2003 Fall Edition

Toledo The University of

Alumni Magazine Fall 2003

Mysteries of University Hall

The University of Toledo Alumni Association Officers and Trustees

from your Alumni Association president

President Karen L. Fraker ’84

The lucky number was seven.

That’s how many years it took at least one alumna to graduate from The University of Toledo. I’m not sure if I was a slow learner or not. I’d prefer to think that it had something to do with being married, raising two teenage boys and working two part-time jobs while going to school at the same time.

The lessons learned were many. Most were very enjoyable, but a few were painful. One summer quarter, I enrolled in Sy Mah’s jogging class. It took two months before our family could make the annual trip to Cedar Point because my ankles were so swollen. I no longer run, but since that first class some 25 years ago, I have been working out five days a week. Sy’s gone, but his message lives on.

Being a thirty-something student does have its advantages. While rushing to put dinner on the table before heading to class, I was hungry, too. I couldn’t wait to learn.

Besides, there aren’t many parents who can say that they graduated from college the same year as one of their children graduated from high school!

I hated to leave U Hall at the end of my last class. I knew it was the end of an era and my life would take a new direction. I just didn’t know where. Little did I know that it would eventually lead back to the University and our Alumni Association.

It’s quite an honor for me to serve as elected president of our 11,000-member organization this year. As senior vice president of marketing at Fifth Third Bank, I am fortunate to be in daily contact with other alumni who share similar stories about their time at UT. There is one common thread to each conversation — lives that have been touched in a positive way by our alma mater. That’s why I feel fortunate to be able, in some small way, to give back to an institution that has given so much to others and myself.

Oh, and there’s one other commonality: our Alumni Association. After juggling work, family and school, involvement in the Alumni Association gives me the camaraderie I missed during my college years. Our Association is active and engaged. I hope you will be, too.

First Vice President Theodore T. Hahn ’65, ’67 Second Vice President Birdel F. Jackson ’68 Secretary Barbara Berebitsky ’91 Treasurer Constance D. Zouhary ’81 Past President Robert A. Robinson ’74 Associate Vice President Dan Saevig ’84, ’89 One-Year Trustees Michelle Amato ’97 Norman A. Bell Sr. ’76, ’88 David D. Dobrzykowski* ’95, ’99 Gregg A. Dodd** ’96 Maria M. Villagomez ’73 Rodney B. Walton ’83 Two-Year Trustees Romualdo Brown ’92 Mary Hills ’53, ’79 Richard N. Longenecker** ’86, ’88 Mark A. Urrutia* ’88 James W. White Jr. ’76, ’79 Sally M. Wisner ’89 Three-Year Trustees Walter “Chip” Carstensen ’72, ’74 Dr. Jon R. Dvorak ’80 Lynn L. Logsdon ’95 Dr. Robert J. Schlembach ’49 Student Representative Lavender Ayres (appointed by Student Alumni Association) *Appointed by the affiliate committee ** Chapter representative

Dear fellow alumni and other friends,

Karen Fraker ’84 President, The University of Toledo Alumni Association

Toledo The University of

Alumni Magazine

cover story University Hall uncovered ..... page 16

satisfaction UT NEWS

Editor Cynthia Nowak ’78, ’80 Editorial Intern Mike Saccone

medical music ........................ page 10

Contributing Writers Paul Helgren Tobin Klinger Vicki Kroll ’88 Sherry Stanfa-Stanley ’83

carry on designing.................. page 12

others UT news ................................. page 2 sports ...................................... page 5 alumni news ........................... page 6 development........................... page 8 class notes .............................. page 22

on the cover: University Hall Tower (detail) lapin chronicles FEATURE

Volume 51, Number 1 FALL 2003

features

beyond Beatrix Potter ............ page 14

totes as tonic FEATURE

Toledo

Recent Awards

Communicator Awards Awards of Distinction: writing/magazine magazine/educational institution

contents

Designer Liz Allen Photographers Terry Fell Bill Hartough Toledo Alumni is published three times a year in Fall, Winter and Spring by The University of Toledo Office of Alumni Relations.

Associate Vice President/Publisher Dan Saevig ’84, ’89 Director, Alumni Programming Jeff Huffman ’89 Assistant Director Eric Slough ’95 Outreach Coordinator Brian Weinblatt ’02 Send change of address information to: Toledo Alumni, Office of Alumni Relations, Driscoll Alumni Center, The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606-3395.

Telephone 419.530.ALUM (2586) or 800.235.6766.

Fax 419.530.4994.

The University of Toledo is committed to a policy of equal opportunity in education, employment, memberships and contracts, and no differentiation will be made based on race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, sexual orientation, veteran status or the presence of a disability. The University will take affirmative action as required by federal or state law.

C RECYCLED PAPER

UT

news

Student satisfaction with UT on the rise, survey reveals

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tudents at The University of Toledo are generally happier with their educational experience than they were two years ago, according to the results of the latest Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI). This national biannual survey, according to Dr. John Nutter, director of institutional research, “allows

dents’ level of satisfaction with parking.

“I am very excited and encouraged by these results,” said President Dan Johnson. “We are a student-centered university, and the level of satisfaction of our students is extremely important. While we will continue to strive to make the changes needed to make our students’

Gutteridge

Naganathan

Business, engineering deans named

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Measure for measure. SSI permits examination of student perceptions.

us to measure ourselves against four-year public educational institutions we consider our peers. It also permits us to measure ourselves against our own past performance.”

The SSI asks students to rate their level of satisfaction with all areas of their college experience, ranging from the approachability of faculty members to the condition of the campus grounds. More than 2,500 UT undergraduate students participated in the latest SSI. According Nutter, the University increased on 61 of the 73 standard satisfaction items, remained the same on 10, and declined on two items compared to the 2001 results.

Of the “top 10” most important items, areas where the University improved its score include preparing students for a successful career, having valuable course content within students’ declared majors, and excellence of instruction within those majors. The only decrease was in the stu2 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

educational experience the best it can be, I know that we are heading in the right direction.”

Dr. Robert Sheehan, vice provost of assessment and strategic planning, noted, “The satisfaction of African American students increased at substantially higher rate than that of whites, in 63 of 73 items.

We see this as significant because an appreciation of human diversity is part of the University’s mission statement. It’s also one of the six objectives of UT’s strategic plan.”

Sheehan also pointed out how the SSI results seemed to validate UT’s success in retaining first-year students. “When it comes to retention rates from first- to second-year students at Ohio open-admissions public campuses, UT is at top,” he said. “We had 70 percent in 2002 and 74 percent in 2003. The way that this fits in with overall student satisfaction indicates that those percentages don’t represent an isolated spike.”

wo high-profile searches ended in May when Dr. Thomas Gutteridge, emeritus dean and distinguished professor of management at the University of Connecticut, was named dean of UT’s College of Business Administration, and Dr. Nagi Naganathan, interim dean of the College of Engineering, was selected to serve in that role on a permanent basis.

Gutteridge earned both his master’s and doctoral degrees in industrial administration from Purdue University. Over the course of his academic career he has twice served as a dean, first for nine years at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, then for 10 years at Connecticut.

“Dr. Gutterridge has impeccable credentials for this position,” said Dr. Alan Goodridge, provost and vice president for academic affairs. “I believe he will provide strong leadership to the College of Business Administration, with a collaborative style honed during his many years of administrative experience.”

Naganathan emerged as the top choice following a national search. The professor of mechanical, industrial and manufacturing engineering has been serving as interim dean since November 2000, and has been with the University for 17 years.

“Under the interim leadership of Dr. Naganathan, the College of Engineering has made great strides in community engagement,” Goodridge said. “I anticipate that we will see great things in the future with Nagi at the helm.”  — Tobin Klinger, office of public relations

UT

news

Annual honors bring more outstanding UT talent to fore

Coleman

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pril saw a new contingent of UT’s finest at the annual awards banquet honoring the very best in teaching, research and advising. Each award recipient received a certificate and $1,500.

Honored as Outstanding Teachers were: • Dr. Maria Coleman, associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering. She joined the College of Engineering in 1998. She is a National Science Foundation Presidential Faculty Fellow.

“Dr. Coleman loves her profession and the individuals she instructs. She is willing to be your friend, mentor and adviser. She understands students’ needs and will bend over backwards to assist the education process,” wrote one nominator. Another wrote, “She is known for walking down to our student lounge just to offer her assistance on homework because she cares that much about the success of our students.” Another noted, “She has a unique, high-energy teaching style that enables her to hold the students’ attention while communicating the course content in an effective, understandable manner.”

• Dr. Ruthie Kucharewski, associate professor of public health and rehabilita-

Kucharewski

Messer-Kruse

tive services. She started teaching full time at UT in 1997. She is the project administrator for the University’s National Youth Sports Program and received an Outstanding Women Award from the University Women’s Commission last month.

“When Dr. Kucharewski is teaching, she puts forth 110 percent effort whether it is the first time she’s delivered the lecture or the 50th time. Most importantly, she captivates her audience,” wrote one nominator. Another wrote, “One of the most amazing qualities about her is that she attempts to get to know every student and colleague on an equal level.

Due to this specific characteristic, she earns respect almost instantaneously. In addition, Dr. Kucharewski proves herself to her students by being prepared, fair and reasonable.”

• Dr. Tim Messer-Kruse, associate professor of history. He joined the faculty in the history department in 1995.

He recently completed a book that analyzes the local causes of the Great Depression in Toledo and is working on a study of Chicago’s Haymarket Bombing of 1886.

“Dr. Messer-Kruse is one of the best teachers at UT. He led an incredibly informative, challenging and interesting class,” one nominator wrote. Another noted, “I have observed scores of professors in the classroom over the years, but only rarely have I come across one as excellent as he. His classroom manner is relaxed, and this attitude sets a tone or a

Oliver

mood, which makes for an enjoyable environment, conducive to paying attention and learning. He can be at ease because of his absolute mastery of his material.”

• Dr. Douglas Oliver, associate professor of mechanical, industrial and manufacturing engineering. He has been teaching at the University since 1985 and plans to develop an engineering-law course.

“There is one professor for whom our students literally try to alter their schedules in order to get into his classes.

The professor is Doug Oliver. Doug makes difficult subjects understandable, meaningful and, would you believe, sometimes fun,” wrote one nominator.

Another wrote, “The teaching style he uses requires you to be active in the classroom instead of daydreaming or playing games on a calculator.”

Outstanding Researchers were Dr. H. Lamar Bentley, professor of mathematics; Dr. James LeSage, professor of economics; Dr. Russell Reising, professor of English; and Dr. Mark Vonderembse, professor of management.

Outstanding Advisers: Marie Johnson-Ham, academic adviser in the Student Success Center; Nancy Lapp, coordinator of undergraduate advising in the College of Business Administration; and Sharon Schnarre, adviser and adjunct professor in the College of Arts and Sciences.  — Vicki Kroll, office of public relations TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 3

UT

news

Economic realities behind UT restructuring, staff reductions

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ith cuts for higher education an all but inevitable part of Ohio’s state budget for some years to come, UT President Dan Johnson has gone proactive. In the spring, he initiated moves as part of an overall plan to reduce base budget spending by nearly $5.2 million, with further reductions possible to meet potential state cuts down the line.

He began with the streamlining of his executive staff. Using the report of a consultant, Johnson created a plan that will save the University more than $620,000 in administrative costs by reducing the number of vice presidents, eliminating two executive-level positions and incorporating government/community relations into other areas.

“To the extent possible and practical, I want to put our resources into academic programs and services for students,” Johnson said. “It is necessary to reduce the cost of administration and reallocate these resources to academic priorities and essential services. This is something we must do.”

Admitting that the changes involved tough decisions, he noted, “The members of the executive staff have become my friends. These friendships, however, must be secondary to what is in the institution’s best interest at this time. [These changes] have come about as a result of the state’s diminishing support for higher education as well as my belief that we need a much leaner, more cost-effective and better integrated University of Toledo.”

Restructuring and reductions extended across campus, as the University’s divisional leadership identified ways to reduce base budget spending by nearly $5.2 million. Some staff positions were eliminated, others had their hours reduced. Some vacant positions will be left unfilled.

William Decatur, vice president for finance and administration, said, “As difficult and painful as it will be, we believe that these eliminations are unavoidable given the budget scenarios under discussion in Columbus. The president has established a program prioritization task force, charged with finding ways to save $5 million, $10 million and $15 million annually.” 

Ambassadors of brass Thirty students — 26 musicians and four dancers — traveled to Nagasaki, Japan, in March to perform at Huis Ten Bosch, an elaborate theme park designed to replicate life in 16th-century Holland, which serves as a tribute to the historic relationship between the two countries.

Dr. Brant Karrick, then the UT band director and associate professor of music, was initially contacted about the opportunity in November. “They were looking for an American marching band to perform three shows a day for 10 days,” he said. “They found out about the UT Marching Band via the Internet.”

Following the performances, evenings were left free for the Toledo travelers to explore Nagasaki or to enjoy the theme park where they were housed. 

Delivering on the advance notices. The UT Marching Band’s appearance was well advertised by event organizers in Japan, who must have been pleased with the energy displayed by band members.

4 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

sports

Deja vu all over again for Amstutz and Rockets

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f coaching savant Yogi Berra were asked for his evaluation of the 2003 Toledo football team, there’s no doubt what ol’ Yogi would say: “It feels like deja vu all over again.”

Tom Amstutz, another coaching sage with a proclivity for homespun wisdom, would certainly agree. As he looks at his football team on the eve of the 2003 spring practice season, Amstutz can’t help but feel like he’s been here before.

A year ago, the Rockets came into spring drills high off MAC and Motor City Bowl championships, but wondering how they would replace the likes of running back Chester Taylor and quarterback Tavares Bolden. This spring, UT is coming off a MAC West title and Motor City Bowl appearance, but again needs to replace its quarterback and other key skill players.

“It is very familiar,” said Amstutz.

“Once again we have to replace some bigtime players: Tom Ward, David Gardner, Chris Tuminello, Brian Jones, Carl Ford, Dontà Greene. Those are guys who were very important players on two championship teams.”

Despite the challenge similar to last year’s, Amstutz pointed out that he doesn’t have quite so many starters to replace this year.

“It wasn’t quite as traumatic as last year,” said Amstutz, whose teams have gone 10-2 and 9-5 in his first two seasons as head coach. “This year, after taking off the senior names, there was still a football team up on that board. How we will be is still up in the air depending on how hard we work and how the team chemistry develops. So it’s a football team with some unanswered questions.”

The first and most important question remains the same as 2002: who will line up as Toledo’s quarterback?

“Everything starts with the quarterback,” Amstutz agreed. “We need to find out who will fill the leadership role at quarterback. Our candidates are [junior] Cedric Stevens and [sophomore] Bruce Gradkowski. The good news is that both have been around for a couple of years running our plays and learning the offense. Both are athletically gifted. Both have leadership personalities. I would feel good with either one of those players as our starting quarterback.”

Just to whom the new quarterback will be throwing is another important question. Toledo lost three wide receivers who had started a combined118 games in their careers. Questions on the defensive side of the ball mostly surround the departure of the Rockets’ bookend inside

linebackers, Ward and Gardner.

“We do have a lot of work to do,” said Amstutz. “At the same time, we are optimistic. We have young players who have contributed that have a chance to step into new roles.”

And while Amstutz agrees there is a degree of familiarity between this year’s team and last year’s team entering spring drills, he emphasized that the same success in the fall cannot be taken for granted.

“We will approach this season the same as we did last year,” said Amstutz.

“Each season is unique. Once again we have a tremendous amount of work ahead of us. Each team has its own chemistry and we will have to work to find this team’s chemistry. And that starts with spring football. It’s the time when we get to evaluate our personnel, figure out where players can best help the team and what style of football we will play in the fall.”

In other words, Amstutz and his staff spent the spring following the advice of another famous Yogism: “You can observe a lot by watching.”  — Paul Helgren, athletic media relations office

What about bobble?

Perhaps hoping to predict the 2003 season, Coach Tom Amstutz consults his version of the Magic Eight Ball — the Amstutz bobblehead.

UT’s first foray into action-figuredom was a promotional item given to season ticket holders to help increase sales.

TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 5

alumni

The good, the excellent and the honored

Up and coming. Minority Alumni Affiliate Scholarship awardees for 2003 are, left to right, Antonio Davis (exercise science), Leticia Arrington (pharmacy), Sheila Doles (interdisciplinary studies/technical writing) and Arthur Lee Roach Scholarship recipient Chneyce Barker (pharmacy).

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he Minority Alumni Affiliate Recognition of Excellence Dinner, the annual showcase for talent and achievement, honored five singular UT grads who received the Outstanding Alumni Award.

Emerson Cole went from professional football player with the Cleveland Browns to a state agency executive officer. After completing his education degree at The University of Toledo on a full athletic scholarship while holding a full-time job, he filled director-level positions with the Economic Opportunity Planning Association (EOPA) before spending 18 years with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, retiring as chief of compliance and regional operations.

Education played a critical part in the life of Equilla Gibson-Roach. She worked several jobs in the 1950s to save enough money for college. Armed with her degree, she was hired as a first-grade teacher by Toledo Public Schools in 1955. She stayed with the schools — and with the children — until her retirement in 1987. Along the way she earned two advanced degrees from The University of Toledo. She is the widow of Arthur Lee Roach, with whom she founded student scholarships.

A man whose service in Toledo’s city government has extended more than 20 years, Jimmy L. Gaines Sr. holds the office of city commissioner, assigned to the department of public utilities. The first African American to oversee Toledo’s 6 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

news

water plant operations, he has participated in many of the city’s most important projects, including the $93 million Toledo Correctional Facility.

Author and Newbery Medal winner Mildred Taylor was also honored. Her books, which include Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, Gold Cadillac, Mississippi Bridge and The Well: David’s Story, have brought her many awards and accolades. What remains most important to her, though, is the history. As she said, “I have attempted to present a true picture of life in America as older members of my family remember it, and as I remember it in the days before the civil rights movement.”

Clarence J. Walker Jr., longtime executive director of the Frederick Douglass Community Association, has been a leader of the Criminal Justice Training and Education Center, and served as the Michigan state supervisor and specialist of the Community Relations Services, part of the U.S. Department of Justice.

He was also a regional director of the Ohio Civil Rights Commission. A U.S. Navy veteran, he studied law at UT, and was trained in urban ministry and community development at Chicago’s Urban Training Center. 

Gentle art of communication. Having way too much fun, director of alumni programming and Art on the Mall chairman Jeff Huffman (who with Brian Weinblatt, outreach coordinator in the Office of Alumni Relations, scopes out Centennial Mall for arrangement of artists’ tables) finds job of planning easier with pocket communicator. His cell phone is one of those with a special discounted rate, courtesy of Alltel. Art patrons could stop at Alltel’s table at the event; readers can check out the Winter 2004 issue of Toledo Alumni Magazine for Art on the Mall highlights.

Alumni, students — get pumped!

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he cost of driving just went down for UT alumni and students, who can start saving on gasoline immediately. The new Speedway SuperAmerica (SSA) program offers prepaid fuel and a gift card for drivers, and a fleet fueling program for commercial customers. UT alumni and students can purchase the prepaid fuel cards from SSA at a 4 percent

discount — that’s an average savings of 6 cents per gallon!

SSA also offers a prepaid gift card, which can be used to purchase both fuel and merchandise. Both make great student gifts. Cards are accepted at Rich Oil, Speedway and SuperAmerica. For details, visit www.speedway.com/ utoledo or call 1.888.297.8112 ext. 7535.

For businesses, SAA’s fleet fueling credit card program (through SuperFleet) offers commercial consumers a way to control fuel costs with driver ID numbers, card purchase restrictions (fuel only), monthly usage reports, and up to 3 percent/gallon fuel and 15 percent oil change discounts.

SuperFleet cards are accepted at Marathon, Pilot Travel Centers and Valvoline Instant Oil Change in addition to the outlets listed above. Call 1.800.482.7755 ext.

5511 for details. 

alumni

news New venue, same alumni fellowship. The Alumni Association’s Annual Meeting moved to the Sylvania Country Club this year, providing an elegant backdrop for its ceremonies and its Blue-and-Gold mingling.

Clockwise, Dan Saevig, associate vice president of Alumni Relations, parlays the thunderous“ Welcome back” he received from guests into a chance to share his plans for the association’s future — Rob Robinson, departing after his term as trustee president, passes the gavel to new president, Karen Fraker — University College, multi-honored Alumni Affiliate of the Year — proud scholarship awardees Marie Mikolajczyk and James Rice are flanked by UT President Dan Johnson and Fraker.

Hen of distinction.

Sidney Grant, daughter of alums Brenda and Greg Grant, shares a Muddy moment at University College Alumni Affiliate baseball outing at Fifth Third Field in June. Traditional stadium food was an equal draw for adults.

Three men on a swing (to say nothing of the hot dog). The Los Angeles chapter of the Alumni Association enjoyed their annual Tony Packo’s party at the home of Paul and Carolyn Mabie — and basked in typically sunny California weather as well. Just swingin’ around, left to right, are Glen Zielke, Paul Mabie and Jatinder Singh.

TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 7

development

There’s no advancing without advancement

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niversity advancement. Everybody knows what it is — or says they do, anyway. In reality, there’s a good deal more to advancement than is usually understood by the people it reaches, said Vern Snyder, who ought to know. As vice president for institutional advancement, he encounters questions about his division every week. “Because we do have such a strong community presence, getting the facts straight and complete is important for both the sake of the University and for the sake of UT’s friends,” he said.

been recognized. In the past 15 years, the advancement model has become more professional as its strategic importance was realized. For instance, it’s no longer common practice to have retired staffers head up the alumni association or join the development department because of the people they know.”

As donors have increased in sophistication, so has advancement. “Donors want a level of comfort in knowing that the University has refined a set of priorities. The University can take those priorities to donors and say, ‘We believe these

the job of the development officer to find places where those interests intersect with what UT needs.”

Engagement can also affect the very structure of an advancement division, given today’s economic realities. As Snyder said, “Public universities have begun to look at their budgets the way private universities do, for sheer survival.

That makes it necessary that they listen more closely to their alumni and potential donors. It makes for a closer relationship, ultimately. Nowadays, one thing donors demand is accountability. They’re pleased when they see that we run our non-profit the way they run their companies. They like leanness and efficiency.”

In one way, an advancement division is fortunate in being able to easily mea-

Donor’s choice. Whether a donor’s interest is in furthering UT’s offerings in the classroom or the research laboratory, Institutional Advancement provides many opportunities for giving.

Toward that end, he offered a quick and painless primer for UT friends, families and supporters, beginning with a simple definition: “Advancement does just that — advances the goals of a university, be they financial goals or public relations goals.

“Advancement areas deal with external audiences — with the community, government and the general public.

Because of this, advancement sometimes includes the public relations and marketing departments of a university. At UT, advancement is understood to be the Offices of Alumni Relations and Development, who are under a single umbrella but work in cooperation with public relations.”

This multi-layered approach becomes imperative in today’s climate of giving, Snyder said. “But the need hasn’t always 8 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

will make us a better university, and we would like your support.’”

Snyder pointed to his own staff.

“They’re professionals who have made a career of understanding why people give, and why people get engaged in the University after graduation. They recognize why the Alumni Association is so important for making lifelong UT friends. They know that public relations must support the University for the sake of recruitment and to get the overall message out. And they know how this combined effort improves the public’s perception of the University.”

The cooperative model is also a model of engagement. University advancement does more than sell UT; it listens to the feedback and adjusts accordingly. Potential UT donors have their own interests and priorities, Snyder said. “It’s

sure its success. When the donations are coming in, advancement professionals are doing their job. However, they never forget the correct hierarchy of priorities.

In the end, Snyder noted, “Advancement is a partnership between the donor’s interests and the University’s needs. And the donor’s interests come first.”

A Web site contains more complete information on opportunities for potential donors: utdevelopment.utoledo.edu/ develop/default.asp.

development

Story behind the scholarship: paving way for pharmacy students

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ilbert Siegel Sr., who graduated from UT’s College of Pharmacy in 1928, didn’t come from a wealthy family. Nor did he seem a likely candidate for a college degree when he was a teenager working in a Toledo drug store.

Yet today, the fund that he and his wife founded — the Gilbert and Janiece Siegel Scholarship and Leadership Award Fund — is a gift that will keep his name and his educational ideals fresh for generations to come.

“My father worked for a small drug store owned by a childless couple,” recalled Nancy Rhine, one of Siegel’s three daughters. “The husband told him, ‘If you go to Toledo University and study pharmacy, I’ll help you buy your own drugstore when you graduate.’ Siegel achieved the goal and his mentor kept his promise. The store, Fairmont Pharmacy, was on the corner of Dorr Street and Upton Avenue. “And my father paid him back in four years,” Rhine added.

When the Depression hit, Rhine said, Gilbert and his wife, Janiece (who was a fellow student at Waite High School and

Janice and Gilbert Siegel

whom he first asked out at a University dance), came back from their honeymoon to find that “they had basically 25 cents to their name. But they persevered and kept the business running. And they helped others.” In time, there were three Fairmont Pharmacies whose operations spanned 41 years. In 1968, the stores merged with the Lane’s chain and Siegel was made director of pharmacies, later vice president for professional relations.

“His whole life revolved around the pharmacy,” said Siegel’s son, Gilbert Jr. “All of us kids worked in the stores at one time or another. It used to be a family joke that during working hours we all had to pay like any other customer if we wanted a candy bar or a soft drink. As soon as the store closed, though, we ran

through it like bulls in a china shop.”

Siegel’s years in the profession and his managerial know-how became assets for the University’s College of Pharmacy.

“A UT professor asked him to talk to his class about pharmacy management,” his son said. “This was in the days before the big chains, when pharmacists had to manage their own stores. He did those classroom talks again and again. After he had been lecturing for some time, the college established courses in pharmacy management and pharmaceutical jurisprudence — my father taught them for more than 20 years.” In fact, in 1978 the elder Siegel became the first UT pharmacy graduate to receive an honorary doctorate from his alma mater. He died in 1979; Janiece died in 2002.

“Dad enjoyed his time with young people,” Siegel recalled. “As a teacher, he always got wonderful evaluations.

He’d show them to me and tell me how important his teaching was to him.” The son put down his parents’ belief in the homely virtues of loyalty and honesty as the main reason they established the fund that created scholarships. “They epitomized the Golden Rule,” he said. “And they wanted students to take that rule into the same profession that had been so good to them.”

Opportunities for similar long-lasting gifts are always available, in every college and department of the University.

For more information, call Janet Krzyminski, director of major and special gifts, at 419.530.2713. 

Honoring UT’s bridge builders. This May’s annual Donor Recognition may have been somewhat scaled down to reflect the University’s commitment to putting its dollars where they can do the most good. Still, the gratitude was no less heartfelt and the honors remained the highest. A poem in the event program compared UT’s donors — members of the Founder’s Circle, the Jesup Scott Society, the Henry J. Doermann Society, the Presidents Club and the Heritage Society — to those who build bridges for future generations. And in a less metaphorical vein, the evening relied on its usual mix of food and festiveness to celebrate the work of UT’s strongest supporters.

President Dan Johnson was on hand to personally thank honorees. Heidi Jenkins and JonDavid Heilman (right) were two of the year’s three Presidents Club scholars whose scholarships are made possible by donors.

TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 9

OF SURGERY AND SYMPHONIES, OR THE WELL-TEMPERED CLAVICLE

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o you’ve written this book — The Classical Music Experience (Sourcebooks Inc. 2003) — on composers from Giovanni da Palestrina to Leonard Bernstein. And your publisher tells you that you need to collect a few promotional blurbs from prominent names in classical music, right?

Not quite. “ The publisher wanted rock stars,” admitted the author, Julius Jacobson (A/S ’47). As it happened, Adam Duritz, lead singer of Counting Crows, was happy to oblige. “We met on a plane coming back from London. He’s one of these young people who dress outrageously and wear dreadlocks, but a few minutes of conversation showed him to be cultured and charming. His mother and father are physicians and we hit it off well,” Jacobson recalled.

Apparently some sort of personal chemistry is going on here, the kind that bridges both generations and professions. A perusal of the book bears that out. After all, any guide to classical music can deconstruct the Baroque period, but how many include a vignette of Johann Sebastian Bach scuffling on the floor with a pupil who was insulted when the composer called him a Zippelfaggotist, “a bassoonist who produced sounds like a nanny goat”?

More to the point, how many such guidebooks contain engaging digressions on medical topics ranging from “Boilermaker’s Disease” to the evolution of that ubiquitous hospital accessory, the kidney basin?

Obviously The Classical Music Experience isn’t your run-of-the-mill music text. But then Julius H. Jacobson II M.D. isn’t your average classical music enthusiast. For one thing, his daytime job title is director emeritus of vascular surgery and Distinguished Service Professor of Surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. For another, he’s credited as being the father of microsurgery — a technique that now accounts for half of all neurosurgeries performed in the United States, has made limb reimplantation a common occurrence, and is used in all surgical specialties.

And the chemistry that permits him to connect with both the classical cognoscenti and progressive rockers? Turns out it’s old-fashioned enthusiasm.

Jacobson’s familial background was heavier on medicine than on Mozart. “My grandfather was a surgeon and I’m named after him,” he said. “My grandmother graduated from Montreal’s McGill Medical School, in the first graduating class to include women.”

He attended New York City’s Townsend Harris High School, a threeyear institution where classes were taught by college professors from

10 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

City University. As he told it, “I graduated at 15, but I had no money to go to college, so I worked for a year as a photographer. A cousin in Toledo who was attending TU wrote to me about it.

A municipal university with a low cost sounded attractive, so I hitchhiked out to Toledo and enrolled there at 16. Because the war was going on, you could take as many courses as you wanted if you passed the final exam. At 17, I had three years of credit, but I couldn’t bear to stay out of the war any longer. I enlisted in the Navy. I came back after the war and finished my last year at TU.” Subsequent applications to 23 different medical schools brought the same number of rejection letters. “One of my TU professors, Dr. Floyd Brinley, had confidence in me and sent me to the University of Pennsylvania to start work on a PhD in cell physiology. That meant that I was working with a microscope day in and day out. I was there for less than three months before I applied to medical school again. Well, by now I had done some research the school was excited about, and I had some letters from nationally known men in the field. This time I was accepted by every medical school to which I applied.”

Four years at Johns Hopkins were followed by seven at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York, where Jacobson finished his residency in general and thoracic surgery. He continued the story:

“I was offered the job of associate professor and director of surgical research at the University of Vermont. That was a time when the when the Public Health Service could afford to be extravagantly generous to small schools. My first project at Vermont involved denervating the carotid artery. The surgery was done in small animals, and the only way you could be certain you had interrupted all the nerves was to divide the vessel and rejoin it.

The teaching at that time was that you couldn’t operate on vessels that small.”

Jacobson experienced an epiphany: “The problem with the surgery was that the eye couldn’t tell the hand what to do in so small a working area.

So I brought a microscope into the operating room.” The rest is medical history. “And the only reason I had that idea was because I couldn’t get into medical school and had spent so much time in front of a microscope,” he added.

The decision to write a book for classical music neophytes wasn’t quite as dramatic, rather the result of long observation: “I was disturbed to see how audiences for classical music are graying, and that all the country’s cultural institutions are in trouble. When I was in grade school and high school, there were music appreciation courses, and those have fallen by the wayside. I wanted to do something to stimulate an interest in classical music — but I claim no expertise.”

What Jacobson can claim is a long and lively relationship with the musical classics, and a desire to share his ebullience with others. “Music has been one of the great pleasures of my life, and I wanted to write a book for people with little or no knowledge of classical music,” he said. The book’s scope is generous; Jacobson chose 42 composers, devoting not only a chapter to each but providing the reader with a brief audio sampling of repre-

sentative works on two CDs included with the book.

Jacobson’s neighbor, actor Kevin Kline, got involved in the project when the two men discovered a common interest. Jacobson said, “We were on the elevator one morning, talking about the upcoming book and he said, ‘Did you know I was a music major in college?’ So he was a natural to do the narration between the musical selections.”

With appreciative reviews, the book is well on its way to finding its audience. Jacobson, though, isn’t resting on any laurels and is already immersed in a new project, one he termed “ the most important project of my medical life.” It involves patient monitoring equipment.

“As you go into intensive care unit of any hospital, you see a screen with 15 different squiggles — all the vital signs,” Jacobson explained. “They go across the screen and are lost. They’re valuable while someone is there to read them. Now say I receive a call in the middle of the night from an intern or a nurse, with information about a patient I’ve operated on, one who’s still critical. I often don’t know whether to come into the hospital and see for myself or not.

“What we’ve done — and we have a prototype unit being delivered today for testing — is to install a camera in the hospital room, plus a microphone for the patient, and all the data on the monitor screen is saved. So anywhere in the world, a physician can go in with a computer, see the patient, talk to him, speak to the staff and review the data, no matter when it was collected. We’re calling it ‘24/7 medicine.’”

Another sea change for the practice of medicine?

Jacobson calls it helping where help is needed. That’s why he’s established a scholarship fund at UT, and professorships in vascular surgery at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, at Johns Hopkins, and at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. “In the professorships, I wanted some interaction, so each one is set up with A/V equipment. Once a month they share rounds via the Internet.

It’s an extremely valuable teaching tool to participate in such conferences.”

Reviewing this roster of accomplishments, one’s tempted to call Jacobson a Renaissance man, but he has a simpler explanation for his actions: “I strongly feel that one should leave the world better than one finds it. Giving back really is important.”

And the composer who’s given the most to him?

“One musical canon on a desert island? That’s an easy one. Bach. He offers the most for listening.”  TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 11

is in the

by Cynthia Nowak

“M

s. Sullivan, do I do the clear coating now?” It was 9:15 a.m. and Jean Sullivan (Ed ’95) was juggling an interview and photo session with the demands of 20 boisterously enthusiastic pre-teens. Sullivan, who teaches art at Timberstone Junior High School in Sylvania, Ohio, stopped in mid-sentence to field a question from a budding graphic artist in a “Run Monkey Boy Run” t-shirt, and offered several ideas for his project without missing a beat or losing the thread of the previous conversation.

This was repeated at least a half-dozen times with different students, each of whom received concise answers based as much on each student’s interests as on technical advice. Two fellow teachers with also dropped in with questions or information.

Was she frazzled? She laughed at the idea as she reminded another student that a base coat of neutral-colored paint was necessary for his project. “Once, a vice principal asked me, ‘Tell me how you learned to teach teens.’ I told him that I used to manage a coffee shop, with 18-year-olds as the staff. This is nothing after that.”

Although Sullivan’s original teaching plans were for older students, a field experience with junior high schoolers convinced 12 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

her that she had found her calling. “I love teaching this age!

They’re getting more sophisticated, and there’s a special challenge for art teachers. Up until fifth grade, kids have their artwork up on the family refrigerator. Then all of a sudden, they decide they can’t do art, so they stop. And the way educational programs are funded, many kids don’t take another art class until they’re sophomores in high school, then maybe they’re offered one elective in senior year.”

So far, so good. An enthusiastic, student-connected teacher in a comfortable suburban classroom. But that wouldn’t be enough to explain Sullivan’s appearance on NBC’s Today Show, or the attention she’s received from educators on the other side of the globe.

To understand fully what makes Sullivan tick, it’s necessary to talk about the 500,000 children nationwide who are in foster care. They share similar stories of families in emotional and economic upheaval. Sometimes, though, it’s the small humiliations that sap the spirits of kids in the system. When Sullivan read how such children often use trash bags or cardboard boxes to transport their possessions from one foster home to another because they don’t own anything better, she saw a place where a touch of the same personal attention she gives her own

students could be spread further. “The story was in Chicken Soup for the Pre-Teenage Soul,” she recalled. “A teenage girl told how she collected used pieces of luggage for the kids.”

Sullivan knew that she could take a good idea a step further.

She became the driving force behind Love Luggage — boldly colorful carry-alls individually crafted for each foster child.

From the beginning, Sullivan knew that students would play the central role in the program. Her own students became the second catalyst for the project in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.

“After 9/11, the kids were so stressed out, so frozen emotionally that they were looking for some kind of physical release. They wanted adults to give them answers or at least provide them with something constructive they could do. I looked at my seventhgraders and thought that they could find comfort in giving their time and their talents to helping others. Love Luggage grew out of their needs and the needs of foster kids.”

The first 15 pieces of Love Luggage created in the spring of 2001 weren’t a haphazard or one-time-feel-good project.

Mindful of the need to consider larger issues, Sullivan contacted Rod Brandt, public information officer at Lucas County Children Services, with her idea. Together, they devised a way to both help foster care children and create empathy between them and Sullivan’s students.

Kids from Sylvania — the very model of a prosperous Ohio suburb — able to understand the experience of being in foster care? Stereotypes need refuting in more ways than one, Sullivan said. “Issues relating to families have surfaced as part of this project. We’ve talked about how it would feel to be taken from your home, about what foster children face. Rod Brandt has been helpful in sharing his knowledge as a professional at Children Services. We’ve met kids in foster care; they shared their stories of abuse and neglect, which broke down stereotypes.

“And we talk a lot in class about the power of the word.

Like the word ‘homeless.’ One student here came into class and said, ‘Are you still talking to those homeless kids?’ I told her that they weren’t homeless. They had a home; they’d be moving

Some of Sullivan’s students —

to a new home soon. I pulled her out into the hall and said, ‘Did you know that two girls in your love luggage team are foster kids? They’re making a suitcase for another foster care kid and you just called them homeless.’ Well, she had just become friends with those two girls, and she was really upset when she realized what she had said.

“The seventh graders have adopted love luggage as their own. A lot of people think that kids at this age are egocentric,

but they really understand the big picture. They’re at a transitional age, one where they’re often self-conscious about revealing personal things through art. But you know, they took this project over, and I think there’s something about the very personal aspect of the luggage that they respond to. When Rod Brandt gives them names and information about the kids they’ll be designing for, they just have a natural feel for matching the child with the luggage. They do a great job.”

In 2001, partly because of Love Luggage, she was chosen as the National Barbie Arts Teacher of the Year by the Enter— and the teacher at work. tainment Industry Foundation National Arts Education Initiative, a group created to raise awareness of arts education and to fund arts programs. She won a trip to New York City (and that face time on the Today Show) plus a grant of $15,000.

The publicity helped, but Brandt noted that Love Luggage has taken off in a big way because Sullivan has created a blueprint so others can replicate the program. “If you call her and tell her you’d like to do the same project at your own school, she’s got a folder of material that outlines the process step by step.

“It caught on quickly, not only in Sylvania but across the country. In fact, she’s gotten inquiries from as far away as China.”

Honored this past May by The University of Toledo College of Education as Outstanding Young Educator, Sullivan uses a wide-ranging course content and doesn’t place all her Faberge eggs in one basket. “True vernacular art is as important as the old masters,” said the teacher whose own artistic specialty is illustration. She pointed out one of her students as being “a very creative kid whose creativity probably wouldn’t have gotten noticed in other classes if he hadn’t been able to tap into it through art. I believe in holistic teaching that uses hands-on experiences in addition to mental. Even penmanship is important. It’s a kind of education that’s becoming more common, I’m glad to see. When you have some students who have never finger-painted before, what kind of education is that?”

At the end of her third teaching year at Timberstone, Sullivan knew that she’d soon be seeing the last of her first Sylvania students. “I’m going to really miss them when they go. I ask them to do three things: take at least one art class in high school, remember to use art to help them when they’re stressed — and take something that they’ve learned in class and use it in the world.

“You know, it’s written into Timberstone’s mission that we’re trying to educate global citizens. That’s a great idea.”

If ideas are the currency of all teachers, Sullivan seems to possess a Bill Gates-sized treasury.  TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 13

by Paul Many

FACULTY ESSAY

Rabbits, Live and Dressed Illustrations by Craig Saffran

[1] When I was ten I got a rabbit for Easter. It was tiny and white and the lady next door gave it to me. The lady was old and smelled like bandages when you first take them out of the box. She said her rabbit had a litter and I could have one of her “little babies” if I wanted it.

I kept it in a cardboard box lined with shredded newspaper.

It was kittenlike and fun to play with. I named it Booju and fed it out of a toy bottle my sister used for her dolls. Then it got bigger and bigger and my father built a hutch for it from twoby-fours and chicken wire out in back of the house.

I kept it for a year, until it got fat and sluggish on its waterand-wilted-lettuce diet. Then it was Easter again and the lady next door said she would trade me Booju for another little baby.

I was glad to be rid of the old sleepy rabbit, for the tiny toylike one. I named the new rabbit Jimbo.

The lady made the same trade with me four years in a row.

By then I was old enough to figure out what was going on — I broke into a cold sweat the day it hit me. The fifth year when she came over, the cute little bunny in the palm of her hand, I said no, I liked the old one just fine.

[2] In one town we lived in, we rented a hundred-yearold farmhouse. The landlord, who was a great-grandson of one of the original settlers of the area, lived next door. He had an old Labrador mutt named Cinder. Cinder was nearly blind from the bluish-white cataracts that covered each eye, and hard of hearing, but she was nimble enough for her age.

One day she flushed two rabbits out of the landlord’s vegetable garden.

They tore hell-forbunnytail out of the back yard and through the side yard, heading for the road, Cinder lumbering behind. Just when it looked like they were safely out of her reach, one suddenly came to a dead halt. The other kept moving, throwing in a few extra zigs and zags and high kicks for effect.

Cinder ran right past the stalled rabbit, which must’ve stopped its heart so its blood vessels wouldn’t pulse. As the other rabbit reached the road, it made a 180-degree hop like an Olympic swimmer doing a flip turn and ran right between Cinder’s legs.

The dog changed direction about as well as an ocean liner, and by then the two rabbits had joined up again and were halfway back to the garden. Cinder closed the distance, but just as it seemed she might have them, they slipped through the fence at the back of the yard and she had to screech to a four-paw 14 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

stop to avoid mashing her muzzle on the wire.

To save his garden, our landlord had to start letting out the cat.

[3] Rabbits run across the road a lot here. It must be partly sport. Sometimes they lose their nerve halfway across, though, and try to run back.

That’s usually when, despite some fancy driving, you hear a thud and somehow through all that vinyl and carpeting and steel and rubber you feel them squirm as you roll over them.

Then you get a feeling in your stomach, like you’ve just swallowed a ball of fur.

A friend of mine told me what to do for peace of mind in such cases. When you get home, he said, find a quiet spot to sit. Then close your eyes and call up the rabbit’s spirit — soul is actually the word he used. Tell it you certainly didn’t mean for this to happen, that it was just one of those things and you are sorry.

Then release the spirit so it can go wherever rabbit spirits go. In its rush it will take along its hot, furry guilt.

[4] When I lived in the city, I had a friend whose family was from Malta. They ate strange foods, compared to our pork chops and mashed potatoes. One day while my friend and I were hanging around his house, his mother gave him a few dollars and told him to go to the market and buy a rabbit for stew.

The market, whose main business was selling live chickens, had a musty, hot featherand-dung smell. In the cloudy

shop windows over the wooden cages of squawking chickens hung small steel cages, each containing a rabbit. My friend pointed to one of the cages, and the butcher — a short, balding man in a blood-stained apron — reached in, took out the rabbit, and held it up by its hind legs.

It struggled slightly, then was still. We stared blankly.

Then, not waiting for us to say anything, he took the rabbit into the back room. A wooden wedge propped open the door allowing us to see in.

The room’s walls were of white tile and at its center stood a couple of sinks, a row of stainless steel hooks running above them.

The butcher tied the rabbit’s hind legs together, then slipped them up over one of the hooks so the rabbit hung by the intervening bit of twine.

As before, the rabbit struggled slightly, then was still.

Then the butcher picked up a slat of wood the size and thickness of a ruler and quickly and sharply smacked the rabbit a glancing blow off the base of its skull. The rabbit went completely limp and blood dripped out of its nose and mouth and into the sink. A few deft cuts with a razor-sharp knife and the blue guts plopped in the sink; another few cuts and the butcher peeled off the skin and fur the way you might pull off a sweater in a steamheated room.

He next tore a length of white paper from a large roll, neatly wrapped the carcass in a crisp bundle, and handed it to my friend. We walked out the front door past the cages, one of which now swung empty in the sun-etched window. The whole process had taken less than five minutes.

When we got out in the street, my friend handed me the package: “Here, feel this,” he said. The flesh was still warm beneath the stiff paper.

We were very careful crossing streets on the way home.

[5] My wife and I were visiting a childhood friend and his wife back East. I had been his best man the year before and now we were getting together at what was to be a quieter time when we could really talk.

My friend believes in being a perfect host, and (I suspect) the demands he placed on himself in that regard, along with the other complications of modern living, conspired to give him a migraine. A bad one.

He told me a story he’d heard on the radio about a waitress who was taking an order in a restaurant when a workman, renovating a shop next door, accidentally shot a nail out of a nail gun clean through the wall and into her skull. My friend said he knew exactly how she felt.

So he had to lie flat in a dimmed room, while the rest of us sat out in the back yard. We got to talking about how nice and secluded the yard was and my friend’s wife said it was so quiet that they would often see a rabbit out there sunning himself.

This was fascinating to them, having grown up city folks, and they would peek out the window and marvel at him peaceful and calm, legs stretched out in front and in back, eyes blissfully closed, drinking in the sun.

She told us how my friend’s father — a gentle man who would walk me home by the hand when my friend and I were children and I had stayed playing late — came out for a birthday dinner my friend and his wife had prepared for him. They told him about this rabbit and he was very interested, and talked about how he and my friend’s mother had kept pet rabbits and how he held onto them after my friend’s mother died — so he couldn’t ignore, he said with a wink, how life went on.

At one point they left him sitting out on the patio, drink in hand, while they went in to tend the meal. When they looked out the window, there was the rabbit, sitting under the old man’s chair, quiet and blissful as usual.

“It was a miracle,” said my friend’s wife.

They tiptoed around trying to keep quiet so they wouldn’t scare the rabbit away while they finished their kitchen chores.

When they went back out, however, the rabbit was gone.

When they asked if he’d seen the rabbit, the old man said no. “But it’s funny,” he added, “with all of your talk, you got me to thinking, and I’m sure I was humming the little tune your mother used to calm the rabbits when she handled them.”

They still see the rabbit from time to time. “But he seems uneasy or something,” said my friend’s wife. “He hops around sniffing and twitching. He can’t seem to get settled.”  “Rabbits, Live and Dressed” first appeared in The Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1, Fall/ Winter, 1986-1987. It was reprinted in different form in Special Report: Fiction, Vol. 3, No. 4, November, 1990-January, 1991 and in Ohio Short Fiction, ed. by Jon Saari, Northmont Publishing (West Bloomfield, Mich., 1995).

Paul Many is a professor in the Department of Communication at The University of Toledo and also teaches in the department of English. He is the author of three books for teens, most recently Walk Away Home. His picture book, The Great Pancake Escape, was named one of the “Best Books of 2002” by the Los Angeles Times.

TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 15

S

16 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

S

So you think you know University Hall? Yeah, so maybe you’ve heard that all those hand-painted seals on the walls of the third floor represent the alma maters of the University’s first faculty members. And maybe it’s no news to you that from the ground level of the building there’s a tunnel leading to the old Field House. Heck, you may even know the answer to one of the great mysteries of Doermann Theater — how actors access those little balconies on either side of the stage.

uncovered

But The University of Toledo’s first and best-loved building still contains plenty of largely unknown history among its warren of offices, classrooms and storage spaces.

Whether you’re a veteran alum who walked that tunnel on your way to commencement or have just received your UT diploma at Savage Hall, chances are you’ll find something surprising in this look at the lesser visited sights of the most beloved 72-year-old on campus.

TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 17

IN THE BEGINNING. “To the right and to the left and all around it stretches

the 114 acres of gently rolling ground that form its setting. From Bancroft Street the ground slopes away softly to a wooded ravine rods behind the University Hall.

Through the middle of the campus the diminutive Ottawa River winds slowly.”

— Blade reporter Joseph A. Gelyn, waxing eloquent in 1931

U HALL OBSERVATORY. Now occupied mainly by

paint chips and the occasional arboreal rodent, the observatory housed UT’s first telescope, which was constructed in 1906 and donated to the University by three individuals. The facility (part of its roof shown below) was in use up into the 1970s, although frequent unauthorized visits by non-astronomers made it necessary to padlock the entry door. Late in that decade, a determined thief scaled the wall of U Hall (right), broke into the dome’s trap door (far right) and made off with the telescope’s optics. The department of astronomy and physics put out tracers and placed the news in professional journals, hoping to catch the perpetrator if the optics — manufactured at the turn of the century by Alvin Clark and historically significant — were sold. No leads resulted.

In the meantime, the telescope housing was removed, renovated, fitted with new optics and installed in McMaster Hall. The story took another twist about three years ago, when the astronomy department heard from a mysterious and anonymous caller. He said that he was representing the thief, who wished to return the optics if no questions were asked. When department heads agreed and arrived at the agreed-upon meeting place, they found only a box containing the optics — which now reside in a locked safe, location understandably undisclosed.

18 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

TOWER. Anyone who’s made even the

most cursory tour of campus knows the Tower.

Fewer have climbed its series of staircases — only the brave attempt the final ascent on the spiral with the most built-in sway (right). Every level has its treasures, from defunct clock workings (right, below) to a model clock hand and part of the UT carillon, displayed by Mark Yeary, UT Web master, networking specialist and a former electrical engineering employee who assisted in the renovation of the Tower clock. Two former UT employees, however — Guenther Buenning and John Georgia — provided the skills that brought timeliness back to the Tower in the late ’60s. Buenning, then working in the physics department, wondered why the Tower clock didn’t function. He asked for permission to examine the mechanism and found the old brass components completely worn out. He replaced all four mechanisms (one on each side of the Tower) with stainless steel parts, and added the Westminster-style chimes to sound every 30 minutes “as a reminder for students that they are here to learn.” Georgia built all the electrical systems necessary for the effort. Pictured is the center mechanism in the Tower (called “the eighth floor” by Buenning and Georgia), which gets its signal from the main clock housed on U Hall’s third floor, then relays it to outdoor Tower clocks.

THE ELEVATED HALLWAY.

Several legends have sprung up over the origin of this hallway — visible but not accessible from U Hall’s fifth-floor central stairwell — connecting two now-unused doors. Some ascribe it to the close relationship between an early administrator and his secretary, others to a curmudgeonly professor who wanted a private route to another part of his domain. The truth comes out in the original U Hall blueprints: the hallway connected a more public section of the old University library with its librarians-only stacks.

TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 19

THE STABLES. Housing for

many years offices of the English department’s graduate students, this well-known suite at the center of the fifth floor harkens back to the University’s earliest days, when the area was intended as a “men’s and women’s social room.” A visit reveals the original cork floor that also can be found across the hall in areas that were once the library.

OCTAGON ROOMS. A mere nine

feet at their widest, the three offices that run down the east side of the Tower are still in demand. On the fifth floor, a lucky graduate student calls one of the rooms home (below).

The fourth floor room, once a kitchenette, now serves as an auxiliary faculty office, and in the provost’s office on the third floor (right), the room has been cleaned of its old files and turned into a conference room — for circular arguments, perhaps.

FOSSIL WATCH. UT’s presidents have

to remain mindful of history, but normally not pre-history. However, embedded on either side of the fireplace in the president’s office are two 175-million-year-old cephalopods, each nearly two feet long, excavated during U Hall’s construction, maybe by some of the crew shown here.

WHIMSICAL PLEA. Not a message from The Man in the Iron Mask, the inscription seemingly left by former UT President Glen Driscoll commemorates the fact that what is now a wall was once a doorway leading to the president’s lavatory. “Help me. I’m trapped behind this wall — Glen Driscoll,” runs the communication that now shares the room with office supplies and a microwave.

20 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

T

GREENHOUSE. Clearly a

feature of U Hall from the beginning (right), the greenhouse was initially the province of Dr. Howard Bowman, chairman of the biology department for 38 years. When the department moved to the then-new Bowman-Oddy facility in the mid1960s, the greenhouse passed to the College of Pharmacy and was used

by Dr. Joseph Schradie to establish an outpost for pharmacognosy — the study of medicinal substances derived from natural sources. The photograph shown below dates from that time, when all the plants used in the field of study were grown in the greenhouse. Schradie also used the greenhouse to start all the seedlings that formed the basis of the annuals collection at UT’s Stranahan Arboretum. Plant genetics became the new focus of the structure when Schradie partially retired and Dr. Stephen Goldman took over the facility. Since Goldman’s work moved to Wolfe Hall in 1998, the irrigation pipes at the U Hall greenhouse have been dry, the plant benches bare.

TUNNEL. No, this isn’t

the one that provided generations of faculty with a cozy, dry walk to the Memorial Field House. This tunnel is for all purposes the cellar of University Hall, and the 15-foot walls of concrete that support the heavy load above make for a secure (if sometimes cramped) shelter.

The University’s Cold War contingency plans made certain that the tunnel was well stocked with drinking water and food in containers that could, when empty, double as porta-potties. A few such Civil Defense relics from that era remain.

There are many more stories connected with University Hall, and the building’s many renovations over the years have been the guarantee of further mysteries.

Only the Sphinx, perhaps, could answer the riddle of why there are no public restrooms on the third floor. And then there’s The Singular Case of the Revolving Elevator, and the Lair of the Fruit Bat — but those are for another installment.

As for how actors access those Doermann balconies — with ladders, of course. The doors are facades. 

TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 21

class

’35

Clara Lukens Parks (Bus) had a 1955 novel, The Mestizo, written by her late husband, Bill Parks, republished by Trafford Publishing (www.trafford.com). A published author in her own right, Clara is readying a collection of her own stories, The Girl Who Said No and Other Stories, for press. She also sends out a request to other ’30s alumni to send their news to Toledo Alumni Magazine so that she’s not the only representative of the decade!

’49

Dr. Robert Schlembach (Pharm), professor emeritus of pharmacy at The University of Toledo, was elected to a three-year term on the board of the UT Alumni Association. He serves as the interim director and historian of the College of Pharmacy Alumni Affiliate and on two college committees, in addition to working as a contingent pharmacist at the UT Medical Center’s pharmacy department.

Robert E. Siegel (Pharm), Toledo, and his wife, Marie, are back in town after wintering on the Gulf Coast.

’50

George W. Green (Bus, MBA ’51), Dearborn, Mich., gave a presentation on collecting joke books at Toledo’s Stranahan Manor House in March.

Charles F. Mann Sr. (Bus ’50), founder of Toledo’s Chas. F. Mann Painting Co., was made a national honorary life member of the Painting and Decorating Contractors of America at its annual meeting in March, acknowledging his more than 50 years of volunteer efforts for the contractor association.

’51

Rear Adm. George Gorsuch (A/S), Perrysburg, Ohio, was given the title of Master of the American College of Physicians. Prior to his retirement from the Navy, he held many positions including fleet surgeon to the Seventh Fleet and the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii, commanding officer of the Portsmouth Regional Medical Center and deputy surgeon general of the Navy.

’62

Larry Rochelle (Ed, Ed Spec ’80), professor of English at Johnson Community College in Overland Park, Kan., had his fifth book in the Palmer Morel Mystery Series, The Mephisto Diary, published in June by Zumaya Publications.

22 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

’65

Stephen C. Goldman (A/S) retired in April after 37 years as a teacher and administrator in the Dover (N.J.) Public Schools system. He began a new career in June with the New Jersey Department of Education/ Division of Evaluation and Assessment.

’66

Patrick J. Foley (Law), retired executive assistant U.S. attorney, was appointed by Ohio Gov. Bob Taft to the Lucas County Common Pleas Court.

Dr. Joyce Van Tassel-Baska (Ed, MEd ’69, PhD ’81), professor of education at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, received the Distinguished Achievement Award from The University of Toledo College of Education at their Recognition of Excellence Scholarship Dinner in May. She is the developer of a graduate program and a research/ development center in gifted education.

’67

Jim Traver (Bus, MBA ’70) became president of HR Works LLC, which provides human resource professionals and services to organizations in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan.

’69

Tom Brown (MEd), mayor of Port Clinton, Ohio, was given an honorary doctor’s degree of public service by the University of Rio Grande, where he took his bachelor’s degree. The longtime educator and local public officeholder gave the Founders Day address at the Ohio university in May. Sue Carter (A/S, MEd ’89), a social worker at the Medical College of Ohio, was honored by the American Civil Liberties Union at the Northwest Ohio ACLU annual dinner in May. She is serving her second year as president of the organization’s state affiliate.

’70

Stephan Seagrave (Ed, MEd ’75), principal of McCutchenville and Melmore (Ohio) Elementary Schools, announced his retirement in May. He has been an elementary principal with the district since 1992 and has been in education for more than 30 years.

’71

James A. Hoffman (Bus, MBA ’72), president of KeyBank’s northwest Ohio district, gave the keynote speech at the May commencement of Owens Community College in Perrysburg, Ohio.

notes

’72

Art J. Weber (Univ Coll), who retired from the Toledo Area Metroparks after 30 years as public information manager, returned to the parks as director of the National Center for Nature Photography. The facility, located at Secor Metropark, is his creation and is the first of its kind in the country.

’73

Alva (Dan) H. Bostick (Pharm) celebrated the 24th anniversary of the opening of Bostick Pharmacy in Piketon, Ohio, in April. He still finds time to fly his Cessna for pleasure.

David M. Boyer (Pharm) received the Walter Frazier Award from the Ohio Society of Health System Pharmacists at their annual meeting.

Rob Delane (MEd, Ed Spec ’79), Westerville, Ohio, was promoted to director of the Ohio School Boards Association’s Division of School Board Development, with responsibility for assisting in executive administrator searches, delivering in-service training and workshops, and coordinating several student organizations.

David Jex (A/S), professor of music at The University of Toledo, was awarded a grant from the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo to compose music for a multimedia work based on the children’s book, The Great Pancake Escape, by Paul Many, UT professor of communications (and author of the article on Page 14). Jex also received a commission from the Toledo Symphony Orchestra to compose a fanfare celebrating its 60th anniversary season.

Joe Ludwig (Univ Coll), manager of the Maumee Branch of the ToledoLucas County Public Library, was honored as one of five 2002 Hometown Heroes recognized by the city of Maumee for community service.

Thomas (Tim) Malone (Univ Coll, MA ’80), Maumee, Ohio, was hired as the principal of St. John’s Jesuit High School. A teacher at the Toledo school since 1980, he was associate principal since 1999.

Risa C. McCray (Law) was appointed judge of the Dayton (Ohio) Municipal Court by Gov. Bob Taft in February. She has run a private practice in Dayton since 1983 and has served as an acting municipal judge for the city since 1981.

’74

Richard Martinko (Eng), who has worked for the Ohio Department of Transportation for 17 years, was promoted to assistant director for highway management, working out of ODOT’s Columbus office.

Dr. Ted A. Zigler (Ed, MEd ’77) was named assistant superintendent of the Southwest Local School District in Harrison, Ohio, near Cincinnati. He had been principal of William Henry Harrison High School for the past eight years.

’75

Jon Shepard (Ed, MA ’79, Ed Spec ’81, MEd ’85) began his 28th year as a teacher with Toledo Public Schools when he transferred to Rogers High School Library in September. In addition to 18 years with high school libraries, he has also taught English as a second language and special education for the blind.

Shepard ’75, ’79, ’81, ’85

’76

Betty D. Montgomery (Law), Ohio state auditor, received the Distinguished Alumnus award from the Bowling Green State University Alumni Association in March when she was on campus to give the keynote address for the start of the university’s Women’s History Month activities. She took her undergraduate degree from BGSU in 1970.

Bob Morrissey (Univ Coll) had his book, Humorous Beat: Actual Funny Police Stories, accepted as part of the permanent collection of the Ohioana Library, an archive for the work of Ohio authors, artists and musicians.

The book was highlighted in the Winter 2002 issue of Toledo Alumni Magazine.

Kim M. Sutkus (Ed), Elmore, Ohio, is a media specialist for K-5 in the Benton Carroll Salem Local School District.

Bryan M. Valentine (Bus) joined Management Performance International Inc. in Cincinnati as a consultant. The 25-year veteran of the human resources field served in executive capacities for various firm, and spent two years in Europe as chief spokesman for labor negotiations.

class

“D

o you know about the murder on the Miami and Erie Canal?” asked Fred Folger (Ed ’61), retired teacher and master story-spinner. “And the story of Bloody Bridge?”

Who says that Ohio can’t lay claim to nautical drama?

Folger, a retired educator who taught social studies at Toledo’s Washington Local Schools, knows dozens of stories associated with the waterway that was the Concorde of its day. Folger has made it a mission to keep the public mindful of the Ohio canal system, built between 1825 and 1843. “In their day, the canals were projects of staggering proportions,” he said.

“Ohio was mainly a wilderness at the time. You had to send surveying teams in to determine canal routes, and where the water source was going to be. In central Ohio, there are no rivers to follow.

There, you had to create manmade lakes to supply the canals. Grand Lake St. Mary’s is one. Lake Loramie near Minster is another. They weren’t dug. The teams would search out low, marshy areas with creeks. They would wall them in so water couldn’t leave, but would fill these low depressions.”

The northwest Ohio canal, which was a minimum of five feet deep and 60 feet wide, was dug by hand; the labor was backbreaking. The laborers were locals — farm boys organized into work gangs — and Irish and German immigrants. “They were eager to take any kind of work,” Folger noted. “They had to begin by clearing forests. In the summer in the Maumee Valley, work would come to a halt because so many men were sick with malaria or cholera. It’s said there’s one Irishman buried for every mile of canal.”

In sum, a hard project and a hard life even after the

notes

Alum devotes time to keeping history afloat canals were functional. As one woman who grew up on a canal boat wrote in a letter to a local newspaper many years later, “I am trying to forget my canal boat childhood days but they haunt me, live them over every day flies all day mosquitoes at night no one could sleep for the horses stomping at mosquitoes would bite sore shoulders. No ice No tissue No hot running water. No Wash machine used wash board No screens saved dish water to do the dishes all day. At each lock I would fill the jugs to last till the next lock. No springs on bed. A straw tick on bare boards to

Trains went faster, and rails didn’t freeze up in the winter.

The canals were never a financial success, but they opened up a lot of territory.”

But meanwhile, back at Bloody Bridge, where in 1854 canal boat captain Bill Jones decapitated fellow captain Jack Billings with an axe after they fell out over the favors of lovely Minnie Warren, the canal has entered the realm of legend. Folger regularly tells the story to tour groups ’round about Halloween. “When Minnie saw the murder, she screamed a scream that was heard across the county. She fainted clean away, falling into the dark waters of the canal

Time tripper. Folger in canal-days togs, right, and above, the real thing, circa 1850 near Waterville, Ohio. Archival photo courtesy of Toledo-Lucas County Public Library.

sleep two bunks under steering deck. At night would put our clothes on table so if boat leaked our clothes would be dry to put on.”

In these more comfortable times, some of the history still remains tangible. Folger, who gives regular canal talks and tours for Toledo Metroparks, said, “I started traveling along the canal’s route to see how much is still identifiable. There’s more than people would think. On State Route 424 between Napoleon and Defiance, the canal is evident because it holds water — that’s near Florida, Ohio. The canal route crossed the Maumee River near Defiance and continued to Cincinnati.”

Then there was Providence. “Providence was a little settlement where Providence Park is now. It was a rip-roaring, wild spot. There was a Catholic priest in Toledo who thought that all those Irishmen needed spiritual guidance, so he went out there and he founded St. Patrick’s Church. On the cornerstone the date is 1845; it’s a vestige of the canal.

“The canal meant more than transportation — people could build mills alongside to grind grain or saw logs for the homes, barns and shops of little canal towns. The first boat came through from Cincinnati in 1845 and the peak year of operation was 1851. After that, it was downhill because of the railroads.

where she drowned. Bill ran off into the darkness, throwing himself down the well of a nearby farm. They found his skeleton years later. To this day, that bridge, along State Route 66 down in Auglaize County, is called Bloody Bridge. When the old wooden bridge was there, it was said that the stains of Jack Billings’ blood could never be removed.

The spirit of Bill Jones is very restless, and you may encounter him even today.

“Was it suicide or was it justice?” asked Folger with a final flourish.  TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 23

class James R. Whiteman (MEd) received the Distinguished Service Award from The University of Toledo College of Education at their Recognition of Excellence Scholarship Dinner in May. Now retired, the 21-year supervisory veteran of Fulton County Schools in Ohio still finds time for teaching and training.

’77

Doug Daoust (Pharm) opened his second pharmacy in February, at NorthPointe Commons Mall in Defiance, Ohio.

Michael E. Foley (Law), who has a private law practice in Waynesville, Ohio, was named president of the Warren County Bar Association for 2003-04.

Kurt Nordhaus (Eng), an Information & Electronic Warfare Systems Fellow with BAE Systems, received a 2002 Technical Excellence Award from the New Hampshire-based defense company for his work on a BAE missile warning system.

’78

Marty Hohenberger (UTCTC, Eng ’81, MBA ’86) was named project manager at the Dayton Development Coalition, a privately funded organization created to promote economic and community development in the Miami Valley region of Ohio.

’79

Jeffrey C. Sessler (Pharm) was appointed director of pharmacy services at St. Luke’s Hospital in Maumee, Ohio.

Jon J. Strole (Bus) was promoted to vice president and controller with Hylant Group, a Toledo-based risk management/insurance company with offices in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana.

’81

Gabrielle Reinicke (A/S) joined the Ohio University Credit Union in Athens, Ohio, as human resource manager.

Mary Beth (Miller) Shearman (UTCTC, Bus ’82, MEd ’87), Grand Rapids, Ohio, head respiratory therapist for the American Lung Association’s Camp SUPERKIDS, passed the national examination to become a certified asthma educator.

Judge Gene A. Zmuda (A/S, Law ’84) joined the Toledo Municipal Court in February following his appointment to the position by Ohio Gov. Bob Taft. He had been an atlarge city councilman since 1994.

’82

Judge Robert Grillo (Law) was sworn in as Vinton County probate/ juvenile court judge in March, at the McArthur, Ohio, courthouse.

Michelle Manzo (MEng), a senior engineer in the electrochemistry branch of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, received the first Women in Engineering Achievement Award, sponsored by Design News magazine. The award and a $20,000 educational grant were presented in Chicago in March. Manzo, recognized for her leadership in developing longlife batteries for NASA missions, chose the Ernest B. Yeager Center for Electrochemical Sciences at Case Western Reserve University to receive the grant.

notes David M. Mohr (Eng) was named assistant chief, Division of Engineering, with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, where he has worked for nearly 20 years. He lives in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, with his wife, Karen (Perry) (Ed), and son, John.

Cathleen Nelson (MBA), president and CEO of St. Charles Mercy Hospital in Oregon, Ohio, was honored in March for her contributions to the health care field at “Milestones: A Tribute to Women,” sponsored by the YWCA. The 2002 winner of the Accomplished Graduate Award from Bowling Green State University’s Office of Alumni Affairs was also one of the first women elected to the Ohio Hospital Association board.

’83

Sr. Ann Francis Klimkowski (PhD), president emerita of Lourdes College in Sylvania, Ohio, was named The University of Toledo College of Education Distinguished Alumnus at the college’s Recognition of Excellence Scholarship Dinner in May. Stephen Routzahn (Pharm) was inducted into The Medicine Shoppe’s Summit Club for exceptional achievement with his Bucyrus, Ohio, pharmacy.

C. Robert Thompson (UTCTC) was named new product introduction manager for the tire group of Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. He has been with the Findlay, Ohio, company since 1990.

’84

Dr. Brent C. Nimeth (A/S), president of the medical staff at Knox Community Hospital in Mount Vernon, Ohio, and a major in the U.S. Army Medical Corps,was the speaker at Mount Vernon’s Memorial Day ceremony in May. Lori L. Snodgrass Woodson (Pharm), director of pharmacy for Northeast Ohio Neighborhood Health Services Inc., received the 2003 Beal Award from the Ohio Pharmacists Association in recognition of her contributions to the advancement of the profession. She is currently serving as president of the National Pharmaceutical Association.

Charles W. Turnwald (Bus) was promoted to vice president/controller at the Ohio Gas Co. in Bryan, Ohio.

He has been with the company since 1995.

’85

Michael E. Calli (Pharm) presented a continuing education program, “Pharmacist Disaster Preparedness in Ohio,” to the Stark County Academy of Pharmacy.

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notes blindness — it took me a week to recover.”

Back home in Chicago, she could consider the impact that Global Alliance has made in the years since its founding.

Created by health care professionals and other individuals from Africa, North America and Europe, the organization has funded nursing scholarships, nutrition programs and a safe water program, but as

The children who have lost both parents are often taken in by their grandparents, but given the large number of children in a family, this isn’t always feasible. Global Alliance works to place the orphans in foster homes and provide a monthly stipend to support the children into adulthood. “If not for the foster care, many of the children are left abandoned on the streets

Summit on AIDS orphans a personal climb for alumna

T

he snows of Kilimanjaro may melt within this century, climatologists say, but there was plenty of the frozen precipitation on the mountain to challenge Phyllis Shadwick (A/S ’64) in February when she and eight companions gathered at the foot of the 19,340-foot peak in Tanzania. Maybe even more of a challenge was the reason they came together: to raise money for the Global Alliance for Africa’s work with the continent’s AIDS orphans.

Shadwick’s interest in Africa dates back to when she first read about the 13 million children in Africa whose parents have died of AIDS. (Experts predict 43 million orphans by 2010.)

Galvanized into taking action, she began by writing letters to public officials, then took organized a fund-raiser for a Kenyan You’re the top. Kilimanjaro from afar (left) and at the summit (above).

Shadwick, second from right, with her team, including orphanage. The guest speaker at the event was executive direcTom Derdak in black jacket. tor and founder of Global Alliance for Africa, Tom Derdak.

“That’s how I got involved in my second full-time job,” said Shadwick explained, the AIDS where they die or form gangs Shadwick, whose other career is doing social work with the epidemic in sub-Saharan to survive,” Shadwick said. homeless of Chicago.

Africa gave the alliance a new She remains upbeat. The The Kilimanjaro climb was organized by Global Alliance as focus. “The past year the Africans she works with have part of an overall $100,000 campaign, with each member of the emphasis has been on AIDS set the example for her. “I’m nine-person group hoping to raise $5,000. At 62, Shadick was orphans. Last year the alliance always struck by the resiliency the oldest climber in the group that included Derdak. As it cared for 100 orphans; this of the people, their loving turned out, he was able to offer encouragement and support to year we’d like to increase it to natures, their welcoming of her during the lung-busting climb. “There’s only 50 percent 600.” strangers. In the midst of all oxygen near the top and we didn’t wear oxygen masks. If I’d Eastern Africa, particuthis, they’re so gracious and have known how hard it was, I might not have tried it — so it’s larly Kenya and Tanzania, is full of joy at the small pleaa good thing I didn’t know!” where Global Alliance is tarsures of life. There seems to The ascent took four days. “Our final ascent was begun at geting most of its assistance. be a spiritual foundation in midnight, and it’s probably intentional so that you can’t see how Shadwick noted that although Africa that I don’t see here.” terrifyingly steep the last climb is. But we were so slow that the AIDS is now being more fully Working to help Global sun came up when we still had two hours to go, so we saw addressed by the governments Alliance save “one child at a exactly how steep it is. of the two countries, “There’s time,” Shadwick is thinking “When I was at the end of my strength, there was some still a lot of denial. Part of that about the next fund-raiser. inner resource I was able to call on. I was determined to finish.” denial is because there are no “But it’ll be a walk, not a At the summit, the view exhilarated her: “It was absolutely stun- drugs readily available there climb!” ning at the top — you’re way above the clouds, the sun turns the to treat the disease. When Note: Information about sky pink.” Equally buoying was knowing that she had personpeople in Africa are diagnosed Global Alliance for Africa can ally brought $8,000 in pledges to Global Alliance. That knowlwith AIDS, it’s a death senbe found at their Web site: edge made the descent easier in spite of the toll the expedition tence, so they don’t want to www.globalallianceafrica.org/  took on her. “My knee gave out on way down, and I had snow know that they have it.”

TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 25

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notes

UT math teacher’s memories anything but mere numbers

F

ern Welker Mervos (A/S ’32, MS ’33) remembers well what seemed like a long journey to The University of Toledo’s new campus in 1932. “I took the Nebraska streetcar in to school, and as we reached the last stop, the driver would always yell, ‘End of the world!’ And we actually felt like we were at the end of the world then,” she recalled with a laugh.

The city has grown tremendously through the years, noted Mervos, and UT has progressed with it. “The University is so much stronger now, as is the math department,” said the former UT math professor.

The roots of Mervos’ teaching career began long before her days at UT. In her last year of grade school, she was “excused from math” and asked instead to tutor the younger students. By the time she enrolled at UT in 1928, her aptitude in math was even more clearly defined, and by her junior year she was teaching night classes. Made an assistant professor in 1943, she taught from 1936-1947.

Over the next two decades, she enjoyed working with many talented faculty, including Wayne Dancer, J.B. Brandeberry, June Winslow and Maurice Lemme. She also developed close relationships with a number of her students, including Maurice Wallace, who was later seriously injured at Pearl Harbor. Upon hearing of his injury, she wrote him and he immediately replied.

“He told me, ‘The first thing I got in the hospital was a card from you, and I’ll never forget you.’” Wallace recovered and went on to become a successful photographer.

She has fond memories, too, of teaching military pilots, before navigators could “simply push buttons” to fly their aircraft. “They had to do a lot of estimating, figuring wind speed, amount of gasoline and other factors,” she said. “This was long before computers and other dashboard instruments. Back then, many of the students relied heavily on their own knowledge and their slide rules. I had a couple students tell me they’d rather have me than a slide rule.”

One of her strongest memories of UT is an experience she had while still a student. “I remember another math student who was very bright but couldn’t afford to continue his studies. Prof.

Winslow loaned him the money to complete his college education. I don’t know whatever became of him, but I do know he kept track and paid back every penny he’d borrowed.”

That teacher’s personal involvement and dedication to his students sticks with her still and has made the Fern Welker Mervos Scholarship at UT particularly rewarding. The math scholarship was established in 2001 by Mervos’ niece Dr. Nina McClelland (A/S ’51, MS ’62).

“My aunt treasures her UT experience,” said McClelland.

“This scholarship allows her to be a permanent part of The University of Toledo.”  — Sherry Stanfa-Stanley ’83 26 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

Congrats of a lifetime, Don!

D

on Flickinger’s idea of celebrating the degree that he started working on 75 years ago is likely to be much different from that of his fellow classmates.

“At my age, celebrating means getting into bed for a good nap,” Flickinger said.

Flickinger was two days shy of his 96th birthday when he got his associate’s degree in technical studies from The University of Toledo in May. He is the oldest person to have graduated from UT. “I’m ecstatic,” he said from his apartment in a retirement village.

Flickinger began taking classes in 1928, the same year Calvin Coolidge was president and Babe Ruth was hitting home runs for the Yankees. When the Depression started, he had to quit school. He took more classes after he returned to UT in 1996 as an employee. Retirement and travel put another gap in his transcript. He returned in 2001 when he took an independent study that led to the degree.  — compiled from Associated Press reports that appeared nationwide

Senior honors at 102

Geiger, center, with niece, Dorothy Opdycke and great-niece , Helene Opdycke (moonlighting as Easter Bunny), ready for another springtime party.

D

orothy Geiger (Ed ’28), who lives at Toledo’s Sunset House, turned 102 in April, quite possibly making her The University of Toledo’s oldest living alumna. Until any other candidates come forward, the crown will be hers, and best wishes to you, Dorothy! 

class Elaine (Moritz) Nickoli (UTCTC), a 17-year veteran of the Maumee, Ohio,Police Department, was named Officer of the Year in January 2003.

She served as a volunteer police officer at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and served three terms on the board of the national Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) Officers Association. She’s the mother of two children, Brittany and Brad.

Nickoli ’85

’86

Kristine (Pilliod) Hoffman (A/S) began hosting a new local weekly business segment, Business Now, on WGTE-TV (Ch. 30), Toledo’s Public Broadcasting channel. The show, which she also produces, explores regional business initiatives with global impact. She welcomes new programming ideas and invites viewer input at the program’s Web site: www.wgte.org/businessnow.htm.

’87

Harish Krishnamurthy (MEng), director of business planning and strategy for IBM’s Storage Software Division in Somers, N.Y., was elected to a one-year term on the board of ProLiteracy Worldwide, which fosters literacy in developing countries as well as the U.S. via publishing, education and services.

’88

Todd A. Cook (A/S) joined the Columbus law firm of Plunkett & Cooney.

Anne Y. Koester (Law) accepted a position as associate director of the Georgetown Center for Liturgy, a Washington, D.C., education, research and consultation center for Roman Catholic worship.

Tammy Mansfield (Ed, MEd ’02), special education teacher at the Lucas County Educational Service Center, received the 2003 Howard M. Baker Master Educator Award at the education board’s annual service recognition dinner.

’89

Bob Barbosky (MPA) was hired as parks, recreation and grounds manager of Orange Township in central Ohio.

Robert Mahnke (Ed) was hired as varsity boys basketball coach with Tinora Schools near Defiance, Ohio, by the Northeastern Local Board of Education.

Frank Zygela (Law), managing attorney for Petroff and Associates in Dallas, was honored by Penta Career Center, Perrysburg, Ohio, as one of its 2003 Outstanding Alumni.

’90 Hoffman ’86 William J. McLoughlin (Law), a partner in the Columbus-area firm of Metz & Bailey, was certified by the Ohio State Bar Association as a specialist in estate planning, trust and probate law.

Mark J. Schoenlein (UTCTC), manager of engineering quality systems with the Owens-Illinois Plastics Group in Perrysburg, Ohio, was named a Fellow of the American Society for Quality in recognition of his professional accomplishments.

notes

Todd Audet (Eng) was promoted to deputy director for District Two with the Ohio Department of Transportation.

Beth Ann Kneisley (Univ Coll), Maumee, Ohio, chairwoman of the occupational therapy assistant program at Owens Community College in Perrysburg, received the Award of Merit from the Ohio Occupational Therapy Association, the highest honor given to an organizational member who demonstrates leadership and professional achievement.

Kleia Luckner (Law), administrative director of women and ambulatory services at The Toledo Hospital, was one of those honored in March at “Milestones: A Tribute to Women,” sponsored by the YWCA. Brad Szczecinski (Bus) was named to lead the Investment Advisory Services group of Ernst & Young at the financial services company’s Chicago and Milwaukee offices.

Szczecinski ’90

Tara (Dallman) Voelker (A/S) and her husband, Daniel, announce the birth of their twin daughters, Merin Carol and Margaret Marianne, in December 2002. Tara has a private dental practice in Independence, Ky. Kathie S. Weaver (Univ Coll) joined The Collaborative Inc., a Toledobased architectural/interior design firm, as marketing coordinator. She had previously been with SSOE Inc.

’91

James K. Gee (A/S, MS ’94) was named general manager of Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority (TARTA) in March. He has been with TARTA since 1992, most recently as director of planning.

Doug Pearson (Ed), head football coach at St. John’s Jesuit High School in Toledo, was one of the featured speakers at the Nike 51st annual Duffy Daugherty Coach of the Year Football Clinic, held in May in Mount Pleasant, Mich.

’92

Dr. Ivan Dangler (PhD) retired in the spring after 42 years in education, the last 10 of them as principal of Green Springs (Ohio) Elementary School.

Antony E. DeMarco (Bus) was appointed vice president, commercial loan officer at Second National Bank, working out of the bank’s North Olmsted, Ohio, Financial Services Center.

Dr. Jodi L. (Lambdin) Devine (Bus) and her husband, Eric, announce the birth of their son, Jackson Matthew, in December. Jodi works in enrollment services at Owens Community College’s Findlay, Ohio, campus.

Timothy F. Ferris (Eng, MEng ’94) was ordained as a Catholic priest in June. The former automotive engineer studied divinity at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit and served as a deacon and as a pastoral intern. He is assigned to St. Mary Parish in Tiffin, Ohio.

Tod Hug (MEd, Ed Spec ’97) was named superintendent of Ayersville (Ohio) Local Schools. He had previously held the position of principal at Edgerton High School.

Terri S. Lee (Bus) became a partner in the LublinSussman Group, CPAs, Toledo. She joined the firm in 1998.

Lee ’92

Weaver ’92

’93

Ryan Baker (Eng, MEng ’96) is senior research engineer at the Cleveland Clinic in the department of biomedical engineering and Orthopaedic Research Center, where he works in tendon and ligament remodeling, overuse injury remodeling, and tendon tissue engineering. His wife, Kelley A. Starr (A/S) has been teaching with Parma Local Schools since 2000.

David Ferencik (Eng) joined R.E. Warner & Associates Inc., in Lorain, Ohio, as a senior civil engineer.

Anne McCarthy (A/S) switched careers in April, leaving her job with information technology at the Colorado Department of Agriculture for a position in career coordination for the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Pamela A. Rybka (MEd) accepted the position of director with Bedford Senior Center in Temperance, Mich.

Wendy Snodgrass (Bus) was promoted to assistant vice president, controller, with Northern Savings & Loan Co. in Elyria, Ohio.

Jeff Snyder (Ed) was hired as principal of Edgerton (Ohio) High School in May.

’94

Beneth A. Browne (Law) and her husband, Matthew Dodson, announce the birth of their son, Elijah Forrest, in September 2002. Beneth is a deputy attorney general at the California Department of Justice in Los Angeles.

David M. Gardner (Pharm) was named director of pharmacy at Mercy Hospital of Tiffin, Ohio.

Janice Gerwick (A/S) married David Nelson in April. She holds a management position at the Customer Service Division of Ford Motor Co. in Memphis, Tenn.

TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 27

class Philip E. Kessler (A/S), an attorney with the Dayton, Ohio, office of Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP, was honored by the Dayton Business Journal with a 40 Under 40 Award for his dedication to the legal profession and to the community. In addition to his legal work, he serves as a chairman for the i-Zone, a volunteer organization that assists technology entrepreneurs.

Lance Nofziger (Univ Coll) joined Sky Bank as sales manager for the Montpelier, Ohio, Financial Center.

Dr. Erin E. (Halbert) Rinto (UTCTC) received her doctor of medicine from Northeastern Ohio Universities College of medicine in May. She began her residency in emergency medicine at Akron General Medical Center in July.

’95

Greg Blausey (A/S) is treasury management officer with the Business Banking Group of Huntington Banks in Indianapolis and was featured in a regional television spot as part of the bank’s latest advertising campaign.

Kevin Boyce (A/S) joined KnowledgeWorks Foundation in Cincinnati as senior community relations officer.

Ed A. Gawell (Ed) and his wife announce the birth of their son in March. Ed works for National City Bank in Cleveland.

Dax Kerr (A/S, MA ’97) passed the Ohio State Bar exams in 2002 and began working at the state’s 11th District Court of Appeals in January. He and his wife, Melissa, live in Brookfield, Ohio.

Dr. Rose Kuceyeski (PhD), professor of information technology at Owens Community College in Perrysburg, Ohio, received the Business Education Distinguished Alumni Award from Bowling Green State University. She was also chosen by the Ohio Distance Learning Association to serve on their board of directors.

Lynn M. Logsdon (Bus) is senior auditor with ProMedica Health System in Toledo, and is working on a master’s degree at the University of Findlay.

Steve Meyer (Bus), Delphos, Ohio, was hired as the new administrator for Harborside Healthcare/Northwestern Ohio in Bryan.

Paul Wittreich (Univ Coll) works as a member of the Euclid (Ohio) SWAT team, and with the Cleveland Police Department was on the scene to contain the situation following the May shootings on the campus of Case Western Reserve University.

’96

Patti M. Driscoll (Bus), Whitehouse, Ohio, was named retail operations and risk manager at Fifth Third Bank. She has been with the bank since 1980.

28 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

Driscoll ’96

’97

Brian Gorrell (Bus, Law ’02) joined the Defiance, Ohio, law firm of Cook, Troth & Burkard Ltd. as an associate.

Matthew P. Michalak (UTCTC, Univ Coll ’00) relocated to Phoenix, Ariz., to accept the position of youth supervisor with Maricopa County Superior Court.

Mary J. (Pfaff) Schroeder (Univ Coll), a treasurer/credit analyst with The Andersons Inc. in Maumee, Ohio, was honored as one of the outstanding alumni of Penta Career Center, Perrysburg, Ohio. She is also serving as president of the board for the Sandusky County Educational Service Center.

Tamara Williams (A/S, MEd ’01), associate director of co-op education in The University of Toledo College of Engineering, was one of the 2003 graduates of Community Leadership Toledo, a nine-month program focusing on identifying and fulfilling needs of the local area.

Kristen H. Wiltanger (A/S), director of market development at Universal Digital Communications in Mansfield, Ohio, was among 23 honorees at the Mansfield Area YWCA’s 19th annual Tribute to Women and Industry Awards in May.

’98

Jill Harris (A/S), Holland, Ohio, married Dave Borkowski in October.

Jill is special events director for the Toledo Area Humane Society.

notes Dr. Abbie Robinson-Armstrong (PhD), assistant to the president for intercultural affairs at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, was nominated for honorary membership in Alpha Sigma Nu, the national Jesuit Honor Society. The initiation ceremony took place in April.

Darek M. Schmiedebusch (Ed) was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force following his graduation from Officer Training School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.

’99

Christina Dunn (Univ Coll), executive director of the Rotary Club of Toledo, received the Woman of the Year Award from the Ohio Business and Professional Women’s Association at its regional meeting in March.

Matthew Horn (A/S) is enrolled at the Logan College of Chiropractic in Chesterfield, Mo. J. Brad Shotwell (A/S), a graduate student in Yale University’s department of chemistry, received an American Chemical Society Division of Medicinal Chemistry pre-doctoral fellowship, sponsored by Pfizer Global Research & Development.

Dr. Quentin R. Skrabec Jr. (PhD), professor of business at the University of Findlay, had a book, St. Benedict’s Rule for Business Success, published

by Purdue University Press in March.

He applies Benedict’s Rule, a 1,500year-old blueprint for monastic organization, to the problems facing modern entrepreneurs and businesspeople.

’00

Seaman Omar J. Coles (A/S) completed U.S. Navy basic training at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Ill. Rick Stano (HHS), a registered nurse with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and his wife, Donna, announce the birth of their son, Andrew, in September 2002. The family lives in North Ridgeville, Ohio.

’01

Christine N. Kawsky (Eng) married Kevin M. Wickenheiser (Eng ’00) in April. Kevin is the process engineering manager at Norplas Industries in Northwood, Ohio, and Christine is attending the University of Michigan for her advanced degree in education.

Harris ’98

Kawsky ’01 & Wickenheiser ’00 Allison Zaner (A/S), Toledo, started her own company, Your Moving Solution!, to facilitate the packing and unpacking necessary for residential and commercial clients in the process of moving.

’02

Margarita De Leon (MBA) was named by Toledo Mayor Jack Ford to serve as the city’s representative on the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority Board. She is the owner and publisher of BRAVO magazine, which highlights Latino services, success stories and related Ohio news.

Randy Dupree (Law) opened his own law office in Wellston, Ohio.

Megan E. Featzka (Bus) was hired as a financial services professional by the Seymour and Associates Agency in Maumee, Ohio.

Mark A. Imwalle (Law) joined the Cincinnati law firm of Rice & Diedrichs LLP as an associate.

Matthew Kizaur (MEd), a teacher at Rossford High School, was director for the Ms. Rose’s Dinner Theater, Perrysburg, Ohio, presentation of “Damien,” a one-actor show about the “leper priest” of Molokai, Hawaii.

class

notes

Alum finds success by design

L

uck may have opened the door of opportunity for Walter Martishius (A/S ’82), but those in the film industry can attest that talent has kept that door ajar.

As an art major at UT, the Toledo native’s ambition was to do background for animated films. In his last year at UT, however, a couple classes in theatre design broadened his interests and his aptitude. Theatre professor Bill Smith introduced him to Doug Kraner, a production designer who was doing the film “Sleeping with the Enemy.” Kraner asked Martishius to do renderings for the movie, and the threeweek job turned into more than three months.

That soon led to a phone call from the movie’s art director, Joe Lucky, who had begun work on “Terminator 2.” “He told me, ‘If you can get to California in a week, I can get you in the union and get you to work,’” said Martishius. “So my brother and I loaded up my pickup truck and I spent the next few days driving out here.”

Martishius, who now lives outside of Los Angeles, has blazed a strong career path since. His other art and design credits include “Patriot Games,” “Super Mario Brothers,” “Demolition Man,” “The Specialist” and Disney’s “Dinosaur.” (His Web site at www.waltermartishius.com has samples of his work.)

Though his list of credits is a strong enough statement of his talents, his success was formally acknowledged with an Emmy nomination for his production design on “Dinotopia,” the Hallmark Entertain-

A Martishius design for “Dinotopia.” Photo courtesy of Hallmark Entertainment.

ment miniseries. “The Emmy nomination was a great thing, especially considering the project was my biggest design challenge.” Martishius put in long days, supervising computer production and the design/construction of more than 80 sets.

Though the Emmy nomination was exciting, Martishius, 44, said one of his most memorable experiences was working on the film “A River Runs Through It.” “It was my first job as an art director, and I spent eight months in Montana. Instead of just walking stages and the backlot, I’d get on my motorcycle and ride out into the countryside to work.” His family’s involvement made the experience particularly rewarding. His brothers, Mike and Jim, did painting and carpentry work on the film, and their father, Walter (Ed ’58, MEd ’60), came out to visit.

“One day, my dad was standing outside the ropes watching.

Robert Redford [the film’s director] started walking onto the set, said hi to me, and then stopped, turned around and came back to meet my father. He stood there for about five minutes, just talking about golf and other stuff. That’s the kind of guy Mr. Redford is: a really sweet, genuine person.”

The last couple of years, Martishius has been working on animated films, including the successful Barbie videos produced for Mattel by Mainframe Entertainment. Last year, “Barbie As Rapunzel” was the top-selling DVD in Europe.

The divorced father of four daughters and one son said his children have proven to be a good test audience for the Barbie projects. When his daughters viewed the test versions of the animated prince Ken, which had been already approved by scores of people, they strongly objected to his blonde hair. “Based on my daughters’ recommendations, he was later changed to a brunette.” One of his daughters also conceptualized the design of Barbie Rapunzel’s canopy bed, composed of vines, garlands and flowers. “I had already done 10 or 12 designs of a bed and nothing was approved. Her idea was approved on the very first try,” Martishius said.

His success hasn’t come without its bumps. Early in his

Next generation. Martishius and son, Tate.

career, his confidence sometimes plunged. “I really didn’t have any idea how to do any of this,” he said. “I was completely terrified at times. I remember calling my dad one night and saying, ‘Dad, I have to be honest with these people.

I need to tell them I have no capability of doing this job.’”

He said his father’s advice has been his own philosophy ever since. “He said, ‘Don’t ever tell anybody you can't do something. Maybe you'll learn how to do it. At least you might get a day's pay out of it.

The challenge is what really makes you good," said Martishius. "You won't go anywhere unless you're willing to fail."  — Sherry Stanfa-Stanley ’83 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 29

In

’20s

Dr. John L. Ulmer, Sylvania, Ohio, who attended UT from 1926 to 1928 and from 1930 to 1931, died March 12 at age 94.

Gaylord T. Howard (Pharm ’27), Perrysburg, Ohio, died April 29 at age 99. He was a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

Dr. Sam Friedmar, Toledo, who attended UT from 1928 to 1930, died April 15 at age 92.

’30s

William E. Girkins, Tampa, Fla., who attended UT from 1931 to 1933, died May 2 at age 89.

Walter B. Sohocki (Pharm ’33), Toledo, died May 7 at age 91.

Eleanor (Horn) Gardiner (Ed ’37), Ellsworth, Maine, died March 17 at age 87.

John P. Jones, Toledo, who attended UT from 1937 to 1940, died March 17 at age 84.

William F. Butler (Law ’38), Sun City Center, Fla., died March 4 at age 89. He was a member of the UT Alumni Association.

Sylvester T. “Bud” Frankowski (A/S ’38), Sylvania, Ohio, died May 17 at age 86.

Eugene L. Jordan (Ed ’38), Plymouth, Mich., died Oct. 23 at age 86.

C. Fred Wachter (Bus ’38), Toledo, died April 8 at age 87.

Helen M. (Swaya) Damas (Bus ’39), Toledo, died March 3 at age 84.

William O. Fields (Ed ’39), Toledo, died March 17 at age 88.

Virginia I. (Digman) McCafferty, Ottawa Hills, Ohio, who attended UT from 1939 to 1943, died April 30 at age 82. She was a member of Beta Tau Delta.

Marvin D. Rupp (Bus ’39), Fostoria, Ohio, died May 26 at age 88.

’40s

S. Hosmer Compton (A/S ’40), Coral Gables, Fla., died May 21 at age 85.

The longtime air pilot learned to fly in UT’s civilian pilot training program and later organized a flying club at the University. He also taught aeronautical subjects in the College of Engineering. He was a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

Dorothy Shannon (Ed ’40), Middleton, Wis., died March 19 at age 85.

The longtime Democratic activist was profiled in the Spring 2001 issue of Toledo Alumni Magazine.

Norman M. Dolgin, Toledo, who attended UT from 1941 to 1943 and from 1946 to 1948, died March 14 at age 80. He was a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

Dr. Neil B. Kimerer (A/S ’41), Oklahoma City, died March 21 at age 85.

He was a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

30 TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003

memoriam

Richard M. Hyman Sr. (Bus ’43), Iowa City, Iowa, died June 1 at age 82. He was a member of the UT Alumni Association.

Howard E. Mitchell, Ottawa Hills, Ohio, who attended UT from 1941 to 1942 and from 1945 to 1947, died May 26. He was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon.

Jane Shinavar (Ed ’44, MEd ’68, A/S ’90), Toledo, died April 23 at age 80.

William J. Ahrns, Deshler, Ohio, who attended UT from 1945 to 1948, died April 4 at age 84.

Marilyn H. (Shuey) Yark (A/S ’45), Toledo, died May 25 at age 79. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi and a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

H. Douglas White (Pharm ’46), Indian Lake Estates, Fla., died April 28 at age 80. He was a member of the UT Alumni Association.

Joseph Lipinski, Toledo, who attended UT from 1947 to 1949, died May 20 at age 80.

Corlene A. “Corky” (Bohnert) Taberner, who attended UT from 1947 to 1949, died April 13 at age 74.

Richard W. “Bud” Boldt (Bus ’48, Law ’51), Toledo, died April 11 at age 83. He was a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

Marvin H. Bortz, Perrysburg, Ohio, who attended UT from 1948 to 1950, died March 18 at age 75.

Eleanor A. (Jones) Mook (Ed ’48) Toledo, died May 18 at age 78. She was a past officer of Alpha Delta Kappa and a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

Dr. Rolland E. Scherbarth (A/S ’48), Sylvania, Ohio, died April 30 at age 82. He served as president of Alpha Epsilon Delta and was a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

Marvin M. Bergman (Bus ’49, Ed ’50, MEd ’57), Toledo, died June 12 at age 77.

George Bowland (Law ’49), Genoa, Ohio, died March 24 at age 86.

Richard J. Delbecq (Eng ’49), Brevard, N.C., died Oct. 23 at age 79.

He was a member of Alpha Epsilon Omega.

F. Meredith Parker, Toledo, who attended evening classes at UT from 1949 to 1956, died March 2 at age 81.

Bertram A. Ramlow (Bus ’49), Toledo, died April 24 at age 80. He was a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

Dr. Leslie E. Whitmire (A/S ’49), Palm Beach, Fla., died March 31 at age 85. He was a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

’50s

Walter M. Goeckerman (Bus ’50), Burbank, Calif., died May 23 at age 78. He was a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

Phyllis “Jo” (Sutton) Busick (A/S ’51), Toledo, died April 14 at age 74.

She was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi and a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

Nancy (Boyer) Feindt (Ed ’51), Toledo, died March 22.

John R. Gallagher (Pharm ’51), Naples, Fla., died April 27 at age 78.

Dr. LeRoy Eulberg (A/S ’52), Bowling Green, Ohio, died March 24 at age 80.

Paul J. Hart (Bus ’52), Toledo, died April 1 at age 75. He was a member of the UT Alumni Association.

Kenneth G. Shaw (Ed ’52), Toledo, died April 1 at age 84.

Harriet Swanson (UTCTC ’52), Livonia, Mich., died April 17 at age 70. She was a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

G. Paul Oberst (Eng ’52), Fremont, Ohio, died June 7 at age 78.

Richard J. Chesney, Quincy, Mich., who attended UT from 1953 to 1957 and in the 1960s, died May 14 at age 69.

Merritt R. Schaeffer Jr. (Ed ’53), Scottsdale, Ariz., died Dec. 12 at age 71.

Roman G. Kondalski (Ed ’54, MEd ’57), Toledo, died May 28 at age 82.

Vincent A. Contrada (MEd ’56), Naples, Fla., died April 5 at age 78.

Walter T. Bonkowski (MEd ’57), Holland, Ohio, died April 22 at age 77.

Charles H. “Bud” Felhaber (Ed ’57, MEd ’69), Northwood, Ohio, died April 29 at age 70. Captain of the UT men’s basketball team in 1957, he played from 1955.

Shirley M. (Hilborn) Hudkins (Bus ’57), Pine Island, Fla., died May 4 at age 68. She was a member of Zeta Tau Alpha and worked in UT’s engineering physics department from 1956 to 1957.

Donald L. Dubuc (Bus ’58), Spring Lake, Mich., died April 24 at age 66.

He was a member of Theta Chi.

’60s

Shirley J. (Strobel) Fulghum (MEd ’60), Westerville, Ohio, died March 28 at age 78. She was a member of Chi Omega.

Thomas A. Gudehus (Pharm ’65), Silverton, Ore., died March 25 at age 61.

Paul L. “Bob” Harman (Bus ’62), Maumee, Ohio, died April 14 at age 76.

John T. Perry (Ed ’64, MA ’90), Ottawa Hills, Ohio, died March 10 at age 60.

Robert D. Corcoran (Ed ’67, MEd ’71), Toledo, died June 9 at age 58.

He was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon and a member of the UT Alumni Association.

Silas Tarver (Eng ’67), Toledo, died June 12 at age 59. A lifetime member of both the UT Alumni Association and Alpha Phi Alpha, he was serving as the president of the fraternity’s Alpha Xi Lambda chapter.

Martin J. Bogue (A/S ’69), Toledo, died March 3 at age 56.

Mary Ellen “Maralyn” (Pfaender) Cannan (A/S ’69), Toledo, died May 31 at age 86. She was a member of Chi Omega.

Susan J. (Key) McIlvain (Ed ’69), Toledo, died March 31 at age 66. She was a member of Delta Kappa Gamma and a lifetime member of the UT Alumni Association.

’70s

Rev. Gary R. Miller (Bus ’70), Huron, Ohio, died April 7 at age 65.

Gary W. Driftmyer (Eng ’71), Toledo, died May 22 at age 53. He was captain of the UT tennis team and a member of the UT Alumni Association.

Rick W. Lindsay (UTCTC ’71), Westminster, S.C., died April 17 at age 52.

Flora B. Hague, Sylvania, Ohio, who attended UT from 1970 to 1973, died April 29 at age 68.

Robert W. Mills Jr. (Ed ’73), Perrysburg, Ohio, died April 17 at age 56.

John P. Wolf (Bus ’75), Toledo, died April 26 at age 86.

Michael E. Conrad, Toledo, who attended UT from 1976 to 1983, died May 31 at age 47.

Shirley A. (Armstrong) Craig, Toledo, who attended UT from 1976 to 1987, died March 22 at age 56.

James I. Hetrick (Bus ’75), Walbridge, Ohio, died June 23 at age 63.

Beatrice (Scott) Faison (MEd ’76), Toledo, died March 21 at age 74. She was a member of Phi Delta Kappa.

Michael J. O’Connell (Law ’77), Toledo, died April 8 at age 52.

Mary E. Ide (Univ Coll ’78), Bowling Green, Ohio, died June 1 at age 63.

Charles A. Noworyta (UTCTC ’79), Toledo, died April 5 at age 89.

’80s

Dr. Sandra (Kisala) DeBenedetti (A/S ’80), Toledo, died April 19 at age 59.

Frances M. (Fall) Linenkugel (MEd ’80), Toledo, died March 17 at age 81.

Ronald W. Braithwaite (UTCTC ’83, UTCTC ’83), Findlay, Ohio, died May 24 at age 41.

Dale M. Nelson (Eng ’81), Bethalto, Ill., died June 17 at age 51.

Barbara L. McConnell (UTCTC ’83), Toledo, died June 7 at age 52.

James L. Rawlins (UTCTC ’83), Palm Bay, Fla., died March 25 at age 60.

Bruce A. Williamson (A/S ’84), Toledo, died April 3 at age 41.

In Steven D. Ansted (UTCTC ’87), Swanton, Ohio, died May 29 at age 36.

Molly E. (Nassr) Leonard (UTCTC ’88), Maumee, Ohio, died March 13 at age 54.

’90s

Charles J. Minor (UTCTC ’90, Univ Coll ’91), Toledo, who also did extensive work on a master’s degree, died May 14 at age 71.

John Dikovicky Jr. (A/S ’91), Toledo, died May 10 at age 56.

Carol Hedler (MEd ’91), Toledo, died April 17 at age 56. She served as president of the Toledo chapter of Pi Lambda Theta International Honor Society and Professional Association in Education.

Faculty, staff & friends

Robert J. Achter, Oregon, Ohio, a plumber in UT’s Physical Plant for 16 years, died June 1 at age 71. He joined the staff in 1983 and retired as plumber 2 in 1999.

memoriam

George E. Becker, Reading, Mich., who worked as a storekeeper in UT’s Athletics department from 1976 to 1982, died March 31 at age 87.

Paul L. “PD” DiModica, Toledo, who was the official scorer for UT men’s basketball in the 1970s, died May 30 at age 61.

John J. Gardiner Jr. (MEd ’85, Ed Spec ’89), Maumee, Ohio, who taught in the military science department and worked with UT international students, died May 14 at age 65. In 1976, the U.S. Army major was assigned to UT as an assistant professor of military science. After retiring from the Army, he joined the UT staff as an international student counselor in 1980 and in 1982 was named assistant dean of the International Students Program. He resigned from UT in 1984.

Charles R. Johnson (Pharm ’51), Toledo, died March 30 at age 78.

He worked as a pharmacist in UT’s Student Health Services from 1982 to 1986.

Ruby M. McKenzie, Toledo, who worked at UT for 20 years, died April 16 at age 72. She joined UT in 1970 as a clerk typist in the Student Union and became a secretary in 1976.

Paul H. Muntz (MEd ’67), Toledo, who taught vocational education at UT for 26 years, died May 24 at age 89. He joined UT as a lecturer in 1958 and became assistant professor and chair of vocational education in 1967.

He served as chair of the department for eight years and was promoted to associate professor in 1971. Muntz was named professor emeritus when he retired in 1984. The lifelong member of Iota Lambda Sigma was also a member of the UT Alumni Association.

Mildred K. Schultz, Toledo, who worked in the UT Finance Office, died March 16 at age 96. She was hired as a clerk in 1961 and retired as a clerk 3 in 1973.

Wayne C. Short, Ottawa Lake, Mich., died April 20 at age 62. He was hired as a custodial worker in 1990 and retired in 2002 as a building life safety system tech 2.

Janice M. Wery, Toledo, a staff nurse in UT’s Student Health Services from 1974 to 1986, died May 25 at age 78.

Keep that UT Momentum moving!

Ah, Homecoming. The unity, the energy, the UT spirit. Your UT Alumni Association can give you that Homecoming feeling all year long. We provide activities, events and programs that promote our alumni and The University of Toledo. Homecoming — Art on the Mall — student scholarships. Your membership makes it all possible.

Call to join or renew today — be part of the year-long celebration of UT: your Alumni Association.

You belong!

TOLEDO Alumni Magazine / Fall 2003 31

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