Nebraska Magazine Fall 2016

NEBRASKA Magazine EXCLUSIVELY FOR MEMBERS OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN

Hannah Huston The Voice

Jessie Graff

American Ninja Warrior

Amanda Valentine

Project Runway

Johnny Carson The Tonight Show

MEDIA MASTERS Huskers Use Screen Savvy to Further Their Careers

Volume 112 / No.3 / Fall 2016 / huskeralum.org NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 1

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alumnivoices NEBRASKA Magazine For alumni and friends of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Shelley Zaborowski, ’96, ’00 Executive Director, Nebraska Alumni Association Kirstin Swanson Wilder, ’89 Editor-in-Chief Charley Morris, Melissa Abele Page Design Kevin Wright, ’78 Layout and Photography; Class Notes Editor Nebraska Magazine (USPS 10970) is published quarterly by the Nebraska Alumni Association, the known office of publication is 1520 R St., Lincoln NE 68508-1651.

Alumni association dues are $50 annually of which $10 is for a subscription to Nebraska Magazine. Periodicals postage is paid at Lincoln Nebraska 68501 and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster send address corrections to: Nebraska Magazine in care of the Nebraska Alumni Association, 1520 R St., Lincoln, NE 68508-1651. Requests for permission to reprint materials and reader comments are welcome.

Send mail to: Nebraska Magazine Wick Alumni Center / 1520 R Street Lincoln, NE 68508-1651 Phone: 402-472-2841 Toll-free: 888-353-1874 E-mail: nebmag@huskeralum.org Website: huskeralum.org Views expressed in Nebraska Magazine do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Nebraska Alumni Association. The alumni association does not discriminate on the basis of gender, age, disability, race, color, religion, marital status, veteran’s status, national or ethnic origin, or sexual orientation.

Alumni Association Staff Shelley Zaborowski, ’96, ’00, Executive Director Emily Anderson, ’10, ’15, Assistant Director, Business/Alumni Relations Jenny Chapin, Director, Venues Charles Dorse, Custodian Derek Engelbart, Associate Executive Director, Alumni Relations Jane Epley, ’77, Projects Assistant Brooke Goedert, ’14, Venues Management/ Event Specialist Jordan Gonzales, Assistant Director, Student Programs Sarah Haskell, ’09, ’16, Director, Alumni Engagement Ryan Janousek, Venues Management/Operations Specialist Wendy Kempcke, Administrative Assistant Jessica Marshall, ’11, Director, Written

Communications Tracy Moore, Executive Assistant Charley Morris, Graphic Design Specialist Carrie Myers, ’03, ’11, Director, Alumni

Engagement Heather Rempe, ’03, Assistant Director, Digital Communications Larry Routh, Alumni Career Specialist Viann Schroeder, Alumni Campus Tours Deb Schwab, Associate Director, Venues Andy Washburn, ’00, ’07, Associate Executive Director, Operations Kirstin Wilder, ’89, Director, Publications Katie Williams, ’03, Senior Director, Marketing Communications Hilary Winter, ’11, Associate Director, Digital Strategy/PR Kevin Wright, ’78, Director, Design

Fall 2016 n Vol. 112, No. 3

A Message from Chancellor Green

G

rowth. It’s what sustains us, inspires us, exhilarates us. The University of NebraskaLincoln kicked off the 2016-17 year with a record number of new students, closing in on the 26,000 mark in overall enrollment.

More and more people are recognizing what you saw when you enrolled at Nebraska, whether that was in 2012, or 1938.

Of course, growth is more than just a number. Growth in enrollment represents a belief. Belief that being educated at Nebraska is the foundation for making a big impact.

Belief that what’s accomplished in the classrooms or labs in Lincoln matters across the planet. Belief that delivering on our land-grant mission to make our state, and the world, a better place is something worth contributing to.

Our continued growth in enrollment is important because it’s oxygen for the university’s and the state’s future. As the flagship of the University of Nebraska system, our institution has the unique role of contributing research, scholarship, and creative activity — as well as engagement through Nebraska Extension — to our state. That means enrollment growth alone isn’t enough. We also must grow our student four-year success rate, our graduate program enrollment and our research. Accelerating our pace of growth enables further leadership in making important contributions that can be felt as close to home as As the state’s flagship university, we have Tecumseh or as far away as Tanzania.

The world’s problems are the privileged position of being the front increasingly complex and dramatic. door to our state.

That means our role needs to be bigger. As the state’s flagship university, we have the privileged position of being the front door to our state for more and more students and faculty coming from around the world to study and work. But attracting those folks isn’t enough. Retaining and engaging them, through fulfilling work and learning, is vital. A degree from Nebraska, especially as we become more distinctive in the Big Ten, should merit strong recruitment from leading organizations — and not just because the degree might represent a strong work ethic. A Nebraska graduate will be creative, a rigorous thinker, and a person who understands worldwide — and local — dynamics in a way that makes them exceptional.

To that end, the university is a portal. We are an entry point to a forward-thinking world with connections to the brightest minds and untold opportunities for advancement. As alumni, you no doubt experienced that portal in some way. Now’s the time to accelerate our mission, grow even faster, and make our portal more robust.

Thank you for your ongoing support and belief in the future of the University of NebraskaLincoln. Go Big Red!

Ronnie D. Green University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 3

athleticvoices Nebraska: Providing First-Class Student-Athlete Experiences

T

he University of Nebraska Department of Athletics stands alone in its overall commitment to serving the needs of our student-athletes. The primary mission at Nebraska is to provide all of our student-athletes with the resources and support they need to be successful in academics, athletics and life. Our 325-plus full-time coaches and staff are passionate about providing our 616-plus student-athletes with a first-class experience, and the many successes accomplished by our student-athletes and teams are the direct result of a united commitment to excellence.

Nebraska Athletics is proud to be one of the very few self-sustaining intercollegiate athletic programs in the country. With the support of our donors and the more than 1.3 million fans who attended our sporting events last year, we are able to continually invest in the student-athlete experience, facilities and the overall game-day experience. Nebraska ranked among the nation’s top 15 in average home attendance across 10 sports last year and was the only school to rank in the top 15 in attendance in football, volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball. We also extended our NCAA-record sellout streak to 347 games in football and 204 consecutive regular-season matches in volleyball. Our volleyball team won the 2015 NCAA National Championship; our men’s track and field team swept the 2016 Big Ten Conference Indoor and Outdoor Championships; the bowling team competed in the 2016 NCAA Championship match for the fourth straight year; and Husker teams earned seven national top-10 finishes: volleyball, men’s track & field, bowling, rifle, men’s gymnastics, women’s gymnastics and wrestling.

In 2015-16, every scholarship student-athlete received funding based on the full cost of attendance; each student-athlete was offered a laptop computer to enhance their learning opportunities; and we began our first-of-its-kind post-eligibility opportunity program which allows student-athletes who have earned their degrees an opportunity to receive financial support Sam (Foltz) was a tremendous young man, who for an internship, a study abroad program or graduate school. We have also enhanced the resources and support represented everything that a son, Nebraska student, in all academic and performance related areas. athlete, teammate and friend should strive to be.

We are very proud of the 109 student-athletes who accomplished the ultimate goal of earning their undergraduate degrees this past academic year. We increased our nation-leading CoSIDA Academic All-America total to 325 with five honorees: Shavon Shields (basketball), Mattie Fowler (softball), Cody Rush (track & field), Levi Gipson (track & field) and Ryan Boldt (baseball). Additionally, we continue to broaden the scope of social events for all Husker letterwinners, past and present, and the newly established N-Club is providing meaningful engagement in a number of ways.

Nebraska is a trailblazer in providing service abroad opportunities for our student-athletes. In 2015 (Guatemala) and 2016 (Dominican Republic), current student-athletes, former letterwinners and Nebraska staff traveled abroad for life-changing experiences, volunteering their time, skills and resources for those less fortunate. Back in Nebraska, Husker student-athletes performed more than 350 individual outreach projects totaling nearly 2,500 hours, impacting 25,000 Nebraskans.

No one was more involved in community outreach than Sam Foltz, who was tragically killed in an automobile accident on July 23rd.

Sam was a tremendous young man, who represented everything that a son, Nebraska student, athlete, teammate and friend should strive to be. A Brook Berringer Citizenship Team Member, HERO Leadership Award winner and member of the Tom Osborne Citizenship Team, Sam walked on to our football program in 2012, earned a scholarship in 2014 and his degree in 2016. He led the Big Ten in punting last season and entering the 2016 season, was named to numerous preseason watch lists. He was loved by all, including the many Nebraska youth he impacted and influenced.

While his loss is devastating, his impact will be felt forever.

On behalf of our student-athletes, coaches and staff, we thank you for your support of Nebraska Athletics.

Go Big Red!

Shawn Eichorst University of Nebraska Director of Athletics From left: Director of Athletics Shawn Eichorst, Chancellor Ronnie Green, Herbie Husker and President Hank Bounds.

4 FALL 2016

PHOTO: Nebraska Athletic Communications

INSIDEFALL

ABOUT THE COVER Our cover was created

by Charley Morris who aimed to place each personality on the device apropos of the era the show aired.

COVER PHOTOS: Huston: Tyler Golden/NBC. Valentine: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images. Graff: David Becker/NBC

16 18 20 26

Clifton (left) and Leslie Hunter (right) help their daughter Erin, a freshman pre-health major, move into Schramm Hall at the start of the fall semester.

PHOTO: Craig Chandler/University Communication

Sam Foltz Remembered Husker Nation rallied to honor the memory of Nebraska punter Sam Foltz during the opening football game on Sept. 3. It was a game you had to attend to fully understand the raw emotions shown on and off the field as a team, a school and a state came together to mourn.

Professor Tells Indian Tale Journalism professor Joe Starita spent many days walking his Lincoln neighborhood grappling with his new biography on Susan La Flesche who became the country’s first-ever Native American doctor.

Huskers Utilize Their Screen Savvy UNL grad Hannah Huston caught the attention of the entire state when she finished third on reality competition show “The Voice” last spring. But she is not the only Husker who has been able to harness current media trends to further her career.

Lavonte David: Game Changer He’s the best defensive linebacker in pro football, according to many experts, but he’s also a community-minded volunteer who drops by local hospitals to motivate sick children.

8 University Update 12 Husker Olympians 14 Newsy Numbers

32 Contest Winners 42 Class Notes

From the Editor The next edition of Nebraska Magazine will be published in March, with the quarterly publication hitting mailboxes in June, September and December of next year. As the magazine undergoes a refresh of its content and style, we’d love to get you, our reader, more involved in providing content. Take a look at page 45 (oohing and aahing allowed), we’ll now publish birth announcements with pictures of your infant in Nebraska gear.

Do you have a tricked-out Husker room in your house or customdesigned wheels?

Snap a pic of those and send them along to us. Has Herbie Husker or red letter Ns made an appearance in your vacation photos from far-off lands? If so, send those along too. We aim to be more engaged with you, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Kirstin Wilder, editor-in-chief kwilder@huskeralum.org (402) 472-4229

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 5

themailbag Banquet Bravos

2016-17 NAA EXECUTIVE BOARD

The Alumni Banquet was such a great event that I would be remiss if I didn’t send my heartfelt thanks and congratulations. The complete affair would make any Nebraska alum proud of the alumni association.

Hats off to you all. The memories of such a wonderful evening will be with us forever. I can assure you the Alumni Achievement Award will be proudly displayed here in Shelley Zaborowski, NAA my office executive director, with Fouts. beside the seven Emmys I received during my tenure in television.

Ken Fouts, Class of 1964

L.G. Searcy, ’82, ’91, President, Lincoln Erleen Hatfield, ’91, ’96, New York, N.Y. Duane Kristensen, ’76, ’78, Minden Douglas Law, ’83, Omaha Bill Nunez, UNL Joe Selig, ’80, ’87, NU Foundation Judy Terwilliger, ’95, ’98, Lincoln

2016-17 Alumni advisory council Damon Barry, ’00, Denver Stephanie Bolli, ’89, Omaha AnnMarie Bosshamer, ’92, Amherst Roger Breed, ’71, ’77, ’85, Omaha Scott Bunz, ’94, Omaha James Cahow, ’01, New York John Clarke, ’74, Mitchell, S.D. Eric Crouch, ’01, Omaha Stephen Davis, ’93, Milwaukee, Wis. Daniel Dawes, ’06, Mableton, Ga. Megan Dreyer, ’03, Lincoln Kendra Eberhart, ’79, Peoria, Ariz.

Kyle Gilster, ’94, ’97, Falls Church, Va. Rick Grady, ’98, ’98, ’04, New Albany, Ohio

Fouts, a longtime sports broadcaster, was one of eight honorees at the annual alumni achievement awards which are handed out each spring. Incidentally, he won his Emmys for his coverage of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, 1986 Goodwill Games, Cincinnati’s Riverfest Fireworks (1995-98) and Detroit Tigers baseball in 2001.

Randy Haas, ’73, Lincoln BJ Hansen, ’06, Omaha JLynn Hausmann, ’04, Beverly Hills, Calif.

Pam Hemann, ’70, Pasadena, Calif.

Troy Heuermann, ’92, St. Paul, Minn.

Greg Johnson, ’89, ’93, Denver Lauren Kintner, ’92, Papillion Jeffrey Kratz, ’03, Washington, D.C. Desi Luckey-Rohling, ’81, Edgerton, Wis. Marilyn Moore, ’71, ’74, ’80, Lincoln Laura Mussman, ’82, ’03, Omaha

Jayhawk Heaps Praise on Huskers

Gregory Newport, ’76, Lincoln Winston Ostergard, ’10, Lincoln Kristen Otterson, ’05, Chicago Kim Robak, ’77, ’85, Lincoln Kevin Schneider, ’85, ’88, Raymond Jane Schuchardt, ’74, Elgin Robert Scott, ’94, Lincoln Christine Scudder Kemper, ’87, Kansas City Stephanie Taylor, ’99, ’02, Franklin, Tenn.

Dale Tutt, ’88, Wichita, Kan. Renee Wessels, ’82, Omaha Joyce Yen, ’95, Seattle

CONNECTION BOX huskeralum.org

twitter.com/NebraskaAlumni facebook.com/UNLalumni vimeo huskeralum.org/linkedin alumni@huskeralum.org

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The entire staff at the Nebraska Alumni Association absolutely knocked it out of the park hosting this year’s Council of Alumni Marketing and Membership Professionals conference in Lincoln. Perhaps the best one — beginning to end — that I’ve attended yet. The sharing that takes place at CAMMP is invaluable to our organization, so it has become a tremendous resource for us.

Just as valuable is the opportunity to visit beautiful campuses where we can see how our peers do it in person. We couldn’t have been more impressed — with the facilities, campus and community — but most of all the people of Nebraska.

David Johnston, Kansas University Alumni Association In July, 131 alumni professionals from 67 universities across the country descended on Lincoln for three days of presentations, seminars and networking culminating in a reception at the Rococo Theater.

Found Fame

Plus

VERIZON’S ANGELA KLEIN / WRITING CONTEST WINNERS / TRAVEL SECTION

NEBRASKA EXCLUSIVELY FOR MEMBERS OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN

You have made Magazine me famous. I continue to receive congratulatory notes Nebraska to from colleagues, NIGERIA most of whom I have not seen for 49 years (since my UNL graduation in 1967). The credit goes to you (scribe Tom Nugent) for a magnificent story. I am honored.

Dr. Natalie Hahn, founder/president, The Malaika Foundation Natalie Hahn (’67)

Volume 112 / No. 2 / Summer 2016 huskeralum.org

Hahn, who worked tirelessly in Nigeria for decades, was the cover story in the summer edition of Nebraska Magazine.

First Comes Love ...

Thank you so much for all of your help in our wedding planning process with Champions Club! You (specifically Deb Schwab) have been so wonderful and laid back to work with and we appreciate it a ton. Also for all of your help on the wedding day!

Everything from helping us set up things that were delivered, to cleaning PHOTO: Stewart Photography up at the end of the night. Everything ran so smoothly and we are so thankful for you helping make our day perfect!

Adam & Tristan Bouc, newlyweds Tristan Schlegel (’12, BA) and Adam Bouc (’13, BS) were married June 4 and held their reception at the Nebraska Champions Club which is managed by the alumni association. It makes us happy when love is in the air and we get to host nuptials.

GET YOUR FOOTBALL FIX. HERE WE COME, COLUMBUS.

Meet us in Columbus to cheer on the Huskers as they take on Ohio State Nov. 4.

Package includes: Hotel, VIP entry to Football Friday, admission to the pregame Husker Huddle, game ticket, deluxe motor coach transportation on game day shuttle.

Visit huskeralum.org/athletic-travel to register.

Looking to make a quick trip to Ohio? Check out our round-trip, same-day charter plane and experience the ultimate in-flight tailgate! Visit gameplanes.com for details and to register.

FOOTBALL FRIDAY ON THE ROAD

Kick off away football weekends with Football Friday, the Nebraska Alumni Association’s free and family-friendly event series.

Connect with other Husker fans and enjoy games, giveaways and entertainment.

Oct. 28 (Wisconsin) 6-8 p.m. CT - The Great Dane, 123 E Doty St, Madison Nov. 4 (Ohio State) 6-8 p.m. ET - Miller’s Ale House, 1201 Olentangy River Road, Columbus

BOWL ALERTS

The Nebraska Alumni Association is your official partner for Husker bowl game packages.

Join our interest email list to be the first to receive post-season athletic travel news and information.

Husker chapter watch sites: 70 Chapters and groups 130 watch sites around the country Visit huskeralum.org/watch-sites to find fellow Huskers near you.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 7

UNIVERSITY UPDATE Record Freshman Class Pushes Enrollment to All-time High

by Steve Smith | University Communication

For the second straight year, enrollment at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has surged to a new all-time high, registering 25,897 students, surpassing the previous enrollment record of 25,260 students that was set last year. The 2.5 percent increase from 2015 is the fourth straight year of enrollment growth and the biggest single-year jump in the number of students since 2007. The university is also enjoying the most diverse student body in its history this autumn.

“As Nebraska’s only land-grant, research-intensive institution, our university is an ever-increasing portal to a more successful, more prosperous,

New students gathered at the Devaney Center the day before school started for a pep rally as Dewayne Taylor fires up the Class of 2020 for the year ahead. This has been the fourth straight year of enrollment growth at UNL.

8 FALL 2016

more enriched state. So an enrollment win for the university is a win for the state of Nebraska and beyond,” Chancellor Ronnie Green said. “We are continuing to attract, retain and engage a rising number of students and are preparing them to contribute to our state and our world.”

The largest incoming freshman class in the university’s history drove the record enrollment. There are 4,860 first-time freshmen on campus this fall, surpassing 1979’s entering class of 4,702.

Colleges leading in the enrollment growth included the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business Administration and the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.

“Our mission to prepare students for today’s fast-changing world is not something that we take lightly, and we are pleased that so many students have chosen to come to Lincoln to take advantage of what the university offers,” said Amy Goodburn, interim dean of enrollment management. “Our enrollment success is a reflection of both the university’s academic momentum as well as its reputation for delivering a positive student experience.”

In the past decade, the university’s overall enrollment has grown by 12.7 percent. Other highlights from the official 2016 census, which was reported by the Board of Regents:

■■ In addition to its large size, Nebraska’s new first-year class maintains a strong academic profile.

Its average ACT score was 25.2, identical to last year’s and only slightly below the all-time high of 25.4 in 2014.

■■ Enrollment of 2,980 minority undergraduate students – 14.3 percent of the undergraduate total – makes this fall’s undergraduate student body the most diverse in the university’s history. Minority students make up more than 17 percent of this year’s freshman class.

■■ In-state students’ interest in the university continues. This fall, there were 3,500 first-time resident freshmen, a roughly 1 percent increase in that category from 2015. For the entire student body, Nebraska-resident students at all levels number 17,766.

■■ The university welcomed 2,787 international students, an increase of 263, or 10.4 percent, from last year.

■■ Overall, nonresident enrollments increased by 6.7 percent, including 10.2 percent at the undergraduate level. Nonresident students now account for 31.4 percent of all students.

■■ In addition to traditionally strong out-of-state markets in South Dakota and western Iowa, the university saw increases in students from Illinois, up 9.8 percent; Minnesota, up 8 percent; and Colorado, up 11.1 percent.

UNIVERSITY UPDATE

English professor Ken Price will oversee research on the grant.

Project Will Catalog Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass’ Revisions

by Deann Gayman | University Communication

In an old shop that specialized in legal documents, Walt Whitman painstakingly published his first edition of “Leaves of Grass.”

Between setting type and handpressing words on pages, Whitman continued to revise the text, generating a remarkable variety of versions of the first edition released in 1855, a book long assumed to be consistent across its first copies. Now, researchers from the University of Nebraska’s Center for Digital Research in the Humanities are identifying and cataloging those variations.

Kenneth Price, Hillegass Professor of English and the center’s co-director, has earned a three-year, $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to examine at least 20 copies of the original 1855 edition of “Leaves of Grass.” The CDRH will start a digital variorum — a collection containing different versions of the text — on the Walt Whitman Archive. When completed, the project will record and provide background on each variation.

“We tend to think of books as stable objects, but you might think of his first edition as vibrating and humming.

Instead of thinking about mechanical regularity, you need to think about change and fluidity to understand the 1855 (version),” Price said. “It is possible that no two copies are identical. There were 795 printed and we know of 184 copies still in existence. It’s possible that every one of those surviving copies is different.”

Famously, Whitman was constantly revising his book, which started with 12 untitled poems in the original edition and grew to include more than 300 in its final manifestation almost 40 years later. In 2000, an article in the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review was the first to acknowledge the socalled “stop-press revisions” among the original edition.

A new stage of research into the 1855 changes started there.

“What’s distinctive about our approach here is that we are highlighting and making accessible,

really for the first time, the significant changes within the first edition itself,” Price said.

“The book has received extraordinary praise and is widely regarded as the founding book of American poetry. One of the stunning things is how chaotic its production was, how last-minute so many of the changes were, how fluid he was in the writing process.”

Creating a standard book volume of the changes and the supporting research would be nearly impossible, Price said. Using digital technologies, Price, along with co-investigator Ed Folsom of the University of Iowa, and Nicole Gray, a Nebraska research assistant professor of English, will create an online tool that shows variations among the different copies.

Changes may range from the purposeful replacement of words to the accidental alteration of wording and punctuation.

“They were using a hand press, and setting all the type by hand,” Gray said. “Because of that, the pieces of type were a little more subject to moving around, some even falling off.

They could only print a certain number of pages at a time, so they would print four pages on a sheet and then Whitman could proofread it as it came off. In some cases, he or the printers could stop the press and change the type.”

The variorum will also include Whitman’s earlier poetry manuscripts connected to “Leaves of Grass.”

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 9

Stephanie Teten

Nathaniel Korth

Erica Pribil

Johnson, NE

Fayetteville, AR

Erica Marshall

Toluwalope Makinde

Johnson, NE

Emilie O’Connor Omaha, NE

Justin Bakke

Kaelyse Clapper

Tessa Porter

Peru, NE

Stephanie Teten

Luverne, MN

Omaha, NE

Ariel Wong

Lincoln, NE

La Vista, NE

Nicole B

Blue Hil

Soon Lau

Ed Cornish has been helping students for more Shane Korte Kristen Drvol Geraldine Spinner Travis Burger than 78 years, even though heEmilie died in 1938.

O’Connor Bailey Harris Minden, NE

Albion, NE

Lincoln, NE

Columbus, NE

Columbus, NE

Lance Sorensen

Lincoln, NE

Kearney, NE

Ashley Bernstein

Nicole Berns

Elkhorn, NE

Crystal Pribyl Geneva, NE

Blue Hill, NE

Laura Hargarten Clinton, WI

therine Drehs Lincoln, NE

Olivia Kunzman Albion, NE

Tessa Porter Albion, NE

Susan Hammons

vid Schroeder

Weeping Water, NE

West Point, NE

Charles Caruso Pilger, NE

Heather Sasse Nebraska City, NE

Lori Rezac

Amber Talbott Hoskins, NE

Sally Steele Morrill, NE

Gothenburg, NE

Kathleen Sackett Gretna, NE

Omaha, NE

Lincoln, NE

Emily Williams

Omaha, NE

Omaha, NE

Jennifer Pickering Aurora, NE

Brooke Grossenbacher

Jamie Egg

Overland Park, KS

Pei Ang

Woodbury,

Travis Burger

Lincoln, NE

Columbus, NE

Tessa Porter

Kristen Cochran

Lincoln, NE

Omaha, NE

Bailey Harris Lincoln, NE

Steven Kaiser

Grant Wallace Craig, NE

Davey, NE

Amanda Wa

Loveland, CO

Miranda Schurr Eustis, NE

Effie Epke Lincoln, NE

Travis Lucas Raymond, NE

Elizabeth Pfeif Madison, NE

Natalie Souder Wilber, NE

Amber Cleveland Carson City, NV

Ed Cornish was one of the first donors to establish a scholarship fund for students at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln. The very next year, he passed away. But students have benefited from Mr. Cornish’s generosity every year since—including the students listed here.

The legacy of Ed Cornish lives on. Yours can, too. To find out how, visit us online at nufoundation.org/giftplanning or call a gift planning officer at the University of Nebraska Foundation at 800-432-3216.

10 FALL 2016

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

Prem Paul Leaves a Lasting Legacy Prem S. Paul, long-serving vice chancellor for research and economic development who helped lead unprecedented research growth at UNL, died Sept. 2. He was 68.

Paul, who began his tenure at Nebraska on July 1, 2001, announced he was ending his tenure as vice chancellor in an Aug. 29 message to faculty and staff.

“Serving this university ... has been the highlight of my career,” Paul wrote in the message. “I am indebted to the many faculty members and staff who have made our research growth possible. It has been an honor to witness your achievements and to watch you dream bigger. We are a strong research university on an impressive trajectory and I know that our best days lie ahead.”

Under Paul’s leadership, the university was one of the fastestgrowing research universities in the nation from 2001 to 2009. Research funding surpassed $100 million in 2006, marking the first time the university’s external funding reached that milestone. Most recently, sponsored campus research in the fiscal year ending June 30 increased more

PAUL Paul HallHALL The University of Nebraska Board of Regents unanimously approved a measure Sept. 16 renaming the Whittier Research Center as the Prem S. Paul Research Center at Whittier School.

The building at 2200 Vine St. opened in 1923 as Whittier Junior High. The school closed in 1977, and in 1983, the NU Foundation purchased it. In 2007, the Board of Regents approved a $24 million project to renovate the building into research space dedicated for use by interdisciplinary research programs. The building is home to several major university research programs.

UNIVERSITY UPDATE

Luminaries took to Twitter on Sept. 2 to share their thoughts.

‘‘ ‘‘ ‘‘

@UNLincoln lost a great leader in Prem Paul.

Susanne and I send our thoughts and prayers to his family. @GovRicketts, Nebraska Governor

Prem Paul

than 12 percent from the previous year, setting an all-time university record of $146.9 million.

“Prem’s impact on the University of Nebraska cannot be overstated.

Thanks to Prem’s leadership, vigor and unsurpassed vision, our contributions to research, scholarship, and creative activity transformed us as a researchintensive university,” Chancellor Ronnie Green wrote to faculty and staff.

Paul continuously worked with faculty and research partners to keep Nebraska on an upward trajectory and focused his efforts on strengthening the Cornhusker State. “If we can win national championships in football and volleyball, why not in research?” Paul queried in a 2010 interview. “Why not capitalize on research and convert that into jobs, grow our economy and keep our young people, our kids and grandkids, here in Nebraska?”

Paul’s accomplishments include establishing a culture of excellence as a research university, helping faculty dream big and providing the infrastructure to make those dreams come trus. He recognized the value of interdisciplinary research and established several such centers, including the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research an, the Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior.

Our hearts are broken. The @u_nebraska family is in mourning and will miss you, Prem. @HankBounds, president,

University of Nebraska

@UNLincoln heart aches today. We will forever think BIG b/c of your biggest of Big Red hearts. #PremThinkBIG

@RonnieDGreen, chancellor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

‘‘

We are heartbroken by the passing of former VCRED Prem Paul. Do something BIG today in his memory. #PremThinkBIG #UNL @UNLresearch

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 11

NEBRASKANS IN RIO

UNIVERSITY UPDATE

money MATTERS

Husker Olympians

$11.3M

During the Summer Olympics in Rio a number of former Huskers represented a variety of countries and sports. Here’s how the former Huskers fared in Brazil.

National Institutes of Health grant to study biomolecular communication

UNL has earned an $11.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish a research center focused on investigating cellular level miscommunications that contribute to complex diseases such as cancer, diabetes and chronic liver disease.

$6M Grant to build neuroscience brain trust

Psychologists will share in a $6 million National Science Foundation grant that will expand the breadth of cognitive neuroscience research capabilities in the Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior and the department of psychology.

$1.3M National Institutes of Health grant to aid study of plants’ viral defense

Hernan Garcia-Ruiz, assistant professor of plant pathology, has earned a five-year grant to study how plants identify, target and silence the viral ribonucleic acid, or RNA, that worms its way into cells and allows a virus to replicate. Garcia-Ruiz will receive his funding from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

by Ron Petersen | Daily Nebraskan

Jordan Burroughs, Wrestling The 2011 Nebraska graduate entered the Rio games as the defending gold medalist in the 74 kilogram weight class.

Burroughs also came into the Olympics as a three-time world champion, taking home gold in three of the last four World Championships.

During his time with the Huskers, Burroughs won national titles in 2009 and 2011.

In this year’s games, Burroughs opened with an 8-3 win against Augusto Midana of Cameroon to advance to the quarterfinals. Burroughs then lost 3-2 to Anvar Geduev of France and was eliminated in his next match by Bekzod Abdurakhmonov, who beat him 11-1.

Following the loss, Burroughs said it was the hardest day of his life.

Jordan Larson, Kayla Banwarth and Kelsey Robinson, Volleyball The Husker volleyball trio represented the United States at the Rio games, helping the team take home a bronze medal.

This was the second time Jordan Larson represented the United States.

The first time, she helped the U.S. win the silver medal in 2012.

This was the first time Kayla Banwarth and Kelsey Robinson competed in the Olympics.

Robinson, Larson and Banwarth all saw extensive playing time in Rio. In the bronze medal match, Larson tallied 13 kills, while Banwarth added five digs. Robinson had one dig in limited action in the medal match but had six kills while playing outside hitter in the fourth and fifth sets in the semifinals.

Nebraska was represented on Team USA better than any other school.

At NU, Larson was a member of the 2006 National Championship team.

Robinson earned a first-team AllAmerican honor during her one season at Nebraska in 2013.

Banwarth leads the Huskers in alltime digs with 1,706 and helped the Huskers reach the national semifinals in 2008.

$1M K-12 teaching of math and science will benefit from education grant

A $1 million grant from the Nebraska Department of Education will help UNL faculty coordinate a professional development project aimed at improving K-12 math and science instruction throughout the state. The project will focus on elevating academic achievement in Nebraska’s high-need schools.

12 FALL 2016

From left:

Jordan Burroughs, Wrestling • Jordan Larson, Volleyball • Kayla Banwarth, Volleyball Kelsey Robinson, Volleyball • Sarah Pavan, Beach Volleyball PHOTOS: Nebraska Athletic Communications

Sarah Pavan, Beach Volleyball Pavan represented Canada in beach volleyball in Rio. The former Nebraska All-American qualified with partner Heather Bansley, and the tandem entered the games No. 16 in the world.

The pair finished 4-1 overall, going 3-0 in pool play before losing to Germany in the quarterfinals.

At Nebraska, Pavan is the all-time leader in kills with 2,008 and was a member of the 2006 National Championship team.

Danielle Page, Basketball Page represented Serbia, making this her second Olympic Games appearance.

The Serbian team lost its first three games in pool play before bouncing back and winning two in a row against China and Senegal. It advanced to the knockout round and eventually won the bronze medal.

Page averaged 10.7 points and 7.3 rebounds, playing in all eight games in Rio. Page is second on Nebraska’s career blocks list.

Therese Alshammar, Swimming Alshammar was a former AllAmerican swimmer at Nebraska and competed for Sweden in the 50-meter freestyle.

Alshammar’s time in the

preliminaries was 24.73 seconds, and she finished with a similar time of 24.72 seconds in the semifinals, which was not good enough to advance to the final.

Although she did not medal, Alshammar was Sweden’s flag bearer in the opening ceremony.

Alshammar also appeared in the 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympics, finishing with three medals in 2000: silver in the 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle and bronze in the 4x100 freestyle relay.

Alshammar still holds NU’s 100-yard freestyle record, with a time of 48.76 seconds.

Györgyi Zsivoczky-Farkas, Heptathlon Györgyi Zsivoczky-Farkas represented Hungary and competed in the heptathlon.

This was her third Olympic Games, after competing in the 2008 and 2012 games. In her first two appearances, she finished 28th and 22nd.

In this year’s heptathlon, she finished eighth in the 800-meter race, seventh in the shot put, ninth in the long jump and javelin throw and 27th in the 200-meter.

Overall, Zsivoczky-Farkas finished eighth in the competition at the Rio games.

Miles Ukaoma, Track

UNIVERSITY UPDATE

Ukaoma represented Nigeria and competed in the 400-meter hurdles, finishing 32nd overall in the games.

Ukaoma won the 400-meter hurdles national title in 2014 for the Huskers.

His best race time at Nebraska was 49.23 seconds, which ranks second in NU history.

Marusa Cernjul, High Jump The 2015 graduate qualified in the high jump for Slovenia after clearing a personal-best 1.82 meters at the Slovenian Championships.

At this year’s Rio games, she finished in 21st place with a height of 1.92 meters.

At Nebraska, Cernjul was a first-team All-American in the high jump at the 2015 NCAA Outdoor Championships and won the Big Ten outdoor title as a freshman in 2012.

(Ron Petersen is a Daily Nebraskan sports staff writer and a UNL journalism major aiming to graduate in May 2018.)

From left:

Danielle Page, Basketball • Therese Alshammar, Swimming • Györgyi Zsivoczky-Farkas, Heptathlon Miles Ukaoma, Track • Marusa Cernjul, High Jump NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 13

UNIVERSITY UPDATE

NEWSY NUMBERS

3,708 Number of Pokemon Go players who entered Memorial Stadium to catch virtual creatures during two hours on a Thursday night in July.

2,365 Number of Husker-branded gifts (including corn cob teething rings and lunch bags) mailed to kids ages 1–16 as part of the Future Huskers program.

792 Number of degrees that were handed out Aug. 13 during the summer commencement ceremony. UNL has awarded 277,967 degrees since it was founded in 1869.

350 Number of consecutive sellouts at Memorial Stadium as of Sept. 17 when the Oregon Ducks were in Lincoln. Runner-up is Notre Dame in the 260 sellout range.

$6.49 Cost of two slices of pizza and a drink in the newly-opened Valentino’s Express located in the food court of the student union.

$95.4M Amount of money raised as of Aug. 31 by the NU Foundation for “Our Students, Our Future,” an initiative to raise $200 million by Dec. 31, 2017, to benefit university students.

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14 FALL 2016

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1

SAM FOLTZ REMEMBERED Husker Nation rallied to honor the memory of Nebraska punter Sam Foltz during the opening football game on Sept. 3.

Foltz, 22, died in a car accident on July 23 in Wisconsin. He was a native of Greeley, Neb., who earned his degree in agronomy in May and was set to play his senior season as a graduate student. Foltz was a three-year starting punter for the Huskers, and his career average of 42.6 yards per punt ranked fifth all-time at Nebraska.

16 FALL 2016

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1. Drew Brown (No. 34) walks Foltz’s nephew Lane Foltz, 7, through the tunnel.

2. Jason and Gail Whalen of Kearney in front of the Sam Foltz memorial on the north side of Memorial Stadium.

3 & 6. Jill Foltz, Sam’s mother, hugs

Drew Brown who received the inaugural Sam Foltz Memorial Scholarship in an emotional, pre-game ceremony.

4 & 9. The student section unveiled their tribute simultaneously as the team sent only 10 members onto the field before the

first punt taking an intentional delay-ofgame penalty which Fresno State declined.

5. Sam Foltz’s nephews, both wearing his No. 27 jersey, lead the team onto the field.

7. Tributes took many forms.

8. Fans share their sentiments.

PHOTOS: Nebraska Athletic Communications (1–3, 6, 9), Craig Chandler/University Communication (4, 7), Holly Barr/UNL student (5, 8)

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NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 17

Professor Walks Miles in

By Matthew Hansen

For the past few years, if you walked your dog in the Sheridan Boulevard neighborhood of Lincoln, there’s a good chance you glimpsed a tall stranger with thinning hair. He walked alone, strode with the loose gait of an aging athlete. He probably didn’t see you.

He was lost deep in thought.

T

he lone walker is an ex-baseball star, an ex-world wanderer, an ex-construction worker, an ex-investigative reporter and now a beloved (and oft-bedeviling) journalism professor who moonlights as maybe the finest non-fiction writer in Nebraska.

And the lone walker wasn’t actually walking alone. Joe Starita was walking with the story of an Omaha Indian girl born in a buffalo-hide tipi in 1865, who rose to become the country’s first-ever Native American doctor — a feat she achieved 31 years before women could vote and 35 years before the U.S. government recognized Native Americans as citizens.

As he walked he wrestled with a paragraph, or a sentence, or a single word from his new biography of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte. He was walking, lost in thought, trying to figure out how to get readers to know, to feel, Susan’s story like he does.

“I needed to pull the reader inside her buggy, to pull the reader inside Susan’s head, to pull the reader inside her heart when it was breaking,” he says. And so he walked, a short or long one depending on “how tangled the narrative knot was that I was trying to untangle.”

“If I was on 30th or 31st Street, it was a small knot,” Starita says. “If I was on Sherdian Boulevard, it was approaching a Gordian knot.”

The story that Starita has untangled is the sort of story that writers dream of, the sort of story that grabbed the former Miami Herald reporter and current UNL journalism professor by the lapels the first time he heard it, and wouldn’t let go.

Susan La Flesche, daughter of an Omaha Indian chief and the younger sister of famed translator Bright Eyes, was born in 1865. As her father and her tribe grappled with the massive migration of settlers into their homeland in Northeast Nebraska, Susan ventured the other way, a reverse pioneer. She attended boarding school, then the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in Virginia. Finally, after a rich-andpowerful group of East Coast socialites took up her cause, she became the first Native American to enter the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, then the only U.S. medical school that accepted women.

“She understood at an early age that the purpose of life is not to try to avoid pain and suffering. The purpose of life is to find a purpose. And then have the courage to complete that purpose.”

Despite being nearly penniless, homesick and cultural light years from home, Susan La Flesche graduated as her medical school class valedictorian. Then she turned down lucrative offers to practice medicine and do research in the hallowed halls of East Coast medicine. She climbed on a west-bound train. She returned home, bought a horse-and-buggy and devoted her entire adult life to caring for sick Omaha Indians as well as anyone else within an 1,350-square-mile radius.

Starita’s new book, “A Warrior of the People,” is the story of the American West told from the first female Native American doctor’s point of view, instead of Custer’s or Crazy Horse’s. It is the story of a woman who managed to walk the thinnest gender and cultural tight rope her entire life, without ever falling off.

“At a time when the federal government was hell-bent on destroying the identity of its native people, stripping them of their traditional clothing, their ceremonies, their dances, their religion and their language, this woman born in a buffalo hide tipi tent

Susan La Flesche’s Shoes was able to triumph in the white world without losing her Indian soul,” Starita tells me during a planned two-hour interview that stretches to five.

“That’s the home run Susan hit! And she didn’t just barely get that baseball out.

She parked it in the upper deck!”

To a generation of UNL journalism students, including myself, that last paragraph sounds oh-so-familiar. Being a Starita pupil meant fighting through a blizzard of sports metaphors, only to find a journalistic diamond — a priceless nugget about interviewing, writing or life itself — buried in a snowbank.

It also meant wondering about the sage at the front of the room, swapping stories about his colorful past like they were Topps trading cards.

He got drafted by the Dodgers and then blew out his arm, one student would say.

He played semi-pro basketball in Turkey, someone else would say. He lived on a kibbutz in Israel. He worked construction in Oakland.

During our interview, Starita confirmed all four, and added that he briefly worked for a shady environmental clean-up business in New Jersey, though he then grinned and refused further explanation. All this happened during a period of young wandering that led him into adulthood and eventually into journalism. He rose from humble beginnings at the Daily Nebraskan, UNL’s college paper, to become a Miami Herald reporter taking down crooked doctors and scam artists. He then returned to Lincoln, first as the city editor of the Lincoln Journal Star, and then as our metaphor-loving professor.

Even as he went from Lincoln boy to semi-pro hoops in Turkey to the epicenter of South Florida journalism and then back home again, Starita maintained a lifelong interest in Native American history and culture.

His first attempt to write about Native Americans: “I was in sixth grade. We were asked to write a four-page biography of someone we admire. I wrote 40 pages on Susan La Flesche as a schoolgirl.

Crazy Horse.”

Two of his first three books are about Native Americans. The most recent, “I am a Man,” a history of Standing Bear’s trial, was chosen as this state’s One Book One Nebraska in 2012.

Starita is an obsessive man — Hemingway, Springsteen, Husker football — but he says he’s never been quite as obsessed with a project as he got with his fourth book, the biography of Susan La Flesche.

He spent years bothering librarians and historians in Nebraska, Virginia and Pennsylvania, eventually amassing a treasure trove of hundreds of letters Susan wrote to her friends, benefactors and family. And he walked his neighborhood each morning, sorting Susan’s story in his head before heading back to his computer and beginning another day of writing. He walked in January, so he could feel the cold that Susan felt as she bounced on horse-and-buggy across the northeast Nebraska prairie toward a sick patient. He walked in July, walked until his shirt was drenched. He walked by himself, but never, ever alone.

“Here’s the thing about Susan,” he tells me, “she understood at an early age that the purpose of life is not to try to avoid pain and suffering. The purpose of life is to find a purpose. And then have the courage to complete that purpose.”

“Susan understood that basic fact, and so, to me, ultimately this is a story of the triumph of the human spirit. The triumph of the human spirit!

“Once I understood that, once I understood the narrative arc, what was I going to do? Go golfing? No way. No way!”

AUTHOR’S PREVIEW Joe Starita’s new book, “A Warrior of the People,” will be released Nov. 15

by St. Martin’s Press and will be available in all major bookstores as well as locally-owned bookstores like The Bookworm in Omaha. Starita (who received his bachelor of journalism degree in 1978 and his master’s in 1995) is donating proceeds from the book to a scholarship fund he established three years ago to help Nebraska’s Native American high school graduates continue onto college. To learn more about this taxexempt scholarship fund, visit www.nebcommfound.org/fund/standing-bear.

Excerpt from “A Warrior of the People” It’s five a.m. on a midwinter morning, the mercury stuck at twenty below.

Overhead, a canopy of constellations spills across the clean winter sky, the quarter moon a slim lantern hanging above the vast, black, desolate prairie.

She’s walking to the barn, through the snow, layered in muffs, mittens, and scarves. Still, her ears are numb, her face frozen, her breathing labored.

It’s early January 1892, a month her people call When the Snow Drifts into the Tents. The woman in the buggy, the one lashing her team to move faster, is a small, frail twenty-six-year-old, a devout Christian who also knows her people’s traditional songs, dances, customs, and language, a woman who just recently acquired 1,244 patients scattered across 1,350 square miles of open prairie now blanketed in two feet of snow — a homeland of sloping hills, rolling ranch land, gullies, ravines, wooded creek banks, floodplains, and few roads.

The air crushes her face, stings her ears. She pulls a thick buffalo robe over her shoulders to buffer the subzero winds, lashing the horses’ flanks again and again until the buggy picks up the pace, its wheels moving over one ridge and then another, through deep drifts covering the remote hillsides of northeast Nebraska.

In the darkness they keep moving, keep going, and all the while, over and over, her mind keeps drifting to the same recurring thought: Can I find her?

Will I get there in time?

(Red Cloud-native Matthew Hansen is a 2003 graduate of the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. He is a metro columnist at the Omaha World-Herald and remains a devoted fan of his college professer Joe Starita.)

PHOTOS: Nebraska State Historical Society (above) and Hampton University Archives

Susan La Flesche, center, in 1889 at Hampton, where she gave the commencement address.

Amanda Valentine Frazer Harrison/GettyImages

20 FALL 2016

Jessie Graff

Hannah Huston

Brandon Hickman/NBC

Chris Haston/NBC

MEDIA MASTERS Huskers — Past and Present — Utilize Screen Savvy to Further Their Careers

N

By Julie Naughton

ebraska grads have long been known for their ability to harness current media trends and turn them into careers — think 1949 graduate Johnny Carson who catapulted himself to fame in the early years of late night television all the way to 2013 graduate Hannah Huston who finished in the top three on this season of singing competition show “The Voice.”

With hundreds of TV channels and endless internet portals, reality competition shows continue to thrive and draw large audiences — even in Nebraska with native daughters like Huston, “Project Runway’s” Amanda Valentine (‘04) and “American Ninja Warrior’s” Jessie Graff (‘07) filling the airwaves. There are even a few who aspired to be Nebraska alums — anyone remember 2005’s “Tommy Lee Goes to College?”

“The media have changed perhaps by being more open to featuring and promoting ordinary people with talent,” said Maria Marron, dean of UNL’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications. “The proliferation of social media and the fact that everyone at all times has the potential to be a creator of media content, a brand in her/his own right, has facilitated this phenomenon.”

And Marron doesn’t expect to see the phenomenon change anytime soon. “So far, there seems to be no indication of abatement,” she said. Why? “Because people sitting on their couches in the safety of their homes get to experience challenges vicariously, to be embarrassed vicariously, to savor an alternative ‘reality’ vicariously,” said Marron.

NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior” has been particularly Husker-friendly, with Graff, Maggi Thorne (’05), Fred Thorne (’06), Ken Knoop (’12) and Keith Knoop (’13) among former contestants.

“I didn’t go into the show thinking ‘oh, I want to be a reality star,’” said Graff, a theater graduate

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 21

who was a pole-vaulting standout at UNL. She is now a professional stuntwoman and actress. “However, in addition to being a lot of fun, the show got my name out to stunt coordinators who otherwise wouldn’t have known who I was, and is opening the door for me in stunt work and acting.”

But then again Huskers have always looked to new mediums to get a leg up on employment, stretching as far back as Carson, who built his career on a then-fledgling medium called television. Although Carson is

now deceased, his legacy and determination to help students conquer new platforms lives on — most recently with a $20 million gift from the Johnny Carson Foundation to establish an academic program and facility focused on interdisciplinary learning, creativity and research in emerging media. The program is being led by UNL’s Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film within the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts. Dean Charles O’Connor said the gift creates new opportunities for students to expand their

knowledge of emerging media art forms that are positioned at the intersection of film, design, computational technologies and commerce.

Another innovative former student is Evan Williams, who co-invented a little thing called Twitter which boasts 313 million monthly active users. While Williams, a Clarks, Neb., native, only attended UNL for a year and a half — beginning in 1990 and dropping out a few weeks before finals his sophomore year — that hasn’t slowed down this multibillionaire’s

HANNAH

HUSTON Q: What did you learn about yourself through this experience?

A: I learned that I had it in me the whole time, which is strange. I never thought I would sing in front of that big of a crowd or do anything on that scale.

Q: What was surprising about Hollywood?

Pharrell Williams and Hannah Huston A: I’ll be honest. I perform their duet on “The Voice.” thought I would go on a Tyler Golden/NBC show and I’d get kicked around and people iTunes. We really had to go with the flow and be ready at wouldn’t be super kind. I just had this notion that that’s any moment to either be on camera or give statements or what TV was gonna look like and it didn’t feel like that do a band rehearsal. at all. It was the sweetest group of people who ever ran a television show in my opinion.

Q: What was your relationship with Pharrell Williams like?

A: Spectacular. Inspiring. Encouraging. Uplifting.

Q: What life lessons did you draw on most?

A: Out there on the show you have to work really hard and Amazing. He was my hero. He stood up for me and encouraged me and made me the most confident I’ve you have to be discerning and wise and all sorts of things been with who I am and the voice that I have. He just because you’re making decisions about what you’re going wanted to write with me and work with me and was the to talk about on national television. You just have to be kindest soul — it wasn’t even always about my singing, careful with that. but it was about me as a person and how we could better ourselves as human beings.

Q: How many hours a day did you practice?

A: They were long days. Some days it would be from 7 in Q: What did you learn from Hollywood? the morning to 10 at night or even later. I had a few days that were 10 in the morning to 3 in the morning recording A: You have to be careful about the decisions you’re

22 FALL 2016

career trajectory or his loyalty to the school.

Williams has returned to UNL for speaking engagements and remains a Husker fan.

While success in reality TV and social media can look effortless, it is anything but, noted former UNL instructor Brian T. Rex, now associate professor and head of the department of architecture at South Dakota State University. “Not just everybody is suited for reality TV — it requires a certain charisma, sense of style and drive,” said Rex, who taught one of Valentine’s first-year classes. “Amanda

was one of those five or 10 students I’ve seen across 20 years that arrived on our doorstep with a sense of style, a sense of direction, and a dynamism that said, ‘This person is going to be heard as a designer.’ I’m always excited to hear the new things she’s doing, but nothing she has done really surprises me. Style is usually the most difficult thing to build in a designer.”

Dean Marron agreed that reality TV success may look simple, but isn’t. “Certainly, Hannah Huston is a leading example of the

making because they also affect other people in your life.

I think everybody is out to get a dream or the chance at an opportunity out there and sometimes we’re so cloudy on what that looks like and what’s actually going to be the right decision for you. Sometimes you can get lost in that.

Q: How were your outfits selected?

A: The wardrobe team is amazing and they put together the color scheme and the potential idea they have for your outfit and then the wardrobe team collects different ideas from stores and you come in for a wardrobe fitting.

Then the executive producers will pick their top one, two, three and you will rehearse in them and see how they look on camera. It’s a process for sure.

Q: Did you ever tire of the constant Nebraska references?

A: I loved it! I loved it! Talk about Nebraska more.

Q: Have your career aspirations changed?

A: I’d say yes and no. I think I’ll always be a teacher and that’ll always be really dear to me. But I’ve always wanted to do music and I’ve always loved it and in the last couple of years I’ve been writing and finding time outside of teaching to do so — to perform, or play or just create honestly, which is filling my bucket. So in a way yes, but in a way it’s just a shift of focus. I think I’ve been focused on both and then this has been the change into really zeroing in on music and what that looks like for me.

Q: What were your thoughts when Gov. Pete Ricketts declared May 16 Hannah Huston Day in Nebraska?

A: Shocked. Flabbergasted. Confused. I found out just a couple days before it was going to happen. I sent a thank you note and my family attended along with my principal and a few people from the school district. It was kind of a big deal and then I made it to the finale after my day occurred so it must have been good luck.

Q: Will you need to leave Nebraska to be successful?

A: I disagree when people say you have to leave to be

possibilities,” Marron said. “She garnered a vast audience when she secured her spot in the final three on NBC’s ‘The Voice.’ That has given her brand recognition and has been a major singing career coup.”

Huston’s performance on “The Voice” certainly captured the attention of Nebraskans with Gov. Pete Ricketts going so far as designating May 16 as Hannah Huston Day in the state, encouraging people to vote for her. His rally cry worked — Nebraskans mobilized and voted Huston into the finale.

successful. I think success can look different to two different people. I think for me staying here and creating with the people who are my friends, who are my family, who are brilliant, is amazing to me. I think there’s so much work that’s being done in Nebraska with different artists across the state who are really huge.

Q: What did you miss about home when you were in LA? A: I missed my people. I missed my home. I missed my family. I missed my church community. I missed my staff.

I missed students. I missed the feeling that I could drive my own car to Trader Joe’s by myself ­— not in a van that was a scheduled errand. I missed the Red-White Game.

Q: While at UNL did you have a favorite class or teacher?

A: My favorite experience was working with Jenny Leeper who was the master’s teacher at Ruth Staples (Child Development Lab on East Campus). Dr. Michelle Rupiper was also impactful in my life along with Erin Hamel who was the preschool teacher there. They were amazing people who showed me how cool preschool education could be.

Q: Did you sing at UNL? A: No, I didn’t sing in college nor was I part of any college-affiliated music group. I started singing at church during my junior year but never did anything besides that. And then once I got into soloing and doing my own thing I started singing with my friends at Destinations Coffeehouse and Art & Soul. I didn’t do too many gigs.

I didn’t really sing downtown anywhere so we only did a couple shows together and then I did “The Voice.”

Q: Are you a Husker football fan?

A: Oh my gosh, yes! I love going to football games.

My dad had season tickets so I’d always catch a game with him but we had to trade off because there’s three children. We sit in the north stadium. I would love to attend a football game and sing the national anthem, but my biggest request would be to shoot the hot dog slinger.

That’s what I really want to do.

—Kirstin Wilder NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 23

Huston said she only found out about the proclamation the day before and said she was “shocked, flabbergasted, confused.” “I made it to the finale after my day occurred so it must have been good luck,” she added.

Huston said the experience taught her a lot and bolstered her confidence. “I learned I had it in me the whole time,” she said. “I always wanted to be a singer and I always wanted to perform, but I never thought that would be my thing or that I would have the opportunity to do that.”

“Even though I didn’t really have the experience like other people, I think it was

A

there are thousands of graduates/people who do not have such mega-marketing opportunities.”

True enough, but for those who can harness such opportunities, it can be one heck of a ride.

(Julie Naughton is a 1991 English and newseditorial journalism graduate from UNL. She spent 17 years working at Women’s Wear Daily in New York City most recently as senior beauty editor. In April she accepted a job as public information officer for the state of Nebraska and returned to Lincoln.)

AMANDA VALENTINE

2004 graduate of UNL, Amanda Valentine moved to Los Angeles after obtaining a degree in clothing and textile design. She honed her styling skills while shadowing the stylists working with her older brother’s band, Maroon 5 (James Valentine plays lead guitar) and continues to style when she’s not designing her own eponymous line.

Valentine likes to joke that she’s been designing since creating her own “edgy childrenswear,” after her mother, Shauna, taught her to sew. “I was putting together goofy looks when I was a toddler, but asked my mother to teach me when I was about 8 years old,” said Valentine. “In elementary school, I was obsessed with the idea that I could have something no one else had.”

The affinity for sewing grew along with her and in 1999, after graduating from Lincoln Southeast, she entered UNL as a clothing and textile design student.

In 2010, after four years of selling early designs on Etsy.com, Valentine struck out on her own, officially founding 24 FALL 2016

just kind of a part of who I was,” she said. “I thrived off of it to be quite honest. Every week out there I just got so much better and I think it was because I really let myself go and really challenged myself and stretched myself to try new things.”

Huston, Valentine, Graff, Williams and even Carson, certainly caught some breaks to catapult themselves into media mavens, but in the end it was their determination and their distinct Nebraska and Husker experiences that played a role in their success.

“However,” Marron reminds, “for every Hannah Huston and other reality TV stars,

Valentine Valentine, the clothing line she now runs in her adopted hometown of Nashville. She and her husband, Will Holland, have made their home in the bustling Southern town since 2006.

Valentine Valentine, with pieces retailing from $35 to over $200, is sold primarily on the designer’s website, AmandaValentine.com. Valentine also sells through trunk shows, including one held at the Loft & Craft boutique in downtown Lincoln in May. Valentine credits her stints on the Lifetime TV reality show “Project Runway” as being a key element in her success. Valentine appeared first on the show’s 11th season in 2013. She proved so popular that she was voted by fans to return to the show in its 13th season, where she finished second and showed a collection at New York Fashion Week.

“Even though I never had an inkling of a thought to try to get on TV, once the show contacted me I knew it would be an insane fast track to get my work in front of millions of people,” said Valentine.

Still, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses.

In fact, Valentine’s advice for anyone

who wants to follow in her footsteps: Get a thick skin, fast. “But never lose the sensitive, open, inspired artist inside, because that’s what will drive you,” she said. “Fiercely guard the artist. And understand that no one was born with your brain, your circumstances, your influences. You have something to say that no one else on the planet can say.”

In May, Valentine was presented with an Early Achiever Award by the Nebraska Alumni Association. She credits former UNL instructor Brian T. Rex, now associate professor and head of the department of architecture at South Dakota State University, with inspiring her. “Brian Rex was part of the architecture school and he had a huge impact on me,” said Valentine. “At that point, I knew I loved fashion — I knew what I wanted the end product to look like. Brian Rex made me fall in love with the bones of design. The building. Within that course, figure drawing also had a huge impact on me. Understanding the body is a crucial part of clothing design and studying form improved my work.”

—Julie Naughton

He Said, She Said Amanda and James Valentine

Brother-and-sister artists James (a musician) and Amanda (a fashion designer) Valentine discuss their perspectives on fame, creativity and each other. They may have grown up in the same household in Lincoln, both graduated from Lincoln Southeast and attended the same college, but when it comes to expressing themselves, Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine and fashion designer-stylist Amanda Valentine have chosen distinctly different mediums. Here, what drives them and inspires them.

How do you approach your creative process?

James: I don’t wait for inspiration anymore. I just try to get in a good work routine and stick to it.

When I show up every day, good things start to happen. The routine is very important to me. I try to work first thing in the morning, and try to clear distractions (email, texts, Facebook, etc.). If I’m not working on a song I work on my technique, which might inspire a song and vice versa.

Amanda: I’m music-obsessed, so months before I design a collection, I slowly create a playlist.

It gets me in the universe. And then I collect images voraciously to fill out that universe. Then, when it’s crunch time I organize those images into looks, recognize patterns and honestly spend time thinking about what pieces my girl wants and needs for the next season.

What do you remember about attending UNL? It was a really fun time for me. I was studying advertising, convinced I wouldn’t be able to make a living playing music. I liked my classes, but I was also playing in five different bands and teaching guitar lessons at Dietze Music.

I worked full time while I attended UNL, so it’s all a blur. But at what other time in my life could I study ancient Peruvian net-making? I had a choice between knitting, crocheting and some offthe-wall choices, so I chose off-the-wall.

What do you admire about each other?

Amanda has always been so driven and passionate about what she does. And she has great taste, obviously in fashion but also in music. She consistently turns me onto new music that I love!

From a very, very young age James understood the importance of doing the work. By 12 years old he was spending hours practicing. He’s extremely disciplined in his craft. But too hard on himself.

Do you think it’s important to give back?

Absolutely, our band has been involved with raising money for Teen Impact, a program for kids at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles as well as the Pablove Foundation, which raises money for pediatric cancer research.

My favorite thing to do is meet with high school kids. I just remember feeling a little lost at that age. I knew what I wanted to do, but without a fashion industry in town it was nearly impossible for me to wrap my head around how I could actually make a living at it. I love finding that creative kid in the groups I speak to that needs to hear “you can do whatever you want with your life. Just get ready to work really, really hard.”

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

I think the book “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield should be required reading for anyone considering doing anything creative.

PHOTO: Barry King/WireImage

Tim Gunn told me to “work smarter, not harder.” I have an unhealthy idea about the creative process — that if I really work myself to the bone, it must be good. I’ve learned that just means burnout.

When designing my finale collection for Season 13, he told me to “rake the garden.” So now I try to have the maturity and confidence to design without bells and whistles. To create a Zen rock garden instead of an English garden.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 25

the

GAME CHANGER He’s the best defensive linebacker in pro football, according to many experts, boasting impressive gridiron stats to prove it – along with a $54-million, five-year contract. But he’s also a community-minded volunteer who drops by local hospitals to “help encourage and motivate” sick children. For 26-year-old Lavonte David, an all-pro outside linebacker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, life as a hard-hitting defender is all about “working very hard but also having lots of fun.” There’s no doubt that David is a “terrific football player,” says Bo Pelini, who coached David a few years back in Lincoln. “He’s smart, he’s disciplined and he works very hard to prepare for every opponent. “He’s a ‘game changer’ – one of those gifted players with an instinct for getting to the ball and making things happen.”

26 FALL 2016

PHOTO: Nebraska Athletic Communications

By Tom Nugent

A

disaster!

They were halfway through the third quarter at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, and the Huskers were down 27-6.

For Head Coach Bo Pelini and his University of Nebraska football team, this first-ever home game as members of the Big Ten conference had turned into nothing less than a maiden voyage aboard the USS Titanic.

They were playing the mighty Ohio State Buckeyes on this rainy night in October of 2011 ... and there was no polite way to describe the debacle that was taking place in front of 85,426 thoroughly disgusted fans.

The Cornhuskers were getting blasted.

They were getting shellacked. They were bumbling and they were stumbling and with every snap of the ball, their situation seemed to be getting worse.

Led by their all-star quarterback Braxton Miller, the Buckeyes were running wild. While the Nebraska footballers missed tackles and staggered through ineffective blocks, their opponents from Columbus were high-stepping down the field like a gridiron version of the Radio City Rockettes. The Buckeyes were scoring almost at will, and the men in the scarlet jerseys seemed powerless to stop them.

Yes, it was bad, folks. It was a football cataclysm, nothing less, and the Nebraska fans were moaning and groaning in their rain-slicked seats. Would this turn out to be the most painful loss in the history of Cornhusker football?

Pelini’s bedraggled team — which had been walloped 48-17 the week before at Wisconsin — looked like it was ready to pack up the shoulder pads and jump on the next bus headed for Colorado.

But then it happened.

Amazingly, astonishingly, unforgettably — go ahead, find your own adverb — the Huskers launched what would soon become known all across Lincoln-land as “the greatest comeback in the history of Nebraska football.”

“He was spinning around, so I went for the ball!”

The comeback began with exactly 8:04 left on the third-quarter clock, when a young man with a number 4 on his back lined up on defense for the struggling Cornhuskers. The young man’s name was Lavonte David, and he was playing outside-right linebacker in the Nebraska “4-3” defense.

After a punt by Nebraska, the ball was sitting on the Ohio State 17-yard line, with the Buckeyes facing third down and five yards to go for a first down.

For the shell-shocked Huskers, it was now or never. If they didn’t make something happen soon, it would be the end of any remaining hope for a football miracle.

When the Buckeyes broke from their huddle, they lined up in a “shotgun”

formation. Now the Ohio State quarterback, Braxton Miller, began to call out the signals.

Leaning slightly forward at his linebacker post, meanwhile, David was reviewing his responsibilities. Since Ohio State needed five yards to obtain the first down, the odds were high that they’d attempt a short pass to one of their ends or maybe one of their setbacks. David’s job was to cover the turf in his area and break up such a pass if he could. But he was also charged with “quarterback run protection” — making sure that if Miller couldn’t find an open receiver and took off on foot, somebody would be there to stop him.

That “somebody,” as it turned out, would be Lavonte David.

There’s the snap ... Miller fakes a handoff to the nearest setback ... and now he’s gonna run!

A superb athlete, the OSU quarterback managed to get around two different Nebraska defenders and then scoot forward for about seven yards ... enough to earn the first down.

But David had another idea.

Adjusting quickly — once he saw that a pass wasn’t coming — David raced toward the QB. “As soon as I saw him break up the middle, I reacted,” the linebacker told Nebraska during a recent interview. “He made a couple of moves and he made a couple of guys miss ... but by the time I got to him, he’d already been hit and he was spinning around.

“He was about to go down, and he had the ball exposed. So I went for it. It was a split-second decision, and I was lucky that it paid off big-time.”

Lunging forward, David grabbed the ball right out of the quarterback’s arms.

Moments later, an excited ESPN/ ABC football announcer was describing the play: “The ball is out! Lavonte David wrestled it away ... stole it right out of his hands. A huge turnover by the Buckeyes ... and a great play by David!”

What followed that “huge turnover” is still talked about by football aficionados all across Nebraska.

First, during the next few plays, UNL quarterback Taylor Martinez — who’d been having a miserable night and been loudly booed several times — took his revitalized team into the OSU end zone for a quick score.

Suddenly it was 24-13.

Rejuvenated by the unexpected TD, the Nebraskans began to play football with wild abandon. While the stunned Buckeyes watched helplessly, Martinez engineered several lightning-quick drives ... and when the final gun sounded, the entire stadium went bonkers.

The Huskers had just achieved the greatest single comeback in their own football history, while winning 34-27.

Hysteria reigned supreme, as ecstatic fans struggled toward the field and

In His First-Ever NFL Game Against the Carolina Panthers, LaVonte David Felt “No Fear at All” What’s it like to race out on the field — in front of 70,000 screaming fans — and then line up for your very first play in a National Football League regular season game?

For some rookies, the last few minutes before the opening kickoff are an agony of suspense ... a nervewracking eternity in which they pace frantically up and down the sidelines and sometimes even vomit with anxiety.

But that’s not what happened Sept.

9, 2012, when Lavonte David’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers took on the highflying Carolina Panthers in the season opener for both teams.

During that adrenaline-jazzed showdown, the easygoing Husker AllAmerican says he felt “no fear at all” ... and that he was simply “fired up and very excited” about making his first start as a defensive linebacker in the NFL. “That was our first game under (new) head coach (Greg) Schiano,” David recalled. “All of us were eager to start the season and try to put together a winning record. As a football player, my attitude has always been: have no fear.

“So I wasn’t scared that day. All I felt was excitement. I didn’t have any ‘butterflies’ in my stomach at all. I knew I was ready to play football at a high level, and I couldn’t wait to get started.”

While the fans at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa roared their approval, David and his Tampa teammates lined up on defense to start the football game.

On the very first play, David charged ahead from his outside linebacker position and slammed head-on into a Carolina Panthers lineman. The collision “opened a gap” in the Panther front ... and the Bucs quickly took advantage of it.

“I beat the lineman on that play and forced open the gap,” David remembered. “One of my teammates shot through it and tackled the ball carrier for a loss.

“I got up at the end of that play and I was ready to play football.

The Bucs went on to win the game 16-10 ... while limiting the Carolina offense to only ten yards on the ground.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 27

Nebraska players and coaches leapt through a frenzied, joyful, post-game ballet.

Beaming through the celebratory chaos, a wild-eyed Pelini was already telling nearby sports reporters from all across the Midwest: “A lot of teams would have folded it, right there (at 6-27.) They’d have said, ‘This just isn’t our night.’ What we needed right then was to make a play — and Lavonte made that play.”

Remembering that incandescent moment, David himself found it difficult to explain the football “miracle” — which several Big Ten pundits later described as “the strip (takeaway) that saved the Cornhusker season.”

“It was an amazing turnaround all right,”

Lavonte David played for the Liberty City Warriors as a youth in Miami.

Below: David, holding his godson, with his mother, Lynette, who remains a driving force for him.

said David as he remembered grabbing the ball in mid-air. “I just saw my opportunity and went for it. Really, football is about thinking as much as physical strength and speed. You can have all the physical strength and toughness in the world — but if you don’t have the brain to look at what’s happening and react quickly, you aren’t going to get very far.”

A Kid From Miami

He grew up in the rough-and-tumble Liberty City neighborhood of Miami (pop.

23,000), where more than 94% of the residents are African-American and where their struggles to survive the economic challenges of daily life often seem especially daunting for young black men. But David says he was one of the lucky ones.

“I feel very fortunate to have been brought up by two loving and resourceful parents who were always there for me,” David said. “My mother, Lynette, was a wonderfully caring person — I hope I’ve taken on that trait from her. It was her (influence), I think, that has inspired me over the years to spend a lot of time visiting children’s hospitals and also working with the Husker Heroes program (in which student-athletes assist kids with special needs) at the University of Nebraska.

“But I also got a huge boost from my father, Edward — who was always urging me on as an athlete. He coached me and advised me every step of the way. He has been a terrific teacher and also my best friend.”

Encouraged and motivated by his community-minded parents, the youthful David also benefited from another lucky break — his remarkable gift for excelling in the sport of football.

At Miami Northwestern Senior High School, he amazed fellow students and fans alike ... during a playing career in which he led his team to a 15-0 record in 2007.

During that legendary season, the unbeaten Bulls also won the Florida state title and wound up ranked No. 1 in the nation by ESPN, the TV sports network.

Immensely gifted as a football defender (he can dash 40 yards in a blazing-quick 4.65 seconds), David was dreaming of playing for a major university after high school. But he soon realized that his grades and his study habits needed some improvement. He found the solution by playing ball and working on his studies at a community college in Kansas ... where he was eventually discovered by Pelini’s coaching staff.

What followed was an All-American, twoyear football career in Lincoln. While setting numerous records (and winning the Big Ten’s coveted Butkus-Fitzgerald Lineman of the Year Award in 2011), David soon established himself as a pro prospect and was drafted in the NFL’s second round (he was the 58th pick overall) in 2012.

Signed to a $3 million initial contract, he went on to become a league-leading defender over the next four seasons, while earning All-Pro honors and also appearing in the Pro Bowl — the highest mark of accomplishment in his chosen profession.

Describing David’s remarkable penchant for changing games and leading his teammates to victory, former Tampa Bay Bucs coach Greg Schiano recently told reporters: “Lavonte is a leader by example, unquestionably. His work ethic, his attention to detail and his practice habits are outstanding.”

Now at the top of his game, the laid-back and soft-spoken football phenom is quick to give most of the credit for his success to his family, his teachers ... and especially his former coaches at Nebraska.

“I’m very grateful for the time I spent in Lincoln, and for the help I got from ‘Coach Carl’ (defensive coordinator Carl Pelini), along with (linebackers) Coaches (Ross) Els and (Mike) Ekeler,” David says.

“They did a terrific job of helping to prepare me for pro football, and that is something I will always be thankful for. As far as I’m concerned, there’s really no place anywhere quite like Nebraska!”

Study Habits Pay Off ... Big Time

Ask Lavonte David about the “importance of brainpower in football,” and the All-Pro linebacker will tell you that it’s “absolutely essential” in a sport where players have to make split-second decisions on almost every play. “As a linebacker, you have to be thinking at every moment,” says the former UNL Criminology & Criminal Justice major.

David says he’s “especially grateful” to UNL academic advisor Andrea Einspahr, who worked with him day in and day out during the 2010 and 2011 academic years. “I remember sitting in (her) office and studying for hours at a time,” he says. “Up until then, I hadn’t really paid enough attention to my schoolwork, and I’d developed some very bad habits as a student.”

When David says he’s grateful for the study habits he learned in Lincoln, he isn’t kidding around. Thanks to his ability to combine his physical talents with his “football smarts” and his knack for analyzing complex, rapidly changing plays on the field, he recently signed a long-term contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League. The value of that fiveyear contract, when you add everything up: a cool $54 million.

28 FALL 2016

“It was a pleasure to work with Lavonte while he was here at Nebraska. We spent many hours studying and working on those (study) habits, and I’m so glad all his hard work has paid off for him.”

— Andrea Einspahr

What They’re Saying About Lavonte David

The verdict is unanimous: Tampa Bay Buccaneers all-pro linebacker Lavonte David is generally regarded as one of the smartest, fastest — and hardesthitting — linebackers currently playing football. Here’s a look at what some of the top names in both pro and college football have said about David in recent years.

Mike Ekeler

former Nebraska linebackers coach, 2008-10, now linebackers coach, University of Georgia

“He was one of the smartest players I’ve ever met.

I couldn’t believe how fast he diagnosed things on the field. The way he studies the game, the way he anticipates things, the way he understands the relationship between the ball carrier and the blockers — it’s incredible.”

Ronde Barber

selected for Pro Bowl five times as cornerback/safety for Tampa Bay Buccaneers

“His tackling is what stands out to me. He’s got great technique, and he just never misses. The way he hits people stands out, especially for someone his size.”

Ross Els

former Nebraska linebackers coach, 2011-14, now defensive coordinator at Purdue

“He’s not cocky. He’s quiet, almost shy. He never credits himself; he’s hard on himself.”

Lovie Smith

former head coach, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, now head coach at University of Illinois

“He’s the best outside linebacker in the NFL and everything you want a great linebacker to be.”

Bo Pelini

former Nebraska head football coach (2007-14)

“He can run like a safety, but he’s as physical as anybody (on the field). He’ll take on 240-pound fullbacks. He isn’t just a speed guy. He’s a physical football player. You can put him into any style, and he’s going to find a way to make plays.”

PHOTOS: Nebraska Athletic Communications/Tampa Bay Buccaneers

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 29

MAKING IT HAPPEN Collaboration at the heart of UNL’s maker space

By Colleen Fleischer The first Christmas gift Alfred Tsubaki remembers was a tool kit.

This was back when his family lived in Massachusetts, in a home up the hill from the ocean. He was no older than 5.

He built about 10 birdhouses right away. Some fell apart right away. But the ones that didn’t he took outside and hung on trees, on branches he could reach.

Alfred was 9 when his family moved to Nebraska, where his mom had grown up. He continued to make things. He majored in mechanical engineering at UNL. In the spring of 2015, he and a friend graduated as the first UNL students ever to earn a minor in robotics.

He’s now a new grad student at UNL, studying electrical engineering.

As a grad student, he became fascinated with ultrafast lasers and how they interacted with different metals and semiconductors.

Some people, like Alfred, were just made to make things.

Makers.

Some places are made with them in mind.

Maker spaces.

The idea is taking flight across the country and igniting ideas and collaborations that wouldn’t otherwise happen.

UNL has such a space in Nebraska Innovation Studio, which opened its doors last October on Nebraska Innovation Campus in a renovated building on the old state fairgrounds north of City Campus.

In the space, people like Alfred have begun to gather and collaborate and inspire one another – artists, engineers, students, faculty, alumni and members of the community who are makers, too. In the past, such people usually worked alone or with people of similar backgrounds in their art studio or laboratory or garage out back.

“I walk into Innovation Studio and see people there helping each other out, just spitting ideas back and forth,” Alfred says. “You have people from all different backgrounds having a say, adding to a project.

And they teach classes so people can learn new skills, new ways to do things.

“This collaboration is just mind-blowing. That’s the best part of the studio.”

Alfred joined Nebraska Innovation Studio right away. As a grad student, he pays just $20 a month. (Undergrads pay $15; UNL faculty, staff and post-docs pay $35; and people from the community pay $55.)

30 FALL 2016

Alfred Tsubaki, above, and Erin Schoenbeck, below, with their creations made in the Nebraska Innovation Space.

Maker spaces are part of a trend – the Maker Movement – that’s growing across the country as 3D printers and other digital technologies continue to democratize the world of manufacturing. Anyone can be a “maker” if they want to be now, kind of like many people had to be back in the days before mass production and big box stores.

Now, for example, if you need a hook to hang something, you don’t have to go to Target and choose from a limited stock. If you have the right tools within your reach, you can design and produce your own.

Just one-third of maker space is open for now. Eventually, Innovation Studio will grow into its entire 16,000 square feet, and other equipment will be added. The university is trying to raise $4.2 million to expand into that space and buy more equipment.

The university also is planning to create an in-house “business accelerator” and hire a director, who will help the makers get their creations to their customers. Few other maker spaces have that feature, and few have companies and research labs – located in the larger Nebraska Innovation Campus community – so close by.

Nebraskans should be proud of the Nebraska Innovation Studio, says one of the world’s experts on such spaces.

“I’m sure the NIS will grow and flourish,” said Ken Stone, director of MIT’s Hobby Shop, which began in 1938 and is perhaps the oldest such maker space in the world.

Stone helped UNL Engineering Professor Shane Farritor and others at Nebraska to get NIS started. (Farritor, the main visionary behind the studio, had spent a lot of time at the Hobby Shop back in the day getting his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at MIT.) “Being part of a much larger innovation center initiative brings together the necessary elements for taking ideas all the way to viable businesses,” Stone says. “All ideas need design solutions that must be tested multiple times before they are successful.”

Nebraskans should be proud of the space because it can help the Nebraska economy, while allowing the interdisciplinary collaboration that a university strives for to actually happen.

Everyone united in a desire to create something cool that wasn’t there before.

Makers.

They come here because they want to, and then they get to experience each other in a different light.

in Cortland, Neb. Her mom is a computer programmer who loves to “up-cycle” furniture. Her dad is an electrician and mechanic. She was always beading or playing with string – “always making things.”

“There’s a lot of natural light in the woodshop. I spent a lot of time there because that is where the laser cutter is.

“It’s nice to see familiar faces now there. We’re slowly building up our member base. I’m meeting a lot of new people I’d never meet otherwise, without this space. It’s great to see their work as well.”

She was part of one of the makers’ first big collaborations, which arose because of a request from the chancellor: Make a device that will cut the ribbon for a private ceremony before the grand opening of Nebraska Innovation Campus.

The makers met. They came up with ideas. They agreed they wanted to make something more than just a ribbon-cutter.

They wanted to make something cool happen, too.

The concept they chose came from Gregg Johnson, who was one of the first people from the community to join Innovation Studio. He based his idea on the Innovation Campus logo – the machine would be giant; the three pieces of the logo would rotate and became other things, like a rocket ship and an eye; those rotating pieces would eventually ignite a spark, and that spark would cut the ribbon in two.

Engineering students, designers and programmers developed the electronics for it. Fine artists like Erin designed the faces of the rotating logo pieces.

Erin used the Innovation Studio’s lasercutting machine to cut tiny pieces of vinyl that she’d painted to look like upholstery, using a Trompe-l’oeil technique.

(Another artist actually did upholster her section with fabric, Erin says, which was cool.)

Oct. 8, 2015, a day before the official grand opening, VIPs arrived at Innovation Campus for the private ceremony. The chancellor came. So did the NU president.

The giant ribbon-cutting device was to run the entire time of the ceremony. That was the plan. But at the last second, people realized that the sound of its motor might drown out the speakers. So the engineering students modified its code.

And the makers crossed their fingers.

Says Erin: “We were all really nervous it wouldn’t work.”

The speakers spoke. When the time was right, the motor began and the pieces began to rotate.

Then a spark rose … … closer and closer to the ribbon … … and ignited it ... … and cut the ribbon in two!

“It was great to see people’s reaction,” Erin says. “A lot of people worked on that one machine, about 10 artists and maybe as many engineers.

“It was fun to have that big gesture be the first big project that we all worked on together in this space.”

The natural light.

That’s one of the things grad Erin Schoenbeck, who recently earned her MFA at UNL, likes the most about the space.

She’s an artist, a painter. She grew up in “a maker family,” she says,

(Colleen Kenney Fleischer graduated from UNL in 1988 with a newseditorial journalism degree. She was a writer at the Omaha World-Herald and the Lincoln Journal Star for many years and is currently the director of storytelling for the University of Nebraska Foundation.)

He’s learned to use the 3D printer and other tools he never could afford to buy himself. He has everything he needs, he says, to make models and design almost anything he wants.

His first project was a wooden spice rack, a gift for his girlfriend.

“Eventually, I’d like to start my own business,” Alfred says, “and the best place to start it is in the Innovation Studio.”

You walk inside, he says, and you feel like nothing’s out of reach.

“

This collaboration is just mind-blowing. That’s the best part of the studio.”

Alfred Tsubaki

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 31

PROFILE WINNERS 2016 Writing Contest

To read the full versions of these stories, including the honorable mention winner, visit huskeralum.org/writing-contest-2016. Contest entries have been edited for space.

FIRST PLACE

The Patriot

By Brian Pomplun

B

eing pinned down in a firefight for 45 minutes in southern Afghanistan doesn’t allot a Marine with a variety of options. The first is both impatient and dangerous.

Get up to return fire and ensure that you don’t walk away. Option two tells you to sit tight. The rounds keep coming over your head, but you haven’t been shot yet. Patience is more protective than either a helmet or a vest, and a backup unit is on the way to take care of things.

Josh Marreel (’14, Criminal Justice) was 21 when he was lying in that field, waiting for his backup as the bullets cut the air above him. Soon, the rounds started coming from the other direction when an extraction team came to pull Marreel and his team from a Southern Afghan hell.

“Once you’re in that situation, it just Josh Marreel with his wife, Miranda, and two young fans in 2015.

clicks,” Josh says with a militant matter of factness. “After about a month, you know you’re there. You see some of your buddies going down and you come to the realization that, as you go patrol, this could be the last day you walk.”

“And you’re just OK with it.”

Outside the gunfire, the mud walls and cluttered mess of a Marine camp provide all of the comforts of a desert home. Josh snags a can of Grizzly chewing tobacco from the log resting on the cot that carves out the sidewall in the earthen room. As a yellowing, white Husker cap comes to a crooked rest on the back half of his head, Josh fills his lip with the stress-relieving brown mint.

The can works its way between four Marines and relaxation takes hold.

The can gets flipped back to Josh, and he tosses it over his shoulder. It comes to rest beneath the American flag that hangs alongside a dartboard, a black shotgun and various pieces of specialty equipment used for detecting improvised explosives. This time with friends is cherished. Outside these stifling walls, one step in the wrong direction turns a friend into a memory.

Josh is thankful that things turned out all right on his account. He understands though, that for some, the bullets never come from the other direction, and the memories of fallen friends become more than can be handled. For many vets, the firefight heats up when their boots get back on American soil. With a fresh bounty of time to recollect, the nightmares of war

have a sharper aim than the insurgents of an opposing army. *** A white school bus adorned in stars, stripes and boot tread saunters down a Sand Hills Nebraska highway from Ogallala to North Platte carrying 15 passengers. The bus looks to be pulled by a team of one person, jogging determinedly out in front, supporting an American flag.

The beetle-sized raindrops don’t slow Josh and his home-team of veterans.

With combat boots laced tight, they trudge the 464 miles from Scottsbluff to Hooper, carrying the nation’s flag to raise awareness for veterans struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

It’s the second morning of the fiveday journey. One hundred twenty-five miles are in the books while both humidity and spirits remain at 100%.

With 339 miles to go, Josh’s only option is to just keep dropping one soaked boot in front of the other.

Miles for Heroes is a nonprofit organization established by Josh and a fellow Marine. Their relay across the state of Nebraska is determined to raise awareness of the 22 service men and women who take their own lives every day. They are committed to being the backup that pulls these veterans out from beneath the gunfire of their own memories.

“Our presence WILL be felt over these five days,” Josh says, “and we WILL raise awareness for those that deserve it most.”

Brian Pomplun, 24, is a junior at the University of Nebraska Omaha studying Secondary Language Arts Education. He grew up in Fullerton, Neb., (pop. 1,259) and looks forward to teaching in a rural community upon graduation. His wife Morgan, a first-year medical student at UNMC and a UNL alum, encouraged Brian to enter the contest. Brian and Josh met while working at Scheels sporting goods store in Lincoln.

32 FALL 2016

SECOND PLACE

Hollywood Dreams

By Kristine Jacobson

T

he limelight follows Todd Nelson wherever he goes.

It started shining on him during his childhood in Holdrege, where at age 12, he cast his entire extended family in his adaptation of “Superman,” and it continues today as he shares the limelight with thousands of other Nebraskans through his Hollywood

Todd Nelson, right, with director Alexander Payne

THIRD PLACE

Radio Days

By Darrell Anderson

M

aureen Anderson has said it herself many times: lives were saved because no one ever had to drive on a bridge she designed.

As an author and host of a nationallysyndicated radio talk show now, motorists everywhere can rest easy.

She was Maureen Harrington from Omaha when she spent five years at UNL to get her civil engineering degree.

Female engineering students were rare in the late 1970s and companies were eager to hire women to diversify their workplaces. She got a job with AT&T in their management training program,­but realized she really wasn’t cut out for engineering work.

“One of my favorite professors noticed that engineering students were

home sweet home, the Nebraska Coast Connection.

Nelson graduated from UNL in the spring of 1984 and as soon as the ink dried on his last exam, he headed for Hollywood to begin his Academy of Television Arts and Sciences internship, which thrust him into the middle of daytime soap opera “Days of Our Lives.”

“It was an amazing experience since they make an hour of TV drama every single day,” Nelson said. “It was a great education, but, more importantly, I made contacts who helped me get my next few jobs, for game shows, pilots, miniseries, and directly leading to being hired as production assistant on the premiere season of ‘The Golden Girls.’ ” Nelson is well known for founding the Nebraska Coast Connection in 1992.

The idea for the NCC started when Nelson ventured to California with a friend the summer of his junior year.

“My journalism advisers didn’t have any contacts for me, so I found a

dropping like flies,” she says. “He knew a lot of us were tempted to quit. ‘Before you do,’ he said, ‘make sure you’re running to something and not away from it.’ ” That made her decision easy.

She hadn’t fancied herself a quitter, but she also didn’t think she could make a living doing what she loved.

Everything changed in 1991 when her first marriage ended. Maureen decided to attend a workshop run by Richard Nelson Bolles in Oregon. When she set out for Bend she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life. By the end of the two weeks Maureen realized what she’d always known — ­ she wanted to write, and she wanted to be in front of a microphone.

Maureen moved to St. Paul where she got an internship with the Minnesota News Network and learned how to be a radio journalist, which helped her land a job in Detroit Lakes, Minn. Maureen was the station’s news director and she

directory in the college library that gave me about 100 names and addresses of people who worked in the industry,” he said. “I wrote 100 personal letters and got back 10 responses. All of them met with me on my trip, and I gained a lot of great advice that told me I could make it here.”

Once established in Hollywood, he wanted to mentor Nebraskans interested in the entertainment industry. That’s how the NCC was born.

“I just decided that was not going to happen to anyone else,” he said.

While Nelson makes Nebraskans feel at home in Hollywood, professionally he’s staying in the limelight preparing scripts for two feature films that he hopes will come to fruition with Omahanative Alexander Payne.

Kristine Jacobson is a native of Holdrege and graduated from UNL in 1994 with a degree in news-editorial journalism.

Maureen Anderson hosted the morning talk show.

Although Maureen’s career path veered from engineering, she’s remained proud of her time at UNL. There aren’t many talk show hosts who can say they have a degree in civil engineering. “It’s always good for a laugh,” she says.

“When, for example, I have to ask someone how to work a TV remote.”

Darrell Anderson is married to Maureen Anderson. Together they own and operate a radio production and syndication company.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 33

NOSTALGIA WINNERS 2016 Writing Contest

To read the full version of these stories, including the honorable mention winner, visit huskeralum.org/writing-contest-2016. Contest entries have been edited for space.

FIRST PLACE

A Dandy Idea

By Dorothy (Heuermann) Nelson

T

he fall of 1941 found me enrolled in Nebraska University, Lincoln, School of Agriculture. On a small scholarship as a Home Economics student. I lived the first semester with my Aunt Catherine and Uncle Bill Heuermann. The second semester, Aunt Catherine helped me move into Love Memorial Hall on campus.

This was a unique dormitory set up with kitchen units of six or eight girls per unit to prepare and enjoy meals as “family groups.”

Love Memorial Hall at that time was a model dormitory in the way it was organized.

There were other organized houses on the agricultural campus: FarmHouse, Alpha Gamma Rho and Ag Men, for the fellows and one other smaller house for the girls.

By now World War II was in full swing. Male students became scarce on the campus. Some of the men professors went off to war as did many graduate students and many maintenance men. The campus quickly began to show neglect. The plantings were not kept as neatly and the grass was not mowed as often. The spring of 1943 brought a bright-yellow hue in many places hither-to-fore not seen — ­ dandelions were taking over.

Someone knew just what to do about this problem. The campus was already familiar with campuswide contests. My dad had told me about “pulling” contests. What a good idea.

This dandelion contest was to involve the downtown campus as well as the agricultural campus ­— the whole

34 FALL 2016

patch she had noticed. On went the “grubbies.” Receptacles and digging tools were picked up and away went a large group of volunteers.

We soon found the patch, perfect for fast digging. It wasn’t long before we girls had made quite a difference in this patch — until suddenly a man was yelling angrily at us to stop. Thinking that this was probably someone from another organized house, the digging continued. Finally the man made himself understood.

A prized patch of dandelions grown especially for an agronomy study was being destroyed. A closer inspection revealed that there were obviously squares of dandelions in the area; some dark green and healthy, some dwarfed in Dorothy Nelson, far right, in May size, some pale and yellowish 1942 with her college cohorts. green in color. Turns out the agricultural college conducts getting their hands soiled nor the knees all kinds of studies and experiments in research. This study had obviously been of their jeans and trousers stained. set back by our contest.

Everyone owned a pair of “grubbies” I was indeed a part of that digging reserved for such kind of dirty work. group and we were glad for those huge The first week was cool and the soil heavy dandelions that we harvested damp from the snowmelt of the winter. before being caught, but it wasn’t The second week was slightly rainy enough for us to win. but no one minded because it actually I don’t remember which house added weight to the dandelions. No actually won, just that it was the one minded if a little soil came up students from the agricultural campus with root — it all went into the bucket, and not the downtown city students. paper bag, tub or whatever receptacle More importantly, the university was being used at the time. As the contest continued, the big thermometer campus was much neater and greener and the goal of the university was met. recording the weights collected from each house was watched very Dorothy Nelson, 92, taught in the closely by all on Brainard and Seward school districts after campus. graduating from UNL in 1945. Dorothy One day, a lives in an assisted-living home in Fresno, Love Hall girl Calif. She has five grandchildren and came in after two great grandchildren. Her husband, class reporting a Darren, died in 1994. large dandelion university. Any organized house, which weighed in with the largest amount of dug dandelions, would be honored at a big party and dance at the Student Union on the downtown campus.

Rivalry between campuses was strong.

Immediately, the fever struck and the digging began. Love Hall girls took the bait as readily as anyone did. After all, most were farm girls, and did not mind

SECOND PLACE

C’mon Boys

By Christa M. Britton

G

rowing up in rural Nebraska work was first priority. There was only one thing that would temporarily interrupt the chaotic workings of fall harvest … Husker football. Once the word was given that we could all be temporarily relieved of farm duties, we would assemble in the house and take our places. Grandpa claimed the largest TV while grandma and mom would listen from the kitchen.

Then there was my father. Dad would cross his arms and lean on the kitchen buffet. While the rest of the family went about their football rantings and celebrations, Dad calmly absorbed. No matter how fantastic the play or horrific the call, Dad just watched. A smile or smirk would occasionally cross his face, but no other emotion.

Dad and I would watch many Husker games over the years, but only two at Memorial Stadium. At some point I began noticing purple cat paw stickers on Dad’s coffee cup and coolers.

“What is this?” That man was secretly watching K-State football! Something had to be done … it was time to go to Lincoln. It was 2005 and we got tickets for the Nebraska vs. K-State game.

As the day progressed and the game clock ticked away, we were down to the last play and K-State had the ball.

The entire stadium was on their feet, cheering, yelling, losing their marbles.

There sat my Dad calm, stoic, quiet.

“We have to win, we just have to!” I yelled. My Dad rose to his feet and for the first and only time in my life I heard my Dad yell at the top of his voice, “C’mon boys!!” I stood silently staring at my father as K-State’s Jordy Nelson dropped the pass defended by Husker Cortney Grixby. Huskers won 27-25.

Perfect.

THIRD PLACE

War Games

By Bruce Woody

W

hen I arrived on campus fresh from West Texas I was eager to get going and Air Force ROTC was considered by most students to be a desirable, or at least acceptable, activity. That academic year was probably the last one for a long time that could be considered traditional.

It was that second year, in September 1967, when the memories really began.

The atmosphere on campus could be described as somewhat schizophrenic.

On the one hand Students for a Democratic Society was just getting established on campus. Students began to wonder how they could make the world a better place, and the starting point for a great many of them was opposition to the Vietnam War.

Another way opposition to the war began to assert itself was long stares and frowns at ROTC students in uniform walking to formations and class.

The only time we did not feel at least covert hostility was when we went into the Military and Naval Science Building for class. This was one place where we could escape the feeling that we were not really welcome on campus in the eyes of some folks. Some of us went out of our way to wear the uniform — just to show them. There were a few overt things too — like when someone spit on our Commandant of Cadets in uniform

Christa Britton and her father, Terry Britton, at the two Husker games they attended in Lincoln. Her Dad died from cancer in 2008.

who was a Captain in the Air Force.

Not everyone on campus felt this way.

Excluding the ROTC people, I would say about 60 percent did not care one way or the other and 40 percent felt we were the scum of the earth.

At one juncture our comfort zone was deeply compromised when protesters took over the M&N Building for a few days. There were those of us who were more than willing to turn SWAT and take it back; however our professor of aerospace studies told us that such action would cost us our commissions, so we waited out the four or five days until they left.

University administration was always behind us. But it was a great lesson in discipline and dedication.

Bruce Woody (’70) was an Air Force ROTC distinguished military graduate. He left the Air Force in 1976 to become an attorney in Texas.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 35

ONE POSTCARD.

ONE HUSKER FOR LIFE. You could be the difference-maker in a student’s decision to attend Nebraska.

The Office of Admissions is always looking for alumni who can help recruit our next generation of Huskers.

Share your personal story with potential students through the Postcards of Pride program. Or, sign up to recruit students in your area by volunteering at a local college fair or add yourself to our general volunteer list. huskeralum.org/postcards go.unl.edu/alumnivolunteer

Nebraska Pride

NEWS The alumni association’s first Football Friday pep rally was held before the Fresno State game with President Hank Bounds and Chancellor Ronnie Green in attendance.

PHOTO: Craig Chandler/University Communication

Fresh Faces Added to Alumni Team Summertime brought a raft of new appointments to the Nebraska Alumni Association’s board of directors and advisory council.

These positions are crucial for providing leadership and policy New exec board members Duane Kristensen, left, and Doug Law governance for the association.

Joining the seven-member executive board of directors are Duane Kristensen and Doug Law. Kristensen graduated in 1978 with a bachelor of science degree in agriculture. He is VP of operations and general manager for Chief Ethanol Fuels based in Hastings.

“The university helped me open my eyes to a lot of opportunities that are out there, I want to give back to that,” Kristensen said of his new appointment. “I’ve enjoyed finding out what the university is doing, beyond my own

college. It is very interesting to see everything else that is going on.”

Law earned his bachelor of science degree in business administration in 1983. He is a senior attorney with Black Hills Corp. in Papillion. “I grew up as a Husker, my parents were both Huskers, so going here was the fulfillment of a dream from growing up,” Law said before the alumni association’s first Football Friday in September. “I want to make sure that the board has all of the support it needs to be successful. I would encourage alumni to seek out their chapter and get more involved,” Law said.

In addition, 18 people were added to the chancellor’s alumni advisory council. Members are ambassadors for UNL in their respective communities. Advisory council members represent all UNL colleges and a wide range of class years, geographic communities and business professions. Council members serve three-year terms, meeting twice annually on campus to be briefed on issues facing the university, to experience firsthand the programs of the campus and the alumni association and to lend their advice from an alumni perspective.

Newly-Appointed Members of the Chancellor’s Alumni Advisory Council AnnMarie Bosshamer ’92 Roger Breed ’71, ’77, ’85 Scott Bunz ’94 James Cahow ’01 Eric Crouch ’01 Stephen Davis ’93

Kyle Gilster ’94, ’96, ’97 Randy Haas ’73 BJ Hansen ’06 JLynn Hausmann ’04 Marilyn Moore ’71, ’74, ’80 Laura Mussman ’82, ’03

Winston Ostergard ’10 Kristen Otterson ’05 Kim Robak ’77, ’85 Jane Schuchardt ’74 Stephanie Taylor ’99 Joyce Yen ’95 NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 37

Alumni Masters Return Home An Emmy-winning television producer, a rising star in veterinary medicine, a national leader in healthcare law and a champion for children and families will descend on the UNL campus in November to impart wisdom to students and to be honored for their successes. This annual tradition — dubbed Alumni Masters Week — is capped off with a ceremony hosted by Chancellor Ronnie Green.

“Alumni Masters Week is one of my favorite events of the year,” said Shelley Zaborowski, executive director of the Nebraska Alumni Association. “Meeting some of our most accomplished alumni is an honor, and hearing about their passion and appreciation for the education that paved their road to success is heartwarming,” she said.

Carpenter

Chronister

The honorees who will participate in the Nov. 9-12 events include: Bruce Carpenter, ’79 (Architecture) SVP at HDR has 30 years of architecture experience Mark Chronister, ’73 (Business) worked as the managing partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Minneapolis.

Daniel Dawes, ’06 (Law) healthcare attorney and executive director of government affairs and health policy at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Jennafer Glaesemann, ’07 (Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources) a veterinarian owning clinics in Beatrice and Pickrell, Neb. Frauke Hachtmann, ’94 and ’97 (CoJMC), ’00 (CBA), ’10 (CEHS) (athletics) was a full-scholarship,

Dawes

Glaesemann

Hachtmann

student-athlete on the women’s tennis team, is now a professor and associate dean in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Margaret Holman, ’73 (Journalism and Mass Communications) runs a consulting firm in New York City and previously worked in communications for ASPCA, one of the largest humane societies in the world.

Lea Ann Johnson, ’83 and ’90 (Education and Human Sciences) director of Lincoln Community Learning Centers Julie Uribe, ’84 (Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts) a TV producer with 25 years of experience in Hollywood.

NEWS

Holman

Johnson

Uribe

Cornhusker Critters

All pets ­— furry, scaly, slimy or feathered — are eligible for our monthly contest. Winners are featured on our social media channels. To enter, visit huskeralum.org.

Millie (July)

Ollie (A

ugust)

Bestie LeRoux (May)

38 FALL 2016

Little Bear ) (June

NEWS Chapter and affiliate profile

Vets Bond Through ROTC Program The ROTC and Military Affiliate group of the alumni association consists of about 75 members and was established in the fall of 2010 with the mission of supporting units through scholarships, mentorship and the continuation of traditions. Annually, the affiliate presents three $1,000 scholarships to cadets and midshipmen at an awards banquet at the Wick Alumni Center. Rick Holdcroft, class of 1976, grew up in Key West, Fla., and came to Nebraska for his undergraduate education. Now retired, he serves as the group’s president.

Q: Tell us about your time at UNL and with the Navy.

Rick: I attended the University from 1972 to 1976, received a degree in electrical engineering and was on a Navy ROTC scholarship. I met my wife there, she lived in Harper and I lived in Smith — ­ we’ve now been married for 40 years. Then I went into the Navy for 28 years where I toured on both coasts and in Hawaii, made four deployments, served on five ships and then chose to return to Nebraska to work in aerospace.

Q: What do you enjoy most about working with this group?

Rick: I enjoy supporting them with their careers. I initially became secretary to support my children who were in the ROTC. They are currently serving in the Navy.

Q: What would you do if you were back at UNL for a day?

Rick: I would visit with Professor (Emeritus of History Peter) Maslowski, who was in Military history and was one of the best professors I remember. I would spend time talking to cadets and midshipmen, providing mentorship and answering their questions.

Q: Do you have any advice for young alumni?

Rick: For those entering military service ­‑­— the first several years are tough, but I encourage them to stick it out. To the alumni headed out into the workforce, you need to find what you enjoy doing. Especially the military folks, stay in touch with us and keep us updated.

(Interview by Aakriti Agrawal, a 2016 actuarial science graduate from the College of Business Administration. While on campus, she was involved with cultural ambassadors, new student enrollment and student government. Her favorite campus memory is cheering on the Huskers in the student section.)

Nominations Sought for Alumni Kudos Who do you know? Is one of your best friends from college days knocking it out of the park in their career? Was the classmate voted “most likely to succeed” doing just that?

Did your secret crush become uberinvolved with civic contributions? Was there an international student whom you’ve admired for their continued accomplishments? Maybe you know of an entire family tree of Nebraska graduates worth recognizing. Or, there must be a beloved retired faculty member that you can think of nominating.

We need your help in nominating someone from the Husker Nation for our spring awards banquet. Think about it, flip through your photos and yearbooks and then let us know who deserves kudos, props and high-fives.

Nominations are due Nov. 1 and can be completed by visiting huskeralum. org/awards.

Connect Your Dots Leverage the power of your Husker network through our new, professional development program dubbed Husker Networking Hour. Sign into our online Husker Networking Hour events at huskeralum.org and connect with alumni from around the world.

Wednesday, Oct. 19 Noon-1 p.m. (CDT) Contact Carrie Myers at cmyers@ huskeralum.org with questions.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 39

Uber Mentor Left Major Impact Marilyn Koehn

On March 30, surrounded by her family and friends, Marilyn (Pickett) Koehn, 77, died in Santa Rosa, Calif. She grew up in Schuyler, Neb., graduated from UNL with a BA in 1960 and married Roger Koehn (BS’62) in 1961.

Marilyn loved music and the arts and enjoyed drawing and painting. She favored colorful hats, matching sunglasses and dramatic necklaces. Her greatest pleasure was traveling the world with Roger, and she was passionate about the study and enjoyment of wine and winemaking. At UNL, Marilyn served as president of Pi Beta Phi sorority, Alpha Lambda Delta honor society and Panhellenic.

She attended medical school in Omaha and performed

S

he carried a Ziploc.

As a purse.

It made us smile the first time we noticed – and laugh every time after. She was always thoughtfully dressed; interesting jewelry purchased on one of her far-flung adventures, hat to match her shirt, sunglasses to match her hat … and a Ziploc for a purse. We were immediately curious about her.

Our relationship began in the fall of 2000. A serendipitous mentor/mentee match that surely no one could have guessed would spark the friendships that followed. I, Katie, a premed student, was paired with Marilyn; an accomplished Stanford dermatologist.

Marilyn arrived at Cather Circle very prepared to meet, or rather exceed, all mentoring expectations. When Marilyn committed herself to a cause or person or hobby, she did not participate casually. Thus, she was armed with talking points and notes on notepads — showing genuine interest in my classes and me as a person. She was invested in my success; and could seamlessly transition from teammate to captain and back again with the ease that accompanies only a lifelong educator.

During our time together she would throw in pearls of wisdom for a rewarding and happy life: family, good wine, a sense of purpose and sun protection. Maybe it was because she had such a reverence for family that she took to my cousin Rachel, who was also a Cather Circle mentee. Their quick-witted sense of humor created an instant bond. In short order we both felt like Marilyn’s adopted daughters.

We were so inspired by her; or more accurately, in awe. Her

Nebraska Women’s Leadership Network Fall Conference / Oct. 20-21 THEME: Activate your interpersonal communication skills Sign up for the fall conference or find out how you can become a mentor by contacting Sarah Haskell at shaskell@huskeralum.org

NEWS

her residency at Stanford Medical Center, where she was the first female chief resident in dermatology. She loved teaching and serving on the faculty at Stanford for 25 years.

She was also a key member of the Nebraska Women’s Leadership Network (previously Cather Circle). The women she mentored through that program — Katie Batemen and Rachel Scheer — shared a deep connection with Marilyn and wrote this tribute to honor their beloved friend.

honesty about her regrets, her desire to know and guide us, her enthusiastic encouragement … it greatly impacted us.

Since Marilyn’s passing we have grieved deeply. We have had long talks, the genesis of this extraordinary relationship often at the core. Did the founders of Cather Circle even dare to hope for these sorts of lifelong connections?

In the years following college we continued to make memories with Marilyn. Dr. Linda Daniel, From left: Bateman, Koehn and Scheer also a Cather Circle mentor, close friend and med school classmate of Marilyn’s, often joined in these adventures. We had a boisterous long weekend at Lake Tahoe with nightly wine lessons. We had visits to Marilyn’s home where oversized white robes were worn by all and breakfast included the mandatory consumption of seven different fresh fruits. And of course we had trips back to Nebraska for Cather Circle, weddings and Husker football. Yet, despite Marilyn’s full travel schedule, we received hand-drawn birthday cards and notes of encouragement. Every year.

The loss of such a large life leaves a great void. Marilyn, did you see that we joined a wine club when we visited Santa Rosa for your memorial service? We bought hats too — sun protection, you know. We drank our wine and wore our hats and closed our eyes tightly … hoping to hear you teasing Linda or telling stories about your beloved Roger.

You have taught us so much, in word and deed, about what it means to be a loving partner. We love you.

TRAVEL AMONG FRIENDS. SEE THE WORLD WITH ALUMNI AND FANS FROM NEBRASKA.

Paris Immersion April 15-23, 2017 (Book by Oct. 29 for extra savings)

Grand Cuban Voyage March 13-27, 2017

Capitals & Coastlines of Canada & New England Sept. 30 – Oct. 10, 2017 Sicily May 16-25, 2017 (Book by Oct. 29 for extra savings)

Symphony on the Blue Danube; Prague-Vienna-Budapest June 22 – July 1, 2017

Holiday Markets of Germany Nov. 28 – Dec. 9, 2017

For a complete list of our 20 destinations or to book an adventure, visit huskeralum.org/adventures.

CLASSNOTES 1943

Bob Ellis of Lincoln celebrated birthday number 95 on July 16.

1947

Burl Beam of Martensdale, Iowa, has donated his World War II Eisenhower jacket to the Iowa Gold Star Military Museum at Camp Dodge in Des Moines.

Beam was a B-17 pilot who flew 35 missions over Europe with the 398th Bombardment Group in the 8th Air Force.

■ LaVerna Crooks writes, “I am in good health, live alone in my own home and would like to hear from any other nursing school classmates. LaVerna Olsen Crooks, 1430 Coventry Ct., Darien, lL 60561.”

1949

■ Harry and ■ Lucille Manning Erlewine, ’48, of Highlands Ranch, Colo., marked their 68th wedding anniversary June 19.

1950

Keith Arterburn, a World War II combat veteran from McCook, was a participant on the June 6 Vietnam Combat Veterans Flight to Washington, D.C. Arterburn was permitted to join the Vietnam contingent when he learned that WWII flights were no longer offered.

CORRECTION: William K. Brinkman, was a resident of Phoenix at time of his death, Jan. 4.

■ Densel and Irene Russell Fankhauser of Tecumseh celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary June 30.

■ Don Gard, Greenfield, Ind., marked his 90th birthday June 18 and was recognized with a Sagamore of the Wabash, bestowed by the governor of Indiana for distinguished service to the state.

1951

■ Clyde Luther was one of six inductees into the first class of the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame in May. Luther, of Burke, Va., has been a volunteer rules official for more than 120 United States Golf Association championships, three Presidents Cups, the Masters and the PGA.

■ Indicates Alumni Association Life Member 42 FALL 2016

News/Weddings/Births/Deaths

In addition, he was the 2002 recipient of the USGA’s Joe Dey Award in recognition of his meritorious service to the game over many years.

1952

■ George and Betty Gartner Cobel of Renton, Wash., marked their 70th wedding anniversary June 22.

1953

■ Robert Fayman of Florissant, Mo., was recognized with the President’s Gold Volunteer Service Award for having served more than 500 cumulative hours during the 2015 calendar year with Habitat for Humanity in St. Louis. Since retirement, he has served 18 years on the staff, or as a volunteer, with three Habitat affiliates.

1956

■ Keith and ■ Corene Griffiths Herbster of Lincoln noted their 60th wedding anniversary June 24.

■ Andrew and ■ Ellan Hove of Lincoln celebrated 60 years of marriage June 12.

■ Theodore L. and Delores Kessner of Lincoln celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary June 17.

1958

1960

■ Jerry and Karen Hallock of Sacramento, Calif. celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary May 21 by taking their family to the Hallock cousins reunion at Mahoney State Park.

1963

■ Stephen D. Andersen of Midlands Financial in Lincoln, is a 44-year qualifying and life member of the Million Dollar Round Table with 10 Top of the Table and 14 Court of the Table qualifications. MDRT is the premier association of life insurance and financial services professionals.

1964

■ Pat Gell Anderson, Columbus, received the Ovation Award from the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce in December 2015.

The award is presented to outstanding businesswomen in the Columbus area.

■ Don and Lynette Huebert Byrnes of Lincoln noted their 50th wedding anniversary May 29.

1967

Ken and Sheila Green of Lincoln celebrated their golden wedding anniversary June 11.

1968

Norvin and ■ Donna Boehmer Pearce, ’57, celebrated wedding anniversary number 60 on Aug. 12.

■ Harvey and ■ Coni Schwartz of Lincoln observed the 50th anniversary of their marriage Aug. 13.

■ Larry L. Jones, Houston, has been elected to a three-year term as a trustee of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Foundation, a 33,000-member worldwide professional organization.

1969

■ Raymond P. Schmidt, a retired Navy captain, had a second article published in the summer 2016 issue of Prologue, the quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration. In addition, Schmidt and wife, Roberta, marked their 55th wedding anniversary in June. They live in Franklin, Tenn.

■ Dean-Ross Schessler of La Costa, Calif., is director of business operations at EDGE Management. While at UNL Schessler was involved with Alpha Kappa Psi, Corn Cobs, Kosmet Klub, Tau Kappa Epsilon and the Yell Squad.

■

■

■ Mimi Ernst was crowned “Queen Isabella XLII” during the 2016 Columbus Days celebration in August. Ernst was selected for her volunteer efforts and service to the community.

1970

Thomas L. Williams has been appointed the Nebraska chief medical officer and director of

Indicates Alumni Association Annual Member

the Division of Public Health by Gov. Pete Ricketts. Williams is an Omaha pathologist.

1971

■ Floyd S. Tesmer, Glen Allen, Va., a former NU professor from 1974-76, attended his 50th high school reunion in St. Paul.

1972 ■ Gary

Kuklin has joined the commercial real estate division of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Ambassador as an associate broker. He specializes in industrial, office, retail and investment properties in Nebraska and Iowa, but has also assisted clients around the country with their real estate requirements.

■ Doug Sutton, Maryville, Mo., participated in the invitationonly Art of the Car Concours in Kansas City in June. The auto show is a scholarship fundraiser for the Kansas City Art Institute. Sutton’s entry was a 1974 Triumph TR6.

1973

Shirley Johnson retired after nearly 40 years in the teaching profession, having served in Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri and Colorado. She lives in Eaton, Colo.

1975

Bill Blake, an attorney with the Lincoln law firm Baylor, Evnen, Curtiss, Grimit & Witt has been presented the Counselor of Real Estate credential by The Counselors of Real Estate, an international group of real estate practitioners.

1976

Harold Chaffee, Lincoln, celebrated birthday number 90 on June 6.

Susan McIntosh Kriz was selected as executive director for the LUX Center for the Arts in Lincoln.

1978

Catherine Lang of Omaha was named director of the Nebraska Business Development Center, a position she will assume Dec. 1.

145,000 PAIRS OF EYES WILL SEE YOUR AD. ONLINE AND IN PRINT. We’re your connection to nearly 200,000 Nebraska alumni and friends worldwide – and more than 97,000 in Nebraska.

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NAA members are well-educated, have strong earning potential, and a fierce loyalty to Nebraska.

Visit huskeralum.org/advertise to learn how to reach our audience.

CLASSNOTES ■ Gary Novotny, president and owner of Gary Michaels Clothiers of Lincoln, has earned the 2016 Nebraska Retail Champion Award presented by the Nebraska Retail Federation. In addition, Novotny was recognized as “America’s Top Five Retailers” in Washington, D.C. by the National Retailers Federation.

1980

Dan Faltin was appointed president of two newly-merged divisions of Global Industries of Grand Island: MFS/York/Stormor and Nebraska Engineering Co. ■ Mari Lane Gewecke is the 2016-17 board chair of Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center, an 850-acre tallgrass prairie nature preserve located outside of Lincoln.

■ Terry Hejny, Lincoln, received the Omaha Agribusiness Club’s outstanding service to agriculture award last March during the club’s annual banquet. Dr. Hejny currently serves as the director of the Nebraska LEAD Program.

1981

■ Donna Gunn has been invited to present “Starter Steps for Playing Eighteenth-Century Repertoire on the Modern Piano” at the 2017 Music Teachers National Association National Conference in Baltimore March 18-22.

1982

Shannon Anderson was appointed director of governmental relations for the Nebraska Health Care Association in Lincoln.

■ Lisbeth Usher McNabb, San Francisco, was honored as a Top 50 Corporate Director by the National Association of Corporate Directors in December. Lisbeth is a digital and technology executive, and is president and COO of Food Technologies Lab, Boston Consulting Group, and director of Nexstar Broadcasting.

44 FALL 2016

1983

Alan Hergenrader has opened a dental clinic in Sioux Falls, S.D. Kent Smith is co-chair of the Buena Vista University Community Campaign in Storm Lake, Iowa. Smith is president of Stalcup Ag Service.

1984

■ Stephen J. Ermer is director of Cornerstone Bank of York.

■ Bryce Johnson is a mechanical engineer with The Schemmer Associates, an architecture, engineering and planning firm in Lincoln.

Debra S. Nelson has joined the Maple Grove, Minn., law firm of Henningson & Snoxell as a member of the business department.

1990

Janet Palmtag, owner and associate broker of J.J. Palmtag Real Estate Agency in Nebraska City, was presented the 2016 Nebraska Realtor of the Year Award in April.

Beau Reid, senior vice president, employee benefits for Holmes Murphy, recently became one of five new voting shareholders. Holmes Murphy is an insurance brokerage located in Omaha.

1985

1993

Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, will deliver the keynote address to the Grow Local Orange County Conference in November.

1986

James Harter, has authored “First Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently.”

Harter is chief scientist of workplace management and well being for Gallup.

1987

■ Ned Kirklin, practice leader in the Omaha office of insurance brokerage company Holmes Murphy & Associates, has been named a shareholder.

■ Laura Manning of Papillion was the first woman selected as the 2016 Engineer of the Year by the Omaha Public Power District Society of Engineers.

1988

Tamlynn Graupner is the cofounder of the Wisconsin Early Autism Project, an autism treatment center in Madison.

1989

David Dickinson, president of Banker’s Compliance Consulting in Central City, is the recipient of the 2016 American Bankers Association Distinguished Service Award.

Trev Alberts, director of athletics at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, was roasted by the Omaha Press Club and became the 149th “Face on the Barroom Floor.”

1994

■ Audra Mitchell recently joined KPMG as a managing director, tax, in KPMG’s Washington National Tax Practice. Audra is based out of the KPMG Kansas City office and her primary focus will be on state indirect tax and the communications industry.

Kelley Peterson, vice president and creative director for KidGlov, was honored with the hall of fame, lifetime achievement award by the Lincoln American Marketing Association at the 2016 AMA Prism Awards.

■ Bradley Shafer is the head of business development and investor relations for RQSI (a Quant Hedge Fund) in Louisville, Ky.

1995

Greg Paprocki, a freelance illustrator in Omaha, designed the elephant that was incorporated into the logo for the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

1996

David T. Crowther, professor of science education and the executive director of the Rag-

gio Research Center for STEM Education at the University of Nevado, Reno, began his oneyear term as president-elect of the National Science Teachers Association on June 1.

Jason Doll was promoted to administrator for the Omaha campus Rehabilitation Specialty Hospital of the Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals system.

1997

■ Robert E. Campbell III, principal microbiologist, Pace Analytical Life Sciences in Oakdale, Minn., is now a registrant of the National Registry of Certified Microbiologists, having been certified as a special microbiologist in pharmaceutical and medical device microbiology.

Robin Fitzgerald was named EVP-chief creative officer of the Atlanta office of BBDO, the international advertising agency.

It marked the first time a woman has held a chief creative post in a BBDO office in the U.S.

1998

Jason Schluckebier has been hired by Cornhusker Bank of Lincoln as vice president and financial services advisor.

1999

Libby Davis, deputy chief of police for the Omaha Police Department, was elected to the Girl Scouts Spirit of Nebraska board of directors.

2000

■ Ka’ Ron Johnson of Houston has been named business development manager for Xenex Disinfection Services and will be helping launch the Xenex Germ Zapping Robot in hospitals throughout Texas.

2001

Katie Brossy, senior counsel at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, was chosen at one of Biznow’s 2016 Top 40 Lawyers Under 40.

■ Gordon and Molly Coke of Lincoln were hosts for the 2016 “Kegs for the Cure”

CLASSNOTES cancer fundraiser, held at Zipline Brewery.

Jeremy Stanislav, executive director of the Nebraska-based nonprofit Sammy’s Superheroes, was named Marketer of the Year at the American Marketing Association Prism Awards sponsored by the Lincoln AMA chapter. He received the honor for his work with Pink Bandana, a women’s breast cancer awareness organization, while serving as account supervisor at Swanson Russell.

2002

James Sawyer, Grand Rapids, Mich., has retired from East Kentwood High School after serving as band director for 15 years. Sawyer, a professional trumpeter, spent 40 years as a teacher.

Karla Frese has joined the Eastmont Towers Community in Lincoln as sales director, where she will lead premarketing for Eastmont’s expansion project at 50th and Yankee Hill Road.

Sara Paisley is the blended learning specialist at Lincoln Industries, a metal finishing company located in Lincoln.

Cornhusker Kiddos

Elise Simone Jensen Blackford

If you are an NU alumnus and want to showcase your bundle of joy (newborn to age 1) dressed in Big Red attire, send a color JPEG to kwright@huskeralum.org.

Morgan Brynn Taylor

Ryan Uher is brand marketing associate for Outlook Nebraska, a charitable organization that is one of the largest employers of the blind and visually impaired in the state.

Ally Lynn Go

edert

2010

Jordan Moehlenhoff was promoted to mortgage loan officer with the West Gate Bank of Lincoln.

2011

Brian Schuele has passed his professional engineer exam and was promoted to associate engineer in the Omaha office of engineering and design company Olsson Associates.

Christopher Kube, a scientist at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Md., co-authored a paper that was chosen as an “Outstanding Paper of 2016” by The American Society of Nondestructive Testing.

■ Dakarai I. Aarons has been promoted to vice president of Strategic Communications at the Data Quality Campaign, a Washington, D.C.,-based education advocacy group.

Paul, ’14, and ■ Brooke Goedert, ’14, their first child, a daughter, Ally Lynn, May 29. The family lives in Lincoln.

■

2008

Janny Crotty of Lincoln is an affiliated fund development coordinator with the Nebraska Community Foundation.

2006

Brian J. Blackford and ■ Angela D. Jensen-Blackford, ’09, their second daughter, Elise Simone Jensen Blackford, Sept. 28, 2015. The family lives in Omaha.

Eliot Schwer is the new asociate pastor at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Fremont.

2009

2005

Pat and Shannon Lauber, ’08, their first child, a daughter, Tatum Harper, Nov. 25, 2015. The family lives in McKinney, Texas.

2007

2004

Nicole Marie Morlok has professed her vows as a Carmelite Sister of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles in Alhambra, Calif. She has taken the religious name of St. Teresa.

■ Brent Taylor, ’05, and ■ Jamie Thurman-Taylor, ’07, their second child, a daughter, Morgan Brynn, June 27. The family lives in Overland Park, Kansas.

Craig Sitzman was welcomed to the Heartland Neonatology Associates of the Bryan Physician Network in Lincoln.

Bree Dority has been named associate dean for the College of Business and Technology at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

Matt Ellis was appointed associate vice president for enrollment services at Rockhurst University in Kansas City.

Michael and Nicole Imig Schultze, ’02, their second child, first daughter, Scarlett Angelina, Dec. 1, 2015. The family lives in Denver.

■

Kassandra Knudson, director of Khrome Werks, a whollyowned subsidiary of Lincoln Industries, has been selected

by Product Finishing Magazine as one of “40 Under 40” future leaders of the finishing business.

2003

BIRTHS

Kate Geyer Johnson is an associate in the Omaha law firm of Lamson Dugan & Murray.

2012

Jake Johnson has joined Veterinary Services of Imperial (Neb.) as an associate.

2013

Christen Nino de Guzman was promoted to senior marketing coordinator at Popsugar in San Francisco.

Angelica Prestridge was hired as the 2nd grade teacher at St. John the Baptist School in Plattsmouth.

2014

2016

Ryan Koenig has been welcomed to the Lincoln office of Swanson Russell, a marketing communications agency. He is an associate user experience designer.

Qwist Joseph had an exhibition of his work, “Toward Firmness: Sculpture by Qwist Joseph,” on display in The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City this summer.

■

Leah Fletcher, Kansas City, was promoted to director of career development at Park University.

Nathan Hudson was hired as an instrumental music teacher at McCook High School.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 45

CLASSNOTES WEDDINGS

J. Bruce Bavitz and ■ Lizabeth Goltl Kuhlman, ’90, July 1. The couple lives in Lincoln.

Eric Scow, ’01, and Laura Palmer, July 23. The couple lives in Omaha.

Ryan Hilger, ’04, and Susan Schmitt, June 11. The couple lives in Lafayette, Ind. Garrett Johnson, ’15, and Lexie Ehrisman, May 29. The couple lives in Lincoln.

DEATHS

William E. Gustin, ’41, Oconomowoc, Wis., June 17.

Richard L. Johns, ’41, Haiku, Hawaii, Jan. 1.

Betty Mueller Phelps, ’41, Pueblo, Colo., April 17.

Donald E. Schellberg, ’41, Bellevue, Wash., Jan 1, 2015.

Agnes Bergstrom Erickson Johnson, ’42, Holdrege, May 26.

Bethine Bruner Ninegar, ’42, Kearney, July 9.

John W. Peterson, ’42, Clackamas, Ore., July 2.

Byron Salem, ’42, Sun City West, Ariz., July 18.

Marian Percy Schellberg, ’42, Bellevue, Wash., Jan. 1, 2015.

Florence Myers Silken, ’42, Carmichael, Calif., Sept. 18, 2015.

Elizabeth Schnell Thiel, ’44, Lincoln, June 22.

Dale W. Hurley, ’45, Pasadena, Calif., April 13.

Margaret Cook Tooker, ’46, Lincoln, June 22, 2015.

Mildred Schlaphoff Wittmuss, ’46, Lincoln, June 22.

Leroy R. Walker, ’47, Sacramento, Calif., May 4.

Rosalie Schlaphoff Wilcox, ’47, Houston, Jan. 26.

Hugh M. Cooke, ’48, Stockton, Calif., July 1.

Dorothy Brown Acton, ’49, Augusta, Mich., Jan. 11.

Alan D. Ball, ’49, Albuquerque, N.M., Feb. 14.

Irvin S. Briese, ’49, Lincoln, Aug 4.

Lois L. Bruening, ’49, Omaha, Jan. 18.

Edgar C. Chicoine, ’49, Jacksonville Beach, Fla., April 2.

Ruth Swanson Fishwood, ’49, Humboldt, July 25.

William F. Ginn, ’49, Omaha, June 3.

Charles L. McLafferty, ’49, Orangeburg, S.C., March 28.

Janice Wolford Power, ’49, Kearney, May 21.

Helen Green Baird, ’50, Bellevue, June 10.

46 FALL 2016

Jerome A. Druliner, ’50, Lincoln, May 31.

Donald H. Hammel, ’50, Lincoln, June 11.

Ellen Thomson Hanly, ’50, Kirkland, Wash., Oct. 24, 2015.

James V. Keck, ’50, Rapid City, S.D., May 6.

Jean Eckvall King, ’50, Loveland, Colo., June 21.

Regina Bradley Luchtel, ’50, Sun Lakes, Ariz., June 4.

George C. Mehuron, ’50, Ann Arbor, Mich., July 15.

Warren E. Mickelson, ’50, Pleasant Dale, July 30.

Bryan C. Johnson, ’51, Bettendorf, Iowa, June 7.

Elmer H. Petrasek, ’51, Naperville, Ill., July 24.

Ruth A. Sandstedt, ’51, Stillwater, Okla,, Nov. 27, 2015.

Bernice Chader Tipton, ’51, Helena, Mont., July 27.

David G. Austin, ’52, Carlsbad, Calif., April 7.

Julian C. Canaday, ’52, Bloomfield, June 7.

Donna McCandless Carothers, ’52, Beatrice, June 29.

Anne Reinhard Edholm, ’52, Lincoln, June 3.

Glen W. Johnson, ’52, Minneapolis, May 14.

William C. Kenner, ’52, Palm Desert, Calif., April 20.

Byron J. Norval, ’52, Seward, June 15.

Jay R. Ziegler, ’52, Riverton, July 18.

Arthur H. Becker, ’53, Beaver City, May 22.

John M. Dunleavy, ’53, Arnolds Park, Iowa, May 19.

Leslie H. Noble, ’53, Lincoln, June 25.

Stanley J. Wolpa, ’53, Omaha, May 13.

Peg Bartunek Beranek, ’54, Lincoln, July 12.

Jean Buckner Klopstad, ’54, Sioux City, Iowa, June 10.

Charles J. Lawson, ’54, May 29.

David H. Mickey, ’54, Plattsmouth, May 15.

Robert N. Mohlman, ’54, Lincoln, July 7.

John D. Phillips, ’54, Lincoln, June 11.

Charles J. Saults, ’54, Phoenix, April 1.

Charles W. Schade, ’54, Coldwater, Mich., July 26.

James C. Walsh, ’54, Hastings, July 19.

Dean A. Sunde, ’55, Ralston, June 22.

L. Lee Bosley, ’56, Palm Desert, Calif., July 11.

John W. Luebs, ’56, Camillus, N.Y., May 27.

Arven D. Reynolds, ’56, Lincoln, July 21.

Leon W. Riepe, ’56, Arapahoe, June 5.

Marta Trautrimas Sarka, ’56, Omaha, May 12.

Maxine Rabiner Stern, ’56, La Jolla, Calif., July 1.

Dale G. Baker, ’57, Ridgecrest, Calif., June 19.

Beverly Jacobs Demaree, ’57, Lincoln, July 23.

Jack W. Gell, ’57, Council Bluffs, Iowa, May 7.

Daniel H. Peckham, ’57, Fort Worth, Texas, June 17.

Don L. Pohlman, ’57, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Feb. 15.

Jack H. Smith, ’57, Tucson, Ariz., March 29.

Irlee L. Stagemeyer, ’58, Holbrook, July 15.

Marilyn McHargue Alexander, ’59, Norfolk, July 14.

Joan Brandeberry Bradsby, ’59, Albuquerque, April 8.

Herman L. Larsen, ’59, Geneva, Aug. 12.

Aleth K. Nuland, ’59, Scottsbluff, Dec. 11, 2015.

Ruth I. Eickman, ’60, Lincoln, May 28.

Alan R. Haugner, ’60, Cave Creek, Ariz., May 20.

Marion Limpo Yant, ’60, Pebble Beach, Calif., May 27.

Ronald J. Downey, ’61, Auburn, Calif., July 20.

Robert B. Frey, ’61, Lincoln, July 31.

Barbara Barr Friedrich, ’61, Idaho Falls, Idaho, May 3.

Ronald E. Hatcher, ’61, Rochester, Minn., July 17.

Calvin E. McClurg, ’61, Lees Summit, Mo., Oct. 15, 2015.

Jack S. Richards, ’61, Grand Island, June 29.

Clinton L. Spindler, ’61, Ridgecrest, Calif., July 28.

Errol G. Wiges, ’61, Mitchell, May 19.

Kenneth L. Foster, ’62, Springfield, Mo., July 20.

Richard D. Goettsch, ’62, Webster City, Iowa, July 25.

William J. Gourley, ’63, Aurora, Colo., July 3.

James C. Seacrest, ’63, Lincoln, June 2.

Fredric H. Kauffman, ’64, Lincoln, July 27.

Houghton Furr, ’65, Lincoln, May 25.

Donald R. Baltzer, ’66, Sioux Falls, S.D., May 30.

William H. Cavitt, ’66, Fort Washington, Md., Jan. 6, 2015.

James R. Fish, ’66, Winchester, Calif., July 27.

Richard L. Murphy, ’66, Niobrara, May 21.

Don L. Welch, ’66, Kearney, Aug. 6.

Mary Neubauer Wurtele, ’66, Nebraska City, June 13.

John A. Ballweg, ’67, Christiansburg, Va., Aug. 1.

William L. Howland, ’67, Lincoln, July 11.

Margaret Milne Irvine, ’67, Fort Collins, Colo., June 8.

Warren G. Lawson, ’67, Ankeny, Iowa, Aug. 10.

Mary Ogrady Sand, ’67, Lincoln, Aug. 12.

William J. Scheve, ’67, York, Aug. 1.

Margaret Gilg Chapman, ’68, Pleasant Hill, Calif., June 6, 2015.

Charlotte Olson Duerschner, ’68, Lincoln, June 5.

Jerry K. Mullins, ’68, Battle Creek, Iowa, June 8.

Lester F. Russell, ’68, Marshalltown, Iowa, July 26.

Glenn W. Smith, ’68, Scottsdale, Ariz., July 31.

Helen Kenyon Tiedeman, ’68, Firth, July 17.

Ilene Titkemeier Vogel, ’68, Bozeman, Mont., April 3.

Sherye Nelson Aitken, ’69, South Sioux City, Sept. 11, 2015.

Joanne K. Bowman, ’69, Scottsdale, Ariz., June 6.

Ronald R. Schoneberg, ’69, Orleans, June 27.

Dolores Damke Barkley, ’70, Lincoln, June 26.

Cathryn Clausen Bernhagen, ’70, Elkhorn, July 26.

Dennis G. Huber, ’70, Lincoln, July 11.

Donald D. Littler, ’70, Omaha, July 8.

Wayne A. Pape, ’70, Lincoln, July 11.

Wally W. Weld, ’70, Amarillo, Texas, Nov. 22, 2015.

Dan L. Wilcox, ’70, Omaha, July 30.

Mildred Schlautman Beran, ’71, Fremont, July 4.

Kenneth L. Bonsall, ’71, Lincoln, Aug. 7.

Dwaine L. Crigger, ’72, Springfield, Mo., July 4.

Laura Willers Hudson, ’72, Lorain, Ohio, Jan. 31, 2015.

Phyllis Haas Kendle, ’72, Lincoln, May 26.

Claudia Bartusch Stevens, ’72, Bellevue, July 23.

Judith Cook Amber, ’73, Lincoln, June 21.

Michael S. Chesney, ’73, Canyon Country, Calif., Nov. 9, 2015.

Terry D. Christensen, ’73, Kearney, July 20.

Ronald W. Klutman, ’73, Columbus, May 14.

Carroll L. Lucht, ’73, Killingworth, Conn., July 3.

Patricia J. Thorngren, ’73, Omaha, April 18.

William J. VonTongeln, ’73, Parker, Colo., April 16.

Benno Wymar, ’73, Vermillion, South Dakota, Nov. 4, 2015.

CLASSNOTES Gregory G. Jensen, ’74, Ord, May 24.

Luella Hellbusch Corliss-Sphon, ’75, Lincoln, July 22.

Alan L. Harkness, ’75, Boise, Idaho, Aug. 20, 2015.

John R. Matras, ’75, Huntsville, Ala., April 2.

James E. Potter, ’75, Lincoln, Aug. 6.

John T. Clark, ’76, Omaha, Aug. 9.

Roger L. Korte, ’76, Lincoln, May 3.

Howard L. Augustine, ’77, Campbell, Calif., May 12.

John R. Baker, ’77, Beatrice, July 6.

Jeffrey C. Driscoll, ’77, Axtell, June 30.

Monte W. Goecke, ’77, St. Peters, Mo., March 11.

Eric R. Seberg, ’77, Bellevue, Aug. 8.

Kathleen A. Deveny, ’78, Hastings, July 16.

Diane Tullberg Row, ’78, Bruning, Aug. 9.

Julie D. Bergman, ’79, Ceresco, Aug. 8.

Randy P. Hesson, ’79, York, May 29.

Timothy C. Hudson, ’79, Hemingford, Dec. 17, 2015.

Robert E. Joyce, ’79, Omaha, June 4.

Janet Parilek Bumgarner, ’80, Shenandoah, Iowa, Aug. 8.

James L. Carrier, ’80, Lincoln, June 20.

Shelley S. Graham, ’80, Lincoln, June 13.

Carl A. Gordon, ’81, Phoenix, Nov. 15, 2015.

Stephen E. Hollis, ’81, Elk Grove, Calif., April 29.

Wilma Kennedy Stutheit, ’81, Omaha, July 5.

Scott W. Houck, ’82, Strang, May 30.

Cindy Taylor Korsakas, ’82, Lincoln, May 24.

Kristen M. Lienemann, ’82, Omaha, July 1.

Jerry D. Lunsford, ’82, Milford, Iowa, July 27.

William T. Batt, ’83, Utica, March 28, 2015.

Cristina Ciechomski Bahr, ’84, Charlottesville, Va., May 23.

Mary P. McGeorge, ’84, Dallas, June 5.

Todd M. Oakes, ’84, Jordan, Minn., May 26.

William E. O’Connor, ’84, Paxton, May 20.

Jacquelynn L. Sorensen, ’84, Lincoln, June 10.

Roger A. Fuchs, ’85, Columbus, June 19.

Jerome P. Bonnett, ’87, Omaha, May 28.

LaVon Kehoe Crosby, ’87, Lincoln, July 27.

Robert N. Jackson, ’88, Madison, S.D., May 25.

Jean M. Lewis, ’89, Lincoln, May 9.

Daniel B. Beatty, ’90, Lincoln, May 16.

Elizabeth Luginbill daSilva, ’90, Lincoln, Aug. 5.

Sarah Lintz Hopkins, ’92, Lincoln, July 26.

Darnell B. Smith, ’92, Bondurant, Iowa, May 17.

Michael M. Kaczmarczyk, ’93, Lincoln, May 16.

William P. Leif, ’93, Lincoln, July 27.

Matthew M. Wood, ’97, Lees Summit, Mo., July 17.

Daniel A. Brune, ’98, Omaha, June 28.

Anthony W. Rischling, ’02, Alliance, June 17.

Benjamin L. Rasgorshek, ’06, Omaha, Aug. 1.

Reed L. Schwartz, ’09, Lincoln, June 8.

Samuel A. Morgan, ’10, Omaha, June 10.

Kathleen M. Kneeland, ’11, Lincoln, May 31.

Cynthia L. Stokes, ’11, Vicksburg, Miss., July 1.

Samuel N. Foltz, ’16, Grand Island, July 23.

T

ell us what’s happening!

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14 FALL 2016