Onwisconsin Spring 2016
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FOR UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ALUMNI AND FRIENDS SPRING 2016 Sweet Spot Tales of the UW’s treasured land Page 22 Vision Students get an early jump on Terrace time in March 2015. Temperatures soared into the sixties, giving Madisonians a chance to get some sun even though Lake Mendota remained frozen. Photo by Bryce Richter On Wisconsin 3 4 On Wisconsin SPRING 2016 Contents Spring 2016, Volume 117, Number 1 A snowshoer with the Hoofer Outing Club casts light at Picnic Point’s tip, with backup from the capitol. DEPARTMENTS MILLER JEFF 2 Vision 7 Communications 9 Observation OnCampus 11 News 13 Bygone Boom Box Parade 14 Calculation Study Abroad 17 Conversation Laura Albert McLay 18 Exhibition Dalton Trumbo’s Papers 20 Contender Annie Pankowski FEATURES 21 Sports 22 Sacred Ground Picnic Point is a beloved campus playground, but it’s also a landscape rich in history that goes back thou- sands of years. By Erika Janik MA’04, MA’06 OnAlumni 28 Bet on It 46 News If you’re not familiar with Anders Holm ’03 from 48 Tradition Annual Spring Workaholics or The Mindy Project, no doubt you’ll RICHTER BRYCE Powwow see him in one of several movie roles he’s landed 49 Class Notes lately. By Addie Morfoot ’02 60 Diversions 66 Destination Allen Centennial 32 Drawn Wisconsin! Garden A former Daily Cardinal cartoonist reflects on his years at UW-Madison in an original comic strip. RON BLUNT RON By John Kovalic ’86 34 Story Time Doctors in training at the UW write down patients’ memories — along with their symptoms — in a VA hospital program that documents the lives of military veterans. By Meg Jones ’84 38 The Mysterious Mastodon Organic art: a UW professor uses A mashup of science and old-fashioned detective unconventional materials to realize her work revealed the true origins of a mastodon skele- unique vision. See page 16. ton on display at the UW for a century. Cover By Kelly April Tyrrell MS’11 A map of Picnic Point depicts some of its popular — 42 The Man Who Saved Pinball and mythical — Roger Sharpe ’71 wrote the book on pinball — literal- features. ly — and has become a guardian of the game since he Illustration by first got hooked at the UW. By Daniel McKay x’16 Spencer Walts. On Wisconsin 5 WHEN AGRICULTURE AND COMMUNITIES WORK TOGETHER, WE ARE BOUNDLESS. 6 On Wisconsin WISC.EDU | #BOUNDLESSTOGETHER SPRING 2016 Communications WACKY WINTER Students hoping for a Bascom Skill Knows No Gender as far away as Antarctica, but Hill snowball fight to help relieve Thank you for your article on the apparently, On Wisconsin is their stress before finals were recently discovered remains of not so good at it. The researcher out of luck as the fall semester Homo naledi [“Chamber of Dis- in the Bygone photo is actually ended. A key ingredient was covery,” Winter 2015]. I want to Stephen Den Hartog. In the photo missing: snow. Some experts particularly applaud the author below, Charles Bentley is in the suggested Lake Mendota might and editors for not emphasizing center, along with Dick Cameron not freeze, but winter finally (nor even mentioning) the gender on the left and an unidentified showed up in the new year. of the scientific recovery team researcher on the right. that crawled into the cave. S09934 ARCHIVES UW-MADISON I’ve longed for the day when I could just read about someone’s work without it being implied that, “Wow, she can even do this in spite of being female!” I’m hap- 3,592 py to see On Wisconsin reporting people liked this image @UWMadison post- on the quality of the work and ed on Instagram in mid-December skill of the workers; the gender is CASTRO KEVIN irrelevant, as it should be. Todd Strother PhD’01 Madison A Case of Missing Identity Very exciting stuff, and congrat- I enjoyed the article “Hunters No ulations to Professor Hawks and More” [Winter 2015] except for team [“Chamber of Discovery”]. one omission: none of the Maasai So glad to see that UW-Madison warrior/helpers is identified by remains a leader in this field. name, a racist omission. The article could have men- Robert Quentin Bick ’66, tioned UW-Madison professor MS’73 John T. Robinson (zoology and Dubuque, Iowa anthropology, 1963–2001), who participated in the 1947 discov- A Thousand Apologies ery and analysis of A. Africanus Just got the Winter issue, and I with his mentor Robert Broom find something that irritates me, at this same South African cave but it apparently didn’t bother complex. Professor Robinson your copy editors. It’s in News was kindly and inspiring as my Feed, where you tell us that the major adviser. His course Pale- cadmium in Professor Song Jin’s ontology of the Primates was a catalyst “costs one thousand campuswide blockbuster. times less than platinum.” It Michael Stevens ’73 seems to me that just one time “There will be a time Seattle, Washington less would bring the cost to zero. Writing about a thousand times when Mendota will miss A Case of Mistaken less is mathematical nonsense. a year and not freeze.” Identity Owen Nelson MS’58 — John Magnuson, director Thank you for the lovely feature Las Vegas, Nevada emeritus, UW Center for Limnology on my father, Charles Bentley, [Bygone, Winter 2015] who in- Stylin’ deed is a member of the last great At a time when the best and era of Antarctic exploration. most historic print titles are January 30, However, as much as I delighted shuttering, On Wisconsin has 1932 in the photo of the man reviewing managed to stylishly step up its The latest freeze date on record for Lake his tax forms, the photo is not of game. With absorbing editorial Mendota my father. and smashing photography, On Molly Bentley Wisconsin has moved to the top Oakland, California of my reading stack. You’ve got my attention! January 11, Editor’s Note: The IRS might Mary Beth Gaik ’83 2016 excel at tracking people down Valley Village, California This year’s freeze date On Wisconsin 7 8 On Wisconsin SPRING 2016 Observation Spring 2016 PUBLISHER Wisconsin Alumni Association 650 North Lake Street, Madison, WI 53706 Voice: 608-262-2551 Toll-free: 888-WIS-ALUM Email: [email protected] Web: onwisconsin.uwalumni.com CO-EDITORS Niki Denison, Wisconsin Alumni Association Jenny Price ’96, University Communications SENIOR EDITOR John Allen, Wisconsin Alumni Association ART DIRECTOR Nancy Rinehart, University Marketing Theories abound about how to find a profession Carson, a muskrat, PRODUCTION EDITOR that brings you joy, but my favorite asks us to draw appears in every Eileen Fitzgerald ’79, University Marketing inspiration from a simple question: what did you comic strip by John Kovalic, who first DESIGN, LAYOUT, AND PRODUCTION love to do when you were ten years old? made his name as Toni Good ’76, MA ’89, Kent Hamele ’78, At that age, John Kovalic ’86 was attempting a cartoonist for Christine Knorr ’99, Danielle Lawry, to re-create Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strips. Preston Schmitt ’14, University Marketing the Daily Cardinal. He was a fan of Snoopy and captivated by Schulz’s Image courtesy of PHOTOGRAPHERS seemingly minimal lines. And he watched his John Kovalic. Jeff Miller, University Communications mother write Hops, a comic strip for the children’s Bryce Richter, University Communications magazine Weekly Reader. For this issue, Kovalic created “Drawn Wisconsin!” (see page 32), a CLASS NOTES/DIVERSIONS EDITOR Paula Apfelbach ’83, Wisconsin Alumni tribute to his time at UW-Madison and to fellow artists who drew com- Association ics for the Daily Cardinal in the 1980s. Since then, Kovalic has worked as a successful cartoonist and cofounded a game company. He’s illus- EDITORIAL INTERN trated more than one hundred games, including Apples to Apples and Daniel McKay x’16 Munchkin, for which he has drawn more than five thousand cards. ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Kovalic drew a poignant tribute to Schulz in 2012 that caught my Madison Magazine: 608-270-3600 eye and prompted me to ask if he would be willing to create a UW- focused strip for our readers. On what would have been Schulz’s nine- ALUMNI ADDRESS CHANGES AND DEATH NOTICES tieth birthday, Kovalic devoted his Dork Tower comic strip to Charlie Toll-free: 888-947-2586 Brown’s creator and charted his own growth from that ten-year-old Email: [email protected] struggling to copy Peanuts to drawing his first daily comic strip, Wild Life, for the Cardinal. Kovalic noted that Carson — a muskrat who has Quarterly production of On Wisconsin is appeared in every strip he has produced since high school and looks supported by financial gifts from alumni like a member of Snoopy’s extended family tree — owes a debt to and friends. To make a gift to UW-Madison, Schulz. please visit supportuw.org. At his mother’s urging, Kovalic wrote to Schulz in 1998 when Wild Life was syndicated. Schulz sent back a letter of congratulations, and it Printed on recycled paper. contained wisdom that suggests that we should all listen to our inner Please remember to recycle this magazine. ten-year-old. “If I were to give you any advice,” Schulz wrote, “it would be simply to work as hard as you can, and to always be yourself.” Jenny Price ’96 Co-editor On Wisconsin 9 Keep Growing LIFE LEASE apartment homes at Oakwood suit your changing needs–and your commitment to living a purposeful life. 6205 Mineral Point Road Madison, WI 53705 608-230-4266 • www.oakwoodvillage.net STAY, PLAY AND BE A PART OF THE UW FRIENDS + FAMILY LOYALTY PROGRAM 1001 WISCONSIN PLACE • MADISON 608 535 8200 • THEEDGEWATER.COM 10 On Wisconsin SPRING 2016 OnCampusNews from UW-Madison BETTER Apple Core BUILDING BLOCKS Lego wants to turn its iconic Whose tech is at the heart of iPhones and bricks green by investing $150 million to find cleaner iPads? A court says the UW’s is.