UNO Alum - December 2003

U N I V E R S I T Y

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N E B R A S K A

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O M A H A

A L U M N I

A S S O C I A T I O N

DECEMBER 2003

IN THIS ISSUE:

Pink Passion Tickled pink over a career in cosmetics Join us Jan. 16 for Alumni Night on the Ice! Details Page 2.

Join us for UNO’s 1st

Alumni Night on the Ice

(For the Right Price!)

Friday, Jan. 16, 2004

5:30 p.m.

7:05 p.m.

Join us at the

UNO vs. Western Michigan

Hilton Garden Inn, 1005 Dodge St.

Qwest Center Omaha

Door prizes!

Every child gets two free “GO MAVS!” ThunderStix! ant a look at the UNO hockey team’s new home? Then join the Alumni Association for Alumni Night on the Ice Friday, Jan. 16, when the Mavs take on Western Michigan.

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The game will be held in the newly constructed Qwest Center Omaha, preceded by an alumni reception held at the Hilton Garden Inn, 1005 Dodge St. (across the street from the Qwest Center). The pre-game reception will be held in the breakfast/lounge area on the first floor, north side of the building, and will include hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. Hockey tickets will be distributed at the reception. Parking is available in the attached garage on the west side of the building. Cost is $15, which includes the hockey ticket and hors d’oeuvres.

RETURN FORM BY Jan. 5, 2004 To attend, fill out the form below, detach and mail with your check to: UNO Alumni Association, 60th & Dodge, Omaha, NE 68182. For more info call toll-free UNO-MAV-ALUM (866-628-2586 or e-mail sking@mail.unomaha.edu

Athletic Director Bob Danenhauer will be the guest speaker at the reception, and door prizes will be awarded for adults and children. All children also will receive two free “Go Mavs!” ThunderStix. At the game, UNO graduates will sit together in one section and will be recognized during intermission. Tickets must be paid for by cash or check at time of registration. Registrations can be submitted by printing the form below and returning with payment (check or credit card). For more information, call Sheila King at (402) 554-4802 or toll-free at 866-628-2586. She can be reached via e-mail at sking@mail.unomaha.edu.

Sign us up for UNO Alumni Night on the Ice Jan. 16!

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for the tickets (Make checks payable to UNO Alumni Association).

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Charge my credit card:

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Signature:

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Contents

December 2003

Departments AROUND CAMPUS 5 Who’s attending UNO? See students by the numbers for 2003-04.

ASSOCIATION IN ACTION 6 Citation to be issued to First National President; Annual Meeting set for Dec. 16; Alumni authors still sought; Swing tourney nets $62,000.

FUTURE ALUMS 24 New shirts—send us your pics!

CLASS NOTES 25 Promotions everywhere.....

Features on the cover 8

MARY KAY IS A-OK 20

Editor: Anthony Flott

UNO grads Mary Pat McGrathRaynor and Stacy James found their callings in the place they least expected.

Contributors: Sonja Carberry, Burhan Elis, Steve Eskew, Tim Fitzgerald, Eric Francis, Mike Hendricks, Don Kohler, David Pulliam, Nick Schinker, Kara Schweiss, UNO Office of Institutional Research.

TURKISH DELIGHT 8 Tugba Kalafatoglu makes her mark in Turkey national politics.

ON THE AIR 10

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KVNO’s tower collapsed in July, but the popular radio station is getting through loud and clear now.

STILL SHOWING 12 Former Communications Professor Warren Francke continues to show, not tell, in a journalism career spanning 50 years.

BACK TO BASICS 16 Fred Spompinato bakes bread with a passion. So why is his Kansas City shop open just three days a week?

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Alumni Association Officers: Chairman of the Board, Kevin Naylor; Past Chairman, Don Winters; Chairman-elect Steve Bodner; Vice Chairmen, Cookie Katskee, Adrian Minks, Rod Oberle, John Wilson; Secretary, Kevin Warneke; Treasurer, Dan Koraleski; Legal Counsel, Deb McLarney; President & CEO, Jim Leslie.

Alumni Staff: Jim Leslie, President and CEO; Roxanne Miller, Executive Secretary; Sue Gerding, Diane Osborne, Kathy Johnson, Records/Alumni Cards; Sheila King, Activities Coordinator; Greg Trimm, Alumni Center Manager; Joan Miller, Accountant; Anthony Flott, Editor; Loretta Wirth, Receptionist.

The UNO Alum is published quarterly by the UNO Alumni Association, W.H. Thompson Alumni Center, UNO, Omaha, NE 68182-0010, (402) 554-2444, FAX (402) 554-3787 • web address: www.unoalumni.org. • Member, Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) • Direct all inquiries to Editor, W.H. Thompson Alumni Center, (402) 554-2989. Toll-free, UNO-MAV-ALUM • Send all changes of address to attention of Records • Views expressed through various articles within the magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the University of Nebraska at Omaha or the UNO Alumni Association.

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December 2003 • 3

Letter

A

From the Chancellor

Just what is a metropolitan University?

s this edition of the UNO Alum goes to press, the campus community is preparing to attend our fall Strategic Planning Advance (as opposed to retreat!). Held annually during the spring and fall semesters, these “advances” give faculty, staff, students, alumni and community supporters a chance to review progress on UNO’s strategic planning goals.

Over the past six years, the university community has worked hard to develop a dynamic and responsive strategic plan. We are making progress toward our vision of UNO as a metropolitan university of distinction.

So, what is a metropolitan university? Sociologist Margaret Mead wrote: “The city is a center where, any day in any year, there may be a fresh encounter with a new talent, a keen mind or gifted specialist . . . to play this role in our lives; the city must have a soul, a university.”

There is no doubt that the heart of UNO is new talent, keen minds and gifted specialists, which Mead described so well.

By seeking and developing knowledge, UNO’s faculty, staff and students are the driving force behind the significant progress underway across campus. In short, UNO is in the vanguard of urban-based institutions, maximizing their “metropolitan advantage.”

What is this advantage? More than a city, it is acceptance of our responsibility and our locus of strength to engage with and improve the community.

The metropolitan advantage is about universities seizing opportunities to develop linkages and build unique partnerships. As a result, universities have the people and the capacity to bring special expertise to impact pressing social, economic, government, business and educational issues. And, it is about institutions in “the seed beds of innovation and risk taking”—that is metropolitan areas—where studies of urban challenges and high-risk youth can be used in many other communities.

Quite simply, metropolitan communities are living, breathing teaching laboratories. Our research collaborators include government and business leaders, public educators, industrial magnates, and those on the front line of social service.

Just as agriculture and mechanical arts were the relevant issues leading to the creation of land-grant institutions, today’s issues of health care, P-12 education, crime, economic development and jobs are urban-related.

And, this is where metropolitan universities develop their

4 • December 2003

niche, through a variety of unique research initiatives, collaborative ventures and integrated partnerships. Both landgrant and metropolitan universities have distinct and important roles to play as we move into the 21st century.

As we look across the breadth and depth of programs benefiting students and the community, one might be tempted to think that the metropolitan advantage is an attempt to be all things to all people. But our engagement in such initiatives is not by random choice. To achieve institutional excellence, metropolitan universities must identify appropriate niches, and then choose to prioritize resources deliberately and strategically.

Ernest Lynton and Sandar Elman wrote: “The existing, narrowly defined mold into which almost all universities have tried to cast themselves, is not adequate to the expanding needs of our contemporary knowledge-based society.” A metropolitan university is an agent of change. It is a transformer of the society, and also is itself transformed by the experience.

That is the process we are witnessing at the University of Nebraska at Omaha—an exciting, complex, and vital metamorphosis. UNO is an agent of change, transforming and being transformed by the METROPOLITAN ADVANTAGE.” Until next time,

UNO Chancellor Nancy Belck

UNOALUM

Around Campus

Events & Happenings on the UNO Campus

UNO Student Profile, 2003-2004 Ethnic Groups *

OFFICE OF INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH

Student Profile 2003 -2004 University of Nebraska at Omaha HIGHLIGHTS

• Average ACT scores are the highest in UNO’s history for entering freshmen – 23.1.

• Retention from freshmen to sophomore year is highest in UNO’s history -73.2%.

• Minority and international student enrollment is 14.3% of all undergraduates.

• The number of new full- and part-time freshmen enrolled is up 21% since fall 1997.

• Student to faculty ratio is 18 to 1.

STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS

Undergraduate First Year (new & cont.)

Second Year Third Year Fourth Year & Beyond Specials Graduates Total

Fall 2003 Enrollment 12,064 3,202 2,756 2,581 2,841 684 2,895 14,959

By College Agriculture Architecture Arts & Sciences Business Public Affairs Continuing Studies Education Engineering-Technology Fine Arts Human Resources & Family Science Information Science & Technology University Division Inter-Campus/Non-Degree New Cooperative Grad Program Total University Year 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Percent Part-time 26.9% 15.9% 19.0% 25.1% 35.8% 80.4% 75.8% 36.4% Undergrad 15 85 3,447 1,988 541 1,031 1,378 897 501 217 794 763 407 0 12,064

Grad

314 415 529 864 38 276 440 19 2,895

Fall Semester Headcount, 1993-2003 * Undergraduate Graduate Total 13,948 2,588 16,536 12,860 2,707 15,567 12,446 2,770 15,216 12,221 2,779 15,000 11,664 2,635 14,299 11,385 2,542 13,927 11,345 2,605 13,950 11,578 2,785 14,363 12,101 3,005 15,106 12,305 3,118 15,423 12,064 2,895 14,959

* Enrollments are based on delivery-site.

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Caucasian African American Hispanic Asian American Native American International

Undergraduate 82.4% 5.6% 3.0% 2.8% 0.4% 2.5%

Graduate 78.2% 4.4% 1.6% 2.1% 0.3% 10.4%

* Figures will not equal 100 % because non-responses are excluded.

Gender Female Male

Undergraduate 50.5 % 49.5%

Graduate 61.5% 38.5%

Age Groups Under 20 20-24 25-29 30-39 40 & older

26.6% 50.6% 11.2% 7.0% 4.6%

0.0% 19.3% 34.0% 26.2% 20.5%

Residency Nebraska U.S. * International

89.3% 7.9% 2.5%

80.1% 9.5% 10.4 %

*outside Nebraska

Nebraska counties sending the largest number of students to UNO are: Douglas 7,595 Lancaster 186 Sarpy 1,970 Dodge 185 Washington 188 Cass 166 States, other than Nebraska, sending the largest number of students are: Iowa 720 South Dakota 37 Kansas 46 Minnesota 34 Missouri 39 Texas 31 Foreign countries sending the largest number of students to UNO are: China 82 South Korea 44 India 82 Japan 43 First-Time Freshmen ACT Composite Scores 75th Percentile 26.00 50th Percentile 23.00 25th Percentile 20.00 Average High School GPA

3.36

High School Rank Percent in upper 10% Percent in upper 25% Percent in upper 50%

14.3% 39.0% 73.6%

Size of Graduating High School Class Fewer than 99 17.6% 100 – 199 16.3% 200 – 399 38.9% 400 or more 21.4% Not reported 5.8% December 2003 • 5

Association in Action First National President O’Neill to receive Citation

Calling alumni authors arlin Briscoe wrote about becoming pro football’s first black starting quarterback. Joel Jorgensen penned the definitive book on the birds of Nebraska. George Lindquist shared his secrets to buying a car.

And Linda Lewis explored the “Promethean Politics of Milton, Blake and Shelley.”

Their common bond? Not only are all four published authors, but they’re all UNO graduates, too.

There are plenty more alumni authors with stories to tell. And so the UNO Alum will be writing about writers—graduates who have penned books.

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6 • December 2003

Photo courtesy First National of Nebraska

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he University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) Alumni Association will bestow its Citation for Alumnus Achievement upon Daniel K. O’Neill, president of First National of Nebraska (FNN), on Friday, Dec. 19, at the Omaha Civic Auditorium.

The Citation, instituted in 1949, is presented each year at UNO’s three commencement ceremonies. The Association’s highest honor, it encompasses professional or career achievement, community service, involvement in business and professional associations, and fidelity to UNO. Kevin Naylor (’78), 2003 chairman of the UNO Alumni Association Board of Directors, will present the award at winter commencement ceremonies.

O’Neill, who in 1977 earned a bachelor’s of science degree in business administration from UNO, was named First National’s president in 2002.

He has more than 26 years of experience in the financial services industry, starting with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as a bank examiner in 1977. In 1981 he joined the Lauritzen Corporation, a multi-bank holding company with 16 banks located throughout Iowa and Nebraska. Lauritzen, an FNN affiliate, has $1.5 billion in total assets. O’Neill concurrently serves as its executive vice president His role as president of First National of Nebraska entails oversight of one of the largest bank holding companies headquartered west of the Mississippi River. Today, First National and its affiliates have $16 billion in managed assets and more than 7,000 employees located across the United States, with primary banking offices in Nebraska, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, South Dakota and Texas. First National also is one of the nation’s largest in-house bank processors of merchant credit card transactions, one of the largest bank issuers of Visa

First National of Nebraska President and UNO Citation for Alumnus Achievement recipient Dan O’Neill.

and Mastercard, and a leading processor of automated clearinghouse transactions and cash management services.

O’Neill has three daughters and serves on the board of the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

We’re collecting their names and works, then we’ll choose eight to feature in the March 2004 Alum.

We’ve already begun compiling our own list of alumni authors from which to choose, but we also want your input.

Have you written a book, or do you know a UNO grad who has? If so, let us know! We’ve provided an online submission form at www.unoalumni.org/alumni_authors/book_nomination.

You also can e-mail your information to aflott@mail.unomaha.edu, or write us at: UNO Alumni Association, Alumni Authors, 60th & Dodge, Omaha, NE 68182-0010.

Of course, there are too many alumni authors to feature in the magazine, so we’re also creating space on our website listing UNO grads and their books. We’ll update this page regularly, and we plan to develop a “Book of the Month” feature.

Sound interesting? Then get writing!

UNOALUM

UNO Alumni Association News & Information

Scholarship Swing tourney nets $62,000 he UNO Chancellor’s Scholarship Swing was held Sept. 8 at Tiburon Golf Club, and once again the event scored a hole-in-one for student scholarships.

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Held for the 23rd consecutive year, the Swing raised $62,000 for student scholarships. The UNO Alumni Association began hosting the tournament eight years ago.

Since then, nearly a quarter of a million dollars has been raised for scholarships.

“This is one of the biggest single fund raisers for the UNO campus each year,” said Sheila King, director of Alumni Programming and Activities. “Most of the heavy lifting in preparation for the tournament is done by UNO graduates who, valuing their own UNO education, want to provide the same opportunity to current students through scholarships.”

The money raised supports various Association-sponsored student scholarships, including $1,000 UNO Alumni Legacy Scholarships. Legacy Scholarships were instituted in 2000 and are awarded only to children of UNO graduates.

UNO graduate Mike Jones (1966) chaired the committee that oversees the tournament’s organization. Other committee members include UNO graduates: Jim Czyz (’71); Jacquie Estee (’78); Mark Grieb (’81); Cookie Katskee (’80); Dan Koraleski (’86); John Wilson (’78); and Don Winters (’69). Earl Leinart also served on the committee.

Nearly 200 golfers played in the tournament. Numerous businesses (listed below) also contributed financial support via hole sponsorships and prize donations. All were recognized after play during a banquet at the W.H. Thompson Alumni Center.

A special thanks, once again, to Lambda Chi Alpha for its valuable assistance running the tournament.

Chancellor Scholarship Swing Sponsors Hole –in-One Sponsor Mercedes Benz of Omaha Dinner Sponsors Superior Honda of Omaha and Acura of Omaha Beverage Sponsors Double Eagle Beverage Pepsi Bottling Group Prize Sponsors Bob Astleford, Classic Auto Sales Brandeis Catering ConAgra Foods Gary Domet Peter Kiewit Institute MBNA Mutual of Omaha Omaha Symphony Park Regency Lodge Piccolo’s Florist Tiburon Golf Club UNO Alumni Association UNO Athletic Department John & Mary Wilson Sponsors Anderson Partners Bill Hargens Earl Leinart Randy Limbeck Mid-American Insurance Group, Inc.

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Course Sponsors AAA Nebraska Actuarial Consulting Services, Inc. America First Companies Bank of Nebraska Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Nebraska Brandeis Catering Children’s Hospital ConAgra Foods Cox Communications Cummins Great Plains Deloitte & Touche Deloitte & Touche, Omaha Office DLR Group First Data Resources First National Bank First National Bank of Valentine First Westroads Bank Fraser, Stryker Law Firm/District 66 Grandmother’s Restaurants Hancock & Dana PC HDR (i) Structure Kiewit Construction Harry A. Koch Co. KPMG LLP Jim Mancuso/ Interstate Printing

Mercer Human Resource Consulting The MSR Group Mutual of Omaha/Group Benefit Services Nebraska State Bank NEXADENTAL Pepsi Bottling Group Pinnacle Bank Securities America Seim, Johnson, Sestak & Quist, LLP TAC Air Travel & Transport, Inc. Union Pacific United Nebraska Bank University of Nebraska Foundation University of Nebraska Medical Center UNO Athletics U.S. Bank Valmont Industries Waitt Media, Inc. Wells Fargo Bank John & Mary Wilson Woodmen of the World

Association’s Annual Meeting set for Dec. 16

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NO alumni can help select the 2004-2005 members of the Association Board of Directors by voting for candidates at the board’s annual meeting.

Alumni are encouraged to attend the public meeting, set for Tuesday, Dec. 16, at 5 p.m. in the William H. Thompson Alumni Center (Rhoden Board Room).

Chancellor Nancy Belck will be the evening’s guest speaker.

Alumni Hockey Night Jan. 16

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ant a look at the UNO hockey team's new home? Then make it to Alumni Night on the Ice Friday, Jan. 16, when the Mavs take on Western Michigan.

The game will be held in the newly constructed Qwest Center Omaha, preceded by an alumni reception held at the Hilton Garden Inn, 1005 Dodge St. across the street from the Qwest Center.

Hockey tickets will be distributed at the reception, held prior to the game and including hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar. Cost is $15, which includes the hockey ticket and hors d'oeuvres.

Athletic Director Bob Danenhauer will be the guest speaker, and door prizes will be awarded for adults and children.

All children also will receive two free “Go Mavs!” ThunderStix.

Tickets must be paid for by cash or check at time of registration. Registration forms (Page 2 or at www.unoalumni.org/hockeyregistration) can be printed and returned with payment.

For more information, call Sheila King at (402) 554-4802 or toll-free at 866-628-2586. She can be reached via e-mail at sking@mail.unomaha.edu.

December 2003 • 7

Turkish By Don Kohler Photo by Burhan Elis

Tugba Kalafatog makes her mark o Turkey’s politica scen

Kalafatoglu in fron Turkish Parliam

By Don Kohler 8 • December 2003

UNOALUM

Delight W

lu on al ne nt of ment

hile other children were decorating their bedrooms with life-sized images of popular athletes and entertainers, a young Tugba Kalafatoglu had her own vision of what a wall of fame should look like. Posters of renowned world leaders such as Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic and its first president, adorned the walls of her Istanbul home.

Kalafatoglu grew accustomed to people questioning her interest in politics and world peace.

“When I talked about being a politician, people would look at me like, ‘Can’t you find some other kind of occupation?” she says. “In my room I had posters of all the worldwide politicians and peacekeepers. My dream has always been to make the world a better place to live in and to make a difference in people’s lives. I see being in politics as a powerful tool to make the changes for the good of people.”

Kalafatoglu ignored those childhood skeptics and made good on her political aspirations. The 1998 UNO alumna currently is vice chairman and president of elections for the Young Party “GENC Party” in Turkey, where she takes a lead role in directing and implementing the party election program.

The 29-year-old also serves as an executive board member for the International Young Professionals Foundation (IYPF), a group that encourages the involvement of young people in IYPF events around the world. In the summer of 2002, Kalafatoglu was a chief political consultant for the Democratic Turkey Party and had the distinction of becoming the youngest advisor to a president in Turkish political history.

The climate is far from “politics as usual” in Turkey, Kalafatoglu says. “There is a check and balance system in America and in Turkey we do not have that. There are two major parties in the U.S. and if you ask 100 people which party they will vote for, 90 percent will say Democrat or Republican. In Turkey, there are about 50 political parties and things change every election.”

Although her passion for politics began early in life, Kalafatoglu says her interest in running campaigns peaked while she pursued her bachelor’s degree at UNO, where she qualified for the Dean’s List and graduated with honors in the spring of 1998. “I learned a lot about politics at UNO, and the college made me what I am today,” she says. “I had many teachers at UNO that I can thank for my success. People like Dr. Orville Menard, Nancy Nicas, Rosalie Saltzman and Dr. James Johnson were always there for me and supportive of my goals and aspirations. The political science department was a very important aspect of my life.”

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Kalafatoglu was involved in more than just politics while studying at UNO. She was student orientation leader, a member of the Zeta Tau Alpha Chapter’s executive board and a columnist for the UNO Gateway. In 1997 she earned the Outstanding International Service Award and the following year the Outstanding Political Science Student Award. In her spare time, Kalafatoglu began to get involved with politics on a professional level, working as lobbyist and performing fundraising duties for some notable campaigns. She managed the local campaign office for then-U.S. Sen. Robert Kerry and was a key figure in former Omaha city councilwoman Brenda Council’s bid to become mayor. “Mr. Kerry was a great senator and I learned a great deal from him and his staff,” she says. “My most memorable local race was the campaign for Brenda Council. I still remember how great of a public person she was as a councilwoman, and what a friendly, hard-working and dedicated person she was. She set a great example for me as a woman in politics.”

Following graduation, Kalafatoglu left Omaha to continue her studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where she again became active in campaign management, this time for the Gore-Lieberman presidential ticket. Juggling the rigors of a master’s degree program and campaign duties were well worth the time and effort, Kalafatoglu says, because it enabled her to be involved in that historic Bush vs. Gore election featuring premature network television projections, infamous “hanging chads” and an election ultimately decided with help from the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I remember many times studying late at night and having to get up early in the morning for that campaign. The most memorable part was going to Florida for the countdown and being a part of American political history. That’s something to tell my grandchildren about.”

Although she enjoyed the excitement of American politics, Kalafatoglu said she was anxious to return to home after graduating with her master’s degree in International Affairs and Public Policy in the fall of 2001. “My goal was to always return to my home country,” she says. “But do I miss the U.S.A.? Yes. I came to the U.S. as a teenager and left as an adult, and it was an important part of my life.”

Today, Kalafatoglu is one of the most influential political consultants in her native country and the youngest representative on the board of the GENC Party. “People in my country are happy to see that there are new faces and young people involved in politics,” she says. “Overall, being young, especially a young woman, is not an easy thing in Turkish politics.

I am new school, and old-school politicians are not happy to see me. That’s a hardship factor that I must go through, but I am going to move forward and follow my dreams into reality.”

If her dreams come true, one day there may by a Tugba Kalafatoglu poster hanging from a child’s room in Istanbul. “I have always talked about becoming the first woman to be president of Turkey, but that title is not important to me now. I would like to be involved in government to make new policies that can make a difference in peoples’ lives and for Turkey. I have a dream that people will have a better standard of life and a peaceful future.”

December 2003 • 9

Photo by Tim Fitzgerald

10 • December 2003

UNOALUM

On Air

By Kara Schweiss

After July tower collapse, KVNO back and better than ever

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n the beautiful clear night of July 4, UNO Manager of Television and Radio Debbi Aliano was enjoying her neighborhood’s annual block party and looking forward to a leisurely weekend. She never dreamed it would be the last peace of mind she would experience for several months.

With midnight approaching, the 1,200-foot KETV tower from which UNO radio station KVNO-FM had broadcast for more than 30 years suddenly and inexplicably collapsed, destroying the KVNO antenna and instantly silencing the station. Aliano received the news via a midnight phone call from a member of the station’s technical staff.

“I don’t think it really sunk in when he said ‘We’re off the air. The tower is down.’,” Aliano says. “It’s the worst thing that can happen.”

Aliano, who received her BS in 1988 and MS in 1995 from UNO, began working for KVNO in 1992, serving as its general manager since 1997. She says the realistic possibility of a tower collapse is so remote that KVNO, like most noncommercial stations, did not have a contingency plan or a redundant system in place to specifically address it. Although her technical staff had thoroughly briefed her, Aliano says that on July 6 when she drove past the mangled wreckage at the north Omaha tower site, she was astonished at the extent of damage to the formerly sturdy-looking structure.

“It looked like a Tinker Toy. I was sick to my stomach. I even had bad dreams about it later,” Aliano says. “It’s fortunate that this terrible accident occurred at a time when no one was at the site.”

Although news of the mystifying KETV tower collapse soon was all over the local media, not all of the reports indicated that KVNO was also down. Additionally, because the accident occurred late at night and on a holiday weekend, many listeners did not discover KVNO was off the air until returning from vacation or going back to work the following week, Aliano says.

“The calls started right away and the calls and e-mails went all through the weekend and for weeks after,” Aliano says.

The station’s staff, with the help of a public relations firm, quickly began executing a plan to keep listeners and supporters informed about developments. KVNO sent out press releases, mailed postcards to supporters, posted updates on its Web site, established a “Back to Broadcast” hotline and pur-

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chased a series of print ads in local publications. Because KVNO was still available on the Web, webcasting capability was expanded and two additional formats were made available, and listeners were directed to online listening at every possible opportunity.

“We really made an investment in the Web,” Aliano says.

“We upgraded the look and features and really improved it.”

KVNO received permission from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to temporarily broadcast at low power from the Henningson Memorial Campanile on the UNO campus, which it began doing on July 18. Signal strength was only about 1 percent of normal, or about a mile in all directions. In the meantime, KMTV graciously offered KVNO space on its tower and for its transmitter, located near the former KETV tower, at no charge as a temporary measure.

On Aug. 20, KVNO celebrated its return to broadcasting at full power. It will continue to broadcast from the KMTV location indefinitely.

Aliano says KVNO never considered ceasing operations. “It was very important to stay on the air. We never ever stopped broadcasting our signal. We never skipped a beat. It was a very courageous statement we wanted to make.”

Although Arbitron ratings for the autumn will not be available until late January, Aliano says all indications are that most of KVNO’s 42,000 weekly listeners have come back into the fold. KVNO is one of three public radio stations serving the Omaha area but offers a one-of-a-kind blend of classical music, local arts information and weekend jazz and specialty programs.

“I really feared we would lose listeners and lose support.

There are choices. People go up and down the dial, and if we’re not there they can go somewhere else.” Aliano says.

“But because we’re a unique service, people came back to us.”

Listeners showed their support in tangible ways as well.

This year’s fall fund drive brought in $105,796. “We’ve never raised that much money so quickly,” Aliano says. Aliano says that another positive outcome resulting from the bad fortune of the tower collapse was renewed appreciation from listeners.

“A lot of people said ‘we never realized how much we listened to the station’ or ‘we missed you so much.”

On Sept. 5, KVNO hosted an open house complete with studio tours, refreshments, and announcer meet-and-greets.

Aliano says the event drew an eclectic mix of people from retirees and young mothers with babies in strollers to workplace listeners stopping by during lunch or after work. It also was a rare and welcome opportunity for KVNO staff to meet listeners face-to-face.

“We were stunned at the turnout. We planned for 100 at the most and had 300 people throughout the day,” Aliano says. “It was fun to see who listens to the station and to talk to them.” As KVNO looks for a permanent home for its transmitter and antenna, Aliano says the station wraps up the year stronger than ever. “It was a challenging year, but it signaled the value people place on KVNO,” Aliano says.

In addition to its twice-a-year membership drives, KVNO is launching the KVNO Public Radio Future Fund for planned and larger gifts. For information on supporting KVNO, contact 402-559-5866 or log on to www.kvno.org December 2003 • 11

Retired? Yeah, right. Former UNO Communications Professor Warren Francke is still showing stories.

By Steve Eskew Photos by Eric Francis 12 • December 2003

UNOALUM

Still Showing I

t was a powerful motto, one that left an indelible mark on who knows how many folks out there slapping their bylines on this thing we call journalism. Show, don’t tell.

This Warren Francke preached for 35 years as a UNO communications professor. He practiced what he preached, too, placing his readers at the scene, on the stage or wherever else he might happen to be taking in all that rich color and detail.

In 1962, before beginning his teaching career, Francke puts readers of the Council Bluff Daily Nonpareil in front of Iowa’s last execution by hanging: Brown blew a final puff of smoke from his lips and discarded the cigarette as he stepped into the auto body shop where the scaffold is stored . . . The condemned man studied the highceilinged room as he passed 59 men on the way to the gallows . . . Brown didn’t flinch as the black hood covered his head and the rope was placed around his neck . . . The sheriff pulled the lever, the trap opened, and Brown’s body dropped, swiftly and in silence.

In another Nonpareil contribution, readers accompany Francke to the West Pottawattamie Fair where they share a proud father’s reaction to his two sons winning an Angus competition: All eyes turned on the Underwood brothers. And two of the eyes wore tears that washed into the grime of hard, hot hours readying the stock for the judging.

Later in the ’60s, Francke seats Omaha Sun readers amid a crowd at Ak-Sar-Ben Field’s muddy race track whilst Billy Graham evangelizes: His body sweeps emphatic swaths . . . well-defined fluidity marred only by a microphone cord trailing from under his coat . . . ‘Man would like to think he has the ability to save himself’ . . . Arms never swing but slice and jerk and snap to a stop on his hips . . . ‘If you’ve ever had hate—and that would include racial prejudice’ . . . Fingers together as if to salute, his hands become blades to carve a place for his words . . . A boy probes the mud of the track and pushes it down with his foot . . .

Francke is retired from UNO but remains an active journalist, this year marking his 50th plying his craft. He launched his writing career at Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln High School, editing the school paper’s sports page. He moved on to become a copy boy and Sunday Bluff’s reporter-photographer for the Omaha World-Herald. As a full-time student at thenMunicipal University of Omaha, he double-majored in journalism and English. Later, he earned his master’s in English while working full time as a night reporter for the Nonpareil.

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He kept writing even as he worked on his doctorate at the University of Minnesota.

Even his master’s thesis smacks of literary journalism, that mode of writers like Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson. From Francke’s thesis “Tipping the Tea Table: From Austere Miss Austen to Jolly Aunt Jane”: Jolly Aunt Jane only laughs at the image of Austen the austere, the wry, dry ironic Miss Austen. She elbows Rabelais in the ribs, slaps Cervantes on the knee, and winks boldly at Fielding while tearing off the last of a huge leg of mutton and flinging the bone toward the dark corner where the Bronte sisters huddle, far from the flame.

Francke would carve a niche as a descriptive theater reviewer, writing so many that he couldn’t resist stealing that style to announce the birth of the his firstborn child: Christopher Ted Francke, a one-act spectacular, opened Saturday at Mercy Hospital to unanimous critical acclaim . . . Susan Nell Francke was a natural in the role of the mother . . . Lending an earlier behind the scenes hand from the production end was Warren T. Francke . . . The proud producers will be hard put to resist creating a sequel.

Brown didn’t flinch as the black hood covered his head and the rope was placed around his neck . . . The sheriff pulled the lever, the trap opened, and Brown’s body dropped, swiftly and in silence.

In the late ’80s, Francke, by now a fully tenured professor, reviews the national road production of “Hello Dolly”: Considering what we did in public Tuesday night, our blushing should put the autumn leaves to shame, Francke begins, confessing that he and 2,000 other people made love to Carol Channing and did not go unrequited. A legend loved us back . . . There she stands, in feathered headdress, jewels and red gown, as the green-clad waiters form ranks to roar that familiar welcome, “Well, hello Dolly, it’s so nice to see you back where you belong.” Before you can say, “Golly gee, fellas, lend a vacant knee, fellas,” the crowd rises in joyous ovation.

Throughout the years, Francke wrote columns for half a dozen local publications. His tenure at the Sun lent him the opportunity to pen features and specials delving into sex edu Continued on next page

December 2003 • 13

From previous page cation, segregation and similar subjects other publications then considered taboo. Francke’s talent for spicy commentary led to a gig providing criticism of the media itself on WOWT’s “Watching the Watchdogs” from 1983 to 1990.

In 1997, Francke carried Nonpareil readers along with him to England: You know you’re in London when a ruddy-cheeked chap hurries through the hotel lobby calling out “Jack the Rippuh, Jack the Rippuh” . . . He wasn’t paging the old Ripper but announcing the next tour of the legendary killer’s haunts.

S

ince his retirement from teaching in 2000, Francke has continued to write profiles for the UNO Alum, Medium and Omaha Magazine. He’s published his book, “The Way Was Clear: The Centennial History of Dundee Presbyterian Church” and collaborated on the biography, “Lucky: The Story of the Durhams and HDR.” His contribution to the Durham book exemplifies how Francke’s literary journalism can capture a personality with minimal imagery, allowing the reader’s imagination to complete the picture: Dr. Atanasoff started the 8 a.m. class neatly dressed in a blue suit with a white shirt and a blue necktie. By 9 or so, after assaulting the blackboard with enthusiasm that sent the chalk flying, his blue suit was coated with white chalk.

Recent publications show that Francke has maintained his magic for plopping readers smack dab into the situation. From a UNO Alum piece a couple years back titled, “The Great Migration”: So it came to pass in 1970 that Gary and Michele Johnson loaded their belongings into a U-Haul pulled by a pink 1962 Dodge station wagon and set off for La-La Land with Eric, their 18-month old son.

Later, Francke unifies the piece by reiterating the color motif and noting that, even after Johnson’s success as the Emmy-winning senior writer for TV’s “Jeopardy,” Gary hasn’t replaced the pink Dodge with a pink Porsche or a red Navigator, but commutes in a drab Honda Accord. Earlier this year Medium published Francke’s profile on Elaine Jabenis, whose many adventures find her mingling with celebrities.

Francke begins by describing Jabenis’ posing with Pierre Cardin in Paris and Oscar de la Renta in New York, then playfully notes her posing with TV’s former late-night king, Johnny Carson: And who dat cheek-to-cheek on the couch with E? Only Johnny Carson cuddles so stiffly with raised eyebrows, and the dress with the geometrical designs is so Elaine. He concludes his article with an anecdotal footnote: She didn’t save that dress she wore cuddling with Johnny Carson. The one with the geometric designs? She cut it up and made him a necktie.

Today, Francke’s story showing technique prevails in publications that don’t even include his byline. That’s due to his countless proteges, former students that Francke modestly credits with story showing journalism that’s “better than I could hope to write in several lifetimes.”

Melanie Morrissey Clark, an editor and writer, claims

14 • December 2003

Francke changed the very direction of her life when he pointed out her natural aptitude for writing and suggested she consider switching majors from sociology to journalism. “I heeded his advice and he helped me along the way, lining up valuable internships, and to this day he gives me story ideas and input,” she says. “I credit him with my success. He is so much more than a teacher. He is a mentor and a friend to so many of his students.”

Former Francke student David J. Krajicek, author of “Scooped!” autographed Francke’s copy of the book with the following inscription: “Warren—to my most influential teacher, a man who sees the wonder of journalism, then instills it in others.”

Today, Francke’s influence stills lingers throughout UNO’s journalism department. “Warren Francke’s writings demonstrate the very motto that he burned into my brain, ‘Show, don’t tell,’” says Karen Weber, a former Francke teaching assistant and current UNO journalism instructor. “I’ve done my utmost to emulate Dr. Francke’s visual style of writing where the action verb reigns supreme with spare but specific vivid details setting the scene. I try to impart his words of wisdom in my teaching,” At this writing, Francke had just finished up a Medium article on Marlon Brando’s Sandhills ranch, a Bruce Crawford profile for Omaha Magazine and a UNO Alum feature on Mayor Fahey’s security head, Charles Parker. In addition, he was touching up the latest chapter on a book that “shows how the Omaha Community Playhouse became the No. 1 theater of its kind.”

Any chance his agenda includes memoirs or a text illustrating his story-showing approach to journalism? Francke only sighed and said that he planned to take a breather “to read, hike—and yeah, maybe even write a little.”

UNOALUM

An American Tale

By Sonja Carberry

U

NO alum Cathy Krell has experienced war with two sets of eyes. Most recently as a U.S. Army staff sergeant entering Iraq from Kuwait on the day the war began, but first as a child born into war-torn Vietnam.

In April 1975, Saigon was falling to the communists and countless refugees—among them an estimated 18,000 orphans—were in desperate straits. President Ford authorized Operation Baby Lift to hastily evacuate children already in the adoption process. Krell was just 8, living in an orphanage with her younger sister, Theresa, when she became one of more than 3,000 children airlifted for the United States and Canada.

The two sisters were rushed onto a chartered Pan Am flight that took off from Tan Son Nhut air base under small arms fire and amidst human pandemonium. “It was loud. The kids were all crying,” Krell remembers. “I didn’t really know what was going on.”

A military CA-5 that lifted off immediately before Krell’s Pan Am plane crashed, killing 144 passengers. Larry and Irene Krell, waiting in Nebraska to adopt Cathy and Theresa, were mistakenly informed that their future daughters were aboard the CA-5. The Krells were overjoyed to greet Cathy and Theresa in Chicago, settling them on the family farm in Union, Neb., where the girls learned English from Sesame Street and attended a country school.

But Larry Krell soon moved the family to Bellevue, Neb., in part to escape what he called rampant racism in rural Nebraska. The family swelled to eight kids—seven of whom were adopted and are of various racial backgrounds.

What Cathy demonstrated, says her father, was unmatched tenacity and fortitude in adjusting to America and processing what she’d endured. “We live in such an isolated world,” he says. “Just to live through what these people–Cathy included—have survived is amazing. I would have sank.”

K

rell prefers to say little about her memories of Vietnam.

“We lived with my grandmother and with one of my aunts. We took turns living with them. I remember them a little,” she says. “Then my birth mom gave my sister and I to an American agency. I guess we were lucky in a sense because my mom gave us up. She did the paperwork and we were already adopted.”

Krell speaks more freely about her recent war experience.

Her memories of serving in Iraq are sensory: gritty sand; hot wind; the smell of latrines burning; cold MREs and hot Armyissue Ramen noodles. “It was just sand, desert,” Krell says.

“You’re just there.” “There” was Camp Cedar in southern Iraq, a five-hour drive from Baghdad and smack-dab in the middle of the sandstorm that played so heavily on war coverage.

“It started at 9:30 in the morning and it didn’t end until late the next day,” she says. “Every morning when you came in to work, you had to dust your table off, your computer, the

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floor.”

Krell served as a career counselor, helping keep soldiers in the Army. “I talk to them about the benefits of staying. I talk about what they want to stay in. I do what I can to help them out,” she says. In Iraq, Krell says, the attraction of reenlistment was the financial reward of hazardous duty and separation pay, as well as pride of serving. “Out there, for me, they were reenlisting,” she says.

Krell’s own enlistment came after she earned her degree at UNO in home economics/human development in 1992.

She carried full academic loads while Photo courtesy Cathy Krell family working two or three Krell with NBC’s Brian Williams. The jobs, including posiUNO grad’s next assignment is a year tions with Family at Camp Casey in South Korea.

Service of Greater Omaha, the Child Saving Institute, Visinet Inc. and ENCOR. But the pace of keeping up with her educational debt weighed heavily on her mind. So she joined the Army, enticed by its offer of $55,000 in tuition reimbursement. A quarter-inch shy of the 4-foot-10 requirement, Krell squeaked through the enlistment process with a special deferment and signed on the dotted line at a recruiting station on 72nd and Grover streets in 1995.

What UNO gave Krell was a leg up in the military by advancing her rank. “If I didn’t have my degree, I would have been an E1, E2, E3,” she says.

As an E6, Krell became part of the Army’s 6th Transportation Battalion in Iraq. She remembers the tension and fear she felt heading north with the battalion in a convoy.

Periodically, a vehicle would get stuck in the sand and everyone would stop and wait. “Let’s keep going, let’s keep going,” she remembers thinking. “I was scared and everybody else was scared, too. With war, you never know. I guess you just get used to it.”

She even tasted a bit of fame in Iraq when NBC’s “Dateline” featured her in March. “Dateline” reporter Brian Williams recounted Krell’s stories of war spanning four decades.

Fortunately, she endured both safely. The entire Krell family breathed a sign of relief when Cathy completed her deployment and headed back to Fort Eustis, Va. It was the Fourth of July, 2003.

December 2003 • 15

Photo by Kevin Bartram

Back tothe Basics

UNO Alum Fred Spompinato found his fortune, then his “fervere,” baking bread the way of Romans 2,000 years ago

By Mike Hendricks Photos by David Pulliam

16 • December 2003

UNOALUM

ust west of downtown Kansas City Mo sits a small storefront bakery with unusual hours Only three days a week is it open and that’s because the baker bakes with a passion Like most of us Fred Spompinato says without apology he has only so much passion to give

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“So I said three days, that’s all I’m going to do it.�

Fittingly, Spompinato named his bakery Fervere (pronounced fur-vair-ay). The word is the Latin root for passion, he explains, and for him it underscores the commitment it takes to bake bread the way it should be baked—a few loaves at a time, always in the darkness before dawn. But only on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Pulling all-nighters thrice weekly, the 1977 UNO grad mixes the dough and shapes his loaves by hand, baking bread in the manner of the Romans 2,000 years ago and of Buddhist monks to this very day. Spompinato, that is, bakes before the sun rises, using simple, fresh ingredients in a brick hearth oven assembled by the same hands that form the loaves browning within. “This is, to me, what the ideal bakery was,� says Spompinato.

His words are intense, mingling with the robust aromas wafting through his shop before it opens to the rush of Saturday morning customers. There’s Ciabatta, Olive Rosemary and Pain de Campagne. Embedded in the Orchard Bread are bits of apricot, raisins and apples, while a German variety is chock-full of seeds and grain held fast to form a crumble-resistant loaf its maker says never seems to go stale. “It just became clear to me that this is what had to be done,� continues Spompinato. “I wanted to do this totally out of passion.�

like a magnet.�

Spompinato found himself attracted to various callings after graduating from Omaha Burke High School in 1972. He registered at UNO, unsure of what degree he might seek. By the end of his freshman year he had declared himself a sociology major but then transferred to Whittier College and switched to religious studies in order to pursue a ministerial vocation. Financial constraints, though, had him returning to UNO his junior year. It would be a crucial turning point not only in his college career but also in what would follow. “When I visited with Fred in K.C.,� one of his UNO professors, William Blizek, would later recall, “he told me that his experiences in religious studies had played an important role in his bakery business.�

Indirectly, but true enough. Classes taught by Blizek and another still-current member of the department of philosophy and religion, Dale Stover, exposed Spompinato to a variety of faiths beyond his Christian background. Buddhism particularly intrigued him. That interest would lead a decade later to a week’s stay at a Zen monastery where the monks’ breadmaking was, for Spompinato, as spiritual as the Buddhist teachings. While still at UNO, though, Spompinato was coming to the realization that he had neither the personality nor the conviction necessary for a career in ministry. He didn’t think he could “soothe the discomforted and discomfort the soothed,� as one of his Whittier professors once defined the role of minister. “I’m not one who likes to shake things up,� Spompinato says, “so I said, ‘You know, that’s not my bag.’�

It was just as his passion for the ministry ebbed that UNO provided another life-transforming experience. As Spompinato recalls it, he and Roberts both were in need of language credits to graduate, and one day they happened upon a notice on the wall of the Administration Building. Classes were starting in a language of which neither student had heard. That language was Dari, and the instructor, whose Afghan studies program was fairly new at the time, was Tom E. Gouttierre, now the dean of International Studies and Programs. Both former students remember it as an intense two years of study. “The class was so close, it was like a family,� says Roberts.

Says Spompinato of Gouttierre: “Enthusiasm just bubbles out of him. Anyway, he had us all wound up, and there was just no question that I wanted to go to Afghanistan after that.�

He did. Less than a year after his graduation in the spring of 1977, however, Spompinato’s Peace Corps tour in Kabul ended when a Marxist coup left thousands dead and the country in turmoil. Spompinato was evacuated, returning to Omaha with a degree in religion and no idea of what to do next. He waited tables and cooked at Spaghetti Works in the Old Market, got married and worked a bit of construction in Lincoln. Then he and his wife, Lee Williams, moved to Kansas City in 1980 so Fred could help his mother run a gift shop.

Continued on Page 19

“This is to me what the ideal bakery was It just became clear to me that this is what had to be done I wanted to do this totally out of passion �

Before baking It’s always been about passion with Spompinato, be it standing in front of a brick oven before the sun rises, while studying religion, philosophy and a foreign language at UNO, or during a Peace Corps stint in Afghanistan cut short only by a Marxist coup. “He had a lot of passion,� says Omaha artist Stephen Cornelius Roberts, a long-time friend and former UNO classmate. “He’s the kind of guy, when he walks in the room, he’s w w w. u n o a l u m n i . o r g

December 2003 • 17

All by hand . . . The same hands that put together Fervere’s brick oven also shapes the shop’s tasty loaves which hungry customers gobble up on Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings. UNO grad Spompinato makes no more than 500 loaves each week, supplying two Kansas City restaurants and a loyal customer base.

Photos by David Pulliam

18 • December 2003

UNOALUM

The lost years Continued from Page 17 They were his lost years, lasting nearly a decade. By 1986 or ’87, Spompinato was in his early 30s and thinking of returning to UNO to study philosophy. “Here was one of those things where I really didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he says.

In the midst of his uncertainty Spompinato took a week off to think things through at a Zen monastery in upstate New York. There the aromas emanating from the kitchen stirred within him a new passion. “I loved the bread that they bake,” he said, “so I started baking at home. We milled our own flour, and every Saturday it was a ritual. So a friend of mine, knowing this, handed me a brochure from the American Institute of Baking. He didn’t know I was wanting to make a career change. I saw this (brochure) and I said, `Ah, I’ve got to do it.’”

The six-month course at the baking institute in Manhattan, Kansas, led to a job in Kansas City at a large commercial bakery. Working long hours, Spompinato would become plant manager and eventually oversee the production of 50,000 pounds of bread dough every day.

But he had no passion for breadmaking on such a large scale, not to mention the management hassles that took him away from what he loved most. “Those were the most unhappiest days of my life,” he says. “It wasn’t baking.”

Not baking the way he envisioned, anyway. So he and a coworker broke off in 1993 to start their own bread company, calling it Farm to Market. Instead of viewing bread as a commodity to be sold at the cheapest possible price, Spompinato says he felt called to make breads so wholesome and tasty that they could serve as the centerpiece of a meal.

Even if it meant charging a bit more. Quality-conscious

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consumers tired of mass-produced store bread greeted the philosophy warmly. The pair was carving space in a niche market growing across the country. Before long, Spompinato and partner Mark Friend went from making a few dozens loaves daily in borrowed space at the back of a restaurant to selling several thousand loaves a day at dozens of supermarkets and restaurants around the Kansas City area.

“It got big,” Spompinato says simply. A deep-pocketed investor helped make it happen.

But big is not what Spompinato was after. As his business partners dreamed of expansion, Spompinato rejected the bigger-is-always-better American business model. He yearned for that simplicity which attracted him to breadmaking in the first place. “I would have cut back production. I was sort of at that time trying to envision me in this big structure, and I couldn’t.

Spompinato asked to be bought out. Between the hefty proceeds of that sale and a lifestyle that doesn’t require a large income—he lives in the same house that he and Lee bought in the early ’80s for $27,000—Spompinato felt he had plenty of time to contemplate his next move.

He thought about writing a book on artisan bakers—the micro-micro-brewers of the baking industry—but after researching it decided to become an artisan baker himself.

Now, instead of 50,000 or even 5,000 loaves of bread each week, Spompinato bakes just 450 to 500. That’s enough, he says. Enough to serve two local restaurants and his loyal customers.

They stream in on those three days a week and pay several dollars for a loaf of the bread Spompinato bakes the only way he knows how to. “It pays for itself,” he says of Fervere. “It’s not a money-making deal by any means.”

Though it could be, he knows, if he were so inclined. “We sell out most days,” he says.

The bread he means, of course, just the bread.

December 2003 • 19

Mary Kay is A-OK

By Sonja Carberry

T

he career journey undertaken by Stacy James and Mary Pat McGrath-Raynor had the same starting point as that of countless university students. Their four years of higher education led to respectable careers.

But when life veered off track and the professions they so diligently worked for didn’t take them where they needed to be—monetarily or personally—these two UNO alumnae took a chancy detour.

They picked up the powder puffs and lipstick tubes stereotyped with Mary Kay cosmetics and their make-up case-toting sales force. The story would be unremarkable if not for the ridinginto-the-sunset ending. Today, both women enjoy executive positions, sixfigure incomes, family friendly work lives and endless perks.

James turns heads of the staunchest skeptics by simply stating her earnings: $3 million over her career and $367,000 last year alone.

“The more you succeed, the more people kind of take note,” James says.

McGrath-Raynor pointed to the less tangible rewards. “I got to live a life like a stay-at-home mom and make an executive’s income. I am so grateful that Mary Kay came into my life when it did.”

Twenty years later, the two are driving their pink Cadillacs into the proverbial sunset.

Career Crossroads It was the early 1980s when McGrathRaynor, a 1971 secondary education alum and Boys Town family teacher, walked into her first Mary Kay cosmetics meeting. She didn’t go to join. “I went with the goal to get my sister-inlaw out of Mary Kay,” she says.

McGrath-Raynor remembers being first incredulous, then disturbed, at her

20 • December 2003

sister-in-law’s claim of a $50,000-a-year earning potential with Mary Kay. “I thought, ‘Oh, please, there isn’t that much lipstick in Omaha,’” McGrathRaynor says.

At the meeting, she expected to be surrounded by witless suckers. Instead, she ended up feeling like the chump. “I couldn’t understand why such obviously talented women would choose sales,” she says. “But they didn’t look stressed out. They looked relaxed when I worked like a dog and made $25,000. And here I was continually being told I was making good money for a woman in my field.”

Facing the realities of divorce and single parenthood, McGrath-Raynor was standing at a financial crossroads. “I was really praying for something,” she says.

“But I wanted something in my field.”

The leader in that room of surprising women was none other than Stacy James, a 1980 UNO grad (elementary education) and recent Mary Kay initiate.

James had been teaching fourth and fifth grades in an Elkhorn, Neb., country school when she stumbled onto Mary Kay a year earlier. “What led me to this was being broke,” she says.

James’ husband was a full-time premed student. They lived with their 4year-old daughter, Jennifer, in a twobedroom apartment with “gross” yellow carpet. Every weekday, James drove her daughter to day care, her husband to class and herself to work, then reversed the process at the end of the day just to face dinner making, paper grading and preparations for the next day. “I was kind of in an existence mode,” she says.

Jump Starts James told McGrath-Raynor how she had started: Squeezing three skin care classes into her Sundays and meetings with her director on Monday nights.

Four months later she quit her teaching job.

McGrath-Raynor signed on the dotted line. “It was a purely emotional decision for the moment,” she says. “I thought. ‘What the heck, I’m so stressed out anyway. One more thing won’t bring me down.”

McGrath-Raynor and James, who lived blocks from each other near UNO, hit the sales road together. “We started our businesses with a dream in our hearts,” James says. Between the two of them, they had the equivalent of one set of wheels under their feet—James’ old Ambassador had holes in the floor boards and McGrath-Raynor’s crackedwindshield Toyota started only on hills, or if the two pushed in their high heels.

Nonetheless, the money came. And quickly. “In the first six months, I paid off more than $6,000 in debt,” McGrathRaynor says. Eight months later, in August of 1983, McGrath-Raynor was ready to leave teaching, too. “My colleagues told me, ‘You are committing professional suicide,’” she says. James’ experience had been parallel. “My principal was not happy. He said I would come crying back and asking for my job back,” James remembers.

The critics couldn’t have been more wrong. In a matter of months, McGrathRaynor had retired her rickety excuse for transportation and was pulling into Boys Town in her new Mary Kay car.

That’s when colleagues changed their tunes. “You know, we always knew you’d be good at that sort of thing,” she remembers them saying.

Pinpoint Navigation People who can’t get past the color pink miss the facts on Mary Kay Inc. The billion-dollar corporation has enjoyed double-digit growth nearly every year since its founding in 1963 by Mary Kay Ash, and it now has 900,000 beauty consultants in 33 countries.

Ash based her business on a refreshing order of priorities: faith, family and then career. “I thought it was a very novel idea, but I didn’t believe they really did it,” McGrath-Raynor says.

The company did, and more.

“Mary Kay representatives make one of the most generous commissions in the U.S.,” McGrath-Raynor says. That commission is 50 percent of sales, and it starts at the beginning of each consulUNOALUM

tant’s career.

Ash insisted her employees, whom she considered family, work by the Golden Rule and to “Go give.” On both counts she led by example. By the time of her death in November 2001, Ash was widely known as a fair businesswoman and generous philanthropist.

Key to their success, James and McGrathRaynor says, was Mary Kay’s extensive training system.

“There are classes on literally everything you can imagine to help a woman succeed,” McGrath-Raynor says.

From accounting to attitude, the “personal Photo by Eric Francis work” helps consultThe Cadillacs aren’t as pink as they once were, but the smiles are just as bright for Mary Pat ants eliminate barriers McGrath-Raynor, left, and Stacy James. and acquire the nutsground supplied the communications “My mother shed many tears because I and-bolts skills. tools she uses every day in Mary Kay. wasn’t using my education,” McGrath“Mary Kay taught me the time man“You have to have the ability to organize Raynor says. “The biggest benefit of an agement to really understand the power subject matter and present it in a way education is you are finishing what you of the moment and the power of the that increases comprehension,” she says. are starting. It doesn’t matter what the day,” says McGrath-Raynor. “I became a “You have to be able to teach women title on the job is.” master of the moment. I started elimihow to teach.” The bulk of the lesson is James credited her personality and nating things that were not taking me attitude, James says. “Success is not her family’s positive influence. “I think forward.” something that is elusive, that is trying it was my father instilling in me that I She started living the philosophies to stay away from you. I’ve watched could achieve anything I wanted to. I Mary Kay summarized in sayings still would have been a career person regard- women change their whole mindsets.” repeated by company employees: And, one by one, their lives. less,” she says.

You make the decision and you James’ husband retired from his medToday James and McGrath-Raynor make that decision right for you. ical career 16 years ago to work at home are national sales directors and work We are the sum of the choices we with his wife on Mary Kay. Their three exclusively with women—at least 100 make. daughters, Jennifer, 26, Whitney, 17, and each—who want to become directors The harder you work, the luckier McKenzie, 13, scarcely know what it’s with the company. you get. like to have a parent work outside the A typical day has James and On the last one, McGrath-Raynor home. “The last two came home from McGrath-Raynor holding conference pointed out, “That happens only in a the hospital in pink Cadillacs,” James calls with directors from Virginia to company that has a system built in for says.

California to Mexico. A less typical day progression.”

McGrath-Raynor credits Mary Kay finds the two conducting training semiwith giving her the freedom to be there nars in Australia and London.

Sunset Drive for her daughters Colleen Ruvalcaba, 31, James travels from her Lincoln home James and McGrath-Raynor could twice each month to speak at workshops and Lara Kahlon, 27, when it really have kept Mary Kay in the backseat and counted. “You can place the role of on such topics as “It’s a choice to be continued with their teaching careers, mother and wife above your career and happy,” and “How to work with peobut both saw potential to advance and still make a six-figure income,” she says. ple.” set goals accordingly. “There is so much “The gift now is to transfer this gift to From her home office in Omaha, room at the top,” James says.

McGrath-Raynor says her teaching back- other women.”

It was just a matter of getting there. w w w. u n o a l u m n i . o r g

December 2003 • 21

Union Pacific’s Sharon Beschorner is mentor to intern Jeff Muhlecke, a UNO graduate student who’s already getting noticed by the company. He received a Union Pacific “Walk the Talk” award for work he’s done to date and he’s involved in another project that has the interest of upper management.

UP has extended his internship through next October.

Photo by Eric Francis

On the Job UNO’s internship programs are among the best around— and they’re about to get better

By Nick Schinker

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n as few as 90 days, a college internship can change a student’s perspective. For some, an internship can set the course of their career, helping transform indecision and wonder into confident choice. For the very fortunate, an internship can change their life forever.

Gary Williams counts himself among those lucky ones.

Thirty-two years ago, Williams was studying at UNO to become a print journalist when he got the opportunity for an internship in the news department at television station KMTV in Omaha. His very first night, he and his mentor, John Clark, responded to a report of a fire at a Council Bluffs apartment building.

“It was a huge fire,” Williams recalls. “This place was burning from the basement through the roof. It was freezing outside; at least zero or below. I had worn a lightweight jacket and gloves, and here I was, getting sprayed with the wash from the firehoses. I was cold and I was wet and I absolutely loved it.

“My desire had always been to be a print reporter, but I fell in love with broadcasting from that point on.”

Williams remembers the date: Jan. 10, 1971. That’s how you know it made a difference in his life.

22 • December 2003

Hooked forever by the immediacy and impact of a good news video, Williams stayed at the television station for 13 years. Today, he is division manager of corporate communications for the Omaha Public Power District, where he has worked since leaving KMTV in 1984.

He looks back on that internship as the foundation of his career. “I felt that I learned more in the few months of my internship than I had learned in my previous two or three years in school,” Williams says. “That is not intended to detract from what I learned in the classroom or my wonderful professors. But the internship allowed me to take what they had taught me in fragments and put the pieces together.

“That, for me, was a real life-changer.”

CHAMBER PARTNERSHIP UNO has one of the strongest internship programs in the Midwest, beneficial not only to the hundreds of students who take part, but also to the university, the participating employers and non-profit organizations, and the communities they serve.

A partnership forged with the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce aims to make the UNO internship program a more powerful learning and recruiting tool, further honing the school’s reputation among major metropolitan universities.

The value of a solid internship program is clear.

“Internships not only give students real-life, firsthand experience, they also serve as a bridge from higher education into professional life,” says Dave Ogden, Communications Department professor.

During the 2001-2002 school year, the last for which statistics are available, UNO had 1,510 students participating in internships, with an additional 437 involved in service-learning opportunities that integrate volunteer community service with academic study.

That is more than double the number of internships last UNOALUM

reported by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Bill Swanson, assistant to the vice chancellor in the Office of Career Exploration and Outreach, says that although the numbers for 2002-2003 are not yet final, they appear similar.

He says efforts have been made the past several years to expand UNO’s internship opportunities and emphasize the program as a tool for recruitment, both for employers and the university. “Today, virtually every college at UNO has some form of internship program.”

The College of Business, for example, has about 200 students involved in internships where they are earning academic credit as well as hands-on experience. The Peter Kiewit Institute of Information Science and Technology has between 200 and 250 students participating in internships or practicum courses offering on-the-job study, Swanson says. The College of Public Affairs and Community Service has two “very strong” internship programs in criminal justice and social work, while in the College of Education, student teachers are considered interns by definition.

Swanson says these are not internships where students show up in an office and file papers or type reports for three months. “We try and build some rigor and high expectations into the program. We want to make certain there is an opportunity for some meaningful work to be accomplished.”

The program is important not only for what the students take away from it but also for what they bring to it.

“If there are particular projects an employer wants to accomplish, our interns can bring skills to these companies that can help achieve a goal, skills from project work to marketing research, Swanson says.

Evaluation of the experience comes from both the employer and the student’s professor, who must determine how the internship applied what was learned in the classroom.

“We want the student to walk away from the experience thinking, ‘This was really beneficial to me,’” Swanson says, “and we want the employer to be so pleased they either extend the internship or offer a full-time or part-time position.”

Because the number of internships has remained steady or grown slightly at a time when the job market has shrunk, “I think it’s a good indication employers view the program as a positive in terms of their recruiting efforts,” he says.

Using the internship as a recruiting tool benefits both the employer and the student.

“Most internships run an average of 90 days,” Swanson says. “Many employers put their new hires on a 90-day probationary period. If they utilized the internship program to combine the two, by the time the internship is complete the probationary period has already passed. That gives an employer new options. They can shake hands and walk away, or they can shake hands with a new, permanent employee.”

COMMUNICATIONS CAREERS In the College of Arts and Sciences, students enrolled in the Communications Department, which encompasses majors in broadcasting, journalism and speech, are required to complete an internship as a condition for graduation, says Dr. Sherrie Wilson, associate professor and internship coordinator.

Depending on the semester, the number of undergraduates w w w. u n o a l u m n i . o r g

participating in internships ranges from 30 to 50, she says.

“The fall semester is light, but the past summer we had 50,” she says.

Some interns work for traditional mass media outlets, including radio and television stations, local newspapers and magazines. A large number gain their experience through advertising and public relations internships. Employers range from large companies to small, non-profit agencies, Wilson says.

“We have them scattered all over,” she says.

Employers utilize the interns in a variety of departments, from public information and reporting to human resources, sales, and training and development.

Roughly half the internships are paid positions. The number varies depending on the semester and the field of study.

Feedback comes in the form of written evaluations from the employers, and from the students in an internship class that meets weekly.

“Our students’ evaluations are exceedingly high, as a rule,” Wilson says. “Employers express satisfaction with their skills, their strong work ethic and the knowledge they bring to the job.”

It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved, Wilson says.

“The students obtain job experience in a professional or semi-professional environment, and in most cases, it works out well for the employers, too, especially as a way to identify prospective employees.”

FAST TRACK AT UNION PACIFIC Jeff Muhlecke and Troy Thompson hope their internships at the Union Pacific Corp. in Omaha provide them a competitive edge upon graduation.

Muhlecke obtained his bachelor’s degree in banking and finance from UNO in May 2000. As an undergrad, he interned for one year as a financial representative for Northwestern Mutual. Once the internship was completed, he was hired full time, staying with the company almost three years.

The 29-year-old began his internship with Union Pacific last June. Part of a cooperative effort between UNO, Union Pacific and the Nebraska Business Development Center, it will run through May of 2005, when he is due to receive his MBA. The program provides a stipend for the 20 hours he works per week. More importantly, his tuition is waived. At $450 per credit hour and a required 12 hours, that’s worth $5,400 toward his master’s degree.

“That’s huge,” Muhlecke says.

At UP, he’s working in the Human Resources Department on a specific project regarding benefit analysis related to prior UP mergers.

“The thing I like the most is it gives me an opportunity to use what I learned as an undergraduate and apply it in a realistic environment,” he says.

The experience has provided him a good look at the inner workings of a major company – and provided UP a good look at him. That can help after graduation, he says.

“I still have to apply for any opening, just like anybody else,” Muhlecke says, “but this is a great step in the right Continued on Page 31 December 2003 • 23

Future Alums

Sons & Daughters of UNO Alumni

Send us news of your baby—we’ll send a T-shirt and certificate and publish the good news. Include address, baby’s name, date of birth, parents’ names and graduation year(s). Please send the announcement within one year of the birth to: Future Alums, UNO Alumni Association, 60th & Dodge, Omaha, NE 68182. FAX (402) 554-3787.

SUBMIT A FUTURE ALUM ON THE WEB: www.unoalumni.org/communications/submitfa.asp

A New Generation of UNO Mavericks Carter

ot a picture of your little tyke?

Send it our way as a print or in electronic format and we’ll post it on our website!

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Lee Burkman, son of Karla and Kevin (’97) Burkman of Springfield, S.D. Benjamin Michael Bizal, son of Jeff and Jaime (Mayer ’98) Bizal of Omaha.

Emeka Samuel Dickson, son of Davida (Adams, ’01) and Samuel (’85, ’89) Dickson of Omaha Mackenzie Rose Welsh, daughter of Heather and Kevin (’96) Welsh of Omaha Simon Christopher Grimm Johnson, son of Jen (Grimm, ’94) and Erick (’01) Johnson of Omaha Zena Yosif Jabir and Mahmoud Yosif Jabir, daughter and son of Lena and Yosif Abdul-Fattah (’95) Jabir of

Naperville, Ill. Dominic Mario Ferraro, son of Lisa (Blankman, ’97) and Frank (’98) Ferraro of Manhattan, Kansas Jessica Leigh Wernli, daughter of Bobby and Molly (Mahoney, ’96; ’01) Wernli of LaVista, Neb. Ruby Susan Coyle, daughter of Lily and Patrick (’82) of Minneapolis Morgan Elizabeth Bird, daughter of Rhonda and Matthew (’00) Bird of Omaha Grace Danielle Austin, daughter of Sara (Lapacek, ’01) and Mark (’98) Austin of Phoenix Emily Lynn Lamoureux, daughter of Dave and Jessica (Rieck, ’01) Lamoureux of Littleton, Colo.

Margaret Helen Rezendes, daughter of John and Mary (Birt, ’90) Rezendes of Fayetteville, N.C. Nathan Thomas Speckmann, son of Carol (Stevenart, ’93) and Troy (’93) Speckmann of Omaha Nathan Alan Moore, son of Alan and Colleen (Clowers, ’93) Moore of Pinckney, Mich.

Kortni Ryann Jenson, daughter of Marc and Jenn (Van Egdom, ’01) Jenson of Omaha Riley Joseph Kasuske, son of Arlin and Melissa (Lutz, ’00) Kasuske of Ashland, Neb.

The UNO Century Club hen the UNO Alumni Association started the Century Club in 1973, the group of UNO

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Andrew Joseph Baber, son of Mary (Benak, ’92, ’97) and Benjamin (’97, ’02) Baber of Omaha Delaney Rae Weibel, daughter of Karina (Epperson, ’92, ’01) and Jeff (’01) Weibel of Omaha Olivia Maryann Mai, daughter of Judy and Paul (’90) Mai of Star Prairie, Wisc.

Jennah Yang Whitney, daughter of Qun and Cary (’90) Whitney of El Sobrante, Calif.

Jasmin Shanelle Atkinson, daughter of Martha and Shawn (’01) Atkinson of LaVista, Neb. Kazuya Forest Jackson, son of Junko and Frank (’88) Jackson of Frederick, Md. Brandon Owen Azeltine, son of Stephanie Azeltine and James Head (’00) of Denver.

Clare Carmela Jensen, daughter of Tom and Gerianne (Buda, ’83) Jensen of Omaha.

Ethan Lloyd Hunt, son of Marcie and Scott (’97) Hunt of Orlando, Fla., and grandson of Wilfred “Bill” Hunt of Jupiter, Fla. Charles Michael Horne, grandson of Anne and Herb (’71) Johnson of Germantown, Tenn.

Ryan David Kahley, grandson of Thomas Kahley (’69) of O’Fallon, Ill

$2,500 or more

Platinum

Golden $500-$999

supporters of $100 or more consisted of just 44 charter members.

Diamond $1,000-$2,499

Membership since has grown to more than 3,600 individuals, all of whom share a common bond—their commitment to UNO. Through their generosity, Century Club members support various alumni association programs and services that make for a stronger, more vibrant university. These include the Alumni Outstanding Teaching Awards, UNO Alumni Legacy Scholarships, Alumni Outreaches and more. More than 70 percent of all Annual Fund donations come from Century Club members. With their UNRESTRICTED gift, Century Club donors receive one of five personalized mementos (right), special recognition in an annual report and invitations to select events throughout the year.

Join the Century Club today by completing the enclosed envelope and returning it to us with your gift!

24 • December 2003

Silver

Bronze

$250-$499

$100-$249

Join the UNO Century Club today and receive one of these mementos corresponding to giving level.

UNOALUM

Class Notes

SUBMIT A CLASS NOTE ON THE WEB www.unoalumni.org/communications/submitcn.asp 1952 Karl E. Dankof, BS, lives in San Antonio, Texas, and sends this email: “In December of l94l, I left school to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

Retired from the U.S. Air Force in April l973. I returned to UNO in January l952 to complete my undergraduate studies for a BS in Military Science. I lettered in football in l939, l940 and l94l. During this time I had the honor of playing with three of the greatest running backs in the history of UNO—Bob Matthews, Bob Brown and Don Pflasterer. I continued to play football in the service and enjoyed playing with players from a lot of major Universities in the U.S. After retiring from the USAF I worked for the Lockheed Aircraft Company for l2 years, mostly at overseas locations in the Middle East. My duties with the USAF and Lockheed gave me the opportunity for traveling to 65 different countries of the world, but Omaha still seems like home!”

1953 Jack R. Fraenkel, BA, writes from home in San Francisco, that the fifth edition of his “No. 1 best-selling educational research text “How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education,” will be published in China. “Our book (co-author, Norman Wallen) is one of the top three educational texts in the United States, used at more than 150 universities. In my 70s now, I continue to be active as director of the R&D Center in San Francisco State University’s College of Education and Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies. Would like to hear from old classmates (young ones, too!). Send him e-mail at jrf@sfsu.edu

Lost Alums -- 1950 Milton E. Anderson June E. Barber Barber Arthur L. Belknap Robert E. Burgstrum Norma Carlisle Carlisle Benedicta Cavanagh Darlene Clifton Alfred C. Cox Harry P. Crandel Gloria Pheney Craven Dewey M. Drennen Ivan N. Genit Romain D. Gibson Vernon W. Gould

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D E C E M B E R

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Flashback File Tying the Knot, 101 n Sept. 30, 1938, the Gateway reported that a newly organized course in matrimony was steadily gaining enrollment, jumping from 18 to 30 students. The course was suggested by Gateway staff in response to student interest and originally faced low enrollment due to “registration misunderstandings.” The non-credit class included lectures from various professionals in fields related to marriage, such as economics, psychiatry and law. It was sponsored by V. Gregory Rosemont, philosophy, and T. Earl Sullenger, sociology. Dr. Rosemont said matrimony students were not simply “curious,” but possessed “a serious attitude toward the factual knowledge of the laws and principles governing success in marriage.”

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Compiled from the Sept. 30, 1938, Gateway by University Library Archives for This Moment in Campus History 1958 Fred Boswell, BGE, writes from home in Ozark, Ala., that “I am now 80 years old and just recently completed 25,000 miles as a jogger.” Send him email at papoo@juno.com 1960 Joel Padmore, BA, is laboratory director for the Food & Drug Protection Division of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. A chemist, he received the D. S. Coltrane Award of the American Association of Plant Food Control Officials (AAPFCO) for more than 20 years of outstanding service in AAPFCO. Padmore was recognized for his work in helping develop standards for the fertilizer industry, which ensure products purchased by consumers have a designated quality and will perform to cer-

tain expectations. He is only the second regulatory official to receive this honor. The award was presented at the group’s annual meeting held in Denver, Colo. Padmore joined the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in 1984 as assistant state chemist and chemistry manager of the Constable Laboratory. He has served as state chemist since 1990. Before joining the department, he was a chemistry professor at the University of South Dakota from 1964 and a South Dakota State chemist for five years. He served as president of AAPFCO from 1998-99; treasurer from 1989 to the present, and chairman of the Labeling and Official Terms Committee since 1986. He is a member of the Environmental Affairs Committee, the Industry Regulatory Council, the Long Range Planning Committee, the Slow Release

Help us find these “Lost Alums” from the Class of 1950. Send news of their wherabouts to sgerding@mail.unomaha.edu

Otto R. Hibbeler Ruth E. Horn Beverly Huffer Marvin L. Ireland Edgar D. Jeffres Lorna L. Jespersen Rudolph Joganic Bon G. Johnson Margaret Mansur Kelley C. Frank Kouba Thomas E. Krist Virginia E. Walters Krummann Elna M. Lindahl

William L. Little Wayne A. Lukken Earl W. Maddy Hamilton M. Manzel Alice Coates Coates McIllece Robert D. McKinnon Bud J. Meador Ruth D. Mortensen Loren D. Neal Samuel G. Newcom Duane R. Olberts Lenora M. Pierce Eugene N. Primising

Benny H. Rambeau Donald G. Rose Fred S. Scheuermann Victor J. Schiro Marie Seybold Seybold Schneider Jacqueline E. Anderson Shonka Dean E. Swanson Rolland D. Sweeny Kathie Obrien Vierling Robert J. Wilcox Richard B. Wright Mary Louise Slovek Zacek

December 2003 • 25

Class Notes Fertilizer Task Force and has served as member and treasurer of the Magruder Fertilizer Check Sample Committee since 1988. Padmore graduated from Omaha Central High School in 1956. He received his BA in chemistry from Omaha University and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Montana State University in Bozeman in 1964.

He is married to OU graduate Carol Coffey (’59). The couple has three grown children.

Cherie Curry, BFA, lives in San Jose, Calif., and is retired (1999) from San Jose State University, where she was a music professor and taught for 31 years. She is an adjudicator for numerous solo, concerti, certificate of merit and Young Artists auditions. She also is a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church in San Jose serving as pianist. She also performs with the Villages Handbell Ensemble and the Villages Music Society in the San Jose, Calif., retirement village where she lives.

1962 Clifford D. Kantz, BGS, lives in Orlando, Fla., and has written various articles on his experiences in World War II. He was a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Coprs who flew paratroopers into France on D-Day, the

first of 16 combat missions he flew during the war, this according to an article published in The Daily News in Lebanon, Pa., where Kantz used to live.

1963 Frank Maziarski, BS, was voted the 2003-04 presidentelect of the 30,000-member American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) headquartered in Park Ridge, Ill. Maziarski currently is an independent practitioner and owner of Allied Anesthesia Associates, a clinical anesthesia and legal nurse consulting company in the greater Seattle area.

1964 Dick Fletcher, BS, lives in St. Petersburg, Fla., and writes that he “received the Distinguished Service Award from the 2003 National Hurricane Conference for career achievement.” Send him email at get.fletch@verizon.net 1968 Raymond Weinberg, BGS, lives in Huntsville, Ala., after retiring from the military. He takes email at ray.kw@juno.com

Class Focus—1979 here’s no Scrooge in Vincent Leinen. Nearly 30 years ago Leinen joined the St. Mary Catholic Youth Organization in Dow City, Iowa, singing at rest homes. He continued that tradition while attending UNO, and he’s still at it today.

On Dec. 14 he will be among a group of carolers and musicians (and a certain red-suited fella toting a big bag of fresh flowers) bringing holiday cheer to residents of the Nebraska Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, 7410 Mercy Road.

The 29th annual holiday caroling event is organized by Leinen and Tom McCurdy, who are looking for singers and musicians of all talent levels to join the fun.

“We want to bring happiness and joy to the elderly residents and at the same time instill a heightened awareness in the carolers that they should be more appreciative of what they have

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26 • December 2003

Howard H. Shrier, BS, was named to the board of directors for Pappas Telecasting Cos. According to a brief article in the Omaha World-Herald: “Shrier is senior executive vice president and chief operating officer of the TV Stations Division. He oversees Pappas’ 29 TV stations, including KPTM-Channel 42 in Omaha.”

1969 Edward A. Peniche, BGS, was selected as an Airborne Personality by the American Airborne Association. He lives in Houston and is a professor ermeritus at Central Virginia Community College.

1971 Lionel D. Youst, BGS, lives in Coos Bay, Ore., and writes that, “In retirement I have taken regional history as a hobby and now have three books in print.

Two are published by University of Oklahoma Press: ‘She's Tricky Like Coyote: Annie Miner Peterson, an Oregon Coast Indian Woman’ (1997) and with William R. Seaburg, ‘Coquelle Thompson, Athabaskan Witness: A Cultural Biography (2002).’

Published under my own imprint, Golden Falls Publishing, is a second, revised edition of my 1991 ‘Above the

Falls: An Oral and Folk History of Upper Glenn Creek, Coos County, Oregon’ (2003).” Send him email at lyoust@gte.net 1977 Randy R. Beavers, BA, lives in Belvoir, Va., and notes that he currently is employed by BoozAllen-Hamilton as a Change Management Consultant to the Defense Logistics Agency— Defense Energy Support Center at Fort Belvoir Va. Randy and his wife, Kathy, live in Stafford, Va. Send him e-mail at RandyBeavers@member.afa.org 1978 Douglas L. Pennington, writes via e-mail from his home in Overland Park, Kansas, that he has ”fond memories of Caniglia Field. Was a walk-on for UNO and played alongside Danny Fulton, who went on to become an All-American. Even though I never lettered for the Mavericks I appreciated the chance to obtain the goal of receiving an education and graduating magna cum laude with a BS and MS in education.

While I know my skills have since diminished, my education continues to produce.”

Send him e-mails at: dpennington@locktonrisk.com

in life and what they might take for granted,” says Leinen, choral director, event organizer, and a member of the Knights of Columbus Bishop Greteman Council 12487 of Iowa. “It’s important to not be so concerned with what we don’t have in life, but to feel more blessed and happy with what we already have, for example health and family.”

Participants are invited to meet at the main entrance of the Nebraska Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Center at 5:30 pm for refreshments and to secure their music book. The group then will proceed at 6 pm to entertain the residents.

The event, which will include an estimated 100 participants, is free and open to the public. Immediately following the caroling activity all participants are invited to socialize and dine at Godfathers Pizza, 7515 Pacific St. For further information, contact Leinen at (712)674-3316 or (818) 342-9336, or McCurdy at (402) 493-3136. Information also is avaialable at www.ReachForTheStars.com/caroling.

UNOALUM

D E C E M B E R 1979 Edward R. Truitt, BFA, has become director of Dance at West Texas A&M University and artistic director of the Lone Star Ballet Company. “I am very excited to be Texas bound,” he wrote friends and family earlier this summer.

“With LSB we have only two major productions per year but hopefully that will grow a little over time. What an opportunity! The two positions will keep me busy like crazy for awhile until I get the department at WTA&M revamped.” Truitt previously was assistant professor of dance at Southern Utah University. Earlier this year he was awarded a Fulbright Senior Specialists grant to choreograph, teach and consult in St. Petersburg from June 3 to July 11. Kannon Dance invited Truitt to teach master classes in contemporary ballet technique and jazz dance and to consult in a BFA/MFA equivalent higher education program for the Kannon Dance Company & School in collaboration with the Saint-Petersburg Institute of Decorative and Applied Arts. “This will be the first higher education program specifically geared towards modern and jazz dance in Russia.” Truit previously taught in Russia in January 1999.

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Flashback File

“Life” at Omaha U. hat was life like on the Omaha University campus of the 1930s? Just ask LIFE magazine, which in 1937 published six photographs of a popular OU spring sport—blanket tossing. Pictured below, coed Frances Blumkin Batt goes two-stories high courtesy her classmates. Photo courtesy Life.

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1980 David Slabaugh, BS, became the area director for the Fellowship of Christian athletes in the Omaha-Metro area.

He is responsible for the FCA ministry in Cass, Douglas, Sarpy and Washington counties. Slabaugh is an elder in his church, chairs the early childhood committee there and is a member of its building committee and an usher. “David,” says Wendell Conover, “has a passion to see young people come to know Jesus in a per-

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December 2003 • 27

Class Notes sonal way. He is well organized, a strong leader, excels in fundraising, friendly and very likeable. Under David’s leadership the FCA ministry will be raised to a new level in Omaha-Metro.” Slabaugh and his wife, Ann, live in Omaha and have four sons. Send him emails at dslabaugh@fca.org.

William E. Grisham, MA, lives in Los Angeles and sends this e-mail: “I have fulfilled one of the ambitions of my youth recently by driving down Pacific Coast Highway in a van listening to rock-and-roll with a cute blond by my side. The cute blonde is my wife of 14 years, Anne-Marie Schaaf (Haverford ’85), and with us were our three daughters: Clara Grace Schaaf-Grisham, Hope Elizabeth SchaafGrisham, and Petra Chun Yu Schaaf-Grisham (adopted Anhui, China 3-23-00). Other youthful ambitions were fulfilled when I received yet another teaching award at UCLA, this time from the Department of Psychology, and co-authored an article that is changing the thinking on how sex differences in the brain develop. The latter has been discussed on science news websites all over the world. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Shelton Hendricks of the UNO Psychology Department (now Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences) for getting me started studying the biological aspects of sex differences in the brain.

Week celebration.” Robert, a lieutenant on the police force and 22-year veteran, also signed copies of the book at the grand opening of the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in May. He currently is working towards a master’s degree in Public Administration at UNO.” Send him e-mail at: RLMillerCB@hotmail.com

1981 Robert L. Miller, BS, lives in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He sends this e-mail: “May 2003 saw the culmination of a nearly 4-year project to research and write a history book of the Council Bluffs Iowa Police. The resulting 436-page, hardcover book was completed in time for the Department’s 150th Anniversary, commemorated during the city’s annual Pride

1982 Barbara Fajen, BSBA, was promoted to partner at Seim, Johnson, Sestak & Quist, LLP, in Omaha. She has 21 years of tax experience and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Nebraska Society of Certified Public Accountants, the Financial Planners Association and the Omaha Estate Planning Council. She

28 • December 2003

hree generations of UNO graduates celebrated Gertrude Hufford’s 95th birthday at the W.H. Thompson Alumni Center in November. The gathering included Gertrude’s two children, seven grandchildren and 13 grandchildren. The UNO graduates included, from left: Lee (Winterfeld, BS, ’87) Hufford, self-employed desktop publisher in Denver, Colo; John B. Hufford (BS, ’87) a self-employed financial consultant in Denver; Gerturde Hufford, (BS, ’59; MS, ’67) retired third- and fourth-grade teacher from Omaha’s Harrison Elementary School; David P. Hufford (BS, ’60; MA, ’67), retired professor of English at Iowa Western Community College; Mary (Hufford; MS, ’95) Vondra, manager of educational services for Children’s Hospital; and Thomas N. Vondra, (BS, ’94) pharmaceutical salesman for Ortho-McNeil a division of Johnson and Johnson.

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also is a certified financial planner specializing in retirement planning, estate planning and comprehensive financial planning.

1984 Deborah K. Steele, BA, lives in Omaha and sends this e-Class Note: “I’m back! After living in Columbus, Ohio, for nine years and the last three in Cleveland, I’m moving back to Omaha to be with my family and friends.

And to top it all off, I'm coming back to a great new job as the senior communications manager for Empire Insurance, a subsidiary of Zurich North America, which is a global, insurance-based financial services provider headquartered in Schaumberg, Ill. I’ll be responsible for all aspects of internal communications, media rela-

tions, public relations and marketing for Empire. I’m so excited. It will be great to get reestablished in Omaha!” Send her e-mail at: Dst7114783@aol.com 1982 Charlene Walla Greene, BSBA, lives in Arcadia, Calif., and writes that in October she was elected partner in the Pasadena office of national accounting firm McGladrey & Pullen LLP. Send her email at charlene.greene@rsmi.com 1985 Stacy Andrew Stranick, writes that “I would enjoy hooking up with some UNO alumni in the Charlotte, N.C. region.” Send her e-mail at SAStranick@aol.com

UNOALUM

D E C E M B E R 1987 Susan Gross Russell, MS, has completed 20 years as an elementary special education instructor with the Denison Community School District.

She is married to Bill Russell and has three daughters. She lives in Denison, Iowa, and takes e-mail at srussell@denison.k12.ia.us Terry L. Framke Rhedin, writes from El Cajon, Calif., that she is “currently the assistant public affairs officer aboard USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), homeported in San Diego, Calif.” Send her e-mail at navydog@hotmail.com Gregory Clark, BGS, lives in Capital Heights, MD., and writes that in October he was awarded a master’s degree in Quality Systems Management by the National Graduate School in Falmouth, Mass.

Send him email at gregory.clark@tma.osd.mil 1990 Barbra Buls, BSBA, was named vice president of government programs for BlueCross BlueShiled of Nebraska. She previously was chief financial officer in the company’s Medicare division.

1993 Sandra P. Landrum, BA, was named a vice president at The Northern Trust Company in Chicago. She is a senior institutional trust product manager and is responsible for the development of new products and the enhancement of existing products for clients and internal partners subscribing to Risk & Performance Services. She previously worked as a project manager/coordinator for Northern in the Benefit Payment Services Division, where she was responsible for the migration and implementation of the new secondary authentication w w w. u n o a l u m n i . o r g

system for all benefit payment clients.

1994 Timothy E. Becker, BGS, writes from home in Omaha that, “this year has been eventful as a student. After five years of struggling to pass the State Applicator Licensed test, I passed. I’m grateful for the opportunities my education has allowed. My experiences at UNO, close to 15 years, have been many. It was a neat experience, visiting with some of my past teachers; all had dedication and . . . wisdom.”

Send Becker emails at tebecker75@hotmail.

1996 Charles Real, MA, lives in Omaha and notes that he “recently retired as vice president, Corporate Services, for Omaha-based Continental General Insurance Company.

Assumed role as President, Real Enterprises, a consulting firm that includes Insurance Resource Associates and BizWatch.” Send him email at creal@cox.net David P. Worden, BS, lives in Omaha and writes that, “After graduating in 1996, I continue to return to UNO. My latest adventure, occurring over the past three years, has been as the official voice of the “Spirit of the Heartland,” UNO's Marching Mavericks. My voice talent has provided thrills and excitement to complement the exemplary performance of UNO’s Marching Band. You can hear me at all of UNO’s home games, and if you look hard enough you may even catch a glimpse of me standing on the sidelines during pregame and half-time performances.” Send him email at dworden@cox.net 1997 Venesa Torres, BS, writes from Murphy, Texas, that she “is

working for an Endocrinologist doing research in Type 2 Diabetics. She completed her master's degree in 1998 and is presently working on her first book.”

2001 Brian J. Enenbach, BGS, lives in Omaha and is a pilot with Atlantic Coast Airlines. He writes from his home in Akron, Ohio, that “I got lucky when Atlantic Coast Airlines, an express and connection carrier for United and Delta Airlines, hired me in June 2002 . . . [in] an airline industry that is still recovering from attacks and a downturn in the economy. Bankrupt United Airlines is currently giving our flying to other regional carriers due to lower cost and therefore resulting in cutbacks for ACA. The good news is that ACA will be starting a low-cost national airline next spring. I am very excited and can’t wait to be a part of it.” Send Enenbach emails at bjepilot@yahoo.com Angela N. Batchelder, BS, was selected to represent Omaha at the 41st Millie Lewis American Modeling & Talent Convention (AMTC) at the Charleston Convention Center in Charleston, N.C., in January 2004. The convention emphasizes and promotes excellence in the fashion arts, communication and performing arts.

2002 Amanda G. Weitzel, BA, entered the Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., in the master of arts program in youth and family ministry. The twoyear program is designed for individuals who seek to serve the church as lay leaders.

Weitzel currently is a youth director for Servant of Christ Lutheran Church in Champlin, Minn. She previously worked as an interim youth director at Salem Lutheran Church in

2 0 0 3

Peoria, Ill. She also has worked as an office manager and optician.

2003 Johann Johnson, won a $700 scholarship grant from Vector Marketing Corporation for finishing fourth among national student sales representatives during his final semester. A field sales manager for the company, Johnson joined Vector in June 2000. He has won six prior All-American scholarships from the company, as well as numerous other sales achievement awards.

In Memoriam 1933 Leona W. Dubler 1935 DeVer Sholes 1938 Robert N. White Robert Nelson White 1939 Lenore Harris Hughes 1942 Lawrence Chandler 1943 Grace E. Paxson Gloria Kurtz Sinnett 1944 Marie Bowie Elizibeth Devoe Crampton 1946 Wayne A. Graybill 1947 Maudean Stewart Bach Catherine Fors 1949 V. Grey Longley 1950 Richard L. Broderdorp Joseph S. Conrey William G. Cramer Alma M. Carlson Drolick Madelyn Elliott Rudy Srb William B. Martin Valaria L. McCaw Mildred Rockwell Meigs Robert P. Neujahr Margaret A. Morton Newell Earl C. Pace James H. Ross, Jr. William E. Rowles Paul J. Skrekas Eleanor M. Stastny Laverne E. Sweigard Robert F. Walker George P. Wilcox Russell B. Wolf

December 2003 • 29

Class Notes 1952 James F. Wall Doris Field 1954 Frieda Rabinovitz Blum Kenneth C. Christiansen Vesta V. Dobson 1956 Bruce J. Miller 1957 Bertha A. Anderson Policz 1958 Justin R. Stern 1959 Thurlan W. Wendell Thurlan W. Wendell Burton Leo Oberman 1960 Ann E. Michael 1961 Mary J. Duncan Earl O. Atkinson 1962 Cornell Pope Elmer D. Spence Lawrence L. Waller Bernice M. Burbank 1964 Donald J. Munt Gene N. Vittori Lyle E. McGilvra Harold J. Crochet 1965 William A. Newman Herman T. Schauer 1966 Thomas B. McKee Charles M. Riseborough Frank B. Seaman Thomas D. "Guy" Shaw Charles M. Riseborough James S. Miles John E. Bolton 1967 James F. Kingwell 1968 Charles D. Balander Nancy L. Schneider McCauley Eugene B. McDonongh Albert B. Messer Keith A. Moeller Donald G. Moore Joseph S. Osak Jessie R. Parrish James F. Patterson Robert C. Rettger Linda A. Rush Richard J. Sheehan Virginia Sheil George V. Spraggins Richard A. Sullivan Colleen Emma Steele Carole J. Miller 1969 Rayford N. Barnes Emil R. Conley Morris P. Lovejoy Harold B. Mathauser James G. McLean 30 • December 2003

Robert F. Meiser Robert M. Millsap Charles D. Mullen, Jr. Max L. Noble Edmund J. Sebastian Eugene W. Steele Elmer R. Woodard 1970 Oliver R. Bell Carole J. Maloney Robert M. May Edgar R. Morgan George W. Oliver Webster S. Robbins Marvin L. Seman Donovan R. Sparhawk Charles B. Tiggle William J. Underkofler Barbara C. Holoubek Williams Oliver R. Bell Anita J. McIntosh Donald F. Broderick Jack L. Edwards 1971 Evelyn I. Cain-Smith John R. Hatchett Thomas S. Marks Robert R. Matlick Harry J. Emmins McCord Herbert J. McGuire Richard D. Miller Allison Patterson Audrey M. Peterson James A. Phillips Andrew M. Riddle Paul G. Schlude Ronald L. Shaw Irene Cannon Smith Garrell E. Sutherland Leo F. Tate Dixon D. VanLanduyt Lamont R. Wallin John R. Wortham Lamont R. Wallin Mark C. Johnson Ronald Lee Shaw 1972 Harry H. Hanger John P. McGuire Harold S. Morgan Samuel Peoples Sharon M. Swanson Perkins Larrette E. Punteney Gary M. Rinehart Mary P. Sambasile Steckelberg

Margaret L. Seibold 1973 Mary Payich Cheslar Leon D. Gordon James A. Grundy Donald H. Mauchline Esther O. Mrkvicka Patrick S. Nanfito Stephen R. Patterson Jon R. Redon Edward N. Sandell George W. Smith Jerry R. Sobel Robert E. Stewart Colleen B. Sullivan Calvin G. Tyler Richard L. Williams Donald R. Anderson 1974 Julio Molina Wayne D. Norwood Maria D. Ozon Jose L. Perez-Roman William G. Rigby Richard L. Retallick Beverly A. Stephenson Richard J. Tavares 1975 Elmer W. Neyman Janet L. Remington Pettis Clarence L. Price John C. Signorelli William N. Smith Kay M. Smith Michael D. Thompson Jonathan R. Tower 1976 Bert E. McMahill Delores Carroll Metoyer Donal J. Nall Craig M. Parker Yolanda F. Pulli Thomas M. Sheridan Jack G. Stacey Inez Whitehead 1977 Wilbert D. Morrow Negussie Negawo Daniel M. Nesbett Roland F. Norris Nancy Gustafson Peterson Thomas E. Sandelin Thomas F. Schrunk Eugene W. Starzmann Joan C. Timmermans 1978 Bernard N. McCarter R. Shirley Qualls Patricia A. Griffo Shields 1979 Susan K. Paul Hapak Emma D. Pena

Michael D. Saunders 1980 Laurence E. McGruder Glenn B. Neumann Arthur Patino Paul M. Ronk James E. Turner Michael G. Vaughn Martha A. Lee 1981 Douglas C. Umberger 1981 Sally A. Vanmoorleghem 1982 Frank P. Benish Shirley A. Rawson Reginald A. Nwaturuocha 1984 Inez A. Haberl Gayle J. Scott 1985 Patricia McCartney Elizabeth G. McCurry Mitchell 1986 J. William Biernbaum 1987 Kenneth C. Randall 1988 Charles J. Blighton Denise L. Robinson McDonald Erin S. Erisman 1990 Alice M. Conner Chapman Ralph A. Miles 1992 Christopher D. Peters 1993 Sheila D. Montgomery Longmore 1994 Sjonna D. Rief

Faculty In Memoriam Robert D. Harper, a former dean and professor of English at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, died on Oct. 15 in Estes Park, Colo. Harper had retired from UNO in 1976 after a 28-year career at the university. Harper became dean of the then-named College of Liberal Arts in 1960. At the time the college had 54 full-time faculty members. When he left the dean’s office 10 years later, the College of Arts and Science had more than 200 faculty members in 17 departments. In retirement in Estes Park, Colorado, Harper was a member of the library board and an active library supporter. A room in the Estes Park Public Library is named for him and his late wife, Rhoda.

UNOALUM

On the Job From Page 23 direction.”

Thompson is an undergraduate at the Peter Kiewit Institute majoring in Management Information Systems (MIS). He is planning on graduating next May. His internship began in June and has been extended. He hopes to have the opportunity to stay with UP when the internship ends.

Thompson and another intern work in the Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) Department. They are developing a reporting application to allow Union Pacific field managers and others to access the UP human resources Web page to obtain information and run reports. Currently, he is building the tutorial for the application.

That’s a significant project—a far cry from simple data entry.

“We have a huge responsibility,” Thompson says. “The people who support us don’t have the technical background the project requires, so they have come to rely on us a lot.”

Thompson was working at an established local company, earning a good salary with benefits, when he heard of the opportunity at Union Pacific. Being accepted meant big changes at home just to make up for lost income. He and his wife had to move in with his parents, and she had to take a job to obtain insurance benefits for both.

“When I was accepted, they said it would only be 20 hours per week, with no insurance, and it would only last five months,” Thompson says. “But I knew if I did get experience with a great company like Union Pacific, I’d have a lot better opportunity for a job after graduation.”

He’s already getting noticed at UP. He received a company “Walk the Talk” award for work he has done to date. He’s involved in another project that has the interest of upper management. The company has increased his workweek to 25

Class Notes

hours, and extended his internship through next October.

Thompson says he knows there is no guarantee he’ll be hired by UP once the internship ends, but he plans on working hard and applying himself.

“It hasn’t been easy, especially for my wife,” he says, “but I don’t think I’d have as good a chance if I had not taken the internship.”

USED AS RECRUITING TOOL While the university enjoys good relationships with many area companies and agencies that fuel the internship program with opportunities, Swanson says the number of participating firms, and the variety, could always be better.

“We plan on using the Chamber partnership over the next several months to tap into new sources,” he says. “We want to broaden the types of industries involved, not necessarily big firms but companies of all sizes. Opportunities within small and moderate companies allow our interns to see all the workings of an operation, rather than one facet.”

The entire metropolitan area can reap the benefits from a strong internship program, Swanson says, especially when it draws upon students from outside the state.

“Through their participation in the program, our interns learn more about the community. They learn about the arts.

They learn about economic development. They learn history.

They get to know the people. All this helps them to seriously consider Omaha as a place to live and work.”

That, in turn, can be a recruiting tool for the university, he says.

“Potential students can see attending UNO as an opportunity for a good education and a good job. That is why we’re taking an entire community approach to promote our internship program with the institution, the Chamber and employers. I believe this approach will show how the program can be extremely beneficial to everyone involved.

“Internships are much more far-reaching than temporary positions.”

Submit your class note over the web at www.unoalumni.org What have you been doing since graduating from UNO? Your fellow alumni would like to know! Give us an update by filling out the form below. We’ll publish the news in a future issue of the UNO Alum and on our website. Send the news to Class Notes Editor, UNO Alum, 67th & Dodge, Omaha, NE 68182-0010, or Fax to (402) 554-3787.

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December 2003 • 31

Going somewhere?

Give to the UNO Annual Fund in 2003 and you just might be heading for Hawaii!

Aloha Annual Fund Celebrating 50 years! www.unoalumni.org Toll-free, UNO-MAV-ALUM (866-628-2586)

In celebration of the UNO Annual Fund’s 50th year, we’re sending two donors to our 50th state–Hawaii! All donors of $50 or more are being entered in a random drawing* for a trip for two to Hawaii including: • Round-trip air from Omaha to Hawaii; • 3 nights in Oahu, 4 nights in Maui; • Accommodations at deluxe beachfront properties; • Airport transfers and all taxes. Don’t miss your chance to win a trip to Hawaii—return the enclosed envelope with your gift or make an online contribution today! *Drawing will be held in 2004 after all 2003 donations have been recorded.

University of Nebraska at Omaha Alumni Association W.H. Thompson Alumni Center Omaha, NE 68182-0010 Address Service Requested

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT #301 OMAHA, NE