Nebraska Magazine: Spring 2013

Plus MAKE IT UGLY / BEER BREWING / UNFORGETTABLE PROFESSOR

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

Ali Hosseini BS ’80, MS ’88

Out of Persia

Volume 109 / No. 1 / Spring 2013 huskeralum.org

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Woo. Woo who?

That’s the sound of Nebraska Alumni and Association Members saving money with a special discount from GEICO.

geico.com/alum/naa | 1-800-368-2734

Official Partner Some discounts, coverages, payment plans and features are not available in all states or all GEICO companies. GEICO is a registered service mark of Government Employees Insurance Company, Washington, D.C. 20076; a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. subsidiary. GEICO Gecko image © 1999-2013. © 2013 GEICO.

INSIDEspring 4 Alumni Voices 6 University Update 14 Alumni Authors 16 Alumni Awards 40 Alumni News 46 Chapters & Affiliates 50 Class Notes & Alumni Profiles Erin Kuwitzky, ’05 Roy and Sharon Smith, ’61 Matt Williams, ’71, ’74

Spring makes its first appearance at Love Library.

22 24 26 32

Beer Brewing

According to University of Nebraska-Lincoln alum Ryan Baker, bitter beer face is not a bad thing. He has enjoyed making bitter beers, better known as India pale ales (IPA), and other specialty craft brews at home for the past decade.

Unforgettable Professor

He always said he would not lie to his students for two reasons: 1) It violated his personal ethical standards, and 2) when caught in a lie, as would inevitably happen, all trust is gone forever, and one would never again be considered a person with integrity. And that’s how the late UNL Professor Richard “Doc” Boohar left a lasting impression on his charges.

Out of Persia

While Ali Hosseini attended UNL, his native Iran exploded in the Islamist revolution of 1979. What was it like to watch the world of his childhood change so dramatically, while studying chemical engineering at UNL? In “The Lemon Grove,” his acclaimed first novel in English, Hosseini paints a dramatic picture of one man’s struggle to comprehend the implacable forces of history.

Make it Ugly

When the wildly inventive painter TL Solien was a graduate student in fine arts at UNL, he learned a vital lesson from the late, legendary Richard Trickey. The youthful artist learned to paint his own nakedly honest feelings onto the canvas ... while creating works of art that burned with the “ugliness” of an authentic personal vision.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 3

alumnivoices

Spring 2013 n Vol. 109, No. 1

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

Diane Mendenhall Executive Director, Nebraska Alumni Association Andrea Wood Cranford, ’71 Editor Jeff Abele, ’98, Move Creative Design Kevin Wright, ’78 Layout and Photography, Class Notes Editor Andrew Washburn, ’00, ’07 Advertising Sales Big Ten Alumni Alliance National Accounts Manager Susan Tauster susant@taustermedia.com, (630) 858-1558 Nebraska Magazine is published quarterly by the Nebraska Alumni Association. Subscription is included in alumni association dues of $50 annually. Requests for permission to reprint materials and readers’ comments are welcome.

Tom Nugent’s piece, “Fighting Cancer One Patient at a Time” (Winter 2013), is not only a fine portrait of a woman we knew as a little girl but brings back fond memories of her mother and father as well. I recall being in Dick and Judy Boohar’s living room rather late one night and marveling how a large family kept the kiddy-clutter to such a minimum. “The children all know that, if we find their things out after they’ve gone to bed, the things are gone for good,” was the reply. They were not strict; they simply led purposeful lives. We knew, even then, good things were in store for those children. Lisa is living proof!

Dick Boohar was, indeed, a legend in his own time. We were members together with them at St. Mark’s at 13th and R streets and saw firsthand how both Dick and Judy lived what they professed. We’ve had a life blessed by the presence of many wonderful people, the Boohars among them.

Thanks for the chronicle of how the legend lives on.

Charles, ’64, ’66, ’71, and Nancy Peek, ’66, ’88 Kearney

About the writers in this issue

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: www.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

Diane Mendenhall, Executive Director Claire Abelbeck, ’09, Assoc. Dir., Digital Comm.

Andrea Cranford, ’71, Sr. Director, Publications Charles Dorse, Custodian Jenny Green, ’07, Assoc. Dir., Student Programs Andy Greer, Asst. Director, Alumni Relations Sarah Haskell, ’09, Asst. Dir., Alumni Relations Wendy Kempcke, Administrative Assistant Carrie Myers, ’03, ’11, Director, Venues Pam Penner, ’01, Programs Assistant Larry Routh, Alumni Career Specialist Ryan Schmit, ’10, Assistant Director, Venues Viann Schroeder, Special Projects Assistant Deb Schwab, Assistant Director, Venues Shannon Sherman, ’00, ’04, Sr. Dir., Comm.

Sarah Smith, ’11, Asst. Dir., Communications Andy Washburn, ’00, ’07, Sr. Dir., Operations Judy Weaver, Assistant to the Executive Director Kevin Wright, ’78, Director, Graphics Shelley Zaborowski, ’96, ’00, Assoc. Exec. Dir.

Alumni Association Executive Board Bill Mueller, ’77, ’80, President, Lincoln Eric F. Brown, ’67, Lexington Jennifer Carson, ’98, Kansas City, Mo. Erleen Hatfield, ’91, ’96, New York, N.Y. Joe Selig, ’80, ’87, NU Foundation Bill Nunez, UNL Steve Toomey, ’85, ’89, Lenexa, Kan.

4 SPRING 2013

Colleen Kenney Fleischer, director of publications for the NU Foundation, grew up on a farm near Plainview and graduated from UNL in 1988 with a journalism degree. She met her husband, Todd, a psychologist, the very first day she arrived on campus as a freshman. Their son, Aidan, is a sophomore at UNL and loves it, and their daughter, Bridget, a senior at Lincoln East, wants to go to UNL, too.

Anthony Flott lives in Omaha, and has been a freelance writer since 1990. He has published articles on a variety of subjects in numerous publications across the United States.

He also is editor of the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s UNO Magazine and teaches a class on magazine editing.

CONNECTION BOX huskeralum.org

facebook.com/UNLalumni

twitter.com/NebraskaAlumni

youtube.com/NebraskaAlumni

Tom Nugent, the author of “Death at Buffalo Creek” (W.W. Norton) and “The Stringer” (Elysian Detroit), has written for Nebraska Magazine for the past ten years. He lives in Hastings, Mich.

how?

it's a simple question. HOw does your Nebraska Alumni Association membership support the university?

RECRUITING & SCHOLARSHIPS ROTC Alumni raised more than $10,000 for scholarships.

15

Together we brought 138 students to Nebraska with Legends scholarships.

N

alumni chapters established Nebraska Legends scholarships.

We partnered with the UNL Office of Admissions to host events for high-school counselors and support recruiting efforts.

304 volunteers wrote 2,759 Postcards of Pride to prospective students.

BUILDING CONNECTIONS New alumni chapters formed across the globe from Alabama to India.

Our career counseling program helped hundreds of alumni from 16 states grow professionally.

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students and alumnae joined Cather Circle, our women始s mentoring and networking group.

Our student group, Scarlet Guard, grew to more than 1,100 members.

We selected 42 outstanding young alumni for the Young Alumni Academy inaugural class.

for all you've done and all you've helped us achieve

THANK YOU.

see the whole story at huskeralum.org/your-impact.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 5

UNIVERSITY UPDATE

An image of the inside of the WISSARD borehole.

(Photo courtesty the Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling Project)

ANDRILL

UNL’s Hot-Water Drill Reaches Subglacial Antarctic Lake For the first time, a team of scientists and engineers has succeeded in drilling through the Antarctic ice sheet to reach a subglacial lake, and it was accomplished with a hot-water drill system designed and manufactured at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The National Science Foundation-funded team drilled a 30-centimeter-diameter hole through one-half mile of ice to reach Lake Whillans to retrieve water and sediment samples that have been isolated from direct contact with the atmosphere for many thousands of years. The interdisciplinary Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) project broke through to the lake in late January.

“The challenge of the drill was to ensure that everything worked together and we were providing enough heat into the ice to melt the hole and advance at a good rate, but also to keep everything clean,” said Frank Rack, an associate professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences at UNL and the executive director of the Antarctic Geologic Drilling (AN-

During December testing of the drill near McMurdo Station, Frank Rack explains the operation of the drill’s UV collar used to decontaminate hoses and cables to be deployed downhole. Rack is executive director of the Antarctic Geologic Drilling (ANDRILL) Science Management Office and associate professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences at UNL. (Photo: Peter West, NSF) 6 SPRING 2013

DRILL) Science Management Office at UNL. Consider it mission accomplished for the drill design team from ANDRILL’s Science Management Office, including senior research associate Steve Fischbein; and the team at the UNL College of Engineering’s Engineering and Science Research Support Facility that built the drill in cooperation with engineers from the Northeast Professional Engineering Consultants Group of North Franklin, Conn., and Brainard, Neb. The drill provides up to 72 gallons per minute of 90-degree Centigrade (194 degrees Fahrenheit) water at up to 2,500 pounds per square inch and needed only about 24 hours on Jan. 23 and 24 to make the initial hole at Lake Whillans. The WISSARD team lowered a remotely operated vehicle called an M-sled that confirmed on Jan. 28 that the hole was open to the lake.

“To make the final breakthrough took a bit of time,” Rack said. “Our goal was to have the water from the lake flow into the borehole so we could enter with as little disturbance as possible. The purpose of the science is to collect samples of water, sediment and any biology that may exist in the lake, and they’re going to do that through the deployment of a whole series of different scientific instruments that will go down on cables.”

The achievement is the culmination of more than a decade of international and U.S. planning and 3 1/2 years of project preparation by the WISSARD consortium of U.S. universities and two international contributors.

Following their successful retrieval, the samples are being prepared for shipment off the ice and back to laboratories for chemical and biological analyses over the coming weeks and months.

Total NSF funding for the WISSARD project was more than $10 million, with more than $3 million from the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to design and build the drill.

– Tom Simons, University Communications

UNIVERSITY UPDATE

UNL’s NASA microgravity “crew” includes, front row (left to right): Eli Van Boening, Blake Stewart, Christian Laney, Shawn Schumacher, Maggie Clay, Caleb Berggren, Nicholas Goeser, Jake Reher (team captain), Eric Fritz, Brad Steiner. Back row (left-to-right): Ryan Wood, Hunter Severin, Ethan Monhollon, Tricia Foley, Effie Greene, Carl Nelson (adviser), Dustin Dam (adviser). Not pictured: Ellie Ahlquist, Brendan Byal, Peng Liu, Timothy Mastny, Taylor Noel, Parise Reynolds, Kyle Wroblewsi and Joan Yule.

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

UNL Team to Fly with NASA Microgravity University In July, a team of University of Nebraska-Lincoln engineering students will pilot a free-flying vehicle – like the radio-controlled helicopters popular as holiday gifts –not to escape their courses, but to help NASA research.

Selected university teams will perform experiments on reduced gravity missions flying from NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, July 26-Aug. 3, during the 2013 NASA SEED Microgravity University.

It’s the sixth consecutive year that UNL has been selected for the program. NASA Microgravity University conducts scientific research that helps the U.S. space program advance its efforts. Projects are prepared by students with mentoring from NASA and industry representatives, then conducted during “Flight Week” aboard a series of parabolic flights in specially-equipped aircraft that reach 35,000 feet in altitude.

UNL’s 2013 assigned project, ARGOS and Microgravity Free Flyer Evaluation, will explore the ability of the Active Response Gravity Offload System to provide a microgravity environment for a free-flying vehicle.

ARGOS is a robotic system that provides reduced gravity environments through a large motion-based platform at JSC

that has been used for human and robotic testing over the past three years. ARGOS has not been used for testing free flyers, and the evaluation of the ARGOS control system to maintain a microgravity environment for a free flyer is a unique area of research.

The Nebraska team is developing a free flyer (likely a quad or hexacopter) that will fly a specific set of motion patterns in both ARGOS and plane-induced microgravity environments. The team is also tasked CONNECTION BOX with devising a data www.microgravity.unl.edu collection method for go.unl.edu/h9p comparing performance in the environments, via motion capture camera systems and inertial guidance units. This data will help refine ARGOS and its control systems in further study of free flyer performance in reduced gravity settings.

The team’s advisers are Carl Nelson, associate professor of mechanical and materials engineering, and Dustin Dam, a 2008 UNL electrical engineering graduate and captain of UNL’s 2008 microgravity team.

– Carole Wilbeck, College of Engineering

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 7

UNIVERSITY UPDATE

In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Sheldon Museum of Art, a monumental sculpture by renowned American artist Alexander Calder (1898-1976) has been installed in the museum’s sculpture garden. “Tripes,” created by the artist in 1974 with bolted steel, is prominentlysituated on the west side of the building at 12th and R streets on the UNL City Campus.

NEBRASKA BOOKSTORE 1300 Q St. neebo.com/unl

8 SPRING 2013

UNL INVENTORS AND INNOVATORS

Three Named Charter Fellows of National Academy of Inventors Two professors and a vice chancellor at the University of NebraskaLincoln have been named Charter Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors. Brian Larkins, associate vice chancellor for life sciences and professor of agronomy and horticulture; Prem S. Paul, vice chancellor for Research and Economic Development; and James Van Etten, William Allington Distinguished Professor of Plant Pathology and co-director of the Nebraska Center for Virology, are part of the group of 98 innovators elected to NAI Fellow status.

An internationally recognized leader in the development of plant molecular biology and plant agricultural biotechnology, Larkins focuses his research on the regulation of seed development and the synthesis of seed storage proteins. He uses a molecular genetic approach to investigate the biology of seed storage protein synthesis and seed development, particularly in corn and other cereal grains. Larkins’ research on the nutritional quality of corn and other cereal grains has significant implications for improving nutrition for humans and livestock. His work has led to scientific advances, including new molecular biology techniques and a broader understanding of the molecular mechanisms that regulate seed development and protein

UNIVERSITY UPDATE

tive viruses and study of public health production in corn risk of swine viruses through xenotransseeds. Larkins was plantation. He has 21 patents on swine elected to the National Academy of Sciences in viruses and methods for protection against them.

1996.

Van Etten’s research has focused on Paul has been vice the isolation and characterization of chancellor for research large icosahedral, dsDNA-containing and economic develviruses that infect certain unicellular, opment at UNL since eukaryotic chlorella-like green algae.

July 1, 2001. During Brian Larkins These viruses, which were discovered his tenure in Lincoln,

by Van Etten and a colleague in 1981, research funding has exist in fresh water around the world more than doubled. and are either the Over his career, Paul smallest or among the has received more than smallest proteins of $21 million in grants their class. The profor research, training teins serve as models and facilities, and has for mechanistic and published more than structural studies and 100 papers in referare thought to have a eed journals as well as long evolutionary hisnumerous books, book tory, possibly more than chapters and review ara billion years. Studies ticles. He has received James Van Etten on these viruses are several awards for his revealing interestresearch and leadering aspects about the ship, including election as a fellow in the American Association evolution of genes and genomes. Van Etten was elected to membership in for the Advancement of Sciences and the Pfizer the National Academy of Sciences in 2003. award for research Dean Sicking was also selected as a excellence. Before joining UNL, Paul spent 16 charter NAI Fellow. Sicking, a longtime UNL civil engineering professor, years on the faculty at recently left UNL for the University of Iowa State University Alabama at Birmingham where he is and earlier was the vetassociate vice president of product deerinary medical officer velopment and professor in the School at the U.S. Department of Engineering. of Agriculture’s NationPrem S. Paul – University Communications al Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa, for seven years. Paul’s research interests CONNECTION BOX are in viral pathogenesis – specifically www.academyofinventors.org/charter-fellows.asp swine enteric, respiratory and reproduc-

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 9

UNIVERSITY UPDATE

CENTER FOR DIGITAL RESEARCH IN THE HUMANITIES

Collaboration ‘Unfolding the Novel’ In the 19th century, Britain was the world’s superpower, boasting a global empire of 10 million square miles and 400 million royal subjects. And British authors of the era reflected this supremacy, peppering prose with words of command and certainty – ones like always, never and forever.

At the same time in Ireland, writers echoed a different perspective in their books. With the Irish under the thumb of British rule, the nation’s scribes frequently used words that displayed inability or frustration – ones like almost, nearly or perhaps.

Matthew Jockers knows this to be a fact because it bears out in his computer-generated data: The UNL assistant professor of English has combined computer programming with digital text-mining to produce deep thematic, stylistic analyses in 19thcentury literary works. He calls the data-driven process macroanalysis, and it’s opening up new methods for literary theorists to study classic literature.

“But what we don’t know is what happens after the turn of the 20th century,” Jockers said. “The 20th century, as we know, is when the British Empire deteriorates and the Irish gain independence. So do each country’s authors remain as they were in the previous century? Or if they do begin to change their approach, in what ways do they go about it? That’s the kind of question we can address – with access to proper data, that is.”

Now, thanks to an exclusive agreement between UNL and private company, BookLamp, Jockers and

Matthew Jockers

research collaborators from several U.S. universities have the tools to begin uncovering the answers to that question – and many others. This new research collaboration will ultimately allow scholars to access and analyze book data from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

BookLamp uses digital tools to compare books by theme and writing style, suggesting other books a reader might like based on how closely they match previous reads. To power their algorithm, BookLamp works with publishers across the industry to analyze thousands of titles in its Book Genome Project, which it launched in 2003.

Jockers, who also is a fellow in UNL’s Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, said that in scholarly circles, the arrangement signifies a big step forward: For years, digital researchers have had a difficult time gaining access to the results of digitally text-mined books from the 20th century, thanks to copyright and access issues. While BookLamp will not directly provide scholars with book texts or book-level data, it does provide

corpus-level “anonymized” data that allows researchers to ask questions about key thematic and stylistic structures.

An example may be to query how often female writers used keywords related to traditionally male professions in the 1920s compared with, say, the 1980s, to track the changes in women’s literary roles over time, researchers said.

“Nearly everyone who does this kind of work focuses on the 19th century, because that’s all that’s been available in the digital format, outside of copyright,” Jockers said.

“So unfortunately, we’ve been kind of stuck in time for a while. But this arrangement will help us clear that hurdle, and we’ll be able to look more deeply into more modern works.”

Jockers leads the collaboration with digital literary scholars at Stanford University’s Literary Lab as well as Arizona State University. It starts with a two-year project involving data from BookLamp, as well as data from 18th- and 19th-century novels already compiled in Stanford’s Literary Lab. Organizers have dubbed the effort

///// Continued on Page 11 10 SPRING 2013

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

UNL Student Engineers Place Highly in Smarter Planet Challenge Two teams led by UNL engineering students earned Top 5 status in the 2012 Smarter Planet Challenge, an international competition for college/ university teams to improve the world’s technology solutions. The competition is sponsored by IBM and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Placing fourth was “SEER,” a project to enhance television viewing by adding additional on-screen video input sources for a layered multimedia experience. The $2,000 prize from the Smarter Planet Challenge will help the SEER team develop a prototype for an upcoming challenge: the Computer and Electronics Engineering Senior Projects Showcase at the Peter Kiewit Institute in Omaha.

“With SEER, it would be possible for one user to watch a Blu-Ray while a second plays a gaming console, using the same television and without it being separated into two screens,” said team leader Robert Boulter, a senior UNL electronics engineering major.

UNIVERSITY UPDATE

Suitability and Planning Study. Led by “This will enable multiple-user access UNL electrical engineering graduate to a single appliance.” students Salman Kahrobaee of Tehran, The SEER team worked in class and Iran; and Dingguo Lu of Hangzhou, several additional hours each week China; team members also included during the fall semester at the Kiewit UNL GIS and remote sensing students Institute.

Tarlan Razzaghi of Tehran; Anthony L. The interdisciplinary group includes Nguy-Robertson of Mooresville, Ind.; Hong-Yen Hoang of La Vista, an and David Gibbs of Earlysville, Va. accounting major at the University of Their team’s $1,000 prize will help Nebraska at Omaha; Marc McCaslin them refine the project for potential of Bellevue, a senior UNL electronics commercialization. engineering major; Sara Shinn of – Carole Wilbeck, College of Nebraska City, a senior who majors Engineering in computer engineering with UNL and computer science at UNO; and Timothy Struble-Larsen of Omaha, a senior studying electronics engineering with UNL engineering programs in Omaha.

A Nebraska team also earned fifth place in The SEER team, left to right: Hong-Yen Hoang, Robert Boulter, the challenge with its Timothy Struble-Larsen, Sara Shinn and Marc McCaslin.

GIS-based Wind Farm

///// Continued from Page 10 the “Unfolding the Novel” project.

Ultimately, they will consolidate 300 years of high-level book data to study long-term literary trends and patterns.

One of the project’s initial queries will be to examine the words and stylistic elements that best allow scholars to distinguish between male and female writers, Jockers said. For example, in the 19th century, male authors were far more likely to use male pronouns than female ones.

This indicates their stories were more masculine than those written by women

authors, who used male and female pronouns more evenly during the same period.

“We’re interested to learn what happens to this tendency in the 20th century,” he said. “This is, after all, the period of liberalization, so the theory would be that women would begin writing more female-centered work. And, if these movements had any effects on the males, we should start to see a greater attention to the other gender in works by 20th-century men, as well. It will be interesting to see.”

The work of understanding and organizing data from 100 years of literature is long and difficult, Jockers said, much less 300 years of literature.

But he said he thinks that he and his collaborators are inaugurating a game-changing, information-rich era of literary scholarship.

“The possibilities are practically endless,” he said.

– Steve Smith, University Communications

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 11

CAMPUS BRIEFS Kudos n Three University of Nebraska-Lincoln professors have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science – the world’s largest general scientific society.

The new Fellows are L. Dennis Smith, for distinguished contributions to developmental biology and leadership and advocacy on education; James Alfano, for distinguished contributions in research of plant pathogens; and Mike Nastasi, for contributions in energy, manufacturing, nanotechnology and microelectronics. n Matthew Dwyer, professor of computer science

and engineering, has been named a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Matthew Dwyer Engineers. His primary research area is in software dependability with an emphasis on methods for assuring the correct operation of software used in cars, airplanes and spacecraft, among other things. n The University of NebraskaLincoln men’s flag football team took first place in the National Flag Football Championships Jan. 4-6 in Orlando, Fla. The

team, nebflagfootball.com, won all six of its games at the championship and beat Angelo State 27-14 in the championship game. Corey Serrano, a sophomore from North Platte, was named national most valuable player and Kevin Dickens Jr., a senior from Kansas City, Mo., was named an AllAmerican. The team, coached by Wyatt Godfrey of Lincoln, earned free entry to the national tournament by winning the Arkansas Regional in October.

UNL Men’s Flag Football Team

UNIVERSITY RANKINGS

UNL Named a ‘Best Value’ University The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is among the nation’s “Best Value” colleges and universities according to a Princeton Review publication released recently.

UNL is one of 150 schools nationwide – 75 public and 75 private undergraduate institutions – to be featured in The Princeton Review book, “The Best Value Colleges: 2013 Edition.” UNL is also the only Nebraska college or university to make the list.

The 150 schools were selected after a review of institutional and student surveys from 650 colleges and universities. Key data points used in the rankings include academics, cost of attendance and financial aid. The 12 SPRING 2013

top colleges in each group are ranked from one to 10, while the remaining 65 are listed in alphabetical order. UNL is among seven Big Ten universities included in the “Best Value” list.

Princeton Review profile, editors said, “UNL is committed to helping students plan their education at the university as well as their life beyond it.” The report also identified UNL’s new Exploratory and Pre-Professional Advising Center and Guided Professional Shadowing Program as key avenues that help students graduate in four years.

Student comments praised the unity among UNL’s student body and the acceptance of everyone on campus. Additional student comments

highlighted the beauty of campus, wide variety of campus programming and Lincoln’s thriving downtown.

The “Best Value” profile also reflects UNL’s commitment to helping students through financial aid. The profile highlights that 75 percent of freshmen

CONNECTION BOX www.princetonreview.com/best-value-colleges.aspx

receive some type of funding assistance and outlines how the Collegebound Nebraska program promises Pell Grants to all eligible Nebraska students.

– Troy Fedderson, University Communications

Grants n Jinsong Huang, an assistant professor of mechanical and materials engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, recently earned a five-year, $400,000 Faculty Early Career Development Program, or CAREER Award, from the National Science Foundation to continue his research into solar cell development.

He envisions a future when solar energy devices will become so inexpensive and pliable that nearly any surface, including windows and clothing, will harness the sun. n A recent contribution by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Friends of Opera group to the University of Nebraska Foundation has completed funding for the $200,000 Ariel Bybee Visiting Professorship Endowed Fund. The fund will sponsor visiting opera composers, opera directors and opera coaches to come to UNL from across the country and around the world.

n A $100,000 gift to the University of Nebraska Foundation by Thomas Olson of Lisco in honor of his wife, Cynthia, creates the Cynthia Olson Vocal Music Education Doctoral Fellowship Endowment at the UNL School of Music. The endowed gift will assist in funding an outstanding Ph.D. student in the music education program whose interests align with the teaching and learning of vocal/choral education.

The doctoral student recruited to this appointment will be the Cynthia Olson Doctoral Fellow in Vocal Music Education. n The Berman Music Foundation has donated thousands of CDs, LPs and DVDs of jazz and rock music to UNL’s Music Library. The collection’s primary focus is jazz, with additions of rock music, recordings of Butch Berman’s KZUM radio show, and videos of live performances from Lincoln venues. Many materials in the collection are out of print and can’t be found on the open market. The Berman Collection was moved

Butch Berman

from the Burkholder Project in the Haymarket area to the UNL Music Library, located in Room 30 at Westbrook Hall on UNL’s City Campus.

Items in the collection will be available for checkout and KZUM, Lincoln’s community radio station, has been given permission to use the collection for on-air play. n Students studying broadcast journalism at UNL will soon use state-of-the-art equipment to help advance their future careers thanks to a gift commitment from the Nebraska Broadcasters Association. The NBA will provide $100,000 over the next five years to the University of Nebraska Foundation to establish an equipment fund for UNL’s broadcasting program at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. The college will use the fund for equipment acquisition and maintenance.

Jinsong Huang

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 13

Haven’s Wake University of Nebraska Press, 2013, (paper) $16.95 www.nebraskapress.unl.edu

Early July, and the corn in eastern Nebraska stands ten feet tall.

Ladette After a near-decade of Randolph ’86, ’91, ’99 drought it seems too good to be true, and everyone is watching the sky for trouble. For the Grebels, whose plots of organic crops trace a modest patchwork among the vast fields of soybeans and corn, trouble arrives from a different quarter in the form of Elsa’s voice on her estranged son’s answering machine: “Your father’s dead. You’ll probably want to come home.” When a tractor accident fells the patriarch of this Mennonite family, the threads holding them together are suddenly drawn taut, singing with the tensions of a lifetime’s worth of love and faith, betrayal and shame. Through the competing voices of those gathered for Haven Grebel’s funeral, acts of loyalty and failures, longsuppressed resentments and a tragic secret are brought to light, expressing a larger, complex truth.

ALUMNI AUTHORS 14 SPRING 2013

the lemon grove

doug & wahwee

Northwestern University Press,

River Junction Press, 2012,

2012, (paper) $18.95

(cloth) $22.95

www.nupress.northwestern.edu

www.ipgbook.com

Identical twins Ruzbeh and Behruz are at the Ali Hosseini center of Ali Hosseini’s ’80, ’88 debut novel in English – a story about love, redemption and the courage to survive in the face of calamity and loss. The novel begins in the small town in southern Iran where the boys were raised and in their summer home, which is surrounded by a lemon grove.

Their idyll is shattered by personal and geopolitical events. Both boys fall in love with Shireen, a childhood friend. Behruz goes to America to escape the pain of competing for Shireen’s affections.

Ruzbeh fights in the Iran/Iraq war and ends up alone and wandering the streets.

When Behruz returns to Iran to help his shell-shocked brother, he finds the country devastated by revolution and war.

His return sets off a string of events that change all their lives.

This book takes a glimpse into the Tom Hutson lives of ambassador ’62 and diplomat Doug MacArthur, nephew of General Douglas MacArthur, and his wife, Wahwee.

Through interviews and firsthand accounts from those who knew him, this biography of the prominent 20th-century emissary sheds light on the important role Ambassador MacArthur had in foreign affairs post–World War II. MacArthur had a rich career as a professional diplomat, was a member of the French Resistance, a prisoner of war, a political and military adviser to President Eisenhower, Assistant Secretary of State, and postwar security treaty negotiator with Japan. Wahwee, daughter of Alben Barkley, Senate Majority Leader and Vice President of the United States under President Harry Truman, variously terrorized or charmed the members of the Foreign Service.

Down to Earth

Nationally Distinguished Nebraskans

Ubangarang Preservation Society, 2012, (paper) $20 ubangarang@yahoo.com

Dick Cory has been interested in the workings of politics since successfully campaigning for railway commissioner at Nebraska Boys State in 1953. Since then he has held many Dick leadership offices while teaching science for Cory ’58 36 years. His disappointment in the inability of Congress to make decisions and progress in this past term led him to write strategies to get back down to earth. The book is sectioned into the areas Cory considers most important for consideration: culture/environment, education, family and nostalgia/wit.

Danilo 2012, (paper) $11.99 www.danilothebook.com

Danilo is a nostalgic look at Nebraska farm life through the eyes of an immigrant boy – a blond, blue-eyed, streetwise 17 year old who has never met his American father. This satisfying, fastRex Fuller paced story begins in Subic Bay Naval Base in ’87 the Philippine Islands and, through entertaining twists and turns woven with love, promise, hardship and happiness, concludes in the little town of Winchester, Neb.

Nebraska State Education Association, 2012, (paper) $18 gagecountymuseum.info/GiftShop.html

This reference contains brief bio-bibliographies of 900 Nebraskans from all areas of the ’60, ’65 state, from 1854 to 2012, who distinguished themselves nationally and internationally.

Among them are pioneers of civil rights for African Americans and Native Americans, electricity for rural America and education for the gifted. They include the inventors of center pivot irrigation, ski lifts, core memory for the digital computer, Kool-Aid, the stroboscopic light and TV dinners as well as the founders of Boys Town, Hallmark Cards and the World War II North Platte Canteen, and the developers of the first separate forensic medicine curriculum, the first computer sound synthesis languages and the first modern scientific opinion poll.

E.A. Kral

A Step Ahead of Death Comfort Publishing, 2011, (paper) $24.99 www.comfortpublishing.com

Scott McPherson, M.D.

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Jack Sharp is just an ordinary family physician in the Heartland. As a former missionary and military physician his background is anything but ordinary, but he finds quiet satisfaction in normal routines. Then, his uncomplicated life is thrown into chaos when he discovers the body of a murdered young woman dumped beside a bike path. Now seen as a potential suspect by local detectives, he must use all his training and intuition to find the real killer.

Show US YOUR TALENT Featured books are not sold or distributed through the Nebraska Alumni Association. Publishing information is provided to help consumers locate the title through local booksellers or online retailers unless otherwise noted.

To be considered for inclusion in Alumni Authors, send a complimentary copy of a recently published book and a description of its contents to: Alumni Authors Editor, 1520 R Street, Lincoln, NE 68508-1651 Please include the author’s full name, class year, current mailing and e-mail addresses and telephone number.

The author must have attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 15

ALUMNI Awards

award-winning alumni & students

Join us in congratulating the Nebraska Alumni Association’s 2013 award winners. Make plans to attend the Alumni Awards Banquet, An All-University Celebration, on Thursday, May 2 at the Nebraska Champions Club. Tickets are now on sale at huskeralum. org/2013-awards. This year’s award winners include:

ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS Kristin Whitted Fasbender is associate

Extension Committee on Organization and Policy, the representative leadership and governing body of Cooperative Extension nationwide. Located at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities in Washington, D.C., she works to build partnerships, acquire resources, increase strategic marketing, and enhance leadership Jane Schuchardt and professional development. Schuchardt received distinguished alumna awards from three universities, was named distinguished fellow by the American Council on Consumer Interests, received a USDA superior service award, and was cited for excellence by the Association of Financial Counseling and Planning Education, the National Endowment for Financial Education, and the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy. She earned her bachelor’s degree from UNL in 1974.

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Jane Schuchardt is executive director,

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president of New Horizons Enterprises LLC (New Horizons). She launched the company in 2007 with a vision of serving clients with innovative, cost-effective solutions to environmental challenges. In the past six years, New Horizons has experienced tripledigit growth and expanded from Kansas City to Lincoln. In 2009 Isaacson received the Stephanie Women Impacting Policy “Member to Watch” Isaacson award and was named one of 25 “Women Who Mean Business” by the Kansas City Business Journal. In 2011, the Greater Kansas City Kansas Chamber of Commerce named New Horizons its Small Business of the Year. In 2012 Diversity Business.com named the firm one of the top 500 woman-owned businesses in the country. Isaacson is a 1999 graduate of the UNL College of Agriculture and Resources.

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Stephanie Isaacson is owner and

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director of championships and alliances for the NCAA in Indianapolis. A former Nebraska track and cross country athlete, she graduated with high distinction from UNL in 1997 in broadcast journalism. Fasbender spent a year as an NCAA intern in Kansas City, and then joined the Big 12 Conference as an assistant director of championships. In Kristin Fasbender 1999 she returned to the NCAA, where she has worked with 13 different championships across all three divisions. Fasbender now serves as the lead administrator for the Division I championships in women’s volleyball, men’s ice hockey and men’s tennis. She also serves on her church Parish Council and is a member of Cather Circle and the National Association of Collegiate Women’s Athletic Administrators. She and her husband, Shawn, are the parents of Kaitlin, Megan and Will.

Dean Kratz, senior partner in the Omaha law firm of McGrath North Mullen & Kratz, has practiced law in Nebraska for 63 years. He also served as Judge and Chief Judge on the Nebraska Court of Industrial Relations for four six-year terms and recently was president of the Nebraska State Bar Foundation. The author of three books, Kratz also has been a member of the Nebraska Dean State Bar Association Executive Council. He Kratz is two-time past president of the University of Nebraska Touchdown Club, served as president of the Big Red Breakfast for 30 years, was president of the Alumni N Club and received the Clarence Swanson Memorial Award from the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame. Kratz is the co-sponsor and co-founder of the Berkshire-Kratz Track Scholarship. A 1949 honors graduate of the UNL College of Law, he was a track and field All-American.

DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD

Cecil L. Walker retired in 2001 as the

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Bill Glaser of Minden, Nev., has been president of the Nebraska Alumni Chapter serving the Northern Nevada areas of Carson City, Reno and Lake Tahoe for the last six years. He has initiated several events that have increased the local awareness of the Nebraska Alumni Association in Northern Nevada, including an Annual Nebraska Book Award to five high school seniors for Bill excellence in English, an Annual Nebraska Glaser Golf Tournament, and an Annual Nebraska Spring Dinner. Glaser earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Engineering in 1971 and 1977 respectively. He has served for many years as the project manager on many large construction projects at San Diego International Airport and the State of Nevada Department of Transportation.

EARLY ACHIEVER AWARDS – 2013 Trent Claus, Lincoln native and 2006 graduate of UNL’s Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, is an awardwinning visual effects artist with Lola VFX in Santa Monica, Calif. He has worked on more than 60 feature films, 10 of which have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and four of which won the award. In 2012, he was awarded the Trent Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Claus Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture for his groundbreaking work on “Captain America: The First Avenger.” In 2008, Claus received media attention for his work on the film, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Other notable films on which he has worked include: “Prometheus,” “Avatar,” “The Social Network,” “Star Trek,” “Life of Pi,” “The Avengers” and “Blade Runner.”

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Matt Williams is chairman and president of Gothenburg State Bank. He is a fourthgeneration banker and has been with the family owned bank since 1973. He currently serves as chairman of the American Bankers Association and was chairman of the Nebraska Bankers Association in 20032004. Williams was selected as one of 14 bankers from across the country on the FDIC Matt Advisory Committee on Community Banking.

Williams He also serves on the University of Nebraska Foundation Board of Trustees, the UNL Ag Builders, the NU President’s Advisory Council, the UNL Finance Department Advisory Board and the Board of Directors of Innovation Campus. Willliams received his bachelor’s degree in 1971 and law degree in 1974, both from UNL. He and his wife, Susan, have two children and five grandchildren.

Force at Buckley AFB in Colorado, is the founding president of the ROTC and Military Affiliate of the Nebraska Alumni Association.

Through his leadership, the affiliate has earned NAA awards for Membership and Newcomer of the Year in the chapters and affiliates awards program. With the focus on supporting the university and the ROTC units, Mark Dreiling, a 2005 UNL grad, has introduced Dreiling such affiliate initiatives as a challenge coin presented to graduating ROTC seniors, three $1,000 scholarships presented annually – one each for Army, Navy and Air Force Cadets and Midshipmen, a unique ROTC ring, and a mentorship portal that matches newly commissioned officers with experienced ROTC alumni. Dreiling designed both the coin and the ring.

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chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Gannett Broadcasting. A Nebraska native who graduated from the UNL College of Business Administration in 1959, Walker began his media career in Denver and held financial and officer positions for years with a company purchased in 1979 by Gannett Co. Inc. In 1984, he was promoted to Cecil president and general manager of WXIAWalker TV, the NBC affiliate in Atlanta. In 1985, Walker was promoted to president of Gannett Television and in 1987 to president and CEO of Gannett Broadcasting.

Walker and his wife, Jeanette “Jan” Turner Walker, ’59, who have three children and 11 grandchildren, have established family endowments to make annual awards of Walker Family Scholarships at several universities, including Nebraska.

Mark Dreiling, a captain in the U.S. Air

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John Skretta is superintendent of the Norris School District and Region I Nebraska Council of School Administrators Superintendent of the Year for 2012-13.

A member of the Midwest Dairy Health & ’91 Wellness Advisory Council, and a 2010 ’00 , ’9 national Healthy Schools Champion, Skretta , ’0 4, 8 led the Norris Schools to participation in Nebraska’s Coordinated School Health John “Building Healthy Schools” pilot, with each Skretta school recognized for meeting rigorous criteria from the Alliance For A Healthier Generation healthy schools program. Skretta is an avid runner who was featured in Fitness magazine as a “Champion of Health & Fitness,” and won a WorkWell Wellness Champion award. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English in 1991 and 1994, and master’s and Ed.D. in educational administration in 2000 and 2008, from UNL.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 17

ALUMNI Awards Danielle Conrad was elected to the

Jenna Johnson is a higher education

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and analytics at National Research Corp. where she engages in research and thought leadership in the area of healthcare. She has led diverse teams of research associates, spanning multiple products and locations.

Prior to joining NRC, Johnson was a research consultant with Kenexa where she analyzed and presented Employee Engagement Survey Katie data to the leadership teams of some of the Johnson largest global companies. She received her doctoral degree from the UNL Department of Sociology in 2007. Her dissertation research was recognized nationally, winning awards from the American Sociological Association and the American Society of Criminology. Johnson has published more than 10 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.

She lives in Lincoln with her husband, Charlie, and son, Harper.

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Jess Sweley is senior director of research, quality and innovation at ConAgra Foods in Omaha. He leads a team of 30+ scientists, engineers and culinologists responsible for new product and technology development on such brands as Orville Redenbacher’s, Marie Callender’s, Healthy Choice, Banquet, Slim Jim, Hunts, Chef Boyardee, Bertolli and PF Changs. New products recently launched: Jess Orville Redenbacher’s Pop Up Bowl; Slim Sweley Jim’s DARE and Steakhouse Jerky; Healthy Choice Top Chef Steaming Entrees; Marie Callender’s Signature Bakes and Breakfast Sandwiches; and Bertolli Al Dente and Rustico Baked meals. Sweley is a volunteer clerk/judge for the Douglas County Election Commission. He earned a bachelor’s in biological systems engineering in from UNL in 1999 and a Ph.D. in food science and technology in 2012.

Misty Thomas, a member of the Santee

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Nathan Preheim is Chief Operations Officer and co-founder of MindMixer.com, a public engagement firm based in Omaha that specializes in interactive applications that extract useful ideas from community residents. MindMixer has defined, designed

for Flint Hill Resources’ Fairmont facility, formerly Advanced Bioenergy, where she is the primary grain buyer for the 100+ million gallon per year ethanol processor and the public relations site liaison. Prior to that, she worked for Cargill Inc., first as a grain buyer and later as operations/health and safety coordinator. She also serves on the UNL Heather College of Agriculture and Natural Resources Ramsey Alumni Association Board, currently as secretary. Raised on a farm in Central Illinois, Ramsey graduated from CASNR in agribusiness-marketing in 2009. She and her husband live in Bruning, and are expecting their first child in August.

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Katie Johnson is director of research

Heather Ramsey is a grain merchandiser

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reporter at The Washington Post in D.C. In the past year she has written about the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State University, the firing and rehiring of the University of Virginia president, the Colorado movie theater massacre and the University of Maryland’s move to the Big Ten. In January, Johnson traveled to southern Turkey for the Post’s Jenna foreign desk to report on the Syrian revolution Johnson and its resulting humanitarian crisis. An Omaha native, Johnson graduated from the UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications in 2007.

She was part of an international reporting class that ventured to Sri Lanka to report on the aftermath of a tsunami in 2006, and she worked as editor of the Daily Nebraskan student newspaper her senior year.

and managed the development of a proprietary virtual town hall application for cities and communities and currently works with approximately 300 communities nationally and internationally. Preheim was formerly founder and principal of Pinpoint Planning, where he authored, edited and updated municipal comprehensive plans, design guidelines, corridor plans and neighborhood Nathan plans. Prior to that he was an urban planner Preheim for Olsson Associates. Preheim received a master’s degree in community and regional planning from the UNL College of Architecture in 2009.

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Nebraska Legislature in 2006 and 2010, representing Lincoln’s 46th District. Her legislative accomplishments include: championing the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, spearheading efforts to modernize the state’s economic development strategies; ensuring adequate funding for Nebraska’s educational system, particularly higher Danielle education; increasing the minimum wage; Conrad establishing a scholarship for children of first responders killed in the line of duty; streamlining the workers compensation system; and improving access to health care for women and children. Conrad graduated from UNL with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 2000 and a J.D. from the College of Law in 2003. As a citizen legislator, she is currently director of the Lincoln Parks Foundation.

Misty Thomas

Sioux Nation of Nebraska and a descendant of the Tingit of Alaska, is director of the Dakota Tiwahe Service Unit, the Social Services Department for the Santee Sioux Nation. She administers the Child and Adult Protective Services, Indian Child Welfare Act, Independent Living, BIA Social Services, Native Employment Works Program, AmeriCorps, Tribal Youth Program Grant and the Domestic Violence/Sexual

Assault Program. Recognized as a Champion of Change by the Whitehouse, Thomas turned the dream of a shelter in Santee, Neb., into reality with Otokahe Teca Tipi (New Beginnings House) in 2011. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in 2001 from the College of Human Resources and Family Sciences and her master’s in sociology in 2006, both from UNL.

OUTSTANDING INTERNATIONAL ALUMNUS AWARD Noel Stonehouse is semi-retired as a

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principal fellow and associate professor in the Graduate School of Education in the area of education policy and management at the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at The University of Melbourne. He has broad work experience in Australia and more than 25 other countries in the policy and management area as lecturer, conference Noel Stonehouse presenter, consultant and adviser. Stonehouse has mentored many academics and educators in Australia and overseas and has led official delegations for senior educators to India, Thailand and PR China, where he frequently speaks on the cultural aspects of developing relationships. Stonehouse received his Ph.D. in educational leadership and higher education from UNL in 1988. He represented the Nebraska Alumni Association in Australia from 1995-2005.

DOC ELLIOTT AWARD Allen Blezek is professor emeritus in UNL’s

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Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication. A native of Randolph, Iowa, he earned three degrees from UNL – bachelor’s in 1966, master’s in 1968 and Ph.D. in 1973 – before joining the faculty. Recognized by his peers as the “Dean of Agricultural Leadership Development Programs” at the international level, Blezek Allan served as director of the Nebraska LEAD Blezek Program for nearly 25 years, a graduate faculty Fellow in UNL’s Graduate College, department head, founding director of the UNL Center for Leadership Development and president of the UNL Faculty Senate. He has led numerous delegations and conducted or participated in international programs in more than 100 countries. He currently serves as president of the UNL Emeriti Association and on the board of the Nebraska Foundation for Agricultural Awareness.

of the group’s website. Liggett has served on the executive committee as well as the financial development, program and strategic planning committees. She laid the foundation for the president’s reception at Cather Circle meetings and has also hosted receptions for members in Washington, D.C., where she is executive director of the American Society of Hematology.

Liggett is a 1972 graduate of the College of Dentistry.

CATHER CIRCLE COLLEGIAN OF THE YEAR Abbie Gabel, a junior from Lincoln majoring

in hospitality, restaurant and tourism management, has been in Cather Circle since the fall of 2011. She has served as student representative on the executive committee and is active on the student committee. Gabel’s other campus activities include the College of Education and Human Sciences Advisory Board, Campus Night Life, the Student Abbie Education Association of Nebraska and Pi Gabel Beta Phi sorority. Her academic achievements UNL Junior have earned her membership in Phi Upsilon, Pi Lambda Theta and Sigma Alpha Lambda honors societies and the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. A former ASUN student government senator, Gabel is also an avid scuba diver.

CHARLOTTE KRAMER FOREIGN STUDY SCHOLARSHIP Lyndee Talbitzer, a UNL junior from Kearney, is majoring in animal science at UNL. With a career goal of becoming a veterinarian, she plans to use her scholarship to study at Noah’s Ark Wildlife Sanctuary Project in Gobabis, Namibia, this summer.

Talbitzer is a member of Chi Omega sorority and Pre-Veterinary Club, team captain for intramural softball and team leader for the Lyndee Dance Marathon. She has volunteered for the Talbitzer Kearney Animal Shelter and the American UNL Junior Red Cross and currently works at the UNL Recreation Center and Nebraska Animal Medical Center.

JACK MILLER SCHOLARSHIP Mark Carney is a UNL junior from Castle

CATHER CIRCLE ALUMNA OF THE YEAR

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Marty Liggett

Marty Liggett has been a member of Cather Circle since the group’s inception.

As president from 2005 to 2007, she oversaw continued growth and organizational restructuring. She chaired the Internships Task Force that established funding for college-affiliated internships, laid the groundwork for the Making a Difference fund and pushed development

Mark Carney

UNL Junior

Rock, Colo., majoring in business economics and music performance. He studied abroad at Auckland University in New Zealand last spring. As president of Scarlet Guard, Carney heads the largest student organization on campus. He also serves as a campus tour guide and a member of the Cornhusker Marching Band, the Big Red Express pep band and the Big Red Investment Club.

Carney has volunteered for the Goodwill, Community Crops, the Lighthouse after school program and Huskers Against Hunger.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 19

ALUMNI Awards Emily Hubl is a UNL junior from Lawrence

majoring in biological systems and engineering. A member of the Scarlet Guard Board of Directors, she has also been active in the Professional Society of Engineers, Engineers without Borders and the CASNR Leadership Council. She studied engineering in Italy in 2011 and was a member of the NASA Microgravity University Team at Emily UNL from 2011-2012. Hubl is a student Hubl researcher at the USDA ARS Durso Laboratory UNL Junior and a fellowship intern at the Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience.

ROY AND CATHERINE YALEY AWARD Alexandria Cerveny is a junior

management-human resource major from Aurora. A three-year member of Scarlet Guard, she serves on the board of directors.

She took part in the mentoring program with the Alumni Advisory Council, Cather Circle and Life 101. As the student programs intern for the Nebraska Alumni Association, she Alexandria helped sign up more than 150 SG members during Scarlet Scoop in June. Cerveny is also Cerveny a member of Alpha Xi Delta sorority, Cather UNL Junior Circle, Order of Omega, Nebraska Flagline and Society for Human Resource Management.

VANN STUDENT LEADERSHIP AWARD Kenneth Herron, a senior majoring in English and minoring in ethnic studies, mentors students through the African People’s Union, the Melvin Jones Scholars Learning Community and the Nebraska College Preparatory Academy. With a goal of becoming an English professor, Herron completed a summer project in the McNair Scholars Program, presenting his research at Kenneth symposiums at both U Cal Berkeley and UNL. Herron Most recently, the Dean’s List honoree and UNL Senior W.E.B. Du Bois Honor Society inductee was selected for the OASIS Student Advisory Committee.

SHANE OSBORN AWARD Jonathan Larson, Holdrege, is a junior political science major and a member of the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps at UNL. As a student and a midshipman, he has taken positions within his NROTC unit and on campus, as well. Larson has served as the administration officer and public affairs officer for his battalion and is currently a student Jonathon senator and YARD (courtYard Association for Larson Residential Development) executive member UNL Junior for his residence hall and a member of the College of Arts and Sciences Student Advisory Board.

The Family Tree Award: The Eickhoff Family Among three generations of the Eickhoff family, six members earned 10 different degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln between 1950 and 2009. Ralph Eickhoff, Sr., obtained his B.S. degree in 1950 after serving as a Navy pilot in World War II. He spent most of his professional career as a vocational agriculture teacher, receiving his master’s degree in agricultural education from UNL in 1970 and retiring from teaching in 1984.

The four children of Ralph and his late wife, Hilda, also earned multiple degrees from UNL. Bruce and Larry graduated in 1968 and 1975, respectively, as distinguished graduates of the Air Force ROTC program and served as U.S. Air Force pilots and instructor pilots. Bruce recently retired as director for government business development for Rockwell Collins. Larry received his MBA from UNL in 1977 and is currently an international pilot for FEDEX. Ralph Jr. and daughter, JoAnn Eickhoff-Shemek, followed in their father’s footsteps by becoming educators. Ralph Jr. received his bachelor’s degree from UNL in 1971 and went on to become an international economist at the U.S. Department of Commerce. He later earned a J.D. degree and practiced law for 15 years before becoming a high

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school government and history teacher in Virginia. JoAnn earned a bachelor’s degree in 1974, master’s in 1981 and Ph.D. in 1995, all from UNL. She is a professor in the undergraduate and graduate exercise sciences programs at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Representing the third generation is Larry’s son, Aaron, a 2009 UNL grad who is currently completing his nursing degree in Virginia.

ALUMNI AWARDS Nebraska Alumni Association

// Awards Nominations

Nebraska Alumni Association Awards Program The alumni awards program is designed to recognize outstanding alumni, students and former faculty from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in several categories.

Alumni Awards

Alumni Achievement Award Established in 1974, the Alumni Achievement Award honors alumni who have a record of outstanding achievements in a career and/or civic involvement. The association seeks to recognize alumni at all stages of their lives and careers, including young alumni.

Outstanding International Alumnus Award Established in 2006, this award honors alumni who were non-U.S. citizens during their attendance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and who have attained national/international prominence through their efforts in education, sciences, technology, agriculture, the arts, business, humanities, government or other world endeavors.

Alumni Family Tree Award Established in 1995, the Alumni Family Tree Award honors one family per year that has at least three generations of University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduates and at least two family members with a record of outstanding service to the university, the alumni association, their community and/or their profession.

Distinguished Service Award Established in 1940, the Distinguished Service Award recognizes alumni who have a record of distinguished service to the Nebraska Alumni Association and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Student Awards

Shane Osborn Award Established in 2002, this award recognizes students who share the characteristics of Lieutenant Shane J. Osborn, a 1996 UNL graduate who courageously piloted a U.S. reconnaissance plane to a safe crash landing after it was hit by two Chinese fighters and subsequently endured an aggressive interrogation by the Chinese Government. The Nebraska Alumni Association is pleased to honor Lt. Osborn annually by recognizing a student who demonstrates similar characteristics in his or her daily life including courage, integrity, honesty, humility and faith. The award is not limited to students with ROTC involvement.

The winner of the award will also receive a $500 scholarship stipend.

Rules: 1. Recipients MUST attend the awards ceremony to receive an award. If a recipient is unable to attend during the year in which they were selected, they may defer to the following year.

2. The fact that an individual has previously received an alumni association award in another category does not preclude him/her from receiving another award.

3. The awards committee will accept nominations from any alumnus, friend or alumni affiliate organization of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

4. The awards committee retains and considers nominations for three years or until selected.

5. If a recipient is deceased, a representative of the family may accept the award.

6. The deadline for submitting nominations is November 1 of each year.

Howard and Judy Vann Student Leadership Award Established in 1998, The Howard and Judy Vann Student Leadership Award recognizes undergraduate students who have shown exceptional leadership capabilities through energetic participation in student activities, commendable classroom performance, and the personal integrity, perseverance and sense of honor demonstrated by those who successfully lead their peers. The winner of this award will also receive a $250 scholarship stipend.

Retired Faculty Award

Doc Elliott Award Established in 1986 to honor a retired University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty or staff member who has exhibited a record of exemplary service, whose caring has made a difference in the lives of students and alumni and who has gone beyon d traditional expectations. Recipients must be former faculty or staff members of UNL who have been retired at least five years.

Instructions: 1. Complete the award nomination form. Be sure to indicate for which award you are placing this nomination.

2. Submit a letter of nomination describing the nominee’s accomplishments and why you believe he/she is deserving of the award.

3. Send the completed form and the letter of nomination to: Alumni Awards, Nebraska Alumni Association, 1520 R Street, Lincoln, NE 68508-1651.

Nominations may also be placed online at huskeralum.org/ events/awards.

Nominators will be notified of their candidate’s status whether or not they are selected for the award.

This notification generally happens in January. Only nominees who are chosen to receive an award will be notified of their selection/nomination.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 21

PROFILE WINNER, First Place 2012 Writing contest Kelly J. Riibe graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. While attending UNL, she majored in advertising with a public relations emphasis. The majority of her time as an undergrad was spent at Andersen Hall working on group projects and hanging out with friends in downtown Lincoln. Currently Kelly lives in Dakota Dunes, S.D., with her husband, two daughters and their Jack Russell terrier. She stays home with her kids and also works part-time, as a remote insurance auditor and quality reviewer for a Chicago-based company. Kelly enjoys reading, listening to the Dan Patrick Show and tailgating with friends and family for Husker football games.

Beer Brewing: Not a Typical Craft Hobby

Top Left: Transferring the product from primary to secondary holding.

Top Right: Ryan Baker’s home brew system.

Right: The home brew on tap in Baker’s garage.

According to University of Nebraska-Lincoln alum Ryan Baker, bitter beer face is not a bad thing.

He has enjoyed making bitter beers, better known as India pale ales (IPA), and other specialty craft brews at home for the past decade.

“I got started with it because my roommate in college was brewing some mead [a honey wine] and that got me interested. We would brew beer in our apartment off of 33rd and Holdrege,” said the Homer, Neb., native.

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by Kelly J. Riibe, ’03 During that time in Lincoln, Baker started to learn the importance of hops and malts. He also began to appreciate the diversity of beer and its range in flavors from wheat lagers to dark stouts.

Prior to finding this pastime, Baker admits he knew little about craft beers.

“As a poor college student, my beverage selection was limited to either what was on special or what was cheapest,” said Baker, who majored in agricultural engineering.

Baker’s brewing hobby also helped him earn his first job after graduation, during a harsh economy, in 2002.

Baker began discussing beer making with his senior design professor, David Jones, on east campus. After hearing about Baker’s interest in brewing, the professor encouraged him to apply for a job opening at the Upstream Brewing Company in Omaha. Thanks to his professor’s help, Baker got a full-time brewer position and was able to spend the next few years perfecting his skills in a professional setting.

While working at the brewery, Baker made it a priority to purchase his own beer-making equipment. He was then able to make small test batches at home that could be introduced later at the brewing company. Not only did Baker’s hobby lead to his first job, but it also helped him to meet his future wife, Amanda, who was also on the staff at Upstream. They have since relocated to Kansas City, where Baker is now an acoustical specialist for the engineering firm Black and Veatch.

Though no longer employed in the beer-making business, Baker still finds plenty of time to make specialty home brews. He thinks that India pale ales are the most fun to create because they typically have a higher alcohol content, and more grains and hops are used in a batch.

“IPA is my favorite. I am always brewing that. I like the hops and the

bitterness that comes out of the beer,” said Baker.

Hops are a flower plant and Baker described them as “a brewer’s multipurpose tool, as they are responsible for a beer’s aroma, bitterness and preservation.”

Baker purchases all of his ingredients online. He also has some hop plants growing on the side of his house that he hopes to use in one of his batches soon.

Currently a cinnamon cranberry stout is on tap at Baker’s home. It is in a kegerator that he purchased to further his beer brewing habit.

“Kegging a batch can be tricky”, said Baker. “If you screw up on a batch, you are stuck with five gallons you can’t pass off to anyone.”

To help ensure that all batches come out perfect, Baker keeps all of his recipes recorded on a computerized spreadsheet.

This helps him to rank the quality of a batch, while also keeping track of cooking times, temperature controls and ingredient amounts.

All of the brewing is done in his attached garage, with frequent trips made in and out of the kitchen.

“There are five steps leading from the garage to kitchen,” Baker said with a laugh. “My wife probably wants to kill me for always dripping water in and out of the garage.”

Baker hopes one day to get a small shed with full plumbing and electrical, that can be used exclusively as a beer-making workshop. However, in the meantime his wife is not complaining too much.

This hobby has led to some memorable vacations.

The couple visited Denver last year for the annual American Beer Festival. They also took a trip to Fort Collins and were able to tour six commercial breweries.

These trips help provide inspiration for new recipes. One such trip inspired the idea for a habanero beer. Baker and his wife had gone in search of a chili beer at

Preparing a yeast starter.

the American Beer Festival, but by day two it was already sold out. The simple fact that they could not find it spurred Baker to make a batch of his own.

Since the habanero batch was unique, it got bottled rather than put into a keg.

While the beer was fun to make, Baker admitted it was not one of his favorite batches. Therefore by bottling the distinctive flavored brew, it was easier to share with others.

“Specialty batches I will bottle … I’m not as selfish with those, as I am with my IPAs,” he said.

In 2012, Baker was on a mission to brew a batch a month. That meant making 60 gallons of beer for the year.

“I think the hardest part was just drinking at that pace,” he said with a chuckle.

The monthly beer batches gave him and his wife a great excuse for hosting parties, including a “First Keg IPA” get-together and a “Stout Float” party.

However, do not expect to see any blue ribbons or awards to go along with these specialty home brews. When asked if he has ever entered any of his batches in a contest, Baker quickly answered.

“No. It is too much fun drinking it.” v NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 23

NOSTALGIA WINNER, first place 2012 Writing contest Susan Kennedy Blizard is a native Nebraskan from Omaha. She received both B.S. and M.S. degrees in zoology from UNL, and then spent five years as a research technician at the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases at UNMC. After marrying U.S. Air Force member John Blizard, the couple moved to Sacramento, where Sue worked in nutritional research at U Cal Davis. An Air Force transfer sent them to Las Vegas, where Sue taught biology part time at the College of Southern Nevada (CSN) while earning an MBA in management at Golden Gate U. She returned to teaching full time at CSN in 1990 and earned her doctorate in biology from Idaho State University in 1994. After serving in several administrative positions, Sue returned to the classroom full time in 2007, teaching biology. Away from the college she enjoys life with John; their German shepherd, Samantha; friends; and family, and is an avid reader of mystery and suspense novels. She also is a huge Husker fan.

my most unforgettable profesSOR

by Susan Kennedy Blizard, ’72, ’74

“In what way can I foul you up today?” Those were the first words he ever spoke to me, and I have never forgotten them.

It was the spring of 1969, and I had just changed my major to zoology. Richard Boohar, associate professor of zoology at UNL, was my new adviser. I had gone to his office because I needed a letter of recommendation for a summer job. I was nervous, because I had never met him, and I was there asking for a favor from a stranger.

As you can imagine, my expression changed when I heard those words.

Doc noticed immediately, gave me a huge smile, and backtracked elegantly. He was happy to provide a letter, and he spoke as he typed.

“Sue has not been convicted on any morals charges that I know of,” Professor Richard Boohar tele-teaching. he said. Again I looked stricken; again he smiled and apologized for teasing me. Of course, that statement was not in the letter. And I did get the job.

Over the next five and a half years, this man became my main professional influence, and now, 43 years later, and after his death, he still is. He was simply the best teacher I have ever watched. That is saying a lot, because I have more than 350 semester credits as a student, four degrees, and have spent the last 28 years teaching, six as a department chair and one as a dean at a very large community college. Doc’s sense of humor was legendary, and much laughter drifted out the door of his office. Much wisdom, too. Doc asked me the most interesting question during my master’s degree thesis defense. He wanted to know what was the most important lesson I had learned from being in grad school. As usual, he was most interested in the philosophical aspect of my education.

24 SPRING 2013

Doc always insisted that his students think. He knew it is useless to memorize information unless you can also use that information to solve a problem.

He used to say that all communications should be written in a way that could not be misinterpreted. That lesson alone has been immensely valuable to me in the classroom. He always said he would not lie to his students for two reasons. It violated his personal ethical standards, and when caught in a lie, as would inevitably happen, all trust is gone forever. One would never again be considered a person with integrity.

That was very important to Doc. Ethical behavior was his most cherished characteristic.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 12:30 p.m., Doc hosted a bridge game in his office over lunch. He put a sign on his door that read, “No matter what you hear inside, I will not be in the office until 13:30.” For an hour Doc, John Lynch and grad students Ursula and Ray and I played bridge while we ate our lunches.

The first four folks to arrive played; the last kibitzed. We bought the cards, 10 decks at a time whenever a sale was on, usually for about 15 cents each. It was really cozy as we huddled around the tiny, child-sized card table, purchased at the Salvation Army store for $1.50 and covered with contact paper. The one rule

Boohar at graduation ceremonies.

was that it must be a friendly but fair game. It always was. These folks shared a lot of teaching and science wisdom with me – lessons I have never forgotten.

Doc enjoyed reading science fiction, especially J.R.R. Tolkien. He even taught a class about the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien, his favorite author. He read each novel at least a dozen times during his life, and some Middle Earth wisdom often entered a conversation. He also taught a bioethics class that was very important to him. Few of us have the strength of character to behave ethically in spite of the personal cost. Doc had that strength, and I have always admired that. I try to live up to his standards.

After I left Lincoln, Doc became the pre-professional adviser for biology students seeking to attend professional schools. There are a huge number of physicians, dentists and other health care professionals who benefitted from his care.

We stayed in touch over the years, until his death. A few years after I was married I was able to introduce my husband to Doc. I had been telling John stories about Doc for several years. We showed up just as Doc had opened his lunch bag. He rushed to the door, yelled my name and grabbed me in a bear hug. John knew then why I loved this man. Shortly before Doc died, I was honored to write and tell him of my admiration and gratitude.

In true Dick Boohar fashion, he was concerned that he had not accomplished enough in his life. No chance that could have been true.

I will never forget Richard Boohar. He taught me to “grok” (from the science fiction novel “Stranger In A Strange Land”) much about life and teaching.

My students are exposed to his wisdom every day. I told Doc he was on faculty at my school, not me. Doc was a mentor, role model, friend, adviser, dispenser of wisdom and humor, and just plain unforgettable.

It is simple: I owe him everything in my professional life, and much in my personal life. Thanks, Doc. v

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 25

Out of Persia

By Tom Nugent

Four years after Ali Hosseini left his native Iran in order to attend college in America, the country exploded in the firestorm that was the Islamist revolution of 1979. What was it like to watch his homeland change so dramatically, while studying chemical engineering at UNL? And how did he deal with the anguish of saying

Hosseini in Lincoln, 1978.

goodbye to the world of his childhood?

In “The Lemon Grove,” his first novel in English (published last year

by Northwestern University Press), Hosseini paints a dramatic picture of one man’s struggle to comprehend the implacable forces of history.

Hosseini riding in Iran.

26 SPRING 2013

S

tanding flat-footed in the main concourse at Boston’s crowded Logan Airport, a stunned and totally confused young man from a tiny village in southern Iran fought to control his surging panic.

Ali Hosseini (BS ’80; MS ’88) was in terrible trouble, and he saw no way out.

With growing horror, the shell-shocked traveler contemplated the enormous problems he now faced.

Problem No. 1: He was completely lost and could not determine which of several busy terminals would serve as the gateway for his rapidly approaching flight to St. Louis.

Problem No. 2: He spoke only a few words of English, and the chances of finding someone who spoke Farsi – his native tongue – were one in a million, if that.

Problem No. 3: All of his luggage – all of his material possessions in the world, in fact – had been lost on the flight from London. What if it was gone forever?

Problem No. 4: After traveling from tiny Marvdasht, Iran, to the Iranian city of Shiraz, and then to Tehran, and then to London, and then to Boston, Hosseini was thoroughly exhausted. He was hungry, and he needed a bath. He was worried sick and full of anxiety.

Things looked utterly bleak ... but the 19-year-old wannabe American college student refused to despair. Would Ernest Hemingway have despaired? Would the great “Papa” Hemingway have thrown in the towel? As a high school student in Shiraz (a city of 1.4 million located in southern Iran, not far from the Persian Gulf ), Ali had fallen in love with novels such as “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “A Farewell To Arms.”

These were stories of valiant men who refused to surrender to difficulties, no matter how challenging! Hosseini admired Hemingway’s characters ... but most of all he admired the old man who had fought to keep the sharks from

stealing his fish.

How many times had the youthful Iranian student sat dreaming over his battered Farsi translation of Hemingway’s great 1952 novel, “The Old Man and the Sea”? How many times had he thrilled to the words of the struggling fisherman, as he battled alone against hopeless odds: “Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

Standing alone in the great, echoing concourse, Ali Hosseini took a deep breath. He clenched his jaw. Then he

strode toward a tall, African-American gentleman who wore the bright blue uniform of a Logan Airport security guard.

The guard stared in amazement as Ali thrust a tangled wad of papers and tickets at him. “Help, please,” said the young traveler in thickly accented English. “St. Louis!”

The guard blinked rapidly. “You don’t speak any English?”

“St. Louis!” wailed Ali. The guard thought for a moment. Then he studied the pile of papers and tickets for a while.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 27

An Epiphany at Red Cloud Soon after Ali Hosseini decided that he wanted to become a fiction writer – back in the mid-1980s, while living in Lincoln – he paid a visit to a famous address in the town of Red Cloud, Nebraska.

The address was Willa Cather 441 North Webster Street, where the great American novelist (and 1895 Nebraska graduate) Willa Cather once lived.

Built in 1878, the tiny wood-frame dwelling was Cather’s childhood home from the age of 10 to the age of 16 (1884-90). And it was there, she later wrote, that her passionate ambition to create great works of literature got its start.

For Hosseini, who had also grown up in a small-town, rural setting (the village of Kushk, in southern Iran), the Cather House was a revelation.

“I just stood there for a few minutes, gazing at it,” he later recalled. “It was such a simple dwelling, nothing fancy at all. Just a little wooden house on a quiet street. And it was amazing to me that somebody out there in the middle of nowhere had been able to capture on paper the struggle of all those pioneers.

“Having come to American from rural Iran, I had lived as a child among people who worked the land. I had known the farmers who worked the land around my village, and I had watched their struggle to survive on a harsh landscape. And so I felt very strongly what Willa Cather was saying, as a writer, about the world in which she had grown up.”

As he walked through the plainly furnished rooms of the house on Webster Street (it became a National Historic Landmark in 1971), the author of “The Lemon Grove” could feel the first stirrings of his own future life as a fiction writer. “What she accomplished as a novelist was magnificent,” he said later. “What an inspiration it was to stand in front of that house and see where it all began.”

28 SPRING 2013

He looked up. “Your flight is leaving from Terminal 3. This is Terminal 2.”

“Help!” said Ali. “St. Louis!”

The guard took his arm. “All right,” he said. “Follow me.”

Ali fell in beside him. They walked for what seemed like five miles.

Then the guard stopped at the correct gate for the flight to St. Louis.

On the jetliner, zooming at 30,000 feet toward the Great American Midwest, the voyager did his best to sleep. But his mind was racing.

His nerves were shot. Somehow, he would have to find his way to yet another flight ... to a smaller, regional jet that would take him to Carbondale and the campus of Southern Illinois University – where he’d been accepted into a high-intensity language course that would teach him how to speak English in a matter of months.

At St. Louis, however, his worst fears were realized.

The airport was virtually empty; a manager at the main terminal tried to explain that there would be no more flights to Carbondale that day.

“Help?” said Ali. The manager thought for a moment. Then he took Ali into his own office. Pointing at a small sofa, he told the kid from Kushk: “You can sleep there tonight.”

In the morning, he sent the young man down to the airport cafeteria and made sure he got some breakfast.

Then he put him on the plane to Carbondale.

Ali was sitting in a language class at SIU a few days later when an airline delivery truck showed up with his luggage.

And so it began ... Ali Hosseini’s amazing American adventure.

That airplane journey from Marvdasht to Carbondale took place in January of 1975. Thirty-eight years later, Hosseini told Nebraska Magazine: “I couldn’t believe it. I was amazed by the friendliness and generosity of Americans. I remember ... as soon as I could, I went and bought a postcard and I mailed it to that man in St. Louis who had helped me so much.

“I told him ‘Thank you’ ... and I meant it from my heart.”

Man is not made for defeat!

Crafting ‘A Masterful Tale of Persia’s Many Subcultures’ What Ali Hosseini didn’t know – during that long-ago struggle at the Boston airport – was that his own destiny would eventually lead him to write books ... and that the day would come when his first novel in English, “The Lemon Grove,” published by Northwestern University Press, would be displayed in bookstores from Boston to Chicago to Los Angeles.

Describing that lyrical, fiercely passionate novel – which has been compared more than once to the best-selling “The Kite Runner,” by Afghan writer Khaled Hosseini – American novelist Paul Bates recently wrote: “Ali Hosseini takes us to vivid places in the landscape and heart of a contemporary Iran sorely missing from the news bites. He weaves a masterful tale of Persia’s many subcultures caught in a changing climate of intolerance and of one man’s agony, remorse, redemption – a story of love lost and found.”

For her part, Ali’s New York literary agent – Valerie Borchardt at the highly regarded firm of Georges Borchardt, Inc., simply says that he’s “a wonderful writer. His prose is so heartfelt and poignant and I think

he tells his story in such a way that the reader is exposed to yet another ... layer of Iranian life.”

A tale of two brothers (and the woman they both love) who are separated by the vast turmoil of the Islamist revolution and the immense butchery of the Iran-Iraq War (198088), “The Lemon Grove” is a love story charged with nostalgia – an extended prose poem that discovers at the heart of suffering and exile an authentic reason to go on.

Nowhere is Hosseini more effective as a writer than in the passages where he celebrates the timeless serenity of the abandoned lemon grove ... a symbol for the beauty and wonder that can redeem a heart wounded by violence and loss: “From behind the sheets of dust set in motion by the wind, I watch the sun. It has a reddish halo and looks huge hanging at the horizon. I love this time of day, the last hour when sun, sky, and desert are engaged in playing with colors. The yellow of the horizon changes to orange, then to scarlet, and then red as if a huge fire at the edge of the earth were slowly burning itself out, giving way to darkness. It’s that time in the shift from day to evening when things take on a dreamlike quality, the eye seeing and not seeing, recognizing and not recognizing, until the power of sight is finally vanquished.”

‘Your Studies Are Everything, My Son’

“I think it probably started with my [paternal] grandfather, Aliakbar,” Ali Hosseini said during a recent interview at a bookstore in Boston’s Harvard Square. “He was a wonderful storyteller, and he loved to tell us tales of the great camel caravans he had once helped to lead across Iran. For six months at a time, carrying tea and clothing and kerosene ... they rode across the great desert, across the mountains, from Bushehr on the Persian Gulf all the way to Tehran in the north.

“A fabulous storyteller, Aliakbar

entertained us all with the adventures of his Karami tribesmen and their camel caravans. And that was when I saw how much I love stories, the power of stories to touch people.”

Like many other youthful Iranians of that period, Hosseini had dreamed of attending a university one day. But by 1974, when he graduated from high school in Shiraz, his options for becoming a college student were severely limited in Iran. For one thing, the country offered only “five or six” universities to the tens of thousands of students who were clamoring for higher education. What to do? After talking with his high school counselor and several of his fellow students, Hosseini decided to join thousands of other youthful Iranians in a daring quest: He would apply for permission to attend college in the United States.

It took him nearly a year to sift through the endless red tape that was involved. And how would he ever pay for his foreign education? At first glance, the whole thing seemed hopeless. The second-oldest of ten children, Ali was the son of a workingclass farmhand who also served as a laborer in a nearby sugar-beet factory.

But even as he scratched his head and struggled to find a source of funds, the 19-year-old Hosseini got a sudden, unbelievable break. His father – the hard-working factory hand Mohammed Ali – had been saving his extra pennies for many years, while dreaming of buying a piece of land that would allow him to build his own house. All his life, the older man had yearned to live in his own dwelling, instead of renting from others.

He had about $1,800, total.

But instead of buying the land, he gave the money to his son to purchase a visa and a one-way plane ticket to America. After those purchases were made, $1,200 remained. Mohammed Ali put the cash into the pouches of a money belt and presented it to the younger Ali. It seemed to take forever, but the day of his departure finally arrived.

“Argo”: Did the Hollywood Filmmakers Get It Right?

The film is called “Argo” – and it’s been earning rave reviews all across America in recent months.

If you caught Ben Affleck’s high-octane political thriller, you already know that it’s a rock’emsock’em Hollywood blockbuster that powerfully captures the nail-biting suspense of an escape bid by six hostages who manage to flee the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran.

The movie has been nominated for seven different Academy Awards, and it recently won the Golden Globe for Best PictureDrama. But was “Argo” true to the facts of the infamous Iranian hostage crisis?

“I do think the film was an accurate depiction of the madness and the chaos that filled the streets of Tehran during that period,” said Iranian-American novelist Ali Hosseini, who spent nearly a year living in the turbulent country right after the 1979 overthrow of the Shah by Islamist revolutionaries.

“I think they did a pretty good job, overall,” added Hosseini, “although the sequence of events at the airport might not have been so accurate.

“I enjoyed the film, all in all, but I wish the director had also shown us that there were many Iranians at that hour who were sympathetic to the Americans – and who were actually opposed to the takeover of the U.S. Embassy.”

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 29

Building a Grain Elevator at Heartwell

Hosseini working on his latest novel.

Preparing to climb into a friend’s car for the trip to Shiraz – the first leg on his 36-hour trip to America – Ali hugged his mother, Shakar, one last time. It was she who had bought him his first notebook, his first pencil, on the day he first went to school. It was she who had constantly encouraged and supported him.

He hugged her. “Goodbye, mother.”

Everyone was crying: His brothers and sisters, his cousins, his lifelong friends from the village.

He turned to his father. “Remember your studies,” said Mohammed.

“Your studies are everything, my son.” (Two decades later, Ali would help his father build two houses for the family, in return for the money he carried away in his belt.)

“Goodbye, father.”

He climbed into the car. They rolled slowly out of the dusty yard. The dust blew away in sheets, and soon the car was nothing more than a speck on the horizon.

After completing the language course at ISU and then a two-year program of studies at Winona State University in Minnesota, Hosseini descended onto the UNL campus in the fall of 1977. He dropped his belongings on the floor of his new dorm room in Selleck Hall, and then he went straight to work.

During the next few years, while he earned a degree in chemical engineering, Hosseini often worked a 30-hour week in order to pay tuition and bills. He bused tables at the Big Red cafeteria and stacked chairs and handed out programs at events in the Pershing Center auditorium in Lincoln. During the summers he worked as a farmhand in rural Nebraska ... and even helped to build a huge grain elevator at tiny Heartwell, in the south-central part of the state.

“In many ways, I got my real education working on those farms,” he said. “I loved that work, and I loved the world of the Midwest – the open spaces, the huge distances, the way the sun and the wind endlessly move across the land.”

But then Iran exploded. When the Islamist revolutionaries who had toppled the Shah took over the American Embassy in Tehran (Nov. 4, 1979), many Iranian students feared that they might face deep resentment on campus.

It didn’t happen, however. “There were about 200 Iranian students at UNL back then,” Ali would later remember, “and for the most part, all of us were treated politely, kindly, and with great respect.

“For me, that was just one more example of the generosity, the openness and friendliness I had already been experiencing in America for several years.”

With his 1980 UNL degree now in hand, Ali traveled to Iran, then came back to the United States and started graduate school in computer science, while once again working a series of parttime jobs around Lincoln. Eventually he joined the Lincoln Telephone Company and spent several years as a systems programmer. While he was in grad school in computer science at UNL, he also audited classes in creative writing and English literature. Soon his interest in fiction was surging.

An ardent admirer of Joseph Conrad (another writer whose first language wasn’t English), Hosseini began to publish short stories and eventually a novel in Iran. But those stories were written in Persian, and for many years the challenge of crafting fiction in English seemed too great to manage.

I loved the World of the Midwest—the open spaces, the huge distances, the way the sun and wind endlessly move across the land.

30 SPRING 2013

Having departed Lincoln in the early 1990s, the budding novelist went on to spend nearly two decades working as a computer analyst at major banks and investment firms in the Midwest and New England. But he was also writing fiction steadily by now ... and was also beginning to publish stories in English. Soon his byline was appearing frequently in such high-quality literary magazines as Guernica, Epoch, Fiction International and Puerto Del Sol, and the stage was set for the five-year struggle that would culminate last year in the widely praised publication of “The Lemon Grove.”

In that 189-page novel, the 57-year-old Hosseini – who lives in a Boston suburb today and recently retired from his job as an analyst at a major investment firm in order to write full time – reflects at length on the Iranian revolution and the long war with Iraq that tore his country apart in the 1980s:

“Who can explain why savagery is so entangled with this land?

Or how cruelty and violence can reinvent themselves time after time so that they have no end? Centuries ago, old Zoroaster walked these lands and told us of the struggle between light and darkness, encouraging us to practice kindness and good deeds so that light would be victorious over darkness. Was nothing learned from him?”

Ask Ali Hosseini why he wrote “The Lemon Grove,” and he’ll suggest that the book emerged from a complex tangle of feelings about his own painful exile from a world he loved and lost. But he said the most powerful motivation he felt was to shape a “gift” out of the struggle that has been his life in Iran and America.

“The gift,” he said, “of kindness.” v

When University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate Ali Hosseini set out to write his gripping novel about life in post-revolutionary Iran, he went looking for an epigraph that would perfectly capture the sense of grief and exile felt by those who are driven to leave their homeland forever.

Remarkably enough, Hosseini found the perfect epigraph in a poem by another UNL grad – the highly regarded poet and painter Weldon Kees (BA ’35), whose own life was a study in personal tragedy.

The darkly enigmatic Kees, who was hugely successful as a New York poet and artist for a few years in the mid-20th Century – but who then vanished from the Golden Gate Bridge at age 41 in 1955 – wrote poems that were full of existential torment.

Kees’ life ended badly. But more than one literary critic has suggested that he earned a permanent place for himself in American letters ... by crafting a series of unforgettable poems that “touch a nerve of melancholy and sadness and exile that seems to be woven bone-deep into the American character.”

Hosseini, whose own recent novel vibrates with the angst felt by political or economic refugees who are forced to say goodbye to the countries of their birth, has been an admirer of Weldon Kees’ poetry for many years. “I think his poems are very powerful, especially for the way they capture the sense of alienation that haunts people who feel like outsiders in a culture,” said the Iranian-American novelist. “I’m also struck by the feeling of grief and loss that you get from so many of his poems.”

The lines that Hosseini used for his epigraph in “The Lemon Grove” are from Kees’ 1947 poem, “Small Prayer,” which was published in “The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees” by the University of Nebraska Press in 1962.

“Burn, glare, old sun, so long unseen, That time may find its sound again, and cleanse What ever it is that a wound remembers After the healing ends.”

A Link to UNL’s Literary Past?

CONNECTION BOX alihosseini.com info@alihosseini.com

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 31

Make it

Photo David2013 E. Corso Photography 32 by SPRING

Ugly

By Tom Nugent

“Cemetary Stack,” by TL Solien.

When the wildly inventive painter TL Solien was a graduate student in fine arts at UNL, back in the mid-1970s, he learned a vital lesson that has stood him in good stead ever since. From a wonderfully named art professor who inspired a generation of painters and sculptors in Lincoln – the late, legendary Richard Trickey – the youthful artist learned to paint his own nakedly honest feelings onto the canvas ... while creating works of art that burned with the “ugliness” of an authentic personal vision.

Thirty-five years later, after a roller coaster career in which his bizarrely original paintings have been acclaimed by critics and museum curators from New York City to London and Singapore (and during which he and his family also endured grinding poverty and rural isolation for years at a time), Solien is today painting harder than ever.

Describing the life-changing lesson he learned from Professor Trickey, Solien said: “What I took from his advice to us – ‘Make it ugly’ – was: Make it real. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do as a painter, ever since.”

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 33

Make it Ugly

O

ne morning in Captain Ahab’s wife.

I can get there, he told himself on that the spring of 2012, an artist named Obsessed by his own inner vision of mild spring morning a year ago. The only Timothy Lee (TL) Solien walked into his the widow of Herman Melville’s maniacal problem is ... I don’t know how.

700-square-foot painting studio on the sea captain – the ferocious hunter of the Now he leaned forward with the Dixon campus of the University of Wisconsin great white whale, Moby Dick – Solien Oriole and made a second tiny mark on and picked up a No. 2 Dixon Oriole had already painted more than a hundred the canvas. pencil. Then he stepped up to a huge canvases that in various ways depicted Next he began to connect the two blank canvas – six and a half feet by her imaginary life after Ahab’s ship went marks with a line. eight feet – and made a tiny mark at the down.

That line would form a section of bottom of the giant white space that And now he would paint her again. baseboard at the bottom of a wall. The confronted him. wall would flank the And so it began. kitchen table where she For an internationally sat – a grim-faced old recognized artist woman perched on a whose strikingly straight-backed wooden idiosyncratic works chair. have been exhibited “I try to work like at the famed a carpenter, or like Whitney Museum a house-builder,” in New York, at the Solien told Nebraska super-prestigious Tate Magazine during a Gallery in London, recent interview in his at the Smithsonian Wisconsin studio. “I lay Museum in down a foundation first, Washington, D.C. and then I build on that and at other highly foundation. visible art venues “I like to put up the in Paris, Chicago, interior walls before I Singapore and think about who’s going Australia, the battle to occupy the structure. to “make it ugly” had When I start a painting, “Less,” by TL Solien. begun once again.

I start by defining a During the next room, defining the four months, as baseboard, the floor, Solien struggled and the walls. Then I through an artistic place the figure in that What they’re “[His] works begin ... with a likeness journey that was space.” of a character, such as Mortimer Snerd saying about compounded It took Solien several or Goofy, around which the artist TL Solien by equal parts weeks to build the room assembles other pictorial fragments, some hope, frustration, where Ahab’s widow representational, others abstract. Each exhilaration and would sit – a glaring, work grows through accretion until its initial charm or innocence fear, the 63-year-old lonely figure hunched is obliterated, replaced by an agitated tone that is, in effect, an painter fought to beside a scorched turkey shape the vision of and a half-full glass of interior portrait of the artist as he contemplates one or another a tormented woman wine. of his roles: husband, brother, father, teacher.” whose desperate life Alone. Suffering.

— Alan G. Artner, Chicago Tribune spoke to him from the Empty-eyed. Lost. mysterious depths of Eventually, he gave the his own imagination: painting a name: “LESS.”

“

34 SPRING 2013

“

What they’re saying about TL Solien

“If you were around in the early ’80s, you may remember Mr. Solien’s intriguingly quirky paintings from the 1983 Whitney Biennial. … Mixing abstraction, appropriated cartoons, and illustrations and images of homey, old-time interiors, his paintings create a haunting narrative blend of the domestic and the hallucinatory.”

— Ken Johnson, New York Times

“She’s alone,” he said while gazing at the finished work of art last December. “She has less, now that her husband is dead. Less is to be alone; less is to be isolated; less is to be romantically unfulfilled, intellectually unfulfilled, living a meager existence ... a life so static that flocks of moths are flying out from under her skirt.”

He sat silent then, gazing at “LESS” and perhaps thinking about his own career as a practicing artist who’s spent the past 40 years struggling on the frontier between life and art.

“I think you have to be driven to do this kind of work,” he said after a bit. “Because it’s too goddamn hard if you’re not. It’ll just crush you, if you’re not strong enough. It’ll crush not only you – but also your dreams and the dreams of everyone you care about.”

While working on “LESS” for about four months, Solien daily attacked the white canvas with splotches of vibrant color squeezed from tubes of acrylic paint. Again and again, he revised the figure of the widow, the design of the table, the stick-figure eyes on the haunted face, the bright blue slash of paint that would form her mouth.

“When I began the work, I had to trust that I could ultimately make the painting I wanted,” he said, “even though I didn’t really know what that was. I knew the timbre I wanted, the atmosphere, the feeling ... but getting there is always a struggle.”

He paused for a moment to stare at the grieving widow made of acrylic paint.

“I guess I keep painting because I can’t stop.”

Growing Up in ‘63 Different Houses’ Born in Fargo, N.D., and raised across the Red River in Moorhead, Minn. (population: 38,000), TL Solien discovered early in life what it means to endure deprivations triggered by circumstances over which you have no control.

Like Ahab’s widow, he was deeply affected by the random agonies that can flow from fate.

“My father, Wally Solien, was a terrific high school athlete, and he was a legend in our little corner of northwest Minnesota,” the painter recalled. “But he wound up as a Navy Corpsman fighting in the Pacific during World War II, and his job was to ride around

The Painter’s Acid Test: Overcoming Fear What’s the most important thing an artist has to accomplish ... if he or she wants to create paintings or sculptures that are alive and dangerous?

For TL Solien, the former UNL fine arts grad student who went on to become a nationally renowned, postmodernist painter and printmaker, the answer boils down to five simple words: Face up to your fear.

“Every time I start a new painting, I know it’s going to be a long, hard struggle,” said the 63-yearold creator of hundreds of sprawling, color-soaked canvases that feature everything from fiercely twisted images of the “Tin Man” from “The Wizard of Oz” to haunting portraits of Captain Ahab’s wife (remember “Moby Dick”?).

“I begin by putting some simple marks – usually with an ordinary No. 2 pencil – on the canvas. And then I work at it, and I work at it. And I don’t quit.

Never! Even when it’s going badly, I keep at it day after day. I don’t stop. And this process can go on for weeks, even months at a time. Just pounding away at that same canvas, all day long. As I always tell my painting students [at the University of Wisconsin]: ‘If you never quit, you will never be able to say: I used to be a painter.’

“For a committed artist, there’s no place where you can say: ‘I’ve arrived, and from now on the process will be easy.’ Because if you aren’t constantly dealing with the treachery of the unknown, with the treacherous places where you don’t know what you’re doing – then you’re not really creating original art. You’re not really making something new.

“Then you’re just a genre.”

And he glares at you, outraged by the mere thought of such an outcome!

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 35

Make it Ugly The telephone rang one day in the spring of 1974, and the caller was an art professor at UNL named Doug Ross. Although Solien had “completely forgotten about” the grad school application to UNL he’d earlier filled out, he’d actually been accepted. “Ross was the senior sculpture professor, and he told me that they loved my work and they were looking forward to meeting me in a few weeks. And they’d also found me a job as a graduate assistant, so I could pay the bills.”

Solien didn’t hesitate. After borrowing his mother’s Ford Mustang and loading it down with his clothes, his books, his beloved stereo records and his black Irish Setter (the loyal and unflappable in a patrol boat picking “Chuck”), he set sail for Lincoln. up bodies and body There he rented a tiny brick house parts. located “eight blocks south of O What they’re “Throughout his prolific “That experience Street” and settled into the life of career, TL Solien has created changed him forever. a fine arts graduate student who saying about works that interweave literal He developed postdreamed of someday becoming a TL Solien and metaphorical layers in traumatic stress disorder famous painter. an effort to convey complex [PTSD] – even though One of the first art professors they didn’t know what thoughts and emotions. An influential figure in the he met – and the man who would that was, back then – soon become a lifelong mentor – Midwest for decades, Solien is also known nationally and he was never the was the aforementioned Richard for canvases that explore personal experience with same after that.”

Trickey, who wasted no time a dense visual lexicon of created and appropriated Restless and lacking in letting Solien know that an images.” confidence, but eternally enormous struggle lay ahead.

— Katie Kazan, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art hopeful, Wally Solien “Trickey was hardcore,” Solien struggled to keep his remembered. “He’d been a family together. “It practicing artist for many years was very difficult,” Solien in New York City, before coming remembered. “We were to Lincoln ... and all he cared about was New York. He didn’t constantly moving, my three siblings and my mother Gwen give a s--- about academics. And he drove that point home and I, and my father was constantly changing jobs. Years later, I constantly. He said: ‘If you want to be a serious artist, you have went back and counted the number of houses I’d lived in, from to live in New York, and you have to do what the New York the day of my birth until I finished grad school at UNL. artists do to pay their expenses ... which is whatever they can “I was amazed to learn that I’d lived in 63 different houses find to do all day long, and then paint all night long.’ during that period. I’ve since talked to friends who grew up in “Richard and I would talk constantly. He’d come into the only one house, and I just could not imagine that.” studio and sit down and say: ‘How’s it going, kiddo?’ And he In spite of the chaos that surrounded him, however, Solien would tell me again and again: ‘Keep making ugly things! If it managed to earn an undergraduate degree in fine arts at nearby isn’t ugly, it probably isn’t any good!’”

Moorhead State University. But then he floundered for a while.

But the indefatigable Trickey didn’t just talk about New Uncertain of how to launch a career in art while living in smallYork, Solien recalled. At least once every two years, he took town Minnesota, he spent a brutal year working at a sugarhis students there. “Trickey had this amazing habit of taking a processing plant ... where he spent eight hours a day loading couple of his favorite graduate students non-stop from Lincoln 100-pound sacks of sugar onto boxcars in temperatures that to New York City,” he remembered. “He’d put us in the car and often reached 25-below. he’d keep driving all the day and through the night, all the way But then he got an unexpected break. to New York.

“

36 SPRING 2013

“

“Solien borrows from 19th-century illustration and folk art as well as personal memory, creating intimate stage set-like scenes that can evoke anything from puppet shows to Cubism. The results frequently dazzle.”

— Roberta Smith, New York Times

What they’re saying about TL Solien

sacrilegious to do so. I insisted on doing it my way. What I wanted was to position some “Cave Dweller,” by TL Solien. quirky, ideographic figural event into that minimalist space.”

And so he did. While incorporating everything from Disney images (Goofy “And you’d end up in the loft space of a former [UNL] meets Cubism!) and 19th-century magazine illustrations and student who was waiting on tables all day and painting at night. yellowing family photographs discovered at flea markets in his We’d crash on the floor in sleeping bags, and we’d stay in New strangely unsettling canvases, Solien began to earn a growing York for the next three or four days. He’d take us around to all reputation as a “surrealist” gunslinger who was willing to the museums and the galleries and the dealers he knew. And try anything in order to bring his weirdly original vision of we’d meet the working painters who were friends of his, or responses to reality into blazing life on a hunk of canvas. friends of his students.

Astonishingly enough, his strangely original approach to “We’d visit their lofts, and we’d visit the dealers, and Trickey painterly aesthetics – make it ugly! – also began to catch on. would make us show them our slides. He would tell us: ‘When Increasingly popular, his cage-rattling canvases started selling you leave Lincoln in a year or two, this is what you will be well at New York City’s respected galleries. And when he was doing. This is how you will be living. Get ready – the great awarded a fellowship to paint in Paris and then selected as an struggle lies ahead!’” exhibitor at the super-exclusive Whitney Biennial of 1983, his Solien fell silent, after that. But it was clear how he felt about future seemed assured.

Richard Trickey, who died tragically in an auto accident in But it wasn’t. Although Solien’s work approached a six-figure 1991. annual income throughout most of the 1980s, he would fall victim to an economic downturn in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Eyeball to Eyeball With Poverty – And Despair as the lucrative art market in the Big Apple contracted violently.

During the next decade – and starting soon after he earned By 1983, perhaps sensing the economic hard times that lay his master of fine arts degree at UNL in 1977 – TL Solien ahead, he had moved his young family (he and wife Deborah would go on to astonish the art world with his strangely have raised two children, Madeline and Carson) to tiny Pelican bizarre creations. Daringly original, his paintings denied easy Rapids in rural Minnesota. There they would struggle with classification. Operating in an artistic environment where slowly increasing poverty during the next decade. “pictorial realism” and “figures” were strictly taboo – an Unhappily, the good environment that worshipped the abstract expressionism and economic fortune Solien had minimalistic “color field” painting which had been championed CONNECTION BOX enjoyed in the early and midby the hugely influential New York art critic Clement 1980s gradually evaporated. tlsolien.com Greenberg in the 1960s and 1970s – Solien insisted on doing Having fallen out of favor at the unthinkable.

TL@TLSolien.com the big galleries that had once “One of the issues that I strongly objected to was the fought to sell his work, he dismissal of imagery from painting by Clement Greenberg, drifted over time into more the noted ‘minimalist’ advocate,” he recalled. “I was unwilling and more financial hardship. Soon he was burning oak timbers to let go of the ‘figural impulse,’ even at a time when it was from a nearby barn in order to keep his family warm in the NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 37

Make it Ugly

“

What they’re saying about TL Solien

“Small Room,” by TL Solien.

winter. And when his one reliable New York dealer vanished without paying him $40,000 in back commissions (while also carting off several years’ worth of Solien’s work), despair began to set in.

What followed were several years of isolation and struggle for the now penniless artist. Forced to take a series of parttime teaching posts (for rock-bottom wages) at colleges and universities, Solien wound up spending much of the 1990s living alone in rented rooms near college campuses in the Midwest. During part-time stints at The Ohio State University, the University of Iowa and Montana State University, he often went months at a time without seeing his family. He sent most of his paychecks home and lived on a modest allowance. But in 1997, as he struggled with exhaustion and depression and the rage he felt as “a failure in my chosen profession and in family life as well, he got a sudden boost: a full-time, tenure-track professorship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he’s been teaching ever since.

In spite of everything, he had survived.

And in spite of everything ... he was still a painter!

Describing his 35 years as an artist who has created several thousand works (300 since 2004 alone), art critic Susan Hagen has characterized Solien as “the quintessential Midwestern artist” who employs his unsettling and quirkily surrealist techniques in order to “create a sense of alienation and fragmentation – in strangely beautiful works that are pervaded by dark humor.” According to the critic, there’s “something about surrealism that resonates [with] Midwestern 38 SPRING 2013

“There was a time when Solien’s paintings, prints and drawings were virtually everywhere – in galleries and museums ... in New York and Chicago, to mention just a few cities. While his exhibition history with the Glen Hanson Gallery in Minneapolis in the early 1980s was impressive, it was really the inclusion of his work in the 1983 Whitney Biennial that focused the world’s larger gaze on Solien’s aesthetic. …

“There is a power in the consistency of Solien’s vision. His investigations of Self have allowed him to develop an ever-evolving and identifiable iconography, a visual tenor and style that not only serves his own practice, but also the viewer. We can count on not understanding Solien’s works, but we can also count on being engaged.”

— Mason Riddle, Artforum

experience” – and there’s something about Solien, the sometimes gloomy and irascible descendant of all those dour Norwegian and Swedish soddwellers who settled the High Plains frontier, that feels dark and somber and full of some nameless dread.

He denies everything, of course.

“I’m not reclusive and I’m not dismal!” he will say with a wail of protest, “although it’s true that I’m not a particularly social person. I have been accused of being misanthropic ... and I don’t really argue that point too vigorously.”

As you might expect, he also denies that he’s a “surrealist” – while glaring at you through his black-framed eyeglasses.

“I’ve been linked to surrealism, yes. And I’ve also been linked to expressionism. And eventually, I’m sure that somebody will link me to realism.

“But I don’t define myself as a surrealist, or as an expressionist, or as any other kind of ‘ist’. v

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NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 39

NEWS

Members of the first Young Alumni Academy.

Young Alumni Academy Wrapping Up Inaugural Year With its first year almost in the books, the Young Alumni Academy takes a look back at the things they learned this year – and a look forward to new applications for next year’s academy.

After a kick-off reception in October, the academy met monthly to learn about different aspects of campus, including: • November – Members took a behind-the-scenes look at the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources on East Campus.

CONNECTION BOX www.surveymonkey.com/s/YAA13-14 huskeralum.org/yaa-app1314 agreer@huskeralum.org

•

December – Keith Zimmer, associate athletic director of life skills, gave a tour of the Student Athlete Life Complex, and the

40 SPRING 2013

group then attended the Nebraska vs. Creighton men’s basketball game.

• January – Amber Hunter, director of admissions at UNL, gave YAA an inside look at UNL’s efforts to recruit 30,000 students by 2017.

• February – YAA heard about the newest research initiatives from Vice Chancellor for Research and and Economic Development Prem Paul and Prof. Dennis Molfese, director of the Center for Brain, Biology & Behavior, soon to be located in the East Stadium expansion. They followed with a tour of UNL’s new Voelte-Keegan Nanoscience Research Center.

• March – Members learned about the NU Foundation’s latest initiatives, and development officer Matt Boyd talked about the relationship between donors and development officers.

•

•

April – Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Juan Franco will give YAA a glimpse of the newest residence halls at UNL, as well as the latest dining facilities.

May – A tour of Nebraska Innovation Campus with executive director Dan Duncan is planned. On May 14, the inaugural class will hold a graduation party, following by the Nebraska vs. Creighton baseball game in Omaha.

The Young Alumni Academy is accepting applications for its 20132014 class through Aug. 15, and the class will be announced in September.

Apply now online or download a printable application. For more information on YAA, contact Andy Greer at agreer@huskeralum.org, or 888-353-1874.v

Rural Sourcing Project to Recruit Alumni The Nebraska Alumni Association is participating in a Rural Sourcing project that could bring alumni back to Nebraska. In partnership with the University of Nebraska at Kearney and Xpansion LLC, Rural Sourcing was awarded a grant from the NU Rural Futures Institute (RFI). The project will address challenges and create opportunities in greater Nebraska.

The concept of rural sourcing involves existing and start-up companies strategically locating operations in rural areas to reduce labor costs and increase employee reliability. This project expands on a successful “cross-sourcing” model used by an existing software company (Xpansion) and modifies it to recruit University of Nebraska alumni back to rural Nebraska in targeted professional service occupations.

The first phase of the project will build on existing research exploring

the lifestyle expectations and career preferences of alumni who have moved out of state. Additional case studies will research the process and motivation for alumni who have moved back to rural Nebraska and are employed in these occupations.

Data collected from phase one will communicate and educate alumni who opt in to receive information related to current job openings or assistance for starting or buying a business in rural areas.

“This project aims to reverse the rural brain drain in our region,” said the project’s principal investigator, Shawn Kaskie of the UNK Center for Rural Research and Development. “In the pilot phase, we will offer alumni a variety of options to return their families and expertise back to rural Nebraska.”

“Quality professional opportunities in our rural communities are of great

interest to many alumni and are critically important to the growth and vibrancy of greater Nebraska,” said Diane Mendenhall, NAA executive director. “We are excited to help with this initiative and to be a part of something that has the potential to have a tremendously positive impact on the lives of alumni, friends and our state.”

RFI funding supported seed grants to help launch its important work in teaching, research and engagement.

The solicitation for these grant opportunities generated 100 proposals.

Rural Sourcing was one of five proposals selected to receive funding.

Nebraska alumni, particularly those who have rural roots, can expect to hear more about this project in the coming months.v

NEWS

Members of the Scarlet Guard executive committee newly elected for 2013-2014 are (left to right): Alex Wach, secretary; Benjamin Wilson, treasurer; Emily Murtaugh, public relations; Emily Hubl, vice president; and Mark Carney, president.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 41

NEWS

Phoenix area alumni gathered at the Paradise Valley home of Beth and John Godbout on Feb. 7 to meet and hear from (left to right): NAA Executive Director Diane Mendenhall, UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman, the Godbouts, NU Foundation President and CEO Brian Hastings and UNL Director of Athletics Shawn Eichorst.

Are you ready to take the first step towards success?

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REQUEST FORM

2013FOOTBALLTICKET

PROCEDURE AND DEADLINES Please complete the form below by May 1, 2013 to be included in the football ticket lottery. Tickets are limited to one game and two tickets per household, with priority going to life members with donations, then life members, then annual members of the Nebraska Alumni Association. Involvement and service moves you to the top of your group. Completion and submission of this form constitutes an application for tickets.

Members agree to purchase tickets for a single game for any game ranked below.

TICKET REQUESTS Mark your preferences for home and away games on the form below. If your name is drawn to receive tickets, your credit card will be charged and you will receive mail or e-mail confirmation by July 1. The actual per ticket price will match university single-game tickets prices. Home tickets will be available for pickup at the Wick Alumni Center, the week of the game, or at the stadium will-call window on game day beginning three hours prior to kickoff. Away game tickets may be picked up at our pre-game event(s), if applicable or via FedEx for a $25 charge, sent 7 to 10 days before each game.

2013 Football ticket request form

Name______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Address_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ City/State/Zip_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Telephone (home)_______________________________________________ (work)_______________________________________________ E-mail Address ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Enroll me in the Husker Hot List (must be a life member)

Please charge my credit card:

AmEx

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VISA (No checks please)

Credit card #_____________________________________________________________________ Exp. date___________________________ Membership/Giving Status: (You must be a member) Life Member + Donor Life Member Paying Life Member

Annual Member

Member ID # (See your magazine mailing label – directly across from your name)___________________________________________________ Affiliate/Chapter Name (if applicable)_____________________________________________________________________________________ Additional Tax-Deductible Gift to Elevate Priority $__________________________________________________________________________ If I am awarded tickets in the lottery process, I agree to purchase tickets for a single game as ranked below. I understand my card will be charged on or around July 1, and tickets are non-refundable.

(Signature)__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Rank _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

2013 NEBRASKA FOOTBALL TICKET REQUEST FORM Indicate quantity (maximum of two tickets) and rank your game preferences with 1 being your top choice: Home games in boldface.

Quantity 1 or 1 or 1 or 1 or 1 or 1 or 1 or 1 or 1 or 1 or 1 or 1 or

For Office Use Only:

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Price Game

TBD Wyoming TBD Southern Miss TBD UCLA (Life Members Only) TBD South Dakota State TBD Illinois TBD @ Purdue TBD @ Minnesota TBD Northwestern TBD @ Michigan TBD Michigan State TBD @ Penn State TBD Iowa

Date Sat., Aug. 31 Sat., Sept. 7 Sat., Sept. 14 Sat., Sept. 21 Sat., Oct. 5 Sat., Oct. 12 Sat., Oct. 26 Sat., Nov. 2 Sat., Nov. 9 Sat., Nov. 16 Sat., Nov. 23 Fri., Nov. 29

INVOLVEMENT and Service (if any) Postcards of Pride Volunteer Huskers for Higher Education Cather Circle Affiliate/Chapter Member Alumni Awards Committee Alumni Advisory Council Travel Program Participant Husker Rewards Card Holder Former Board Member (Chapter, Affiliate or Association) Reunion Attendee Other_________________________________ Other_________________________________ Other_________________________________ Other_________________________________

Send form with credit card info (no checks please) postmarked by May 1, to: Nebraska Alumni Association, Attn.: Football Tickets, 1520 R Street, Lincoln, NE 68508-1651

4NAA13•TIX NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 43

to Enlist Alumni Support for Startups Working with community partners including NUtech Ventures, University Technology Development Corporation and the University of Nebraska, newly launched NMotion will offer a program for startup companies to receive mentoring, networking and educational assistance, as well as initial seed funding during an intensive 12-week program this summer.

NMotion will bring together capital, connections and community to help high-growth software and technology-based startups in the financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, transportation/logistics, communications CONNECTION BOX and agriculture nmotion.co industries.

During the program, NMotion will offer $15,000 in seed funding, co-working space, a shared resource pool of talent, mentors, and opportunities to pitch to investors. In return, NMotion will

NEWS

take a six percent equity stake in each company. A maximum of 10 teams will be chosen to participate in the program that will take place June through August in Lincoln. The program will culminate in a Tunnel Walk Demo Day for investors and alumni.

The University Technology Development Corporation has provided initial funding for NMotion to support entrepreneurship and economic development in Nebraska.

“This is an important new piece in the startup ecosystem to help entrepreneurs, students, alumni and community leaders come together to create and build new companies from the ground up,” said Brian Ardinger, managing director of NMotion and Entrepreneur in Residence at NUtech Ventures. “We’re looking for companies with potential for scale, profitability and significant, measurable impact; and we’re putting together a program that will tap into Nebraska’s core values of no-nonsense and hard work for the creation of startups.”

NMotion is also looking for mentors to help with the program. Mentors are individuals with deep industry, investment or entrepreneurship experience. They work with the companies pro bono, without expectation of reward or compensation; will share their knowledge and guidance freely; and will open their address books when appropriate.

Mentors are what make NMotion unique, and we attribute the success of the companies directly to the generous contributions of mentors, Ardinger said.

There are two types of mentorship – lead mentor and ad hoc mentor. Lead mentors spend about an hour a week with a company for the duration of the program. Ad hoc mentors add value where and when they can.

If you have deep industry expertise and are interested in becoming an Official NMotion Mentor, contact Brian Ardinger (brian@nmotion.co) or Jill Thayer (jill@nmotion.co) to schedule a brief meeting.v

Students lined up at the door as mock interview sessions were in high demand during Life 101 for Scarlet Guard, Nebraska Legends and Cather Circle students in January. The event also featured resume reviews, tips on interview attire and etiquette, Husker Hire 44 SPRING 2013 Link and LinkedIn tutorials, a trade show and a panel discussion on everything from networking to finances.

NEWS

Mary Fastenau leads a session during the spring 2012 Cather Circle meeting.

Join Cather Circle Looking for a place to connect with other Nebraska alumni in your career field or ones who have interests similar to yours? Want to trade job tips, hire an intern or mentor a student leader?

Need to reduce the stress in your life, contemplate retirement plans or learn about the latest job trends?

Then Cather Circle may be just the group for you.

Created in 1999 by the Nebraska Alumni Association to promote the growth and education of women – both alums and students, and to create a nationwide network of female leaders with ties to the University of NebraskaLincoln, Cather Circle is now open to all alumnae and woman students who choose to apply.

Members attend fall and spring meetings on campus, where they benefit from professional development, mentoring and personal growth.

Alumnae are reconnected with the university, and collegians are connected to jobs, internships and networks of support.

Alumnae interested in joining the group for the first time may apply online or download an application and submit it to the Wick Alumni Center, 1520 R Street, Lincoln, NE 68508-1651. Alumnae members must be graduates of UNL or have another significant affiliation with the university, and must be annual or life members of the Nebraska Alumni Association. Although you may apply

CONNECTION BOX huskeralum.org/alumnae-online huskeralum.org/cc-alumna-app huskeralum.org/student-online huskeralum.org/cc-student-app

any time, applications are due by May 15 for the following fall.

Any full-time female student in good standing (2.5+ GPA) at UNL may apply to be a Cather Circle Collegian. They may also apply online or download an application and submit it to the Nebraska Alumni Association at the address above. Applications are accepted year-round. Students who apply by May 15 are announced in June; students who apply over the summer are announced at the beginning of the fall.v

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 45

ALUMNI

CHAPTERS & AFFILIATES

Bay Area Huskers proudly sport new T-shirts.

New Members, New Banner, New T-Shirts Since implementing their first required yearly membership last July, the Bay Area Huskers have gained 62 individual and 22 family memberships.

The group also has a newly designed

chapter banner that hung in Memorial Stadium for the last two games of the 2012 football season, and their first Bay Area Husker T-shirts, which they started selling in November.

The group’s upcoming events include the Annual Golf Outing June 15, the Annual Big Red Barbecue July 14, and a Taste of Nebraska gathering, with the date yet to be determined.v

Chapter Relaunched in Ogallala Ball games and wrestling tournaments… Missoula Children’s Theatre performances … sick kids dropping like flies ... And Ogallala area alumni still managed to attract a dozen to the Open Range for the relaunching of the Big Mac Alumni Chapter in January.

Guest speaker was area native Diane Mendenhall, executive director of the Nebraska Alumni Association. She gave the group a slide show and a glimpse at the academic and physical shifts underway now that the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is part of the prestigious Big Ten.v

46 SPRING 2013

Family members enjoyed the wine tasting at Noonan’s Banquet Hall in February.

From Wine Tasting to Scholarships The Coloradans for Nebraska were joined by Jim Ballard from James Arthur Vineyards of Raymond, Neb., for a Wine Tasting and Scholarship Fundraiser Feb. 21 in Aurora, Colo.

The chapter also planned a late March luncheon to honor the incoming freshmen who have accepted the Coloradans for Nebraska scholarships, including 12 Nebraska Legends Scholarships to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and 15 additional scholarships to UNL (12) and UNK (3).v

The North Carolinian Huskers cheered the Nebraska men’s basketball team to a 79-63 victory over Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, N.C., Nov. 27.

About 25 Huskers from Tampa Bay came out to support the women’s basketball team as they defeated South Florida, 62-52, Dec. 16.

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 47

ALUMNI

CHAPTERS & AFFILIATES Southern Arizonans Donate Food and Toys The Shyann Kindness Project at Starbucks and Toys for Tots were the recipients of food and toys donated by the Southern Arizonans for Nebraska in December. Marine and Air Force Reserve members accepted the donations from SOAZ4NE members Jerry Holbrook, president; Connie Swenson, events chair; and Kevin Dillon.

In February, chapter members cheered the Husker’s softball team, which compiled a 4-1 record at the Hillenbrand Invitational in Tucson.v

The Southern Arizonans for Nebraska showed up in force to support the Husker softball team.

South Florida Huskers Add to Scholarship

Presenting the scholarship check to Napolitano (center) are (left to right): Gary and Deb Heller; Mike Zaidman, SFH president; and Rob Klostermeyer, SFH vice president.

The South Florida Huskers Scholarship Fund got a $2,000 boost from raffles, the sale of T-shirts and general donations last year. Kevin Napolitano, director of gift planning for the NU Foundation, collected the check in person while in town visiting area alumni in February. Chapter members met at CJ’s Drafthouse in Deerfield Beach, home of their Husker watch parties, to hand off the check.v

The Oregonians for Nebraska rooted for the Huskers at the men’s basketball game with Oregon Dec. 15 in Eugene.

48 SPRING 2013

Upstate New Yorkers share Husker spirit at a summer picnic.

Survey Leads to Picnic for Newer Chapter One of the Nebraska Alumni Association’s newest chapters, the Upstate New Yorkers for Nebraska, held their first pre-season picnic Aug. 4. Chapter member Jessica Reeder Wells hosted the event at her family’s business, The Apple Shed in Newark, N.Y. The event drew 13 members and

their families from the Finger Lakes region. The chapter sponsored the picnic in response to requests made via survey at the Founders’ Day event in March 2012.

The group supports active football watch sites in Rochester (Mathew’s East End Grill) and Syracuse (Tully’s

Good Times) and held their second annual Founders’ Day celebration March 9. Alumni and friends interested in volunteering or learning more about leadership opportunities should contact the chapter at upstatenyfornebraska@gmail.com.v

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NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 49

CLASSNOTES 1932

Carl Dantzler, Lincoln, celebrated his 90th birthday Dec. 23, 2012.

Frances Dale Lackey Bailey of Garden Valley, Calif., will turn 104 May 19. celebrated a century of living Dec. 30, 2012.

1941

n Darrel D. Rippeteau, Delray

Beach, Fla., celebrated his 96th birthday Jan. 14 at home with family members. He writes “his lifetime hobby activity in the OX-5 Aviation Pioneers aided in the restoration of Glenn H. Curtiss Monument at Hammondsport, N.Y., at the site of the 1910s seaplane experiments.”

1942

Rudge and Dottie McCartney Vifquain, ’58, Lincoln, celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary Nov. 8, 2012.

1943

Lawrence LeShan, a retired research psychologist in New York City, has had his newest book “Landscapes of the Mind: The Faces of Reality” published by Eirini Press.

1944

Kathleen McGowen Wirth of Salinas, Calif. celebrated her 90th birthday in February.

1945

Anne Johnson of Lincoln marked her 90th birthday Nov. 13, 2012.

Donald and Inez Hartman Brownlee, ’65, of Douglas celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary Dec. 13, 2012.

Earl Elwonger, Lincoln, celebrated his 90th birthday Jan. 8.

1949

Clifford Bomberger of Lincoln marked his 90th birthday Dec. 13, 2012.

Alice Marie Schnabel of Lincoln marked her 100th birthday Feb. 11.

Clyde Luther, Burke, Va., a longtime Virginia State Golf Association and national championship rules official, was inducted into the 2012 Golf Coaches Association of America Hall of Fame.

■

1964

Jay “Phil” and Arvilla “Pete” Holman of Lincoln celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary Nov. 28, 2012.

Jerry Gerlach, a professor in the geography department of Winona State University (Minn.), presented a paper in November 2012 titled “Wine Tourism: Argentinean and Chilean Examples” at the east-west lakes division of the Association of American Geographers. He lives in Trempealeau, Wis.

Vernon and Arlene Bischoff Shoemaker of Lincoln marked 60 years of marriage Dec. 28, 2012.

Sanford “Sam” and Norma Hageman Nelson of Lincoln marked 60 years of marriage on Nov. 21, 2012.

1951

n Gary W. Radil, a partner in the Omaha law firm Baird Holm, has been elected president of the Nebraska State Bar Association.

1952

CORRECTION: n Wayne and n Darlene Imig Schild, Austin, Texas, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary Aug. 4, 2012.

1965

n Rebecca J. Seibold Crofoot,

Papillion, retired after 43 years as a caseworker for the Nebraska Children’s Home Society. She was also awarded the 2012 Friends of Adoption Spotlight Award.

n Larry Hartwig, has retired as president and CEO of California Community Bank, Escondido, Calif., and has sold the bank, which he founded and had managed since 2003. He will remain on the board of directors of the buyer.

Myles and Rose Stone Dymacek,’66, of Lincoln noted their 50th wedding anniversary Dec. 22, 2012.

n Warren Hill of Washington Terrace, Utah, was one of three persons named a 2012 Fellow of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). ABET is the recognized accreditor for college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology.

1966

■ Hal Daub Jr., Omaha, received a 2012 Distinguished Service Award at the Founders Day Celebration of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. Daub is a former Nebraska congressman and a former mayor of Omaha.

n Calvin G. Johnston of Littleton,

Betty Drohman of Lincoln turned 90 on Dec. 12, 2012.

Colo., and his wife, JoAnn, recently visited their seventh continent when they toured Argentina, Tierra del Fuego, Chile, Antarctica, Falkland Islands, Uruguay and Iguassu Falls. He continues to be an

■ Indicates Alumni Association Life Member 50 SPRING 2013

Jan Potter of Fort Calhoun has been hired by Nebraska Wesleyan University as faculty and co-coordinator for the university’s new Omaha social work program for adults.

1963

n Dorothy Dunning of Lincoln turned 90 Dec. 31, 2012.

1948

adjunct professor of education at Regis University in Denver.

■ Ramon Hansen of Carthage, N.Y., has just completed his third book in retirement. “The Boys of Bloomfield” is a memoir of growing up in small-town Nebraska during the Great Depression and World War II.

n Velda Anderson of Lincoln

1946

News/Weddings/Births/Deaths

Leonard and Vera Gene Hill of Lincoln marked 65 years of marriage Dec. 22, 2012.

■

1968

■ Tom and Cindy Hedges of San Diego celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary Jan. 7.

Max and Lillie Larsen of Lincoln celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in December 2012.

1969

Jerry and Karla Judt, ’78, of Lincoln marked their 50th wedding anniversary Dec. 3, 2012. n Barbara Thomas of Lincoln retired as executive director of ServeNebraska – the Nebraska Volunteer Service Commission in Lincoln.

■ Ruth Vaughan of Lincoln noted her 90th birthday Jan. 25.

1970

Jim Lauerman, chairman of the advertising agency Bailey Lauerman, was among Omaha-area business professionals honored at the William M. Kizer Light of Wellness Awards dinner.

John McHenry, Lincoln, was elected president of the board of trustees of The Nebraska Masonic Home in Plattsmouth.

1971

n Warren L. Anthony, Elkhorn, retired from Syngenta Seeds as stewardship officer after 36 years.

Lloyd Bell, professor of agricultural leadership, education and communication at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has been named a senior fellow of the American Association for Agricultural Education.

Jerry Boyce, owner of Boyce Construction Inc., Lincoln, was named the 2012 recipient of the Dan Peterson Affordable Housing Award. Boyce’s dedication to Habitat for Humanity is just one of many reasons for the honor.

■ Reuben H. Schleifer of Chester was the recipient of the 2012 Paul Kersenbrock Humanitarian Award presented by Doane College of Crete.

Indicates Alumni Association Annual Member

By anthony flott

Alumni Profile ’05

On the Move

Erin Kuwitzky-Johnson Sure, there is no place Like Nebraska. Erin Kuwitzky knows that.

After all, the allure of her native state – and that moment when she fell in love with its university – brought her home after 15 years absence.

Kuwitzky, though, isn’t the sort to let strong roots keep her planted in one place.

And so it was that she and her husband made their way to Thailand last December, spending nearly three weeks there before returning just prior to Christmas. They snorkeled off islands in the Andaman Sea and zip-lined in Chiang Mai, the country’s largest city. They toured the Grand Palace and Wat Pho in Bangkok. They visited with elephants ... and people from all over the world.

“We had an absolute blast,” Kuwitzky said. “It was an amazing country.

“I can’t wait to go back and visit other Asian countries. And it’s always nice to come home with a tan in December.”

Kuwitzky has been on the move since she was 3 when her father, Kirk Kuwitzky (‘75), transplanted the family from Omaha to Houston for his job with Enron. (Divorced and retired, he now travels the country in an “enormous” motorhome, said his daughter.)

From Houston the family moved to Ft. Collins, Colo. Kuwitzky also has lived in London and visited most of Europe, was married in Mexico and has been “all over the United States.”

Destinations in 2013 include Montana, Mexico, North Carolina, Arizona and Costa Rica.

“I love to travel,” she wrote on her company bio page, “and get sad when customs doesn’t give me a stamp in my passport.”

When she’s not on the move, though, the 2005 UNL graduate is ...

optimizing ... a name for herself as an online marketing guru.

That’s as founder of 517 Search Labs, a Denver-based interactive marketing and communications company.

In September, ColoradoBiz Magazine named the 29-year-old Kuwitzky to its “GenXYZ” list of Colorado’s 25 Most Influential Young Professionals. In October, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation included her in its inaugural class of “Colorado’s Finest,” 20 young professionals recognized for professional achievements, charity and influence.

She also led the Colorado chapter of the American Marketing Association to its first profit in years and helped it achieve the largest membership percentage increase in the country – as the chapter’s youngest president ever. All this, while running her own company, and taking a trip every now and then.

It was on a trip that Kuwitzky decided to found 517 Search Labs.

At the time she was director of interactive marketing at Liquid Inc., a Denver-based boutique marketing agency that specializes in brand communication and management.

Kuwitzky was one of several dozen employees, as was Angela (Armstrong) Spyke, Kuwitzky’s best friend and fellow 2005 UNL alum.

It was 2009. “The economy was sinking,” Kuwitzky said. She left for a weekend in Las Vegas but while there got a call from Armstrong. “She said, ‘Win lots of money in Vegas – I got let go today,’” Kuwitzky recalled.

Kuwitzky usually was privy to company changes. But she didn’t see Armstrong’s firing coming – or that of three other Liquid staff plus a few

part-timers.

“I could see the writing on the wall,” Kuwitzky said. “Even though I’d knew I’d be one of, if not the last, person to go ... the culture had changed. We were in fight or flight mode. It was not a fun place to work anymore.”

She saw opportunity – the chance to venture on her own.

“I wanted to do the same things,” she said. “I just wanted to be better at them.”

Starting her own company, she said, was “excitingly terrifying.” But she was ready, having worked on the idea for her business for three years. She also had saved enough to live without a regular paycheck for at least half a year.

She returned from her Vegas trip and gave her two week’s notice. Not long after, on Feb. 5, 2009, she filed licensing papers and got to work.

About a week later she had her first client, American Adventure Expeditions.

So what’s with the company name?

Her birthday is 5-17 – also her lucky roulette numbers in Vegas.

The company, based in Denver, specializes in search engine marketing (SEM) to help companies gain online visibility – and customers. That means driving traffic to websites, crafting messages, planning social media efforts, executing online brand strategies and optimizing search

Continued on Page 52 NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 51

CLASSNOTES on the move Continued from Page 51 engine rankings.

According to her company website, studies show 62 percent of search engine users don’t get past the first page of results and 90 percent never get past the first three pages. Kuwitzky helps solve that. By maximizing relevancy in local search engines and on sites like Yellowbook and Angie’s List, for instance, she helped ProWorks Flooring decrease its marketing budget by 35 percent while increasing income by 15 percent.

Other clients have included Mad Greens, a Coloradobased salad restaurant; Soybu, a women’s lifestyle and yoga apparel company; a luxury ranch; and others.

The work has come steadily, but it’s been harder than it appears.

“I don’t sell you anything you can hold,” said Kuwitzky, who in 2010 received the AMA’s Gold Peak Award Winner for work in search engine optimization.

“I sell you something you can’t see but it’s something you see working ... which is a really hard concept to try to sell people.”

It’s funny, because Kuwitzky at first wasn’t sold on attending UNL after graduating from Ft. Collins High School. Her college plans were widespread. “I applied all over the country,” she said.

Everywhere except Nebraska. Her mom begged her to consider UNL, though, and when the two would attend college fairs, Denise Kuwitzky, now a training manager with Capital One, would drag her daughter to the Nebraska booth and start singing the school song.

“Like she was the only person who knew it,” Kuwitzky said. “I was just embarrassed to all heck.”

Kuwitzky relented and applied. Then she drove by herself from Colorado to Lincoln to visit campus. It was a beautiful spring day when she arrived. “I just loved it,” she said.

She double majored – in advertising and in textiles, clothing and design. In 2004 she served a six-month internship in London as a graphic designer for “B,” a women’s monthly lifestyle magazine published

by Hachette Filipacchi Media (since purchased by Hearst).

She returned and graduated in 2005 with two degrees. In 2006 she became an account manager with Condit Exhibits, a Denver marketing firm. In 2007 came her job with Liquid Inc. Two years later, she took the trip to Vegas and then launched her own company. She also began dating her longtime friend, Mike Johnson of Cambridge, Neb. (Given his generic name, she dubs him “the UnGoogable Man.”) She and Johnson were married in September 2012.

“It was like my whole life fell into place in 2009,” Kuwitzky said. “I know I was really fortunate to have figured that out at 25.”

She knows just where she’s going.v 52 SPRING 2013

1972 ■ Joan

Witte Anthony, Elkhorn, a third grade teacher at Elkhorn Public Schools, was presented the Catalyst Award by the Nebraska Association of Teachers of Science for her contributions to science education in Nebraska.

Scott E. Daniel has joined the Omaha law firm Gettman & Mills LLP and will focus on litigation and business disputes.

Debra Hansen, an architect with the Lincoln architecture/ engineering/design firm Davis Design, has been selected a senior associate. n Susan Petersen of Lincoln has retired from the State of Nebraska Department of Education after 40 years of service.

1973

n Tom Cullinan has been named

executive director of the Christian Urban Education Service of Omaha. n Lora Damme, president and CEO of the Bank of Talmage, has been elected to the Nebraska Community Foundation Board of Directors. n Gregory V. Johnson is a partner

has graduated from the Nebraska Water Leaders Academy.

Melvin Mark, State College, Pa., has been honored with the prestigious 2012 Paul F. Lazarsfeld Evaluation Theory Award by the American Evaluation Association. Mark, a professor of psychology at Penn State University, was noted for written work on evaluation theory.

1975

Joan M. Cannon has been named to the Best Lawyers in America for 2013. She is an attorney with Koley Jessen, an Omaha law firm. n Pam Hunzeker has joined the Lincoln Community Foundation as vice president of marketing.

1977

n Eric Chapman, Los Angeles, is director of development for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.

Mary E. Jewell, Omaha, has been hired by TS Bank (Treynor State Bank) of Council Bluffs, Iowa, as a trust officer.

1978

Don Kucera, vice president of private banking with Pinnacle Bank in Lincoln, was elected chair of the Nebraska Abstracters Board of Examiners.

James Gustafson was the 2012 J. Robert Sandberg Distinguished Service Award recipient. The award, sponsored by the Nebraska Partnership for Philanthropic Planning, is presented in recognition of outstanding service, commitment and leadership in the field of planned giving. Gustafson is gift planning director for the Nebraska Community Foundation in Lincoln.

John Lund, CEO of The Lund Company, was recently recognized in Midwest Real Estate News Magazine’s “Midwest Commercial Hall of Fame.”

■ Dave Long has been appointed vice president of marketing and sales for the Twin Cities & Western Railroad Company and is based at Glencoe, Minn.

Doug Parrott, vice president of public relations at the Omaha office of advertising agency Bailey Lauerman, received the 2012 Professional of the Year Award from the Public Relations Society of America’s Nebraska Chapter.

Jeff Searcy, of the Searcy Team at Home Real Estate, has been honored by the Realtor Association of Lincoln as the 2012 Realtor of the Year.

in the Denver office of Patton Boggs LLP, an international law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. Johnson was recently selected as president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Energy Bar Association.

1974

Randy Hartmann, Grand Island,

Karen M. Shuler has been named to the Best Lawyers in America for 2013. She is an attorney with Koley Jessen, Omaha law firm.

By Colleen Kenney Fleischer, ’88

Alumni Profiles ’61

‘It’s Good to Give’

Roy and Sharon Smith They fell in love at UNL. And it did. Then he earned more The university was the key to their On graduation day, they kissed scholarships because of good grades. successful, happy lives as well as to in caps and gowns in front of Love An ROTC stipend helped, too. the lives of their grown daughters, who Library.

He and Sharon eventually returned also are UNL grads. If people hadn’t His gown still had the wrinkles from to Plattsmouth to farm and teach helped them long ago, the Smiths the box. Her gown was neatly pressed. and raise their two girls, Laura and said, there’s no way they’d have (She was a home economics major.)

Kristine. Sharon worked as a home college degrees.

Fifty some years later, she still wishes economics teacher for years in That’s why they love giving back to she had taken an iron to his.

Plattsmouth; then as director of an the university.

“What was I thinking?” alternative school in Plattsmouth.

Each year since their graduation, That was June of they’ve given a little.

1961.

Recently, they’ve Roy and Sharon created scholarships The university was the key to their successful, happy lives Smith smiled as they for students at UNL looked down at an in the College of as well as to the lives of their grown daughters, who also old photo someone Agricultural Scitook of them kissing are UNL grads. If people hadn’t helped them long ago, the ences and Natural that day. The photo Resources and in the rests in their big College of Education Smiths said, there’s no way they’d have college degrees. red scrapbook with and Human Scia white “N” on the ences. The students front. must be Nebraska They’d been classmates while Hundreds of kids graduated from that residents. Priority will go to students growing up in Plattsmouth. They’d school during her time there – many from Cass County, where they grew up. been friends for years. But it wasn’t who wouldn’t have otherwise.

“People still have the same probuntil the car rides home from college She laughs. lems they had back then – back then together that they finally fell in love.

“Roy would say, ‘Have a boring day,’ as in now, college wasn’t cheap,” Roy “It’s good to marry your best and it never was.” said. “So we just decided when we got friend,” Roy said. “It really is.”

Roy farmed, taught and used his to the point where we could afford to Both were farm kids who came knowledge from college and his masdo it, that would be a place that we’d from families that couldn’t afford ter’s degree to become one of the first like to invest some of our capital.” college. Sharon received scholarships. electronic media marketing She lived at Love Memorial Hall on specialists in the nation, CONNECTION BOX East Campus, which helped a lot teaming up with Successful because she worked there to defray Farming magazine. www.campaignfornebraska.org/priorities/student-support her living expenses. She also worked Though they’re mostly www.campaignfornebraska.org/give at a restaurant during the summers, retired now, she still works cooking, waiting tables and baking as a substitute teacher. pies at sunrise.

He does marketing strategy research They decided to give while they’re Roy, an ag-education major, didn’t for the University of Nebraska alive so they can actually meet their get scholarships at first. He enrolled Department of Ag Economics, helping scholarship recipients – young people at the university on a prayer that farmers market their crops. He writes like the two they knew in that photo, scholarship money would open up. for Agriculture Online. kissing on graduation day.v NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 53

CLASSNOTES n Peter C. Wegman, a partner with Rembolt Ludtke LLP (Lincoln), has assumed the presidency of the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys.

1979

n Nancy Gregory, Lincoln, associate director for operations at the Department of Veterans Affairs Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System, has retired after nearly 32 years of service.

Dennis Mann has become the new firm administrator for Woods Aitken LLP, a Lincoln law office.

Steve Meradith has been appointed executive director of the Nebraska Public Service Commission, which regulates railroads, household goods, passenger carriers, telephone companies, grain warehouses and construction of mobile homes.

Dick Placzek was promoted to senior vice president/group account director for the Lincoln office of Russell Swanson, marketing communications firm.

Toni Roberts has been named the director of in-home support services for Tabitha, a Lincolnbased provider of elder care.

1980

1982

n Karen Hard, Bensalem, Pa.,

a captain in the United States Navy, retired Jan. 4. The guest speaker for the retirement ceremony was Rear Admiral Sean Filipowski, also a 1982 graduate of UNL. Mark Longacre of the Nebraska Orthopaedic Hospital in Omaha, has been chosen as a member of the board of directors for Special Olympics Nebraska.

Mary Reckmeyer, executive director of Gallup’s Donald O. Clifton Child Development Center in Omaha, has been added to the Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska Board of Directors.

1983

n Roger Bullington has been

named to the position of vice president of construction and development as well as general manager of Chief Construction Co. of Grand Island.

Michael C. Cox, an attorney with the Omaha law firm Koley Jessen, was named to Best Lawyers in America for 2013.

Kurt F. Tjaden has been named to the Best Lawyers in America for 2013. He is an attorney with the Omaha law firm Koley Jessen.

Michael M. Hupp, an attorney with the Omaha law firm Koley Jessen, has been named to Best Lawyers in America for 2013.

John H. Wells has been named president of Pinnacle Trust Services of Omaha.

Tom Larson has been appointed vice president and named to the Conley Investment Counsel Investment Committee (Omaha). Larson lives in Lincoln.

Mark McQueen has been selected as a partner with Baird Holm, Omaha law firm.

Mike Peters has joined the Lincoln office of the marketing communications firm Swanson Russell as an account manager.

Donald L. Swanson has been named to Best Lawyers in America for 2013. Swanson is an attorney with the Omaha law firm Koley Jessen.

Frank Ward with Ameriprise Financial Services in Omaha, is the past chair for the Special Olympics Nebraska Board of Directors.

54 SPRING 2013

1984

n Bryan Richardson has been promoted to senior member of the technical staff at Freescale Semiconductor in Tempe, Ariz.

1985

John Begley is a new sales auditor with Verde Martin, a sales maximization consulting firm in Omaha.

Rick Wintermute has become co-owner of the Lincoln building firm Kingery Construction.

1986

n Kim Wonker of Pahrump,

Nev., is the judge of Nevada’s 5th District.

1987

James Torres, Omaha, has been appointed a principal in the architecture/engineering/ design firm DLR Group, where he serves as the Central Region architecture discipline leader for the practice forum.

1988

Rod Berens has become coowner of the Lincoln building firm Kingery Construction.

■ John Proskovec, Southlake, Texas, is the 2012 recipient of the Peter Kiewit Award for Excellence in Management. As project manager, Proskovec led the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure in New Orleans, a $1 billion part of the larger effort to reduce flooding from hurricane surges.

Loren Sweigard, senior vice president of INSPRO Insurance Agency of Lincoln, has been named operations manager and will be responsible for day-today activities at INSPRO. n Linda Whitmire has been elected senior vice president, chief actuary-corporate for Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. of Lincoln.

1989

n Mark Fahleson, a partner with

the Lincoln law firm Rembolt Ludtke LLP, was presented the Davis Carr Outstanding Committee Chair Award by DRI, an international membership organization of lawyers involved in the defense of civil litigation.

■ Ward Jorgenson of Kearney is director of operations for Orthman Manufacturing in Lexington and a member of its board of directors.

Katie Kluver of Papillion has been hired as a benefit and claims adviser in the Omahabased insurance company Marcotte’s group benefits department.

Michael Moore, Grand Prairie, Texas, senior vice provost and dean of undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at

Arlington, has been named vice president for academic affairs at the University of Arkansas System.

Brent Schott of Lincoln has been promoted to senior vice president/group account director for Swanson Russell.

Kara Sheil has been hired by Speedway Motors of Lincoln as the new project manager for IT and eCommerce projects.

1990

Juan J. Perez, an agent from the Lincoln general office of New York Life, has become a registered representative of NYLIFE Securities LLC.

1991 n Shawn Hoffart of Shawnee Mission, Kan., has been appointed vice president and technology manager in oil and gas for Black & Veatch, a global engineering, consulting, construction and operations company.

Deb Lammel has joined the Omaha office of the advertising firm Phenomblue as vice president of engagement.

Greg Wiley of Lincoln has been promoted to senior vice president/director of creative development for Swanson Russell.

Brent Yaw has been promoted to vice president international for Baldwin Filter of Kearney.

1992

Tricia Montague of Deloitte & Touche LLP in Omaha, has been elected treasurer of the board of directors for Special Olympics Nebraska.

Corey Watton, Valley, is now the chief financial officer for Home Instead Inc. of Omaha.

1993

Randy Kathol has been admitted to partnership with the Omaha accounting company Seim Johnson LLP. Andy Massey, Omaha, has been named to the board of directors for Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska. Massey is corporate attorney/chief legal counsel for

By Anthony Flott

Alumni Profile ’71, ’74

It’s a Wonderful Life Matt Williams

It’s just weeks until Christmas and “It’s a Wonderful Life” is starting to get heavy play.

Matt Williams answers the phone in Gothenburg, Neb., and starts talking about his wonderful life. Just minutes into the conversation, it’s hard not to draw comparisons between him and George Bailey: • Both grew up in small towns, the

sons of banker fathers.

• Both were college-age when their

fathers died.

• Both abandoned planned-for

careers and returned home to take over their father’s bank.

• Both helped guide their

communities through economic

turmoil and to prosperity.

Williams, though, became a bigger deal even than ... Mr. Potter.

In October, Williams was elected 2012-13 chairman of the American Bankers Association — voice for the nation’s $14 trillion banking industry, 2 million employees, and banks of all sizes and charters. That includes Gothenburg State Bank. Williams is president and chairman there, the fourth Williams to head the bank.

Whether he’s taking to Washington bigwigs or Gothenburg farmers, he approaches work just like Bailey. “’It’s a Wonderful Life’ kind of sums up that we’re all in this together,” Williams said. “We share our successes and we share our failures, but in the end it’s our relations and community that matters.”

Williams has every reason to take care of his community — his family

roots there stretch back more than a century. Great grandfather Henry L. Williams and his wife moved to the Gothenburg area from Pennsylvania in the early 1890s to farm and ranch.

His wife helped found Gothenburg First Presbyterian Church. In 1902, H.L. Williams chartered Gothenburg State Bank. The reins passed to his son, then to his grandson, Robert Williams.

Matt Williams, however, had no plans to keep the family tradition going. Growing up, he had worked in the family’s cattle and farming operation.

“I fixed a lot of fence and rode a lot of horses and hauled and bailed a lot of hay and irrigated corn and all those kinds of things,” Williams said. “I worked enough in the agricultural side to realize that was probably not the area for me.”

But neither was banking. Williams wanted to be a lawyer. To accomplish that, he bucked another family trend by enrolling at the University of Nebraska. His father, mother, uncles, brother and sister had attended Hastings College.

“I was the black sheep of the family,” he chuckled.

He competed for the Husker track and field team in pole vault, long

jump and 400, doing well enough to earn a scholarship (Tom Osborne, then a football grad assistant, lockered three spots from him). Williams earned a BA in 1971 and continued to Nebraska’s College of Law, where now-NU Chancellor Harvey Perlman was one of his professors. By the end of his junior year in 1973 Williams had a career in corporate and tax law mapped out with job offers from firms in Nebraska and on the East Coast.

That all changed when his father died unexpectedly from cancer at age 56.

“It became evident that if the family was going to continue the banking part of our operation, which we really wanted to do, someone from the family was going to have to step up and take a leadership role,” Williams said. “That became me.”

He finished law school while commuting between Lincoln and Gothenburg to attend to what bank matters he could. He got his law degree in 1974, passed the bar then moved his wife, Sue, and their infant son Luke back to Gothenburg.

He’s never looked back.

“That event, as tragic as it was, was a career-changing event for me and I can’t imagine having done anything else but being here,” he said.

Continued on Page 56 NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 55

CLASSNOTES it’s a wonderful life Continued from Page 55 Williams started as vice president and got busy learning banking. He took over as president in 1979. About that time he faced his first real challenge – the agricultural and economic crises of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“A very, very difficult time,” Williams said. Banking and agriculture were “highly stressed.”

The stress could be magnified in a small community like Gothenburg. At a football game on Friday, a basketball game on Saturday or at church on Sunday, Williams might find himself sitting next to a bank customer he knew to be in dire financial straits.

He was among a few men who decided not to let the crisis get the better of Gothenburg. They aggressively recruited industries, and the strategy paid off. Today, four Fortune 500 companies call Gothenburg home – Frito Lay, Monsanto, Baldwin Filters and Parker-Hannifin Tech Seal Division.

Unemployment went down and the population went up. The tax base expanded from $39 million in 1990 to more than $180 million today, Williams said. As for Gothenburg State Bank, it’s now a $120 million operation.

“I think that event went a long way toward cementing in my mind that community banking, banks like Gothenburg State Bank, are vital for our communities,” Williams said. “We need to remain strong and be successful because we help our communities grow.”

His steady hand didn’t go unnoticed. Williams has led and served numerous Gothenburg organizations, including the Gothenburg Area Chamber of Commerce. He also is a past director of the State Chamber of Commerce and was chairman of the Nebraska Bankers Association in 2003-2004.

He joined the ABA board in 2008 and served on several committees before getting its top post last fall.

The industry faces numerous challenges, he said. That includes restoring a reputation tarnished by the 2008 failings. Banks also are dealing with continued implementation of regulations in the Dodd-Frank Act and loss of business to credit unions and the farm credit system.

Williams is point man for those and other issues. He runs board meetings and speaks regularly with officials at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC and Federal Reserve. He attends the numerous state association meetings and conventions, works up to 60 hours each week and travels constantly, including trips to Washington about twice a month. He also is among 14 bankers on the FDIC Advisory Committee on Community Banking.

There’s plenty more to keep him busy away from banking. He is a trustee of the University of Nebraska Foundation and serves or has served UNL Ag Builders, the University of Nebraska President’s Advisory Council, the University of Nebraska Finance Department, TeamMates and the Innovation Campus.

In Gothenburg, he’s a lifetime member at First Presbyterian, and an elder and choir member. He and his wife have a son and daughter and five grandchildren.

Banking has made it all possible.

“What I’ve really enjoyed most is recognizing that regardless of whether you’re in California or New Jersey or South Dakota, bankers are great people,” Williams said.

“People that care about their communities, care about their states and care about their people.”

George Bailey couldn’t have said it better.v 56 SPRING 2013

Valmont Industries Inc. Denny W. O’Donnell has been added to the new home mortgage consultant team of the Omaha office of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.

Douglas Tegtmeier of Beatrice has been hired by Principal Financial Group as financial representative to the Mountain Plains Business Center.

1994

Carlos Cabrera-Escalier of the Omaha architecture firm Holland Basham Architects, has been promoted to company associate.

Rod Haarberg, Imperial, is a member of the board of directors for Orthman Manufacturing of Lexington, where he is the director of marketing.

Jen Landis has been promoted to senior interactive art director/motion graphics manager in the Lincoln office of the marketing communications firm Swanson Russell. n Jessica Walcott Murray is development associate at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies (iSchool), at which she is also pursuing a certificate of advanced study in social media. She was previously fundraising analyst at the university’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

■ Gretchen Hall Oltman, Papillion, is the district secondary gifted education facilitator for Bellevue Public Schools. Her first book, “Violence in Student Writing: A School Administrator’s Guide,” was published by Corwin Press in October 2012.

Jennifer Putzi was co-editor along with Elizabeth Stockton of “The Selected Letters of Elizabeth Stoddard.” Putzi is an associate professor of English and women’s studies at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va. Victoria H. Sitz, an attorney in the Omaha office of the national law firm Husch Blackwell, has been named a partner.

Darin Sperling, Roca, has been promoted to senior associate with the Lincoln architecture/

CLASSNOTES engineering/design firm Davis Design.

1995

Anya Kerkman has been welcomed to Complete Physical Therapy of Lincoln and will specialize in breast cancer rehabilitation and the treatment of lymphedema.

Choan Liewer has been promoted to an associate with the Lincoln architecture company Sinclair Hille Architects.

1996

Adam Kirshenbaum has been welcomed into the Omaha law firm Baird Holm LLP as part of the corporate section. n Mary Palu has been hired by the advertising agency Bailey Lauerman as vice president of the leadership team and will work out of the Omaha office.

Lora Sladovnik has been hired

by Children’s Behavioral Health of Omaha as an adolescent, adult and family therapist.

1997

Shawn Carraher has been promoted to alteration planning manager for Duncan Aviation of Lincoln.

Mass., has been promoted to senior network administrator with Loring, Wolcott & Coolidge Trust LLC, a Boston-based wealth management firm.

Perry Haralson, Cornhusker Bank, was elected second vice president of the Home Builders Association of Lincoln.

n Jisella Veath Dolan, Omaha, has been promoted to chief legal officer for Home Instead Senior Care.

Todd Moeller was promoted to company associate with the Omaha architecture firm Holland Basham Architects.

Nick Faustman, vice president of government affairs for the Nebraska Health Care Association, lobbies on behalf of it and its affiliates. He recently was added to NHCA’s leadership team.

Tracy Prince of Portland, Ore., is a scholar-in-residence at Portland State University and has recently had two books published, “Culture Wars in British Literature” (2012, McFarland), and “Portland’s Goose Hollow” (2011, Arcadia).

Shannon Wallace, Gretna, has joined the Omaha office of the advertising firm Phenomblue as director of strategy.

1998

■ Michael

Cleary, Attleboro,

Jeffrey Makovicka has joined the Omaha law firm of Kutak Rock LLP and deals mainly with banking matters and other legal issues affecting financial institutions.

Tim Schlegelmilch, vice president and regional sales manager for US Bank government banking in Lincoln, was team leader for the central region government banking team honored by US Bank as its 2012

Team of the Year. n Tamara Uribe of Bennet, has joined the Lincoln office of the financial investment company Waddell & Reed and will serve as a financial adviser.

Eric Zach, Lincoln, has graduated from the Nebraska Water Leaders Academy.

1999

Sarah Helvey, staff attorney and director of the child welfare program at Nebraska Appleseed, has been named a recipient of the 2012 TOYO (Ten Outstanding Young Omahans) Award.

Kelly Jordan is a veterinarian who joined Wachal Pet Health Center, Lincoln, in September 2012.

Todd Kinney has rejoined the Omaha law firm of Kutak Rock LLP, where he will practice in the area of intellectual property. He lives in Elkhorn.

George M. Martin has been

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2:01 PM NEBRASKA8/24/12 MAGAZINE 57

CLASSNOTES named a partner in the Omaha law firm Baird Holm.

Darci McMurray received the 2012 Caring Kind Award from the Nebraska Hospital Association. McMurray is a registered dietician in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Bryan Health in Lincoln.

■ Vladimir Oulianov, a realtor with Woods Bros. Realty of Lincoln, has been awarded the prestigious certified residential specialist designation by the Council of Residential Specialists.

Chris Pesek has been hired by JE Dunn Construction of Omaha as senior project manager.

Eric Schaben has been selected as a company shareholder for the Omaha engineering firm E & A Consulting Group Inc., where he is a project manager.

Angie Schendt, the editor for publications at Woodmen of the World, has been named a recipient of the 2012 TOYO (Ten Outstanding Young Omahans) Award. n Eric Sherman, St. Paul,

Minn., has been admitted to partnership at the Minneapolis law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP where he focuses on financial services litigation and health litigation. n Kyle Vohl has been named a company shareholder in the Omaha office of the engineering firm E & A Consulting Group Inc. Vohl is a leader in the civil engineering department.

2000

Pamela J. Bourne has been named a partner with the law firm Woods & Aitken LLP in Omaha.

Jenny Deitloff of Gretna is senior counsel for ConAgra Foods where she is the lead attorney in immigration-related and OSHA compliance, labor relations and human resourcerelated issues.

Alyssa Holtgrewe of Lincoln works as a media buyer for Swanson Russell.

Todd Johnson has been pro58 SPRING 2013

moted to executive director of the Youth Sports Branch of the Lincoln YMCA. Heidi Mausbach, Omaha, is vice president of client services for Ervin & Smith Advertising and Public Relations.

Brandon Sire has been promoted to senior associate with the Lincoln architecture/engineering/design firm Davis Design.

Meghan Sittler, Lincoln, has graduated from the Nebraska Water Leaders Academy.

Jason Thiellen of Gretna is a project manager for E & A Consulting Group Inc., Omaha engineering company. He was recently named a company shareholder.

Sarah Vander Pol is an osteopathic physician who recently launched Balance Integrative Medicine in Lincoln.

Michelle Van Horn is now a realtor with Nebraska Home Sales of Lincoln.

■ Jeffrey

D. Whitney, Denver, has been named a partner in the national law firm, Husch Blackwell.

2001

Travis Flodine has joined Mutual of Omaha Bank as vice president of commercial banking in Omaha.

■ Brooke

Janousek Heck is now an account director for Phenomblue in Omaha, working on several existing accounts as well as new business. She was formerly senior director of alumni relations for the Nebraska Alumni Association. n Mikala Genrich Hoge, and her husband, n Chad Hoge,

’05, Fargo, N.D., are pediatric dental specialists who operate Dakota Pediatric Dentistry PC offices in Fargo and Grand Forks.

Steve Irons has been added to the Lincoln office of the national engineering firm, Alfred Benesch & Co., as key project manager/lead roadway engineer.

Megan Jarosz of the Omaha architecture firm Holland Basham Architects, has been promoted to company associate.

Justin Johnson, Hoppe Homes, LP, has been elected to the 2013 board of directors for the Home Builders Association of Lincoln.

2002

Jess Baker, Wilderness Construction Inc., has been elected to the 2013 board of directors for the Home Builders Association of Lincoln.

John T. Connor III has been hired by First National Bank in Lincoln as vice president/commercial lending group.

Bob Czerwinski, Bellevue, is a company shareholder in the Omaha engineering firm E & A Consulting Group Inc., where he serves as a project manager.

2003

Kurt Cisar has been named a company associate with the Omaha architecture firm Holland Basham Architects.

Stephanie Dinger was promoted to vice president-customer service at Union Bank & Trust of Lincoln.

Kelly Halverson was elected second vice president of individual product development for Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. of Lincoln. n Patrick Hastings, Elkhorn, is

vice president-international of International Logistics Inc., and helped his firm earn the President’s “E” Award, which annually recognizes the significant contributions U.S. companies and organizations have made to increase American exports.

Zach Jilek, a project supervisor with the Omaha engineering firm E & A Consulting Group Inc., has been named a company shareholder.

Brad Jungman was promoted to company associate with the Omaha architecture firm Holland Basham Architects.

Tom Kelley is the Omaha market president of Five Points Bank and is directly responsible for overseeing more than $90 million in assets in the metro area.

Michaela Mallery is a member of the leadership team for the

Nebraska Health Care Association, where she is vice president of finance.

Toby Samuelson is a vice president, electrical engineering and lighting designer at Farris Engineering in Omaha, and is the youngest member of that firm’s board of directors.

Anthony Schutz is a law professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law and recently attained tenure.

Brock Shelton has been promoted to vice president of business solutions for West Gate Bank of Lincoln.

Joel Wiegert, Gretna, has been promoted to partnership in the Omaha law firm of Kutak Rock LLP. Chandra Wondercheck, an interior designer with the Lincoln architecture/engineering/design firm Davis Design, has become an associate with that company.

2004

Taylor Ashburn has been promoted to assistant vice president-construction lending and consumer real estate lending for Union Bank & Trust of Lincoln.

Roger Bumgarner, Ironwood Builders, has been elected to the 2013 board of directors for the Home Builders Association of Lincoln.

Heidi M. Hayes, an attorney with Morrow, Poppe, Watermeier & Lonowski law firm of Lincoln, has been named the 2012 Outstanding Young Lawyer by the Nebraska State Bar Association.

Ramzi J. Hynek has become a partner with the Lincoln law firm Rembolt Ludtke LLP. Greta Leach has been named affiliated fund development coordinator-eastern Nebraska for the Nebraska Community Foundation in Lincoln.

■ Steve Mattern of Burbank, Calif., has been promoted to director of distribution services at Deluxe Digital Cinema where he coordinates the distribution of first-run theatrical motion pic-

CLASSNOTES tures and other digital content to theaters around the world.

Ryan M. Sewell has become a shareholder and director with the Omaha law firm of Fraser Stryker.

Michelle Zych is the executive director for the Women’s Fund of Omaha, which conducts research and provides support for initiatives that improve the lives of metro area women and girls.

2005

Justin Klemsz has been hired as an interactive producer in the Lincoln office of the marketing communications firm Swanson Russell.

Mark Kommers of Prairie Village, Kan., is now an associate with Wright Medical Technologies in the foot and ankle hardware division in Kansas City, Mo. Adrian Sanchez, Lincoln, has been hired by the Nebraska Hospital Association as director of communications.

Tara A. Stingley, an attorney with the Lincoln law firm Cline Williams Wright Johnson & Oldfather LLP has been named a partner.

Andres Torres of Omaha is a civil engineer with Valmont Industries, specializing in steel pole design. He received the 2012 Outstanding Young Member in Community Services Award from the Central Region of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

2006

Amber Ackerson, director of human capital and corporate secretary for Orthman Manufacturing of Lexington, has been named to the Orthman Board of Directors.

Rebecca Bode, La Vista, has been promoted to audit manager at Lutz & Co., an accounting firm in Omaha.

Jason Caskey is a member of the Omaha law firm Kutak Rock LLP corporate department and intellectual property and infor-

mation technology group.

Tracy Dixon of Bellevue has been promoted to partnership in the Omaha law firm Kutak Rock LLP. Joe Hartman has been promoted to audit manager at Lutz & Co., an accounting firm in Omaha.

Brian Kaiser, Lincoln, has been named one of the “30 Under 30: Sports” in a recent issue of Forbes magazine devoted to outstanding individuals in various fields. In 2006, Kaiser co-founded Hudl, a web-based platform for coaches and players to access and work with video and data online.

■ Benjamin Keele is a research and instructional services librarian at the Ruth Lilly Law Library, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis. William S. Hein & Co. recently published The Librarian’s Copyright Companion, second edition, which he co-authored at William & Mary with James S. Heller and Paul Hellyer.

Jacob McConnell has been promoted to senior associate in the Omaha architecture/engineering/design firm DLR Group.

Daniel Morris has been hired by the Omaha area accounting firm Frankel Zacharia LLC as a tax supervisor.

Keith T. Peters, an attorney with the Lincoln law firm Cline Williams Wright Johnson & Oldfather LLP has been named a partner.

Michael Sinclair has been promoted to senior associate in the Lincoln architecture firm Sinclair Hille Architects.

2007

Steve Arens, a structural engineer-in-training, has joined the Lincoln architecture/engineering/design company Davis Design.

Brady Bauer has been promoted to loan officer/commercial lending group with First National Bank in Lincoln.

Matthew DeBoer of Papillion is designer for the Omaha archi-

NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 59

CLASSNOTES tectural firm Leo A. Daly, and has played a key role on several award-winning projects such as SAC Federal Credit Union Ames Branch and its Mortgage and Business Center.

Chad Eacker, Omaha, is the cofounder and creative director for Delinea Design.

Adam Flanagan, a loan officer with West Gate Bank of Lincoln, has been elected to that group’s board of directors as assistant vice president.

Sarah Friedman has advanced to the position of director of finance for Tabitha, a provider of elder care services in Lincoln.

Jami Hahn is now the senior director of communications for Home Instead Inc. of Omaha.

Jessica Spangler, Omaha, has joined the Lincoln office of Five Nines Technology Group as an account manager.

2008

Melissa Dohmen is a public relations associate in the Lincoln office of Swanson Russell.

Travis C. Liesveld, Lincoln, has been welcomed to Ferris Financial Group as financial adviser.

Andrew West has been promoted to an associate with the DLR Group, an Omaha-based architecture/engineering/design firm.

Charles E. Wilbrand has become an associate with Knudsen law firm of Lincoln.

2009

Christine Baughman and fellow UNL College of Law grad ■ Audrey Johnson teamed up to win the 2012 National Client Counseling Competition, and later represented the United States at the Brown/Mosten International Client Consultation Competition. Baughman is the assistant director of admissions for the Law College. Johnson is an associate attorney at the Lincoln law firm Kinsey Rowe Becker & Kistler LLP. Sheila A. Bentzen has become an associate with the Lincoln law firm Rembolt Ludtke LLP, 60 SPRING 2013

Class Notes

where she practices in the areas of civil litigation, family, municipal and administrative law.

■ David Fast, Council Bluffs, Iowa, has been hired by Hilton Garden Inn Omaha Downtown/ Old Market Area as group sales manager.

Blake Loper has been added to the Omaha law firm of Kutak Rock LLP, and will work in the intellectual property and information technology group. He concentrates his practice in the areas of technology, e-commerce, privacy and trademark licensing.

Matthew Noren is a member of the Omaha law firm Kutak Rock LLP corporate department and intellectual property and information technology group.

2010

David Arnold, Omaha, is head of the account management division of MindMixer, the online civic engagement service.

John Coburn, an intern with the Chicago-based engineering/ architecture firm Hanson Professional Services, has joined that company and will serve on its roadway team. He lives in Lakemoor, Ill. Jordan Moehlenhoff has been promoted to the business solutions team for West Gate Bank of Lincoln.

2011

Mark Aksamit of Earl Carter Lumber Co. of Lincoln was named the 2012 Associate of the Year by the Home Builders Association of Lincoln.

Evan Chappelear has been hired

by Design Data as programmer analyst for the development team.

Jacob H. Grimes has been added to the new home mortgage consultant team of the Omaha office of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.

Sierra Frauen has been hired by Nebraska advertising agency Bailey Lauerman as a media coordinator.

Brooke Jansen is a recipient of a 2012 Success Award from

Leadership Resources, a Lincoln-based provider of strategic planning and organizational development services. Jansen is the marketing coordinator for Wineman Communications Group.

2012

Zachary L. Blackman has become an associate attorney with the Lincoln law firm McHenry Haszard Roth Hupp Burkholder & Blomenberg PC. Zach Bock has joined the Lincoln office of the marketing communications firm Swanson Russell as an interactive production artist.

■ Josh Dack has joined the Nebraska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in Sidney as a petroleum engineer for field operations.

John Gocken is a new financial adviser with the Omaha office of Renaissance Financial.

Brian Maya, Lincoln, has been hired by Oxbow Animal Health of Murdock as regional account manager for the West Coast.

Keith Peterson has joined Smith Hayes Financial Services Corp. as an investment consultant, and will work at the Lincoln office.

Danielle Smith of Lincoln has joined Nebraska Bank of Commerce (NBC) as its compliance and human resources manager.

Paul Wickert has been hired

by Renaissance Financial of Omaha as a financial adviser.

WEDDINGS

Joel Endorf, ’01, and Sara Holle, July 1, 2012. The couple lives in Seward.

Brian Langner and Stephanie Shalla, ’01, Sept. 29, 2012.

The couple lives in Farragut, Iowa.

Justin Kniep, ’04, and Heather Lynch, Oct. 27, 2012. The couple lives in Chandler, Ariz.

Jeffrey Babl, ’05, and Claire Hicks, ’05, Oct. 5, 2012. The couple lives in Lincoln.

Justin Poots, ’06, and Stephanie

de Souza, March 3, 2012. The couple lives in Minneapolis.

Matthew Weber, ’06, and Caroline Peetz, ’11, July 28, 2012.

The couple lives in Lincoln.

Scott DeBoer, ’07, and Molly Martens, Sept. 15, 2012. The couple lives in Lincoln.

David Obrecht, ’07, and Nicole Riffner, Aug. 10, 2012. The couple lives in Lincoln.

Joshua Peterson and Melanie Becker, ’08, Oct. 5, 2012. The couple lives in Lincoln.

Jacob Brokaw, ’09, and Courtnee Lowe, ’09, June 2, 2012.

The couple lives in Fayetteville, Ark. Eric Bullington, ’09, and Joy Rager, ’09, May 12, 2012. The couple lives in Lincoln.

Nick Vanous, ’09, and Steph Gubser, April 27, 2012. The couple lives in Lincoln.

Chris Watson, ’09, and Kate Person, ’07, June 16, 2012. The couple lives in Lincoln.

Jared Wadell, ’10, and Tiffany Waddle, June 16, 2012. The couple lives in Lincoln.

Michael Steck, ’11, and Amelia Mauseth, ’10, Aug. 18, 2012.

The couple lives in Lincoln.

Eric Barth, ’12 and Rachel Bruss, ’10, Aug. 1, 2012. The couple lives in Lincoln.

BIRTHS

n Justin, ’01, and Tansie Derner, their third daughter, Teigen Rose, Nov. 12, 2012.

The family lives in Burns, Wyo.

Brett and n Trisha Spiegel Hudson, ’01, their first child, a daughter, Melia Jaymes, Feb. 16, 2012. The family lives in Eden Prairie, Minn. n Brian, ’02, and n Rebecca

Feller, ’01, their third child, second daughter, Brynna Noelle, Dec. 22, 2012. The family lives in Olathe, Kan.

n Gale, ’02, and Vesna Paulsen, their first child, a son, Wyatt Maksim, Oct. 4, 2012. The family lives in Pasadena, Calif. n Ben, ’03, and n Melissa

CLASSNOTES Zitek, their second child, second daughter, Emme Rose, Oct. 1, 2012. The family lives in Lincoln.

Mike and Erin Champion Wood, ’04, their first child, a daughter, Wrigley Lynn, Sept.

3, 2012. The family lives in Greenwood, Ind. Justin, ’06, and Stephanie Poots, their first child, a son, Taylor Joseph, Jan. 13. The family lives in Minneapolis.

DEATHS

Mary Fitzgerald Armstrong, ’32, Grand Island, Oct. 29, 2012.

Harold F. Duis, ’36, Arlington, Va., Nov. 23, 2012.

Clara A. Ridder, ’36, Oconto, Oct. 30, 2012.

Vance E. Leininger, ’37, St. Joseph, Mo., Dec. 13, 2012.

Arnold W. Petersen, ’37, Littleton, Colo., Sept. 19, 2012.

Doris Gray Cunningham, ’39, Lincoln, May 1, 2012.

Lu Emerson Pansing, ’41, Lincoln, Nov. 23, 2012.

Doris E. Timperley, ’48, Grand Island, Dec. 13, 2012.

Peter P. Bielak, ’50, Williston, N.C., Oct. 10, 2012.

Harriet Pugsley Fenton, ’41, Lincoln, Oct. 30, 2012.

William R. Albrecht, ’49, Scottsdale, Ariz., Sept. 19, 2012.

Zane C. Fairchild, ’50, Lincoln, Jan. 9.

Leopold D. Hardung, ’41, Wenatchee, Wash., Dec. 13, 2012.

Dorothy Bennison Chapin, ’49, Lincoln, May 1, 2012.

Robert M. Foster, ’50, Omaha, Dec. 26, 2012.

William S. Cline, ’49, Grand Island, Feb. 26, 2012.

Richard G. Hickey, ’50, Lincoln, Dec. 2, 2012.

Doris McArthur Connelly, ’49, Deerfield, Ill., Dec. 11, 2012.

Eugene E. Kelly, ’50, Rome, Ga., Oct. 14, 2012.

Warren A. Dixon, ’49, Sioux Falls, S.D., Nov. 25, 2012.

Robert E. Lee, ’50, Spring Valley, Calif., Nov. 16, 2012.

Leonard E. Durham, ’49, Madison, Wis., Oct. 22, 2012.

John E. McMeekin, ’50, Chanute, Kan., Oct. 11, 2012.

James G. Ekstrand, ’49, Stromsburg, Jan. 10.

Richard C. Miller, ’50, Ballston Lake, N.Y., Oct. 23, 2012.

William L. Gogan, ’49, Ord, Sept. 25, 2012.

James M. Rosekrans, ’50, Columbus, Oct. 28, 2012.

Vernon L. Hastings, ’49, Elk Grove, Calif., July 19, 2012.

Alice Van Brunt Williamson, ’50, Omaha, Nov. 6, 2012.

Glendall B. Hattan, ’49, Lincoln, Nov. 27, 2012.

Mark A. Boettcher, ’51, Columbus, Nov. 19, 2012.

Mary Bang Jensen, ’49, Minden, Dec. 13, 2012.

Paul L. Douglas, ’51, Lincoln, Nov. 5, 2012.

Lee A. Witters, ’49, Lincoln, Jan. 7.

Eames Irvin, ’51, Lincoln, Dec. 19, 2012.

Doris Delong Henstorf, ’41, Lincoln, Sept. 19, 2012.

Warren G. Bosley, ’42, Omaha, May 1, 2012.

Stanley Maly, ’43, Lincoln, Nov. 23, 2012.

Carlene Hohensee Moell, ’43, Lincoln, Oct. 30, 2012.

Jerrol G. Sandall, ’43, Bellingham, Wash., Dec. 13, 2012.

Joseph W. Claybaugh, ’46, Wayne, Sept. 19, 2012.

Luann Williams Knutzen, ’46, Sun Lakes, Ariz., May 1, 2012.

Marjorie Olson Eaton, ’48, Lincoln, Nov. 23, 2012.

Clyde E. Maddocks, ’48, Salt Lake City, Utah, Oct. 30, 2012.

Online!

TM

To order or customize, visit

www.nebraskaframes.com NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 61

CLASSNOTES Gladys Robertson Leviton, ’51, Palo Alto, Calif., April 19, 2012.

Robert L. Russel, ’51, Colorado Springs, Colo., Jan. 25, 2012.

Richard F. Fensler, ’52, Topeka, Kan., Oct. 30, 2012.

James H. Kinsella, ’52, Hartford, Conn., Oct. 8, 2012.

Marlene J. Mooberry, ’52, Corpus Christi, Texas, April 27, 2012.

R. R. Reischlein, ’52, Omaha, Dec. 12, 2012.

Roland E. Reynolds, ’52, Grand Island, Nov. 30, 2012.

Francis W. Benedict, ’53, Castle Rock, Colo., Oct 15, 2012.

Gary B. Garey, ’53, Syracuse, Dec. 2, 2012.

Harold G. Holmquist, ’53, Lincoln, Oct. 17, 2012.

Clifford L. Hopp, ’53, Lincoln, Sept. 24, 2012.

Gilbert E. Karges, ’53, Lincoln, Jan. 4.

Mary Worrall Leahy, ’53, Basking Ridge, N.J., April 29, 2012.

Barbara Reinecke Recht, ’53, Edina, Minn., May 20, 2012.

Thomas M. Recht, ’53, Edina, Minn., Aug. 27, 2012.

Wayne L. Hunt, ’54, Lincoln, Dec. 17, 2012.

Orville R. Matzke, ’54, Omaha, Dec. 29, 2012.

Joan Legge Miller, ’54, Parker, Colo., July 7, 2012.

Rockford G. Yapp, ’54, Houston, Dec. 13, 2011.

Allan L. Anderson, ’55, Windsor, Colo., Nov. 25, 2012.

John C. Becker, ’55, Juneau, Alaska, Sept. 17, 2012.

Phillip E. Haas, ’55, Winter Haven, Fla., July 4, 2012.

Barbara Daniel Jacobs, ’55, Bellevue, Wash., Aug. 22, 2012.

Roy D. Taylor, ’55, Bayfield, Colo., July 11, 2012.

Joseph Barton-Dobenin, ’56, Weslaco, Texas, Dec. 19, 2012.

62 SPRING 2013

Everett R. Smith, ’56, Papillion, Dec. 10, 2012.

Warren M. Mattes, ’67, Omaha, Nov. 12, 2012.

Seif E. Shalaby, ’86, Brooklyn, N.Y., Dec. 15, 2011.

Charles A. Beal, ’57, Arcadia, Calif., June 18, 2011.

Alverta Wegener Cooper, ’68, Lincoln, Oct. 16, 2012.

Vickie Florine Spivey, ’87, Phoenix, Nov. 7, 2012.

Edwin S. Peters, ’58, Florissant, Mo., Sept. 7, 2012.

Dennis M. Danielson, ’68, Janesville, Wis., April 3, 2011.

Anthony R. Schkade, ’89, Lincoln, Dec. 16, 2012.

Harold D. Walker, ’58, Bishop, Ga., Nov. 3, 2012.

Frances Walker Reinehr, ’68, Lincoln, Jan. 10.

Erin Gasper Marcus, ’94, Lincoln, Dec. 24, 2012.

Jerry G. Borchers, ’59, Woodland Hills, Calif., April 12, 2012.

Beatrice Fenske Traudt, ’68, Central City, Jan. 29, 2012.

David T. Singh, ’03, Omaha, Oct. 22, 2012.

Sharon Leisen Watts, ’68, Elkhorn, Oct. 29, 2012.

Erin K. Smith, ’03, Lander, Wyo., Nov. 15, 2012.

Marilyn Jensen Foster, ’59, Lincoln, Nov. 17, 2012.

Germaine Wright Switzer, ’59, Lincoln, Jan. 10.

Terry L. Trueblood, ’59, Lincoln, Oct. 22, 2012.

Donald N. Johnston, ’60, Lake Oswego, Ore., Dec. 23, 2012.

Allen R. Christenson, ’61, O’Neill, Sept. 9, 2012.

Merlin W. Erickson, ’61, Lincoln, Dec. 12, 2012.

Connie Votava Korinek, ’61, Omaha, Dec. 24, 2012.

Lawrence G. Kuncl, ’61, Columbus, Dec. 18, 2012.

Rudolph H. Stehl, ’61, Osprey, Fla., Nov. 26, 2012.

Richard H. Engelbart, ’63, Elkhorn, Oct. 11, 2012.

John L. Martin, ’63, Keokuk, Iowa, Oct. 16, 2012.

Greta M. Arbuck, ’64, McCool Junction, Dec. 2, 2012.

Ann M. Cook, ’64, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Dec. 16, 2012.

Lynn M. France, ’64, Omaha, Nov. 24, 2012.

Robert G. Avey, ’65, Lincoln, Jan. 5.

John W. Moore, ’65, Richmond, Calif., Oct. 6, 2012.

Stephen P. Turco, ’65, Key West, Fla., Nov. 19, 2012.

John A. Hammer, ’66, Ashland, Oct. 28, 2012.

Douglas A. Paine, ’66, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Nov. 26, 2012.

M. David Beveridge, ’67, Waverly, Nov. 12, 2012.

Christine Pivonka Bunsen, ’67, Omaha, Nov. 22, 2012.

Gail B. Dunning, ’69, Wayne, Dec. 13, 2012.

Glynn Olson Hinrichs, ’69, Columbus, Nov. 22, 2012.

Jon R. Liebendorfer, ’69, Ashland, Nov. 6, 2012.

Kenneth H. Kortright, ’70, Alachua, Fla., Oct. 19, 2012.

Charlene Glathar Tomek, ’70, Humboldt, Sept. 26, 2012.

Linda Johnson Adams, ’71, Fremont, Oct. 20, 2012.

Reid E. Devoe,’71, Lincoln, Oct. 22, 2012.

Francetta Cronin Gilsdorf, ’71, Lincoln, Jan. 6.

William C. Kastl, ’73, Omaha, Jan. 8.

Larry E. Linden, ’73, Holdrege, Jan. 3.

Danny G. Schlichenmaier, ’73, Lincoln, Oct. 16, 2012.

Rita Jostes Murphy, ’78, Omaha, Jan. 6.

Jerry R. Irwin,’79, Lincoln, Dec. 22, 2012.

Karen A. Montee-Charest, ’79, Bellevue, Dec. 26, 2012.

Richard A. Cronin, ’80, Sioux City, Iowa, Dec. 19, 2012.

Donald L. Yelick, ’80, Sunrise Beach, Mo., Oct. 17, 2012.

Glenn S. Miller, ’81, Lincoln, Jan. 7.

Joni Ehlers Weddington, ’81, Omaha, Dec. 15, 2012.

Walter L. Baumann, ’82, Lincoln, Nov. 2, 2012.

Frank Tarcha, ’84, Lenexa, Kan., Dec. 21, 2011.

CLASS NOTEPAD Tell us what’s happening!

Send news about yourself or fellow Nebraska alumni to: Mail: Class Notes Editor,

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Wick Alumni Center,

1520 R Street, Lincoln,

NE 68508-1651 E-mail: kwright@huskeralum.org Online: community.huskeralum. org/classnotes All notes received will be considered for publication according to the following schedule: Spring Issue - January 15 Summer Issue - April 15 Fall Issue - July 15 Winter Issue - October 15 Items submitted after these dates will be published in later issues.

ALUMNI book club Nebraska Alumni Association

Light on the Prairie Solomon D. Butcher, Photographer of Nebraska’s Pioneer Days

By Nancy Plain Alongside 62 of Solomon Butcher’s iconic photographs, “Light on the Prairie” conveys the irrepressible spirit of a man whose passion would give us a firsthand look at the men and women who settled the Great Plains. Like his subjects, Butcher was a pioneer, even though he held a camera more often than a plow.

List $16.95 (paper), Members $13.56

Standing Firmly by the Flag Nebraska Territory and the Civil War, 1861-1867

By James E. Potter, ’67, ’75 From a pool of barely 9,000 men of military age, Nebraska sent more than 3,000 to the Civil War to fight and die for the Union cause. James E. Potter explores the war’s impact on Nebraskans and shows how, when Nebraska Territory sought admission to the Union at war’s end, it was caught up in political struggles over Reconstruction, the fate of the freed slaves, and the relationship between the states and the federal government.

List $29.95 (paper), Members $23.96

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Not by the Sword

By Kathryn Watterson With a new preface by the author, “Not by the Sword” tells the inspiring true story of how Jewish Cantor Michael Weisser and his family changed the life of a virulent white supremacist leader, beginning in 1991. The book recounts Larry Trapp’s life as a racist, his startling transformation in response to the Weissers’ kindness, and his subsequent crusade to redeem his past.

List $24.95 (paper), Members $19.96

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NEBRASKA MAGAZINE 63

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Bucket-List Trips

Join alumni from Nebraska and other universities on these affordable once-in-a-lifetime trips.

Taste of europe cruise

August 26-September 6, 2013 Start in Dover, England, and relax in luxury as you cruise about the elegant but intimate Oceania Cruises Nautica to some of the world’s most evocative cities in France, Spain and Portugal.

ANCIENT MYSTERIES OF THE AMERICAS

January 16-February 3, 2014 Experience the vibrant cultures and ancient civilizations of the Cayman Islands, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador and Peru as you weave your way from Miami to Lima aboard the Oceania Cruises Regatta.

CARIBBEAN PEARLS

February 22-March 4, 2014 Cruise the turquoise waters of the radiant Caribbean aboard the exquisite Riviera. Set sail from Miami and cruise the warm Caribbean waters to the idyllic islands of Grand Turk, Puerto Rico, St. Maarten, St. Barts, Tortola, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.

For special 2-for-1 pricing and free air fare, visit: huskeralum.org/bucket-list-calendar 64 SPRING 2013

PRSRT STD U.S. Postage Paid Lincoln, NE Permit #169