UtahStatesman The
Utah State University
Logan, Utah
www.utahstatesman.com
Students work to stuff buses this holiday season
Today is Friday, Nov. 30, 2007 Breaking News
Without Brett Favre due to an arm injury, the Packers fall 37-27 to the Cowboys.
Campus News
USU art students host a print sale to raise money for supplies. Page 3
Features USU student Trina Foster balances going to school and running her restaurant, Take-Away Gourmet. Page 5
By LIZ WILSON staff writer
Cache Valley’s Sub for Santa is working with the USU Service Center on this year’s Stuff a Bus donation drive, an annual event. Each year, the Service Center uses the “Stuff a Bus” motto to gather donations for Sub for Santa. These donations include food, money, clothes and toys that go to underprivileged families in Cache Valley. Service Center Vice President German Ellsworth said the program started as “a way to engage the Utah State community.” An event currently going on this week is the Penny War, which ends this Friday. “The main Penny War is between colleges to see which college gets the most money donated,” Ellsworth said. “We’re also winning between living communities, and Greek houses and club sports.” This widespread competition is one way the program is trying to reach out to USU students, Ellsworth said. The rules of the Penny War are simple, he said. Pennies are worth one point and anything else is worth negative points, and that way students want to put pennies in their jar and everything else in their opponents’ jar. He also said the jars are located around campus in the various living communities. The group that collects the most pennies will not go away empty-handed. “We’re giving out trophies for Penny Wars winners at the basketball game,” Ellsworth said. “We’re also having a pre-game party at the south end of the KALAI performed at a benefit concert for Logan’s Whittier Center. Students in a management and human Spectrum, Saturday afternoon starting resources class organized the event to raise money for a new playground at the center. DEBRA HAWKINS photo at 4:30.” One way the program engages the community is through using actual buses or the Aggie Shuttle, he said. During what are called Neighborhood opment and group member. “We were able to all come Roundups, Aggie Shuttles are stuffed with students who traveled to vari By DEBRA HAWKINS together as a team and raise money with thanks to ous businesses to collect donations, staff writer Kalai and our sponsors.” Ellsworth said. Various clubs on campus The student group sold more than 600 hundred also have their own days to go and col A benefit concert featuring Kalai raised more than tickets to the benefit concert, which enabled them to $2,000 to help the Whittier Center build a playground break their initial goal of being able to donate $2,000 lect donations. Ellsworth said Aggie Shuttles will be at the Book Table and that is completely accessible to disabled children. to the center’s playground. Wal-Mart on Friday. On Saturday they A management and human resources class project “We broke our goal tonight,” Cody Neville, senior will be at Lee’s Marketplace, Wal-Mart, led a group of students to pursue a project that would in management and human resources and group raise money for what they called a “worthy cause,” in member, said. “Kalai decreased his costs to help with Kmart and Sam’s Club. which the students donated all the proceeds from the the benefits. We picked this project because we didn’t “We ask people to go there to either donate money for us or to buy an extra project to the Whittier Center, located at 290 N. 400 want to limit ourselves and I don’t think we did.” East in Logan, to build a playground for able and dis Kendall Andelin, executive director of the Whittier can of food,” Ellsworth said. abled kids alike. Center, said the group is still short of the money they Another on-campus donation recruiting event will be Dec. 3-5 on the Taggart “We could see how we could use our business skills to raise money for a worthy cause,” said Candace - See BUS, page 3 Whitley, senior in family consumer and human devel- - See KALAI, page 3
Singing for a playground
Sports Former Aggie football player John Chick aids the Saskatchewan Roughriders in their recent run to a Grey Cup championship in the Canadian Football League. Page 9
Oldest USU ROTC graduate remembers
Opinion “Perhaps the best part of this whole deal is the generosity of the library to let us ‘less fortunate’ college students off the hook by waiving fines. Where else do you get a break like this?” Page 12
Almanac Today in History: In 1954, a Sylacauga, Ala. woman is hit by an 8-pound sulfide meteorite when it crashes through the roof of her house and hits her on the hip. She suffered a bruise along her hip and leg but was otherwise uninjured. This marked the first time a modern meteorite hit a person.
Weather High: 36° Low: 15° Skies: Mostly cloudy with 30 percent chance of snow.
Archives and breaking news always ready for you at www.utahstatesman.com
By ARIE KIRK news editor
Retired Air Force veteran Dode Rees may not think he was a star during his time at USU, but as today’s oldest known USU ROTC graduate, he certainly is leaving his mark. Rees is still involved on campus, and at 99, he isn’t letting age slow him down. “That’s damned old, but I don’t feel any older than you look,” Rees said. He has received a number of awards from USU and, with the help of fellow USU and ROTC graduate, retired Army Col. Vernon Buehler, financed the building of the Russell L. Maughan memorial. They also fund a scholarship for ROTC members bearing their names. A self-described “plain old country boy,” Rees said he attended the Utah Agricultural College (USU) because it was affordable, and he joined the ROTC because it was required. Now, however, he said his education and career have been some of the greatest experiences of his lifetime. “I’ve had some wonderful experiences,” he said. “My college education there was always of great help to me.” Rees was born in 1908 and graduated in 1932 with a second lieutenant ROTC commission and a degree in business, but Rees said that wasn’t the only focus of his studies. “What did I study? Football mostly,” he said. He played positions defensive end and tackle. He was also a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, where he said his fellow brothers really educated him and helped him smooth out his rough edges. “It was a wonderful experience for me,” Rees said. “I learned a lot. I was just a country boy and had a lot to learn. They knocked off some of the rough corners.” While the ROTC hasn’t changed much in the
last 75 years, Rees said there is one tradition the military should have continued—sponsors. Girls were made sponsors of the members of the ROTC. They would befriend the boys, providing food and company. “Oh hell yes. That was an important part of the ROTC, you bet. In the fall, we elected them and I made one little girl my sponsor,” he said. “She was
AS A STUDENT, DOde Rees studied business, was a member of the ROTC, a fraternity and the football team. DEBRA HAWKINS photo
very cute and very nice looking. Today she is 96. I am 99 and we still correspond.” He also said sponsors “gave cadets a little more interest in the military. I don’t know why the military did away with sponsors.” Rees said he has witnessed a lot of history since his training on the Quad. After attending law school in Washington, D.C., Rees was called to active duty in 1941 in North Carolina, where he saw the integration of troops, something he wasn’t used to as a boy from Cache Valley. “They had colored troops, which was unusual for a lot of us boys from the West,” he said. He called the time of segregation terrible. Rees said he still remembers the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. That moment, he said, changed everything. “Everything stopped then as far as my family,” he said. “I got up the next morning and kissed my daughter goodbye. I didn’t think. Everything was in such an uproar we didn’t know what the hell was ahead of us. We took the medicine as they gave it to us.” Rees said he was transferred to the headquarters of the Pacific Command at Pearl Harbor, serving in Hawaii until Japan’s surrender. During his military service, Rees was also assigned to Roswell, N.M., where he investigated UFOs. Whether or not a UFO really visited the area, Rees said he doesn’t know. During his time there, he said they never found any answers. He said he continues to receive phone calls today from people who are still puzzled by the occurrence in Roswell and are looking for information. But Rees said he has nothing to offer them. “I didn’t know any more about that than either one of you,” he said. When Rees left USU, he said he was “hardly dry behind the ears,” but even now, with so much behind him he said, “I’d like to be your age again.” –arie.k@aggiemail.usu.edu