Jon Hovde lost an arm and leg in Vietnam, but not his heart
NOT ALL HEROES ARE ON GRANITE WALLS

I could have missed the pain
But I’d have had to miss the dance
from Garth Brooks’ “The Dance,” Hovde’s adopted theme song

It was just another hump Monday in fetid fields surrounding Cu Chi, a small village situated in a densely mined and
enemy-occupied region northwest of Saigon called the Iron Triangle, once labeled the deadliest chunk of real estate in the world.

The humidity and fear, as always, was as thick as bile as the 25th Infantry Division platoon schlepped into the boonies that morning.

It was 7:30 a.m. on Jan. 8, 1968, the same day Elvis Presley turned 32. But none of the soldiers were humming the melody to “G.I. Blues”.

Especially Pfc. Jon Hovde, a 19-year-old grunt from Fertile, Minn., who just nine days earlier saw one of his best friends, Richard Godhout, vanish in front of his eyes when he was hit by a rocket propelled grenade.

Hovde had other things on his mind. He was at the controls of a 13-ton Armored Personnel Carrier, kind of a battlefield taxi and gunship, following two 52-ton M48 tanks on a mission to clear a cover of rubber trees.

What happened next would change his life forever.

After his squad leader ordered Hovde to pass the two tanks in front of him and take point on patrol, his APC rumbled over a 350-pound anti-tank mine, setting off a mind-boggling explosion. It shredded the vehicle’s 3 1/2-inch armor and blew its engine half a football field away. One of the tanks also hit a mine, spewing even more blood, diesel fuel, cordite and terror into the sticky morning air.

In the bedlam that followed, a medic pulled Hovde’s scorched and torn body from the burning APC, couldn’t find a pulse in his left arm, pronounced him dead, then rushed to help two other American soldiers injured another blast.

What the medic didn’t know was that Hovde’s left arm, still hanging in his shirt, had been severed from his body. And what the medic (fellow Minnesotan Leslie L. Cowden from Anoka, who won a Bronze Star for his efforts) also didn’t know was that he himself would be killed by a mortar round in less than 30 days.

The soldiers had a name for it: "FUBAR" ( F***** Up Beyond All Recognition), a military acronym that glibly described thousands of
similar tragedies that occurred in one of America’s most inexplicable wars.

Good morning, Vietnam.

Evacuated by helicopter to a nearby Army hospital, Hovde didn’t awake until six days later.

“The pain was so intense, I just wanted to die,” he said. “Half my body was gone, along with my future.”

He lost his left arm and leg, two fingers on his right hand, his skull was fractured, his right foot was crushed, and he had 185 wire stitches in his good arm and 190 wire stitches in his good leg. He looked like hell: shrouded in dirt, soot and blood from head to the few toes he had left.

Hovde, who still can’t remember the moment of the explosion, became a statistic: one of 75,000 severely disabled Vietnam vets and one of 1,081 who sustained multiple amputations.

On a more personal level, he was just another teenage G.I. with crushed dreams and a body to match.

The big question: How damaged was his heart?

Hovde, now 54, is a retired 3M executive and former president of the Minnesota School Board Association, living comfortably on a hobby farm just outside his hometown of Fertile. He spends most of his days trying to finish a book about his experiences, “Wings of Fire,” and giving motivational speeches to veterans’ groups, school children, civic organizations and business conventions.

His message: no matter how dark or dreary the future appears, you can endure and you can make a difference.

“Lewis Puller Jr. (a severely maimed Vietnam vet) said it best in his autobiography ‘Fortunate Son,’” Hovde said. “Out of great tragedy can come great good.”

As proof, Hovde not only can hit a golf ball 165 yards with his right arm and take two-mile daily walks, he can still smile.

What’s so unlikely is that Hovde was a poster-boy for shyness as a youngster. “In first grade, my twin sister had to raise her hand and ask the teacher if it was all right if I went to the bathroom,” he said.  “I almost passed out when I had to give a book report in high school.”

Now he talks, without notes, in front of as many as 2,000 people.

“I don’t know what it is that compels auditoriums full of kids to sit like church mice and listen to me for 60 minutes and then give me a standing ovation,” said Hovde, who’s delivered more than 400 addresses across the country  during the  past two decades.

Wendy Wustenburg, a former staff member for Minnesota Governors Al Quiei and Jesse Ventura, who worked with Hovde on the Minnesota School Board Association, explained his resonance with audiences this way in an e-mail message: “It is your gift—it is your legacy to every soldier who fought in that war.”

Hovde said he only survived his Vietnam injuries because of the encouragement he got from three ordinary people in that Cu Chi field hospital: his then 27-year-old Army nurse Kay Layman, now working for a hospice in Albuquerque; and the late Army chaplains Father J.E. Vessels (who died after a second bypass surgery in 1990) and Pastor Donald Ostroot (who died from cancer in 1981 and was buried in his hometown of Pelican Rapids, Minn.)

The three stayed by his side when he needed it most, offering optimism at a time when he couldn’t even comprehend it.

Hovde would be pronounced dead once more before leaving Vietnam when an infection boiled his temperature to 108 degrees. Doctors (one of them from Detroit Lakes) literally packed him in ice for three days. “It was so cold, and so painful, but I was afraid to fall asleep,” he said. “I thought I’d die. It would’ve been easier.”

Exploratory surgery to find the source of the infection left him without a heartbeat. The surgeon signed his death certificate.

“There’s no signal, they cover you up, then there’s a beep,” he said. “What a relief.”

Even one of his biggest cheerleaders, Father Vessels, wasn’t overly hopeful.

“His condition has been up and down, and I was in hopes of waiting till there was definite recovery to report to you,” Father Vessels wrote to Jon’s parents on Jan. 22, 1968. “However, his condition keeps fluctuating and I simply don’t know what to say even yet….I must be honest with you as I know you want the truth. So much depends on his mental condition and I am convinced it has kept him alive this long and could very well bring him through to health. But again, by the time you receive this you may have already have been informed of the opposite. I just don’t know, nobody really does, and so I can only leave you hanging in the air as I am myself.”

When Hovde awoke, 45 letters were waiting from him that day. The chaplain only had time to read him two:  one from his girlfriend and future wife, Darlene, who, just 16 years old at the time, said she didn’t care about the amputations, just come home; the other from his mom.

But he wasn’t out of the quagmire yet.

Before being evacuated from Cu Chi, the North Vietnamese Army launched its surprise 1968 Tet Offensive.

“We were being shelled every night, shrapnel was coming through the tin walls of the intensive care unit, and the bodies were piling up like cordwood,” Hovde said. “The nurses were putting patients under their beds for protection, but my right leg hurt so much I asked not to be moved. Kay Layman took her flack jacket off and put it over my chest. I really didn’t think I’d live to see the morning light. And I never saw my doc after Tet. I heard he was in surgery 24 hours a day.”

Hovde spent another 30 days recuperating at a Japanese hospital before the Army sent him to Letterman General in San Francisco for another seven months of rehabilitation. The citizens of Fertile raised $2,000 to fly his parents out to see him.

“It must have shocked them,” he said. “Besides missing two limbs then, my weight dropped from my normal 160 pounds to 98pounds.”

Right after high school and before enlisting in the Army, Hovde moved to Rodeo, Calif., on the north end of Oakland, to work construction for his uncle. That’s where he met Darlene, a friend of his cousin who lived a block down the road from his uncle’s house.

So during his recovery at Letterman Hospital in San Francisco, and before he was fit with artificial limbs, he bought a car, which he drove 40 miles to Rodeo on weekends to visit his uncle and Darlene. “I’d toss the wheelchair in the trunk and hop on one leg to the driver’s seat.”

Later, he was fitted with a 28-pound wooden leg. “It was like walking with a tree trunk attached to me,” he said. “The titanium leg I wear now weighs only four pounds.”

Ten months after leaving the hospital, Jon and Darlene were married and moved back to Fertile. That was nearly 35 years ago. Today they have two grown children and a couple grandkids.

While Hovde was packed in ice and tempting death with a blistering fever in Cu Chi, he made three vows to God. And they were coming due. If allowed to live, he swore that one day he’d drive the fastest car in Polk County, he wouldn’t live on the government dole and, following the inspirational words of the two chaplains by his side, he’d try to make a difference in the lives of others.

It was a strange set of death-bed promises. “But I didn’t have much else to do then except pray.”

Soon after arriving back in Fertile, a highway patrolman clocked him going 138 mph in a 55 mph zone in his new 1968 Doge Charger with a high performance 383 engine.

“Why,” said the cop, “did you come home from Vietnam just to try to kill yourself on the highway?” Good question.  It was his third speeding ticket that month. He didn’t get another one for 14 years.

One vow down, two to go.

He then enrolled in North Hennepin Community College in the fall of 1969. “I wasn’t interested in that particular school, but the Veteran’s Administration insisted I attend a wheelchair accessible school. North Hennepin College only had one floor at the time.”

Two years later, he transferred to MSUM, where he became active in the campus veterans club.

“Without MSU, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve my second and third vows,” he said. “ No question about it. I left MSU not only with knowledge, but confidence and drive to put my degree to use. I was the kid that was told I didn’t have the ability to achieve a college degree. I’m living proof that all kids can succeed given the opportunity and the support network.”

Hovde graduated in 1974 with a double degree, in finance and business.

The next seven years were right out of a storybook. He took a job at 3M Corporation in the Twin Cities, bought a house, two cars, a boat, raised a family and started up the corporate ladder, becoming the merchandising supervisor for the company’s household product division.

Then a few old Vietnam wounds reopened. First came disc surgery, which layed him up for seven months. Then, after four infections in his heel bone, doctors considered amputating his right foot, a move that would have confined him to a wheelchair.

“I loved that job, but I just couldn’t go on,” he said. “Two weeks after I quit 3M, the drainage in my heel bone stopped. It must have been the stress.”

He returned to Fertile, was seduced into running for the school board, won the election, and kept the job for 16 years. Eventually he rose to prominence in the 2,200-member Minnesota School Board Association, and in 1996 was elected its president.

In between, he had an epiphany of sorts that again changed his life forever. It happened in Washington, D.C., in 1982, when he was one of five Minnesota veterans selected to attend the unveiling of the Vietnam War Memorial—the Wall, which lists the names of the 58,229 American soldiers killed or missing in that war.

“I never really talked much about my war experiences until then,” Hovde said. “There were parades, speeches, ceremonies. I met three Congressional Medal of Honor winners, one of them wounded the same day I was. It was impossible to escape the subject of war. Ever since, I’ve been pursuing my next vow—to make a difference??by speaking about my war experiences to whatever group would listen.”

And listen they did, from classrooms and school convocations to filled auditoriums and convention centers. His most precious possession: the 700-plus letters he keeps in a three-ring binder near his office desk. They’re personal notes from people who’ve been moved by his talks. They come from kids (“Thank you for helping me realize just how lucky I am.”) to school superintendents (“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen our entire student body in grades 3-12 sit for a full hour without moving or talking to one another.”) and an assortment of others who bonded emotionally with Hovde..

"I'm more proud of these letters than I am of my Purple Hearts," he said. "When I'm having a tough day, I get them out and read a few of them. It makes a difference to me.”

The St. Paul Pioneer Press did an unprecedented five-part, front-page series of articles on Hovde in the fall of 1998 leading up to his successful quest to contact his Army nurse, Kay Layman.

After an interminable search, including a five-hour interview with a producer from the television series “Unsolved Mysteries” (which never aired the reunion), the son of a Vietnam colleague, using the Internet, eventually found Layman in Albuquerque, N.M. On Independence Day, July 4, 1998, Hovde received a voice-mail message from Layman, the first time he’d heard her voice in 30 years.

“I still have the message saved on my voice mail,” he said.

After several long-distance phone conversations, Hovde and his wife Darlene hopped in their car that fall and drove to Albuquerque to meet Layman, now a hospice nurse. She’d never been contacted by one of her Vietnam patients before.

“I thought I could handle it,” Hovde said. “But when we met again, I just let 30 years of tears flow.

Layman told the St. Paul Pioneer Press: “It strengthened my hope that more guys who went through that hospital have had a similar positive impact on life.”

To this day, Hovde insists he’s no hero. “The names of heroes are etched on granite walls,” he said. “My story is our story, a story of this nation and who we are as people. It’s very much about ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances who have the ability to do their best and overcome tragedy.”

During some of his talks, he’ll show a series of 80 slides from his Vietnam experiences. In the background, he plays Garth Brooks’ “The Dance,” which has become his theme song, primarily because of these lyrics:

And now, I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end
The way it all would go.

Our lives are better left to chance.
I could have missed the pain,
But I’d have had to miss the dance.

Hovde may have left an arm and a leg in Vietnam, but not his heart, which, like a Timex watch, “has taken a licking, but keeps on ticking.”

But it was a Bulova watch that became one of his most poignant souvenirs of the war. He wore it on his left wrist when his body was shredded by that anti-tank mine.

“In fact, it took a direct hit, but it was still ticking, like me,” Hovde said. “I asked Kay Layman to send it home with some of my other stuff. It arrived in Fertile covered with my blood. My twin sister Cathy sent it in to the Bulova Watch Company in New York to get it fixed. It came back with a letter from the company’s president saying the repairs were free of charge.”

Today, Hovde only wears that watch when giving speeches. As fate would have it, time is still on his side. 

She’s apparently been blessed.

Megan Kiedrowski is now Megan Bisers, married and the mother of a two-month-old daughter, Ieva (pronounced Ee-Yeh-va, Latvian for Eve).  Her husband, Artis, is a Latvian native studying international economics at St. Cloud State University.

“It’s a dream come true,” she said. “I knew it would happen, but I didn’t know it would happen so fast.”

Despite being confined to a wheelchair, Megan says she’s adapted well to being a mom.  “It’s a lot easier than I thought it would be. The only problem is that we have a two-door car now and I can’t get my wheelchair in it by myself, or strap Ieva into the safety seat. Fortunately, we’re getting a four-door vehicle soon. Then everything will be fine.”

Megan drives with hand-operated controls.

Now 26, she still doesn’t remember that moment when the .44-caliber bullet pierced her throat, severing her spinal chord and ripping a hole through her trachea and esophagus.

She doesn’t remember the doctors frantically trying to save her life as she fell into respiratory arrest, or the drug-induced coma that shrouded her 16-year-old body for a month and a half.

The accidental shooting happened a decade ago at her parents’ home in Fargo.

“I promised my parents, who were both out of town that night, that I’d be going to the movies,” she said. “Instead, I invited a small group of friends to the house. And we were drinking. I should have gone to the movies.”

At the time she was a junior at Fargo North High School, a hockey cheerleader and an athlete who was both a competitive swimmer and a discus and javelin thrower.

Just happening to walk by, Megan crossed a deadly path with a wayward bullet. The gun, her father’s, was accidentally discharged by her younger brother. It wasn’t supposed to be loaded.

Megan’s been confined to a wheelchair ever since.

“As I was laying in the hospital bed recovering, my father kept saying, ‘You can do it, you can do it Megan,” she recalled. “Then he recited that passage from Philippians: ‘I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.’ I was pretty depressed at the time. But the message somehow stuck.”

The doctors at the Minneapolis Children’s Hospital, who managed the delicate process of repairing the holes in her trachea and esophagus, told Megan she’d probably never be able to eat or breath on her own. Or to speak anything beyond whispers.

But by the graces of God, effort and physical therapy, Megan disproved her doctors, graduated from high school and then, in the winter of 1999, earned a degree in health services administration from MSUM.

“I moved to St. Cloud after graduating to live with my dad and step-mom (Dr. Jerry and Marilyn Kiedrowski),” she said. “My dad’s now an urgent care physician for the St. Cloud Medical Group.  I only stayed with them two months before I moved back to Fargo for a year to take an internship at MeritCare Southpoint. Then I moved back to St. Cloud State after I got accepted into its Master of Business Administration program.”

While finishing her first year of MBA classes, a series of serendipitous encounters sealed her fate.

“My older step-sister married a Latvian and my parents visit them maybe twice a year,” Megan said. “My father also does some volunteer mission work in the Ukraine. Flying back to the states, he happened to be seated next to a Latvian student on his way to Minnesota to work on a dairy farm. My father, who speaks Russian, started a conversation with him.”

When they landed in Chicago, the Latvian was surprised when his ticket didn’t include a connecting link to Minnesota. “So my father bought him a ticket to Minneapolis and invited Artis to stay at his home in St. Cloud,” Megan said.

That student, Artis Bisers, had completed more than two years of international economics studies in his hometown, Jelgeva, Latvia. His trip to the United States was simply an adventure.

That summer, he worked on the dairy farm in Morris, Minn., returning to Megan’s father’s house on his days off.

In August, he quit the farm, enrolled at St. Cloud State, and moved into Dr. Kiedrowski’s house the same time Megan finished her internship in Fargo, returned to St. Cloud to start her MBA studies, and moved into her father’s house.

It was a simple case of kismet from the start. After dating for a year, they married last spring.

Megan, who’ll stay home with the baby this semester, will return to  finish her MBA this winter. She intends to become a nursing home administrator.

Artis is working two part-time jobs while finishing his degree. Fluent in Latvian, Russian and now English, he’ll pursue a job in international law or sales after he graduates in a year and a half.

“Life in America is different than the stories told back home,” Artis said. “But I wouldn’t have it any different now because of my daughter. I love it back home, but there are many opportunities in this country and I am happy I have the chance to take advantage of them.”

Megan hasn’t met her husband’s parents yet. Artis’ father is the director of Latvia’s secondary education system; his mother is a business manager.

“I’ve been studying Russian for the past year,” Megan said. “Ideally we’d like to own a permanent home somewhere in the United States and maintain an apartment in Latvia. Practically speaking, Latvia and Russia aren’t that handicapped accessible yet. I mean, cobblestone streets are hard on a wheelchair.”

Meanwhile, Megan keeps in shape by wheeling around a two-mile track four days a week and soon she’ll get back to her weight-lifting regimen.

“What’s really given hope to me and other people with spinal cord injuries is the progress of  (paralyzed actor) Christopher Reeves,” she said. “Originally paralyzed from the neck down, he can actually move his fingers now. I saw it on television and it was amazing. He’s been a central figure in raising money for spinal cord injury research and provides hope for us all.”

Of course, Megan said, Reeves’ progress is due in part to an incredible amount of physical therapy.

Once she’s adjusted to motherhood, Megan hopes to get back on her Reciprocating Gait Orthosis, an orthopedic brace used to support the paralyzed lower part of her body in a way that makes taking steps possible. It allows her to stand upright with a walker or crutches, shifting her weight from side to side so her legs can move in a reciprocal (walking) fashion.

“I look like Frankenstein when I do it,” she said. “But if I don’t use my legs and put weight on them, they’ll atrophy. I want to keep my legs in shape so if one day doctors discover how to reconstruct the nerve that sends signals from my brain to my legs, I’ll be ready. I don’t dwell on it, but I believe it’s pretty likely I’ll eventually walk again.”

But she doesn’t rely on physical therapy alone.

“My faith will always remain in Christ and Christ only, walking or wheelchair, married or single,” she said. “I know that human love alone cannot make me happy. Yes, Philippians 4:13 (“I can do everything through Him who gives me strength”) remains a favorite life verse for me. It’s worked well for me.”

Pop music association names “I Wanna Be Me’ book award winner
“I Wanna Be Me,” a book written by MSUM philosophy professor Ted Gracyk, has been selected as a co-winner of the 2002 International Association for the Study of Popular Music-US Book Award.

Gracyk’s book shares the award with “A Pocketful of Dreams” by Gary Giddins. One of the top jazz writers of his generation, Giddins is best known for his longtime work as a columnist for the Village Voice, which he joined in 1973.
His books include “Ridin' On A Blue Note,” “Celebrating Bird”, “Satchmo” and  “A Pocketful of Dreams,” a biography of Bing Crosby.

Released last year by Temple University Press (304 pp., $22.95 paperback), “I Wanna Be Me” looks at rock as a mass art, drawing people together in communities of listeners who respond viscerally to its sound and intellectually to its message. From the Sex Pistols and Eminem to Bonnie Raitt and the Rolling Stones, Gracyk says, rock music contributes to our cultural capital.

In a nutshell, he argues: What you listen to is who you are, but the context in which you listen alters what the meaning of what you listen to.

This is Gracyk’s second book that takes a philosophical look at rock music. His first, “Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock,” which reasoned that rock music is an art form in its own right, was released in 1996 by Duke University Press.

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY

MSUM receives $308,600 Microsoft Business Solutions donation
MSUM has signed an agreement with Microsoft Business Solutions, a Fargo, N.D.-based business management software developer, to join the Education Alliance Network. This network enables colleges and universities to provide Microsoft Business Solutions’ business management software as a key component of accounting and business curriculums.

As part of the agreement, Microsoft Business Solutions has donated eEnterprise software, technical support and training valued at $308,600.

MSU Moorhead is one of more than 200 colleges and universities involved in the Education Alliance Network, which helps schools utilize technology in the classroom.

"The new partnership between Microsoft Business Solutions and our School of Business underscores the vital relationship between private enterprise and public universities like MSU Moorhead,” said MSUM Pres. Roland Barden. “Our students' educational needs and professional ambitions are well-served by this kind of collaboration."

“What’s really exciting about this agreement is that in addition to the software, training and support received, Microsoft Business Solutions has dedicated a team of employees who have helped design the new eBusiness Certificate Program,” said Kathleen Paulson, coordinator of the university’s Customized Training Program. “Several Microsoft employees have already been guest speakers at the Introduction to eBusiness class I am teaching which brings the real world into the classroom. Students who enroll in these classes will leave MSUM with real-life experience and knowledge on what it takes to implement eBusiness strategies and solutions in an organization.”

The initial donation of $308,600 is the first software gift MSUM will receive. Additional software and training donations have been approved and will be received in time for the new spring 2003 eBusiness courses.

For more information on the eBusiness Certificate Program, visit www.mnstate.edu/ebusiness, or call 218.299.5837

Erickson, Kasper named outstanding MSUM business alums
The College of Business and Industry honored Roger Erickson, president of Erickson Contracting of Fargo-Moorhead, and Richard Kasper, executive vice president and chief financial officer for General Electric Motorcars in Fargo, as its Alumni of the Year during the homecoming celebration this fall.

Erickson, who graduated from MSUM in 1978 with a business administration degree, is a Moorhead native who worked for First National Bank before it became Norwest and now Wells Fargo. After completing a degree at the
University of Oklahoma’s Graduate School of Banking and rising to vice president of commercial lending, he left in 1986 to start Erickson Contracting, which today specializes in quality custom built homes.

Expanding his business interests, he now owns TraveLodge and Red Bear Grill and Tavern in Moorhead along with several commercial buildings. Erickson was instrumental in reviving the MSUM men’s baseball club and helped coach the team. His wife Lisa is an MSUM graduate and member of the Dragon Hall of Fame.

Kasper graduated from MSUM with an accounting degree in 1980 and then worked as a controller for F-M Asphalt. But he always had an eye focused on a singing and dancing career. In 1987, he took his baritone voice to Beverly Hills to test his skills in show business, earning a spot with the Los Angeles Jazz Choir. During that period he even released an album with Rosemary Clooney.

But waiting for auditions and call-ups made him restless, until a headhunter landed him a job as a financial analyst for the LosAngeles Daily News. He eventually worked his way up to chief financial officer for the $100 million company.

But old ties and family brought him back to Fargo, where he’s been ever since, serving as chief financial officer and executive president of the futuristic business, Global Electric Motorcars, the world’s largest manufacturer of neighborhood electric vehicles.

3 MSUM juniors awarded 3M scholarships
Three MSUM juniors will receive more than $7,000 each in scholarships and paid internships under the Minority Exposure to Corporate America Program funded by the 3M Corporation.

They are: Emmanuel W. Situma, a finance major from Nairobi, Kenya; Kimberly Bair, a mass communications major from Fargo; and Dustin Fabre, an industrial technology major from Glyndon, Minn.

The MECA Program, begun in 1989, is a joint venture undertaken by 3M and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. Each year, up to 13 MECA students are selected from MnSCU institutions for the scholarships, 13-week paid internships, and Leadership and skill training activities.
 

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION AND HUMAN SERVICES

More on-line, more accessible…
MSUM gets $186,000 grant to streamline nursing education in northwest Minnesota MSUM has received a $186,000 grant from the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System to develop a strategic plan that would streamline the delivery of nursing education in northwestern Minnesota.

The grant includes funding to redesign, to primarily an on-line format, the university’s baccalaureate degree in nursing program.

“I just enrolled two students into our program from Missouri,” said Barbara Vellenga, an MSUM nursing professor who wrote and will implement the grant. “They hope by the time they’re ready to graduate, they’ll be able to access all their coursework either on-line or through other distance educational delivery methods.”

The goal of the grant project is to develop a smoother and more flexible structure within the MnSCU system that will allow students to advance from LPN to RN and then BSN nursing degrees during a time of severe nursing shortages.

Currently, Vellenga said, there are three levels of nursing education in northwestern Minnesota.

“Northwest Technical College has both a one-and two-year nursing program on each of its five campuses along with an on-line program for two-year LPN degrees. More than 1,000 prospective students have expressed interest in enrolling in those programs.”

Also, she said, both Fergus Falls and Northland Community College offer a one-year LPN and a one-year associate RN associate degree program.

MSUM and Bemidji State, meanwhile, each offer a program for RNs to complete a four-year nursing degree.

“With the nursing shortage expected to become even more critical in the next decade,” she said, “and the increasing complexity of health care needs, it makes sense to have an educational delivery system that would be more available to nursing students, especially if they live in rural areas or they’re so busy they can’t afford the travel time to some of the campuses.”

At MSUM, for example, 90 percent of the 140 nursing students are employed, and most of those work more than 32 hours a week. Also, she said, half of these students live more than 50 miles from campus.

Currently, 96 of our 140 students are now taking on-line classes, Vellenga said.

Within the next few years she hopes all nursing students in northwestern Minnesota will have access to the education they need.

The concern over decreased interaction between faculty and students will be bridged in part by using more video conferencing, discussion boards and chat rooms. Clinical experiences will also be more focused on the student’s geographic location.

Before making the program available to other schools, she said, a pilot program will first be developed between MSUM and Fergus Falls Community College.

For details about the program, contact Vellenga at the MSUM Nursing department, 218-236-4696, or e-mail her at:
vellenga@mnstate.edu.

Bremer Foundation funds MSUM study of middle school literacy skills
An MSUM study aimed at improving the reading and writing skills of middle school students is being funded by a $28,469 grant from the Otto Bremer Foundation.

Solveig Bartz, an MSUM elementary education professor, is directing the research project that began last fall at a regional school district. The Bremer Foundation funded the initial research last year with a $23,200 grant. The new grant will fund continuation of the research for the next two years.

An additional goal of the study is to create a manual for publication to help teach the targeted students, who, for a variety of reasons, are functioning below their grade level.

“Traditional methods simply don’t work on these students, who are at a critical stage in their educational development,” Bartz said.

“If we don’t do something to help them, they’re likely to fall between the cracks. We want to get them to the point where they can be successful and complete their high school education."

One aim of the study is to determine whether an intervention program is effective with students at this stage in their education.

“I’m convinced it is,” Bartz said. “What we’re trying now is teaching to each student’s demonstrated need through tutoring in reading and writing activities. Hopefully this will work to continue building academic skills and improve their attitude about
learning.”

Tutoring will be voluntary. It will be carried out during hours of the day when the student has free time and will not interrupt regular class attendance.

Bartz said she’ll continue to meet weekly with the teacher-tutors and will measure student progress and achievement through documentation and interview. “We want to find out what we did in the classroom that works,” she said, “and then develop a curriculum around our successes."

SW grads successful in licensing exam
The National Association of Social Work Boards has released the results for the national licensure examination taken by MSUM social work graduates. During the last 12 years, 97 percent of MSUM graduates have passed the licensure examination on their first attempt. The national pass rate was 84 percent during that same period.

During 2001, 100 percent (42 of 42) of MSUM graduates were successful in their first attempt at the exam, versus 84 percent of social work graduates nationally.

MSUM’s social work program has 240 current social work majors and has been accredited by the Council on Social Work Education since 1974.

MSUM students, youth team up for life lessons
(Excerpted from the Fargo Forum, Metro/State Sunday, October 20, 2002; permission granted by Mike Nowatzki,
mnowatzki@forumcomm.com
Three hundred MSUM education majors taking the “Social Foundations of Education” class have spent more than 3,000 hours mentoring youths ages 8-16 from three Moorhead neighborhoods. It’s a joint effort of the after-school enrichment programs provided by the Moorhead Healthy Community Initiative (MHCI) and Moorhead Parks Department.

MSUM education professor Steve Grineski has been part of the mentoring program since it began two and a half years ago. His social foundations course explores issues of race, class, opportunity, gender and oppression and explores the relationship of school and society.

“It made sense that if we were going to be learning about those kinds of issues, the students should get involved in the community and apply those lessons,” Grineski said.

Sixty students are mentors this semester, spending 12-15 hours with their mentees. A majority of the youths come from neighborhoods with large minority and refugee populations, and many are from low-income families.

“Any child can use other positive adults in their lives,” said Nichole Weinkauf, MHCI communications coordinator. “For example, maybe the parents aren’t home after work, and that’s where the need is. Because after school, that’s when the child is most likely to get involved in risky behavior.”

The mentoring program, after-school programs and efforts by the city of Moorhead, the Moorhead School District, police and youth agencies have contributed to a 50 percent decrease in juvenile crime in Moorhead in the past eight years, MHCI reported.

Grineski said that the mentoring program allows students to apply their lessons and provide the community with a much-needed service.

“And very important is, they can be with kids whose life story is likely different than their own,” he said.
 

COLLEGE OF SOCIAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES

$92,000 NSF grant funds commercial development of MSUM prof’s invention
Rinita Dalan, an MSUM Anthropology and Earth Sciences professor, has received a $92,000 National Science Foundation grant to support the commercial development of an instrument that will help archaeologists and geologists identify buried sites and subsurface features.

It will be engineered and manufactured by Bartington Instruments in London.

Called a down-hole susceptibility logger, the device measures variations in the magnetic properties of subsurface soils to a depth of seven to eight feet.

“It’s pretty simple,” she said. “I’ve attached a sensor at the end of a pvc pipe, which I then put down bore holes to measure magnetic properties in the soil. If the soil exhibits increased magnetic susceptibility, it may indicate a former site of human activity or an old land surface.”

The magnetic properties of soils, she said, tend to increase with age and human activity because of resulting chemical and biological changes.

“It’s not a new idea,” Dalan said. “I first made one four years ago using a sensor manufactured by Bartington Instruments and housing it within some plastic pipe. I needed it at the time, and it seemed practical. I’ve been trying to improve it ever since.”

She’s been using her prototype version at archaeological sites, in classes and at National Park Service training sessions.

“It got to the point that quite a few people and organizations were interested in using this instrument, but I just didn’t have the time or capability to make them in any kind of mass scale.”

So she partnered with Bartington Instruments, the company that will engineer and manufacture the logger. The NSF grant will support Dalan in local development efforts involving field and laboratory testing of the product.

Not only is the device portable and lightweight, it allows archaeologists, geologists and soil scientist to quickly survey potential sites without disturbing the environment. “Instead of digging or excavating,” she said, “you just punch a bore hole in the soil and insert the logger to test for magnetic susceptibility in the soil.”

Bartington Instruments may have a working model ready for the commercial market within a year.

Dalan said the NSF grant will also help establish a soil magnetic laboratory at MSUM, which will be used in conjunction with the down-hole logger in research and training on campus, at the North Dakota State University department of soil sciences and at annual National Park Service workshops.

‘30s
Grace Beling ’38 (elem ed) lives in Rockford, IL. She would love to hear from any alumni who know her.
‘40s
Beverly Dailey Neitzke ’49 (elem ed) is retired and living in Wadena, MN, where she enjoys reading, playing the saxophone, and swimming at her cabin on Leaf Lake. She would love to hear from former classmates. Call the alumni office for her address and phone number.
John H. Johnson ’49 (music/social st.) lives in Glendive, MT, where he taught for several years and was the high school principal. He also served as a Montana state legislator from 1989-1997.
‘50s
Darlene Reimers Haak ’54 (elem ed) lives with her husband Robert in Holloway, MN, where she thoroughly enjoys her retirement.
Gladys Demmer Egli ’58 (elem ed) lives in Bismarck, ND, where she taught for many years and is now retired, but still substitute teaches.
Philip ’56 (elem ed) and Jeannine Kiltie ’58 (elem ed) are busy enjoying every minute of their retirement. They live in Apache Junction, AZ every winter and in Alexandria, MN, the rest of the year.
Joan Sprague ’58 (phy ed) ’68 (MA) is retired from teaching and living in San Diego, CA. She was recently nominated for Who’s Who Among America’s Teacher’s for the second time.
‘60s
Walt ’73 (art) and Anita ’62 (bus ed) Hannemann live in Park Rapids, MN, where they are retired…sort of. Walt is still playing classical guitar and singing with several groups and Anita plays violin with a jazz band, provides publicity for a local non-profit, and takes her mandolin to bluegrass jams.
Myra Johnson ’65 (elem ed) and her husband Duane are retired and living in Hendrum, MN.
Joe ’66 (hist) and Sharon Simons ’66 (art) live in Crosby, MN. Joe works on the golf course at Ruttger’s Bay Lake Lodge and Sharon is the manager of Ruttger’s Gift Shops. Joe was elected to the Crosby-Ironton Athletic Hall of Fame.
Patricia Syltie Solheid ’67 (music) and her husband Allen live in New Prague, MN. She taught for a few years after graduation, and in 1984 started her own day care business, which she still runs.
Susan Lindlauf ’67 (elem ed) ’88 (MS) teaches 5th grade in Fargo, ND, where she lives with her husband Curtis.
Michael “Humphrey” Johnson ’67 (speech) is the director of student life at North Dakota State College of Science. He also serves on the MSUM President’s Advisory Board and is in his 10th year on the Breckenridge Board of Education. He lives in Breckenridge, MN, with his wife Nancy.
Randy Johnson ’69 (art) ’76 (MA) lives in Gold River, CA, with his wife Lenka and their twin daughters.
Gloria Kosanke Knoll ’69 (music) has taught music for 30 years and plans to teach for many more. She currently teaches choral music at New Horizon Middle School in Bismarck, ND, where she lives with her husband Marv and their four children and four step-children.
‘70s
Galen Vaa ’70 (hist) spent several years in private practice and is now a district court judge. He lives in Moorhead, MN, with his wife Sharon.
Inez Sambrano Streasick ’71 (elem ed) and her husband Charles live in Isle, MN, near Mille Lacs Lake, where they enjoy the fishing.
Craig M. Shirley ’71 (elem ed) is in his first year as lead pastor at University Lutheran Church of Hope in Minneapolis. He lives in Shoreview, MN, with his wife Carol.
Steve Fjoslien ’72 (bus admin) is a retired farmer living in Fergus Falls, MN, with his wife Nettie.
Warren Meissner ’72 (math) is a vice president at First Federal Bank in Bemidji, MN, where he and his wife Claudia live.
Julie K. Henderson ’73 (mass com) is a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. She wrote a chapter on public relations for Mass Media in 2025: Industries, Organizations, People and Nations and a chapter on educational public relations for Handbook of Public Relations.
Michele Molldrem-Hotko ’74 (music) is a teacher at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School, and teaches computers and digital photography at a day camp during the summer. She lives in River Edge, NJ, with her husband Gary.
Charles Kettner ’74 (bus admin/mktg) retired in 2001, after 27 years with C.H. Robinson. He lives in E. Aurora, NY, with his wife Sharon, but they are reestablishing their Minnesota roots with a lake home near Alexandria.
Lynette Munkberg ’74 (dist ed) and her husband John live in Cambridge, MN, where she is employed by Northwest Airlines. Lynette volunteered as a field of play marshal for curling during the 2002 Olympic winter games.
Ellen Larson Stowell ’75 (SLHS) ’82 (MA) is a speech language pathologist in
Chattanooga, TN, where she and her husband Timothy live. They have two dogs and four cats and spend any spare time sweeping floors, chasing cat hair “bunnies” and wiping nose prints from glass windows.
Kenneth Forster ’76 (geog) and his wife Debra live in Lincoln, NE, where he is vice president for Bryan LGH Health System.
Pam Thein ’77 (psych/indiv major) is a senior assoc. with the law firm Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly LLP. She lives in Roseville, MN.
Jan Falk ’77 (phy ed) has been named Associate Executive Director for United Blood Services. She will be based in Fargo, ND, and is responsible for the oversight of the Aberdeen, SD, UBS, community relations, distribution and day-to-day operations.
Michael Heintzman ’79 (theatre) has been acting and writing in New York since he graduated. In 2003 he will be in the Minneapolis area with the production of a play he has co-written.
Dan LaRocque ’78 (theatre) is head of theatre performance at Auburn University and vice-chair of the southeast region of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. He lives in Auburn, AL, with his wife Daydre and their two sons.
‘80
Timothy LeClair, ’80 (acctg) is a CPA and partner in Eide Bailly LLP, where he is a member of the firm’s Financial Institutions Group and the firm’s Web Development Committee. He lives in Fargo, ND, with his wife Tracy and their three children.
Alan Peterson ’80 (mktg) retired from the Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel. He served as an F-111 combat aviator, Pentagon staff officer and squadron commander. He currently lives in San Diego, CA with his wife Kathryn (Huber) and two daughters. He now works for General Atomics as manager, advanced programs development.
Joan Hettich ’82 (elem ed) is a first grade teacher for North Sargent School, in Gwinner, ND, where she lives with her husband LaDean.
Michael Patenaude ’82 (crim just) retired form the Air Force in 1999 as a major. He now works on a contract for Aegis Research Corp. managing over 100 computer security professionals. He and his wife Ann live in Dayton, OH.
Kirk Scott ’82 (math), an assistant professor of computer science at the Univ. of Alaska, Anchorage, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar Award to teach at Taraz State University, Kazakhstan.
Larry Kleindl ’83 (soc wk) and Natalie Morrow ’85 (soc) ’90 (MS) live in Willmar, MN. Larry is director of Kandiyohi County Family Services and Natalie is a licensed psychologist in private practice. They enjoy the lakes and are avid collectors of MN Vikings memorabilia.
Chris Kowanko ’83 (art) has a new CD entitled “Spell” that is available online at www.kowanko.com. He and his wife Kay live in Seattle, WA.
James Hardwick ’84 (mgmt/pol sci) recently became vice president of Student Life at Carroll College in Helena, MT.
Carl Koch ’85 (Eng) lives in Chesapeake, VA, where he is a US Navy chaplain. He says, “it’s not a job, it’s an adventure!”
Renee Ryden ’86 (music) has three children and lives in Hallock, MN, where she teaches Title I to K-6 and vocal music to 7-12.
Nancy Pearson ’87 (music indus) is a K-12 music specialist for the Plummer public School. She lives in Fosston, MN, with her husband Todd and their two sons, plus a Japanese exchange student.
Brenda Dahlgren ’87 (bus ed) and her husband Dan and their three children live in Wahpeton, ND, where she is an accountant with James Anderson Ltd.
Pamela S. Johnson ’87 (soc studies) lives in Fergus Falls, MN, where she is a CSR for American Nat’l Bank of MN. She volunteers for Habitat for Humanity, Arc, Special Olympics, and reads for the blind.
Jeff ’88 (comp sci) and Dolores Streich ’88 (life sci) live in Janesville, MN, their three children. Delores is a cytotechnologist, and spends her free time coaching a youth running club and girls basketball, and fixing up their old farmhouse. Jeff is a lead systems analyst for Federated Mutual Ins.
Loy Woelber ’88 (soc studies) is supt. of schools for Westbrook Walnut Grove School. He and his wife Sheryl have five children and live in Revere, MN.
Sheri Nordgulen Dunavan ’88 (mgt) lives in Savage, MN, where she is currently expanding her Mary Kay career. She and her husband Troy are expecting their first child.
Karla Gavin ’88 (German) is director of student activities for Upper Iowa University. She and her husband Ray live in Fayette Iowa with their two children.
Kay Rubbelke ’89 (mass com) is a communication consultant with Mercer HR Consulting. She and her husband Joe and their three children live in Elko, MN.
Christina Frederickson ’89 (speech/com) recently moved back to Minnesota from Chicago. She works for Levi Strauss as a sales administrator and does theatre most evenings.
Deborah Messelt Hawkinson ’89 (speech com) lives in Cheyenne Wells, Co, with her husband Curtis and their two children. She works as a school psychologist for East Central BOCES.
Linda Boman ’89 (acctg) is an at-home-mom in Redmond, WA, where she and her husband Troy are expecting their fourth child.
‘90s
Dennis Hauck ’90 (bus admin/mass com) is project manager for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. He lives in Minneapolis, MN, where he enjoys singing with the group Vocal Essence.
Sharon Veden ’90 (elem ed) lives in Wadena, MN, where she is the disabilities and education coordinator for Otter Tail-Wadena Head Start.
Gerald Herman Jr. ’90 (mass com) and Jennifer Pierceall Herman ’97 (counseling and student aff) live in Fountain, CO, with their daughter. Jerry is a design editor at The Gazette in Colorado Springs and Jennifer is a counselor at Pueblo Community College.
Laurie Bisel ’91 (elem ed) lives in Wrenshall, MN, with her husband Dave and their four children. She says she now uses her degree to be the best teacher she can be for her children.
Edward ’91 (math) and Theresa Kambour ’94 (legal asst) live in Houston, TX, with their two cats and a horse! Ed is a senior statistician for PROS Revenue Management; Theresa is an administrative assistant for Equilon.
Jason Klein ’91 (fin) lives in Hudson, WI, with his wife Terri. He is vice president of commercial lending for Dakota Bank in Mendota Heights, MN.
John Leopold ’91 (BFA art) has been awarded a Fulbright Award to teach at the Riga College of Applied Arts in Latvia. He has been the chief art instructor at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls, MN, where he also taught Jujutsu, Judo and law enforcement defensive tactics.
Allen Quie ’91 (MA school psych) ’97 (spec) lives in Mesa, AZ, with his wife Lorraine. He was promoted to the lead school psychologist with the Mesa Public School system, the largest school system in Arizona.
Christopher Nalty ’92 (graphic com) lives in Big Lake, MN, with his wife Geri and their two children. His company, www.topflightmarketing.com, was selected as lead graphic designer and web site developer for the Family and Youth Institute.
Patrick Kautzman ’92 (bus admin/acctg) is a CPA and works for Eide Bailly providing business and individual tax services. He lives in Fargo, ND, with his wife Stephanie and their two children.
Stephanie Engen Strand ’93 (finance) lives in Fargo, ND, with her husband Mark and two step-daughters. She is a trust office with Northern Capital Trust and holds the designation of Certified Trust and Financial Adviser (CTFA).
Julie Secrease Chapin ’93 (music ind) and her husband Larry live in Shoreview, MN, where Julie is a project manager for fashion and events at Marshall Field’s.
Philip Klopp ’93 (soc st) lives in rural Argyle, MN, with his wife Amy and daughter. Carpentry that began as a part-time occupation while teaching led to him becoming a full-time self-employed contractor.
Erik Fosker ’94 (German) is an institutional review specialist for the US Dept. of Education. He lives in Walnut Creek, CA. He says “hello to the 10th and 14th floors Neumaier Hall floor mates from ’90-’94!”
Denise Rocquemore ’94 (psych/crim just) has her master’s in counseling education and is a licensed professional counseling and registered play therapist. She is a center director of head start of Dallas. She lives in Desoto, TX, with her husband Jimmie and their son.
Lyle Turner ’94 (phy ed/music) lives in Shelby Twp., MI, with his wife Ann and their three children. He teaches phy ed for Van Dyke Public Schools, works in three different schools, and sees 800 students a week.
Tammy Bartness ’94 (music) and Michael Stifter ’93 (soc st) live in River Falls, WI, with their two daughters. Tammy is a self-employed day care provider; Mike is residence hall coordinator for University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
Russell Jensen ‘95 (art) is a professional photographer in Rapid City, SD, where he lives with his wife Paula and their baby daughter.
Mary Marth ’96 (psych) is a grad student at Alliant International University: CA School of Professional Psychology. She lives in Fremont, CA, with her husband Erik
Robert N. Carlson ’96 (crim just) has promoted to chief of police for the City of Lester Prairie, MN. Congratulations, Bob!
Jason Geir ’97 (mgt) lives in Fargo, ND, where he works for Fargo’s Finest Auto Body.
Aaron Davis ’97 (phil) is an attorney in Minneapolis, MN, where he lives with his wife Gail. Aaron says he is a “proud member of the Old Order of Owls.”
Darci Jo Mohr ’97 (mass com) lives in Willmar, MN, with her husband Jarret. She works for the International Diabetes Center, writing brochures and designing newsletters and the website.
Brad Maczkowicz ’97 (bus admin) is an account manager for Techwise Solutions. He and his wife Teresa and their daughter live in West Fargo, ND.
Kristin Green ’98 (soc st) and John Ratigan ’95 (music) are beginning a two-year stint in British Columbia working for the development and relief agency of North American Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches.
Mark Huesman ’98 (mass com) has joined G. L. Ness Agency as a graphic designer. He lives in Barnesville, MN, with his wife Miranda.
Nicole Wright ’99 (MIS) lives in Minnetonka, MN, where she works for Cargill Animal Nutrition as an IT business analyst.
Katie Rouw ’99 (elem ed) teaches for the Minneapolis Urban League. She lives in Minnetonka, MN.
Erik Ellis ’99 (anthropology) and Kelly Berg ’01 (mass com/sociology) were married in July and are living in St. Paul, MN. Kelly is attending graduate school at the Univ. of Minnesota and Erik works for IKON Office Solutions.
Harleigh Brown ’99 (pol sci) lives in St. Paul, MN, where he recently graduated magna cum laude from Hamline University School of Law. He has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study the strengths and weaknesses of European Union data privacy directives at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Brussels, Belgium.
‘00s
Suzanne Torchiani ’00 (com hlth) and her husband Renzo, live in Stafford, VA, where she works for the Dept of Health and Human Services/ Indian Health Service as a HR Specialist. She assisted at the Pentagon as Emergency Medical Services during 9/11. She was living in Alexandria, VA, four miles from the Pentagon at the time.
Katie Miller ’00 (span ed) lives in Hutchinson, MN, where she works for Hutchinson Public Schools as an ESL teacher. She says, “this is my first year of teaching and I’m excited for the second.”
Marisa Larsen ’01 (crim just) is a senior loan counselor at Homecomings Financial in San Diego, CA, where she lives.
Loretta Pender Baston ’01 (univ st) lives in Arlington, TX, with her three children. She is an engineering data system specialist for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company.
Attended
Rick Petermann ’74-’75 lives in Stilwell, KS, where he works as an air traffic controller for the Federal Aviation Administration. He and his wife Kathy have two sons.
Retired Faculty
Iletta Holmam taught at MSUM from 1950-55. She has been active in retired teachers and arts groups in both North Dakota and Minnesota and has received several honors for her work in painting and public service, including a bronze medal from France for her exhibit in Paris. She lives in Edina, MN, where she recently celebrated her 98th birthday. Way to go, Iletta!

Higher education is expensive.  In Minnesota, it consumes about ten percent of the state budget.  Unfortunately, news stories about public higher education spending don’t usually mention the value returned to the state.  A new report on the impact of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System found that for every dollar spent by the state, $6.28 was returned.  Most of the return came from the increased productivity of Minnesota’s workforce*.

The looming revenue shortfall overshadows the benefits of education spending and focuses attention on strategies to balance the state ledger. Unfortunately, that may result in further erosion of state support.  A generation ago, Minnesota ranked fourth in the nation in tax effort for higher education, today it ranks 20th. The trend for many years—including boom years-- was a decrease in the state’s percentage share of instructional costs.  Students and their families paid more.

Here are numbers from the current fiscal cycle: The appropriation to our campus from the State of Minnesota totals $30,806,075, which provides $4,616 in state support for each full-time student. The tuition payments from our students total $20,650,698, with each full-time student contributing $3,094.  (Full-time= 30 semester credit hours per academic year.)

             Tuition:                  $20,650,698        40%          $3,094
          + Appropriation:      $30,806,075        60%          $4,616

             Annual Total:         $51,456,773      100%         $7,710

Even though Minnesota Statute 135A.031 requires the state to pay two-thirds of the cost of educating each student, the student share is now 40% and seems destined to increase.

As we go to press, the best estimates of Minnesota’s projected red ink for the next budget cycle exceed three billion dollars.  That’s about ten percent of the total, which is where this column started.  The bottom line for students is written in red ink, too.  MSU Moorhead’s costs are among the lowest in the state, yet the average debt for members of the class of 2002 was a sobering $17,369 dollars.  That should worry policy makers.

This challenge must be met.  Accessible higher education is essential for the economic security of Minnesota and the nation.  If students forgo college because the price tag is too high, our short-term budget crisis will become a long-term disaster.
 

*The Economic Impact of Minnesota’s State Colleges and Universities; Anton, Lubov & Associates, Inc.; August 2002.

Photographer Wayne Gudmundson and art historian Robert Silberman, collaborated in putting together the incredible history of The Garrison Diversion Project. “The Promise of Water” is now available in local bookstores, selling for  $19.95 hardback or $12.95 soft cover.

Gudmundson, a North Dakota native whose photographs are included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, teaches mass communications at Minnesota State University Moorhead. Silberman, senior advisor for the PBS series “American Photography: A Century of Images,” is an art historian at the University of Minnesota.

Their simple, straightforward documentary about a complicated, convoluted and controversial government juggernaut cuts through perceptions, propaganda and public relations. Pealing away the obfuscations and exaggerations of proponents and opponents alike, this book demonstrates once again that a camel is just a horse designed by committee.

“The Promise of Water” is a classic fable about self-interest vs. the common good and the abiding dissonance between utopian visions and reality

Once such an innocent and promising concept—destined to save North Dakota family farms by diverting Missouri River water to irrigate croplands in the dry western and central parts of the state??it collapsed under the weight of special interests, greed, hyperbole, wishful thinking and common sense.

A noble and well-meaning concept when it first surface around the time North Dakota became a state, the Garrison Diversion Project has since been called “the dog of all water projects” by a Secretary of the Interior and “lunatic” by Reader’s Digest in an article titled ”Half a Billion Dollars Down the Drain.” The Audubon Society had a more clever heading for its critique of the project: “Dr. Strangelove Builds a Canal.”

Currently in remission, this titanic government project has created so many negative vibes that government bureaucrats opted to change its name to The Water Resources Act.

What’s so compelling about “The Promise of Water” is the contrast of power, politics and promise surrounding the project, detailed in Siberman’s essay, set against the stark black and white realities of Gudmundson’s photographs, which capture dead-end canals, unfinished business, and a scared, isolated landscape that mirrors the muddle that surrounds the Garrison Diversion Project.

Minnesota hunters, meanwhile, will kill more than 52,500 deer this season in wolf range.

Fair enough.

Out west, where reintroduced wolves are often likened to varmints, this might spark a heated discussion. Not necessarily in the Gopher State.

“I believe wolves are a less contentious issue in Minnesota because they’ve never left the state,” says Liz Harper, 1994 MSUM biology major who’s now an information specialist for The International Wolf Center headquartered in Ely, Minn. Established in 1985, it’s the world's premier organization dedicated solely to wolf conservation.

While an estimated 2 million wolves once roamed North America, the population dwindled to between 300 and 700 by 1963. The only wolves left, she said, were relegated to a small part of Minnesota’s north woods and Isle Royale in Michigan.

“Having a top carnivore in the state is good for the eco-system,” said Harper, a 31-year-old Fargo native. “That’s why you won’t find a starving deer in Minnesota wolf range.”

Wolves tend to cull the sick, the old and the very young, she said, gradually improving the overall health of deer population and eventually helping both prey and predator become better adapted for survival.

The big, bad wolf of folklore—a sinister beast that howled at the moon and terrorized the wilderness of our imagination??has morphed into a symbol of America’s vanishing wilderness.

As a result, Minnesota, home to the largest wolf population among the continuous 48 states, is gradually accepting the realities of wolf preservation.

But not all that atavistic rancor is gone, partly because of a lingering problem of livestock depredation. “White-tail deer are the primary prey of wolves,” Harper said. “But livestock depredation is inevitable as wolves drift closer to human development.”

While only about one percent of the 7,000-plus farms in Minnesota wolf range ever experience a loss from wolf depredation, she said, it can become a huge financial burden added to all the other problems farmers face.

Harper, a co-author with world-renowned wolf biologist Dr. David Mech on a research project examining wolf depredation on Minnesota farms, says diseases and other natural causes do much more damage to livestock.

But wolves, so darkly imprinted in our subconscious, tend to elicit more heated headlines and emotions.

When Harper gathered data for the study in 1999, 87 farms that year registered 113 verified complaints of wolf depredation and received nearly $67,000 in compensation for their losses (up to $750 per animal by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture).

Not shocking numbers.

But since 1973, when the federal government first declared Minnesota’s wolf population endangered, livestock depredation has gradually increased.

It’s unlikely to get better. The state’s wolf population, Harper said, is growing 3 to 5 percent a year.

“Minnesota wolves are expanding their territory south and west, and they’re getting closer to larger  populations of livestock,” she said. “In the 1960s, wolf range occupied about 12,000 square miles in the north and northeastern part of the state. Now, according to Department of Natural Resources estimates, it encompasses nearly 34,000 square miles.”

That covers nearly the entire northeast third of the state.

Wolves, she said, are apparently more adaptable than we thought.

“It now appears that wolves can survive anywhere there is sufficient food and human tolerance. Protecting the wolves and farmers will be an ongoing balancing act between the realities of human development and the survival of a species.”

But that growth might have at least one unexpected benefit:  Wolves could play a part in controlling the possibility of chronic wasting disease (CWD) infecting Minnesota’s deer population. “This is just theoretical,” she said, “Wolves aren’t affected by the disease, but deer who are will be easy prey for them.”

CWD is a fatal brain and nervous system disease found in elk and deer in certain parts of North America. It was recently discovered in a single captive elk in Aitkin County, Minnesota. While the disease has not been detected in Minnesota’s wild deer population, it has been found in wild or captive animals in South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Montana, Wisconsin, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

“Little Red Riding Hood” and “The Three Little Pigs” weren’t exactly PR pieces for the preservation of wolves. Nor were the horror movies “The Wolf Man” and “The American Werewolf in London.” A new CBS series, “Wolf Lake,” a spooky look at a town partly populated by people who "shape shift" into wolves at night, continues the myth.

To counteract some of those primal fears, The International Wolf Center supports wolf preservation through a variety of educational programs, including a quarterly magazine, which Harper helps write and edit. Its educational facility in Ely, which maintains a captive pack of five hand-raised wolves, gets nearly 50,000 visitors a year. The Center also offers tourist packages, including winter dogsled adventures in wolf country.

Harper joined Mech’s staff at the University of Minnesota as a volunteer after graduating from MSUM in 1994. Mech, who’s studied wolves and their prey for more than 40 years, is a senior research scientist with the United States Geological Survey and an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota.

Harper kept in contact with Mech after leaving to pursue research for the Smithsonian Institution on small mammals in Virginia. She joined the International Wolf Center staff two years ago after she returned for her master’s degree at the U of M. For her thesis, she’s analyzing the effectiveness of government controlled trapping and killing of wolvesthat have killed livestock..

Since the first wolf bounty was established in 1630 by Massachusetts, wolves have been poisoned, trapped and shot to near extinction by settlers moving west.

The federal government, which now protects wolves, established a law in 1915 to exterminate wolves from federal land. It was in effect through 1942. And as recently as 1965, even Minnesota paid a bounty on wolves.

The 1973 Endangered Species Act, Harper said, gave legal protection to Minnesota wolves, even from federal agents. During the next four years, troublesome wolves were trapped and relocated, a technique that proved ineffective as a long-term solution to depredation.

In 1978, she said, the federal government, under intense lobbying, down-listed wolves in Minnesota from “endangered” to “threatened,” a change that allowed federal agents to trap and kill depredating wolves.

Bill Paul, another MSUM biology graduate, is a district supervisor for the United States Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program in Minnesota, where he coordinates the controlled trapping and killing of depredating wolves for the federal government. On average, Paul and his staff kill 150 to 175 wolves a year that are suspected of preying on Minnesota livestock.

Harper recently was part of a legislative funded research team (that included wolf biologist David Mech and Bill Paul) looking into the possibility that wolf depredation may be influenced by the husbandry practices of farmers.

“They may not be as much of a factor as once was believed,” she said. “We looked at several husbandry practices and other farm related factors. But we couldn’t find a single husbandry practice that, if changed, would be certain to prevent wolf depredation.”

Just as frustrating, non-lethal deterrents used to protect livestock from coyotes aren’t very effective with wolves. Using guard animals like llamas and donkeys, with inherent aversion to canids (dog family), doesn’t work well because wolves can killed them.

“Electric fences have potential,” Harper said, “but they’d have to be so large that the economics wouldn’t be practical.”

Even an old European hunting technique called fladry, or flagging—based on the theory that hanging rows of closely spaced flags along a rope-line could direct wolves away from livestock—failed. “When it was tried in Minnesota,” Harper said, “the cows ate the flags.”

What the public is gradually understanding, she said, is that if we want to coexist with wolves, we’ll have to consider them—like the weather and changing consumer tastes??part of the cost of doing business.

“Sure, I think wolves are ‘cool’ animals,” Harper said. “But I also understand why some farmers and hunters don’t want to coexist with wolves. And I realize that some of the most vocal supporters of the wolf population in Minnesota are people who don’t live around wolves.”

But beyond that, she said, wolves are ultimately a natural part of a healthy eco-system.

“Look what happened when wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park from Canada (which has a wolf population of 50,000 to 60,000),” she said. “There were no breeding wolves there until the 1995 reintroduction.”

Since then, wolves have killed up to 50 percent of the coyotes, but have also helped increase the populations of countless other species that feed on the remains of wolf kills, including bald eagles and grizzly bears. And by controlling the population of deer and elk, Yellowstone saw an increase in a variety of native plants, including willows, which were nearly eliminated by the bloating elk population. In turn, increased vegetation can lead to an increase in other animal populations, such as birds.

“It’s a trickle-down effect,” she said. “Overall biodiversity increased.”

The gray wolf is a carnivore with a large appetite, Harper said.  On average, a wolf needs to eat about five pounds of meat a day. But with a feast or famine lifestyle, a wolf might not eat for several days, then “wolf down” 20 pounds of meat in one sitting. That’s comparable to a 100-pound kid eating 80 quarter-pounders for lunch.

A group of lawmakers in Montana, where introduced wolves haven’t always gotten a fine reception, recently sent a letter to the governor of the state warning about the consequences of introducing wolves into Yellowstone National Park. One of their comments: “…the distinct thing about the wolf is??it’s a killing machine and a breeding machine all rolled into one.”

But wolves are neither malevolent monsters nor cuddly pets.

“The wolf has gotten a bad rap because it’s big, it competes with humans for food and it’s deeply ingrained in our folklore and myth,” Harper said. “What we also know is that wolves are part of nature’s grand balancing act, like most plants and animals. And learning to co-exist with them is ultimately in our best interest.”

To learn more about the myths and realities of wolves, visit The International Wolf Center web site at www.wolf.org

The Phonathon’s goal is to raise $200,000 to support MSUM programs, scholarships and grants. With recent tuition increases, Judy Peterson, director of Annual Giving at the MSUM Alumni Foundation, noted the Phonathon is now more important then ever.

While the Phonathon supports more than scholarships; it is a crucial source of funding for a variety of MSUM programs, institutions and events, including: The Performing Arts Series, Dragon Athletics, MSUM Honor Bands and Choirs, and the New Center Writing Awards, among others.

Cconsider a gift to help our students succeed!  For more information contact Judy Peterson at (218) 236-2093 or call the Alumni Foundation at (218) 236-3265.

Invitations to specific reunions will be mailed out about one month prior to the event. For alumni reunions invitations will be sent to all alumni in the state where the reunion is held, plus anyone else within a 100 mile radius. If you live outside the specific invitation area but want to attend a reunion, let us know and we’ll be sure you get an invitation. For department events, invitations will be sent to alumni with those majors. For further information call toll free 1-877-270-2586 or e-mail alumni@mnstate.edu.

With the stock market and interest rates falling considerably over the past two years, planning for the future has become a challenge.  For people who want to ensure their financial security, yet leave a significant legacy for the future by establishing an endowed scholarship, a charitable gift annuity may be just the way to accomplish their goals.

A gift annuity is a simple agreement between an individual, known as the annuitant, and the MSUM Alumni Foundation whereby the donor transfers assets to the Alumni Foundation in exchange for a lifetime annuity.   At the end of the donor’s lifetime, the principal amount of the gift that was donated to establish the annuity now becomes the basis for the endowed scholarship.  Consequently, instead of an annual amount going to the annuitant, it now provides the annual scholarship amount and is awarded to a deserving student.  By establishing an endowed scholarship through a gift annuity, the donor accomplishes two things: (1) a guaranteed, fixed income for the rest their life, and another individual, if they choose, and (2) establishing an endowed scholarship in their name.

Gift Annuity Benefits

Gift annuities offer a number of benefits:
* High interest rates
* Charitable tax deduction
* Partially tax-free income
* Partial avoidance of capital gains tax when funded by appreciated property

Annuity rates are based on the age of the annuitant(s) and if the agreement is for one or two lifetimes.  Generally, annuity agreements are more appealing to older donors because of the guaranteed security they offer.  In addition to the annuity interest rate, other benefits of the gift annuity are that much of the annuity payment is tax-free, and the donor receives a generous tax deduction.  When all of the financial benefits of a gift annuity are considered, the effective rate is much higher than the annuity rate.  Listed below are examples of all the benefits of a $50,000 single and two-life annuity agreements of donors in the 27% tax bracket:

Single Life Gift Annuity Rates and Benefits

 Annuity        Annual       Tax-Free        Tax
Age Rate      Annuity Amount   Portion  Deduction       Effective Rate
55 6.0%         $3,000              $1,527     $7,074                  7.41%
60 6.4%         $3,200              $1,734         $8,907              8.07%
65 6.7%         $3,350              $1,943       $12,123              8.71%
70 7.2%         $3,600              $2,254       $15,065              9.65%
75 7.9%         $3,950              $2,670       $17,980            10.94%
80 8.9%          $4,450              $3,226       $20,950            12.73%
8510.4%        $5,200              $4,128       $23,585            15.42%
 

Two-Life Gift Annuity Rates

Younger            Annuity         Annual            Tax-Free          Tax           Effective
   Age             Annuity Amount     Portion       Deduction        Rate
   55                 5.37%         $2,685                 $1,326         $5,047           6.53%
   60               5.84%           $2,920                 $1,539         $5,069           7.17%
   65               6.30%           $3,150                 $1,783         $6,288           7.89%
   70                6.60%           $3,300                 $2,006         $9,684           8.53%
   75               7.00%           $3,500                 $2,289       $13,382           9.37%
   80                7.70%          $3,850                 $2,707       $16,696         10.66%
   85               8.70%            $4,350                 $3,297       $19,980         12.49%

How the Endowed Scholarship is started

Upon the death of the annuitant in a single-life annuity, or the second life in a two-life annuity, the remaining gift amount that initiated the gift annuity now becomes the basis for the endowed scholarship.  Instead of the annuity payment going to the annuitant, it now provides the annual scholarship amount that is awarded to a worthy student.

Mary Jones Dilemma and Solution

Mary Jones is an 80 year-old elementary education graduate of Minnesota State University Moorhead.  Mary taught elementary education in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, for 45 years before her retirement.  Mary was planning on establishing a $50,000 endowed scholarship for students from Fergus Falls, who are majoring in elementary education with a $50,000 CD that is coming due in the near future.  But with the uncertainly of the present economic situation, she’s a bit reluctant to make an outright gift. On the other hand, she’s disappointed with the three percent interest rate she’d receive if she renewed her CD.

When talking to a member of the Alumni Foundation staff, Mary learned how she could solve her dilemma through a charitable gift annuity.  By establishing a gift annuity, Mary would receive an annual annuity payment of $4,450 of which $3,226 is tax-free.  In addition, because Mary itemizes her tax return, she’ll be able to take advantage of a $20,950 charitable deduction.  When she takes into account of the benefits she’ll receive by establishing a charitable gift annuity, Mary’s effective rate of return is 12.73%, more than four times the return she’d receive from a three percent CD.

During the remainder of her lifetime, Mary knows that she’ll receive a guaranteed income from her annuity without the burden of having to continually manage her funds.  Mary also has a sense of pride in knowing that upon her death, she leaves a legacy in the form of the Mary Jones Endowed Scholarship that will assist Fergus Falls' students in becoming elementary education teachers.

To receive personal analysis about establishing an endowed scholarship through a charitable gift annuity, fill out the form below and mail it to Dennis Aune, Minnesota State University Moorhead, MSUM Box 68, Moorhead, MN  56563.

Name(s) __________________________

Address____________________

City________________________  Zip Code______________

Birthdate of first annuitant:____________________

Birthdate of second annuitant:___________________

Amount of Gift Annuity:  $_____________________