MIZZOU Spring 2018

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SPRING 2018! which issue?!!

FIRST LOOK IN FLIGHT Michael Glasder of Team USA soars high and far at the Alpensia Ski Jumping Stadium during the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Detroit Free Press photojournalist Eric Seals, BJ ’93, spent February in Pyeongchang covering his third Olympics on assignment for USA Today Sports Images. Seals says that covering the Olympics, with its long hours and harsh weather conditions, is an endurance test all its own. “It’s a constant challenge to keep pushing oneself to keep growing, keep being creative through the viewfinder and yet always embrace the moments you’re experiencing and the fun you’re having in those moments.” He says it’s important “to stop every once in a while to take stock, look around at where you are, what you are doing and the total love you still have for this incredible job.”

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PHOTO BY ERIC SEALS OF USA TODAY SPORTS IMAGES

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FROM THE PUBLISHER

MIZZOU

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Editorial and Advertising Mizzou Alumni Association 123 Reynolds Alumni Center 704 Conley Avenue Columbia, MO 65211 phone: 573-882-6611 mizzou@missouri.edu interim editor Dale Smith art director Blake Dinsdale editors emeriti Steve Shinn and Karen Worley advertising phone: 573-882-6611 Mizzou Alumni Association 123 Reynolds Alumni Center Columbia, MO 65211 phone: 573-882-6611, fax: 573-882-5145 executive director Todd A. McCubbin, M Ed ’95 Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the official position of the University of Missouri or the Mizzou Alumni Association. ©2018 Statements of Purpose The Mizzou Alumni Association proudly supports the best interests and traditions of Missouri’s flagship university and its alumni worldwide.

Lifelong relationships are the foundation of our support.

These relationships are enhanced through advocacy, communication and volunteerism.

SHANE EPPING

All Hail Volunteers On a recent late-night drive home from Kansas City, I’m not sure the wheels of my truck ever touched the pavement. I was that proud. I was returning home from the annual Kansas City Alumni Chapter Tiger Ball, where volunteers had raised a record $153,000 for student scholarships.

Over the years, the event has brought in nearly $1 million. Did I mention how proud I was?

I get that feeling often when working with alumni volunteers, whose loyalty seems to know no bounds — even when times are tough. One of the most-asked questions over the past few years has been, “What can I do to help Mizzou?”

They’re not making small-talk. Alumni have responded to help their alma mater in a range of ways. These include sending admitted students hand-written notes encouraging them to enroll, raising scholarship funds for local students, hosting students on alternative break service trips, and many more. Check out Page 59 for a longer list.

Alumni also push us to find new ways of help-

ing Mizzou, and we are doing just that in several ways: Soon, a new program called the Black and Gold Brigade will enlist alumni to make a difference for Mizzou in a matter of minutes through just-in-time volunteer service. Alumni will have the opportunity to mentor Mizzou students and new graduates.

We are developing new ways for alumni to refer the best and brightest students to MU. And micro-volunteer tasks, which offer a manageable time commitment with a meaningful impact, include actions such as reviewing scholarship applications from home and expressing gratitude to elected officials.

On that drive back from Kansas City, I recognized yet again how alumni show us the best of themselves in moments of service — moments when they gift the university with their time and talents. Thanks to our alumni volunteers, I can look forward to many more happy drives home.

— Todd McCubbin, M Ed ’95

MIZZOU magazine reports credible and engaging news about the University of Missouri community to a global audience.

GOVERNING BOARD President Bruce McKinney, BS BA ’74 • President-Elect Andrea Allison-Putman, BS BA ’85 • Vice President Steve Hays, BS BA ’80 • Secretary and MAA Executive Director Todd McCubbin, M Ed ’95 • Treasurer Robin Wenneker, BS BA ’91 • Immediate Past President Ted Ayres, JD ’72 • Diversity and Inclusion Committee Chair Alex Hopkins, BA ’97, M Ed ’12 • Finance Committee Chair Sabrina McDonnell, MBA ’15 • Mizzou Legislative Network Committee Chair Jeffrey Montgomery, BS Ed ’89 • At-large Representatives: Howard Richards, BA ’88; Bill Schoenhard, BS PA ’71; Peggy Swaney, BS Ed ’71; and Joe Valenciano, BA ’95 • Elected Directors: Xavier Billingsley, BS ’13; Kia Breaux, BJ ’96; Susan Combs, BS ’01; Julie Gates, BS Ed ’99; Albert Kennett, BS Ag ’66, MS ’68; Leigh Anne Taylor Knight, BS HES ’89, BS Ed ’90, M Ed ’91; Nathan Marcus, BS BA ’82; Emmett Russell Martin Jr., BS CIE ’84; and Patty Wolfe, BA ’77, BS Ed ’77, MBA ’80 • Student Representative: Gretchen Metzger MIZZOU magazine Spring 2018, Volume 106, Number 3 Published triannually by the Mizzou Alumni Association

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Departments

MORE MIZZOU ONLINE

1 First Look

Who says humans can’t fly? Photojournalist Eric Seals, BJ ’93, captures Olympic ski jumper Michael Glasder in midair.

6 Around the Columns

MU ranks high on sustainability, music breaks ground for a new building, online programs take off, the Tigers on Wall Street program celebrates a decade in business and runner Karissa Schweizer enters the history books.

7 Data

Newly minted graduates are landing good jobs at high rates — while paying less in student loans than most of their peers nationwide.

Inside the Olympics: Eric Seals, BJ ’93, covered his third Olympic Games in February. The Detroit Free Press photojournalist shared with MIZZOU magazine a selection of his images from across the competition. Find his slideshow at tinyurl.com/seals-olympics.

While you are there, watch a video clip of the high-octane finish to the freestyle team sprint event in cross-country skiing. If you get teary-eyed watching Hoosiers, the dramatic call by NBC commentator Steve Schlanger, BA ’92, just might put a lump in your throat. Spoiler alert: Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall won the U.S. its first-ever gold medal in cross-country.

48 Mizzou Alumni News

facebook.com/mizzou

Check out which Tigers Ingram’s magazine dubbed must-know Missourians, remember KC volunteer extraordinaire Ray Phillips, and meet Geyer Award winners Gary L. Smith, M Ed ’65, EdD ’71, and Rep. Nate Walker, BS Ag ’74, MS ’75.

instagram.com/mizzou CONTRIBUTORS Eric Seals, BJ ’93, a Detroit Free Press photojournalist, covered his third Olympics in February in Pyeongchang, South Korea. (See Page 1.)

About the cover For decades, the late Beetle Bailey cartoonist Mort Walker, BA ’48, put the funny in the funny pages. His Mizzou roots helped shape several characters.

Photo illustration by Blake Dinsdale, BA ’99. Find an online key to characters on the cover online at tinyurl.com/ mort-walker. All characters © King Features Syndicate, Inc. (See Page 18.)

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Author, farmer and entrepreneur Scottie Jones, MA ’80, runs a family farm in Oregon with her husband, Greg, MA ’76, PhD ’79. (See Page 30.)

50 Class Notes

Anniversaries, jobs, weddings — alumni fill us in on the latest.

59 By the Numbers

Several thousand Mizzou alumni find their volunteer niche.

64 Semper Mizzou

Lucile Bluford never attended MU, as she’d hoped. But her journalism and activism helped ensure that people of color who came after her could do so.

CURLING: ERIC SEALS; GRAPH: SHUT TERSTOCK

twitter.com/mizzou

Features

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Champion of the Comics

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Embedding highly trained nurses in nursing homes raises quality and reduces costs. But will Medicare support the innovation? story by dale smith, bj ’88 * photos by shane epping, ma ’08

Mizzou and other universities have had to become more resourceful. Building an endowment is key to growth and improvement, and on that score, the university has arrived at a watershed moment. story by eric ferguson

With tongue firmly in cheek, a new book asks: What if every president since Washington were back on the dating market? story by dawn klingensmith, ba, bj ’97 * photos by nicholas benner

PA U L D E AT H E R A G E

Beetle Bailey creator, the late Mort Walker, BA ’48, wrote one of the longest-running comic strips in American history. story by kelsey allen, ba, bj ’10

Staying Home

Calling in the Ewes

Suburbanites Scottie and Greg Jones chucked good jobs to move “back to the land.” But the land wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. story by scottie jones, ma ’80

Opening Up the Future

A new generation gets on its feet at Leaping Lamb Farm in Oregon.

Author Scottie Jones, MA ’80, describes the trials, rewards and work-arounds of running a family farm. (See Page 30.)

White House Hotties

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AROUND THE COLUMNS Twitter Buzz About

#Mizzou

@Max_Scherzer Got the baby girl dressed up to watch her first basketball game. Start em young! #MIZ

@JasonGrill Little known fact in run up to the Winter @Olympics: Gold Medalist Skier @LindseyVonn went to @Mizzou. Took online courses through MU's Center for Distance and Independent Study. MIZ!! @NBCOlympics #Mizzou #WinterOlympics #skiing

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MIZZOUMAGAZINE

ters, and a School of Health Professions study that found social work students improve care quality and staff morale in independent living facilities.

Since MU’s Sustainability Office published its first climate action plan in 2010, the university has worked toward its goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050. With nearly 40 percent of Mizzou’s energy coming from renewable sources of biomass, wind and solar energy, campus has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 51 percent since 2008.

Last year, the EPA’s Green Power Partnership rated MU as a national leader in developing and using renewable energy. When it comes to on-site generation of green energy, the partnership ranks Mizzou sixth nationwide, trailing only the likes of Apple, Walmart, the U.S. Department of Energy, the State of California and the University of California System.

@BlumbergOTB #Mizzou getting some screen time on the @TODAYshow. Location is everything.

FLOWERS: SHANE EPPING

SEASONABLY SUSTAINABLE

Looking out for the environment is becoming a way of life at Mizzou. In 2018, the campus has for the second time earned a Gold ranking from the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System, or STARS. The system encourages institutions to weave green practices throughout academics and operations.

MU’s latest STARS submission documented the university’s greatest improvements in curriculum and research. Academic units campuswide offer 341 undergraduate and graduate sustainability courses as well as nearly 2,000 courses that include such topics. More than 70 percent of MU’s researchers tackle research in STARS categories.

These include agroforestry summer institutes for high school agriculture teachers who can pass the knowledge along to their students, the Disaster and Community Crisis Center’s tools for educators supporting children involved in natural disas-

@MizzouUGStudies Between 2007 & 2017, @Mizzou students totaled 1,706,418 hours in service to the community, contributing over $37 million in positive economic impact on Missouri. #MUServesMO #MUcares @mu_serves

DATA

M-I-Z, J-O-B Mizzou’s recent graduates are landing jobs at spectacular rates, according to new research that is part of the National Association of College Employers First Destination Survey. MU’s rates are substantially higher than the average for similar institutions. — Erik Potter

90.4 GOOD JOB, TIGERS

WHAT THEY DO

As a large land-grant university, Mizzou educates students for a variety of careers. The largest percentages of recent alumni chose the following five industries.

13.7 work in health care 7.9 work in education 5.4 work in accounting 5.2 work in financial services 5.0 work in engineering

Percentage of recent Mizzou alumni (those graduating during the 2016–17 academic year) with bachelor’s degrees who find work, continue their education, volunteer with a service organization or enlist in the military By comparison, average rates for such outcomes among Mizzou’s peers are, by percentage: 82.3 for research universities 80.7 for large-enrollment universities 77.7 for public universities 75.6 for public universities in the Association of American Universities 75.5 for Southeastern Conference schools 74.4 for Association of Public and Land-grant Universities

After Abby Peoples’ internship at Hallmark in summer 2017, the marketing major accepted a fulltime position there as an associate retail product manager. Peoples will start in Hallmark’s career development program, first at headquarters in Kansas City, followed by rotations in sales, store management and a stint in e-commerce with Amazon in Seattle.

WHO HIRES THEM

Top private firms snapping up recent graduates are, in rank order: 1. Cerner, a health information technology firm 2. KPMG, a global professional services firm 3. PricewaterhouseCoopers, a global professional services firm 4. Ernst and Young, a global professional services firm 5. Mercy Hospital, a large midwestern health system

WHERE THEY CALL HOME

SHOW-ME LOVE

NICHOLAS BENNER

A greater proportion of Mizzou alumni who graduated in the 2010s have settled in Missouri (67 percent) than did alumni who graduated in the 1980s (52 percent). This is all the more remarkable because Mizzou now attracts more out-of-state students, who might be expected to return home after graduating.

HOW MUCH THEY OWE

Mizzou graduates start careers with 25 percent less college debt than the national average.

Most recent alumni launched careers in Missouri, but top regional and national cities also landed these graduates.

229

386

in Kansas City, Missouri

522

417

in Columbia

in Chicago

in St. Louis

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in New York

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AROUND THE COLUMNS

The Baton Is Up

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MIZZOUMAGAZINE

The rumble of bulldozers and dump trucks at the northeast corner of Hitt Street and University Avenue is as beautiful as a symphony to School of Music students and faculty. By spring semester 2020, the school will have a new 50,000-squarefoot building with acoustically appropriate practice, research, rehearsal and performance spaces, along with academic and office space. The $24 million structure will bring together 11 programs now housed in five buildings across campus.

Construction of a music facility isn’t your typical academic building project, says Heiddi Davis, director of Campus Facilities’ Planning, Design and Construction. “Each interior and exterior wall is soundproof. The walls are thicker, and isolation between rooms is paramount. The floors and roof are designed to isolate exterior noise from interfering with practice, rehearsals and performances.”

Phase I — the current project — will sit at the corner of Hitt Street and University Avenue. Outdoor hardscapes will also be integral to the project, allowing audiences to attend small-ensemble performances on a Juliette balcony above or larger ensembles on the patio. Phase II will bring additional programming space and move all music faculty under one roof. Phase III will focus on the north side, closer to downtown, where community members can enter a lobby that fronts a new 500-seat concert hall.

School of Music Director Julia Gaines says the new facility went from dream to reality when the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation committed $10 million toward the project in 2015. “Jeanne and Rex Sinquefield have long been generous and supportive of the School of Music, but without a new facility, we couldn’t expand the programs, such as the Mizzou New Music Initiative, to the level that they had hoped.

is building positive

Every music student in our program will benefit, Gaines says. “If you think about musical education and performance in Missouri, you are likely to find a Mizzou grad as your child’s music teacher either in school or in private lessons.

We’ve been providing the state with excellent musicians for 100 years, and this new facility will allow us to continue that good work.”

— Karlan Seville

Talk After the Tornado After the massive

2011 tornado that destroyed one-third of Joplin, Missouri, how did survivors fare? To find out, MU researchers and a local mental health partner surveyed 438 adult survivors two-and-a-half years after the event.

“Negative consequences of trauma can coexist with positive perceptions of personal growth,” says Jennifer First, doctoral candidate in MU’s School of Social Work.

And sure enough, it turned out that more communication between Joplin’s survivors and their families, friends and neighbors was related to more growth. “In fact,” First says, “posttraumatic stress may drive a search for meaning following a disaster.”

BUILDING: BNIM; TORNADO: SHUT TERSTOCK

On April 8, campus officials held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new School of Music building as part of the Department of Music’s centennial celebration.

The structure will bring together programs that have been housed in several buildings across campus. It will also be efficient. For instance, the choral rehearsal area will serve not only as a rehearsal and teaching space but also as a versatile performance venue — one that is easily accessible to both patrons and performers.

Mentoring Goes Global

SHANE EPPING

Curating the Familiar On the first day of her internship at the Sager Braudis Gallery in downtown Columbia, senior journalism major Kat Cua was put right to work. Art pieces in the “Hallery” — a smaller hallway gallery off the main gallery — needed to be switched out.

Cua, a Chicago native, had never worked in a gallery before. She was only a recent partisan of art, which she came to through an interest in art history that she discovered during her senior year of high school. “I just fell in love with it,” she says.

Upon arriving at MU in 2014, Cua studied in the School of Journalism and took art history classes as electives. She also joined the Alpha Chi Omega sorority her freshman year, where her sisters encouraged her to continue exploring art history. Fellow J-school students said it had benefitted their journalism and might help her, too.

Eventually, she amassed enough credits that she added an art history major.

“Art history was never the plan, but it was something I just kept doing, and it became a plan,” Cua says. As it turned out, her journalism also benefitted her art. “I think we’re very lucky as journalism students at Mizzou to have this sort of hands-on opportunity through the Missouri Method,” Cua says. “I wanted to also do that with art history.” So she pursued art internships, eventually landing a fellowship with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and then at Sager Braudis Gallery.

At the end of her internship at Sager, Cua was tasked with a project: curating her own exhibit, which she titled, “As I Am.” She chose paintings that celebrate ordinary people, particularly people of color and those who are gay, bisexual or transgender. She wanted her show to confront an aspect of American culture, where, she says, “marginalized people, particularly people of color, are only celebrated when they are the absolute best at whatever they do.”

Even the location she chose for her show was significant — the “Hallery,” just off the main gallery, which, at that moment, was filled with works by 20th-century men. — Sarah Sabatke

This spring, the Mizzou Alumni Association is launching the Mizzou Mentoring Program, a new initiative aimed at helping alumni share their experience with Mizzou students and recent graduates.

Alumni need nothing more than an internet connection to offer advice on how to get involved on campus, succeed in graduate school or break into a career. The program will include resources to help train mentors, who set their own limits for how many students they work with and how much time they give. “When you step foot on this campus, you become part of the Mizzou family,” says Cassie Reeser, manager of alumni programs for the association. “Now, you can come to Columbia and access a Mizzou graduate anywhere.” Sign up to receive a notification of the program launch at mizzou.com/ mentoring.

How to Do Business in China

In contrast to U.S. business relationships, which tend toward the formal and contractual, business in China relies more on guanxi (pronounced Gwen-See), a mixture of personal and public relationships affecting individuals and organizations. To understand why new clothing ventures often struggle in China, Li Zhao, assistant professor of textile and apparel management, surveyed more than 200 founders of apparel businesses there. She found three personality traits — openness to experience, agreeableness and emotional stability — that influenced the quality of business relationships. Zhao suggests that the findings of this study could add guanxi to the curriculum for fashion entrepreneur students looking to break into China’s apparel industry. Given China’s dominance — the country supplies one-third of U.S. apparel — a successful business venture there can equal global success, Zhao says.

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AROUND THE COLUMNS READ ALL ABOUT IT! Mizzou researchers headline major media outlets

Research: video game sensors can help with physical therapy

Biological cartilage changing way knees repaired

It’s common enough to see a prospective student walking around campus while their alumnus dad points out where the Shack used to be and alumna mom reminisces about the old Pavilion at Dobbs. Matt Antonic’s parents did plenty of that, but when they walked by the A.P. Green Chapel, his father, Craig Antonic, BA ’85, paused and said: “Your great-grandpa built that.

By hand. With steel chisels and steel hammers.”

“That’s the most vivid memory I have of that visit,” says Matt, who is now a junior journalism major at Mizzou. “It’s always stuck with me. My family has roots at this school going back quite a long time.”

Matë Antonic immigrated to the U.S. in 1923 from what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Armed only with a third-grade education, he worked his way up to becoming a master stonemason in St. Louis. In the late 1950s, the company he worked for was subcontracted to build the chapel. Antonic lived in a trailer in Columbia for four months while he cut and laid the stone. “He had forearms like 4x4s and wrists like 2x4s,” Craig recalls.

When Craig was a student at Mizzou, he’d step into the chapel in between classes for a moment of reflection and quiet thought. Today, Matt is the one who ducks in every now and then. “For a few minutes, I can disconnect from everything and enjoy peace and quiet,” says the Mizzou Alumni Scholar. Soon, it’ll be his sister, Robin, who can experience the benefits of her ancestor’s labor. She starts her freshman year at Mizzou in the fall, building on her family’s legacy.

“The chapel was the magnum opus of my grandpa’s career,” Craig says. — Kelsey Allen 10 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Between classes, junior Matt Antonic visits the A.P. Green Chapel, for whose construction his great-grandpa served as master stonemason. Matë Antonic’s tools remain in the family.

University of Missouri researchers move closer to curing 2 fatal diseases

Do you need to warm up more if working out in cold weather?

Half of American adults are health-care illiterate

These new gadgets could be game changers for senior living

Horseback riding may relieve combat vets’ PTSD symptoms

ROB HILL

The Chapel Great-grandpa Built

A Love-hate Relationship At 20 years of age, John Rossi enrolled at a junior college in Idaho.

Three weeks later, he quit going to class. “I hated it,” Rossi says.

Instead, he spent the semester watching TV. In 2001, inspired by a commercial for the U.S. Navy, he signed up and began a career jumping from helicopters in the Navy’s search-and-rescue unit.

But life soon pushed him back to the classroom.

“My military experience taught me that you don’t have to have a high GPA to advance in life,” Rossi says. But he knew he needed more education. “I didn’t understand how to write an email in a John Rossi, a first lieutenant in the Air professional tone or how to read Force, is a doctoral candidate in MU’s online a statistical analysis and translate doctor of nursing practice program. that into what I needed.” By then, Rossi was married with children. His father- and sisters-in-law had doctoral degrees. “Sitting around the kitchen table, they were having conversations I didn’t understand, and I didn’t like that,” he says.

So, Rossi enrolled in a community college class. “I loved it,” he says. After 10 years in the Navy, he left to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing at Brigham Young University. In 2015, he received a commission as a nurse in the U.S. Air Force and soon started looking for an online doctor of nursing practice program. MU’s Sinclair School of Nursing made his short list. The faculty quality and Mizzou Online’s discount for active-duty service members pushed this fast-growing program into his top two. Between the two options, Mizzou cost $100,000 less. The choice was “a no-brainer,” says Rossi, a first lieutenant at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio.

Rossi’s love of education now runs deep. “When we get educated, we empower ourselves,” he says. “Life is not about how much money you made; it’s what you learned and what change you made. Education is the catalyst. The only failure in education is just not doing it.” He plans to graduate in 2024.

— Erik Potter

Growth of Online Courses at Mizzou COURTESY JOHN ROSSI; SHUT TERSTOCK

Over the past five years, Mizzou Online, which manages the university’s online classes, has increased its enrollment by 31 percent.

12,612

2013

15,438

16,480

The number of degree and graduate certificate programs that are fully or partially online has grown in tandem with online student enrollment, up 44 percent since 2013.

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The number of degree and certificate programs puts Mizzou No. 2 in the SEC.

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Mizzou

Alabama

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BRIEFLY

The Missouri ShowMe-Select Replacement Heifer Program is celebrating 20 years of improving production efficiency. The program has collaborated with beef producers in almost every Missouri county to enroll more than 135,000 heifers on more than 800 farms, fostering an estimated $150 million economic impact.

Five MU faculty were elected fellows in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. They are David Braun (plant genetics), J. Chris Pires (plant systematics and evolution), David Emerich (nitrogen fixation in plants), Thomas Spencer (pregnancy establishment and success in animals) and Patrick Delafontaine (atherosclerosis and skeletal muscle atrophy).

The Legion of Black Collegians celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2018.

Stay tuned for details on Homecoming Week events (Oct. 14–21) to mark the milestone. Until then, share memories of the black student experience at Mizzou by visiting mizzou.com/LBCmemories.

D Cornelison received a 2017 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, which recognizes outstanding young investigators.

The Missouri Sports Hall of Fame 2018 class included six MU alumni: Gary Barnett, BS Ed ’69, M Ed ’71, former Mizzou wide receiver; Christian Cantwell, AFNR ’05, Olympic silver medalist in shot put; Kerensa Barr Cassis, BS BA ’03, a three-year women’s basketball captain; Dan Lucy, BJ ’85, a sports broadcasting veteran; Brian Mahaffey, MD ’93, MS ’98, a physician for the St. Louis Cardinals; and Howard Richards, BA ’88, a former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman.

In 2017, for the second year in a row, Mizzou’s chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space overtopped all comers in the University Student Rocketry Competition. The team’s rocket rose to 7,094 feet.

The National Academy of Inventors honored Sheila Grant by naming her a fellow in 2017.

Grant is associate dean of research in the College of Engineering and a professor of bioengineering in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. The academy recognized Grant for her work on optical biosensors and biomaterials.

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AROUND THE COLUMNS TRANSFORMING TRANSFERRING

Wall Street. This eight-block stretch of ManFor 10 years, MU students hattan anchors the world’s leading financial have visited Wall Street firms center. A decade ago, Meredith Aslin Imber, through the Tigers on Wall BS BA ’02, was working there in high finance Street program. This year’s class is shown in the corporate when she noticed the dearth of other Tigers boardroom at Apollo. in such jobs. “I wanted to build a bridge from More: business.missouri.edu Columbia to New York,” she says.

That was the genesis of Tigers on Wall Street, which came to life through the help of Imber’s father, Mick Aslin, a member of the Trulaske College of Business’ Strategic Development Board; Associate Dean Mary Beth Marrs; and others. Each year, about 16 top students dive into a sixweek boot camp with the help of Andy Kern, an assistant teaching professor, in preparation for a trip to the Street, where they network, visit financial firms and learn from the best in the Big Apple.

In the boot-camp course, students study financial markets and the firms they’ll visit. They sift through news articles and study stock indices. “We would research a topic, and the faculty would ask us what we thought — was this a good move or was that the right decision,” says senior accounting major Michaela Reinagel. “Executives in New York would often start the conversation by asking what we want to know. Mary Beth and Andy taught us how to get the conversation going.”

Several board members and donors have made the trips possible over the years. Their Wall Street connections introduced students to leaders at JPMorgan Chase, Home Depot and Citigroup, among others. When David Herzog was chief financial officer at AIG in 2008, he spent two hours with students answering questions about the financial downturn. “AIG had a massive global portfolio. We understood that day that market shifts have global implications because of how intertwined the world’s financial systems are,” recalls then-trip adviser Jonathan Jarvis, BS BA ’01, MBA ’08.

“To this day, Tigers on Wall Street was one of the most influential weeks of my life,” says Morgan Schmit-Sobeck, BS BA ’12. “The network guided me as I started my career at Goldman Sachs and still influences me today at Cinven.”

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WA L L S T R E E T: S TA C Y R O H R ; PA L M Q U I S T: M O N I Q U E W O O

Tigers on Wall St.

When Kelsey Palmquist, BSW ’13, graduated from Mizzou and took a Teach for America fellowship, she found herself instructing biology students at a high school outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Northeast High School sits on a two-lane rural road amid fields and grain silos.

Its students are not wealthy, but they are ambitious.

Palmquist helped some of them prepare for the ACT test to get into college. One cost-conscious scholar planned to go to community college, then transfer to Xavier University of Louisiana for a pharmacy degree.

Palmquist sat down with the student to help map out which classes to take, how to maximize financial aid and figure out housing. “There were a lot more steps than even I realized,” Palmquist says. She comes from a family of college graduates she could call on for help in such a situation. But what about a first-generation college student trying to figure it out? That’s when she resolved to focus her upcoming Mizzou graduate work on simplifying college transfers.

Last summer during an internship with Mizzou’s enrollment experts, Palmquist made several recommendations that the office is taking up. These include hiring more transfer admissions representatives, centralizing transfer-student services and strengthening ties with those Missouri community colleges that send few students to Mizzou. She is also the graduate assistant for the MU Student Unions Programming Board, where she mentors the transfer students on her staff. Her involvement earned her selection to the inaugural class of Mizzou 18, a Mizzou Alumni Association program honoring 18 outstanding graduate students annually.

Palmquist is set to graduate this spring with a master’s degree in educational leadership and policy analysis.

She is a third-generation Tiger, following her father, Edward Palmquist, BS Ag ’89, and her grandfather, William Palmquist, BS BA ’67, MBA ’75. Her great-grandfather, Edward M. Palmquist, taught botany at Mizzou. With that family history, the Mizzou 18 recognition was special, she says. “For me, Mizzou has always been home.

It’s where I’ve come into who I am today.” — Erik Potter

SELF-CARE AS SOCIAL JUSTICE

Tiana Glass opened Black Honey Bee Cosmetics in the MU Student Center to promote self-care for people of color.

Tiana Glass has always been frustrated with the way self-care was treated “as a luxury rather than a right.” So, when a friend encouraged her to apply to the Missouri Student Unions Entrepreneurial Program in spring 2017, she seized the opportunity.

Within a few months, Glass, then a senior, launched Black Honey Bee Cosmetics to offer personal care products geared toward women of color.

The store, located in the MU Student Center, sells bath and body products, including soaps, bath bombs and lotion bars. Glass wants her products to be affordable so that women aren’t forced to choose between taking care of themselves and purchasing necessities.

At first, Glass, BA ’17, was leery of the time commitment required to open and operate a business. The program application alone required her to submit an essay, business plan and letters of recommendation. When she was accepted, she took charge of designing and supplying her new business from scratch, including staffing it with volunteers and making most of the products by hand.

During Glass’ time at MU, her interest in social justice led her to get involved in the MU Women’s Center and the MU Multicultural Center. She also was inducted into the LSV Society, an honorary society that recognizes women who devote themselves to improving women’s status. Her new business was one more step on that path.

Students have enjoyed not only Glass’ products but also her store’s atmosphere, down to the music that she plays — often rap and rhythm and blues. “It’s a certain nostalgia that comes with the type of music and culture I’m representing,” she says.

Glass has found that nothing fully prepares students for life after graduation. But, she says, “I do feel like I can be a better entrepreneur when I start my next business.”

Someday, she hopes to reopen Black Honey Bee and would eventually like to take it to her native Ferguson, Missouri. —Sarah Sabatke

GLASS: MIKALA COMPTON; TRACK: JEFF CURRY

HISTORIC PACE

Distance runner Karissa Schweizer cemented her legacy as the most decorated collegiate athlete in Mizzou history by winning the 3,000-meter and 5,000-meter events at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships March 9 and 10, 2018, in College Station, Texas. The national titles were the fourth and fifth for the Urbandale, Iowa, senior, who was also named the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Women’s Track National Athlete of the Year. Schweizer’s eight career All-America honors are tied for the second-most in program history. “After college, I plan to run professionally and make the Olympic team,” Schweizer says. “In a year, I see myself training and working toward either a master’s degree in nutrition or positive coaching.”

Karissa Schweizer, shown here March 9 at the Indoor NCAA Championships in College Station, Texas, is the most decorated Tiger athlete ever.

SPRING 2018 13

AROUND THE COLUMNS

Batter up. Tiger baseball, above on April 16 at Taylor Stadium, and softball swing into the 2018 season.

Second-year Mizzou baseball Coach Steve Bieser has succeeded in part by using “baseball-science”— a technologysupported pitch-recognition system for batters, a cuttingedge TrackMan radar system for analyzing ball flight and, new this season, the latest synthetic turf to augment team speed at Taylor Stadium. But he’ll need more than that for the 2018 Tigers to improve on their previous campaign, which started strong but missed the NCAA Tournament. The discipline of the day might be chemistry.

Catcher and captain Brett Bond (St. Louis) believes he and his teammates (23–9 at press time) form the right compound to propel the Tigers into postseason play. “This year’s team chemistry is great,” says Bond, who was drafted by the World Series champion Houston Astros but elected to return for his senior season at Mizzou. “That’s the most important thing when it comes to success — having a team on the same mission and the same path.”

Another Major League draft pick, junior righthanded pitcher Bryce Montes De Oca (Lawrence, Kansas), returned to Simmons Field. The Washington Nationals’ 15th-round pick brings the heat with a near 100-mph fastball. He trains alongside sophomore lefty TJ Sikkema (DeWitt, Iowa), who last year posted an 8–2 record and a 2.72 ERA en route to All-SEC Freshman Team honors.

Senior outfielder Trey Harris (Powder Springs, Georgia) brings back his lumber following a team-lead-

14 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

ing 12 home runs and 48 RBIs last spring. That’s good because the Tiger offense will need all the punch it can muster for a squad that last year landed in the middle of the SEC pack in nearly every statistical category.

“We spent a lot of time last season with pitch recognition, understanding the strike zone and being able to control an at-bat,” Bieser says. “But we didn’t spend enough time on executing in those situations. It’s one thing for me to know what I want each guy to do. It’s more important that they know what to do.”

Just up the road, the softball team returns for its second season at the Mizzou Softball Stadium. The Tigers (29–28 in 2017) are coming off their 11th consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament’s regional round. But they began the 2018 season with 11 freshmen and two transfers.

The team is also entering a new era of leadership after parting ways with Ehren Earleywine following 11 seasons as Mizzou’s head coach. Gina (Schneider) Fogue, BFA ’10, former director of softball operations, takes over as interim skipper. Fans might remember her walk-off home run to end the Tigers’ Game-3 win over No. 1-seeded UCLA in the 2009 NCAA Super Regional. “Since coming to campus 12 years ago, Mizzou has been the place that I call home,” Fogue says. “I’m encouraged and excited by the talent and chemistry our team has as we go forward into the 2018 season.” — Marcus Wilkins

MIKE KREBS

DIAMOND CHEMISTRY

Scoreboard 11,092 — Women’s basketball fans attending Mizzou’s 77-73 win over Tennessee Feb. 18 at Mizzou Arena. The program’s record-breaking crowd surpassed the mark set in 2002 when the Tigers toppled Kansas 69-57.

P I TC H I N G : J U S T I N K E L L E Y ; M I K LU S : M I Z Z O U AT H L E T I C S ; B A L L : i S TO C K

Healthier Hurlers

As youngsters specialize earlier and earlier in a single sport, “overuse” injuries are on the rise.

Take baseball. In a recent study, three out of four youth pitchers reported having arm pain, which took some fun out of the game for many of them.

Another study revealed that pitchers age 15 to 19 are the fastest-growing group undergoing ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction — aka Tommy John surgery — which had been the realm of professional hurlers.

As medical director of MU’s Human Performance Institute, Aaron Gray works to reverse these trends. Gray runs the Throwing Velocity Program, which aims to help young pitchers safely increase throwing speed. “We want to bridge the medical side and the performance side,” Gray says. “Teenagers feel invincible. Very few athletes want to do exercises for injury prevention.”

About a dozen junior high and high school athletes meet three times a week at the institute, where, in addition to exercises with elastic bands, they hurl “plyo-balls” of varying weights as hard as they can at a padded wall. “When you’re throwing with maximum intent, your body naturally becomes more efficient,” says Gray, whose clients are showing up to a 2.5 mph increase in velocity after six weeks. “There are some cues for pitching mechanics,” Gray says, “but essentially, your body figures out efficient pathways.” Trainers also employ a high-tech sleeve fitted with a gyroscope and an accelerometer to measure arm torque and monitor harmful forces.

The program includes weight training to strengthen the legs and core, as well as exercises for shoulder and back muscles used in arm deceler-

ation. It’s a muscle group Gray says is sometimes neglected by younger athletes who want to focus on chest and arms — “the beach muscles.”

The Throwing Velocity Program at the MU Human Performance Institute helps young pitchers develop skills to throw faster and safer.

24 — Career-high points basketball Tiger Jontay Porter tallied Feb. 27 over Vanderbilt on his way to being named to the SEC All-Freshman Team. Porter also shared Co-Sixth Man of the Year honors with Tennessee’s Lamonte Turner. Mizzou Graduate senior guard Kassius Robertson earned All-SEC First-Team recognition.

MAT MAJORS GO 19–0

With a 23-9 win over Northern Iowa Feb. 17, Mizzou wrestling concluded its season ranked No. 3 on the strength of a 19–0 record, the program’s second perfect season. The first, also under Coach Brian Smith, was a 24–0 tour de force in 2014–15.

The squad has not been out of the top 10 since Nov. 12, 2013, when they ranked 11. In 2018, four Tigers earned All-America honors: redshirt sophomore Jaydin Eierman (Columbia) at 141 pounds, redshirt junior Grant Leeth (Kearney, Missouri) at 149 pounds, redshirt junior Daniel Lewis (Blue Springs, Missouri) at 174 pounds and redshirt senior Willie Miklus (Altoona, Iowa) at 197 pounds.

Only four teams claim more All-Americans.

Senior Willie Miklus is one of four All-America wrestlers on Mizzou’s squad.

3 — Mizzou volleyball players who attended 2018 U.S. Women’s National Team tryouts March 2–4 in Colorado Springs, Colorado: redshirt freshman Kayla Caffey, junior Alyssa Munlyn and redshirt sophomore Riley Sents.

10 — No-hitters in Mizzou baseball history, including a 7-1 win over Maryland-Baltimore County March 2 at Taylor Stadium. Three righthanded pitchers contributed to the feat: junior Bryce Montes De Oca for seven innings, junior Giovanni Lopez in the eighth and senior Nolan Gromacki in the ninth.

SPRING 2018 15

Mizzou: Our From noon March 14 to noon March 15, Tigers not only showed their generosity once again but also painted social media black and gold on Mizzou Giving Day. The university’s second daylong campaign raised more than $13.7 million for all areas of campus, surpassing last year’s total by more than $5 million. “We asked supporters to step up through Mizzou Giving Day, and they did in record fashion,” says Todd McCubbin, executive director of the Mizzou Alumni Association. “They are all-in on making Mizzou stronger.”

Examples of giving across campus included: Virginia and Charles Peterson made an estate commitment of $1.25 million to the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources in support of the already established Virginia E. Peterson Scholarship in Biochemistry.

The Mizzou Alumni Association Scholarship Challenge, new this year, raised more than $122,000 for scholarships through the Mizzou Giving Day website (givingday.missouri.edu).

The Mizzou Student Foundation’s year-round Rally Mizzou scholarship initiative raised $7,755 as part of the day’s activities.

#MIZZOUGIVINGDAY @H_Starek: Our #MizzouMade family is proud to support the @DCMizzouAlumni scholarship fund! #MizzouGivingDay @grace_pace: I won $200 to give to the #MizzouGivingDay fund of my choice and I chose the @MizzouLibraries Special Collections Classroom Project. Thank you @MUSpecColl for your incredible teaching sessions! MIZ! @JRegina14: I found an adorable stuffed tiger! I would love for @MizzouLBC to receive the money! #MizzouGivingDay

Thanks to challenge funds, Mizzou Giving Day encouraged friendly competition among schools, colleges and units. Social media contests provided prize money to schools, colleges or programs.

@parker_rehm: Found Mini-Truman! $40 to the school of Journalism! #MizzouGivingDay

DOLLAR CHALLENGE (MONEY RAISED)

PARTICIPATION CHALLENGE (GIFTS MADE)

1. Missouri School of Journalism, $6.2 million

1. Student Affairs, 318

2. College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, $1.6 million

2. MU Health Care, 310

3. College of Veterinary Medicine, $1.2 million

3. College of Arts and Science, 282

4. Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business, $1 million

4. College of Engineering, 277

5. College of Engineering, $960,536

5. College of Education, 234

16 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Time to Lead C A M PA I G N U P DAT E

Top Priorities Overall Campaign Progress

$1.3B

76.9% $1.01B

The Mizzou: Our Time to Lead campaign seeks to raise $1.3 billion for the university. The question isn’t whether the Mizzou family will meet the goal but how far we will run past it. To make the best use of this remarkable generosity, the campaign focuses on three priorities:

1 Endowment — Building MU’s endowment to compete with other institutions will enhance our ability to attract and retain stellar students and faculty. $1 billion of $1.2 billion goal* 2 Signature Centers and Institutes — Interdisciplin-

ary centers and institutes will be engines of research growth that attract additional funding and raise our profile in the Association of American Universities. $93.3 million of $100 million goal

3 Campus Renaissance — New and renovated facilities will propel Mizzou to global leadership in education and research. $167 million of $250 million goal Taken as a whole, these priorities represent the path to securing Mizzou’s standing as one of the nation’s elite public universities. Learn more about the Mizzou: Our Time to Lead campaign, and the role of philanthropy on campus, at giving. missouri.edu. * As of January 31, 2018

SPRING 2018 17

REMEMBERING

18 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Champion of the

Comics A L L C H A R A C T E R S © K I N G F E AT U R E S SY N D I C AT E , I N C .

Story by Kelsey Allen

Mort Walker, BA ’48, never wanted to write the great American novel. He wanted to write the great American comic strip. Although HIS Beetle Bailey character never got a promotion in the Army, the Beetle Bailey strip made it to the top of the funnies.

MIZZOU SPRING 2018

19 SPRING 2018 19

MIZZOU SPRING 2018

Mort Walker may have created the U.S. Army’s laziest private, but he was the hardest working cartoonist in the business.

The Beetle Bailey creator spent nearly 68 years in his studio cranking out six dailies and a Sunday strip, giving him the longest tenure of any cartoonist on his original creation.

And with nine syndicated comics in all, he’s one of the most prolific cartoonists ever.

“Old cartoonists never die,” Walker used to say. “They just erase away.” Walker, BA ’48, died Jan. 27, 2018, at his home in Stamford, Connecticut, at age 94. But to millions of readers around the world who chuckle daily at Beetle Bailey — and to the thousands more who stop by the Reynolds Alumni Center to take a picture with the bronze lifesize sculpture of Beetle, which was created by his son Neal, or visit the MU Student Center to eat Sarge’s Breakfast Nachos at Mort’s Grill or brainstorm brilliant ideas at the Shack — Walker’s legacy is indelible.

The College Comic

W

alker was born in El Dorado, Kansas, Sept. 3, 1923, with ink in his veins. Drawing from the time he could hold a pencil, he sold his first cartoon to Child Life magazine when he was just 11 years old.

He realized that, to be a good cartoonist, he needed to be a good writer as well, so he chose Mizzou’s J-School for college. Walker completed one semester before he was drafted

in 1942. Stationed overseas at an ordnance depot in Italy, Walker was an intelligence and investigating officer in charge of 10,000 German prisoners of war. Along the way, he sketched constantly, picking up ideas for characters and trying to capture the humor of military life.

In 1946, Walker returned to Mizzou and joined the staff of Showme, then a drearily dull college humor magazine.

Covers were black and white, and inside were full-page essays with no illustrations. From a converted broom closet in Neff Hall, Walker started to shake things up. His first run-in with administration occurred when he satirized claims that campus was overrun with communists: He drew an editorial cartoon showing an American Government class full of Joseph Stalins. Before the magazine was distributed, J-School Dean Frank L. Mott ordered the staff to tear the page out of all 5,000 copies. Shortly thereafter, they arrived at the Showme office only to find they had been evicted — their furniture and files piled in the hallway and the office door locked. Undeterred, they moved staff meetings to the infamous dive bar and campus hangout the Shack.

When Walker became Showme editor in September 1947, he debuted full-color covers and double-page, center-spread cartoons. “Mort was one of those World War II veterans who had a great talent as an artist and cartoonist but who also transformed Showme into a much more professional product,” recalled then–story editor Charles Barnard, BJ ’49.

“Needless to say, his drawings were a great asset, but he also gave the magazine a sense of order and format that it had not had. We looked up to him.”

One day, Dean Mott called Walker into his office and told him he wouldn’t be receiving a journalism degree because he hadn’t taken History and Principles of Journalism.

When Mort Walker took over as editor, “Showme got funnier, had a whole new format and used color extensively,” recalled then-art editor Bill Gabriel, BJ ’49.

20

After Showme staffers were kicked out of their office in the journalism building, they posted up in the Shack, “closer to the source of beer,� Walker wrote in Private Scrapbook. Pictured at left writing, Walker often featured the infamous dive bar and campus hangout in his illustrations.

SPRING 2018 21

Today, Beetle Bailey runs daily in roughly 1,800 newspapers in more than 50 countries with a combined readership of more than 200 million.

work comes over me, I lie down until it goes away” — Beetle’s character began to emerge.

But after six months, only 25 papers carried the strip. A larger population of potential readers had been in the military than had gone to college, so when the Korean War started heating up, Walker enlisted his campus clown in the Army. College comrades became barracks buddies, peculiar professors became strict sergeants, and Beetle Bailey became the perpetual private of the funnies page.

Controversy followed Walker in his new strip when military brass didn’t appreciate him making fun of authorFew people remember that when Beetle Bailey launched in 1950 it started as a comic strip about college life. ity and romanticizing foot-dragging.

“I was too busy saving the world for democracy, sir,” the They banned the strip from the Tokyo headstrong Walker remembered replying. The dean not edition of Stars and Stripes. But the publicity increased its only kicked Walker out of his office but also the journalreach even more. From 1954 to 1968, circulation grew from ism school. Walker opted for a degree in humanities, and 200 newspapers to 1,100, according to King Features. he didn’t hang around for graduation ceremonies before Circulation increased again in the early 1970s when hopping on a plane to the Big Apple.

Walker created Lt. Jack Flap, and Beetle Bailey became one of the first established strips to integrate a strong and proud A Beetle Is Born black character into a white cast. “He was a pioneer in reinIn New York, Walker spent about three years selling cartoons venting comic strips for new decades and audiences,” says to magazines. One of the editors recognized his work from Mark Evanier, a comic book and television writer known Showme and hired him to edit humor and cartoon magazines for his work on the animated TV series Garfield and Friends. for Dell Publishing. At the Saturday Evening Post, cartoon ediCritics now recognize that Beetle Bailey was never really tor John Bailey encouraged Walker to draw cartoons based an Army strip. “Beetle is essentially a humorous attack on on his college experiences. So, Walker resurrected a characa hierarchical society,” says comics chronicler R.C. Harvey. ter from earlier gag cartoons, a goof-off named Spider who “Most of us resent people with power and wish we could wore a hat over his eyes, and he took the strips to King Feafight back. Mort made a 68-year career out of fighting back.” tures Syndicate. King already distributed a strip with a charToday, Beetle Bailey runs daily in roughly 1,800 newspaacter named Spider, so Walker renamed the character Beetle. pers in more than 50 countries with a combined readerBeetle Bailey launched Sept. 4, 1950, in 12 papers. Alship of more than 200 million — and it will continue under though Beetle went to Rockview University, several camthe seasoned hands of Walker’s sons Greg, Brian and Neal. pus details came right out of Columbia. These included the Shack, Memorial Union and Francis Quadrangle; charThe Funny Factory acters who closely resembled Walker’s Kappa Sigma fraThe Walker boys grew up in Fairfield County, Connectiternity brothers; and an eccentric professor named Jesse cut, a hotbed of comic-strip artists, where normal meant Wrench. Guided by his motto — “Whenever the urge to cartoons hung on the walls, families received personalized

When the Korean War started heating up, Walker’s campus clown enlisted in the Army. College comrades became barracks buddies, peculiar professors became strict sergeants, and Beetle Bailey became the perpetual private of the funnies page.

22 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

B E E T L E B A I L E Y © D I S T R I B U T E D B Y K I N G F E AT U R E S S Y N D I C AT E , I N C .

MIZZOU SPRING 2018

L .G . PAT T E R S O N

Mort Walker is honored on campus with a statue of Beetle Bailey at Mort’s, a restaurant in the Student Center.

Christmas cards from world-famous cartoonists and fathers worked from home. When their dad wasn’t talking in goofy voices and making funny faces, he was in his studio brainstorming one-liners and sketching strips.

“He was sort of a cartoon character himself,” Greg says.

“We’d go into the grocery, and he’d say, ‘I came in here with my wife. I can’t find her. Which aisle do you keep the wives in?’ ” To make sure he always had enough ideas to keep readers cracking up every day of the week, Walker brought in a team of cartoonists for brainstorming. Over the years, he worked with Jerry Dumas, Bob Gustafon, Frank Johnson, Bud Jones and his longtime assistant Bill Janocha. “It felt like half the comic strip page was Mort Walker and his disciples,” Evanier says. By the mid-1980s, the two eldest Walker brothers were assisting with the production of Beetle Bailey. Every month, Walker, Dumas, Greg and Brian would meet for a gag conference where they’d each bring about 30 ideas to compete for a spot in the strip.

“I remember him telling me, ‘This is Beetle Bailey, not Doonesbury,’ ” Brian says. “His mantra was, ‘Funny pictures. Funny pictures.’ Mort was OK with a corny gag. He had a little bit of that Midwestern sensibility. He understood the common man, and this was the secret to the success of the strip. He wasn’t trying to be too smart.”

Not only was Walker seemingly without competitive ego, but he also was an activist for cartoonists. He served as president of the National Cartoonists Society, and spent 35 years — and millions of dollars — establishing the first cartoon museum of its kind in the world. Today, his International Museum of Cartoon Art Collection, which contains more than 200,000 original cartoons and other priceless objects, is housed at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University. “He recognized earlier than most people that comic strips embodied so much knowledge about our culture and how it changes, and that this material is just a gold mine for the future,” says Cullen Murphy, author of Cartoon County, a book about the Connecticut cartoonists, and a former writer of Prince Valiant, a comic strip that his father drew.

Mort’s Mizzou

It was to this cultural sensibility that Dean of Students Jeff Zeilenga appealed when MU began planning the new Student Center. “Our students wanted a space that was uniquely Mizzou,” says Zeilenga, who was then the assistant vice chancellor of student affairs. “We also wanted alumni to come back and have this new building remind them of their time at Mizzou,” he says. The Shack may have been a dilapidated fire trap, but students of that era “have fond memories of spending time there with friends, meeting their spouse, carving their initials into the wood.”

And no one is more synonymous with the Shack than Walker. Zeilenga called upon the watering hole’s most famous patron to talk about creating a place that celebrated his time at Mizzou. During the building of the Student Center, Zeilenga would fly to Connecticut, where he and Walker would brainstorm ideas for how to tell stories of his Mizzou years.

In 2010, Walker returned to campus to dedicate the new MU Student Center, complete with Mort’s Grill, a games and grill area, and the Shack, a programming and lounge center. The area contains large images of Beetle Bailey strips, trophy cases of memorabilia and a 6-foot statue of Beetle leaning against the now beer-free bar. “I’m getting a kick out of the fact we’re celebrating the Shack,” Walker told the Columbia Daily Tribune. “It’s like celebrating a Dumpster.”

Of course, the Shack of today is a far cry from the Shack of Walker’s era, but it’s once again an iconic spot on campus. Some of the tables even have the original initials carved in them.

“We’ll have students who come to campus for a visit, and when their parents walk into Mort’s and the Shack, they beg their students to go do the rest of the campus visit while they search for their name carved into the wall,” Zeilenga says.

Walker’s is still there, too. M 23

MIZZOU Magazine * Spring 2018

STAYING

HOME

A new study finds that embedding highly trained nurses in nursing homes raises care quality and reduces hospitalization costs. But will Medicare change its rules to allow this innovation to spread?

ST ORY BY DA L E S M I T H

B

x

PHOTOS BY SHANE EPPING

efore the morning’s second pot of coffee is gone, nurse practitioner Carrie Bowling has patrolled every hall at Scenic Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Herculaneum, Missouri.

She greeted residents and tended them as needed, mentored and collaborated with nurses and nurses aides, consulted on complex cases with the social worker and nursing home administrator, bantered with the maintenance crew, and fed the fish in a large aquarium on the first floor.

On this day, Bowling has helped the staff deal with a new resident who, complaining of heart-attack symptoms, has provoked a trip to the emergency room every couple of weeks for the past year at his previous facility: “I have chest pain,” he tells his nurses, “and it’s radiating into my left arm. I think I’m dying.” He’s not dying, Bowling says. But he does have pain, and he knows what to say to get a trip to the hospital for treatment. Bowling reviewed his ER visits to learn whether they were heart-related and how hospital staff responded. Now she is working with his doctor to figure out how staff at Scenic can manage his pain.

“It is not an option to send him to the hospital every week when we can manage his pain here,” she says.

She also has spent 15 minutes troubleshooting a resident’s medication issue. The neurologist stopped the resident’s old antipsychotic medication and prescribed an alternative drug so new that it’s not yet available to pharmacies. “We need to deal with this fast, or she could have a psychotic break and wind up in the hospital,” Bowling says. nn 24 NN

RESEARCH

And now on the dementia unit, another resident, Dorothy, has fallen.

Staff call upon Bowling to attend to most falls and other potentially serious episodes. Bowling doesn’t work for the nursing home; she is part of an MU study looking at whether embedding advanced practice nurses in nursing homes improves care and reduces costs. Staff trust that her graduate degree in nursing and experience help ensure patients are assessed thoroughly, and that proper care is set in motion. As Bowling arrives, other staffers are asking the resident, “Are you all right? Is anything hurt?”

“My knee,” Dorothy says.

“That’s your bad knee?” Bowling asks. “Dorothy, I’m a nurse practitioner. I work with your doctor.

May I look at your knee? Can I see it?” Dorothy nods.

“Thank you, Dorothy. Where does it hurt?” She points to the outside of her right knee.

“Gosh darn it. Can you bend it?” She does.

“Does it hurt when you do that?”

“Sometimes it does,” Dorothy says.

As Bowling’s assessment continues, the staff soon

26 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

help Dorothy to her feet to test discomfort standing, and someone takes her vital signs, the first of several such monitoring sessions over the next three days.

When Bowling arrived at Scenic in 2013, most residents who fell were transported to the hospital for X-rays, even if the physical exam showed no signs of a broken bone. “Elderly people break, so I want X-rays if I am ever in doubt. But there are signs that indicate a break,” Bowling says. “For instance, if there is crepitus [a grating sound] or any deformity, we would just send them right away.

That is part of the project, too — getting people who need to go to the hospital there sooner.” When Dorothy’s care is under control, Bowling heads down the hall toward the next stop on her rounds.

“So, that just happened,” she quips, though such mishaps are all in a day’s work for the nurse practitioner. x x x,

Remain in Place

To some, talk of avoiding trips to the hospital implies an impersonal health care system ration-

ing care. Quite the opposite is true at Scenic. In Bowling’s devotion to every aspect of her residents’ health, she even ponders which wall hangings, paint colors and music would be best to surround her beloved elders — all 150 of them when the facility is full. Now, after five years of data and a third-party evaluation of nurses like Bowling in 16 facilities across the St. Louis area, care quality has improved and Medicare costs have come down (more on the numbers later). With some Medicare rule changes, advanced practice nurses could constitute a new wave of caregivers improving the lives of millions of Americans in nursing homes. These care providers have the know-how to treat residents in the nursing homes whenever possible, rather than sending them to the hospital.

Remaining in place is key, says Marilyn Rantz, a faculty member at MU’s Sinclair School of Nursing who is leading Missouri’s part of a fivesite national study. St. Louis is an exemplary site in part because it ranks high in hospitalization rates from nursing homes. Rantz is an innovator who was elected to the National Academies in 2012 for her pioneering work improving the quality of care in nursing homes.

With all the expertise and high-tech care available at hospitals, the push toward keeping sick elders in nursing homes could seem counterintuitive. But Rantz’s experience since the 1980s — first as an advanced practice nurse in geriatrics, then as a nursing home administra-

tor, and academic researcher — tells her different. Nursing homes are providing increasingly sophisticated care in-house, and trips to the hospital can cause serious problems of their own.

Forget the financial costs for a moment, says Rantz: “Here is a resident who may be frail, who is unstable medically, who has an illness going on, and we are moving them from their bed to a cart, pushing them down the hall, taking them outside to the ambulance, loading them in, driving to the hospital, unloading the cart, probably transferring them from the cart to a bed in the emergency room. It’s very disorienting.”

In fact, the ordeal often results in residents experiencing delirium or acute confusion.

“Then,” Rantz continues, “if they decide to admit the resident, they get in an elevator and are rolling again through another unfamiliar hallway, laying on the cart looking up at the ceiling as the lights go by — click, click, click. They hear unfamiliar sounds going down the hallway, people talking over them, not talking to them.

No one is there to orient them. They may be left alone at some point, wondering, ‘Where am I? Why am I here?’ ” Why indeed, when admission to the hospital can cause their health status to plummet from precarious to dire?

“Sometimes, these folks are frail enough that the act of going to the hospital will be the precipitating factor in never coming back out of it again,” Rantz says. “This will be their death experience.”

Previous spread: In a sensory room on the dementia unit at Scenic Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, nurse practitioner Carrie Bowling chats with Marjorie Soper. When residents with dementia become overstimulated, the room’s colors, textures and quietude help them regain equilibrium.

Opposite page, Bowling checks in on Minnie Denman, a resident on the nursing home’s long-term care wing; Denman’s room displays mementos of home.

At left, weights hang in the physical therapy gym. Nearby, Janet Adams boosts strength and conditioning on an exercise bike.

SPRING 2018 27

From left, longterm care resident Charles Bieser has a wicked (but wonderful) sense of humor, Bowling says. A stand-up meeting with floor nurse Jacquey Summers covers a resident’s lab results and a follow-up with a physician.

28 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

The Sooner the Better

Because the price residents pay for a trip to the hospital could be the ultimate price, Rantz’s study is figuring out how nursing homes can prevent those excursions. The best answer involves perhaps the oldest of old truisms in the medical trades: Catch problems early, and cure them before they grow severe.

Easy to say. Hard to do.

When it comes to spotting problems early, nursing homes are organizationally upside-down. The staffers who spend the most time with residents, and so are best positioned to spot problems early, have the least medical training. The staff who know residents best — who may help them dress, bathe, toilet and get to meals — likely are certified nursing assistants, oftentimes high school graduates whose health care training consists of a 12-week course.

Bowling, on the other hand, has a master’s de-

threes. “We would go through the slides, and I would give them a handout.” For instance, why is it important that all ambulatory residents get up and walk to lunch? The seemingly mundane act of changing position and moving about goes a long way toward preventing pneumonia, which can be fatal in elders. Or, why is it so important to see that residents drink ample water daily? That fends off urinary tract infections, which can send residents to the hospital.

Bowling also taught aides how to use the “Stop and Watch” early-warning form, which the study provided. It’s a quick, formal way for an aide to inform a nurse that a resident has changed in some way. Maybe they are eating or talking less than usual, or are more nervous or tired than is typical.

Just circle the change on a simple form and give it to a nurse. Any such shift could be a sign, hopefully an early one, of illness that the nurse should

gree and several years of experience. Some nurses in her role will have doctorates. Perhaps her single most important task is to elevate the professionalism of others around her. “I feel like 90 percent of what I do is education,” she says. When she started at Scenic on the study in 2013, the facility transferred 13 to 16 residents to the hospital each month. About half were transported for pneumonia or urinary tract infection (UTI). “Wow,” she says. “That was a lot.”

Taking the advice of a multidisciplinary team that supports the advanced practice nurses embedded in the nursing home, Bowling started by teaching staff how to identify and prevent those two problems. She prepared a PowerPoint presentation and handout, loaded her laptop on a cart along with a bowl of candy, and pushed it around the halls, asking when staff could spare 10 minutes for a quick lesson.

She worked with nurse’s aides in twos and

investigate. “I had an aide look at me one time and say, ‘I have always been told that it is my responsibility to know when someone is getting sick. But nobody taught us this stuff.’ ” Bowling’s á-la-carte education for the nurses was one-on-one, worked into their busy schedules. The nurses, most of whom are licensed practical nurses with one or two years of training, take on more responsibility, not only for assessing residents’ health but also for calling residents’ physicians when the situation warrants it. For the nurses, the study offered up another tool, a form for recording their assessment, in part to make those calls to physicians as thorough and organized as possible.

The phone calls can be turning points. When nurses don’t deliver information well, residents often make unnecessary trips to the hospital. “I used to talk to the doctors a lot for them, model it for them,” Bowling says, wincing at some of the calls she has overheard. “You don’t call a doctor

RESEARCH

and say, ‘Something’s not right with Betty. She’s having a hard time breathing. I don’t know what to do.’ I witnessed that with one of my strong nurses.

The resident was sitting there watching a sitcom, wearing a pulse oximeter, and her blood oxygen was just slightly below normal. What would you say if you were a doctor and you’re not here to see for yourself?” That resident went to the ER, where staff administered a nebulizer and some steroids and sent her back to Scenic. “What did they do that we could not do here?” Bowling says. “Nothing.”

These days, with the assessment form and some training, the nurse’s part of conversation might go more like this: “Doctor, I think Mrs. Smith is having a flare-up of her COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease]. Her blood oxygen is 88 percent, and we have given her a nebulizer. Her vital signs are … .” Same patient, different presentation.

And Betty would likely remain at Scenic with

that, if advanced practice nurses like Bowling worked in each of Missouri’s 500 nursing homes, Medicare costs for the state’s more than 39,000 nursing home residents would be reduced by some $53.9 million a year.

But funding health care is never that simple.

Under current policies, nursing homes cannot bill Medicare for the services of advanced practice nurses who are employed by the facility. They can bill for services of such nurses who come into the home as consultants. This piecemeal approach wouldn’t get the same results.

A handful of rule changes could fix the problem, she says. “There is always federal pushback because, when you change a rule, they are worried that the costs are going to escalate,” Rantz says. “But we will have good data to support the rule change.”

Tyler Czarnecki, executive director at Scenic, says that, when the study ends, he will find a way

From left, administrator Tyler Czarnecki hung a welcoming display in the lobby at Scenic as part of fostering a homelike atmosphere throughout the building.

Bowling discusses a resident’s living will with Michelle Pannier, social services director.

Rantz estimates that, if advanced practice nurses like Bowling worked in each of Missouri’s 500 nursing homes, Medicare costs for the state’s more than 39,000 nursing home residents would be reduced by about $53.9 million a year. doctors’ orders for treatment and testing. “That is all I did for UTI and pneumonia,” Bowling says.

It took two months to educate all the nurses and aides. “By the third month I had zero transfers for UTI or pneumonia. Zero.” x x x,

Follow the Money

External evaluators found that the study’s approach reduced potentially avoidable hospitalizations by 48 percent and reduced hospitalizations from all causes by 33 percent. Rantz estimates

to hire Bowling, or someone with her skill set, regardless of reimbursement. From a business standpoint, empty beds cost money, and he knows that Bowling’s work means fewer residents leaving for the hospital. But beyond that, he is proud to see the quality of care rising across his facility. “What she has done has been tremendous,” he says.

For Bowling, a local who lives a few yards from the facility, continuing to improve care at Scenic is starting to look like her life’s work: “It helps me sleep better at night. Because I’m going to end up here someday, and I want somebody to know how to watch for this stuff.” M

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FEATURE

Calling in the Ewes In a midlife moment of truth, Scottie Jones, MA ’80, and her husband, Greg, MA ’76, PhD ’79, chucked secure professional jobs, bought a small farm and moved “back to the land.” But making a living on Leaping Lamb Farm proved nearly impossible. Five years later, with a dozen money-making ideas shattered and savings all but exhausted, they hit upon an idea that just might make it work. story by scottie jones * photo by shawn linehan

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MIZZOU SPRING 2018

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43

PROFILE

We go out one night a week.

Tonight, I’m in a pizzeria watching my spouse, Greg, argue the relative merits of chainsaw “bore cuts” with our neighbor, Brick. “Horizontal or vertical?” Only a veteran logger like Brick knows the answer. But that doesn’t deter Greg, a psychologist, from arguing. And me? I’m wondering how, starting as an art history student on Mizzou’s stately campus, I wound up running a sheep farm tucked so deeply in the coastal mountains of Oregon that the topic of “bore cutting” constitutes good conversation on a night out. Well, that’s a story, and the old man cutting down imaginary trees in a pizzeria is more than half of it.

We think we have an arc for our lives, a plan that will take us to our dreams. Then fate intervenes, knocking us down an entirely different path. For me, that first bump came when I met my future husband on Francis Quadrangle at Mizzou. We moved to Phoenix, and my goal of becoming an art historian transformed to managing a chic art gallery in nearby Scottsdale. After several more mutations, I found myself directing marketing and retail for the Phoenix Zoo. So, how did I make the leap from well-paid professional to sheep farmer? Like I said, I’m looking at him.

Men are itchy creatures, and they are never more itchy than when life is most content. So, as my husband reached the zenith of his career as a psychologist, he became discontent. To be fair, he had help. The demands of managed health care were turning sensitive caregivers into beleaguered accountants. And commuting to work in Phoenix’s multilaned, gridlocked, easybake oven guaranteed a bad start to every day. The final catalyst came when an oncoming car crossed the center line, demolishing our Acura and almost demolishing Greg. He survived but lost the use of his left hand. There were months of rehabilitation, which meant months to ponder all the parts that itch.

Greg became convinced the violence of that terrible day had stripped away his “suburban pretense.” He felt our lives had become too structured and disconnected from each other. We needed to “get back to the land, get back to nature and regain our sense of balance.” I thought the doctor should run more neurotests, but they assured me it was his hand, not his head, that went through the windshield. Greg began an online obsession with real estate, staying up late and conjuring a new life. His solution to urban alienation turned out to be a sheep farm in Oregon.

So, Greg, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, had become delusional. OK, but why did I dismiss my early skepticism and follow him off the cliff? Partly, I like a good adventure, and this promised to be a doozie. But what sold me was the farm itself, which possesses the awe-inspiring beauty of a national park. Besides, we had enough money to retire, and a small sub32 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

sistence farm could pay for itself. I sprinted from skeptic to convert in three months.

As you might expect, two deluded suburbanites do not farmers make. Like many small farms, ours had languished through a period of neglect. Livestock roamed free, not because they should but because they could, and the task of mending fences seemed unending. The first six months on Leaping Lamb Farm was a deep dive into crisis management and triage. There is no quicker cure for delusional thinking than farming.

Our first lesson in rural reality came within days of our arrival, during a benign walk on a beautiful morning with the family dogs. Spotting a stray ewe, the dogs morphed into wolves, chasing the poor bleating animal through the woods into a creek, where they set upon her. By the time we beat them off with sticks, the ewe was badly mauled. We called a neighbor to get the name of a vet.

“Ewe?” she clarified.

“Yes, her ear is torn off, and she’s bleeding.”

“A ewe costs $100. A vet visit is $150. Clean and stitch the wounds. Tomorrow, she’s alive or dead. Either way, you’re ahead $50.”

And there it was, first delusion shattered. You can’t afford experts, so figure it out yourself. If that doesn’t work, call a few people and try something else. We did as suggested. The ewe survived and went on to lamb for many more years. We learned a valuable lesson: Farming is a daily exercise in creative improvisation.

The next delusion tumbled just as fast. Moving irrigation pipe is a daily chore. The first week, Greg dropped the Big Gun sprinkler, bending the rocker arm and rendering the sprinkler useless. Repairing the part would require a long drive to the irrigation store. Nothing in the country is convenient. Greg was in a hurry to pick up the part and get back, but instead of prompt service, he found a gaggle of men engaged in fishing stories. Clearing his throat and shifting his feet did not improve the service.

When, at last, his turn came, Greg dropped the rocker arm on the counter and asked if it could be fixed. The owner, Doug, squinted at it through his glasses and asked, “Where do you live?” Doug’s question did not reassure my husband that he was dealing with a competent professional. But then, he was still deluded.

Two keys to the complex business of farming are having access to a wealth of resources and staying connected. People are drawn to farming by the allure of independence. People survive farming by mastering the art of interdependence. Hence the fishing stories. The rocker arm was obsolete. It would take a network of contacts to locate one. In the meantime, Doug, understanding that without irrigation our livestock would not have graze, placed a call to a neighboring farmer and arranged for supplemental hay. And that’s why the correct response to a parts request can depend on where you live.

The big pop to our balloon came with the year-end financial tally. We were running a 90 percent deficit. At this rate, we would burn through our retirement before the fall salmon could return to spawn. We had to do something. For the next five years, we engaged in a desperate struggle to turn a profit. Greg took a teaching job in town while I experimented with alternative income streams. I improved our sheep herd to increase produc-

JONES: ALEXANDRA SHYSHKINA ; BARN: SCOT TIE JONES; KIDS: DENNIS RIVERA

tion. When that proved insufficient, I added sales of eggs, heritage turkeys, fruit, mushrooms and anything else I could think of. It all helped, but nothing turned the corner to profitability. Eventually, we realized that our plight was that of all small farmers.

America is doubly blessed with the best land and the most efficient farmers in the world. This means food is cheap for consumers, but it also means profit margins are low for farmers. Success in a low-profit industry depends on economies of scale.

This go-big-or-go-home scenario pushes farmers to consolidate to remain profitable. Farmers compose roughly 1 percent of the U.S. population. Of that group, the top 12 percent account for 89 percent of

agricultural production, according to the 2012 FDA census. Roughly stated, the top 10 percent of farmers are responsible for producing 90 percent of our food. Average net income from a midsized farm with $100,000 to $250,000 gross sales is less than $30,000 a year. Few families can live on that, which is why 80 percent of farmers also work off the farm.

Consolidation has a dark side. As farms get bigger, fewer people are needed to manage them. Rural communities are drying up, and those valuable networks of interdependency are collapsing. Loss of population also means fewer votes, so rural agendas can lose priority in politics. Perhaps most challenging is the issue of legacy. If bigger is the goal, then di-

Clockwise from top left, Scottie Jones hangs out with Paco, a long-haired Sicilian donkey. Hay from Leaping Lamb Farm is ready for storage in the loft as winter feed. Farmstay guests anticipate the release of sheep to pasture, as do the sheep.

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PROFILE

children often vote for return visits over disneyland because “the animals are real.”

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M I L L , C R E W, M U S H R O O M S , TO M ATO E S : S C OT T I E J O N E S ; M U S H R O O M P LU G G I N G : E M E RY J O N E S ; L A M B : D AV I D H AYS

unlike hotels that offer lodging, farm stays offer an experience.

Opposite page: Top row from left, a mobile mill saws Leaping Lamb logs into boards for the farm-stay cottage. The Wayfaring Bros. construction crew and Greg Jones, right, take a break from barn repair.

Middle row, inserting mushroom plugs into an oak log yields shiitake mushrooms, right. Bottom row, the Jones’ grandson Henry rolls tomatoes from the greenhouse.

A farm-stay guest gleefully bottle-feeds a lamb.

SCOT TIE JONES

This page: The chicken coop at Leaping Lamb Farm commands a fine view of a flower bed — sunflowers, zinnias, marigolds and cosmos — in a vegetable garden. The grape vine on the fence was planted by the farm’s homesteaders.

Trees in the backdrop are mostly Douglas fir.

viding farms among heirs is self-defeating. This poses enormous problems for equity and continuity in farm families.

We had our own issue with legacy. In our world, farming and family go together. It’s hard to justify the long hours and hard work if it’s not part of a legacy for our children. Our youngest daughter had expressed an interest in agriculture. When she was away at college, we decided to build a little cabin that might call her home to the farm. We hired two neighbor friends to help.

Milling the lumber from our trees, we built a beautiful cottage with majestic views of the fields and a panorama of the mountains. I couldn’t wait to show it to our daughter over Christmas break. She was suitably impressed — before announcing she had applied to vet school and wouldn’t be returning for years, if ever.

That was the last straw. We were desperate. We’d have to sell the farm. But then inspiration struck, and the conversation went something like this: Could we make money by renting the newly constructed cabin to guests as a farm hotel of sorts?

Nah. Most people don’t want to stay on a farm.

But we did. Maybe others would, too.

But most people aren’t deluded idiots.

Fair enough, but the delusion was buying the farm. Staying on the farm is beautiful, even magical at times.

With nothing more to lose, we opened a Leaping Lamb Farm Stay.

Unlike hotels that offer lodging, farm stays offer an experience.

Many urbanites yearn for greater connection with nature and express curiosity about their food supply. Our guests help brush the donkey, feed livestock, collect eggs and pull fresh veggies from the garden. Parents are amazed to see that nature can compete with computer screens for their children’s attention — as attested by the numerous crayon drawings covering the cabin’s refrigerator.

Children often vote for return visits over Disneyland because “the

animals are real.” Yes, and so is the poop. Visitors learn country lessons, like don’t feed the chickens while wearing sandals (toes look like corn kernels). A Navajo guest returns every year during spring lambing just to reconnect with memories of her childhood and culture. After a decade of this, we now have extended families returning to cook meals together and bond in the deep quiet of rural life. We call it “resizing therapy” as iPads shut down, egos deflate and nature recalibrates our proper size in the universe.

The farm stay allowed us to stay on our own farm. Considering this, we launched the U.S. Farm Stay Association with the goal of connecting guests with farm stays across the nation.

The little cabin that started as an idea to save our family farm became a step toward preserving family farming on a national scale. (More: www.farmstayus.com).

We’re not getting rich, but we are sustainable, which is all we ever wanted. We believe there is value in maintaining small farms as part of the cultural fabric. They may not be efficient at producing food, but they do maintain agricultural diversity and serve as incubators for intensive farming practices. They also preserve older farming traditions that are part of America’s heritage. Our small farm affords a vital connection between urban and rural communities, and we do it without government assistance. Even a Show-Me farmer would call that a pretty good deal. M Scottie Jones is the author of Country Grit: A Farmoir of Finding Purpose and Love (Skyhorse, 2017). Driven by a desire to cut ties with a suburban life that had left Scottie and husband Greg feeling empty, they chucked it all and bought a 60-acre farm in Oregon. With humor and hard-earned wisdom, Country Grit tells the story of their first five years learning to survive as farmers and entrepreneurs.

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Opening Up the Future D

ecember 13, 2017, was an historic morning, as Chancellor Alexander Cartwright stood before an audience of Mizzou alumni, faculty, staff and students in the rotunda of Jesse Hall. The gathering celebrated an achievement nearly 130 years in the making: The University of Missouri’s endowment had crossed the $1 billion mark, becoming one of only 37 public universities nationwide to do so.

The Columns were still attached to Academic Hall when in 1888 the “Father of the University” gave $6,000 to establish Mizzou’s oldest endowment, the eponymous James S. Rollins Scholarship Fund. Now worth nearly $250,000, the Rollins endowment continues providing financial aid to Mizzou students, with no end in sight.

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More than dollars and cents, Mizzou’s endowment is an emblem of the gratitude and generosity that alumni and friends hold for MU. It’s a sign of their belief in the university’s future.

After announcing the record-breaking total, Cartwright yielded the floor to Mark Wilkins, BA ’90, managing director of the Wilkins Group at UBS in St. Louis and a cabinet member for the Mizzou: Our Time to Lead Campaign. “Human beings helping other human beings be the absolute best they can be, to live up to their potential,” Wilkins said with a catch in his throat. “There’s not enough of that in this world. But we can all do our little bit. And all of the little bits people have done for the university have added up to a billion dollars.”

SHUT TERSTOCK

With state funding stagnant, Mizzou and other universities nationwide have become more resourceful as they seek to grow and improve.

Building a substantial endowment is key, and on that score, the university has arrived at a watershed moment. Check out the range of endowments below, which help students and faculty make the most of their time at Mizzou. S TO RY BY E R I C F E R G U S O N

ENDOWMENTS

It’s About People

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or Wilkins, a letter from former MU Director of Admissions Georgeanne Porter opened a window onto the world. Porter’s note informed him that he had been accepted to study at the University of Missouri, where his interactions with faculty and his experiences in Army ROTC launched his journey from rural Missouri to the ends of the earth.

“I love this university,” Wilkins says. “But what I really love are the people here — the students, my fellow alumni, the faculty and the staff.”

Wilkins has strengthened each of these groups through three endowments he has created at MU.

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Mark and Patrick Wilkins Opportunity for Excellence Endowment in the Department of Military Science and Leadership: Supports the Army ROTC Tiger Battalion

Wilkins’ brother, Patrick, also went through Army ROTC and spent 20 years as an Army officer, retiring as an Army Ranger colonel with 11 combat tours.

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK The heart of Mizzou is its faculty, Wilkins says. His endowment helps Mizzou attract and

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

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Georgeanne Porter Endowed Scholarship: Provides annual scholarships to MU students

Wilkins arrived at MU as a “scared kid who did not have a lot of experience outside of Waynesville, Missouri.” Today, he is managing director of the Wilkins Group, a private wealth advisory team. He served four years in the United States Army and travels the world regularly. Wilkins credits much of his development to his time at Mizzou and his relationship with Porter, who with him and others launched the Mizzou Outreach Student Recruitment Team.

Students on the team serve as ambassadors for the university at admissions events and college fairs.

Porter and her husband, Gil, hosted cookouts for the outreach students at their home. “I vividly remember sitting in the Porters’ house and having meals with them,” Wilkins says. When Porter died in August 2017, Wilkins reflected on her role in his life and resolved to establish the scholarship endowment in her honor. “For me and lots of people, she cared deeply when she didn’t need to,” Wilkins says. “It was her job to be the director of Admissions, but she became a mentor and someone who really cared about our well-being as individuals.”

NICHOLAS BENNER

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK Through Wilkins’ Army ROTC scholarship, he joined the Tiger Battalion, which challenged him outside the classroom. “Army ROTC was probably the foundational thing that I did as a student at Mizzou,” Wilkins says. “I learned so many things that I still use today in the business world around discipline, leadership and stick-to-itiveness.”

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Mark A. Wilkins Fund for Excellence in the College of Arts and Science: Provides faculty members funding for teaching materials, research and travel expenses related to their scholarship

retain stellar faculty members through support that aids their research, enriches student learning and raises the university’s standing in the Association of American Universities.

“If you think about young, upand-coming faculty members, a $3,000 grant to attend a conference can be critically important in their careers,” Wilkins says. “I wanted to do something where the dean would have money to fund whatever it is they need. Faculty bring the Mizzou experience alive for students.”

Michael Todd, a junior majoring in secondary education, performs a fireman carry on Micah Gwinn, a sophomore majoring in English, during ROTC physical training exercises on Stankowski Field.

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ENDOWMENTS

Making a Difference in Autism

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Scenes of treatment from the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, which opened in 2005 with an endowment from Bill and Nancy Thompson.

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PHOTOS COURTESY THE THOMPSON CENTER

A

licia Curran remembers how she felt — uncertain, afraid, helpless — when her 4-yearold son was diagnosed with autism in 2004.

“There are so many questions and so much ambiguity in raising a kid with autism,” Curran says. “I didn’t know anything about autism when Sam got his diagnosis. Here I am, his mom, who’s supposed to fix things, and I couldn’t do that. Those unknowns can be really painful.”

Curran wasn’t the only one learning about autism and how it affects families in 2004. “My daughter was working as a behavioral therapist with children with autism,” says now-retired Pimco CEO Bill Thompson, BS CiE ’68. “Then a number of employees at my company were telling me that their children had been diagnosed with autism. I was learning a lot about autism, which was not very well understood back then.”

Thompson discovered that Mizzou had leading autism practitioners Thompson Famand researchers. He and his wife, ily Center for Autism and Neu- Nancy, HES ’67, decided to create a center at Mizzou that would deliver rodevelopmenclinical care, research, training and tal Disorders support for families. “As a parent, Endowment: when I heard the Thompson CenBolsters the center’s research and ter was going to open, it was just a feeling of hope,” Curran says. programming, including salaries, “There was going to be somebody who would understand my kid.” research, travel The center opened in 2005, and and equipment eight years later Curran joined its staff as a project coordinator, where she provides a parent’s perspective on the center’s services. “Parents have the one expertise that is missing on a health care team, and that’s lived experience,” she says. “We’ve tapped into every service offered at the Thompson Center, and my experiences through that are exactly why I wanted to come here and be a team member.

The magic happens here.”

For the Thompsons, that magic is the reward. “I have seen the impact that the center has made on the kids and the families we have met,” Thompson says.

“That to me is the return on our investment.”

Stop the Stereotypes

NICHOLAS BENNER

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lthough Jim and Cathy Brazeal endowed their diversity scholarship in 2004, its inspiration dates back to the United States Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v Board of Education ruling 50 years earlier. The decision rendered “separate but equal” public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. It also marked an inflection point in the life of Jim Brazeal, BA ’67, MBA ’69.

Before 1955, the year Springfield, Missouri, public schools were integrated, Brazeal’s interactions with African Americans had been limited to sporting events at the Springfield Boys Club. “When I entered junior high school that year, integration was only one of many changes,” Brazeal says. “As I worked side-by-side with African American classmates and teammates, I got to know them as friends. After that, I never again thought in terms of stereotypes.”

Brazeal credits his undergraduate and graduate education at the University of Missouri for his success at Ford Motor Company and later as owner of Kansas City Power Products. As he and his wife, Cathy, began giving back to the university, increasing campus diversity became a primary goal.

“When I was a student, I was immersed in my studies and was just not aware of the history of the university,” Brazeal says. “As I learned more about it, I became convinced that our gifts could best be used

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Brazeal Honors College Endowed Diversity Scholarship Fund: Provides fouryear awards to incoming Honors College students from under-represented groups and covers costs for study abroad and the Discovery Fellowship Program

to promote diversity and inclusion at the university.”

The Brazeals established their scholarship to help the Honors College attract star students who might not have attended Mizzou otherwise.

Emma Worgul, a senior accounting major from Kansas City, says the scholarship has been the highlight of her time at Mizzou. “I was looking at K-State and Washington University, but the Brazeal scholarship put me over the top in choosing Mizzou,” Worgul says.

“I studied management and marketing in Italy two summers ago. Half of our class was Mizzou students, and half of our class was European students. We got weekends off for short trips, like going to Prague.”

The program has provided similar transformative experiences for 11 students to date, with more coming to campus every year. The Brazeals build relationships with the students by dining with them at least once a semester. “Whenever I have news to share, I call my parents, then I call my friends, and then I call the Brazeals,” Worgul says. “I just have to tell them.”

When Emma Worgul had to choose between attending Washington University, Kansas State and Mizzou, the Brazeal Honors College Endowed Diversity Scholarship was the deciding factor.

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ENDOWMENTS

Cat Whitmer, a junior majoring in elementary education, uses story problem cards with fourth-grader Antasia Black at Beulah Ralph Elementary school in Columbia.

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ookies make everything more interesting — even math.

“A lot of people think that learning math is about memorizing number facts and then applying those facts to solve story problems,” says Susan Empson, the Richard G. Miller Endowed Chair in Mathematics Education and a Professor of Learning, Teaching and Curriculum in the College of Education. “That’s not the way it works with kids. They can easily picture things and make sense of story situations. Let’s say I’ve got seven cookies, and I eat three.

How many do I have left? Kids Richard G. Miller understand a story situation Chair in Mathemat- like this one before they learn ics Education: Augthe fact ‘7 minus 3’ by recall.” ments the chair-holdEmpson’s research focuses er’s work, including on how elementary school research support and teachers can align their inequipment, professtruction with how children sional development, think about numbers, parteaching materials, ticularly fractions. She taught travel, staff support, high school mathematics in and salary stipend New York City and as a Peace

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Corps volunteer in Morocco before becoming an accomplished and sought-after academic. Empson had been on the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin for 20 years when Kathryn Chval, dean of the College of Education, offered her the Miller Chair. “I wasn’t looking for a job,” Empson says. But the benefits that come with the position changed her mind. “The chair provides funding that allows me to do things like pilot research before I end up writing a full-scale proposal for a grant, for example. It allows me to collaborate with people at a distance if I want to do that.”

Empson and University of North Carolina at Greensboro professor Vicki Jacobs are working with more than 100 grade-school teachers to introduce frameworks for how kids think about fractions. “After working with small groups of teachers in a few schools, we thought, ‘Let’s work with a large group of teachers from several school districts and study how to support their learning on this larger scale.’ So there has been a steady progression of questions.” Empson says. “Then one research project leads to the next set of questions.”

NICHOLAS BENNER

Counting Cookies

MU Through and Through

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NICHOLAS BENNER

O

anny Hickman was a student at MU in 1891, one year before Academic Hall burned to the ground. Five generations later, whenever they visit campus, Hickman’s descendants in the Grace family make it a point to photograph the Columns, which still stand 126 years after the fire.

The late John Grace, BS ’58, MS ’63, Hickman’s grandson, was “MU through and through,” says his wife, Karen. Her status as a confirmed Kansas Jayhawk presented only minimal issues during their 52 years of marriage. “John was such a gentle, kind person,” Karen says. “He’d say, ‘I’ll always support KU … unless they’re playing MU.’ ” Grace presided over the Mizzou Alumni Association’s John O. Grace Memorial Buchanan Buchanan County Chapter from 1998 to 2000 and served County Alumni in national roles as well. His Chapter Endowed affinity for the University of Scholarship: ProMissouri led him to explore vides scholarships creating a scholarship proto students from gram that would help stuBuchanan County, dents from Buchanan County Missouri get a scholarship to MU. After Grace passed away in 2014, his family started the John O. Grace Memorial Buchanan County Alumni Chapter Endowed Scholarship to honor his memory.

The scholarship has allowed Madeleine Brownfield, a biochemistry major from St. Joseph, Missouri, the flexibility to pursue extracurricular activities in addition to her coursework. She played flute in the University Philharmonic Symphony and joined the Mizzou Outreach Student Recruitment Team, which answers questions from prospective students and their parents. She also has a flourishing videography business. “I started doing videos on a marine biology trip in high school,” Brownfield says. “Then a friend asked me to film his wedding proposal. Now, I have a couple weddings booked, and my sorority [Kappa Alpha Theta] asked me to join their social media team.”

Brownfield plans to attend medical school to pursue her interests in neurology or anesthesiology.

“It’s always so exciting to follow these young people after they get the scholarship,” Karen Grace says. “I’ve lived in Buchanan County all my life, so I know many of the families.” M Madeleine Brownfield majors in biochemistry, and an endowed scholarship allows her to pursue extracurricular activities.

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HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

A N E W B O O K P L A N T S T O N G U E I N C H E E K A N D A S K S : W H AT I F E V E R Y P R E S I D E N T S I N C E W A S H I N G T O N W E R E B A C K O N T H E D AT I N G M A R K E T ?

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH DAW N K L I NG E N S M I T H

NE MI ZZ OU MA GA ZI

N I C H O L AS BE N N E R

SP RI NG 20 18 P. 42

Dressed as George Washington and a date, authors J.D and Kate Dobson re-enact revolutionary pickup lines.

SPRING 2018

4 3

LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES?

SSSSS

44 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Imagine having your pick of 44 paramours who have it all — power, entourages, pedigrees. All they lack in most cases is eligibility and a pulse.

You can’t actually date any of them (all are dead or married), but you can memorize their turn-ons and moon over their profiles in Hottest Heads of State Volume One: The American Presidents by J.D. Dobson, BA ’00, and his wife, Kate, who set out to make each and every POTUS relatable and dateable. Billed as TigerBeat (the teen idol mag) for U.S. presidents, Hottest Heads of State presents each commander in chief as he might come across on Tinder or eHarmony or — let’s not forget Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter — FarmersOnly.com.

Some presidents were harder to profile than others, Dobson says, but all have at least one endearing quality. Ulysses S. Grant, a handyman with a heart, built a coffin and held a funeral for his wife’s canary. Millard Fillmore read the dictionary for fun. Theodore Roosevelt walked on stilts.

In typical teen magazine fashion, the book is packed with quizzes (Does Richard Nixon Like You More as a Friend?), dating tips (if Abraham Lincoln invites you to the theater, say no!) and trend alerts (powdered hair gave way to oilslicked side parts over time).

If you find a president you fancy, study the “How to Win His Heart” section of his profile — love letters to John Adams; long walks with Fillmore; Vaseline scalp massages for Calvin Coolidge. These aren’t made-up presidential proclivities but the

fruits of hours of semirigorous research, says Kate: “I read a lot of first halves of a lot of biographies.”

Before co-writing Hottest Heads of State, Kate was an assistant comics editor at the Washington Post, and J.D. was a U.S. Senate staffer, federal lobbyist and crisis communications consultant. Some 10 years ago, they launched HottestHeadsOfState.com, the precursor to their book. “I thought it was mean to rank people in terms of looks — even people who have been dead hundreds of years,” J.D. says. “But Kate?

She knows what the public wants.”

Publishers, too. It was the website that got them their agent and book deal.

Next, the Dobsons plan to write Hottest Heads of State Volume Two. (It may even include women!)

Meanwhile, the couple runs a business making candles that smell like politicians. Once you’ve spent months learning the histories and imagining the courtship rituals of long-dead presidents, it’s natural to wonder how they might have smelled in their prime. Take Teddy Roosevelt, an outdoorsman. His candle smells like leather and woodsmoke. Washington had a distillery, so his smells like whiskey. But what of Washington’s real aroma? Would it light your fire or just singe your nose hairs? Based on what we know of his dental health and his era’s pitiful hygiene, Washington probably smelled like Limburger.

Still, he achieves “dreamboat” status, as the Dobsons write in Hottest Heads of State, because he “is willing to put some effort into looking good.

Hence the ponytail.”

Ah, the ponytail, with its silken tie and snowy talc. Washington’s is a hot head, indeed. M

L O C AT I O N C O U RT E SY B A R R E D O W L B U TC H E R & TA B L E

FEATURE

HUMOR

FROM HOTTEST HEADS OF STATE

GEORGE WASHINGTON

1789–1797 H

We know what you’re thinking: “Hey, who’s the dreamboat in the wig?”

SSSSS Well, his name is George Washington,

WHY YOU'LL

LOVE HIM

Excerpted from HOTTEST HEADS OF STATE: Volume One: The American Presidents by J.D. and Kate Dobson, published by HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. Copyright © 2018 by John and Kate Dobson. All rights reserved.

and that isn’t a wig! It’s his actual hair covered in powder because why not? (OK, we can think of a few reasons why not.)

Now you’re probably thinking, “I’m all about the wig hair, but tell me: Does he have any teeth?” And the answer is yes! But only in the sense that he bought someone else’s teeth and wears them in his mouth. So if that’s a deal breaker for you, you might as well stop reading here and move on to John Adams. Or — if we’re being honest — you should just move directly to Thomas Jefferson.

But the main thing you should know about George Washington is that he is a guy with selfcontrol. You’re never going to have to listen to him talk about his boring feelings because he keeps them pent up inside, just like therapists are always advising people to do. He hides his temper and his relentless ambition, all while projecting a carefully crafted persona that is cool, detached and heavily dusted in powder.

Basically, George Washington is the perfect man because he is really good at pretending to be the perfect man.

By now you’re probably starting to quiver with desire. And that’s OK — it’s just your body’s way of telling you that you have fallen in love with George Washington and all other men have been ruined for you. You might as well go ahead and hurl this book into the fire, along with all your romance novels and also your wedding ring.

He can dance.

What Washington lacks in teeth, he makes up for in dance moves. (This is assuming that teeth and dance moves can be exchanged on a onefor-one basis. Go to a swap meet and see if you can trade dance moves for teeth, or vice versa, and report back to us.)

He enjoys interior decorating.

Washington is the kind of guy who will absolutely watch HGTV with you. He’s constantly updating his house to keep it looking fashionable, and he would probably be embarrassed to see how out-of-date it looks now. (Thanks for nothing, Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association!)

His hands are gigantic.

Just imagine those giant hands gripping your waist as Washington sweeps you across the dance floor, then pulls you in close to his muscular chest and whispers in your ear about an episode of Property Brothers he saw last night.

SPRING 2018 45

HUMOR

FROM HOTTEST HEADS OF STATE

ak! e r b t r a He George Washington’s Life in a Nutshell* 1732 George Washington is born. Finally!

1733-48 Doesn’t chop down any cherry trees.

1749 Lands a job as a surveyor.

(Get it? “Lands”? Ugh, never mind.)

1754 Accidentally starts the French and Indian War. Oops!

1759 Marries Martha Dandridge Custis.

Best man probably brings up the whole French and Indian War thing in his toast.

1759-75 Lives at Mount Vernon; works

tirelessly to get it ready to be a popular tourist attraction in a couple hundred years.

1775 Appointed commander of the

Continental Army. Refuses to accept a salary, which is good because Congress probably wasn’t going to pay him anyway.

1776 Famous crossing of the Delaware,

in which Washington makes his employees work on Christmas Eve.

VITAL STATS

6 10 5 10

Looks

e Physiqu

a Charism

ling Genera 1777 Spends winter at Valley Forge.

Troops won’t shut up about how they don’t have any shoes.

1781 Wins surrender from British at

Yorktown, who then resentfully begin a multidecade project to cultivate an accent that makes them sound smarter than the Americans.

1789 Is basically peer-pressured by the

entire country into becoming president.

Starting a proud American tradition, he borrows money to move to New York City.

1797 Retires from public life; gives

a farewell address warning his country against doing all the things it will then proceed to do. *Please cut out this section and cram it inside of a nutshell.

46 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

This is a guy who cares a lot about appearances and is willing to put some effort into looking good.

Hence the ponytail.

Washington has a muscular build and towered over the other Founding Fathers at around 6’2”.

That’s the modern-day equivalent of being over 11’ tall!

As a teenager, George Washington fell for a woman named Sally Fairfax, and there’s evidence that he carried a torch for her his entire life. Which is a pretty long time to carry a torch! We can only carry a torch for 10 minutes or so before our arm gets tired and we have to rest it on top of a can of gasoline.

Washington met Sally because she was married to his best friend, which — for the record — is a great way to meet women. Sally was rich and classy, and Washington was anything but. So their romance was basically like the plot of Notting Hill if, instead of getting together with Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant had channeled his sexual frustration into overthrowing the British government.

Here’s a tip from George Washington for those of you who aren’t naturally charismatic: Try to become the wealthiest landowner in America. There — now no one cares whether or not you’re charismatic.

Washington is the only American commanding general to win a war against Great Britain. (So far.)

Washington never chopped down a cherry tree; a biographer invented that story in order to sell more books. We asked our editor if we could make stuff up in order to sell more books, but she thought about it for a minute and then said, “No.”

Iw love ill alway you, s Sally !

HOW TO WIN HIS HEART Be rich.

Martha Dandridge Custis was one of the wealthiest widows in Virginia, and Washington proposed the third time he met her. Not to imply that Washington was only interested in her for her money, but … actually, we can’t think of how to finish this sentence.

Be refined.

Washington likes women who are classy and elegant. And you know what that means — no more picking your teeth with a folded dollar bill! That’s just insult upon injury for George Washington.

Don’t let it bother you that he’s in love with Sally Fairfax.

If it’s any consolation, most men would choose Sally Fairfax over you.

THE ONES WHO GOT AWAY If you ever took the time to read the Federalist Papers, you’d know the founders intended for presidential elections to be won by the hottest candidate. And yet, far too often, the American voters have cast their votes based on considerations like “Is he in my political party?” or “Would I enjoy having a beer with him, even though I don’t like beer?” Here are some almost-presidents who slipped away.

William Jennings Bryan

(Ran for president in 1896, 1900, 1908) William Jennings Bryan lost three presidential elections, was fired as Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of state and was counsel for the “evolution is a bunch of hokey” side in the Scopes Monkey Trial. And yet he’s best known for his “cross of gold” speech opposing the gold standard, which he gave at the 1896 Democratic National Convention. You, too, can make people forget about your shortcomings by giving a speech about the gold standard. In fact, we guarantee that if you climb onstage at the Democratic National Convention and start ranting about the gold standard, that’s what you’ll be known for.

Charles Evans Hughes

(Ran for president in 1916) If you’re feeling sad that Charles Evans Hughes lost the 1916 election to Woodrow Wilson, console yourself with the fact that he was obviously better suited to other careers. For example: 1) polar expedition leader, 2) viking, 3) walrus.

Alton B. Parker

(Ran for president in 1904) You only have to look at Alton B. Parker’s big, soulful doe eyes to know that, in the 1904 presidential election, Teddy Roosevelt is going to take him down like a big, soulful doe.

Henry Clay

(Ran for president in 1824, 1832, 1840, 1844, 1848) Clay, known as “The Great Compromiser,” ran for president no fewer than five times.

He was beaten by men such as Andrew “I beat people literally, not just in elections” Jackson, Zachary “I’ve never voted” Taylor and William “I think I’m coming down with something” Harrison.

John Frémont

(Ran for president in 1856) John Frémont was a famous explorer. Here he is exploring the inside of his coat.

SPRING 2018 47

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS

Gary L. Smith “retired” in 2000, but he still teaches a one-hour course every fall to 15 freshmen in the Honors College. A few years ago, he noticed something about his students: “I became increasingly concerned that they came from high school without a sensitivity to what’s going on in the world. Then I found they don’t know anything about MU.” So, in addition to teaching about Clarence Darrow, the litigator famous for his defense of Tennessee high school teacher John Scopes, Smith, M Ed ’65, EdD ’71, works in facts about Mizzou: when it was founded, who has made major contributions over the years and why a statue of Thomas Jefferson sits on Francis Quadrangle.

Smith would know. He’s spent the past 50 years working on behalf of the university. His first role was as MU’s director of admissions and registrar from 1970 to 2000. Then he became executive director of the University of Missouri Flagship Council from 2008 to 2014, where he led efforts to advocate for and protect the best interests of the university. He continues to serve on the council’s board.

In honor of his unwavering commitment to higher education and Mizzou, the Legislative Network Committee of the Mizzou Alumni Association presented a 2017 Henry S. Geyer Award to Smith.

Geyer was a state representative who believed education was key to progress and prosperity in Missouri, and he introduced a bill to establish the University of Missouri in 1839. “I’ve spent my whole life in public education in the state of Missouri,” Smith says. “Anytime your peers see fit to award something of importance to you, it is quite an honor.”

The committee also honored Rep. Nate Walker with a 2017 Geyer Award. The alumni association recognized Walker for his continued efforts to support higher education public policy. Tom Rackers, a lobbyist for the University of Missouri Flagship Council, says Walker always asks, “What can I do for Mizzou?”

Walker, BS Ag ’74, MS ’75, opposed a tax-cut bill that he says not only would have reduced state revenue collections but also harmed K–12 and higher education funding. In 2016, he says, he voted against more bills adverse to Mizzou, its Association of American Universities status and the state’s economy than ever in his legislative career. Walker also supports the medical research conducted at the University of Missouri Research Reactor as well as appropriations to expand education and training there.

48 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

“As a third-generation Mizzou graduate, it is part of my DNA to support pro-Mizzou and prohigher education policies,” Walker says. “I am honored and humbled to receive the Geyer Award for doing what is right for ol’ Mizzou.

— Kelsey Allen

Rep. Nate Walker, left, and retired MU administrator Gary L. Smith received 2017 Geyer Awards from the Mizzou Alumni Association’s Legislative Network Committee.

ROB HILL

Education Advocates

SPRING 2018 49

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS

Events May 4, Tiger Prowl and Senior Sendoff mizzou.com 5, Patty Griffin thebluenote.com 11, Luminary tribute to new and prior graduates mizzou.com 11–13, Commencement missouri.edu June 2, Black & Glow mizzou.com 8, “Weird Al” Yankovic concertseries.org 17–28, Tourin’ Tigers, Gaelic Exploration mizzou.com July 1, Mizzou Alumni Association President Andrea Allison-Putman takes the reins mizzou.com 15, Deadline for Mizzou Alumni Association Member Calendar Photo Contest mizzou.com August 1, Deadline for Phase VIII Traditions Plaza pavers mizzou.com 19, Tiger Walk mizzou.com September 20, 21, Mizzou Alumni Association Governing Board meeting and Leaders Day and Banquet mizzou.com 50 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Class Notes 1950

HHSam Hamra, BS BA ’54, JD ’59, of Springfield, Mo., founded Hamra Enterprises, which the Springfield Business Journal named philanthropic business of the year in 2017. Hamra Enterprises operates 154 restaurants nationwide.

Jim Lehrer, BJ ’56, of Washington, D.C., former news anchor for PBS NewsHour, received the Press Club of St. Louis’ lifetime achievement award.

HWilliam Tyler, BA, BJ ’58, and Margery Moss Tyler, BS Ed ’58, of Chesterfield, Mo., celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary Aug. 31, 2017.

1960

HHMilton English, BA ’66, of Mercer Island, Wash., interventional cardiologist with the Swedish Medical Group, was named to the 2018 Top Doctor Awards list for Seattle.

HGilbert Moorman, BS EE ’66, MS ’68, and Mary Jane Robinson Moorman, BS Ed ’68, of Springfield, Ill., celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary Sept. 16, 2017.

Benito de Lumen, MS ’67, of El Cerrito, Calif., professor emeritus of nutritional science and toxicology at the University of California, Berkeley, is CEO and founder of Narra Biosciences.

John Siebert, PhD ’67, of Kailua Kona, Hawaii, is board chair and interim principal executive officer of Aradigm Corp.

HHJoan Beelman Strand, BS Ed ’68, and HHMartin Strand, MD ’69, of Evergreen, Colo., celebrated their 50th anniversary July 29, 2017.

HHEdward Woods,

BS Ag ’69, of Louisiana, Mo., president of Woods Smoked Meats, was inducted into the Meat Industry Hall of Fame.

1970

HHBuck Million, BS Ed ’70, of Lake Suzy, Fla., wrote Mystery on Mirror Lake (Dog Ear Publishing, 2016).

HRichard Dalton, BS Ed ’74, PhD ’80, of Jefferson City, Mo., wrote I Am NOT My Thoughts (Independently published, 2017).

HHDale Grotelueschen, DVM ’74, of Harvard, Neb., director of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Great Plains Veterinary Educational Center, was named veterinarian of the year by the Nebraska Veterinary Medical Association.

HHSteven Kuenzel, BS BA ’74, JD ’76, of Washington, Mo., managing partner of Eckelkamp Kuenzel LLP, is a senior fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America.

HScott Wiegmann, BS ’75, of Plantation, Fla., wrote To Each What He Deserves (Amazon Publishing, 2017).

HHKathy Silvey Britton, BS Ed ’76, of O’Fallon, Ill., retired after 25 years of civil service in the federal government.

HLee Keith, BS BA ’76, of Jefferson City, Mo., is commissioner of the Missouri Division of Finance.

HHRichard Britton, BA ’77, of O’Fallon, Ill., retired after 40 years in the U.S. Marine Corps and nine years in transportation command at Scott Air Force Base.

1980

HHJane Tierney, BS IE ’80, of Oak Park, Calif., CEO of Supply Chain Innovations, was named a Pinnacle Lifetime Member in the field of supply chain management.

H M I Z ZOU ALU M N I ASSOCI ATI ON AN N UAL M EM B ER | HH

L IF E ME MB E R

SPRING 2018 51

52 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS REMEMBERING

RAY’S PICNIC

When Ray Phillips and his wife, Mary Sue, first attended the Kansas City Alumni Chapter’s annual fall picnic, he was dismayed to find that it was held in Kansas. A former Mizzou football player and active Tiger Scholarship Fund supporter, Phillips chided chapter secretary Carl Schweitzer, BS BA ’52. Schweitzer replied, “Well, if you think so much about that, why don’t you join us,” recalls then-chapter treasurer C. W. Manford, BS BA ’67.

So he did. Over the next 40 years, Phillips transformed the picnic from a couple dozen attendees grilling hot dogs into a Tiger Tailgate and Auction that’s attended by more than 500 alumni, has raised nearly $600,000 in scholarship funds for MU-bound area high school students — and is held in Missouri.

Phillips, a U.S. Army veteran, dedicated employee for Southwestern Bell and AT&T, and staunch supporter of all things Mizzou, died Feb. 12, 2017, in Blue Springs, Missouri. He was 85.

In addition to almost single-handedly transforming the fall picnic into the largest alumni chapter event in the nation, Phillips served as a member of the chapter’s Executive Committee for more than two decades and on the Mizzou Alumni Association board of directors. “He was truly Mr. Mizzou in Kansas City,” says Stuart Woody, BS BA ’85.

Phillips wasn’t just good at convincing people to donate money. He also inspired generations of volunteers and advocates for the university. “As MU grads, we saw Ray Phillips as a person we wanted to emulate,” wrote Gene, BS BA ’77, JD ’84, and Debbi Kiley Twellman, BS Ed ’78, in a reference letter in support of Phillips for the 2010 Missouri Alumni Legacy, which he won.

“His entire purpose in life was to help the University of Missouri and to provide opportunities to students,” says Pamela M. Oberdiek, Bus ’84. “It’s where I credit any philanthropic endeavors my husband [Randy, BS Acc ’84] and I have. We’d see how giving he and Mary Sue were, and it made you think, ‘I should be donating my time, my talent, my treasure.’ It made me want to give back as well.” — Kelsey Allen

Teach your child what it means to be a

Take advantage of Mizzou’s program Tigers in Training! An exclusive benefit for members of the MAA with a child 18 and under.

CASEY BUCKMAN

Sign up today at www.mizzou.com/tigersintraining

54 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

In the fast moving industry of news, taking time off for professional development is not possible. The School of Journalism’s online master’s program lets me balance my current career with my future goals.

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MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS James Lynch, BJ ’82, of Montclair, N.J., is on the board of the Casualty Actuarial Society.

HSheryl Crow, BS Ed ’84, of Santa Monica, Calif., released Be Myself (Warner Bros Records, 2017), her 10th studio album.

HHRoy Smoker, PhD ’84, of Huntington Beach, Calif., was named biography of the year and professional of the year for two consecutive years

by Strathmore’s Who’s Who Worldwide Edition for his work in the field of defense.

Michael Wagner, BS Ag ’85, of Sumner, Miss., owns Two Brooks Farm.

Giambalvo Fund for the Advancement of Women research grant for her project focusing on issues faced by senior women physicians.

Jason Marks, BA, BA ’89, of Chesterfield, Mo., is president of Mackler Associates, a tutoring, test preparation and mentoring service.

Cheryl Reed, BJ ’89, of Kenosha, Wis., wrote Poison Girls (Diversion Books, 2017).

1990

HJames Easley, BS CoE, BS EE ’90, of Overland Park, Mo., is a principal with the Jones Financial Companies LLLP.

Kelly Brady Gilbert, BS Robert Kohlman, BJ ’87, of BA ’90, of Columbia is Miami practices commersenior vice president for cial litigation, appellate and commercial lending at arbitration at Buchanan Landmark Bank.

Ingersoll & Rooney PC. Jon Hamm, BA ’93, of Los HHAmy Buehler, BA Angeles plays Mason Skiles ’88, of Ballwin, Mo., is in Beirut (Kasbah-Film the development director Tanger, Radar Pictures and for Variety the Children’s ShivHans Pictures, 2018), Charity of St. Louis. a political thriller film directed by Brad Anderson.

Kimberly Templeton, MD ’88, of Leawood, Kan., HHJulie Cubbage, BS Acc received the 2017 Joan F. ’95, of Grover, Mo., is chief

financial officer of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri.

Wendy McGuire Coats, BS Ed ’96, of Alamo, Calif., partner and appellate counsel in the San Francisco office of Fisher Phillips LLP, was named to the Northern California Super Lawyers 2017 edition.

Julie Walter Donnelly, PhD ’96, of Columbia, an autism expert with 30-plus years of experience, founded Autism Support Services and received the Dr. Cathy Pratt Outstanding Autism Professional of the Year Award.

Jason Daniel, BA ’97, of Plano, Texas, is a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. HHMegan Belcher, BA ’98, of Omaha, Neb., joined the food and agribusiness industry team at Husch Blackwell LLP.

City, Mo., is director of e-commerce sales for Schlage Lock Co.

2000

HHMichael Korman, BS BA ’00, of Glenview, Ill., senior vice president of ICON construction company, serves on the Glenview Plan Commission.

Jamie Huss, BS HES ’02, of O’Fallon, Mo., is a shareholder at Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC. Vicky Wilkins, PhD ’04, of Washington, D.C., is dean of the American University School of Public Affairs.

Todd Gampp, BA ’05, of Glencoe, Mo., is a shareholder at Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC. Brian Bage, BS ’08, of Ballwin, Mo., is a landscape architect at PGAV Destinations.

Sarah Burns, A&S ’98, of Clayton, Mo., is a shareholder at Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC.

HHShawn Bell, BA ’08, of Glen Carbon, Ill., is city administrator of Fountain Inn, S.C.

HHJoey Findley Peck, BS, BS BA ’98, of Kansas

2010

Sarah Ratermann-Beahan,

MS ’10, of Seattle is the writer-in-residence at the Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts in Fridley, Minn.

David Brian Wilson, EdD ’10, of Springdale, Ark., is communications director of the University of Arkansas Transit and Parking Department.

Dan Woodward, BA ’14, of Beverly Hills, Calif., co-wrote the screenplay Trapline, which was ranked No. 16 on The Black List, a ranking by film industry development executives of promising scripts.

Weddings

Jennifer Sorensen, BS BA ’13, and Dalton Martin, BHS ’14, of Racine, Wis., May 19, 2018.

Births

HHAbram Lewis, BS ’05, and HHHeather Klepper Lewis, BHS ’05, of Harrisonville, Mo., announce the birth of Mavora Kay April 21, 2017.

Faculty Deaths

Robert McClure of Columbia May 31, 2017, at 85. He was a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Biomedical Sciences.

BECOME A FRIEND OF

Mizzou Botanic Garden Help keep our campus beautiful.

Annual membership, $25 Lifetime membership, $1,000 Tribute Tree, $2,500 or more Tribute Bench, $5,000 or more Gifts are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

For more information: (573) 882-1830 or gardens.missouri.edu

H M I Z ZO U A LUMNI A SSO CIATIO N ANNUAL MEM BER | HH

L IF E MEM BER

SPRING 2018 57

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Villages of Volunteers

Mizzou Alumni Association members find their best fit for service to MU in numerous ways. Here’s a by-the-numbers look at a year’s worth of volunteerism.

5,243 1,424 177 Legislative advocates who contact politicians on MU’s behalf

Core volunteers serving in elected or appointed roles on boards or committees

771

Painters of the rock M at Faurot Field

3,640 Homecoming Blood Drive donors

1,663

Homecoming helpers, including activity judges, students performing service projects and the Homecoming Steering Committee of 63 students, which organizes the festivities

Reviewers of applications for the more than $500,000 in scholarships the association gives annually

137

Members of the Griffiths Leadership Society for Women providing leadership development and mentoring to MU women students

110

328

Writers (in longhand) of notes to 8,000 students admitted to MU, encouraging them to enroll

Alumni Association Student Board members who safeguard Mizzou’s traditions, foster pride in its community and serve as the governing board for the association’s student members

Michael Sherman of Columbia Sept. 22, 2017, at 75.

He was a professor in the Department of Child Health.

of Vista, Calif., Jan. 1, 2018, at 96. He was a U.S. Army Air Force veteran.

Deaths

HHJohn B. Lewis, BS Ag ’51, MA ’53, of Columbia Oct. 31, 2017, at 90. He was a U.S. Navy World War II veteran, wildlife research biologist and supervisor for the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Kathryn Wuest Bennett, BA Ed ’46, of Arlington Heights, Ill., Oct. 2, 2017, at 92. She taught elementary school in Peoria, Ill.

HC.M. Schauerte, BA ’51, BJ ’52, of Austin, Texas, Aug. 9, 2017, at 88. He was a Sigma Alpha Eplison member, U.S. Air Force Korean War veteran and vice president of government affairs for American General Companies in Houston.

Flore Zéphir of Columbia Dec. 17, 2017, at 59. She was chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.

HHugh Wynn, BS ChE ’40, of Bradenton, Fla., May 20, 2017, at 100. He was a chemical engineer with Air Products and Chemical Co.

Edward Dunajcik, BS Ed ’47, of St. Louis Dec. 29, 2017, at 92.

Jane Clancy, BA ’48, of Carbondale, Colo., May 12, 2017, at 91.

HCharles Stribling, BA ’49, BJ ’50, of Mexico, Mo., Sept. 20, 2017, at 90. He was president of Missouri Military Academy.

Wayne Elliot, BS ME ’50,

Arthur Ehlmann, BS Ed ’52, MA ’54, of Fort Worth, Texas, Aug. 19, 2017, at 89.

He was a professor and department chair at Texas Christian University.

John H. Robinson, BSF ’52, of Medford, Ore., Oct. 27, 2016, at 90.

HHHarold Hook, BS BA ’53, MA ’54, of Houston Jan. 24, 2018, at 87. He was president and CEO of

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Better. Smarter. Mobile. Global.

75% online. 25% on campus.

60 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

execmba.missouri.edu

(573) 882-2180

In Good Company

National Fidelity Life.

Alice Lois Redman, BS HE ’53, of Manhattan, Kan., May 2, 2017, at 85. She worked in in 4-H and youth development in Oregon and Kansas.

MU alumni, faculty and friends get a lot of ink in the Ingrams.com story, “50 Missourians You Should Know 2018.” Read their bios on the site.

Rob Barrett, BS Ag ’74, M Ed ’79, president, Heritage State Bank, Nevada Cindy Brinkley, BJ ’91, president and chief operating officer, Centene, St. Louis Joel Denney, BS Ed ’74, EdD ’83, executive director, National Guard Association, Columbia June Fowler, BA ’78, senior vice president of communications, market-

ing and public affairs, BJC HealthCare, St. Louis Kavita Katti senior research scientist, University of Missouri, Columbia Ken Kranzberg, DHL ’09, chairman, TricorBraun, St. Louis Andy Kuntz, Arts ’86, chief executive officer, Andy’s Frozen Custard, Springfield

Vicki McCarrell, BS Ed ’72, founder, Moebius Foundation, Pilot Grove Mary McCleary Posner, BA ’61, chairman, Salute to Veterans, Columbia Todd McCubbin, M Ed ’95, executive director, Mizzou Alumni Association, Columbia Bruce Mershon, BS Ag ’85, owner and chief operating officer, Mershon Cattle, Lee’s Summit

Keith Miller, Arts ’73, principal architect, Columbia Associates, Columbia Juanita Simmons vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion, Northwest Missouri State University, Maryville David Steelman University of Missouri System curator and managing partner at Steelman, Gaunt and Horsefield, Rolla

HHRobert Maupin, BA ’54, of Fort Meyers, Fla., April 28, 2017, at 85. He was president and CEO of Shelter Insurance.

HHBarbara Houston Pelot, BS Ed ’55, of Columbia Sept. 23, 2017, at 93. She was a Kappa Kappa Gamma member, elementary school teacher and owner-operator of the family farm in Malta Bend, Mo. Patsy Turner Ellenberger, BSN ’56, of Springfield, Mo., Jan. 9, 2018, at 84. She was an ophthalmology nurse and one of the first nurses to staff the University of Missouri Medical Center.

HHWarren Loschky, BS

From left, Barrett, Brinkley, Fowler, Katti, Kuntz, Simmons

SPRING 2018 61

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS BA ’57, of Plattsburg, Mo., Nov. 29, 2017, at 87. He was a Korean War veteran who worked for Sears Roebuck Co. before owning and operating a retail business and a computer business.

HPaul Francis, BJ ’58, of Independence, Mo., Jan. 3, 2018, at 84. He was a U.S. Army Korean War veteran, reporter and editor for The Kansas City Star and director of communications for Kansas City Public Television.

Ralph Scott, BS BA ’58, of Kansas City, Mo., Dec. 5, 2017, at 81. He was executive vice president of the Kansas City Real Estate Board.

W.C. Wakefield, BSF ’62, of Ellington, Mo., Dec. 11, 2016, at 81.

HHMyles Friedman, MA ’64, of Fort Smith, Ark., Sept.

1, 2017, at 78. He was an engineer and soybean farmer.

Winthrop Stevens, BA ’65, of Southport, N.C., Aug. 12, 2017, at 76. He worked in advertising.

sports reporter and senior media consultant.

HKae Mullan Hentges, MS ’74, EdSp ’79, of Olympia, Wash., Dec. 7, 2017, at 83. She was a medical illustrator.

HKathy Fehrle Waller, BS Ed ’75, M Ed ’83, of Spring Hill, Kan., Sept. 30, 2017, at 64.

Frederick Busse, MS Ed ’68, of O’Fallon, Mo., Dec. 6, 2017, at 79. A U.S. Army veteran, he taught history and social studies at Hazelwood Central High School.

Brent Briscoe, BA ’84, of Memphis, Tenn., Dec. 10, 2017, at 56. He was a screenwriter and character actor who appeared in films including Sling Blade and The Green Mile.

HLorraine Roberts, MA ’71, PhD ’82, of Scottsdale, Ariz., Jan. 22, 2018, at 84. She taught English at multiple high schools, colleges and universities.

Rhonda Patterson, BS Ag ’87, of Brownsville, Ky., May 19, 2017, at 51. She was a biology professor at Western Kentucky University and Southern Mississippi University.

HKatharin Wilkinson, BJ ’58, of Springfield, Mo., Nov. 16, 2017, at 81. She was an adjunct professor at Southwest Missouri State University HRuth Racely, BJ ’73, (now Missouri State of Riverside, Calif., Oct. University).MAA_TMS_Alumni_Apple_Ad_3.18.pdf 18, 2017, at 64. 1She3/12/18 was a

Alexander Jenkins, BS ’16, of Butler, Mo., 4:22 Nov.PM19, 2017, at 23.

A DV E RT ISI NG I N DE X

Bank of America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 800-932-2275 Linkside at Old Hawthorne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 573-554-2299 Mizzou Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16–17, 63 giving.missouri.edu Mizzou Alumni Association . 2, 49, 51, 52–53, 54, 55, 61 mizzou.com Mizzou Athletics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 800-CATPAWS Mizzou MBA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 execmba.missouri.edu Mizzou Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 online.missouri.edu Mizzou Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 themizzoustore.com MU Botanic Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 gardens.missouri.edu MU Licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 themizzoustore.com MU Health Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3 muhealth.org Nationwide Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-4 nationwide.com To advertise in MIZZOU, call MAA at 573-882-6611

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H M I Z ZOU ALU M N I ASSOCI ATI ON AN N UAL M EM B ER | HH

L IF E ME MB E R

A MIZZOU GIFT ANNUITY F O R A M I Z ZO U C O U P L E

A Mizzou couple builds on their Mizzou legacy After graduating from MU, Tom and Nancy Schultz have devoted their careers and volunteer time and energy to Mizzou through the Mizzou Alumni Association and University Advancement.

Now they are building upon their MU legacy through a Charitable Gift Annuity that gives them a charitable deduction now, income for the rest of their lives and provides a significant gift for Mizzou.

A Mizzou Gift Annuity provides income for your lifetime.

Learn how you can receive guaranteed lifetime income, a great income tax deduction and estate tax advantages. Call 1-800-970-9977 for a free illustration that will show you how a Mizzou Charitable Gift Annuity can benefit you; or email giftplanning@missouri.edu.

Sample Rate Chart: $10,000 Single Life Gift Annuity Donor’s Age

60 65 70 75 80 85 90

Annuity Rate

4.4% 4.7% 5.1% 5.8% 6.8% 7.8% 9.0%

Annual Payout

$440 $470 $510 $580 $680 $780 $900

Tom and Nancy Schultz earned degrees from MU, and then returned to finish their careers working with alumni and donors.

Tom served as national chair of the alumni association in 1980-81. They are providing support for the Mizzou Alumni Association and the College of Human Environmental Sciences through their Mizzou Gift Annuity.

Deduction $2,909 $3,490 $4,099 $4,577 $5,020 $5,660 $6,295 Tax-free Income

$294 $327 $371 $437 $530 $638 $756

*Deductions will vary slightly with changes in the IRS discount rate. Assumed rate is 2.4%. PLEASE NOTE: These examples are for illustration purposes only and are not intended as legal or tax advice. Consult your own legal and tax advisors prior to making any material decisions based on this data.

I Z ZO U A LUMNI A SSO CIATIO N ANNUAL MEM BER MO | HH65211 L IF E M EM BER H MReynolds 302 Alumni Center | Columbia, | www.giftannuity.missouri.edu

SPRING 2018 63

SEMPER MIZZOU

Civil Wrong Recognized In February, the University of Missouri Board of Curators named Lucile Bluford Residence Hall in honor of the journalist and civil rights advocate who was denied admission to MU in 1939.

64 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

In 1939, Lucile Bluford was already an experienced journalist with her sights set on earning a graduate degree from the Missouri School of Journalism. After starting at the Daily World in Atlanta, she had returned home to Kansas City to work for the Kansas City American and then the Kansas City Call. When Bluford was 27, the University of Missouri accepted her application to attend graduate school, but upon her arrival, she was turned away.

Citing “separate but equal” Jim Crow laws, officials pointed Bluford toward Lincoln University, then Missouri’s only public college open to African-Americans. Lincoln University had no dedicated journalism school, and Bluford was more experienced than two of the school’s three journalism professors. She responded by filing lawsuits against the University of Missouri. After two years in the courtroom, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in her favor in 1941. However, MU temporarily closed its doors to all graduate students in 1942 due to a wartime shortage of students.

Bluford never attended MU. She died in 2003, but throughout her long career she fought racism and inequality, serving as a leading voice in the civil rights movement.

In 1989, MU awarded Bluford an honorary doctoral degree, which she accepted, not for herself, but for all the black students the university had discriminated against over the years. “Lucile used journalism as a vehicle to eradicate systems and structures that served as impediments to progress, especially in the area of higher education,” says Kevin McDonald, vice chancellor for inclusion, diversity and equity. In February, the University of Missouri Board of Curators named Lucile Bluford Residence Hall in her honor.

“It’s fitting that the state honor Lucile Bluford, who fought to provide voice to the voiceless throughout her career,” says Lynda Kraxberger, associate dean and professor in the MU School of Journalism. “Bluford’s persistent advocacy for people of color stands as a monument of truth to power.”

MISSOURIAN FILE PHOTO

The late Lucile Bluford, a journalist and civil rights advocate, was honored with a new residence hall named after her.

IT’S WHEN THEY HEARD YES, THEIR DOCTOR DOESN’T JUST PRACTICE AN ALL-NEW FORM OF MEDICINE. HE INVENTED IT. In a moment, YES changes everything. Like when a couple is told they’re in the hands of the world’s very first onco-cardiologist. That’s the difference of an academic health center. A difference made by our own Dr. Edward Yeh, whose research is helping to negate the harmful effects of cancer treatment on the heart. Evidence that YES, at MU Health even doctors come in rare forms.

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3

123 Fulton, MO 65251

Address change? Update at mizzou.com/update or call 800-372-6822.

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