ME M O R I E S of Farr

Hall

Ripon College is excited to be moving forward with a $35 million strategic infrastructure plan which will address the renovation and expansion of Farr Hall of Science, a new oncampus stadium and upgrades to residence halls.

Farr Hall was built in 1961 with a partial renovation in 1997, and a lot of learning, exploring and socializing has gone on inside since then.

Here, alumni share some special memories of times there.

During my years at Ripon, in addition to class credits and grades, we had a requirement to collect a certain number of “convocation points” each semester by attending events on campus. My favorite was the series on movies and the cinema-graphic arts. Before and after each weekly viewing, we discussed why the movie we were about to watch added to the movie arts. I still love going to a movie theatre today.

Nicholas “Chip” Retson ’69 Aiken, South Carolina

I came to Ripon thinking I would major in the sciences but ultimately majored in English. Nevertheless, I remember summer orientation and the late Professor (Mary) Williams-Norton’s demonstration of the night sky dome. Also, early morning biology lectures with (George) “Skip” Wittler. Zachary Norton ’07 Chicago, Illinois

Extracting rat liver homogenate in organic chemistry. Yeesh! Competing for 2 a.m. slots at a teletypewriter for homework on the PDP/I room filling computer. Little did I know that in 11 years it would lead to a new career.

I eventually became an IT project manager for the government specializing in moving applications off mainframes to the new “micro” and “mini” computers that were developed in the early 1980s. Somebody in management saw my Ripon transcript that had a computer science class on it. Got two promotions out of it, too.

Marty Morris ’73 Lincoln City, Oregon

I hope I never forget Dr. (Dino) Zei, perhaps the best teacher I ever had, and his twosemester History of Science course. It’s a rare teacher who can inspire that kind of interest and excitement in his course. Not a typical science course but a wonderful way to be in Farr Hall.

Dissecting a cat in Dr. (David) Brittain’s biology class.

George Gitcho ’67 San Antonio, Texas

I did have quite a few classes in Farr Hall for biology, chemistry and physics. Some of the lectures or labs were quite interesting, but they were also hard work. The Computer Center was also in the basement of Farr Hall, and in my final years I spent a lot of time there. We had a Digital PDP model minicomputer, using teletypes for keyboard and typewriter output and paper punch tape for program storage by students. The high-speed printout was at 10 characters per second.

Lawrence ’77 Vinton, Virginia

Hanging out with my best friend in the chem lab at night making petri dishes when he accidentally set the agar on fire. I panicked, but he just, oh, so casually reached over and smothered it. It was the smoothest reaction I’ve ever seen. We also had chair races in the halls, and even though I was an English major I slept on the couch pretty often since most of my friends were chemistry majors and I would help out as needed.

Nicole Olson ’11 Glendale, Wisconsin

There were rag-tag, dissolving, animal mounts in the small student lounge room, including a bill-fish on the wall that had seen better days. A great memory is how Bob Wallace began each new semester of microbiology by entering the room, in full Renaissance regalia, shouting “Bring out your dead!” He also taught us to make beer — a craft which I practice to this day. With a focus on environment and botany, I enjoyed a spring break in the Sonoran Desert with Brooks and tended the Farr Hall greenhouse for Wittler my senior year. Heads up — latexproducing plants are sticky. Probably my best memory is my senior project, supported by advisors Wittler and Brooks, in which I tested the efficacy of selenium (stinky element in garlic) to prevent herbivore depredation on farm crops. I chose to grow hydroponic soybeans in the lab’s incubator, with various levels of selenium through the fall semester. It made the entire first floor of Farr Hall smell like an Italian restaurant.

Jim Peksa ’85 greenhouse.

Mark

I was in the greenhouse working on my independent study project in late winter/ early spring — developing procedures to remove lead pellets from Rush Lake sediment ice cores — when the greenhouse imploded. Professor (Robert) Wallace scurried in to find me under the benches, glass everywhere. The look on his face was priceless. Followed by a no-nonsense, “Are you OK?”

Samantha Grant Henriques ’95 Kapaa, Hawaii

Besides the 15-minute power naps between classes on the couches in the biology lounge and creating excessively large explosions for Dr. (Earle) Scott’s chemical demonstration textbook in the main lecture hall, my strangest memory involved flies. After returning back from the National Speech Tournament at Arizona State at the end of spring break of my senior year, I was summoned emergently to the biology department on Sunday. Before I left, I was preparing for a study to test Dr. (William S.) Brooks’ and my theory of potential leaf extracts as fly repellents (used in hawk nests), and I had ordered 10,000 fly pupae before I left. Unfortunately, Farr Hall had been kept abnormally hot over break due to a thermometer problem, and all of my pupae had hatched that weekend early due to the excessive heat, and the entire building was now overrun with houseflies. They were everywhere, ceilings were black, they had filled offices, and were covering the windows. It was like something out of a horror movie.

Favorite memories: Biology with Dr. (William S.) Brooks, chemistry with Dr. (Richard) Scamehorn, hanging out with Donald Steward ’78 … Michael Gibbs ’79 San Antonio, Texas love at first sight My dad and I did a campus visit the summer between my third and fourth year of high school. Farr Hall was only two years old at the time and looked state-of-the-art. It was one of the main reasons I chose Ripon College. cell biology Sophomore year. Professor Karen Weinke (now Karen Holbrook) taught this fascinating course. She was an amazing lecturer. Incredible professor. She would write an outline of her lecture on the blackboard then lecture the whole hour without notes. I loved the microscopy in the labs for this course. environmental science was taught by Dr. Bill Brooks. My first realization that we had to take care of the planet. He was an avid ornithologist and I remember his office having lots of stuffed bird specimens. lab assistant Junior year I was selected as one of four lab assistants in the biology department. Our job was to set up labs for freshman and sophomore beginning biology courses, then attend the labs and help answer questions the students would have. Even though I was only two years older, the freshman students seemed so much younger. Phil McCullough ’69, Sue Garrett Boyd ’69 and Mary Sorenson ’69 were the other lab assistants. The four of us had desks in a small office for lab assistants. We all thought it was so cool to be a lab assistant.

Scott Nyquist ’69 Naples, Florida

I used to be a lab assistant for Dr. (Mark) Kainz’s microbiology class. Once, while making a batch of agar for an upcoming lab, I hadn’t realized that the large flask I was preparing the agar in had a crack across the bottom. I must have briefly picked up the flask of boiling solution and then placed it back on the hot burner. Next thing I knew, the entire glass had shattered, and the solution went flying across the lab bench, the floor and me. Caught me completely off guard, and I looked up in shock to see I was directly in view of Dr. Kainz’s open office, who watched it all happen. Whoops! After graduating from Ripon College, I ended up going to medical school and am now a pediatrician. Safe to say, I have taken many science courses along the way! However, Dr. Kainz’s microbiology course still ranks as my all-time favorite science class.

Alyssa Nycz ’16 Menominee, Michigan

Going to movies in “The Pit” (Bear Auditorium). I was exposed to so many wonderful classics and became a lifelong fan of classic movies as a result.

Kathryn Schultz ’89 Fairfax, Virginia