UNO Alum — Winter 2008

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

www.unoalumni.org

Winter 2008

Rudy Smith still beating the odds ALSO INSIDE: • Library to house Hagel papers • Athletic Hall of Fame adds trio • Centennial Gala set for Feb. 21

ALUmnI nIgHT On THe ICE CHILL OUT

at UNO’s 6th annual

Saturday Jan. 24, 2009

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5:30 p.m.

• Pre-game buffet reception at Qwest Convention Center.

Qwest Convention Center, Room 201-204 East side, 2nd Floor

oin fellow grads for the 6th annual Alumni Night on the Ice Saturday, Jan. 24, and featuring:

• Door prizes, free Mav Tattoos and free “GO MAVS” Fan Banners!

Pre-game buffet at the

7:05 p.m.

• Hockey 101 with former Mavs David Brisson and Kendall Sidoruk!

UNO vs. Miami Qwest Center Omaha

• Lower Bowl seating.

• Coach Mike Kemp pep talk, hockey band Power Play and UNO dance team.

• Designated seating for CBA, Communication and AFROTC grads.

All that for just $20 per adult, $15 per child age 2-10! (children under 2 free).

Per-person cost of $20 includes game ticket and pre-game buffet (pulled pork sandwiches, chips, salad, cookies, tea & lemonade). Cash bar available. Children’s cost of $15 includes hockey ticket and plated children’s meal.

Hockey tickets distributed at reception. Tickets must be paid for at time of registration. Register by completing form below and returning with payment (check or credit card). For more info, call Sheila King at (402) 554-4802 or toll-free at UNO-MAV-ALUM (866628-2586). Email inquiries to sking@mail.unomaha.edu

Register online at www.unoalumni.org/ice

Sign us up for UNO Alumni Night on the Ice Jan. 24!

Name

RETURN FORM BY JAN. 16, 2009: Mail with payment to: UNO Alumni Association, 6705 Dodge St., Omaha, NE 68182.

Phone

Address

Email Address For event confirmation.

City Reserve me

State adult tickets at $20 each,

I have enclosed $

for the tickets

Charge my credit card: ❑ Visa

Zip

kids (2-10) tickets at $15 each and

(Make checks payable to UNO Alumni Association).

❑MasterCard

❑Discover

tickets for kids under 2.

❑ I am a CBA, School of Communication or AFROTC grad and want to be seated with fellow grads!

Signature:

Card No. Names for Name Tags (please include children’s names and ages)

Exp. Date_________________

Contents Winter 2008

College News Graduate Studies

28-29

CPACS

30-31

IS&T

32-35

COE

36-37

Arts & Sciences

38-39

Do you know UNO Grad Studies?

Welcome to the neighborhod.

IT opportunities abound for women.

Glancing back ... and forward Profile of Omowale Akintund.

CBA

40

Students having a ball running business.

UNO Alum Magazine, Winter 2008

Rudy Smith Page 16

Features Unscripted

14

Tony Award-winning producer Pat Halloran didn’t plan his life, but it sure reads well.

Rudy Smith

16

The story of Rudolph Valentino Smith early ends before his life begins.

14 24

Mapping his own course

20

Got a TomTom or Garmin? Thank the adventurous Mark Steele for helping you get where you’re going.

Shark Bait

24

Andy Dehart makes a splash as a Discovery Channel go-to guy during Shark Week.

20

Departments Association in Action

6

Outstanding Service Award presented; first class of Alumni Scholars introduced at Annual Meeting;

University Relations

Editor: Anthony Flott Contributors: Leo Adam Biga, Bryce Bridges, Sonja Carberry, Tim Fitzgerald, Warren Francke, Don Kohler, Nick Schinker, Tom Stanford, Terry Zank.

Alumni Association Officers: Chairman of the Board, Rod Oberle; Past Chairman, Deborah McLarney; 1st Vice chair, Mark Grieb; 2nd Vice Chair, Kevin Munro; Secretary, Patricia Lamberty; Treasurer, Dan Koraleski; Legal Counsel, Martha Ridgway Zajicek; President & CEO, Lee Denker.

Alumni Staff: Lee Denker, President & CEO; Sue Gerding, Diane Osborne, Kathy Johnson, Records/Alumni Cards; Julie Kaminski, Staff Assistant; Sheila King, Activities Coordinator; Greg Trimm, Alumni Center Manager; Anthony Flott, Editor; Brian Schram, Business Manager; 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, (402) 554-2989. Toll-free, UNO-MAVALUM • email: aflott@unomaha.edu • 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.

9

Hagel papers to be housed at Criss Library.

Athletics

10

Trio joins Hall of Fame.

Class Notes

41

Graduates making their mark in the world. w w w. u n o a l u m n i . o r g

Winter 2008 • 3

Letter from the

Chancellor

Dear Alum:

A

s this edition goes to press, the Thanksgiving holiday is almost upon us, and our thoughts naturally turn to all of those things for which we are most thankful. In the spirit of the season, I’d like to share my personal list of Thanksgiving blessings which, as Chancellor, I have the privilege of experiencing every day.

I am thankful for the opportunity to: • Work with faculty members whose passion for teaching, in turn, ignites a fire for learning in their students and whose quest for knowledge is manifested in a growing research agenda; • Serve alongside staff members who know that their job, no matter what it might be, contributes immeasurably to the student experience, and whose pride in this campus is contagious; • Witness student dreams turn into reality, potential evolve into skills, and their futures transcend expectations.

I am grateful for: • An involved and supportive Alumni Association, which reminds us that we build on the foundations of those who have gone before; • Community partners and benefactors whose vision allows us to dream big, reach high, and achieve much; • A campus leadership team that helps me keep in mind “the big picture” while attending to details that are so much a part of our day-to-day operations.

And, I am appreciative of: • The sense of purpose, optimism and urgency that permeates this campus “on the move” where all things are possible and nothing is beyond our grasp; • UNO’s 100 years of history, that have helped us define our role as a metropolitan university, but moreover, have imbued us with a sense of who we are, where we have come from, and most importantly, where we are going.

• That at this moment, as we celebrate UNO’s 100th anniversary, I have the privilege of serving as chancellor, and playing a role in writing the institution’s next chapter.

I hope that the upcoming holidays offer you, too, an opportunity to reflect on those things which bring you joy and satisfaction. Despite the newspaper headlines, we have much for which to be thankful, and I wish for you and yours a very happy holiday season, and an even more prosperous 2009.

Until then,

John Christensen, UNO Chancellor

4 • Winter 2008

UNOALUM

Campus Scene

Photo by Tim Fitzgerald

Shovels and hats stood ready to get to work during the groundbreaking ceremony for the $38.6 million expansion and renovation of the Health, Physical Education and Recreation (HPER) Building. The project will increase HPER’s space from 150,000 square feet to 240,000 square feet and is scheduled to be complete by fall 2010.

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Winter 2008 • 5

Alumni Association in Action 2008 Outstanding Service Awards issued

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he UNO Alumni Association issued its Outstanding Service Awards during the organization’s annual meeting Tuesday, Nov. 25.

Outstanding Service Awards honor faculty, staff, alumni or friends who have shown continuous, outstanding service to the association and/or university.

Since the award’s institution in 1974, 104 OSAs have been issued. Receiving 2008 OSAs: Garrett Anderson was a driving force behind the creation of UNO Young Alumni beginning in May 2007. The group’s mission is to create opportunities for young alumni to reconnect with UNO through the Alumni Association and to develop supportive alumni for life by encouraging young alumni involvement in programs and the UNO Annual Fund.

Anderson is the group’s inaugural president. He joined the association as a member of its board of directors in 2008.

Chuck Holderness directed volunteers who staged the AFROTC alumni reunion during the Centennial Homecoming Celebration. He also has assisted various efforts of Deborah McLarney, Garrett Anderson. Photo by Tim Fitzgerald/U. Relations the Detachment 470 Air Force ROTC Alumni Chapter. He is USSTRATCOM Regional Liaison Manager with Northrop Grumman.

Deborah McLarney was chairman of the association’s Board of Directors in 2007, the 84th graduate to lead the organization since 1913. During McLarney’s tenure as chairman the Alumni Association: raised $409,666 in unrestricted donations from 5,658 donors; issued 40 UNO Alumni Legacy Scholarships to first-year students who are children of UNO graduates; instituted four four-year UNO Alumni Association Scholarships; and, established UNO Young Alumni. McLarney joined the board of directors in 1999 as its legal counsel. She is the senior regional trust manager for Wells Fargo.

2009 Board of Directors, Executive Committee appointed he UNO Alumni Association confirmed its executive committee and elected graduates to serve three-year terms on its board of directors during the organization’s annual meeting Tuesday, Nov. 25.

Mark Grieb will direct the Alumni Association as 2009 chairman of the board. A 1981 UNO graduate, Grieb is regional president with AAA Nebraska.

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Executive Committee Elected to serve on the executive committee of the UNO Alumni Association Board of Directors (years indicate UNO graduation date):

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Chairman of the Board, Mark Grieb (1981); First Vice Chairman, Kevin Munro (1986), U.S. Bank; Second Vice Chairman, Laura Kapustka (1984), OPPD; Secretary, Patricia Lamberty (1976), Nebraska District Court Judge; Treasurer, Dan Koraleski (1986), KPMG LLP; Past Chairman, Rod Oberle (1967), UNO. Board members Members re-elected to serve three-year terms (2009-2011) on the board of directors: Dave Andersen (1977); Bob Bruckner (1966), Westside Community Schools; Jim Temme (1984), UNMC.

Celebrate 100! campaign

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oin fellow alumni in celebrating UNO’s 100 years with a special anniversary gift to the 2008 Celebrate 100!

UNO Annual Fund campaign.

Donor benefits include: • All NEW Century Club donors ($100 or more) in 2008 will receive a commemorative UNO History Documentary DVD. • All current Century Club donors who increase their 2007 gift by $100 or more in 2008 will receive a commemorative UNO pictorial history book AND the DVD. Century Club donors of $100 or more also can receive one of five personalized mementos corresponding to giving level.

All donors of $100 or more also will be included in random drawings for a Grand Prize $1, 000 gift card to Nebraska Furniture Mart and for a First Prize $500 gift card to Borsheims.

Additional campaign details and a gift form are available on Page 47. Gifts also can be made online at www.unoalumni. org/give

Other members elected to serve three-year terms (2009-2011) on the board: Steve Frantz (1983), First National Bank of Omaha; John Jesse (1984), InfoUSA; Susie Melliger (1983, 2008), Millard’s Aldrich Elementary School; Sarah Waldman (1994), Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska Director Appreciation Awards Director Appreciation Awards were issued to outgoing members McLarney, Mark Healy (Doc’s Choice Premium Dog Food) Maggie Lehning (Business Systems Architects), Shirley Spieker (First Data Financial Institutions Services) and Martha Zajicek (Mutual of Omaha).

UNOALUM

News, Information & Activities

Alumni Professorships mark 25th year, top $850,000 he UNO Alumni Association in 2008 celebrates the 25th year of its Professorship programs, which now totals $867,000 in awards to outstanding university faculty.

The program was instituted in 1983 when, during UNO’s Diamond Jubilee celebration, the Association conducted a fundraising campaign to establish professorships in each of the university’s colleges to recognize distinguished faculty performance in teaching and research. Professorships were named in honor of longtime past and present faculty members who served with distinction in their respective academic areas.

Current holders of the professorships are listed below. Nearly $50,000 was disbursed in professorships in 2008.

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Faculty Member Lana Danielson Gary Day Steven G. From Burch Kealey Tom Lorsbach Rebecca Pasco Art Diamond TBA Karen Dwyer John Bartle Tatyana Novikov Richard File

College/Dept.

Education/Teacher Education CCFAM/Art & Art History Arts & Sciences/Math CBA/Accounting Education/Special Ed. & Comm. Disorders Education/Teacher Education CBA/Economics Engineering/Computer & Electronics Engg.

CCFAM/Communications CPACS/Criminal Justice Arts & Sciences/Foreign Languages CBA/Governmental Accounting

Professorship Hollie Bethel Edwin Clark Diamond James Earl William Hockett Paul Kennedy Diamond Margaret Killian Diamond John Lucas Diamond Cheryl Prewett Diamond Robert Reilly David P. Scott Diamond Ralph Wardle Diamond Maj. Thomas & Beverly Ward Spencer

Award $10,000 $3,000 $5,000 $6,000 $3,000 $3,000 $5,000 $3,000 $3,000 $3,000 $3,000 $5,500

Term 2008 – 2011 2007 – 2010 2008 – 2011 2008 – 2011 2007 – 2010 2007 – 2010 2006 – 2009 2008 – 2011 2008 – 2011 2007 – 2010 2006 – 2009

Award-winning fall for UNO Alumni Association staff

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t was an award-winning autumn for the staff of the UNO Alumni Association.

In October the Association received a Centennial Medallion in recognition of its efforts planning and hosting the UNO Centennial Homecoming celebrations. One month later the staff also received a “Step Up” award during the UNO Fall Awards Reception.

Created by Chancellor John Christensen, the Step Up Award recognizes individuals and groups who took on and completed unexpected university-related work that was above and beyond the scope of their normal responsibilities.

In November, Association President & CEO Lee Denker was named to the Midlands Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 Next Generation Leadership Program that honors entrepreneurs, executives and business professional men and women under the age of 40 in Greater Omaha, Sarpy County and Council Bluffs. Denker has led the Alumni Association since July 2006, guiding it to growth in annual fund revenue, event participation and Thompson Alumni Center business.

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Alumni President Lee Denker, Anna York, Brittani Avery, Samuel Stark, Whitney Nelson and Chairman of the Board Rod Oberle.

2008 Alumni Scholars presented NO Alumni Association members at their Annual Meeting welcomed the first class of UNO Alumni Scholars, recipients of the inaugural UNO Alumni Association Scholarships. Awarded to graduating high school seniors who have demonstrated leadership and involvement during high school, the $2,500 annual scholarships are renewable for up to four years total.

Recipients also must have a minimum ACT composite score of 24 and either rank in the top 25 percent of their class or have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale.

Receiving 2008 UNO Alumni Association Scholarships: Brittani Avery, Omaha, Central High School; Whitney Nelson, Yutan, Yutan High School; Samuel Stark, Blair, Arlington High School; and, Anna York, Omaha, Northwest High School. For more information visit the Associaton Web site at www.unoalumni.org/scholarships.

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Winter 2008 • 7

University News

News & Information

Hagel legislative papers to be housed at Criss Library

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UNO graduate and U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel visited his alma mater in October during opening ceremonies for the university’s Centennial Celebration, including the Fall Convocation. Photo by Tim Fitzgerald/University Relations.

NO Chancellor John Christensen announced in October that the legislative papers of U. S. Sen. Chuck Hagel will be permanently housed at the school’s Criss Library.

The collection includes speeches, memos, handwritten letters, photos and other correspondence Hagel accumulated during his 12 years in public office. The documents will be moved to the library’s permanent collection when Hagel leaves office early next year.

UNO was selected because Hagel is a 1971 graduate of the school’s College of Public Affairs and Community Service. “ UNO extends heartfelt thanks to Sen. Hagel for his extraordinary gift as part of our anniversary celebration,” Christensen said when

announcing the collection’s housing during the kickoff to UNO’s Centennial celebration. “ We are indeed humbled by your generosity which will contribute immeasurably to the rich academic resources we offer our students, faculty and community. Your archives will be a window to government and governance for generations to come.”

Hagel first was elected a Nebraska U.S. Senator in 1996 and began serving in January 1997. He was re-elected in 2002 but decided not to run again for the office this year.

During his time in the Senate he has cast more than 3,500 votes.

Hagel received the UNO Alumni Association’s highest honor, the Citation for Alumnus Achievement, in 1989.

A first look at Nebraska’s immigrant population

UNO report puts immigrant impact at $1.6 billion

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NO researchers for the first time have quantified the multi-billion dollar effects that immigrants have on the state’s economy in a new report titled “Nebraska’s Immigrant Population: Economic and Fiscal Impacts” and released in October.

Immigrants in the workforce, the taxes immigrants pay and immigrant spending and buying power all factored into the research findings.

Christopher S. Decker, an associate professor in the UNO Department of Economics, prepared the 37-page report for the UNO Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS), with assistance from Jerry Deichert, director of UNO’s Center for Public Affairs Research (CPAR), and Lourdes Gouveia, director of OLLAS. In 2006, immigrant spending resulted in an estimated $1.6 billion worth of total production (or output) to Nebraska’s economy, according to the researchers. In addition, this spending generated between 11,874 and 12,121 jobs for the state.

“We paid particular attention to immigrant groups from Latin America since issues surrounding these new immigrants

8 • Winter 2008

are important to Nebraskans,” Decker said. “Our investigation certainly reveals that this group in particular, as well as the total foreign born population as a whole, contributes significantly to our state’s economy.”

The 2006 total estimated production impact of Central and South American immigrant spending was $717 million, accounting for between 4,923 and 5,971 jobs in the state, according to the report. The state’s immigrant population also makes a significant contribution to the labor force in key economic sectors like construction, hotel and food services, and meat, poultry, and fish processing. The immigrant labor force accounted for 9.65 percent of total employment in construction in 2006, 7.3 percent of total employment in the services sector, and 80.4 percent in meat processing.

“Immigration issues will be with Nebraska for years and years to come,” Gouveia said. “This research helps us all better understand how important immigrant jobs and spending power are to the state.”

U.S. Census figures put the Nebraska immigrant population stood at more than 74,500 in 2000. In 2006, that figure increased by a third to an estimated 99,500. The total nativeborn Nebraska population grew by 2 percent during the same six-year period.

The entire report is available online at www.unomaha.edu/ollas. For more information, call (402) 554-3835.

UNOALUM

Maverick Athletics

News & Scores

Trio of past greats named to UNO Athletic Hall of Fame T

he UNO Athletic Department inducted three members into its Hall of Fame at a Nov. 5 banquet: softball standout Michala Lehotak Cimino, baseball All-American Larry Krehbiel and football AllAmerican Charlie McWhorter. The 33rd class brings to 95 the number of former student-athletes, coaches and administrators in the Hall of Fame.

“As a department, we are very gratified to recognize the achievements of these former student-athletes with induction into our Hall of Fame,” said David Miller, UNO athletic director.

Michala Lehotak Cimino Michala Lehotak Cimino set the benchmarks for success as a hitter and a third baseman and also helped to usher the Mavericks into an era of dominance in softball.

During her 1993-94 playing career, she was a two-time all-North Central Conference selection and an all-region pick. She left as the career home run leader and set a school record with 15 homers while batting .342

Michala Lehotak Cimino

Larry Krehbiel

Charlie McWhorter

with 68 runs batted in as a senior. The Mavs were 10221 during her career, won an NCC title and finished third in the national tournament.

the team to the championship game of the NAIA tournament.

School graduate was just the second UNO player to surpass 1,000 yards in a season when he ran for 1,018 in 1971.

Larry Krehbiel Larry Krehbiel was unbeaten in the first 19 games of his 1963-65 career, finishing with a 24-2 record, tossing 11 shutouts in 25 starts. He earned second-team All-American honors in 1964 and was a firstteam selection in 1965. He averaged nearly 10 strikeouts per game, posting records of 8-0, 7-0 and 9-2.

As a senior, he helped pitch

Charlie McWhorter Charlie McWhorter’s speed and agility helped him pile up 2,161 yards rushing during his 1969-72 career as a running back for the Mavericks under Coach Al Caniglia. He earned firstteam All-American honors in 1972 when he set school records with five touchdowns in a game and a 43.2-yard average on kickoff returns, as well as setting the career kickoff return mark with a 28.3-yard average. The Omaha North High

Other honors UNO also honored its male and female athletes of the year, Chris Weimer (baseball) and Leslie Svoboda (softball). The athletic department also recognized its corporate citizen of the year, Gary Gates of the Omaha Public Power District; its Maverick Club Man of the Year, “Tata” Machado; and its Distinguished Person of the Year, Linda Bowen.

Hansen nets coaching honor

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NO head men's basketball coach Derrin Hansen was named the Coach of the Month for November by Division II Bulletin, a monthly magazine devoted to D-II men's college baskeball.

Hansen led the Mavs to a 4-0 start, including three road wins. The Mavericks beat Nebraska-Kearney 89-68, Western State 95-71 and Colorado State Pueblo 83-66. UNO opened the season with a 93-50 win over NAIA foe Doane College at home.

On Dec. 3 the Mavs began their inaugrual season of competitition in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association with a loss to Washburn University.

Hansen is in his fourth season as UNO’s head coach and entered this season with an overall mark of 52-39. That includes a schoolrecord 25 wins last season when the Mavs earned an appearance in the NCAA II Tournament and won the final North Central Conference Tournament. He is joined by assistant coach Randall Herbst.

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Winter 2008 • 9

Centennial Celebration Noted Harvard economist, author tabbed as keynote speaker

Centennial Gala to fund community fellowships

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he University of Nebraska Foundation and the UNO Alumni Association will host a Gala celebration in recognition of UNO’s 100th Anniversary on Feb. 21 at Qwest Center Omaha.

Proceeds from this fundraising event — through Centennial sponsorships, table and individual tickets sales — will establish two community fellowships at UNO. “Nothing quite like this economist Roland Fryer. has ever been established Union Pacific is the before at one of the universiCentennial title sponsor. ty’s campuses,“ said UNO Other area companies, Chancellor organizations and John individuals also have Christensen. made significant con“These feltributions to support lowships — this event and the the Community Centennial Fellowship.

Community The Community Fellowships Fellowships will help — will furthe university enhance ther its internship prostrengthen gram, practica and Roland Fryer UNO’s service-learning offerengagement with the comings in and around the city. munity. It works hand in Plans call for the Fellowships hand with our Centennial to be awarded to UNO’s top theme of the university graduate students who will being ‘Central to our city.’” be dedicated to significant The Gala starts at 6:30 initiatives that will reinforce p.m. Feb. 21 at the Qwest community engagement, Center in downtown Omaha economic development and and features noted Harvard civic engagement activities.

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“Nothing quite like this has ever been established before at one of the university’s campuses. These Centennial Community Fellowships will further strengthen UNO’s engagement with the community. It works hand in hand with our Centennial theme of the university being ‘Central to our City.”

UNO Chancellor John Christensen “The connections and reconnections that UNO has made during the past few months of the Centennial celebration have been a real joy,” Dr. Christensen said.

“The Gala not only becomes an event for the business and donor community to celebrate the university, but also helps set the stage for an even larger community role for the university to play going forward,” Fryer’s Gala presentation also will reflect the importance of urban institutions to their communities. Only 31, Fryer received tenure at Harvard University earlier this year. He also maintains offices at the National Bureau of Economic Research and W.E.B. DuBois Institute. He was named a “Rising Star” by Fortune

Magazine and was featured in Esquire’s “Genius Issue.”

He has become a nationally known advocate for educational equality and often speaks to the importance of overcoming social and environmental factors in the pursuit of educational excellence.

Gala Registration ndividual ticket prices for the fundraising event are $300 per person or $3,000 for a table of 10. Tickets will be available for purchase beginning in early January.

More information is available online at www.unomaha.edu/100. A link to registration will be available in early January.

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UNO in history

1934-1958

In celebration of UNO’s Centennial the UNO Alum presents the second of four timelines highlighting pivotal moments in the university’s history. Each timeline focuses on 25 years of UNO’s existence, continuing with 1934 to 1958.

1934 Alumni Association members suggest adoption of Indian ceremonies to replace Gala Day. Gateway sends five students to visit Omaha Indian reservation at Macy, Neb., to learn more about Indian traditions.

1935 “Ma-ie Day” replaces Gala Day, emphasizing the dignity of American Indian Life. Eleanor Larson elected Princess Attira I.

1936 University for $48,000 purchases 20 acres just outside Omaha city limits and north of Elmwood Park as the site for a new campus. Public Works Administration approves a $414,000 grant for a new building, pending annexation of the site by the city—within 10 days. Omaha’s City Council annexes the site in days. Construction begins two months later in January. University in 1937 purchases 30 additional acres west of the site.

1937 Alumni Association reorganized, incorporated.

1938 Administration Building, now Arts & Sciences Hall, dedicated. Air-conditioned, it prompts university officials to tout Omaha U. as the only completely air-conditioned college campus in the nation.

1939 Mascot switch from Cardinals to Indians.

1942 Students strike from classes for five days, protesting, among other things, the war-related suspension of athletics.

1946 Athletics reinstated.

“The Shack,” a popular student hangout, opens in annex previously used as airplane mechanic and welding classroom during World War II.

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1955 Milo Bail crowned King AkSar-Ben LXI, Omaha’s highest civic honor. He becomes first educator to rule the mythical realm.

1951 Air Force ROTC program begins July 1. Nearly 400 students join the program that fall. University also starts a “Bootstrap” program designed to encourage members of military to “lift themselves by the bootstraps” through a college degree. Participants are given up to two years to complete a degree; officers given 30 credits for their commission. More than 12,000 military personnel would receive degrees from UNO through the program.

1952 More than 900 students, faculty and staff help shore dikes of flooded Missouri River.

Classes canceled for a week.

University becomes first institution in Midwest and one of first six in nation to offer courses by television via “TV Classroom,” broadcast on KMTV.

OU defeats Eastern Kentucky State 7-6 in Jan. 1 Tangerine Bowl. Indians end the season 10-0.

Eugene C. Eppley Library opens. Built for $850,000, it was funded entirely by hotel owner and philanthropist Gene Eppley. It was the most valuable gift the University had ever received.

Parking meters introduced to campus.

1956 OU becomes one of the first 10 universities in the nation to initiate the Air Force ROTC Cadette Pilot Program for women.

Student enrollment tops 5,000.

1958 University celebrates Golden Anniversary.

Winter 2008 • 11

Centenial Barbecue UNO kicked off its 100th anniversary year with two of its biggest events in years during the Centennial Homecoming Celebration Oct. 10 and 11. Nearly 500 friends of UNO showed for the Centennial Barbeque & Reception, an all-university, western-themed party in the Fieldhouse that featured delicious grub, great conversation and lots of boot scootin' to some western swing.

Which way to fun? There was plenty to be found during the Fieldhouse that brought together graduates of yore, like Class of ’58 coeds, and alumni of tomorrow, including Homecoming Queen candidates.

Nebraska First Lady Sally Ganem was all smiles, as were guests who “ Cowboyed Up” and gathered at the corral for old-fashioned sepia group photos.

Hail to the Queen candidates and to compadres past and present.

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UNOALUM

Centennial Homecoming UNO Centennial Tailgate Party: The Pep Bowl was rockin' with 1,000 UNO fans taking part in family fun, friendships renewed and tons of UNO Mojo! All with the perfect ending — another Maverick Homecoming win!

There was plenty of kids play with bull rides, face-painting, the “ Whopper Hopper” jump house and the ever-popular Amazin’ Arthur’s balloon creations bringing smiles to the faces of Mav athletes.

Striking poses, striking up the band and striking up old friendships ... Maverick spirit was everywhere on campus, chasing away early-morning showers and brightening faces with smiles — mimes included.

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Winter 2008 • 13

Photo by Tom Stanford

Halloran holding the Tony Awards he received in 2002 and 2005 for producing, respectively, “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and “Spamalot.” A comic vignette would show Halloran ending a dinner in Baltimore with actor Stacy Keach by tripping on the sidewalk and breaking his ankle. To which Keach would lean over to ask, “Does this mean we can’t golf tomorrow?”

It’s a pretty good story — and Halloran didn’t script a bit of it.

“None of the things I’ve done was planned,” he says. “I never intended to be in the Broadway show business. I’ve loved every single job I’ve had.”

Tony times two: Halloran has received Broadway’s biggest honor for producing “Thoroughly Modern Millie” in 2002 and “Spamalot” three years later.

Unscripted Pat Halloran didn’t plan it, but the Tony Award winner has become a Broadway bigwig

By Sonja Carberry

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he script of UNO alum Pat Halloran’s life might open with a flashback to his parents’ north Omaha movie theater. That’s where the teenager and his friends – who always got in free – took in countless 1950s bigscreen classics.

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Fast forward a couple of decades to the Orpheum Theatre in Memphis, Tenn., where Halloran worked with the luminaries of his youth — Yul Brenner, Gregory Peck, Cary Grant and others — as theater president.

No doubt spotlights would shine on

Opening act Halloran’s script begins in Omaha’s Fontenelle Park neighborhood. That’s where Halloran’s father, Patrick Jr., lived and worked as a distributor for Disney while running the Military Theater on 22nd and Military with wife, Mary.

“They worked very hard with the theater they owned while trying to raise the five of us ‘Indians,’” Halloran says.

Firstborn Patrick III was itching to get a job and start life after graduating from Holy Name High School, but his father set him in a different direction: college. Halloran agreed to give thenOmaha University a shot.

“I was going to do it for two years and then I’d bolt and do what I wanted to do,” he says. Halloran’s father pressed the less-than-serious student to attend some fraternity rush parties. “He again encouraged me to open up my mind and consider ‘taking a look.’”

Enter Pi Kappa Alpha and a life rewrite. “It turned me around,” Halloran says. “It took me to a whole new level I had not anticipated. I became a real college student.” Halloran describes his college years as Animal House-esque with serious overtones. He shared an apartment with frat buddies while working part time at WOWT-TV. There he was a production assistant, setting lighting before newscasts and pouring Storz beer into frosted glasses for live commercials.

On campus he was voted sophomore class vice president and was a KWOU radio announcer. As a senior he co-produced a half-hour special Christmas

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show broadcast from university studios

by KETV. With Pi Kappa Alpha Halloran served as intramural director, pledge trainer, then president. “We set out to be the No. 1 fraternity on campus,” Halloran says. An impressed Milo Bail, OU president, asked Halloran to speak at a luncheon about his experience. It would be the first of many podium moments.

Presidential plans Halloran graduated with a bachelor’s degree from UNO in 1965 and headed for the University of Miami to pursue a master’s degree.

“My plan was to be a university president,” Halloran says. “While I was doing all that, my college fraternity was having financial difficulties.”

Pi Kappa Alpha’s national office called Miami to offer Halloran its top post. He declined, but agreed to fly to the fraternity’s headquarters in Memphis to consider likely candidates.

“I was the only one they brought in,” he says. Halloran moved to Memphis to take the Pike helm. Current PKA national president Ray Orians recalls working for Halloran in those red-ink days.

“Pat has a keen ability to raise funds,” Orians says. “He was able to influence and convince people to get behind him.” It’s a role he’d reprise again and again. After getting PKA into the black, Halloran founded Memphis’ Big Brothers/Big Sisters chapter in 1972.

Three years later, he was elected to the Memphis City Council.

“I was doing all the things that meant a lot to me,” Halloran says. “I was a product of the Kennedy era.”

In 1979, Halloran quit his fraternity post to run for mayor. He finished a distant third, though comfortably ahead of Robert “Prince Mongo” Hodges, a selfclaimed alien from the planet Zambodia.

The campaign was a rare defeat for Halloran. Not long after, though, Halloran took the general manager reins of Memphis’ historic Orpheum Theatre, a sister theater to Omaha’s Orpheum and one in need of renovation.

To build interest prior to the theater’s 1983 renovation, Halloran committed to two large and challenging shows — Yul Brenner in “The King and I” and “Hello

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Dolly” with Carol Channing.

The productions provided a study in opposites. Brenner was a quintessential prima donna, says Halloran. “He expected the world to grovel at his feet. When they did he was happy.” Channing, on the other hand, happily signed autographs — surrounded by ladies undergarments at a local department store.

The shows’ successes rallied Memphis’ citizens around Halloran’s fundraising drive and the larger revival of the city’s downtown, of which the theater is an anchor.

The Orpheum’s dome and walls were reapplied with 23-karat gold leaf. Stage space was expanded, new lighting installed and the exterior upgraded. It was the first of two renovations that would total $20 million. A second renovation was accomplished in 1997.

The overhaul of what’s been

involved and get vested,” says Halloran, who in 1997 authored “The Orpheum — Where Broadway Meets Beale.”

“Right now we are the most powerful group when it comes to tours in North America.”

The IPN, with Halloran as current president, produced “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and “Spamalot.” The group also is behind the current and well-received musical “9 to 5.”

Broadway producer Al Nocciolino (“Legally Blonde,” “Peter Pan”) calls Halloran a close friend who’s well respected in the theater community (the League of American Theatres and Producers named Halloran Broadway Presenter of the Year in 1999).

“Pat’s personality can really warm up a room,” Nocciolino says. “You don’t end up in the same place for as long as Pat’s been unless you’re doing some-

“ I’ve always been called in to be the turnaround guy,” says Halloran, who was hired as general manager. “ I always figure out what it takes to make the big impact. I always go for the jugular.” described as the “crown jewel” of downtown Memphis helped transform the once-blighted district into a bustling entertainment destination with restaurants, hotels, a professional basketball team and a minor league ball park.

Halloran was key to the district do-over, encouraging restaurant owners and entrepreneurs to open first or second locations downtown. He also invested in security and promoted daytime events, such as sidewalk art shows and outdoor concerts, to attract customers. “It was a hard sell because all the people were leaving downtown,” he says. “The challenge was to try to reverse the trend. It took a lot of people.”

Back on stage Halloran again brought people together in the mid-1990s, this time to form the Independent Presenter Network (IPN), a group of 35 independent theater owners in the United States and Japan. The intention was “to get on the inside of the business and get

thing right.”

Closing act For Halloran, 65, every plot twist has been a pleasant surprise—ending up in Memphis, his second marriage to wife, Anne, with whom he shares four children, but particularly landing in the theater business. In November he began a three-year extension of his contract as president and CEO of the Memphis Development Foundation, which operates the Orpheum; at its end, he’ll have been 30 years behind the curtain. He’s indicated plans to retire in 2011 and to focus on producing new musicals.

That’s a long way from those Saturday matinees at the Military Theater, which today houses a church.

But the script reads well.

“It’s just been the best thing I’ve ever done,” says Halloran, currently assembling producers in preparation for “9-to5's” debut on Broadway in January. “It turned out to be a career that I never really planned and it fit like a glove.”

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Beating the odds Award-winning photographer Rudy Smith looks back on a life sometimes lived at death’s door

By Warren Francke

16 • Winter 2008

Photos by Rudy Smith & Bryce Bridges

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The story of Rudolph Valentino Smith nearly ends before his life begins.

to a midwife, who was supposed to induce an abortion. The father left her there and she slipped away before the procedure, escaping down a dark country road then borrowing bus fare to go from Georgia to Philadelphia. She was denied a hospital bed but gave birth there to her second son—in a janitor’s broom closet. Rudolph Valentino followed Woodrow Wilson Smith and preceded Saint Bernard Smith. Teasing over the names turned Rudy’s mother to the likes of Bonnie and Carol for five who followed.

Before he could become an award-winning photographer and the longest-serving newsman at the Omaha World-Herald.

Before he could make the Central High School Hall of Fame, the Nebraska High School Hall of Fame and the Nebraska Black Sports Hall of Fame.

Before he could receive a lifetime achievement award from his alma mater.

Critical moments in front of, behind the camera Before he arrived at Omaha University, Smith’s stepfather died, his older brother joined the military and at age 16 he heard his mother say, “You’re head of the family now.”

At 17, already accustomed to holding several jobs, he joined the World-Herald and began the progress from copy messenger to darkroom technician to sports photographer and more, a path that led a UNO professor to recognize his life’s work with words from Ansel Adams:

The birth story told by his mother helps explain the feelings that overflowed last spring when Smith accepted the UNO School of Communication’s Lifetime Achievement Award. “I’m so emotional,” he confessed, “because I’m not supposed to be here today. I’ve been at death’s door at least a half dozen times.”

Seven after a later home invasion.

Even his strong faith—“the most important part of my life”—can’t banish bad memories. He told an audience that soon shared his tears, “My biological father tried to kill me when I was in my mother’s womb.”

He took Rudy's teenage mother, now Mrs. Lovely Wright,

Finding subjects on campus and on the streets ... Dizzy Gillespie blew for Rudy during a visit to UNO. An old man who walked to Omaha from a Mississippi told Rudy his tale when the two met at 32nd and Bedford, Rudy with his camera, the old man with a bag of alumnium cans on his back.

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Winter 2008 • 17

“While some photographers impose their view on reality, ‘Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation.’”

That, the professor suggested, personifies Smith’s passion as a documentarian of critical moments in Omaha’s history.

Riots in the 1960s, the campaign visit by Robert Kennedy a week before his assassination, and images of ordinary Omahans, such as his church ladies in colorful hats exhibited when the play “Crowns” was presented here.

Other Smith exhibits have recorded Omaha’s civil rights movement. In retirement, he plans to collect his photos in a book, assisted with layout by Neville Murray, director of Loves Art and Jazz Center (www.lovesjazzartcenter.org), who compares Rudy’s artistry to the great Gordon Parks.

Many photos simply captured people he saw on the streets, like the elderly black man at 32nd and Bedford, a bag of aluminum cans on his back. Bundled against the cold, his face lined and leathery over a gray beard, “He asked me to give him a dollar, so I did. I asked him where he came from and how he got here. “’From Mississippi. I walked.’ He left the plantation and started walking. He had eyes that say, ‘Remember me.’”

To Rudy, he seemed “the culmination of the history of the black struggle.”

A contrasting favorite shows a skinny little white boy wearing boxing gloves bigger than his head, sitting on a bench at a Kellom gym smoker under the sign, “For Boxers Only.”

Close encounters A perilous encounter came when the newspaper sent him to photograph riots that broke out in north Omaha. He came back with an image of two National Guardsmen, guns on their shoulders, silhouetted by the fire of a burning church, and only later told the story of his second close call.

A guardsman put a rifle to the back of Smith’s head, pushed him behind a building and threatened to shoot him.

He survived that incident after shouting to identify himself to a nearby officer. Three more close calls involved a train, a plane and an automobile. The train totaled one World-Herald car, a semi nearly wiped out another as he slid on ice, headed for Pres. Nixon’s presentation of a Husker championship tro-

phy.

The plane flew him back from Kearney when “weather overtook us — lightning, heavy rain — and the pilot began sweating profusely and said, ‘I’ve had a heart attack.’” Near Grand Island, he set controls, “and told me where he had a nitro tablet to put under his tongue. When we got to Millard, he started coming around.”

Another brush saw a lion owned by an Iowan leap from a tree, take “three pounces and bite my shoulder.” Thanks to layers under a leather coat, Rudy escaped with deep teeth marks.

The seventh and most recent incident was described in the daily as “an early morning home invasion,” leaving Rudy knocked unconscious for eight minutes when a lone intruder smacked him with the bedroom door.

“Apparently the man threatened to shoot us,” Smith said, “but I didn’t know that because I was out.”

The paper’s executive editor Mike Reilly told his staff, “We all found out how important Rudy is to the community” when, after the incident, office phones “rang nonstop for a week” from well-wishers. In noting that Smith was the newsroom’s first full-time African-American staff member and the first black graduate from UNO’s journalism program, he added that “Rudy’s wealth of institutional knowledge is relied upon regularly.”

Life lessons After his mother and Dr. W.W. Solomon—“I was his servant and he helped me grow up to be a positive young black man”—Smith names two World-Herald executives, Lou Gerdes and Harold Andersen, for their impact on his life.

And at the UNO lifetime award ceremony, he cited university professors for “changing the course of my life” after arriving on campus “angry and bitter.”

His life of service to the community began with the NAACP Youth Council, backing such causes as integration of the Peony Park swimming pool, and as a student senator who crusaded to end discrimination in off-campus student housing.

But none of these influences matches the impact of the faith

Signs of the times .... Smith captured the spirt of an Obama supporter and the toil of lives of labor.

that brings him to Salem Baptist Church each Sunday. It’s a faith shared with his wife, Llana, and their three children, Rudy, Jr., Shannon and Quiana. Their daughter, a musical talent who’ll soon perform in the Chicago company of “Mary Poppins,” has “a stronger faith than mine. It plays a part in all of her decisions.”

Rudy prayed and asked God if he should marry Llana, and they pray for each other daily. Each Sunday finds them at Salem where he serves in many ministries while she is drama director and sings in the choir. Rudy, with James Brewer and Leonard Fairley, his friends for decades, founded Salem’s sen-

ior housing villa and continues on its board.

Rudy and Llana spend most of each Sunday at the church, where as a benevolence committee member he hears from members in need of assistance.

A generation of football fans knew Rudy, not for his ghetto artistry or faithful ministry, but as the man taking little steps along the sidelines when the action moved to the far end of the field. They’d later see the memorable results, not knowing why he didn’t need to hurry.

“I always knew the Lord put me in the right spot to press my finger at the right time.”

Mapping his own course Mark Steele plots a career of accomplishment and adventure

By Terry Zank

Patagonia 2006: Steele and Team Endeavor traversed the summit of the Mariano Moreno range on the Chile/Argentina border then exited off the ice cap via the Upsalla Glacier.

“The majestic mountains, the wind swept ice cap and the sprit and warmth of the people of Argentina left a deep impression on us. Our guides, Jorge and Lucas, apart from being great people, helped pull us through some sticky situations. Their humor and knowledge of the area made spending time with them a pleasure.”

20 • Winter 2008

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Photos courtesy Mark Steele

Mark Steel discovered that the “Toughest Footrace on Earth” is appropriately named.

A UNO graduate, Steel with friend and co-adventurer Nick Hill five years ago took on the Marathon des Sables, a weeklong, 150-mile footrace across the Sahara Desert in Morocco. He’s survived similar endurance challenges before and since, but the Sahara excursion tested his resolve like no other. “Not much to think about except the pain in our feet and legs,” Steele wrote in a wince-inducing journal entry regarding the marathon’s last stage.

“Progress ground to a crawl as we encountered deep sand and flint-like stones which shredded our feet. The end of the stage finally came for us in the early hours of the morning. A decent time paid for with bloody feet and total exhaustion.”

Illustrative, perhaps, of Steele’s views on shaping a successful career—and an insight into why he reaches out to those less fortunate than himself.

On the map Based in Singapore, Steele is the Asia-Pacific chief operating officer for Tele Atlas, a Netherlands company that provides digital maps for navigation solutions. During the past two years the company has focused on building a navigable digital map of Asia for use in portable and in-car navigation systems such as TomTom and Garmin; with Internet portals such as Google Earth and MapQuest; and on mobile phones such as Blackberry.

“We build our maps by acquiring existing businesses engaged in this type of work and by deploying our own field survey resources and technologies, such as our advanced mobile-mapping vans,” Steele says.

Steele knew his way around Asia long before joining Tele Atlas in 2006, having already spent 14 years on the continent.

That time included posts with U.S.-based ITT Corp., where he focused on building ITT’s regional presence in Hong Kong and Japan. He left the firm as president of ITT China.

“I enjoy building businesses,” he says. “This is what I have done for the past 16 years in Asia—establishing and growing businesses in numerous countries throughout the region.

When I first moved to Hong Kong with ITT back in 1993, I was one of a handful of employees in the region. When I left, we had a workforce of 10,000.

“It’s very rewarding to look back on a business that you helped establish and see the value that has been created, not only in financial terms, but also in the jobs and livelihoods for the people who now work for your company. This is exciting.”

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Around the world Steele, married with two children, gets plenty of excitement outside the office, too. Besides the Saharan footrace he also has climbed Mount Everest, journeyed to the North Pole, trekked

Sahara 2003: Steele and compatriots were among 600 competitors from about 30 countries on six continents taking part in the “Toughest Footrace on Earth.” Provisions? A a daily ration of nine liters of water.

North Pole 2003: Team Endeavor hauls gear 100km under a midnight sun that heated temperatures to no better than -20 degrees.

Winter 2008 • 21

Everest 2000: Don’t let the warm glow of tent lanterns fool you — there’s little warmth at Mt. Everest Base Camp — but there is plenty with friends traveling together as part of “Team Endeavor.”

across the ice-covered island of Milne Land in Greenland, and hiked/skied the 200-mile southern ice cap of Patagonia, South America. The expeditions are organized under a group dubbed Team Endeavor (www.teamendeavor.com) whose motto is “Challenging the Unknown.”

Steele faced just that in Patagonia two years ago when a snow bridge he was crossing on an ice cap collapsed, sending him into a deep crevasse.

Fortunately, his four-person party was roped together.

Friend Nick Hill dug his ice pick into the snow and stopped Steele’s fall. That same day, the group narrowly escaped being buried in an avalanche.

The region and adventures are a far cry from Steele’s Midwestern roots. He was born in Hays, Kansas, and grew up in Omaha. Steele graduated from UNO in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in international business and Japanese.

“My studies at UNO provided me the exposure to foreign cultures and the opportunity to study abroad in Japan. This, coupled with coursework in international business, well-positioned me for my career.”

Adventure with an aim Steele’s pursuits have taken him to 36 countries: 16 in Asia, 12 in Europe, five in the Americas and three in Africa.

They’ve also led him to charity work. Steele is founder of the Asia Water Foundation, a non-profit organization that brings clean water to Asia’s most disadvantaged communities.

While he was with ITT, Steele was part of a group of employees who responded after a tsunami devastated parts of South Asia in December 2004. The ITT team worked with international relief agencies and local vendors to provide the technology and expertise needed to provide clean water to 500,000 survivors in Sri Lanka. That also led to a meeting with former Presidents Bush and Clinton, who were touring the devastated area.

The project “was a very rewarding experience for our company and our team,” Steele says. Such humanitarian efforts, perhaps, are motivators for Steele’s challenges of human endurance, where he learns how to push personal limits while working within a team.

During the Marathon des Sables, Hill and many others

22 • Winter 2008

received medical treatment for multiple, severe foot blisters.

Steele struggled with dehydration and had scalpel treatment on both heels after a grueling, overnight, 52-mile stage through the sand dunes.

Their last journal entry speaks to how Steele leads his life after the adventures.

“This has been the toughest experience of our lives by a distance. We have been at the limit of our physical and mental capacity, yet we have gained inspiration from each other and from our tent mates — sharing the little we had and marveling at people’s generosity in such adversity.”

On building a career ith 16 years of high-level corporate experience, Steele knows what he’s talking about when it comes to building a career.

Among the advice he offers:

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Horizontal hop • “Don’t view your career as a linear progression. Never be afraid to take an occasional horizontal step to take on opportunities that are unstructured, to learn different ways of working, to move outside of your comfort zone and explore different business disciplines, environments and cultures.”

Seek teachers • “Seek out and get close to people who can teach you something.”

Integrity for the long haul • “Remember that your career is long and the business world is small, so always act with integrity.”

Passion and potential • “Your success is more about your passion and drive than it is about your intellect, who you know, or good luck. No one else is the authority on your potential, and it is you who decides where and how far you go. It’s been proven time and time again that successful people see obstacles collapse before them under persistent desire.”

UNOALUM

Media, Music Mogul Susan Butler creates a niche career with a legal spin

By Leo Adam Biga

S

omehow, Susan Butler makes it all work, this amalgam of music, law, journalism and new technology that she has shaped into a niche career of her own design.

After years working for top music and Internet trade publications, Butler has emerged with her own publishing company, Butler Business & Media, that operates through a subscription-service Web site, www.musicconfidential.biz.

The content-rich site, launched in June, provides stories to exclusive clients — from CEOs to general counsels to music execs — wishing to stay abreast of business and legal issues and trends affecting music licensing, copyright, distribution, publishing, et cetera.

“I came up with the idea [for the site] and launched it in two weeks,” says Butler. “I have paid subscribers around the world. I have a lot of readers now in the U.S. government. Also, lawyers for nearly all the senators on the judiciary committee [who] deal with copyrights.

“A lot of my insights into my reporting and my business come from my practice as a lawyer. I knew there were a lot of important music industry issues that weren’t being covered or explored in-depth by journalists because they didn’t have the experience in the business to explain them.”

A Council Bluffs native, Butler grew up in Omaha from age 7 longing to do something in music. She sang and played piano serviceably, but there would be no recording contract for her.

Not until she earned a UNO bachelor’s degree in business finance (1980) followed by a law degree from Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles did she finally break into the industry. Her entry came as a West Coast attorney with her own personal management company for artists/producers. She also made inroads with the

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Recording Academy. When she recognized the 1990s Internet boom as the next big thing, Butler began representing new media companies and contributing articles to Computer Life and MacWorld. She branded herself a Web expert, becoming ZDNet’s small business columnist and authoring the book,

Butler says her career just evolved in ways she never would have imagined. “eBusiness Legal Kit for Dummies.”

To be nearer entertainment industry wheeler-dealers, she moved in 2002 to New York City, where as Billboard Magazine senior correspondent her beat included Washington D.C. Her insider reporting broke stories on major acquisition deals in the United States and music business opportunities in emerging markets, and she landed exclusive interviews with powerbrokers inside and outside the Beltway.

Such contacts are paying dividends with Music Confidential. Her continued coverage of the D.C. scene keeps her in touch with all the key players.

“Congress, Commerce, the Department of Justice, U.S. trade representatives, the Office of the President, the Copyright Office — everything that affects intellectual property, and music in particular,” she says. “For instance, the Department of Justice has lawyers who enforce intellectual property rights, so I keep in contact with them.”

Like any good reporter, she credits the access she gets to her “ability to build the relationships” with trusted sources.

Secondhand, repackaged reporting doesn’t cut it; everything’s original. “I promise my reporting is straight from the people that work in the industry.”

She also prepares special white paper reports and leads forums/workshops for individual clients as requested.

Is there anyone else doing precisely what Butler does? “No, that’s the good thing,” she says. “There really isn’t anyone with this combination of experience.”

She enjoys the unexpected places her music fancy has led her. Like spending all of October in Europe — London, Brussels, Paris, Berlin. She’s headed for Cannes in January for the MIDEM international music conference.

“The organizers have asked my new publication to help organize a day of music publishing panels and keynote discussions and networking forums,” she says. “That’s a really great honor for me. The support for my new publication has been just great. The business is interesting and I found out I have a talent for the business end. I just sealed a deal with the London magazine Music Week.

Once a month I’ll have a page in their magazine that is an excerpt from my publication.”

Butler says her career’s “just evolved” in ways “I never would have imagined.”

Winter 2008 • 23

Shark Bait Andy Dehart has vivid memories of relaxing in the warm, tranquil waters of the Atlantic Ocean, preparing for what he hoped would be an eventful surfing excursion in the Bahamas.

And though outfitted with the appropriate surfing gear, the UNO graduate was not a typical tourist angling for the perfect wave.

Instead, Dehart was bait for the day.

By Don Kohler

24 • Winter 2008

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Photo by Aqua Cat Cruises

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Winter 2008 • 25

Shark Bait

I

n his professional role as shark advisor for the Discovery Channel, Andy Dehart has chronicled many tensionfilled moments in some of the world’s most beautiful waters, and the 2007 Bahamas research project was another of those challenging video shoots.

“We had a theory that some shark attacks in Bahamas were simply a case of mistaken identity,” Dehart said. “The theory was that sharks were seeing boogie borders and surf boarders from underneath and mistaking them for prey.”

Dehart and the Discovery Channel crews spent many hours afloat, waiting to prove their theory and dispel the myth that sharks prey on humans. “I had to lie down on a surfboard next to a fake sea turtle. The experiment was to see if the tiger shark would bite the fake sea turtle or me. Fortunately, he cruised past the surfboard, went after his native prey and bit the sea turtle.”

Such is a day in the life of a shark expert. Dehart, director of Biological Programs at the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C., signed with the Discovery Channel in 2008 and has lent his expertise in the production of three Shark Week programs.

His fourth show, “Great White Shark After Dark,” is in production for 2009. As a consultant, Dehart will log more than a month of travels, offering content review and research into the habits of the underwater beasts.

“Shark week is a good mix of educating and entertaining the audience,” Dehart said. “The role of a public aquarium is to educate, and in this role with the Discovery Channel I am allowed to

gear and head out to the ponds and lakes in Western Nebraska. He always had a love of the ocean.”

Harold Grant Dehart, a diver in the United States Navy, moved the family to Annapolis, Md., where Andy was born and raised. Following his naval service, Harold Dehart worked as an architect specializing in urban planning.

He eventually became involved with coastal zone management projects for The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and his son accompanied him to many Photo by Jessica Dehart tropical destinations.

“I saw my first shark at age 5 while I was snorkeling in the Florida Keys. I was more mystified and amazed than anything.”

Dehart’s fascination with aquatics and sharks continued in the classroom, and as a youngster he was a frequent visitor at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. “I started selling tickets at the aquarium as a high school kid and spent a lot of time there.”

After graduation, Dehart began studying marine biology at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla. A call from Omaha forced him to shelve his textbooks.

“It was between my junior and senior year at Eckerd and a call came in asking me if I was interested in pursuing a job at the Henry Doorly Zoo,” he recalled. “Omaha was always one of my favorite places to go on earth as a kid, and the opportunity was unbelievable.” ents founded Olson Brothers Roofing, a Following a nationwide search, zoo company that has been in business for officials hired Dehart as an aquarist for 115 years. Dehart’s parents both are graduates of the University of Nebraska- its new Kingdom of the Seas Aquarium, a 900,000-gallon Shark/Reef exhibit Lincoln. which would feature several sandbar “My dad grew up in Omaha and always wanted to be a marine biologist,” sharks, zebra sharks, southern stingrays, cow nose rays, and Atlantic reef fish.

Andy says. “He used to take his scuba

push the envelope even further.”

Dehart’s roots are far removed from the undersea world. His entire extended family was born and raised in the Omaha area. His great-great-grandpar-

“When I was 4 years old my father put a mask and fins on me, and I went kicking and screaming into the water. Four hours later, he had to take me out kicking and screaming.”

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Photos by Stuart Cove’s Dive Bahamas, Sally Burrows

Survivor Man and Shark Man ... The Discovery Channel’s Les Stroud and Dehart during filming of “Shark Feeding Frenzy.”

Once open, Dehart was responsible for all daily maintenance of the system, including life support operation, feeding, medical treatments, water chemistry and diving.

“It was fantastic to be part of the grand opening,” he says. “I have been to many, many aquariums around the world and I don’t think a lot of people understand how Omaha supports its zoo. It is a first-class zoo.”

During his tenure in Omaha, Dehart completed work on his bachelor’s degree at UNO, and in 1999 he moved back to the East Coast to become senior aquarist for the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

“That was one of the hardest things I have had to do in my career,” he says, referring to the move. “I put a lot of passion and work into building that aquarium.”

Dehart believes he left the zoo aquarium in good hands, however. Another UNO alum, Mitch Carl, took over his role and remains an aquarist today.

“Mitch was my intern and co-worker when I was there, so I know he is one of

the best in the business. I think it is pretty impressive that two marine aquarium people with UNO ties have become prominent in the field of public aquariums.”

Dehart, who was promoted to assistant curator of fishes at the National Aquarium’s Animal Care Center in 2001, left after 14 years of combined service to become director of Biological Programs

ing audience of young people.

“Shark Week has been airing for 21 years, but we are getting more young people interested in these animals,” he says.

Dehart says he has become more focused on educating the masses about conservation efforts to save sharks.

“There are roughly 250,000 sharks that are fished out of the ocean every day, so there is definitely a need for conservation and education.

We need to inform people that sharks are not a sustainable fishery and we need to learn more about how to protect these species.”

That will require more dives into aquarium tanks and oceans around the world, and Dehart is ready for the call.

“Shark attacks do happen, although they are extremely rare at less than 100 per year worldwide. When you work in this business you will have close encounters, but we are putting ourselves in situations where we know we will have them. It has gotten a little dicey at times, but those are not normal encounters. Sharks have more to fear from us than we do from them.”

“We had a generation of people who grew up with the movie ‘Jaws’ and was scared to death to go into the water and another generation that has grown up on Shark Week.”

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at the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C., in 2005 when they partnered with the Baltimore facility.

Dehart oversees the husbandry, animal health, conservation and facilities operations and helped lead the renovation of the nation’s oldest aquarium. In his spare time, of course, he enjoys sharing his expertise about sharks with a grow-

Winter 2008 • 27

Graduate Studies

U.S. Congressman Lee Terry visits Dr. Nick Stergiou's biomechanics lab.

Graduate education at UNO

By Aaron Wolfson, graduate student, Computer Science s UNO celebrates its centennial

Athis year, its graduate programs

are leading the university into a new century of national recognition. The nearly 2,900 students in graduate programs are enrolled in a diverse range of 45 master degree programs, six doctoral programs, and 18 graduate certificate programs designed to meet the needs of recent baccalaureate recipients and mid-career professionals.

Student participation UNO graduate faculty are exceptional and accessible, providing world-class instruction and offering students the opportunity to work on cutting-edge research and creative endeavors.

“The faculty and staff I encountered were more than willing to help me in any way they could,” says Elizabeth Kraemer, a graduate student in public administration graduating December 2008. “They truly get to know you, and they support you, because they want you to get the most out of your

28 • Spring 2008

program.”

Student participation in research illustrates the close connection to faculty and the learning opportunities provided to graduate students. For example, in the Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) program a team of graduate students led

by Dr. Phani Tej Adidam recently worked with the South African government for their capstone project.

Team member John Buckley, an Omaha Public Power District engineer, contacted industry colleagues in South Africa and learned of the nation’s problems with its power

infrastructure. The UNO EMBA team met with political and industry leaders and studied successful systems in similar countries, such as Brazil and India.

The UNO EMBA students assisted South Africa with expanding the electrical systems to reach millions of people for the first time and provide improved services to millions more.

This collaboration was featured in national and international publications including Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, and The Economist.

Additional examples are found in the School of Social Work, which provides opportunities for graduate students to apply their research. In summer 2008, Dr. Jeanette Harder led groups of graduate students in an evaluation of two parenting programs in Memphis, Tenn. Closer to home, Harder and a student completed a needs assessment for children and families in north Omaha through the Nebraska Children’s Home Society.

This fall, social work students are performing evaluations for 10 social service programs in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.

National recognition UNO graduate students also have received national recognition and funding. For example, psychobiology graduate student Adam Smith recently earned a prestigious three-year fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his work on the social behavior of primates. Smith studies the effects of the hormone

Did you know?

• Nearly 2,900 graduate students are enrolled at UNO each semester.

• UNO offers 45 masters programs, six doctoral programs, two specialist programs and 18 graduate certificates.

• UNO has more than 200 graduate teaching and research assistants working in programs throughout the campus and community.

• UNO offers 13 different scholarship and fellowship programs.

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oxytocin on marmosets from Brazil at UNO’s noninvasive Callitrichid Research Center under the direction of Dr. Jeffery French.

The quality and success of UNO’s graduate programs can be measured in other ways. The College of Public Affairs and Community Service has five programs ranked in the top 20 nationally by U.S. News & World Report, led by information and technology management (sixth) and public finance and budgeting (ninth).

Recent UNO graduates in public affairs have become city managers, directors of non-profit foundations, faculty and governmental staff members.

Metropolitan mission Graduate education at UNO’s College of Information Science & Technology demonstrates UNO’s commitment to its metropolitan mission and the benefits of close collaboration with employers, the universi-

ty, business, and industry. Master’s and doctoral students work with faculty and business leaders to investigate and solve problems in today’s fast-moving technology industry.

Making this endeavor possible is the Peter Kiewit Institute’s stunning array of labs and systems, including four computer clusters funded by the National Science Foundation and by local corporations. Partnerships allow UNO’s graduates to emerge not only with an impressive degree but with an intimate understanding of how the concepts they learn function in business and industry.

These are a small selection of the accomplishments of the students and faculty in UNO graduate programs.

To learn more about graduate education opportunities, contact Dr. Deborah Smith-Howell, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs & Dean for Graduate Studies at 402554-2341 or visit www.unomaha.edu/graduate.

Graduate Mentor Award Dr. Lisa Kelly-Vance, 2007 r. Lisa Kelly-Vance was a school psychologist in Council Bluffs when she took a one-year leave of absence to teach at UNO. That was in 1995. Now, she is the latest recipient of UNO’s Graduate Mentor Award, given each year to a professor who has established a record of success in mentoring graduate students. Dr. Kelly-Vance is a leading researcher in her area, but she sees her job primarily in terms of the professionals she helps to nurture. “Everything I do involves my students in some way,” she says.

Kelly-Vance is always in touch with her students’ needs. “For my students to reach this graduate program,” she says,” the motivation is already there. I try to facilitate learning rather than direct it. Their work involves plenty of discussions and critical thinking challenges, and they become responsible for their own learning.”

Kelly-Vance’s students also have many opportunities to develop their skills outside of the classroom through

D

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Dr. Phani Tej Adidam with EMBA team in South Africa.

Learn more Contact the Office of Graduate Studies University of Nebraska at Omaha Eppley Administration Building 203 (402) 554-2341 www.unomaha.edu/graduate

service learning, research projects, philanthropy, hands-on training at school districts, and presentations at conferences and conventions.

The goal is to produce school psychologists who will be strong advocates for children who need something extra. Kelly-Vance tells her former students that they should be providing children the absolute best care they can, and that they should be able to leave work every day and say, “I did something positive for a child.”

Dr. Nick Stergiou, 2006 r. Nick Stergiou, in the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, was the 2006 recipient of the Graduate Mentor Award.

As director of UNO's biomechanics lab, he has achieved international acclaim for his work on the dynamics of human movement. In addition to performing important research, the biomechanics lab provides a unique environment for doctoral and master's students to train and learn with top professionals and to use state-of-the-art equipment. Stergiou believes that this investment in faculty and technology makes UNO one of the best places to do graduate work in any discipline.

“The recruitment of professors who are not only good teachers but also strong scientists and researchers will increase the quality of our graduate education even further,” he said.

Such experiences are the reasons that top graduate students flock to the biomechanics lab. Stergiou takes pride in his research and in his excellent relationship with his graduate students.

“This award was given to me mostly based on letters from previous and current students, and colleagues from all over the world,” he says.

“It is wonderful to know that your students and your colleagues consider you worthy of such an honor.”

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Spring 2008 • 29

College of

Photo by Tim Fitzgerald/University Relations

Public Affairs & Community Service

The Neighborhood Center staff includes Crystal Rhoades, Jennifer Bober, Daniel Lawse, Ron Abdouch, and Ryan Willer.

Welcome to the neighborhood and effectively address issues affecting their communities.

The center’s staff works directly with residents, including those who are members of neighborhood associations, So he started walking through his Loveland neighborhood, homeowners associations, business associations, coalitions, roughly south of Pacific Street between 78th and 84th community development corporations, churches and other Streets, ringing doorbells and introducing himself. “I did my ‘Mister Rogers’ thing,” Runyon says. “I’d go up to people and not-for-profit groups.

Abdouch took Runyon through the initial steps of organizsay, ‘Won’t you be my neighbor?’” ing a neighborhood association. “I called a meeting and Because so many of the people he met expressed a shared desire to better know their neighbors, Runyon, dean emeritus decided to hold it in my living room,” Runyon recalls. “To my amazement, about 40 people came.” of libraries at UNO since his retirement in 2000, thought it Abdouch and his staff encouraged Runyon’s group to regiswould be good to start a neighborhood group of some sort. ter with the mayor’s office and provided other advice. The He just didn’t know how.

That’s when he contacted the Neighborhood Center and its group since has become organized as the Loveland Neighborhood Association.

Executive Director, Ronald Abdouch.

Runyon says it might not have come together without the Formerly the Neighborhood Center for Greater Omaha, help of the Neighborhood Center. “It was like having a the center is a community-based, neighborhood-driven outcoach who told us we could reach program of the UNO do it and showed us how.”

College of Public Affairs and The center’s staff includes Community Service. The cenLearn more To learn more about Neighborood Center services or ways to Assistant Executive Director ter helps neighborhood assoparticipate in or contribute to its programs, contact Executive Crystal Rhoades, Energy ciations in Douglas, Sarpy Director Ron Abdouch at (402) 561-7582, or by email at and Pottawattamie counties Outreach Coordinator Daniel rabdouch@mail.unomaha.edu, or visit its Web site, establish a leadership and Lawse, Development www.unomaha.edu/ncenter decision-making structure Consultant Jennifer Bober obert Runyon had lived in his home for 30 years, but he

Rreally didn’t know many of his neighbors.

30 • Winter 2008

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and Ryan Willer, outreach coordinator for the center’s new Council Bluffs office.

Abdouch, who has headed the center since 2005, says much of the work with neighborhood associations involves changing their direction from being problem-based to opportunity-based.

“With many of the associations, when they initially organized, perhaps it was to address a particular problem in their area,” he says. “Once that problem was mitigated, they didn’t stay together. They had failed to establish the foundation of a real organization.”

The center works with new and established neighborhood associations to strengthen those foundations.

Abdouch says that by offering advice, resources and a number of free services, “We encourage them not only to address the problems in their neighborhoods, but also to become advocates looking for the opportunities to make their neighborhoods and the community better.”

The Neighborhood Center is officed at 115 South 49th Ave. in the UNMC/UNO Collaborating Center for Public Health and Community Service.

Each year, the center hosts a series of Neighborhood Builders workshops in February and periodic Block of Builder sessions to develop leadership and provide information.

The center also is a partner in a variety of community betterment and safety initiatives, including: • Omaha Cares, an initiative that encourages neighbors to look out for their neighbors especially in times of emergencies; • Clean Solutions of Omaha, the sewer separation project; • The Benson Ames Alliance and the North Omaha, South Omaha and Midtown Community Development initiatives; • The Alcohol Impact Coalition, to address the issue of the number of alcohol sales outlets in a neighborhood; • Neighborhood Scan, a proactive program that examines neighborhoods and educates residents on city codes and how to maintain an area’s sustainability; and, • Address It Now!, to make certain all properties have easily identifiable address numbers that conform to city code.

Russ Smith, senior research associate with the Center for Public Affairs Research at UNO, has worked with the Neighborhood Center as a volunteer Neighborhood Ambassador, and as part of the Omaha Neighborhood Scan (ONS) service.

“The center has served as a first line of information about Neighborhood Scan and what it can do for neighborhoods,” Smith says. “They’ve also helped us as advisors, giving us feedback and direction as to how to better focus our services.”

He says the center also helped facilitate meetings and organize volunteers to assist with the Address It Now! initiative that was identified through several ONS projects.

“The center has acted as a logistical support group in organizing and implementing these projects,” he says, “which I think makes it a very powerful resource for the

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community.”

Abdouch says that aside from the financial support received from area foundations and corporations, the Neighborhood Center must raise its own operating funds.

That impacts the center’s ability to participate in communitywide initiatives.

“Because the services we provide to neighborhoods are free,” he says, “we rely on private supporters and contributors who see the value that we provide.”

Abdouch says he hopes the center’s role and outreach activities will continue to grow along with the number of neighborhood associations. “Our goal is to provide leadership, education and advocacy to ensure that everyone in every neighborhood can be part of a strong, vital and cohesive community.”

Judging the annual Art Auction entries are, from left, Liz Moldenhauer, board member; Shirley Neary and Pam Weekly, auction co-chairs; and local artist Eddith Buis.

A busy year

— 2008 Neighborhood Center activities

✓

Visiting more than 200 neighborhoods with staff, board members and Neighborhood Ambassadors.

✓

Presenting Block of Builders workshops to more than 400 participants.

✓

Providing more than 50,000 free copies of newsletters and flyers to neighborhood associations.

✓

Holding the third annual Art Auction, which raised $15,000 for center operations.

✓

Helping design and implement the “ Omaha Cares . . . Everyone Needs a Friend” initiative.

✓

Assisting in the implementation of the Omaha Neighborhood Scan program.

✓

Planning and implementing the first South Omaha graffiti clean up with more than 100 volunteers.

✓

Facilitating the establishment of seven new neighborhood associations and the Council of Alliances.

Winter 2008 • 31

College of

Photo by Tim Fitzgerald/University Relations

Information Science and Technology

SHE HAS THEIR ATTENTION: IS&T doctoral candidate Alanah Davis leads one of the sessions for high school girls.

College of IS&T commited to furthering careers

IT opportunities abound for women hen it comes to women in information technology

W(IT)—whether as students or those for whom IT is

their career—there is strength in numbers.

In a field where both the student body and the workforce typically are dominated by men, strength can be found by networking with peers and successful women who have overcome the stereotypes and misconceptions.

That is why, beginning with high school girls and lasting through undergraduate and graduate studies, the College of Information Science & Technology (IS&T) is providing resources and information to show there are opportunities for women in IT. This fall, two events illustrate the college’s commitment to furthering women in IT. In early October, Dr. Ilze Zigurs, chair of the college’s

32 • Winter 2008

Department of Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis, and three undergraduate students attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing “We Build a Better World” conference in Keystone, Colo.

Later that month, IS&T recruiter Judith Monarrez DiazKelsey coordinated a daylong symposium, “Find Your Place in the World of IT,” that attracted more than 40 girls and several teachers from area high schools.

These events and others sponsored by the college aim to help reverse the trends of recent years. In 1984, for example, women earned 37 percent of undergraduate degrees in computer science, but in the last 15 years, that number has dropped to 20 percent.

Zigurs says that while the number of women receiving technology degrees may have declined, that isn’t neces-

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sarily true of the number of opportunities awaiting Co-founded by Dr. Anita Borg and Dr. Telle Whitney in women graduates.

1994 and inspired by the legacy of Admiral Grace Murray According to the National Center for Women & Hopper, it is the largest technical conference for women Information Technology, while women influence or conin computing. It highlights collaboration, networking and trol 83 percent of all consumer purchases, including 66 mentoring for junior women and provides visibility for the percent of all home computers, women hold fewer than contributions of women in computing.

22 percent of the software engineering positions availUNO and IS&T served as a bronze academic underable. writer for the four-day conference. In return, the college “That’s why we are working so hard to show young received three undergraduate conference scholarships, women that now is a great time to study IT, because the which included travel and hotel reimbursement. opportunities haven’t gone away—only the women graduAttending with Zigurs were junior Sarah Benes, who is ates to fill them,” Zigurs says. “We want to show how studying computer science and library science; and senwomen can be successful in technology.” iors Melani Hall and Stephanie Drozd, both majoring in The college’s efforts may be beginning to pay off. For management information systems. the 2008 fall semester there Benes says the conference were 123 women enrolled in was a great way to network undergraduate and graduate and meet potential employers, studies in the College of IS&T, graduate students and technolcompared to 667 men. That is ogy leaders. “Many of the sesan improvement over the fall sions put us in direct contact semester in 2007, when there with these people, and enabled were 107 women enrolled. us to get one-on-one informaAttracting young women to tion about what it’s really like the college begins in high in the technical world,” she school by battling many missays. conceptions, says Kelsey.

She also became aware of “Girls ask, ‘Don’t you have to networking resources such as be a computer geek to study the online forum, Systers.

IT?’ or ‘Aren’t girls who study IT Founded in 1987, Systers is all super smart and nerdy?’” she the world’s largest email comOmaha Benson High student Linda Nguyen takes part in a says. “Or they ask if a career in computer exercise during the daylong symposium, “Find munity of technical women in IT is dull and mundane.” computing. Systers promotes Your Place in the World of IT.” Her answer each time is an the interests of women in the emphatic, “No.” Then she invites them to take a look for computing and technology fields by providing them a prithemselves. “Once we get the girls to visit the college for vate space to seek advice from peers and discuss chalan event, and they get to meet the young women who are lenges they face. studying IS&T fields, or meet with some of our business Systers (information can be found at anitaborg.org/inipartners and mentors who are women,” Kelsey says, “they tiatives/systers) has more than 2,700 members in 54 see for themselves that the IT fields can be very rewarding countries and is for technical women of all ages and at and lucrative options them.” any stage in their studies or careers.

With the “Find Your Place” event, she says, “our goal “The conference was an amazing opportunity that has was to generate awareness of the IT fields and identify really helped me feel welcome in the IT world,” Benes barriers that might be preventing young women from says. “Getting to know others and seeing what they have choosing these fields.” accomplished really motivates you.”

The high school girls who attended the October event Drozd says the successful women she heard and met at were very positive in their evaluations. Forty participants the conference show that progress is being made. replied that the session had improved their knowledge “Hearing from women with over 25 years of experience about opportunities in IT, and all but one responded that working their way up the ladder really puts your life in they were encouraged by what they heard. perspective,” she says. “They are the ones who have “That kind of positive feedback is incredible,” Kelsey paved the road for women, and I am very grateful for says. “I think we succeeded.” that.”

The students who attended the Grace Hopper She also learned how women who work in a maleConference expressed similar positive impressions of that dominated industry can be certain their voice is heard. event.

“You definitely have to speak up!”

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Winter 2008 • 33

College of

Information Science and Technology

SAVVY STUDENTS: Dr. Blaine Burnham had high praise for students who helped host the 2008 International Cyber Defense Workshop. “These students were amazing,” he says. “They designed the content, created the training modules and delivered a handson technical experience during the presentation of the training. Those are outstanding tasks.” Student and faculty participants included Erik Beckstrom, Ben Carpick, Jonathan Bender, Dr. Blaine Burnham, Brandon Iske, Matt Lempka, Lucas Wentz, Steve Nugen and A.J. Newmaster.

Participants from 15 nations “attend” via Internet broadcast

Cyber defense workshop goes global ore than 100 persons from 15 nations around the

Mworld took part in the 2008 International Cyber

Defense Workshop (ICDW) Oct. 28-30 hosted by UNO’s College of Information Science & Technology.

But only three participants came to Omaha.

That’s because the ICDW sessions were broadcast to participants via the Internet using Adobe Connect as they sat at their desks or workstations in their home countries.

“For the first time ever, people didn’t get on airplanes to come to this conference,” says Dr. Blaine Burnham, IS&T senior research fellow and director of the Nebraska University Consortium on Information Assurance (NUCIA), headquartered at the college. “We delivered the entire symposium in real-time sound and color to 15 nations from Australia to South Korea and New Zealand.

And it worked.”

This was the fifth year for the ICDW, which previously was held in Canada and at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

NUCIA (pronounced “new-sha”) was selected as the host because it teaches, trains and conducts applied research and forms partnerships with government entities, corporations and organizations to collaborate on the the-

34 • Winter 2008

ory and practice of information assurance (IA) and cyber security.

NUCIA has been designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency (NSA), and offers National Science Foundation Cybercorp scholarships for UNO students pursuing an IA degree or concentration.

Burnham has experience in a variety of IA leadership positions at the NSA, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia Laboratory.

Working with Burnham to assemble, produce and deliver the conference were Lucas Wentz, NUCIA lab manager and systems administrator; Steve Nugen, NUCIA senior technology research fellow; Jonathan Bender, a graduate student in computer science (CS) and a systems programmer at the college; and several other students: Erik Beckstrom, a junior studying CS; Ben Carpick, a graduate student in management information systems (MIS); Dan Cotton, a senior majoring in CS; Brandon Iske, a junior majoring in CS; Matt Lempka, a senior studying CS; and A.J. Newmaster, a junior studying MIS. Burnham said the 2008 ICDW offered training and

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Photo by Tim Fitzgerald/University Relations

interactive exercises to test skills and security. The particiwas enough that people stayed up through the night to pants, who included public sector and government participate,” he says. “That, too, is amazing.” agency representatives, were divided into teams for a The number of participants and the virtual element of series of instructor-led sessions that explored network the ICDW presented several challenges, says Andrew security and possible weaknesses.

Kimble, international IA coordinator with Booz Allen During the exercises, participating nations could attack Hamilton. “NUCIA really stepped up to the plate and each other anonymously as a way to explore the tactics pulled off a great workshop.” used by hackers. Burnham cited various fictitious attacks (sidebar) which Dr. Blaine Burnham says some of the fictitious attacks each team was tasked with writing correct code to thwart. included , which hijacks an The difference between ICDW and other “scripted” cyber defense exerInternet address and redirects users to a phony Web site in cises, such as those conducted by order to collect sensitive information; , Homeland Security, Burnham says, was that the UNO-hosted workshop which imbed malicious code into Web applications to track involved actual attacks on real networks, and the challenge of devising data entry by user; , working defenses. which spreads malicious code using Web 2.0 collaborative Mark Fairchild, a consultant with BAE Systems working with the United functions; and , which States Forces Korea (USFK), says he has participated in other cyber exeroverwhelm program memory with an excessive amount of cises. “This was by far one of the best data, causing system errors that can allow access to and most technical exercises.

“The ICDW team did an excellent hackers. job and was very respectable,” Fairchild says. “I heard several comments from the Korean participants about how polite and Six members of the Information Protection Team particitechnical the trainers Lucas and Andy were.” pated from Halifax, Nova Scotia, reports Warrant Officer Burnham also lauded those who worked on the ICDW. George A. Stewart of the Canadian Forces Network “Truly, without the tireless efforts of Luke Wentz and John Operations Center.

Bender, and the long hours they and the students put in, “Although it didn’t provide the usual ‘grip-and-grin,’ this conference would not have been possible. They face-to-face time, it did provide a good learning environdeserve credit for the success.” ment to network and understand the problems facing Grad student Carpick says the workshop was “an interother teams throughout the world,” Stewart says. “The esting experiment in distributed education. conference was as valuable as conferences for which “I was surprised, considering the international scope, we’ve been present, when taken in context of learning how smoothly it went,” he says. “There were some techlevel versus travel-cost-learning level. nical glitches, but they really were minor considering “We look forward to the opportunity to participate in what could have gone wrong.” others within this type of realm.”

Although the majority of participants could speak some Fairchild was impressed by how well the training and English, Wentz says, special steps were taken prior to and exercises went hand in hand. “They were well-balanced during the workshop to ensure comprehension of the and complemented each other. The workshop was excelmaterials. lent in providing a vehicle for collaboration, education “For example, we sent the ROK (Republic of Korea) and validation. participants the slides we would use so they could be “We, the U.S. and ROK participants, learned that worktranslated before the workshop began,” he says. “That ing together, communicating issues and problem-solving way, if there was something verbal that they didn’t under- collectively, we could accomplish both the defense of our stand, they could at least reference the slides.” cyber resources and offensive counter measures.”

Burnham says the fact that the sessions were broadcast Through the 2008 ICDW and the workshops to come, in real-time meant that in some countries the participants Fairchild says, “We are creating capabilities today that received the broadcast during the night. we’ll be able to leverage in the virtual battle field of “The potential value of taking part in this symposium tomorrow.”

DNS poisoning

SQL injects

Cross-site scripting

Buffer

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overflows

Winter 2008 • 35

College of

Photo courtesy Criss Library Archives

Education

A different name for UNO—and a different home for College of Education faculty and staff—prior to the 1968 merger with the University of Nebraska system.

Glancing back ... and forward Book reflects on 100 years of college r. Paul Kennedy was one of the

Dmost revered, colorful — and

sometimes feared — faculty members to grace College of Education hallways.

He was, says graduate Janet Seaman, “a significant force in the college.”

And so it was with some anxiety that Seaman awaited a visit from Kennedy, her teaching supervisor, to

36 • Winter 2008

a high school speech class she was directing.

“I had the worst hodgepodge of students, from sophomore bad boys to the valedictorian of that year’s senior class,” she recalls. “The day Dr. Kennedy came to observe, I was just praying that the students would behave.”

Surprisingly, they did.

“Two of the rowdiest sat the entire

class period holding the text book up in front of them,” says Seaman. “I was so grateful they were not being disruptive.”

Only after reading Kennedy’s report did Seaman learn why.

“The boys were studying a racing form for the Ak-Sar-Ben race track behind the books!” she says. “I guess it was better that he see that than to see one of his student teachers strangle two students!”

Seaman’s anecdote is one of many appearing in the recently published book, “Glancing Over Our Shoulder: A History of the University of Nebraska at Omaha College of Education, 1908-2008.”

Written by Ronald Burmood and Robert Mortenson, the 316-page book offers a look at the people and programs of the College of Education.

The book explores the history of the college in 20-year segments interspersed with professor and graduate profiles, reprints of Gateway articles and even period advertisements (a ton of coal for just $11.75!).

Though not officially established until 1950, the College of Education’s roots date to the very start of the university’s birth in 1908. The professional training of teachers was introduced as a function of the University of Omaha in 1911, and with good reason: the university’s very first graduate, Claudia Galloway, taught for Omaha Schools and its second graduate, Harry Jerome, became a professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Six of the 11 students in OU’s first graduating class (1913) became teachers.

The book also includes lists of milestones and award recipients and biographies of College of Education leaders.

Research was culled from college files and recently digitized versions of the university student newspaper, the Gateway. Emeritus faculty and alumni added personal accounts to the historical facts through survey responses. Information was solicited from a

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Photo courtesy Criss Library Archives

The Fieldhouse —back then with windows and dirt floor—hosted class registrations for the College of Education and Professors Paul Kennedy and Wollard.

mailing to 100 randomly selected alumni and 100 specially selected alumni. They also were requested via the college’s newsletter and the UNO Alum magazine.

“Joe Dunn was the only professor who could fill a classroom on Friday evening,” one former faculty member recalled. Said another: “Hollie Bethel guided the Elementary Education Department in a human and caring way.” One alumnus wrote that, “Dr. Kellams could balance an umbrella on his foot and did so usually in the

first session of a new class.” Another graduate wrote that, “Dr. Hartzell was known as ‘Hand-It-BackHartzell,’ for a redo, but we loved him.”

“Glancing Over Our Shoulder” also features more than 110 photos, many of them provided by Criss Library Archivist Les Valentine. That includes pictures of the university’s first home, Redick Hall at 25th and Pratt Streets, of class groups, faculty and staff, and of other scenes.

“The strong, colorful and vibrant personalities of these individuals have carved a tradition and expectation for quality teaching and learning,” says Burmood. “Our words can’t truly capture their spirit, but perhaps your memory or imagination can.”

The college hopes “Glancing Over Our Shoulder” elicits additional responses from alumni, faculty and staff. Those received will be added to a digital version of the book as events and stories happen or are shared.”

To provide your recollections, contact Burmood at (402) 554-2206 or email rburmood@unomaha.edu.

To receive a copy ....

A copy of “ Glancing Over Our Shoulder: A History of the University of Nebraska at Omaha College of Education, 1908-2008” will be provided to contributors of $100 or more to the UNO College of Education through the University of Nebraska Foundation. Send a contribution to: University of Nebraska at Omaha, College of Education, Kayser Hall 334, 6001 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE 68182-0161. Checks should be payable to the University of Nebraska Foundation. Please indicate that you would like to receive a copy of the College of Education history book.

On counselors, computers and chancellors-to-be ourteen former College of Education faculty representing 406 years of service provided the following recollections during the Emeritus Faculty Luncheon at the Thompson Alumni Center in October.

Dr. Robert Butler remembered when the Counseling Department first received full accreditation from CACREP and faculty involvement in state legislation resulting in licensure for counselors.

Dr. Raymond Ziebarth recalled his involvement in developing the initial technology courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and introducing computer

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technology to faculty members.

Dr. Don Cushenbery wrote about his development of graduate reading courses, the Reading Clinic, and in cooperation with the Omaha Public Schools their Volunteer Aides in Reading program. Cushenbery also credited the merger with the University of Nebraska system with leading to faculty involvement in doctoral programs and the granting of doctoral degrees.

Dr. Robert O’Reilly cited the university library’s purchase of subscriptions to several pertinent law review series that were a strong support for the course in

School Law. Dr. James Wood believes one of his most important contributions to the college was admitting now-Chancellor Christensen into the graduate program for communication disorders. Wood also recalled a memorable and humorous situation involving Chancellor Christensen as a student. Wood remembers Christensen was still completing his military obligation by serving in the National Guard while he was working on his master’s degree. One day Christensen came to the speech clinic wearing military fatigues. A young client was leaving the clinic, spotted

Christensen, and said, “Wow, camo!” Wood reports Christensen’s immediate reply was, “How did you see me?”

Wood’s description of the physical growth summarizes comments from many of the former faculty members. He shared how entire departments once housed in small areas of what was then the Administration Building were moved to the new home for the college, Kayser Hall.

“With that building (Kayser Hall), and the addition of the HPER building, an invigorated faculty began to form and grow as it continues to grow today.”

Winter 2008 • 37

College of

Photo by Tim Fitzgerald/University Relations

Arts & Sciences Washington, D.C., and earned a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction at the University of MissouriColumbia. His doctoral thesis, “The effect of using rapping to teach selected musical forms to urban African American middle school students,” led to several published works in professional journals.

In one of those, “Attitudes of Undergraduate Elementary Education Toward Rap Music and its Utility in the Classroom,” he writes, “Perhaps, because of the constant media depictions of urban African American youth as hostile and anti-social, many elementary educators, both black and white, have come to regard the genre of rap music with much trepidation despite the plethora of literature regarding rap’s potential as an enhancer of academic achievement among African American youth.”

To date, Omowale Akintunde’s life has been one of social activism through education.

Now he can do so from a new seat — the chair of UNO’s Department of Black Studies.

Education by any means necessary o date, Dr. Omowale Akintunde’s life has been one of social activism through education, his passion inspiring a persistent exploration for new means by which to enlighten teachers and students.

And now he can do so from a new seat — the chair of UNO’s Department of Black Studies.

“This is an outstanding opportuni-

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38 • Winter 2008

ty,” Akintunde says. “It has been my desire for a long time to have a position in administration because I want a voice in curriculum construction.”

Akintunde’s explorations began at Alabama State University, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education. He taught music in public schools in Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland and

Work in Wyoming Between 1996 and 2003, Akintunde held several positions with the University of Wyoming, where he he continued his mission. As a faculty fellow there he developed and taught a course entitled “Quality World,” which he describes as a course that “sought to enlighten students regarding issues of racism, sexism, homophobia and anti-Semitism.”

At Wyoming Akintunde was director of the Institute for Cultural Studies for the College of Education and was co-founder of the Symposium for the Eradication of Social Inequality. That Symposium since has been renamed the Shepard Symposium, in honor of Mathew Shepard, and has become a major national conference.

As an assistant professor in the Department of Early Childhood/ Elementary Education he developed and taught a number of courses in multicultural education and social justice education.

From 2003 to 2008, Akintunde was an associate professor in the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Southern Indiana,

UNOALUM

where he continued his work in multicultural education and the reform of multicultural education. During this period his growing reputation resulted in two national television appearances, the “Crier Report” with Catherine Crier on Fox News Network and the “Morning News” on MSNBC. ‘The Invincible Man’ He also published his first two books. “Multiculturalism and the Teacher Education Experience: Essays on Race, Class, and Culture” was published by iUniverse Inc. It is, says Akintunde, “the culmination of a lifetime of teaching, scholarship and service.”

The book is a collection of all his published articles, from his earliest work (“Light skinned with Good Hair: the Role of the Media and Christianity in the Maintenance of Self-Hatred in African Americans”) to his most recent (“Diversity.com: Teaching an Online Course on White Racism and Multiculturalism”).

Akintunde’s second book “The Adventures of Darrel and the Invincible Man,” published by Trafford Publishing, is a children’s book. It depicts a child’s learning to see himself as he is and not through the filter of “whiteness” and to love the new person he sees.

At UNO, Akintunde already has begun to form the curriculum that will help shape future generations by heading the revision of the program of study for the bachelor’s degree in Black Studies. He is teaching two classes for the first time, Introduction to Black Studies and Deconstructing Hip-Hop. In January, Akintunde will take a group of students to President-elect

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Akintunde is not content to limit his message to the traditional classroom. In October he arranged for actor Meshach Taylor to lead a panel discussion following a screening of “Ethnic Notions,” Marlon Riggs' Emmy-winning documentary on the history of black stereotypes and an episode of “Designing Women,” which deals with institutionalized racism. “The event exceeded our highest hopes,” says Akintunde.

“There was standing room only.”

Barack Obama’s inauguration in Washington, D.C. In conjunction with the trip, students will register for a special topics course on Obama’s life.

“I’ve arranged for a cinematographer to record the entire adventure and it will be debuted at the Malcolm X Festival this spring,” says Akintunde.

This will not be Akintunde’s first adventure in film. He has written and directed a number of films over the years and currently is in preproduction for his latest creation, “Wigger.” Akintunde says it is the dramatic story of a young, white R&B singer named Brandon and his struggle to be accepted by black America as he strives for R&B superstardom. He is encumbered by an impoverished Midwestern family, an overtly racist father and the desire to transcend race.

Forging forward in film Akintunde’s inspiration to promote his message through film came to him as he realized, “There are so many people who will never attend a university. Movies will be seen by millions.” Accordingly, he studied in

and graduated from the New York Film Academy’s Conservatory Program in Filmmaking.

“Casting is going well,” Akintunde says. “Meshach Taylor and Loretta Devine are slated for roles.”

Another of Akintunde’s “means” will be UNO’s 8th Annual Malcolm X Festival and National Conference to be held April 14-16 on the UNO campus. Akintunde has set the theme for the conference, “Resisting Europeanization of Conciousness: Confronting the Privilege and Invisibility of Whiteness,” and says that the purpose of the conference is “to provide avenues for the exploration of European paradigm domination, to seek to deconstruct white, racist, patiriarchal and heterosexist domains in epistemologically entrenched subconscious norms.”

The conference has attracted scholars from across the country and Michael Eric Dyson is slated as the key speaker.

In classrooms in seven states, through music, in his research and publication, in national conferences, in film, on national television and on a plane bound for the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States … by any means necessary, Akintunde stays the course.

Winter 2008 • 39

College of

Business Administration

Students having a ball starting, running business arshall Widman isn’t your typical alum. And “Special MTopic: Entrepreneurship Project” isn’t your typical man-

Photo by Tim Fitzgerald/University Relations

agement course.

Together, graduate and class are fulfilling a long-time goal of the College of Business Administration and affording CBA students a most unique learning opportunity.

The opportunity arose when Widman, inventor, successful entrepreneur and UNO CBA alumnus, expressed interest in working with students.

Widman is founder of Star Innovations and inventor of the patented Ballstars Heat Transfer Process. His technological innovations created a way to reproduce full-color photographs without distortion onto baseballs, soccer balls, hockey pucks, basketballs, volleyballs STUDENT CEO JOE VASKO asks, “How and … well, you often does an entrepreneur get the opportunity to practice before launching name it. his or her own business?”

From his interest sprang the Entrepreneurship Project — the development and operation of a student-run business. Collaborating with CBA Professor David Ambrose and Dean Louis Pol, Widman provided students with the equipment and training necessary to produce products bearing full-color images. The rest is up

to the students.

Now into their second semester, entrepreneurship students named the business Customize-A-Ball and work in the functional areas of operations, human resources, information technology/facilities, finance and marketing. Company profits will be used for student scholarships.

According to Customize-A-Ball’s student CEO, Joe Vasko, one of the company’s strengths is the ability to produce small lots at affordable prices—down to the order of a single item.

The student-run business has landed a corporate customer, Knights of Columbus, which is involved in a holiday-oriented fundraiser. The organization sells order packets to individuals who mail their order with the desired photo to Customize-A-Ball. The photo is reproduced onto a pearl, blue or pink ornament and shipped, along with the original photo, to the purchaser/customer.

Vasko is excited about the numerous applications available to companies for photo-customized goods, including PR materials, gifts to customers, supply-chain partners or employees.

“Entrepreneurial students gain insight into the practices of a small business on top of the theory taught in a typical classroom,” Vasko says of the course.

Ambrose organizes the course with an evolving focus each semester. In spring 2008, students developed the documents that provided a foundation, including financial projections, human resource requirements, and a marketing plan. The operation was launched in Winter 2008 and in spring 2009 additional products will be introduced and marketed.

“We all have discovered that launching this business is a complex and challenging process—an experience that is impossible to realize from textbooks or even listening to others who have developed businesses,” says Ambrose. “We have great appreciation to Marshall for making this possible.”

For more information, or to place an order, contact Joe Vasko at jvasko@mail.unomaha.edu.

CBA newcomer to direct innovation and entreprenuership program

C

BA welcomes new faculty member Dale Eesley, Ph.D., assistant professor in entrepreneurship and strategy, and director of UNO’s innovation and entrepreneurship program. Eesley teaches Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Finance, and Business and Corporate Strategy and is taking a leadership role in UNO’s entrepreneurship activities.

40 • Winter 2008

Eesley arrived in Omaha in July. He was named leader of the E-team for innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives in CBA, and is an active member of the Nebraska Business Development Center (NBDC) advisory board.

He also is a member of the University of Nebraska Entrepreneurship Taskforce, a judge for UNeMed’s Elevator Pitch competition, and is aca-

demic advisor to both the Collegiate Entrepreneurship Organization and a student consulting firm founded by Dr. Jerry Wagner in the Peter Kiewit Institute.

Eesley received his Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has been married for 15 years to Julie and has three sons, aged 12, 10 and 6.

UNOALUM

WINTER 2008 1963 George A. Rasula, BGS, writes after being notified that he was included in the Winter 2008 UNO Alum – as a “Lost Alum.” He writes, “My apologies for wandering. There are times when we members of the Greatest Generation need to look back to find out where we've been.”

Rasula, who lives in Clemson, S.C., provides a brief recap of his whereabouts prior to and after his studies at UNO: “I'm a career soldier who (after one year of junior college at Eveleth, Minn.) enlisted in the regular army December 1942 and served 32 years during three of our bigger wars. WW II fought on Angaur and Peleliu in the Palau Islands, ended war in Japan. Korea in 1948 to Japan 1949 back to

Class Notes

Korea in 1950 (experienced the Chosin Reservoir action with the Marines) and out in 1951.

Germany 1954-56, then my first Vietnam tour 1959-60. My time at UNO certainly helped because it was followed by three years on the army staff at the Pentagon as a logistics planner (Vietnam buildup). Then to Alaska, where I served as a battalion commander and a deputy brigade commander; promoted to colonel. As a ‘Minnesota-Finn’ I then went to Finland as Army Attache for three enjoyable years. After Finland went back to Vietnam where I served as inspector general of the XXIV Corps at Danang, then finished the tour on the MACV staff as military attache liaison officer. Then back to the Pennsylvania area on a few inter-

SUBMIT A CLASS NOTE ON THE WEB: www.unoalumni.org/magazine/submit_class_notes

esting assigments until I retired in 1974. Settled in New Hampshire, where I attended grad school at UNH, Master of Occupational Education. Most important ... going back to 1948 ... I met army nurse Lt. Lucy Davis ... we were married at the Tokyo Army Chapel in July 1949 and have now been married 59 years! Two sons and two granddaughters.” Send him email at george@rasula.com 1964 Brian Kadow, BSBA, writes in appreciation of UNO Alumni Association efforts during the

university Centennial Homecoming celebration, especially assistance provided him in planning the 1961-1965 OU Football Reunion. “Thank you for your effort to make our reunion a once-in-a-lifetime event which went flawless in execution thanks to you and your staff. You made me look good as an organizer, which is far from reality. Have a great Centennial Year.”

1965 Richard Smith, BS, presented UNO Television with camera equipment he used to cover the Republican National Convention

UNO Flashback File Covering the election ... in 1948

T

elevision news coverage of the presidential election had something of a UNO flavor — 50 years ago.

Adolph “Ad” J. Schneider, who attended Omaha University from 1930 to 1935, led coverage of the 1948 Dewey-Truman presidential election as director of NBC-TV News and Special Events. Four years later he became the fourth recipient of the Alumni Association’s highest honor, the Citation for Alumnus Achievement.

An Omaha World-Herald Magazine article reporting the award noted some of the other events Schneider directed coverage of, including the A-Bomb tests, the 1952 party conventions in Chicago and the 1948 party conventions in Philadelphia. He also developed “half a dozen familiar TV shows.”

Son Mark, a retired professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University, said his father’s production credits included the “Camel News Caravan” with John Cameron Swayze, “Meet the Press,” “The Bob Cansidine Show,” “The March of Medicine” and an early 1950s Rose Bowl game. He also taught extension courses at Columbia University in the late 1940s and was a lecturer in radio there in 1950.

Based in New York, Schneider was a long way from Nebraska City, where he was born. He graduated from that city’s St. Bernard’s Academy then came to the World-Herald as an office boy. Known as “Dolph” in the newsroom, he became South Omaha reporter in 1929. He took courses at OU and Creighton University while working and was a contributing editor to the Gateway student newspaper. Classmates at OU included Ralph Conniston, later U.S. editor for the French News Agency, and Glenn Cunningham, later Nebraska’s U.S. Congressman and Omaha mayor.

Schneider later went to radio station WHO in Des Moines, then landed in NBC’s news department, eventually directing

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Schneider, center, in glasses, was at the center of NBC TV News coverage of the 1948 presidential election.

staff in production of stories during the war. He resigned from NBC in 1953 and headed for Sarasota, Fla., where he joined friends to begin a “TV and film organization” that filmed for industrial firms, TV commercials, production works, etc. The owner of that venture died shortly after Schneider’s arrival in Sarasota, said Mark, and the company folded.

“My father then did casual work on industrial films, helped with site selection for a Hollywood film called ‘Wind Across the Everglades,’ and tried other ways to make a career in Florida before giving up and heading back north to work for Magna Films.”

Adolph was motion picture production manager for Magna, which produced, among other things, films for the PSSC physics courses that were developed to improve science teaching in response to Sputnik. He died in 1963 in Waltham, Mass., and was buried in Sarasota.

Winter 2008 • 41

Class Notes for ABC News in St. Paul, Minn., in September. The equipment was presented in November.

Smith also was interviewed on UNO TV’s “Consider This” program. Smith has worked as a network news cameraman and field producer for ABC News and NBC News in the Chicago area for 35 years. “I am a big promoter of UNO here in the Chicago area. I am very proud of the training and education that I received at UNO,” he says. UNO Television provides television production, program distribution, and educational services to a diverse group of local, regional and national users. It also provides a laboratory for UNO broadcasting students, offering “hands-on” instruction from professors and utilizing professional equipment from the broadcast industry.

1973 Vito Tomasino, BGS, lives in Creve Coeur, Mo., and notes that in July he published a novel, “Kracek.” His synopsis: “Captain Viktor Kracek is a thinking man’s fighter pilot, as capable of destroying his enemies with words as he is with bullets, a man as courageous in the political arena as he is on the battlefield, who sees his enemies, not as faceless inhuman beings, but as good men and women who simply find themselves on the other side of a war none of them want.” Excerpts from the book can be read on his website www.vtoma.squarespace.com.

Send Tomasino email at vitotomasino@msn.com 1978 Penny Sackett, BA, was profiled

by Omaha World-Herald columnist Mike Kelly in October after being introduced as chief scientist of Australia.

Sackett, notes Kelly, is the first woman to hold

42 • Winter 2008

Holiday Caroling tradition marks 34th year

U

NO graduates of all ages and talent levels are invited to join the 34th Annual Omaha Holiday Caroling Festivities Sunday, Dec. 14, to bring holiday entertainment to residents of the Nebraska Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Omaha.

Celebrities, carolers, musicians, Noah’s Assistance Dogs and Santa Claus with his big bag of fresh flowers will once again stroll the home’s halls, rooms and dining areas to bring holiday cheer to residents.

UNO graduate Vincent Leinen began the caroling tradition when he was in high school and sang at rest homes with the St. Mary Catholic Youth Organization in Dow City, Iowa. He continued while attending UNO. Leinen lives in Los Angeles, and the tradition since has evolved and expanded into a series of festivities celebrated across the country, including LA, Kansas City, Kansas, New York, Dunlap, Iowa, and Scottsdale, Ariz.

“We want to bring happiness and joy to the elderly residents and at the same time instill a heightened awareness in the carolers of what they may be taking for granted in their lives,” says Leinen, event co-organizer. “The Holiday Caroling Festivities event is a very fulfilling opportunity to give and receive joy, happiness and holiday spirit to and from the elderly residents, caregivers and participants while enhancing one’s own perspective or appreciation of life, health and family.”

Carolers will meet at the Nebraska Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, 7410 Mercy Road, at 2 p.m. for refreshments and to pick up their music books. At 2:30 the carolers will arrive to entertain the residents. This event is free and open to the public with an estimated 180 participants expected. Immediately following the caroling, carolers are invited to socialize and dine at Godfather’s Pizza, 7515 Pacific Street, Omaha, NE. For further information, contact Leinen at (818) 342-9336 or email bd754@lafn.org; or Tom McCurdy at (402)-493-0816 or Tom.M@ReachfortheStars.com. Or visit www.ReachForTheStars.com/caroling.

the job and was selected after a six-month search. She will advise the government on scientific and technological issues. Sackett previously was director of the Australian National University Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories. Prior to that she was an assistant professor at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Sackett was a four-year dean’s list honoree at UNO who graduated summa cum laude and was named both outstanding mathematics and physics student. She went on to receive her master’s degree and doctorate in physics from Pittsburgh. She taught at Pittsburgh from 1978 through 1993, during which time she also spent a year with the National Science Foundation as program director with the Astronomical Sciences Division. She also was

a research member and fellow at the University of Princeton’s School of Natural Sciences, Institute of Advanced Studies.

She headed for the Netherlands in 1995.

1980 Vicki Lynn Beyer, BA, lives in Tokyo and has published a guidebook to Kamakura, Japan, entitled "10 Temples on 2 Wheels: Exploring Kamakura by bicycle or on foot." Beyer has spent 20 years in Japan since her graduation from UNO. She works as the regional employment lawyer for Morgan Stanley and does freelance travel writing as one of her hobbies. This is her first guidebook. Send her email at banda@gol.com 1985 Patricia Hageman, MS, received the Physical Therapy Alumni Chapter Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of

Nebraska Medical Center.

Hageman has been program director of the physical therapy education program in UNMC’s School of Allied Health Professions for 19 years. At the end of this month, she will step down as program director to begin a year-long faculty development fellowship. She plans to continue as a tenured professor in the physical therapy education program and will focus her efforts on education and research in rural health and gerontology.

Throughout her career, Hageman has been a national leader in advancing physical therapy education. Nearly 70 percent of the UNMC physical therapy program graduates completed their course of study during the time she has served as program director.

During her tenure as director, the PT program has enjoyed continuous accreditation and underwent two major curriculum changes and degree conversions. The UNOALUM

W I N T E R class size has grown 100 percent, going from 20 to 40 students, and the faculty has expanded from four FTEs in 1990 to the current 10.8 FTEs. UNMC’s PT program currently is ranked in the top 15 percent of the nation’s physical therapy programs by U.S. News & World Report. One of the top accomplishments of the PT program under Dr. Hageman’s leadership occurred in 2006 when the program was awarded the prestigious University-Wide Departmental Teaching Award from the University of Nebraska.

1991 Michael J. Rice, BA, lives in Alexandria, Va., and writes, “Life continues to be quite interesting.

Life does get better as one ages.

I returned from a tour in Iraq this summer. The heat and the sand/dust are a real challenge. I survived and will be coming back at the end of the year. Recently, I took part in a 25th Anniversary conference/banquet for a charity I have been involved with, the

International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (www.ifcj.org) The conference took place in Chicago. I had the opportunity to see and/or speak with the likes of the Israeli Ambassador, Rabbi Eckstein, the founder of the group, Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, conservative speaker Gary Bauer, the well-known minister, Dr. Pat Robertson, and Pat Boone. It was an amazing experience … a beautiful few days in Chicago.

UNO helped give me the foundation to excel in this life. All you need is the basics and a dream.

You never know when that dream starts coming through. Just work hard and things will happen.

L'Shana Tovah...happy New Year in Hebrew.” Send Rice email at mrice73@verizon.net 1996 Shawna Mefferd Kelty, BA, lives in Columbia, Mo., and notes that in August 2007 she co-founded Independent Actors Theatre, a 501(c)(3) fringe theatre company

Future Alums Dominic Christopher Rotolo, son of Melissa (Hall, ’95) and Chad (’00) Rotolo of Omaha and grandson of Joe (’69) and Sharen (’96, ’01) Rotolo of Omaha.

Leah A. Robinson, daughter of Natasha (Arlt, ’02) and Michael (’04) Robinson of Omaha.

Nathan Gerald Douglas, son of Beth (Langdon, ’00) and Mike (’98) Douglas of Omaha

in Columbia. “IAT is thriving in its second season, having just produced Edward Albee's ‘The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?’ in September.” Shawna serves as the artistic director. In addition to its regular season fare, IAT is producing a major fundraising event for Trail to a Cure/RAIN/AmFar in December.

She received her MA in theatre from the University of MissouriColumbia in 2000 and currently is finishing her Ph.D. in Theatre at the University of Missouri.

She is also an avid runner. See more about IAT and Shawna at www.iatheatre.org 1997 Tim J. Harrison, BSBA, in November received Northwestern Mutual’s Forum award in recognition of an outstanding year of performance and serving the needs of customers

Carter B. Miller, son of Benjamin and Lori (Wahlers, ’04) Miller of Blair, Neb. Natalya Maki Reason, daughter of Rex and Christa (Miller, ’91) Reason of Omaha and granddaughter of Margaret Miller (’90) of Omaha Miller Pierson Rastrelli, son of Peter and Candice (Thiele, ’97) Rastrelli of Round Lake, Ill. Kathyrn Lynnette Brinkley, daughter of Teresa and Brandon Brinkley of Arlington, Texas, and granddaughter of Sharon and Jerry (’67) Vaca of Duncanville, Texas

Bo Cedric Murray, son of Levi and Barbara (Ostebo, ’05) Murray of Wellington, Colo.

Lucia Elena Guzman, daughter of Claudia and Santiago (’03) Guzman of Omaha

Colby A. Cox, son of Jamie and Amy (Breen, ’98) Cox of Otsego, Minn.

Marisa Jean Muhlbauer, daughter of Sarah (Pedelty, ’97) and Robert Muhlbauer of Carroll, Iowa, and granddaughter of Richard Muhlbauer (’74) of Carroll, Iowa

w w w. u n o a l u m n i . o r g

throughout the region. Of the company’s 8,000 representatives, only 313 were eligible to receive the award. As Forum honorees, the representatives will receive specialized support services from the company’s home office, allowing them to meet the changing needs of policyowners.

Harrison is a representative with Northwestern Mutual Financial Network of Nebraska, based in Omaha.

1998 Tugba Kalafatoglu, lives in Istanbul, Turkey, and was named an “Outstanding Young Person” of that country in the political, legal and/or governmental affairs category through the Outstanding Young Persons of the World (TOYP) program. TOYP formally recognizes people age 18 to 40 who excel in their chosen fields. The Junior Chamber International

Sons & Daughters of UNO Alumni

Mason Alexander Schrempp, son of Samantha and Robert (’97) Schrempp of Oak Creek, Wisc.

Jace Daved Harding, son of Adam and Danie (Miller, ’03) Harding of Bellevue, Neb.

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Submit a Future Alum on the Web Provide a birth announcement (within 1 year of birth) and we’ll send a Tshirt and certificate, plus publish the good news in an ensuing issue of the UNO Alum. Do so safely and securelyonline at www.unoalumni.org/magazine. Mail announcements to: Future Alums, UNO Alumni Association, 60th & Dodge, Omaha, NE 68182. FAX info to: (402) 554-3787. Include address, baby’s name, date of birth, parents’ or grandparents’ names and graduation year(s).

Rhett Andrew Urzendowski, son of Beth (Aken, ’98) and Andy (’98) Urzendowski of LaVista, Neb.

Winter 2008 • 43

Class Notes (JCI) sponsors the program.

Kalafatoglu will represent Turkey in the category in next year’s Outstanding Young Persons of the World program.

She also was included in Who's Who in America and Who’s Who in the World, 2009 editions. Send her email at tugba@tugbakalafatoglu.com 1999 Jennifer K. Short Garrido, BS, lives in Summerville, S.C., and writes, “I am enjoying life as a stay-at-home mom and home schooling my three children (Alex, 7; Max, 4; and Cora, 2).

My husband is Dante Garrido (BS 1996, MPA 2008).” Send her email at ajmom@sc.rr.com 2001 Michael J. Robinson, BS, lives in Omaha and has joined Family Housing Advisory Services as director of development. He previously was executive director for the Christ Child Society of Omaha.

Jayme Hansen, BS, lives in Omaha and recently became director of ministry advancement with Great Adventure Ministries (GAMe), a Christian ministry that

Class Notes

targets singles ages 18-35 through Bible studies and events.

He previously was a manager at an Omaha software company.

Send him email at jayme@gameomaha.com 2005 Barbara Ostebo Murray, MSW, was in correspondence with the UNO Alumni Association after submitting news of the birth of her child, Bo Cedric Murray.

Association staff wondered if her son was named after NU Football Coach Bo Pelini. “That's the first I've heard any one ask that,” she wrote. “Actually, he's named after my maiden name. Bo comes from that name. But, maybe there will start being a trend there in Omaha?!” Murray lives in Wellington, Colo., with Bo and her husband, Levi Murray.

2007 Ben Burton, BSBA, lives in Omaha and notes that he married Kari Lou Procopio on June 7.

Burton is a tax accountant at Lutz & Co., a local CPA firm. Send him email at bburton@lutzcpa.com

Help sought for UNO graduate battling Cystic Fibrosis

L

ara Marsh graduated from the UNO Dramatic Arts Department in 2000. She juggles a lot in her life, as most do — job, family, household — but she also juggles a schedule for her health, living a life with Cystic Fibrosis.

After a 38-year battle, doctors at the University of Nebraska Medical Center have recommended a life-saving double lung transplant.

With the cost of a transplant often exceeding $500,000, many transplant patients are unable to shoulder the financial burden of such a procedure.

The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) is a national charity that provides fundraising assistance for life-saving transplants — 100 percent of all funds raised in honor of patients are used for transplant-related expenses.

Friends are asking for support for Marsh via donations through COTA’s secure web site www.COTAforLaraM.com.

Friends and family have joined the “Places Please” campaign to help her raise $100,000. This money will be used for expenses that insurance does not cover leading up to the transplant, during it and post-operation. Contact Bridget Robbins at (402) 573-7388 to become a volunteer for Marsh.

Marsh also is participating in “Recycle for Life,” through which individuals, businesses and organizations can donate old cell phones and used ink jet cartridges toward her cause.

Contact Jeannine Robertson at 402-212-5048 to learn more.

Marsh has worked for both the Nebraska Theater Caravan and The Omaha Community Playhouse since 2000. Locally, she has been involved in several theatre organizations, including the Nebraska Shakespeare Festival, Bellevue Little Theatre and the Blue Barn Theatre.

Submit your class note over the web at www.unoalumni.org/notes 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.

Name__________________________________________

Employer ___________________________________

Class Year_______Degree________

Position_____________________________________

Address________________________________________

Career/Personal News__________________________

City ___________________________

Is this a new

_______________________________________________

address?

_______________________________________________

State, Zip______________________

❑ Yes ❑ No

Phone_____________________________ E-mail_________________________________________ May we post your email address in the next Alum?

❑ Yes ❑ No

44 • Winter 2008

May we include your name in our website’s email directory? (Email addresses do not display)

❑ Yes ❑ No

_______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________

UNOALUM

W I N T E R

Lost Alums - 1963 James D. Shubert Mabel R. Simpson George J. Sisley George F. Skelly Clyde Bennette Skies Arthur H. Smith Norvin E. Smith Charles M. Smith Sally Poppino Smith Ursula K. Smyth George L. Snavely Leroy F. Snyder Neal P. Solomon James W. Sparano Gary E. Sparks

Stan S. Spence Charles J. Squires Windal R. Stanley Glen W. Statum Rozanne Siporin Stein Bernard J. Stender Jim J. Stevenson Robert A. Steward Louis S Stickney Thomas A. Stout Robert J. Straubinger Lester O. Styve Jerome J. Sullivan Thomas W. Swails Frederic C. Swan

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Help us find these “Lost Alums” from the Class of 1963.

Send news of their whereabouts to sgerding@unomaha.edu Harry L. Swanger Peter C. Sweers Howard M. Tackett Donald C. Talbott Marshall L. Tapp Robert W. Tate Wallace L. Tate Ernest L. Taylor Lloyd V. Teale Henry J. Tedesco Duayne B. Thompson Earl A. Thompson Gaylord L. Timblin Louis T. Tobat Maxie L. Trainer

Harry L. Travis Henrietta L Turner J. D. Turner Austin W. Turner Henry A. Unger George H. Upchurch Nathan C. Vail John P. Vanblois Max D. Vancil Thomas R. Vandenack Larry R. Vandeusen Harold B. Vandyken John H. Vanhorn George K. Vankleek George L. Vaughn

Raul Velez-Velez Nelson Vera Carol E. Vetter Arthur T. Waaland Ben V. Walker Waldo R. Walkup Donald L. Wallace Leland D. Wamsted Harry E. Warlick George G. Waters Thomas A. Waynick Richard Webb James K. Webster Owen A. Weddle Oscar J. Weible

Sandra Weicherding Eileen B. Weiss Philip S. Weller Lewis W. Wetzel James E. Whetstone Betty J. Whitlock Millard Whitten Billy L. Whorton Dock E. Wiggins Harlon R. Wiley James C. Wilkins Donald A. Williams Louis Williams Harold G. Wilson Leland A. Wilson

Parks W. Wilson Shelby C. Winingham Herbert B. Winkeller Warren J. Winters James Carl Wise Robert L. Wittnebel Robert James Wood John H. Woolnough James P. Wooten James T. Wortham Lewis Weldon Wright Lawrence S. Wright Oliver G. Wyatt David L. Wyatt Wenzel C. Yackie

In Memoriam 1932 George Cechmanek 1935 Joseph J. Greenstone Richard S. Wiles 1936 Robert A. Fitch Vincent B. Nelson 1937 Samuel W. Adkins Hazel E. Willard 1938 George E. Alexander 1940 Rosemary Connolly Johnson Sidney W. Landers Otto G. Spielhagen 1942 Barbara C. Winslade Dugdale 1945 Waldean H. Miller Willis 1947 Wilber L. Patterson 1948 Ivan C. Bals Stuart H. Borg Clifford Brink Mary L. Danoff Ciembor Laverne E. McElfish Peter F. Petersen 1949 Warren D. Ashby Edward E. Kaiser Edward E. Mansur Robert G. Moriarty Edwin C. Morrow 1950 Rudolph B. Berryman Sheldon L. Coren Bill J. Fear Robert W. Maley, Sr. Peter J. Quiring 1951 Barbara J. Ashby Jack L. Dabney William J. Moran Jr. 1952 Maridell L. Myers Magnuson Barbara J. Gottsch Moran Edmae Pugh Swain 1953 Henry P. Bockman 1954 Vojislav P. Dosenovich Neal H. Dusenberry 1955 Kathryn A. Johnson Petit Herbert J. Rapley Joseph S. Shearron Gerald L. Wetzel 1956 Kenneth C. Heyer Kenneth F. Johnson

w w w. u n o a l u m n i . o r g

1956 Stanley J. Merrick Richard N. Westcott 1957 Richard H. Butler Jack E. Carter Carl M. Hillstrom William C. Jensen Philip I. Sheehan William Jensen 1958 Frank Bartolomei Robert R. Clark Frederick P. Pfeffer Rynold B. Svoboda 1959 Elwood F. Baseman George J. Homza Irl L. Mabon Howard J. Morrison Barbara M. Parker 1960 Evelyn A. Lee Cross John Edward "Jack" Himes Bernard L. Levermann Merlin E. Mabon Fred W. Osenbaugh Fred R. Spies James J. Walde Irving C. Young 1961 Aubrey R. Beene Edwin D. Beers Ethelyn "Ethie" Lashinsky Roseman Roy E. Schauer Norman N. Semon 1962 Louis Aclin Harvey R. Clark Thomas E. Durham Richard L. Dussinger Ivon F. Klohe Grover H. Lewis Jr. Thomas H. Norton, Sr. Richard B. Perrin Carlton D. Schoolcraft Betty A. Point Wilson 1963 Noel H. Assink Sidney C. Bradfield Arthur E. Brown Ronald R. Coleman James W. Colton Robert K. Crouch Tommy L. Galyon

1963 Mable T. Goodwin Keith C. Hanna Harold E. "Hal" Hansen Anna O. Miller Richard T. Murrian Edward H. Patterson Donald E. Talbott Millard Whitten 1964 Louise G. Bigge James C. Fukuhara Bernard E. Galvin Robert L. Henk Robert M. Henley Douglas T. Honma Frederic N. Millen William D. Myers Myron F. Parker Leroy I. Sather Charles R. Scherer Erwin H. Schiff William P. Tallon Jr. Andrew J. Trammell Donald N. Webster Herman R. Williams Ivan W. Winbolt 1965 Ray H. Bailey Damon D. Catron John A. Chambers Jack B. Cundiff Charles O. Edgar Clarence E. Gentry Harry G. Hansen Andrew Hudanick Elaine J. Ickes Alfred R. Jeffreys Carl R. Ross Nick Saario Jr. Ray F. Skaggs Vickroy E. Stone 1966 Richard B. Adams Wavel L. Adams Graig W. Anderson Jr. William R. Beavers Richard E. Bjork Arthur W. Cofer Norman F. Eldridge Diana E. Hehir George H. Hening Jr.

1966 Hugo A. Hillstrom Raymond A. Hilton Junius L. "Jay" Jones Jr. Harry E. Kempe John R. Krogh Ronald C. "Ronnie" Madsen Jerome M. McCarville Lyle E. McMichael James A. Mahony Ralph E. Miller Philip J. Starling Lawrence W. (Schwiesow) Stevens David C. Tolson Jr. Rue W. White Douglas L. Worden Bernard S. Wysocki Herbert H. Yunge 1967 Kevin J. Clatanoff James E. Hayes Robert S. Izat George F. McSoley Donald W. Moilan Thomas R. Richardson Barney E. Stokes Ted O. Thornhill 1968 Mark Duchon Priscilla Hall Goldsmith Henry E. Jeffrey Ralph A. Kuhlmann Ernest P. Rogers Edward A. Schickling Carol L. Hogan Wheeler Stevenson Alfred V. Weiss 1969 Harriet M. Cecil James P. Ferrell Cecelia A. Gross Burton K. Holmes Billy G. McDaniel, Sr. John R. Whisman 1970 Jack W. Brown Ruben E. Dyck Gordon E. Thackray 1971 William J. Bailey Stuart H. Barad Raphael Lucente Jr.

1971 Ervin F. Mathias John e. McGinty Glenn H. Mutter Hazelle L. Samuelson Rottman Iris P. Booth Stokes John T. "Jack" Warnock Richard L. Weed Frederick G. Wisser 1972 Vernon L. Hoskinson Rudolf K. Walther 1973 Joseph H. Batorski Gene A. Brandt Byron D. Hanson Arthur J. Modzelesky Jr. Richard D. Moser Mark A. Nestander Ronald L. Shafer William R. Shalberg 1974 Walter S. Bakun Miriam C. Krawter Reese 1975 Mark S. Heng Jessie E. Johnson James W. "Bill" Koll William E. Manhart Dora L. McDavis Karen M. Nicol Pageler Timothy P. Sumnick 1976 Wilber O. Dawkins John M. "Jack" Jones 1977 Michael G. Carter Virginia E. Poulas Guillory 1979 Nancy Behrendsen Carr 1981 Gary W. Hindman 1983 Janet I. Bauman Hutchinson 1984 Jeffrey J. Anderson 1984 Lillian Hain Gordon 1984 James L. Slack 1986 Gerald R. Andreasen 1993 Patrick D. Hall 1995 Patricia S. Crouch Straight Connealy 1996 Joseph A. Citro Jr. 2000 Jason F. Helget Aaron M. Wilcox

Winter 2008 • 45

UNO Century Club NO Century Club membership consists of individuals who support UNO with gifts of $100 or more. Century Club gifts help the alumni association impact numerous areas of campus, furthering its academic excellence, supporting students, and fostering dynamic teaching.

With their unrestricted gift, Century Club donors receive one of five personalized mementos* (pictured at right) correspondng to giving level and recognition in an annual report. New and upgraded Century Club members are recognized in each issue of the UNO Alum magazine. To celebrate UNO’s 100 years the UNO Alumni Association has instituted new donor benefits for 2008. See the page at right for details.

Help us CELEBRATE 100! with a Century Club donation today! To do so, complete and return the form on Page 47 or on the inside of the attached envelope. Or give online at www.unoalumni.org/give. * The tax-deductible portion of Century Club donations are reduced by

U

the value of the memento received.

Thanks to these upgraded Century Club donors!

Welcome to these new Century Club donors!

Sept. 2 to Nov. 30

Diamond ($1,000 or more)

To Diamond

Cynthia S. Peacock

($1,000 or more)

Patricia Eldridge Patricia A. Lamberty

To Gold

($500 or more)

Gail Baker Lawrence Fargher Tim Fitzgerald Janice & Dean Podoll Mary Lynn Reiser Wayne L. Russell T. Patrick Ryan Judy L. Seeman

To Silver

($250 or more)

Alec Alba Mary Kay Bret Lloyd A. Coates Christine M. Condon Harl & Kay Dalstrom Dianne Desler Warren & Carol Francke Michele L. Gehringer John & Betty Kampschnieder David Kriegler Gary F. & Beverly J. Kubat Thomas F. Livingston William & Twila McCracken Lee & Susan Perkins Tricia K. Riggins Connie L. Schaffer Edward A. Svajgl Jean C. Tuohino Bill & Ellen Wakefield

46 • Winter 2008

Sept. 2 to Nov. 30

Gold

($500 or more)

Melvin R. & Linda K. Cerny Daniel F. Klepper Louis A. Mallia Dennis J. McMillen Marcia Wragge

Silver ($250 or more) William R. & Donna L. Barrett Dean & Susan Hokanson Jr. Colleen M. Luckasen Janet & Lou Pol Louise A. Rinn Katherine A. Saniuk LTC Maynard Tatelman

Bronze ($100 or more) Robert H. Alamshah Alec R. Alba Heather R. Alexander Terence M. Alter L. Fred Amis Theodore J. Banick John R. Bartle, Ph.D. Steven M. Bayne Stan Belitz James R. Birkel Brian & Susan Bollich Keith C. Brown Thomas A. Buelt Larry D. & Kathleen F. Burks Phyllis I. Bush Steve Byrne Sgt. (Ret.) Peter Carbonell Jo Ann Carrigan Joyce E. Christensen Rodney E. Christenson Melvin Allen Clancy Susan M. Clark

Col. Donald R. Condrill, USA, Ret. Kathryn R. Cooper Jill Cramer-Oberle Julianne M. Crotty-Guile Gary R. & Elizabeth A. Currie L.E. Damhoff Amy T. Dean Diane DeNormandie Joan C. Denton Dr. Mark S. Dermer Carol A. Dillon Mitchel P. Dorsey Dr. Timothy M. Durham Ramona M. Edwards Jeanne P. Eibes Robert A. Embree, Ph.D. Michael L. Farquhar Jeffry G. Finochiaro Jeffrey Fox Sandra Friedman Bawn Froning Neil Galloway Robert H. Getscher Bonnie M. Gill-Manhart Jewell M. Goodloe Michael J. & Cheryl A. Goodwillie David D. & Darlene L. Greer Roger E. & Carol J. Grote Ronald J. Groteluschen Gary H. Guttau Carlynn Hartman-Kurtz Joan Swanson Hellbusch Kathleen L. Henebry Michael T. Hesser Dennis & Carolee Hoth Angelo Intile Wendy T. Jackson Col. (Ret.) Richard P. Janese, Sr. Nancy W. Jarvis Justin A. & Eliana J. Jurgens Gloria C. Kaslow Debra L. Keith Peter M. & Ann M. Kelleher Jeff J. & Barbara A. Kelley David Kimble Paul E. Kirkman John S. Klaric III David Kriegler Kim A. Kronschnabel

Norman Krystopik Charles Lamalfa Lorie Lewis Mark J. Manhart Marsha K. Marron Joy L. Martin Russell A. Martinson Michael S. McIntyre Fred W. Merrill Michele M. Monaghan-Bigsby David C. Moore Rev. Rodney M. Murray Catherine M. Nachreiner Kevin E. & Ann K. Naylor Conee P. Nelson Ann Oatman Michael L. Oberle Jim D. & Marcia G Ochsner Charles T. Parrish Dr. Roy David Petersen David Peterson Dean R. & Janice Podoll Al Pribramsky Gene R. Pugh Judith A. Radek Wendy A. Reed William W. Reynolds Jr. Russell L. Rieck Dudley W. & Erin Murphy Rinaker Barbara C. Ruh Kanthi Reddy Saddi Rosalie Saltzman Mark B. Schwietz Elizabeth A. Scott Charles L. Sedlacek Rose Shires Raymond E. Smith Jeanne Surface Tom J. Sutko Rudy J. & Judy A. Tesar Dorothy E. Todd Kynan C. Trail Larry R. Welborn Marti Welch Janet West Othol P. & Betty A. White Charles W. Whitney Dr. Jane D. Woody

UNOALUM

Join your fellow alumni in celebrating UNO’s 100 years with a special anniversary gift to the 2008 UNO Annual Fund!

CELEBRATE

100!

Here’s how: • All NEW Century Club Donors ($100 or more) in 2008 will receive a commemorative UNO History Documentary DVD!

PRIZE DRAWINGS! Donors of $100 or more will be included in random drawings for: Grand Prize: $1,000 gift card to Nebraska Furniture Mart!

• All current Century Club Donors who increase their 2007 gift by $100 in 2008 will receive a commemorative UNO pictorial history book and the DVD!

First Prize:

$500 gift card to Borsheims!

Contribute Today!

To give, complete and return the form below or on the enclosed envelope. Or, give online at www.unoalumni.org.

Century Club Membership Donors of $100 or more also join the UNO Century Club, the Alumni Association’s premiere giving society (see left).

* The tax-deductible portion of Century Club donations are reduced by the value of the memento received. See Page 46 for a photo of mementos.

2008 UNO Annual Fund Donation Form - YES! I will 1 Give to the UNO Annual Fund!

❑ Bronze Century $100 or more Century ❑ Silver $250 or more ❑ Golden Century

2- Tax-deductible gift information ❑

Check enclosed for $

❑

PLEDGE: Bill me for $

. Payable to UNO Annual Fund. . month

❑ I authorize the UNO Alumni Association to collect through my:

my gift of $

❑

$500 or more

❑ Diamond Century

3 - Complete Name and Address

(select one)

in

Visa

❑

MasterCard

The UNO Annual Fund: Serving UNO since 1953

Name__________________________________________________________________ As you wish it to appear in the Annual Report

Address________________________________________________________________ City/State/Zip____________________________________________________________

❑ Discover ❑ AmEx

Card No.:

Expiration Date:____/_____

Phone__________________________________________________________________

$1,000 or more

❑ Platinum Century

-

-

-

E-mail:

$2,500 or more

❑ Other $___________

_______________________________________________________________________ Signature

THANK YOU! Remember, your gift is tax-deductible.

w w w. u n o a l u m n i . o r g

May we post your name in our website’s email directory (email addresses not shown)?

❑Yes ❑ No

Winter 2008 • 47

ALUmnI nIgHT On THe ICE CHILL OUT

at UNO’s 6th annual

• Pre-game buffet reception at the Qwest Center

Saturday Jan. 24, 2009 5:30 p.m.

Pre-game buffet at the Qwest Convention Center, Room 201-204 East side, 2nd Floor

• Door prizes, free Mav Tattoos and free “GO MAVS” Fan Banners!

• Hockey 101 with former Mavs David Brisson and Kendall Sidoruk!

7:05 p.m.

UNO vs. Miami Qwest Center Omaha

• Lower Bowl seating.

• Coach Mike Kemp pep talk, hockey band Power Play and UNO dance team.

• Designated seating

Details Page 2!

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

University of Nebraska at Omaha Alumni Association 6705 Dodge St. Omaha, NE 68182-0010 Address Service Requested