OREAD OMBUDSMAN TACHA'S APPEAL MODERN MURPHY The Doctors Are Stffl In School of Medicine's rural preceptors celebrate 50 years Jayfmwk Generations family Tribute to KU legacies Deadline: Cnwn. get happy! July 15 If you're happy about sending a freshman son or daughter to KU in Publication: fall 2001, send us information for inclusion in Jayhawk Generations, Issue No. 5, Kansas Alumni magazine's annual fall tribute to KU legacies. 2001 To be included, student's high-school activities, awards the student must: and college plans. Important: Be sure to be a freshman in fall 2001 fill out BOTH the general form and the form detailing KU ancestors and high- have at least one parent who is an school activities. Alumni Association member 2. Mail a photograph of the student have at least one parent who attended For further (senior pictures work well) and college- KU (that parent need not have graduated) information era photos of parents who attended KU. Do not send photos of grandparents. We Call Andrea Second Generations will return all photos after the feature is Hoag, 1. Please log on to our Web site and published. submit an electronic form. 785-864-9769 3. Include a copy of the student's 2. Please DO NOT send photographs resume along with photos, if available. for second generation Jayhawks. 800-584-2957 Mail photos and resume to Third Generation and beyond Jayhawk Generations I. Please log on to our Web site Kansas Alumni Association and submit an electronic form. 1266 Oread Avenue Be sure to use the form's requisite blanks Lawrence, KS 66044-3 169 to list all known KU ancestors and the KANSAS ALUMNI CONTENTS Established The Graduate Mas. FEATURES PARXMENTS 20 aSTWORD Peacemaker THE CHORUS Associate Professor Robert Sheltonjor 16 years Uters jii'Di raul has served the campus as ombudsman, but in truth 6 ON his role as a trusted listener and mediator dates back twice as many years. J AY HAWK WAI K By Steven Hill Venus, yeah baby she's got it: the dirty Bird; 10-year 24 si and more Doctors with Boarders News and notes, including importani new Fourth-year medical students don't get a KU Nl-'.Hgrants, Marshal! degree until they spend a month working Scholar and more alongside a small-town Kansas doctor; turns out 14 SPORTS they learn a lot more than medicine. Kenny Uregory flies By Chris Lazzarino Cover photograph by Wally Emerson; 1950 photograph by Look magazine AD READER 30 Friend on the Court tames (M rot hers teaches As she rises to chief judge of the U.S. Court of ; Appeals for the 10th Circuit, former vice 37 ASSOCIATION N 1:V\^ K.C. Hawks party to the chancellor Deanell Reece Tacha retains her Maxal Rock Chalk Ball trademark charm, humor and dedication. By Chris Lazzarino 40 CLASS NOTES 32 new ene ana a f\.c. Music to Their Ears MEMORY KU's beleaguered bands, long suffering in the oddest in the K( / fa> and tightest of campus rehearsal spaces, finally si HOOLWORK move into jazzy new Murphy Hall. News from academe ^0 HAIL TO OLD KU By Katherine Dinsdale Page 32 eached through Mo head's doors to L \XT VOLUME 99 NO. 2, 2001 KANSAS ALUMNI etirement I can be very taxing ... G. Bernard Joyce, M.D., named KU Endowment as the P.O. Box 928 ultimate beneficiary of his retirement plan. This helps ^ZJ KANSAS UNIVERSITY him to avoid tax on distributions from his estate. Lawrence, KS 66044-0928 He graduated from KU in 1939 with a bachelor's (785) 832-7400 degree from the College of Liberal Arts and ENDOWMENT Toll Free: 1-800-444-4201 Sciences and in 1944 with his medical degree. FIRST WORD BY JENNIFER JACKSON SANNER it down in a meeting with Deanell Tacha and you'd best of a consummate listener who turns raging debates into fasten your seatbelt. Dallying is not her style. Detours thoughtful, compassionate discourse and helps those who feel make her restless. She steers nimbly through an agenda, excluded or overlooked feel part of the whole. The son of a mindful that sloppy meetings get in the way of real work. small-town sheriff, Shelton's approach harks back to the practi- SOf course, even the most able driver occasionally takes her cal lessons of childhood as well as his years as a pastor and eyes off the road. Sometimes Tacha, c'68, just can't keep a professor. straight face. She looks around the table and sees not merely Katherine Dinsdale's story takes a new look at another long- colleagues but friends with whom she can't resist sharing a sly time KU resident known for legendary patience: Murphy Hall. aside or a raucous laugh. With many folks, Tacha goes way For years Murphy did its best to serve the department of music back: to western Kansas, to KU, to her kids' activities, to other and dance, despite too little space, too much noise and a chorus committees, to the countless points at which lives intersect in a of other ailments. But this year, Murphy finally takes a bow, town that's blessedly—and at times eerily—small. thanks to an eye-popping renovation and expansion. The new But the comic relief never distracts her for long. She fires questions, sorts answers and sets a course with ease, always with her eye on getting results. Tacha, new chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, moves with all deliberate speed because there is always more work to do. Not only on the court, where she presides over cases from six states and helps guide the federal judiciary, but also in the community. Fifteen years after she left her administrative post in Strong Hall, she remains a trusted University ally and, though her paying job takes her regularly to Denver, she remains on call in Lawrence for many causes. The causes—the arts, education, health care, children in need—share a theme that Tacha clearly takes to heart. She wants to build community, in every sense of the word. She believes our cities and towns will thrive if they offer people from all backgrounds, neigh- borhoods and abilities the places and programs through which they can share their common experiences and space enlivens not only music faculty and students, but also the express their differences. But Tacha does more than mouth high- entire campus, which celebrates the innovation both inside Mur- minded phrases. She urges others to act, because as citizens, she phy's walls and outside, where a sparkling new vista welcomes says, it is our responsibility to ensure that such opportunities visitors to Mount Oread's southern slope. exist. "Community," in the sense of fellowship, of teaching one New vistas for KU's fourth-year medical students mean small another, is one of Tacha's favorite words. So is "thoughtful," by towns far from the Kansas City and Wichita campuses. Our its preferred definition: careful, fair consideration of issues at cover story by Chris Lazzarino celebrates 50 years of the School hand. The trait is required of a skilled judge and community of Medicine's preceptor program, which relies on rural Kansas leader. Tacha is both. doctors, who teach medical students to care for patients not as As we prepared the stories for this issue, my mind kept cases but as friends and neighbors. returning to the many meetings at which I've watched Tacha at In its early days, the program's unvarnished, invaluable spirit work, to the words I've heard her speak before gatherings large caught the attention of Look magazine, which illustrated the and small. It is perhaps fitting (yet purely accidental) that the lessons one young KU doctor learned from his mentor. Today's stories sharing space with our profile of the new chief judge preceptors and their proteges remind us that truly well-managed seem to echo her abiding emphasis on building community. care means talking to people, hearing their stories and respond- Along with Tacha, we also profile Robert Shelton, for 16 years ing thoughtfully. Small-town doctors and their patients go way the University's ombudsman; for nearly two decades before, an back. Theirs are the bonds that help build community—in every unofficial mediator of campus conflict. Steven Hill tells the story sense of the word. ^mm KANSAS ALUMNI • NO. 2, 2001 LIFT THE CHORUS L_ KANSAS ALUMNI MAGAZINE BOARD OF DIRECTORS A family of languages Publisher Chair Fred B.Williams Reid Holbrook, c'64, l'66, Overland Park, I read the article ["Dying dialects," Editor Kansas Schoolwork, issue No. 1] with great inter- Jennifer Jackson Sanner, j'81 Executive Vice Chair est. My mothers side of the family came to Art Director Janet Martin McKinney, c'74, Port Ludlow, this country from the Volga region Susan Younger, f 91 Washington (Dreispitz, Russia). My mother, Mrs. Viola Managing Editor Chris Lazzarino, j'86 Executive Committee Heinze Shaw, of Wilson, is now 89 years Staff Writer Jim Adam, e'56. Overland Park, Kansas old and is the last surviving member of Steven Hill Reid Holbrook, c'64, l'66, Overland Park, her immediate family. Editorial Assistants Kansas Karen Goodell; Andrea E. Hoag, c'94 Janet Martin McKinney, c'74, Port Ludlow, I believe she would be an excellent Washington source of information for Chris Johnson Photographer Cordell D. Meeks Jr., c'64,1*67, Kansas City, Wally Emerson, j'76 Kansas and Gabi Lunte to pursue. Graphic Designer Gil M. Reich, e'54, Savannah, Georgia She spoke the Volga German dialect in Valerie Spicher, j'94 Carol Swanson Ritchie, d'54, Wichita, Kansas her home (her parents spoke very little Editorial Office Kansas Alumni Association Vice Chairs English), and has many recollections of 1266 Oread Ave., Lawrence, KS 66044-3 169 Gary Bender, g'64, Scottsdale, Arizona, and the language and her family.