ohiotoday for alumni and friends of ohio university
Spring 2014: World of dance (above) • Funny people • Sweet science of chocolate
S P R I N G
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Features COVEr TO COVER
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Ohio University Press celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. To judge by a sampling of its covers, it has enjoyed a remarkable and wide-ranging success.
FUNNY PEOPLE
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Ohio University doesn’t just host comedic talent: It produces it. Meet some of the students (including junior Ryan Gabos, right) who share their stories on stage through weekly performances.
Photo by Joel Prince BS ’12, MA ’15
On the cover: The Athensbased African drumming and dance ensemble Azaguno performs “Jera,” a religious music and dance piece from northern Ghana at Ohio University’s fourth annual World Music and Dance Festival Feb. 1. Photo by Brooke Herbert Hayes MA ’15 / WOUB public media
For the love of baking
Seed for change
Sweet science
Jenny Harper Himmelman, BSHEC ’84, holds the unofficial title of “chief cookie officer” at Nestlé — and yes, it is as sweet as it sounds.
Locavores build a regional food network unlike any in the country, thanks to a unique university-community partnership sponsored by the Sugar Bush Foundation.
Hershey chemical analyst W. Jeffrey Hurst, BA ’69, is the go-to man for archaeologists researching the ancient use of chocolate — and he knows a thing or two about its modern form as well.
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Encounter the many faces of the Ohio University Alumni Association, and discover the services, events and partnerships it offers.
Departments 2 Letters 4
Your Ohio
Home, sweet home. We loved (and sometimes loathed) you.
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Contributors
Across the College Green 6 In the news WWII-era letterpress makes a memorable impression.
8 WOUB: ‘Newswatch’
Students make the news in this nightly show.
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Sounds like teen spirit Local girls’ rock camp makes noise.
12 To cap it off
A look at commencement through the ages.
14 Calendar Chapter events and campus activities
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Bobcat Tracks 52 Legacy of ’64
Celebrating one of Ohio University’s most memorable basketball seasons.
54 Your alumni updates
News from fellow alumni, photos and reunion announcements
62 In Memoriam
Remembering alumni, faculty and staff 64 Last Word
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fa l l | w i n t e r 2012
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Letters
to the editor
The kiteman cometh In the Fall 2013 issue of Ohio Today, we published a letter from Fran Abrams-Stanley, BSHEC ’79, about Bill Hayes, “Kurly the Kiteman.” She was able to find a picture of Bill, posing by his truck “Betsy,” and wanted to share it with alumni. “I believe I took that from the window at Baker, where I was president of the Athens Consumer Protection Agency!” Abrams-Stanley wrote. “Wow, such memories. Too long ago!”
In memory of Whan-Kenobi In response to the notice of the passing of Edgar Whan in the Fall 2013 Ohio Today, I wanted to share my indelible memory of Edgar Whan teaching the lyric to Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” as a poem in his Intro to Literature course in the summer of 1983. Great course, great time of year to take it, and a great man and professor teaching it. More than once Edgar sat, wearing the Edgar Whan-Kenobi shirt that his grandchildren had given him, at the front of our class, breathing life and depth into the English language. The Ohio University community can cherish forever our remembrances of this great educator. I feel fortunate that I was able to have taken one of Edgar’s classes. —James C. Daniels, BSC ’84 Grove City, Ohio
Guess where? Please spill the beans about the location of the campus photo taken by Terry Eiler [“Parting Shot”] that appeared on page 49 [Fall 2013]. It’s bugging me that I can’t be sure where this stairway is on campus! I enjoy the publication and read almost every word. —Sally Meeting, AB ’75 West Chester, Pa.
Editor’s Note: Sally, the staircase leads down to East Green and is located behind Bryan Hall.
What are the odds? The assortment of football photographs on page 34 of the Fall 2013 edition of Ohio Today [“What streak? Ohio University football during the ’90s”] was interesting. As a former Athena photo editor (1958) I was pleased that a yearbook served your research.
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I have a proposition. The next time you’re developing a feature on OU football, turn to page 113 of the 1958 Athena and check out the incredible “Photo Oddity” of three photojournalism majors instinctively clicking their shutters simultaneously to get three nearly exact frozen images of the same play. By any chance is there a statistics major out there that could calculate the odds of that happening? (We didn’t have computers available to us in 1958.) —John Alter, BFA ’58 Malone, Fla.
Editor’s Note: Thanks for the letter, John. The photos are indeed intriguing and reproduced on page 56 in the Bobcat Tracks section of this issue for all to enjoy.
Designer, and founding father Congratulations to Sarah McDowell, BFA ’02, the designer of Ohio Today, on the magazine’s two awards at the 2013 UCDA Design Competition. [The magazine was recognized with two “Excellence” ratings for the Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 issues, including one for the Magazine (Complete Unit).] In 1962, I graduated from Ohio University with a bachelor of fine arts and went to work in Columbus as a bullpen artist at the Federal Glass Company. I held several jobs in Columbus, jumping as young people on the career make will do. While I was art director at Hammeroff and Associates advertising agency in 1966, I learned of a job back at my alma mater. The department of publications was looking for a designer. I applied and got the job. We moved to Athens and a career in higher education that lasted for 46 years began. I worked at Ohio University from February 1967 until July 1968.
While at Ohio, I worked with two other graphic designers, Charles “Bud” Deihl and Gene Church. We all moved on. Bud, to Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., and Gene to Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Mich. In 1970, after attending several conferences hosted by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education’s predecessors, the American Alumni Council and the American College Public Relations Association, and getting nothing out of them, I wrote to both organizations asking if they could provide programming for graphic designers. Because they couldn’t at the time, I convinced my boss, Richard Godfrey, at the institution I was then working for, Illinois State University, to fund a meeting I would organize of university and college graphic designers in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Missouri to meet in Bloomington, Ill. Since there were no lists of designers working for universities and colleges, I sent letters to departments of publications, alumni magazines and whatever, simply addressed to “The Graphic Designer.” Then I waited. About 50 attended that session long ago, and that was the birth of the University and College Design Association. It has blossomed into a wonderful resource for graphic designers and creative people working in higher education. They refer to me these days as the founder. There is much more to this story, of course. But I simply wanted to let you know that in some way, the UCDA got its start in Athens. You have reason to be proud of your connection with the founding of UCDA. And that is why, if Sarah McDowell was [at the recent UCDA convention] in Louisville, I am so sorry that we did not meet. Perhaps next year in Long Beach, eh, Sarah? I would love to tell her personally, “Congratulations!” —Lee Kline, BFA ’62 Leesburg, Fla. Write to us Ohio Today welcomes letters from readers. We reserve the right to edit for grammar, space, clarity and civility. Please submit your letter by email to ohiotoday@ohio.edu or mail to 213 McKee House, 1 Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701. We regret we cannot publish all letters.
Your gift in support of scholarships for OHIO students on the Athens campus could be matched 50¢ on the dollar. The university has committed $25 million to the Undergraduate Scholarship Investment Program. Eligible scholarship funds must be for domestic undergraduates on the Athens campus and be endowed and renewable. Donors may specify the college of the awardee or designate it university-wide.
Learn More:
www.ohio.edu/advancement/where/sip.cfm
in Supporting Students www.ohio.edu/campaign Make your gift today! The Ohio University Foundation P.O. Box 869, Athens OH 45701
toll free: 800-592-FUND email: giving@ohio.edu
secure online giving at: www.ohio.edu/give
your Ohio
memories and more
Home sweet home: We loved (and sometimes loathed) you! We asked our readers and Facebook friends to comment on their most memorable homes as students. Here are some of our favorite responses: The Purple House on Fern Street. My roommate and I lived there from fall 2006 to spring 2008 and were the last tenants before they tore it down. Don’t get me wrong — it was terrible. The heat barely worked, it was surrounded by concrete on all sides, the kitchen slanted to the center so things slid out of the fridge, and people coming home from Court Street were loud. But rent was low, and we were close to Uptown. We loved it regardless and have tons of great memories, including past tenants stopping by during Homecoming to find something they left in the ceiling tiles when they moved out, and the dean of my college walking past one day and telling us that Fern Street used to be called “Angel’s Alley” way back in the day because all the brothels were there. Mostly, I loved that everyone knew where we lived because at some point everyone had walked down that alley and had seen the bright purple house sticking out in the middle of the road. It was knocked down within a day, and in its place now are two parking spots. But every time I go back to Athens, I still stop and look and remember the landmark that once stood there.
—Carrie Martin Grogan, BSS ’07, MED ’09 My favorite home was the Sigma Phi Epsilon house at 34 N. Congress. It made Animal House look like a Mickey Mouse movie. I moved there in 1974. The fraternity was at its peak for my generation, and the guys from Sig Ep made it a home. It was an old funeral home converted to a frat house — only in Athens! It was very hard to spend the night there if you were the only one who returned early from break. It creaked and squeaked and made the night go on forever. With about 20 other guys, you’d make friends to keep, even some four decades later. The most fun times there were the basketball games (2 on 2) in the parking lot, and the year we decided to paint the house and give it a fresh look. The old house is now an 24 •• oo hh iioottooddaayyoonnlliinnee..ccoomm
The Purple House on Fern Street. It was terrible. ... We loved it regardless and have tons of great memories. —Carrie Martin Grogan, BSS ’07, MED ’09
corner, then bring it back wet. ... A guy in my class (who’d been at OU since undergrad) remarked that I lived “so far away” — he’d never been that far down State Street. But I was able to hail the Athens “bus” by flagging it down like a cab. Inside, the ambient heater was a joke, and I froze half to death the winter of 2001. I remember finding out all I really needed to know about Athens when I learned that my neighbors had lived in their house three years and didn’t actually have a key.
—Bronwen Butler Taylor, MS ’03 123 Mill Street! Cute little two story facing Palmer. Three girls and a guy. One bathroom. Nice-sized rooms. We had great parking. A cute little wraparound porch. Our living room TV would turn on by itself — picture only, no sound. It was a fun place. We had an arcade game in the living room. Trivia, I think. One cat, Miss Mia, and my pet rat, Señorita Ratita, lived with us. I fed the birds outside my first-floor bedroom window. apartment home with new students and new faces, who will never realize if those walls could talk, how interesting the conversations would be!
—Jessica Koncar Lippoli, BSJ ’00 11 Stewart in the early ’90s. It was like being on campus, but with fringe benefits.
—Tony Muccino, BSC ’75
—Chris Valentine, BSC ’92
3 Franklin with three — sometimes four — of my favorite girls!
8 Lash, apartment #2: the greatest worst apartment in Athens, in the tiny alley that could. Cozy enough for me and Cat Tackett, though. We had all of two neighbors on the street, but a pretty sweet dude above us in #3 (cough, Ian Gosse, cough). Living room was literally big enough for two, but we managed to fit 20. The kitchen ceiling slanted, so only people under 5 foot 10 inches could stand at the low end. But the backyard had a tire swing! And a fire pit. So, win.
—Mary Woodrum Bernat, BSED ’93 I lived in a house with five other guys at 27 Moore Ave. Best time at OU and was heartbroken to see it had been torn down five or six years ago. Five years after I graduated, I was visiting and asked two students to take a picture for me at the main green. We talked, and when I told them where I had lived, they tell me that is where they are living, and would I like to see it? Amazing how five girls were so much neater than us six guys. Love OU!
—Brian Campbell, BA ’70 I was a grad student and lived at 31A Lorene. It wasn’t technically student housing, but it was still plenty weird. It had its own laundry room, but I only had a dryer — so I had to haul my stuff to the laundromat around the
—Ashley Rowland, BSJ ’10
Next issue’s question: What professor’s advice changed your life? What impactful lesson can you still recall vividly? Tell us about one of your most memorable learning moments with a professor. Write to us at 213 McKee House, 1 Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701, or email us at ohiotoday@ohio.edu. You can also “friend” the Ohio University Alumni Association on Facebook to respond to this and other fun questions.
ohiotoday Editor Mariel Jungkunz, MS ’07 Art Director Sarah McDowell, BFA ’02 Contributors Lindsey Burrows, BSJ ’09 Kandlyn Collins, BSJ ’14 Allison Evans, BSJ ‘15 David Holman, BSC ‘16 Jeff Kallet Dale Keiger, BSJ ’76 Elizabeth Prince, BSJ ’14 Mary Reed, BSJ ‘90, MA ‘93 Kelee Garrison Riesbeck, BSJ ’91 Ben Siegel, BSVC ’02 Chealsia Smedley, BSJ ’14 Printer The Watkins Printing Co.
Ohio University
President Roderick J. McDavis, BSED ’70 Executive Director of Communications and Marketing Renea Morris
photo by
Kathleen Vandervaart BSJ ’10
Executive Director of Development Jennifer Shutt Bowie, BSJ ’94, MS ’99 Assistant Vice President for Alumni Relations Executive Director of the Alumni Association Jennifer Neubauer Director, Advancement Communication and Marketing Janis Miller-Fox, BFA ’77
Ohio University Alumni Association
contributors Mariel Jungkunz, MS ’07, has been the magazine’s editor-in-chief since 2008, and served as its assistant editor prior to that. Formerly a newspaper reporter and the editor of an alternative newsweekly, she helped launch Ohio Today’s award-winning redesign. This is her last issue as editor; this summer, she will return to her first love of writing, trying her hand at freelance work, and will spend more time with her newest love: her 2-yearold daughter. Mariel and her husband, Assistant Professor of Political Science Vince Jungkunz, live in Athens.
Board of Directors William D. Hilyard, BSED ’67, Chair Julie Mann Keppner, BBA ’02, Vice Chair Melissa W. Arnold, BSJ ’99 Robin S. Bowlus, BFA ’98 Craig A. Brown, BSC ’82 Cynthia Calhoun, BSEE ’88 Casey Christopher, BSC ’02 Brenda J. Dancil-Jones, AB ’70 Steven Ellis, BS ’92 Alissa Galford, BSC ’05 Todd Grandominico, BBA ’00, CERT ’00 Paige S. Gutheil Henderson, DO ’02 Mike Jackson, BSED ’68 Matthew Latham, AA ’06 Jeffrey Laturell, BSC ’80, MBA ’82 Timothy Law, DO ‘94 Connie Lawson-Davis, BSED ‘67 Lyndsay A. Markley, BA ’02 Dustin Starkey, BS ’98 Larry Starr, BSED ’68, MED ’71 A. Cita Strauss, BFA ’77, MA ’06 Stacia Taylor, BSC ’82 Ronald Teplitzky, AB ’84 Robert Wolfinger, AA ’73, BSG ’80 Jackson Lavelle, Student Alumni Board president Ohio Today is published twice a year in fall and spring. Ohio Today Online is published at ohiotodayonline.com. The magazine is produced by University Advancement with funding provided by The Ohio University Foundation. Views expressed in the magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or university policies.
Kandlyn Collins is a senior journalism major with a history minor at Ohio University. After graduation, she hopes to write and edit for a magazine, and move to Toronto. When she’s not writing, she loves to read, paint, bake and shop for shoes. She may be developing a slight addiction to Netflix, but seriously, who isn’t?
Dale Keiger, BSJ ‘76, is associate editor of Johns Hopkins Magazine in Baltimore. He has been a magazine journalist for more than 35 years, and also works as an essayist and photographer.
Misty Thomas-Trout is pursuing her master of fine arts degree in graphic design at Ohio University. She is interested in the dialogue that exists at the intersection of graphic design and art. Misty shares her love of typography and the letterpress with her daughter — who is the real artist in the family.
Copyright 2014 by Ohio University Ohio University is an affirmative action institution.
To contact us
Editorial offices are located at 213 McKee House, 1 Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701-2979. Send story ideas, items for Bobcat Tracks or comments about the magazine to that address, email them to ohiotoday@ohio.edu or call the editorial offices at 740-593-1891. Address changes may be made by visiting ohioalumni.org. Address changes and information for In Memoriam also may be sent to Advancement Services, WUSOC 168, Athens, Ohio 45701-0869. To reach the Ohio University switchboard, call 740-593-1000.
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In the News Bringing felines back Bobcats are making a comeback — and we’re not talking about the green-and-white clad humans that populate Athens. Once locally extinct, the carnivorous cat has such a robust population in many southeastern Ohio counties today that state biologists may consider changing its status as a “threatened species,” The Post reported. “Bobcats are coming back on their own as forests do,” said Suzie Prange, a wildlife research biologist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. “It’s a good thing.” The shy animals seldom approach humans or their pets in the wild, Prange said. Going to the chapel The university celebrated the reopening of the Helen Mauck Galbreath Memorial Chapel Dec. 10. The chapel closed in 2011 to address safety and accessibility issues, and received a new roof, remodeled bathrooms and an elevator as part of a $1.2 million renovation. It was built in 1957 as a gift from John W. Galbreath, AB ’20, in memory of his first wife, Helen Mauck Galbreath, who died in 1946. at ping, with ping Few students know that Ohio University’s 18th president and the namesake of Ping Recreation Center, Charles Ping, also trains regularly at the center. Now in his 80s, the lifelong athlete works with a personal trainer to supplement his cardiac rehabilitation program. “I have been disciplined by my 70 years to heavy exercise,” Ping recently told The Post. “I feel better when I do it, I think and study better, and I embrace life.”
GOOD IMPRESSION
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he artwork on this page was made over a three-day period using a World War II-era movable type press. The fonts you’re looking at — Stymie and Bodoni — date back even further, to 1931 and 1798, respectively. The type blocks and a Nolan proof press were donated in the fall to the school of art and design by designer and calligrapher Anita Marks and her sister, Professor Emerita of Art Karen Nulf. Once widespread, letterpresses are now in the purview of artists and fine print shops. “There’s such an immediate gratification that comes from the press,” says Professor of Design Don Adleta. “Because it’s the ultimate ‘what you see is what you get.’” Print by Misty Thomas-Trout MFA ’14
Not just child’s play Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Eric Masson has seen a 10-to-15 percent increase in grades in organic chemistry since he invented a computer game that works like dominoes. Students use cards with reagents, reactants, reaction conditions and products to link the ingredients that form chemical reactions, reported The Athens News. Because students call organic chemistry “orgo” for short, the game is called “Orgomino.” Rx for distractions “If you only do one thing this month … distract yourself,” says the Good Housekeeping article that features the advice of Peggy Zoccola, assistant professor of psychology. Zoccola and three graduate students presented a new study that shows dwelling on negative events (i.e. ruminating) can increase levels of inflammation in the body. What to do? Distractions — such as puzzles or Pinterest — can help stop the negative talk in its tracks.
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acrossthe thecollege collegegreen green across
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On the air
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OUB Public Media is a PBS and NPR affiliate that serves a 55-county area in three states. Licensed to Ohio University, the affiliate offers handson experience to students studying broadcasting and provides news, music and educational resources to the community. photo by Ben Siegel BSVC ’02
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1 Thousands of students have worked with WOUB Public Media since the stations began in 1942. Students produce TV, radio, web and digital content, which prepares them for media careers. Here, anchor Allen Henry, a broadcast journalism major, prepares to host “Newswatch.” 2 “Newswatch,” a 30-minute news program, is student produced and airs live Monday– Friday at 5:30 p.m. Students hold all positions, including anchoring, reporting, weather and technical positions. The show has evolved to include multimedia content on woub.org.
3 In the past 10 years, WOUB has complied with a federal mandate to broadcast in a digital format, and a large amount of equipment has been replaced to allow for production in high definition. This teleprompter provides the script for news anchors; however, in case of a technical glitch or other problem, the anchor also has a copy of the scripts on the desk. 4 WOUB has two TV studios. Studio B is the permanent studio for “Newswatch.“ Studio A rotates to accommodate other shows throughout the year, including
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“Bobcat Sports Showcase,” “Gridiron Glory” and “Hardwood Heroes.” 5 WOUB received the current “Newswatch” set in 2011 as a donation from KMIZ in Columbia, Mo. Among the new features of the set are a Weather Center for forecasting and covering severe weather events, and the anchor desk accommodating four people. 6 During the opening shot, the camera operator zooms the camera in while lifting the camera up or down, which creates the illusion that the camera is “flying.” The cameras and
teleprompters weigh more than 50 pounds, so the tripods are filled with pressurized nitrogen gas, allowing the camera to move up and down with ease. 7 The anchors and crew read a “rundown” that lists the night’s stories in the order they appear. In the event of late-breaking news, the producer may add or remove stories depending on their importance. 8 Students of all majors at Ohio University have the opportunity to work at WOUB. They alternate positions to gain additional
skills outside of their majors. Levi Creeger is a junior studying video production in the school of media arts and studies. He’s also a part of the regular rotation of directors for “Newswatch” (but on this night, he happened to be running a camera). 9 The Radio Television Building opened in 1970 and is undergoing renovations to connect it with the former Baker Center. The combined buildings will be known as the Schoonover Center for Communication and will house all departments within the Scripps College of Communication.
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across the
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Coming home
Author takes personal journey through West Virginia
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n each issue of Ohio Today, we feature a brief review written by a staff or faculty member of an Ohio University Press book. Here, we highlight a collection of stories by Earlham College writer-in-residence Sarah Beth Childers, an author from Huntington, W.Va.
“Shake Terribly the Earth: Stories from an Appalachian Family” by Sarah Beth Childers; Ohio University Press, Series in Race, Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia
Sarah Beth Childers’ collection of 15 wellcrafted stories is about a personal journey on which she is accompanied by several generations of her West Virginia family. They liked to tell stories, and Childers liked to listen to them. “My Dead-Grandmother Essay,” for instance, describes regular visits to Granny’s. While her dad walked through the alleys and her mother wrote checks to pay Granny’s bills, the children “followed Granny back to a tiny sitting room … and sank into the recliner, gathered around a card table thick with Yahtzee scorecards. Granny talked constantly, teaching us about life in between rattles of dice.” In “The Tricia Has Crashed,” Childers asked her other grandmother, MaMa, to tell stories. She told about the Great Depression and her great-grandfather’s job in the glass factory. She told her how for years, he’d “stood next to a furnace and blown through a tube inflating molten glass like a balloon.”
How he had been able “to build a house with a freestanding staircase and enough room to accommodate four boys and six girls. The front parlor had had fine carpets and a piano.” Then he lost his job. Childers’ mother is both the subject and the source of many of the author’s memories. In “O, Glorious Love,” a story about funerals, hymns and Christian rock, Childers inserts this aside: “One of Marcy’s favorites was Jimmy Swaggart, back in his preadultery days. Taking inspiration from his sinful cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Reverend Swaggart preached the evil of rock and roll along with redemption. … He performed only the most church-appropriate flourishes and chords. Moved by Swaggart’s sermons, Marcy smashed her record collection and kept her radio tuned to a station that played only preachers and hymns.” The family’s generosity in sharing their stories with her allows Childers to capture the drama of family dinners and reunions, the sadness of funerals, the humor in daily events and the confusion of Fundamentalism. From the gifts of her families’ stories, Childers has built her own enthralling story. » Betty Pytlik is a professor emerita in English at Ohio University.
Other recent publications Ohio University’s published authors are many, and alumni across all majors have found inspiration in poetry and prose. This list includes recent publication announcements; authors should send their information to Ohio Today, 213 McKee House, 1 Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701 or via email to ohiotoday@ohio.edu. The Formula: How I Found It and What It Can Do For You, a relationship book based on the author’s 38 years of marriage, by Bernard Bushell, AB ’58 • Their Greatest Victories, a compilation of 24 stories of athletes who made incredible comebacks after disease or disability, and Mary Norton of New Jersey: Congressional Trailblazer, by David Potter, MA ’65 • Our Millie Leaves Home and Other Stories and Blue Suede Shoes and Thunderbirds by Judith Potter Allen, BSED ’67 • Behind the Curtain: A Career in EEO by Charles Duffy, BA ’67 • Landing Right Side Up in Nehru’s India: Field Notes from a Punjab Sojourn, the latest book by Jean Durgin Harlan, MS ’68, PHD ’78 • Starting Up Silicon Valley by Kathie Lehmann Maxfield, BA ’69 • Streetwalker and the culinary mystery Mission Impastable by Sharon Arthur Moore, BSED ’69, AB ’73, MED ’73 • Billy’s
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Adventure, an illustrated children’s book by Roberta Magill, BSED ’72 • Ezra, a memoir by Stella Spiropoulos Elliston, BGS ’75 • John Wesley Powell: His Life and Legacy, a biography of the famed explorer of the Colorado River, and Jim Jones: The San Blas Years, by James Aton, PHD ’81 • Cartoon Carnival: A Critical Guide to the Best Cartoons from Warner Brothers, MGM, Walter Lantz and DePatie-Freleng, an ebook by Michael Samerdyke, MA ’89 • Hiking West Virginia, second edition, by Mary Reed, BSJ ’90, MA ’93 • The Cucumber King of Kedaini, a short fiction collection by Wendell Mayo, PHD ’91 • It’s All a Kind of Magic: The Young Ken Kesey, a biography by Rick Dodgson, MA ’95, PHD ’06 • Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the Creators of Superman and American Mastodon, a poetry book that won the St. Lawrence Book Award, by Brad Ricca, MA ’96 • Marie Antoinette’s Head: The Royal Hairdresser, the Queen and the Revolution, a scholarly history about Versailles court fashion that made the New York Post’s “must-read” book list, by Harold Bashor, MA ’00 • Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Difficult People by Renee Aschbrenner Evenson, BSS ’04
Sounds like teen spirit
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hose in the know often say there is no place more peaceful than Athens in the summer. The town seems to empty, and campus is quiet and calm. But if you’re near ARTS/West in July, don’t be surprised if the placid air is pierced by an electric guitar’s wail or a young girl’s voice belting lyrics about food fights. Welcome to the Athens Rock Camp for Girls, a whirlwind of creativity, collaboration and a whole lot of pluck. Girls ages 12 to 18 come together to learn an instrument (electric guitar, electric bass, drums, keyboards or vocals), form a band, write songs and perform a sold-out show for the community — all in just one week. “Students range from kids who have never even been around instruments to kids who sometimes have more experience than the teacher!” says Ohio University student Cindy Crabb, co-founder. Despite vast age differences and varying musical experience, the girls always deliver applause-worthy results. “I’m impressed by how these young girls can write such wacky but amazing songs in a week,” says camp volunteer and Ohio University graduate student Kelly Kathleen Ferguson. “They don’t have an internal censor yet so the creativity flies out.” It’s not all silliness, though. Campers’ songs also reflect topics
covered in a host of nonmusical workshops, such as nonviolent communication, self-defense and anti-street harassment. “Our mission is to help empower teenage girls, and these workshops really affect what they feel like they can sing about,” says Crabb. “We tell the girls it’s fine to write a love song, but there are all kinds of other topics to sing about. They get inspired. Girls in years past have written songs about self-defense, gay rights, gender presentation and eating disorders.” An all-female volunteer staff provides a safe space where girls can check self-consciousness at the door, make new friends and explore their unique voices. “They feel comfortable presenting in this forum,” says Crabb. “They’re just so supportive of each other. We focus on creating that kind of atmosphere.” It’s an atmosphere that persists even after camp comes to a close. Many girls maintain the bands and friendships formed during the week, destined to rock out in basements across Athens County until next year’s session. “When the girls leave, it’s like a noise tornado just passed. Suddenly it’s so quiet,” says Ferguson. “You’re relieved, but then miss the tornado, too.” » lindsey burrows
Top 10 Albums to Introduce a Young Girl to Women in Rock: 1 PJ Harvey, “Stories From the City, Stories from the Sea” (2000) 2 Heart, “Heart” (1985) 3 X-Ray Spex, “Germ Free Adolescents” (1978) 4 Hole, “Live Through This” (1994) 5 Blondie, “Parallel Lines” (1978) 6 The Breeders, “Last Splash” (1993) 7 The Pretenders, “Greatest Hits” (2000) 8 L7, “Bricks Are Heavy” (1992) 9 Tracey Bonham, “The Burdens of Being Upright” (1996) 10 Mazzy Star, “So Tonight That I Might See” (1993)
» Kelly Kathleen Ferguson, doctoral candidate in
literary nonfiction and drum instructor Photograph by Steven
Turville BSVC ’13
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TO CAP IT OFF
ACROSS THE COLLEGE GREEN
TIME’S UP. CLASS IS OUT, SENIORS. YOUR COLLEGE YEARS ARE OVER, AND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE IS ABOUT TO BEGIN. BUT FIRST...
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DISCOVER Y O U R COLOR FOR COMMENCEMENT* 1. JOURNALISM: crimson 2. FINE ARTS: brown
Memorial Auditorium
Convocation Center
NUMBER OF CEREMONIES
3 February, June and August
3 Two undergraduate (divided by college) and one graduate, all in May
SPEAKERS
William T. Jerome II, president of Bowling Green
Charles “Chuck” R. Stuckey Jr., BSME ‘66, chairman emeritus of computer security giant RSA Security will address both undergraduate ceremonies
Stephen H. Fuller, associate dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration
4. MATHEMATICS: golden yellow 5. PSYCHOLOGY: white 6. MEDICINE: hunter green
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara (he canceled his appearance after an aircraft was shot down over Laos)
7. SPORTS ADMINISTRATION: sage green 8. COMMUNITY HEALTH SERVICES: salmon 9. ENGINEERING: orange 10. PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: peacock blue 11. NURSING: apricot
NO MORE PENCILS, NO MORE BOOKS ! 12 •
12. EDUCATION: pale blue
LIKE THE FRUIT!
13. MARKETING, ACCOUNTING, FINANCE AND HUMAN RESOURCES: “drab” 14. HONORS TUTORIAL COLLEGE: purple
* This is a selection and not an exhaustive list.
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’14
LOCATION
3. MUSIC: pink
What color will your tassel be?
1964 vs. 2014
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THEN & NOW
NUMBER GRADUATING
1,132 (June)
Estimated: 870 graduate; 3,300 undergraduate (based on last year’s numbers)
STEPHEN FULLER
Commencement, 1977
LOOKING B ACK
SAT. JUNE 1
COMMENCEMENT IN 1940
“From the shelter of McGuffey’s Elms into a ruthless world to fight the good fight” — Athena
9 a.m. Alumni golf tournament at the Athens Country Club 2 p.m. Phi Beta Kappa meeting at Alumni Memorial Auditorium 8:30 p.m. Commencement dance at the Student Union
SUN. JUNE 2
10:30 a.m. Baccalaureate service in Mem Aud (address by Albert Wentworth Palmer, president of the Chicago Theological Seminary) 12 p.m. Alumni luncheon in Lindley Hall; reserved tables for special reunions of the classes of 1905, 1910, 1915 and 1925 2 p.m. Exhibits, school of painting and applied arts and OU Museum 3:30 p.m. Alumni secretary’s reception for alumni chapter offices at the secretary’s home 5 p.m. Cresset-Mortar Board garden party at Dean Voigt’s home
SPEAKERS
8 p.m. The Women’s Glee Club concert MON. JUNE 3
1923
PAYSON SMITH
9:30 a.m. Academic procession, front campus 10 a.m. Graduation exercises in Mem Aud
Commissioner of Education for Massachusetts
In 1940, alumni were expected to return for commencement!
1950
ROBERT TAFT
Senior U.S. senator from Ohio 1953 1953 DIANE W. MALOTT
Cornell University president
ERIC SEVAREID
CBS news commentator 1978 ARIEL HOLLINSHEAD, AB ’51 Professor of medicine at the George Washington University Medical School 1995 -=
RICHARD W. RILEY
U.S. Secretary of Education 1997 -
GARY SMALL
Professor of Chemistry
MATT LAUER, BSC ’97
“The Today Show” co-anchor
HILLARY CLINTON First Lady 2008 -
PETER KING, BSJ ’79 Senior writer for Sports Illustrated
DID YOU KNOW? (This will not be on the test.)
1975 -
Each of the 110 graduates of a
Commencement was held outdoors,
four-year program received a short
west of Mem Aud, on a Sunday
biographical write-up in the
afternoon. Six thousand chairs were placed for the audience; 900
Ohio University Bulletin sent to alumni.
1917 1950
A revue-vaudeville
1932 1964
show was included in the schedule of commencement
degrees were conferred.
Ohio University announced the discontinuation of the baccalaureate service
events, with advertised “depression”
traditionally held before graduation
prices for tickets: 24 and 49 cents.
exercises in June. layout design by Kelley Shaffer MA ’11
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across the
college green
Calendar of events for alumni and friends of ohio university | ohioalumni.org/calendar
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herever you live, Ohio University wants to keep in touch with you. Alumni chapters exist around the globe to help you meet and reconnect with fellow Bobcats. Of course, if you’re able to return to campus, consider attending a reunion, such as the upcoming On The Green Weekend. For a full schedule of chapter, society and on-campus events, including reunions, visit ohioalumni.org/calendar.
Ohioana Book Festival
On Saturday, May 10, the eighth Ohioana Book Festival celebrates Ohio authors and books at a free event in Columbus. Two Ohio University Press authors will be in attendance: Andrew WelshHuggins, author of a new Columbus-based mystery, Fourth Down and Out: An Andy Hayes Mystery; and Ed Roach, author of The Wright Company: From Invention to Industry. The event is held at Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center, 546 Jack Gibbs Blvd. ohioanabookfestival.org
Monomoy Theatre 57th Anniversary of the Ohio University Players The Ohio University Alumni Association and Massachusetts Chapter Serving New England welcome Bobcats with a production of “Kiss Me, Kate,” playing at the Monomoy Theatre. June 27 June 28 June 29
Reception, Chatham Bars Inn “Kiss Me, Kate,” with a reception, dinner and an evening performance at 8 p.m., Monomoy Theatre Farewell Brunch and University Update, Chatham Bars Inn
Tassels to the left
May 3 Chairman emeritus of RSA Security Charles R. Stuckey, BSME ’66, will address the 260th undergraduate commencement ceremonies in the Convocation Center. Graduate commencement will be held May 2, and the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine commencement will be held May 10.
We’re NOW ON INSTAGRAM! @ohioalumni
Alumni, make this the year that you
Go Green and Go Home
A Night in Athens ... in New York! Step onto Court Street and College Green without
Return home to Athens on May 30–June 1 for the 2014 On The Green Weekend! Your Ohio University Alumni Association has planned an activity-filled weekend for the entire university community, alumni and their families, and those celebrating special class milestone or affinity reunions. ohio.edu/alumni/onthegreen
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leaving New York. On June 5, enjoy Athens-inspired food and beverages, music, photos from across the decades, Ohio University trivia, and the company of fellow Bobcats and university leadership, including President Roderick J. McDavis, BSED ’70.
July 16–26, Lancaster, Ohio A wondrous burst of music, art and family fun with excitement all over town. Enjoy 75 events, many of them free of charge! lancasterfestival.org
World OF DANCE
O
hio University’s fourth annual World Music and Dance Festival wrapped up Saturday, Feb. 1, with a concert in Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium. Guest artists and participants included Pei-Ching Wu of Taiwan’s Ju Percussion, “Grandfather of the Steel Pan” Ellie Mannette, and African drumming and dance ensemble Azaguno (pictured here and on the cover). The Athens-based ensemble is directed by Associate Professor of Multicultural Music Education Paschal Yao Younge and his wife, Zelma BaduYounge, associate professor in the division of dance, who co-founded the festival. Photo by Brooke Herbert Hayes MA ’15 / WOUB public media
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O hio U niversit y press In the early 1960s, president Vernon R. Alden expressed his opinion that a top-
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faculty members, established Ohio University Press in 1964. One of the primary
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cover to cover ranked university should have its own press. He, along with a committee of
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goals of the university press was to publish the fruits of scholarly research,
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producing “important and exciting works” that were not confined to academia.
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or 50 years, Ohio University Press has sought to strike a balance between publishing specialized works that serve the scholarly community and books that have more popular appeal. Today, Ohio University Press publishes between 40 and 50 books annually across a range of topics. For the scholarly market, areas such as African studies, Southeast Asian studies, philosophy, Victorian studies, Midwestern history and environmental history are strengths. Swallow Press, a trade book imprint of Ohio University Press, is well known for its literary works that include books of poetry, novels, short story collections and essays. Regional books are an area of popular appeal, and those include works about quilts, Ohio University and local history, architecture, Appalachian issues, gardening, sustainability, food and art. Ohio University Press has maintained its presence as a competitive player in the publishing world. Its books are praised in distinguished journals and prestigious news outlets, and by extension the Ohio University brand is reinforced. As one distinguished professor recently said during a talk at Alden Library, “Ohio University Press is a feather in the cap of this university.” Ohio University Press is celebrating its anniversary throughout the year with a variety of events and initiatives. In February, during a week devoted to promoting the press, Gillian Berchowitz, the press director, gave numerous talks and interviews, local bookstores created themed window displays, and an open house at the press offices welcomed more than 120 people. At the Ohio University Inn, an innovative lending library has now been established, allowing guests to borrow Ohio University Press books during their stay. A fundraiser for the press’s Cecil Hemley Society — named for the press’s first director — is being held in April at the Kennedy Museum of Art. And a website devoted to the press’s “Classic 50” books and authors will come online in the summer months. To learn more about Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com. Make a charitable contribution to support the press at ohioswallow.com/support, call 800.592.FUND (3863) or email giving@ ohio.edu. » Jeff Kallett
Fifty years of publishing: A few favorites 1 All The Fun’s in How You Say a Thing: An Explanation of Meter and Versification, by Timothy Steele, playfully incorporates a rebus into the cover design. 2 An evocative pattern of shadows on a woman’s bare back is suggestive of the erotic nature of Anaïs Nin’s landmark novel, A Spy in the House of Love. 3 Ohio Short Histories of Africa offer concise, readable biographies and studies. The bold, graphic cover designs — such as the cover for Steve Biko, by Lindy Wilson — set this series apart. 4 Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies, by Sylviane A. Diouf, explores the ways in which Africans resisted enslavement. Color and art create a forceful look for each title within the series design. 5 A true “evergreen” title, How to Identify Plants, by H. D. Harrington, has had steady annual sales for decades. A bright yellow cover makes it pop.
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6 The Mound Builders, by sci-fi author Robert Silverberg, looks at 19th century interpretations of ancient American mounds. A new edition features a cut-away image of a mound excavation. 7 Stirring the Pot: A History of African Cuisine, by James McCann, was the winner of the Gourmand World Cookbooks Award at the 2010 Paris Book Fair. This cover focuses on an image of a strikingly painted bottle cap. 8 Rare Book Lore, by Ernest Wessen and edited by Ohio University’s recently deceased Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing Jack Matthews, features an elegant typographic cover. 9 The Poems of J. V. Cunningham, edited by Timothy Steele, presents the lifework of one of the 20th century’s finest American poets. The image captures the mature poet who wrote in a wide range of poetic forms.
10 Black and White in Colour: African History on Screen, edited by Vivian Bickford-Smith and Richard Mendelsohn, is one of several books on African film published by the press. The cover uses a contemporary African figurine, a palme d’or element, and skillful use of light and color. 11 The Wife of Martin Guerre, by Janet Lewis, is a true short classic of American literature. New covers for this trilogy about circumstantial evidence feature drawings of figures with penetrating, almost accusatory stares. 12 The Man Who Killed the Deer, by Frank Waters, is an enduring classic by this well-known Southwestern writer. Waters’s rugged portrait looks out from behind bold type in this series design. 13 In 1954, the Ohio University Press published The History of Ohio University by professor of history and Ohio University historian Thomas Nathaniel Hoover.
LEFT: Beth Steiner, AB ’95, celebrates Earth Day and the book “Steam Train, Dream Train,” published by Chronicle Books and printed on 100-percent mixed source Forest Stewardship Council paper. ABOVE: Michelle Howry, BSJ ’97, specializes in acquiring and editing commercial nonfiction, from how-to/practical titles to narratives and memoirs at Simon & Schuster. Both alumnae began their publishing careers at Ohio University Press.
This year, the Ohio University Press celebrates its 50th anniversary. Three successful alumni, who built the foundation of their careers at the press, reflect on its heritage with fond memories. Beth Steiner, AB ’95, a senior manager in product development at Chronicle Books, where she is responsible for production of approximately 55 trade books and formats annually: “I worked at Ohio University Press as an unpaid editorial intern from the summer of 1994 until 1995. OU Press directly influenced my choice to pursue a career in publishing. ... It was really exciting to be surrounded by people that love books, not just the content (although the content was obviously very important), but the book as an object, as a whole. OU Press gave me a solid overview of how publishing works, and gave me exposure to the different fields within publishing: editorial, design, production, marketing.”
Christy Johnson, BA ’04 and BSJ ’04, a sales, marketing and inventory manager at The New Press, a nonprofit alternative to commercial publishing houses: “Ohio University Press is both an outstanding scholarly publishing house and a terrific place to learn about the book business. Though they are all very busy people working under tight deadlines, the staff went out of their way to nurture my interest in book publishing. Working at the press while juggling two majors prepared me for a career in publishing in a way few other experiences could have.”
Michelle Howry, BSJ ’97, a senior editor at Touchstone Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, where she specializes in acquiring and editing commercial nonfiction, including the recent New York Times bestseller “The New Atkins for a New You”: “I loved going to work every week in the old Scott Quad offices [where the offices were once located] — they were warm and livedin, and I got to spend several hours each week among books and people who loved them. Being in a professional environment — experiencing the pace, understanding the expectations, and also enjoying the camaraderie and ongoing mentorship and friendship with my bosses and others there — was invaluable.”
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Jenny Harper Himmelman bakes a lemon raspberry oven pancake, one of her favorite recipes at Nestlé’s Solon office. Himmelman not only stays close to the kitchen at work but enjoys baking and cooking at home too. “It’s relaxing to me,” she says. “That’s the time I learn new techniques, work with new ingredients or try to fool my family into eating something they wouldn’t normally order for themselves.” photographs by
Dustin Franz BS’10
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he Nestlé USABaking Division offices in Solon, Ohio, are a campus, in and of itself. Receptionists greet visitors, shuttles run between businesses, and TVs broadcast the latest cooking shows. In one of those buildings, up winding stairs, in the midst of office doors, is a little piece of home: a kitchen with fully stocked pine cupboards, cookbooks on shelves and a big window that streams light onto the center island. Jenny Harper Himmelman, BSHEC ’84, skillfully navigates the kitchen, wearing business casual clothes under a white apron as the aroma of cookies follows close behind. She is known as the “chief cookie officer” at Nestlé USA. “One of our vice presidents gave it [the nickname] to me … I hope you’re familiar with the Nestlé Toll House cookie,” she says. “We bake a lot of cookies.” Himmelman’s official title is “consumer test kitchen project manager,” and she has worked at Nestlé for more than 25 years; but her relationship with the Toll House cookie began long before. The well-known cookies filled her childhood home during the holidays. “Cookies were great,” she says. “That was like a real treat to have. Especially so in college. My mom would send along tins of Toll House cookies, or the pan cookie baked in bars, to share with the floor or with friends.” Though cookies were a festive favorite, Himmelman’s first baking experience was a cake recipe. At age 10, that recipe won her first place in her Junior Girl Scout troop’s baking contest. “It was a crazy cake recipe, an old recipe from the ’40s,” says Himmelman. “It was all mixed in a pan with cocoa. It doesn’t have any butter or eggs in it, and it’s really good and moist.” Because of this, and despite her official title, she simply describes herself as a baking specialist.
She develops recipes for package labels, promotional materials and for the website, VeryBestBaking.com. When developing recipes, Himmelman examines baking trends and cookbooks while keeping in mind the desires of her bakers. Then, it’s off to the kitchen for testing. “We want to make sure that anyone using our recipe would have success with it and that it’s a good use of our product,” she says. “We want to put something out there that people will enjoy, love the taste of and want to make it again.” For Himmelman, baking is “an extension of herself ” — excitement billows from her small frame, and she animatedly gesticulates to explain the work she does with her team. “We routinely try the difference,” she says. “We were working on some recipes the last few days, and we were like, ‘Oh, this would be so cool if we could get this to work.’ At first, we flopped. But wait a minute, all we have to do is cut back on the butter, we can do this, or we can do that. ... And it was like ‘Wow, look how beautiful this is.’” Himmelman’s relationship with baking is one that’s always evolving. As she learns more about food, she becomes more enamored with it. “There’s always something new about food that’s really exciting — a new trend or a new combination,” she says. “Who would have ever thought chocolate and bacon go together?” Part of her job is doing the very thing that stirs her passions. She has opportunities to take internal culinary classes as well as travel to other test kitchens around the world. She’s visited kitchens in Mexico, Germany, Italy, Canada and Nestlé’s home base in Vevey, Switzerland. Not only does Himmelman love to learn about food, but she’s excited about sharing her love with others. “I love to bake,” she says. “I love to cook and I love my job. So it’s a way for me to show love and create a memory for someone.” » Chelsia Smedley
Lemon Raspberry Oven Pancake This dessert is inspired by the “claufouti,” a French baked dessert. This recipe has sweet and citrusy flavors combined with raspberries and will make a delightful finale to your special event. Try other berries to create additional variations of this recipe. Ready in less than 30 minutes. 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 can (12 fl. oz.) NESTLÉ® CARNATION® Evaporated Lowfat 2% Milk 3/4 cup egg substitute or 3 large eggs 1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon peel 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/2 pint (about 1 cup) fresh raspberries
PREHEAT oven to 450°F. Spray a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate or cake pan with nonstick cooking spray. COMBINE flour, 1/4 cup sugar and salt in medium bowl. Whisk evaporated milk, egg substitute, lemon peel and vanilla extract in another medium bowl until blended. Add to flour mixture; whisk for 30 seconds or until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pie plate. Arrange raspberries on top of batter. Sprinkle top with remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. BAKE for 15 to 20 minutes or until puffed and light golden brown. Serve warm. TIP: Substitute other favorite, fresh seasonal berries such as blackberries or 1 cup blueberries for the raspberries. Recipe courtesy of Nestlé USA and VeryBestBaking.com
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Seed for change Written by Kelee Riesbeck Photography by Sarah Warda
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Ohio University supports projects that promote sustainability, economic growth, students and service learning. In fact, raising funds in support of community, regional and statewide partnerships is a priority during The Promise Lives: The Campaign for Ohio University. Read on to learn about one way this is accomplished at the Athens Campus. For more stories about the campaign and its priorities in support of students, faculty, programs, partnerships and select capital projects, visit ohio.edu/campaign.
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ometimes communities need a boost: They need a catalyst, a spark, to inspire innovators and organizations working for change. One such catalyst is The Sugar Bush Foundation, a supporting organization of The Ohio University Foundation. Since the start of the campaign, The Sugar Bush Foundation has contributed more than $1.1 million through The Ohio University Foundation to worthy projects that improve the quality of life in Appalachian Ohio. The Sugar Bush Foundation was envisioned as a new model for university-community partnerships, say its co-founders, Professors Mary Anne Flournoy, PHD ’95; her husband, Don; and their two children, Eli and Hylie. “We’ve been in Athens for 42 years and have been on our farm, Sugar Bush Farm, for 41 years,” says Don, a professor of media arts and studies in the Scripps College of Communication. “We wanted to give back in a way that benefits the university and the community.”
Sugar Bush partners have tackled projects such as redirecting large appliances from landfills, developing alternative energy from sunflower oil and bringing local crops into school cafeterias. In each instance, the foundation has provided not only funds but also connections: It links local nonprofit organizations with a need or idea with the Ohio University scholars, researchers and students who can progress the ideas or fill a need. In doing so, it presents critical hands-on learning opportunities for students. “The Sugar Bush Foundation supports projects where university students and scholars impact the community, and the community impacts the students and scholars,” Don says. “It provides the seed money to kick-start and the support to flesh out ideas.” An example of this dynamic in action is illustrated by the community members who recently partnered to develop Shagbark Seed & Mill, generating new economic opportunities while establishing a regional food network unlike any in the country.
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The Sugar Bush Foundation was established by Mary Anne Flournoy, PHD ’95; her husband, Don, professor of media arts and studies in the Scripps College of Communication; their two children, Eli Flournoy and Hylie Voss; and several Athens community members.
Local from the start
Self-described food activists Michelle Ajamian, BSS ’05, and Brandon Jaeger co-own Shagbark Seed & Mill in Athens — known simply as Shagbark — a grain and bean processing facility that turns high-nutrition local crops into kitchen-ready products such as flour, dry beans and nut butters. In 2007, as Ajamian and Jaeger were leaving a farmer’s market loaded up with fresh fruits and vegetables, Jaeger had what he calls his moment of existential anxiety. “I thought, ‘It’s great that I have all of these locally grown vegetables, but where does my bread come from? Where do the beans I eat come from?’” The answer to his questions started him on a path to establish Shagbark and create the Appalachian Staple Foods Collaborative, a network of farmers and entrepreneurs who support regional food security, farm preservation and the development of local food systems. Through this network, Ajamian and Jaeger began to identify farmers willing to sell their crops and local customers for a line of potential products. But they quickly hit a snag. It’s one thing for a farmer to grow highly nutritious, organic and chemical-free beans and grains on a smallscale family farm. It’s another to process them: In the Athens area, for example, the last mill closed in the 1970s, and very few machines exist to address the needs of such a small regional operation. Ajamian and Jaeger needed a prototype of a thresher, a farm machine that separates the seeds (food you want) from the rest of the plant (stuff you don’t), sized for a family farm. With such a machine they could inspire and educate farmers in their network and demonstrate how their crops could be harvested and sold for a profit. Ajamian and Jaeger reached out to The Sugar Bush Foundation. “Brandon and Michelle came to us with this need,” says Mary Anne. “They said they needed to have appropriate technology [for their model]. We thought they had a good idea.” This project, she says, fit the foundation’s mission. The Sugar Bush Foundation helped link these two innovators with a local partner also promoting access to locally grown foods, Community Food Initiatives, and the students of Greg Kremer, associate professor of mechanical engineering at the Russ College of Engineering and Technology.
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Shagbark meets its match
Kremer’s mechanical engineering seniors and some of his graduate students must complete a capstone project that demonstrates handson learning. The team applied for and received funding from the Sugar Bush Foundation to produce a prototype thresher through an initiative they called Community-Appropriate Technology for Staple Seeds Project, or CATSS. With the support of the foundation, Kremer’s students built Shagbark’s thresher prototype for their capstone project. “Shagbark was asking, ‘What’s the technological missing gap that would allow us to do this?’” Kremer recalls. “Our question was, ‘How do we help them take the next steps in terms of building capacity for their business?’” The CATSS project also supported the construction of a winnower, a machine that cleans seeds. Even though Shagbark’s operations outgrew the thresher and winnower prototypes, the research and development that went into the project and the knowledge and lessons that came out of it were exponentially valuable: Students learned how to turn a client’s vision into a technology, and Shagbark now works with eight farms that use 150 acres to grow and harvest high-nutrition organic grains and beans and non-GMO seeds that can be re-planted each year. “The thresher allows us to build a foundation of knowledge with small scale farmers about this process,” says Ajamian, the University College 2012 Alumna of the Year. “Working with the Sugar Bush Foundation was key: The collaboration between the foundation, the mechanical engineering department and the students enlarged the network that was necessary to build a model staple food system in our region, which didn’t exist in any other region in the country when we began this work.” Their vision earned Ajamian and Jaeger recognition by Utne Reader, who named them “Utne Reader Visionaries” in 2010. Through the experience, students put their education to work and moved a local organization’s mission forward, Kremer says. “Universities teach students, who then use their creativity to, in this case, create a prototype that answers a need,” he says. “The whole process gives them a robust hands-on learning opportunity and a chance to support their local community.” The project presented just the kind of opportunities that Sugar Bush was founded to foster: practical lessons for students, support for economic enterprise and lasting impact in Ohio and beyond. “Ohio University is a great institution with some very smart scholars and practitioners, and Southeast Ohio is a great region with lots of economic and lifestyle potential,” Don says. “The Sugar Bush Foundation is there to help build some of the community connections.” To learn about other Sugar Bush Foundation-supported projects, visit www.ohio.edu/advancement/sugarbush.
Brandon Jaeger and Michelle Ajamian, BSS ’05, own Shagbark Seed & Mill in Athens, where they process local crops using this selfcontained flour mill from France.
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Sweet scien ce Written by Dale Keiger • Illustrations by Thomas James
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L
ook closely at the back wrapper of a Hershey’s chocolate bar and you will find the company’s consumer information 800-number. People typically call this number to ask about ingredients or recipes or nutrition or where they can buy Kit Kat bars. But in the mid-1980s, a call came into Hershey from anthropologists at the University of Texas at San Antonio. They had been working on a dig at Río Azul in northeastern Guatemala. At its peak in the 5th century, Río Azul was inhabited by 3,500 Mayans. In 1984, archaeological excavators uncovered what they designated as Tomb 19. It contained the remains of a middle-aged man who had died around 460 AD, plus a trove of ceramic vessels. One of them bore the hieroglyph for the Mayan word ka-ka-wa — in English, cacao, chocolate’s primary ingredient. Furthermore, several vessels contained residue of what the anthropologists suspected was chocolate. But they did not know how to test for that. So they dialed the 800-number of the company synonymous with chocolate candy. Somebody there ought to know, right? The query made its way to an analytical chemist named W. Jeffrey Hurst, BA ’69. One of his specialties was figuring out new analytical methodologies, and he liked solving problems. So his boss gave him permission to work on this one for the
anthropologists from Texas. Cacao consists of more than 500 chemical compounds. Hurst needed to find some that not only were unique to Mesoamerican cacao and therefore useful as markers, but stable enough to be present in detectable amounts after 1,600 years in Tomb 19. By process of elimination, he settled on caffeine and theobromine, the latter a bitter-tasting compound that can be found in some tea leaves and the kola nut, but usually indicates cacao. Hurst assembled some offthe-shelf components to conduct a form of analysis known as high-performance liquid chromatography, and tested the Río Azul residue. His verdict? Whoever had placed those Mayan vessels in the tomb had indeed used them for an ancient variety of liquid chocolate. Hurst tells this story in his office at the Hershey Company Technical Center, which is found on Reese Avenue, as in Reese’s
Peanut Butter Cups. The street lamps high over the parking lot are shaped like Hershey’s Kisses. Hurst’s office is cluttered — scientists may have orderly minds, but their offices inevitably are a jumble — with computer equipment, books, stacked paper, a giant stuffed frog given to him by his wife, Deborah, two framed pieces of her fabric art and a cacao seed pod. Hurst ordinarily does not spend his time in the office researching ancient uses of chocolate. That is not his job at Hershey. His condensed professional biography notes that his “emphases are in separation science using standard, micro and nanotechniques, laboratory automation, the evaluation of new and emerging analytical technologies, the development and evaluations of methods for the determination for food allergens and the application of nontraditional analytical methods to food analysis.” This work produces scientific papers with titles
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like “Use of o-Phthalaldehyde Derivatives and High-pressure Liquid Chromatography in Determining the Free Amino Acids in Cocoa Beans” and “Determination of Aflatoxins in Peanut Products Using Reverse Phase HPLC” and the more comprehensible, to a layperson, “Carbohydrate Composition of Candy Bars.” But Hurst has a long-standing deep interest in history, and so has enjoyed a 25-year sideline in analyzing samples of pottery made and used long before Columbus sailed into view. In the process he has contributed methodology and knowledge to archaeology, anthropology, ethnobotany and the history of cacao in the New World. After he produced a 1989 paper in the Journal of Chromatography from his work with the Texas anthropologists, he went back to his more conventional work for Hershey. But a dozen years later, Texas was on the line again. This time a trio of anthropologists from the University of Texas at Austin — Terry G. Powis, Fred Valdez Jr. and Thomas R. Hester — had unearthed, at the Colha archaeological site in northern Belize, some Mayan ceramic vessels with near-vertical spouts and halfcircle handles. Scientists knew that starting about 400 AD, Mayans had used similar vessels to pour liquid chocolate back and forth to produce a froth considered the most desirable part of the beverage. These artifacts from Colha were centuries older than the first known use of chocolate, but they bore a dark residue that had aroused the curiosity of the anthropologists. Hurst and a colleague at Hershey, Stanley Tarka, applied the technique he had developed to test the Río Azul samples, and sure enough found theobromine, in one case from a vessel date circa 600 BC. He says, “The joke was that meant ‘600 years before chocolate.’” This piece of lab work established that people were drinking cocoa in Mesoamerica a thousand years earlier than previously known. Hurst, Tarka and the anthropologists co-authored a Nature article based on that
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One vessel analyzed dated to 600 BC. Hurst says, “The joke was that meant ‘600 years before chocolate.’” This piece of lab work established that people were drinking cocoa in Mesoamerica a thousand years earlier than previously known.
research, and it caught the attention of science reporters who knew that Mayans drinking cocoa in 600 BC would catch the attention of readers. Newspapers, popular science magazines and the BBC came calling. “I think I spent a week working with someone from our communications staff fielding interviews,” Hurst recalls. There was one more lasting effect: He became the man to call if you had some very old North American or Central American pottery with what looked like chocolate residue on the inside.
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hat Hurst became a chemist owes something to Ohio University’s course catalog in the 1960s. He grew up in Zanesville, about 50 miles up State Route 13 from Athens. His father, Bill, was a draftsman for Anchor Hocking Glass. His mother, Henrietta, was a dietitian. When he came to Ohio as a freshman in 1965, Hurst had a vague notion of becoming a medical researcher. “I thought I wanted to go into biochemistry, but Ohio U. had no biochemistry, so it was zoology or chemistry.” His adviser, Donald Clippinger
(for whom Clippinger Laboratory would later be named), thought he was better suited for the latter. Hurst agreed and majored in chemistry. “I remember people who went into zoology, and it was cutting up frogs and dogfish and all of that. I just decided that wasn’t for me.” After Zanesville, the university seemed “big and unwieldy. I graduated with 3,500 of my closest friends.” He recalls an intro to chemistry class with something like 200 students. “The blackboard was across the whole front of the room. The professor would write and write and write, and behind him one of the graduate students would follow, erasing the board so he could start again when he got to the end.” Another feature of campus life in those years was the annual spring flooding of the Hocking River, which sometimes inundated large expanses of campus: “The water would come into the parking garages and people who didn’t take their cars out in time heard them bounce against the ceiling.” (The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers alleviated the problem by diverting the river into its present channel in 1970.) Hurst spent all four of his undergraduate years in Air Force ROTC, which was not a popular institution on campus during some of the most intense years of the Vietnam War and widespread antiwar protests. He recalls being advised not to wear his uniform on the street in the last few months before he graduated in 1969. After commencement, the Air Force first sent him to Goose Bay, Labrador, where the Strategic Air Command maintained a base. Next stop was Albuquerque, N.M., followed by Adak in the Aleutian Islands, where he was part of Project Cannikin, the largest underground nuclear test in U.S. history. The bomb was detonated nearly 6,000 feet below the surface, but in archival footage of the test, the ground heaves and rolls in a manner that is alarming even in grainy archival film. He spent months in the Aleutians while his pregnant wife, whom he had married shortly after commencement, stayed behind in New Mexico. After four years of active military service, Hurst went back to school. (He stayed in the Air Force reserves, retiring as a major
photo by
Ross Mantle BS ’08
In the 1980s, Hershey chemical analyst W. Jeffrey Hurst, BA ‘69 [LEFT], applied a breakthrough technique to examine vessels, including the one pictured [ABOVE], dating back to 460 AD from a Mayan site known as Río Azul located in the northeast corner of Guatemala. The analysis showed evidence of chocolate, and as Hurst replicated his work on other samples — some dating back to 1100 BC — he established himself as an expert in the identification of chocolate traces found in ancient artifacts.
in 1991.) He earned a master’s in chemistry from Youngstown State University, and had begun work on a doctorate in 1976 at Ohio State when he took a call from a headhunter. Hershey Foods was looking for a chemist. By then, Hurst and his wife had two children and a steady job in Pennsylvania sounded good, even though he had not yet finished his doctorate. “I think I’d had it,” he says. “As much as I enjoyed school, I think by that time I’d sort of had my fill of academics.” He would complete his doctorate in 1984. His first task at Hershey was to develop better methods of analyzing sugar, which was important for quality control. Over the years, he has worked on new analytical
methods for food safety, which has grown in significance as American food companies use more foreign-sourced ingredients. Some of his work has been on aflatoxin, a carcinogen that contaminates corn, sorghum and peanuts and has been found in cooking oils and peanut butter. He also was instrumental in establishing Hershey’s food allergy analysis program. In conversation, Hurst comes across as precise, sober, modest, and still deeply fascinated by chemistry after 38 years as a chemist, an earnest and serious man not given to jokes. But now and then he offers some dry wit. He tells a story about a collaborative study he did years ago that
involved sending chocolate samples to seven different laboratories. Data came back from six. Hurst waited, waited some more, and finally after several weeks called the seventh lab. “I said, ‘I need the results from the samples.’ And the guy said, ‘What samples?’ I said, ‘I sent you a box of samples about a month ago.’” There was a pause, and then the man said, “Oh ... I ate them.”
H
urst’s ability to fashion methodologies has kept him in his archaeological sideline, where his analyses have made important contributions to understanding Mesoamerican life. His methods have become the standard for
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testing residues for traces of cacao. Along the way, he has had to learn to adjust his vocabulary. He says, “I was at a Society of American Archaeology meeting with some students, and I kept saying ‘cocoa, cocoa, cocoa.’ Finally they said, ‘We don’t want to embarrass you, but when you go up for your talk, it’s ‘cocoa’ only when it’s in a can. On the tree, it’s ‘cacao.’” Five years after his analysis pushed the earliest evidence for New World chocolate consumption back to 600 BC, Hurst examined residue from 10 small serving vessels found at Puerto Escondido, a site in the lower Río Ulúa Valley in Honduras. Using chromatography and mass spectrometry, he found the telltale theobromine and caffeine markers. This meant the residents of Puerto Escondido had served chocolate as early as 1100 BC. Hurst and the anthropologists from Cornell, Penn and Cal Berkeley who co-authored the paper with him had dialed the chocolate clock back another 500 years. Chocolate’s use in Mesoamerican societies fascinates him. Cacao beverages were a means of asserting social status. Only the elites drank the foamy chocolate that deposited theobromine on the insides of those excavated serving vessels. What they drank did not bear much resemblance to what we drink today as hot chocolate. “If you want to see what these early concoctions were like,” Hurst says, “take a couple of tablespoons of cocoa and put it in a blender. Add some hot water. Pick a spice of your choice.” There are indications that Mesoamericans sometimes added chilies or nutmeg or allspice. “Let it mix at high speed for half a minute. When you get the foam, drink that. The Mesoamericans consumed the foam, which was thought to be closest to God.” And the taste? “It loses its charm.” In 2012, Hurst co-authored a paper from research at Cahokia, an archaeological site in Illinois, where he helped establish the earliest known North American consumption of what is known as Black Drink. Made from roasted holly leaves, Black Drink was an important part of certain rituals in the pre-Columbian
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American southeast. Until the Cahokia findings, no one knew the beverage was used so far to the northwest, or as far back as 1050 AD. No chocolate was involved, but once again, Hurst had contributed to a deeper understanding of pre-Columbian North America. A form of Black Drink was used as a substitute for coffee in the South during the Civil War, but Hurst does not recommend it any more than he recommends Mayan hot chocolate. “It’s horribly bitter,” he says, “but it’s got a heck of a caffeine kick to it.”
I
n 1662, an English physician named Henry Stubbe published “The Indian Nectar, or, A Discourse Concerning Chocolate.” Stubbe believed good health arose from purification of the blood by various means of excretion and secretion, including sex, and to that end wrote that “the design of physick [is] to preserve nature and free her from superfluous collections of humours; and nothing doth that better than Chocolata …” The young Jeff Hurst who entered Ohio University had pondered going into medical research but became a chemist working for a candy company. Fifty years later, he
Hurst estimates that cocoa’s effect on cardiovascular function has spawned at least 300 scientific papers. He can tick off one potential therapeutic benefit after another: chocolate lowers cardiovascular pressure, cuts platelet adhesion and may have positive effects on cognition.
is an adjunct professor of comparative medicine at the Penn State Hershey College of Medicine, where he teaches organic and basic chemistry, and he finds himself engaged in medical research after all, pursuing medicinal applications for chocolate. He notes that roughly 25 compounds found in cacao exhibit antiinflammatory properties. He estimates that cocoa’s effect on cardiovascular function has spawned at least 300 scientific papers. He can tick off one potential therapeutic benefit after another: Chocolate lowers cardiovascular pressure, cuts platelet adhesion and may have positive effects on cognition. With Stephen Bergmeier, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Ohio University, he has done work on the effect of roasting on a set of compounds in cacao beans that have beneficial antioxidant properties. Some of his work now combines his interests in chocolate, medicine and history. Near the end of the paper he wrote with Bergmeier, Hurst brought in some of what he has learned working with archaeologists and anthropologists, noting that “roasting develops chocolate flavor and aroma, a fact
well known to the Mayans who roasted on traditional charcoal-heated comals.” (A comal is a sort of griddle often used to cook tortillas.) He has collaborated with Phillip K. Wilson, a professor of history at East Tennessee State University, on two books. They co-authored “Chocolate as Medicine: A Quest Over the Centuries” (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2012), and have coedited “Chocolate and Health,” due from the same publisher later this year. “Jeff has been out there making history with some of the anthropology teams,” Wilson says. “So he’s somebody with a good working knowledge of chocolate throughout history. In his workaday world [at Hershey], history doesn’t come up, but there are people who continue to see the bigger world, and for Jeff
it’s the bigger world of chocolate and health.” Hurst, who once gave a presentation titled “The Ethnobotany of Cacao — Take Two Kisses and Call Me in the Morning,” seems to thrive on pursuing multiple projects at the same time. He has his fulltime day job at Hershey. He just finished a three-year archaeological project with anthropologist Patricia L. Crown of the University of New Mexico, funded by the National Science Foundation. He continues to search for more methods of identifying markers for chocolate in ancient artifacts; in fact, he is completing a paper on a new one now. As he finishes a technical book, “Methods of Analysis for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals,” he also is helping two colleagues write a food chemistry textbook.
He and his wife live in Mt. Gretna, Ohio, and they are deeply involved in the Mt. Gretna Area Historical Society; both are directors, and he is publications chairman. Every summer for six weeks they host a series of book talks. “Last year I did one comparing ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and D.H. Lawrence,” he says. “My wife says I just like a captive audience.” Finally, he is treasurer of a new organization based in Italy, the International Society of Chocolate and Cocoa in Medicine. “I have no idea what the treasurer of an Italian nonprofit does,” he says. “I just keep my head low.”
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y n Fun PEOPLE Written by Mary Reed, Chelsia Smedley Photography by Joel Prince, BS ’12, MA ’15
D
uring your time on campus, you may have caught some comedy shows at Mem Aud including the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Margaret Cho or The Second City. Ohio University doesn’t just host comedic talent — it produces it. Dozens of students perform weekly in front of live audiences as members of Blue Pencil Comedy or Black Sheep Improv. And many of them go on to hone their craft after their Athens years. Last year’s Blue Pencil president, Eudora Peterson, BSJ ’13, has since seen her video “Interview with a CEO” appear on The Huffington Post. Former OU Improv president Jessie Cadle, BSJ ’13, now moonlights as a performer and producer for Arcade Comedy Theater in Pittsburgh. “Almost everyone I know that has been a part of improv has continued to make improv a priority in their life,” Cadle says of her fellow Bobcats. “Once you get the bug, you really can’t get rid of it.”
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Watching Comedy Central as a child sparked Jessica Ensley’s passion for laughs. The junior journalism major received her first big laughs after delivering a set about a dead gerbil when she was seven. Favorite comedy: “Superstar”
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Ryan Gabos, a junior video production major, began his Ohio University comedy career writing for “Friday’s Live,” a studentrun comedy sketch show, and ended up with Blue Pencil Comedy. Funniest time of day: When he’s in the shower, specifically during the lather phase.
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B
lack Sheep Improv president Hannah Ticoras, BA ’14, stands in front of a live audience and asks for a word, the single prompt that will begin a series of mini skits, all made up on the spot. “Fabric!” someone yells, and the student troupe is off. Practicing long form improv, the performers will follow what Ticoras calls “the biggest rule” of improvisation — the “yes, and!” concept that one performer accepts whatever prompt a fellow performer gives him or her and adds to it. Soon all the characters are pretending to wear identical uniforms, because they’re prisoners. From there, the scene morphs into a “Scared Straight” episode between the prisoners and juvenile delinquents. “You know that movie ‘Shawshank Redemption’?” one of the prisoners yells menacingly, “I stole that from the video store.” Next thing, they’re engaged in tryouts for a prison production of “Oliver Twist” — “We prepared a two-person monologue.” “I loved the idea of just making up worlds — I’m an English major so that’s kind of the thing that I like to do,” says Ticoras, who hopes to continue doing improv after graduating, at least part time. Quite a few Black Sheep (formerly OU Improv) alumni are doing just that in Chicago, Pittsburgh and elsewhere. Black Sheep’s two eight-person troupes perform free shows weekly in the Baker Center Theatre. “What we do is very strange, it’s very weird and a lot of people don’t understand it,” Ticoras allows. But plenty of people do enjoy it, and the often-packed Baker Theatre is proof. “It’s just fun all the time.”
p e e h S Black v o r p Im
Senior video production major Jessica Rovniak loves impersonations and characters. “I get a lot of comedic inspiration from my family and friends,” she says. “I love looking at what makes a person the way they are.” Favorite comedian: Tina Fey
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Blue Pencil Co m e d y
“I
went to the gynecologist over break,” says Blue Pencil comedian Jessica Ensley. She stands center stage in a blue and white polka dot shirt, a pink belt and red lipstick. “My relationship with her has turned into one that resembles my childhood friend who moved to Nevada,” she says. “I get to see her once a year, she’s disappointed in my relationship status — and then I get a mammogram.” When her doctor asks about “Mr. Wonderful,” she discloses she is single. “I don’t understand why she thinks I could be in a committed relationship, though. She doesn’t know who I am or what I’ve done.” She quickly fills that gap by telling the audience how she’s dealing with her singleness (hoping for a romantic pass at the grocery store) and about her mortifying Jell-O wrestling defeat at a birthday party. This is Blue Pencil Comedy. Whether they poke fun at themselves, the people around them, or society as a whole, they usually leave a bit of their lives on stage. Eric Farley shares his feelings of “being out of touch” with his race, and Peter Vilardi compares his life to a romantic comedy without the happy ending. Though they appear onstage as polished individuals, Blue Pencil functions as an organization. The group meets twice a week, running jokes by one another and offering suggestions. One person paints a scene of men at Ping recreation center, checking themselves out in the mirror and showing off for girls. But no one laughs. So he goes straight into his next pitch — a commentary on the mating habits of octopi. This merits the usual reply: bouts of chattering airy laughter, low-toned cackles and quick-witted suggestions. And then, they remember there was a first joke.
Aaron Intrater, a junior marketing major, exhibits his three F’s by being fierce, flavorful and flexible. Favorite comedy sketch show: “Saturday Night Live,” especially “Saturday Night Live: The Best of Chris Farley”
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Taylor Reinhart, a senior English major, knew he wanted to pursue standup after watching someone from his hometown deliver a set at Ohio University. Favorite comedies: watching Laurel, Hardy and Buster Keaton with his dad
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“So, you’re not going to get us to laugh at the ‘insecure people at Ping’ jokes because we don’t go to Ping,” says Blue Pencil president Taylor Reinhart. The room guffaws in acquiescence. “Your audience will probably respond,” he adds. “It’s a really great premise … but I think it could be a deeper joke.” He is then encouraged to delve into the minds of his characters, to further develop the scene and reflect on his own workout insecurities. In essence, these meetings are writing workshops — for jokes. “Find where you’re passionate about it,” Reinhart tells another comedian who summarizes a creepy plot from a high school play. “Once you add your own commentary, it becomes your joke.” Reinhart delivered his first set freshman year — a socially anxious guy reclaiming his independence after a breakup. He chickened out a
few times before going on stage, but the affirmation of laughter kept him coming back. Some may say that it takes a certain kind of person to face the whim of an audience’s response, but this motley crew that includes video production and English majors, guys clad in track jackets and flannels, and a few vibrant females, has learned to drop inhibitions and leave the funny and the unfunny on stage. “Comedy is something that everyone can do because everyone is human,” says Reinhart. “All you need to do is find the reasons you are human, and you can be successful at stand-up.”
The Blue Pencil comedians perform two regular shows: an open mic night every Saturday at the Baker University Center and a bi-weekly show at The Overhang on Court Street.
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The Faces of your Ohio University ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 2013 Annual report and highlights
40 OUAA 2013 Annual Report
dear alumni,
There’s a Sundial tucked between Galbreath Chapel and University Terrace. Built in 1907, it commemorates the first building on Ohio University’s College Green. Though it’s easy to miss, it faithfully measures the time of day in Athens by the simple shadow cast upon its face. Reflecting on my first trip around the sun with the Ohio University Alumni Association, I find my year marked by the long shadows cast by this institution’s alumni — people whose dedication, commitment, accomplishments and passion make this a special place. photo by RON Woodson, BSC ’88
In this report, you’ll encounter many faces of the OUAA. Through them, you’ll discover the services, events, partnerships and accomplishments that define your Ohio University Alumni Association. Like the shadows on the sundial, OHIO alumni leave their mark on our university every year by engaging with OUAA. I hope you’ll join them in 2014!
In Support of Ohio University, Jennifer Neubauer Executive Director,
Ohio University Alumni Association Assistant Vice President,
Alumni Relations Phone: 740.593.4300 Email: alumni@ohio.edu
41 photo by Downard photography
The OUAA Board of Directors is made up of 25 OHIO graduates of varying demographics, representing the diversity of more than 200,000 Bobcats worldwide. It serves as an adviser to OUAA as the association works to connect alumni to their alma mater. Font L–R: Todd Grandominico, BBA ’00, CERT ’00; Jeffrey A. Laturell, BSC ’80, MBA ’82; William D. Hilyard, BSED ’67, Chair; Larry M. Starr, BSED ’68, MED ’71. Middle L–R: Casey A. Christopher, BSC ’02; Cynthia C. Calhoun, BSEE ’88; A. Cita Strauss, BFA ’77, MA ’06; Brenda J. Dancil-Jones, AB ’70; Jennifer Neubauer; Dustin E. Starkey, BS ’98; Craig A. Brown, BSC ’82; Connie LawsonDavis, BSED ‘67; Melissa W. Arnold, BSJ ’99. Back L–R: Jackson Lavelle, BA ’14 (Student Alumni Board president); Steven L. Ellis, BS ’92; Ronald J. Teplitzky, AB ’84; Stacia L. Taylor, BSC ’82; Mike Jackson, BSED ’68; Paige S. Gutheil Henderson, DO ’02; Alissa Galford, BSC ’05; Robert C. Wolfinger, AA ’73, BGS ’80; Matthew J. Latham, AA ’06; Lyndsay A. Markley, BA ’02; Timothy Law, DO ‘94. Not Pictured: Robin S. Bowlus, BFA ’98; Julie Mann Keppner, BBA ’02, Vice Chair.
photo by Stephen Reiss
• Members meet three times a year to meet and work with students, campus stakeholders, community leaders, legislators and alumni. • The board supports the work of six committees. • The board helps facilitate OUAA’s annual Alumni Leaders Conference. • The board evaluates and grants OUAA Legacy Scholarships, awards given to OHIO students whose family members are also OHIO graduates. • After serving six-year terms, directors enter the Thomas Ewing Society, where their service continues as lifelong Bobcats.
Bill Hilyard, BSEd ’67 Chair, OUAA Board of directors
“I’m proud of the board’s accomplishments for 2013, which included increasing our outreach efforts with alumni, OHIO faculty and staff, and taking a much more active role philanthropically. As I end my term as chair this June, I reflect that what I enjoyed most was to work with 21 wonderful alumni board members to affect the lives of nearly 200,000 alumni and bring them back to the fold of a great university. I will always be grateful for the many opportunities that Ohio University has given me.”
OUAA 2013 Annual Report
Ouaa Board Of Directors
42 OUAA 2013 Annual Report
Student Alumni Board photo by Karissa Conrad, BSVC ’14
The 80 OHIO students who compose the Student Alumni Board (SAB) make the university at large more aware of OUAA and encourage OHIO students to participate in SAB’s programs, events and fundraising efforts. Members also act as tour guides for alumni visiting campus.
Jackson LaVelle, BA ’14 “Being SAB president has been by far my most rewarding experience here at Ohio University. Because of the support from SAB’s amazing executive committee, outstanding student leaders at OHIO and support from OUAA, I have been able to lead an SAB that continues to grow and succeed.”
SAB Charity
• At Homecoming 2013, SAB hosted the annual “Paint the Town Green” community food drive, which collected 3,052 pounds of food for the Athens County Food Pantry, the pantry’s largest donation to date. • In Fall 2013, SAB teamed with OHIO’s Learning Communities program and provided a planner for every incoming freshman. • The “Bare on the Bricks: A Nearly Naked Mile” event collects over 1,000 pounds of clothes for local shelters, organizations and families in need. Students literally donate the clothes off their backs and run down Court Street (clothed in at least a bathing suit) for this worthy cause. Co-sponsor Phi Kappa Psi teams with SAB for the annual February event.
SAB OUTREACH
• SAB created a LinkedIn group for the OUAA Board/TES/SAB Professional Networking Community, an effort that provides mentoring opportunities for students and fosters dialogue between SAB and the OUAA Board. • About 1,500 students, alumni and friends participated in Homecoming 2013’s “Yell Like Hell” Bonfire. • SAB inducted 22 members into its Fall 2013 class.
43 Each year the Ohio University Alumni Association presents awards to OHIO’s outstanding alumni and friends to recognize and celebrate their accomplishments and support of the university. Recognizing outstanding alumni serves OUAA’s mission to connect, inform, serve and engage the university’s diverse alumni and friends.
LIST OF AWARDS 2013 Alumnus/a of the Year: Awarded to Medal of Merit or Distinguished Service Award winners. For alumni who have gained distinction professionally or who have demonstrated extraordinary service and support to OHIO. James Wycoff, AB ’71
Medal of Merit: For alumni highly recognized in their fields. Dolores Hanna, AB ’49 Martin Savidge, BSJ ’81 Amy Sage Webb, BSJ ’90
Distinguished Service Award:
Recognizes exceptional service toward alumni chapters, clubs, societies and, at times, Ohio University and its colleges and schools. Lawanna Mckinley White, BSED ’65
Charles J. and Claire O. Ping Recent Graduate Award: Honors
recent graduates who are actively engaged with OHIO and whose achievements reflect the impact of their OHIO education.
Michael Cady, BSC ’01, CERT ’01
Honorary Alumnus/a: Awarded to
non-alumni who have provided exceptional service to OHIO or OUAA and whose efforts have positively impacted students, faculty, staff and community.
Charles “Skip” Vosler
Ohio Athletics Hall of Fame Inductees: Ohio University
Intercollegiate Athletics recognizes outstanding alumni athletes.
Laura cobb, bsh ’04 Joseph “Joe” Nossek Bryan Oswald, BSC ’98
LaWanna McKinley White, BSEd ‘65 recipient of the 2013 OUAA Distinguished Service Award
“The night and the entire weekend were magical. I felt like ‘Queen for a Day.’ Everything was so well planned, not only for the honorees, but also for our personal guests, as well. My family and best friends shared in this lifetime highlight event with me. I feel doubly blessed and filled with pride about my stellar university and our magnificent campus.”
OUAA 2013 Annual Report
Alumni Awards
Photo by Dustin Franz, BSVC ’10
46 44 OUAA 2013 Annual Report
Black Alumni Reunion On Sept. 26–29, Ohio University’s black alumni returned to the Athens Campus for the 2013 triennial reunion, themed “Through the Decades.” The Ohio University Alumni Association, along with the Ohio University Ebony Bobcat Network (EBN) and other groups, hosted more than 350 alumni at events throughout the weekend. These events gave alumni myriad opportunities to celebrate their ties to the university and reconnect with one another. Popular activities included the “Dawn of Mourning” photo exhibit in Baker Center; the Welcome Reception; the EBN Breakfast, during which Col. Frank Underwood, BSCOM ’54, was awarded EBN’s Trailblazer Award; and the Black Alumni Reunion Gala on Saturday night.
Photo by Chris Franz, MA ‘14
The 2013 Black Alumni Reunion (BAR):
• Guests chose from more than 35 events to attend. • The university hosted the first-ever Greek Summit and photo shoot of participating alumni from each decade, from the 1940s to the 2010s. • Hilda Richards, the first dean of the College of Health Sciences and Professions — the first female and the first black dean at OHIO — was honored with the inaugural Ohio University Diversity and Inclusion Medal of Excellence. • Carl Walker, BSED ’56, was interviewed regarding his book about black students at OHIO in the 1950s, “The Soulful Bobcats,” during the BAR’s Authors@Alden webcast.
Janelle Simmons, BSJ ’95 Member, Ohio University Board of Trustees
“For many of us, BAR is a time to reflect on where we came from and where we are now. I was so moved by the number of African-American alumni I saw at the Gala who have gone on to do extraordinary things. OHIO has a rich African-American history, and being able to learn about and meet alumni who are now in their 70s and 80s was very special.”
45 OHIO hosted its 91st Homecoming on Oct. 7–12, 2013. The theme, “OUr Past, OUr Present, OUr Future,” was chosen directly by OHIO alumni and students — a first for the university. OUAA and the Division of Student Affairs’ Campus Involvement Center collaborated to offer activities for the Bobcat Nation.
photo by Kayla Hoffman, BSVC ’15
2013 Highlights
•• A new ohio.edu/homecoming website provided information and news. •• OUAA hosted its first Homecoming Bonfire during Student Alumni Board’s “Yell Like Hell” Pep Rally. Drawing more than 1,500 ’Cats, the event featured the Marching 110, a cappella groups Section 8 and Title IX, and appearances by President Roderick J. McDavis and Vice President for Student Affairs Ryan Lombardi. •• 98 units registered for the Homecoming Parade. •• The Homecoming Court included 10 stellar student candidates for Bobcat King and Queen. •• The Class of 1963 was invited for the first OUAA-hosted Golden Bobcat Class Homecoming. •• OUAA sold out its Historical Hayrides on The Ridges and the first Star Gazing event (with Professor of Astronomy George Eberts), welcoming a total of 390 participants.
Ed (’63) and Marcia Peura “It is difficult to put into words how much we appreciate all you did for the 1963 alumni at Homecoming this year. We had a once-in-a-lifetime, heartwarming experience.”
OUAA 2013 Annual Report
Homecoming
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Chapters and Societies Ohio University’s 200,000 alumni live all over the world: 190,744 in the United States, 115,667 in Ohio, and 7,123 across the globe.
Philanthropic Award The Post Society 100th Anniversary Celebration
OUAA chapters organize by region to best connect alumni with one another. Societies organize around common interests and experiences.
Most Innovative Program Award College of Business Society 2nd Annual Bobcat Basketball Bus Trip
2013 Chapter and Society Awards
Community Service Award United Campus Ministries 30th Annual Fundraiser
Chapters
Best New/Reorganized Society Award George V. Voinovich School Society
Alumni & Student Networking Award Los Angeles Chapter’s Media School Reception
Outstanding Society Award Ohio University Marching Band Society of Alumni and Friends
Alumni Networking Award Boston Chapter’s OHIO vs. UMass Bobcat Bash Philanthropic Award Ohio University Women’s Club of Greater Cleveland Holiday Brunch and Auction Most Innovative Program Award Greater Cleveland Chapter Great Lakes Beer Tasting School Community Service Award Greater Charlotte Chapter’s Charlotte Family House Best New/Reorganized Chapter Award Metro New York Chapter Outstanding Chapter Award Greater Chicago Chapter Societies
Alumni & Student Networking Award Army ROTC Society Branching Ceremony and Heroes Day with Bobcat Basketball Alumni Networking Award Communication Sciences and Disorders Society’s 75th Anniversary of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
ALUMNI CHAPTERS AND NETWORKS 6 Chapters in Ohio
15 Regional chapters across the United States 12 International networks of alumni across the globe
SOCIETIES OF ALUMNI AND FRIENDS 8 Academic societies 31 Special interest societies
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Brenda DancilJones, AB ’70 Member, Alumni Association Board of Directors
“Chapters and societies are the OUAA’s arms and legs. They are our outreach resource ‘on the ground,’ so to speak. They have their fingers on the pulse and know what’s going on in their communities. They have great capacity for publicizing the university and help reach out, market, recruit students, engage alumni and get people excited to show up. And they show up well!” Dancil-Jones is pictured with Ohio University President Roderick J. McDavis at an event hosted by the OUAA Board of Directors during its summer 2013 meeting in Alexandria, Va.
2013 Chapters and Societies highlights
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Women’s Club of Greater Cleveland hosted its Fall Brunch and Holiday Auction, raising $5,000 for its scholarship fund.
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OUAA established two new societies: the George V. Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs Society, and the Student Senate Society, thanks to critical help from volunteers.
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E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Society sponsored Senior Saturday, featuring networking, résumé critiques and job-hunting strategies.
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Greater Charlotte (N.C.) Chapter hosted its 10th annual Charlotte Networking Week (Feb. 21–23, 2013), connecting 43 students with 80 alumni for professional shadowing, employer site visits, panel discussions, networking sessions and a “Living in Charlotte” tour.
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College of Business Society of Alumni and Friends hosted its YOGO (You Only Get Once) First Impression event.
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Nation’s Capital Chapter hosted 19 events, more than any other chapter.
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Black Alumni Network (special-interest society) hosted regional programs in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, leading up to The Black Alumni Reunion in September.
As they work to reestablish a chapter, San Francisco-area alumni hosted a cookout at Golden Gate Park in July, and more than 60 alumni and friends attended. OHIO alumni are Bobcat sports fans: 15 chapters and societies hosted 47 individual football and basketball game watch parties.
OUAA 2013 Annual Report
photo by Michelle Frankfurter photo by XXX XXXX
50 48 OUAA 2013 Annual Report
A Night in Athens in … “A Night in Athens in …” recreates the OHIO and Athens experience through life-sized photo wraps set up to reflect the buildings on Court Street and the OHIO campus. The wildly popular events transport alumni back to Court Street and let them “visit” familiar campus buildings while enjoying dishes inspired by their favorite Athens restaurants and buggies, such as Casa Nueva and the Burrito Buggy.
For OUAA, the events have • enhanced alumni engagement with chapters that host the events. • informed alumni about the importance of giving their time. • brought together the largest and most diverse audiences of any off-campus events (excluding athletic events).
The events are co-hosted by the region’s The Promise Lives Campaign Committee. In 2013, events in Cleveland and Chicago drew tremendous crowds — 450 Bobcats attended the Cleveland event, and 400 alumni came to the event in Chicago, nearly 10 percent of all alumni in the greater Chicago area. Photo by Dustin Franz, BSVC ’10
Meghan Hanrahan, BSC ’09, CERT ’09 “As soon as I arrived at the event, I felt like I was home. So many personal touches of Athens were present, it was difficult to know where to look first! I really enjoyed feeling like I was back on the bricks with some of my best friends.”
Sarah Kostiha, BS ’09, MA ’11 “The entire night was filled with the spirit of Athens. I loved walking around with friends, reflecting and reminiscing over one of the best times in my life! This event also helped me connect with alumni from both my undergrad and graduate programs. It was great to catch up and learn about the accomplishments my fellow Bobcats have made since graduating.”
51 49 OUAA’s Strategic Initiatives effort offers alumni OHIO-themed merchandise through the Bobcat Store, with many of the products made in Athens by local craftsfolk and artists. The association also partners with institutions to bring a variety of services to alumni. All proceeds support OUAA’s programs and activities. • The OUAA recently relaunched the affinity credit card program featuring the official Ohio University Alumni MasterCard. Nearly 100 alumni signed up for the card in 2013. • The Bobcat Store features OHIO-themed apparel for women, men and children; home and office products; graduation gifts; and affinity shops for OHIO colleges, student organizations, sports teams and Greek life. • The Bobcat Store took 2,277 orders in 2013 with total revenue of $143,469.
KEITH CHAPMAN Owner, Keith Chapman Jeweler
“Four years ago, I began an exciting partnership with OUAA to create pieces of jewelry that showcase the institution. Our collaboration gives students, parents, faculty, staff and alumni the opportunity to buy jewelry with a connection to their alma mater. Over the years, alumni frequently stop by my Uptown store on their visits back to campus and show off their favorite Bobcat Store items, all of which were handcrafted right here in Athens.”
Regional Campuses Photo by Mike Donley
More than 10,000 of OHIO’s 38,297 students study on the university’s regional campuses in: Chillicothe, Eastern, Lancaster, Pickerington, Proctorville, Southern and Zanesville. The history of these campuses began in 1945, when President John C. Baker established the first “branches” to serve veterans taking advantage of the G.I. Bill. For 68 years, they have served all types of students at levels from associate to graduate degrees.
2013 Highlights
Bill Willan Executive Dean for Regional Higher Education
“This OUAA task force is a step forward for the regional campuses. Its work should result in regular opportunities for alumni to revitalize their connections to the campuses and the university that provided them with an affordable, high-quality education close to home. At the same time, it presents the campuses with an opportunity to draw upon alumni expertise in order to develop additional learning opportunities for current students. The prospect is an exciting one.”
• An OUAA task force, chaired by OUAA Board member Lt. Col. Mike “Scoop” Jackson, BSED ’68, is exploring how to best serve 22,310 alumni who have earned degrees from regional campuses — and thousands more who received some part of their OHIO education there. • OUAA co-sponsored alumni engagement activities with regional campus leadership. • Each new regional campus graduate received a Loralie’s Baking Co. brownie from OUAA during special commencement ceremonies in May 2013. • OUAA and Student Alumni Board sponsored finals week fun for regional campus students in fall 2013. • OUAA is a sponsor of the Lancaster Campus’s annual Celebrate Women Conference.
OUAA 2013 Annual Report
Strategic Initiatives
Photo by Sarah Barclay, BSVC ’14
50 OUAA 2013 Annual Report
Campaign Progress Charles R. Stuckey, BSME ’66, HON ’05
Photo by Luke Potter, AB ’04
Chair, The Promise Lives Campaign Steering Committee
“The Promise Lives Campaign gives us so much to celebrate. All alumni are invited to participate by giving at any level, especially to endowed funds; by participating in OUAA events; and by promoting scholarships as the university’s number one priority.” Stuckey will serve as OHIO’s 2014 undergraduate commencement speaker on Sat., May 3.
Organizations Other $20,102,421 Individuals $21,872,146
The Promise Lives Campaign will secure at least $450 million in support of OHIO’s students, faculty, programs, partnerships and facilities by June 30, 2015.
Current Operations $138,503,010
During the campaign,
69,430 individuals have made gifts and commitments to the Ohio University Foundation —
40,642 of them alumni.
Corporations $13,523,207
Capital $108,430,182
Endowment $198,930,609
Foundations $150,865,774
Alumni $239,500,252
As of December 31, 2013, all of them had pushed the campaign total to more than
$445.8
million.
Total campaign attainment by
restriction
Total campaign attainment by
donor type
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Join your Ohio University Alumni Association for A spring Homecoming featuring academics and the arts The Ohio University Alumni Association (OUAA) will host an all-alumni reunion weekend in Athens from May 30 through June 1, 2014. The weekend will feature activities for the entire OHIO community, alumni and their families, and those celebrating class milestones and special reunions. Guests will enjoy Alumni College courses; theater and film; golf and a fitness walk; special reunions for the Golden Classes of 1963 and 1964; Gospel Voices of Faith; the Department of Aviation; OHIO Emeriti; and more. Or, they’ll just kick back on College Green.
THINGS TO DO*
Thu rsday– May 29 Early birds kick off the wee • with kend lead ership meetings and programmin
g.
Friday– May 30 Go back to the classroom for Alum • Coll ni ege
courses, such as The King and I: Reflections of an Old Shakespeare Professor and 70th Anniversary of D-Day/ Cornelius Ryan Symposium. Stro ll the bricks or the bike path. Remember Bobcat friends during a Festival of Lights (sky lantern release). Enjoy food, fun and friends during Friday evening’s kickoff Alumni Receptio n.
urday– May 31 Start the day with the Fitness Run • anSatAlum /Walk, ni College course or a film at the OHIO Film Festival. Take to College Green for the sing ular On The Green Barbeque! In the evening, all alum ni are invited to dinner– storytelling encouraged– with spec ial reunion “to dos” and Uptown Decade Reunions.
Sun day – Jun e 1 Grab your sweetie for the “OH, • rene I dO” vow wal
ceremony. Cap off your weeken d by stopping by the Farewell Brunch. Still don’t wan t to leave? We understand… take a Winery or Hocking Hills Tour!
Ohio University students will prov ide Technology Boot Camp support throughout the weeken d. Recently ranked the sixth mos t connected college on the world by U.S. News & World Report, you r OHIO can help you share, tweet and tag your On the Green experience. Bring your phone or tablet and plug in!
Shuttles will be available for regis tered attendees to the Nelsonville *(nels Music Festival! onvil lefest.org)
See you in Athens May 30–June 1 ohio.edu/alumni/onthegreen
OUAA 2013 Annual Report
Alumni to meet “ On the Green ” during inaugural reunion weekend
Bobcat tracks for alumni and friends
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The ’64 Bobcats: Legacy like no other Fifty years later, players, managers and trainers from the 1963-64 NCAA regional semifinal squad reunite to celebrate one of the most memorable post-season campaigns in university history and one of the greatest achievements in OHIO Athletics history.
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surprising ‘experts,’ kentucky, ’64 bobcats land in the elite eight 1. The 1964 basketball team kicked off its reunion Feb. 7 with a reception at the Ohio University Inn. The 1963-64 memorabilia on display honored the first Mid-American Conference team to reach an NCAA Regional Final. Players delightedly recalled regular season wins against Wisconsin, St. John’s and Louisville, as well as the victories over Toledo, Louisville and fourth-ranked Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament that placed the team in the Elite Eight. 2. At the end of the season, Jerry Jackson (no. 22) was the leading scorer in Bobcat history with 1,204 points. He scored 25 points against Kentucky in the tournament. 3. From the Athena: “Coach Jim Snyder [back row, left], who masterminded Ohio to a 10-2 conference record and an outstanding 21-6 overall mark, called his 1963-64 cagers a ‘gutty crew.’ ” 4. Fifty years removed from the 1964 season, the Elite Eight run is only one accolade among a long list of superlatives for the team. During their visit, team members sketched their names and numbers on the alumni basketball wall; they also received a halftime standing ovation by the 9,000-plus fans at the OHIO-Toledo game. Sources: OhioBobcats.com, Athena yearbook, The Post
MAC Dreams
Elite Eight team returns to Athens to be honored, reminisce
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n a weekend filled with hearty laughs and timeless stories, the 1964 Ohio University men’s basketball team celebrated its 50th anniversary reunion to commemorate its MidAmerican Conference Championship and ensuing Elite Eight run in the NCAA Tournament. The reunion kicked off on Friday, Feb. 7, with a reception at the Ohio University Inn in salute of the MAC’s first team to reach an NCAA Regional Final. Throwback 1963-64 game programs were on display, as well as every box score from the storied season. The relics on display brought memories flooding back from one of the most memorable post-season campaigns in school history. Altogether, eight players from Jim Snyder’s squad along with two managers and a trainer traveled to Athens for the weekend reunion, which included a halftime standing ovation by the 9,000-plus fans at the OHIO-Toledo game. The Bobcats prevailed to an overtime victory over Toledo, reminiscent of the 1964 team’s late season win over the Rockets to take the MAC.
Remembering the run Going into the final game of the 1964 season, Ohio University held a share of first place with archrival Miami. There was no tournament, so whoever won the MAC in the regular season would get the conference’s only NCAA tournament slot. In a hard-fought game at the Grover Center, the Bobcats concluded the 1964 season in stunning fashion with a crucial overtime victory over Toledo to finish the regular season 19-5, giving them sole possession of the MAC Championship and an automatic bid to the 1964 NCAA Tournament. The Green and White earned themselves a first-round date with Peck Hickman’s Louisville Cardinals in Evanston, Ill. Led by Don Hilt’s double-double (14 points, 15 rebounds) effort, the Bobcats persevered, 71-69, in an overtime thriller to earn themselves a Sweet 16 berth. In the second round, OHIO faced off against the fourth-ranked Kentucky Wildcats at historic Williams Arena in Minneapolis, Minn. Adolph Rupp’s club boasted a 21-5 record and was prepping itself for another Final Four run. Led by guard Jerry Jackson’s 25 points and 11 rebounds,
the team handed the Wildcats their worst defeat of the season, an 85-69 rout, to advance to the Elite Eight. Paul Storey, Mike Haley and Hilt all joined Jackson in double figures, finishing with 19 points, 15 points and 14 points, respectively. “Louisville was a real hard-fought game,” forward Haley said. “We played them twice in the regular season. They won on their court, and we beat them on ours. Really either team could have won. “But Kentucky? We knew it was over at half. We were faster, and we were the better team.” Rupp applauded the Bobcats in his press conference for their tenacious defensive attack: “There is no defense designed that I am aware of to beat a fired-up team like OHIO,” he said. “They did everything too well.” A physical 22-4 Michigan Wolverines crew coached by Dave Strack opposed the Green and White in a match-up at the Mideast Regional Final, again at Williams Arena. Despite Hilt’s 18 points and Haley’s 10-point, 11-rebound performance, the Wolverines, led by All-Americans Cazzie Russell and Bill Buntin, topped the Bobcats, 69-57, thus ending OHIO’s magical season.
Back on campus During their visit, some of the players quipped it was refreshing to see OHIO’s 201112 squad upset Michigan in the first round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament — some called it “friendly revenge.” When comparing the 1964 run to the 2012 run, Charlie Gill remarked how much the tournament has changed. “It was popular, but today it’s just so much bigger,” Gill says. “When we went to the Elite Eight, I had no idea that it would be celebrated as much as it has. None of us really recognized it as legendary, but as the years passed, it really turned into a storied achievement that means a lot to this community.” Haley also was surprised by the evolution of the 1964 team’s legacy. “If you would have told me 50 years ago that we’d be celebrated on campus for going to the Elite Eight, I wouldn’t have believed you,” he said.
» David Holman is a sophomore at Ohio University and
the media relations director for the women’s golf team. A full version of this article is available at OhioBobcats.com.
Life after Ohio Joe Barry (guard), BSED ’65, a retired play-by-play announcer, was the former assistant coach for the Miami Redhawks. Tom Davis (team guard), BA ’65, played professional basketball with Besikitas, a team stationed in Istanbul, and set the Turkish record for most points (69) in a single game. Charlie Gill (guard), BSED ‘65, MED ‘69, taught and coached high school basketball for 35 years, and took both Marietta College and Capital University to league championships. Jerry Jackson (guard), BSED ’70, MED ’71, a 1964 NBA draft pick (Detroit Pistons), was waived before the 1964-65 season. He became a teacher and head basketball coach at Ohio University-Zanesville. Mike Haley (forward), BSED ’67, led Roth High School in Dayton, Ohio, to three state titles; he won a fourth at Dayton’s Dunbar High School. Don Hilt (forward), BSED ‘66, passed away Jan. 27. He taught for Cleveland City Schools for more than 30 years, coaching local basketball teams as well. Paul Storey (team captain), BBA ’64, joined the Air Force and later began a career in the sales department at Ford. Photo Courtesy of Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections
spring 2014
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Bobcat tracks for alumni and friends
All together now
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1. Karina Quintans, MAIA ‘97, and Brian Wahl, MED ’97 and MA ’97, reunited in Nepal. Together they took a four-day trek in the Annapurna region and taught a class about environmental issues at a local Nepalese school. They both graduated from the international development studies program. 2. Tom Scarborough, BSC ’98; his wife, Betsy Bullock Scarborough, BSHCS ’98; Dave Pepples, BSEE ’00; and his wife, Heather Orr Pepples, BSED ’00, visited Edisto Island, S.C., with their future Bobcats. 3. Joe Greene, BSJ ’73, visited the Beatles’ hometown of Liverpool with his wife, Marianne. 4. Neil Schmidt, BSJ ’93, and his wife, Lisa Bodner Schmidt, BSED ’94, reunite with Jeff Fletcher, BSJ ’92; John Maximuk, BS ’92; Doug Sherwin, BSJ ’92; Brent Neal,
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BSJ ’92; Mike Wuertzer, BSISE ’93; and their families every few years. Recently, they met in Asheville, N.C. 5. Hugh Taylor, BSED ’52, and his college roommate, Tuevo Lehti, AB ’50, reunited after 62 years apart. They hold up a college photo taken when they lived together. 6. Ryan Lawson, BSA 7. 4’07, shows his Bobcat pride in Kandahar, Afghanistan. 5 Sallie Evans Mckeand, BSED ‘84, waves her Bobcat flag at the 2013 Calgary Stampede. 8. Sarah Dutton, BSED ’11, and Darren Snively, BS ’10, play cornhole with Ohio University boards at their wedding. The newlyweds met during their sophomore year. Where have your travels taken you? Do you have news of a Bobcat reunion, wedding or graduation to share? Send your photos to ohiotoday@ohio.edu or Ohio Today, 213 McKee House, 1 Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701.
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What makes Ohio University…Ohio University? You’re an OHIO graduate who represents Bobcat pride, and we’d like to give you some insight about how OHIO’s University Communications and Marketing (UCM) team is working to elevate Ohio University’s national profile. Ohio University: it’s you
Commercials and More
OHIO’s new promotional campaign—“it’s you”— launched at the beginning of this academic year. The goal is to succinctly convey the shared connection everyone who has ever walked across the College Green has with Ohio University. In order to be authentic as possible, our creative process began by interviewing students. We set out to discover what the OHIO experience means to them. Why did they choose Ohio University? Why are they proud to be Bobcats?
As part of the campaign, new commercials, print and Web ads, and campus banners were created. We were joined in these efforts by over 45 students and a dozen alumni who contributed their professional expertise. The television commercials also can be seen online via Ohio University’s YouTube channel at www.youtube. com/ohiouniv. In addition, this year you can look forward to seeing a revamped “front door” for the University’s main website at www.ohio.edu, featuring larger images with an expanded focus on our picturesque campus. We also encourage you to bookmark Compass, the official source for Ohio University news, at www.ohio.edu/compass.
Supporting themes describe the OHIO experience The responses of our own students led us to the four supporting themes that work in conjunction with “it’s you” to promote OHIO as well as reflect the pride we all share in our University. These themes include Love at First Sight (focusing on the scenic beauty of our campus), Home Away from Home, Supportive Professors, and Bobcat Pride.
Thanks for all you do to help us promote OHIO— your continued support is essential to our success! — Submitted by University Communications and Marketing
Bobcat student involvement is woven into the details of OHIO’s new promotional campaign: even the typeface used in “it’s you” and the composition of the music in the tv commercials were created by recent graduates. Ads like the one below recently appeared in college guides published by USA Today and the Cincinnati Enquirer, as well as other major publications.
To read Class Notes online, visit http://www.ohio.edu/ohiotoday/print/notes.cfm To read In Memoriam online, visit http://www.ohio.edu/ohiotoday/print/obit.cfm
JACK Graeff
Don Stang
spring 2014
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Last word
Crafting a life: Professor finds hobbies, her research fulfilling
D
ina López, geochemist from El Salvador and Ohio University professor of geology since 1995, continues to conduct research in her home country, while also contributing to geological research in the region and around the world. She’s busy traveling, teaching, writing and researching. Despite the full scientist’s schedule, she’s not all business. » Elizabeth Prince What do you do as a professor of geology? I do research, and I teach. I like to study the processes that happen in the earth and close to the surface, especially those related to water movement or water quality with the environmental impact of contaminants.
What do you do in your free time? I like beading a lot. … I’m always collecting materials to do things that I never have time to do. I love embroidery because I grew up in a seamstress shop. My mother was a seamstress, and so all my early years were there [in the shop]. I learned to use the sewing machine when I was 4 years old. You travel a lot for research. What is your favorite place to visit? Probably the Canary Islands. Because I have great friends there, and it’s an incredible place from the geological point of view. I have done a lot of work there with the people there. And it’s a very friendly island — there are seven islands really. If you could do any one nonwork-related thing next year, what would you do?
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Robert Hardin MA ‘14
How would you describe yourself? I like what I do. I like geology, and everything that I do, in terms of research and teaching. But I also like many other things. I am not a person who is concentrated only in science, because I have other interests in my life. The science is important, but it’s not the only thing. I like the arts a lot. I think I have a little bit of creativity, but I am not an artist. I am a crafter. One day I told my sister, “You know, I would like to be at least five Dinas.” One Dina would be in Athens, teaching. Another would be in the Canary Islands doing research and having some fun there. Another one would be in El Salvador … doing research there and helping people. Another one would be doing all the cross-stitching and needlepoint and all the different things that I like. And so on. When did you first know that you would be a geologist? I started in physics and chemistry, and then I turned to geology. Mainly, when I started to work in geothermal energy — looking at the up-fluids from volcanoes that you can use to produce electrical energy — it was then that I knew that I really liked it, that I really liked to see the processes in the earth and … to try to understand what is going on.
What influenced you to return to El Salvador to work? The truth is that in life you have to be prepared to change your course, to change your path. … And there’s nothing wrong with changing your objectives. The important thing, I think, is that you need to really enjoy what you are doing, and love it. To feel passion and love for what you are doing — even if that means that you change a little bit. At this stage in my life, I am doing something I never expected to do: I am working in El Salvador trying to help to find the [environmental] causes of why the people are dying there from kidney failure. I am finding that extremely rewarding. So, you know, you need to be ready and to be open. And to have the courage to change.
bridge to the past
photo by
Martin Barker Design
T
he John Bright No. 2 covered bridge, part of the region’s rich historical heritage, rests on Fetters Run on the Ohio University Lancaster Campus. Built in 1881 by August Borneman, it originally stood at Poplar Creek on land owned by the Bright family — one of the area’s pioneer families, according to the National Park Service’s Historical American Engineering Record. Fairfield County alone had more than 270 covered bridges in the late 19th century; now, there are only about 20 left in the area, says Mark Nevin, an assistant professor of history at the Lancaster Campus. “Fairfield County in particular has been known as a covered-bridge county,” he explains. “There was a move in the 1980s and 1990s to preserve these bridges, rather than take them down.” The historical structure survived a 1913 flood, which destroyed many of the area’s bridges, and was eventually relocated in 1988 to the Lancaster Campus. A portion of the wood structure was damaged by an act of arson in 2013, but was restored within months. This summer, the bridge will be dedicated with a historical marker. “Ohio was home to a lot of important bridge companies at the time,” he says. “In the 19th century, bridges were important here because of the need to move goods. You needed to have covered bridges to go over rivers and creeks in Fairfield County — so, they were a way to promote economic growth and development.” » Elizabeth Prince
nonprofit org u. s . p o s tag e
p a i d co lu m b u s , o h i o p e r m i t n o. 4 4 1 6
Boo. What scares you? “Admit it. You’re afraid. Very afraid. Of something. Spiders, perhaps? Getting a root canal at the dentist?” writes Associate Professor of Visual Communication Julie M. Elman on her website, fearproject.com. “I illustrate people’s fears. Working with their words, I just try to visualize what those fears could possibly look like. I don’t dwell too much on
how these pieces ‘should’ look — I mainly let my intuition point the way, and then I post my pieces — no matter how I feel about them. I’ve learned that this is a good way to get over any fears I have about the creative process. Fear not, I keep telling myself. Fear not.” Elman’s artworks have garnered international attention, from NPR’s The Picture
Show and the UPPERCASE blog, to Modern Weekly magazine in Guangzhou, China, among other media outlets, and have been exhibited as part of the “Women of Appalachia: Their Stories and Their Art” traveling exhibit and a solo exhibition at the Coburn Art Gallery in Ashland, Ohio. Got fear? Send it: 1fearproj@gmail.com.