idaho state university magazine

Volume 40 | Number 1 | Fall 2009

Trying to hold on! Idaho State University football players J.T. Albers (35) and Jeff Tuua (48) hang on to Oklahoma running back DeMarco Murray (7) as Daniel Urias (20) comes to help out on the tackle. The Bengals opened the season with games on the road at Arizona State University, the Univer-sity of Oklahoma and Weber State University.ISU Photographic Services/Julie Hillebrant

Cover: ISU Professor Richard Hansen is a bit like ISU’s own Indiana Jones. With the help of many others, he is uncovering Mayan pyramids in El Mirador in northern Guatemala. See Page 16 for the full story. Photos by ISU Photographic Services/Julie Hillebrant, collage by Joey Gifford

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From the President Armed forces veteran making an impact on Idaho Falls campus

The new high-tech health science center Bodies are electric; find out just what they can do

Gary Olson takes helm as provost One plant helps itself for dinner

ESTEC educates about power Kasiska College of Health Professions students help a Blackfoot man with a hearing implant

Brian Attebery honored with awardKISU turns 10 years old

Graduate education pays off

2 Idaho State University Magazine Fall 2009

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Cover story: A photographer’s view on the work of Richard Hansen

Editor of the ISU Press, Bill Harwood recounts changes he saw at ISU over the past 61 years

Jason Blazevic was the only student invited to a security coference in China

A new age for the Idaho Museum of Natural History Read about Idaho State Civic Symphony

Director Chung Park

Alumni director Bill Kobus takes ISU with him on a vacation around the world

Remembering Babe CacciaCatch up on alumni in Trackings

See each story and more at www.isu.edu/magazine

3Fall 2009

Improving Health Care for AllFrom Researchers to Patients

Follow Us, Be a Fan or Watch Some VideosCheck out Idaho State University online at

twitter.com/idahostateu, facebook.com/idahostateu or at youtube.com/idahostateu.

Help us keep ISU Magazine coming free of charge by making a tax-deductible contribution of $25, $50, $75 or more. Just send a check, made out to ISU Magazine, to: ISU Magazine, c/o ISU Foundation, Idaho State University, 921 S. 8th Ave., Stop 8050, Pocatello, ID 83209-8050. Questions? Call the Foundation at (208) 282-3470.

At Idaho State University, we are introducing the concept of comprehen-sive health science centers. These centers promise to be a great resource to the regions in which they are located. The only centers of their kind in Idaho, the operations we’ve established in Eastern Idaho and at our new Meridian Health Science Center in the Treasure Valley are promising sources of solutions for two of the greatest challenges we face — im-

proved quality of and access to health care, and long-term sources of economic growth.

Today, ISU clinics have nearly 30,000 patient contacts per year. We operate clinics in: audiology,

balance, counseling, dental hygiene, den-tistry, family medicine, occupational and physical therapy, psychology, speech and language, and general wellness.

The clinical education we provide our students and the outstanding health care we extend to Idaho’s communities make a real difference toward expanding ac-cess and contributing positively to local economies. These clinics are the roots for what will become vital health science centers in the state.

For students, these centers offer an introduction into the world of profes-sional health care with guidance from the brightest minds in the industry. The fun-damentals they practice and the modern equipment and facilities with which they become familiar prepare them to enter a workforce that desperately needs them.

For practicing health care profes-sionals, such centers provide an essential opportunity to continue the lifelong pro-

cess of education. Brushing up on skills, perfecting new techniques, and learning about breakthrough developments make good health care professionals great. Having such resources available in our communities ensures that these fine practitioners find greater incentive to remain in our local workforce and help to attract other important players into the economy.

For researchers, the synergistic effect of studying alongside colleagues from other disciplines promises a new age of discovery. Working together, these faculty learn more about their own fields and find new connections to others that shed new light on what we know. This is how superstars are born, and their perfor-mance attracts funding from government and private sectors who want to advance the capabilities of one of humankind’s noblest endeavors — the care for and education of people.

For patients, increased health care access means better treatment at a much lower cost. They receive the best and latest in treatment. They know that the people providing their care are at an exciting time in their lives when they are most dedicated to doing things right and going the extra mile.

Join us in promoting these clinics and the benefits they provide in our com-munities. If you need care, come see us. If you or those you know seek a career in one of the fastest-growing and highest-paying fields in our state and the nation, enroll. If you are a practicing profes-sional or researcher, partner with us and discover how much more you can do and contribute.

Arthur C. Vailas, Ph.D.President, Idaho State University

Vailas


921 South 8th Ave., Stop 8265Pocatello, Idaho 83209-8265

(208) 282-3620

Arthur C. Vailas, Ph.D.University President

Kent M. Tingey, D.A. ’97Vice President, University Advancement

Graham Garner, ’02, ’[email protected]

Director, University Relations

William Kobus, ’[email protected]

Director, Alumni Relations

Idaho State University Magazine welcomes letters, comments and

story ideas. Direct them to the postal address below, or send an e-mail to

[email protected].

Idaho State University Magazine staff Editor Emily FrandsenContributors Glenn Alford Angela Askey Chris Gabettas Nancy Lovgren - ’79 Frank Mercogliano - ’06 Casey Santee - ’03 Andrew Taylor Casey Thompson - ’86Designer Joey Gifford - ’03Photo Services Susan Duncan - ’95 Julie Hillebrant - ’00

Office of Alumni RelationsIdaho State University

921 S. 8th Avenue, Stop 8033Pocatello, Idaho 83209-8033

(208) 282-3755 or (800) 933-4781 or e-mail: [email protected]

www.isu.edu

PostmasterISU Magazine is published twice a year by the Office of University

Relations at Idaho State University. Send address changes to the Office of Alumni Relations at 921 S. 8th Ave., Stop 8033, Pocatello, ID 83209-8033

or send an e-mail [email protected].

Freelance journalists are encouraged to submit queries for topical stories with an Idaho State University connection. Please send queries by e-mail to Emily Frandsen at [email protected], or call

(208) 282-3164.

Gary Olson has come a long way as a writer from his childhood home in Connecticut where, as a second grader, he used to create his own newspaper chronicling mundane neighborhood matters on large sheets of drafting paper that his father would bring home from his job as a sheet metal worker.

Olson inherited his family’s love for books and writing, a passion that became his life’s work.

As ISU’s new provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, Olson continues to write, but now on a much less provincial stage: he writes a monthly column about academic administration for “The Chronicle of Higher Education,” the nation’s premier academic weekly publication covering events and issues in postsecondary education. He also pens a weekly newspaper column, University Beat, for the Idaho State Jour-nal in Pocatello.

As a scholar he has published nearly two dozen books and 100 scholarly articles, book chapters and interviews. His most recent book, The Future of Higher Education: Thoughts from America’s Academic Leaders (coedited with John Presley) was released this summer. As an administrator, Olson has an ex-tensive background, too, most recently as dean of the Illinois State University College of Arts and Sciences.

He’d probably be writing even more, but his de-manding duties as provost prevent that. Olson has always engaged in both scholarship and administrative work throughout his 30-plus years in academia, focusing more on the former early on and emphasizing the lat-ter as his career progressed.

“Early in my career I made a conscious decision not to go full time into academic administration,” Olson said. “I wanted to make my career first as a scholar, which is the reason most of us go into academia in the first place. We’re driven by a passion for our scholarly discipline and hope to make a difference by adding to the

field’s knowledge base.“I think I accomplished that,” Olson added. “And so I

decided that it was time to devote myself to administrative work.”

For Olson, making a difference is the key to both sides of academia’s coin.

“Being an administrator affords you an opportunity to make a difference in a wider venue with a broader focus,” he said. “This is one of the most rewarding, exciting and de-manding jobs you can have because you can make a differ-ence for the entire institution.”

Olson is directing his new focus on helping ISU President Arthur Vailas carry out his vision for the institution.

“I think Idaho State University is a top-quality institu-tion that is poised to rise to the next level of excellence,” he said. “The Vailas administration is serious about concentrat-ing on increasing our national reputation, strengthening the scope and breadth of our research profile, and becoming more competitive with our national peers on all levels. I have been surprised by the huge potential this institution has for moving

forward on multiple levels.”As provost, Olson oversees all the academic colleges,

the Eli M. Oboler Library, the Idaho Museum of Natu-ral History, and part of the university’s information technology services. He is also a primary contact and

liason for the university with other national and international universities on all

academic issues.“There is a rhythm to this kind

of work,” Olson said. “It can make for an intense work day because the scope of the job is so large. One has to learn to multi-task in the extreme. One minute you can be dealing with minutiae, the next with hammering out a multi-million dollar agreement.”

Olson assumed his post at a challenging time, during one of the worst recessions in the nation’s history, which has limited funding for higher education. “We are facing fis-cal challenges, but neverthe-less we are getting over that hurdle and, in fact, are still moving forward with our vision,” Olson said. “Idaho State University can be a truly great institution

much faster than most people

might believe.”

Olson Takes Helm as Provost

Provost Gary Olson, Ph.D.Photo by ISU Photographic Services/Julie Hillebrant

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Read more of Olson’s columns atwww.isu.edu/acadaff/columns

5Fall 2009

KISU-FM radio, located on the cam-pus of Idaho State University in Pocatello, celebrated its 10th birthday on June 4. The station first signed on in June 1999, broadcasting from its current location on the ground floor of the Pond Student Union building.

When KISU first went on the air, it only broadcast its signal at 91.1 FM at just 450 watts of power; it had a very limited range and listenership. Only four students worked at the station. There was no original pro-gramming.

A lot has changed. Today, there are eight student staffers at any given time, said KISU General Manager Jerry Miller. Local program-ming has grown to about 20 hours each week. KISU is also now available in Idaho Falls and surrounding communities. Anyone can listen to the sta-tion live on the Internet at www.kisu.org.

KISU is looking forward to the future and plans to offer quality programming for years to come.

Idaho State University English Professor Brian Attebery was honored this spring by the Science Fiction Research Association with an award for lifetime achievement.

The Pilgrim Award annually recognizes an individual whose body of work contributes significantly to the study of science fiction and fantasy. Previous winners include writer-critics such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Brian Aldiss and Samuel R. Delany, as well as scholars from around the world, including film critic Vivian Sobchack and postmodern theorist Fredric Jameson.

Attebery has written three books and numerous articles on both science fiction and fantasy. His most recent book is Decoding Gender in Science Fiction, published by Routledge in 2002. He is the co-editor, with Le Guin, of the influential anthology, The Norton Book of Science Fiction. He also edits a scholarly journal, The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts.

He was named ISU’s Distinguished Researcher for 1997, and he has been honored for his work by the Mythopoeic Society, the International Associa-tion for the Fantastic in the Arts, and the Idaho Humanities Council.

The Pilgrim Award is the oldest and most prestigious award in the field of science fiction scholarship. It was instituted in 1970 and named for J.O. Bailey’s pioneering study of science fiction, called Pilgrims through Space and Time. Bailey was also the first winner of the award.

ISU English Professor Attebery Honored With Pilgrim Award for Science Fiction Writers

KISU RadioTurns 10

AWARD WINNER

Listen Live!

kisu.org

Professor Brian Attebery


From Warehouse to High-tech Health Science Center

On an August morning a few days before class started at the new Idaho State University-Meridian Health Science Center, students Travis Henderson and Scott Davison were arranging hospital beds and storing supplies in cabinets in-side a room that didn’t look much differ-ent than a traditional emergency room.

They pointed to the power strips — equipped with code buttons and portals for oxygen and compressed air — on the wall above each of eight beds.

“This looks just like a real pre-op or emergency room,” Davison said. “This is great. We won’t feel out of our skin when we move from the classroom setting to a real hospital.”

Henderson and Davison are both seniors in the Idaho State University-Me-ridian Health Science Center’s fast-track nursing program, and both are excited about the new facility.

“We’ll definitely get better hands-on experience,” Henderson said. “I also like the fact the lab is so roomy, allowing more privacy for discussions between a student and professor.”

Just 18 months ago, the $14 million Health Science Center was a deserted telecommunications factory, shuttered in 2002 by previous owner Jabil Circuit, Inc. Today, students study in a bright, open space decorated with contemporary furniture and bistro tables.

“I’m thrilled with the transformation,” said academic dean Bessie Katsilometes.

The nursing department is equipped with two human-patient simulation rooms and computerized mannequins that cough, talk and moan in distress. From behind a one-way mirror, profes-sors can program medical scenarios students will encounter in the real world.

“This is great. It’s the perfect place to educate the next generation of nurses,” said fast-track nursing program director Miki Goodwin.

College of Pharmacy student Don Wilson is excited about the new facility.

“Wow. It’s so big and open,” he said as he headed up the stairs to the L.S. Skaggs Pharmacy Complex, named in

honor of drugstore entrepreneur Sam Skaggs, whose family’s charitable trust donated $5 million toward the purchase and renovation of the Center.

Wilson peeked inside the pharmacy compounding laboratory, the research lab, and toured the student lounge before dropping by a distance-learning class-room, equipped with high-resolution video screens powered by digital technol-ogy.

“I’m really impressed. This will defi-nitely enhance the learning experience,” Wilson said.

The 41,000-square-foot Skaggs complex represents an expansion of ISU’s nationally ranked pharmacy program,

allowing students to complete all four years of the pharmacy doctorate in the

Treasure Valley.Pharmacy and nursing are just two

of more than 20 undergraduate and graduate programs offered at ISU-Me-ridian. The 181,000-square-foot facility also houses physician assistant studies, speech-language pathology, audiology, clinical lab sciences, public health, coun-seling, athletic administration, emergency management, dietetics and the Treasure Valley offices of the ISU Institute of Rural Health.

In addition to nine distance-learning

classrooms, the Health Science Center has a clinical science laboratory, a speech and language clinic, and a counseling clinic. In 2011, the advanced dental residency program and Family Dentistry clinic will move from its east Boise location to ISU-Meridian with the help of a $500,000 gift from Delta Dental of Idaho Community Outreach.

“The ISU-Meridian Health Science Center will bring the power of advanced education, research and service to the Treasure Valley in addition to addressing the workforce needs of Idaho,” Katsilom-etes said.

University officials envision the Center—located within Meridian’s health science and technology corridor—becom-ing a site for clinical trials and health care advances.

Unique to the Northwest is ISU-Meridian’s partnership with Joint School District No. 2, whose administrative offices and Renaissance Magnet High School are adjacent to the Health Science Center. Renaissance students considering careers in health care are able to use the University’s library, labs and classrooms while earning college credit through ISU’s dual enrollment program.

“We believe the partnership will serve as an invaluable pipeline in recruiting and educating the health care profession-als of tomorrow,” Katsilometes said.

ISU–MERIDIAN HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER

DOORS OPEN FOR CLASSES IN FALL 2009

ISU–Meridian Health Science Center opened doors for classes for the Fall 2009 semester.

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See a photo gallery from the grand opening at www.isu.edu/magazine

7Fall 2009

Soaking up some rays, catching a breeze and enjoying the water all sound like something relaxing to do on a weekend.

At Idaho State University’s Energy Systems Technology and Education Center (ESTEC), these resources mean a whole lot more. Students at ESTEC are training for careers in wind, solar and hydroelectric power as part of a collaborative effort between Idaho State University’s College of Technol-ogy, Idaho National Laboratory (INL), private industry and the non-profit agency Partners for Prosperity.

ESTEC was established in early 2007 with more than $2.5 million in federal grant funding.

“ESTEC offers a unique approach to educating students by providing the

specific knowledge and skills needed in electrical power generation” said R. Scott Rasmussen, ESTEC’s Execu-tive Director. “The skills requirements have been developed in partnership with energy utilities and vendors to assure that program graduates enter the workforce with the precise skills required by industry and are ready to be productive energy systems employ-ees.”

In November 2008, offi-cials opened the newly renovated 22,000-square-foot laboratory and classroom facilities for ESTEC on the ISU campus in Pocatello. The well-instrumented, integrated laboratory setting allows students in the Energy Systems degree programs to work alongside each other just as they

would in industry. Students work in a hands-on laboratory and participate in opportunities for applied industrial research. In the lab they have access to the one-of-a-kind Motor-Operated Valve (MOV) Actuator load simulation and test stand. The test stand was in-strumental in establishing the current Nuclear Regulatory Commission MOV surveillance and inspection criteria. It was recently transferred from the INL and ISU College of Engineering to ESTEC.

INL has provided engineering and subject matter expertise to set up the equipment and prepare it for continued use as a research tool and to establish a teaching resource for students. In addition, Wind Engineer-ing Technology students have access

Finding and Refining Power SystemsENERGY SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION CENTER

INNOVATION


to wind turbines received as donations last summer by G3, LLC, an Idaho-based wind power company.

Students are trained on a variety of electrical generation sources, includ-ing fossil, nuclear and renewable.

“ESTEC will be a cornerstone of Idaho State University’s growing role in educating skilled technicians to operate modern energy systems,” said ISU President Arthur C. Vailas. “Just as Idaho is playing an increasingly important role in energy research, ISU is poised to educate the workforce that science, industry and government will need to succeed.”

ESTEC is not only for those seek-ing a college education. As part of the grant funding, the program has created a curriculum for elementary and secondary students. The newest activity includes Young Einsteins, a science experience day. Developed with assistance from Partners for Prosperity, Idaho Department of Labor, and ISU Tech Prep, students, educators and parents learn about energy, career possibilities and the educational op-portunities offered at ESTEC.

Along with training the next gen-

eration of energy workers, ESTEC has had a positive effect on the businesses who have supported the program from the beginning.

John Wheeler, Manager of Work-force Planning, Entergy Nuclear, said the program has impacted his busi-ness. Entergy Nuclear is the second largest nuclear generator in the United States, and provides power for 2.7 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

“We at Entergy are proud to be part of starting a program that was one of the first in the nation to focus on education and training for energy industry technicians. The partnership is a unique blend of industry, the aca-demic community, state and national

government, and non-profit organi-zations. This diverse set of partners has encouraged innovation, unique problem-solving, and inventive think-ing that has helped the program grow and flourish.

“The experience helped us ‘learn the ropes’ of forming similar partner-ships with federal grant funding to accelerate workforce development for the energy sector in other regions across the country — in the south, Midwest and northeast areas.”

Enrollment at ESTEC is full this fall, and its students and graduates are working toward meeting tomorrow’s growing energy needs as technicians working on the next generation of electrical components and systems.

Programs of Study Offered at ESTEC: • Energy Systems Instrumentation and Controls Engineering Technol-

ogy prepares students to work with equipment measuring the operating parameters of a power plant, control systems that operate the plant and keep it running safely, and communications and data equipment used to monitor plant equipment.

• Energy Systems Electrical Engineering Technology prepares students to work with large motors, generators, protective relaying and other high voltage/high current electrical equipment and the interconnecting wiring and control circuits.

• Energy Systems Mechanical Engineering Technology will prepare stu-dents in the mechanical portions of the plant. They will work on turbines, pumps, piping and valves in power systems that often produce more than 250,000 horsepower.

• Energy Systems Wind Engineering Technology focuses on the construction and maintenance of wind turbines and prepares students for a career in this growing energy industry.

Graduates of these programs are expected to earn at least $50,000 per year immediately after graduation. Energy systems careers also offer stability. Companies such as Idaho Power, Nordic Windpower and Ridgeline Energy, LLC are examples of green power employers available within the state. Additional opportunities with geothermal, solar, biomass, landfill gas and municipal waste exist as well.

Within the next five years, electrical power generation will be facing a criti-cal workforce shortage of engineering technicians. Technicians are responsible for the construction, assembly, maintenance and repair of boilers, reactors, turbines, generators and other electrical control and mechanical equipment. Because of an aging workforce in the field, the electrical power generation industry could lose more than 50 percent of its workers by 2012. In addition, growth of generation capacity is expected to be 50 percent over the next 35 years. New generation facilities will require engineering technicians.

Above: Chad Christensen signals in front of an instrument during the ESTEC grand opening.Opposite: Graduates of the Energy Systems Instrumentation and Controls Engineering Technology program, Ethan Browning and Devin Mecham, explain their class project to Andy Klein from Idaho National Laboratory.Photos by ISU Photographic Services/Julie Hillebrant

9Fall 2009

Stripes Earned

“When you get shot at, it is pretty intense,” said Dustin Mortimer, president of the Armed Forces Veterans Club at Idaho State University–Idaho Falls, who served two tours as a U.S. Army Special-ist E-4 in Iraq and Kuwait from 2001-06. “It is easier than it sounds – you stand there and it happens, but it is still intense. You’re always pretty much on edge in combat zones.”

Mortimer, whose father Dean Mor-timer is a state senator from Idaho Falls in District 32, enlisted in the Army right after Sept. 11, 2001. While in the Army he was in a combat engineering platoon

used for convoy support, obstacle em-placement and combat patrols.

“You are so engrained into the situa-tion, it becomes normal,” Mortimer said. “Your normal stress is bombs and bul-lets. What was hardest personally for me was being away from family and friends, with little or no contact.”

Upon his exit from the Army in fall 2006, Mortimer enrolled in classes at Idaho State University in Idaho Falls and in Pocatello, majoring in business management.

“One of the hardest things for a veteran, in my opinion, is getting used to being a civilian again,” Mortimer said. “The military and student life are so completely different. When you become a civilian you have to make your own decisions again and have to be your own commander, which can be hard after years of being told where to be and what to do. It took me over two years to be comfortable in this (the university) setting.”

It was difficult for Mortimer to re-kindle his self-motivation after the rigid structure of the military.

“We’ve talked about being your ‘own commander,’ but that was hard to do,” he said. “I also realized for the first year or so I relied heavily on my folks for direc-tion. It took awhile to really think about decisions and act on my own.”

He said he noticed the maturity dif-

ference between returning veterans and traditional-aged students. Concerns that seemed important to other students, such as what to eat or wear seemed trivial to Mortimer.

“Those things are really unimport-ant and you learned that stuff in the military,” he said. “You wore what you could, ate what was there, and did what you were told.”

Mortimer and Sean Blacker, also an ISU-Idaho Falls student and a veteran, decided to revive the veterans’ club at ISU-Idaho Falls, which had become inactive.

“We’d heard there was a veterans’ club that had gone out of service, but Sean and I talked about reviving it be-cause there was a need,” Mortimer said. “Between the two of us we knew there was a need for veterans to get together, find the information we needed and to support each other for this new experi-ence we called ‘college.’”

They enlisted the help of Todd Johnson, assistant director of academic advising at ISU-Idaho Falls. Johnson, also a veteran, became the club advisor.

“The veterans’ club has become one of our most active clubs,” Johnson said. “They’ve run a variety of events.”

The club petitioned the university for the first flag pole on the Idaho Falls campus, and dedicated the pole last Veterans Day with a U.S. flag that had

Live fire in a battle zone

is one challenge to a soldier;

readjusting to civilian life as a

university student is another.

A student club at Idaho

State University-Idaho Falls is

helping veterans cope with a

variety of challenges.

Dustin Mortimer, president of the Armed Forces Veterans Club at Idaho State University–Idaho Falls

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Bryan Byrd is living proof that when a university pro-vides veterans with first class-service and a strong system of support, they flourish.

Byrd, a Navy veteran from Pocatello who was discharged from active duty in 2003, is the first member of ISU’s new Veterans’ Sanctuary program. He originally wanted to attend college at ISU in 2007, but getting started was more difficult than he had anticipated, so he decided to postpone his plans.

What a difference two years and meeting the right person can make.

Byrd returned to ISU early this summer and met Lynn Roberts, a university business officer spearheading the effort for the Veterans’ Sanctuary. She helped him enroll in classes and took the time to show him around campus. Roberts introduced him to the people he needed to know to make his college expe-rience a success.

“Lynn made it a push-button deal and I said, ‘Wow! If it’s that easy, let’s do it,”’ Byrd said. “Any time I’d hit a door, she’d open it.”

In the Navy, Byrd worked as an analyst and as an aircraft logs and records clerk. He plans to study business management at ISU.

“Utilizing a ‘single point of contact’ approach, (the Sanctuary) will address the immediate needs as identified by veteran’s groups across the country,” said Scott Turner, university business officer. Their orientation and support on campus begins on Day One and finishes at graduation.

The Sanctuary includes a team of dedicated representatives, some of whom are veterans themselves, to help with the transition from military to campus life. The team assists with GI Bill educational benefits and facilitates contacts within ISU’s various departments and programs as well as in the Pocatello community.

The program will feature cohort general education classes for veterans taught by faculty members who are veterans. There will be cohort housing on campus for unmarried veterans and an Armed Forces Veterans Club, already established at the Idaho Falls campus, which is starting a new chapter in Pocatello this fall.

In addition, the Sanctuary will partner with local businesses to pro-vide scholarships to veterans who exhaust their benefits before obtaining degrees.

The program is the result of nearly a year of planning on the part of Roberts and Turner. The Sanctuary also opened on the heels of news that ISU was named a “Military Friendly” school in 2009 by G.I. Jobs magazine.

Program Director Casey Santee said the university will begin targeting recruit-ing efforts to veterans nationwide. ISU will benefit through increased enrollment and diversity, he said. Currently, there are more than 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans eligible for the new Post 9-11 GI Bill. The bill provides increased benefits for tuition and fees, housing, books and tutoring.

Roberts said her vision for the Sanctuary is to create a community of veterans on campus who could support one another while receiving top-notch service from the university.

“We owe so much to veterans,” Roberts said. “It’s time to give back.”

flown over the United States Capi-tol Building.

The key to the club’s suc-cess is simple: one veteran talking to another.

“We come from dif-ferent branches of the military, and some of us served overseas or were in combat and some of us weren’t, but we still speak the same language,” Johnson said. “We really do share information in a different way than

non-vets do.”His observation was

backed up by Vincent McHenry, the ISU-Idaho Falls Armed Forces Vet-erans Club vice president for the 2009-10 academic year.

“To me, the club is very important,” said McHenry, 30, who spent four years in the Marine Corps. “It helped me

stay in school. I got here and I had just moved to Idaho Falls and was out of my element at school. I started go-ing to the meetings and they showed me the ropes and I made friends.”

The club hopes to expand its membership and its activities, offering even greater support to veterans. They plan to hold meetings every other week, spon-sor school events at ISU-Idaho Falls such as offer-ing video games on the big screen, having another flag raising and a campus barbecue; participating in school events such as: the Halloween Carnival and Spring Fair, and planning club events such as fundraising activities, dinners, bowling, disc golf, a paintball outing and a Veterans Day program. A new chapter of the club also started fall semester on the Pocatello campus.

“The key word is support,” Mortimer said. “When you are in the military you are surrounded by friends and other vets 24/7. When you get out and go back to school it is a whole different ball game.

“The club really helps,” continued Mortimer. “Besides supporting fellow vets, it is also just an excuse to do something outside of the normal routine that helps you get back in to civilian activities.”

Being a veteran isn’t a requirement of joining the club.

“We want anyone who is interested in supporting veterans and veteran’s issues,” Johnson said. “In fact, one of the best of-ficers in the group is Josh Rupe and he has never served in the military. He is just one of the group and we love his dedication.”

Veterans’ Sanctuary Programs Help Vets Succeed

Casey Santee

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11Fall 2009

In a significant scientific paper soon to be published in the well respected journal Botany, Idaho State University researchers have documented how ferns consume sugars in early life stages.

Generally plants are thought of as producing their own food through pho-tosynthesis. Scientists have long known that some plants, such as pitcher plants, are carnivorous and gain nitrogen and carbon nutrients by consuming in-sects. However, it has not been widely thought that plants uptake sugar from their environment for nourishment.

“Ferns and their plant allies are very primitive plants that reproduce with-out seeds,” said Jeff Hill, ISU associate professor of biological sciences. “Sugar uptake from their environment during a microscopic phase of their life cycle is a potentially important part of their ecol-ogy. What we think is that ferns have the ability to pick up simple sugars from the soils when they germinate.”

This challenges the basic beliefs that many have towards plants in general and opens the door for a wide range of new research on this topic.

“The broad view of plants is that they are self-feeders, that by using pho-tosynthesis they produce their own food and don’t have to go to the ‘refrigera-tor’ and they fix carbon from the air to eventually produce sugars,” Hill said. “We’re on the cusp of learning that, as an important part of their ecology, some plants in certain habitats have the ability to supplement and augment their photosynthetic ability by essentially grabbing free sugar from their environ-ment.”

Hill credits much of this new knowl-

edge to former ISU biological sciences doctoral student Deborah A. Alongi, who worked on this topic for her dissertation with Hill and ISU biological sciences professor Mike Thomas as her advisors. They also worked with Matt Germino, ISU associate professor of plant physi-ological ecology, who runs Idaho State University’s Plant Physiology Laboratory.

Alongi summed up the most impor-tant aspects of the study by saying, “Up-take of sugar from the environment may help explain how fern gametophytes, which appear to be fragile, may actually be the phase of the fern life cycle which is most able to survive harsh environ-mental conditions.”

The title of the ISU researchers’ paper that documents this phenomenon is “Op-portunistic heterotrophy in gametophytes of the homosporous fern Ceratopteris richardii.” It is co-authored by Alongi, Hill and Germino.

Scientists have known since at least the 1950s that gametophytes, the tiny plants that become the larger ferns that most people are more familiar with, grow well when the plants are grown in the presence of sugar. However, no one, according to the ISU researchers, tried to confirm the way the sugar was going into the plant, and, “moreover didn’t think about what it means that a plant takes sugar out of the soil and actually uses it to grow,” Hill said.

The ISU researchers theorize that ferns, which can often be forced to grow in very low-light conditions depending

on where spores land, supplement their ability to produce sugars by photosyn-thesis by absorbing small amounts of sugar from soil. Small amounts of sugar get into the soil from decomposing plants and microbes.

“The ability to nourish themselves in two different ways makes them wonder-fully adaptive,” Germino said.

In the primary study, Alongi grew tiny fern gametophytes in flasks with different levels of sugar and different light levels and measured the deple-tion of sugar in the solution around the gametophytes. The researchers found that as the gametophytes received more light they used less sugar, and too much light could actually damage the organ-isms.

“Her observations basically provide the first concrete evidence that sugar is moving from the environment into the plant, and that additional sugar is changing the developmental path,” Hill said.

Alongi also studied genes known to be “turned on” in germinating game-tophytes, and documented that the ferns do express genes that provide the ability to transfer sugar from their environment. The ISU researchers also documented that fern gametophytes have the ability to break down complex sugars into fructose or glucose, with initial studies indicating the ferns prefer importing the fructose.

“An important aspect of this study is that we have found that ferns and prob-

Plants That Help Themselves

Jeff Hill, Ph.D., amongst some of the ferns tested for their sugar intake.


Science, with all its logic and reasoning, can still work in mysterious ways.

Deborah Alongi came to Idaho State University from Arizona in 2001 to pursue a Doctor of Arts degree in biology, intend-ing to advance her career as a creator of instructional materials for a nonprofit educational development company.

But, on her way to a teaching doctor-ate, Alongi got sidetracked by an interest in pursuing research. She discovered a new passion that led her to collaborate on some significant research on ferns with ISU professors Jeff Hill and Matt Germino, and helped her land a post-doctoral fellowship at Sheffield University in England in 2008-09 academic year. This fall, Alongi started as a biological sciences faculty member at Castleton State College in Vermont.

“I found after being at ISU awhile that I already knew a lot about teaching. I thought it would be better for me to get a Ph.D. rather than a D.A., so I switched,” Alongi said.

Alongi chose Hill as one of her advisors because he was working on plant genetic research, a topic that interested Alongi. She also took Germino’s class on plant resource ecology, conducted a study, presented the results and wrote a research paper.

“Then the next couple of years I ended up redoing and refining the experiments I started in that class, the results of which ended up being the study we wrote about for Botany,” Alongi said.

She was able to finish her Ph.D. in less than six years, slowing only briefly to have her first child while pursuing her studies.

The work she did at Idaho State Univer-

sity, including twice publishing work based on her doctoral dissertation in scientific journals, helped her land the one-year postdoctoral fellowship at Sheffield.

“I found the postdoc while looking at a popular website for evolutionary biologists,” she said. “They were advertis-ing a position of a project very similar to the project I was doing with Matt on the genomics on conifers. He knew that it was a great place and encouraged me to apply for the job. I got an interview and they hired me quickly.”

At Sheffield, Alongi had the opportu-nity to work with post-doctoral colleagues from all over Europe and all over the world.

“We had nine postdocs in my office, none who were English,” she said. “I got a good perspective on what academics and being a scientist is like in other parts of world.”

She has taken that new perspective, along with her researching creativity and background in biological sciences, to Castleton State College, where she began teaching biology and overseeing an under-graduate research program this fall.

And it all started with a change in plans in graduate school at Idaho State University.

ISU Graduate Education Opens Doors for Deborah Alongi

ably related fern allies might be using sugars significantly for their survival,” Hill said.

Alongi noted that sugars not only provide energy for growth in plants and all other organisms, but they are now known to act as signals to change the expression of many other genes,

potentially altering development and physiology in response to the availabil-ity of energy.

Future study of the role of sugar in growth and development will be greatly enhanced by new genome sequencing technology, where genes “turned up” or “turned down” by the presence of sugar

in the environment can be identified and measured.

“We are currently in the early plan-ning stages of designing future research projects to study the role of sugar levels on plant growth, survival and devel-opment, both in ferns and in higher plants,” Alongi said.

Deborah Alongi

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13Fall 2009

Our bodies, in some senses, are one big electrical grid, and Idaho State University molecular neurosci-entist James Groome is studying electrical pathways in genetically altered cells he has produced to help understand and fight diseases such epilepsy and other genetic disorders.

Groome, an associate professor in biological sciences, recently received a $213,417 grant titled “Channelopathy Based Investigation of Domain-Specific Functions in Sodium Channels” from the National Institutes of Health to help him continue some of his investigations.

To explain Groome’s research, it is worth noting just how electrical and charged-up humans are.

“Every cell has electrical potential,” Groome said. “The inside of a cell is different electrically compared to the outside, which is electrically excitable. Cells use action potentials to send information very, very rapidly over a distance. For example, motor neurons in the spinal cord need to send a signal a meter in distance in a couple of milliseconds, at high frequen-cy, several hundred times per second. Without action potentials there is no way that can happen.”

Groome is studying channels in the neuron cells of the brain, muscle fibers for the skeleton and of the heart. These cells use electrical impulses as part of their function when our brain sends signals. When a neuron sends information the first thing it must do is send an “action potential,” which is a rapid change in voltage across a membrane.

“The action potential is absolutely critical for cells to do their function,” Groome said.

Many genetic disorders are caused when the ion channels in cells mutate and don’t function properly and the action potential is interrupted. Groome and his colleagues are focusing on sodium channel muta-

tions in epilepsy, cardiac arrhythmia and muscle myotonia.

“Using very high-tech stuff we compare the activity of the ion channels produced by normal genes with mutated genes,” Groome said. “The goal is to try to identify the specific defects these mu-tations cause in the hopes of developing new pharmaceuticals.”

The ISU researchers are looking at a new direction in this field of research, examining ways to identify specific channels in a cell, not all the channels in a cell. Some drugs designed to treat epi-lepsy, for example, block the function of all channels in a cell when just blocking the activities of the specific channel in a cell would be more beneficial.

Groome is an IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) funded scientist at ISU, proving the value of that program. A $16.5 million INBRE renewal grant awarded to Idaho colleges and universities this spring supports undergraduate, graduate and faculty research and other statewide ef-forts. The grant is the third major award for the network founded in 2001 and brings the total federal investment to $40 million.

The NIH Institutional Develop-ment Award Program, or IDeA, supports programs in 23 states that have smaller capacities to conduct biomedical research. The program is based in the NIH National Center for Research Resources.

James Groome’s new grant is the third NIH grant awarded to a neuroscientist at ISU. The other two NIH grants to ISU neuroscientists are:

• Maria Wong, associate profes-sor of psychology, received a $296,000 NIH grant titled “Sleep Problems and Substance Use/Abuse in Adolescence and Young Adulthood.”

The new grant will allow Wong to ex-tend and expand the research she started in 2004 that looked at sleep problems in childhood and the early onset of alcohol and other drug use in adolescence. In her initial study, Wong and her co-re-searchers from Michigan State University and the University of Michigan found children’s behavior as early as age 3 can predict whether they will use alcohol and illicit drugs in adolescence. In 2006 Wong completed a related study focusing on self-control and alcohol use.

Now Wong is looking at the same population that was analyzed in her first study and examining how sleep prob-lems as toddlers affect them even later in life. She is using extensive data on a

large group of children 3 to 5 years old that was collected by the University of Michigan in the mid-1980s funded by National Institutes of Health. That population is now in its 20s and is still being tracked. She will be working on this project for two years.

• Daniel Selvage, assistant profes-sor of biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences, received a $223,080 grant to study gender-specific reactions to alco-hol use. His research could lead to better gender-specific alcohol treatment.

These three scientists and their col-leagues in their respective departments have formed the Snake River Association for Neuroscience, that has an overall mission to promote intellectual discus-sion of neuroscience across a broad range of perspectives.

“For each of the departments that make up our neuroscience group we have had some success in attracting NIH funding,” Groome said. “That says a lot about Idaho State University that our neuroscience community has attracted NIH grants.” O

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14 Idaho State University Magazine Fall 200914 Idaho State University Magazine Fall 2009

Sometimes everything comes together to create a miracle.

That’s what happened for Bill Jones of Blackfoot, thanks to a thoughtful donor, an ISU student group with a desire to serve others, and the skills of the ISU Audiology Clinic fac-ulty and staff.

The miracle? This past January, Jones, who is legally deaf and blind, received a donated cochlear implant, a sophisticated device that makes it pos-sible for some deaf people to hear.

“I can’t put it into words,” he said. “I can hear more things now than I’ve ever heard in my life.”

The thoughtful donors were the family of a 93-year-old man in the area who passed away. The family de-cided that his recent-generation cochle-ar implant – a $6,000 device – should continue to benefit someone who could use it, and they donated the device to the ISU Audiology Clinic.

The student group, the local chapter of the Student Academy of Audiology/National Future Doctors of Audiology, raised the money for the additional

equipment and programming to make the device usable by Jones, while the Audiology Clinic donated the exper-tise to “map” the device for Jones, a process that custom-tunes the device to send signals to the wearer’s auditory nerves at exactly the right strength.

The students do the mapping and programming under the supervision of Josara Wallber, Au.D., clinical associate professor in the Department of Com-munication Sciences and Disorders and Education of the Deaf. Not only do the students benefit others through their fundraising efforts, they also gain valu-able clinical experience.

The student association is currently raising funds for their next project, buying hearing aids for local children.

“As a student group we believe that giving back and helping others is an essential part of being in the health care profession,” says Andrea Richard-son, president of the local chapter.

“We are in a position to help others

and it is up to us as a stu-dent group to give selflessly. It doesn’t take much to help someone.”

Wallber says that this philosophy is unique among student groups.

“Most groups raise money to attend various professional meetings,” she says. “This particular student organiza-tion is totally focused on service.”

Perhaps the students themselves think it isn’t much, but for the people they help, the end result really is a miracle.

Students Lead Effortin Helping To Restore Hearing

KASISKA COLLEGE OF HEALTH PROFESSIONS

Hearing aids and cochlear implants are not always covered by insur-ance. The ISU Audiology Clinic can use donated hearing aids and cochlear implant processors to benefit those in need. To make a donation contact Dr. Josara Wallber at [email protected] or call her at (208) 282-3828.

You Can Help!

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Bill Jones gets fitted for his implant.

More on the Web

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See and audio slideshow online at www.isu.edu/magazine

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nt15Fall 2009

The helicopter ride alone is worth the trip. It’s like flying into a real-life Emerald City. We glide over a vast expanse of green jungle and blue sky, dotted with hills once mistaken for volcanoes, now uncovered as ancient Mayan pyramids covered in dense tropical forests.

Kings and movie stars have made this trip, but now it’s my turn. I turn to my daughter, Madi, and share what must have been on both of our minds.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore.”Before coming to Guatemala my idea of archeological research involved either

creaky textbooks crammed with dreary dates and predates, or a certain whip-wielding, swashbuckling screen idol with a roguish grin. Dr. Richard Hansen isn’t far from that description — broad-shouldered, 6’4”, with sweeping gestures as grand as his ambi-tions, he meets us with a hearty laugh and wraps his large sweaty arms around us. Yet, he is more father figure than fortune-hunter; he watches over the once-lost city known as the Cradle of Mayan civilization with the tender vigilance of a proud papa, and any-one that comes to help with the task of protecting or falling in love with El Mirador becomes his instant friend.

The area of El Mirador is more than 1,250 square miles of pristine rain forest and home to the earliest Mayan ruins on earth. Here lies the first evidence of a highway system between neighboring cities, and the excavation that has taken place is truly in its infancy. Here, Hansen, an archeologist from Idaho State University, leads a consor-tium of hundreds of researchers and workers from around the world in uncovering the story of ancient Maya civilization and paving the way for economic development in the area.

“The excavations that are taking place in the Mirador Basin are a crucial part of the understanding of the history of humanity, understanding who we are, where we came from and where we are going as human societies.” Hansen says.

Overshadowing the rich culture waiting to be discovered are the dangers of El Mirador.

This remote corner of Guatemala is a three-day hike from the civilized world. The isolation is real, and many of El Mirador’s visitors thrive without the watchful eye of government or local citizens. Looters have plundered the many ancient sites in search of artifacts and continue to do so. Colombian drug smugglers, called “narcos,”

Left: Richard Hansen, and Fernando Paiz, president and director of FARES

respectively, talk inside of a tomb called “El Muerte” or The Dead.

Right: Storm clouds move in over various parts of El Mirador Basin, a rain forest in northern Guatemala.

Story and photos by ISU photographer Julie Hillebrant

17Fall 2009

In 1996, ISU researcher Richard Hansen founded the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies, or FARES. The organization, based in Hansen’s hometown of Rupert, has garnered support from the Guatemalan government, celebrities and researchers around the world.

With help from partner organizations, the organization hopes to meet these objectives:

•Scientific archaeological research and environmental studies in the Mirador Basin area of northern Guatemala.

FARES sponsors the Mirador Basin Project- Regional Archaeological Investigation of the North Peten, Guatemala (RAINPEG) program which is currently studying Maya culture, its beginnings and its demise. There are also several biological projects in the area, from a study of insects that led to the discovery of three new species of moths in 2008, to the study of jaguar populations in the area.

• The preservation of the tropical rainforest in northern Guatemala and the Mesoamerican Lowlands.

FARES is working with the Guatemalan government to create archeological parks and natural preserves that would help build the tourism industry in the country.

• Establishment of educational and career development programs for communities surrounding the Mirador Basin.

FARES is working on projects dealing with health, ecology, agricultural techniques, eco-tourism, financial management, health, first aid, reforestation, literacy, tourist services, artisan products, wilderness and national monument management, sustainable development, and forestry. ( Source: www.miradorbasin.com)


19Fall 2009

occasionally fly overhead. Encroaching fires from logging and agriculture are in danger of not only destroying ancient history, but killing what’s left of the Central American rain forest.

El Mirador basin in northern Guatemala is the last tract of virgin rain forest in Central America. It is the largest collection of Mayan cities in the world. The city of El Mirador alone was believed to have a population of 100,000 people. There are 26 known sites like El Mirador and only 14 have been studied. Hansen estimates at least 30 more have yet to be discovered.

At El Mirador in 1979, Hansen, then but a “lowly graduate student,” discovered Preclassic pottery (2000 B.C.-A.D. 150) in a mislabeled Classic period structure (A.D. 250-950), thus placing the Maya civilization’s peak about 1,000 years earlier than previously thought. Since then, he has led the El Mira-dor Project, a multi-faceted project aimed at preserving the area. In 1996 he created the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies, a non-profit organiza-tion based in his hometown of Rupert, Idaho. The foundation has garnered the interest of celebrities, government officials, royalty and presidents of corporations. Its mission is to use cultural and ecological data for conservation, economic de-velopment and education in the local area. Now, my daughter and I have the chance to be a part of it in our own small way.

Madi and I tumble off the helicopter and plunge into 90 degrees of shirt-soaking heat. Only after a 45-minute trek through dense, musky jungle do we first glimpse the lime-stone foot of a pyramid, its chalky surface hidden by sur-rounding foliage.

The first structure we enter is “La Muerte” (The Dead). Led by Hansen, a party of five crawls on hands and knees into the ancient sarcophagus. In this heat, I wouldn’t mind catching a chill from a passing ghost – instead, we enter a 3-feet by 15-feet oven. The space is stripped bare. Nothing remains of the inscribed stones, pottery or stucco traced with brilliant red pigment that once adorned this final resting place. The bodies are also gone. Hansen doesn’t how many people were once buried here—looters found the tombs less than a year before his team.

Looting is big—$10-million-a-month big—business in this area. Looters receive between $200 and $500 per piece, for which collectors may then pay $100,000 or more. Galleries and auction houses particularly favor codex-style ceramics and Late Classic (A.D. 600-900) black-and-cream mythical-themed pottery. The National Geographic Society estimates that 1,000 vessels are stolen from the Maya region monthly.

Above: This map from NASA shows the encroachment on El Mirador due to fires in the area. The red marks indicate fires that have burned the region since 2001.

Below: Members of the FARES Board of Directors join for a photo atop one of the pyramids.

Bottom: Sculpted in limestone, the base of a pyramid uncovered at El Mirador reveals the craftsmanship and history of the Mayan culture.

Opposite: Thousands of years’ worth of trees, rocks and dirt cover a pyramid in the process of being excavated.

Reverse spread: Photographer’s daughter Madi Hillebrant holds binoculars while gazing at the Milky Way.


“Collecting Pre-Columbian art is often viewed as a justifi-able means of preserving the past,” Hansen says. “It is, in fact, a destructive and sometimes violent business.”

There’s a less-visible, but even more frightening threat in the Guatemalan jungle. El Mirador Project workers don’t see the

drug smugglers, but the occasional plane flying overhead is a constant reminder that the “narcos” and the big guns they carry are around.

Flying from Colombia to the Northern Petén of Guatemala on a single tank, “they go out and cut a strip in the jungle

just long enough to land a plane because they’re out of fuel,” Hansen says. “They land the aircraft, unload their product which goes by land to the north through the jungle, and they burn the aircraft to the ground … These are million dollar airplanes that are expendable. It is a force that can’t be dealt with directly. They are people you don’t want to get in the way of.”

Those who avoid the ugliness of narcotics are still left with few sustainable options; in the past six years, 800,000 acres of Guatemalan forest have been clear-cut and burned for cattle grazing. Soon, Hansen worries, there will be none left. In imag-ery provided by NASA, fire encroaches El Mirador from all sides like an angry red swarm. The Tropical Rainforest Foundation estimates that by 2010, only 2 percent of Guatemala will be cov-ered in dense forest. In 1960, 77 percent was covered.

Those who loot to help feed their families find the business to be occasionally lucrative but not reliable.

The answer, Hansen says, is in development of ecotourism, and he has the support of the Guatemalan government.

In 2008, the Guatemalan government announced an initia-tive to increase tourism in the Maya Biosphere Reserve. The goal is to attract 12 million visitors to the region, 40,000 specifically to El Mirador. A key to this plan is to build a small train into the jungle making the sites more accessible to tourists. According to Hansen between $980 million to $1.1 billion each year already come into Guatemala from tourism revenue. Logging brings in about $740,000 per year.

“We can provide hundreds of millions of dollars more per year in revenue for the country by conserving this and respon-sibly developing it than by letting the loggers and poachers and looters take their one shot,” Hansen says.

As he works with government agencies, other researchers and the public to sell the idea of building tourism in the region, Hansen must also focus on the job that first brought him to Gua-temala — discovering, studying and preserving the artifacts that represent the history of a civilization.

The job of excavating ruins that have been lying dormant in the jungle for thousands of years is hard work. Dirt and rocks need to be moved, rain water collected and distributed and food

21Fall 2009

cooked for all of the workers. Then there is the more skilled work of digging for artifacts, supporting and protecting the pyramids and findings, and recording the found data through artistic renderings and GPS.

By hiring locals to take on this labor, Hansen is hoping to change the fate of the workers and the ruins.

“If it’s not viable economically, we will never save it. You have to be able to justify this to the peasant out there starving

to death. If you don’t, they will continue to poach, loot, rape and pillage. You have to provide an economic alternative to that.”

Changing minds and a way of life is a tough battle, but the issue, Hansen believes, is a matter of life-and-death.

“We will either lose this or save this in five years. The pres-sure is immense,” Hansen says.

The dangers and obstacles are overshadowed by a conta-gious optimism.

“It’s frustrating but we’re optimistic. The Guatemalan president (Alvaro Colom Caballeros) is gung ho about this. Numerous countries are interested in this. There are 52 universi-ties involved with this. And we’re gaining steam all the time,” Hansen says.

Changing the economy of a country seems like a large task for a humble man who was raised on an Idaho farm, but Hansen says it was in Idaho that he learned the importance of hard work and the value of farming. It’s a work ethic that helps him empathize with the workers in Guatemala and what they are up against.

And because he began his journey as a graduate student, Hansen understands the great opportunity for learning that ex-ists in the Guatemalan jungle for students at Idaho State Univer-sity and around the world.

“(The El Mirador project) puts Idaho State University in a unique position; it puts us on the forefront, on the world stage. … We have the opportunity to contribute, on a world scale, to the understanding of society,” Hansen says.

Daniel isn’t the only young Guatemalan working in El Mirador, but he is certainly one of the most enthusiastic.

He is one of 180 workers ranging in age from 17 -70 who attend an informal school at El Mirador.

Students sit at long tables and learn the basics of English, math, or writing in Spanish. Because school takes place after a long workday, there is usually limited light and students must study with flashlights. Some of the men and women here have never held a pencil despite reaching 60 years of age. The goal is to empower these workers so they don’t see looting as their only career opportunity.

Dr. Debra McKay, a Pocatello physician hired by Hansen to work in Guatemala, volunteers her time as a teacher in El Mirador.

“(El Mirador) is the only archeological site I know of that incorporates a school to further the experience of the worker, to create work for them beyond their season in El Mirador,” she said. “Dr. Hansen creates a way for them to become invested in protecting their Guatemala. He is using men he knows have been looters and has made a way to empower them to see beyond that.”

Many of the students are working in El Mirador as a supplement to their regular jobs in the city. Others come in as an alternative to the unpredictable dangerous work of loot-ing ancient artifacts from the large number of pyramids that dot the landscape.

Others, like Daniel come to earn a living and hopefully to someday become a guide.

Richard Hansen hopes the El Mirador region will soon be a park similar to nearby Tikal with a small train giving ac-cess to the site and gift shops and information centers where guides can be hired to educate visitors about the history of the area.

For now, Daniel is a worker, not a guide, but every Friday,

Saturday and Sunday night after work he joins with others to learn English. In broken English with eager eyes, he tells McKay, “I want to be a guide. Teach me how to be a guide.”

Debra role-plays with Daniel and the other young men surrounding her.

“May I be your guide?” they say in English. “Can I show you the pyramids?”

She teaches them many phrases that they eagerly write down in their notebooks. Daniel is eager to learn all he can, and a few days later is found sitting by Debra in her medical clinic receiving more instruction.

In December 2008, Dr. Hansen graduated his first team of guides, a group of 28 men and women who had trained at a school in Guatemala, then participated in a two-day training session educating them to provide in-depth knowledge of the site.

Young Guatemalan men like Daniel don’t see the value in looting, because they have a greater opportunity in teaching visitors the history of their people and land.

Jumping at the Chance to Learn

Daniel working to learn English with Dr. Debra McKay.


During the academic year, biologist Charles “Rick” Williams spends much of his day at the Idaho Museum of Natural History (IMNH) amid more than 80,000 plant specimens, collected by research-ers and graduate students over dozens of years.

The specimens at the Ray J. Davis Her-barium are collected mostly in Idaho but are used by researchers from around the world. Unique collections include flora and fauna from the Fort Hall Indian Reserva-tion and more than 3,000 lichens collected by researcher Lorenz Pearson.

“It’s a huge community of biologists that benefit from the regional collections,” Williams said.

Idaho State University’s herbarium is just one of the areas that will have renewed focus as the IMNH heads forward in a new direction, said acting museum director Skip Lohse.

Williams’s new position as life sciences division head for the IMNH represents a new direction for the museum, one with a greater focus on research.

The restructuring involved creating four new divisions—anthropology, earth sciences, education, and life sciences—each managed by a new division head. Anthropology will be directed by anthro-pologist Herb Maschner, earth sciences by geoscientist Leif Tapanila, and life sciences by biologist Charles “Rick” Williams. The anthropology, earth sciences and life sci-ences division heads will focus on research and securing research funding.

Education resource manager Rebecca Thorne-Ferrell will lead the education division.

The emphasis on research will result in an active, vibrant museum with changing displays for the public, Lohse said, as well as opportunities for researchers through the museum’s extensive collection of more than half a million specimens.

The division heads will continue to conduct research in their areas of interest. Maschner does archaeologi-cal research in fishing communities on the Alaska Peninsula. Tapanila studies invertebrate paleontology. Williams spends his summers in the Colorado Rockies studying plant reproductive behaviors.

As they continue their research and bring new projects and funding to the IMNH, other researchers and the public will

benefit from a more interesting museum, Lohse said. The Idaho State Historic Pres-ervation office is introducing legislation this year designed to move permitting and preservation of vertebrate paleon-tological sites and specimens under the museum’s responsibility.

Along with changing exhibits, the emphasis on research will help bring bet-ter educational opportunities for the pub-lic. Recently, Thorne-Ferrel and Tapanila partnered to bring geology programs to fifth and eighth graders in rural schools.

The museum recently received a $144,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, titled “The Idaho Geology Outreach Project: Bridging the Natural History Gap.”

Through the grant, Thorne-Ferrel, Tapanila and researcher Chuck Zimmerly provide local geology teachers with tailored educational materials. Thorne-Ferrel said she enjoys taking the research Tapanila and Zimmerly have done in the field and bringing it back to students.

“We’ll be identifying unique geologic features in the students’ home areas and developing discussions, science kits, a website and other materials to integrate that information into their geosciences curriculum so they can understand the natural history of their region,” Thorne-Ferrel said.

The best museums go beyond public

exhibits; they provide collections for researchers to use in their studies and offer great opportunities for interdisciplinary research, Lohse said. Each division head is hiring a collections manager to study and catalog the vast number of specimens in the museum’s care. Some specimens will be catalogued for use at the IMNH, while others might be prepared for use by other institutions.

At the herbarium, Williams plans to have students and volunteers from the Native Plant Society help a full-time col-lections manager catalogue the more than 10,000 specimens that need to be pro-cessed. The work is a great opportunity for those who are interested in the collections of regional flora and fauna.

Williams and researchers from Brigham Young University and four other regional institutions are also working on a grant proposal to create an Intermountain Regional Herbarium, which would include digital photographs of 1.5 million speci-mens. The project would create a huge database that could be used as a resource for land managers and scientists.

Williams’s goal is to make the herbari-um more open and accessible for research. With the museum’s new focus, Lohse sees more research opportunities throughout not only the herbarium, but the museum as a whole.

“I think there will be a lot more activity,” Williams said. “It will be really exciting.”

Idaho Museum of Natural HistoryRestructures With New Divisions

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23Fall 2009

By Frank MercoglianoItalo “Babe” Caccia, the winningest

coach in ISU’s history in both football and baseball, passed away Aug. 28 in Pocatello of natural causes. Caccia, who was five weeks shy of his 92nd birth-day, was one of the most well known and beloved figures in Idaho State his-tory. Caccia passed away on the day the high school football season opened on the field that bears his name.

He had a long career and associa-tion with Idaho State, starting in 1936, when he was a member of the Bengal football team. He eventually made his mark on Bengal athletics as a coach and administrator. His career foot-ball coaching record of 79-38-2 (67.8 percent) was compiled from 1952 to 1965. Among those seasons included unbeaten seasons in 1952 and 1957 and the 1963 Big Sky Conference champi-onship in the first year of the league’s existence. He also won five Rocky Mountain Conference championships, starting with his first two seasons of 1952 and 1953, and also in 1955, 1957, and 1959. Babe also coached baseball

for eight seasons, 1967-74, and posted a 152-116 record. His 28-5 team in 1968 is considered the best baseball team in school history. Caccia led ISU’s wrestling program as well.

He eventually moved into the role of administrator, serving as an assis-tant athletic director for 14 years and then athletic director for seven.

Caccia was inducted in the ISU Sports Hall of Fame and the Holt Arena Ring of Honor. During the 2007 Homecoming game, the playing sur-face at Holt Arena was named Caccia Field and Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter proclaimed Oct. 3, 2007 as Babe Caccia Day.

Since 2002, the Southern Idaho Chapter of the National Football Foun-dation has presented the Babe Caccia Scholar-Athlete Award to an Idaho State senior at their annual banquet in Boise. In 1999, Sports Illustrated named him one of the 50 most influ-ential sports figures from the state of Idaho.

He was big in civic involvement, especially after his retirement. He served as a Pocatello City Council-

man and was a founding member of Poca-tello’s Sports Com-mittee, which has brought many sporting events, including two NCAA Division I-AA national champi-onship football games, to the Gate City.

Caccia met his wife of 35 years, Tracy, while coaching in Edmonton, Al-berta, in the Canadian Football League after he had concluded his ISU coaching career.

One person in the athletic depart-ment that was very close to Caccia was head football coach John Zamberlin.

“For the university and community and state of Idaho, we lost a great man,” Zamberlin said. “Babe is someone who took me under his wing and was a great mentor and a friend. I talked to him on almost a weekly basis, whether it was football, or life, or fishing. I learned so much from him … I’m just stunned.

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“You know he would call me up in the summer time and say `Coach, I got some plays I want to run by you.’ It’s tough, because

we lost someone that’s more than just a guy. He loved his wife Tracy, and his children and grandchildren. I really feel blessed that I got to know him and know him on a friendship level. He had a definite impact on my life.”

Caccia is survived by his wife, Tracy, daughter Heidi (Greg) Linehan of Genesee; sons Bill (Mary Jo) Caccia of Pocatello and John Caccia of Hailey; and five grandchildren, Solara, Emma, Thomas, Cody, and Wyatt. He was preceded in death by his parents, sister, Lena Stevenson, and brother, Gene Caccia.

By Glenn AlfordWhen I came to Idaho State in the

summer of 1967, I got one of the best breaks of my life — I was assigned to share an office with Babe Caccia.

I was 24 and came to Pocatello af-ter three years in the U.S. Army and a couple of months lying on the beach in my hometown, Half Moon Bay, Calif. and collecting unemployment. In short, my work ethic was not finely tuned. I was raised by a hard-working single mother and when I got to ISU I had some rough edges that needed the at-tention of a male role model. I had no fathers when I arrived, but ended up with two – Babe and Dubby Holt.

Working closely with Babe had me working hard and taught me

much about life. This was two years af-ter his last season as ISU’s head football coach and at the time he was assistant athletic director, ticket manager and head baseball coach. However Dubby, in his first year as athletic director, must have decided Babe didn’t have enough to do. He assigned Babe to introduce me, the school’s new sports information director, to the news media across the southern part of the state.

“Babe knows everybody,” Dubby told me.

I was skeptical. Idaho is a big, spread-out state. How many people could he know?

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25Fall 2009

I was wrong. Babe did know every-body.

We drove from Pocatello west to Nampa, where the state American Legion baseball tournament was being held that year and Babe hoped to re-cruit some players. We visited the sports media in Twin Falls, Mountain Home, and Boise. And wherever we stopped, everyone knew Babe.

And it wasn’t just the media. A couple of months later we stopped in

Salmon for lunch en route to Mis-soula, walked into a diner, and three steps through the door, the crew on counter stools called, “Babe, what are you doing in Salmon?”

In Nampa, I got a close look at the Caccia work ethic. Teams played from morning until after dark and we didn’t miss a game. Babe worked the pro baseball scouts for names of col-lege-worthy players. He signed Boyd and Bill Gailey, twins from Mountain

Home who played shortstop and catcher, to letters of intent at midnight on a car hood by the light of our car’s headlights.

Being friends with Babe, I met many of the football players he coached – men like Dale Leatham, Chuck For-restal, and Don Papenberg. I found out my experi-ence was not unique. Babe coached someone to be a valuable member of society first and a defensive tackle, or even a sports informa-tion director, second. In short, he coached people like he would teach his

children.It’s no coincidence that Babe, an

outstanding football and baseball player and wrestler at the University of Idaho Southern Branch, and his son, John, twice an All-American

wrestler at ISU, are the first father and son to be inducted in the ISU Sports Hall of Fame.

Babe retired from ISU in 1986. He’d served as athletic director and been ISU’s most successful coach in both football and baseball. His ac-complishments continued in retire-ment and included two terms on the Pocatello City Council and helping found the Pocatello Sports Commit-tee that brought two NCAA Division I-AA national championship football games and other events, like the Pocatello Marathon, to the Gate City.

Every college in the country has a most successful football coach, and a most successful baseball coach, and a former athletic director, but just a very few of them — maybe none of them — have all of that in just one man. And I’ll guarantee you none of them have such a man who did all that in the community where he grew up, and then retired there to perform significant community service.

I have 650 words to tell you my thoughts about Babe and I’m not go-ing to make it because he was so be-loved, accomplished so much, helped so many people and did all that with such a zest for life.

Hero worship? Sure, but ev-erybody he coached feels the same way. I’m just the one with the word processor.

THE ALUMNI AND VISITORS CENTERAT IDAHO STATE UNIVERSITY

The new Alumni and Visitors Center will be a treasury of alumni accomplishments, University history and memorabilia rec-ognizing the tradition of Idaho State, its faculty, staff and alumni.

The vision for a new Alumni Center includes a magnificent, 20,000 square-foot, two-story building, centrally located upon the beautiful landscape that extends past the north side of Holt Arena.

If you would like to be a part of this project, call the ISU Foundation at (208) 282-3470.

Babe Caccia, second from left, coached conference champions in three sports.


Idaho State University’s Jason Blazevic, a doctoral student in political science, was the only student who was invited to participate in an intensive multinational “East Asia Security Sym-posium” workshop this June in Beijing, China.

It’s a 5,962-mile straight line from Pocatello to Beijing, a considerable distance even when airline transfers work out. It’s a really long trip when they don’t.

On his way to the symposium Blazevic experienced delays in Los Angeles and Shanghai. At the latter, he missed his connection to Beijing and was provided a hotel room. When he arrived a day late at his city destina-tion, no one was there to pick him up.

“I had a picture of the university and I gave it to a taxi driver and he found it,” said Blazevic, who does not speak Chinese. “After I arrived at the university, I walked around for a half-hour looking for somebody to understand me. It was very hot, in the 90s, and humid. But I did eventually make it to the administration building and found someone who could talk to me and direct me to the conference and my hotel.”

Once he actually arrived at the workshop in Beijing, China, after some “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” moments, Blazevic had a fascinating learning experience.

The resourcefulness he displayed in his travel to the conference could be an indication of why he was the only student invited to it.

The workshop, on the theme “En-ergy Security as a Tenant of National Security,” was hosted by China Foreign Affairs University’s Center for Strategic and Conflict Management in Beijing and was sponsored by University of New Haven. It featured a variety of military, foreign affairs, and academic experts from China, and 20 similar global experts from throughout the world visiting the country.

“The constant theme throughout the entire conference was China’s rise and the international and domestic security issues that go along with it,” Blazevic

said. “China’s GNP (gross national product) has to grow 9 percent every year just to employ everybody that needs a job.

“It puts stresses on the Communist Party, which promises to provide mate-rialism and employment, but only little political freedom. There is a constant battle for the party to legitimize itself and they must have economic growth, or they have much greater problems to worry about.”

Energy is the key to that economic growth, and its security is essential to China.

“There is a big belief over there that the U.S. is containing China through ‘soft containment,’ by indirectly controlling them,” Blazevic said, “and that the United States is using the war on terror as a premise to build bases around them. That’s how they see it.”

Experts at the conference appeared to be in agreement on the United States’ global military dominance on land and sea, and in air and space, and in new technologies such as biotech-nology and nanotechnology.

“The conference was a constant and wonderful learning process,” Blazevic said. “It was great. People like me don’t often get the opportunity to sit 10 feet away from generals and admirals and talk to them about technology and strategic issues, even when I wasn’t always getting any answers.”

Since returning from the confer-ence, he has penned a scholarly paper titled “China’s Defensive Realism and the Pursuit for Oil Security: The Indian Ocean, Sea-lanes and the Security Dilemma,” that he has submitted for publication.

Prior to the conference, Blazevic had published three papers relating to Chinese energy issues: “Oil, the United States and China” in the Journal of Social Science produced at Japan International Christian University in Tokyo; “Japan and the East China Sea: Realism, Policy, and the Security Dilemma” published in the Stanford Journal of East Asia Affairs; and “Oil, Africa and China: China’s African Strategy” in Papers, Essays and Re-views published by Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.

A native of Arizona, the 31-year-old earned his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of North-ern Arizona, where he also lettered in football. He earned a master’s degree in political science from Idaho State University and a master’s degree in history, with an emphasis on Ameri-can diplomatic history and a minor in modern East Asia history, at Washing-ton State University. Blazevic returned to Idaho State University to work on his Doctor of Arts degree in political science.

ISU Student Invited to Prestigeous China Conference

EAST ASIA SECURITY SYMPOSIUM

Jason Blazevic standing on Tiananmen Square in front of the National Museum in Beijing, China.

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27Fall 2009

A black-and-orange Idaho State University pennant sailed around the globe last spring, making appearances and being captured in photographs at some of the world’s most famous and obscure places.

While the pennant was unavailable for comment, Idaho State University Alumni Association Director Bill Ko-bus graciously agreed to share some of the tales of the global trek. Kobus and his wife, Rosemary, vacationed with the ISU banner from Jan. 17 to May 13, beginning an around-the-world cruise in Los Angeles and completing it in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

“Laura Vailas (ISU’s first lady) gave me the pennant a couple of days before I left,” Kobus said. “At about every stop we had, I packed it with me in a little backpack and tried to unfurl it at every opportunity I had. A couple of times the wind was blowing really hard when we unfurled it and we almost lost it, but we managed to hold on to it for the entire trip.”

Sometimes he’d find “a local vic-tim” to hold up the pennant in front of a famous landmark; at other times he or Rosemary would

hold it and snap a picture.“Almost everybody we asked was

pleased to do it,” Kobus said. “I just thought I’d try to give ISU a little pub-licity throughout the world.”

Kobus found plenty of goodwill expressed toward the United States during his travels.

“We never met anybody that expressed any unhappiness toward the United States,” Kobus said. “When we said we were from the U.S., the response was always positive.”

In general, most places in which the ship stopped were different and more developed than what Kobus expected.

Complete highlights during the four-month cruise are too many to recount here, but Kobus offered a few:

Shanghai, China“For somebody coming from

Eastern Idaho with not many people, going to a metro area with 20 million people was mind-boggling.”

Furthermore, the juxtaposition of old and new China was

profound: “You’d see an oxcart parked next to a Lexus.”

South AfricaThis country seemed “half modern

and affluent, and half slum.”“Cape Town and Durban were

extremely modern and well-kept and in beautiful settings.”

AustraliaFor part of the visit, the cruise ship

was docked in Sydney Harbor in front of the famous Sydney Opera House, probably the most photographed Australian tourist attraction next to Ayers Rock.

India“Very interesting in general,” and

Kobus said he’d like to go back. He had the experience of watching the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” while docked at Mumbai, the city where it was filmed.

ISU Pennant Goes’Round the WorldALUMNI DIRECTOR KOBUS VACATIONS WITH IT


He also stayed at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, which was the site of a terrorist bombing and shooting that killed 37 people in the hotel and 160 people in Mumbai in November 2008. “They had very tight security at the hotel that was being rebuilt. It was bizarre sitting in a place that had been the site of such a terrible event only a few weeks earlier.”

Traffic in the developing worldIn general, travel by car in the

major cities they visited was challeng-ing. “I always tipped the driver extra because the traffic is outrageous and they got us around without killing us or anyone else.”

Kobus said the cruising part of the voyage – the long days at sea – were sometimes tedious, but he kept himself occupied. He calculates that he hiked 262 miles around the deck during the trip — even on days with rough seas — and that he worked out in the gym nearly every day at sea. He skipped lunches, opting instead for a late breakfast and an early dinner and managed to lose five pounds on the

trip, something unusual on a cruise ship loaded with food.

“The best part of being on the ship on the long days at sea was that it gave you time to reflect on what you had just experienced and seen, before the next stop,” Kobus said.

More on the Web

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For more pictures, make your next stop at www.isu.edu/magazine

Photos by Bill and Rosemary Kobus

29Fall 2009

When he was a student at Idaho State College, there were about 1,860 students and when he started work at ISC there were about 3,000.

After 47 years working at Idaho State University and a 61-year affilia-tion with his alma mater, Bill Harwood retired from ISU June 30. During that span Pocatello’s population has doubled and Idaho State University’s enrollment has grown to more than 14,000 students.

“I’ve seen a lot of changes and phenomenal growth over the years,” Harwood said. “I haven’t agreed with all the changes. They’ve been mostly progressive with a few setbacks, but this isn’t the place to dwell on the setbacks.”

Harwood, 80, was most recently the editor of the ISU University Press, a part-time position he has held since 1986, a 23-year span. From 1960 to 1984 he was director of a depart-ment that underwent numerous name changes at ISU that was the Office of Information Services when he left and has morphed into the current Office of University Relations.

But Harwood’s roots at ISU go deeper. A native of Pocatello, Har-

wood attended ISU as a student from 1948 to 1952, earning a bachelor’s in journalism (he earned a master’s in education at ISU in 1962). He left ISU for eight years and taught journalism at Boise and Borah high schools in Boise before returning to ISU.

“When I came here in 1960 I wanted to finish my master’s and stay one year because I had a good job of-fer in California,” Harwood said. “But I never got out of this place.”

He said his most exciting times at ISU were his first three as an employee at ISU from 1960 to 1963 when he was director of the ISU News Bureau for one year before it became the Office of News and Publications. During this period the University was making the transition from Idaho State College to become Idaho State University.

“We had to put out a lot of publicity to get that change done,” Harwood said. “I’ve always enjoyed whatever I’ve been doing, but back in those days it was fun working to get university status because everybody was pitching in and going full-tilt to get that accomplished.”

During his 14 years as director of

what is now University Relations he at various times oversaw the univer-sity’s news bureau, publication office, publication distribution center and a print shop that was in the current ISU administration building. The latter evolved from the old Faculty Stenog-raphers Office. He also served as the advisor for the Wickiup, Idaho State College’s former yearbook, and he was advisor for The Bengal, the college’s student newspaper. His other varied duties included helping to produce promotional films for the university and other films. He wrote scripts and provided voice-over for the films and also did some radio shows.

One of his biggest legacies was helping to create the University Press in 1967, some of whose books were originally printed by the print shop Harwood oversaw. Harwood managed the University Press as part of his duties as director, and then, follow-ing retirement, came back to manage the press working part-time for the University.

“Creating the University Press was mostly a labor of love, and I’ve just continued to do that since retiring from full-time work,” Harwood said.

The press was created to publish scholarly works that might not be printed by larger university presses or commercial publishers. The ISU University Press currently catalogs about 76 works. The University Press Editorial Board reviews and selects the submitted books that will be pub-lished. There are currently five ISU faculty members on the board.

“It was never set up to be a big money maker,” Harwood said. “It was designed to do pilot editions of books.”

Harwood made it a point not to grow it too large. The University Press continues to operate, and is now a part of the Office of Academic Affairs.

“I will miss the press,” Harwood said. “It was a lot fun doing it. Every time I thought of hanging it up along has come a book manuscript I wanted to do. I’ve done ‘one more book’ a lot of different times.”

Harwood Leaves Legacyof Progress for Idaho State UniversityRETIREE SERVED MANY CAMPUS ENTITIES

Bill Harwood stands in front of a bookcase with the titles he’s helped publish.

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In Idaho State Civic Symphony Di-rector Chung Park’s concert hall, music isn’t just something to be enjoyed by the classically educated and refined.

His goal is to make music that every-one can enjoy. For him, it is all about connecting.

Before and after each symphony performance Park meets with concertgo-ers to talk about the music. The public hobnobs with the maestro, symphony players and each other, enjoying re-freshments. The musical mastery, the energy and the setting of the spectacular Joseph C. and Cheryl H. Jensen Grand Concert Hall, perhaps topped off with a treat and conversation with the mae-stro, can make for rich, well-rounded evening.

“I love music, and not music just for music’s sake,” Park said. “My goal for the symphony and anything I do is to bring people together. I want to offer a full experience for the evening so people aren’t coming to worship at the altar of music. I’m trying to make the concerts about the people coming to them.”

Park, who became director last fall, exudes energy, and that spark has caught on with the symphony and its public. During his first season the symphony drew packed houses at the Jensen Grand Concert Hall in the L.E. and Thelma E. Stephens Performing Arts Center.

“He has been so involved with the community and his artistic abilities are fabulous,” said Sue Parker, the sym-phony’s executive director. “He has been able to bring music that the community loves.”

The new director has received thumbs up from symphony members as well.

“Certainly, this last season with the orchestra was a resounding success with the public, as witnessed by the large audiences at the performances,” said Patrick Brooks, ISU music professor and trombonist. “It is exciting as a performer to be playing for a packed, enthusias-tic house. Chung has been very well received by the orchestra, which has bought in to his approach and vision. It was a lot of fun last year. We covered a lot of exciting literature and there are a lot of new faces in the orchestra.”

Park, who also teaches viola at ISU, came to the University with an impres-sive resume. Park’s primary musical studies were completed at the Peabody

Conservatory and the University of Miami, where he received a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree as a student of renowned conductor and composer Thomas Sleeper. Additionally, Park studied viola in Hannover, Germany, with Hatto Beyerle of the Alban Berg Quartet.

The director’s goals for the ongoing sea-son are both concrete and ethereal.

“I want to get us an even more refined sound and play with greater precision, and I want to facilitate that,” Park said. “The audience should find a few more surprises in store for them this year. The idea is to try to create magic every time people come out. For that to happen there has to be a good combination of the familiar and the novel, to keep people interested.”

For more biographical information on Chung Park, visit www.chungpark.com.

For video of Chung Park conducting the symphony, visit our website at www.isu.edu/magazine.

Idaho State Civic Symphony information and concert schedule are available at www.thesymphony.us.

Making Musical Connections31Fall 2009

90s

Philip Neiswanger, BA journ ’53, was inducted to the Oregon Newspaper Hall of

Fame. He was editor and publisher of The News-Review in Roseburg from 1973 until he retired in

1993; he then served as interim publisher at the Nevada Appeal in Carson City. Neis-wanger served on the board of directors of Swift Communications for 18 years before retiring in 2006. He was named the Outstanding Freshman Journalism Student at Idaho State College in 1950.

Hon. Peter D. McDermott, BA govt ’64, retired as a District Court judge for the Sixth Judicial District of Idaho. He was appointed district judge in 1981 and

also served as a public defender for the district from 1969 to 1981. Mc-Dermott has been active

in the Sixth District Bar Association, Idaho State Bar Association, Idaho Trial Lawyers Association, and Idaho District Judges As-sociation.

Darwin Pugmire, cert instrmnt tech ’64, recently retired after 30 years’ service with Idaho Power; his positions include power plant oiler, power plant operator, power plant technician, chief operator, power plant supervisor, manager hydro production, and general manager of power production. Pugmire lives in Meridian and volunteers for the American Red Cross.

Donald E. Knickrehm, BA journ ’67, is a partner with Givens Pursley LLP in Boise. He has more than 30 years’ legal experience in real estate development and finance. His background includes real estate-related loan restructures and foreclosures; he has represented savings associations, banks and life insurance companies.

Rix Tillman, BME ed/music ’67/MAED sec ed ’70, pastor of Exciting Immanuel

Church in El Paso since 1985, has retired. He has authored a book, Pastor Survival: What

They Didn’t Tell You in Seminary avail-able at Amazon.com. He is also working on another book, Pillar of Fire: Chronological Bible Devotions, Volume One.

Greg Anderson, MED stu pers work ’72, has retired as vice president and loan officer at the Bank of Idaho in Pocatello. He worked as both an assistant director and director of the ISU student union for a total of 28 years.

John C. Berry, Jr., BA phys ed ’73, received the Lifetime Service Award from the Idaho Chapter of the National Wrestling

Hall of Fame. He has been the high school wrestling coach at Sugar-Salem High School for 30 years. Berry coached for three years at Blackfoot High School.

William James Johnston, alumnus ’73, of Pocatello, has been appointed to the board of trustees of the Idaho State Historical Society by the Idaho State Board of Education. He will represent District Six, comprising Bannock, Bear Lake, Caribou, Franklin, Oneida and Power counties. Johnston is an associate broker with Home Specialists Real Estate in Pocatello.

Dave Heberlein, BBA mgt/org ’75, is associate vice president and financial con-sultant with D.A. Davidson and Company in Pocatello. He began his career with A. G. Edwards and has more than 20 years’ experience in the securities industry.

Shannon McCarrel, BS radiog sci ’78, of Sisters, Ore., was the recipient of the 2008 Hologic Vanderhoff Spirit Award. She is an account manager of Hologic, Inc., a women’s health care provider. In 2008, McCarrel traveled with other health care professions to establish the East African Breast Care Project in Tanzania.

Kristi Granados, BBA acct ’81, was elected to serve as president of the Dona Ana Chapter of Certified Public Accoun-tants for 2009-2010. She is also a mem-ber of the New Mexico Society of Public

Accountants, National Society of Accountants, and American Society of Women Accountants.

Granados is a certified public accountant with Kriegel/Gray/Shaw & Co., PC in Las Cruces.

William D. Hansen, alumnus ’81, has been named president of Scantron Corpo-ration. Previously, he served as president and chief executive officer of Chartwell Education Group, LLC, an education-related consulting firm. Hansen is a former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, and functioned as its chief operating offi-cer. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Idaho State University in 2003.

Lisa Anderson, BA art ’82, is an associ-ate professor of art and graphic design at the University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg. She is an artist who recently participated in “Art in Academia: South-eastern College Art Conference Members’ Juried Exhibition” in Mobile, Ala.

Muffet Hirning, alumna ’82, is a registered nurse and case manager with Guardian Home Care. She has 26 years’ experience as a nurse and has worked at Bingham Memorial State Hospital, State Hospital South , the VA Nursing Home and

Harms Memorial Nursing Home.Jeff Thomas, BBA finance ’82/MBA bus

admin ’89, graduated from the American Bankers Association Stonier National Graduate School of Banking in Philadel-phia. He is senior vice president and Eastern Idaho regional credit administrator for D.L. Evans Bank.

Tammy Utter, BA elem ed ’82/MED curr & inst emph ’96/MED ed admin emph ’06, is the principal at Linden Park Elementary School in Idaho Falls. She served as assis-tant principal at the same school last year.

Susan Bithell, BBA marketing ’83, of Seattle, is vice president of field opera-tions for Farmers Insurance in Washington. Her career with Farmers Insurance began in 1983, and most recently, Bithell served as Farmers Washington state executive director. Bithell earned a master of business administration with Distinction from Cali-fornia State University – Fresno in 1998.

Daniel M. Steflik, MBA bus admin ’84, of Elko, Nev. has qualified as a “champion-ship” agent by Farmers Insurance for his outstanding overall performance. Steflik achieved a high sales volume for auto, home, life and business policies while maintaining high client retention and profitability.

Kathleen Kempton, alumna ’85, is executive director of the Boise State Uni-versity Foundation. She joined Boise State University in 2007, as director of finance for University Advancement. Most recently, she served the university as assistant vice president.

Frances Schwarzenberger-Lopez, BBA finance ’88/MBA bus admin ’95, was named prime contract manager for Bechtel National Inc. Kwajalein Range Services based in Huntsville, Ala. Lopez recently completed the assignment of prime con-tracts administrator for Bechtel National on the Ground Based Mid-course Defense program and has over 20 years of experi-ence in relevant fields.

Maggie Frole Spurling, MED health ed ’88, is chairwoman of the Boise Board of Parks & Recreation Commission for 2009-2010. She has more than 25 years’ experi-ence in local non-profit organizations, state government, and the health insurance industry. Most of her career was spent as the national accounts manager at Health-wise and as an account executive at Lincoln National Life Insurance Co.

Cheryl L. Anderson , BS corp train ‘94, retired from the Office of Financial Aid at ISU on June 25, 2009. She served as the assistant

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Editor’s note: Send Trackings information to the Office of Alumni Relations, Idaho State University, 921 S. 8th Ave., Stop 8033, Pocatello, ID 83209-8033; or e-mail to [email protected]; or fax to (208) 282-2541. Or call (208) 282-3755 locally, or toll-free (800) 933-4781.


director of financial aid for 25 years.Marci Bartu, BA elem ed ’90, was

named the Idaho Middle Level Association teacher of the year for Region Five. She has taught in School District No. 25 for 18 years, the past six years at Franklin Middle School in Pocatello. Currently, she currently teaches English and literature.

Lance Rosenkrance, exited ’91, is a management trainee with Ireland Bank in Mackay. He has previously been self-em-ployed as a farmer and a brand inspector.

Heidi Crouch, MHE health ed ’93/EdS ed admin ’08, is principal of Emerson High School in Idaho Falls. Crouch will oversee and coordinate many of the intervention programs, including Safe and Drug Free Schools and education services at the juve-nile detention center.

Diane Hutchinson, BUS interdisciplin-ary stu ’93, retired as deputy in charge of the Pocatello Divisional Office of the U.S. Courts in September. As the deputy in charge, Hutchinson and eight clerks provided support staffing for the federal judges.

Lance Kolbet, alumnus, of Pocatello, qualified for the Court of the Table of the Million-Dollar Round Table of the Premier Association of Financial Professionals. He is president and chief executive officer of University Financial Group which he founded in 1993.

Brian Underwood, AA crim justice ’93/BS pol sci ’98, was recommended to be appointed a U.S. Marshal for Idaho by Con-gressman Walt Minnick. He has been war-den at the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center since 2002; he previously served as a Pocatello police officer and manager of the Sixth Judicial District Probation/Parole Office.

Lyle Cook, BBA mktg ’94, is vice president and credit relationship manager at Syringa Bank’s Orchard Place Branch in Boise. His responsibilities include special asset and commercial relationship manage-ment. Previously Cook worked for Regal Bank as vice president and senior relation-ship officer.

William S. Wright, BS biology ’94, a conservation officer for the Idaho Fish and Game Southeast region, received the Citi-zens Against Poaching Officer of the Year award. Wright teaches hunter education in the American Falls and Aberdeen area and participates as a shooting instructor in the annual Fish and Game Youth Pheasant Clinic.

Christopher W. Davis, BA pol sci ’95, is a U.S. Air Force captain who was awarded the Bronze Star for outstanding work in Iraq and Afghanistan. He serves with the Military Intelligence Unit and is currently stationed in Germany.

Amy National Guard Spc. Steven B. Merrell, BA spch comm ’95, graduated from basic combat training at Ft. Jackson in Columbia, S.C.

Amy Shapiro, MFA art ’95, received an honorary degree from Monmouth College

in Monmouth, Ill.; she was nominated for the traditional pre-college teacher award by a former student. Shapiro graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education from Illinois State University and has been a fine arts teacher at Bolingbrook High School since 2001.

Daniel R. Walker, MS pharm ’95, com-pleted an anatomic and clinical pathology residency at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. He will continue his education through a civilian fellowship in transfusion medicine at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City.

Elaine Asmus, MNS biology ’96, a sci-ence teacher at Snake River High School, was named the Claes Nobel Educator of Distinction by the National Society of High School Scholars in May. She began teach-ing 1984 and was one of six state finalists for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science in Idaho.

Allene Parker, DA Engl ’96, was pro-moted to associate professor of humani-ties and communication at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz. Previously she was assistant professor of Humanities and writing director.

Sheila Anderson, BBA finance ’97, has been appointed to the supervisory commit-tee of the ISU Federal Credit Union. She is a senior accountant for Finance & Adminis-tration at ISU.

Alice Schenk, MHE health ed ’97, of Rupert, completed her first year as adjunct faculty teaching health and fitness classes for the College of Southern Idaho at the Mini-Cassia Outreach Center. She com-pleted the Ford Ironman Tempe Arizona in November, 2008.

Brandi Townsend, cert off tech ’97/AAS off tech ’01/ /BBA finance ’03, of Inkom, is an authorized distributor of Miche hand-bags. Townsend and her husband, Ely, also operate Idaho Innovations and Jomama Customs.

Kelly Coughenor, MED ed admin emph ’98/EdS ed admin ’08, is principal at Haw-thorne Elementary School in Idaho Falls. He served as principal at Longfellow Elemen-tary School the past 10 years.

Capt. Emilee Venn, BS zoology ’99, re-ceived the 2009 U.S. Army Veterinary Corps Junior Officer Exceptional Service Award at the 12th Annual Force Health Protection Conference on Aug. 17, in Albuquerque, N.M. Venn graduated with a DVM from the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in 2007 while stationed at Ft. Carson, Co.

Karri Anderson Davis, BM music perf ’00, of Vernal, Utah, was selected as a

semifinalist for the 2009 International Clarinet Association Orchestral Competition held in

Oporto, Portugal Oct. 14. She was also presented as the first ever United States Army Bands Reserve Component Soldier of the Year for 2008. She is associate principal clarinet in the orchestra at Temple Square.

Davis completed a master of music degree from the University of Utah.

Tamera Douglas-Ives, AS sign lang stu ’00/BA soc ’06, has opened a neighborhood pottery studio, “The Clayground” in Poca-tello. She participated in this year’s Alumni Art Show held in conjunction with ISU Homecoming in Pocatello. Upon comple-tion of oral examinations, Douglas-Ives will complete her master of public administra-tion degree at ISU.

Jeffrey Lunt, alumnus ’01, opened his own State Farm Insurance agency in Chubbuck in January. He joined State Farm Insurance as an agent three years ago and earned a degree in accounting from the University of Phoenix.

Sarah Jane McDonald, BS human resource train/develop ’01, is a constituent service representative in the Idaho Falls office of U.S. Senator James Risch. She previously worked for Sen. Risch in the governor’s office on constituent issues and as the sergeant at arms in the Idaho Senate for six years.

(photo) Brett Mills, BBA finance ’01, is manager and senior nationwide loan officer for Academy Mortgage Corporation in Layton, Utah. He has also served by in-dustry appointment on the Utah Mortgage Lenders Association Board of Governors for the past two years. Mills was recognized in the top 200 list of the Mortgage Originator Magazine for all three categories monitored. He was 14th nationwide in FVA/VA unit production, 75th nationwide in total loan unit production and 191st nationwide in loan volume production.

Jamie Parkinson, BS micro ’01, is a reg-istered patent attorney with Zarian, Midgley & Johnson, PLLC, in Boise. Her practice emphasizes patents, intellectual property matters and litigation. She received her juris doctor from the University of San Diego in 2008. Her work experience includes seven years in various positions with a major tele-communications company, including the management of wireless, voice over internet protocol, internet and conferencing needs for numerous Fortune 1000 companies.

(photo) Lowell (Jim) Thompson, BA history ’01, of Nampa, was recognized as Idaho’s Middle School Educator of the Year for Region IIIA. He is in his second year teaching 8th grade world history at Lone Star Middle School. He is also the 8th grade dean of students and coaches both boys and girls basketball. Previously, Thompson taught 8th grade world history at West Middle School in Nampa.

Kari Zweigart, BS health ed ’01, has joined Wilks Funeral Home as a funeral planning adviser and aftercare specialist. She has 10 years’ experience in the insur-ance industry.

Curtis Smith, alumnus ’02, was selected as the 2009 Idaho Firefighter of the Year by

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33Fall 2009

the Professional Fire Fighters of Idaho at its annual convention. Smith has worked as a firefighter and paramedic for the Pocatello Fire Department the past 14 years. He is also president of the Local 187 of the Inter-national Association of Fire Fighters and has worked with other regional unions to develop their own Local.

Jay A. Taylor, BA Engl ’02, a captain in the U.S. Army, was decorated with the Meritorious Service Medal. He received the award for service as a battery commander with Alpha Battery, 1st Batallion, 78th Field Artillery Regiment at Fort Sill, Lawton, Okla. He has served in the military for 20 years and earned a master’s degree from Webster University in St. Louis, Ill., in 2008.

Brent Gallup, BBA finance/mktg ’03, is a mortgage loan officer at the Yellowstone branch of D.L. Evans Bank in Pocatello. He has 10 years’ experience in residential lend-ing.

Casey J. Leavitt, cert res Idaho adv gen dent ’03, traveled with other dentists to Punta de Mita, Mexico, for a weeklong service mission this spring. The group provided free restorative dentistry, cleaning and examinations to more than 250 local children. The trip was organized through the non-profit group, Protection, Education, Animal, Culture and Environment, and the LDS Academy of Dentistry in Provo. Leavitt has a dental practice in Pocatello.

Nicholas J. Corisis, alumnus ’04, gradu-ated from basic combat training at Fort Sill, Lawton, Okla.

Greggory A. Miller, BBA finance ’04, graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.

Dr. Karson K. Howard, alumnus ’05, received his doctorate in podiatric medicine

from the Samuel Merritt Medical School in Oakland. He is in surgical residency at Mt. Sinai Hospital where he will receive advanced training in foot, ankle and lower leg trauma and reconstructive surgery. Dr. Howard plans to practice with his father, Dr. Kert Howard, upon completion of his residency.

Lonnie S. Jensen, BBA finance ’05, graduated from basic combat training at Ft. Jackson in Columbia, S.C.

Thomas Gray Salter, BA psych ’05, received his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Minnesota in May. He is enrolled in a residency for psychiatry and internal medicine at the University of Iowa.

Dr. Heath Sommers, MS psyc ’05/PhD clin psych ’07, is chief of psychology and director of clinical and educational train-ing for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Region 6. He also teaches courses on child development and child abuse at ISU. He has written a novel, “The Manufactured Identity,” which was recently published.

John Fenstermaker, BS zoology ’06, was inducted into the Gold Honor Human-ism Society. He is enrolled in his final year of medical school at Des Moines University in Des Moines, Iowa and plans to go into family medicine.

Robert Scovil, BBA finance ’06, a Mod-ern Woodmen of America representative, completed an advanced educational pro-gram at Modern Woodmen’s office in Rock Island, Ill. The program covered retirement distribution techniques, addressed estate planning for wealth distribution to heirs, federal estate taxation, charitable giving and estate liquidity insurance.

Johanna Boyle, alumna ’07, completed a

15-month tour of duty in Iraq; her unit was stationed in forward operating base Nor-mandy in Muqdadiyah. Boyle worked with military police and trained the Iraqi police force to do community policing.

Chris Jenkins, Ph.D. biology ’07, is director of Project Orianne, a conversation organization that focuses on the viability and recovery of the eastern indigo snake populations. Jenkins’ dissertation work focused on the effects of wildfire and changing vegetable cover on rattlesnake populations in the desert surrounding the Idaho National Laboratory. This led to a job with the Wildlife Conservation Society where Jenkins developed a conservation management plan for the Idaho National Laboratory.

Ricky D. Lords, alumnus ’07, graduated with honors from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

Suzi Magee, BS health ed ’07, is a licensed massage therapist with 12 years’ experience in massage therapy. She has opened two locations in Pocatello, Gem State Massage and The Strand; this allows her to cater to those clients who prefer a salon environment or a more private set-ting. Magee offers a variety of specialties including deep tissue Swedish massage, therapeutic massage, spa massage and river stone massage.

Troy G. Vance, cert law enf ’07, gradu-ated with basic infantry training at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia.

Pauline Alessi, MED ed admin ’08, was named principal of Syringa Elementary School in Pocatello. She has more than 18 years’ experience which includes teaching special education at the elementary and middle school levels.

Ashley Anderson, BBA mktg/mgt ’08, has been promoted to the operations super-visor at the Poleline Road branch of Ireland Bank in Pocatello. Her current duties in-clude opening new accounts and overseeing the teller line.

Tina Orme, MED ed admin ’08, has been named principal at Edahow Elemen-tary School in Pocatello. She has taught elementary school for 15 years and served in administration for three years.

Angelica Staples, BA elem ed ’08, is a third grade teacher at Rimrock Elementary School in Ammon. She is working on a master’s degree in literature at ISU.

Julian Duffey, MED ed admin ’09, is an assistant principal at Century High School in Pocatello. He has five years’ experience as a tech-nology and special education teacher.

(photo) Daniel A. Jones, BS mech engr ’09, is a proj-ect engineer with Premier Technology, Inc., in Blackfoot. He has more than 11 years’ experience in the manu-facturing industry. Jones was selected as the 2009 Outstanding Achievement Award recipient for the College of Engineering.

GERALDINE CAROL MORGAN • 1937-2009Carol passed away on August 25 from complications of a stroke. She will be

missed greatly by her family, dear friends and many former patients. Carol was born in Idaho Falls, Idaho to Margaret and Ward Dickey. She graduated from Idaho Falls High School and then attended Idaho State University where she received her B.S. in Nursing. Later, she continued her education and became one of Idaho’s first nurse practitioners. Carol’s career of care and compassion began at the old St. Anthony Hospital in Pocatello. She then moved to the Idaho State University Health Center where she enjoyed helping students for over 30 years. During these years she also extended her warm, professional aid to the community through the Pocatello Free Clinic. In addition, she reached out to individuals infected with HIV/AIDS by work-ing with others to form a support group which was often hosted in her home. Her contributions were recognized in 1988 when she received the ISU Alumni Associa-tion Professional Achievement Award for the College of Health Professions. Upon retiring from ISU Student Health Center, she hung up her stethoscope and picked up a shovel. She loved her award winning flower garden and spent many seasons enjoying the blooms of her labor. Carol is survived by Gordon, her husband of 50 years, her three children, Kellie (Pocatello), Chris (Wendy; Pocatello), and Amy (Newman Yeilding; Philadelphia, PA), her brother Gene Dickey (Fritz; Boise), numer-ous nieces and nephews and three grandchildren. It is these three grandchildren, Aidan and Newman Yielding and Samantha Morgan, who brought her the most joy, laughter and fulfillment as she eased into her later years. A private memorial service will be held at a later date. Donations in Carol’s memory may be made to the Idaho Food Bank, 555 S. 1st Ave., Pocatello, ID 83201.


Julie Keeslar, MS nursing ’09, is an in-structor of nursing for the College of Health Sciences at Boise State University.

Kalon Ludvigson, alumnus ’09, won the gold medal in the fifth and final World Cup of the 2009 Trampoline and Tumbling World Cup Series in Salzgitter, Germany in September. He won his first World Cup gold medal, the first U.S. tumbling gold medal since May, 1999.

(photo) Derek B. Moss, BBA mktg ’09, is a business development officer with Premier Technology, Inc. He completed an

internship with Bannock Development Corporation last year. Moss was selected as the Marketing Student of the Year by the College of Business; he was also the 2009 recipient of the Outstanding Student Achievement Award for the College of Business.

(photo) Stewart North, BA biology ’09, is enrolled in the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in

Lewisburg, W.V.Frannie Driscoll, Heidi Halverson, Nikki

Helm, Sally Kane, Vicki Moser and Sue Bistline, all graduates of Dental Hygiene in 1980, held a mini-class reunion in Montana last summer. They discussed the class reunion of 2000 and plans for the 30th re-union, with a target date of summer, 2010. Other 1980 graduates are invited to contact Sue Bistline at [email protected] with suggestions as soon as possible.

35Fall 2009

www.isu.edu/playhardStudy hard. Play hard.

I get a nice breakfast on those mornings.

My research often keeps me out in the field. Sometimes I have to stay overnight.

921 S. 8th Ave., Stop 8033Pocatello, Idaho 83209-8033

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“We wanted to show our appreciation and thanks to ISU so we set up the Rupp Debate Society Endowment. You too can make a difference and experience the personal enjoyment and rewards of

helping those that helped you along their journey in life.”

James and Sharon RuppRupp Debate Society Endowment

gift to Idaho State University is a way to honor a special person in your life, to share the rewards of your own

life, and to help ensure that generations of students can receive the lifelong benefits of

an Idaho State University education. The ISU Foundation can help you easily establish a legacy of learning in the name of your choice. Visit the Foundation online or call Don Colby at (208) 282-3470.

www.isu.edu/gift

James Rupp with the debate society scholarship winners.

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