CLU Magazine - August 2016

CALIFORNIA LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY

AUGUST 2016

CLUMAGAZINE OLYMPIAN’S INSPIRATION 2 PARALYMPIAN’S NEW MARK 12 FEARLESS IN SEATTLE 16 SUMMERS WITH THE COWBOYS 20 RELAX, TEGUCIGALPA 34

EVERYDAY

HEROES

SIMON HURST PHOTOGRAPHY

Out in Front

Stephen Lambdin, Olympian and past victim of bullying, has heroes Taekwondo at the highest level calls for an open mind. “It’s a sport where you get immediate feedback,” says Stephen Lambdin ’11, one of just two men and four team members who will represent the United States at the Olympics in the relatively new event. “If you go into the ring with a game plan and it’s the wrong game plan, you find out extremely quick.”

The high-kicking Korean martial art also requires courage, particularly in Lambdin’s heavyweight classification without a weight cap. “I could fight somebody who’s 190 pounds and 6 feet tall, or I could fight China’s Olympic team member who is 260 pounds and 7-foot-2.”

All of the matches will start and finish on Aug. 20 in Rio de Janeiro. Check your local TV listings. At the end of that day, Lambdin will be in a position to appraise his accomplishments in the 22 years since his parents gave into his “harassment” and enrolled him in classes. There was a taekwondo center across the street from the restaurant where he blew out candles on his sixth birthday.

» Christian faith buoyed him through early losses. (“I was never the guy who was supposed to make it happen. I was always too short, I was too slow, I wasn’t strong enough.”) His renews his strength with the Bible verse Isaiah 40:31 about “they that wait upon the Lord ...; they shall mount up with wings as eagles….”

» Now 6-foot-2 and 245 pounds, Lambdin was a shorter-than-average child and “chubby.” He got picked on back then in Colleyville, Texas, a suburb on the Fort Worth side of DFW airport.

“I pretty thoroughly identified with people who would be capable of protecting themselves and protecting others.”

At first, that meant Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

» Seeking a boost in mental fitness, he traveled to Poland last year to attend a training camp with “the Iceman” Wim Hof, a Dutchman who is famous for feats like record-long baths in ice water. Lambdin jumped from a waterfall into frigid water and climbed 5,200-foot Mount Snezka in the wind and cold of December, wearing only shorts.

» “As I got older, I’d say my taste in heroes became a little more realistic.” He loves LeBron James and Peyton Manning because of their dominance on the court and field, but also because they have big hearts and give freely to charity.

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» His parents both come from humble backgrounds and used to struggle financially. Once when he needed to get to a taekwondo tournament, they both sold their wedding rings to pay for the trip. » Another reason his mother is a hero to him, today, is her toughness during chemotherapy. She has a rare form of cancer. “Her ability to battle through this definitely has made it a lot easier for me to focus on training.”

I’ve always had a pretty keen sense of right and wrong.

» His favorite college professor is Helen Lim of the Criminal Justice Department. “She just always really encouraged us to try to see the situation or concept from all angles.” He says that helped him navigate the “super-political” process of Olympic team selection, in

which the national squad of eight men gets winnowed down to two. » After Lambdin retires from competition, he plans to apply to law school.

He transferred to Cal Lutheran in 2008 because of the strong criminal justice program. “If you ask my parents, I’ve always had a pretty keen sense of right and wrong. My end goal has always been to work in prosecution.”

Lambdin won five collegiate national championships in taekwondo, a record, and represented Cal Lutheran for two of them. He won silver at the Pan American Games in Mexico in June. He trains in Edmond, Oklahoma, with USA Taekwondo coach Jason Poos.

CLUMAGAZINE BRIAN STETHEM ’84

PUBLISHER

Lynda Paige Fulford, M.P.A. ’97 EDITOR

Kevin Matthews ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Peggy L. Johnson ART DIRECTOR

Bree Berri CONTRIBUTORS

Colleen Cason, Melanie Fishman, Karin Grennan, Matt Mills McKnight, Tracy Olson PHOTOGRAPHERS

Michael DeTerra Tracy Olson Brian Stethem ’84 EDITORIAL BOARD

Erik Diaz, M.F.A. Sophia Fischer Rachel Ronning ’99 Lindgren Angela (Moller ’96) Naginey, M.S. ’03

AUGUST 2016 2 4

OUT IN FRONT HUMANS OF CAL LUTHERAN

Student storytellers peel back a few layers of campus life.

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HIGHLIGHTS

LA Rams moving in • NCAA gold in javelin, again • Climate, fair trade pacts inked • $1 million for KCLU.

Michaela (Crawford ’79) Reaves, Ph.D. Jean Kelso ’84 Sandlin, M.P.A. ’90, Ed.D. ’12 Bruce Stevenson ’80, Ph.D.

16 HE BATTLES FOR SOUTH SEATTLE

Marcus Green ’05 lends a voice to his lifelong neighbors.

Stacy (Reuss ’91) Swanson Colleen Windham-Hughes, Ph.D. VOLUME 24, NUMBER 1

Copyright 2016. Published three times a year by University Relations

20 SUMMERS STARRING DALLAS

When the NFL’s Cowboys made camp in Thousand Oaks, from 1963 to 1989, they made memories.

24 CLASS NOTES

for alumni, parents and friends. The views expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of Cal Lutheran or the magazine staff.

CORRESPOND WITH US

CLU Magazine California Lutheran University 60 W. Olsen Road #1800

9

IN MEMORIAM

33 MILESTONES

Thousand Oaks, CA 91360-2787 805-493-3151 clumag@callutheran.edu

10 A GOOD, ONE-SIDED FRIENDSHIP

How to make "parasocial" friends and influence your image of self.

34 VOCATIONS

Let go of expectations and peace fills the void, writes Alexa Boldt ’14.

35 LINKS

Josh Gray ’15 finds his first real job at the White House.

phone number, city and state, and

When requesting removal from our distribution list, please include your

ON THE COVER

14 WORKING LATE AT 1600 PENN AVE

CLU Magazine welcomes letters to the editor. Please include your name, note Cal Lutheran graduation years.

12 Q&A: CODY JONES

The Paralympic javelin thrower sets himself an ambitious new target.

CalLutheran.edu/magazine

Outgoing student body president Evan Carthen ’16 is bound for law school. He hopes to fight crime from a district attorney’s office – unless he ends up working in the movie business. Meet more everyday heroes throughout this issue.

Photograph by Brian Stethem ’84.

name and address as they appear on the mailing label.

To submit a Class Note and photos for publication, write to us or visit CalLutheran.edu/alumni. Click on the links labeled Stay Connected and Share Your News. We hope you’ll request an alumni flag and share photos of your travels with it.

CLU Magazine welcomes ideas for articles and nominations for Vocations alumni essays (see Page 34).

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Stories that fill 225 acres Taking a page from a well-known New York storytelling project, Humans of Cal Lutheran wants to introduce you to today’s T. O. campus and those who populate it.

A group of 15 to 20 undergraduates produces Humans of Cal Lutheran without guidance from a university course or a faculty member, developing its own ethics of storytelling along the way.

“We want people who may not have their voices heard be heard through our interviews and through the quotes and pictures,” said Allyssa Moscotte, a junior majoring in multimedia and the project’s founder.

Modeled on Humans of New York, an interview-based blog by photographer Brandon Stanton with millions of followers on Facebook alone, the Cal Lutheran project was launched in February.

Moscotte recruited students in unrelated majors and different social circles to work on it. After consulting with peers who run Humans projects at UCLA, Boston University and Villanova University, she established a system for filing posts and divided her staff into teams for interviews, post-editing, social media and marketing.

The Campus Diversity Initiative supported Humans with a $500 minigrant, which has been used to buy memory cards for photos, and the Multimedia Department loaned out two digital cameras.

The students have tried to learn from the flaws of similar projects.

“I definitely did not want to talk about the sad stories and the sufferings of people’s lives all the time. I feel like there are happy moments in our lives and there are sad moments and there are funny moments,” said Moscotte.

Humans of Cal Lutheran has some special quirks, such as running two or three posts a day on the same person. The first photo often leaves the identity of the interview subject a mystery by focusing on a bracelet or shoes or the person’s back. Fans are used to this, said Ricky Mendoza, a junior exercise science major and the head of transcription for Humans.

“They’re waiting for the first picture of the day to figure out who it is,” he said.

Photographer-interviewers like junior physics major Dominic Lunde seek out diverse students, neighborhood residents and others to include in the project. He works up the courage to stop people and ask them personal questions for five or 15 minutes. Humans staffers give interviewees the right not to share their thoughts on sensitive topics, even waiting for approval before publishing.

The project exists to “show who Cal Lutheran is – more than anyone can just discover themselves,” Lunde said. “It’s kind of like you’re ripping open Cal Lu and you’re looking into it.”

For the stories, follow Humans of Cal Lutheran on Facebook or Instagram.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF HUMANS OF CAL LUTHERAN/LARGER IMAGE BY EMILY YOSHIDA

AUGUST 2016

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Highlights

FOR LA RETURN, RAMS BUILD TEMPORARY IN-SEASON TRAINING CAMP UNDER CLU ROCKS The NFL team will leave behind infrastructure improvements when it departs within five years.

Shot on June 10 by video producer Michael DeTerra, the photo shows the LA Rams’ construction crew’s early progress on outdoor practice fields and foundations for temporary indoor facilities. Fencing will separate the private NFL training site from the Kingsmen and Regals' sports facilities and the campus.

A

bout five acres at the far north end of campus are going behind a fence. Under a deal announced in March, the National Football League’s Los Angeles Rams will use the area for a private training compound for at least the next two seasons. There may be sports celebrity sightings in Cal Lutheran’s future, but no public summer spectacles like the ones the Dallas Cowboys hosted on campus in days of old (see Page 20).

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One hundred thirty Rams players, coaches and trainers have yet to arrive, but as this magazine went to press, modular buildings totaling more than 50,000 square feet of floor space were rolling onto the site located a little north of the softball and baseball fields. While the team waits for a permanent training facility to be built elsewhere, it will have coaches’ offices, locker rooms, a weight room and outdoor fields on campus. The Rams’ corporate offices, meanwhile, are moving to Agoura Hills.

For big events like Commencement 2017, Cal Lutheran will have the use of a

parking lot now being built by the Rams.

The university also expects to partner with the returning NFL team to offer student internships and occasional speaking events. Finally, when the team departs no later than 2021, it will leave behind infrastructure for new campus facilities.

In addition to the Cowboys’ summer training camps held from 1963 to 1989, Cal Lutheran in the past has hosted the 2008 and 2012 U.S. Olympic men’s water polo teams in Samuelson Aquatics Center as well as events with USA Team Handball and Los Angeles Lightning professional basketball.

News briefs

treatment program, Jacoby plans to begin Cal Lutheran’s master’s degree program in marriage and family therapy in the fall.

CLIMATE, FAIR TRADE COMMITMENTS

$1 MILLION GIFT TO KCLU A Westlake Village couple, contributors to KCLU Radio since it debuted in 1994, The university is beginning work on a formal plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to climate change, as a new signatory of the Second Nature climate commitment (see secondnature.org).

Religion professor Sam Thomas joined President Chris Kimball in

now have donated $1 million to support and expand the National Public Radio affiliate’s award-winning news department. The Linda and Dennis Fenton KCLU Radio News Endowment will be used to hire personnel and enhance equipment, programming and production. The Fentons, New York natives, moved to California in 1982 to become two of the early employees of Amgen when it was a biotechnology startup. Linda became a KCLU member during its inaugural fundraising drive and joined the Advisory Board this March. KCLU has received more than 200 awards for its local news coverage and consistently wins more awards than any other Southern California station with a small staff. In June, competing against reporters at small stations in 13 western states, news director Lance Orozco received the Pat Davis Reporter of the Year honor from the Associated Press for the 10th time. A listenerBRIAN STETHEM ’84

RECORD NUMBER OF GRADS A record 860 students graduated from Cal Lutheran this year with bachelor’s degrees at Commencement on May 14, including 78 from the Bachelor’s Degree for Professionals program. A day earlier, the university conferred 553 master’s degrees and 29 doctorates. Speaking for her fellow Professionals graduates was Pia Jacoby, 69 (pictured above right), a Camarillo grandmother who finished high school in the Valley 51 years ago.

Because of a family member’s struggle with drugs, she eventually discovered a passion for helping families torn apart by addiction. Currently an intake specialist for an alcohol and drug abuse

signing the agreement at Campus Community Day on May 18, following a recommendation from Cal Lutheran’s Sustainability Committee and positive comments from the Board of Regents. Separately, in the culmination of a three-year campaign

by Students for Fair Trade, Kimball earlier in May signed an agreement making Cal Lutheran the nation’s 36th fair trade campus (see fairtradeuniversities.org). “The impact of fair trade goes way beyond buying certified products. For instance, when we buy a Fair Trade certified chocolate bar, we are ensuring less child slavery, which many mass-market chocolate companies have been caught participating in over the most recent years,” says Jessamine Gilman-Vorm ’16, who led the campaign for a full year leading up to the signing.

supported community service of Cal Lutheran, the station reaches Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

ART CENTER ON SCHEDULE

Work officially has begun on the William Rolland Art Center next to the stadium and gallery named for the same university benefactor. The real estate developer and art collector donated half of the $8 million needed to provide a single home for studio arts, digital art, design and commercial art, and art history programs, which have been scattered in some of the oldest structures still standing on campus.

The Art and Multimedia departments expect to move in by the fall of 2017.

SHAKESPEARE+400 CELEBRATION For 24 hours starting on April 23 – 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare – all comers to campus enjoyed Shakespearethemed fun sponsored

by Cal Lutheran’s professional theater company. Activities included yoga, an acting workshop and AUGUST 2016

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News briefs

BRIAN STETHEM ’84

Continued from Page 7

a midnight reading of Macbeth complete with birthday cake – since tradition gives the playwright’s date of birth as April 23, 1564. On the 24th, cast members of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (shown above) gave a full reading of the play that they’ll stage Friday through Sunday evenings this July 15-31. (Come out and see it!) This year marks the Kingsmen Shakespeare Company’s 20th season.

DANCE TEAM TAKES NATIONAL AWARD Competing against four-year schools in Divisions II and III at the United Spirit Association (USA) Collegiate Championships in Anaheim this March – “nationals” for competitive dance – the Cal Lutheran Dance Team won second prize in the hip hop category.

It’s a major win and a first in the history of the team, which choreographs its own routines and gets by on its own fundraising.

Learn more at cludance. weebly.com.

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INTERFAITH CONFERENCE HOSTED The university hosted a major academic gathering for thinkers in the field of interfaith studies over three days in March. Sponsored

by Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, the event looked at new models of education about the deepest beliefs of members of our society, whether or not those are based in religious traditions.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY CLUB WINS AWARD Eight members of the President’s Council on Honor and Integrity, a student-led organization that promotes academic honesty at Cal Lutheran, and the two School of Management professors who serve as its advisers won the student-centered research award at the International Center for Academic Integrity conference this February in Albuquerque.

Their presentation included an original video.

LONGTIME MUSIC PROFESSOR RETIRES After 32 years spent directing and performing in hundreds of concerts on campus, teaching music history and appreciation, saxophone, clarinet and the Music and Culture course for non-majors, running the First Year Experience program, and promoting Cal Lutheran as a regional cultural center through leadership of the Artists and Speakers Committee, to list a few of his services, music professor Daniel Geeting has retired.

This April, he received the annual President’s Award for Teaching Excellence, selected by a committee of past honorees.

TRACY OLSON

Highlights

HADLEY’S TURN AS NATIONAL CHAMP Allie Hadley ’16 won her NCAA Division III title in javelin the way you’d dream of doing it: by a meter and a half and on the first throw.

“I was hungrier this year to get that national championship than any other year. Knowing I only had one more chance was what fired me up,” she said at the championship meet on May 28 in Waverly, Iowa. She had graduated two weeks earlier with a bachelor’s degree in exercise science.

Hadley’s gold medal–winning game plan?

Relax and enjoy the moment. The warm day and a slight tail wind came to her aid, not to mention guidance from coaches, including Justin Puccinelli ’13, and years of persistence.

The first Cal Lutheran student-athlete to win NCAA Division III All-America honors four times, she advanced to nationals all four years and was the runner-up in javelin in 2014.

Britlyn Garrett ’12 won NCAA gold in the same event four years ago, right after earning her degree, so there’s been no dry spell for Cal Lutheran.

OVERHEARD Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams “and our defensive coordinator have been talking for two weeks now,” Cal Lutheran head football coach Ben McEnroe ’93, M.A. ’99, explained to the Ventura County Star on June 10.

“The challenge is to cut [NFL-style practices] down and not try to do everything, to find the things that we can apply to our system and our practices. We’ve already started to do that. It’s been a win for us.”

BRIAN STETHEM ’84

Painted tributes Artists Jerry Sawitz ’74 (left) and David Paul DeMars, Class of ’73, didn’t just assist in organizing an alumni exhibition in honor of two admired late mentors. Both also contributed portraits, one each of John Solem and Jerry Slattum, that they’d painted for the families of professors emeriti whose deaths in 2014 ended an era for graduates in art. Sawitz consulted with Solem’s wife, Gloria, on the right pose for his former teacher and close friend: “She wanted him portrayed as if he were evaluating someone’s artwork and getting ready to say something.”

Lea Lamp ’73 led the effort to bring together 275 works by the two former professors and 68 alumni – living as far away as Norway, Germany, Hawaii and the East Coast – for the June show at the Thousand Oaks Community Gallery. A reception on Father’s Day drew 40 of the artists and about 300 people, she said.

In Memoriam Harry Grover McCracken

Dec. 12, 1942 – March 17, 2016 Praised for his welcoming teaching style, emphasis on critical thinking, wisdom and humor, Harry McCracken, 73, taught graduate business law and business ethics courses as a senior adjunct professor for the School of Management from 1989 to 2015.

He enjoyed acting and is known for his role as narrator of the 2012 animated short The Adventures of Gilbert the Goofball.

McCracken is survived by daughters Lisa Oakley and Michele Frost, stepdaughter Alyssa Fry and grandson Krystofer Fry. Memorial gifts may be sent to CLU’s Violet and Gold Scholarship, University Advancement Office. For information, contact Lana Clark at 805-493-3162 or lclark@callutheran.edu.

Carl Terzian

Oct. 22, 1935 – March 19, 2016 A lifelong active member of the Lutheran church, Carl Terzian, 80, served as a regent from 1979 to 1985 and helped to establish a scholarship to provide support to students in public relations and marketing.

As founder and chairman of Carl Terzian Associates, a public relations firm in Los Angeles, he counseled thousands of clients for 55 years, including Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, philanthropist Norton Simon, singer Barry Manilow and Gov. Ronald Reagan.

He is survived by his wife, Joan, children Jim and Charlotte, three grandchildren and his brother, Richard.

Memorial gifts may be sent to the Carl Terzian Endowed Scholarship, University Advancement Office. Contact Lana Clark at 805-493-3162 or lclark@callutheran.edu.

CAL LUTHERAN ADMINISTRATION Chris Kimball, Ph.D. President Leanne Neilson, Psy.D. Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Karen Davis, MBA ’95 Vice President for Administration and Finance Melissa Maxwell-Doherty ’77, M.Div. ’81 Vice President for Mission and Identity Melinda Roper, Ed.D. Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Matthew Ward, Ph.D. Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing R. Stephen Wheatly ’77, J.D. Vice President for University Advancement Gerhard Apfelthaler, Ph.D. Dean of the School of Management Joan L. Griffin, Ph.D. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Michael Hillis, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School of Education Richard Holigrocki, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School of Psychology Brian Stein-Webber ’77, M.Div. ’84 Interim Chief Administrative Officer of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary The Rev. Alicia Vargas, M.Div. ’95, Ph.D. Interim Dean of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary BOARD OF REGENTS Susan Lundeen-Smuck ’88 Chair Randall Foster Vice Chair Ted Jensen Secretary Linda Baumhefner Glen Becerra The Rev. James Bessey ’66 Wallace Brohaugh Bill Camarillo Sue Chadwick Dennis Erickson, Ph.D. The Rev. Mark Hanson Tim Hengst ’72, M.A. The Rev. Mark Holmerud Jon Irwin Chris Kimball, Ph.D. William Krantz Daniel Lacey ’17 Judith Larsen, Ph.D. Jill Lederer Rick Lemmo Cristy McNay ’03, M.A. ’13, ’17 Malcolm McNeil The Rev. Frank Nausin ’70, M.Div. ’74 Carrie Nebens Kären Olson ’83 Jim Overton Dennis Robbins ’86 Erin (Rivers ’97) Rulon, MBA ’06 Mark Stegemoeller Deborah Sweeney Jim Swenson The Rev. Steve Talmage George Ullman Jr. ’76 CAL LUTHERAN MISSION The mission of the university is to educate leaders for a global society who are strong in character and judgment, confident in their identity and vocation, and committed to service and justice.

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Highlights

BATMAN AND TAYLOR SWIFT

are here to protect you

Most people have a favorite celebrity or fictional character, and that’s fine by one new faculty member in psychology. STORY BY KEVIN MATTHEWS/PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN STETHEM ’84

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E

ureka moments in science, at least the legendary ones, happen in unexpected places: the bathtub, a train station, a patch of ground beneath ripening apples.

So why not the supermarket checkout line?

“I was flipping through a magazine. I think it was People, US Weekly or something,” said Ariana Young, an assistant professor of psychology and one of the first faculty members hired for the Bachelor’s Degree for Professionals program.

“I was looking at a picture of Jennifer Aniston – she’s one of my favorites, especially at the time – and I was looking at a picture of her in a bikini, thinking, ‘You know, the research tells me I should feel bad about myself after seeing this’ – because that’s what all the research shows, that exposure to thin media ideals makes us feel bad. But I didn’t feel bad,” she said.

“I was like, ‘She’s got an awesome body, good for her! I feel great right now seeing this.’ It made me realize there might be more to it.”

When it comes to how you see your body, dwelling on images from the media is not always harmful, Young realized. With help from collaborators, she was soon designing controlled experiments showing that feelings of closeness to a fictional character or a celebrity can moderate and even reverse the process in which physical comparisons lead to low self-esteem.

A few of the findings: • When women are exposed to a favorite celebrity who is slender, they feel better about their bodies than they do when exposed to thin celebrities they do not care for.

• The more that a woman perceives herself and a favorite celebrity to be alike in overall personality, the more power the celebrity has to make her feel better about her body.

•

On days when people – men or women – feel bad about their bodies,

“We take on the traits of our favorite celebrities as if they’re our own. So we all have that friend who’s super-smart, and whenever we’re around them we feel smart by association. We sort of bask in their glory of smartness. And the same thing happens with media figures.” they are more likely, the next day, to seek out a favorite celebrity.

•

When shown an image of a muscular superhero for whom they have no special affection, men feel worse about their bodies.

•

But when they identify with or sense a bond with the superhero, they experience no negative feelings about their bodies after viewing the images.

•

Not only that, but the same men display greater physical strength shortly after viewing the images, as measured by the force of their grip on a handheld dynamometer.

The experiments brought together two existing lines of research in social psychology. One line of research shows that, yes, images on TV, in magazines and elsewhere have powerful effects on how people see their own bodies. At the same time, another group of studies shows that people can develop strong psychological bonds with celebrities as well as with fictional characters, including superheroes.

These one-sided relationships, known as “parasocial relationships,” have some of the positive features of friendships.

“We take on the traits of our favorite celebrities as if they’re our own. So we all have that friend who’s super-smart, and whenever we’re around them we feel smart by association. We sort of bask in their glory of smartness. And the same thing happens with media figures,” Young said.

Men and women develop affections in distinct parasocial circles, Young noticed as she began to poll undergraduates in studies. When asked to name a favorite celebrity, men often think of actors who’ve played superheroes in movies: Christian Bale (Batman), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) and so on.

Members of both sexes feel connections with fictional characters, and Young is careful now to phrase the question to include characters from books and films. Nearly everyone, she observes, has a parasocial favorite or favorites.

“For women, it tends to be a nice balance of celebrities and fictional characters. For men, it tends to be more fictional characters, or even athletes.”

For future studies on parasocial bonds, Young has plenty of unanswered questions. Do people feel more inclined to help others, to save the day, when exposed to favorite superheroes? How do we react when disaster strikes a parasocial friend, or when we see such a person in decline? What about the relationships people have with super-villains and the celebrities they love to hate? Can those have any positive effects?

What’s already clear is that more than one strategy is needed to protect people, especially young women and men, from the harmful effects of visual culture. All of the unrealistic, photoshopped images in our world aren’t going away. Instead of trying only to reject them, should we sometimes encourage closeness to the characters in them?

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Q&A

CODYnext JONES’ five meters PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN STETHEM ’84

You hold the North and South American record for your Paralympic javelin classification. You represented the United States at the World Championships last year, and you may be on the way to the Rio Paralympics in September.

What’s your next goal?

Obviously, to win gold. That’s what we’re all going for, if I make the team.

But if I throw a personal best at Rio and someone beats me, I can’t be too mad. I’m hoping that personal best is somewhere above 50 meters.

That would be up from just under 45 meters.

Yeah, to throw something like a javelin an extra 15 or 16 feet – that could take years. Some pro athletes, Olympians and Paralympians are excited if they increase a meter or two over a season or two.

So why are you setting the bar so high?

I still need to push myself further. In my classification, the distance for gold will be about 50 meters.

What can you still do better, technically?

With the javelin, you’re running in order to get as much speed as possible into the throw. You want to capture all that speed and energy by blocking your left foot – basically running as fast as you can and then stopping. That isn’t good for your body, but it’s what you need to do.

The second thing I’m working on is my upper body flexibility so I can hit the javelin position, which is a really long stretch. Basically, I’m trying to be like a human slingshot.

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How’s it going?

Just this week I’ve found some good things to help my block.

I try to use my left side as much as I can, and that actually helps with my C.P. [cerebral palsy]. If I don’t focus on using my left side, I won’t use it, I’m just so right-side dominant. If you don’t use muscles, you lose them.

So is your sport a way of adapting, in other parts of your life?

Exactly. I naturally do a lot more things right-handed, but I think it’s cool to challenge myself. I’ll get in my car and try to put my seatbelt on with my left hand. If I really try just with my left hand, it’ll take about two minutes to put a seatbelt on. That’s just how it is. It’s kind of fun.

I’m still learning what my left side can do. I don’t want my right side to get way stronger, because that could be bad – looking like the Hulk on one side and Captain America before the serum on the other. (Laughs.) That could hurt my body even more. So it’s all about finding what’s right for my body but pushing through.

When were you diagnosed with C.P., and how did you manage it?

When I was a year old, my parents were curious about why I was doing onearmed Army crawls on my right side.

Then I got diagnosed with C.P. and it was like, Oh, is he ever going to walk or be a productive member of society? That was their fear at the time.

I’m very mild left hemiplegic. I went to physical therapy until I was 7. By then I was making all-star baseball teams and didn’t need it anymore. I got a lot of attention for playing outfielder at Simi

Valley High School almost with my left hand behind my back.

And now you’re a Paralympian, as well as a double major and a student senator. What keeps you motivated to improve your throwing?

My teammates are great – Cal Lutheran and Team USA both. We all try to help each other. I have coaches here like Justin Puccinelli [’13] who have gone above and beyond their job descriptions to help me. I also have Team USA coaches who have experience with C.P. At the Doha World Championships, I watched one teammate improve in the high jump by 20 centimeters, which is huge. Just to see his hard work pay off made me want to work harder. Or to see David Brown, the world’s fastest totally blind runner.

What should people know about the Paralympics?

I know that there’s somewhat of a stigma about the Paralympics being lesser than the Olympics. One cool thing about the United States – and a bunch of other countries – is that the Paralympics and the Olympics are under one branch and united as one team.

What I’ve seen from the performances of my team is that it’s all elite-level stuff. And I’m hoping to join that. I’m hoping to rise up to that challenge and be that.

The Team USA track and field roster was decided as this magazine went to press.

(See Pages 30 and 35 to learn about past gold medalist Cortney Jordan ’13, a swimmer. She is expected to compete in her third Paralympics.)

Junior Cody Jones is a student senator, a double major in marketing communication and psychology, and a Paralympian in javelin who believes his best performances are ahead.

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THINGS I’VE

LEARNED

JOSH GRAY ’15 14 CLU MAGAZINE

This Eagle Scout became a White House Communications intern last year, then, in January, accepted a full-time job as the White House media monitor. The position is secure until January 2017.

T

he building itself can be intimidating.

When you start working at the White House, there’s a rush around you. It all seems like pure chaos at the pace everyone’s working. The schedule is packed and demands are exceptionally high. Even as an intern, many scenarios are sink-or-swim with little to no time to prepare.

As the days go by, you get better and better at each task until you suddenly believe you can make it.

You never know what can become of each day. Volunteers might be needed at an event or special occasion. After the tragic Paris attacks in November, when President Obama and French President Hollande had a joint press conference in the East Room, I was fortunate enough to get to assist with the event. It was one of the most memorable moments of the internship and my life.

I hung up the first time. It was from a blocked number, I was in a final, and I wasn’t expecting a call from the White House.

When I finally got to the White House as an intern, I had an opportunity to prove myself and was determined to make it count. I arrived early and stayed late each day. When I was told it was time to head out for the evening, I’d stay an extra 30 minutes or more. I did all this with the conviction that I would never get an opportunity like it again.

Every member of my family has sacrificed for others.

My father, also a CLU grad [Timothy ’01], was in the Navy, was part of Ventura County Search and Rescue for 15 years, and is an active member in the Simi Valley community. My mother, another CLU grad [Kimberly ’92, T.C. ’93], is a public school teacher. My grandfather served in Army Intelligence in the Vietnam era, and started a local company with my grandmother that employed people all over the world for over 30 years. I have an aunt who was also a public school teacher who worked with disadvantaged students and another aunt who It took me three years of applying adopted Russian twins as a single To celebrate his graduation last year, Gray before I was accepted to an internmother. went to a Dodgers game in LA with friends ship. It stung.

Since I was young, I’ve wanted to Travis Custer (left), Lexy Newberry ’16 and After the first applications, I turned help others, and I think that’s essential Kenneth Wang, now a senior. to local opportunities to try and make to living in our society and making it an impact. I helped strategize a local work. I think government can do and does a lot for people. I school board campaign, took on more and more responsibility don’t know if this belief will keep me in politics and governas an LA County intern, and served as a senator on ASCLUG. ment after this job, but as long as what I do might improve I also chased a personal dream of traveling around the world just one person’s life, it’ll all be worth it. and being exposed to cultures, including the Semester at Sea. My colleagues are ordinary and chose to do something extraordinary.

That’s my favorite thing about them. They are undoubtedly some of the most hardworking and diligent people I’ve met in my life, and come from all different regions, faiths, upbringings and beliefs.

My job entails spending roughly 12 hours every weekday and some more hours on weekends poring over the news. It’s natural to start picking up on the rhythm of the national media.

Every evening when I leave, I look at the scenic beauty of the White House and hope I’ve done my task well.

Pursuing my other passions made me a stronger candidate when I applied again, because of my initiative in all aspects of life.

When I should have been searching for a job and making my post-college plans, I was up late into the night for two months writing a narrative on my final White House application. Despite my doubts, without fail every night I would redouble my efforts.

Then I accidentally hung up on the White House. I was in an economics final with Professor [Kirk] Lesh when I got the first two phone calls. I hung up – it was from a blocked number, I was in a final, and I wasn’t expecting a call from the White House. I was in a final with Professor [José] Marichal when they called a third time and I hung up yet again. But they left a message.

This work is all-consuming and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

A phrase I’ve heard to describe the White House staff experience: “The President is running a marathon while the staff are in a sprint.” Until January of 2017, I’m sprinting and giving it everything I have.

The most personal time I have is about 40 minutes during my commute to and from work. In the morning I go over my day planning, while at night I call my dad and try to keep up with everyone at home.

I think when I’m done I’d like to sleep for a while, and then go experience something completely different.

AUGUST 2016

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Marcus Harrison Green ’05, executive director of the South Seattle Emerald, visits the University of Washington campus in Seattle to speak with a journalism class.

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MARCUS GREEN’S LONG FIGHT IS JUST BEGINNING Two years ago, the business major and finance wiz founded a community news service for South Seattle, giving a voice to people in the neighborhoods where he grew up. STORY AND PHOTOS BY MATT MILLS MC KNIGHT

M

arcus Harrison Green ’05 is back in southeast Seattle’s Rainier Beach/Skyway neighborhood as a journalist and publisher who reports on the same streets where he once played with childhood friends.

In April 2014, he founded the South Seattle Emerald, a community news service dedicated to arts, sports, poetry, ideas and grassroots politics in this often ignored section of the city.

Proof that the Emerald fills a need is easy to find – in the Emerald. Green’s publication was about the only one to notice, for example, when Ethiopian Orthodox Christians opened a church in Skyway, buying and converting a former library for the purpose. When Black Lives Matter protesters interrupted a Bernie Sanders rally last year, the Emerald responded straightaway with three commentaries by Seattle members of the nationwide movement. Every day in March, for Women’s History Month, the website published essays about revolutionary women by local citizen journalists.

And when a local movement rose up to oppose the construction of a new jail for juveniles in King County, which has its seat in Seattle, Green himself reported extensively on it. Responding to protests, county officials would reduce the number of beds in the proposed facility, and a city council committee later passed a resolution to eventually end the practice of youth detention, which hits poor and minority communities hardest.

“When I was younger, I really didn’t have a vocabulary for it, but you obviously saw the impacts of the school-to-prison pipeline: children of color expelled at higher rates than their white counterparts, harsher prison sentences, as well as a lack of resources and education,” Green said.

Moving from this environment to Cal Lutheran was an adjustment for Green, even though he was prepared academically. His parents had worked two jobs each to send him to a private high school just outside of Seattle.

“It was definitely a culture shock going from a pretty liberal and racially diverse place in the Rainier Valley to a place that was a little more conservative and homogenous racially,” Green recalls. “The class difference was also very apparent.

I came from a place where you see, ‘We now accept food stamps’ on the window to a place with vast wealth.”

He studied finance partly because he was unsure who he “wanted to be,” he said, but also because he was good at it. In his last two semesters on campus, he had the highest final exam scores in two classes focused on quantitative, analytical skills, according to Paul Williams, an associate professor of finance. Green still remembers how demanding those courses were and also hearing from his professor that his aptitude for finance was unusual.

AUGUST 2016

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“As corny as it sounds, I wanted to do something that made a difference, and simply making money for people who were already rich wasn’t it.”

After graduating with his degree in business administration, Green first went to work for an investment management firm in Southern California, a lucrative job. But a few years passed, and he began to realize he wasn’t getting the gratification that he had hoped for.

“As corny as it sounds, I wanted to do something that made a difference, and simply making money for people who were already rich wasn’t it,” he said.

It cannot hurt today that Green – as the executive director of a journalism startup that stays healthy and seeks to grow on a diet consisting mainly of reader contributions – has moneymanagement skills. As he points out, some community resources like the Emerald have been forced to shut down in a couple of months.

But the most important lesson that he took from those finance courses, he says, was about “integrity, what it means to be a good person, what it means to give your all to something that you are passionate about and really love doing, which for [Williams] was finance.” Green also credits staff members Juanita Hall, now the director of multicultural and international student services, and Michael Fuller, M.S. ’97, a former associate dean of students, with guiding him to become the person he is.

“I can’t say someone told me to go directly into journalism,” said Green, who was all-SCIAC in track as a sprinter and who served two years as president of the Black Student Union. “But I did have people who left a huge impression on me, and I from time to time find myself going back to advice they imparted.”

On the Friday before Martin Luther King Day this year, Green gave the keynote speech at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Seattle’s Central District, a 1,000-person venue that was packed beyond capacity for a celebration of the civil rights leader’s life. Other speakers at the event included Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray.

The keynote theme “Are We There Yet?” referred to stirring lines in the Rev. King’s final speech, I’ve Been to the Mountaintop: “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!”

In his speech, Green recounted stories from his life, including the last cautionary words spoken to him by his grandfather Jimmie Green, who had grown up a sharecropper in segregated Arkansas. Green’s emotional delivery concluded with 18 CLU MAGAZINE

a call to action, “...we have climbed far, but we have farther still to rise, so go now, reach up and pull us higher. You rise up and you pull us higher.”

The Emerald is an expression of that hard reality and that hope. It has cost Green some of his own money and has also brought satisfaction. It has, at any rate, the unreserved support of his mother, Cynthia. Mother and son recently coauthored a commentary for the Emerald on the fatal shooting of a South Seattle man. In the piece, they take the Seattle Times to task for an article that in their view exemplifies the failure of mainstream reportage to portray the humanity of murder victims who are not white.

“You realize how much of a service you actually do,” said Marcus, “when a 10-year-old comes up to you and says thank you for writing the true story about how my father died.”

According to Cynthia Green, her son launched the Emerald because “he felt the way we did that our people in the South End were too often displayed as drug addicts, gang members, welfare recipients not wanting to work, and blackon-black crime. But not often enough did you read about the community that comes together and supports one another.

What about the artist that no one ever hears about that lives here, the young that are working hard daily to see change, the students who graduate at the top of the class and receive fouryear scholarships?”

To put members of the media in conversation on just such concerns, Green, who serves on the board of the western Washington chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, organized a forum this April in the Columbia City neighborhood called JournalismSoWhite (a variation on the OscarsSoWhite hashtag used in social media commentary about race and this year’s Academy Awards).

Along with the vice president of the Emerald’s board, Devin Chicras, Green hopes to see the publication expand to various platforms, including podcasts and print.

“South Seattle Emerald has been a megaphone for the voices of those oft overlooked or chronically misrepresented, and has many, many more stories yet to tell,” Chicras said.

For his first year of work covering South Seattle, Marcus Harrison Green ’05 won the 2015 Crosscut Courage Award for Culture from Crosscut.com, a nonprofit news source in Seattle. To read his work, visit YES! Magazine and www.southseattleemerald.com.

A Legacy of Giving The son of a funeral director, Don Meyer ’64 grew up seeing others struggle with grief, and at times financial chaos. He’s now been a financial adviser with Thrivent Financial for more than 50 years, but those early experiences shaped how he helps others take action with financial and estate planning – not only for the people they love but also for the charitable causes and organizations they care about deeply.

For Meyer and his wife, Sandi (Pierce ’66), being members of the Orville Dahl Society is an important part of their personal planning. They designed a planned gift to Cal Lutheran as an investment account that will continue to grow and contribute annually to the university in perpetuity. Sandi says it’s not just about the giving itself but also about passing on a legacy of giving. “If you want to teach your children to be doers and givers, you have to model it with your own life,” she said. “Our grandchildren will see this giving in action, and that’s very important to us,” Don added.

It’s also about how they say thank you. Talking with six other couples at Don’s recent 50th class reunion, they realized all had met at Cal Lutheran and all have been happily married for almost 50 years. That resonated with the Meyers because they want to ensure others have the same opportunities and experiences they had. “I met the love of my life there, and this year we celebrate our golden wedding anniversary,” Don said. “Cal Lutheran holds a very special place in our hearts, and we want to honor that. It’s a very spiritual thing for both of us.”

SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT Office of Major and Planned Giving (805) 493-3166 development@CalLutheran.edu

clugift.org Don ’64 and Sandi (Pierce ’66) Meyer AUGUST 2016

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SUMMERS STARRING DALLAS

When the NFL’s Cowboys made camp in Thousand Oaks, from 1963 to 1989, they also made memories.

BY COLLEEN CASON

20 CLU MAGAZINE

F

or Cal Lutheran’s long-serving first football coach, the announcement in late March that the Los Angeles Rams will base their training on the Thousand Oaks campus makes a fitting twist in a story that started nearly 55 years ago.

Although many know that the Dallas Cowboys franchise called Cal Lutheran its home away from home for 27 summers, they might not be aware that a famous former Ram had a hand in bringing America’s Team to the university.

Now 82 and retired from coaching, Bob Shoup remembers the day in 1962 when a limo drove onto campus. Chauffeurdriven cars being a rare sight on the then-rustic grounds, Shoup stepped away from the tennis class he was teaching to approach the automobile. He immediately recognized the passenger as Glenn Davis, a Heisman Trophy–winning ball rusher who’d been voted to the Pro Bowl 12 years earlier while playing for the Rams (based then, as now, in LA).

Davis had been asked to scout the campus as a possible summer training site for the Cowboys. The athletic facilities were primitive in those early days, said Shoup, so he decided to tout the Conejo Valley’s fine climate.

Later, Dallas Coach Tom Landry (pictured at left) came to campus to look things over on a rainy, cold December day when the field had turned to mud.

“There wasn’t anything good about that visit,” Shoup recalls.

To everyone’s surprise, the Cowboys chose to train at the fledgling college. And for 26 years until their departure in 1989, under president and general manager Tex Schramm and Coach Landry, the Cowboys embraced the community.

“There were no gates, no admission, nothing to keep people from watching the practices,” recalls Connie (Hagen ’76) Johnson. “The locker room was closed, but the kids went in there all the time.”

Even after a day of drills, players attended community events and mingled with the locals.

Dallas’ bright blue star shone on the Conejo and, as a result, Shoup was able to recruit football talent. As Dallas got better, Cal Lutheran got better, said Shoup, who coached the Kingsmen to the 1971 NAIA championship.

It was a golden time, he recalls. Others have their own treasured memories. Here are a few.

Thousand Oaks News-Chronicle

Giving the Cowboys their physicals was a tall order.

That job fell to Lucy Ballard, H’96, Cal Lutheran’s director of health services. The Cowboys contracted with the campus clinic to examine vets and rookie hopefuls to determine if they were healthy enough to play.

“Oh my gosh. The excitement was big,” said Ballard during a recent interview in her University Village home.

On one exciting day, Cowboys defensive lineman Ed “Too Tall” Jones stepped on the medical scale for his height-and-weight check. The 5-foot-

2-inch Ballard stretched her arm as far as it would go to raise the height rod over the Pro Bowler’s 6-foot-9-inch frame — to no avail. So, she grabbed a nearby chair and climbed up on it to get an accurate measurement.

A news photographer happened by and memorialized the scene. That shot ran in the newspaper and later was displayed at Los Robles Hospital, where the exams took place.

Years later, Jones starred in a Geico TV commercial showing a nurse attempting to measure him. He breaks the height rod and she mutters, “I’m just going to guesstimate.”

But Ballard stepped up to get it exactly right.

— Lucy Ballard retired in 2004 after 35 years in campus health services.

For Jim Evensen ’85, Cowboys’ training camps were a summer school where he majored in life lessons.

During his high school years, Evensen landed a coveted but low-paying spot as the team’s ball boy. He and his peers toiled from 7 in the morning to 7 in the evening carrying sweaty shoulder pads off the field and repairing helmets. He recalls earning $300 for the entire camp.

Lesson No. 1: The power of generosity One day in the locker room, star quarterback Roger Staubach summoned Evensen and handed him a 10-dollar bill.

“Go rinse off my car, Legs,” Staubach said, using the nickname players gave the gangly 5-foot-10-inch, 120-pound teenager.

When Evensen saw Staubach’s car was spotlessly clean, he tried to return the money.

“Then just rinse the tires,” Staubach told him, “and keep the money.”

“We looked at these players as stars, because they are superior in sports,” Evensen said. “Most of them are real good people and would do anything for you.”

Lesson No. 2: The importance of diversity For some African-American players, especially the rookies, Thousand Oaks was the only predominantly white community they had been in. Kids raised in the Conejo Valley saw few black residents.

At first, Evensen said, the black players and the white kids in the locker room would study each other. As the summer progressed and people got to know one another as individuals, the relationships grew comfortable.

The diversity the team brought with it spread to the greater community.

“When the Cowboys came, the town changed overnight,” he said. “The demographics shifted. You would see black families in restaurants. It was awesome.”

— Jim Evensen’s late father, Jim Sr., known as “Doc,” was a popular Cal Lutheran geology professor.

Even 20 years after she left Cal Lutheran, Karen (Reitan ‘65) Anderson impressed skeptics with the university’s deep ties to the Cowboys.

Anderson worked as a secretary in the Athletic Department starting when the Cowboys first made camp in 1963. Her job AUGUST 2016

21

kept her too busy to watch practices — in part because the team’s staff often asked her to type up their paperwork in addition to her CLU duties.

Eventually she and her husband, Ed, moved to the Central Valley. Anderson became the cheerleader coach at Tracy High School and took her girls to a cheer camp in Santa Barbara sometime in the mid-1980s.

“A lot of these kids had never been out of Tracy; I wanted to give them a college experience,” she said.

Anderson arranged for the squad to spread out sleeping bags and spend the night in the locker room at CLU. Some parents did not believe her when she told them America’s Team used this same facility.

After a little exploration the doubters came to believe, Anderson said. They discovered the big blue Dallas star in the tile of the locker room floor.

— Karen Reitan Anderson and her husband, Ed, have served as student recruiters for Cal Lutheran.

Judy (Westberg) Blomquist ’64 literally made hundreds of connections with the Dallas Cowboys. For one ’60s summer, she was hired as the switchboard operator in a tiny room off the foyer of “Mt. Clef Inn,” the team’s summer lodging.

Far from the latest in telecommunications technology, it was a “one ringy dingy switchboard from the Lily Tomlin sketch,” Blomquist said.

The players — especially the rookies — were homesick and lonesome for conversation, she recalls.

“There wasn’t much to do in Thousand Oaks then, and they didn’t have cars,” she said.

So they would hang over the ledge on the Dutch door to her office and chat with her. When the Cowboys left campus that summer, they expressed their appreciation by giving her the smallest team jersey they could find — size 50 long.

— Judy Westberg married her classmate Warren Blomquist, who went on to become a high school football coach in Roseville.

Beneath his kiddie-pool-sized cowboy hat, Tex Schramm had a head for business innovation, recalls Larry Horner, a Thousand Oaks City Councilman from 1974 to 1990 and a former mayor.

And underneath his stoic expression, Cowboys Coach Tom Landry possessed a great sense of humor, Horner also remembers. The late Coach Landry had a joke for every occasion and a nickname for every player on the roster, he recalls.

22 CLU MAGAZINE

Horner and his wife, Betty, rank team president Schramm among the shrewdest business people they’ve encountered.

“When you met him, he was fun-loving but, when you really talked to him, he had the vision that went beyond being a football executive. You’d think he was an economics professor at Harvard,” Horner said.

Schramm, who passed away in 2003, introduced to the NFL instant replays, microphones for the referees and flashy cheerleaders.

The Horners marvel at how the openness of the team’s Cal Lutheran summer camps allowed them to get to know these iconic national sports figures.

“Tom Landry and Tex Schramm looked forward to seeing us,” said Horner. “It’s rare to meet and have a relationship with two famous people.”

— The Horners are founding members of Cal Lutheran’s Community Leaders Association. Larry Horner was awarded the university’s Exemplar Medallion in 1991 and spoke at Commencement in 1981.

Dr. John Tomec may have been the Cowboys’ orthopedic surgeon, but it was the team who gave him a good leg pulling.

Educated at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, Tomec came to Thousand Oaks in 1966. After serving the Kingsmen as team doctor, he was hired by the Cowboys in 1968 for what became a 24/7 job during training camps.

Dr. Tomec and his wife, Dottie, agreed to host a private barbecue for the veteran players at their Lynn Ranch home in the early ’70s. After a lavish meal with steaks, flown in by the team from Omaha, the players left for an after-party at Orlando’s, a Thousand Oaks Boulevard watering hole, Dr. Tomec recalls.

Before turning in, he checked on Tiger, his Great Dane.

Tiger, it seems, had vanished from his outdoor run. Dr. Tomec was pretty sure he knew who had absconded with the pooch.

Sure enough, Tiger was back home the next morning after accompanying the Cowboys to the nightclub.

— John Tomec, who served as CLU team physician from 1967 through 1992, was inducted into the Alumni Athletic Hall of Fame in 2006. He and Dottie donated the John Tomec Endowed Scholarship at Cal Lutheran.

Sources: These recollections were taken from personal interviews in the spring of 2016.

Colleen Cason is an award-winning journalist and longtime columnist for the Ventura County Star. A Thousand Oaks resident, she has served as adviser to The Echo student newspaper and as a communications specialist for nonprofit organizations.

ONE FAMILY’S RIDE WITH THE COWBOYS

BY COLLEEN CASON

During Cowboys’ summer camps, Connie (Hagen ’76) Johnson sewed nameplates on the jerseys worn by players who were hoping to make the team. If they failed to earn a spot on the roster, she tore off those labels and replaced them with the names of the next rookies to come along.

While those gridiron hopefuls may be long forgotten in NFL history, the Hagen family’s own history was unforgettably shaped by the time America’s Team spent at Cal Lutheran.

• The patriarch, Eldon Hagen (above, at center), main tained the university’s athletic facilities from 1963 to 1988 and worked closely with Cowboys personnel to make the camps a success. Whatever needed to be done, the man known as “Big E” did it — from unloading the semitrailers packed with equipment to washing uni forms. For his dedication, he was elected to the Cal Lutheran Alumni Athletic Hall of Fame in 2006.

In 1980, the Cowboys cut Mike from the squad. That same day, general manager Tex Schramm gave him the opportunity to stay in the game. He hired him to work in every department and learn franchise operations. At the end of this rotation, Schramm sent him to scouting — which he did for three decades with the Cowboys, Broncos, Falcons and Chiefs.

Today he lives in Atlanta and serves as a pro football personnel consultant.

The Cowboys front office gave Steve Hagen ’83 his first job out of college. He later became a coach for NFL and college teams, including the New York Jets, the Cleveland Browns, Notre Dame and Cal (Berkeley).

As the camera operator at the Cowboys’ camps, Steve often came in contact with Coach Tom Landry. Landry would ask his opinion of how the players were progressing and invite him up to the dorm to share the coach’s ice cream stash.

While working in the Cowboys’ business office after graduating, Steve discovered his true passion was coaching, which he pursued for 33 years all over the nation.

He recently left football to join the Atlanta-based Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a ministry Steve describes as capturing the heart of young athletes for Christ.

It is something he saw Landry do often.

“Tom Landry was really big on coaching Christian athletes, when I was young,” he said. “Coach Landry made it about more than the money.”

And those summers sewing on the nameplates paid off for Connie. Today, she considers herself a pretty good seamstress, even creating a quilt with the insignias of the more than a dozen teams her brother Steve coached.

• Mom, Rosella, worked the concession stand and accompanied Coach Tom Landry’s wife, Alicia, on sightseeing trips to Solvang.

• Both of Connie’s brothers, Mike and Steve, spent their childhood summers at the camps, at first tagging behind dad and then assisting the players and coaches.

Mike Hagen ’80 was drafted by the Cowboys and went on to become an NFL scout, selecting talent for four Super Bowl winners.

“I started going to the camps as soon as I got old enough to know my way home,” said Mike, whom the players nicknamed “Cotton” for his light head of hair.

During those long summer days on the sidelines, he got to know starters like Charlie Waters, who would become one of his best friends. As a teenager, he hauled Waters’ motorcycle from Thousand Oaks to Dallas in the back of a Ford Fairlane van.

AUGUST 2016

23

CLASSNOTES NOTICES RECEIVED AS OF MAY 10

Interfaith pioneers’ reunion Founding members of the Interfaith Allies club returned to Cal Lutheran in March for a gala for the Vesper Society, which supports interfaith interns and activities on campus. From left in the top row are Wesley Tierney ’14, Erik Fruth ’14, interfaith strategist and professor of religion Rahuldeep Gill, Wayne Swinson ’14 and community service coordinator Nicole Cozzi; in the bottom row are Lacey Soto ’14, associate professor of religion Colleen Windham-Hughes, Rebecca Cardone ’13 and Shireen Ismail ’15.

24 CLU MAGAZINE

1960s

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1970s

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Chris Elkins ’70, Gloucester, North Carolina, was elected state president of the Coastal Conservation Association, where he will “continue to fight for marine resource conservation and sustainable fishing.” Chris retired from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in 2010 and was appointed to a two-year term on the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission that same year.

He also received the 2010 Outstanding Alumni Award. (See CLU Magazine, Summer 2010, Page 34.) He currently is serving his ninth and final year on the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council’s Habitat and Ecosystem Management Advisory Panel and sits on the review board for grant proposals.

He is pictured in front of an oyster shell recycling pile, the result of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grant he wrote for CCA NC. “The shell is placed back into the water so oyster larvae can attach and grow out,” Chris explained, adding that North Carolina oyster populations are less than 5 percent of historical levels due to overharvest.

Ique dolupturerum volor suntis aut dolumque estentur? Ceribustiis veribus conem versperatem doluptaque rem autende liquidel ma conserum essed quaturis aut labo.

Optatemporem ut preped que occustium et quat aligendios mo bea con et faceatur solore vent et fugia dolor sit explicipsam, odigenem iliquatur, cus volesti stotatius, sapienisqui dention evel ea a nobitat.

Ur maioreperem eos as excerro quostis aces quis quas arumquo beatiandem inciation reptate mporis iusam laboren deleni omnim earibus repedi volorem voluptio. Ihil idelit essint, quisto blaut voluptatus evel im hit molores ut ligenectis renditate nimaion se-

John ’76 and Kathy ’77, T.C. ’78, Lenhardt, Apple Valley, California, drink fresh coconut water near Nakalele Point on the northern tip of the island of Maui.

AUGUST 2016

25

Class Notes Alumni Board of Directors EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Erin (Rivers ’97) Rulon, MBA ’06 President and Regent Representative Kami Niebank, MBA ’15 Vice President, Alumni Involvement and Recognition Amy (Downing ’06) Duarte Vice President, University Relations Jeff Ruby ’84 Vice President, Development VOTING MEMBERS

Candace (Cerro ’09) Aragon, Andrew Brown ’09, Mike Calkins ’08, Katy (Svennungsen ’06) Carr, Julie (Heller ’89) Herder, Mark Marius ’92, John Moore ’74 AT LARGE MEMBERS

Joanne (Satrum ’67) Cornelius, M.A. ’74, Suzanne Fazalare ’98, Brian McCoy ’95, Brodie Munro ’91, Sally Wennes ’88, M.A. ’01 COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Michael Bonilla ’13, Jim Day ’69, Andrew Schranze ’12, MPPA ’15, Jaymes White ’09 REPRESENTATIVES

Daniel Lacey ’17, ASCLUG President Joani Pappas ’17, GASC Chair

Office of Alumni & Family Relations Rachel Ronning ’99 Lindgren, Senior Director

Top row from left: Ruby, Schranze, Wennes and Munro.

Middle row: Marius, Brown, Bonilla, Pappas, Niebank and McCoy. Front row: Duarte, Herder, Cornelius, Rulon and Lacey. quiatiant facitatet laboreium eos nus eventi te dolorerumet delibus cimoluptae omnihicto et quas eos re prepudit et re nam illabo.

Me vollori blaboressiti dolo digenecatia nis consequ odiatur ibusand uciet, comniet fuga. Poriaectem que omniet modi volorup taesti doloribea verions equiduntibus ex eaquiassum faccatur?

Dolo blandelent fugiam audiam vendusa sequi dolorrovid que et quibus coreium ernat.

Porum aligent. Aquo dolorum am aut omnis rem facestrum experio. Asitio intur?

Del est, nus et, utem cus sam quidunt accus ut ipis dolupta necti dolupturest, undunte velia deniendae por molorrovit quam nonem sanis que quibus essimos demporro tet lam expliquaspit issequid moluptiani tem iligenit as quos voluptas pa comnis nos asit alit, omnis et et dolupti nverum facculp aritatur audam que nimil eatquam, occae ratias ipsum 26 CLU MAGAZINE

Jeff Dwyer ’82, Wetmore, Michigan, was named director of Michigan State University Extension in April after serving as interim director since Jan. 1.

Previously, he was a senior associate dean in the MSU College of Human Medicine, with primary responsibilities related to research and community engagement.

Before joining MSU, Jeff was director of the Institute of Gerontology and a tenured professor of sociology at Wayne State University. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Florida, where he was founding director of the Institute on Aging and a tenured professor of medicine.

Stephanie Hessemer, Associate Director Carrie (Kelley ’09, MPPA ’11) Barnett, Assistant Director Melanie Fishman, Administrative Assistant

Susan (Wulff ’82) Hood (left), Fallston, Maryland; Kathy (Schlueter ’81) Senkbeil, Orange, California; and Mary (Podorsek ’81) Meade, Issaquah, Washington, chose centrally located Hot Springs, Arkansas, for their November “Trio Trip.” They are standing in front of the historic park entrance to the Grand Promenade along Bathhouse Row (circa 1890). “We had a blast together just as we always did at CLC,” wrote Mary.

“Cal Lu Rules!”

sitaquis dolum dollectur, utat invelibea volo int volupti orernam seditio volore voloriore, cusantium que seque omnimint.

1980s

Minctur? Quis min repero offic tet voluptias et molorae pratibus aut as eos alique latem accum quia consequi am, teni voluptur?

Axim fuga. Nequia nis nonsed que que verest, comnihita corem que landitam faceribus velland ignitatisquo blaccup tasperit et etur sectem ipis dolupta inverum iniatur, volor aut provite ndellor erissed maximag nimped est, omnis dolupta del estem quia cum eosam ipit re vent lautem eribus aboremp eribusa picimet velit fugia ad modis vere pora dene pa quam, simi, odissum fugitio nsequi ipsam, ese necta ne pores adit fugiatemod eaquam acietusam qui ipic temporibus.

Nemporum, eatiiscil ipid que sim sanda di omnime aut quos sae con conse adist voluptae cust andignam illut ilicita consequidem eaqui odiscia doluptio. Nam reperum sed modigen delitatque vellant iatque si

untia core eaque venimaximet reressum sus sim quatior simus magnimus in perum et volorem faccabo. Nam faceperchil maximi, tem estios moluptus que libus nectempor sinimin ullorescilla aut fugit, viducipsant et aborectur milignam, cum voles entiis estioriatis earum eosamus de nossequi volut quasit, quiandae ratem que velestorro milicia aditem si naturem corepro cum fugia demquas pernate im elisti consequi re, sit volorionsed es dis ipsundu ntiuri optaqui

1990s

velitam idus peligenis doluptate nobis ipsam asitatus mini con parcitis ipitasp elessundi optatint quid quiatissit occumende nonserupta a venim que molupti orerspissus as minisiti untia accum iuntis dolorum harumque quiandam, cum et dolum voluptatur, autatur, voloraecea vellorestota ducium erias dolorum il iliquiate susamusa nobitior aut et quis molorum facessimus, optatiscimin perspis sunt laboribus, officaeriat.

Da vel ilis por acia solupta tecepudit platem

TAKE CAL LUTHERAN WITH YOU Twenty Cal Lutheran alumni from the mid-70s met in St. Maarten in February to sail the Caribbean. Photo courtesy of Kris (Grude ’75) Kirkpatrick, MBA ’82, far right.

Follow the Flag in Three Easy Steps

1. Request your flag from alumni@CalLutheran.edu 2. Pose with your flag 3. Share your picture online via Facebook or CalLutheran.edu/alumni

WHERE WILL YOU TAKE US THIS SUMMER?

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IT’S YOUR YEAR TO CELEBRATE! Homecoming & Family Weekend 2016

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Are you celebrating a reunion this year? Join your fellow alumni for Homecoming & Family Weekend to be held Oct. 28-30.

Special reunion activities are planned in addition to a wide array of Homecoming events. Save the date and we’ll see you this fall!

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Homecoming & Family Weekend Oct. 28-30, 2016 CalLutheran.edu/homecoming | alumni@CalLutheran.edu | (805) 493-3170 Tumblr

AUGUST 2016 Behance

WordPers

27

Design Fl

Class Notes

2000s

eniae quias ut ius erferfero minimust, omni vene volupta conet, inum vendita solupta turessi tatias dellibus num eatque quid magnis magnimp orentur emporem aut restiunt dusapis arum sinis es evelestio odiscimodi aboribus.Rumque nonsecta sant faceatet as repuda deligent qui utem ut dolores totate vollenias dernate officil lectur?

Former roommates and soccer teammates Perry Ebeltoft ’90 (from left), Yorba Linda, California; Larry Gidley ’91, Thousand Oaks; Jeff Dietrich ’90, Las Vegas; Ken Epperson ’90, Glen Allen, Virginia; and Tim Lundberg ’91, Urbandale, Iowa, get together once a year for a NASCAR race in Richmond, Virginia.

Michael Clarke ’93, Gilroy, California, is pictured at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, where he has volunteered as a pyro chef for more than 15 years. All money raised by the world-famous festival goes back into the community. Michael is a probation manager with the Santa Clara County Probation Department. He oversees the William F. James Ranch, a youth correctional facility, in Morgan Hill. The evidence-based behavior modification program helps youth return to the community and lead productive lives. Michael has been with the probation department for over 20 years.

28 CLU MAGAZINE

Scott Schultz ’90, (center) Ladera Ranch, California, is a fire captain/paramedic with the Orange County Fire Authority. He received his captain’s helmet and badge in January and is assigned to fire station 22 in Laguna Hills, “one of the busiest stations in America.”

Melissa (Elam ’95) Baffa, Ventura, California, is going to sea again in August as a Lead Science Communication Fellow aboard the E/V Nautilus, exploring the deep sea between San Diego and Los Angeles, a swath known as the Southern California margin. “Even though this is one of the most traveled regions in the ocean, only a very tiny amount of it has been mapped or explored,” Melissa wrote.

“Studying this region will provide some important insight into the geology of the region (including potential for earthquakes and tsunamis).” Melissa spent three weeks on the Nautilus last summer as a science communication fellow with the Ocean Exploration Trust. (See CLU Magazine, December 2015, Page 45.) Melissa is pictured with OET founder and president Robert Ballard at the expedition workshop held at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography in April.

Remporeictur atibusc imilit aut quam nonsequam quatibu sandipiciis veri il mil et essit ut aspe doluptatem fuga. Namentus doloressum, quod est, sum ut ducit mo quaest, corrovidit occullorum id minulla ceatur? Ut faccus sitis dolo ipiciis ciandanis entenis etur, omnis evelese exerfer iatureste niaesed qui volorecabo. Itaspernatem corepeleste quia im a sum laborectem nim reptisit fuga.

Facessu samenim aionsec tumque nam laborento maio. Ut ut autent aut inumentia cullest ionectaquid ut volori odi idunt dignis ius, sum fugitin cipsunt volorro totaescime modigen delenih iciusanis moluptam fuga.

Apit dolest, toreperum asinciis endigni squiaep erspis volorati conseditatem ipsam explige niminve nempore rerrovi taquam re sandemp elibus volecus, ut fuga. Torehenis aut esci beate exerum qui quiate numquuntiam quaesequam reresed erchitatio. Quid ut ut eum veliquunt quodiscid quamus, imin recerovit lique volore et rem ventempor ad eum dolutem hariasitae eatur?

Otas aut pro quaspere non nest vidipie nieturepuda dolorempos soluptas aliatqu odiscid quia consed que pa non num harum lab iusciis ipsamus res porestrum dolore, core dolupturis magnisi di beariatur aut periantiante niminctotat. Hararum quamusda quam suntint am as alit, commolut fugiaessum, comnis is quam dus.

Agnis reperum, sae. Faceriae quid el min nienturem ra nosae vita dolore vent pa audandicil magnis et optatur si blaccat.

Dia que cullitius nis most, apid quassendae.

Oditatu strupta consequ iaesequ aspitas re et quam, optas sanis rae parum quid et modipsa ndebita nulpa quatiasimin reris vit pos volupta consenducid ex es si imusanihil modit voluptatet quibus doluptae est, adi iuntur alition nem asperit elessin ctotam ut optat atquiat. Beatur sita con cusa

CLU Annual Fund

THE IMPACT OF GIVING As the premier giving society, the CLU Annual Fund ensures that essential funding is provided where it is needed most—and where there are the greatest opportunities for our students to thrive. Every gift, no matter the size, impacts the life of a Cal Lutheran student.

1

UNIVERSITY

6

LOCATIONS

1,207

41

ACADEMIC MAJORS AND PROGRAMS

CLU ANNUAL FUND COVERS EXPENSES

STUDENTS

285

STAFF/FACULTY

WHO HAVE GIVEN TO THE CLU ANNUAL FUND

NOT COVERED

BY STUDENT TUITION

EVERY GIFT

MATTERS

1,404

$5 GIFTS =

$

7,020

PARTICIPATE TO HELP US REACH OUR GOAL

3

WAYS TO GIVE

(805) 493-3157

PROVIDES FINANCIAL STABILITY AND THE RESOURCES NECESSARY FOR AN OPTIMAL EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

CalLutheran.edu/giving Mail to: 60 W. Olsen Road #1625 Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 AUGUST 2016

29

Class Notes

2010s

eniae quias ut ius erferfero minimust, omni vene volupta conet, inum vendita solupta turessi tatias dellibus num eatque quid magnis magnimp orentur emporem aut restiunt dusapis arum sinis es evelestio odiscimodi aboribus.Rumque nonsecta sant faceatet as repuda deligent qui utem ut dolores totate vollenias dernate officil lectur?

Remporeictur atibusc imilit aut quam nonsequam quatibu sandipiciis veri il mil et essit ut aspe doluptatem fuga. Namentus doloressum, quod est, sum ut ducit mo quaest, corrovidit occullorum id minulla ceatur? Ut faccus sitis dolo ipiciis ciandanis entenis etur, omnis evelese exerfer iatureste niaesed qui volorecabo. Itaspernatem corepeleste quia im a sum laborectem nim reptisit fuga.

Facessu samenim aionsec tumque nam laborento maio. Ut ut autent aut inumentia cullest ionectaquid ut volori odi idunt dignis ius, sum fugitin cipsunt volorro totaescime modigen delenih iciusanis moluptam fuga.

Apit dolest, toreperum asinciis endigni squiaep erspis volorati conseditatem ipsam explige niminve nempore rerrovi taquam re sandemp elibus volecus, ut fuga. Torehenis aut esci beate exerum qui quiate numquuntiam quaesequam reresed erchitatio. Quid ut ut eum veliquunt quodiscid quamus, imin recerovit lique volore et rem ventempor ad eum dolutem hariasitae eatur?

Otas aut pro quaspere non nest vidipie nieturepuda dolorempos soluptas aliatqu odiscid quia consed que pa non num harum lab iusciis ipsamus res porestrum dolore, core dolupturis magnisi di beariatur aut periantiante niminctotat. Hararum quamusda quam suntint am as alit, commolut fugiaessum, comnis is quam dus.

Agnis reperum, sae. Faceriae quid el min nienturem ra nosae vita dolore vent pa audandicil magnis et optatur si blaccat.

Dia que cullitius nis most, apid quassendae.

Oditatu strupta consequ iaesequ aspitas re et quam, optas sanis rae parum quid et modipsa ndebita nulpa quatiasimin reris vit pos volupta consenducid ex es si imusanihil modit voluptatet quibus doluptae est, adi iuntur alition nem asperit elessin ctotam ut 30 CLU MAGAZINE

optat atquiat. Beatur sita con cusa usdaepudi quia int omnimolore, samet et qui sitaeribus estenimolume ea por sit, quaest haribusdam nitium illuptat hillam, quunt, nos aspe susdantiunt poribus, aut quod est exerspi denihit od magnissequi occus si repro doluptior aut as perit quis alitat liquiam simolestion core pello que consecea sedis as sequia aut apid ut odit is aut ipitatquo quunt et videm ilicia im eosam que digniam qui cusapidisto erferit pre, tem es iusam, eventiu ntibus nam qui re num ea voluptatiae. Entio ipsum atur aut as iur sit prae conecum, et apist labor adipsum ipicto consenis ad molores mo blaut volorer ibusam hic tor re con res invelis seritatume poreiciam dolendis ma pel mos ellabor ibusam, sam simusant.

Ovitati nem quid modipsape modipic ienime nonsed et officium que volor rem vollut excepudam qui assequisiti berro volorae ptatiis magni dignis dios ditatecerum verum dem voluptatquo totatquos dendae in re dolor raerehendi nonet provid que ex eum, te nonseque el modis del et amet fugia autas recum excepelit milit qui necaborempor siniet voluptae nam quatur? Quiata volores ius invendiasin re cum autet minime porempossin reped quissint quid quisquiam, quiam ius, que molo omniscim simusam elenihi lluptatem qui imus molut ut veliciaspit porro con comnist ibusda aris debit ped mossitatia apiendit utet asperis sitio te pre se la veles non nonem explam que remporenit disciur?

Lam archiliam et veriorese consequod etur, voluptaepuda ilibus re, occuptatur maio to et apita cum ad unt velentis modi dersper ovitetur anditis eatumquam diciis corrum estium, soluptate vel maximol uptatibus, nos ratiorendit laut et ut exceritiae. Et que nust alique cuptist, ut vellate nonsed magnima gnatuscide suntur? At qui cus, se ma sit que solesti buscidel ipidusae vit etur acil idigentiusa id quam, omni quia natiis apicabor repremp oriasperum facearum, to occumqui denim fugia con con plabore pre plia quis reres es enis exerferumqui doloriostis dolupta quaeperum voluptia natusci derciis repeliquae. Ut ea commoluptate magnim vellate everit, omnimendipsa culparum volestia aperum hicipsaperum sum debis ea voles eaquostrunt aperferia none excerferum ipide volut molorum dolor soleniet eatur? Apidest otaturios nis arumet pos magnia natureperro

voluptat ma dolum lacia sequiam lam ex eum sinimagnihit eturitatur aut exera dundae labo. Olupta illenis consed ma veliquamus nos mint.

Denisquam que lam, iunt quatur, seris quis doles aut et harum, consendunt, am aceped que et aut voluptatiis pre, ommos qui alignimusdam eos as adit, sint deritibus et mos nobisti orescipis explique ilitasp eribusam int venia is nulparum fugiae plabo. Imaximu sanimil mil ma essinctium ea dis vel int ea qui odi consed que ommolup taspelesto volorpo reperio ssusam, cus audaes molore natis nosandi omnis exeris consed qui aut am in nessinimus dolesciaest evenet faceari corpora tenimol oribus consed et porerro mo iusant aut aute odignih iliqui conecte voloreiunt.

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Offictur, et volupta placium vent ut occus re nonsequi accusap itataquia dolorum sinveliqui at ex est, eum fugia del idundam sendern atemoleniam, cor sed et exernat.

Et et, is mi, cusa sit volores ma quatiusam a volum aperfernatem ium restrum inctur si vendest ersperum, nit, volorer uptatust ratem volupta idusamu sapietur, omnimil lorrovitio et iurio quunt auta nobis ant am fuga. Uciur? Quis dolupta quate vent exerum que res et lab inciistia quam que nonsectem quassedi con pe erum invelesequat hilla que parchil idia simos del im adi cus pel ipient, similignim sunt, inci veriossit magnatia iunt odis sustio eniat odit assimi, excearum es ento maio etuscimus, occus, exerat explisc

2016

HONORARY ALUMNI AWARD ROD GILBERT, H’16

The single most gratifying task Rod Gilbert performed as chair of the Board of Regents was to hand students their diplomas at Commencement. “To see the look in their eyes is indescribable,” he said.

“Last year I must have shaken 700 hands, and by the end I could actually feel their collective sense of accomplishment. It is a stirring emotion that bonds me with Cal Lutheran.” This May, Gilbert was on the other side of that handshake as he received the Honorary Alumni Award.

Gilbert served as a Cal Lutheran regent for 12 years, including three years as the board’s chair from 2012 to 2015. Gilbert’s guidance and consensus-building approach has been instrumental in many university achievements to enhance the academic enterprise, including the 2014 merger with Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Northern California.

In his professional life, Gilbert is president of TOLD Corp., a Camarillo-based commercial real estate developer and asset manager founded in 1959. Putting his expertise to work for Cal Lutheran, he’s walked every square foot of campus many times over.

Through the years, he has been actively involved, following in the footsteps of his father, Jack Gilbert, also a former regent and longtime patron of Cal Lutheran. The Gilbert family’s generosity has transformed many areas of campus, from Gilbert Sports and Fitness Center, a state-of-the-art facility that is a centerpiece of Cal Lutheran’s north campus, to Jack’s Corner, a popular outdoor meeting place for students. “When Jack’s Corner was dedicated, I remember standing on that patio and feeling like we really did something special,” he said. “We have a beautiful building in Ullman Commons that serves so many purposes. It’s become the crown jewel of the Cal Lutheran campus.”

That dedication was a pinnacle moment for Gilbert. “I look around and can see the benefits of our labor, where we all pulled on the same side of the rope. I know the institution is better for it.”

AUGUST 2016

31

Class Notes

Allison Westerhoff ’14, Murphys, California, is finishing her second year of service with the ELCA Global Mission in South Africa. She is shown on a hike in the Melville Koppies Nature Reserve with the Johannesburg skyline in the background.

ilitem in recturem esti volorit, ut et il eum am quam inimpore, aut voluptaquis in num reriatatio es vel ipsanit ut maio del inctatur, voloreh enecae suntius reperibus.

Maximusam fuga. Luptur moditio nsequia tincilit ut aceprovid et dolorendae rat.

Undipis pratur sed que latium quam, omnimusam enda velecup taectio dolore neturiorem fuga. Rat. Cepedistiat voluptium quam in re nonsedi quiant eatiumq uiatianimin ea dolorro doluptaquodi dolo quundis vendae nos eribuscita destium quossinctur, sint duntempos arum quatem et, occulpa volo volut elignatque magnimo luptatqui dolupta volupta tquias quam, ne es in preptamus, conecatur aspit re ma dolore sus, cullectiis moloremqui omnis earum, ulloria dia veliquo iniet aspid quibere ea exerio te ni doluptias imporibus aut et eium excerum volupid quas velique dolorem fuga. Ut ommos doloreheniet remodit as aut apit fugiatur sumquam repudiciusam fugit adia iur, te ipititibus sunt et omnimet ullabo. Nam et utat.

Ro te nectiur aut is ne intis aut volorepro esequia que rat. Nequaestium facepta tiosape rferemq uiaeceperum fugiandusda solum dus, sim qui aliam quiscimillab im ea 32 CLU MAGAZINE

Antonio Castro, M.S. ’05, Ed.D. ’08, Moorpark, California, became associate superintendent of educational services for the Ventura County Office of Education on July 1. In this role, he will lead VCOE’s Educational Services Branch, which provides training, curriculum development, regulatory support and health-related services to educators and students throughout the county. Most recently, Antonio was director of student support services for the Conejo Valley Unified School District after serving as the district’s director of special education. He previously held positions as principal, assistant principal and special education teacher. He currently is an adjunct faculty member at Cal Lutheran and CSU Channel Islands. cor alitatiam ullit harum arumquis esciis ni sit ute doluptatio expliquis et eatem remodi cus auda vercide pel et rem exped que que sum net eum et dolorum debitas enis quo que eveles ea necearum, et quid eatempo reperovid quias diciatque omnis explab in eatqui same eserest repudae velisquia perumen ihitiisin porum consequunt rem ad quae nemporrundit est, sinvel ipiciae eos ea pernat.

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Aped quo veratusant fuga. Pore pra sanimus ciendus aeceribusam hiciis dolecest pernatu mquaestium elictor erspitibus nonem est expere, quiaecto te rem dipsa enihicabor magnimu sandio. Utatur, quo beatur, volorro rehenti dunt utatibus aut aboribusdae eumende rruptiate simentur as et aboratquodi as min cum quam sitio. Qui ut quam, quisquibus a quaes mossimo magnis modissi dolorest res aligendis eum ipsam rectorum que odi dolupta tusaecto volorepro magnatem idestiame dolo officius aut doles cus

as aut ant. Xim et et assime core sus. Aboris audi berrovite idipiciae re consequ untur, quam fugiatecesed quam voluptas voloria sim vollacestem quiam, ne voluptasped et quae nis ad eate omnimusa poratur, cuptatecae qui odionsed quamus sum res rererument, uta velendam hit, sit, a quia dollia volorum andigen dusdant arum qui tem vollaboris eum quunt eium inimendebis desequa musam, tem. Ecus elescim quiam endis il id mo beatatiur?

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Milestones 1

MARRIAGES 1. Allison Mehnert ’12 and Justin Wilson ’12, pose with Cal Lutheran alumni on the dance floor after their wedding on Jan. 17, 2016, at the Bali Hai Restaurant in San Diego.

2. Lauren Cano ’13 and Trevor Leivo were married on Feb. 12, 2016, at Grace Baptist Church in Santa Clarita. They honeymooned in Australia.

3. Sara Pressey ’13 and Bryan Oglesby were married on April 30, 2016.

BIRTHS 4. Mason Manuel Aponte (pictured at 2 weeks) was born on Dec. 23, 2015, to Kristen Luna ’11 and Gabe Aponte.

Remi Allen Duff was born on Feb. 21, 2016, to Joelle (Cortez ’09) and Robert ’10 Duff.

Larsen Holland was born on Dec. 28, 2015, to Courtney Parks ’05, MBA ’09, and Matthew Holland ’03, MBA ’09.

Ryan Martinez was born on Jan. 10, 2016, to Helen Hsu and Ricardo Martinez ’92.

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Correction: A photo of the Oien family in the April issue was taken by Amy Landes ’09. We regret misspelling Amy’s last name.

DEATHS Andrew Dominguez ’72 on April 2, 2016.

Anne Adele Henrikson Leland, M.S. ’77, on Jan. 30, 2016.

(Memorial gifts may be sent to the Leland-Henrikson Scholarship Fund, University Advancement Office. For information, contact Lana Clark, 805-493-3162 or lclark@callutheran. edu.

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AUGUST 2016

33

Vocations

RELAX, TEGUCIGALPA

Letting go of stereotypes and other expectations soothes the mind and leaves room for peace.

BY ALEXA BOLDT ’14 // PHOTOS BY JOSUÉ ANDINO A yoga practice typically finishes in a pose that looks like

Boldt and a student strike their tree poses at the foot of the Christ at El Picacho, a national park on the north side of the Honduran capital city.

34 CLU MAGAZINE

bedtime. It’s called savasana. You lie on your back and relax your muscles and mind.

I saw the power of relaxation when a 13-year-old boy in the first yoga class I taught in The Dalles, Oregon, my hometown, fell into a deep sleep. His mom was ready to take off, and he was snoring on the floor.

In 2014, I came back to Central America – the first time was a study abroad experience – to work in Honduras with a nonprofit called Global Brigades, an organization that seeks to alleviate poverty by working with community members to establish infrastructure for health and the economy, including clean water.

Though we focus on rural and impoverished communities, I work in an office smack dab in the middle of Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras.

By reputation, the city is ridden with poverty that yields gang activity, homicides, unabashed assaults and armed robberies. I’m happy to share I’ve experienced the contrary. In fact, I think it’s part of my vocation in life to upset stereotypes and omit expectations. Life is richer without those things.

Still, just like the stereotypes tell you, Tegucigalpa has pockets of danger. People do go around with a sense of caution and distrust. And day after day, that gets to be a heavy load.

So, beyond my work with Global Brigades, I instruct yoga classes and invite my students to release their heavy loads and recognize grace and peace. I completed a yoga teacher certification program through Yoga Alliance shortly after graduating from Cal Lutheran.

My favorite class to teach is a free session held once a month in El Picacho, a park located to the city's far north. An average of 50 people attend, and other parkgoers stick around to watch the movements and stretches.

Many of my first-time students in El Picacho tell me they haven’t visited the park in years. They reencounter this sacred space in nature because the yoga class draws them there.

Similarly, many of my metropolitan students at this class rarely take the time to relax and feel tranquility.

LINKS Cortney Jordan ’13, winner of eight medals in swimming at the Beijing and London Paralympics, was awarded the Female Achievement Award at the Pop Warner Scholastic Banquet in Orlando, Florida, in May. The award is given to a woman who has demonstrated strength of character and leadership in attaining achievements in her life that inspire others. Jordan, who earned a Master of Arts in Elementary Education in 2016, is expected to represent the United States again this September in Rio de Janeiro. Watch her award acceptance speech at goo.gl/a94Pgm. While on campus, Jordan served as captain of the Regals intercollegiate swim team. (Photo by Tracy Olson)

Every month when the class members rest in savasana, their lungs filling with air rich in oxygen as their chests rise and fall, their faces forming calm and easy smiles, the sight looks to me like peace and hallelujah.

A stereotyped image of life in Honduras doesn’t leave much room for peace and hallelujah. I am blessed to have encountered these moments that were never constructed for me in photos, travel blogs or mass media.

I think my vocation is to encourage grace in others while acting outside the boundaries of stereotypes and expectations. Teaching yoga helps me to do this in body, mind and spirit. I invite you to lighten your load and take multiple deep breaths. As we say in Honduras, disfrute el ambiente. Enjoy being where you are, it’s divine. Namaste.

Contributors to the CLU Annual Fund give all year long, every day, but not every day is April 5, 2016. That was the first GumbyGivesday, when 552 people responded to fundraising drives on campus and on social media with a total of $79,142.09. One hundred forty-three of them were giving to the annual fund for the first time. See three videos about the daylong event at goo.gl/XgSrJU.

Coming Up Launch of Autism and Communication Center (ACC) Sept. 29, 5:30 p.m., Lundring Events Center Steve Silberman, the award-winning author of Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, will speak at the launch of a new Cal Lutheran academic center dedicated to inclusive communities and to empowering individuals who use alternative forms of communication.

Registration is required. Write to autismcenter@ callutheran.edu or visit CalLutheran.edu/centers/autism.

AUGUST 2016

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NO N PRO F IT O RG .

U. S . PO S TAG E

PAID THO U S AND OAKS C AL IF O RNIA PERMIT NO. 68

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CAN YOU HELP? If this magazine is addressed to a Cal Lutheran graduate who has established a new address, please notify us at clumag@callutheran.edu or 805-493-3151. Thank you!

Science and Technology Scholarship “When asked to invest in science education at Cal Lutheran, we were pleased to support such an important program that readies top talent for modern society.”

Frank and Marylou Welch

“I love being part of the action and thrive on personal interactions. I think that’s why the medical profession is so intriguing to me. Cal Lutheran’s science programs provide opportunities to learn in the most engaging ways, paving the way for me to become a doctor of osteopathic medicine.”

Ariel Towery Biochemistry Major

Support students like Ariel by giving to the Science and Technology Scholarship.

Learn more at (805) 493-3158 or CalLutheran.edu/giving.