Idaho State University Magazine - Spring 2011

Impacting the Health of Rural Idaho ISU STUDENTS, FACULTY AND ALUMNI REACH OUT THROUGH PROGRAMS, CLINICS

Plus …

Volume 41 | Number 2 | Spring/Summer 2011

Evaluating Effects of a Changing Climate • Tom Spanbauer Interview Jakob Dylan at ISU • National Girls and Women in Sports Day … and more!

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Spring/Summer 2011

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www.isu.edu 921 South 8th Ave., Stop 8265 Pocatello, Idaho 83209-8265 (208) 282-3620 Arthur C. Vailas, Ph.D. University President Kent M. Tingey, D.A. ’97 Vice President, University Advancement Mark Levine levimark@isu.edu Director, Marketing and Communications K.C. Felt feltkc@isu.edu Director, Alumni Relations Idaho State University Magazine welcomes letters, comments and story ideas. Direct them to the postal address below, or send an e-mail to franemil@isu.edu.

Idaho State University Magazine staff Editor Emily Frandsen Contributors Chris Gabettas

Andrew Gauss - ’96

Mark Levine

Nancy Lovgren - ’79

Andrew Taylor

Casey Thompson - ’86

Dr. William Woodhouse

Giacobazzi Yañez Designer Joey Gifford - ’03 Photo Services Susan Duncan - ’95

Julie Hillebrant - ’00 Office of Alumni Relations Idaho State University 921 S. 8th Avenue, Stop 8033 Pocatello, Idaho 83209-8033 (208) 282-3755 or (800) 933-4781 or e-mail: alumni@isu.edu

Freelance journalists are encouraged to submit queries for topical stories with an Idaho State University connection.

Please send queries by e-mail to Emily Frandsen at franemil@isu.edu, or call (208) 282-3164.

Postmaster

ISU Magazine is published twice a year by the Office of Marketing and Communications at Idaho State University. Send address changes to the Office of Alumni Relations at 921 S. 8th Ave., Stop 8033, Pocatello, ID 83209-8033 or send an e-mail to alumni@isu.edu.

Shaping the Next Generation of Leaders In today’s climate, cutting-edge research is vital to any university’s advancement.

At Idaho State University, our faculty work hard every day in the field and in laboratories to bring the latest knowledge to the forefront. In this edition of Idaho State University Magazine, you will find examples of this drive, from developing a promising drug that could potentially treat pancreatic cancer to a group of faculty and students who are on the forefront of climate change research.

Alongside nearly every faculty member conducting the latest research, however, is a student who is both learning and bringing new insight and knowledge to some of today’s biggest issues.

Without our students, we would not have Idaho State President Arthur Vailas University. We exist to bring new knowledge to our world, but most importantly, to help educate the next generation of leaders. We want them to succeed, and at ISU, we are dedicated to doing all we can to make sure our students are not only prepared for the future, but are able to remember their college years as a time of learning and discovery.

To help students concentrate on learning, our Student Success Center offers small-group and individual tutoring, academic advising, support for firstgeneration college students and more.

Our Veterans Sanctuary offers support and advocacy to those who have served

our country.

For our future students, the Early College program allows promising teens the opportunity to take college classes while still in high school, giving them an academic head-start and a chance to experience learning at a higher level.

Perhaps most importantly, each day our students are encouraged to reach a higher level by talented and invested professors and staff members who care about their future. On Page 31 of this edition of Idaho State University magazine is a story written by Giacobazzi Yañez, an undergraduate anthropology student who had a dream of traveling to the United Nations to hear Mayan elders address other world leaders. With the drive to learn, but without the means to travel, Giacobazzi approached his mentors and members of other departments on campus, who worked together to help make his dream possible. His story is just one of many examples of how the Idaho State University community and students with drive are working together to make great learning experiences a reality.

Our academic programs at Idaho State University set us apart. Most recently, ISU has received a new classification from the Carnegie Foundation, elevated from Doctoral Research University to Research University-High status.

The momentum created for academics and research endeavors will continue through our outstanding faculty, students and staff here at Idaho State University.

Arthur C. Vailas, Ph.D. President, Idaho State University

Mark Your Calendars for Homecoming 2011 September 26 - October 1, 2011 Plan to return to the Idaho State University campus in Pocatello this year. See how the campus has grown. Reunite with former classmates. Encourage the current student body. And have fun!

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Moonlit Tree. ISU Photographer Susan Duncan captured the beauty of freshly fallen snow resting on the branches of a tree on campus.

Cover Heather Shraper is one of many physician assistants providing care in rural Idaho.

ISU Photographic Services/Julie Hillebrant

Spring/Summer 2011

Find more stories and news at www.isu.edu/magazine

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Idaho State University has earned Research University-High status from the Carnegie Foundation Wigs-on-Loan program recognized Research Team working on cancer treatment Athletics gains sponsors for court and field, also is accredited by the NCAA Meet new head football coach Mike Kramer

10 11 12 13 14 16 17 18 20 22 28 30 31 32 34 36 38 42

Idaho Museum of Natural History reopens Jakob Dylan to receive an honorary doctorate for 2011 Commencement Alumnus Tom Spanbauer recalls his days in Southeast Idaho ISU debuts new television and radio shows ISU has helped make National Girls and Women in Sports Day an exciting annual event bringing girls on campus Dr. Cynthia Pemberton is a pioneer in many ways The stroke clinic at ISU–Meridian Health Science Center helps Treasure Valley residents Dr. William Woodhouse’s guest commentary on the importance of ISU’s Family Medicine Residency program Physician assistants are reaching out to Idaho’s rural areas ISU researchers are major contributors in a grant seeking to find the effects of climate change in Idaho Dr. Patrick Brooks and the ISU jazz bands put rhythm in the steps of their audiences ISU student Derek Schaible loses two fingers and plays the piano to tell about it An invitation to the United Nations proves a worthy venture for ISU student Giacobazzi Yañez A geographic miscalculation landed alumnus Eli Tour at ISU; hard work and discipline helped him succeed Updates from the Office of Alumni Relations include award winners, upgrades and gatherings Brightest and Best: more profiles of successful students, faculty and alumni Trackings: find out what alumni have been up to Annual report

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Carnegie Foundation Boosts ISU Classification Rank Idaho State University was recently classified as Research University-High by the Carnegie Foundation. ISU is only one of 98 institutions in the country in this prestigious group.

This classification is second only to the highest category Research Univer-

sity-Very High, with 108 universities holding that elite designation. Combined, these two research categories represent less than 5 percent of the nation’s 4,663 institutions of higher education.

Every six or seven years, the Foundation assesses all institutions of higher

(208) 282-2150 • www.isu.edu/graduate

education in the United States and publishes the Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education. For many years, ISU has been listed as a DRU, or Doctoral Research University. This classification is one level above Master’s L (Master’s Colleges and Universities), such as Boise State University, and one level below RU-H (Research University-High), such as the University of Idaho.

“The designation of Research University-High is a great distinction for ISU and a real testament to our excellent faculty and staff. I am very proud of our faculty, as they have dedicated themselves to research and teaching and the results of that effort have been recognized by the prestigious Carnegie Foundation designation,” said ISU President Arthur C. Vailas.

This new distinction has many material consequences for ISU. “ISU will enjoy more prestige nationally in the eyes of those in higher education and the state, too, will benefit by being able to boast that it now supports two RU-H institutions,” said ISU Provost Gary A. Olson.

Because Carnegie is ranking a standard of university performance and a measure of competitiveness, attaining this distinction is a sign of ISU’s growing institutional maturity. The university’s new status puts Idaho State University in some very good company. Only about 100 institutions have this designation, including Auburn, Baylor, Boston College, Clemson, Fordham and Kent State universities.

In the West, ISU is in the company of New Mexico State, Utah State, and Northern Arizona universities.

Spring/Summer 2011

ISU Research Team Studies Pancreatic Cancer Treatment Photo by ISU College of Technology

CHEMISTS, PHARMACISTS WORKING TOGETHER

Cosmetology Program Recognized with Spirit of Idaho Award Senator Mike Crapo presented the Idaho State University Cosmetology program with the Spirit of Idaho Award on Oct. 29, recognizing the program for its service to the community through its Wigs on Loan program.

The Wigs on Loan services began more than 20 years ago and are designed to assist anyone experiencing hair loss due to medical or chemical therapies.

Today there are approximately 150 wigs on loan to clients in need.

Through donations from individuals and companies such as Paula Young, the cosmetology program receives new wigs on a regular basis. Students in the program wash and style the wigs to meet their client’s needs. Private fittings are conducted with clients. There is no charge for this service but a $10 deposit is requested for when the wig is taken out and refunded when the wig is returned.

“It has been a very rewarding and educational experience for the students and instructors,” said Bobbi Fitch, program coordinator.

The Spirit of Idaho Award was created by Senator Mike Crapo more than 10 years ago and since its inception, he has recognized more than 600 Idahoans who have demonstrated a commitment to improving and serving their fellow citizens. Awards are given to individuals or groups who set a positive example for the community.

A promising drug for treating pancreatic cancer – the type of cancer that has recently struck Apple CEO Steve Jobs and actor Patrick Swayze – is being studied by a team of Idaho State University researchers.

The researchers’ efforts have been bolstered by a Higher Education Research Council $50,000 grant from the Idaho State Board of Education.

“At this time, pancreatic cancer has a low survival rate, about 4 to 6 percent after five years, and there are no good drugs for its treatment,” said Alok Bhushan, ISU pharmacy professor. “We are studying a newly synthesized compound that, in initial studies, is effective against pancreatic cancer cells and is not toxic.”

The ISU research team consists of Byron Bennett, assistant professor of chemistry; Alok Bhushan and James Lai, professors in pharmacology at the ISU College of Pharmacy; and pharmacy doctoral student Aditi Jain.

“We want to emphasize that we’re

just in the initial state of studying this compound and there are many more steps that must be done to determine if it can be used to treat pancreatic cancer,” Bhushan said. “There is a lot of testing and there are clinical trials yet to be done.”

The researchers are in the preclinical phase of research and have completed testing isolated cancer cells in their lab. The next step in studying the drug, which the researchers are engaged in now, is studying how the drug works at the molecular level.

In addition, the scientists are studying the mechanisms of the compound to determine why it is effective. They also are completing a detailed chemical analysis of the drug’s properties that could help with the design and formulation of the drug in the future.

If the drug continues to look promising after this phase of the research, more testing will be done and, eventually, clinical trials.

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Spring/Summer 2011 Photo by ISU Photographic Services/Julie Hillebrant

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A view of the new basketball court as Idaho State University hosts Northern Arizona University.

ISU Receives New Court and Field The ISU men’s basketball team and the football team will now each have a new court and turf to play on, thanks to a partnership between Idaho State Athletics, Idaho State University Credit Union and Idaho Central Credit Union.

The official name of the basketball facility is now Idaho Central Credit Union Court at Holt Arena. Reed Gym will be called Idaho Central Credit Union Court at Reed Gym. “Idaho Central Credit Union proudly supports ISU in many ways,” ICCU President Kent Oram said. “Over 100 local ICCU employees are either ISU alumni or students. We are proud to support this project and hope it helps ISU in a meaningful way.”

The men’s basketball team plays a majority of their games in the 8,000 seat

arena. Basketball games have been played at Holt since 1970 and ISU currently has a record of 291-125 in games played at Holt.

Through a sponsorship from ISU Credit Union, a new football turf will also be installed in Holt Arena in July.

The new turf system will be a non-permanent surface; one that can be removed from Holt Arena on a regular basis. Although more expensive, the new turf will be safer and higher quality.

“This is great for Idaho State University and ISU Credit Union,” ISU Credit Union CEO Rob Taylor said. “It is nice to see it come to this point where we can continue with these partnerships in such an important endeavor as this new field. We are proud to contribute to this improvement of Holt Arena by sponsoring the ISU Credit Union Caccia Field.”

Athletics Earns NCAA Accreditation The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) announced recently that Idaho State University’s athletic department has been fully certified.

“We are pleased to have the NCAA certify our athletic department without condition. This was truly a collective university and community effort involving faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members. I am proud of all of them,” said ISU President Arthur C. Vailas.

During the summer of 2010 the University received NCAA certification with

one condition. The NCAA determined the institution “did not fully implement its Cycle-2 gender-equity plan in the program area of accommodation of interests and abilities.”

To meet the NCAA requirement, ISU has constructed a new women’s softball complex and increased funding for the program, completed new intercollegiate locker rooms for women’s volleyball, softball and basketball as well as increasing the number of women’s athletic scholarships.

Kramer Brings Successful Background to ISU Football In November, Idaho State University welcomed Mike Kramer, one of the most successful football coaches in the history of the Big Sky Conference, as the football team’s new head coach. Kramer, who coached at Eastern Washington and Montana State University, has found success at each coaching stop as he is only one of five coaches in Big Sky history to be named conference Coach of the Year three times.

Now Kramer is ready to bring his knowledge and success to Idaho State University.

“We are excited to have Mike Kramer join our athletic department,” Idaho State Director of Athletics Jeff Tingey said. “He is one of the most successful coaches in Big Sky football history. He has proven himself on the field of competition and he is a coach who is very charismatic.

Coach Kramer is a coach who will come in and develop instant relationships in the Pocatello community.”

Kramer has already completed his staff. Don Bailey is his associate head

coach, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach; Derrick Roche will coach the offensive line; Mike Rigell, running backs; Matt Troxel, tight ends; Craig Stutzmann, wide receivers; Rudy Griffin, inside linebackers; Todd Bates, defensive line; Ryan Smaha, outside linebackers; and Daniel Drayton, defensive backs.

On signing day, Feb. 1, Kramer and his staff announced the signing of 18 new high school or junior college studentathletes to the football program. Putting together solid recruiting classes has led to Kramer’s success as he had 40 wins during his time at Montana State including three Big Sky Conference championships.

At Eastern Washington he was 37-32 from 1994-99 and won the program’s first outright conference title in 1997.

That year he guided his team to the semifinals of the FCS playoffs, the last Big Sky team other than Montana to make the semi-finals.

His record speaks for itself as he has 77 career wins, ranking him fourth alltime in conference history. Kramer had

Photo by ISU Photographic Services/Susan Duncan

Spring/Summer 2011

Mike Kramer 53 Big Sky Conference wins, ranking him third for most league wins. From 2002-07 MSU went 35-26, including an eight-win campaign in 2006, the school’s highest total since 1984. Kramer also orchestrated five straight winning seasons, the longest for the program in more than 40 years.

The Bobcats’ 2006 season also featured the school’s first postseason win and postseason home game since 1984, and a No. 10 final national ranking.

Steve Schaack

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Museum Reopens with New Exhibits

More on the Web

Photo by ISU Photographic Services/Susan Duncan

The Idaho Museum of Natural History on the Idaho State University campus in Pocatello reopened its exhibit area – with a variety of new and familiar displays – on Dec. 4.

“We have whole exhibits of collections we’ve never had on display before but we’ve kept some of our most popular and informative exhibits,” said Dr. Herb Maschner, museum director.

The Museum debuted everything from Ice Age animal mounts to an exhibit on More onchange on the Snake River how climate thehas Web Plain affected its plant and animal life.

Other new exhibits and displays include doll cradleboards and moccasins More on from the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes; fosthe dinosaur Web trackways in stone from silized three samples found in Southeast Idaho; a new geology More onof Idaho education exhibit; and an exhibit the Web highlighting Museum research on finding the source of obsid-

A look at one of the new exhibits at the Idaho Museum of Natural History.

ian artifacts. There are other new displays planned as well.

The Idaho Museum of Natural History’s hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, and from 12:30 For more information call to 5 p.m. Wednes(208) 282-3168 or visit imnh.isu.edu. days through Fridays.

Admission is free, but

donations are accepted. The Museum store is open during the same hours.

The Idaho Museum of Natural History is the state of Idaho’s official museum for life sciences, anthropology and archaeology, the earth sciences and landscape history of Idaho.

More on the Web More on the Web More on the Web

Come visit the museum and museum store...

ISU Campus (5th Avenue & Dillon) • Parking Available For more information call (208) 282-3168

Museum Hours Wednesday through Friday • 12:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Saturday • 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Admission is free of charge

Spring/Summer 2011

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Grammy Winner on Campus

JAKOB DYLAN TO RECEIVE 2011 HONORARY DOCTORATE Idaho State University will award an honorary Doctor of Letters to twotime Grammy Award-winning singersongwriter Jakob Dylan at its spring 2011 commencement ceremonies on May 7.

This will mark the first honorary degree conferred through the newly formed ISU College of Arts and Letters.

Dylan is the lead singer and songwriter for The Wallflowers. Formed in 1990, the Los Angeles-based band has sold more than 7 million records worldwide.

In addition, Dylan has also released two critically acclaimed solo albums.

Nancy J. Legge, professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, initiated the nomination for Dylan to receive the honorary degree. Legge has assisted Dylan’s team in managing his websites for more than a decade. In addition, she has used Dylan’s work to illustrate concepts in several courses she teaches and has presented and published several papers about his ideas.

“His work adds to the conversations that have been going on between thinkers

for centuries,” Legge said.

Dylan responded to the news, “I am truly honored to be awarded a Doctor of Letters. To have my songwriting recognized by higher education is a thrill to me. I look forward to celebrating this day with all the students and educators at Idaho State University.”

Dylan gained national attention with The Wallflowers’ sophomore release “Bringing Down the Horse” and its numerous radio-friendly singles, including “Sixth Avenue Heartache,” “One Headlight,” and “The Difference,” each of which earned Grammy nominations.

In addition to his success with The Wallflowers, Dylan also has an accomplished solo career. In 2010 Dylan released “Women + Country.”

“Idaho State, and especially the College of Arts and Letters, is proud to have this connection to Mr. Dylan,” said Dr. Kandi Turley-Ames, interim dean of the ISU College of Arts and Letters. “We look forward to developing our relationship with such a distinguished artist.”

Photo courtesy of www.jakobdylan.com

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Spring/Summer 2011

Dangerous Writing with Tom Spanbauer When Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the bestselling novel Fight Club, was on a national book tour last May he opened with a quip he credited to his former writing teacher, Tom Spanbauer.

“Tom’s theory is that writers write because they weren’t invited to the party,” he told his audience at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass.

In the early 1990s, Palahniuk took writing classes from Spanbauer, the founder of a minimalist form of literary expression known as Dangerous Writing and a 1969 graduate of Idaho State University.

In a recent interview with ISU Magazine, Spanbauer, an award-winning novelist, talked about his early days at ISU, the professors and campus experiences that influenced his life, and what it means to be a Dangerous Writer.

Born in Pocatello in 1946, Spanbauer grew up on a farm in Tyhee where he spent his summers baling hay.

After graduating from Pocatello High School, he

enrolled in ISU’s English and literature program.

“It was a wonderful, wonderful time for me. Full of expansiveness and full of worth,” said Spanbauer, listing his favorite professors by name—teachers who introduced him to the classics, philosophy, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman.

He loved the energy and diversity of campus life during the politicallycharged sixties. From his apartment on Fifth Avenue he’d walk to class—through Mount Moriah Cemetery, the Spud Bowl (now Bud Davis Field), and through the arches of Swanson Hall.

He had the opportunity to attend lectures by the social and political activists of the day, exposing him to new ideas.

One of his fondest memories is dancing to the music of the great Duke Ellington, who performed on campus one year.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in English and a minor in German, Spanbauer spent several years in Kenya with the Peace Corps before returning to ISU to work as a counselor.

Then it was off to Boise where he taught high-school English for a year.

In 1983, he moved to New York City and enrolled in the creative writing program at Columbia University, receiving his Master of Fine Arts in 1986. At Columbia, he studied the structure of language, refining a minimalist, deeply personal style he would call Dangerous Writing.

“Writing dangerously is going to that place inside each of us that is hidden and secret. There is something sad or sore there,” said Spanbauer. “It’s going to that place, investigating it and writing from that place.”

In the 1990s,

Spanbauer started teaching Dangerous Writing classes at Portland State University and in the living room of his home.

Students included aspiring writers, such as Chuck Palahniuk.

“Chuck wrote Fight Club in my front room. I thought it was really remarkable—one of the strongest things to come across my table,” said Spanbauer. In 1999, the novel, which explores male aggression in white-collar society, was made into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.

Spanbauer is the author of four critically acclaimed novels, including Faraway Places, The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon, which won a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association award, In the City of Shy Hunters and Now is the Hour.

His books explore class, race and sexual identity in graphic, humorous and heartbreaking detail. They’re often infused with Spanbauer’s passion and respect for Native American culture.

In the City of Shy Hunters is the story of cowboy Will Parker, who moves from Jackson Hole to New York City during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s.

He’s searching for a lost lover, but ends up finding himself.

Now is the Hour—a Publishers Weekly’s top 100 novel of 2006—is the tale of teenager Rigby John Klusener, who, in 1967, hitches a ride from his home in Pocatello to San Francisco on a journey of self-discovery.

When you read a Spanbauer novel, you’ll recognize Pocatello. There are references to landmarks, like the old Chief Theatre on Main Street, the Green Triangle bar and the Tastee-Freez across from the ISU campus.

Spanbauer’s latest novel, titled I Loved You More, is scheduled for publication in winter 2012 and will include scenes at ISU. “It’s a complicated love triangle about two men and a woman. It’s a weeper,” said Spanbauer. And quite dangerous, he assures us.

Chris Gabettas

Tom Spanbauer teaching a Dangerous Writing workshop in Sheffield, England in 2009.

Photo by Michael Sage Ricci

Spring/Summer 2011

It’s an Idaho State of Mind

Above: Camera man Ramón Bailey adjusts the focus on Libby Howe as they both prepare for an episode of Idaho State of Mind.

Right: Jerry Miller in the recording booth for First Monday Forum.

More on

recent world conflicts are having on theofWeb higher education as millions veterans decide to take advantage of the G.I. Bill; an inside perspective at ISU’s nationally More on renowned nuclear engineering program the Web focusing on solar power and medical isotopes; and the “Go On” project, which examines the low numberMore of highon school students in Idaho that continue into highthe Web er education as well as what high school students should do to prepare for college.

More on “‘Idaho State of the Web Mind’ will examine current issues that impact all people More wherever they live, work or go to on school,” Howe said. “All of our topics applitheareWeb cable to common problems or issues we all face in our daily lives.”

More on A newly constructed, state-of-the-art television studio serves asthe homeWeb to “Idaho Photos by ISU Photographic Services/Susan Duncan

From Pocatello to Parma, Boise to Bonners Ferry, and Coeur d’Alene to Caldwell, Idaho State University will soon be coming into homes via a unique partnership with Idaho Public Television.

“Idaho State of Mind,” a public affairs television program in partnership with Idaho Public Television will be broadcast across IPTV’s statewide network.

The program will be hosted and anchored by Libby Howe, respected television anchorwoman, who also is the executive producer. ISU students under the direction of Thomas Hallaq, assistant professor of mass communication, will produce the stories. The program reflects the exceptional teaching, research, community service and news of the University.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for our students to take their skills from the classroom to a whole new level of professionalism. Idaho State of Mind offers students a competitive venue where they can continue polishing their talents and prepare for their future careers,” Hallaq said. “By giving students the hands-on experience to produce a show at this level and have it aired on a network the caliber of Idaho Public Television, our students will be in a better position to compete with some of the best broadcast programs in the nation.”

Future shows will explore the effect

More on the Web

State of Mind.” Built by the University’s Facilities Services staff, the studio reflects a professional, warm and appealing backdrop in which to interview guests and present the news portion of the show.

On the radio side First Monday Forum, which debuted last fall, is broadcast at 7 p.m. the first Monday of the month over KISU-FM (91.1 in Pocatello, 91.3 in Idaho Falls). The lively radio program Listen online by visiting www.isu.edu/firstmonday

provides in-depth discussion and insight in topics from childhood obesity to suicide prevention. The program, hosted by longtime southeastern Idaho radio personality Jerry Miller, features Idaho State University faculty and staff sharing their expertise in a wide range of fields.

Mark N. Levine

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PLAY. BELIEVE. ACHIEVE. National Girls and Women in Sports Day Hundreds of girls in bright pink T-shirts, herded and helped by scores of women in bright purple T-shirts, seem excited by all of it — the rodeo roping, rock-wall climbing, hockey, tennis, line dancing, badminton, volleyball, basketball, kayaking, fencing, soccer, racquetball, softball and other activities played out in three 45-minute sessions.

It’s the 12th annual Idaho State University version of National Girls and Women in Sports Day, held this year on Feb. 5, and Reed Gymnasium and the ISU Campus Recreation Center are full of sporting activities for girls in kindergarten through sixth grade.

“There’s nothing like this where I come from,” says Karen Lowe, a resident of Franklin, near the Utah border, who has driven more than hour to enroll her daughter, Haylee, one of the more than 400 girls who

participated in this year’s version. “It is something my daughter looks forward to every year. It is just cool. She’d never normally get a chance to play hockey.

This is her third or fourth year, and she wants to come again next year.”

While Lowe’s daughter was playing hockey at one end of the ISU Campus Recreation Center, 11-year-old Erica Peterson of Pocatello was rapelling down the climbing wall at the other end of the center.

“I beg my mom to go,” Peterson said.

“There’s a lot of sports here you can get active with.”

And get active the girls do — were table tennis, yoga, track-and-field and swimming already mentioned?

“For a lot of these girls, they’re trying new activities, and it is amazing to see how anxious and excited they are to learn and participate,” said Emily Klein, one of the three main ISU student coordinators for the event, and one of nearly 200 volunteers who help pull it off. “They’re all just saying ‘when do we start’ and are excited to try new things.

It’s just fun to see the excitement.”

But the National Girls and Women in Sports Day (NGWSD) transcends the momentary fun and its benefits last long past the camp finale when the girls gather in the main gym and give boisterous adieu to the time they’ve had.

“There is virtually a sea of little girls, all in matching shirts, that are thrilled to

Photos by ISU Photographic Services/Susan Duncan

Spring/Summer 2011

participate and meet ISU women student athletes and our other volunteers,” said Cynthia Pemberton, associate dean of the ISU Graduate School, and a cofounder, primary organizer and mentor for this event in Pocatello. “The energy and the excitement is just amazing, but the event can help the girls accomplish much bigger things than just learning to hit a tennis ball or to climb.”

The event – which has attracted more than 3,000 participants through the years – features concrete role models for the girls to emulate.

“The girls interact with ISU student athletes and it helps them recognize that they can be an athlete, too, and they can go to college,” Pemberton said. “This is a message a lot of these girls don’t get every day. They make concrete interactions and role-modeling connections with these ISU female students and student athletes and this is very valuable.”

The event has gone on long enough now that girls who attended the ISU NGWSD event while in grade school have moved on to attend ISU as students.

“For the girls, it has great impacts for them,” said Tymeron Smith, another

ISU graduate student event leader. “When they see women leaders from the time they check in to the time they leave, it shows them they can go to junior high, high school or college and be a leader in any activity that they want to, not just athletics. They can learn different traits and skills here and grab knowledge.”

The benefits don’t flow one way, coordinating and putting on this large event is beneficial to the volunteers who make it happen.

“It’s extremely useful for the leadership team of female students who get experience organizing, planning, setting up volunteer commitments, doing risk management assessments and doing marketing for the event,” Pemberton said. “It is an excellent servicelearning experience and a powerful and empowering experience for the leadership team.”

Former ISU students who have graduated from ISU and who have been involved with Girls and Women in Sports Day have helped create similar events at other colleges, modeling those activities after ISU’s event.

“In this sense, this event is truly a self-generative model,” Pemberton said.

The event is sponsored by various ISU entities including the Idaho State University Physical Education

Major’s Club – SHEPERD’s (Students of Health Education, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance), the College of Education, the Graduate School, the Department of Sport Science and Physical Education, Health and Nutrition Sciences, the Janet Anderson Gender Resource Center, Campus Recreation and the ISU Athletic Department. Another primary sponsor is the Girl Scouts of the Silver Sage Council.

“About 188 volunteers and 400 girls, and everybody is at the same place at the same time involved in an assortment of activities, moving from one place to another,” Klein said at the event. “And nobody has been lost or seriously hurt, and they all seem to be having fun. It’s amazing.”

And it will be amazing next year, too.

Andrew Taylor

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16 Idaho State University Magazine

Spring/Summer 2011 Photos courtesy of Cynthia Pemberton

Reaching For The Top It’s hard to say which was the more satisfying view for Idaho State University’s Cynthia Pemberton — the landscape of the African continent after climbing the 19,340-foot Mount Kilimanjaro, or the “sea of little girls, all in matching shirts, who are thrilled to participate” in National Girls and Women in Sports Day activities.

The year 2010 featured two milestones for Pemberton: • The associate dean of the ISU Graduate School and professor in the ISU educational leadership doctoral program completed the eight-day, 47-mile trek and summitted Mount Kilimanjaro last June.

“It was without doubt the most physically and mentally challenging life experience I’ve yet encountered,” she said referring to her African adventure. “… It was exhausting, exhilarating, interesting, challenging, and really, in many ways, lifealtering. I am better for, and truly humbled by, the experience.”

• Pemberton’s second milestone was professional; she was selected as one of only 116 women leaders nationwide to attend the Vision 2020 national convention in Philadelphia last fall.

Vision 2020 is a national initiative of the Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership at Drexel University College of Medicine that is “focused on ensuring equality by energizing the dialogue about women and leadership.”

These two divergent activities are manifested and embodied in the annual ISU National Girls and Women and Sports Day, co-founded by Pemberton and former ISU faculty member Sandra Noakes. NGWSD is geared toward giving girls opportunities to engage and continue in sports and physical activities, and for the girls to learn lifelong leadership skills. Pemberton excels in both engaging in sport in the broadest sense, and in leadership, including being a leader on the national level for promoting women’s college athletics.

Sports are an important part of Pemberton’s personal life; in her spare time she likes to hike, mountain and road bike, swim, mountaineer, rock climb, scuba dive at sites all over the world, and downhill, cross-country and skate ski.

“I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie,” Pemberton added. “I like

relatively high-risk adventure. On my 30th birthday I jumped out of an airplane solo, twice. On my 35th I bungee-jumped off a bridge forward and then backward. On my 40th I flew a glider plane, and in celebration of my 50th I summitted Kilimanjaro.”

Professionally she has combined her love of sport with her interest in empowering women. Prior to coming to ISU, Pemberton served for more than a decade as an intercollegiate athletic administrator and successful intercollegiate coach at the NCAA Division-I, Division-III, and NAIA levels. She earned conference and district coach of the year honors numerous times, as well as NAIA national coach of the year in the sport of swimming.

Pemberton has and continues to publish widely, and to present and consult nationally and internationally on Title IX and gender equity in school sport. She authored the book, More Than a Game: One Woman’s Fight for Gender Equity in Sport, an autobiographical account which chronicles the struggle for Title IX compliance and gender equity in school sport from 1992 through 1998 at a small liberal arts college in Oregon.

Her past leadership on women’s collegiate sports issues was a large part of why she was selected as a Vision 2020 delegate and to represent Idaho on a national stage (for more information on Vision 2020 visit www.drexel.edu/vision2020).

“What an incredible experience to meet and network with such a talented group of women leaders,” Pemberton said. “I was and am honored, excited and eager to join them in helping to realize the vision embodied in the Declaration of Equality.”

The 116 Vision 2020 delegates, who will serve through 2012, signed a Declaration of Equality last fall and pledged to return to their home states and work to realize the goal of greater women’s leadership. A major component of Pemberton’s Vision 2020 work is continuing the success of the ISU NGWSD. “Vision 2020, my work with National Girls and Women in Sports Day and a lot of my professional and personal life have been dedicated to breaking down barriers for women,” Pemberton said.

“There’s plenty more to be done, but events like National Girls and Women in Sports Day fill me with optimism.”

Andrew Taylor

Spring/Summer 2011

ISU Clinic Makes a Difference at Critical Time

In May 2005 Lynn Kammermeyer, the program director of the Idaho March of Dimes, was leaving her office in Boise to attend a nursing conference in Pocatello when the telephone rang.

It was her doctor, telling her to cancel her plans and see a neurologist immediately. Two days later, Kammermeyer was being prepped for surgery at Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Boise to repair a brain aneurysm, a weak area in the wall of a blood vessel that can rupture and cause instant death.

While undergoing surgery, Kammermeyer suffered a series of strokes, which interrupted blood flow to the right side of her brain, leaving her in a coma.

“I woke up after two weeks. I couldn’t really speak,” she said. “I didn’t remember anything for a couple of months.” Paralyzed on her left side, she couldn’t stand, walk, or use her left arm.

“It was devastating for both of us.

We weren’t sure what level of functionality she would regain,” said her husband, Tim Otter. “Both of our lives changed completely on May 13, 2005.”

Kammermeyer, who holds a Ph.D. in genetics from Brown University, underwent months of intense physical therapy to help her overcome the paralysis. She walks with a cane for stability, swims and pedals a three-wheeler. Speech therapy has helped her regain many of her communication and language skills.

But the journey has been difficult.

The frustration of relearning routine tasks has been overwhelming at times.

“Imagine trying to do something with your good arm tied behind your back,” she said, recalling her first attempts to make a salad. An ulu knife with its curved blade and rocking motion has made slicing vegetables easier.

Though many people are aware of the physical paralysis associated with stroke, they know little about aphasia— the devastating speech and language impairment—experienced by Kammermeyer and other stroke survivors. However, the National Aphasia Association estimates that more than one million Americans have aphasia and thousands more acquire the disorder each year.

In 2005, Idaho State University’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders started an adult aphasia clinic for stroke survivors and their families in the Treasure Valley. Clients meet twice a week in a group setting with licensed speech-language pathologists and student clinicians enrolled in ISU’s speech-language pathology master’s program. Client fees are based on a sliding scale.

Beth Guryan, a clinical associate professor who oversees the aphasia group, says many people incorrectly assume aphasia is a condition that affects a person’s intelligence when it’s actually a communication disorder that impairs the ability to process language.

“People with aphasia typically know what they want to say, but have difficulty producing the words to convey their thoughts,” she said. They will rely

on gestures, pantomime, writing and facial expressions, she explains.

On a recent January morning—the first aphasia group session of the 2011 spring semester—Kammermeyer sat at a table with student clinicians and other stroke survivors. The hour began with the student clinicians introducing themselves, passing around photographs and sharing stories.

“What brought you to Idaho? Why did you want to study speech-language pathology?” Kammermeyer asked one student clinician new to the state.

These sessions are a reprieve from the loneliness and isolation of aphasia.

They encourage social interaction and build communication skills—an important part of treatment and recovery.

“I think it’s important our clients know they are not alone in the struggles they face,” said Guryan.

Kammermeyer says since joining the aphasia group “it has been marvelous to see people improving. It’s inspiring.”

Her husband agrees. “We’ve met a lot of wonderful, talented people. We understand we’re all in this together,” said Otter.

Chris Gabettas

Beth Guryan, Lynn Kammermeyer and Tim Otter

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The Impact of Family Medicine

By William M. Woodhouse, MD

Imagine yourself, or one of your family members, in one of the following situations: • You are new to this country. Your husband works in the potato fields outside of Aberdeen. The home pregnancy test is positive. You are terrified – you only speak Spanish, all your relatives are in Guatemala and your first pregnancy, delivered in a village back home, resulted in a dead infant and you nearly bled to death.

• You go in to your doctor’s office near your summer home in the mountains to have the prescription for your blood pressure and diabetes medications refilled. Your doctor tells you that the latest research on hypertension and diabetes indicates that your medications should be changed.

• There is no denying the results of the test. You just thought you would do your civic duty by donating blood. Now you discover that you’re HIV- infected and living in small town Idaho, where everybody knows everybody.

• You are 24 years old, back home in rural Southeast Idaho while looking for work after college.

The health department calls to let you know that your pap smear is abnormal, maybe early cancer. The nurse tells you that the only way to know is to have a special test and biopsies on your cervix. The procedures could cost more than $1,000. You just don’t have the money.

• You are driving your car on an icy, windblown interstate east of Rupert. The jack-knifed truck comes out of nowhere.

The lives of these individuals are about to be significantly impacted

by Idaho State University’s Department of Family Medicine and the ISU Family Medicine Residency. Each of these scenarios exemplifies a group of underserved Idahoans who have been deliberately targeted by federally-funded service, education and research projects in the Department. Ongoing support from the State of Idaho, Idaho State University and Portneuf Medical Center places the Department in a position to successfully pursue and qualify for this funding. Over the past decade family medicine researchers and grant writers have been responsible for bringing more than $8 million in federal dollars back to Idaho to improve the health care of Idahoans.

With the Rural Perinatal Clinic Project, Title VII funds from the Bureau of Health Professions have paid

Spring/Summer 2011

to train family medicine residents to provide culturally-appropriate maternity care to pregnant women in rural eastern Idaho. This population tends to be poor, uninsured and culturally diverse. Pocatello Family Medicine actively recruits Spanish-speaking family medicine residents who travel on a weekly basis to Health West’s clinics in Aberdeen and American Falls to provide prenatal care. This care helps prevent complications and associated increased medical costs.

When the women are ready, they come into Portneuf Medical Center in Pocatello to be delivered by a doctor with a familiar face who knows their language and their unique needs.

Pocatello Family Medicine Clinical Research Center is actively engaged in cutting-edge clinical research. They have taken part in several landmark National Institute of Health trials that have significantly influenced how doctors treat high blood pressure, diabetes and congestive heart failure.

Their ongoing research studies will evaluate how best to prevent heart attacks and stroke. So when the doctor in the mountain village recommends the medication change, that doctor is using the latest clinical research from studies done at Idaho State University.

Family Medicine has been caring for patients with HIV infection and related diseases for well over a decade.

The ISU HIV Clinic, which is supported by federal Ryan White III funds, is integrated into the day to day function of Pocatello Family Medicine. HIVpositive patients seen in the clinic are provided with convenient access to confidential, state-of-the-art, multidisciplinary care for their illness. The ISU HIV Clinic saves these patients from preventable costs, complications, disability and death caused by HIV infection.

Pocatello Family Medicine identified a need among its graduates for increased training in procedures that are used to diagnose, prevent and treat early cancers of the uterus and cervix.

An application to the Health Resources and Services Administration resulted in funding to start the ISU GYN Clinic.

This clinic is open to any woman in Idaho who has an abnormal pap smear but cannot afford to have the more expensive follow-up diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Referrals for

these procedures come from health care providers and health departments all over eastern Idaho. Not only do the women get the care they need, but also the much greater costs of an untreated cancer are prevented, and our resident physicians are better trained to care for the women in their communities when they go out into practice.

Idaho ranks last in the United States for physicians per capita, but Idaho’s family medicine residencies rank eighth in the nation in retaining graduates in the state after training.

The biggest need in Idaho’s rural areas is for more family doctors who are trained to deliver babies, staff the emergency rooms, care for patients in the office and comfort the sick and dying. Having a doctor available who is able to handle everything from a c-section to a multiple trauma motor vehicle crash requires that they receive intensive training in the full spectrum of family medicine. That training is the mission of the ISU Family Medicine Residency program.

Recently, the chances have increased that a well-trained family doctor will be available to you after your

car crash. Pocatello Family Medicine has applied and been approved for federal Primary Care Residency Expansion funds that were passed as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. With the help of these funds the Residency will be able to expand the number of family medicine residents that are trained for practice in underserved areas of Idaho.

This is just a sampling of the many ways that federal grant funds, brought into the state by the Pocatello Family Medicine, have improved the health care of Idahoans. More recent applications are directed toward receiving funding from the Bureau of Primary Care to establish a Community Health Center, from Medicare to increase the funding of family medicine resident education and from the National Institute of Health for new research projects. When your turn comes to benefit from these efforts you probably won’t know it.

But, hopefully, you will experience a competent, compassionate family physician who uses the latest in medical knowledge to give you the best possible care.

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Reaching Out to Serve ISU PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT PROGRAM PROVIDES CRUCIAL ROLE IN DELIVERING IDAHO’S HEALTH CARE When she was a young girl, Heather Schaper had a vision of being a “blackbag” doctor similar to the character she witnessed on the popular television show, “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”

The fictional Dr. Michaela Quinn, who practiced medicine in Colorado in the 1860s, had strong bonds with her community and showed great care toward her patients. Schaper wanted to be like her.

“I always knew I wanted to work in rural medicine,” said the 32-year-old Schaper, a 2007 graduate from the Idaho State University Physician Assistant program. “But I wasn’t sure about the details.”

She credits the ISU physician assistant program for helping her achieve her childhood dream, and for giving her the skill set and flexibility to practice medicine in a manner in which she believes.

“The physician assistant profession has opened up and recaptured a niche that might have been lost in many cases, on people heading to eight years of medical school, who faced the draw of

moving to the city,” Schaper said. “I just wanted to be a black-bag doctor who has long-term relationships to patients, connecting with them on a personal and professional level. I feel the PA profession draws people to that side of medicine.”

Schaper now is a physician assistant for Health West medical clinics in American Falls and Aberdeen. She provides care for a wide variety of patients, and her fluency in Spanish facilitates the medicine she practices and the relationships she builds.

“I love it, particularly working with the Hispanic patient population and the rural population,” Schaper said.

“In small towns like this PAs fulfill an important role.”

Physician assistants like Schaper are playing a crucial role in delivering health care to Idaho.

Idaho has a dubious distinction: it ranks 49th in the United States in the rate of physicians in primary care to patients. Idaho has 67 physicians per 100,000 residents, compared to the

national average of 99 per 100,000, according to Laura Rowen, program manager with the State Office of Rural Health and Primary Care in Boise. She quoted this statistic from the publication, “Health Care State Rankings” (2010 edition, the most recent available). Other reports rank Idaho last among the states in the ratio of primary care providers to patients.

A silver lining to this, for which ISU can take a measure of credit, is that the report also states Idaho ranks 16th in the nation for the rate of PAs in clinical practice. It has a rate of 34 clinical care providers per 100,000 population compared to the national rate of 24 per 100,000. ISU’s PA program is providing a significant number of those clinical care providers.

“Our mission is to provide access to primary health care to the underserved and rural populations of Idaho,” said Paula Phelps, ISU PA program director and coordinator for the ISU Office of Medical and Oral Health. “Idaho does have a low population-to-primary pro-

Spring/Summer 2011

DEFINITION OF A PA Physician assistants (PAs) are highly skilled health practitioners who work under physician supervision and deliver care to a broad range of patients. They now work in most medical fields, including specialties ranging from pediatrics to neurosurgery.

In Idaho, PAs can prescribe medication, complete physical exams, order and interpret diagnostic tests, and assist in surgery.

Physician assistant Heather Schaper offers medical care for patients in American Falls and Aberdeen.

lation requiring more medical services and the number of older physicians approaching retirement, there will be more than 200,000 physician openings by 2014, predicts the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. PAs will help address this tremendous shortage.

“ISU has a great PA program,” Rowen said. “ I believe it is important to have a program in the state that our students can grow towards and reach for, as opposed to sending them away for their higher education and hope they come back, which is the case with our medical students. There is a much higher tendency for students to live, work and practice close to where they go to school, and the Photos by ISU Photographic Services/Julie Hillebrant

vider ratio, and we’re working hard to address that problem.”

The ISU Physician Assistant program, the only PA program in the state, was started in 1995 with a class of 20 and it has steadily grown. It now accepts 60 students annually, 30 at ISU’s Pocatello campus and 30 at the ISU-Meridian Health Sciences Center.

The ISU PA program has produced about 400 graduates and about 270 of them are now practicing in Idaho, according to Phelps’ estimates. ISU PAs are in clinics and hospitals in larger Idaho cities and towns from Coeur d’Alene to Boise, and in rural communities as diverse as Glenns Ferry, Salmon, Mackay and Stanley. The fabric of health care in the entire state is directly affected by ISU’s PA program.

And the cost for the ISU PA program to taxpayers is zero dollars. The ISU PA program is 100-percent self-funded through student fees. The fee for the sixconsecutive semester program is $54,000 for in-state residents and $90,000 for out-of-state residents.

Despite the program’s fees, competition is high to get into the ISU’s PA program; last year, the program had 550 applicants for 60 spots.

“Our physician assistant program is in high demand,” said Linda Hatzenbuehler, interim associate vice president and executive dean of the ISU Division of Health Sciences. “Our physician assistant program has helped the state of Idaho by providing access to health care in areas that couldn’t support a physician.”

The demand for PAs will grow.

Because of the growth of an aging popu-

ISU PA program demonstrates this.”

A key to the ISU PA program’s past success, and to its future, is participation by preceptors, who are medical doctors who give practical experience and clinical training to PA students.

“Our program cannot function without the generous volunteer preceptors who provide crucial and invaluable training and education to our students during their mandatory clinical rotations,” Phelps said. “We cannot thank our preceptors enough, and, at the same time, we need more of them to help our program continue to flourish.”

The ISU PA program has about 480 participating preceptors, with about 80 percent of them located in Idaho, 90 percent in the Pacific Northwest or northern Rocky Mountain regions, with a few farther away.

“The PA program is so valuable and we would like to find ways to encourage rural communities to make our program even more robust by participating as preceptor sites,” Phelps said. “There are state programs and resources available to help support a community’s ability to bring students in, and hosting preceptors is a great recruitment tool for a community to attract PAs and other health care providers.”

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By Andrew Taylor

BRAVE NEW RESEARCH FOR A CHANGING WORLD These divergent activities, and dozens more, are part of an epic effort to study and understand the potential effects of climate change on Idaho. To study this, researchers are drilling hundreds of feet below the surface of the ground and following dust blowing thousands of feet up into the air.

Photos courtesy ISU Biological Sciences

Chinook salmon and bull trout swim out of view as an Idaho State University master’s student snorkels down the East Fork of the South Fork Salmon River in the vicinity of Yellow Pine, a tiny town in central Idaho.

Another ISU graduate student, whose main focus is studying ice, films a wolf pursuing a mule deer over the snow near the banks of the Middle Fork Salmon River; the wounded deer, leaving blood on the white banks, escapes by wading into the river, waiting the predator out.

ISU researchers throw radiotagged rocks into tributaries of the Salmon River; students relocate the rocks downstream with electronic wands to explore whether sediment transport is sensitive to floods triggered by rain or snowmelt.

An ecologist from ISU and biometeorologists and hydrologists from the University of Idaho and Boise State University team up to construct a 70-foot tall tower (higher than the surrounding lodge pole pines near the banks of the Henrys Fork Snake River near Island Park) to take accurate hydrology measurements at ground level for a 1-square-mile area.

Spring/Summer 2011

The Big Picture

Central to the efforts to understand climate change in Idaho is the five-year, $15 million Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) grant “Idaho Research Infrastructure Improvement: Water Resources in a Changing Climate” that was reported in the spring 2009 issue of Idaho State University Magazine.

The grant has entered its third year, and its associated studies are still more about the questions, rather than the answers, as to how climate change will affect Idaho. To attempt to tackle a topic of such magnitude, researchers are building a new scientific infrastructure of equipment at ISU, University of Idaho and Boise State University; cooperating across disciplines and institutions on a grand scale; adding new faculty to increase expertise in this field; and offering a variety of new study and outreach programs.

“We’re bringing together UI, ISU and BSU and the colleges within those institutions to answer major questions about climate change,” said Colden Baxter, ISU ecology professor and the lead scientist on ecological change for the EPSCoR grant. “In terms of science and research, we’re linked in ways we’ve never been before. Being connected is allowing us to accomplish more than we would individually.”

study of landforms and processes that shape them), ecology and the ways in which human water use patterns interact with these processes,” Baxter said.

“The Snake River Plain,” he continued, “as a water resource system is unique and includes groundwater resources of great value. It is also tightly managed and highly regulated by dams.

We want to know what effects climate change will have on its water supply, which has huge social and economic repercussions.”

The Snake River Basin can serve as a model for highly regulated systems in other parts of the United States.

The Salmon River Basin, on the other hand, is one of the largest unregulated rivers in the lower 48 states and much of it is a wilderness area.

“There are a much different set of questions and problems in a wild basin that doesn’t even have a dam,” Baxter said. “The Salmon River is likely to be affected by climate change in other ways, its consequences for people will be different, and the strategies for studying it are different as well.”

“One of the ironies of the situation,” continued Baxter, “is that the hydrology of the Salmon River Basin is probably more likely to be more directly affected by climate change than the highly-regulated Snake River.”

Fire and Ice

Baxter jokingly refers to nicknames – “Fire” and “Ice” – for two of his graduate students working on facets of climate change impacts.

Two Very Large Labs

To better understand climate change, researchers from Idaho’s three largest public universities are primarily using two major gigantic laboratories: the highly developed and tapped Snake River Basin, and the wild and relatively pristine Salmon River Basin.

“Our community of scientists is conducting a whole set of investigations on the Snake River Plain, including studies of its hydrology, geomorphology (the

John Davis, a post-doctoral researcher with the Department of Biological Sciences, and Colden Baxter, ISU professor, sample aquatic algae and invertebrates. Researchers use pick-axes to break through the river ice to sample the aquatic organisms below. Researchers are studying the effects of ice on the winter ecology of temperate rivers, a severely understudied area of science, to inform future climate change research projects. Photo courtesy of Ryan Blackadar

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Spring/Summer 2011

“Fire” is 23-year-old Hannah Harris, affect the amount of nutrients in the bachelor’s degree from the University of a native of Pocatello who earned her stream and other factors, including how Idaho and is now at Idaho State Unibachelor’s degree from Skidmore College much invertebrate life the stream supversity. He is looking at the ecological in New York and is now pursuing her ports and how suitable a stream is for dynamics of ice formation in Big Creek, master’s degree in ecology. She’s studysalmon and other fish. a major tributary to the Middle Fork ing the potential effects of wildfire along “Climate change has implications Salmon River, far within the boundaries South Fork Salmon River tributaries on because it can change or increase the of the Church Wilderness. the edge of the Frank Church Wilderness frequency of fire and that can have He’s studying the interactions bearea. The tributaries include four that many impacts,” Harris said. tween river ice and aquatic organisms are in unburned areas, and also exploring the four that are in areas that consequences of ice “There are cascading consequences of climate change. burned in 2007 and four dynamics for terrestrial that burned and were afThe amount Small changes in the atmosphere affect the amount of snow organisms. fected by landslides. of ice in the river can on a mountain slope, which affects the flood characteristics affect everything from “I’m working on the South Fork Salmon River of a river, which affects the shape and stability of the river, the amount of algae with the Forest Service, on the stream bed to which affects organisms that live in the river. trying to decide how to how many fish a river use prescribed burns on can support. It also sets the forest there,” Harris the stage for wildlife “These changes ultimately affect us. Idaho’s economy is said. “We’re concerned interacbuilt around cultivation, recreation and urban development; predator-prey about the impacts on tions such as between each sector is explicitly linked to water.” wildlife and food for fish. otters and fish, or even There are endangered between wolves and bull trout and Chinook their prey.

Benjamin Crosby, salmon, and we want Blackadar has been ISU Assistant Professor of Geosciences to preserve them, better taking winter samples understand the effects of of aquatic invertebrates wildfire on ecosystems, and inform the For Harris, the highlights of her and algae. The researchers also have use of fire management in this region.” study so far have been snorkeling, digital cameras that take a picture every Among other things, wildfire can watching the char and salmon swim by. hour to collect images of river ice. cause erosion that results in increased “Ice” is 24-year-old Ryan J. BlackaBesides helping to collect and intersediment in streams, which in turn can dar, from Salmon, who earned his preting the data on ice, he is also measuring the life forms affected by the ice.

“We’re collecting organic matter samples from the stream, and making wildlife observations as well, from collecting otter scat to see what they’re eating to watching predator-prey interactions,” said Blackadar, a former guide on the Middle Fork Salmon.

“Winter ice studies can lead to insight into unforeseen effects of climate change, and point to future areas of research to look into,” Blackadar said.

The amount of ice on the river can have major impacts.

“Whether there is ice on the river may have profound consequences for the river as an ecosystem and the array of organisms that live in or near it,” Baxter said. “We’re using wilderness as a window to look into this.”

Photos courtesy of Ben Crosby

Spring/Summer 2011

A Tale of Three Towers

The view is spectacular from above the lodge pole pines that cover the plateau near Island Park near the banks of the Henrys Fork of the Snake River. At least that is what ISU biology professor Matt Germino said after scaling to the top of the 70-foot structure. Germino and University of Idaho water resource engineering professor Rick Allen helped build and design the tower that is equipped with sophisticated instrumentation to assist with climate change studies.

EPSCoR researchers have also built towers with the same function at a cheatgrass patch near Raft River on the Snake River Plain and in sagebrush steppe land near Hollister in the Magic Valley.

“We are measuring how the earth dissipates sunlight energy,” Germino said. “We’re making about as detailed of measurements possible over a very large area of the energy exchange between the atmosphere and the earth’s surface. Our measurement footprint at each site is about a mile long.”

These sites are examining total radiation balance, measuring how much radiation translates into heat going in to the soil and how much of it goes into the air.

“We will sum all those things up and what we’re really interested in is what heat is leftover and unaccounted for – that remainder is the heat that evaporates water from the soil and plants up into the air,” Germino said.

The researchers hypothesize that different vegetation types will differ in how they take sunlight energy and use it to move water from the soil to the air.

For example, they expect in the area dominated by cheatgrass, water will be used quickly in the spring, but water that is deep or comes later in the year as rain won’t be used. They assume that the Island Park site receives so much precipitation that the vegetation cannot use all of it and the aquifer gets recharged.

“We are linking our data that includes detailed measurements of radiation and moisture in the atmosphere, plants and soil, and linking that with some sophisticated models of water flow over the regional level,” Germino added.

“Ultimately our objective is to improve our ability to model water at the scale of the whole Snake River system.”

Germino is also involved in a study looking at long-term data sets collected on Idaho National Laboratory lands on the Arco desert to determine how climate change may affect plant communities.

Photos courtesy of Matt Germino

Top: Jeremy Hegman, a high school student from Twin Falls, left, and Dr. Keith Reinhart of Idaho State University at one of the “three towers”; this one is located near Hollister. The Island Park tower is pictured on Page 22.

“In this study we can help answer an important ecological question of how sagebrush steppe ecosystems might respond to huge shifts in summer and winter precipitation,” Germino said.

“And we’re using long-term data sets and interpreting them in new ways.“

Rocks and Rolling

ISU researchers from the Department of Geosciences have thrown hundreds of radio-tagged rocks into small tributaries of the Salmon River. These tributaries span a range of elevations from high-elevation streams in the Sawtooth Mountains down to low-elevation watersheds near Whitebird and Riggins.

During return visits, the researchers use wands and surveying equipment to track how far the rocks have moved.

This is one of the novel experiments ISU researchers are undertaking to help

look at what effects warming temperatures could have on drainages in the Salmon River Basin.

With increasing temperatures, areas now dominated by snow could become more rain-dominated in the future, according to Benjamin Crosby, an ISU Assistant Professor of Geosciences. Raindominated watersheds flush water out each time a storm moves through, while snow-dominated watersheds only flood in the spring and early summer when the winter’s accumulated snow begins to melt.

By throwing rocks in streams and tracking their movements, the researchers are getting ideas how the frequency, duration and magnitude of high-flow events fundamentally affect characteristics of a stream. The shape of the river is sensitive to whether it experiences many small floods during the year in

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Photos courtesy of Ben Crosby

a rain-dominated system, or only one until spring and summer. or two big floods in a snow-dominated “The shape of topography influsystem. ences that landscape’s susceptibility to a “There are cascading consequences changing snow line,” Crosby said. “The of climate change,” Crosby said. “Small results we’ve come away with are apchanges in the atmosphere affect the plicable to studying mountain reservoirs amount of snow on a mountain slope, throughout the Intermountain West. Our which affects the flood characteristics of techniques are equally applicable to the a river, which affects the shape and staBannock Range (in Idaho), the Wasatch bility of the river, which affects organRange (in Utah) and the Sierra Nevada isms that live in the river. (in California).”

“These changes ultimately affect us.

Look Down Idaho’s economy is built around cultivaBruce Finney, ISU professor of biotion, recreation and urban development; logical sciences and geosciences who is each sector is explicitly linked to water.” in charge of ISU’s Paleoecology LaboraOne of the most direct conseMore on tory, specializes in coring down into quences of warming is the increase in the Web the lake bottoms, taking out sediment snowline elevation. Most experts and samples, and – similar to analyzing tree models agree that climate change will rings – interpreting layers of sediment raise snowlines, whether the amount of using a sophisticated instrument called a precipitation increases or decreases. More The on the Web mass spectrometer. topography of the Salmon River Basin In a recently published study, Finney features plateau-like surfaces, so a large compiled a 6,000-year lake record of percentage of its total area is near the More on drought from the Pacific Northwest by winter snowline. Thus, even a modest the Web analyzing core samples from a lake in rise in the snowline could have draWashington. His study showed that in matic effects on the amount of annual the last 1,000 years droughts are occurprecipitation that is retained throughMore on ring less regularly in the Northwest, on the winter, and is held on the landscape

the Web More on the Web More on the Web

60- to 100-year intervals, compared to 30- to 60-year intervals prior.

“Human influence on the climate is going to be stronger in the future, and we’re trying to help predict what changes might occur,” Finney said.

He and his colleagues are wondering how climate change affects drought cycles in the Idaho research. Finney and postdoctoral researcher Mark Shapley have taken core samples from a network of mountain lakes that include 10 lakes in the Salmon and Snake river basins, including Meadow Lake in the Lemhi Range and Grouse Creek Lake in the Big Lost Range.

“It’s good to have a network of sites so we can accurately determine the patterns of drought both across the landscape and over time,” Finney said.

To determine drought periods, Finney looks at indicators of water chemistry within the sediment samples. The dryer periods correspond with higher concentrations of elements such as those found in salt; wetter periods have less evaporation and samples feature lower concentrations of salt-indicators.

Finney emphasized, however, that

For more information on the grant, visit www.idahoclimatechange.org/.

Spring/Summer 2011

sediment samples can be examined in a variety of ways. For example, he can test for pollen and charcoal in the sediment to get information on vegetation and fire history, and how the climate affected these processes. In other lakes he has tested for a nitrogen isotope that has allowed him to determine the strength of historic salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest.

Adding It All Up

These are just a sampling of the array of climate studies ISU researchers are undertaking in Idaho, not to mention studies ISU researchers are doing elsewhere, including in the Arctic Circle, that have climate change implications.

“We’re bringing together climate models, hydrologic models and ecological models to try to predict the future under climate change scenarios,” Baxter said. “We hope to understand present day change in the context of the truly long-term (thousands of years) dynamics of the Idaho landscape.”

The effort to understand climate change in Idaho, bolstered by the EPSCoR grant, has implications far beyond the Gem State’s borders.

“In Idaho, we have two unique, natural laboratories for studying how water resources may change with a shifting climate,” Baxter said. “At the state and regional level, we want to know what the future of the Snake and Salmon river hydrology looks like and provide information that is relevant, but just as important, we want to use these natural laboratories to contribute to climate and water resource research internationally.”

To accomplish this ambitious agenda, Idaho’s three largest public universities are collaborating with each other and with governmental agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Land Management, the Idaho Department of Water Resources and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

“We’re linking academic work throughout the state to governmental agencies’ efforts in ways we have not done before,” Baxter said. “The new theme that climate change science has demanded is that we must be more connected when we do science, with a much bigger community.”

A Contribution From Above Inside the Boise Center Aerospace Laboratory in downtown Boise, Idaho State University researchers are monitoring the effects of climate change in Idaho.

They’re poring over vast amounts of data gathered by remote-sensing technologies—the use of sophisticated sensors or cameras that photograph the Earth’s surface from satellites, airplanes and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

“Remote sensing is ideally suited for monitoring the effects of a changing climate,” said BCAL director and ISU geosciences research professor, Nancy Glenn. BCAL, established in 2004, is southern Idaho’s only remote-sensing laboratory.

Remote sensing is like taking a DNA fingerprint of the Earth’s surface without touching it, says Glenn. Thanks to the technology, scientists can monitor changes in glaciers, wetlands, vegetation, soil distribution and greenhouse gas emissions over lengthy periods of time.

NASA—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration—has compiled 30 to 40 years of remotesensing imagery in a public database, an invaluable resource to Glenn and her team. Because satellites are collecting the same information over and over, scientists have the opportunity to obtain a consistent and unbiased view of the data, she explained.

In recent years, Glenn and geosciences research assistant professor, Teki Sankey, along with scientists at the USDA Agricultural Research Service, are using remote-sensing technology to study the effects of climate change

on vegetation in the Reynolds Creek Watershed southwest of Nampa.

Ultimately, they’d like to develop methods using NASA satellites to monitor the change in vegetation biomass— the amount of living matter—over large areas of the western United States.

“In Idaho, we are concerned how climate change affects vegetation, habitat and water availability, so we are developing quantitative methods to monitor these changes,” Glenn said.

Glenn’s postdoctoral student, Jessica Mitchell, is using remote sensing to map sagebrush distribution in portions of the vast Idaho National Laboratory site in eastern Idaho, a vibrant habitat for mule deer, grouse, pygmy rabbits and antelope.

Mitchell and her INL research team are mounting hyperspectral sensors on UAVs that weigh about 80 pounds and fly 1,000 to 3,000 feet above the ground.

“We’re looking at nitrogen in sagebrush to determine the nutritional status of the vegetation. Typically, the more nitrogen you have, the healthier the patches of sagebrush, which indicates a better quality habitat for wildlife,” said Mitchell. That kind of information is useful to land managers who want to protect rich wildlife habitats.

Glenn and Mitchell view their research as tools that can help public and private agencies, the corporate and agricultural communities, and recreationists manage lands effectively in the face of a changing climate.

“We want to provide data and information that will help them make the right decisions,” said Glenn.

Chris Gabettas

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More on the Web More on the Web More on

Keeping jazz alive and thriving in Southeast Idaho is among the notable the Web tasks juggled by Patrick Brooks, Idaho State University director of bands.

More on He directs the Web the ISU Jazz Bands,

Festival annually, which attracts high school students from Burley to Ashton to gather to play homage to, and just play, jazz. University and prep musicians alike get to rub elbows and trade notes with professional jazz greats at the festival.

“Jazz speaks to musicians’ creative sides in unique and exciting ways,” said Brooks, “Jazz is here to stay.”

For more about jazz at ISU visit He said he loves www.isu.edu/magazine jazz styles ranging

which perform in the classy splendor of the Stephens Performing Arts Center’s MoreGrand on Concert Hall and in the Jensen the Web upstairs loft at the Portneuf Valley Brewery, which is built in a formerly abandoned More onwarehouse on First Avenue inthe Pocatello.

Web Brooks also organizes the ISU Jazz

More on the Web

from traditional big band jazz from the early 1900s to “jazz composed last year” – and he shares that passion.

Turnout for the Jazz Bands I and II spring and fall semester concerts remains consistently good. And, in the last several years, these bands have stepped out on the town in Pocatello, too. The groups play at the Portneuf Valley Brewery three times during the academic year.

“It’s always fun to play at the brewery,” said Patrick Nelson, a sophomore from Pocatello who plays bass in both Jazz Band I and II. “It’s relaxed and more casual, and the whole group builds off the energy.”

Nelson’s band mate, pianist Derek Schaible, said there are other benefits playing at the brewery. “Sometimes we prepare for our concerts by playing at the Brewery,” Schaible said. “It’s like a live rehearsal, but we also get to play more tunes.”

The jazz bands have been well received off campus. “We’ve had very good audiences and good turnout for upstairs in the loft,” Brooks said. “It is a great environment to hear jazz. I thought it might be way too loud and not good for acoustics, but it has turned out to be a great, natural room to hear our jazz bands. The music and atmosphere are good.”

Dr. Patrick Brooks enjoys helping his students bring jazz to the community. Photos by ISU Photographic Services/Julie Hillebrant

Spring/Summer 2011

This latter sentiment is also true of the ISU Jazz Festival, which brings jazz greats to Pocatello to work with university and prep students and to perform in concert. The 24th annual festival was held in February and featured baritone saxophonist and flutist Denis DiBlasio, 14 prep bands from throughout Southeast Idaho, and ISU music students.

“With the budget cuts, the ISU Jazz Festival has been pared down, but this year’s festival was still filled with educational and performance activities,” Brooks said. “”Denis is an especially effective clinician, and he is just an effusive, energetic person. A number of area bandleaders commented on how much they and their students enjoyed him. One of the things they especially like about Denis is that he works so well with students.”

The finale of the festival features the guest clinician in concert playing with the ISU Jazz Band I. “When we have guests artists, it is so cool to see ISU students rise to the occasion and see them exceed what they previously thought they were capable of,” Brooks said.

Brooks’ bassist, Nelson, expressed his appreciation about having the opportunity to interact with DiBlasio.

“I filled-in playing on bass and playing show pieces with him, “ Nelson said. “It was great getting up there with a jazz great and playing with him, but he also had a lot of great information

on how we can improve.”

Playing jazz and improving are two keystones of the ISU music department’s efforts of teaching and promoting jazz.

“In the beginning, I didn’t like jazz much,” said Schaible, a classically

trained pianist. “But once I learned how to do it, I really loved the improvising.”

That love and improvising will continue to emanate from Southeast Idaho from variety of sources and venues, with an assist from Brooks and the ISU music program.

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30 Idaho State University Magazine

Spring/Summer 2011

Pressing On

HOW AN ISU STUDENT IS WORKING PAST LOSING TWO FINGERS

It’s sometimes a great disappointment for Idaho State University student pianist Derek Schaible when he reaches to play a key with the four or fifth finger of his right hand.

Both were blown off of his hand on Jan. 16 when the ISU senior was trying to fire marshmallows out of a homemade spud gun outside of his 13th Street apartment in Pocatello.

“I was trying to play at being a scientist, when I should have been being a musician,” the 22-year-old said recently, following his comment with a grim laugh, as he recounted his lapse in judgment, which was chronicled in newspapers near and far. “I had done it years and years ago, and just tried it again.”

His first thought after the maiming explosion, which also shot a piece of metal shrapnel through his right leg, was that he may never play piano again, an activity that is a fabric of his life, something he has done since age 5 and is as natural for him “as eating or breathing.”

“I was devastated,” Schaible said.

“It was difficult for it to soak in when it happened because I instantly went into a dream state and I was just looking at the bloody stump of my hand where my fingers used to be, hoping I would just bleed to death because I would never play again.”

Since the accident, however, Schaible has been able to play piano again, which, along with the support he’s received from a network of people, including his professors at Idaho State University, is helping him recover and cope in the aftermath of the accident.

“My teacher, Kori Bond, says that it doesn’t matter if I have blown

off my hand, I can still have a career in music. She’s helped me with my schedule and is still teaching and encouraging me,” Schaible said.

Immediately following the accident he spent five days in the hospital, where about “the only thing on my mind was playing the piano again,” he noted. After leaving the hospital, he moved back in with his parents in their Idaho Falls home. When interviewed in late February, he was walking with a cane, and had a thick roll of bandages on his right hand, the white bandages accentuating the remaining thumb and two fingers on his right hand. Weeks after the accident, the pain was still great, both physically and emotionally, despite the use of pain medications.

“The phantom pain is so killing,” he said. “You’d think it would be like a dull throb or something, but it is like slamming my lost fingers in the door over and over again.”

There was also the dull, consistent pain in his leg, and the accompanying physical therapy to treat that wound.

Without a wide network of support, Schaible said he doubted he would have been able to cope. First, there was his neighbor, Paul Dial, that Schaible credits for saving his life by responding immediately to the accident and getting help. His family, friends, and church congregation (he is the church organist and pianist), all have offered him strong support and encouragement.

“All the support I’ve received is the big reason I can stay positive and it is not an easy thing to stay positive through all of this,” Schaible said. “I’ve even received support from outside the community from people I don’t even know, who are sending me their letters and prayers.”

He’s received important support from his ISU teachers and bandmates as well.

“Patrick Brooks (ISU director of bands) and Patrick Nelson (Jazz Band I bassist),” he continued, “were among the first

people who visited me in the hospital. It kind of shows how close we are in music ensembles.”

After receiving the encouragement and care from his support group, Schaible tried playing the piano again about three weeks after the accident, with his right hand still in splint. He chose some Chopin preludes.

“I found some of the simpler ones that have a singular melody you can play with your right hand with the left accompanying,” he said. “I was able to pull off the melody pretty well with my thumb and forefinger and I could play the accompaniment well with my left. ” Since that initial try, he has experienced increased flexibility in his middle finger on his right hand and he has expanded his repertoire of music and has played with the ISU Jazz Bands and for his church’s congregation. He hopes eventually to play some solo shows.

He’s also found that playing music is therapeutic both emotionally and physically.

“When I am playing piano it is one of the only times I do not feel pain in my right hand,” he said. “It is one of the few things I can do to escape the constant physical pain.”

Following the accident he had to drop from 12 credits to six, but he hoped to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in music performance in December. After that he plans to attend graduate school and study music composition and conducting.

“Derek is fortunate that he has so many skills besides playing classical piano music with which to build a distinctive musical career,” said Bond, Schaible’s piano teacher. “He’s an experienced player of jazz, a style of music that allows him to improvise his own parts that make use of his eight remaining fingers. Because he is also a good composer and arranger, he is adapting other types of music, including classical piano pieces and church hymns, to accommodate his new anatomy. Most of all, he is creative, clever, and good humored—all characteristics that will facilitate his ability to move on and be successful.”

Schaible plans to continue towards his dream.

“Since I still have some fingers left, I’ll definitely make use of them playing piano,” Schaible said.

Andrew Taylor

Derek Schaible Photo by ISU Photographic Services/Susan Duncan

Spring/Summer 2011

ISU Student Journeys to United Nations

Photos by Giacobazzi Yañez

In February of 2010, I discovered Guatemalan President of the Mayan National Council of Elders, Don Alejandro Cirilo Oxlaj, in a documentary project created by Stephen Michael Copeland called “Shift of the Ages.” Due for release in 2011, the film tells an inspiring story about Don Alejandro’s mission in sharing his message as he travels across the world representing the Mayan nation. His messages of social uplift and indigenous wisdom had such an intrinsic effect on me that I wanted to fight for the same causes he and other indigenous cultures face. Little did I know at that time that I would soon be in his presence and at the center of the events that were to take place in New York City.

On Oct. 8, 2010, Don Alejandro addressed the United Nations. I had the privilege of taking part in this historic event, which included two additional Mayan elders, Hunbatz Men and Don Pedro Pablo Chuc Pech, who represent the Yucatan Mexico region of Mayan elders. Also making an appearance was the aboriginal Grand Elder, Bob Randall from Australia.

Don Alejandro, driven by the Mayan prophecies foretold by his ancestors and their ancient calendars, has been heading up a global movement to unify tribes, spiritual, and Indigenous leaders.

“We the Maya are very much present,” said Don Alejandro. At 82, he has been traveling the world for more than 30 years, spreading his message of hope, peace, love for Mother Nature, and, most importantly, love for ourselves.

This has not been an easy road for the 13th generation Q’uiche Maya High Priest and for many years now, one of his greatest obstacles is removing the ignorance that the ending of the Mayan long count calendar near December 21, 2012 is not the end of the world. The ancient Mayan calendar is currently in its fifth period of the

sun. This is equal to one full cycle of the long count calendar, which is approximately 5,200 years. Completion of this cycle begins what the Mayans call “the year zero.”

Don Alejandro made it clear to the audience that they have documentation of the four previous periods of the sun left behind from his ancestors.

With so many people fixed on the idea of death and destruction, it takes personal effort from Giacobazzi Yañez in front of the New York City skyline the morning before UN meetings. the elders to explain that their prophecies access to the UN with permission to docuare not meant to ment on video. frighten the world. The fear from this genMy next big task was to approach eral perception has permeated the globe ISU and ask if they would be willing to evoking a range of reactions. Hollywood sponsor my trip. Through personal efforts, and non-Mayan scholars have much to I gathered support from multiple departblame for this negative depiction. The ments in sponsorship to fund my travel elders voiced that the end of their calendar expenses, making this trip possible. signifies a renewal and awakening for When I arrived I was instantly achumanity. cepted with open arms from the organizers I was unaware of the elders’ visit at of the events and liaisons of the Mayan the UN until two weeks prior to the date. elders. The days that followed were enBy chance I heard of this event on a radio twined with serendipitous moments from program. Instantly I knew I had to attend witnessing these elders speak at the poto see and hear what the elders had to say dium to meeting them personally. Thanks to understand their beliefs better. I wanted to my parents, who insisted I speak Spanto conduct my own research and spread ish and understand my Mexican culture, I their knowledge based on the observations was able to communicate with the elders I made. I intended to capture the signifiby sharing a common language without cance of this invitation for the elders and the need of interpreters. what the public response would be. In my I learned valuable skills and lessons pursuit of establishing contacts, I gained through this experience that broadened my horizons beyond what a textbook or a classroom setting could provide. As an undergraduate major in anthropology with minors in Spanish and mass communication, this experience gave me a new sense of purpose with my education.

Besides gaining much from this professional experience, on a personal level the elders reminded me how easily we forget our role as humans on Earth.

“We must treat this world as though we are caretakers, not owners of the land,” Randall said.

Giacobazzi Yañez

President of the Mayan Council of the Elders Don Alejandro Cirilo Oxlaj, between his wife Elizabeth Araujo and aboriginal Grand Elder Bob Randall

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Spring/Summer 2011

Photo by Jill Collins

A World Away From Where He Began

A SPOTLIGHT ON ALUMNUS ELI TOUR Attending pharmacy school in Idaho, a world away from his home in Tehran, Iran, wasn’t exactly part of the educational plans of Eli Tour. When he immigrated to the United States in 1946, he hoped to attend an American university and earn a degree in atomic research.

However, WWII had recently ended, and foreign students were limited on the type of degrees they could pursue here. Being raised by a pharmacist father, he decided to study pharmacy instead.

But living in New York City, and speaking little English were only a few of the challenges the young Tour faced while applying to pharmacy schools. Believing that Pocatello was near the East Coast, he submitted his application here and was accepted.

“My geography was very bad,” Tour said from his Hilton Head Island, South

Carolina, home. “I thought Pocatello was near New York.”

When the 1954 alumnus boarded a bus in 1949 to travel to the then Idaho State College, the fee was much more than he expected.

“I didn’t have much money and was surprised by the price,” he said.

After arriving on campus, and with help of Dean Emmons E. Roscoe, Tour was able to find a job grading chemistry papers on campus while attending pharmacy classes.

“I was the only foreign student at the college at the time,” he said. “I really had a wonderful time in Pocatello, and received a wonderful education.”

While attending pharmacy school here, Tour befriended classmates George Palavos, ’54, and William Fischetti, ’53, who helped him continue to learn English.

After graduating from ISU, Tour returned to Iran where he worked for about a year with his father before moving back to New York. It is there that he met up with his friend and future wife, Hedy.

The couple have known each other since childhood and have been married for 55 years.

In 1956, the ISU alumnus opened his first store, Tour Pharmacy in Manhattan.

His career provided him the opportunity to open several other pharmacies in the Northeast, and provide consulting to other community pharmacy owners who went into the retail business, he said.

“I was in partnership with four stores, but opened six,” Tour said.

His daughter, Jennifer Tour Chayes, Distinguished Scientist and Managing Director of Microsoft Research New England, said her father always offered

Spring/Summer 2011

personalized service to all of his customers, carefully making sure there were no drug interactions with their prescriptions or over-the-counter medication. She also found her father’s knowledge of chemistry and pharmacy inspiring to her and her brothers.

“Interestingly, two of the three of us became scientists— my brother Jim became a chemist and I became a mathematical physicist. Both of us were clearly inspired by my father’s knowledge of chemistry, and ultimately by the training he received at ISU,” she said.

Following a successful career of helping others as a health care professional, Tour continued to serve his community in retirement through volunteerism and philanthropic efforts.

In 1989, he and Hedy moved to Hilton Head Island where he devoted much of his time to working with the National Alliance on Mental Illness and helping those with the disease of addiction.

In fact, Tour served as the primary fundraiser for the You Are Not Alone Club, (YANA) where he raised funds for the purchase of two buildings to serve as a school and meeting place for the Family Assistance Program. The facility also serves as a learning center for community members studying the English language.

Tour has found this work to be very fulfilling and he has served on the YANA Club board for more than 10 years. “It is very rewarding to help others and I enjoy giving back,” he said.

Today, he and Hedy enjoy spending time walking, gardening and time with their family. The couple are the parents of three children, eight grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

Their daughter, Jennifer, is an executive for Microsoft in Boston. Jeffrey is an attorney in Columbus, Ohio and James is professor of chemistry at Rice University, Houston.

Above: Eli Tour, while attending ISU Below Left: Eli Tour and his wife Hedy.

Submitted photos

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34 Idaho State University Magazine

Larissa F. Kimball

Christopher Chatwin

Roy Malamakal

Shannon M. Earl

Desaray J. Odekirk

Cathryn D. Erickson

Julianne Ramirez

Amanda E. Finkes

Erica Wendt-Richardson Barbara A. Trolson

Sean Jorgensen

Richard D. Westover

2011 Outstanding Student Award and Professional Achievement Recipients Announced Idaho State University and the ISU Alumni Association proudly announce the 2011 Professional Achievement Award and Outstanding Student Award recipients. These awards will be conferred at Spring Commencement on Saturday, May 7, 2011 in Holt Arena.

Professional Achievement Award recipients are alumni who have made important contributions to their careers or profession, to the social, political or economic well-being of the world around them and have shown continued community and civic involvement in addition to their association with and contributions to Idaho State University. Individuals selected for these prestigious awards have been out of school at least 10 years and have excelled in their chosen field attaining significant success and accomplishments.

Outstanding Student Awards are presented to recognize outstanding

graduating seniors who have excelled in their programs, their extracurricular activities and have generally epitomized ISU’s outstanding student body. Students receiving these prestigious awards exhibit a readiness to graduate, high academic achievement, above-average dedication to academic and professional goals and involvement in professional societies.

Work experience and community service are also considered.

Professional Achievement Award recipients for 2011 are: Bart K. Hendrickson, College of Arts and Letters (Fine Arts and Humanities); K. Wade Tolman, College of Arts and Letters (Social and Behavioral Sciences); Dr. Walton Poole, College of Science and Engineering (Natural and Physical Sciences); Michael Heinrich, College of Science and Engineering (Engineering); Dr. Evelyn Robinson, College of Education; M. Bruce Nelson, College of Business; Terry Gillett,

College of Technology; Eli Tour, College of Pharmacy; Ms. Lory Laughter, Division of Health Sciences and Dr. Grace Jacobsen, School of Nursing.

Outstanding Student Award recipients for 2011 are: Sean Jorgensen, College of Arts and Letters (Fine Arts and Humanities); Christopher Chatwin, College of Arts and Letters (Social and Behavioral Sciences); Roy Malamakal, College of Science and Engineering (Natural and Physical Sciences); Amanda E. Finkes, College of Science and Engineering (Engineering); Richard D. Westover, Graduate School Master’s Candidate; Jason J. Blazevic, Graduate School Doctoral Candidate; Erica Wendt-Richardson, College of Education; Larissa F. Kimball, College of Business; Desaray J. Odekirk and Barbara A. Trolson, College of Technology; Julianne Ramirez, College of Pharmacy; Cathryn D. Erickson, Division of Health Sciences and Shannon M. Earl, School of Nursing.

Photos by ISU Photographic Services

Jason J. Blazevic

Spring/Summer 2011

Spring/Summer 2011

n umni Associatio Photos by ISU Al

ISU Alumni Legislative Reception The ISU Office of Alumni Relations and the ISU Alumni Association hosted the annual Legislative Reception Thursday, Jan. 27 at The Grove Hotel in Boise.

The early evening reception was attended by many alumni, the ISU Alumni Association board of directors, faculty, staff, administrators and members of the Idaho legislature.

This annual event offers an opportunity for alumni to meet with state legislators and ISU personnel to share their support for the university and address the needs that will allow the university to grow and continue to provide quality education for Idaho students and those who choose ISU for their college education.

Alumni Board Gathers in Boise Members of the Idaho State University Alumni Board of Directors converged in Boise Friday, Jan. 28 for their third meeting of the calendar year. Members traveled from Hawaii, Arizona and cities throughout Idaho. All members attended the Alumni Legislative reception the evening preceding the board meeting to visit with ISU personnel and Idaho legislators.

Board members spent the day dis-

cussing alumni and university business, opportunities and challenges. Joining the board members at the meeting were Casidy Jahnke, ASISU student body president, President Arthur C. Vailas, Dr. Kent Tingey, vice-president for advancement, Scott Turner, director of student affairs, Joseph Han, associate vice-president for facilities, Don Colby, associate vice-president for development and Bruce Bistline, ISU Foundation board member.

Services/Susan Duncan Photo by ISU Photographic

Magnuson Alumni House Upgrades

The next time alumni visit the H.F. Magnuson Alumni house adjacent to the ISU campus in Pocatello, they will notice significant changes and improvements. In the summer of 2010 exterior landscaping and clean up was done. Offices on the second floor of the house have all been re-carpeted and several offices painted. The lovely hardwood floor in the entry has been refinished and in the spring of 2011, new carpeting on the main level will be installed in the living room and dining room. Visitors will also be greeted with new signage in the front yard of the alumni house. All alumni are welcome and invited to stop by the Magnuson Alumni house whenever they are in Pocatello.

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Spring/Summer 2011

Julie Johnson HOMETOWN: HIGH SCHOOL: CLASS YEAR: MAJOR:

INTERESTS/HOBBIES: I have three kids— two boys, ages 11 and 13, and a girl age 8. I’d say my hobbies are whatever my children are doing at the time. In spring, summer and fall, it’s baseball. In fall, it’s football and in spring, it’s gymnastics.

CAREER GOALS: My motto is “baby steps first” so my immediate goal is graduating in May 2011. Then I’d like to work as a sign language interpreter in the public school system, preferably the same district where my children attend school. That way, we remain on the same schedule.

WHY ISU–MERIDIAN HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER? Because it’s the only bachelor’s program in educational interpreting in the Boise Valley. I wouldn’t have been able to embrace this new career had the program

Paul, Idaho Minico High School, 1990 Senior at ISU–Meridian Health Science Center Associate of Science (ISU), Sign Language Studies Bachelor of Science, Educational Interpreting

not been here. It is my passion. It is what I love.

WHY SIGN LANGUAGE/EDUCATIONAL INTERPRETING? My brother and sisterin-law came to visit five years ago. She worked in the Texas state disabilities office and took classes in American Sign Language. She showed me what she’d learned, and I instantly fell in love with the language. Because ASL is very expressive, I often joke that I have the “face” for sign language and my hands are just trying to catch up. I wouldn’t make a good poker player because my face tells it all.More On a serious on note, sign language is a tool to bridge the Web the hearing and non-hearing worlds. The more sign language we interpreters have, the more options available to the More ondeaf community.

ISU EXPERIENCE: I first enrolled in ISU theout Web 20 years ago right of high school. I

More on the Web

moved into a dorm, made a lot of friends and loved campus life. My ISU experience today isn’t much different except I have developed much better time-management skills, thanks to marriage and three kids.

My classmates are younger, but we’ve become good friends. I tell them I have a lot of wisdom to impart (laughing) and real-life experiences to share. They keep me young so it’s a win-win situation for everyone.

ADVICE TO FUTURE STUDENTS: If you find your passion go for it, and you’re better off pursuing it with a college degree. I’d tell younger students to earn that degree the first time around because it’s harder to go back to college when you’re 40 and faced with family responsibilities.

When I left ISU the first time, life started to happen…and it took me 20 years to get back to class.

More Brightest and Best profiles are on the Web at www.isu.edu/magazine

More on Erica Wendt-Richardson the Web HOMETOWN: HIGH SCHOOL: CLASS YEAR: MAJOR: HOBBIES: Scrapbooking, cooking, playing the piano, and running (specifically cross-country and the steeplechase in track and field).

My mom was a runner and won the state championship in the 800 meters. I developed the love of running from her. I began to run seriously when I was in the sixth grade and have been at it since. I put in about 10 hours a week in training and generally run nearly 60 miles a week.

LATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT: I became Idaho State University’s first female Big Sky

Idaho Falls, Idaho Skyline High School More on Senior the Web Secondary Education and History

cross country champion this past fall.

More on CAREER GOALS: I hope the Webto teach middle school or high school and work toward a master’s degree. Ultimately I’d love to raise a family of “little runners!” I’ll undoubtedly More on keep on running, perhaps in more competitherunning Web and want to do tive venues. I love it the rest of my life — at least until I’m 99 years old!

WHY ISU? When I was looking at potential universities I was impressed with the breadth of programs ISU offered and I really liked the campus. My sister graduated from ISU and had a positive experience so I’m sure that affected my decision. I was fortunate to receive a scholarship, which also made my choice easier. My coaches and teachers have been great and the relationships that have come out of that will be with me for a lifetime.

ISU EXPERIENCE: Adjusting from high school to college was different in many respects. Fortunately there were several professors who took the time to get to know me and encourage me that I could be very successful. Dr. Wendy Ruchti was very influential in helping me learn how to be a good college student. Dr. Kevin Marsh, my history professor, influenced me to work hard and by doing so, I could accomplish anything.

When I joined the cross country team I was taken by how different the training protocol was compared to high school. Fortunately, we had good senior leadership when I was a freshman. Lois Keller, a senior teammate, was a positive influence on me and my teammates. That’s why it’s so important for me, as a senior, to provide that same type of leadership that enabled me to develop and succeed.

Spring/Summer 2011

Miki Goodwin

EDUCATION: Nursing Diploma, University College Hospital, London, England

Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Holy Names College, Oakland, Calif.

Master of Science in Nursing Education, Idaho State University

Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing Education, University of Nevada, Las Vegas AGE: 52 PROFESSION: Nursing Professor and Coordinator of the Accelerated Bachelor of Science in

Nursing Program at the Idaho State University-Meridian Health Science Center;

Registered Nurse (England and United States), and Public Health Nurse HOBBIES: My family—husband Peter and children Daniel and Rebecca—and our international connections keep me very busy!

I also enjoy dance, travel and our two dogs—a spaniel mix named Samba (we found her in a marketplace in Chile) and a miniature dachshund, d’Artagnan (named after the young protagonist in The Three Musketeers). One of my favorite quotes is by wildlife writer Roger Caras who wrote, “Dogs are not our whole lives but they make our lives whole.” I also love to read and recommend Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, a blend of medicine, culture and linguistic struggles in the treatment of a Hmong child with epilepsy.

LATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT: I was

honored to receive the 2009 Outstanding Nursing Ph.D. Student Award from University of Nevada, Las Vegas for my dissertation on the role of holistic comfort in nursing education. In 2010, I completed an executive leadership fellowship sponsored by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses and was honored as a Health Care Hero Educator by the Idaho Business Review newspaper.

I spent last Thanksgiving in Uganda, visiting my daughter, who is an on-site program director for the Global Emergency Care Collaborative, a nonprofit organization devoted to improving trauma care in Uganda.

I had the opportunity to volunteer to care for critically ill and injured patients and share my knowledge with the hospital staff.

It was also fun to whip up a Thanksgiving dinner for the volunteers — chicken, pumpkin bread and dried cranberries prepared on a kerosene stove.

WHY I DO WHAT I DO: I think it was the Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu who originally

said, “If you love what you do, you never have to work a day in your life.” I feel that way about teaching and nursing. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I am happiest in the classroom participating in a learning community with my students, the accelerated students who have all been experts in other fields and have chosen nursing as their second career. I love their enthusiasm, their ideas and their perspectives. They are my oxygen!

ISU EXPERIENCE: I am proud to be a part of ISU-Meridian which is positioned to lead the health professions in the Boise Valley.

We’re making a huge impact on our community not only in health but in education as well. I’m proud when I hear from local hospitals, “We want your nurses!” I’m also proud when students who’ve left the state tell me how well our program prepared them, and I’m proud when our students compete for highly sought-after positions and get them.

Gary and Karlene Dance Gary and Karlene Dance have made great music possible in Pocatello through their philanthropic support for the Stephens Performing Arts Center. Their lead gift made possible the enriching performing arts and cultural offerings provided by Idaho State University.

In grateful recognition of their philanthropic support Gary and Karlene were recognized with membership in the Topaz Society in February.

PERSONAL BACKGROUND: Gary and Karlene raised their family in Pocatello, and have been active in the community most of their lives. Gary earned his master’s in hazardous waste management at ISU in 1994. Previously he received a juris doctorate from Willamette University. He stepped down this year after serving seven years as CEO and president of Moffat, Thomas, Barrett, Rock and Fields, Idaho’s second largest law firm. Among his many honors, he has served as president of the Sixth District Bar Association and the Bannock County Red Cross. He was named in Best Lawyers in America, and is a past chair of Leadership Pocatello. Gary currently co-chairs the ISU Foundation’s committee to reduce the debt on the Stephens Center.

Karlene graduated from ISU with honors

To play great music, you must keep your eyes on a distant star.

- Yehudi Menuhin

earning a Bachelor of Arts degree. She taught mathematics at Franklin Middle School for 19 years. She was the recipient of the Simplot Innovative Teacher of the Year Award in 2000 and has been named in Who’s Who of Teachers in America for the last 16 years.

She is currently vice president of the Idaho State-Civic Symphony Board of Directors.

Gary and Karlene have five children and 12 grandchildren.

GIFT: Gary and Karlene provided a lead gift in support of the Stephens Performing Arts Center and continue as benefactors of the cultural arts at Idaho State University.

GIVING PHILOSOPHY: “ISU has been very good to us and to our family, not to mention to the entire community. We feel a need, in some small way, to give back in recognition of all we have received. Hopefully, this will give others the same opportunities that have benefitted us so greatly. Small acts of giving, both financially and with our time, seem to be the least we can do to help build the school and see its transformational growth as a prestigious institution. We are grateful to join

those who have provided the private funding for the magnificent Stephens Performing Arts Center.”

WHAT ISU MEANS TO US: “We feel truly blessed to live in a university community with its varied array of cultural opportunities.

ISU has been the source of knowledge that has enabled us to receive graduate degrees in the arts and sciences. ISU has been the center of our entertainment for 30 years, and now with the addition of the Stephens Performing Arts Center, the gem of Idaho, we are benefiting from the additional cultural events that are provided. Our lives have been enriched by the presence of ISU.”

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For a complete list of Trackings, visit www.isu.edu/magazine Editor’s note: Send Trackings information to the Office of Alumni Relations, Idaho State University, 921 S. 8th Ave., Stop 8033, Pocatello, ID 83209-8033; or e-mail to lovgnanc@isu.edu; or fax to (208) 282-2541. Or call (208) 2823755 locally, or toll-free (800) 933-4781.

Paul R. Smith, BBA general engineering ‘64/ MBA bus admin ‘75, received the Greater Pocatello Association of Realtors’ first Commitment to Excellence Award for his lifetime achievements in the industry. He has been an area real estate appraiser for nearly 50 years owning and operating the Paul Smith Agency.

Stan Fornander, BBA gen bus ’66/MBA bus admin ’69, of Boise, has joined the Board of Directors at Idaho Trust Bank. Prior to his retirement from Idaho Trust, he had over 30 years of banking experience. Fornander is a past president of the Boise Estate Planning Council and the Idaho Bankers Association’s Trust Committee.

Betty J. Moore, BA speech path & aud ’66/MSE elem ed ’68, of Pocatello, received the Region 6 Community Service Award at the 8th annual Patricia Kempthorne Award ceremony. She has been the chairperson of the Regional Advisory Committee’s Recovery Support Services subcommittee for six years. Moore has been a

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volunteer for 25 years working as a children’s advocate and is an appointee to the Governor’s Alcohol and Drug Commission.

Albert Wada, BA journ ’69, was appointed by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as director of the Salt Lake City branch. Wada serves on many educational, corporate advisory and boards of directors including World Potato Congress, Idahoan Foods, Inc., United Potato Growers of Idaho, United Potato Growers of America, Northwest Farm Credit Association, Snake River Education Foundation and National Potato Council.

Rick Miles, alumnus ’73, the owner of Rick Miles Produce Service, Inc. in Rigby, is the exclusive suppliers of potatoes for Five Guys’ Burgers and Fries. He will supply 125 million pounds of potatoes to the chain’s 230 franchises this year. His business was featured in the CNBC documentary, “Behind the Counter: The Untold Story of Franchising,” which aired in December, 2010.

Kim Leavitt, cert civil tech ’74, was elected to serve as National Society of Professional Surveyors Area 7 director for a three-year term, beginning in July. He is a longtime

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Did you know.... at ISU, students who live in the residence halls have higher GPAs than those who live off-campus.

www.isu.edu/housing

University Housing

member of the Idaho Society of Professional Land Surveyors and most recently served on its board of directors as the National Society of Professional Surveyors Governor. Leavitt is president of Harper-Leavitt Engineering, Inc., in Idaho Falls. He was the recipient of the 2005 Professional Achievement Award for the College of Technology.

Lea Beebe, cert draft/design ’76, who was a member of the Laborer’s Union No. 155 for the past 21 years, retired in November, 2010.

During that time she worked at the Budweiser Malt Plant, on the gas pipeline going from Wyoming through Pocatello, on the Minidoka Dam project, and most recently at the INL site.

Beebe also worked in the restaurant business for 20 years.

A. Dean Tranmer, BA history ’78, was selected

by Rotary Club of Pocatello as the 2010 recipient of the Rotary Vocational Award (Civil Servant). He has served as the Pocatello city attorney for 20 years and also serves as the legal counsel for the Pocatello Development Authority.

Ruth Whitworth, cert legal sec ’78, has been named the City Clerk for the City of Pocatello.

She maintains the city’s permanent records.

Whitworth also works with the mayor on setting the agenda for City Council meetings and oversees city elections.

Alaina Burtenshaw, BA history ’81, was appointed Chairman of the Nevada Public Utilities Commission.

She has served as a Commissioner since January, 2010. She has also served as staff counsel and assistant staff counsel, responsible for electric, gas and water cases in northern and southern Nevada. She received her law degree from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Dr. Barbara Taylor, BA ed/Engl ’81/EDD ed leadership/ed admin ’99, whose career in education spans 30 years, will retire as Superintendent of the Preston School District in June. She served as superintendent for the past six years and was principal of Preston High School for five years.

Greg Marshall, MPE athl admin ’83, was appointed to a three-year term on the board of directors for Orangewood Children’s Foundation. He is a partner at Madison Street Partners, a commercial real estate firm in Irvine, Calif., where he specializes in tenant representation of Orange County-based businesses.

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Dan W. Spindler EDUCATION: Bachelor of Arts, Business, 1974 AGE: 59 PROFESSION: Owner and founder of Gym Outfitters, established 1990 HOBBIES: I enjoy elk hunting, backpacking, golfing, skiing and racing my Porsche in autocross and hill-climb events. I’m an avid fan of college football.

LATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT: Gym Outfitters provided and installed fitness equipment for Idaho State University’s strength and conditioning facility and recreation center. We also just completed a project with BYU-Idaho, supplying fitness equipment for the recreation center expansion.

WHY I DO WHAT I DO: I’ve always enjoyed fitness, strength and conditioning, to enhance my participation in physical activities, and I enjoy helping others who use the equipment we provide to health clubs, hotels, apartment complexes, fire stations, police stations, schools, corporate fitness facilities and in their homes.

I’m proud knowing my company is providing product support to the fitness industry — an industry not accustomed to local product support. Prior to starting the business, most customers in the industry had to do their own service and repair work. Now, Gym Outfitters can provide the service and repair at considerably lower prices for what it would have cost them for staff and to inventory the parts. The business grew because my customers asked me to do something they couldn’t do; I figured out a way to accomplish it for them.

I also wanted to build a company to provide employment for people in an industry that had few opportunities in this region. Launching the company during the recession of 1990, I was able to provide jobs doing preventative maintenance and service repair for customers in southern Idaho. Today, many of those customers are still doing business with Gym Outfitters – many for the past 15 years. I credit this success to the services the company offers, the products we carry and how we respond to the needs of our customers.

ANECDOTE TO INCLUDE: I was told by others that my business concept was a “pie in the sky” and there was no market.

Twenty years later, Gym Outfitters is the northwest region’s leader in the fitness equipment industry. When hurdles or mountains are in front of you, figure out a way to get over them. Like a marathon, it takes a lot of perseverance and selfdiscipline.

ISU MEMORIES: As a member of the

1974 men’s basketball team, the high point of the season was beating the University of Montana on their home court in Missoula for the Big Sky Championship. With teammates; Steve Hayes, George Rodriguez, Kevin Hoyt, Jim Anderson, Paul Doos, Frank Krahn and Leroy Gibbons; we played to sellout crowds in Dubby Holt arena. Our team was close; some of us even played cards together and went fishing on the weekends. After winning Saturday night games, we’d all go down to the Bengal Hut and owner Lou Pajovitch would buy us all the free beer we could drink. Of course, a lot of fans followed us there.

ISU EXPERIENCE: As a scholarship athlete majoring in business, I felt like a minority when it came to academics. In fact, one of my business professors called me a “big dumb jock,” even though I attended all classes, carried up to 19 credits a semester and earned a degree in four years. Through that experience, I learned you can achieve your goals with focus, hard work and discipline.

ISU Photographic Services file photo

Dr. Larry Murillo, MS psych ’83, has been named director of the Human Development division for the Shoshone Bannock Tribes. He oversees the tribes’ education, employment assistance, training and emergency services for tribal members in need. Murillo was previously an assistant professor at ISU’s Kasiska College of Health Professions.

Natalie Camacho Mendoza, BA pol sci ‘85, of Boise, is a trustee and director for the Northwest Area Foundation of St. Paul, Minnesota. She is an attorney with Camacho Mendoza Coulter Law Group, PLLC. Her major areas of practice are civil litigation, appellate work, worker’s compensation, business law, and Indian law matters in Tribal Court and Appellate level.

Larry Ghan, alumnus ’89, has been named tribal court administrator for the ShoshoneBannock Tribes in Fort Hall. He served 28 years in public office, 22 years as Bannock County Clerk and as a Bannock County Commissioner for the past six years.

Stefani S. Cook, BA ed/bus ed ’92/MED curr & instr emph ’98, was selected as the 2011 Idaho Teacher of the Year. She will represent Idaho at the national level for the award.

Cook is a business education teacher and a student council advisor at Rigby High School.

Cristie Stone, cert cosmet ’94, has been named sales manager at the Clarion Inn in Pocatello.

She has prior sales experience at Emeritus Senior Living.

Elizabeth Lindroth, cert admin office asst ’95/ BS health ed ’04, was appointed to the board of trustees of Portneuf Medical Center. She is a diabetes educator for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and is a council member on the Fort Hall Business Council. Lindroth is the Fort Hall Business Council secretary and also serves as an alternate to the Indian Health Services committee.

Elaine Asmus, MNS biology ’96, was honored with the Idaho Veterans of Foreign Wars’ Teacher of the Year Award. She teaches advanced science at Snake River High School in Blackfoot.

Andrew Gauss, BA mass comm ’96, has accepted a new position as the Director of Alumni and Development Marketing Communications for the University of Idaho Foundation and Alumni Association. He served as the Director of College Relations for ISU’s College of Pharmacy for the past eight years.

Brad Huerta, BS pol sci ’97, of Pocatello, has started his own firm, Insight Communication Strategies, LLC. Formerly the Director of Marketing and Public Affairs at Portneuf Medical Center, Huerta will now provide lobbyist services for Portneuf Medical Center in areas related to federal regulations in health

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Spring/Summer 2011

care. He is a state licensed public information officer and also serves as an adjunct faculty member at ISU, teaching health care administration. Huerta earned a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Denver.

Brad Larrondo, MPE athl admin ’97, is the assistant athletic director for football at Boise State University. He is responsible for external duties of the football program and also directs high school and youth football camps, booster relations and community service projects for student-athletes and coaches. Larrondo joined the Boise State University athletic department in 1993 and most recently, served as Senior Assistant Athletic Director for Marketing, Broadcast services and Corporate Sponsorships.

Maj. Dave McCaskill, BA history ’99, of Kathleen, Ga., was deployed to the Middle East for the seventh time in eight years. He has been in the military for 19 years, serving eight years with the U.S. Army and 11 years with the U.S. Air Force.

Phil Padgett, MED human resource train & develop ’99, of Bismarck, N.D., was selected the 2010 North Dakota Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. He is an assistant professor of the National Energy Center of Excellence at Bismarck State College. Padgett will complete a doctorate in teaching and learning in higher education at the University of North Dakota in 2011.

Photo by ISU Photographic Services

Jared Allen, alumnus ’03, was inducted into the Los Gatos High School Athletic Hall of Fame in Los Gatos, California, in April.

Allen was a dominant football player for the Cats in 1999, at ISU and is now an all-pro defensive end for the Minnesota Vikings.

Joel F. Wilson, MED ed admin emph ’02/ EDS ed admin ’06, has been selected as the Superintendent of the Preston School District effective July, 2011. He served as Superintendent of the Aberdeen School District for four years and is completing a doctorate at ISU. Terry Fredrickson, BA pol sci ’03, is the new Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of New Day Products and Resources in Pocatello. Previously, he served as shelter manager for seven years with MK Place, a local program which helps adolescents with addictions.

Yvonne Perez, BS pol sci ’07/MPA pub admin ’09, attended the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders’ fellowship program in Kansas City, Mo., from February 23-25. She chaired the Latino Economic and Development Center. Perez is a career pioneer network facilitator at ISU, helping direct recruiting practices for men in health care and women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics professions.

Jacie Sites, alumna ’07, of Idaho Falls, finished fourth in the Grand Masters Fiddle Contest in Nashville, Tenn., in October. She co-founded the “Strings for Kids” program that provides free violins and lessons to students from lowincome families. Her accomplishments with “Strings for Kids” appeared in the February, 2011 edition of Ladies’ Home Journal.

Christine Bayes, BS nursing ’10/MS nursing ’10, has joined West Valley Group as a family nurse practitioner. She provides care at the Middleton Clinic and the New Plymouth Clinic.

Previously, Bayes worked at Saint Alphonsus

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Regional Medical Center for nine years in various capacities, including five years in cardiac nursing.

Mickenzie Bringhurst, BBA mktg ’10, is the new catering manager at the Clarion Inn in Pocatello. She worked as an intern at Premier Technologies and Bannock Development Corporation prior to her graduation.

Julian Sutherland, alumnus ’10, was recognized as a member of Sigma Alpha Lambda, a national leadership and honors organization at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. He is studying jazz studies with applied saxophone emphasis. Sutherland was also initiated into Tau Sigma and Golden Key International honor society. He recently achieved the president’s list with a 4.0 grade point average.

Three medical care providers have formed the Cardiometabolic Risk Reduction Clinic affiliated with the InterMountain Medical Clinic of Pocatello. Dr. Carol Kirkpatrick, MPH pub hlth ’03, received certification as a clinical lipid specialist. She is coordinator of the Cardiovascular Risk Management Clinic at Pocatello Cardiology. She also teaches community education classes on developing lifestyle habits for improved heart health at Pocatello Cardiology and for organizations in Pocatello and throughout the surrounding area. Dr. Jared Price, BA chem ’00, is a family practice physician and a specialist in sports medicine and exercise.

He graduated from the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, Mo. in 2004. Dr. Cara Liday, PharmD ’96, is an associate professor at ISU’s College of Pharmacy.

She is an ambulatory care clinical pharmacist and a certified diabetes educator.

Tim Bowman, MPE athl admin ’88, is head football coach and a physical education teacher at LaSalle Catholic College Prepatory in Milwaukie, Ore. He was assistant professor of health and physical education and an assistant football coach at Western Oregon University from 1995 to 2008. He has coached football for 26 years and also coached at ISU, Willamette University

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and several high schools in Oregon. Note: This appeared in the previous edition of the ISU Magazine with an incorrect last name. We regret the error.

Editor’s note: Send Trackings information to the Office of Alumni Relations, Idaho State University, 921 S. 8th Ave., Stop 8033, Pocatello, ID 83209-8033; or e-mail to alumni@ isu.edu; or fax to (208) 282-2541. Or call (208) 282-3755 locally, or toll-free (800) 933-4781.

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42 Idaho State University Magazine

Spring/Summer 2011

Idaho State University Annual Report Following are the financial figures for this past Fiscal Year.

Operating Revenues Student Tuition and Fees: 57,721,128 All Grants and Contracts: 30,699,444 Sales and Services of Educational Departments: 5,543,843 Auxiliary Enterprises Sales and Services: 12,444,156 Other Operating Revenue: 2,821,388 Total Operating Revenue: 109,229,959 Operating Expenses: Operating Income (loss):

207,824,538 (98,594,579)

Nonoperating revenues (expenses) State appropriations: 82,709,340 Title IV Grants: 24,301,307 Gifts 5,959,068 Investment Income: 238,229 Amortization of bond financing costs: (60,953) Interest on Capital Asset-related Debt: (3,507,755) Net Nonoperating Revenues: 109,639,236 Other Revenue and Expenses Capital Gifts and Grants: 3,639,092 Gain or (loss) on disposal of fixed assets: 15,043 Net other revenues and expenses: 3,654,135 Increase (decrease) in net assets: 14,698,792 Net assets beginning of the year: 154,837,554 Net Assets- end of year: 169,536,346

IDAHO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION Revenue Contributions: 7,597,989 Investment Income: 918,434 Change in FMV of Investments: 1,998,946 Other: 955,578 Total Revenue: 11,470,947 Expenses Payments to ISU: 9,637,251 Management Expenses: 929,337 Fundraising: 1,013,796 Total Expenses: Change in net assets:

11,580,384 (109,437)

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS (208) 282-4320 • www.isu.edu/iso

The International Programs Office is a necessary resource for international students seeking an education at ISU, as well as students who are looking to enhance their international experiences through study abroad, future employment, or other cultural activities. The International Programs Office is the destination for all things international at ISU.

Spring/Summer 2011

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Anonymous Jewish Proverb

Estate planning is not something we would do without thinking of how our plans might impact the people and institutions we love. As you review your estate plans, consider your family needs and think about the organizations

that have enriched your life. We invite you to consider a planned gift to Idaho State University that will make a difference for generations to come. Visit the Foundation online or call Donald J. Colby at (208) 282-3470.

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