Life Saver Nick Shields Makes the Most of a Second Chance

No.2, 2011 n $5

Life Saver Nick Shields makes the most of a second chance

n Atomic powers n Mrs. Watkins

Contents | March 2011

28 22 34 COVER STORY Better to Give The Atom Smashers Rescued A diminutive doctor’s daugh- Using the most sophisticated When Nick Shields saved a ter who was shunned in her lab equipment ever devised, 7-year-old boy from drowning own time stands today as a KU physicists and their last summer, it wasn’t the ﬁrst towering ﬁgure in KU history. students are helping unravel death-defying chapter in this Meet Elizabeth Miller Watkins: the deep mysteries of the nursing student’s remarkable KU’s most generous friend. universe. life story. By Chris Lazzarino By Don Lincoln By Steven Hill

Cover photograph by Steve Puppe

Established in 1902 as The Graduate Magazine Volume 109, No. 2, 2011 ISSUE 2, 2011 | 1 Lift the Chorus

ment, and really impressive man, asked if I wanted to “go and inspirational stories about look for the tornado.” With- Your Jayhawks doing good, smart out hesitation (or rational opinion counts things out in the world. thought), I said, “Sure!” Please e-mail us a note Thank you for being We drove toward the at [email protected] thorough in your coverage and southwestern side of town, to tell us what you think of coming at this project with toward “the mound”—the hill your alumni magazine. what I believe is exactly the that, according to legend, was right spirit. supposed to protect Topeka Emily J. Randel, c’03 from harm, as long as no one I asked him to let me out so I Portland, Ore. built anything on top of it. could walk home. But first Unfortunately, we Topekans I picked an intersection and built a water storage tank on directed traffic for about an Tornado terrors top of it. hour. My mom was both Good for what n Editor’s note: Robert I looked to the northeast, furious and proud by the time ails you Campbell submitted this where Topeka lay below us. I I finally walked through the remembrance of the Topeka will never forget the sight: A front door that night. tornado of 1966, memories n I just wanted to send a nearly pure white tornado was Although my car had been spurred when he read our note to commend you for your coverage of Bonar Menninger’s cutting a 15-block swath hit by debris in the storm, that efforts in putting together such new book, And Hell Followed through town. It was surreal; it inconvenience paled in a wonderful publication in With It [“Judgment day,” Rock was enormous. Where homes, comparison to the enormous Kansas Alumni. Chalk Review, issue No. 1]. apartments and trees had been property damage suffered by I stayed home sick from before, I saw cement founda- others, and, of course, the 15 work one day last month and That evening, I was working tions and debris. lives lost. read the magazine cover to at my summer job as a My policeman friend I will never forget watching cover. When my boyfriend salesman at the Jack Boring declared that he had to go on Bill Kurtis, j’62, WIBW News, came home, I couldn’t stop appliance store. There were duty. It was getting dark fast. on a TV set in that appliance telling him about stories I had rumors about tornadoes south We both knew that we could store just before I jumped into read, and I actually pushed the of town and the early evening’s not drive back to the appliance the policeman’s car to chase a magazine into his hands to twilight atmosphere certainly store to my car. Power lines tornado. My youthful mind read two of the stories in felt like “tornado weather.” The were down everywhere; traffic could not imagine the scope particular. store manager was closing the was a mess. So he worked his when Mr. Kurtis pleaded, “For I found reference to many store in anticipation of trouble. way toward my home, near God’s sake, take cover.” people I knew, an article on my A fellow salesperson, who Burlingame Road, but had to Robert Campbell, j’68 beloved KU theatre depart- was also a part-time police- give up about a mile away. Encinitas, Calif.

Capture the essence of the University of Kansas with symbols of KU. Choose from a variety of styles, available in 10K, 14K yellow or white gold. The inside of the ring can be engraved with initials, degree and class year. Shop at www.kualumni.org or call 877-475-7027.

2 | KANSAS A LUMNI March 2011

16 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 Rock Chalk etiquette, a battle-tested band, dance for a good cause and more Editorial and Advertising Oce KU Alumni Association 10 Hilltopics 1266 Oread Avenue News and notes: College honors alumni; Lawrence, KS 66045-3169 diversity eorts earn White House award. 785-864-4760 • 800-584-2957 www.kualumni.org 16 Sports [email protected] Men’s basketball wraps up seventh-straight Big 12 crown and prepares for NCAA tourney run.

KANSAS ALUMNI MAGAZINE (ISSN 0745-3345) is published by the 38 Association News KU Alumni Association six times a year in January, March, May, July, Alumni gi benets Association programs; CASE September and November. $55 annual subscription includes membership in the Alumni Association. O¢ce of Publication: 1266 Oread recognizes Kansas Alumni excellence. Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66045-3169. Periodicals postage paid at Lawrence, KS. 42 Class Notes POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Kansas Alumni Magazine, 1266 Proles of a collossus collector, a Kodachrome Oread Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66045-3169 © 2011 by Kansas Alumni Magazine. Non-member issue price: $7 developer, a press club president 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, Antonya Nelson’s novel evokes Wichita and BTK; Lawrence, KS 66045-3169. E-mail responses may be sent Daniel Woodrell’s winter tale hits the big screen. 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 2, 2011 | 3

by Jennifer Jackson S anner First Word

LS R-Sedgwick, chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, and Senate Vice President

E JILL HUMM Sen. John Vratil, d’67, l’71, R-Leawood, have pledged to lead the effort, praising the collaboration of the three universities and industry partners. The Senate proposal builds on Gov. Sam Brownback’s recommended $1 million in funding for fiscal year 2012 and relies on revenue from the Expanded Lottery Act Revenue Fund for future years. The three universities would match every $1 from the fund with $2 from private industry. McGinn estimated that the engineering fund, to be administered by the Kansas Board of Regents, would grow to $4 million in fiscal year 2013 and $7 million in fiscal year 2014. When KU graduate Jim Lewis, e’74, chief administrative officer of Black & Veatch, began his career in 1974, the company had 800 employees. Now the staff includes 8,000 worldwide. “We rely on the state for our global ack Pelton, CEO of Cessna Aircraft in Wichita, has “We are ready to meet growth,” Lewis said, adding that the firm, Jgood reason for optimism about Kansas’ recovery the state’s need,” said founded by KU graduates, looks especially to from the brutal recession. “Our engineering needs in sources such as KU’s Self Engineering Leader- the next 24 months will be something we have not Chancellor Bernadette ship Fellows program, which helps students seen in three years. We’re coming back,” he said Gray-Little. The chancel- develop managerial as well as technical skills. March 10. Pelton made his declaration in the Kansas Self fellows made their presence known at Senate chamber, as Senate leaders unveiled a lor, President Kirk Schulz the Senate announcement. The program, proposal to increase by 60 percent the number of of Kansas State and funded by Madison, e’43, and Lila Self, engineering graduates produced by the University of sponsors 55 students across all disciplines in President Don Beggs Kansas and Kansas State and Wichita State the School of Engineering. Students can apply universities. of Wichita State joined for the program before their freshman and Surrounded by an all-star cast that included business leaders in junior years. Standing together in the historic higher education leaders and captains of industry, Senate chamber in their white KU shirts, the Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, explained endorsing the proposal young men and women symbolized the high the urgent need, as confirmed by a task force he to increase the number of hopes of the leaders behind the proposal. appointed in 2008. Kansas faces a shortage of KU’s dean Bell said the investment would engineering graduates. engineers, “and every year that we delay, we put our yield big returns. “This initiative is an impor- state’s future at risk,” he said. tant step forward for Kansas,” he said. “It Engineering-intensive industries represent one-third of the demonstrates support for the young people of our state by giving state’s payroll and two-thirds of the state’s exports. The task force, them access to strong engineering programs that will lead them to which included Stuart Bell, KU dean of engineering, and his rewarding careers. It also helps ensure the state’s economic engine K-State and Wichita State colleagues, had recommended a has access to the talent it needs to thrive and grow.” five-year plan to increase the number of undergraduate engineer- Although the press conference demonstrated strong support in ing degrees from 875 per year to 1,365. The recession intervened. the Senate for the proposal, KU will need the help of alumni But now that signs of resilience abound, leaders are ready to advocates to secure approval in the House of Representatives. If move forward. Along with aviation, the sectors of technology, you are a Kansas resident and have not joined Jayhawks for energy and bioscience—all areas that require more engineers— Higher Education, please add your voice to the chorus by visiting are surging, and lawmakers, including Sen. Carolyn McGinn, kualumni.org/jhe.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 5 On the Boulevard

UM (4) UM It’s time to start thinking US E about one-day Summer Science Camps at the AL HISTORY M AL HISTORY KU Natural History R NATU U Museum. Participants SY K SY

URTE explore nature and CO science through demon- strations, creative activities and experiments in the museum and in the ﬁeld.

Exhibitions Spencer Museum of Art, directed by Kathleen Belcher; 6 KU Symphonic Band through spring Crafton-Preyer Theatre Master’s of ﬁne arts student 10 KU Wind Ensemble exhibitions, Art and Design “Nature/Natural,” Spencer Gallery, through April 15 Museum of Art, through spring Lied Center Events “Cherry Blossom Festival,” Murphy Hall Events Spencer Museum of Art, “Roots and Journeys,” MARCH APRIL through April 10 Spencer Museum of Art, through spring 29 KU Symphony Orches- 5 Mu Phi Epsilon Department of visual art tra and Choirs perform student exhibitions, Art and “Elijah” 8 Helianthus Chamber Design Gallery, April 24- University Theatre Operas May 23 APRIL 14 Kevin Sanders and “That Invisible Dance: Art & APRIL 1 KU Wind Ensemble Dennis Nulty, tuba Literature under the British 7-10, 14-16 “Man Equals 8 Alpin Hong 22 Composer’s Guild Empire from the 1800s to Man,” by Bertolt Brecht, Beyond,” Spencer Museum 13 Jay Ungar and Molly 23 Peter Henderson, piano, directed by Mechele Leon, of Art, through May 22 Mason Family Band and William James, Inge Theatre percussion “Jin Shan Central Court,” 14 American Legacies: The 29-May 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 Spencer Museum of Art, Del McCoury Band and The 25 Men’s Glee, Women’s “Hansel and Gretel,” an through April 30 Preservation Hall Jazz Band Choral and University opera by Engelbert Hump- Singers “Glorious to View: The KU erdinck, featuring the KU 26 World Choir, Collegium Campus Heritage Project,” Symphony Orchestra MAY and Oread Consort conducted by David Neely; 2 KU University Band

6 | KANSAS A LUMNI MAY MAY Academic Calendar Kansas Honors 8 Instrumental Collegium 6 Hispanic Alumni Chapter Program Musicum Graduation Banquet and MAY 9 KU Choirs: Chamber Reunion, Lawrence 12 Last day of spring classes MARCH Choir and Concert Choir 12 Grad Grill, Adams 13 Stop Day 30 Atchison Alumni Center 16-20 Final exams 16 Student Alumni Associa- APRIL Special Events 22 Commencement tion Finals Dinner, Adams 6 Chanute Alumni Center MARCH 6 Oberlin 22 Commencement Open 29 Life After College House, Adams Alumni Alumni Events 7 Logan Alumni Panel, Adams Center 13 Kingman Alumni Center APRIL 13 Scott City 31-April 1 J-School Genera- JUNE 1 Portland: KU Night with the Trailblazers tions, Lawrence campus 6-9 KU Mini College, www.minicollege.ku.edu 5 Houston: KU Night with APRIL the Rockets 2 University Women’s Club 7 Wichita: Engineering and Scholarship Luncheon and Lectures Computer Science Reception annual business meeting, 9 Chicago: KU Amazing Kansas Union APRIL Race 10 Just for Kicks! Kickball 6 Brenda Tinnen, Leader- 9 Colorado Springs: Wine Tournament, Lawrence ship and Globalization in Tasting at the Air Force Sports, Dole Institute of 16 16th-annual Rock Chalk Academy Press Box Ball, Overland Park Conven- Politics 9 Dodge City: Jayhawk tion Center 14 Dr. Henry Louis Gates Stampede 28-May 1 Class of 1961 Jr., Humanities Lecture 17 Manhattan: Flint Hills Golden Anniversary Series, Kansas Union Directory Chapter Wine Tasting Celebration, Lawrence 20 Alex Heard, “The Eyes of 20 Manhattan: KU vs. KSU n Adams Alumni 30 Gold Medal Club Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Baseball tailgate Center ...... 864-4760 Annual Meeting and Race, Sex and Secrets in the Reunion, Kansas Union Jim Crow South,” Dole 23 Arlington, Texas: KU n Athletics 800-34-HAWKS Institute of Politics Night with the Rangers n Booth Hall 27 Wichita Chapter: of Athletics ...... 864-7050 “Abraham Lincoln, the n Dole Institue of Sunﬂower State and the Politics ...... 864-4900 Election of 1860,” Hall Center for the Humanities n Kansas Union ... 864-4596 Lecture Series n KU Info ...... 864-3506 30 Omaha: Family Fun Day n KU main at Sempeck’s Bowling and number ...... 864-2700 Entertainment n Lied Center ...... 864-ARTS

MAY n Natural History Museum ...... 864-4540 6 Dallas: Jayhawk Lone Star Classic Golf Tournament n University Theatre Tickets ...... 864-3982 n Spencer Museum of Art ...... 864-4710

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 7 Jayhawk Walk .

Name that TV tune

PPE A T-

EVE PU concert at Liberty Hall cel- ST ebrating their 500th episode proved a smashing success, the Senior Julia Guard folks at The Retro Cocktail and Alumni Hour began hosting more Association public-radio parties in downtown Lawrence. The latest, a employee Ryan February gig with Kansas City Perry cast their jazz musician Stan Kessler and votes in the great his band Television, featured TV theme songs from the Rock Chalk/ 1950s and ’60s. Jayhawk debate. “It’s a great way to get out into the community and remind people that we are more than a radio station,” says Kansas Public Radio program director Darrell Brogdon, host and creator of the Saturday Rock Chalk! Say what? and former NFL lineman Keith Loneker, night program of space-age ’94, endorsed “Jayhawk” in our Facebook pop, bachelor pad music, e admit we’re jealous that ESPN chose poll, as did a slew of other alumni. exotica, lounge tunes and WAlabama’s “Roll Tide” as the center- Corey Stone, f’97, University Relations’ cocktail jazz. “The show is such piece of the“It’s not crazy, it’s sports” associate director of digital media services a strange mix of music that it’s commercial. After all, “Rock Chalk” is every and head cheerleading coach for KU a challenge to ﬁnd live events bit as collegiate cool as “Roll Tide, y’all.” athletics, replied, “I think we should try to to put on. But they’re always a Our pouting soon turned to pondering. standardize ‘Jayhawk’ as the appropriate lot of fun.” Maybe “Roll Tide” got the nod because loyal response.” Mary Courtney, d’78, a junior- In the ballroom at Pachama- Crimson Tide fans utter their expression high teacher in Rolla, summed it up well mas restaurant, the concert more often in daily life than Jayhawks use with, “I always greet with ‘Rock Chalk,’ featured witty jazz arrange- “Rock Chalk.” But if we’re going to increase and ‘Jayhawk’ is the reply, followed by ments of TV tunes both our recommended daily dose of Rock Chalk, handshakes and stories.” familiar (“Meet the Flint- what is the proper parlance? ’Hawks have spoken: The call/response stones”) and elusive (the theme Should the greeting/farewell/exclamation is hereby standardized (cue from “Rocky and Bullwinkle”). “Rock Chalk” be met with a response of trumpet fanfare) as “Rock “It’s kind of like a TV trivia “Jayhawk” or another “Rock Chalk”? Chalk”/“Jayhawk.” Now y’all quiz and a concert at the As KU’s ocial keeper of traditions, we need to put it into practice, same time,” Brogdon says. posted the question three times on Facebook. never again to be outdone by And a dance party. While “Rock Chalk” gained plenty of sup- “Roll Tide.” “I guess you can port, the “Jayhawk” response triumphed. After all, it’s not crazy, it’s dance to the Basketball legend Calvin Thompson, c’94, sports. And so much more. Flintstones,” he says. “I don’t know; I’ve never

IFI C tried.” Yabba dabba doo, OON AR T ski-bop bee-doo.

8 | KANSAS A LUMNI years. The point, she says, is “to have changed he world. CEO), and Brian McClendon Rock around stay on our feet all night and Among featured scientists in (Google Earth). the clock dance for the kids who can’t, in monthly sets are Judy Wu, “I hope my experience,” Wu hope that one day they’ll all be University Distinguished says, “provides some inspira- K S able to dance with us.” Professor of physics and tion for students and encour- shoes. But only if you’re They won’t stop ’til they get astronomy; alumni and former ages them to pursue their prepared to keep them off until enough. faculty Hamilton Cady dreams in science.” morning. KU’s Dance Mara- (co-discoverer of helium), Their own trading cards thon lasts for 12 hours. Walter Sutton (genetics and without hitting .300, shooting In February hundreds of X-ray pioneer), Otis Raye a game-winning three-pointer energetic, philanthropic Best of all, McIntire (Styrofoam), Alan or scoring a single touchdown? students shook and shimmied no brittle gum Mulally (Ford’s president and Now that’s innovation. for a good cause. The third- annual event drew 420 “W I

registrants—almost G you the Pluto guy PPE S.OR twice as many as last K for Ford’s CEO!” A- EVE PU R year—and raised more “No way! How ST AST

than $37,000 for KU AD ’bout the helium Pediatrics and the discoverer for the Children’s Miracle Styrofoam inventor Network. From 5 p.m. and a KU professor until 5 a.m., students of physics?” took shifts dancing, “Deal!” competing in relay races Thanks to a and getting to know set of more than children and families in 150 online the Miracle Network. KU trading cards Skoch, Feagan, Quick and Epperson athletes stopped by to created by the join the games and help Ad Astra Kansas Have guitars, will travel the kids in a talent Initiative (adastra- show. Participants had ks.org), Kansas our KU students with musical ties to a schol hall won a to stay on their feet for the scientists past and present can Fnationwide battle of the bands in January. 12-hour duration; lest energy generate the playground The Louisiana Street Band, named for the location of Grace lagged, the Morale Committee enthusiasm normally reserved Pearson Hall, where some members live, took first place in the kept spirits high. Every for star athletes. General Mills Foodservice URock! Battle for the Best Contest. participant learned the “Morale Designed for Kansas They topped two bands in a campus battle, then bested nine in Dance” for a performance in schoolchildren and their online voting. The top three vote-winners flew to Los Angeles to the wee hours of morning. teachers, the science trading play for music industry judges at the famous Troubadour club. Hilary Ferguson, Lawrence cards celebrate the state’s 150th The grand prize: a session at L.A.’s Firehouse Recording Studios junior, has helped coordinate birthday and its long history and a four-song EP. the Dance Marathon all three of scientific innovations that “To be standing out on Santa Monica Boulevard calling our mothers and telling them we’d won was overwhelming,” says ER guitarist Evan Epperson. OUNG

Y Before the competition, he and his Jayhawk bandmates—Brad Feagan, bass; Austin Quick, keyboards; and John Marc Skoch, N SUSA guitar—polished their songs within earshot of schol hall housing authorities. “There’s a piano in the Pearson lobby, and we’d sit around jamming or writing,” Epperson says. “Friday nights when everybody was out we’d plug in our amps and make some noise.” The band (including a drummer and saxophonist from Baker University) hopes to win more gigs and a summer tour. No, General Mills didn’t sweeten the deal with a lifetime supply of Team Morale demonstrated dance steps to get the party rolling for the Lucky Charms. Epperson says, “But we did ask if we could be on KU Dance Marathon held at the Student Recreation Center. a Wheaties box,” Just for Kix.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 9 Hilltopics by Steven Hill ENCES (4) I SC IBERAL ARTS AND IBERAL ARTS F L LL EGE O O SY C SY URTE CO

Amin Carroll Jackson Smith

With distinction annual CLAS banquet April 9 at the • Wes Jackson, g’60, Salina. After Kansas Union, recognizes professional establishing and chairing one of the first Four distinguished alumni to achievement, dedication to community environmental studies departments in the receive College of Liberal Arts and involvement with the University. It is country at California State University- the highest honor the College bestows on Sacramento, Jackson left academia in 1976 and Sciences’ highest honor its graduates. to found The Land Institute, a Salina- Honorees for 2010-’11 are: based research, education and policy he watchword of the 2010-’11 Alumni • Mark Amin, c’72, Los Angeles. Founder organization that works to develop an TDistinguished Achievement Awards of Trimark, which developed into one of agricultural system with the stability of the from the College of Liberal Arts and the entertainment industry’s leading prairie and a grain yield comparable to Sciences is that hallmark of a liberal arts publicly traded distribution and that of annual crops. His visionary work education: breadth. production independents, Amin com- on environmental sustainability has A Hollywood producer. A Fortune 500 pleted his KU degree in economics. He has attracted numerous awards, including a CEO. An environmental leader. A Nobel earned credit in more than 50 feature films MacArthur Fellowship. His KU degree Prize-winning economist. The wide range and was executive producer of “Frida,” is a master’s in biology. He won the of endeavors represented by this year’s which attracted six Academy Award Distinguished Service Citation from the winners seems fitting for a school that, nominations. In 1997 he established the KU Alumni Association and the with more than 18,000 students and Mark Amin Scholarship in Film for University in 2007. 50-some departments, is by far the Iranian students in KU’s Department • Vernon L. Smith, g’52, Orange, Calif. University’s largest and likely its most of Film and Media Studies. KU’s first Nobel laureate, Smith won the broad-based. • Cynthia Carroll, g’82, London. CEO of 2002 Nobel Prize in economics for his “As dean, it is exhilarating to watch the Anglo American since 2006, Carroll pioneering work using laboratory difference graduates are able to make in re-established one of the world’s largest experiments to study economic theory. the world with a liberal arts and sciences independent mining companies as a global A Wichita native, Smith got interested in education from KU,” says Danny Ander- leader. Known for her focus on corporate economics while completing an son, g’82, PhD’85. “These outstanding four social responsibility, she has lectured on engineering degree at the California individuals represent the breadth of the the topic at KU. She is also a perennial Institute of Technology; he earned his College and serve as inspiration for liberal player on Forbes magazine’s annual list of master’s in economics under Richard arts and science students who want to help the world’s most powerful women. Carroll Howey, whom he credits for teaching him shape our future.” earned her master’s degree in geology at “what scholarship is really all about.” The Alumni Distinguished Achievement KU and started her career as a petroleum Smith teaches at Chapman University and Awards, which will be presented at the geologist at Amoco. is a research scholar at the George Mason

10 | KANSAS A LUMNI University Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science. He received KU’s “I believe that one of the most important things anybody Distinguished Service Citation can do at this point is work to educate the minorities, the in 2003. underrepresented people in our country, that it’s absolutely essential for the health of our nation.” White House —Marigold Linton winner

President Barack Obama, whom Linton ON Architect of Haskell partnership and her fellow winners met with in the LI NT

receives presidential award Oval Ofﬁce, praised the awardees for going IG OLD for mentoring “above and beyond the call of duty” and called the prize “a small token of our MA R SY URTE

enormous gratitude.” CO arigold Linton, director of Ameri- Since she joined the University’s office Mcan Indian outreach at KU, traveled for diversity in science training a decade to Washington, D.C., in January to accept ago, Linton has worked to secure grant the Presidential Award for Excellence in funding for programs benefitting Ameri- Science, Mathematics and Engineering can Indian students, at both KU and Mentoring. Haskell Indian Nations University. Established in 1996 by the White House “When I came to KU, my job descrip- and administered by the National Science tion was ‘Do good for American Indians,’” Foundation, the Presidential Award Linton says. “In a sense that’s been my big recognizes individuals and organizations picture concern: Try to find a way of doing Marigold Linton was congratulated by that increase participation of women, something that would make a difference President Barack Obama in the White House minorities and people with disabilities in for the American Indian population. upon winning a Presidential Award for the sciences. Eleven people and four “The question became, ‘How the heck Excellence in Science, Mathematics and organizations were selected this year for do I do it?’ And the answer was, bring Engineering Mentoring for her eorts to help the honor, which comes with a $10,000 money.” American Indian students succeed in the grant for their respective projects. Director of American Indian outreach at sciences.

CLASS CREDIT

Lawrence senior in hundreds of outstanding Ireland and South Africa. ER Ageography who seniors, college graduates Just as study abroad

OUNG created digital maps of and master’s students who advanced her research (the Y Greenland and Antarctica vie annually for ﬁve to eight South Africa trip inspired N SUSA for KU’s Center for the slots. Interns work on Guard’s undergraduate Remote Sensing of Ice National Geographic thesis on HIV transmission Sheets has landed a magazine, the website, in Sub- Saharan Africa), she prestigious internship with special projects or expects the internship to the National Geographic education. boost her career. Society in Washington, D.C. Guard graduates in May “It will give me a little Julia Guard will begin a after an active KU career substance,” Guard says. “It three-month internship in that included competing on validates everything I’ve September with the society, the varsity rowing team and been working on.” which selects from study abroad in Northern

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 11 Hilltopics

Indian college graduates one or two years to improve their science, math and writing Room for debate skills before applying to graduate school. All together the grants have generated KU’s debate team ended the regular season more than $13 million in research support ranked 3rd in the nation and became one of only from the National Institutes of Health for KU and Haskell. As important as the two teams nationwide to place two debate squads dollars, Linton says, is the way the money as automatic qualifiers in the National Debate is applied. For example, Linton pointed to the Tournament held in Dallas in late March. KU creation of a five-day calculus class that debate has won the tournament (the oldest and was part of the IMSD grant. Finding that many struggling American Indian students most prestigious national championship debate were hesitant to seek out the tutoring tournament) five times, most recently in 2009. available to students in the traditional three-day class, the office for diversity in science training built the extra help into an expanded five-day format. Students who struggled with the subject (minority KU since 1998, Linton won several federal Initiative for Maximizing Student Devel- or otherwise) were directed to the five-day grants that have helped strengthen a opment (IMDSD), which helps American class, and within a couple of years success KU-Haskell collaboration that aims to Indian and other minority students rates started to rise. increase the numbers of underrepresented succeed in the “gateway” science courses Respecting cultural differences that can students in the sciences. and places Haskell students in the labs of stand as barriers to success is a big part of Funded projects include Bridges to the KU researchers; the Institutional Research Linton’s philosophy. Baccalaureate, which “smoothes the road,” Academic Career Development Awards, “What we are doing is trying to widen Linton says, for two-year-college students which attracts minority postdoctoral the pathway, to prevent the dropouts, but who want to transfer to KU or other students who study at KU and teach at also to be sensitive to the fact that not four-year schools in the sciences; the Haskell; and PREP, which gives American everybody wants to run out and become a white man. A lot of the people in fact are going back to work on their reservations.” Linton’s Washington visit included an ON

LI NT awards ceremony at the National Science Foundation and a meeting with Vice IG OLD President Joe Biden, as well as a chance to

SY MA R SY give a presentation outlining her work at

URTE KU. “But the big excitement, of course, CO was to shake the hands of a president who is deeply committed to science education,” Linton says. She found Obama “very nice, extremely gracious and warm.” She got an extra thrill when it came time to pose for a group photo. “After he gave us his little talk of welcome and how important what we’re doing is and how important science is and how we must continue what we’re doing, he stepped in [for the photo] and put his arm over my shoulder—much to the envy of everyone else,” Linton laughs. “If they hadn’t been shooting the Linton was among the 15 national honorees who met with Obama in the Oval Oce before picture, I would have been doing a ﬁst accepting their awards from the National Science Foundation. pump: ‘Yes, I’ve done it!’”

12 | KANSAS A LUMNI Milestones, money S LATION and other matters UNIVERSITY R E U n A $780,000 bequest from career NCE/K educators Ward L. and Irene Neis FR A

CK Kiester will create three endowed CHU scholarships for students. Ward, c’30, g’32, was a longtime school administra- Celina and Marina Suarez tor in Basehor, and Irene, d’41, taught recently learned that a high school there for 25 years. Two of the scholarships bear their names and a new dinosaur species they third honors their only child, Ward L. discovered in 2004 will be Kiester II, d’72, who died in a car named for them. accident shortly after graduating from KU.

n Former KU director of bands Geminiraptor suarezarum in honor Robert Foster in Dinosuarez! of the Suarez sisters. December was “Finding a dinosaur is something every presented the Twin sisters will lend their name kid dreams of,” Marina says, “so it was 2010 Outstand- to raptor species they discovered really exciting to be the first people to see ing Bandmaster the remains of animals that have been Award, the gone for millions of years.” highest honor Foster elina and Marina Suarez knew from The sisters grew up in San Antonio and given by Phi Beta Cthe beginning that the bones were a have been fascinated by dinosaurs since Mu, the International School Bandmas- big find. elementary school. They dreamed of ters’ Fraternity. Now a professor of “We paleontologists tend to measure the hunting fossils while digging in the dirt, music, Foster directed KU bands from value of certain discoveries based on and they loved going to museums to look 1971 to 2002. beers,” Celina says. “This was definitely a at bones. case-of-beer type day.” “Everybody goes through a dinosaur n University of Kansas Hospital It wasn’t until six years later that the KU phase when they are kids,” Celina says. received the Outstanding Nursing doctoral graduates realized just how “With geology and the sciences in general, Quality Award for academic medical important the discovery would be to their there aren’t a lot of women and minorities. centers from the American Nurses lives. But Marina and I had each other to talk to Association. The hospital and four The twins were working on their about this. We were able to hang on to that others in separate categories received master’s degrees at Temple University in interest.” the award from a field of 1,700 hospitals 2004 when they went on a fossil-hunting The twins are both doctoral graduates in nationwide. The award is based on expedition in Utah. They spotted a bone geology: Marina completed her PhD in fall nursing performance measures tracked sticking out of the side of a hill and, after 2009, with Celina earning hers a semester by the ANA. further examination, realized they had later. As they continue their careers— found a complete specimen. Celina is a postdoctoral researcher at Boise n The School of Architecture, Design “One of the first words out of my sister’s State University, and Marina is a postdoc and Planning ranked among the top five mouth was, ‘Jackpot!’” Celina says. at Johns Hopkins—they say they’ve in the “Construction Methods and Laboratory testing later determined the already fulfilled a goal they never expected Materials” category for DesignIntelli- dinosaur was a new genus and species—a would be possible. gence magazine’s “America’s Best 6- to 7-foot-long meat-eating raptor that “We—and I mean all of us paleo- Architecture and Design Schools 2011.” lived around 125 million years ago. nerds—always dream about such a thing The ranking is based on the magazine’s In December, the journal of the Public happening,” Celina says, “but never think survey of hiring managers, who rate a Library of Science, PloS One, announced it will.” school’s ability to produce workplace- the dinosaur would be named —Terry Rombeck ready graduates.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 13 Hilltopics RESEARCH

MANN Chairs Kurt and Sue Watson will head the leadership team for the capital campaign now

LIPP LE Warren’s autism discovery N

LY being planned by KU Endowment Association.

JAC hailed as top 10 achievement

R V C for Research and Graduate Studies Steve Kurt, d’75, and Sue Watson, d’75, of Warren has determined that autism has a Andover will serve as campaign chairs. unique vocal signature that can be Co-chairs will be Tom, c’76, g’80, l’80, and detected by a new automated technology Jill Sadowsky Docking, c’79, g’84, of that analyzes the vocal patterns of infants Wichita; and Mark Parkinson, l’84, and and children. Stacy Abbott Parkinson, c’81, c’81, l’84, e nding, published in July by who live now in Potomac, Md., where the Warren, c’74, g’75, PhD’77, and co-author former Kansas governor recently became D. Kimbrough Oller of the University of president and CEO of the American Memphis, was named a top 10 research Health Care Association. achievement for 2010 by Autism Speaks, e couples will recruit steering the largest North American autism FUNDRAISING committee members, rally support for advocacy and science organization. Three alumni couples to lead priorities and provide guidance through- e LENA (Language Environmental out the public phase of the campaign, Analysis) system uses a pocket-size digital upcoming capital campaign which is expected to kick o in 2012. language processor to perform acoustic “As KU alumni, all of them have analysis of children recorded in their A U climbed Mount Oread and graduated to natural environments. Researchers using effort now in the planning stages will be excel in their lives and careers,” said Dale the device were able to identify children led by three couples with deep Mount Seuferling, j’77, president of KU Endow- who have autism spectrum disorders Oread ties and 11 KU degrees among ment. “We’re fortunate to have such with 86 percent accuracy. Identications them. dynamic and visionary campaign leaders.” were based on an analysis of vocal

VISITOR WHEN: Feb. 24 Freedom Life in the key of blues Movement, PPE EVE PU

WHERE: Alderson Auditorium, which he says ST Kansas Union. focuses on the larence Lang, the Langston role of the middle CHughes Visiting Professor, BACKGROUND: An associate class, by gave a talk titled “At the professor of African American shedding light on Margins of Black Freedom studies and history at the the e©orts of Studies: Working-Class University of Illinois at Urbana- working class Representation and the Blues Champaign, Lang is the author blacks in social Idiom,” outlining his research of several scholarly books, movements and on the role of working-class including Grassroots at the in everyday life. African Americans in the Black Gateway: Class Politics and Black Freedom Movement. Freedom Struggle in St. Louis, QUOTES: “Most 1936-’75. people do not participate in SPONSORS: The Langston social movements, so the focus interested in “mundane Hughes Visiting Professorship ANECDOTE: Lang’s on resistance and social activities that occurred beyond Committee and the O¢ce of scholarship seeks to reclaim the movements alone is not the gaze not only of whites, but the Provost dominant narrative of the Black enough,” says Lang, who also is of middle-class blacks.”

14 | KANSAS A LUMNI PPE Kansas Union.

EVE PU e Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milestones, money ST Lexington Herald-Leader and the and other matters Baltimore Sun all won journalism’s top prize during Carroll’s stints as editor. In the ve years he served as editor of the n Barbara Ballard, associate director Los Angeles Times, the paper won for civic programming and public 13 Pulitzers. outreach at KU’s Dole Institute of In his remarks, Carroll noted that Politics, was elected president of the although he was making his rst visit to National Black Caucus of State Legisla- campus, “I feel as though the University of tors. Ballard will serve a two-year term Kansas has visited me many times.” An as the leader of the nonpartisan admirer of the late KU journalism organization, which includes more than professor John Bremner, he recounted a 600 legislators from 45 states, the Warren visit Bremner made to the Herald-Leader District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin newsroom. Carroll had invited him to Islands. She has been a member of the development characteristics developed by Lexington because he was impressed with Kansas House of Representatives since the researchers. a young intern, Ellen Iwamoto, j’81, who 1992 and has worked at KU since 1980 e ndings could lead to fundamental credited her professor for her considerable in a variety of leadership positions, changes in the study of language develop- skills as a copy editor. including stints as associate vice ment and screening for autism spectrum “He was exactly what I’d been imagin- provost for student success and disorders and language delay. ing,” Carroll said, recalling Bremner’s director of the Emily Taylor Women’s “A small number of studies had previ- reputation as a fearsome protector of the Resource Center. ously suggested that children with autism language. “No sooner had he arrived than n have a markedly dierent vocal signature, he commenced to ridicule everything in Marilyn PPE but until now we have been held back sight, including me. He did make an Stokstad, the EVE PU from using this knowledge in clinical exception, though, for the copy desk. Judith Harris ST applications by the lack of measurement “What he said to them in essence, was Murphy Distin- technology,” Warren said. this: You are heroes. You are the embattled guished Professor e ultimate potential of the system as a defenders of a great but crumbling cultural Emerita of Art screening device, he cautions, will need to heritage.” History, donated be tested by further research. Carroll, who served as Knight Visiting $250,000 to KU Lecturer at Harvard and led the Pulitzer Libraries to Prize Board from 1994 to 2003, said he create reception Stokstad JOURNALISM aerward made a point of hiring Bremner- space and trained copy editors when he could. remodel the reading room at the White Foundation awards “Truly, he was a great teacher.” Spencer Research Library. The Marilyn Pulitzer-winner WAW citation Surveying the current media landscape, Stokstad Reading room will open in Carroll bemoaned the dismantling of copy time for the fall semester. J S. C , desks at traditional news organizations news coverage that won Pulitzer Prizes and the failure of online media to create n A $5 million U.S. Department of at four dierent newspapers, accepted new copy desks. Energy Grant will allow the Kansas the William Allen White Foundation’s “Can you imagine how [Bremner] might Geological Survey to continue testing national citation Feb. 11 at the fulminate about that?” the feasibility of storing carbon dioxide underground in Kansas and using CO2 to produce more oil from nearly depleted ﬁelds. The grant follows a 2009 grant of nearly $5 million for the “Blacks’ daily determination to make a way project, which is a collaborative eort between government and industry. out of no way is also informative of who Survey researchers Lynn Watney, they were.” —Clarence Lang PhD’85, and Saibal Bhattacharya, g’97, { } g’05, are lead investigators.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 15 by C hris Lazzarino Sports PPE (2) EVE PU ST

forward Xavier Henry, both ‘Kansas math’ NBA lottery picks. “How could you expect to Despite setbacks, remarkable be better?” Self asked. “I do formula for success adds up think that 33-3 is a pretty good win percentage, and I to another 30 wins don’t think this team will do that, to be quite candid with ight from the start, it wasn’t easy. Or you. ... [But] we’ve been Rexpected. When the Kansas State picked not to win the league Wildcats were anointed the near-unani- before and won it. It really mous preseason Big 12 favorite, KU guard doesn’t make much differ- Tyshawn Taylor let it be known that after ence to me.” last season’s crucible, when it seemed After closing the season everyone from President Obama on down 29-2, with its seventh-con- was picking the top-ranked Jayhawks to secutive Big 12 champion- storm the NCAA Tournament, the change ship (a streak unmatched in of scenery would be welcome. big-time basketball since the “It was just a lot of pressure,” Taylor said glory days of John Wooden’s at preseason media day, recalling the UCLA Bruins), the Jayhawks second-round NCAA loss that ruined a entered the Big 12 Tourna- spectacular season. “We put pressure on ment (which got underway ourselves, just like everybody in the just as Kansas Alumni went Marcus Morris (22) slammed home Big 12 Player country was putting pressure on us. We to press) ranked No. 2 in the were the No. 1 team so we’ve got to hold country. Self calls it “Kansas of the Year honors, Elijah Johnson (15) provided a that, you know? Now it’s a weight off our math” when a team is late-season spark at point guard, and conference shoulders. We don’t have to be uptight; expected to be right back on Coach of the Year Bill Self calmly guided the we don’t have to think so much. We can top despite losing NBA- just play.” quality players in bunches, Jayhawks through another 30-win season. Even coach Bill Self acknowledged that but yet again, the seemingly the apparent snub—K-State, without impossible formula somehow worked out. in December. Taylor was hit with a Denis Clemente, better than KU? And right from the start, the adversity two-game suspension late in the season Really?—was OK by him, because KU had wasn’t about replacing Collins, Aldrich and for violating team rules, and when he lost point guard Sherron Collins, the Henry as much as it was a test of endurance returned, March 2 vs. Texas A&M, he winningest player in program history, as and patience as KU weathered a string of discovered that he’d lost his starting spot well as center Cole Aldrich and athletic setbacks, embarrassments and injuries. to the suddenly effective Elijah Johnson, Superstar recruit Josh Selby started his a sophomore. career on a nine-game suspension, and his And, of course, there was the tragic debut Dec. 18 against Southern Cal was death of sophomore forward Thomas electric, but his progress slowed, then Robinson’s mother, Lisa, 43, who also left halted when he was lost to an ankle injury. behind a 7-year-old daughter, Thomas’ He returned for the final six games of the sister Jayla. Robinson lost his grandmother regular season, and the most points he in late December, and his grandfather died scored in that span was seven, Feb. 21 only days before his mother. Lisa Robin- against Oklahoma State. son died Jan. 21, the day before KU, then Senior guard Mario Little, expected to 18-0 and ranked No. 2 in the country, finally step up with a big year after taking a played Texas in Allen Field House. Players redshirt season after his junior year, served spent most of the night consoling one a six-game suspension for a late-night fight another, with help from team mothers in

16 | KANSAS A LUMNI town for the game, so it was understand- able that their energy sagged after a fast start. Texas snapped KU’s 69-game home-court winning streak, 74-63. “I want to have that chip on our shoulder every time Robinson missed only one game, and in we go out. I want to get everybody’s best shot, because his next four he averaged nearly 13 points —Big 12 Player of the Year Marcus Morris and eight rebounds, but then sustained a I think we can take it.” knee injury that required surgery. {} Expected to miss at least two weeks, Robinson missed only three games, and closed the season at Missouri with his points over the final five games. Level playing field third double-double, 15 points and 13 After the Texas loss, Self conceded that boards. the Longhorns were a deserving leader and New turf helps KU compete Individual setbacks were compounded might turn out to be the best the team in by team humblings: The day the Jayhawks the country. But Texas faded badly, losing with warm-weather foes earned their first No. 1 ranking, they got three of its last five, and KU pounced. The hammered by 16 at K-State. Jayhawks clinched a share of the confer- on’t expect the smell of freshly cut “I want to be ranked No. 1,” sophomore ence title March 2, at home vs. Texas Dgrass to greet you at Hoglund forward Marcus Morris had said two days A&M, and snared it outright two days Ballpark, and don’t anticipate seeing any earlier. “I want to have that chip on our later, with a 70-66 win at Mizzou. dirty uniforms after a slide into second. shoulder every time we go out. I want to Self was named Big 12 Coach of the Year But nobody affiliated with the KU get everybody’s best shot because I think for the third time, an honor never more baseball program is complaining. The we can take it.” To which Self responded, deserving, and Marcus Morris was named completion of a $1.4 million artificial turf after the K-State loss, “If [leaders] put conference Player of the Year, KU’s first installation at the ballpark means KU can since Wayne Simien in 2005. level the playing field with its warm-

PPE As the Jayhawks faced down a deter- weather foes—even if players can’t look to

EVE PU mined Oklahoma State in the quarterfinals their soiled uniforms as marks of ST of the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City, accomplishment. three players who had contributed to the “I always pride myself on trying to get craziness stepped up big: Selby made a my uniform dirty and things like that,” clutch three to close a big OSU lead late in senior outfielder Jimmy Waters says. “It the first half, and, on the game’s final play, takes a little away from that, but as long as literally as emergency sirens wailed across you play hard, people will know.” Lawrence (for a statewide preparedness The installation of the new surface, test), the defense of Taylor and Little kept Astroturf Gameday 3D, was made possible OSU’s ballhandler from even getting to the through donations from fans, alumni and arc. A weak shot didn’t hit the rim, former players. It was completed in time securing a one-point KU victory—the for fall practices. something out there, they better make sure Jayhawks’ 30th of the season. The real dividends, however, started everyone is there to back it up.” Should we have expected anything rolling in this January and February, when And through it all, the 30-win express less? Lawrence received 27 inches of snow. The still chugged right on down the tracks. —Chris Lazzarino team was outside six times in the first two Markieff Morris followed up his three-

point, zero-rebound waste-of-a-game at PPE

KSU with 26 points, 15 rebounds, two EVE PU assists and two blocks in an 89-63 club- ST bing of Colorado. The following game, Markieff Morris and Johnson kicked in 15 apiece to nicely complement Marcus Morris’ 27. Senior shooter Tyrel Reed clocked 11 against OU, 12 vs. A&M and 15 at Mizzou, and his senior backcourtmate Brady Morningstar had his own late-season surge, averaging more than eight

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 17 Sports

weeks of practices, which began Jan. 28. BSEN Coach Ritch Price said that with the CO A JA previous grass field, the team would have R LAU been confined to indoor practices because the ground would have been too muddy. “If you’re not outside and you’re inside, obviously you’re taking a step backward,” Price says. “Schools in Texas and Okla- homa are further ahead.” Price expects the new turf to have other benefits. Players won’t have to spend much time putting the tarp over the infield, since only the pitcher’s mound is dirt. The field can absorb up to 3 inches of rain an hour, Record breaker breaker making play during spring showers more Junior Stephanie Payne opened the Big After the preliminaries, she went plausible. 12 swimming championships by shattering 4:11.94 in the finals, good for fourth. And with other improvements made to KU’s 400-yard individual medley record “I feel pretty happy,” Payne said at Hoglund Ballpark in recent years—includ- time by more than a second, at 4 minutes, the Austin, Texas, meet. “And tired. This ing a new clubhouse and indoor workout 12.18 seconds. And that was only for is one Big 12 Championships that I facility—the turf will help KU recruit starters. won’t forget.” better talent. “It has taken our recruiting to another level,” Price says. “Guys who were telling us season, when KU knocked off top-ranked forms—Waters says he’ll be looking for no in the past are now signing with the TCU in Fort Worth in the finale of a other options to get dirty to prove how University of Kansas.” three-game series. aggressive he is on the basepaths. The new turf, and the ability to be And while Price says his team’s equip- “Not everybody has turf,” he says. “We’ll outside earlier during practice, showed ment manager loves the new turf—there prove it on the road.” results during the first weekend of the are far fewer stains to take out of uni- — Terry Rombeck

UPDATES

Second-year coach Megan Notre Dame. A week earlier, Dixon broke the school record in the

Smith guided the softball team to IN FO 400 with a time of 55.1 at the Big 12 meet. Other Jayhawks who its best start in program history, TS qualiﬁed for the NCAA Indoor Championships were sophomores SPOR opening the season 10-0 before a U Mason Finley, in the shot put, and Andrea Geubelle, in the triple 5-4 loss to Minnesota in K SY jump. ...

Greensboro, N.C. In the COURTE David Beaty joined coach Turner Gill’s football sta© for his championship game of the Stetson second stint as wide receivers coach. Beaty, a highly regarded Hatter Invitational, sophomore Texas recruiter, last year was o©ensive coordinator at Rice. While Alex Jones struck out eight in KU’s at KU in 2008 and ’09, he helped develop Kerry Meier, d’10, and 8-0 victory over Stetson in Deland, Dezmon Briscoe into the top receivers in team history. ... Fla. ... The women’s basketball Smith Quarterback signee Brock Berglund, who enrolled early to team won its opening Big 12 participate in spring practice, instead returned home to Colorado. tourney game, a 71-45 rout of Colorado, before losing to top- Berglund said he’ll return for summer training. ... seeded Baylor, 86-51. As of press time, the 20-12 Jayhawks were The Lawrence City Commission approved a request for the KU awaiting possible NCAA or NIT tournament bids. Season Relays’ shot put and two other events on the streets of downtown highlights included a 75-70 overtime victory at Missouri and First Lawrence. A throwing area will be built on Eighth Street, between Team All-Big 12 honors for sophomore forward Carolyn Davis. ... Massachusetts and New Hampshire streets, for the April 20 shot Senior Kendra Bradley, freshman Diamond Dixon, sophomore put, and world No. 1 Christian Cantwell, the Beijing Olympics Denesha Morris and junior Shayla Wilson broke the KU record for silver medalist, has already committed to compete, as have six the 4x400-meter relay by two-tenths of a second March 5 at other shot put stars ranked among the world’s top 25.

18 | KANSAS A LUMNI ISSUE 2, 2011 | 19 Sports P hotographs by S teve P uppe

Big Jay ﬂies high; coach Bill Self helps his team celebrate another Big 12 tourney trophy; Selah Simien smiles sweetly at daddy Wayne’s jersey retirement; Josh Selby, Tyrel Reed, twins Marcus and Markie Morris, and Thomas Robinson in game action; and Reed, Brady Morningstar and Mario Little during Senior Night ceremonies after a win over Texas A&M, which clinched KU’s seventh-consecutive Big 12 title.

20 | KANSAS A LUMNI “As fellow Jayhawks, we understand the lifelong passion and commitment our alumni feel for KU. Our job is to harness that energy– in areas such as student recruitment and academic excellence–to serve as a positive force in advancing KU. ”

Jay Howard, b’79 KU Alumni Association Board of Directors Chair 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.

www.kualumni.org 800-584-2957

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 21 Kitchenmates (l-r) Emily Katz, Kayla Eddins and Sarah Greenup have lunch in a deﬁning feature of their hall: seven-woman kitchens, which Mrs. Watkins thought would encourage newly independent residents to learn to cook. Miller and Watkins both have seven kitchens; their alumnae group is “Kitchen 8.”

22 | KANSAS A LUMNI Better to Give Birthday milestone renews interest in the remarkable Mrs. Watkins

by Chris Lazzarino

RS. ELIZABETH MILLER WATKINS beneﬁt from her unequaled generosity is was the kind of friend we all planning celebrations in her honor Mhope to have. Not because she throughout April. was wealthy and generous—both of which Outside of basketball, there is no larger she most certainly was, at levels not seen ﬁgure in the history of KU than the in Lawrence before and probably even diminutive doctor’s daughter who saw to since—but because she was that rare sort, it that thousands could pursue the the person who stood by those close to passions denied her, dreams so simple yet, her, who cared for others more than for so many, elusive: an education. herself, who looked for ways to help and A KU education. then did exactly that. Sarah Greenup, a Wichita senior The 150th anniversary of Mrs. Watkins’ studying genetics, noshes on the last bite birth was Jan. 21, and the testament to her of her lunch on a recent afternoon, curled sincerity, vision and action is that young up in a comfy chair in the scholarship hall women born more than a half-century invented, designed, furnished, decorated, after her death consider her a friend and funded and maintained by Elizabeth mentor and threw her a birthday party, Miller Watkins and explains, quite and the university that continues to matter-of-factly, “This is home.”

Photographs by Steve Puppe Archival photographs courtesy Spencer Research Library

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 23 Women of Miller and Watkins halls—Molly Karleskint (l-r), Kayla Eddins, Qiao Yi Chen, Hilary Schloemer, Dana Diec and Sarah Greenup— in front of a portrait of “Lizzie,” in the Watkins TV room. The neighboring halls emphasize shared purpose and history while also maintaining many of their own unique traditions.

Of the countless words of thanks justly come through these halls is ... well, she enrolled in KU’s preparatory high directed toward Mrs. Watkins during her amazing.” school. It was the dawn of her lively lifetime and since, it seems certain that interest in education and achievement. none could mean more to her. She wanted Two years later, family finances halted her the women of Watkins and Miller scholar- n the 150th anniversary of her birth, formal education, cut short her KU dreams. ship halls to find nurturing sanctuaries Oit seems appropriate to do more than Her father, a Civil War physician from where girls become women and good merely celebrate. Anyone who ever comes Ohio named Valentine Miller, was a doctor students become formidable scholars. to KU, to teach or study or work, has heard whose clients tended to be poor farmers She wanted much for them not because Elizabeth Miller Watkins’ name, maybe who, when they had money to pay the the opportunity was denied her but—and knows a tiny sketch of biography, perhaps bills, generally paid the doctor last, this is perhaps the key to the life and has heard that some old lady way back in according to a contemporary account. legacy of Elizabeth Miller Watkins— the day invented the whole concept of Regardless of payment, Valentine Miller because she loved them so. “scholarship halls,” where good students made his rounds, tending the sick of “She did her own thing,” Greenup says could live for reduced rates in exchange for Douglas County. of the woman current and former resi- a few hours each week cooking and “They came to Kansas,” newspaper dents of Watkins and Miller lovingly call cleaning. editor W.C. Simons later wrote of the Lizzie. “She was forward thinking. She was It’s time now to go deeper, to learn Miller family, “at a time when money was a able to assess the world around her and about a person, consider ideas she held luxury.” think of ways that she could make it better. dear, look for insight into the values she Just 15 years old, Lizzie left KU Prep to Her whole life, she and Jabez gave to lived with and acted upon. help her family pay its bills. She found an individual students to help them get that She is not a name, she is not a scholar- entry-level clerk job at the J.B. Watkins education, to help them succeed in life, ship hall, she is not an estate. She was so Land and Mortgage Company, and the and as she got older she realized, ‘I can much more than money, and yet she work apparently suited her. She rose help more than one person at a time. I can guarded it zealously, disbursed it gener- within the company, eventually becoming help 50 people, or 100 people. More.’ ously, used it wisely, and made advantages secretary to the firm’s founder, a “Her ability to figure out a way to do for others because of it. Pennsylvania native named Jabez Bunting that and to set up this home for me and Lizzie Miller was 11 when her family Watkins, a self-made man who put the thousands of other women who have moved to Lawrence, in 1872, and 13 when himself through law school at the

24 | KANSAS A LUMNI University of Michigan. awoke, the new Mrs. Watkins said to him, J.B. Watkins was a successful, even “Look what we found while we were visionary, business man—and a bachelor. shopping.” “Unmarried women typically didn’t A marriage certiﬁcate. work outside the home, and if you did, Freelance writer Julie Mettenburg, a you certainly didn’t work for a bachelor,” Watkins Hall alumna and regular con- says Norma Decker Hoagland, c’75, a tributor to Kansas Alumni, in 1989 Leavenworth County rancher and trea- researched and wrote about her hall’s surer of the Watkins-Miller alumnae benefactor. Mettenburg, j’91, quotes society known as Kitchen 8. “And, she historian Steve Jansen, g’78, PhD’85, then traveled with him, which was of course director of the Watkins Community quite scandalous.” Museum, hypothesizing that because the Simons recalled in a Lawrence Journal- Millers were “strict prohibitionists,” J.B.’s World article that the Millers were alleged drinking habits made marriage “beautiful souls and dearly beloved by the impossible for Lizzie until after her people of Lawrence.” If true, that changed mother’s death, in 1909, when Lizzie was for Lizzie after she married the boss in 47 and her groom 64. November 1909, in New York City, the And yet Mettenburg also quotes the late news of which was breathlessly reported Charles Stough, c’36, l’38, a friend of one back home as “the most startling of Mrs. Watkins’ student chauffeurs, [announcement] that has been made in speculating that it was Jabez who had 150th birthday Lawrence in several years.” dodged the altar for years. celebrations Lizzie and Jabez had traveled to New Regardless, their marriage, by all York on business, with another employee accounts a loving and devoted union, • April 16: “Elizabeth, Betsy and Bess: A of the company. One afternoon they hit scandalized Lawrence. Conversation with Elizabeth Watkins,” a the town while the third member of their Married to “one of the wealthiest men in play by Professor Emeritus Ronald Willis, party stayed behind for a nap. When he the West,” owner of a ﬁnancial and real sponsored by KU Endowment’s Women Philanthropists for KU, 2 p.m., Swarthout Recital Hall • April 19: Birthday cookies and treats, 11:30 a.m., Kansas Union • April 21: “A Conversation About Elizabeth Miller Watkins,” led by historian Mary Burchill, c’62, 6:30 p.m., Watkins Community Museum • April 26: Watkins Society Luncheon, noon, Hemenway Life Sciences Innovation Center, KUMC

Alumnae ocers Norma Hoagland and Beverly Runkle Benso, f’58, next to a prized photograph (l) of Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit on Oct. 22, 1938, and Mrs. Watkins’ newly restored personal desk. Kitchen 8’s scholarship fund, raised by alumnae who feel indebted to Mrs. Watkins, this year will award $40,000 in scholarships.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 25 handsome KU men, and Mrs. Watkins noted in her will that the students so employed at the time of her death be given $500 a year to complete their educations.) “I think she was rather solitary,” Norma Hoagland says. “I don’t think she ever really was truly accepted.” Charles Stough told Mettenburg, “She was a rather lonely person. ... At the same time, she knew a lot of people.” The Journal-World once noted that Mrs. Watkins “lived a somewhat cloistered life [but] expressed herself in gifts.” Said historian Steve Jansen, “She’s a bit of a mystery lady to us. The stories we have are all about the things she’s done, but we know just about nothing of what she was Jabez and Lizzie gaze at each other’s portraits across the Watkins Hall living room, where other actually like.” treasures include an original chandelier (opposite) and a glass-topped coee table, both with wheat-stalk motifs. hat mattered to Elizabeth Miller estate empire with offices in London, New daughter was horrified to learn that no WWatkins, it seems safe to conclude, York and Dallas, hundreds of thousands of physician or hospital would treat him. So was her family, her husband, her faith, the acres of Louisiana, more than 200 Kansas she wrote a check for $200,000 to build business, and, in equal measures, educa- farms on 26,000 acres, two banks, and 100 Lawrence Memorial Hospital, which tion and young people. All available miles of railroad that her husband sold for opened in 1929, just two years before accounts describe Jabez Watkins as a kind $1 million, Elizabeth Miller Watkins was Watkins Memorial Hospital, funded with and generous man who frequently, and shunned. her $175,000 gift, opened on Mount quietly, helped KU students in need. After Faculty wives did not invite her to their Oread. his death, in 1921, the widow Watkins teas and events. Noticing that coaches’ And yet ... there was loneliness. At the began to formalize the arrangement. wives were similarly marginalized, those very least, solitude. In a rare interview, she told the Kansas were the women Mrs. Watkins invited to Jabez Watkins died in 1921, just two City Star, “We had no children, and our The Outlook, the glorious home she and years after they had moved into The plan was to give it all for the good of J.B. built in 1919, on five acres they had Outlook. There Mrs. Watkins remained, humanity, chiefly here in Lawrence. ... We purchased atop Mount Oread. without family, her only children those planned many things, but my husband She spent money on books—receipts for who walked past her porch by the dozens died before all our plans were made.” their purchase fill her collected papers every day. It was said that she was invari- As it became clear that the University stored in Spencer Research Library—and ably the only passenger during frequent needed organized housing for women sat reading on The Outlook’s porch, always drives around Lawrence in her 16-cylinder students, Mrs. Watkins settled on the idea saying hello to students who scurried Cadillac sedan, the most recognizable car of building a “scholarship hall,” in which down her driveway, late for class. in town. (Her chauffeurs were always women could provide their own labor, That she saw students every day was hardly an accident: Not only had she and her husband chosen to build their home on the KU campus, but she also left a gate open so the kids wouldn’t have to walk hen in the 1970s a resident didn’t have around. Wmoney to fly home to Peru for Christ- “That open gate says so much about mas, housemates chipped in to buy her tickets. her,” Hoagland says. “She made her own The stu£ed llamas she brought back to campus life, her own happiness, and found people became Watkins mascots, representing unity in to involve in her life who she cared about.” a hall proud of its diversity. When a black employee became ill, in the 1920s, the doctor’s now-wealthy

26 | KANSAS A LUMNI cooking and cleaning, while living and studying within the embrace of a close- Watkins’ generosity knit community. Enduring gifts of Elizabeth Miller Watkins: “My sympathy has always been with the • 26,000 acres of western Kansas farmland, proceeds from which have girls who must travel uphill,” she once benefited countless projects (including Danforth Chapel and the Campanile said, and she wasn’t referencing the hike carillon’s largest bell), scholarships, international studies, distinguished up Mount Oread. “It has been my dream faculty chairs to aid self-supporting girls to get an • Watkins Hall, opened 1926, $75,000 education.” • Watkins Memorial Hospital, opened 1931, $175,000 On July 1, 1925, the Kansas Board of • Miller Hall, opened 1937, $75,000 Regents accepted her offer of $75,000 • Watkins Nurses Home, opened 1937, $41,000 and a piece of The Outlook’s original • Watkins & Miller maintenance endowment, $250,000 five-acre parcel to construct the • Watkins Hospital maintenance endowment, $175,000 country’s first scholarship hall. • The Outlook, chancellor’s residence “I have never done anything into which • Lawrence Memorial Hospital, opened 1929, $200,000 I have put more of myself,” Mrs. Watkins said, as related in an article on kuhistory. com. “It is my dream come true.” Watkins Hall opened for the fall land to the KU Endowment Association, Elizabeth Miller Watkins died June 1, semester of 1926 and was an immediate which she had served as a trustee and vice 1939, in her beloved Outlook. In a hit. Ten years later she gave another president for 13 years. scrapbook completed a year earlier, she $75,000 to build a virtually identical hall “The Endowment Association, as a included a Methodist hymn, on which she next door, named for her brother, Frank result, is the envy of every similar wrote, “My creed also.” Miller, who had bequeathed $50,000 to the foundation or endowment association in I will be pure for there are those who care. University’s student loan fund. the country,” Irvin Youngberg, c’42, a I will be strong for there is much to suffer. I The two scholarship halls, The Outlook longtime Endowment official, said in a will be brave for there is much to dare. I will and Watkins Memorial Hospital (now 1971 speech. “In fact, several other state be a friend to all, to foe, to friendless. I will Twente Hall, home of the School of Social universities have used, successfully, the be giving and forget the gift. I will be Welfare) are the visible evidence of Mrs. Watkins bequest as an example for humble, for I know my weakness. I will look Watkins’ generosity, but it was her will that potential donors, to illustrate what can be up and love and laugh and lift. is perhaps her most enduring legacy. achieved with substantial unrestricted In his eulogy, the Rev. Theodore Aszman Signed in December 1938, the massive resources as a supplement to legislative said, “Mrs. Watkins expressed the best that document left gifts of thousands of dollars appropriations.” was in her, in the finest way she knew.” to more than a hundred friends, dispersed Youngberg closed with, “Kansans will be On further consideration, Elizabeth household goods and personal effects to forever indebted to a good and generous Miller Watkins was not the kind of friend friends across the country, and, most lady for her wise and farsighted philan- we hope to have; she is the friend we do crucially, provided a fortune in money and thropy at their state university.” have, and always will.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 27 2 happy endings, 13 years apart, with 1 connection: a young man’s determination to pay it forward

ick Shields was enjoying a rare day off when it happened. A student in the School of Allied Health and a registered nurse with more than 10 years’ experience in health care, most of it in critical care,N Shields was at his brother’s house in Kansas City last summer, at a birthday party for his 3-year-old nephew, Hayden. It was June 26, a Saturday. “Hot, hot,” says Bob Shields, Nick’s brother. “A hundred degrees out, and we’re playing basketball in the driveway. Nick, me, my cousins. We were ﬁnishing our last game when a little girl runs out from the house across the street. She was crying, and she said a little boy had drowned.” Exactly what happened next depends on who you ask. Bob Shields remembers Nick reacting immediately. “He pointed at someone and said, ‘You, call 911.’ Then he took off like fricking Speed Racer.” Nick believes that by the time he understood what the girl was saying, the others had already bolted across the street and by Steven Hill he ran after. But all seem to agree that he reached the neighbor’s backyard ﬁrst. A 7-year-old boy lay on the deck, “limp and blue—very ominous looking,” Nick recalls. He had just been pulled from the family pool, where he’d been submerged for at least a minute or two. A man was trying to give the child CPR.

P hotograph by S teve P uppe

28 | KANSAS A LUMNI Issue 2, 2011 | 29 Shields is softspoken and humble and reserve. His girlfriend, Shawna Ferguson, No breath sounds, no pulse. quick to say he doesn’t feel like a hero. says Shields is the funniest person she Shields guesses that he has performed Stainless steel studs in both ears bookend a knows—and one of the strongest. “He has CPR hundreds of times on the job. But boyish face, and colorful tattoos spill from the best sense of humor, always joking and Donna Nyght, director of nurse anesthesia the left sleeve of his green hospital gear. laughing, but he’s also very motivated,” education at KU Medical Center, where Tired from a long day in the OR, where says Ferguson, a nurse at KU Hospital. “If Nick is in the ﬁrst year of an intense he’s doing clinical training in the nurse he sets his mind to something he will three-year master’s degree program, says anesthesia program, he recounts what absolutely follow through and get it done.” giving CPR outside of the hospital is much happened matter-of-factly, with none of That June day he explained that he’s an more difﬁcult. “As a critical care nurse, the gravity of a TV medical drama. With RN, trained in CPR, and asked if he could he’d been involved in a lot of code his quick laugh and “no-big-deal” mien, take over. “Quietly asked,” are his exact situations, where you’re trying to save a his manner is more “Scrubs” than “ER.” words, but it’s clear that Shields—whose patient’s life,” says Nyght, n’77, g’93, But behind the easy smile and quiet work in intensive care units in several PhD’11. “But in the hospital you’re part of self-assurance a sharper steel is held in states has familiarized him with death— a team; you get help immediately.” There had no intention of standing quietly by on are drugs, advanced equipment and this day. “No offense,” Shields says, “but he algorithms—checklists that outline was doing it incorrectly.” step-by-step procedures. “Those algo- While the boy’s family and his own rithms don’t mean anything when you looked on, Shields checked the boy out: don’t have the drugs and equipment and S (4) Y S HIELD SY MA R SY URTE CO

Nick Shields was 16 years old when a head-on collision north of Lawrence on Mother’s Day 1997 nearly took his life. Transported by air ambulance to KU Hospital, he and his friend and passenger Frank Vardijan (below right) underwent open-heart surgery on the same night and then shared a room during their months-long recovery. The Shields family and others familiar with his case credit the availability of a top-level trauma facility with saving his life. As the region’s only nationally veriﬁed Level 1 Trauma Center, KU Hospital provides the most advanced emergency care to about 1,400 trauma patients annually.

30 | KANSAS A LUMNI all you can do is CPR. All you have then is PPE

your training and instincts, and you can EVE PU only do so much.” ST Shields began chest compressions on the boy. “It seems like an eternity when you’re doing it, but they said it was a minute or two,” he says, before the child began coughing up blood and water. “At that point I turned him on his side, and as I turned him he took a big deep breath—” and here Shields’ voice tightens and he stops talking, as if the memory of that moment takes his own breath away. “And he actually started to breath on his own and he had a pulse. He was breathing on his own when the EMTs arrived and loaded him in the ambulance, but he was still unconscious. “The next day I got word through my brother that the kid made a full recovery. He doesn’t remember a thing about it.”

he road that led Nick Shields to this Tpoint runs back to Linwood, to Mother’s Day 1997. Shields and his friend Frank Vardijan had spent the day hauling rock and building flowerbeds for Nick’s mother, The medical resources rallied to nurse Nick Shields back to health inspired him and his mother, Mary Shields, and now they wanted to go Mary, to make their careers in health care. Mary now works at KU Hospital, along with Nick’s bowling in Lawrence. “At first I didn’t want girlfriend, Shawna Ferguson. to let them go,” Mary recalls. “But they’d worked hard, they were 16, and I thought, ‘You’ve got to kind of loosen the strings “I got a phone call saying they had been called, occurs when a tear in the body’s and let them be independent.’ So I said in a wreck, had been life-flighted to KU, largest artery allows blood to seep between OK. But I had a really weird feeling.” and try to get there as soon as we could. the three layers of the aortic wall, further Her unease was so great that when Bob We had no idea where it was. We just forcing them apart and potentially causing came home from his job at a Tonganoxie headed toward Kansas City and followed a full rupture. “His aorta was the thickness barbecue joint, she urged him to join them the signs.” of an onion skin,” Mary says. “Had that at the bowling alley. At the hospital, Nick’s medical team little bitty thickness ruptured, he would “Thank God he didn’t,” she says now, briefed the family on his injuries: His left have bled out instantly.” As it was, Nick “because he’d have been the first one at elbow was shattered. Both legs were faced a 10 percent chance of survival, and the scene.” broken, the right one a compound fracture an 80 percent chance of permanent On their way to Lawrence, about a half at the shin that left his lower leg dangling paralysis if he survived the 12-hour mile east of Teepee Junction, a driver by tendons and tissue. He’d sustained a surgery. swerved into Nick’s lane. The two cars head injury and was bleeding internally. Shields did survive, but several days later collided head-on at 70 miles per hour. Most seriously, the terrible force of two he was still on life support, still uncon- Mary Shields says the other driver called cars colliding head-on had torn his scious. “Every time they would try to take family but never called 911. Not until a aorta—a catastrophic injury that is fatal 90 him off it he would die,” Mary says. “So passerby happened upon the crash 30 percent of the time. the doctors came out to the waiting room minutes later were emergency crews “They told me he had beat the odds just and said they were going to try one more summoned. Firemen used the jaws of life making it to the hospital, because most time to get him off life support, but if we to remove Nick and Frank from the people with that injury die at the scene,” can’t get him off this time we’re not very wreckage. Mary Shields says. Aortic dissection, as it’s hopeful of the outcome, and we want to

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 31 know if you want to donate his organs.” much of their recovery. She asked to see her son. After Frank went home, Nick started “I told him, I said, ‘They’re going to try bugging the doctors to cut him loose too. to take that machine off you again, and They ﬁnally made a deal with him: Learn this time you’ve got to open your eyes to dress yourself and you can do your buddy.’ I said, ‘You’ve got to try your rehab as an outpatient. hardest, you’ve got to try to open those “He practiced and practiced all night,” pretty eyes of yours. You’ve got to stay Mary recalls. “The next morning when the alive.’” doctor came in he said, ‘I’m ready to go That was 13 years ago; recounting it still home.’” Not until you can dress yourself, brings her to tears. the doctor reminded him. He did it—and “And he says he heard me. So he did it. earned his discharge. And he gradually got better from there.” At home, the immense task they faced hit the family full force. Nick sized up the vast medical “The incisions,” Mary says. “He was cut resources—the whiz-bang technology and he idea that Nick Shields would front to back, top to bottom. One arm and the teams of doctors and nurses rallying to Tsomeday run across the street to save both legs were messed up. We all looked at his cause and his brother’s—and found a a drowning boy—like fricking Speed each other like, ‘Oh, Lord, how are we calling. Racer!—would have seemed impossibly going to move him without killing him?’” “In the hospital I got to the point where hopeful back then. His brother’s employer and friends and I didn’t necessarily have a lot of motiva- “He was like a puppet,” Mary says. “He neighbors pitched in to build a wheelchair tion,” Nick says, “and I looked at these had a limb in traction, one in an external ramp and an accessible shower. Mary set people taking care of me and most of ﬁxator and one held together by mesh and up an intercom between her room and them seemed to be enjoying their job. screws. But he was so strong and brave; he Nick’s. Bob would lift him from his Somehow it just clicked in my head.” never complained about anything. He just wheelchair into the backyard pool for Says Mary, “I remember him saying, ‘If I set small goals and tried to get a little water therapy. can get through this and I’m able, I want better every day.” Six months into Nick’s recovery, Bob, to go into health care, because look at As it turned out, doctors discovered that then 18, was diagnosed with testicular everything everybody is doing for me.’ He Frank, too, had a dissected aorta and they cancer. Mary took him to the KU Cancer just wanted to give something back.” rushed him to the OR while Nick was still Center for treatment. When Bob’s hair She found a calling too. Haunted by the in surgery. The two boys—who looked so began falling out from the chemotherapy, hopelessness she felt as doctors began much alike that their own families Nick, gripping his new walker in one hand describing Nick’s injuries, she quit her sometimes mistook one for the other— and clippers in the other, shaved his printing job, went back to school and roomed together at KU Hospital during brother’s head and his own. At one point trained as an MRI technician. the two were in surgery “It bothered me that somebody I loved

S (3) the same day. would be hurt so badly and I wouldn’t “We just looked even know what the doctors were talking

Y S HIELD forward and looked at about. There was no way I could help if I what we had to do to didn’t know what they were talking about. SY MA R SY get through this,” Mary I decided I never wanted to be in that URTE

CO says. “You don’t look at position again.” what it is while you’re in it, because it would wo years after the accident, Mary be overwhelming.” TShields came home to find Nick in her room, walking on her treadmill. “Watch this,” he said. Then he sped up the machine and began to run. “It was the first time I’d seen him run since the accident,” Mary says. “He’d been home on the treadmill when I was at Shields and his brother, Bob (a cancer survivor whose diagnosis work, pushing himself to where he could came just months after Nick’s brush with death), celebrated their run again.” good health with a moment in the California sun in 2005. That Nick—a self-described adrenaline same year Nick tried skydiving (top right) for the first time. junkie—bought a Mustang 5.0 and began

32 | KANSAS A LUMNI going with friends to Kansas City Interna- “Nick sized up the vast medical resources—the whiz-bang tional Raceway to run the quarter-mile drags. Sea kayaking, hot-air ballooning technology and the teams of doctors and nurses rallying to and skydiving followed. “He’s jumped twice and had to use the reserve shoot his cause and his brother’s—and found a calling.” both times,” Bob observes wryly. “He’s a roller coaster freak. Oh, yeah, and he’s got a crotch rocket”—a low-slung, clinical rotations in MRI technology and I didn’t get into nursing to let life pass me high-powered motorcycle built for speed. radiology was KU Medical Center. She did by. I want to make as much of an impact Maybe he was making up for lost time, everything she could to get assigned there. as I can.” or maybe he had something to prove. Bit After finishing clinicals she got a job at KU Mary Shields believes that if Nick hadn’t by bit he had climbed back. “He decided Hospital and has worked there ever since. ended up at KU that Mother’s Day, he his life wasn’t going to stop at that point, When Nick was still in radiology, they would not be alive now. “There’s not a lot after the wreck,” Mary says. “He’d do sometimes worked cases together. of hospitals that could take him in and whatever he had to do to have a full “Every one of his patients said he’s just correct the things they had to correct. I life—there was no stopping him.” amazing as a nurse,” she says. “They send just don’t believe he’d have lived if he’d Shields also followed through on his him cakes; they trust him with anything. gone anywhere else.” determination to give back, earning He puts them at ease by being himself. I Donna Nyght, the nurse anesthesia credentials as a certified nursing assistant think a lot of that comes from knowing director, is inclined to agree. “If it hadn’t before finishing an associate’s degree at what it’s like to be in that bed.” happened close to a medical center like Kansas City Kansas Community College In October the Kansas City, Mo., police KU, that has the trauma facilities we have, and a bachelor’s degree in nursing at department honored Nick Shields with a he probably would not have lived.” Most UMKC. He worked at KU Hospital as a certificate of appreciation for his lifesaving people with this type of injury don’t radiology nurse before starting Allied actions. EMTs told the family that without survive, she notes. Health’s nurse anesthesia program. Nick’s help, the boy would probably have But Nick Shields did survive, and he “I feel like this place has not only given died. made good on a promise to himself: When me direction in life, but has helped me Nick says he was only doing his job, the time came, he’d return the favor. That’s survive to the point where I am today able what he was trained to do, what he’d want how it works with a second chance at life: to do this,” he says. “And not only myself, anyone to do for him or his family. You don’t pay it back, you pay it forward. but my brother as well. So I was really “It gives you a little bit of affirmation As Nyght says, “He’s been in the right drawn to KU.” that you can impact someone’s life, you place at the right time more than once in Mary Shields did her training at Fort really do have a chance to make a differ- his life, I think.” Hays State, and one of the sites offered for ence,” he says. “This is why I do what I do. Nick Shields is lucky that way. S (2) SY NICK S HIELDSY URTE CO

Cy Ritter, acting chief of the Kansas City Police Department, presented Shields a certiﬁcate of appreciation for his role in saving the life of a 7-year-old boy. On hand for the October ceremony with Shields were (left to right) his sister-in-law, Lisa; brother, Bob; Shawna Ferguson; father, Roscoe; and mother, Mary.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 33 The At m Smashers KUKU physicists and their students join the high-energy chase for solutions to science’s fundamental mysteries by Don Lincoln, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

here are two ways to study the birth of the universe: Using particle accelerators to ﬂing beams of subatomic particles T The ﬁrst is to stare at the clear midnight sky, using an array to nearly the speed of light inside huge detectors, physicists of increasingly larger telescopes and peering ever deeper into the examine what happens when, after colliding, these particles are cosmos. But there is a more active approach. Rather than pas- torn apart and heated to the mind-boggling temperature of a sively studying the heavens, physicists can now re-create the thousand trillion degrees. conditions of the early universe in laboratories, using the most KU physics and astronomy professors Phil Baringer, Alice Bean sophisticated equipment ever devised, to establish with great and Stephen Sanders and associate professors Michael Murray certainty the nature of the universe just tiny fractions of a second and Graham Wilson play pivotal roles in this ambitious effort. after it began 14 billion years ago. Baringer, Bean and Wilson are experts in smashing together These scientists are, in fact, closer than ever before to under- beams of protons. standing the very moment of creation itself. As members of both the DZero collaboration, based at the

34 | KANSAS A LUMNI Views of the massive CMS machinery, at the CERN particle accelerator near Geneva, and a particle collision “event display” (inset). KU physics faculty and students develop detectors that capture and process such data.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside Chicago, and the perform a variety of measurements,” Wilson says. “We are able to Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron pursue a number of different ideas and then combine our Collider (LHC) at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, they have measurements to get an even deeper understanding of the co-authored hundreds of papers detailing the results of their universe.” measurements. Murray and Sanders take a different path in their studies of the Baringer and Bean are trying to better understand “bottom” microrealm. They collide nuclei of gold or lead to understand the and “top” quarks, the most ephemeral of subatomic particles behavior of nuclear matter under extreme conditions. created from the pure energy of accelerator collisions. Evanescent These studies investigate an entirely different state of matter; in ghosts, bottom quarks exist for about a trillionth of a second and addition to the familiar states of solid, liquid and gas, scientists the top quarks far less (a trillionth of a trillionth of a second). Many theories of new physical phenomena will be conﬁrmed or rejected by studying bottom quarks, and it is thought that studying the bottom quark might explain why our universe is Physics primer made mostly of matter. (Given that we believe that matter and antimatter were made in equal quantities in the creation of the o get a better idea what is building blocks of matter, the universe, the fact that the universe consists only of matter is a Tgoing on in high-energy things that make up the entire rather perplexing mystery.) particle collisions, it is perhaps universe. Baringer was a collaborator in the discovery of the “top” quark, worth taking a moment for The most common quarks the heaviest subatomic particle ever found. More than 1,000 times basics: are called “up” and “down.” smaller than a proton, top quarks weigh about as much as an All matter is made of atoms. The other four types of quarks entire atom of gold. Just why this particle should be so heavy is Atoms have a nucleus at their have similarly silly names— not yet known, and it is believed that studying it further might center, which contains protons “strange,” “charm,” “bottom” shed light on the origins of mass itself. and neutrons, themselves and “top”—and are unstable, Wilson’s research interest is somewhat different. He looks for made of smaller particles existing for a very short time subatomic particles called leptons to search for new phenomena. called quarks. As far as we before decaying into more “Modern particle physics collider experiments allow us to know, quarks are the smallest ordinary particles. —D.L.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 35 Graduate student Danny Noonan, seen here in Malott Hall laboratories, is one of about a dozen graduate and undergraduate students working alongside faculty on new components for KU’s CMS detector.

are now investigating a state with the colorful name of “quark- silicon that makes up two-thirds gluon plasma.” of the electronic channels. With enough concentrated energy, they heat the matter to While large, 100 megapixels extreme conditions, melting the protons and neutrons them- isn’t that much more than in selves, like dropping ice cubes into a pot of boiling water. The the cameras we can all buy. Baringer kinds of collisions they study are incredibly complex, with However, this “camera” can, thousands of particles leaving the collision. while operating in a harsh radioactive environment, look at 40 “The earlier experiments already told us that we have created a million pictures a second. strongly interacting plasma,” Murray says, “but the very nature of Custom software sifts through those images virtually instantly, the plasma made it difficult to understand its structure. The and, of the millions taken each second, saves perhaps 100 to a higher energy of the LHC and new detectors we have to study it massive database. mean we will be able to look deep inside this subatomic soup.” “We’re trying to figure out what the smallest pieces of matter are and how they interact with each other,” Baringer says. “Those interactions are what you would call the forces of nature: gravity, hese faculty all have an extensive experience in collider electricity, all that kind of stuff. That’s how the particles interact. Tphysics, having done experiments at particle accelerators “So what we want to capture with our pictures are some across the globe. However, their common goals have recently interesting new players, or some interesting new interaction brought them together to work on a single experiment— among the players, ideas theorists have dreamed of but that we’ve “Compact Muon Solenoid,” or CMS, one of four detectors never seen.” arranged around the largest particle accelerator in the world, Europe’s Large Hadron Collider. The main purpose of CMS is to record the highest-energy hile the presence of KU physics faculty at the research collisions ever attempted between two beams of protons. Approx- Wfrontier is a testimonial to their impact on important imately 2,500 physicists explore the origin of mass, investigate scientific questions, KU’s particle physics program also empha- whether quarks are themselves composed of even smaller objects, sizes teaching opportunities created by their research. and, just for good measure, check to see if something totally At most universities, research of the type described here is unexpected might be observed. usually limited to third- or fourth-year graduate students. At KU, The experiment’s huge piece of machinery is 50 feet high, 50 faculty share a commitment to involve students in research as feet wide and 70 feet long, weighs 14,000 tons and consists of 100 early as possible. Every year, as many as six undergraduates work million distinct detector elements. on all aspects of the experiment, from testing electronics to In essence, it is a 100 megapixel camera, and KU is involved looking at raw data; some are even flown to Fermilab, CERN or with the detector at the heart of the apparatus, a detector made of other laboratories to do their research.

36 | KANSAS A LUMNI “This kind of research experience is invaluable for undergraduates considering a career in physics research,” Baringer says. “KU Quarked! students who have had this opportunity have gone on to such he idea started with a conversation between Alice Bean and prestigious graduate schools as Johns Hopkins, Cornell Ther cousin’s 5-year-old daughter. and Caltech.” Bean, professor of physics and astronomy, asked her young, Professors Baringer and Bean take their commitment to space-obsessed relative a question: “Which planet is your educating young people one step further with the Quarknet favorite?” program, which brings high school teachers and even a few Her response: “I don’t know. I haven’t been to them all yet.” exceptional students into their laboratory. Something clicked for Bean. KU has the distinction of introducing one of the youngest “Kids are dying for knowledge about planets and dinosaurs,” students ever to frontier particle physics research: 14-year-old she says. “Why not particle physics?” Eilish Gibson, a sophomore at Lawrence’s Bishop Seabury So Bean gathered a team of collaborators and set out to create a Academy, spent last summer testing electronics that KU will curriculum for teaching about quarks, the building blocks of matter. supply to universities around the country to test upgrades The resulting Quarked! website, which launched in 2003, envisioned for the CMS detector. features cartoon characters representing the six types of quarks, “I have been interested in particle physics, especially involving each with a personality to match its corresponding particle. the LHC, for a couple years now,” Gibson says, “and I was thrilled Ushi, for instance, represents an up quark. She has a lot of to have a chance to participate in the Quarknet program at KU friends, doesn’t like to date and gets stressed out when she makes and work on testing electronics from the LHC. Because of my mistakes. Danny (a down quark) is laid back, independent and experiences working at KU this summer, I now know that I want a dreamer. to become a particle physicist.” There are videos and games starring the characters, and a section to help parents and teachers understand the science. he future of particle physics is bright. The Large Hadron “When we first started talking about this, we had a lot of TCollider began colliding beams of protons in March 2010, push-back from the educational community,” Bean says. switched to beams of lead nuclei in November, and data already “Elementary teachers are freaked out by particle physics.” taken is being studied for hidden mysteries. The plan is to run the That’s changing over time, Bean says, though there still are LHC at current energy levels through 2012 (allowing challenges in getting the physics lessons into for a two-month break in December and January). classrooms, especially considering many of The collider will then be shut down to fix a design the lessons aren’t included in national flaw, and in 2014 resume operations with double the science standards. beam energy, making possible a huge increase in the But Bean says many parents and teachers number of collisions recorded. use the Quarked! site to help teach about The possibility of a discovery is always there, other topics, such as size, scale, atoms and tantalizing us. And if something is found, KU will be electricity, which are included in typical well represented as physicists explore the quantum science curricula. Plus, two Quarked! frontier. presentations at the KU Natural History —Don Lincoln is a senior scientist at Fermi National Museum have been popular among teachers Accelerator Laboratory and an adjunct professor at the and children. University of Notre Dame. He collaborated with KU’s Bean hopes Quarked!, which gets 50,000 Phil Baringer in the discovery of the top quark, and he to 60,000 visitors a year, can inspire has written two books, including the recently released a new generation of children to want The Quantum Frontier: The Large Hadron Collider. Bean to be physicists. Her dream is to have an animated PBS show based on Quarked!, complete with action figures. CERN history “In the beginning, we had to sell people on the idea that Known worldwide as CERN, by the laboratory’s original elementary kids could learn the European laboratory’s name, which used French about particle physics,” she formal name is Organisation words for “council” rather than says. “Now, when they see the Européenne pour la Recherche “organization,” was retained site, there’s no question.” Nucléaire, or European after a name change, avoiding —Terry Rombeck Organization for Nuclear the awkward “OERN.” www.quarked.org Research. The acronym formed —Editors

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 37 Association

The Ritchies’ vision inspired Programming Fund, and they continued the Association’s dramatic to advocate for improved outreach. growth from 77 programs and When fellow volunteer Sue Watson, events annually to more than d’75, called Carol to help establish a new 500. Kevin Corbett, KU event, the Jayhawk Roundup, Carol Association president, says eagerly agreed to meet with Watson and “Carol and Scott were the true Lynn Loveland, who then worked for KU pioneers of building one of the Endowment part time in Wichita, to create most active and powerful a jeans-and-boots celebration that since alumni associations in the 2003 has attracted larger and younger nation.” crowds each year to the Murﬁn Stables on the eastern edge of Wichita. In 2005, under the leadership of new with many aspects of the president Kevin J. Corbett, c’88, the University. Association re-established formal alumni Carol joined the Associa- chapters throughout the state and, with tion’s national Board of the help of new staff members and Directors in 1993 and volunteers, began an all-out blitz to raise throughout her 11 years of KU’s visibility in every corner of Kansas. service she often reminded The Ritchies, of course, approved, and in fellow volunteers and staff 2006 they challenged the Association to do members of the need to even more by adding a pledge of $100,000, offer more vibrant pro- which they recently completed. grams for Wichita. With her Their total giving has helped the enthusiasm came determi- Association increase the number of annual nation. “Ever since we ﬁrst events from 77 to 500 annually. In had the Rock Chalk Ball in addition to the Roundup, the Wichita Kansas City in 1996, I wanted to have one alumni chapter now hosts Hall Center for Dedicated duo in Wichita,” she says. And she knew that the Humanities lectures, appearances by Jayhawk couple adds to support Wichita’s version would need to suit the the KU debate team, family picnics and community: “The formal event wouldn’t arts activities, along with the traditional for growing Association outreach work for us, especially for younger alumni. athletics events and the Kansas Honors We wanted to keep prices low so we could Program for high school seniors, which s Wichita Jayhawks, Scott, c’54, and attract younger graduates.” the Ritchies have supported for decades. ACarol Swanson Ritchie have long been Carol became national chair of the Visual reminders also increase aware- ringleaders for local KU events. “When we Association in 1999, and she stressed the ness of KU. “If you drive the state,” were newlyweds,” Carol, d’54, recalls, “we importance of recruiting members Corbett says, “you see Alumni Association would just get a list of alumni from the throughout Kansas. In 2001, the Ritchies billboards serving as evidence that active Alumni Association and start making donated $250,000 to the Association to alumni are helping to strengthen the value phone calls.” They kept handwritten create the Carol and Scott Ritchie Alumni of the KU degree.” rosters and tracked reservations on an adding machine. Through the years, the Ritchies expanded their KU involvement to keep “Carol and Scott had a vision of what local pace with their varied interests in geology, education and the arts. And as they programs could oer for alumni, and they never watched the Jayhawk community in wavered from that goal.” —Kevin Corbett, president Wichita grow, they yearned for more { varied local events that connected alumni }

38 | KANSAS A LUMNI Corbett credits the Ritchies’ wisdom and generosity as critical to the Association’s turnaround. “Scott and Carol had a vision PUPPE more than a decade ago to build stronger KU networks throughout Kansas and the nation,” he says, “and they never wavered STEVE from that goal.” The Ritchies also inspire other volunteers. Fellow Jayhawk Roundup founder Sue Watson eventually became a national Board member for the Association, serving as national chair from 2009 to 2010. Lynn Loveland now is the Association’s assistant director for Kansas Programs in Wichita. The Ritchies continue their involvement as Life Members and Presidents Club members of the Association and through KU Endowment, where Scott is a trustee and Carol advises Women Philanthropists for KU. Scott also serves on the board for the Spencer Museum of Art and as a benefactor and adviser to the KU geology department. The Association has honored both Ritchies for their service: Scott received the Fred Ellsworth Medallion in 2005 and Carol received the medallion in 2008. Resisting retirement, Scott continues as chairman of Ritchie There’s still time to sign up for the Gold Medal Reunion and Class of Exploration Inc. and maintains business interests in ranching. 1960 50-Year Reunion, April 28-May 1. They both volunteer for arts organizations, and Scott works to preserve the Tallgrass Prairie, the site of their beloved ranch, where they have hosted many KU events. The diehard Wichita Jayhawks are now just as devoted to the Flint Hills. “I love driving through Chase County with my KU license plate,” Carol says. “I Honor a Loyal just want people to know I’m a Jayhawk.” J AY HAW K NOW ACCEPTING NOMINATIONS FOR THE Job well done Fred Ellsworth Medallion Kansas Alumni and website win praise Since 1975 the Fred Ellsworth Medallion has among peers honored individuals “who have provided unique and signiﬁcant service to KU.” ssociation communications received honors in the annual ACouncil for Advancement and Support of Education District Fred Ellsworth Medallion recipients are VI awards, a competition that includes a honored by the Association in the fall and nine-state region. introduced during a home football game. The 2010 calendar received the gold award in special publications, and Kansas Alumni Past winners have been leaders in Kansas won the silver overall award among alumni higher education, members of University magazines. Individual accolades went to boards and committees, consultants for KU Associate Editor Chris Lazzarino and projects and donors to the University. Creative Director Susan Younger for their If someone you know has continually shared work on the magazine. “Love Story” (issue 3, time, talents and resources to beneﬁt KU, 2010) received a silver award in the feature writing category; submit a nomination today! “Antarctic Ice” (issue 1, 2010) and “Love Story” (issue 3, 2010) won for editorial design. To submit a nomination, contact the The Association’s website also placed among the best in the KU Alumni Association by March 31 at district, winning a bronze award. 800-584-5397 or visit www.kualumni.org.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 39 Association (4) MB ECK

O Jayhawk Tumble 2011

TERRY R TERRY he Southwest Kansas Chapter hosted its second Southwest TTumble Feb. 5, drawing 70 alumni and friends to the Baker Arts Center in Liberal. The event included a silent auction and dinner, along with entertainment by pianist John Frederick, a doctoral student in the KU School of Music. Presidents Club member Kevin Colvin, assoc., and Rocky Ormiston (left below) were among the Jayhawk faithful, along with Southwest Kansas stalwart and former chapter president Erick Nordling, c’79.

R OCK C HALK B ALL Join us for an evening of fun and revelry!

SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 2011

WWW.ROCKCHALKBALL.ORG

40 | KANSAS A LUMNI Everything we do strengthens KU. Your membership Life Members in the KU Alumni Association is the single most powerful way to make all of KU stronger, including the value of your own degree. The Association thanks these Jayhawks, who began their Life Scott R. Seyfarth, b’83, Hinsdale, memberships Jan. 1 through Feb. 28. For information, visit Board of Directors Illinois kualumni.org or call 800-584-2957. CHAIR Brenda Marzett Vann, c’71, g’72, Jay Howard, b’79, Austin, Texas Kansas City Richard D. Babcock Nathan A. McCa©rey Je L. Wolfe, b’83, Meridian, Ohio George H. Baldwin Jr. Brian A. McClendon CHAIR-ELECT Adam B. & Amy Sullivan Glen W. & Jane Pollock Je rey P. Briley, d’74, Overland Park Administrative Sta Balentine Meinershagen Les G. Begay Alan J. Meitl EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Kevin J. Corbett, c’88, President Matthew J. Bellinger & Joel R. & Andrea F. Mosher Je rey P. Briley, d’74, Overland Park Kathleen A. Carey Juan L. Munoz Howard E. Cohen, b’79, Leawood ALUMNI CENTER Chrissy Berling Cathrine C. Nodgaard Ray D. Evans, b’82, g’84, Leawood Timothy E. Brandt, b’74, Director of Arden E. Bicker Tim & Mary Pawlenty Sheri Welter Hauck, b’81, Arroyo Adams Alumni Center Grande, California John C. Burdett Jr. Catherine L. Powell Jay Howard, b’79, Austin, Texas Ace A. Cossairt Bill Reetz ALUMNI, STUDENT & Bradley G. Korell, l’97, Austin, Texas Linda R. Crain David P. Reinfelds MEMBERSHIP PROGRAMS Sue Shields Watson, d’75, Wichita Michael Davis, d’84, g’91, Senior Ronald O. Daly Jr. & Carolee S. Michael W. Riedel Vice President for Alumni, Student Daly Ben M. Robertson DIRECTORS TO 2011 and Membership Programs Chip S. Elliott Chad J. & Lindsay Putnam Je rey P. Briley, d’74, Overland Park Nikki Epley, Director of Reunion Brian C. Fassold Roesler Howard E. Cohen, b’79, Leawood Programs Sean P. Flynn Brian J. Rourke Jay Howard, b’79, Austin, Texas Heath Peterson, d’04, g’09, Steven C. Frazier & Elizabeth A. Sheryl K. Schamaun Bradley G. Korell, l’97, Austin, Texas Assistant Vice President for Leech Rae Sedgwick Curtis R. McClinton, Jr., d’62, Alumni and Student Programs Richard K. & Bethany K. Brett M. & Amalia Kokoruda Kansas City, Missouri Friesner Standard Winifred S. Pinet, c’80, g’82, COMMUNICATIONS Robert J. Friesner Lindsey K. Stinson Plymouth, Michigan David Johnston, j’94, g’06, Director Kenneth W. Fry Deanna Wallace Thomas of Internet Services and Marketing DIRECTORS TO 2012 Robert Fuladi Kyle L. Thompson Chris Lazzarino, j’86, Associate Paul “Bud” Burke, b’56, Lawrence Ryan S. Harms James A. & Joyce McKoon Editor, Kansas Alumni Magazine Ray D. Evans, b’82, g’84, Leawood Eric A. Hartenstein Trower Jennifer Sanner, j’81, Senior Vice Karen M. Humphreys, c’70, l’73, President for Communications and Erin Underwood Heidebrecht Chris S. Tschirhart Wichita Corporate Secretary Marshall E. Hollis James L. Unger James A. Trower, b’77, Salina Susan Younger, f’91, Creative Director Olivia N. Iway Eric M. Wiebe Michael F. Kennedy Steven E. & Jackie J. Wyman DIRECTORS TO 2013 DEVELOPMENT Craig C. Lang Carl J. Yaeger & Sheila A. Sheri Welter Hauck, b’81, Arroyo Ellen Chindamo, f’92 Delano E. Lewis Sr. & Gayle Everhart-Yaeger Grande, California Senior Development Director Jones Lewis Julia K. Young Je Kennedy, j’81, Wichita James E. Mason Henry Menghini, c’87, Pittsburg FINANCE Jodi Nachtigal, Controller Dwight Parman, Senior Vice DIRECTORS TO 2014 President for Finance and Human Douglas C. Miller, b’71, l’74, Resources and Treasurer Mission HIlls pecial thanks to Life Member Connie Debbie Foltz Nordling, d’79, Hugoton HOSPITALITYSERVICES SPatterson, f’92, who has created a Camille Bribiesca Platz, c’96, g’98, Bryan Greve, Senior Vice President ﬂock of wooden Jayhawks for the Dallas, Texas for Hospitality Records Association. She makes her Richard E. Putnam, c’77, l’80, Bill Green, Senior Vice President special birds out of wood and felt, Omaha, Nebraska for Information Services adding accessories and personal- Larry D. Stoppel, c’73, Washington Stefanie Shackelford, Vice President ity to boot. Catch a glimpse of these for Alumni Records fun feathered friends in Class Notes. DIRECTORS TO 2015 Paul L. Carttar, c’76, Lawrence

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 41 Class Notes by K aren Goodell Lawrence, where he and Linda Noland Aikins, ’82, make their home. Thomas Washburn, e’70, is executive vice president at Basin Tek in Houston. He lives in Cypress, Texas. David Richwine, c’65, owns 65 Richwine Consulting in Burke, Steve Angell, c’71, directs business Va. He’s a retired U.S. Marine Corps 71 development in North America for Leo Horacek, f’41, f’47, g’49, major general. ENVIRON, worldwide environmental 41 PhD’55, makes his home in Mor- services consultants. He lives in Glenview, gantown, W. Va., where he continues to Henry Brzyski, c’66, g’71, retired Ill. His son, Darren, is a KU law student. study, lecture and perform. 66 last year. He lives in Dennisville, Linda Hales, c’71, j’74, is collaborat- N.J. ing on a book about the Frederick Law Desmond Gibson, p’48, g’50, John Butler, PhD’66, is a professor of Olmsted-designed landscape at the U.S. 48 recently received an honorary microbiology at the University of Iowa in Capitol. She lives in Washington, D.C. alumnus award from the University of Iowa City. Nicholas LoBurgio, c’71, l’74, serves as Nebraska’s Medical Center College of Kent Huston, c’66, m’70, has a private an administrative law judge for the Social Pharmacy, where he served as dean from rheumatology practice at the Center for Security Administration. He lives in Little- 1961 to 1972. He lives in Lincoln. Rheumatic Disease in Kansas City. ton, Colo.

Robert McClintick, b’49, is retired Frank Janzen, c’68, g’05, recently Carol Ann Adams Brown, c’72, 49 in Indian Wells, Calif. 68 completed a year teaching English 72 makes her home in Alexandria, Va. in Yemen. He know lives in Mission. Richard Elliott, c’72, edited Runners on Marilyn Champion Booker, c’53, Running, which was published last fall by 53 practices physical therapy part time David Aikins, d’70, co-owns Human Kinetics Publishers. He lives in in Bolingbrook, Ill. 70 Lawrence Decorating Center in Winnetka, Ill. June DeVall Hartell Garcia, b’53, a retired teacher and marketing coordinator, makes her home in Merrield, Va.

Stewart Doty, g’55, wrote e Jour- 55 nal of Ann McMath: An Orphan in a New York Parsonage in the 1850s, which was published by SUNY Press. He lives in Albuquerque, N.M., and is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Maine.

Alan Forker, c’60, m’64, directs 60 outpatient lipid diabetes research at St. Luke’s Hospital’s MidAmerica Heart Institute and is a professor of medicine at UMKC. He lives in Leawood with Sharon Sue Stout Forker, c’59.

Norman Martin, m’62, recently 62 retired aer 40 years on the faculty at the KU Medical Center. He lives in Leawood.

Richard Young, g’64, recently 64 retired aer 15 years as president of Welch & Forbes. He lives in Arlington, Mass.

42 | KANSAS A LUMNI

rock chalk ﬂock

If your Jayhawk is ready to leave the nest for KU, let us Second Generations know! Your family’s legacy of KU students will be featured Please mail in your son or daughter’s resumé and in “Jayhawk Generations,” KU Alumni Association’s high school name. Please do not send student photo- annual salute to crimson-and-blue heritage. graphs for second-generation Jayhawks.

To be included, the student must: Third Generations and beyond • be a freshman in fall 2011 Mail in your son or daughter’s resumé, along with • have at least one parent who is an Alumni information detailing high-school activities. Please Association member provide information about your KU ancestors. Mail a • have at least one parent who attended KU photograph of the student and college-era photos of (that parent need not have graduated) parents who attended KU. Photos of grandparents should be sent for ﬁfth-generation students only. We will return all photos after the feature is published online in September 2011.

Deadline for all materials is July 15. Mail materials to Jayhawk Generations, KU Alumni Association, 1266 Oread Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66045-3169.

Questions? Contact Whitney Eriksen at 800-584-2957 or [email protected]. www.kualumni.org Robert Grabill, b’72, e’72, is president David Meredith, f’73, is retired in for the sixth year as one of the 50 Best and CEO of the Chief Executive Network 73 Lenexa. Running Stores in America by Running in Lawrence. Insight magazine. Susan Jordan, j’72, g’86, lives in Los Brenda Borron Taxeras, c’74, is a Richard Zimmerman, c’75, serves as Angeles, where she is retired. A screenplay 74 county extension agent at K-State pastor of the United Methodist Church in she wrote recently had a staged reading at Research and Extension in Lansing. She Burdett, where he lives. the Midwest Entertainment Connection. lives in Leavenworth. Marty Paulson Pope, c’72, g’76, Michael Bradley, e’77, is CEO of works as a medical billing/coding Jonell Farver Schenk, s’75, s’76, is a 77 Regency Energy Partners in Dallas. specialist at Infectious Disease 75 social worker at Continua Hospice Bruce Mallonee, c’77, l’80, recently Consultants in Wichita. in Kansas City. became of a judge of the district court of Patrick Williams, c’72, is president and Don Nottberg, c’75, and his wife, Leslie Maine. He and LeeAnne Plumb Mallonee, founder of the Institute for Life Coach Goldstein Nottberg, ’75, live in Overland d’77, g’80, live in Bangor. Training in Palm Coast, Fla. Park, where they own Elite Feet, named Julie Johnson Montague, j’77, owns

by C hris Lazzarino

PROFILE EINLET ST SY G RANSY URTE Final Kodachrome ﬁlm lm’s last lab, agreed processing would CO end Dec. 30, 2010. As deadline neared, the rolls out from Parsons lab surge began. Daily deliveries were stacked every- t was Kodak, not Mama, who took where. Professional photographers ew in IKodachrome away—the nice bright from as far away as London to hand over colors, the greens of summers—and the their nal rolls of Kodachrome. An iconic ﬁlm’s departure hardly made Arkansas railroad bu hauled in more anyone at Dwayne’s Photo think all the than 1,500 rolls of train pics he’d never world’s a sunny day. gotten around to developing. In fact, processing requests deluged the e numbing run of 12-hour days world’s last remaining Kodachrome lab, ended Jan. 18; the nal roll was images Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, run by vice of family and friends taken by founder president of operations Grant Steinle, c’84, Dwayne Steinle. g’86. e rush more than cured weary “And that,” Grant Steinle says, “was Grant Steinle and his daughter, Megan, stand employees of a nostalgic reverie that had the end of Kodachrome.” near the world’s last Kodachrome machine on swept up photographers and news outlets Steinle came to the family business the last day of its operation, wearing Dwayne’s worldwide. with a background in computer science now-collectible T-shirts. The image is from the “It’s been a wild ride, and we tried to and business management. Aer a few penultimate roll of processed Kodachrome. have fun with it along the way,” Steinle years selling corporate computers in says, “but we were tired, and happy to have Topeka, Steinle returned to Parsons it done.” when his father moved the lab toward Kodak closed its last Kodachrome lab in specialty processing—such as color wedding photographers and other 2007, leaving the job to independents such slides and black-and-white lm that professionals. Plus, they have one last bit as Dwayne’s Photo, and two years later huge retail outlets didn’t want to handle. of Kodachrome business to tend to: a announced plans to discontinue both the Together they secured accounts with commemorative T-shirt whose initial run lm, an instant hit aer its 1935 debut as the likes of Walmart and Walgreens, and in of 200, intended as a keepsake for the the rst reliable color lm, and its process- the early 1990s added Kodachrome Dwayne’s crew, has since reached world- ing chemicals. (Kodachrome had no processing. wide sales of 3,000 and counting. embedded dye, as do all other color lms, Digital photography is changing, not “New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, making the developers so complex a ending, the family business. e Steinles China, Israel, you name it,” Steinle says chemist had to supervise each batch.) launched Meridian Professional Imaging with a laugh. “So I guess we’re in the Kodak and Dwayne’s Photo, by then the to process digital les into prints for T-shirt business now, too.”

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 45 Class Notes

Montague Design & Interiors in Mesa, program director for the Veterans Health Tracy Ashlock Barton, d’83, directs Ariz. Administration in Topeka. 83 marketing for TRS Group Inc. in Lake Oswego, Ore. Thomas Marshall, e’78, recently John Jackson, c’80, manages Stephen Flood, j’83, directs dealer 78 marked his 20-year anniversary 80 programs for the International development for Hyundai Motor America. with Elm Street Development, a residen- Business Machines Corp. in Austin, Texas, He and Sharon Bodin Flood, j’86, c’87, tial development rm in Maryland and where he and Lisa Edmund Jackson, p’82, g’87, live in Trabuco Canyon, Calif. Virginia. He lives in Laytonsville, Md. make their home. Lori Clintsman Joseph, j’83, is vice John Nachbar, c’78, g’80, is city man- president of marketing and communi- ager of Culver City, Calif. Keri Fitzpatrick, c’81, coordinates cations for the National Association of Trish Rose, l’78, serves as Reno County 81 juvenile standards for the state of Intercollegiate Athletics in Kansas City. Division 1 district judge. She lives in Colorado and is a criminal justice consul- She lives in Olathe. Hutchinson. tant trainer for the Northpointe Institute James Slough, p’83, co-owns Free State Gerald Seib, j’78, leads the combined for Public Management. She and her hus- Glass in Lawrence. newswires and journal teams at the Wall band, Bruce Durbin, live in Denver. Brig. Gen. Charles Taylor, c’83, serves Street Journal in Washington, D.C. He Charlie Podrebarac, ’81, an illustrator as assistant division commander of the lives in Chevy Chase, Md. for Art To Go, draws a daily comic strip, 2nd Infantry Division in Korea. Cowtown, that runs on GoComics.com, Mark Copeland, b’79, manages IT and is a freelance contributor to Kansas MARRIED 79 operations and support for the Air Alumni. He lives in Westwood. Linda Wilson, b’83, to Keith Stokes, Evac Lifeteam in West Plains, Mo. He lives Oct. 23 in Lenexa, where Linda is business in Wauconda, Ill. Mark Hamrick, ’82, recently was administrator at Lenexa United Methodist Leonard Sophrin, a’79, a’83, is presi- 82 elected president of the National Church. dent of Leonard Sophrin Architect Inc. in Press Club. He’s business editor of Associ- Wilmington, Del. ated Press Broadcast in Washington, D.C., Christopher Tucker, p’79, is national and he lives in Potomac, Md.

46 | KANSAS A LUMNI

Class Notes

Richard Baumeister Jr., b’84, is Woodland Hills, Calif. Paul Winslow, f’86, works as a consult- 84 managing partner of Sanford, Barbara Stovalal Torgerson, b’85, s’07, ing sales specialist with the International Baumeister & Frazier in Fort Worth, is a therapist at Bert Nash Community Business Machines Corp. He lives in Texas. He lives in Weatherford with his Mental Health Center in Lawrence, where Arlington, Va. wife, Allyson. she and her husband, Eric, e’86, make their Evan Wooton, b’86, is chief operating Steve Bausch, e’84, lives in Denver, home. He manages corporate lease audits ocer for the Hilb Group in Glen Allen, where he’s a senior acquisitions engineer for Payless ShoeSource. Va. He lives in Henrico. for Williams Production. Bonar Menninger, j’84, wrote And Kelly Allender, c’86, is assistant Brett Murphy, c’87, j’88, is digital Hell Followed With It: Life and Death in a 86 manager of FlightSafety Interna- 87 product director for CL Inc. He Kansas Tornado, which was published last tional in Wichita. lives in Chicago. year by Emerald Book Co. He and Ann Kristy Lantz Astry, j’86, works as a Cain Menninger, ’83, make their home in technical writer for Vestas Technology Countryside. R&D Americas in Louisville, Colo. Christine Davis, b’86, g’87, is vice presi- Tom Flood, j’85, is general sales dent of treasury and tax management for 85 manager at Lexus of Richmond. He Endo Pharmaceuticals in Chadds Ford, Pa. lives in Midlothian, Va. She lives in Newtown Square. Katherine Glaude-Bolte, c’85, works John Shaw, c’86, m’93, and his wife, Perry Franklin, l’88, works as an as a gied-resource teacher at Rockwood Letty, live in Hutchinson with their chil- 88 attorney adviser for the Social South Middle School in Fenton, Mo. dren, Molly, 8, Emily, 6, and Ian, 1. John is Security Administration. He lives in Robert Merritt, j’85, owns Merritt a general surgeon at Hutchinson Clinic. Park City. Wines in Downes Grove, Ill. Mark Weis, c’86, m’91, is lead civil- Carrie McAdam, p’88, is a research Gina Thornburg, j’85, c’85, edits ian primary care physician with the U.S. assistant professor in the University copy for the Journal of Rural and Army’s RESPECT-Mil program. He lives of Utah’s college of pharmacy in Salt Community Development. She lives in in Silver Spring, Md. Lake City, where she lives.

48 | KANSAS A LUMNI Lori Betts-Harrison, c’89, owns Anne Joseph Walsh, h’89, works as a MARRIED 89 First Place in Wichita. senior physician assistant at Hertz & Asso- Patricia Kensinger, j’90, g’92, to Brian Frank Housh, c’89, practices law in Buf- ciates in gastroenterology and as interim Rice, Oct. 9 in Lawrence. eir home is in falo, N.Y. program director of the Keck School of Overland Park. Carol Kleweno, c’89, manages eld Medicine at the University of Southern accounts for Bimbo Bakeries in Kansas California’s Primary Care Physician Assis- Kimberly O’Neal Hertach, b’91, is City. She lives in Lenexa. tant Program. She lives in Westminster. 91 a management information analyst David Owen, d’89, is general sales man- in the Douglas County Sheri’s Oce. ager of Enterprise Fleet Management in Douglas McLeod, l’90, is Maui She and her husband, Justin, ’00, live in Centennial, Colo. He lives in Littleton. 90 County energy commissioner. He Lawrence. Lori Ingram Stussie, d’89, g’92, works lives in Makawao, Hawaii. Michael O’Connor, c’91, is district as a counselor at Lawrence High School Maj. Gen. Gary Patton, g’90, was pro- director of the Mid Iowa Council of in Lawrence, where she and her husband, moted to major general in the U.S. Army. the Boy Scouts of America. He lives in Lawrence, c’90, make their home. He serves in Afghanistan. Ankeny.

PROFILE by Jennifer Jackson S anner CK LEY RD BU GER A SY

Jayhawk leads national URTE

NTID also includes one of the nation’s CO institute for deaf most extensive training programs in American Sign Language interpreting and hen Gerard Buckley took his captioning. And Buckley, EdD’90, is the Wdriving test as a St. Louis high first NTID alumnus to lead the school as school student, he came away with much president. After 20 years as a faculty more than his license. The instructor also member and administrator, Buckley on steered him in the right direction for Jan. 1 became president; he also is a vice college. president and a dean of RIT, a campus of As a deaf student, Buckley attended 17,000 students. More than 1,500 students mainstream elementary and secondary are enrolled in NTID. As president, Buckley wants to continue NTID’s schools, but in the early 1970s his options After earning his NTID degree in social successful co-op program, which matches for college were limited. “I could pursue a work, Buckley returned home to Missouri students with businesses to gain work mainstream education and ‘read my way’ for a master’s degree in social work before experience. More than 90 percent of NTID through college, or I could look for a choosing KU for his doctoral work in alumni find jobs within one year after college for deaf and hard-of-hearing special education. “Social workers are graduation. students,” he recalls. Luckily, the driving trained to empower their clients, and the instructor, whose brother was deaf, told most potent form of empowerment that I Buckley about the National Technical have witnessed is when individuals are the spectrum. American Sign Language Institute for the Deaf (NTID), which in educated and become self-advocates,” classes are filled to capacity with hundreds 1968 had begun “experimental” programs he says. of hearing students, and the school at the Rochester Institute of Technology Through the years, Buckley has wit- provides services to more than 300 deaf (RIT) in New York as part of an initiative nessed many changes in deaf education, students who use cochlear implants. led by President Lyndon Johnson. “I was including the growing presence of deaf Buckley uses the cochlear device, which fascinated by the opportunity to be part of students in mainstream classrooms, the he describes as a wonderful tool, but he a new national program designed to meet increased acceptance of American Sign cautions that spoken language still can be the educational needs of deaf students in a Language, and a larger number of deaf difficult for cochlear users. “Deafness will mainstream setting,” Buckley says. “Back students who have other disabilities. In remain a part of their identity,” he says. in the early 1970s this was still a dream.” addition, medical and technological Collaboration among diverse students Three decades later, NTID’s experiment devices have expanded the communica- enriches the campus, says Buckley: “Our has become a thriving community that tion choices for deaf students and their community rocks. The bold experiment of incorporates deaf, hard-of-hearing and hearing classmates, and NTID prides itself President Johnson’s Great Society has hearing students in numerous fields. on meeting communication needs across proven itself a noble success story.”

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 49

Christopher Palmer, c’91, works as a Matthew Otto, b’92, is an account Paul Broughton, b’95, is assistant commercial real estate and business broker executive with Key Information Systems in 95 portfolio manager for Forward for Kansas Commercial Real Estate Ser- Woodland Hills, Calif. He lives in Agoura Management. He lives in Walnut Creek, vices in Topeka. Hills. Calif. Amy Timmerman, c’92, directs market- Cynthia Bryant, l’95, recently was ing at Winchester Savings Bank in Boston. named senior legal adviser for the Federal Communications Commission’s Con- Andrew Hodges, j’93, l’96, is sumer & Governmental Aairs Bureau BORN TO: 93 assistant solicitor in the 8th Circuit in Washington, D.C. She lives in Chevy Michael, c’91, and Jennifer Lasky Solicitor’s Oce in Greenwood, S.C., Chase, Md. Dalke, j’92, daughter, Allison Elise, Oct. 19 where he and Dawn Puderbaugh Hodges, John Leifer, c’95, is chief of marketing in Frisco, Texas, where she joins a sister, s’92, s’96, l’96, make their home. and innovation for the St. Luke’s Health Madeline, 9, and a brother, Benjamin, 6. Denise Margalski Northrup, c’93, is System in Kansas City. He and Jo Ann chief of sta for Oklahoma Gov. Mary Marinelli Leifer, j’69, live in Shawnee. Gregory Ballew, c’92, l’95, is a Fallin. She makes her home in Oklahoma Je©rey Nichols, c’95, l’99, is a partner 92 partner in the Kansas City law rm City. and shareholder in the Overland Park law of Fisher & Phillips. Rachelle Luther Grace, d’94, rm of Wallace, Saunders, Austin, Brown Jason Bryan, c’92, serves as a sergeant 94 teaches language arts and chairs & Enochs. He lives in Lenexa. in the West Des Moines Police Depart- the English department at McAllen ment. He lives in West Des Moines, Iowa. Memorial High School in McAllen, Texas. Joseph Hemmer, b’96, is chief Julie Novak Curtin, j’92, is a partner in She lives in Edinburg. 96 nancial ocer for the Solomon Development Counsellors International. Katherine Korte, j’94, manages market- Corp. He lives in Salina. She and her husband, Steven, ’89, live in ing communications for AT&T in Dallas. Guy Kaulukukui, PhD’96, was Aurora, Colo. Lee Schwartz, l’94, and his wife, Kris- named deputy director of the Hawaii Michelle Cereghetti Neal, c’92, owns tin, celebrated their rst anniversary Feb. Department of Land and Natural mybiogime.com, a skincare company. She 17. ey make their home in Chicago, Resources. He lives in Volcano. lives in Glendale, Ariz. where Lee works in human resources. Christina Kulp, c’96, works as a sciences

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 51 Class Notes librarian at the University of Oklahoma in MARRIED development for Vedder Price in Chicago, Norman, where she lives. Daniel Philipps, b’97, to Athena Ken- where she lives. Sarah Hendrix Mahlik, c’96, is an nedy, Aug. 28. ey live in Seattle, where Lynley Budinas, c’99, m’06, and emergency management program he’s a business analyst and she’s an envi- 99 Richard Holman, April 20. ey specialist for the Federal Emergency ronmental and energy law attorney. live in Junction City, where Lynley is an Management Agency. She lives OB-GYN. in Seattle. BORN TO: Kendee Wyer Schroeder, c’99, directs Derek Moscato, g’96, directs market- Matthew, c’97, and Arwen Dickey the Inman Wellness Center in Inman, ing and communications at Siemen Fraser Moore, g’01, son, Jackson Ryan, June 2 where she and her husband, Dennan, c’99, University. He lives in North Vancouver, in Overland Park. Matthew works for the make their home. He’s vice president of British Columbia. Cerner Corp., and Arwen manages cor- Farmers National Bank. Robert Rodriguez, g’96, PhD’06, porate nance for Associated Wholesale Paul Voiles, e’99, received the Daniel is an assistant professor of political Grocers. W. Mead Prize for Younger Members from science at Texas A&M University in Stephanie Spratt Schmidt, d’97, m’05, the American Society of Civil Engineers. Commerce. and Kenneth, c’03, daughter, Alexandra He is project manager at Brown & Gay Andrew Wickless, c’96, b’96, is Carrigan, Sept. 29 in Lawrence, where Engineers in Houston, where he and Lisa associate director of Navigant in Stephanie is a sta anesthesiologist at Bessinger Voiles, e’01, make their home. Boulder, Colo. Lawrence Anesthesia Associates. James Zimmerman, c’96, manages Jill Sullivan Drucker, c’00, is a programs for Battelle Memorial Institute Catherine Hogan, j’98, coordinates 00 researcher at the Virginia Com- in Columbus, Ohio. He lives in Canal 98 marketing and events for Hilton monwealth University medical school, and Winchester. Worldwide in Dallas. her husband, Capt. Charles Drucker, c’01, Jesse McGrath, a’98, works as a serves on the U.S. Army’s military transi- Donald Wacker, e’97, is an engineer consultant for @Properties-Lakeview in tion team. ey live in Richmond. 97 for the U.S. government. His home Chicago. Frederick Patton, l’00, practices law is in New Market, Ala. Erin Veazey, j’98, directs business in Topeka, where he also owns Topeka Escrow Service. Sarah Starr, j’00, manages Deloitte Consulting in Washington, D.C. She lives in Arlington, Va.

MARRIED Fermin Santos, c’00, m’05, and Melissa Hooks, c’04, Sept. 4 in Kansas City. He practices at the Dickson-Diveley Midwest Orthopaedic Clinic, and she works at Children’s Mercy Hospital.

BORN TO: Denise Birkholz, c’00, and Martin Lech- olat, son, Alexander Finn, July 16 in Lolo, Mont., where he joins a sister, Avery, 4.

Richard Christy, e’01, works as 01 an assistant area engineer for the Colorado Department of Transportation. He lives in Longmont.

MARRIED Carrie Chasteen, n’01, to Jean- Phillipe Huguet, May 28 in Sceaux, France. ey live in New York City, where Carrie works for Pzer, and Jean- Philippe works for HSBC Bank.

52 | KANSAS A LUMNI Joshua Fry, c’01, and Leena Phadke, sor at Northern Kentucky University. dentistry at Frankenbery and Johnson l’07, May 22 in Lawrence. ey live in Wichita. in Kansas City, where Leena is an BORN TO: Clinton Kabler, d’02, does marketing attorney with the Social Security Brendon Allen, c’01, and Peony, consulting for Gym Technik. He lives in Administration. daughter, Larissa Bailie, Sept. 4 in Law- Vancouver, British Columbia. Karen Hahn, j’01, to Jerey Otto, Sept. rence. Brendon is senior global support Michael Longhofer, g’02, works as an 18 in Kansas City. She works for the manager for Motorola, and Peony is a athletics trainer at Kansas Orthopedics American Academy of Family program assistant at KU’s Center for and Sports Medicine in Topeka. Physicians, and he works for American Research on Learning. Robert Warren, c’02, owns PPW Con- Century Investments. ey live in sulting in Leawood. Prairie Village. Roger Boatwright, m’02, practices Andrea Lambert, c’01, to Mark South, 02 medicine with York OB-GYN MARRIED Oct. 9 in Kansas City. ey live in High- Specialists in York, Pa. Melissa Reinhard, c’02, to Chad Grif- land Heights, Ky., and Andrea is a profes- Michael Johnson, c’02, practices th, Dec. 18 in Dallas, where they live. PPE PROFILE by Tom K ing EVE PU ST

Nelson knows where (hereafter, WLT). In the early days, the the big things are museum operated out of a brightly decorated Ford ou might not be surprised to encoun- Econoline 350 van, and Yter the World’s Largest Pineapple in later a refurbished book- Hawaii, or the World’s Largest Baked mobile, both of which were Potato in Idaho, but where would you also Nelson’s home. In expect to find the World’s Largest Lava 2007 she incorporated her Lamp? Icosahedron? Detached arm? traveling attraction and Cuckoo clock? (See below for answers.) based it in Lucas, in a Erika Nelson, g’01, who titled her MFA house she bought for “less After retiring her original Mobile Museum to display at her home thesis “Driving Around Looking at Big than the price of a used in Lucas, Erika Nelson travels the country in her “Daily Driver Art Things While Thinking About Spam,” car.” Now she travels with Car,” festooned with fanciful drawings and plastic toys, with a pair found her calling in knowing what’s a sideshow tent, setting up of spring horses galloping along in the truck bed. big where. and breaking down each “I study outsider art,” she says, “and exhibition, and the van iconic roadside vernacular architecture stays in Lucas. producer at Conan O’Brien’s new show known as ‘World’s Largest Things.’” While the kitsch appeal is undeniable, did a Google search for “world’s largest.” Nelson is a hunter and gatherer of Nelson takes a broader view of the World’s WLT was on the first page of results, which outsized, offbeat public art: the water Largest Things. She sees them as commu- landed Nelson, and the World’s Largest tower transformed into a gigantic ketchup nity emblems and economic engines, Cow Hairball, on Conan’s couch. Back in bottle (Collinsville, Ill.), the massive boll attracting tourist dollars to small towns on Lucas, a TV was hauled into the theatre so weevil (Enterprise, Ala.), the monstrous the brink of extinction. locals could watch together. “They say the cootie (Lakeville, Minn.), the hyperbolical “I find that people who discover these crowd went wild when Conan addressed pecan (Sequin, Texas) and the colossal roadside attractions feel personally them directly,” Nelson says. “It was the best skillet (to which several states lay claim). attached to them,” she says. “World’s payoff of the whole event.” Once Nelson visits and authenticates a Largest Things are generally not made for —King is a Lawrence freelance writer. World’s Largest Thing, she recreates it in art, but out of love for the community. miniature and displays the model in her They are made to tell a story. They are Answers: Lava Lamp, Soap Lake, Wash.; traveling museum, the “World’s Largest made to leave a mark.” Icosahedron, Lexington, Mass.; Detached Collection of the World’s Smallest Nelson’s attention to Internet metrics Arm, Rumford, Maine.; Cuckoo clock, Versions of the World’s Largest Things” paid off handsomely last summer when a Wilmot, Ohio.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 53 Class Notes

She’s a law student at Texas Wesleyan Christopher Larsen, m’03, to Allison son, 11; Ike, 7; and Harrison, 2. Brian is an University, and he works at Hunt Oil. Lewis, June 26 in Lawrence. ey live in OB-GYN at the Women’s Health Center of Fairway. Southern Oregon. BORN TO: Brent Larson, e’03, and Sarah Mar- Michael, c’04, and Emily Peterson Dulcinea King Rakestraw, s’02, and quart, ’11, Oct. 2 in Kansas City. He works Dalbom, c’04, j’04, daughter, Madelyn Dallas, c’03, l’06, daughter, Brynn Marie, for Burns & McDonnell, and she works for Grace, Oct. 15 in Olathe. Michael is a Aug. 11 in Wichita, where she joins a the Christian Foundation for Children and territory consultant for Cardinal Health, brother, atcher, 2. Aging. and Emily is a corporate event manager at Marsha Schmitt, s’03, to Casey Fulton, Sprint. Zachary Dyer, b’03, g’05, l’07, Oct. 9 in Topeka, where they live. 03 recently became an associate at Daniel Gibb, l’05, practices law Polsinelli Shughart in Kansas City. John Harty, g’04, works as a refer- 05 with SNR Denton in Kansas City. Tina Tsinigine Hatathli, g’03, is a sta 04 ence librarian at the Miami-Dade He lives in Lawrence. attorney for the Tuba City Judicial District County Public Library. He lives in Miami. Roxanne Longenecker Kos, c’05, is a in Tuba City, Ariz. James Menge, ’04, owns JKAM Hood senior systems analyst for Randstad Pro- Shalini Shanker, c’03, l’06, is assistant Service. He lives in Topeka. fessionals. She lives in Alpharetta, Ga. athletics director for compliance at Colo- Benjamin Robbins, b’04, is president of Adam Meile, e’05, is a telecom design rado State University in Fort Collins. Robbins Acquisitions in Tonganoxie. He engineer for Sprint Nextel. He lives in Jason Shumaker, d’03, lives in Omaha, lives in Mission. Olathe. Neb., and is oensive coordinator and Diane Covington Shideler, g’04, owns Nathan Tritsch, g’05, works as a struc- associate head football coach at Midland Train with Diane in Littleton, Colo. tural engineer with Burns & McDonnell. University. John Shoemaker, c’04, directs product His home is in Overland Park. David Tarverdi, e’03, g’06, is a senior management for UBS AG in Zurich, Swit- Chelsea Demars Young, a’05, is a trans- engineer at Nilco. He lives in Sugar Land, zerland. He and Kelli Springs Shoemaker, portation planner for the Houston-Galves- Texas. assoc., have a home in Olathe. ton Area Council. She and her husband, Amy Wong-Thai, c’03, is a cytotechnol- Bryan, b’06, live in Houston. ogist at Veracyte in San Francisco, where MARRIED her husband, Binh, e’02, is a bio process Jacob Albers, e’04, b’05, to Andrea MARRIED engineer at Genentech. ey live in San Rails, j’07, Nov. 19 in Kansas City, where Sarah Parkinson, c’05, g’j07, to Mat- Mateo. they live. He’s lead mechanical engineer thew Forshee, Sept. 11 in Overland Park. Daniel Zmijewski, l’03, recently at Kiewit Power Engineers, where she’s a eir home is in Manhattan. joined the Kansas City law rm of Miller marketing coordinating specialist. Heather Pilshaw, c’05, to Anthony Schirger. Cara Herbison, d’04, g’09, and Ian Ruggles, July 3 in Shawnee Mission. She Ramirez, a’05, g’07, July 17 in San Antonio. owns Brooklyn Willow Design, and he MARRIED She teaches third grade at Arbor Creek works for Heubel Material Handling. eir Tanner Brownrigg, c’03, to Kara Bowen, Elementary School, and he’s a geographic home is in Lawrence. Oct. 30 in Kansas City. He is an anesthesi- information systems analyst at Spatial ology resident at UMKC, and she’s a nurse Data Research in Lawrence. ey live in BORN TO: at St. Luke’s Hospital. ey live in Over- Olathe. Kristen Prosser Walker, c’05, and Rick, land Park. Jenny McKee, d’04, g’j06, and Jack son, Gunner Clark, Oct. 20 in Lawrence. Jason Charay, b’03, to Justis Cook, Sept. Donham, ’07, Oct. 9 in Lawrence, where Kristen is an advertising specialist at the 5 in Excelsior Springs, Mo. ey live in Jenny works as a coordinator at KU’s Stu- Lawrence Journal-World, and Rick works Orange County, Calif. dent Health Service Administration. for Kansas City Power and Light. Laura Gold, ’03, to Luke Zeleznak, e’04, Kari Zimmerman, j’04, and Benjamin June 27 in Schaumburg, Ill. eir home is Cohen, c’06, Oct. 9 in Kansas City, where Amy Alfredson, j’06, is assistant in Peoria, Ariz. she’s a project analyst at Service Manage- 06 director of alumni relations for Amber Huntzinger, j’03, to Jeery ment Group. Ben co-owns New School the Northern Illinois University Alumni Randel, Aug. 28 in Riviera Maya, Mexico. Catering in Lawrence. ey live in Roe- Association. She lives in St. Charles. She works for the American Academy of land Park. Je©rey Christy, j’06, works as an Family Physicians in Fairway, account executive for Cox Media. His and he works for GSR BORN TO: home is in Wichita. Construction in Brian Cobb, m’04, and Jo Ellen, son, Lissa Kivisto, ’06, owns Gallery KH in Lawrence. ey live Lincoln Benny, Aug. 13 in Grants Pass, Chicago. in Mission. Ore., where he joins three brothers, Jack- Emily Reimer, b’06, is an associate

54 | KANSAS A LUMNI ISSUE 2, 2011 | 55

buyer for Ballard Designs. She lives in Shipley, j’07, June 19 in Lawrence, where Grumman at Fort Leavenworth, and she’s Atlanta. they live. He’s a paramedic for Johnson an occupational therapist at Research Joey Richmeier, b’06, works as a consul- County Med-Act, and she studies Medical Center. ey live in Overland tant for Deloitte Consulting. He lives in law at KU. Park. Arlington, Va. Brooke Goetz, c’06, j’06, to Greg Katherine Wells, j’06, to James Stephen Sicinski, g’06, serves as a colo- Moore, Nov. 20 in Kansas City. ey live Booth Jr., July 31 in Lawrence. eir nel in the U.S. Army in Fort Bragg, N.C. in Kingman. home is in Littleton, Colo. Alexis Bannwarth Zayas, c’06, j’06, Chad Philhour, a’06, and Amanda Na©, l’09, is an attorney adviser for the f’06, Aug. 21 in Kansas City, where they Brooke Budke, j’07, c’07, is a senior U.S. Department of Labor. She makes both work at TK Architects. She’s an inte- 07 copy editor at Silpada Designs. She her home in Arlington, Va. rior designer, and he’s an architect. lives in Olathe. Scott Unger, ’06, and Jenny Wilson, Mark Cagle, e’07, works as an analog MARRIED h’08, g’10, Oct. 16 in Leawood. He’s a engineer for ales ATM. He lives in Benjamin Gleeson, c’06, and Kate simulations systems engineer at Northrop Kansas City.

PROFILE by W hitney E riksen CK RK HAM RI MA SY

documentary on the farm URTE Former KANU reporter CO economy. Both won leads National Press Club nationally and the young journalist received a ark Hamrick’s last trip to Lawrence congratulatory telegram Mwas a pilgrimage in the late ’80s to from Paul Harvey. He had show his new Northeastern wife his entered the world of Kansas roots. But in all this time as an professional journalism. expatriate, those roots were not forgotten. Before he could com- On Kansas Day, Hamrick, ’82, was plete his KU degree, he got inaugurated as the 104th president of the an offer he couldn’t refuse Hamrick (right) invited Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke National Press Club. In a tribute to his from a public radio station as his first guest at the press club, continuing the tradition of upbringing, the Washington, D.C., event in Buffalo, N.Y., and he high-profile speakers. When then-Sen. Barack Obama and featured a keynote address from noted began as anchor. In 1986 George Clooney visited in 2006 to discuss Darfur’s refugee crisis, newscaster and Hamrick’s hero, Bill Kurtis, he joined the AP in radio, Hamrick says, it was tough to pinpoint which guest caused more j’62. Other Kansas bigwigs and President and his career evolved to excitement: “Dierent people had dierent answers.” Obama offered their congratulations. include online video Hamrick began his one-year term in the production. company of his wife and son; colleagues Hamrick now brings his Midwestern formed a diversity committee and from the Associated Press, where he has mindset and years of experience to the addressed plans to use more social worked in broadcast for 25 years; and National Press Club. As a longtime networking—steps that reflect journal- former journalism professors who business reporter, he knows the impor- ism’s changing environment. mentored him at KU. “It was one of the tance of a sustainable finance model for With empathy for journalists around the happiest evenings of my life,” he says. the 104-year-old club and its 3,500 country and abroad, Hamrick hopes to A Coffeyville native, Hamrick worked members. provide relevant training for members and his way through college writing radio The club offers professional journalism make the club’s voice heard on press packages for the public station KANU and training and hosts high-profile luncheon freedom issues. student-run KJHK. During his sophomore speakers, a program that began when FDR And, of course, he dutifully will follow year, a professor encouraged him to enter was president. Hamrick’s first guest was March Madness. “My son [a Villanova a competition held by the Society of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. freshman] and I are jockeying for position Professional Journalists. Hamrick sent “We were really strong off the starting of whose basketball team will do better in stories that ran on KANU: a spot about a block,” he says. the postseason.” Relevant and newsworthy, gas explosion south of Lawrence and a In his first month as president, he also indeed.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 57 Class Notes

Andrea Wolf, c’07, is a physician at Dale Willey Automotive. Jesse Trimble, j’09, and Andrew Kratz, assistant at the KU Medical Center in Denise Kunze, g’08, to Jordan Farmer, ’10, Oct. 9 in Louisburg. She works at the Kansas City. Oct. 2 in KU’s Danforth Chapel. She’s a Miami County Republic in Paola, where graduation adviser at KU, and he’s an auto- they live, and he works for Beckman- motive technician at Ed Bozarth Chevro- Coulter. let. ey live in Lawrence. BORN TO: BORN TO: Ben, d’09, and Michelle Khan Engle, Mark, c’08, and Emily Bogard Boede- c’10, daughter, Brenna Blake, Nov. 9 in MARRIED ker, f’08, daughter, Adelaide Jean, Oct. 4 Lawrence. Kelly Galloway, n’07, and Brian in Lawrence, where Mark and Emily are Melissa Denny Sindt, g’09, and Huntington, b’08, Oct. 16 in Leawood. managers at Applebee’s. Leland, daughter, Ella Suzanne, Aug. 2 in She’s a pediatric nurse at Children’s Mercy Joseph Bradley, m’08, and Abbie, Lenexa. Melissa is a physical therapist at Hospital, and he’s a senior business analyst daughter, Ainsley Olivia, Sept. 14 in Mid-America Rehabilitation Hospital in with the Cerner Corp. ey live in St. Louis, where Joseph is a resident at Leawood. Prairie Village. Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Alison Lomas, b’07, and Robert Jill Aspleaf, c’10, coordinates Figueira, f’09, c’09, Aug. 15 in Lawrence. Abigail Cunningham, j’09, recently 10 appraisals for Nations Holding. She She works for Systems Material Handling 09 was promoted to external market- lives in Overland Park. in Olathe, and he studies for a master’s of ing coordinator for Newcomer Funeral Jacob Cornett, g’10, is a research ana- ne arts in lighting design at the Carn- Service in Topeka. lyst for SRI International’s policy division. egie Mellon University School of Drama Kyle Flinn, d’09, manages rehabilitation He lives in Washington, D.C. in Pittsburgh, Pa. ey divide their time services at St. Louis Physical erapy. He between Lawrence and Pittsburgh. lives in Columbia, Ill. Caroline Williams, c’07, to Clay Stuart Hembree, e’09, is an objective School Codes Letters that follow names Turner, Oct. 2 in Tonganoxie. She’s a rst engineer and subjective performance indicate the school from which alumni earned lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, and he’s evaluator for Continental Tire. He lives in degrees. Numbers show their class years. a major in the U.S. Army. ey live in Uvalde, Texas. Alexandria, Va. Joy Lawson, c’09, manages advanced a School of Architecture, leadership and alumni programs for YP4. Design and Planning Kesa Swadley Herlihy, n’08, She lives in Lanham Seabrook, Md. b School of Business 08 lectures at the Beth El College of Joseph Pattison, e’09, is a civil engi- c College of Liberal Arts Nursing. She lives in Colorado Springs, neer with Burns & McDonnell. He lives in and Sciences Colo. Overland Park. d School of Education Kristin Howard, b’08, coordinates Nathan Pirie, b’09, works as a senior e School of Engineering celebrations for Hallmark Cards in Kansas nancial analyst for Blue Cross and Blue f School of Fine Arts City. Her home is in Fairway. Shield of Kansas City. He and Sally Doyen g Master’s Degree Bradley Ingber, b’08, is an associate Pirie, c’09, live in Olathe. She’s a case man- h School of Allied Health recruiter for Target. He lives in New Hope, ager for Paces. j School of Journalism Minn. l School of Law Matthew Lindberg, j’08, works as sports MARRIED m School of Medicine editor for the Montrose Daily Press. He Lauren Fry, n’09, and Jaimes Perez, n School of Nursing and Sarah Strathman Lindberg, c’09, live ’10, Oct. 9 in Lawrence, where they live. p School of Pharmacy in Montrose, Colo. She’s an ICU nurse at Lawrence Memorial PharmD School of Pharmacy Jessica Stelzer, j’08, c’08, owns Just Hospital, where he’s a senior laboratory s School of Social Welfare Simple by JS in Evanston, Ill. assistant. u School of Music Laura Sutton, b’08, is an associate with Devan Jones, ’09, and Brett Urban, DE Doctor of Engineering Venn Strategies in Washington, D.C. c’10, July 9 in Cancun, Mexico. ey live DMA Doctor of Musical Arts in Lawrence. EdD Doctor of Education MARRIED Melissa Rufenacht, p’09, to Chad Gilki- PhD Doctor of Philosophy Laura Crowe, b’08, g’10, to Brett son, Aug. 7 in Edgerton. She’s a pharmacist (no letter) Former student Hartley, Sept. 18 in Lawrence, where at Auburn Pharmacy, and he’s a greens- assoc Associate member of the they live. She works for CBIZ MHM in keeper at Blue Hills Country Club. ey Alumni Association Topeka, and he’s an automotive technician live in Overland Park.

58 | KANSAS A LUMNI John Elias, g’10, works as a policy Tara Scarce, s’10, is a social worker for City. ey live in Lenexa. analyst for the Oce of the U.S. Secretary USD 481 in Hope. She lives in Council of Transportation in Washington, D.C., Grove. BORN TO: where he lives. Kevin Sterk, l’10, recently became an Matthew Odom, l’10, and Renee, Kelsey Eriksen, b’10, recently moved associate with Querrey & Harrow in Chi- daughter, Kylee Elizabeth, Sept. 18 in to Philadelphia, where she’s associate cago. He lives in Oak Lawn. Lawrence. city director for the Center for Student Missions. MARRIED ASSOCIATES Elise Grosdidier, j’10, coordinates Drew Diedel, c’10, to Jennifer Denny, Bill Self, assoc., head coach of KU’s marketing for Media Services. Nov. 6 in Lawrence, where he’s a supervi- men’s basketball team, was nominated She lives in Olathe. sor at Runza and she is an accounting for the inaugural United Nations NGO Nolan Kellerman, e’10, is an electrical clerk at Cottonwood. Positive Peace Award in the Coach engineer at Kiewit Power Engineers in Lauren Taylor, p’10, and Mark category. Bill and his wife, Cindy, assoc., Lenexa. He lives in Kansas City. Olberding, p’10, May 22 in Kansas make their home in Lawrence.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 59 In Memory Charles Curry, c’40, 92, Dec. 13 in Key Largo, Fla. He was a business and civic leader in Kansas City, where he was president of Charles F. Curry & Co. Real Estate, served as a presiding judge of the Jackson Frances Henkes Bodde, c’29, 102, Alloway Clement, c’68; seven grandchil- County Court, and was president of the 20 Aug. 12 in Leavenworth, where she dren; and 11 great-grandchildren. Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. He taught junior-high literature. A son, four Ron Bales, g’43, 91, Oct. 30 in Greens- had been treasurer of the Democratic grandchildren and ve great-grandchil- boro, N.C. He owned businesses selling National Committee and was a “favorite dren survive. park and school equipment in Empo- son” candidate in the 1984 presidential Margret Craver Withers, f’29, 102, ria and in Faireld Bay, Ark. Survivors election. Surviving are his wife, Charlotte; Nov. 22 in Cambridge, Mass., where she include his wife, Katharine Kufahl six daughters, one of whom is Laura Curry was a silversmith and a teacher. Her jew- Bales, f’45; two daughters; and four Sloan, l’87; a son, Charles, ’88; 14 grand- elry and hollowware are in the permanent grandchildren. children; and two great-grandchildren. collections of Boston’s Museum of Fine Herman Barkmann, e’41, 92, July 10 Robert Daniel, b’47, 86, July 10 in Arts, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of in Santa Fe, N.M., where he was a retired San Luis Obispo, Calif., where he was Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the engineer. He had helped design and test former Western regional sales manager Smithsonian Institution in Washington the rst hydrogen bomb. Surviving are his for Proctor-Silex. ree daughters, four D.C. A stepdaughter and a sister survive. wife, Fran, two daughters, a son and four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren grandchildren. survive. John Bondurant, e’34, 102, Dec. 9 Richard Bertuzzi, c’49, 82, Dec. 17 in Robert Fish, ’42, 89, May 4 in Eureka, 30 in Bartlesville, Okla., where he was Houston, where he was retired from Sun Calif., where he was retired manager of a retired geophysical laboratory supervisor Country Distributors, which sold resins First Interstate Bank. His wife, Jeanne for Phillips Petroleum. He is survived by and related items to the cultured marble Spencer Fish, c’42, l’45, survives. a daughter, Marilyn Bondurant Ander- and berglass industries. A memorial has Dean Harding, c’43, m’43, 95, May 9 in son, d’63, g’70; ve grandchildren; 11 been established with the KU Endowment Grants Pass, Ore. He had been a clinical great-grandchildren; and four great-great- Association. He is survived by a daughter; professor of family medicine at the Uni- grandchildren. a son, Richard, ’81; a brother, Andrew, versity of California in Davis. Survivors Betty Lindas Lamme, ’39, 94, Dec. 14 e’48, g’52; six grandchildren; and two include his wife, Goldie, a son, two daugh- in Wichita, where she was active in many great-grandchildren. ters, two stepsons, four stepdaughters, 20 cultural and charitable organizations. Dwane Billbe, b’47, 87, Nov. 6 in St. grandchildren, 50 great-grandchildren and She is survived by a son, a daughter, ve Louis Park, Minn., where he was retired ve great-great-grandchildren. grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. from a career with Cargill. Survivors Frances Richert Johnson, c’49, 83, Nov. Ralph Means, e’38, 94, Oct. 20 in Win- include his wife, Shirley; a son; four 5 in Elbert, Colo. She is survived by two ston-Salem, N.C., where he was retired daughters; a sister, Joan Billbe McRae, daughters and a sister, Florence Richert from a 35-year career as a U.S. Navy assoc.; 10 grandchildren; and 11 great- Williams, c’46. architect. He is survived by two daugh- grandchildren. Marjorie Tibbets Kendall, c’45, 86, Nov. ters, two sisters, eight grandchildren, 16 Laurel Case, m’49, 89, Oct. 25 in Port- 8 in Wichita, where she was active in civic great-grandchildren and four great-great- land, Ore., where he practiced medicine aairs. Two daughters and two grand- grandchildren. and was former chairman of the depart- daughters survive. ment of family medicine at Oregon Health E. O’Thene Hu© Leonard, c’41, 91, Dec. Verna Ashland Adams, c’41, 89, Sciences University. He is survived by 31 in Topeka, where she was active in 40 Dec. 12 in Lawrence, where she his wife, Betty Jean, two sons and ve community and church activities. She is was a retired microbiologist. A memorial grandchildren. survived by three daughters, two of whom has been established with the KU Endow- Ray Culbertson, b’48, 84, Dec. 12 in are Nancy Leonard Dietz, ’00, and Jodi ment Association. She is survived by a Lawrence, where he was former senior Leonard Kaigh, c’81, m’88; ve grandchil- daughter, Linda Adams Liles, ’69, and a vice president of operations for Capitol dren; and a great-granddaughter. grandson. Federal Savings. He is survived by his wife, David McKee, b’42, 90, Dec. 10 in Betty Allen Alloway, c’42, 89, Jan. 11 Frieda Wray Culbertson, ’48; a daughter, Lawrence, where he was retired from a in Kansas City, where she was retired aer Susan Culbertson Pitcher, c’75; two sons, career in the grain industry. He is sur- a 30-year career at the Kansas City Public one of whom is Jerry, f’91; four grand- vived by his wife, Shirley Snyder McKee, Library. She is survived by her husband, children; three stepgrandchildren; four b’43; a daughter, Kathryn McKee Stover, Curtis, b’42; two sons, Lee, e’70, and great-grandchildren; and seven stepgreat- d’66, g’67; a son, Douglas, c’69; and four Gordon, j’72, g’10; a daughter, Patricia grandchildren. grandchildren.

60 | KANSAS A LUMNI Frank Pattee, b’48, 86, Jan. 5 in children and two great-grandchildren. an industrial and janitorial supply com- Westlake Village, Calif. He lived in Joe Baker, g’59, 91, Nov. 13 in San pany. He later worked in real estate and Lawrence for most of his life and was a Antonio. He was a coach and director of property management. Surviving are his retired deputy regional director for the athletics at Turner High School in Kansas wife, Caralee Turner Dibble, ’59; two sons; U.S. Department of Transportation. He City for 37 years before retiring. He is sur- two daughters; and 12 grandchildren. is survived by a son, Frank Jr., ’70; two vived by his wife, Anna; a son; a daughter; Nancy Lane Dinneen, g’55, PhD’72, 78, daughters, Jodi Pattee Knight, ’72, and Joanna Baker Grogan, g’92; a brother; a Jan. 5 in Lawrence. She was a professor of Erin Pattee Brockovich, assoc.; six grand- sister; four grandchildren; and six great- Spanish at Washburn University in Topeka children; and 10 great-grandchildren. grandchildren. for many years. Surviving are her husband, K.E. Paxton, p’49, 86, Nov. 15 in Jon Bergstrom, j’58, 74, Dec. 31 in David, g’54; two daughters, Barbara, ’96, Wichita, where he was a retired pharma- Brentwood, Calif. A memorial has been and Kate, c’80; a son, Steven, ’10; and three cist and pharmacy owner. He is survived established with the KU Endowment grandchildren. by his wife, Kathleen Wiley Paxton, ’48, Association. He is survived by two daugh- Marcia Horn Docking, j’53, 79, Jan. 8 and two sons. ters and a sister, Catherine Bergstrom in Olathe. She lived in Kansas City most Warren Snyder, e’43, 88, Sept. 23 in Katz, c’65. of her life and was active in the Junior Oklahoma City, where he was a retired Marilyn Beach Bowen, n’56, 77, Oct. League. She is survived by three sons, engineer. He also had taught at the Mil- 30 in Merriam. She is survived by her Gordon, j’77, Grith, j’80, and Kent, c’82; waukee School of Engineering. Surviving husband, Kenneth, assoc.; two sons; a a daughter, Laura Docking Fischer, ’86; are his wife, Jean Hull Snyder, c’43; a son; daughter, Christina Bowen, ’86; a brother; two sisters, one of whom is Janice Horn two daughters; seven grandchildren; and and three granddaughters. Ferguson, d’52; six grandchildren; and two three great-grandchildren. Francis “Miki” Bowers Jr., g’56, 83, Jan. great-grandsons. Harold Warwick, b’49, 83, Dec. 29 in 1 in Honolulu. He was a retired colonel Glenna Anderson Fearing, c’51, 81, Mission Hills, where he was president of with the U.S. Army National Guard and Dec. 31 in Stillwater, Okla., where she had Warwick Paper Co. He is survived by a had taught math at the Punahou School been a homemaker. A son, a daughter and son, Hadley, c’77; a daughter, Linda War- for many years. Surviving are his wife, 10 grandchildren survive. wick Manco, b’80; four grandchildren; and Mary Blake Bower, assoc.; a daughter; Glenn Gore, c’53, 78, July 13 in Lees- three great-grandchildren. four sons; a sister; a brother; and four burg, Fla. He lived in Lady Lake and had Donald Widner, c’40, l’43, 90, July 1 in grandchildren. been an obstetrician and gynecologist in Pittsburg, where he owned and operated Walter Carolan Jr., e’54, 78, Dec. 28 St. Louis for many years. He is survived Tri-State Building and Supply and was a in Kansas City, where he was a former by a son, Grant, ’88; a daughter; and six director of the National Bank of Pittsburg chemical engineer. Among survivors are grandchildren. and Pittsburg Broadcasting Co. He is two sons, one of whom is Charles, ’88; and Jack Howard, b’51, 82, Oct. 21 in survived by a son, Victor, c’70, m’74; two a granddaughter. Salina, where he was retired vice president daughters; a brother; seven grandchildren; William Chalfant, c’50, 82, Jan. 7 in of Smoot Grain. He is survived by his wife, and four great-grandchildren. Hutchinson, where he practiced law with Shirley Rice Howard, d’51; a daughter, Jerome Wildgen, c’45, m’49, 85, May 23 Branine, Chalfant & Hill. He is survived Janice Howard Denning, d’76; a son, Jay, in Wilsonville, Ore., where he was a retired by his wife, Martha; a son, David, l’83; a b’79; two sisters, Judy Howard Billings, family-practice physician. He served as the daughter; a brother; and two grandsons. d’57, and Joan Howard, d’66, g’69; and rst president of the Academy of Family Melvin Hall Clingan, b’51, 81, July 12 three grandchildren. Practice. Survivors include three sons, a in Carefree, Ariz. He was former CEO of e Rev. Walter Krech, c’50, 87, Sept. daughter, a brother and six grandchildren. R.L. Sweet Lumber and had been president 28 in Champaign, Ill., where he had Calvert Winter Jr., c’44, m’47, 88 of the Greater Kansas City Home Builders helped establish New Horizon United in Kansas City, where he was a retired Association. Survivors include his wife, Methodist Church, which he served as pediatrician. He is survived by his wife, Genevieve; three daughters, one of whom visitation pastor. He is survived by two Charlene, assoc.; four sons, two of whom is Sandra Clingan Smith, ’81; a son, Scott, daughters, two sons, two sisters and three are Michael, c’71, g’84, and Jason, c’96; ’81; and nine grandchildren. grandchildren. a daughter, Rachel Winter, ’01; and six Margaret Doll Crahan, ’50, 82, Dec. 1 Charles Lane, d’55, 78, Nov. 24 in grandchildren. in Larned. She is survived by her hus- DeRidder, La., where he taught civics and band, Jack, b’50; three sons, one of whom history and coached basketball at DeRid- Stanley Adams, b’58, l’61, 77, Oct. is Steven, b’74; a sister; two brothers; der High School. He later worked as 50 15 in Gresham, Ore., where he seven grandchildren; and 10 great- Beauregard Parish school-bus supervisor practiced law and served as a municipal grandchildren. and as a truant ocer and maintenance court judge. He is survived by his wife, Paul Dibble, b’58, 77, Dec. 15 in Corpus supervisor. He is survived by his wife, Lee, two daughters, a brother, four grand- Christi, Texas, where he owned Interchem, Patricia, a son, a daughter, two brothers,

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 61 In Memory three grandsons and a great-grandson. Liberty, Mo., where he practiced law with Sexual Abuse Treatment Network. He is Norman “Gene” Linton, ’51, 81, Dec. Wherritt and Turpin for 55 years. He also survived by his wife, Judy Phelps Dechant, 22 in Kansas City. He lived in Holyrood, served as Liberty city attorney and as a s’79; four sons; three daughters; three where he was former superintendent of municipal judge. He is survived by his sisters; and 16 grandchildren. USD 328. Surviving are his wife, Martha wife, Ann, two daughters, six grandchil- Susan Pinet Flood, j’64, 68, Oct. 10 in White Linton, assoc.; two daughters, dren and 12 great-grandchildren. Rochester, N.Y. She had a 31-year career one of whom is Shelley Linton Rippen, Leslie Wenger, b’55, 77, Dec. 13 in with Career Systems Development, where h’76; two sons, Monte, p’75, and Mark, Gareld, Ark. He had a 27-year career she was a director, senior executive and b’83; 10 grandchildren; and eight great- with Waddell & Reed, where he retired as part owner. ree nieces survive. grandchildren. a regional vice president. Surviving are his Maxine Clark Gover, g’65, 91, Dec. 10 Althea Owen Lovitt, d’52, g’66, 79, Dec. wife, Mary Gay Wenger, c’61; a daughter; in Lawrence, where she was a special- 12 in Kirkland, Wash., where she was a two brothers, Bruce, c’57, m’61, and Virgil, education teacher for many years. Two retired teacher. She is survived by her hus- b’53; and two grandchildren. daughters, six grandchildren and 19 great- band, Tom, d’52, g’60, EdD’66; a daughter; grandchildren survive. three sons; six grandchildren; and ve Dorothy Smith Anderson, ’65, Louis Karlen, m’64, 78, Sept. 6 in De great-grandchildren. 60 100, Nov. 19 in Lawrence, where Smet, S.D., where he practiced medicine Marimae Voiland McDonald, c’54, 78, she was active in community and church for many years. He is survived by his wife, Dec. 24 in San Mateo, Calif., where she activities. She is survived by two sons, Betty, three sons, a daughter, a brother had been a piano teacher. She is survived Peter, f’60; and Philip, e’63, g’72; a brother; and several grandchildren and great- by her husband, Ted, c’57; a daughter; four grandchildren; and four great- grandchildren. a son; a sister, Fredrica Voiland Everett, granddaughters. Robert Kimbrough III, c’63, m’69, 68, d’56; four grandchildren; and a great- Vincent Angotti, g’65, PhD’67, 69, Sept. Nov. 24 in Lubbock, Texas, where he was granddaughter. 22 in Indianapolis. He was a teacher and a professor of infectious diseases at Texas Theodore McNutt, m’55, 81, Dec. 10 in administrator for 35 years at Florida State Tech University Health Sciences Center. Overland Park. He practiced family medi- University, the University of South Dakota, He is survived by his wife, Susan; three cine in Dodge City and in Kansas City. He Auburn University and the University of sons; a daughter; three sisters, one of later was a psychiatrist at the Gillis Home Evansville and had held leadership posi- whom is Victoria Kimbrough, c’64, g’68, for Boys and chief of psychiatry at the tions in the American eatre Associa- d’70; and four grandchildren. Veterans Administration in Leavenworth. tion. Surviving are his wife, Patricia, and a Phillip Knouse, e’60, 73, Nov. 29 in Surviving are his wife, Cynthia Vereka sister, Christine Angotti Homan, g’79. Loudon, Tenn. He was an engineer and McNutt, assoc.; a daughter, Ann McNutt Charles Bondurant, c’62, g’63, 71, had taught electronics technology at Black ompson, n’81; and two grandchildren. Sept. 6 in Fredericksburg, Texas. He was Hawk College in Moline, Ill., and at Vir- Vernon Michael, c’51, EdD’68, 96, Dec. a geologist with Garrison Oil and Gas in ginia Highlands College in Abingdon, Va. 23 in Lawrence. He was longtime professor San Antonio. He is survived by his wife, He is survived by his wife, Joyce, and two of education at Baker University in Bald- Bonnie; two sons; a daughter; two stepdaughters. win City. Surviving are a son; a daughter, daughters; a stepson; and a sister, Marilyn Roger Kroth, EdD’68, 83, Nov. 17 in Barbara Michael, g’86, PhD’87; a brother; Bondurant Anderson, d’63, g’70. Albuquerque, N.M. He is survived by his and ve grandchildren. Mary Strong Brennan, d’60, 71, Jan. 7 wife, Jane Majors Kroth, g’66; two sons; Carson Rockhill, ’50, 83, Nov. 20 in in Overland Park. A memorial has been two daughters; ve grandchildren; and ve Wichita, where he was a retired petroleum established with the KU Endowment great-grandchildren. landman. Surviving are his wife, Virginia Association. She is survived by her hus- Jerry Mathis, m’62, 75, Dec. 21 in Gargis Rockhill, ’50; three daughters, band, Lawrence, e’54, l’61; a daughter; a Salina, where he practiced medicine for Juhree Rockhill Ring, j’71; Suzanne Rock- son; a brother; and four granddaughters. many years. He also had a private practice hill Axon, d’79, g’92, and Rochelle Elizabeth Svoboda Brune, d’60, 86, in State College and Altoona, Pa. Survi- Rockhill Kroshus, ’98; three grandchil- Dec. 27 in Lawrence, where she was a vors include his wife, Audrae; a daughter, dren; and four great-grandchildren. retired elementary school teacher. She is Janette Mathis Rivetti, ’87; a stepson; a Richard Schmidt, c’54, 78, Nov. 28 in survived by three sons, Daniel, c’67, c’68, stepdaughter; and ve grandchildren. Las Vegas. He had been chairman, CEO Stuart, ’70, and Albert, ’75; a daughter, Virginia Melchior McCready, d’62, g’64, and president of the Newport Corp., and Marilyn Brune, c’84; a brother, Charles 81, May 10 in Carlsbad, Calif. She taught later he was a consultant for Sundstrand. Svoboda, e’49, l’51; a sister; ve grandchil- Spanish at Pasadena City College and later Survivors include his wife, Beth Lowell dren; and two great-grandchildren. worked as a residential real estate broker. Schmidt, ’54; two daughters; a son; and James Dechant, s’64, 76, Jan. 4 in A son, a brother and three grandchildren seven grandchildren. Lee’s Summit, Mo., where he was a social survive. William Turpin, l’50, 91, Nov. 26 in worker, counselor and co-founder of the Janice Jensen Reaster, n’63, 70, Nov. 7

62 | KANSAS A LUMNI in Leawood, where she was a nurse. She is Springs, Mo. Surviving are her husband, seven grandchildren; and ve great- survived by a son, David, c’87; a daughter; Robert Boyd; a son, Richard Hubbard, grandchildren. and a brother, Robert Jensen, b’70. c’97; and a granddaughter. Ross Beach, 92, Nov. 12 in Lawrence, Donald Shorock, b’68, 66, Dec. 2 in Burlene Hoggatt Mackey, d’70, 84, Jan. where he was president of Kansas Natural Great Bend, where he was an employ- 1 in Kansas City, where she was a retired Gas and chairman of the board of Douglas ment specialist for the state of Kansas teacher and school librian. Two sons, two County Bank. He had been named Kansan and a former social-studies teacher. He grandchildren and a great-granddaughter of the Year in 2001 by the Native Sons and is survived by his wife, Nora Jean; a son, survive. Daughters of Kansas, and he and his wife, omas, e’04, g’09; and two brothers. Margaret Gregory Pearce, d’73, 64, Jan. Marianna, received citations for distin- Mack Schwein, g’67, 79, Aug. 2 in 4 in Overland Park, where she lived. She guished service from KU and from Fort Wichita, where he was a retired business had been a law librarian at Kansas State Hays State University. He also had received administrator. Two nieces and a nephew University, George Washington University, the 1989 President’s Award from Kansas survive. the Appellate Court in St. Louis and the State University. rough the Ross and Marcella Nodurft Stitt, g’66, 94, Federal Court in Kansas City. Surviving Marianna Beach Foundation, he beneted Nov. 28 in Hutchinson, where she was are her mother; a sister, Patty Gregory KU’s Beach Center for Disability and the a retired Latin teacher at Ellinwood Skahan, s’88; and a brother, Paul Gregory Lied Center and created an endowed High School. She is survived by a son, Jr., d’66. professorship in special education at KU. a daughter, ve grandchildren and ve Gloria Goodrich Vobejda, j’70, 83, Dec. He and his wife were recipients of the great-grandchildren. 31 in Overland Park, where she was a Bob Dole Humanitarian Award from journalist. She is survived by her husband, KU’s special-education department. He is Michael Anderson, c’77, 55, Dec. George, two daughters and a son. survived by Marianna, assoc.; three daugh- 70 10 in Lawrence. He had been ters, Mary Beach McDowell, d’65, g’68, director of planned giving for several Gregory Antey, a’81, 52, Jan. 4 l’84, Terry Beach Edwards, c’67, and Jane charitable organizations. A daughter and 80 in St. Louis. He is survived by a Beach Hipp, d’73, l’77, g’77; eight grand- a son survive. daughter, his mother, two brothers and children; and four great-grandchildren. Christopher Brewer, j’77, 60, Dec. 27 in three sisters. Ermal Garinger, 88, Nov. 19 in Shel- Lee’s Summit, Mo., where he was direc- Marlene Rubin Gasser, s’88, 74, Nov. 21 byville. He was a professor of foreign lan- tor of public aairs for the city of Lee’s in Overland Park, where she was retired guages at KU for 22 years, retiring in 1989. Summit. He also had been a reporter, news from the Comprehensive Mental Health e KU foreign language laboratory is editor and editor of the local newspaper. Center. She is survived by her husband, named for him. Survivors include his wife, Survivors include his wife, Linda, two Max, assoc.; two sons, Kevin, b’86, and Betty, a son, two stepsons, a stepdaughter, children and two brothers. Jonathan, c’87; and four grandchildren. a brother and seven grandchildren. Peggy Thorne Childs, d’71, 61, Dec. James Gerton, e’87, 67, Dec. 10 in Lorraine Carpenter Hammer, c’48, 86, 26 in Hutchinson, where she was former Indian Land, S.C. He was retired from the Dec. 21 in Lawrence, where she was a Christian education director at Trinity Charlotte water department. Surviving are retired electron micropist in KU’s physiol- United Methodist Church and a member two sons, a sister, three brothers and three ogy and cell biology department. She is of the USD 308 School Board. She is grandchildren. survived by her husband, Lou, b’48; two survived by her husband, Steven, s’72; sons, one of whom is Gary, g’83; six grand- three daughters, Stephanie Childs Casey, P. Kay Ingersoll Duncan, EdD’93, children and four great-grandchildren. d’96, g’01, Heather Childs Woelk, d’99, 90 67, Dec. 17 in Americus. She had Jocelyn Hulsebus, 59, Dec. 22 in g’03, and Emily Childs Shipley, c’03; her been a professor of educational adminis- Overland Park. She had been a professor mother; two sisters; and six grandchildren. tration at Emporia State University. She is of laboratory sciences at the KU Medical Virginia Fetters, s’70, 95, Oct. 15 in survived by her husband Don, ’89, a son, Center until retiring in 2003. A cousin El Paso, Texas, where she is survived by a daughter, her mother, a sister, a brother survives. several nieces and nephews. and ve grandchildren. Evelyn Velasquez Schmidtberger, Frances Ginsberg, f’79, 55, Dec. 24 59, Jan. 10 in Lawrence, where she was a in Brooklyn, N.Y. She sang with the New THE UNIV ERSITY COMMUNITY senior administrative associate at the KU York City Opera during the 1980s. She Jean Sa©ell Allen, f’45, g’54, 87, Nov. School of Business. She is survived by her later sang with opera companies in San 26 in Lawrence, where she had been a husband, Gary, c’71; two daughters, Kris- Diego, Houston, Fresno, Pittsburgh, member of the KU design faculty from tine Schmidtberger Vogt, d’92, and Karen Cincinnati, and Nice, France. A brother 1947 until 1954. She is survived by her Schmidtberger Ingersoll, d’96; and four survives. husband, Roger, e’50; four sons, Chad, ’77, grandchildren. Patricia “Paddi” Berger Hubbard, d’72, Charles, b’75, Timothy, ’82, and omas, 66, Dec. 3 in Kansas City. She lived in Blue ’84; a sister, Patricia Saell Siemens, s’70;

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 63 Rock Chalk Review

“Spring,” a pair of acrylic D FITZGERAL BARRY SY paintings, won Barry URTE

CO Fitzgerald recogniton among the world’s best illustrators.

competitions,” he says. “Really, it’s a Full bloom gamble. You want to submit your best

E works, but there’s still personal preference P P

U P

Professor among among the judges. Sometimes pieces get E V E T ‘Best Illustrators Worldwide’ in, and sometimes they don’t.” S Fitzgerald maintains a busy freelance art career in addition to teaching at KU. arry Fitzgerald’s artwork has been Clients include the American Medical Bincluded in many juried exhibitions Association, the Boston Globe, the and printed collections, but there’s Chicago Tribune, General Motors, the something about his newest honor that New York Times, the St. Louis Post has a ring to it: “Best Illustrators World- Dispatch and Sonic drive-in. Wichita lines wide 2010/2011.” But as the economic downturn leads “The title’s great,” he says. “I like the title publications to slash freelance budgets, he Nelson sets her latest novel a lot.” uses the opportunity to do more of his in the city of her youth The associate professor of design was own art and exhibit in galleries. one of 200 artists selected in the competi- “I tell my students it’s really important tion organized by Luerzer’s Archive Inc., a to keep working and keep doing your ntonya Nelson’s sublime new novel, publishing company devoted to visual stuff,” he says. “When I’m working for ABound, explores the aftereffects of an communications. Luerzer’s will produce a myself, I take more chances because intensely devoted teenage friendship, with volume of the winners’ works this spring. nothing’s at stake. For me, it’s a way to all its sharp joy and harsh peculiarities. Fitzgerald’s winning submission, satisfy my curiosity.” Coming of age in late 1970s Wichita, “Spring,” is a pair of acrylic paintings Fitzgerald has spent much of the spring Catherine and Misty have more than the depicting ﬂowers sprouting from the semester doing just that. He will open his requisite madcap adventures of wild- ground. He produced the works to own show at the Collinson Gallery in hearted youth everywhere; the girls’ shared promote the opening of Collinson Gallery mid-May—his ﬁrst individual show since world is characterized by the asterisks they in Weston, Mo. graduate school. carve on each other’s shoulders with a For Fitzgerald, a former full-time And who knows? Maybe something shoplifted pocket knife. The small stars are newspaper illustrator who has taught at from the show will win an award next year. not mere youthful self-aggrandizement, KU since 1993, entering contests keeps his “You just keep working and get your but tough, tangible symbols of their art fresh and helps him advise students. work out there,” he says. “You just have to friendship, that signify, as Nelson writes, “It takes some time, it takes some effort stay in the game.” “the idea of extra content, footnoted and it takes some money to enter into —Terry Rombeck character not readily available to the

64 | KANSAS A LUMNI average, casual eye.” Nelson’s ER into the third world erine and Misty, but as the adult Catherine characters look back at the TTLI NG but in possession of cares for Misty’s daughter—another lost drama of youth from the ON E a round-trip ticket teenage girl—we see that what binds perspective of adulthood and MA RI out.” But here Antonya Nelson’s characters is ultimately its attendant responsibilities Nelson gives us an not so much their indulgent quests, their and terrors, a breathlessness asterisk of her own, delicacy or their utter failings, but a of a different sort. a footnote of sorts, surprising and valorous kindness. The 40-something Cath- because the middle- —Mary O’Connell erine might still feel the aged Catherine still O’Connell, c’94, wrote Living with Saints. asterisk’s divot on her skin, invests Misty’s Her novel The Sharp Time will be but she struggles with the childhood squalor published Nov. 8 by Random House. problems of middle age: an with a vague, ill, elderly parent, a possibly reluctant glamour: dead-end May-December “It seemed that that marriage to a devoted Nelson life, and the girl who A writer who philanderer, the loss of lived it, had been ambition and optimism. Though they real. Misty had a personality unlike anyone gives us hope hadn’t kept in touch since high school, else’s, peculiar and earned.” Catherine receives a letter notifying her Nelson has published six short story Fame finally finds Woodrell that Misty has died in a car crash, leaving collections and four novels. In 1999 the behind her teenage daughter. Misty not New Yorker presciently named her one of aniel Woodrell’s literary career was only named her daughter after Catherine the young writers to watch in the new Dsix novels long when Kansas Alumni but also named her old best friend as millennium. Her awards include the featured him in issue No. 5, 1998. Even guardian. Catherine’s potential mother- Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA then, we wrote, Woodrell “has had a hood sends her thoughts back to life grant and she holds the Cullen Chair in reputation for more than a decade as a with Misty. Creative Writing at the University of writer’s writer,” and we hoped that his Bound is a dark valentine to Wichita, the Houston. She brings her gorgeously latest, Tomato Red, and the Ang Lee hometown of both Nelson, c’83, and BTK, distilled prose—a hallmark of her short movie “Ride With the Devil,” based on the serial killer at large during Catherine fiction—to the wintertime Wichita of Woe to Live On, would mean Woodrell and Misty’s youth and apprehended Bound: “Snowflakes had begun falling “might no longer be the best writer during the present time of the novel. His outside in festive complicity, covering the you’ve never heard of.” teasing missives to the newspaper and ugly, muting the unpleasant.” The ex-Marine’s literary career—which horrific crimes added a peripheral though BTK, the most notorious Witchitan, explores the unique Americana of Mis- authentic danger to the girls’ already emerges as the prototypical church-going souri’s Ozarks—has since marched perilous adventures. Catherine, the monster next door, but Nelson’s innocent forward ceaselessly, yet only now is daughter of professors, had been enam- and not-so-innocent fictional characters Woodrell, c’80, enjoying adulation of the ored with Misty’s hardscrabble upbringing are complicated and specific: real. Cath- wider world. and all its pre-punk rock underpinnings. erine’s husband, Oliver Des Plaines, knows “Winter’s Bone,” based on his novel As an adult, she knows, of course, that her that his philandering has hurt his two of the same title, was honored as a best friend’s life had been “a frightening daughters—one from each of his previous nominee for Best Picture at the Feb. 27 specter, grubby and violent,” whereas she marriages—and he thinks that his current Academy Awards. Esquire magazine was the “privileged tourist dunked briefly affair would devastate Catherine, yet even recently featured Woodrell in its project at 70, perhaps especially at 70, he is “The Brightest: 16 Geniuses Who Give passionate about new romance. And his Us Hope.” self-justifications about cheating are not Woodrell joined the Marines at 17. He the standard deluded fare, but a heartfelt was 23 when he made his way to KU, lament about the limited narrative of life: “plowing through the classics,” we wrote in Bound “How was it that anyone could be satisfied 1998, “while furiously writing about by Antonya Nelson with only one story? With the surface and people who are never in the classics.” As $25, Bloomsbury nothing beneath it? With the familiar and Woodrell settled in West Plains, Mo.—his repetitive, routine equaling the death of family’s home turf since the 1840s—his any plausible adventure?” writing was already rooted in an Ozarks This same longing for the world to crack enclave to which no outsider would ever open is what united the teenaged Cath- gain admittance.

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 65 Rock Chalk Review

“The irony of these characters is that it TION S is their very foreignness that makes them incisive,” Tyler Cabot wrote in Esquire. TT RAC SIDE A

“There is no artiﬁce to judge, no cultural AD baggage to get distracted by. Woodrell’s RO SY

characters are unmarred, elemental, not of URTE CO our world. In them we can see our essential selves.” Jennifer Lawrence earned —Chris Lazzarino one of four Oscar nods for “Winter’s Bone.” Make some noise a silver honor in the Parents’ Choice tapping things, listening to what sound Drummer wins accolades Awards and recognition from World possibilities exist.” for storytelling Storytelling Honors. NAPPA also named Now the grant money that runs the the album one of 13 top children’s Percussive Art of Storytelling is in danger; ike many good stories, this one began products, and it was on the Grammy Gov. Sam Brownback, l’82, eliminated the Lin Italy. In 2005, percussionist Cory short list. Kansas Arts Commission in his budget Hills was on a research fellowship at The CD grew from the Percussive Art of proposal. Hills emphasizes the great need Institute Fabrica in Treviso. There he Storytelling, a program Hills created in for private arts funding to provide wrote a children’s story, accented it with 2009 after he moved to Kansas. With the outreach programs that have lost state various percussion instruments and help of private funding and grants from grants, and he advocates for new music recorded an animated spoken-word track. the Kansas Arts Commission, he has and music education. The first story, “The Lost Bicycle,” led to performed for more than 9,000 children “Whether it’s the art of cello playing another; soon he was performing a set of and adults in underserved communities or a vocalist singing,” he says, “just create original fables and adapted folk tales in around the state. and get out there to these underserved schools, libraries and hospitals. “The instruments get kids listening to communities that don’t get a lot of The collection includes simple stories sound in interesting ways,” says Hills, who art.” with moral messages and got his start as a seventh-grade —Whitney Eriksen colorful characters, often drummer in his school band. identified by their own “The best part is afterward percussive sound. Hills when the kids are walking out composed original tracks to Home, accompany each story and PPE but not alone included a couple of beloved EVE PU tales from his childhood. ST Back in the United States Professor helps adapt robots five years later, 30-year-old Hills has to in-home care for elderly earned national recognition and multiple awards for his children’s album, “The he oldest baby boomers turn 65 this Lost Bicycle.” Tyear, and over the next two decades “The external reaction has blown me 10,000 people a day will join their ranks, away a little,” says Hills, who is pursuing a according to the Pew Research Center. By doctoral degree at KU. “I know what the 2030, when the last boomers cross that kids think. What I really care about is that threshold, 18 percent of Americans will be they have a good time and get to hear 65 and older, up from 13 percent today. these instruments and learn where they The trend is similar in many Western come from. But the success of the CD in countries and parts of Asia, notes James the arts and parenting world encourages Juola, who’s working on a technological me to keep going.” When Cory Hills performs his children’s stories, solution for one of the developed world’s Released in May 2010, “The Lost he highlights hand-held percussion instruments biggest health care challenges: how to help Bicycle” received gold in the National from around the world. For more information, the growing population of elderly people Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA), visit www.coryhills.com. stay independent as they age.

66 | KANSAS A LUMNI “We’re going to have more people over Nao to ask if a person needs help. “The Warshawski to the mystery genre. the ages of 65 and 85 around the world robot looks for abnormal behavior of any “I knew no one, and people whose work than ever existed,” says Juola, a psychology kind, assesses the situation through I had read for years—giants in the professor at KU and Eindhoven University intelligent algorithms that we’re program- field—were up on the podium, chatting, of Technology in the Netherlands. “Half ming, and then tries to contact the patient joking with one another,” recalls Paretsky, the people over 65 will have serious first and then caregivers if necessary.” c’67. “I was seated in the remote stretches physical disabilities, and half the people With a four-year, $4 million grant from of the hotel ballroom, and a waiter starts over 85 will suffer some kind of mental the European Commission, Juola and his hitting one of my tablemates because the disability. They need help, but at the same team in the Netherlands are training the man wasn’t ready to relinquish his salad time the number of people in lower age robot to follow elderly people through a plate. It could not have been a more lonely echelons who are able and willing to do cluttered home while maintaining a or bizarre evening.” this kind of work is decreasing.” respectful social distance. The robot— Paretsky will enjoy a better seat at the Juola is a lead investigator on which responds to voice commands and Edgar Awards Banquet April 28 in New Knowledge Service Robots for the Aging issues verbal prompts and questions in York City, where she’ll join the likes of (K-SERA), an effort to program robots to several languages—should be available, Agatha Christie, Alfred Hitchcock, Ellery monitor and assist the elderly in their but not intrusive. Queen and P.D. homes. The project’s 2-foot tall humanoid “If it goes haywire, if it doesn’t behave James as the winner PPE robot, called Nao, is designed to provide properly, if it feels like it’s always following of a lifetime honor EVE PU ST the kind of 24-hour assistance that’s tough me and I don’t like that—those things will the MWA calls “the for families to manage on their own. have to be adjusted,” Juola says. pinnacle of achieve- “Permanent care—on a daily basis, for Testing will begin within the year and ment” in mystery many hours—can be extremely draining the K-SERA robot could be widely writing. and expensive,” Juola says. “Rather than available within five to 10 years. The “It feels so odd to replacing human caregivers, we see these $25,000 cost will decrease as more are me,” she says. “It’s as an adjunct. A robot is always there, it’s produced, but even that price is a bargain been 30 years, but it Paretsky always on, it’s always alert, in a way that no compared to the $50,000 price tag of a feels like this sudden human can be all the time for every year of nursing home care, Juola notes. change from outsider at the back of the possible emergency.” Also valuable is the peace of mind gained room to receiving this award. It’s amazing The robot can remind a client when by remaining at home. company, and you look at it and say, ‘I it’s time to exercise or take medication, “Being able to stay in one’s home is very don’t really belong with them.’ But I’m not check vital signs such as blood sugar and important for one’s social and mental going to fight them giving it to me.” blood pressure, and use smart phones, health. Often when people are moved to a It certainly won’t be the first time at the video links and infrared cameras to nursing home you see a sudden downturn head table for the creator of one of the connect the elderly with family members in their ability to deal with just about genre’s first and most innovative female and caregivers. Nao even lets clients play everything. investigators. Paretsky’s 14 V.I. novels and interactive games with its computer or “The longer we can keep people at other books have garnered many prizes. with other people. home, the better off our society will be, But the Grand Master Award is special. In an emergency like a stroke or a fall, from an economic and a social “When a writer’s body of work is the robot can alert family members and perspective.” recognized, it feels like you really have summon an ambulance. Something as —Steven Hill made a difference on the planet—and as subtle as not waking up on time will cue you get older that becomes something you long for,” she says. “An award like this is a PPE way of saying, ‘Yes, you really did make a

EVE PU Grand prize difference. It’s not just about the sales or ST the marketplace but about the impact you Sara Paretsky earns had on people.” mystery genre’s top honor Paretsky, who grew up in Lawrence and lives in Chicago, also received a Governor’s n learning she’d been named the Arts Award from the Kansas Arts Commis- O2011 Grand Master by the Mystery sion March 3. She said her message to both Writers of America, Sara Paretsky thought audiences would be the same: “the of the ﬁrst awards banquet she attended, importance and the value of writing and after her 1982 book, Indemnity Only, the arts in people’s lives.” introduced her female private eye V.I. —Steven Hill Juola

ISSUE 2, 2011 | 67 Glorious to View P hotograph by S usan Younger

Winter Phog

68 | KANSAS A LUMNI

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