50, 81, Sept. 23 Professional System Inc. He is survived in Overland Park. Two sons survive. in Aurora, Colo. She helped operate Stutz by two sons, a daughter, ve brothers, Robert Weakly, e’69, 84, Jan. 1 in Olive Drug in Denver for many years. seven grandchildren and ve great- Topeka, where he was a self-employed Surviving are two sons, a daughter, a sister grandchildren. consulting engineer. He is survived by two and six grandchildren. Sonny Cobble, c’61, m’65, 71, Aug. 27 sons and two grandsons. Robert Talkington, d’51, l’54, 81, Dec. in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., where he Harry Wiles II, b’67, l’70, 64, Aug. 18. 26. He owned a law practice in Iola and practiced orthopedic surgery and sports He had homes in Bethesda, Md., and in served 20 years as a Kansas legislator, in- medicine for many years. A memorial has Great Falls, Va., and had been executive cluding terms as majority leader and presi- been established with the KU Endowment director of the American Beverage Licens- dent of the Senate. He lettered in football Association. He is survived by his wife, ees. Survivors include his wife, Cindy; a and baseball at KU and served on the law Joan; two daughters; a brother, Jan, c’63; daughter; two sisters, Jane Wiles Benning- school’s board of governors. Survivors and three grandchildren. ton, c’64, d’66, and Mary Lou Wiles, j’70; include three daughters, Jill Talkington Max Gri«n Jr., f’60, d’64, 73, Oct. 19 and four grandsons. McCaskill, d’75, Jacki Talkington Chase, in Salina. He is survived by two sons, one n’78, and Lisa Talkington Dreasher, n’88; of whom is Spencer, ’14; a brother; and a Dollie Jones Bittenbender, g’72, two sons, one of whom is Tom, e’84; and grandson. 70 92, Oct. 20 in Lawrence, where 11 grandchildren. Frank Johnson, c’62, 71, Sept. 27 in she taught typing, shorthand and business Daniel Thompson, m’50, 91, Racine, Wis., where he was retired attor- nance at Haskell Indian Nations Univer- Oct. 5 in Wichita, where he practiced ney and director of employment relations sity for many years. She is survived by a medicine at St. Francis Hospital for many for the Racine Uni ed School District. He son, Lee, c’68, m’72; a daughter, Veronica years. He is survived by his wife, Serilda is survived by his wife, Carolyn; two sons, Bittenbender Ashlie, f’71, e’79; a brother; Clapp ompson, d’50; two daughters, one of whom is Christopher, g’01; a sister, and two granddaughters. one of whom is Martha ompson Janice Johnson Kast, f’58; and a grand- Christopher Carrier, e’71, 62, Sept. 26 in Stroot, n’72; two sons; a sister; and two daughter. Wichita, where he was director of public grandchildren. Karen McCarthy, d’69, g’86, 63, Oct. works and utilities for the city of Wichita. Charles Wegscheider, b’54, 78, June 24 5 in Blue Springs, Mo. She served ve Among survivors are his wife, Sandra, in Arvada, Colo., where he was a retired terms in the U.S. Congress and also served three sons, a daughter, a sister and three CPA. He is survived by his wife, Marge, as president of the National Conference grandchildren. two sons and three grandchildren. of State Legislatures. Harper’s Bazaar M. Earl Forman, c’73, g’77, g’85, 61, Emerson Wilson, g’59, 77, Oct. 19 in magazine once listed her, along with Hil- Sept. 1 in Bailey, Colo. He is survived by Leawood. He coached football at Boulder lary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, as a his wife, Sheila Fuller Forman, g’82; his (Colo.) High School, taught at the Uni- potential rst woman president. Many mother, Phyllis Veta Forman, assoc.; and a versity of Northern Colorado and later friends survive. sister, Ruth Forman, ’72.
62 | KANSAS A LUMNI Philip Frickey, c’75, 57, July 11 in Timothy Bott, a’88, 45, Sept. 25 THE UNI VERSITY COMMUNITY Moraga, Calif. He was a professor of law 80 in Kansas City, where he was an Harold “Gene” Blitch, 91, Sept. 19 in at the University of California-Berkeley architect and a partner in TJ’s Imaging. He Marble Falls, Texas, where he was retired. and one of the nation’s foremost experts is survived by his mother, Gloria Smith, He was KU’s supervisor of grounds and on public law and federal Indian law and and a sister. landscape architect from 1955 to 1977. policy. He received KU’s Distinguished Mary Claeys, g’82, 59, Oct. 13 in Surviving are his wife, Bess; a son; a Service Citation in 2006. A memorial has Norman, Okla., where she taught music daughter, Maribeth Blitch Impson, c’74, been established with the KU Endowment and art at the Dimensions Academy. She g’85, PhD’88; a sister; seven grandchildren; Association. He is survived by his wife, is survived by her husband, Marvin Lamb, and 20 great-grandchildren. Mary Ann; a son; a daughter; a brother, four daughters, her mother and Janet Hamburg, 59, Sept. 4 in New Charles, d’66, l’69; and a sister. two grandchildren. York City. She was a professor of dance at Mildred Moore Hausner, g’75, 93, Teresa Johnson, m’81, 55, Oct. 8 in KU and an internationally known move- March 13 in Lawrence. She lived in Win eld, where she practiced medicine ment analyst and lecturer. A memorial McLouth, where she was retired a er a for several years. Her parents, a brother has been established with the KU Endow- 35-year career as an elementary school and a sister survive. ment Association. She is survived by her teacher. ree daughters, a brother, two Stacey Lane, j’83, 51, Oct. 12 in Key partner, Lynn Bretz, c’71, two aunts and sisters, ve grandchildren and three great- West, Fla., where she had done public rela- many cousins. grandchildren survive. tions for Lower Keys Medical Center and Ralph Krone, 91, March 19 in Wash- Kevin Kresie, d’75, 57, Oct. 17 in worked for Ghost Tours. Her mother and a ington, N.H. He had been a professor of Plano, Texas. He had a 26-year career with brother survive. physics at KU until 1982, when he moved Fleming Cos. Inc. A memorial has been David McDonald, d’80, 55, Sept. 12 in to New Hampshire and opened an antique established with the KU Endowment As- Des Moines, where he was an IT analyst business. Surviving are his wife, Sara sociation. Surviving are his wife, Lesley; at Principal Financial Group. He is sur- Rasely Krone, assoc.; two sons, Michael, a daughter; two sons; his parents, Bryce vived by his wife, Dianne, two sons, two ’70, and Christopher, ’76; and a daughter. Sr., ’46, and Mary Lewis Kresie, ’76; and a daughters, two brothers, a stepbrother Howard O’Connor, 87, Sept. 8 in Law- brother, Bryce Jr., ’73. and a grandson. rence, where he worked for KU’s Kansas Ruby Frank McKernan, f’71, 62, Oct.7 Geological Survey as a senior geolo- in Shawnee. She is survived by her hus- Douglas Barnett, g’90, 54, Sept. 29 gist and geohydrologist from 1948 until band, Tom, c’70, l’74; a daughter, Leah 90 in Olathe, where he taught school 1989. He is survived by a daughter, Peggy McKernan DeWer, g’03; a son; a sister, and coached basketball for many years. O’Connor Vierthaler, n’83; a son, Robert, Marilyn Frank, ’76; a brother; and a grand- He is survived by his wife, Chanda, two ’82; and seven grandchildren. daughter. daughters, a son, his parents, a brother, a Leslie “Jack” Rose, b’53, 78, Sept. 20 in Norma Jean Smith Rodgers, d’72, sister and three grandchildren. Lawrence, where he was retired business g’80, 82, Oct. 7 in Lansing, where she was Shawn Howell, e’91, g’02, 41, Oct. 31 in manager for KU’s chemistry department. retired a er teaching special education at Lawrence. He had been an environmental He is survived by his wife, Martha Law- Welborn Elementary School for 33 years. engineer for the state of Kansas. Survivors rence Rose, c’54; two daughters, Virginia Two sons, a daughter, ve grandchildren include his wife, Jahna; a son; a daughter; Rose Blum, ’78, and Leslie Rose, c’81, j’81; and six great-grandchildren survive. his stepmother; and two sisters, one of a sister, Virginia Rose, c’52; a brother, Jim, Joseph Timberlake, PhD’74, 70, Oct. whom is Angela Howell-Gibbs, j’92. assoc.; and two grandsons. 25 in Wichita, where he was a hospital Betty Jo Waldron, g’90, 83, Oct. 17 in George Woodyard, 75, Nov. 7 in laboratory consultant. A daughter, a sister Kansas City, where she had worked for Lawrence. He was a professor emeritus of and a granddaughter survive. the Internal Revenue Service. Two sons, a Spanish at KU, where he also had served Joan King Upshaw, s’71, s’73, 81, June sister and four granddaughters survive. as acting dean of the graduate school, 7 in Kansas City, where she was a retired associate vice chancellor of research social worker and former director of social Judson Eisenhauer, c’06, 28, Oct. graduate studies and public service, services at Shawnee Mission Medical 00 5 in Pratt, where he worked as a associate vice chancellor for academic Center. She is survived by her husband, paralegal. He is survived by his parents, aairs and dean of international studies. Oda; ve daughters, one of whom is Kim- two brothers and his grandparents. A memorial has been established with berly Upshaw Adams, s’09; a son; and six Sandra Lyon, s’00, 56, Sept. 22 in the KU Endowment Association. He is grandchildren. Wichita, where she was executive director survived by his wife, Eleanor Tendick Ray Wohadlo, b’74, 60, Aug. 20 in and later CEO of Episcopal Social Ser- Woodyard, assoc.; two sons, Lance, c’87, Houston. He had worked for Southwest vices. She is survived by her husband, and Devon, c’92; two daughters, Shana Rail and is survived by his wife, Annie, Ronald Lyon, a son, a stepson, a step- Woodyard Stuart, c’83, PhD’92, and Kenda a daughter, a son, a stepson and two daughter, her mother, a brother, two Woodyard Arendt, ’90; a brother; a sister; grandchildren. sisters, and two granddaughters. and eight grandchildren.
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 63 Rock Chalk Review
ORDAN (4) ORDAN KU’s original-pronunciation UKE J L production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Paul Meier (below, top), will be immortalized in the Cambridge World Shakespeare Encyclopedia as the first of its kind.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in original New take pronunciation (OP). Late in the rehearsal process, Meier learned that the produc- on a classic tion would be the first of its kind in North America, and only the fourth full-length University Theatre performs OP production since Shakespeare’s time. Shakespeare as he intended “Marrying my love of dialect with my love of Shakespeare, this was a natural ntering through the backstage door project to do,” says Meier, who acts profes- Eto Murphy Hall’s Stage Too!, theatre- sionally, coaches accents and dialects, and goers fill seats that completely encircle has spent more than 20 years teaching and the performance space. Lithe actresses directing at KU. dressed as blue fairies chatter at spectators, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is full drawing each outsider into their whimsical of rhyming couplets that showcase the world. dialect. Indeed many of the words, such as More characters of “A Midsummer move and love, no longer rhyme as they Night’s Dream” emerge and speak to the did when Shakespeare penned the poetry. audience and each other in an accent less Crystal helped students transcribe the posh and more Irish than the familiar script using phonetic symbols, recorded Shakespearean British; but the dialect is an audio version for reference and spent like nothing most Americans have heard two weeks training the actors to speak the before. language that the cast dubbed Pirate Irish. After weeks of language training and For the cast and crew, Meier’s production rehearsals, director Paul Meier created a was an attractive challenge. theatre experience at once ancient and John Staniunas and Leslie Bennett, two completely new. theatre faculty members, played the king A longtime accent enthusiast, Meier and queen of the fairies, Oberon and collaborated with renowned linguist Titania. David Crystal to produce Shakespeare’s “Leslie and I were able to enter Paul’s
64 | KANSAS A LUMNI world of research on OP and gain vast knowledge from the experience,” says Sta- “Too many of us aren’t exposed to this. They’re niunas, associate professor and chair of the theatre department. “It brought our own sheltered until they come to JayDoc, but here they work that much further because we were see and understand the health care crisis.” engaging in each other’s research.” —Abbie Schuster Scott Cox, a doctoral student who { } played the infamous Bottom, has per- formed Shakespeare for years. “It was hard for me to break the knee-jerk tendency have a more vital connection to Shake- aged by faculty advisers Joshua Freeman, to avoid ‘R’s,” he says. “That was the first speare,” he says, “because that’s where their professor and chair of family medicine, lesson in David’s handout. You have to hit language came from.” and Allen Greiner, associate professor of those ‘R’s.” —Whitney Eriksen family medicine, Koontz, now a physi- While the actors learned the language cian in Newton, created a student-run and their lines, the designers created an “safety-net clinic” that provides much- offbeat world to complement the play’s Crisis care needed health care for area residents as eccentricity. Throughout the play, the well as training opportunities for medical dappled light of the forest spills onto the Student-run clinic treats those students. front row and, when the story becomes without access to health care JayDoc is housed in the Southwest chaotic and the lovers confused, the stage Boulevard Family Health Care clinic, floor begins to turn, taking part of the hen the JayDoc Free Clinic opens operated by Sharon Lee, c’74, m’82. “She’s audience along. Meier and set designer Del Wat 5 p.m., about three dozen supportive of everything we do,” Schus- Unruh, professor of theatre, first used a hopeful patients are usually in line. The ter says. “Without her and her clinic, we revolving audience platform during KU’s clinic, organized and governed by first- wouldn’t be able to operate.” 1991 staging of “A Midsummer Night’s and second-year students in the School Freeman, Greiner and other physicians Dream,” and they repeated the trick in the of Medicine, with treatment oversight supervise the medical students, but oth- OP rendition. provided by volunteer physicians from KU erwise the students are in charge, writing Other elements of the performance were and the community, can typically handle grant applications, scheduling volunteers, innovations of the new crew. Professor only 12 to 15 patients each evening. So and organizing fundraising events (Jay- Dennis Christilles, PhD’90, designed the second-year medical students immediately Rock 6, featuring the Beatles tribute band costumes, and Bennett choreographed begin triage to determine who needs to Liverpool, is set for Feb. 11 at the Uptown dances to accompanist Ryan McCall’s be seen. Theater). original music. It’s never easy to turn anyone away. The general clinic is open Monday and “In the play, there are three or four What makes the task even harder, the Wednesday evenings. A specialty clinic, for passages that Shakespeare wrote for song young doctors-to-be discover, is that when such concerns as diabetes, physical therapy or dance,” says McCall, who played piano JayDoc turns someone away, that patient is and women’s health, operates on Tuesday during the live performances. “Paul gave probably out of options. me the script and said, ‘Go have fun.’ It “The fact that we can’t has its own meter, so I sat at the piano and help everybody, that’s been found melodies.” an eye-opening experi- PUPPE STEVE After seven live performances, the cast ence,” says second-year med recorded a radio version of the play. “I student Abbie Schuster, had a personal interest in doing that,” says c’09, a clinic board mem- Meier, whose start as a professional actor ber. “Too many of us aren’t was in radio drama with the BBC, “as well exposed to this. They’re as to archive the show and provide the sheltered until they come very best audio recording of what we did.” to JayDoc, but here they see The live performances are over, but a and understand the health wider audience will experience the OP care crisis.” production in audio or DVD versions. As JayDoc was founded in any actor can attest, Shakespeare’s plays 2003 by Jenny Koontz, g’02, Second-year medical student Abbie Schuster tends to patient are to be performed, not read, and Meier m’05, then a second-year Sarah Corn at the JayDoc Free Clinic, which operates three emphasizes the importance of dialect. med student with a master’s evenings a week in KU Medical Center’s Kansas City, Kan., “American audiences hearing it in OP in public health. Encour- neighborhood.
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 65 Rock Chalk Review evenings. Most student volunteers are action from a following car. in their first and second years of medi- The result of their collaboration, the cal school, getting a head start on patient book Mortal Error, was published in 1992 PUPPE STEVE interaction before they begin third-year by St. Martin’s Press, and since then, after clinical training. returning to Kansas City and continuing Because it is both free and open in the his journalism career as a freelance writer, evenings, the clinic is “crucial for the Kan- Menninger, j’84, longed for another sas City community,” Schuster says. But engrossing topic. Freeman cautions that the need, already He found the answer in 2006, while severe, is growing; he recently noticed a reading 40-year anniversary remem- well-dressed, middle-class couple who brances of the tornado that tore through would have fit in just fine in suburban his hometown, Topeka, on June 8, 1966. Johnson County, waiting in the clinic. The result of his labors is the riveting And Laid off from their jobs, the couple had Hell Followed With It: Life and Death in a nowhere else to turn for health care. Kansas Tornado, published in October by “There’s a huge, unmet need,” Freeman Emerald Book Co. says. “JayDoc helps, but it doesn’t begin to “From the get-go I knew it was a great meet it. It and other charity clinics are not story,” Menninger says, “and once I started an excuse for government or the private I couldn’t turn back.” sector to avoid developing a comprehen- He quickly discovered, however, that sive solution.” he couldn’t approach Topeka’s defining —Chris Lazzarino natural tragedy as a swashbuckling tale Menninger of chaos, terror and survival. The trauma, OREAD READER Menninger realized, was still fresh. “I didn’t anticipate how emotional this forbid its meteorologists from even using would be for people all these years later,” the word “tornado,” let alone warning the Judgment day he says. “I guess I thought it would some- public. When the ban was lifted in 1952, how be non-emotional recollections. Garrett immediately began forming safety New book illuminates tales of Far from it. People started crying dur- plans for Topeka. Topeka’s killer tornado ing interviews. I was treading on fragile The town at first resisted Garrett’s ground and had to be careful and calls for change, until the night of May onar Menninger thirsts for exciting respectful. To me it was a wild adventure 22, 1955, when a tornado thundered out Bstories. While working as a business story, but to these people it was a horrific, of the darkness and destroyed the Kan- reporter in Washington, D.C., in the early traumatic event.” sas town of Udall, killing 82, including 1990s, he met a gunsmith and ballistics Menninger, son of Roy Menninger, one 22 children, an hour and a half after a expert who, after 20 years researching the of Topeka’s most prominent citizens, was tornado from the same storm system had assassination of President John F. Kennedy, an 8-year-old on vacation with his family killed 20 in Blackwell, Okla. had arrived at the startling conclusion that in New England when the storm struck. Eleven years later, Garrett’s devotion to the fatal shot was likely a horrible mistake They returned to a town shorn in two by public education, early warning systems by a Secret Service agent swinging into a tornado that killed 16 people, injured and media and law enforcement coordina- more than 500, decimated the campus of tion spared Topeka a toll that surely would Washburn University and flattened more have been larger. than 800 homes. “The Weather Bureau in the early years And Hell Followed “It was like a monster had come through criminally dropped the ball,” Menninger With It: Life and and just stomped across the city,” he says. says, “but here’s an individual who took Death in a Kansas “It was something that imprints deep in charge and did a remarkable thing, prob- Tornado the unconscious.” ably saving hundreds of lives. How could Among the many stories Menninger’s an EF-5 tornado go 8 miles through a city by Bonar book reveals, perhaps the most fascinating and only kill 16? I realized that’s due to the Menninger is that of meteorologist Richard Garrett. work of Richard Garrett, and I don’t think $24.95, Emerald Shortly after tornado science and pre- he’s received the credit he’s due. Book Co. diction had begun in the late 19th century, “The day of judgment came and Topeka the federal government, fearing embar- was ready.” rassing mistakes in forecasting, chose to —Chris Lazzarino
66 | KANSAS A LUMNI OREAD READER SHERIDAN
Into Africa SEAN Journalism graduate turns lens on continent’s struggles
n 1994, Sean Sheridan, j’92, found Ihimself at an up-and-coming company, doing public relations for its leader. That company—Microsoft—and that leader—Bill Gates—put Sheridan on the fast track toward success in corporate communications. But during his five years with the software giant, he felt something was missing. “I really wanted to tell stories that would make a difference,” Sheridan says. “I wanted to give back in some ways that I couldn’t do in the corporate world.” So he struck out on his own, starting 4 Minute Media, a freelance photography and writing business that tells the stories Above, Nothando, a girl who lives near Manzini, Swaziland, grinds of non-governmental organizations as ALLAN SPIERS they provide aid around the world. His maize on the family’s old British first book based on his international work, cast iron grinding wheel as her Testimony: Africa, shows how the lives of grandmother and sister wait to ordinary Africans are affected by three take a turn. The image is one of epidemics—HIV/AIDS, hunger/famine many in Testimony: Africa taken by and war/genocide. Sean Sheridan, j’92, shown at left. “I wanted to take these really big, intimidating, harsh, ugly issues and tell them through the eyes of a single person,” Sheridan says. “We tend to get bombarded by big statistics that are hard to swallow. become more real.” He says the people he has met through What does it mean that 1 billion people Sheridan, who lives in Colorado Springs, his travels motivate him to tell more live on less than $1 a day? But if you can worked on the book for about five years stories and take more photographs. One of see how one person does it, it starts to while on assignment for relief agencies. those stories belongs to the man gracing “I’m not a wealthy guy. I’m not in a posi- the cover of Testimony: Africa, Murangira tion of great influence,” he says. “It’s not Emmanuel. Emmanuel was shot in the like I can swoop in there and make a lot of head and left for dead in a mass grave in change by myself. But these stories might Rwanda. He survived, though he lost his be able to affect a few people who could go wife and children. in and do something big.” A year after Sheridan photographed Despite the overwhelming issues facing Emmanuel, he struck up a conversation Africa, Sheridan remains hopeful for the with the Rwandan during a return trip to continent and its people. Africa. “There’s a very simple but powerful “I think it felt great for him to know faith in most of these people I would he wasn’t forgotten,” Sheridan says. “That encounter,” he says. “There is development little connection is why I’m in this. That Testimony: Africa that works in Africa. When I see models connection, I think, is where the real hope by Sean Sheridan that work, that are less dependent on is for the future of Africa, and probably $49.99, 4Minute Media emergency aid or handouts, that’s when I America as well.” get really excited.” —Terry Rombeck
ISSUE 1, 2011 | 67 Glorious to View P hotograph by T erry Rombeck
Lawrence children celebrated the first snow day of the season Jan. 10 by heading to the Hill for a day of ideal sledding. Though the Campanile was a popular launching point, there were plenty of sledders on Daisy Hill and near Carruth-O’Leary Hall as well. And lest you think school-aged children were the only ones taking advantage of the 6 inches of snow in Lawrence, rest assured there were children of all ages coasting down campus hills.
68 | KANSAS A LUMNI
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