CLASS NOTES 1970s ’73 Kirk West, BA education, is poised to complete a law degree at Griffith University Law School in Brisbane, Australia. Now 70, West worked as a teacher in Australia for more than 40 years. He came back to the United States after retirement, only to return to Australia to enter law school in 2019. ’78, ’84 Rick White, BA, MA music education, was inducted into the Washington Music Educators Association Hall of Fame, Class of 2020. White retired last year after a 40-year teaching career that included service in several school districts in the state of Washington. ’79 Betty Mobbs, BA communications, last year celebrated her eighth year of “regenerative ranching” at the grass-fed cattle and pastured poultry operation that she runs with her husband, John, in Hauser
Lake, Idaho. The Mobbs’ Lazy M Ranch, family owned for three generations, aims to use regenerative practices to produce less resource-intensive food while revitalizing previously depleted soils. ’79 Kathie Webber, BA history, this summer retired after a 41-year career as a science teacher with the Snohomish School District. “I don’t know where the time went,” she says. “It seems like just yesterday that I graduated from EWU.”
1980s ’84, ’89 Lee Williams, BA, MEd, education, in December retired as CEO of CommunityMinded Enterprises, a Spokane-based organization working to assist marginalized populations in Washington state. ’88 Tawny Buck, BA business administration, is the executive director of
the Girdwood Health Clinic in Girdwood, Alaska. Under her leadership, the once financially troubled clinic has become a vital community resource. It will soon break ground on a new, $7 million state-of-the-art facility.
1990s ’90 Peter C. Zahorodny, BA general studies, recently retired after 21 years as a senior software test engineer in the NetPlus division of Ventraq Corp., a data collection and analysis firm headquartered in Rockville, Maryland. ’92 Kim Reasoner-Morin, BA education, in October was named executive director of the Spokane Humane Society, a private, non-profit agency providing care, shelter, and placement for neglected and unwanted animals. As executive director, Reasoner(Continued next page, below.)
People-Friendly Places Essays edited by Eastern alumna Summer Hess explore one of Spokane’s most interesting urban spaces.
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ust southwest of the University District, near the corner of N. Browne St. and Main, lies one of Spokane’s most trendy city blocks, a bustling pocket of once neglected, now mostly restored historic buildings. The casual visitor might be forgiven for imagining that this hipster-friendly assortment of businesses is simply a funky shopping and entertainment hub. But as Summer Hess ’12 points out in a new account of the area, the minidistrict collectively known as the Community Building Campus is, in fact, merely the latest phase in a two-decades-long attempt to create a more socially conscious, community-driven form of urban development. The idea being, as one civic leader puts it, to help “good people and good organizations [do] great things for our world.”
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The book, One-Block Revolution, is a collection of 19 essays that reflect on the campus and its wider impact — both in Spokane and around the country. Hess says she first encountered the campus as an EWU work-study student in 2009. She later became an assistant and project manager for its founder, Jim Sheehan, a former public defender and activist. Hess says the essays’ aim is to provide “on-the-ground examples of experimental and non-traditional philanthropy and community-centered development.” “Most private developers put profit first,” she explains, “and some try to make accommodations for sustainability or human happiness in order to make their projects more marketable or desirable. The Community Building Campus, on the other hand, puts people and the environment first.”
Putting people before profit is at the core of the “revolutionary” aspect of the one-block campus. “This book provides an alternative framework for how wealth can be shared and used for a more collective good,” Hess says. One-Block Revolution, which best-selling novelist Jess Walter ’87 has called “a fascinating collection of pieces about my favorite neighborhood in Spokane,” is available at major retailers and through its locally owned publisher, Latah Books.
