An ordinary looking woman, map in hand, stands on a crowded New York City sidewalk at midday asking passersby for directions. She may as well be invisible. At best, she’s ignored.

A very attractive woman takes her place. In no time, she’s inundated with help from both men and women. A passing van driver even pulls over in heavy traffic to offer his gallant counsel.

“Beauty is ugly,” says Minnesota State University Moorhead alum Gordon Patzer, now dean of the College of Business and Public Administration at California State University at San Bernardino. “But beauty is also very powerful.”

The candid camera scenes above were among several captured by the prime time television news magazine show Dateline NBC investigating The Physical Attractiveness Phenomena, a phrase Patzer coined along with the title of his first book. The segment is aired in March.

Patzer, who attended a one-room schoolhouse through eighth grade while growing up on a farm nearby Sydney, N.D., has achieved national and international recognition as an authority on the sociology and psychology of how much our lives are determined by appearance.

“Physical attractiveness is an important, but tremendously overlooked issue,” he says. “What you look like may determine who you are­­both in your own mind and in the minds of others.”

While focusing most of his energy now on administering the university’s business college­­with 72 full-time professors, 60 part-time professors and a staff of 20­­ Patzer is in preliminary stages of putting some substance behind his vision—creating what he calls The Appearance Institute.

“Not only would it be a clearing house to sponsor research and disseminate information on the appearance phenomena,” he said, “it would also be a center to coordinate help for people suffering effects of the appearance phenomena.”

That, he said, would range from doctors who perform free cleft palate surgery to Operation Prom Dress, a program started by an East Coast girls school to recycle their once-worn gowns by donating them to high school girls from financially disadvantaged families in West Virginia.”

He’s been trying to raise funds for the institute, which he estimates will require a target budget of $1.2 million the first year.

He won’t be dissuaded. “It’s too important and I’ve spent the last 30 years of my life studying and speaking on this topic.”

What we look like, he said, is a subtle social force we’re unwilling to admit. “It’s irrefutable. Physically attractive people tend to have more friends, more dates, more  money and more status. They also tend to have fewer mental, social and health problems. It’s a reality that won’t go away by simply ignoring it.”

Dateline NBC is convinced. The program’s producers located Patzer through the Internet, first confirming his expertise, and then after reading his book and researching the topic further, flew him to New York City several times last summer to film and edit their upcoming segment.

Patzer’s research began at MSUM as a senior project for his psychology major.

“It grew out of my interest in the entertainment industry,” he said. For his three years on campus, the 1973 MSUM alum operated a booking agency for rock bands from his Holmquist Hall dorm room.

“As I approached graduation, I decided to look at what people inferred from the physical appearance of their peers,” he said.  “At the time, there were less than a half dozen academic studies on the subject. I literally was on the doorstep of an unstudied but hugely important topic, so I thought. Today, there are more than 2,000 academic papers on the power of appearance. ”

Patzer later earned his master of science degree in psychology, his MBA and his doctorate, writing all his theses on the topic of what he originally called The Physical Attractiveness Phenomena.

Between academic posts, he worked as a CBS television executive who helped the network decide what kind of shows make it on prime time, and later as a research analyst and business strategist for Saatchi & Saatchi National Research Group, helping movie producers, directors and studios position and market their films.

“I was in my early 30s, not too long out of North Dakota, when I found myself working in Hollywood for big bucks and at a killing pace, writing a 20-page marketing strategy on the movie “Tucker” for a couple producers who were two top film names in the industry, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.”

He also helped fine-tune and market the films “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” “Bull Durham,” “Young Sherlock Holmes” and the camp cult classic “Earth Girls Are Easy,” starring Geena Davis, Jim Carrey and Jeff Goldblum.

“What still surprises me today is its pervasiveness,” he said from his San Bernardino office. “From birth (Oh, what a cute baby!) to the casket (Doesn’t he look good?), we  just can’t escape the power of  our appearance.”

But isn’t beauty only skin deep?

If that’s the case, he said, why do Americans spend a pretty penny on looking good, over $60 billion a year just on cosmetics, weight-loss alternatives and aesthetic plastic surgery.

Add to that the cost of whiter teeth, fewer wrinkles, manicured fingernails, smaller pores and tighter muscle tone, and you get what seems to be an obsession.

“We all agree in theory that you can’t tell a book by its cover. And when asked in literally hundreds of surveys, the vast majority of people say that physical appearance doesn’t matter.”

According to Charles Darwin and subsequent evolutionists, Patzer said, appearance might be one of the basics in deciding the survival of the fittest, which could also translate as the survival of the best looking. The organisms that are larger, stronger and more physically attractive are the most successful at conquering a partner and producing offspring.

“Appearance is a very important information cue throughout nature,” he said  “And we may be born with an instinct to improve it.”

Some cultures have gone to painful extremes in the pursuit of what they think is attractive, he said.

In ancient Egypt, pointed heads were once considered beautiful, so much so that newborn babies had their heads wrapped tightly in cloth and twine in an attempt to produce that desired cone head shape. An American Indian tribe once saw something attractive in flat foreheads, so boards were strapped to the heads of their babies to create that level-headed look, sometimes  causing brain damage.

It goes on and on, he said, from bound feet in China to 18-inch waists during the Mae West era.

“We still torture ourselves with eating disorders, painful plastic surgery and dangerous steroids,” he said. “By pursuing higher physical attractiveness at all costs, it’s obvious that some important benefit accrues from looking good.”

Patzer believes the pursuit is getting more intense. “The media certainly accentuate it and technology makes it a global standard,” he said. “Market researchers long ago learned that attractive people are more convincing and they draw more viewer attention.”

And because the media dominate so much of our lives, he said, it influences our hopes, dreams, expectations and reality.

The ordinary people who once filled our television screens—Walter Cronkite, Carol Burnett, Jackie Gleason, Ethel Mertz—have been replaced by today’s beautiful people: Dan Rather, Jennifer Aniston, Luke Perry, Sara Jessica Parker and television newswomen Greta Van Susstern, who underwent much publicized plastic surgery when she moved from CNN to FOX News.

Don’t even mention Michael Jackson.

“It would be almost impossible for someone as physically unattractive as Abraham Lincoln to become president today,” Patzer said.

Also a factor: our fast-paced, mobile lifestyle makes first impressions critical.

“We don’t live in the same small towns and meet the same people everyday. We’re in a new kind of environment where we make decisions about other people quickly. And too often our first impressions are lasting impressions. We don’t have time to judge people on other characteristics.”

Most people, he said, want to believe we’re all created equal. “They’re reluctant to admit that amid our democratic philosophy operates a very undemocratic practice of birthright.”

Patzer’s conclusions aren’t popular or readily accepted by most people. That’s why he says beauty is ugly. “Ask anyone if appearance makes a difference in how they choose friends, marriage partners or employees and they’ll invariably say no. Appearance, they said, is superficial. What really matters, they say, is personality, sincerity, character or intelligence.”

But actions and stereotypes speak louder than threadbare slogans and ideals.

Research shows that physically attractive people:
* As students, are given preferential treatment by teachers and are assumed to have more potential.
* As criminals, receive lighter sentences and other favorable considerations from the courts.
* In the job market, all else being equal, have an advantage in getting hired, and, once hired, are promoted more quickly and make more money.
* As patients, receive more attention and communication from doctors.
* As institutionalized mental patients, receive more visitors and are hospitalized for shorter periods.

It goes on and on, with two exceptions, he said:
* For some women entering a professional career field that’s typically male dominated, beauty can be a beast, Patzer said. “People are still reluctant to admit that good looks and brains go together in upper-level jobs. Executives of both sexes show preference for beautiful women in clerical positions, but not in managerial ones.
* Good looking male white collar criminals tend to get harsher sentences because juries, deep down, tend to believe they’ve taken advantage of their good looks.

Appearance isn’t just a surface paint, it’s a penetrating stain that shapes the way people treat us, Patzer said. But it also shapes our own self-image.

It begins at birth, he said. “Cute babies, research shows, are smiled at more, touched more, talked to more. Nurses pay more attention to them and so do parents.

The dark side of the physical attractiveness phenomenon gets meaner in elementary and high school.

“Less attractive teenagers tend to have higher blood pressure than their more physically attractive peers, particularly among girls,” he said. “It’s an internalization processes. Imagine the pressure they must endure in a society that puts so much importance on appearance.”

The pressure can also turn tragic.

“At Columbine High School in Colorado, the two shooters were often teased and criticized about their appearance, particularly their dress and hair,” he said. “We had a program down the road here at Chino State Prison that offered rhinoplasty, or nose jobs, to some of the inmates. In terms of recidivism, it apparently was successful. But public clamor cut the program.”

Patzer believes we all place too much importance on appearance. But considering the reality, he’s a strong proponent of safe and healthy approaches to improving your looks.

One of his friends and supporters happens to be Cindy Jackson, known as the Cosmetic Surgery Queen—nearly 40 operations approaching $100,000, a feat listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. Jackson and Patzer have discussed some collaborative projects, including a book.

When Patzer looks out his office window, the paradox of beauty becomes tangible. First you notice the absolutely stunning view of the San Bernardino Mountains overlooking the campus. “But look right over there by that grove of trees about a mile out,” he said. “You know what that is? It’s the San Andreas Fault.”

Beauty and the beast sharing the same landscape.

'30s
Jules Herman ’35 (hist./music) was inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame in November, 2002. He says he is happily retired and living in Mendota Heights, MN, with his wife of 64 years, Lois Best, who was Lawrence Welk’s first Champagne Lady!

'40s
Constance Sautebin ’41 (hist./math) ’65 (MS) is now retired and living in Watertown, WI. She taught at a mission school and later a public school in Alaska from 1946-1997.

Dorothy Eckhardt ’48 (elem. ed.) ’79 (bus. ed.) and her husband Bill now make Scottsdale, AZ, their permanent home. They’re retired but keep busy crafting and make it to the MSUM Arizona reunion every year.

Harriet Docken ’48 and ‘68 (elem. ed.) is a retired teacher living in Hallock, MN, where she is church organist and choir director and accompanies school music programs at Christmas and in the spring.

'50s
John T. Johansson ’54 (biol.) of Detroit Lakes, MN, has been selected to be included in the 2003 edition of Who’s Who in America.

Gladys Demmer Egli ’58 (elem. ed.) is retired from full-time teaching but still enjoys substitute teaching in Bismarck, ND, where she lives.

'60s
Henrietta Hannemann ’60 (elem. ed.) is a K-12 music teacher in Tyler, MN, where she lives.  Her mother, Laura Hannemann, ’60 (elem. ed.) just celebrated her 90th birthday! Are there any other mothers-daughters or fathers-sons who graduated the same day? Let us know.

Jon Olson ’61 (math) is retired after working as an engineer for Hughes Aircraft (now Boeing). He lives in Torrance, CA, with his wife, Queena, and says golf and home remodeling consume most of his spare time.

Alice Klepetka Haugen ’61 (elem. ed.) and her husband, Treadwell, live in Wyndmere, ND, where she is a Title I instructor and serves on the Red River Human Services Board of Directors.

A. Wayne Swenson ’66 (indust. ed.) lives in Fergus Falls, MN. After a 33-year career teaching industrial education and supervising and teaching driver ed., Wayne is now national sales director for Seal-R products.

Karen Koenning Grossheider ’67 (elem. ed.) moved back to Minnesota after teaching for 30 years in Columbus, MT. She is now an elementary teacher at Holy Trinity School and lives in Cokato, MN, with her husband, R.C.

Patricia Syltie Solheid ’67 BA, ’68 BS (music) lives in New Prague, MN, with her husband, Allen. After teaching elementary music for 15 years, she is now a self-employed daycare provider and is active in music ministry and community choir.

Sharon Webster Kennelly ’68 (eng/speech) is a substitute teacher at Madison Memorial High School. She lives in Madison, WI, with her husband, Bill.

Dale ’69 (math) and Gail Schwankl Erickson ’69 (elem. ed.) were married in Kauai in July, 2001. Congratulations! Gail retired from teaching after working in southern California for 30 years; Dale teaches advanced math and coaches in Redwood Falls, MN, where they live.

Delayne Stadsvold Karls ’69 (elem. ed.) retired after teaching for 32 years in Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton, MN. Delayne lives in Fargo, ND, and works part-time for Forum Communications.

'70s
Lyle Thorstenson ’70 (math) is owner and eye doctor at the Thorstenson Eye Clinic in Nacogdoches, TX, where he lives with his wife, Pam.

James Rogalla ’70 (finance/bus. admin./mgt.) is chief lending officer at Northern State Bank in Thief River Falls, MN. His daughter, Kylia, is a student at MSUM!

William Capp ’70 (math) and his wife, Cheryl Lynn, live in Alexandria, MN, where he teaches math at Minnewaska Junior High School.  Bill coaches 7th and 8th grade basketball and football and works with the Math Counts competition.

David Nelson ’70 (distrib. ed.) owns a custom woodworking business in Divide, CO, where he lives with his wife, Caroline.

Keith Gilbertson ’70 (indus. educ.) is director of industrial technology for Northwest Technical College. He lives in Rochert, MN, with his wife, Jeannie.

Barbara Sorvik Washington ’71 (elem. ed.) and her husband, Willie, live in St. Paul, MN, where she teaches 6th grade in St. Paul’s Gifted and Talented School. She has been included in “Who’s Who American Teachers” for the past 6 years.

Paulette Ann Anderson ’71 (french) teaches high school French in St. Cloud, MN, where she lives with her husband, Donal.

Peter Lund ’71 (bus. admin./mgt.) is owner of Pelican Valley Agency, an independent insurance agency in Pelican Rapids, MN. He lives in Fargo, ND, with his wife, Debra.

John Stolpman ’72 (sociology) and his wife, Shirley, live in Anchorage, AK, where he is a mental health clinician for the Alaska Psychiatric Institute.

Lynda Sly Benedetti ’72 (HPE) lives in Summit, NJ, with her significant other, Harry Young. She is organizing a “Loco Daze 2003” 5K run/1 mile walk to be held Saturday, July 26, 2003, in Dilworth, MN. She hopes to see a lot of Dragon alums on the course!

Jerry Morrow ’72 (mgt) is district sales manager for Essilor Labs of America, a prescription eyewear manufacturer. He lives in Savage, MN, with his wife, Karen.

Bob Munsterman ’73 (eng.) lives in Milan, MN, where he is superintendent of schools for Lac Qui Parle Valley School District.

Randy Johnson ’73 (biol.) teaches physics and coaches a science academic team at Sharyland High School, in Mission, TX, where he lives with his wife, Eileen, and their daughter. He moved to Mission in 1989 from Papua New Guinea, where he and his family were missionaries.

Gayle Johnson ’73 (hotel-motel-rest. mgt.) recently moved to a farm site near Bird Island, MN, where she plans to start raising horses.

Marc Langseth ’73 (phy. ed./math) and his wife, Mary, live in Fargo, ND, where he has taught at Oak Grove Lutheran School for 22 years. He also coached Concordia College’s women’s basketball team.

Nancy McKinley ’73 (SLHS), CEO of Thinking Publications, was named a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association at its rnational convention in Atlanta.  McKinley was one of only 29 fellows named in the 105,000-member professional association for speech-language pathologists and audiologists. McKinley was cited for her pioneering work on behalf of adolescents with language disorders, for her teaching excellence, and for her association leadership skills.

Julie Nelson Townsend ’73 (HPE) is a science teacher in Ankeny, IA, where she and her husband, John, live. Last year Julie was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching!

David B. Johnson ’74 (mgt.) lives in Moorhead, MN, with his wife, Mary Jo. He is sales manager for Mid-States Wireless, and chairman of the Electronics Dept. Advisory Committee at Northwest Technical College, treasurer of Clay County Pheasants Forever, and active in soccer.

Terry Hertel ‘74 (bus. admin.) lives in Simi Valley, CA. where he is a software systems engineer for Countrywide.

 Sharon Renfrew Johnson ’65 (math) ’75 (MA counseling/guidance) lives in Wheaton, MN and teaches in Richland, ND. Her daughter will attend MSUM this fall as a theater major. We love those second generation dragons!!!

Alice Bedard-Voorhees ’75 (Am. st.) teaches for Colorado Community College Online and works as a self-employed consultant. She lives in Littleton, CO, with her husband, Rick, and their two children.

Nancy Bratvold ’75 (elem. ed) teaches for the Tri-Valley Head Start program and is a summer disabilities specialist with the migrant program. She and her husband, Robert, live in East Grand Forks, MN.

Allyn Workman ’75 (PE) is assistant principal at Rockwood Summit High School, in the St. Louis, MO, metropolitan area. He lives in Ballwin, MO, with his wife, Karen.

John Melgard ’76 and his wife, Marsha, live in Janesville, WI, where he is maintenance manager for Prent Corporation.

Ron Jensen ’76 (biol.) and his wife, Lana, live in Ft. Collins, CO, where he teaches chemistry at Ft. Collins High School. Ron has been recognized as a Colorado Distinguished Educator.

Darrell Lindgren ’76 (acctg.) ran the New York Marathon, his 39th marathon. He plans to climb the highest mountain on each of seven continents, so far has climbed four. He lives in St. Louis, MO, where he is CFO-central region for WellPoint Health Networks.

Wayne Kuehl ’76 (music) lives in Finley, ND, where he teaches bands 5-12 and choral music 7-12. He was named North Dakota Outstanding Music Director 2000-2001.

Conrad Dahl ’76 (acctg) is managing partner of Dahl, Hatton, Muir & Reese Ltd., CPA Firm; he also serves on the Kittson County Fair Board and the Economic Development Board. He lives in Hallock, MN, with his wife, Vickie.

Lin Russell ’77 (elem. ed.) lives in Edmonds, WA, and teaches 5th at Brighton School. She shoots a Civil War cannon for living history demonstrations.

Sandie Thompson ’77 (elem. ed.) was one of four teachers to receive the “Teacher of Excellence” award. She lives in Ogilvie, MN.

Nancy Clementson Raguse ’77 (PE) and her husband, Steve, live in Wheaton, MN, where she enjoys a diverse teaching career. She teaches special ed, phy ed, drivers ed., and is yearbook advisor.

Naomi Jackson ’78 (anthropology) lives in Minneapolis, MN. She works at Hampden Park Co-op in St. Paul as volunteer coordinator/newsletter editor/storekeeper. She just started an internship at the Dodge Nature Center as a first step in pursuing a career in environmental education.

Dale ’79 (eng.) and Patricia Neuschwander ’78 (spec. ed.) and their two sons live in St. Joseph, MN. Dale teaches English and speech communications for Anoka Ramsey Community College’s Connections program at St. Cloud State University; Pat teaches special ed at Melrose High School. Both are assistant speech coaches at Apollo High School in St. Cloud, MN.

Rebecca Smidt Fredricksen ’79 (elem. ed.) teaches 6th grade at Triton Public Schools. She lives in Stewartville, MN, with her husband, C.E. (Buck), and their two children.

'80s
 Kathleen Resvick Anderson ’80 (social wk.) and her husband, Fred, and their two children live in Chicago, IL, where they are missionaries for Jesus People USA. Kathleen also designs custom cabinetry for Creative Wood Design, which is owned by the ministry.

Dean Frater ’80 (acctg.) lives in Cohasset, MN, with his wife, Yvonne, and their two sons. After working for several retail stores, Dean opened his own store, Pokegama Crafts in Grand Rapids, MN, in 1994, and added the JCPenney Catalog center in 2002.

Janice Stromstad Peterson ’80 (elem. ed.) received her masters degree from the University of Mary in 2002. She is a special ed. teacher in Bismarck, ND, where she lives with her husband, Darrie, and their two children.

Kathy Zaun ’81 (indiv. major) is a kindergarten teacher at North Sargent Public School and assistant track coach.  She lives in Edgeley, ND, with her husband, Curtis.

Mary Simon Ullrich ’81 (elem. ed.) is a 5th grade teacher in Grand Forks, ND, where she lives with her husband, Gary, and their three children.

Joyce Schmidtbauer ’81 (mass. comm.) is a self-employed producer, “still cranking out Safeway grocery TV commercials”. She lives in Culver City, CA, where she enjoys the glorious California sun, beaches and mountains!

Dan Brinkman ’81 (PE/soc. st.) lives in Hutchinson, MN, with his wife, Deaun, and their two children. He teaches 8th grade phy ed and is the assistant varsity football coach and assistant girls basketball coach.

Steve ’82 (phil.) and Debbie Amundson’81 (bus. admin. and finance) live in Anchorage, AK, where Steve teaches English as a second language and social science and Debbie is an audit manager and vice president for Wells Fargo Bank.

Kenneth ’81 (indiv. major) and Barbara Highet’81 (indiv. major) live in Austin, MN, where they are active golfers and have the MSUM Alumni decal on their golf cart!

Mary Shideler ’83 (SLHS) is a self-employed certified massage therapist in Grand Rapids, MN. Her passion is to kayak all 1007 lakes in Itasca County; so far she has paddled 479.

Steve Wright ’83 (soc. st.) lives in Salt Lake City, UT, with his wife, Mary, and their two children. He writes software for the Univ. of Utah, is a San Kyu (Brown Belt, 3rd degree) in Goju Ryu karate-do, and studies and practices Zen principles. He wishes peace and happiness to all alums.

Russell Hann ’84 (speech comm.) is working at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA’s National Service Center in Madison, WI, where he lives with his wife, Bonnie, and their two sons. He is also a licensed health and life insurance agent.

Janet Maesse ’84 (elem ed) lives in Ulen, MN, with her husband, Brian, and their two sons. She is in her 17th year of teaching, and is current teaching 2nd grade at Ulen-Hitterdal Elementary School.

Michelle Vancura ’85 (mgt) is vice president of Medco Health Services in Waukesha, WI, where she lives with her husband, Randy, and their three children.

Mark Lafer ’85 (physical and health ed.) lives in Tempe, AZ, with his wife, Kelley. He is a cardiothoracic sales specialist for Genzyme Biosurgery.

Bruce Thomas ’86 (mgt.) runs his own technology consulting firm and works as adjunct faculty at Arizona State University and two community colleges. He lives in Scottsdale, AZ, with his wife, Cheryl.

(include photo) Greg Flack ‘86 (bus admin.) has been named senior vice president and general manager of Schwan’s Food Service. In this role, he will lead The Schwan Food Company’s activities that offer meal solutions to institutional foodservice customers, convenience stores, delis and chain restaurants.

Sandi Thies Kleist ’86 (finance) is a certified credit counselor for Lutheran Social Service. She and her husband, Gary, and their three children live in Brainerd, MN.

Kris Armstrong Studniski ’86 (office admin.) is an at-home mom in Elk River, MN, where she lives with her husband, Ed, and their daughter.

Mark Connelly ’86 (soc. studies) and his wife, Nikki, and their two daughters live in Mountain Home, AR, where he is an RN in the emergency room at Baxter Regional Medical Center.

Tim ’90 (MBA) and Kari Westrick Joachim’86 (nursing) live in Fargo, ND, with their two children.  Kari is a nurse anesthetist for Valley Anesthesia Associates; Tim is lab supervisor at the VA Hospital.

Bruce Andersen ’87 (social wk.) is a social worker for North Central Human Services in Minot, MN, where he lives with his wife, Nancy, and his two stepsons.

Leah Erickson Carpenter ’87 (crim. just.) is a state trooper for the Minnesota State Patrol. She and her husband, Brian, live in Becida, MN, and are expecting their first child in September.

Heidi Sallee Gackle ’87 (recreation & leisure studies) is an energy management assistant for Cass County Electric Cooperative in Fargo, ND, where she lives with her husband, Todd, and their two sons.

Hugh ’87 (bus. admin) and Mary Storsved Mattson’91 (computer sci.) live in St. Louis Park, MN, with their two children. Mary is a computer programmer for Express Scripts, Inc.; Hugh is a Walgreens manager.

MaryAnn Przymus Mings ’87 (social wk.) is an employee assistance counselor for Ceridian LifeWorks. After living in Missouri for 10 years, she and her husband, Tom, moved back to Minnesota, and now live in Farmington, MN.

Lawson Cline ’87 (indust. tech.) is an engineering manager at Technical Services for Electronics. He and his wife, Mary, and their four children live in Glencoe, MN, where they enjoy outdoor activities year-round.

Nathan ’87 (math/comp. sci.) and Deborah Berdickson Fjeld’88 (Am. st./mass. comm.) live in Cook Rapids, MN, with their four adoptive children. Nathan is a web developer for Liberty Enterprises; Deborah keeps busy as an at-home mom.

Julie Cartier Buzick ’88 (elem. ed.), her husband, Steve, and their two children live in Pella, IA, where she is a teacher associate for kindergarten and 1st grade.  Julie says, “Hello to all the friends I had in college!”

Melita Hildahl ’88 (elem. ed.) teaches 5th grade in Montevideo, MN, where she was just named Teacher of the Year! She lives in Clarkfield, with her husband, David, and their two children.

Robert Cameron ’88 (social st.) lives in Goodlettsville, TN, with his wife, Robin, and their two sons. He is purchasing controller for Vaughan Printing of Nashville.

Bradley Noeldner ’89 (mktg) is village manager for Paw Paw, MI, where he lives with his wife, Renae, and their two children.

Daron ’89 (mass & speech comm.) and Tami ’97 (psych.) live in Fargo, ND, with their new baby girl. Daron is TV news anchor at 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on KVLY-TV; Tami is a counselor at the Rape and Abuse Crisis Center.

Lynn Fiocchi ’89 (mass comm.) is assistant vice president of marketing at First Northern Bank in Dixon, CA. She received a master’s degree from the Univ. of Phoenix in 2002. She lives in Davis, CA, with her husband, Mark Pratt.

'90s
Lowell Buysse ’90 (SLHS) ’93 (MS) and his wife, Ronda, live in Moorhead, MN, where he was named 2003 Moorhead School District Teacher of the Year.

Tim ’90 (acctg.) and Tammy Helzbauer Baranick’90 (acctg.) live in Maple Grove, MN, with their son. Tim is a CPA with Silverman Olson Thorvilson & Kaufman; Tammy is a CPA with SuperValu.

Jill Rudh Tracy ’90 (elem. ed.) teaches 2nd grade for Harford County Public Schools. She lives in Abingdon, MD, with her husband, Greg, whom she met online, and their son.

Julie Courneya Zieman ’90 (elem. ed.) is coordinator and teacher of gifted education for the Runestone Area Education District, was Minnesota Academic Coach of the Year, and is an internationally published author of several books, including Spirit of the Lake, a childrens picture book to be released this spring.

Joel Raddatz ’90 (social st.) lives in Afton, MN, with his wife, Susan, and their two daughters. He teaches special ed. at Stillwater High School.

Christian ’90 (finance) and Lisa Kostelecky’93 (mass comm.) live in Dickinson, ND, with their two sons. Christian is sales manager for Sax Motor Co.; Lisa is an at-home mom, enjoying living in the small community and watching her boys “go, go, go”.

Kathleen Berger Haas ’90 (elem. ed.) works part-time for the Chaska School District as a Title 1 teacher and part-time for a scrapbooking store. She lives in Chanhassen, MN, with her husband, Scott, and their son.

Cheryl Bierdeman Kuhn ’91 (mass comm.) is community relations/development director for the University of Minnesota West Central Research and Outreach Center in Morris, MN, where she lives with her husband, Dan, and their two children.

Laura Hoveskeland Gyhra ’91 (mass comm.) lives in Garland, NE, with her husband, Joseph, and their two children. She is a bank officer/marketing director for Cornhusker Bank in Lincoln, NE. As a student Laura worked in the Alumni Foundation office. Let’s hear from some others who used to work here!

Peter Myszkowski ’91 (mass comm.) is alumni relations/development director for the University of North Dakota School of Law. He lives in East Grand Forks, MN.

Ann Hagerty Johnson ’91 (social st.) is on a one-year childcare leave from her job teaching 9th and 10th grade social studies at Rockford School District. She lives in Waconia, MN, with her husband, Chuck, and their children.

Patrick Lochwood ’92 (legal asst.) lives in Bemidji, MN, where he works for Evergreen House. He recently received the 2003 Philanthrofund Foundation Community Service Award and is described as “an everyday hero” for his work as a youth educator and advocate.

Mike ’92 (mass comm.) and Michelle Rupchock Christopherson ’92 (mass comm.) live in Crookston, MN, with their two sons. Mike is assist. director of service learning/volunteer coordinator and teaching specialist for the University of Minnesota Crookston. Michelle, also employed by the U. of M. Crookston, is assist. director of ag. and natural resources.

Cynthia Miller ’92 (mass comm./pol. sci.) was married in October in Gretna Green, Scotland to Sean Broton. They now live in Minneapolis where she teaches writing part-time. Last fall she worked on former MSUM professor Dean Alger’s campaign to be Minnesota Secretary of State.

Corey ’94 (Am. st./pol. sci.) and Brenda Elmer ’94 (mass comm./pol. sci.) and their son live in Moorhead, MN. Corey recently joined the law firm Gunhus, Grinnell, Klinger, Swenson & Guy, and will practice municipal, business, employment and education law.

Dennis Fischer ’94 (math) was named Wheaton, Minnesota, Teacher of the Year! He teaches 10th-12th grade math, but a new computer course he’s heading up is one of the most popular classes at the high school.

Melissa Burgard ’94 (psych./crim. just.) & Rick Foster ’92 (graphic comm.) live in Fargo, ND.  Melissa is research coordinator/clinical assist. at the Neuropsychiatric Research Institute; Rick is production manager for Express Press.

Jody Nelson Dahlen ’94 (social wk.) is a social worker at Otter Tail County Human Services in the development disabilities unit. She and her husband, Jason, also own a convenience/bait shop. They live in Ashby, MN, with their children.

Mark ’94 (music) and Jackie Jordheim ’95 (music) live in Hanover, MN, with their daughter. Mark is a middle school band director for the St. Michael-Albertville Public Schools; Jackie is an at-home mom.

Patty Heath ’94 (indiv. major) lives in Detroit Lakes, MN, where she is a communications rep. for Arvig Communications Systems and is pursuing her MLA at MSUM.

Jason ’95 (mass comm.) and Kimberly Berg Schumann ’95 (psych.) and ’97 (MA) live in St. Paul, MN. Jason is a brand manager for The Minnesota Historical Society, overseeing the opening of the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis. Kim is director of disability services at the Univ. of St. Thomas and a volunteer at Chrysalis, a center for women.

Marcus Holmberg ’96 (finance) and his wife, Kathy, live in Shoreview, MN. He is a wholesaler of mutual funds for US Bank in Minneapolis.

Aaron Davis ‘97 (phil.) is an attorney for Patterson, Thuente, Skaar and Christensen, practicing in the areas of intellectual property litigation and entertainment law. He lives in Minneapolis, MN, with his wife, Gail.

Bruce Hestdalen ’97 (finance) and his wife, Cissie, live in Abercrombie, ND, where he is a financial planner with KMAC Ministries. He will finish his master’s degree in financial planning this June.

April Platt Coyour ’98 (crim. just.) is a correctional officer for Sherburne County. She and her husband, Mike, live in St. Francis, MN.

Rebecca Nelson ’98 (eng/mass comm.) lives in Moorhead, MN, and is an account coordinator for the GL Ness Agency.

Harleigh Brown ’99  (political science) has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study the strengths and weaknesses of European Union data privacy directives at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels in Belgium during the 2002-2003 academic year. Brown graduated from the Hamiline University of Law.

'00s
Carey Escher ’01 (gerontology/health service admin.) lives in Newell, Iowa, where she is a nursing home administrator for Newell Good Samaritan Center.

Yanick Dalhouse ’02 (mass comm./broadcast journalism/econ.) lives in Meomonee Falls, WI, where she is a reporter for WITI-Fox News.

He’d been a stellar actor at Minnesota State University Moorhead, cast in dozens of lead roles on the campus stage.

But New York City was a dramatic jungle. The “cattle calls,” show-biz jargon for mass auditions, were mortifying trials. Hundreds of the same faces standing in endless lines day after day waiting endlessly just for a chance to get a curt market appraisal.

“It was tedious and nerve wracking at the same time,” he said. “And I just couldn’t handle the rejections.”

Ultimately, he decided, it was not to be.

But unlike many would-be actors, Proehl had a back-up plan that at least would keep him in the shadows of the limelight.

“I loved everything about the theatre,” he said. “The energy, the creativity, the collaboration, the deadlines and the incredible focus on a single goal: the play on stage.”

With a minor in accounting and two years experience working at The Guthrie Theater’s box office and accounting department (after temporarily dropping out of MSUM as a sophomore), he could at least stage a career on the business side of the theatre.

For close to a decade, Proehl managed The Dramatist Guild, a professional association of more than 8,000 playwrights, composers and lyricists headquartered in New York City. Then he and a friend co-founded the Signature Theatre Company, an off-Broadway venture dedicated to the exploration of a single living playwright’s body of work. After six seasons as a transient company, they built a new theatre on West 42nd Street in the midst of the Broadway depression.

“During the Nineties, most investors were putting their money into tech stocks, not theatre,” Proehl said. “We kind of bucked the tide, built a theatre and made it successful. Today, after 13 years, it has an operating budget of $1.9 million and it’s still going strong.”

The problem: for five years he worked both jobs simultaneously. That, coupled with building a new theatre, eventually drained him.
 
Retreating back to the Twin Cities four years ago, he applied for and got the job as general manager for The Guthrie Theatre, responsible for overseeing the daily operations of the $18 million non-profit enterprise.

That was a surprise in itself.

This spring, however, the Moorhead native was named managing director of The Guthrie Theatre, essentially second in command at one of the nation’s most prestigious regional stages. Proehl moved up immediately after former managing director Susan Trapnell resigned at the beginning of the year.

He’s The Guthrie’s third managing director in as many years.

It’s a critical position in a critical time for The Guthrie, now in mid-act of funding its proposed $125 million, three-theatre complex on the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis. While The Guthrie has already raised $63 million in private donations for the move, last year Gov. Jesse Ventura dropped the curtain on a $24 million request for state funding, slashing it from his budget with a line-item veto.

“It was a set-back,” Proehl said. “But we now have new proposals surfacing in the legislature.”

Proehl, 38, isn’t daunted by his new role, which will throw him into a more public arena.

“As the general manager, my job is basically keeping the doors open,” he said. “It involves overseeing accounting, finance, information systems, human resources, theatre services and overall general administration.”

With 250 full-time and 200 part-time employees and five locations (the main Guthrie complex with a 1,300-seat thrust stage, a development office, a laboratory theatre with a 300-seat flexible stage, a scene shop and a costume warehouse, and a rental facility), it’s a full-time job. The Guthrie­­one of the largest of about 100 regional theatres in the country­­produces 10 plays a year, six on its main stage, three in its lab and one on tour.
.
His new job as managing director will give him an augmented public profile, dealing more with the community, legislators, funders and board of directors.

Under Joe Dowling, Teh Guthrie's sevent and current artistic director,  who took over six years ago, The Guthrie has made a remarkable turnaround. “We have over 30,000 subscribers (individuals who attend three or more plays a year) and we’re operating at 93 percent capacity, almost unheard of for a regional theatre of this size,” Proehl said. “And for the last six years we’ve managed an operating surplus.”

That operating income accounts for about 70 percent of The Guthrie’s total $18 million budget. The rest comes from fund-raising efforts from individuals, corporations and foundations, profits from its concert series and a portion from the state and from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Guthrie’s endowment, meanwhile, started in 1986, is now up to about $50 million.

Proehl credits much of that success to Dowling’s vision and leadership, along with his choice of plays and his effort to share the marquee with a few contemporary classics.

This year Arthur Miller’s “Resurrection Blues” and John Guare’s “Six Degrees of Separation” headline The Guthrie’s main stage season with Chekhov’s “Three Sisters,” Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors” and George Bernard Shaw’s “Mrs. Warren’s Profession.”

Proehl said that Guthrie founder Sir Tyrone Guthrie, who grounded the theatre in the classics, also intended to focus energy on discovering the next classics.

For Professor Emeritus Del Hansen, MSUM’s theatre director for 32 years, Proehl was a contemporary classic in his own right.

“He was absolutely at the top of the heap among my students, the very best,” said Hansen, who retired in 1990. “If he really wanted to, I’m sure he could have made a career for himself on stage.”

Hansen will never forget the first time he noticed Proehl. “Tom was cast in the chorus of ‘No, No Nanette’ and our choreographer gave everyone some rudimentary lessons in tap dancing before the weekend and told them to learn it by Monday. Well, that wasn’t very likely to happen. But that Saturday I happened to wander into the office and noticed some music in the Green room.  So I looked in, and there was Tom with a tape recorder practicing his tap dancing, very grimly determined. I stood there half amused by it. He never did anything half-way.”

Proehl, the son of Craig and Joni Proehl of Moorhead, was a senior at Moorhead High in 1982 when he auditioned for his first play. He liked it so much he won a role in “Oliver” later in the year.

“After that show,” he said, “I received a letter from Tim Choy, who was teaching at Moorhead State then, congratulating me on my performance and inviting me to the campus.”

That’s when he came under the iron wing of Hansen, MSUM’s legendary theatre director who was a task-master at getting the most out of his students.

“I was rehearsing for the lead role in ‘Good’ and I just couldn’t get a handle on it,” Proehl said. “Doc and I were really at each other then, and I was getting very frustrated, blaming him for most of my troubles. Then one evening he stopped the rehearsal and said to me: “Tom, stop fighting the director, and start fighting the role.’”

It’s a quote that not only gave him courage to master his part in “Good,” it also bolstered his view of his own abilities.

“Dr. Hansen was both supporting and demanding, and I never had another mentor like him in my life,” Proehl said. “His old-school methods were inspiring, but at the time they didn’t seem that way. Ultimately, he pushed me to become the best I could be; and taught me that I was in control of my own destiny.”

After a three-month summer job at The Guthrie Theatre box office turned into a full-time job in its accounts payable department, Proehl took a two-year break from college. When he returned to MSUM, he was cast in every campus production until he graduated and spent three seasons in the university’s Straw Hat Summer Theatre Company.

His next stop was New York City, where he landed a job at an off-Broadway ticket agency and tried to get an acting job on the side. At the time, he sublet an apartment from another MSUM graduate, Jan Maxwell, who’s currently starring in the Off-Broadway show “Barbra’s Wedding.”

Eventually his accounting skills eclipsed his acting stamina and he took an entry-level position with The Dramatists Guild, rising through the ranks to comptroller and then general manager over the next eight years. In between, he earned a master’s degree in performing arts management from Brooklyn College.

A couple years after joining The Dramatist Guild staff, he and a buddy, James Houghton, started a project they never imagined would come to fruition: starting a new theatre in New York City.

“Doing both jobs, it seemed like I was working 25 hours a day,” Proehl said. “And the first five years at Signature, I didn’t get paid.”

He left The Dramatists Guild in 1995 when Signature could actually afford to pay him. But in 1997 when the new $1.5 million, 160-seat theatre opened, Proehl was so busy he had no time to reflect on and celebrate the successes.

“I was out of steam, burned out,” he said. “That’s when I gave my 12-month notice to the Signature and ultimately came back to Minnesota.”

Now Proehl, a 1992 MSUM Distinguished Alumnus, is back under the limelight again. He’ll have to get as comfortable calling the governor and mediating historic disputes as he is now calling notable playwrights such as Arthur Miller and Edward Albee, whom he worked closely with at the Signature Theatre Company.

“It’s all a matter of discipline,” he said. “If I were in New York, this job wouldn’t be as visible as it is here in Minnesota. But like most people who work in the theatre, you have to have passion and love the job because the pay isn’t always that attractive and the pressures never end.”

As a reminder of where he started, Proeh’s office as The Guthrie’s managing director is right next to the office he occupied two decades ago as a student working with the company’s accounting department.

“I reminds me,” he said, “that I really haven’t come that far after all.”

Desera Grimley wore a painful number of turtlenecks and long sleeve shirts when she studied criminal justice and sociology at Minnesota State University Moorhead..

It wasn’t so much a fashion statement as it was cosmetic­­to hide the bruises inflicted by her husband.

“It got worse during finals,” she said. “It was very apparent he wanted me to fail.”

And like a parade of other women in similar abusive situations, she held on to the hope that he’d eventually change, get counseling and emerge from his chrysalis of hate, alcohol and resentment and evolve into a loving husband.

Fat chance. And deep down, despite her academic training, she knew it.

He once threw her down the stairs and jumped on her stomach when she was pregnant with her second child.

What really kept her coming back was the fear of financial instability and, at the worst, losing her children.

After her husband tried to kill her with a knife (he was arrested for terrorism, assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder), Grimley was evicted from her apartment because of the resulting damages and spent the next two months living in a car with her two children.

“We were essentially homeless,” she said. “We lived in the car and went from friend to friend until the Rape and Abuse Crisis Center helped me find a place. I could have gone to live with my brother or mother, but I was too ashamed.”

Grimley’s husband pled his case down to assault and spent 30 days in jail, then went to counseling. “We tried to get together one more time, but he beat me up again,” she said.

This time she had a job at a local steel mill, took her two children, lived in subsidized housing and never looked back.

Today, Grimley, 32, is executive director of the F-M Dorothy Day House of Hospitality, a shelter for homeless men.

“When I interviewed for this job four years ago, I told the board that I could bring something no one else could bring to this position,” she said. “My own experience of homelessness.”

It hasn’t been a one-way street.

“The job has given me back a lot of self-confidence. It’s helped me heal as much as I’ve helped it heal,” she said.

Two years ago Grimley won the Moorhead Human Rights Commission award for her service to the homeless and the hungry in the community.

And she’s passing her new-born strength down to her children. Last year, her 14-year-old daughter Kassandra won the same award for her part in educating the community about homelessness.

Adding another irony to the mix, Grimley also happens to be the niece of Kevin Goodno, a former state representative from Moorhead who’s the new Minnesota Department of Human Services commissioner.

The Dorothy Day House has been a homeless shelter in Moorhead since 1983, founded by Father Bill Mehrkens, who for 13 years was program director at MSUM’s Newman Center

“This isn’t a drop-in center,“ Grimley said. “We operate like a home. Guests are accountable for their actions, have chores to do and are required to keep a journal of how they’re making progress with their particular problems. We also put them in contact with the appropriate social service agencies so they can at least start getting on their feet.”

The average turnaround time: two weeks.

It’s one of 150 Dorothy Day Houses of Hospitality operating in this and 11 other countries. Each are separate and autonomous, but generally follow the basic tenets of Christian social justice established by its namesake, Dorothy Day, who died in 1980 after a lifetime of voluntary poverty.

Day, a Catholic influenced by Communist ideals, co-founded the Catholic Worker newspaper in 1933 and opened her first House of Hospitality soon after in the slums of New York. Her goal: to establish a radical Christian living center to house the homeless, feed the hungry and protest violence and injustice.

The non-denominational Moorhead Dorothy Day House, staffed 24 hours a day by four live-in workers, is located in a visible residential neighborhood on Moorhead’s 8th Street across from Concordia College. It can accommodate 10 homeless men at any one time in its five shared bedrooms. Guests are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis by simply knocking on the door and asking for shelter.

The house itself was built in 1910 by Clay County Registrar of Deeds Frederick Stalley, who was born in Hertfordshire, England in 1851. The red limestone block house stayed with the family until 1958 and changed hands a number of times before becoming the Dorothy Day House.

“Fargo-Moorhead has about 200 beds for the homeless,” Grimley said. “But that’s hardly enough, because our homeless population here averages about 600 per night year-round.”

Churches United for the Homeless, the Fargo YWCA and Fargo’s New Life Center offer the other homeless beds in the community.

So where do the rest stay? “Some live under the bridge, others in camps they establish in vacant lots around town,” she said. “Others just stay on the streets. At that point, these people are just in a survival mode.”

Grimley estimates that about half the men who knock on her door have a drug or alcohol problem, 25 percent have mental illnesses and another 25 percent are veterans.

Other noticeable populations include American Indians and the working poor.

“The job is stressful at times because of the unpredictability of some of these men and the utter hopelessness they face,” she said. “Most don’t fit the stereotype. The vast majority are non-violent and want to support themselves.”

The average homeless male is 42 years old; the average woman is 35 and has at least one child.

Today’s homeless, she said, aren’t so much down on their luck or lazy as they are part of a new growing and disregarded class of citizens.

“For example,” she said, “look at the unbelievable number of mentally ill people living on the streets today, the result of government mandated deinstitutionalization. Most of them need to be on medications, but the average monthly cost of just one of these drugs is about $150. Even if these people could remember to take their medication, they’d never be able to afford it.”

The fundamental problem, she said, is the lack of affordable housing and decent paying jobs.

Before urban development, Grimley said, most American cities had hundreds of affordable tenement rooms that provided housing for the population we call homeless today.

“Now everything’s been Yuppified or developed into luxury apartments or retail stores,” she said. “We lost 100 affordable apartments in the community when the old Holiday Mall area was torn down to make way for a convention center and shopping mall. Those apartments won’t be replaced. A single person with a minimum wage job can’t afford today’s average apartment rent, never mind the deposit.”

Worse yet, she said, the average homeless person now isn’t an adult male. It’s a child.

“To abide by city regulations, we can’t take in children, women or families because of the size of our rooms and location,” she said. “This place is strictly for adult males.”

Besides the Dorothy Day House, Grimley also oversees the Dorothy Day Food Pantry on Main Avenue. It’s one of seven food pantries in the F-M community.

“At the food pantry we make baskets of food and distribute them to the poor, the elderly and the disabled in the community. The need seems to double every year,” she said. “This year we gave an average of about 20,000 pounds of food to 1,500 people every month. Four years ago we were serving only about 500 people.”

The food comes from donation collection points around the community, The Great Plains Food Bank, and from Lutheran Social Services’ Daily Bread Truck, which collects expired, off-the-shelf milk, bread, fruits and vegetables from local grocery stores.

The Dorothy Day House operates on a budget of about $130,000 a year, most of that donated by 32 local churches along with checks from individuals and businesses.

“Next year we’d like to remodel our food pantry, so our budget might get up to $200,000 a year,” she said.

Government assistance is minimal: $3,000 from the federal government, and $30,000 from the state.

Grimley came to the Dorothy Day House without any fund-raising or accounting experience. But by giving more than 100 speeches a year and learning to write grants and beg, she’s taken the shelter from the brink of closing to a semblance of financial stability.

Kind of like herself.

Grimley got pregnant with her first child at the age of 19 while she was studying to be a legal secretary at Northwest Technical College. Three years later, as a junior at MSUM, she married the child’s father after a paternity test confirmed his parentage.

“The beating started the day after we got married,” she said. “And it just kept getting worse. Sometimes he’d abandon me at places around town, took the phone with him to work, forced me off my birth control pills.”

Meanwhile, her second daughter, Katarina, was born during her junior year at MSUM.

The abuse continued even after she graduated with a criminal justice and sociology degree in 1994. So she moved to Oregon, where she counseled female sex offenders and coordinated volunteers at a battered women’s shelter.

With all that experience counseling other battered women, she just couldn’t untangle herself from her own web.

“It’s a trap many people in the social and human services fields get into,” said Desera’s mother, Linda Nelson, a 1990 MSUM social work graduate who directs Fargo’s Retired and Senior Volunteer Program. “We believe it’s possible to change people in a positive way and when it doesn’t happen, we keep trying. I’ve been in the same situation.”

Grimley returned to Fargo a year later after her husband attempted suicide. That’s when he tried to kill her, followed by her interlude with homelessness and finally her decision to divorce him and resurrect herself.

Before finally landing on her feet at the Dorothy Day House, she worked as a corrections officer in Grand Forks and a Fargo police dispatcher.

“Desera can relate to the people she works with,” said her brother Jim, a juvenile corrections officer in Fargo and a 1981 MSUM social work graduate. “She ran with a rougher crowd in high school and she’s had a hard life. But something changed her. She’s become much more responsible and at the same time more active in the church.”

Desera agrees. “Once free and divorced, I changed a lot, became more spiritual, and found out what believing really meant. Today I have a much closer relationship with God and Jesus.”

And her new mission in life now is in tune with the philosophy of Dorothy Day, who many consider a 20th century saint:To live in solidarity with the poor and to care for our brothers and sisters who are willing to help themselves.

“I understand what it’s like to be hopeless and scared of the future,” she said. “That’s what the homeless feel every day.”

During the past 10 years, Grimley noted, the population of homeless families in Minnesota increased nearly 400 percent. And in a recent local survey, one out of every 14 people in the F-M metro area received help from a food shelf or emergency meal program.

In other words, don’t ask for whom the bell tolls. “Too many of us,” she said, “are just a paycheck away from homelessness.”

Cartoon anti-hero Wile E. Coyote was a tragic genius, concocting incredible Rube Goldberg-like traps to ensnare his nemesis, the Road Runner. But no matter what kind of device he fashioned with the help of ACME Corporation special deliveries, the Road Runner always escaped while the hapless coyote became the inevitable victim of his own wacky schemes.

In real life, the roles are reversed. Coyotes are not only twice as fast as road runners, they’re much more agile and cunning.

“Coyotes are among the most successful and adaptable mammals in North America,” says Jacquie Gerads, a Furbearer & Wildlife Disease biologist with the North Dakota Game and Fish Department.

As part of her job in Bismarck, the 1996 Minnesota State University Moorhead biology graduate conducts studies and surveys to better understand and track their population in North Dakota.

“Coyotes are the top furbearing species in the state,” said Gerads, who joined the Game and Fish Department two years ago after finishing a master’s degree in wildlife sciences from South Dakota State. “I’ve learned to appreciate their survival skills.”

As part of her graduate studies research, Gerads, now 29, worked on estimating populations of coyotes in South Dakota and radio-collared several to determine their home ranges.

Considered vermin by many farmers and ranchers, she said, coyotes have been shot, poisoned, trapped and harassed since the pioneers began settling North America.

But instead of sliding toward extinction like so many other mammals, they flourished.

Once confined to the southwestern deserts and the Great Plains, coyotes expanded their range across the United States to such unlikely habitats as the Florida coast, New England suburbs and New York City.

“While wolves retreated as farmers and developers cleared away forests, coyotes filled the newly voided niche and adapted well to the new open habitat,” she said.

Part of the reason for their success, Gerads said, is that coyotes are generalists. “They don’t depend on one particular prey or habitat to survive.”

Although small rodents and rabbits make up much of their diet, coyotes also eat fruits, wild berries, insects, reptiles, deer, carrion and occasionally livestock, she said. They’ve also been known to raid vegetable gardens and melon patches.

Adding to their success is the extirpation of wolves throughout much of the country. “Wolves don’t tolerate coyotes,” Gerads said. “And fortunately for coyotes, wolves aren’t as adaptable.”

Back in the days when wolves were one of the largest predators in the state, there weren’t many coyotes in North Dakota, she said. Now their only serious population controls are diseases or humans.”

“An outbreak of mange has greatly reduced North Dakota’s coyote population compared to levels in the early to mid 1990s,” Gerads said.

Mange is a contagious skin disease found mainly in furbearers. It’s caused by a mite that burrows under the skin, causing loss of hair, oozing sores, itching and, eventually, death. It’s treatable in domestic or captive animals, but it’s impossible and impractical to manage in the wild.

Mange, which first surfaced as a threat to the state’s coyote population about 17 years ago, peaked in the mid to late 1990s and is slowly running its course. Coyote populations are just starting to come back.

Not to worry, she said. Urban incursions of coyotes in North Dakota aren’t common, primarily because the state is mostly rural and the majority of coyotes live west of the Missouri River, although they are expanding their range eastward. Animal control officers in Fargo and Moorhead haven’t responded to any coyote incursions in recent memory.

But coyotes have been showing up in some unlikely urban environments, including the Twin Cities and New York City’s Central Park.

Food, Gerads said, most often draws coyotes into the cities, including gardens, trash, pet foods and sometimes pets themselves. They can also breed with domestic dogs, their offspring called Coy-Dogs

Because they do prey on game animals and domestic livestock, coyotes have acquired, often unjustly, an unsavory reputation.

“Most livestock depredation by coyotes occurs during lambing or calving season or in severe winters,” she said. “Last year the USDA/Wildlife Services responded to 892 occurrences of predator conflicts with livestock in North Dakota, virtually all of them by coyotes. They also documented $120,0000 in livestock losses to predators.”

It’s illegal to take coyotes using poisons, she said.  But coyotes are legally hunted and trapped year-round in North Dakota. Also, farmers and ranchers use a variety of safety or non-lethal devices to ward off predator coyotes, ranging from guard dogs to alarms.

It’s a challenge. Adult coyotes average 30 pounds and stand about 18-inches tall, the size of a typical domestic dog. Slimmer and smaller than wolves, they have slanting yellow eyes and pointy snouts and ears.

“At top speed, a coyote can hit 40 miles per hour,” Gerads said. “They don’t stalk their prey like cats do, instead they chase them down.”

They’re also digitigrade, meaning only their toes touch the ground when they walk. That just adds to their stealthy image, along with the fact they’re most active between dusk and dawn.

And unlike domestic dogs and wolves, who run with their tails up, coyotes run with their black-tipped bushy tails hanging downward.

Sometimes called brush wolves, coyotes (scientific name Canis latrans, which means barking dog) have few natural predators outside of wolves, black bears, mountain lions, occasionally eagles and, of course humans. While about 50 percent of juveniles die before reaching adulthood, coyotes can live as long as 10 to 14 years in the wild.

Gerads said their long, soft fur­­ranging from brownish to reddish gray­­is lighter in winter and darker in summer, blending in with the seasons.

Before fur became a politically incorrect fashion statement, about 500,000 coyote pelts valued at more than $30 million were marketed annually in North America, mostly for hats, gloves and coat trims.

“The market for coyote fur has waned the past several years,” Gerads said. “But that’s changing. A nice put-up coyote can fetch between $25 and up to $40 on the marketplace today.”

Outside of Road Runner Show cartoons, coyotes are probably best known for their silhouetted profile howling at the moon, widely depicted in cowboy movies and on tourist postcards.

“They howl and bark to communicate, sometimes to locate lost mates, or to establish dominance between males,” Gerads said. ”They have a diverse vocabulary, with length, pitch and intensity of the howl or bark taking on different meanings. It’s their own language.”

Hearing the howl of several coyotes, she said, is almost more exciting than seeing the actual animal in the wild.

At times, coyotes seem playful, tossing sticks or discarded pop cans in the air, sometimes toying with their prey or engaging in games of chase as pups.

But while coyotes are members of the dog family, Gerads said, they’re wild and should be treated with caution. Like all wild animals, they’re unpredictable.”

They appear to have only two noticeable weaknesses: They sleep heavily, and they look back while fleeing, stopping just moments after being shot at.

Philosophies about coyote control vary from the aggressive to the hands-off.  “Some coyotes get into trouble by preying on livestock,” Gerads said. “They’re the exception. Most ranchers and farmers understand that coyotes are ultimately beneficial, killing off mice, rats, rabbits and prairie dogs while playing their part in the balance of nature.”

What happened to Tchale is far too common. Many children are burned in these remote villages. Mothers cook over open fires; children play around the flames, and they often trip and fall into the blaze. Their clothes frequently act as accelerants, charring skin beyond repair, often followed by death.

But Tchale’s catastrophic story has a happy ending, thanks to the Haiti Medical Mission (HMM) of Fargo-Moorhead. The Midwest team of doctors on site couldn’t perform skin grafting there, so local WDAY television reporter and coordinator of the HMM Kevin Wallevand, got on the phone to people who could make things happen. Within hours, Tchale was on a missionary plane to Florida, then an air ambulance to the Shriner’s Burn Center in Galveston, Texas. She’s now back home in Pignon, back to a life.

Not all the endings are happy ones. But there is plenty to celebrate.

”The question you have every time you go on this kind of a mission trip is ‘what did I really do there?’ Did we heal somebody or did we heal ourselves?” says Cindy Nolte, a nurse who accompanied the HMM on their most recent trip to Pignon. “But we did make a difference for Tchale. And we made a difference to a handful of others.”

“I grew up a Christian and have been taught to love my neighbor as myself,” Cindy said. “I have been trying to do that quite literally in my life.”

Haiti was the most recent mission trip Cindy and Gary Nolte participated in to answer the Lord’s call of serving those less fortunate. But the Noltes, of Moorhead, have lived that philosophy all of their lives.

“I did two military tours of Vietnam,” said Gary, a 1972 mass communications graduate. “I’ve spent time in many places, seen a lot of poverty, and witnessed a lot of people who have much less than me.”

The Noltes’ first commitment to helping the world’s less fortunate arose when they learned about Lutheran Social Services’ Unaccompanied Minor Program—Gary at a naval reserve weekend drill, and Cindy at a church program—both on the same day.

“We came home that night and talked about it,” recalls Cindy. “We called LSS on Monday, they interviewed us on Tuesday, and on Friday two girls from a Vietnamese refugee camp arrived.” The teenage girls lived with the Noltes for a year before the rest of their family arrived in Moorhead.

After the girls left the Nolte home, they immediately got another call asking if they’d be interested in sponsoring an Amerasian boy. Of course, they said. This son lived with them for three years. Their last daughter, Linh, continues to stay in close contact with them. (The Noltes also have two grown biological children.)

The seed of serving and helping other human beings was firmly planted for the Noltes. Gary’s call to mission work flourished as an active member and eventual governor for Rotary International.
 
“The international aspect of Rotary is that we do world community service,” Gary said. “We don’t have to go abroad, but a lot of the organizations sponsor it.” He and Cindy have seen first hand the hardships of Third World countries.

Gary has been to Nicaragua once, and he and Cindy have been to Honduras several times.

“I did my nursing preceptorship in remote clinics in Honduras the first year we went,” Cindy said. “I kept a 38-page diary and worked in the hospital there as well as the clinics.” Cindy received a bachelor of science in nursing from MSU Moorhead in 1996.

They returned a year later to work on flood relief efforts. “We saw a lot of devastation after hurricane Mitch,” Gary said. “Rotary clubs in Duluth, Walker and the Fargo-Moorhead area pooled our money to buy medical supplies.”

“We handed out vitamins, parasite medication, rice and beans to about 300 people a day,” Cindy said. “We ask ourselves what is one month of vitamins going to do for a person, but if it makes them feel better for a little while, then we’ve done something.”

Lifestyle improvements sometimes bring additional challenges for the remote communities. Their first year in Honduras, the Noltes helped Rotary put in latrines, which reduced the incidence of cholera and parasites. On their second trip they built a hydroelectric water plant  to bring electricity to the village and to get fresh water to the area. Now everybody’s healthy and getting pregnant.

“The big issue is we upgraded their standard of life, and when we left they asked us for money for 15 additional latrines because they felt their population was going to go up now that they had electricity,” Gary said.

So much for progress.

The Nolte’s Haiti trip wasn’t a Rotary project, but a part of the Haiti Medical Mission of Fargo-Moorhead, a team of doctors and nurses that travels to Pignon, Haiti, every year. Pignon, in the rugged central plateau of Haiti, is a very poor area with no running water or electricity. The village, dotted with grass huts, sprawls out for several miles and is populated by an estimated 9,000 residents.

Trinity Lutheran Church in Moorhead helps support the Haiti medical team, who performs cleft-lip, burn, tumor and OB/GYN surgery for its residents. The team works out of the ‘Comite de Beinfaisance de Pignon,’ a hospital started by a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, Dr. Guy (pronounced Gee) Theodore, who himself is a native of Haiti. (For more on Pignon, Haiti: A Community of Hope, visit http://www.pignon.org/)

For one week every January, the team travels to Pignon to perform over 40 major surgeries for the native Haitians. Hundreds of others from across the countryside walk miles in hopes that they can be cured of their ailments. Each fall, in preparation for the trip, the medical team collects and packs recycled but quality surgical equipment and operating room materials from various Fargo-Moorhead healthcare facilities.

Through Gary’s involvement in a local Health Care Equipment Recycling Organization (HERO) and through Trinity Lutheran, people heard about the good work Rotary was doing on their mission trips, so they asked Gary to accompany this most recent i trip to explore a construction effort in Haiti, something that non-medical people could do. Gary will return to Pignon to implement a construction project supported by Rotary, Trinity Lutheran and the Haiti Medical Mission.

“We’re hoping to build houses using concrete blocks,” Gary said. “We’ll show tthe Haitians how to make the blocks and then have a master builder who can oversee and help finish the work.”

A two-room house with a concrete floor, concrete walls and a tin roof costs about $700. Gary is soliciting support from churches and other Rotary groups to make this home project a reality for Pignon’s most needy residents.

Of course, a medical component is almost always a part of any mission trip.

“Dr. Guy coordinates the surgeries and knows what his medical people can and can’t do,” Gary said. “Our team is just one in a steady parade of medical and dental teams that visit his country.”

But the Fargo-Moorhead team, generally comprised of three surgeons, four or more nurses, three anesthesiologists, plus several other volunteers, is the largest contingent to visit Pignon, and they do the most surgeries while there. The U.S. surgeons also teach Haitian docotrs who are sent up to the village from the university Port au Prince.

During this last trip, the Haiti medical team performed a variety of surgeries, from cleft palate and keloids (a tumorous growth indigenous to native Blacks living in the tropics), to hysterectomies and a ruptured appendix.

Cindy, who is semi-retired from nursing and not a surgical nurse by trade, had the opportunity on this trip to practice surgical nursing.

“It was wonderful to be a part of a medical team to do that kind of nursing care,” Cindy said. “When we were discharging the patients from the hospital it was difficult to get them to leave because at the hospital they had a soft bed and food. They knew when they left they would have a long journey home.”

But staying in the hospital was risky. “The girl with the burns was in the same ward as patients who had cholera and typhoid,” Cindy said. “Patients’ families lived in the back yard of the hospital—eating, sleeping and taking care of their bodily functions there. It was like a cesspool. The longer they stayed in the hospital, the greater their chance of catching something from somebody else.”

Gary’s most significant Haiti memory was standing in surgery with one of the best plastic surgeons in the country.

“Dr. Ahmed Abdullah stood five hours while he was in surgery correcting a cleft palate, and he showed me step-by-step what he was going to do next. The little girl looked like a completely different child when it was over,” he said.

That’s what these trips are all about, Gary said—the kids. He recalls a time in Honduras when a nearly blind girl received glasses. “She cried as she looked at her face in the mirror for the first time,” Gary said. “Did we make a difference? We sure did to her.”

And to the Haitian man who may have died if the team wasn’t there to perform an emergency appendectomy. And to Tchale—the burn victim who is now at home in Pignon.

“It’s like the story of the young man who throws one starfish at a time back into the ocean amidst thousands of others stranded on the beach,” Cindy said. “An older man tells him that he can’t possibly make a difference. But as the young man reaches down to pick up a starfish and throws it into the sea, he says ‘I made a difference for that one.’

“We did make a difference for somebody,” Cindy says.

One person at a time.

What began as essentially a cattle call, a form of communication between herders and their livestock in the Swiss Alps and, oddly enough, later was adopted by American cowboy and hillbilly music.

But don’t give the Swiss, Jimmy Rodgers, Gene Autry or Merle Haggard all the credit. Estonians, Melanesians and African forest Pygmies also yodeled.

And so did Linda Lu, aka Dorothy (Venard) Fandrich, a 1945 MSUM physical education and history graduate who for nearly a quarter century was probably the best-known yodeler in the region. Singing with the Co-op Shoppers, she performed six days a week from 12:45 to 1 p.m. on WDAY radio for 22 years—never missing a broadcast.

Today Dorothy is retired from both her music career and also her second 20-year career as a health education teacher for Moorhead Junior High School.

She and her husband Dan, a retired senior appraiser for the State of Minnesota, still live in Moorhead on the east side of 11 St. across from Concordia’s soccer. field. They’ll celebrate their 54th wedding anniversary this summer.

It all started when Dorothy, then a senior at Graceville High School, won a talent contest sponsored by WDAY for Ken Kennedy’s The Hayloft Jamboree Show.

Her specialty, besides singing, was her self-taught ability to Swiss yodel.

“I’d ride the bus to Fargo on Thursday afternoon, sing at the Jamboree evening performance, and return by bus to Graceville (about 100 miles south of Moorhead) the next morning to attend afternoon classes,” she said. “I did this for a year and a half until I moved to Moorhead to attend Moorhead State Teachers College. That’s when Ken Kennedy gave me the stage name of Linda Lu. It’s been with me ever since.”

As a result, she performed throughout the upper Midwest with The Hayloft Jamboree during the World War II, raising millions of dollars for war bonds.

“Any musician who ever played those ‘indoor picnics’ during the Forties will understand the joy in our hearts the time we played for 750 people all dancing the Butterfly at the same time,” she said. “That’s 250 sets­­three people in a set, twirling on the floor. What a beautiful sight.”

It wasn’t until her final year at MSTC, in 1944, when she joined the Co-op Shoppers.

“I’d commute by bus every day to the Fargo Black building where the studios were located on the 8th floor,” she said. “After graduating, I taught for a few months at Roosevelt Junior High in Fargo. But the entertainment bug was stronger than the teaching bug then.”

Besides the radio show and playing for dances with the Co-op Shoppers, she toured the region with Dan “Axel” Wardwell and his Band, often playing dance jobs six nights a week.

Her radio career lasted until June 28, 1966, when the show ended and she launched her teaching career. She retired in 1985.

Today, former fans and students still stop her on the street to talk about the old days. Recently, her husband, with the help of some local audio specialists, put together a CD with 31 of Dorothy’s original recordings, including some reminiscences about that by-gone era. Some cuts from the CD, originally heard on WDAY, range from “There’s a Love Knot In My Lariat” and “The Alpine Milkman Yodel” to “Prairie Blues” and “When You’re Blue, Just Yodel.”

Dorothy, who was president of her senior class at MSTC, hasn’t put her voice in mothballs. She’s been a member of Moorhead’s First Congregational United Church of Christ choir for 35 years.

Wilson has been admitted to the University of North Dakota Law School, where she plans to focus on education law.

Wilson was promoted to director of intercollegiate athletics in 1993 after serving two years as women’s athletic director and five years as women’s assistant athletic director. She was the first MSUM director of athletics to oversee the men’s and women’s programs. During her tenure, according to the university, the base for athletic scholarships tripled and the full-time athletic staff grew from eight to 27.

Wilson successfully directed the University through its transition from NAIA to NCAA national affiliation membership, acting as point person in resolving a federal Title IX  complaint. She also supervised the $7 million renovation of Nemzek Hall.

In 2002 she completed her term as president of Division II ADA of the National
Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.

Before becoming athletic director, Wilson coached MSUM softball and posted  a 115-97 overall record with two trips to the NAIA national  championships in eight seasons.

The transition took place in January. I am now the full-time advancement director and Susan Grover is the new executive director of the foundation.  Board president Don Meidinger led the effort to secure her services. Susan brings many years of experience in development and alumni relations.  She has worked on major fundraising campaigns for universities and other philanthropic organizations. The changes were a response to growth and to the challenge we face during difficult economic times.

I’ll cut to the chase: MSU Moorhead is faced with more than its fair share of the solution to Minnesota’s historic budget imbalance.  Our state policy makers, our students and their families, and our employees need to know how MSUM will be affected by the proposal to dramatically cut higher education budgets.  Our alumni and friends need to understand why their support is more critical today than ever before.  We need philanthropy-- although it would take historic giving to our university to replace what the state is contemplating taking away.  We also need to be heard in the public discussion.

Governor Pawlenty’s proposal for higher education is a major policy shift.  The public system that subsidized our pursuit of a college degree is imperiled. The governor wants public colleges and universities to compete more directly with private institutions—and he aims to do that by reducing the state’s investment.  His budget plan would force drastic increases in tuition. It would even transfer base funding from public higher education to private institutions by way of the Minnesota Grant Program.

The governor is listening to people who believe public dollars in support of public institutions keep tuition artificially low and put private colleges at a disadvantage.  That position sidesteps the support by generations of Minnesotans for affordable high quality public higher education.  Unfortunately, this proposed policy shift is unfolding during a time of unprecedented budget imbalance.  Public higher education will have a difficult time gaining the attention of lawmakers and citizens.

Minnesota is faced with difficult choices, but choices define priorities.  For more than a century, Minnesota has relied on public higher education to create the skilled workforce that is its greatest asset.  The state’s highly promoted quality of life is directly tied to the quality of its educational opportunities.  That’s why we’re asking our alumni and friends to get involved in the discussion.  Minnesota’s future is at stake.

MSUM Partners will be recognized in special ways for their outstanding generosity. University Partners will receive special invitations to restricted events, periodic updates and correspondence from the President on University-related matters and initiatives, and recognition in Alumni Foundation publications.

John Bennett, ’72 is the Co-Chairperson for the 2003-2004 MSUM Partners Campaign. Three co-chairpersons are providing leadership in the Fargo-Moorhead and Minneapolis, St. Paul areas,   Jeanne Aske, ’67, Ellen Diederich, ’83, and George Soule, ’76.  For information on MSUM Partners membership, please contact Judy Peterson, Director of Annual Giving at peterju@mnstate.edu

The Alumni Foundation is a private, non-profit corporation involved in developing alumni and community relationships, promoting the university and providing funding for academic excellence. It is governed by a 24-member board of directors.

Bennett is a local financial planner; Boberg is the advertising director for The Forum; Cichy is the relocation director for Park Company GMAC Real Estate in Fargo; Quick is a sales associate at Park Company GMAC; Salzwedel is a senior lender for US Bank; and Statvold is an attorney with the McLarnan, Hannaher and Skatvold law firm.

The board members, who meet quarterly, are elected to three-year terms.

A gift annuity is an agreement where the donor gifts cash or other property and receives a guaranteed annuity for their lifetime or a specific period of years. Because of the philanthropic intent of the donor, charitable gift annuities are usually very attractive because their rates are usually considerably higher than commercial annuities. Also, gift annuities can be written for a single individual lifetime, as well as for two lifetimes, usually for a married couple. Interest rates for gift annuities are base on the number of annuitants and their age. Older individuals will receive higher interest. rates.

The benefits of a charitable gift annuity include a large tax deduction, high interest rates, and a significant amount of the annuity payout being tax free. The final benefit is knowing that ultimately, the donor is doing something to help his/her alma mater in a significant way.

For example, John, a 70 year old graduate from MSUM, decides to establish a $20,000 gift annuity. The guaranteed annuity rate John will for the rest of his life is 6.7% or $1,340. Of the payout amount, 64.6% or $865.64 will be tax free. In addition, John will receive a $6,584 tax deduction. The final benefit is that John has decided that upon his death, the principal amount of the annuity will establish a historical document section in the MSUM library for all the students to use.

If you think a charitable gift annuity may be for you, fill out the form below and mail it to: Gift Annuity Analysis, Minnesota State University Moorhead, MSUM Box 68, Moorhead, MN 56563.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gift Annuity Analysis

Please send me a gift annuity analysis based on the following information:

1. The gift annuity is a (check one) ____ one-life annuity
___ Two life annuity

2. The birth dates for the annuity is: 1st life: _________________
2nd life: _________________

3. The gift annuity analysis should be for an amount of $_____________
 
 

Name___________________________

ARTS AND HUMANITIES
Moeckels establish $10,000 student art scholarship
Carol and Hugo Moeckel of Moorhead recently donated $10,000 to create an endowment for an upper-class student art scholarship.

Carol graduated from MSUM in 1997 with an art degree. Her husband Hugo is an NDSU economics graduate with a master’s degree in education/counseling. They are the former owners of Carol’s Craftique in Moorhead.

Carol said the gift was based on her experience as a student studying with professors Kathleen Enz-Finken and Anna Anar, along with several other faculty and students who inspired her.

MSUM music department receives $20,000 grant
MSUM’s Music Department has received a $20,000 grant from the Presser Foundation over a five-year period. Each year, a $4,000 grant will be given to a designated “Presser Scholar,” an outstanding music major at, or at the end of, his or her junior year. The scholarship recognizes excellence and is awarded to the student for one year.

MSUM’s Music Department has received the Presser Scholar grant since 1994, and was required to submit a new proposal to continue the award for 2003-08.

The Foundation is a legacy of the music-publishing firm built by Theodore Presser and awards “Presser Scholar” grants specifically to designated national music programs of quality.

Performing Arts Series gests $200,000 gift
The Performing Arts Series received a $200,000 advance gift from the charitable remainder unitrust established by MSUM graduate Cheryl Lossett and her husband Ron.

“With this money I hope to take the Performing Arts Series to the next level because there are so many arts performances our community should have the opportunity to experience,” says Laurie Wigtil, director of the series. “And with this endowment, we can make that happen.”

In 1993, the Lossetts, from Redlands, Calif., established a $1.7 million unitrust with the MSUM Alumni Foundation to support the Performing Arts Series. Normally in this kind of trust, the donors receive an income from it until they die, when the funds transfer to the charity. The Lossetts, however, chose to make an advanced gift to the series now so they can see the benefits of their gift during their lifetime.

Cheryl (nee Nelson), a 1964 elementary education alum, and her husband are retired. He is the former vice president and CEO of Pacific Physicians Services, a pre-paid health care management organization in Redlands.

A charitable remainder unitrust is a type of planned gift often used when a donor wants to make a substantial gift, but retain the income from the money during their lifetime. CRTs are often funded by appreciated stock and real properties such as farmland and vacation homes. Since the trust can sell the property without paying capital gains tax, the donor avoids paying the taxes and consequently receives the lifetime income from the full value of the property. The donor also receives a substantial tax deduction.

For details about these kinds of gifts to the university, contact Dennis Aune at the Alumni Foundation Office, 218.236.2049 or aune@mnstate.edu

BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY
MSUM prof named ASNE journalism fellow
Regene Radniecki, mass communications, has been named a 2003 American Society of Newspaper Editor’s Institute for Journalism Excellence Fellow, one of 20 university educators from across the U.S. selected for the award.

The seven-week fellowship starts with a week-long seminar at the American Press Institute in Reston, Va., followed by a six-week newspaper residency and a two-day debriefing seminar at the end of the summer.

The goal of the American Society of Newspapers Editor’s Institute for Journalism Excellence is to create partnerships between journalism education and newspapers.

An 18-year staff photographer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Radniecki also did free-lance work for the New York Times and for National Geographic publications.

MSUM junior selected to anchor Campus News
Lindsay Hartmann, a junior mass communications major from Alexandria, Minn., has been selected to anchor MSUM’s weekly Campus News program airing this winter and spring at 8 a.m. Saturdays on Prairie Public Television.

The first show on Feb. 1 was a 20th anniversary special, a celebration of the first two decades with interviews, anecdotes and updates from Campus News alumni now working around the country.

The half-hour newscast focuses on local and regional colleges, including some stories from campuses around the world. It’s written, reported, photographed and produced by MSUM students.

About 50 students are involved in the production of Campus News. They are supervised by Martin Grindeland, an MSUM mass communications professor and executive producer of the program.
 

EDUCATION AND HUMAN SERVICES
For in-service regional science teacher training…
MSUM gets $91,722 in No Child Left Behind federal grant program
Three federal grants totaling $91,722 were awarded to MSUM to provide in-service training in the sciences to regional teachers wanting to work toward their 5th through 8th grade general science licensure.

The funds come from the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which places major emphasis on teacher quality as a factor in increasing student achievement.

The Minnesota Higher Education Services Office, which distributed the grants based on competitive proposals, received $998,583 this year through the federal program, or about 2.5 percent of the nation’s total.

As a result, this year the office funded 24 grants to nine Minnesota higher education institutions and two nonprofit organizations.

Using the grants, MSUM will offer courses in biology, chemistry and physics to regional teachers, two during the summer and one next fall using both on-line and on-campus instruction.

The MSUM grant proposals were written by biology professors Shawn Dunkirk and Allison Wallace along with physics and astronomy professor Steve Lindaas.

MSUM will distribute details on the courses to regional schools this year. For more information, contact Lindaas at 218.291.4268.

Nursing department is recommended for full approval
The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) and the North Dakota board of Nursing completed the exit interview from their MSUM visit and announced they will recommend full approval for both undergraduate and graduate nursing programs. The team leader for CCNE said that she had completed a number of accreditation reviews and this was “the best…ever experienced.” All standards were fully met with no weaknesses noted.

Moorhead middle school collaborative
Voters in the Moorhead Public School district passed a referendum to build a new middle school that will open in the fall of 2004. An implementation team, including faculty from the College of Education and Human Services, will plan for implementation, staff development and licensure. The plan focuses on global concepts of middle schools (e.g. teaming, advisor/advisee, adolescent development and transition concerns) and developing tools to be used for instruction and interdisciplinary teaching. More than 100 teachers have already participated in in-service activities.

MSUM prof co-edits new book on children’s author Paterson
Sarah Smedman, a professor of children’s literature at MSUM, is the co-editor of a new book, “Bridges for the Young: The Fiction of Katherine Paterson,” a collection of essays published jointly by Scarecrow Press and The Children’s Literature Association.

Smedman, a Benedictine sister with a doctorate in English, is a Paterson scholar and past president of the Children’s Literature Association.

Paterson, one of the most widely honored and prolific contemporary children’s authors, has published dozens of award-winning books that are taught in first grade through college classrooms. A favorite among librarians, children and Best-Book-of-the-Year lists, including those compiled by Parents’ Choice and the New York Times, her books range from historical fiction and short stories to literary fairy tales and modern realism.

Paterson, born in China to missionary parents in 1932, usually writes value-driven stories about outcast or alienated children, who survive because or in spite of their status. With topics ranging from foster care and death to abused children and civil unrest, her overriding themes revolve around peace, hope and the power of the written word.

Among Paterson’s major awards: two Newberys (for “Bridge to Terabithia” and “Jacob Have I Loved”); two National Book Awards (for “The Master Puppeteer” and “The Great Gilly Hopkins”); and in 1998, the Hans Christian Andersen Award, presented every other year for lifetime contributions to children’s literature. She is one of only five Americans since 1956 who have won this award, equivalent to a Nobel Prize for children’s literature.

“Bridges for the Young,” edited by Smedman and Joel Chaston, a professor of English at Southwest Missouri State University, includes 18 essays from a variety of international children’s literature critics and Paterson scholars, including a final essay by Paterson herself, written specifically for this book.

The title comes from Paterson’s own allusion, comparing fiction to a bridge that allows young readers to experience life at a safe distance while preparing for
adulthood.

Smedman’s research on the psychological, moral and religious aspects of children’s and young adult literature includes her essays “A Good Oyster: Story and Meaning in ‘Jacob Have I Loved’” and “In God’s Delightful Company: Katherine Paterson’s Feminist Theology.” She’s been teaching children’s literature at elementary schools, high schools and colleges for more than 30 years.

MSUM curriculum librarian Carol Sibley compiled an annotated bibliography for the book.
 

SOCIAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES

Wallert, Provost named directors of new division
MSUM professors Mark Wallert and Joseph Provost have been named co-directors of a new undergraduate division of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. They will head the ASBMB’s northwest undergraduate division, which includes Minnesota, North Dakota and several other states.

They will be in charge of spreading the word about undergraduate research opportunities at schools in the region. “Part of the reason we were chosen is because we’re doing so much of this,” Provost said. MSUM’s areas of research range from cancer and hypertension to corn and fish behavior.

“We’re actually defining what we can do to help programs at different universities to talk to each other, communicate, share resources, bring in speakers, and increase the level of undergraduate education,” Provost said.

MSUM profs set up research lab at Perham High School
Senior Ashley Malcolm is getting valuable college research experience that may help her get into medical school someday. But Malcolm is a senior at Perham High School, not the university.

“I feel very lucky to be doing things that seniors in college are doing,” Malcolm said.

Everyone involved in the Perham partnership is feeling lucky—it’s a win-win situation for students and teachers alike. The partnership began three years ago when Beth Schwarz, a chemistry and physics teacher in Perham, contacted MSUM to find mentors for her students. Joe Provost, associate professor of biology, jumped at the opportunity, and by summer 2001, Perham student Sarah Wacker was assisting Provost and biology professor Mark Wallert in their cancer research. Four students are currently working with Wallert and Provost, while others work with other MSUM faculty members.

The faculty team established a long-term research collaboration with Perham High School by using the money to set up a small cell culture facility at the high school. The project, which was funded with a $1,283 grant from the MSUM Dille Excellence Fund and $2,000 from the dean of academic affairs, also will enhance the college’s outreach and recruiting efforts at the high school.

“The whole idea is to get them started so they can design and execute some of the experiments and do the final analysis of it with the equipment here,” Provost said.

Malcolm picked up Wacker’s research last spring, studying the role that so-called “stress fibers” play in the spread of cancer. She also worked in the MSUM lab over the summer, and is preparing for the regional science fair at MSUM in March. Most of her research can now be done in Perham, although she’ll still has to drive to Moorhead occasionally to view her cells through an electron telescope.

“I loved doing that research,” Malcolm said, who will be a pre-med/biology major at college. “Using MSUM’s microscope and getting help from the professors was very fun.”

Hundreds of students visit campus for science/math events
The College of Social and Natural Sciences hosts hundreds of students throughout the year for a variety of science and math activities. Last fall, 120 eighth graders from Detroit Lakes visited the MSUM planetarium and participated in workshops.

More than 120 regional Girl Scouts and their leaders attended Discovery Science and Math day on campus, where they attended workshops put on by volunteer faculty and students from biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics and astronomy.

February events included the 2003 Western Regional Science Olympiad, attended by more than 100 students and their teachers/coaches and parents. Teams were from Moorhead, Norman County West, Osakis, Bemidji, Bertha-Hewitt and Park Rapids. And about 60 area middle and high school teachers of science and mathematics attended the fourth annual World of Change workshop.

About 50 students from Robert Asp School in Moorhead have visited campus several times this year to participate in Camp Select, an enrichment program for fifth and sixth graders. Faculty members Steve Lindaas, Alison Wallace, Chris Chastain and Lian Ng conducted on-campus workshops for the students.
Finally, MSUM will host the third annual Science and Math Day for regional junior level high school students. It’s expected that about 100 students and a half dozen teachers will participate in science and/or math workshops on campus utilizing the university’s labs and classroom facilities.

“There is no middle class, really, just mostly poor people,” said Barnier. “The people are really nice, with a laid back culture, but there’s a lot of apathy there, and no jobs for young people. The poverty creates a lot of strife and crime.”

A national collegiate track champion and a former member of the athletic administration at Abilene Christian University, Barnier was named Assistant Director of Athletics and Senior Woman Administrator at Minnesota State University Moorhead in August, a new position created with the assistance of the National Collegiate Athletic Association to open doors of opportunity for minority females. Her husband, Keith, was named head track coach at MSU Moorhead in August.

Barnier, 36, was a five-time NCAA Division II national indoor track champion at Abilene Christian. A recent inductee into the NCAA Division II Track and Field Hall of Fame, her five indoor track championships are the most for any female athlete at the NCAA Division II level.

Barnier holds a masterÅfs degree in public administration from James Madison University and an undergraduate degree in public relations from Abilene Christian. For the past five years sheÅfs served as compliance coordinator, SWA and assistant track coach at Abilene Christian. She also served as a compliance officer and assistant track coach at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
While Barnier’s administrative career has been largely shaped by her experiences stateside, much of the patience, discipline and dedication took seed many years ago on the Caribbean island of Jamaica.

“There were seven of us all, three brothers, three sisters and myself,” said Barnier. “We didn’t have electricity until 1988. I grew up with a lamp, drank black coffee, and read novels that kept me dreaming of another place. Everybody dreams of something better, and I had been dreaming of a better life since reading  the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries along with other British stories.

In her youth it was not uncommon for Barnier to run as many as 20 miles a day from the hillside farm to her home, and that true joy of running may have had the greatest singular impact on forging her remarkable athletic and professional career.
 
She was connected to the outside world, if only tenuously, by a battery-operated radio. “When the battery went dead we were basically cut off from the world. We always made sure we had a good battery.”

Barnier learned early on about life’s obligations, and there was a clear expectation of responsibilities for the Barnier children. “If you can walk and talk, from three or four on up, there is work to do, washing socks, and washing clothes.”

The family income hinged on the success of a small farm. “You walked about three miles to a plot on the side of Congo Hill. We grew yams, and usually we had the best yams in the region.”

“In Jamaica you had to take a common entrance exam to get into high school. From seventh to ninth grade you took 13 or more classes, but when you got into tenth grade you would branch off into college majors. At first I wanted to be a secretary, so I took accounting, office procedures, classes like that.”

An interest in running was always present.

“It came from the moment I was born,” said Barnier. “I was always running, usually barefoot, and the whole family would run. There were a lot of little balls and cups (trophies) since I was in primary school.”

In high school Barnier competed in a variety of sports, including net ball, similar to basketball, soccer, track and cross-country. “I just wanted to do everything. I’m very competitive, and I never say I can’t. We just don’t use that word.”

Barnier also saw an added benefit for athletics.

“I felt that could be my way out,” Barnier explained. “All my friends got scholarships, but I was left behind. I ended up teaching biology at my high school for six months, but in 1985 I decided I had to get a job so I went to Kingston. That was the worst year of my life. I was always hungry. I remember once I went to National Stadium and I was so hungry I passed out.”

“A member of Parliament picked up a phone and called Herb McKenley, a Jamaican Olympian, and he connected me with coach (Wes) Kittley at Abilene Christian.”

Barnier arrived in 1986. “I got there January 10 and competed the next Friday,” Barnier remembered. “I ran the hurdles, which was horrible because they hadn’t taught me how to use the blocks. I was (still) standing there when the rest of them were gone. I was so sad, and so skinny. . . . like a wafer. I felt like the earth had opened up and taken me in. The very next week I improved from 8.30 to 8.05, not ever having competed indoors and not ever having competed in the blocks before.”

It was the beginning of something special, and before Barnier’s collegiatie career expired in 1991 she would claim a whopping 22 NCAA Division II All-American awards. “I won five national titles, three in the hurdles and two in the triple jump, and we (ACU) won six national titles. I really learned how to triple jump at Abilene Christian. I just long jumped for points (at nationals). Hurdling was my best event, although I didn’t spent a lot of time on it, and I regret that now.”

“I envisioned myself going to the Olympics, but I didn’t envision myself as a professional athlete,” said Barnier. “I always wanted to compete for my country. Since 1986 professionalism in track and field has gotten so much bigger, but I wasn’t thinking like that back then. My goal was to get a degree, that’s what my coach in Jamaica stressed, to be the first in my family to go to college and get a degree.”

Following graduation from Abiline Christian in 1991, Barnier spent a year with the Texas DOT in public relations and communications but quickly tired a job with too little responsibility.  After two seasons, Barnier secured a master’s degree in Public Administration from James Madison in 1994. She spent three years at UNC-Ashville as assistant track coach and compliance officer.

“I’ve always knew I didn’t want to be just a coach, or a physical education teacher. It was a stereotype I’ve been fighting since I went to college.  I’m more than just an athlete. I also love track and field. I’ve always wanted to coach, but not as a career.  I’ve always wanted to be on the administrative side. I like paperwork and deadlines, and I like being a part of other people’s lives in a leadership role.”

“I always envision an athletic department that is so cohesive you can’t tell one sport from another. I don’t have a five-year plan, and I’m not guaranteed tomorrow, so I don’t like to look too far into the future. When you do that you don’t spend time doing what you’re supposed to do now. I’m hoping in five years that MSU Moorhead will have a very successful department, with me and Keith still here, and all of us working together with what we have and nobody complaining.”