Spring 2017 MIZZOU magazine

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mizzoumagazine.com | Spring 2017

Cancer-Killing Bacteria Scientists sleuth out salmonella’s hidden powers | 44

Dark at Midday Columbia’s first total solar eclipse since 1442 | 22 House Moms Sorority directors create a home away from home | 40

Change Maker Lindsey Kirn is as at home in the halls of power as she is investigating health issues in a Zambian village. | 19

FIRST LOOK ANN HERMES, MA ’08, a staff photographer and photo blog editor for The Christian Science Monitor, documents children helping to stack bricks inside a kiln in Dhading District, Nepal. Despite a national law that bans children younger than 14 from working, scenes like this one are commonplace in the country’s brickmaking industry. The photo was part of Brick by Brick: Reforming South Asia’s Brick Kilns, a project funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Read a Q-and-A with Hermes at news. missouri.edu/first-look

SPRING 2017

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FROM THE EDITOR

MIZZOU

®

Editorial and Advertising Mizzou Creative Heinkel Building, 201 S. Seventh St., Suite 200 Columbia, MO 65211 phone: 573-882-5914 mizzou@missouri.edu mizzoumagazine.com editor Karen Pojmann managing editor Ara Clark associate editor Dale Smith class notes editor Marcus Wilkins writers Brittany King, Erik Potter and Marcus Wilkins art director Blake Dinsdale photographers Shane Epping and Rob Hill editors emeriti Steve Shinn and Karen Worley advertising phone: 573-882-6611 Mizzou Alumni Association 123 Reynolds Alumni Center Columbia, MO 65211 phone: 573-882-6611, fax: 573-882-5145 executive director Todd A. McCubbin, M Ed ’95

MIKALA COMPTON

It’s All Greek to Me When I was a student at Mizzou in the ’90s, fraternities and sororities puzzled me — the rituals, the matching T-shirts. I was surprised, upon arriving at Mark Twain Hall my freshman year, to discover that my roommate, a friend from high school, was rushing a sorority. Her closet was packed with frilly dresses and high-heeled shoes. Her schedule was packed with crafts projects and mysterious social gatherings. “I want to live in a big house,” she explained, as I stood there in my baggy concert T-shirt and chunky black Mary Janes. She moved out the next semester, and from that point on, my social circle was mostly devoid of fraternity and sorority members but replete with oddballs and misfits, most of us ultimately housed in charmingly dilapidated East Campus apartments.

The idiom “all Greek to me,” as those of you who were paying attention in Mizzou literature classes know, comes from the 1599 Shakespeare play Julius Caesar. The character Casca reports that he was unable to follow remarks made by Cicero during a festival because Cicero was, literally, speaking Greek: “But those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.” The phrase suggests the perspective of an outsider looking in, uncomprehendingly, which pretty well characterizes my long-ago take on Greek Life.

But things have changed. A lot.

In the 2016–17 academic year, the portion of Mizzou’s student body in the Greek system has risen to 27 percent, and the stereotype of fraternities and sororities as homogenous or exclusive

has been turned on its Sorority members head. Mizzou’s rapidly flock to Memorial growing Greek Life of- Stadium on bid day. fers something for everyone. Recent developments include a sorority founded by Latina students, an Asian-interest fraternity, a Greek Allies group supporting LGBTQ students and a Greek Multicultural Council. On Page 26, we take a look at some new organizations as well as new incarnations of traditions half a century old.

Continuing a Greek mini-motif, we step through the ornate doors of sorority houses to meet house moms, the multitasking managers who keep everything — from plumbing to relationships — running smoothly [Page 40].

We showcase impressive alumni and students, such as Lindsey Kirn [Page 19] and Jazmyn Ferguson [Page 14], whose Greek experiences have helped them rise to greatness. We also take a look at Greek organizations’ philanthropic efforts, from big fundraising extravaganzas to small crowdsourcing campaigns [Page 17].

Speaking of funds, please take a look at Executive Director Todd McCubbin’s column on the dire state of the university’s budget [Page 53], and consider how you can help [Page 55].

Regardless of affiliation, all of us — Greeks and independents, band geeks and athletes, engineers and artists — are Tigers. Our alma mater needs us.

— Karen Pojmann, BJ ’94

Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the official position of the University of Missouri or the Mizzou Alumni Association. ©2017 Statements of Purpose The Mizzou Alumni Association proudly supports the best interests and traditions of Missouri’s flagship university and its alumni worldwide. Lifelong relationships are the foundation of our support. These relationships are enhanced through advocacy, communication and volunteerism.

MIZZOU magazine reports credible and engaging news about the University of Missouri community to a global audience.

Communications Committee Chair Kia Breaux, BJ ’96, Midwest regional director, Associated Press; Andrew Blasko, BJ ’95, proposal coordinator, Holland & Knight LLP; Chris Blose, MA ’04, vice president, content, Imagination; Rich Chrismer, BA ’97, principal/founder, Seen Read Heard; David Eulitt, BJ ’88, staff photographer, The Kansas City Star; Lisa Faustlin, BA ’94, lead data scientist, BigBear, Inc.; Sallie Gaines, BJ ’73, retired from the Philanthropies; Carl Kenney, BJ ’86, columnist, the Durham News; Robyn King, BA ’02, media and journalism teacher, Ruskin High School and Carter Broadcast Group; Gina Lamb, BJ BA ’95, deskhead, Projects Copy Desk, The New York Times; Amanda LePoire, BJ ’02, director of communications, Mercy Investment Services; Crystal Y. Lumpkins, BJ ’92, assistant professor, University of Kansas School of Medicine, director of communications, University of Kansas Center for American Indian Community Health; Craig Politte, BS BA ’93, operations, myTikr/Vection Technologies; Blake Pryor, BS BA ’99, JD ’02, assistant regional counsel, Social Security Administration; MeLinda Schnyder, BJ ’93, freelance journalist and content creator; Damon Smith, BA ’03, senior communications specialist, National Association of Insurance Commissioners; Helen Sosniecki, BJ ’73, consultant for the community-newspaper industry; Chris Stewart, BJ ’02, communications manager, National Renewable Energy Laboratory; Steve Weinberg, BJ ’70, MA ’75, author.

MIZZOU magazine Spring 2017, Volume 105, Number 3 Published triannually by the Mizzou Alumni Association

SPRING 2017

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TABLE OF CONTENTS MIZZOUMAGAZINE.COM

Departments 1 First Look

Christian Science Monitor photographer Ann Hermes, MA ’08, captures images of child labor in South Asia’s brick-making industry.

6 Inbox

Readers give it to us straight.

10 Around the Columns

Tigers create technologies for making pedestrians safer, screens smarter, surgery better and coffee hotter. They open new businesses, score sports victories and take on leadership roles.

More Mizzou online Window to Mizzou: Missing campus? Want to see what’s new?

Take a peek at our video feed showing snippets of Mizzou life on a typical day. news.missouri.edu/window-to-mizzou First Look: Look behind the lens of globetrotting alumna Ann Hermes, BA ’08, as the Christian Science Monitor photographer and multimedia producer captures labor activism in Egypt, the refugee crisis in Syria, human rights abuses in Indonesia and marine life rescue in Maine. news.missouri.edu/first-look Social Ambassadors: Join MizzouNet to learn what people are saying about your alma mater in social media, and share your favorite posts with fellow Tigers. mizzou.com

11 Tiger’s Eye

facebook.com/mizzou twitter.com/mizzou instagram.com/mizzou

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mizzoumagazine.com | Spring 2017

Cancer-Killing Bacteria Scientists sleuth out salmonella’s hidden powers | 44

Dark at Midday Columbia’s first total solar eclipse since 1442 | 22 House Moms Sorority directors create a home away from home | 40

Change Maker Lindsey Kirn is as at home in the halls of power as she is investigating health issues in a Zambian village. | 19

MIZZOU_Sp17_FOB.indd 1

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4/7/17 9:56 AM

About the cover Lindsey Kirn, BA, BA ’98, is director of communications and engagement for USAID/U.S. Global Development Lab’s Center for Development Innovation in Washington, D.C. Greg KendallBall, MA ’14, photographed her inside the Newseum balcony overlooking the Capitol.

MIZZOUMAGAZINE

52 Mizzou Alumni News

Alumni support their alma mater with volunteer hours, school-spirited license plates and love notes etched in stone. Thousands of Tigers join forces to raise $8.3 million on Mizzou Giving Day.

53 Class Notes

Anniversaries, jobs, weddings, babies — alumni fill us in on the latest.

64 Semper Mizzou

J’den Cox wraps up his Mizzou wrestling career with an unprecedented third NCAA championship.

CAMPUS: SHANE EPPING; GLOBES: COURTESY 1CANOE2

An online visit to Mizzou is an immersive experience, complete with tour guides, 360-degree views and virtual reality.

Features

Marit Vogelsong relaxes in her room at the Kappa Delta sorority house, where she has worked as as a house mom since 2013.

19 Out of Africa

32 Eyes of the Tigers

story by dale smith

36 Let’s Talk

Growing up in South Africa, Lindsey Kirn, BA, BA ’98, saw firsthand how tainted water could devastate families. During her career in public health and international development, she has become as adept at investigating health issues in a Zambian village as she is negotiating the halls of power in Washington, D.C.

22 Astronomical View

MORGAN LIEBERMAN

On Aug. 21, the midday sky over Columbia will go dark for 2 minutes and 36 seconds. Mizzou Director of Astronomy Angela Speck can’t wait. story by brittany king

26 Greek Evolution

The fraternity and sorority system at Mizzou is bigger than ever before. With expanding traditions, new organizations and a more inclusive outlook, MU Greek life offers something for everyone. story by brittany king

So much is new for Mizzou baseball: the coach, a high-tech batter-training system and a 20-game winning streak. story by marcus wilkins * photos by rob hill

J-School faculty member Earnest Perry has had a big year, with two major teaching awards and a promotion to associate dean. But he always makes time to chat. story by dale smith

40 The Ladies Behind the Letters

Meet the house moms who work all hours to keep Mizzou’s sororities running like clockwork. photos by morgan lieberman

44 Bacteria To the Future

After half a century in a cluttered closet, a strain of Swedish salmonella might have found a new purpose: cancer eradication. story by erik potter * photos by rob hill SPRING 2017

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INBOX

Events The Two Lathrops April 21, 60th Annual Medical Alumni Awards mizzou.com 22, Kansas City Tiger Ball kctigers.com May 5, Houston Texas Tiger Golf Tournament mizzou.com June 4, Mizzou Night at Wrigley Field in Chicago mizzou.com 10, Black & Glow event at Grant’s Farm in St. Louis mizzou.com July 1–9, Tourin’ Tigers Great Parks of California mizzou.com 28, Great River Tigers Student Sendoff mizzou.com August 5, Kansas City Tiger Tailgate kctigers.com

The mention of Lathrop Hall (“Love in Lathrop,” Winter 2017, Page 64) in the latest as-usual-wonderful issue of MIZZOU magazine rang a mental bell. I remember two Lathrop Halls at Mizzou, one the then-new high-rise dorm and the other an old building located near a campus heating plant. I only saw the old building because I was walking a member of The Maneater staff to her residence about 2 a.m. one horrendous deadline night, and there it was, hulking in the dark. Is this history or imagination?

HHWAYNE BRASLER, BJ ’62 Westchester, Illinois

Editor’s Note: Mizzou has had a pair of Lathrop halls.

The first, constructed in 1898 where Lafferre Hall now sits on South Sixth Street, originally served as a men’s residence hall, later housed other university departments and ultimately was taken down in summer 1961. The latter Lathrop, also a residence hall, opened in 1959 north of Memorial Stadium, closed in summer 2016 and is scheduled for demolition in 2017.

Loving, Tomas, Logsdon

Regarding the Winter 2017 story “Romance of Historic Proportions,” I offer a reminder: When the Logsdons married in 1965 in Washington, D.C., they were not the first MU graduates in a mixed-race marriage while Missouri’s anti-miscegenation law was in force. My heritage is Filipino, and in 1959, I married Janice Mosley, BJ ’59 (who is white), in Columbia upon graduation from Mizzou. My children were born over the next two

This eagle faced east from its perch atop MU’s original Lathrop Hall until Dean of Students “Black Jack” Matthews purchased it in 1961, when the building was demolished. Matthews displayed it at three successive Columbia homes, then donated it to MU, where it was enshrined in the main desk at the second Lathrop Hall.

The imposing raptor now observes historians at work in the University of Missouri Archives reading room in Lewis Hall.

years when I worked as a reporter-photographer for The Kansas City Times. In the mid-’60s I wrote to then-Gov. Warren Hearnes and U.S. Sen. Stuart Symington protesting that our children were considered bastards under Missouri law. I threatened to contact the Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. and present the law as hostile and damaging.

The governor assured me in writing that the law would be voided in the next legislative session.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional in 1967, rendering the point moot.

HNOEL TOMAS, BJ ’59 Glastonbury, Connecticut

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MIZZOUMAGAZINE

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Mizzou: Our Honoring the Past, Strengthening the Present, Shaping the Future In 1839, more than 900 Boone County citizens pooled their resources to establish the university. This spirit of generosity and vision lives on to this day through the thousands of people who give to Mizzou each year.

Launched in October 2015, the $1.3 billion Mizzou: Our Time to Lead campaign harnesses the Mizzou family’s support. The initiative establishes MU as a destination university for the world’s best students and faculty by focusing on three priorities:

1

Endowment

Building our endowment to compete with other institutions will enhance our ability to attract and retain stellar students and faculty.

After graduating from the Missouri School of Journalism, Don Mozley, BJ ’42, spent over six decades writing and anchoring award-winning radio newscasts. He went on to endow the Donald S. Mozley Journalism Scholarship, which has provided 268 students with nearly $800,000 in support since 2014.

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MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Signature Centers and Institutes 2

Interdisciplinary centers and institutes will be the engine of research growth that attracts funding and raises our profile in the AAU. This summer, 20 Mizzou undergraduates will immerse themselves in internships and the study of American constitutional democracy in the nation’s capital through the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy’s Kinder Scholars D.C. Summer Program. Created in 2015 by a generous gift from the Kinder Foundation, a family philanthropic foundation started by Rich and Nancy Kinder, the institute dedicates itself to excellence in research, teaching and community engagement on the subject of American political thought, history and institutions.

Campus Renaissance 3

New and renovated facilities will propel Mizzou to global leadership in education and research.

Thanks to a combination of private gifts, state support and university resources, the College of Engineering cut the ribbon on its newly renovated Thomas and Nell Lafferre Hall, in December 2016. The revitalized building will accommodate the addition of 50 faculty members and 3,300 students, who will go on to become the engineering leaders of the future.

Time to Lead C A M PA I G N U P DAT E

BY THE NUMBERS Overall Campaign Progress $1,312M

66% $867.1M

Campaign Progress (In Millions) $763

$867

$604 $450

Your Time to Lead Whether you drive past Jesse Hall every day or carry the Columns in your heart halfway around the world, you can help the Mizzou: Our Time to Lead campaign succeed. Your support will ensure Mizzou continues to change the lives of students and benefit society through research, service and economic development. Here are three easy things you can do to lead the way: • Wear your black and gold with pride.

• Attend a Mizzou event in your area — and bring a friend!

• Make a gift — large or small — to the school, college or program of your choice.

To learn more about the Mizzou: Our Time to Lead campaign or the role of philanthropy on campus, visit giving.missouri.edu or call 1-866-267-7568.

$299

$150 FY12 FY13 FY14 FY15 FY16 FY17 YTD

Total Number of Gifts Received

315K+ Average Gift Size

$2,080 SPRING 2017

9

AROUND THE COLUMNS Mugs Up

Flight of Fancy

10 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

If the menu sounds Dan Dethrow, BA ’04, left, like music to your and Adam Wells-Morgan, mouth, it might be be- A&S ’99, opened the Columbia cause these Mizzou restaurant Flyover in August. alumni studied in the MU School of Music while earning income at local restaurants. The two have worked in an array of now-defunct establishments such as Trattoria Strada Nova, Cocina Sorella, and Village Wine and Cheese, as well as the alive-and-well Booche’s, Tellers and Club at Old Hawthorne.

“I was always happiest tending bar,” Dethrow says. “This is what I love doing.” — Marcus Wilkins

safer travels As an MU computer science student, Zach Winkler, CS ’13,

took note of two trends. The first: Cell phones had become ubiquitous among college students. The second: Despite having cell phones and campus emergency phones, young people wanted to feel safer — especially when walking alone at night. Combining the observations, Winkler teamed up with business student Zach Beattie, BS BA ’14, and journalism student Natalie Cheng, BJ ’14, in a Reynolds Journalism Institute app-development competition. The SafeTrek panic-button app was born.

The concept is simple. When worried about security, turn on the app, activating a GPS signal, and hold down a button on the phone’s touch screen. If the button is released, the user has 10 seconds to enter a PIN before a message is sent, with the location, to the nearest police dispatcher.

Winkler is now CEO of Safe Trek, a St. Louis company with $1.2 million in venture capital funding, and the company is No. 3 on the CNBC’s Upstart 25, a list of 2017’s top emerging tech firms. The app has more than 250,000 users.

ROB HILL

When Dan Dethrow, BA ’04, informed his father and former Booche’s owner Jerry Dethrow, BA ’72, of his plan to open an eatery in Columbia, the elder restaurateur was supportive yet sage.

“He said, ‘Just think about it,’ ” says Dan with a laugh. “He knows how much work it is.”

The Midwestern-theme restaurant, Flyover, took off in August 2016 on the south side of town and has soared to the forefront of CoMo’s culinary community. Dan is co-owner and “cocktail manager,” while business partner and executive chef Adam Wells-Morgan, A&S ’99, authors an everevolving menu showcasing a region of the country foodies often overlook.

“When national people talk about the Midwest, they usually only talk about Chicago,” Wells-Morgan says. “Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri get ‘flown over’ as if we don’t exist. We thought it would be fun to take something that is supposed to be a derogatory term and make it something awesome.”

Flyover aims for “an upscale experience without the attitude,” Dethrow says. “You can come in dressed in a three-piece suit or jeans and a T-shirt, and you’re going to feel fine either way.”

Popular items include chicken-fried cauliflower; hand-made pretzels with fondue; and a beef-and-pork meatloaf wrapped in bacon, cooked sous vide and finished in the restaurant’s signature wood-fired oven.

Coffee lovers, rejoice!

And thank a Tiger.

A new technology developed by Hongbin “Bill” Ma, MU professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, keeps coffee at optimal drinking temperature for hours after it’s been poured.

The Lexo travel mug is made of a specially designed material that absorbs heat from a scalding beverage, rendering it drinkable, and then releases the energy back into the beverage, maintaining the ideal 140-degree temperature for up to eight hours.

It also keeps cold drinks cold.

“Our mugs have made the ordinary travel coffee mug a thing of the past,” says Ma. Developed through Ma’s company, ThermAvant Technologies, Lexo is available at lexolife.com.

TIGER’S EYE

Tour de Francis Quadrangle (and Beyond) In December 2016, Mizzou launched a fully immersive online campus tour. Complete with friendly student tour guides, colorful photos, maps and historical tidbits, the virtual tour is a great way for prospective students to check out campus or for alumni to come home even if they can’t make it to Homecoming. Take the tour at missouri.edu/online-tour.

BE BOULDER Scroggs Peak, named after Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Cathy Scroggs, is a 35.5-foot climbing tower rising through the complex’s Jungle Gym level. The Brewer Butte bouldering wall challenges recreational and advanced climbers.

YOUVISIT

SMILING FACES The student guides are part-time employees of Mizzou’s Office of Visitor Relations.

YARD LINES, SIGHT LINES The 360-degree-view feature takes the immersive experience to the next level, allowing users to peer skyward at Memorial Union or tread the turf of Faurot Field. The virtual tour is also device-agnostic, meaning it works on desktops, laptops, smartphones and virtual reality headsets.

YOU ARE HERE The virtual tour incorporates maps, slideshows, videos and text to give visitors all the information they need about Mizzou.

SPRING 2017 11

AROUND THE COLUMNS

Good to Go

When Raven Smith was a freshman at Morgan Park Mizzou freshman Raven High School in Chicago, she liked going to football Smith (front) founder of games. Then one day the sound of gunshots rang out the anti-gun-violence into the crowd. “It was just a stampede. People were organization Straight getting hurt because they were getting run over,” she From the Go, gets support from (from left) says. During her senior year, she travelled to Detroit Ashton Brown, Christian for a basketball game, and a group of boys asked her Bell, Robbie Hatchett, about her hometown. “I told them I was from Chicago, Samantha Taylor and and their response was ‘Oh, like ChIraq?’” she recalls. Ayanna Hayes.

These interactions left Smith, now a Mizzou freshman, with a feeling of hopelessness. Smith grew up loving Chicago and all it offers. She hated that it had become known for gun violence, so in December 2015 she founded Straight From the Go (SFTG), an organization that showcases what is good about Chicago and supports those affected by the bad.

SFTG launched with a backpack full of T-shirts designed to look like the Chicago flag. Smith and her family create and sell clothing featuring the organization’s name, and some of the proceeds support victims of gun violence and the families of fallen first responders. To date, SFTG has raised more than $5,000 for Chicagoans and has sold more than 1,000 T-shirts.

In keeping with their mission, Smith and her classmates held a peace fest in 2016, earning recognition from Alderman David Moore and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Smith has landed appearances on Windy City Live, Chicago’s daytime talk show, and local TV news segments on CBS and ABC. She spoke at Chicago’s We Day, an event for community members supporting positive change, and met former U.S. Secretary of Education and CEO of Chicago Public Schools Arne Duncan there — wearing an SFTG shirt.

“Any time someone calls and asks me if I’m available for their church or school event, I say yes,” Smith says.

Now Smith has a board of advisers, including Columbia native Tom Alexander, Mizzou alumna Tarrah Cooper, BJ ’08, and Jenne Reidy. In preparation for summer 2017, she is designing limited-edition clothing and making plans to spread her message using a pop-up shop in her neighborhood, where it all started.

SFTG clothing is available online, in the Magnificent Mile shops Belle Up and Love From Chicago, at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, and at The Bridge in the MU Student Center. — Brittany King

12 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Jeff Nowak, BIT ’14, BA ’14, is pretty sure it was his Mizzou study-abroad trip that changed everything for him.

He had followed a conventional path to MU. He pulled good grades in high school in Ballwin, Missouri. He was accepted into the College of Engineering and earned a bachelor’s degree in information technology. At graduation he had several job offers from firms in St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri. “They weren’t bad salaries,” Nowak says.

But his study abroad had shown him big cities. Amsterdam. Brussels. The tech scene in London made a big impression on him. “That gave me a feeling of, ‘Wow, I know so little compared to what I thought.’ ” Nowak knew the life he could pursue in St. Louis, that he could be happy there. But as a tech person, he also knew California was where the excitement was.

“It was something that — I just felt like I would never know and kind of regret it if I didn’t go.”

So he rejected every offer and went to Los Angeles, where he had no job offers, but where he had friends with empty couches and could travel to the Bay Area.

For two months he emailed résumés, called employers and dropped in on businesses, trying to drum up a job opportunity. “The biggest thing wasn’t going out there,” Nowak says. “The harder choice was staying out there. You think how long a week is at a normal job. It’s much longer when you don’t have a job and you want one.”

The next few months were a tap dance. Nowak found work in L.A., then quit and moved to San Francisco, where he’d found a corporate job, which he quickly left to join a software startup. That’s where he met the future founder of Umbo, Francisco Saez.

Saez had been toying with the idea for Umbo — a smart device that uses interactive displays, à la Minority Report — for five years. Nowak was convinced of its potential. In a few months, Saez officially founded Umbo, and Nowak had a new job as the head of sales and operations of a cutting-edge San Francisco startup, playing a leading role in the democratization of technology.

Looking back, the months of empty pockets and couch surfing were a small price to pay, Nowak says. “Anything that’s worthwhile is hard work and has risk involved.” — Erik Potter

SMITH: SHANE EPPING; UMBO: COURTESY UMBO

GO WEST YOUNG MAN

Briefly

lafferre renovations

• MU paleobiologists John Huntley and Jim Schiffbauer received National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Awards. The assistant professors of geological sciences each will receive more than $500,000 over the next five years to support early career development activities, such as research, and efforts to integrate their studies into education programs.

In December, the MU College of Engineering unveiled renovations to the portions of Thomas and Nell Lafferre Hall that were built in 1935 and 1944. The 20,000-square-foot expansion and overhaul of the central engineering building, which began in April 2015, includes updated labs, conference rooms, study areas, an elevator, a coffee shop and upgrades in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. In October 2014, Gov. Jay Nixon, BA ’78, JD ’81, authorized $38.5 million to help fund the renovations, which eliminated more than $15 million in deferred maintenance.

LAFFERRE: ROB HILL ; KAPITZKY: COURTESY TYLER KAPITZKY

Honored to Serve

Ty Kapitzky was interning for KPMG on the 70th floor of a downtown-Chicago skyscraper when he read the email saying he’d been selected for Mizzou ’39, the prestigious honor the Mizzou Alumni Association gives 39 outstanding MU seniors each year.

One downside of a gig with a global audit, tax and advisory firm is that, when such an email comes through, you can’t jump out of your chair, raise your arms and shout for joy. “I had to keep a calm demeanor,” Kapitzky says, “but I was really excited.”

The senior accounting major from Lake Zurich, Illinois, has been burning a trail through Mizzou since he arrived. He has served on the Greek Week steering committee, was president of the Trulaske College of Business Alumni Mentor Program and has volunteered with Mizzou Alternative Breaks (MAB). It was a January 2016 MAB trip to Nicaragua that left a deep mark on Kapitzky. The students spent a week teaching English to local children and discussing career options education can help provide. The son of a Korean immigrant, Kapitzky knew the value of English literacy. He understood the power of a dream. But it was then he was able to experience the role he could play in helping transform the lives of others. And he liked it.

This summer Kapitzky will intern at Goldman Sachs, and this fall he will start a one-year master’s degree program in accounting, then pursue a job with a big audit or investing firm. But he has no plans to stop volunteering.

Eventually, he’d like to make it his career and manage his own nonprofit organization. — Erik Potter

Member of the Academy MU School of Medicine Professor Roger de la Torre has been named a fellow in the National Academy of Inventors, an honor bestowed on innovators whose work improves quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. De la Torre holds more than 65 patents on products in use worldwide. One invention led to handassisted laparoscopic surgery, a method used during minimally invasive procedures.

The doctor is section chief of bariatric surgery at MU Health Care and director of the MU Biodesign and Innovation Program. He is the eighth current Mizzou faculty member to become an NAI fellow.

• J. Sanford “Sandy” Rikoon, Curators Professor of Rural Sociology at MU, has been named dean of the University of Missouri College of Human Environmental Sciences. He had been serving as interim dean of the college since August 2015. Dale Fitch has been appointed director of the MU School of Social Work.

• The University of Missouri Research Reactor Center has received a new 20-year operating license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The center has been a component of research at MU for more than 40 years.

Scientists from across the campus use the 10-megawatt facility to produce radioisotopes, analyze artifacts, create and improve medical diagnostic tools, and prevent illness.

• Tiger vocalist Alicia Miles-Olatuja, BA ’05, performed on Gregory Porter’s album Take Me to the Alley, which won a Grammy for best jazz vocal album.

SPRING 2017 13

AROUND THE COLUMNS

José Takes a Hike Sometime in fall 2013, HHJosé Gutiérrez, BS Acc ’84, M Acc ’85, sat down to thumb out a note to himself on his iPhone.

Gutiérrez was a trim, good-looking, 52-yearold executive at AT&T. He led an international division that oversaw more than 10,000 people in more than 100 countries. Gutiérrez owned a beautiful home and a beautiful car. He served as a tri-chair on the Mizzou: Our Time to Lead fundraising campaign. He was a big shot.

Gutiérrez loved the perks. “Every time you say something, you have people who jump through hoops to do whatever José says,” he jokes.

But the pressure was weighing on him. The stress. The sleep deprivation. The ceaseless demands on his time. He was young, but he’d recently had a health scare that landed him in the hospital. That was his wake-up call.

So as he sat and stared at the blank note on his phone, he thought about what would make him free. Then he started typing.

He wrote a list of promises to himself, beginning with retiring in three years. He promised he would hike the Appalachian Trail. “Because freedom is scarcer than money in my life.” To live without a schedule. “No more rat race.” To find God again.

14 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Since retiring in SepTrue to his word, on Sept. 30, 2016, Gutiérrez tember, José Gutiérworked his last day as an rez, BS Acc ’84, M Acc employee. To celebrate, ’85, has hiked from Columbia to St. Louis he came back to Columand embarked on a bia (“which I still call 2,200-mile Appalaparadise”) and walked chian Trail trek. the Katy Trail to St. Louis (“the best city in the United States”).

Walking was something Gutiérrez did all the time in his native Spain and continued as a student at Mizzou. But he had given it up as a dayto-day activity during his demanding career.

He’s making up for it in retirement.

The five-day, 111-mile walk to St. Louis was a hard pace, but it showed him he’s ready to tackle the next item on his list of promises: On March 25, he started hiking the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail.

Time on the trail is a “spiritual, mystical experience,” concludes Gutiérrez, who says he came away refreshed in his conviction of God’s love for him. “You’re very bare. You don’t have all the complications you think you need. You have the necessities. It puts you in a totally different frame of mind.” — Erik Potter

By the time Jazmyn Ferguson stepped onto campus in fall 2014, she already knew a lot about Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated. Her mother was a Delta, and Jazmyn had been involved in the sorority’s mentorship programs in high school. By December 2015, she was a Delta, too.

Ferguson’s many extracurricular activities include preserving traditions as a member of the Alumni Association Student Board, where she helps plan Homecoming and other events.

She recently was elected central regional representative for the sorority — the third Mizzou student to hold the prestigious position. “Having the opportunity to attend my first regional conference and being a candidate is a moment I’ll always cherish,” she says. “When they announced that I was elected, I was crying hysterically.” Currently Ferguson is helping to plan Delta Days, an event during which members from across the country visit government officials in Washington, D.C. Ferguson’s favorite part of sorority life is the people. “The sisterhood is what I love,” she says. “Knowing that I’m going to have them for the rest of my life makes me feel so great.” — Brittany King

GUTIÉRREZ: COURTESY JOSÉ GUTIÉRREZ; FERGUSON: ROB HILL

Regional Leader

Scoreboard 17.5 — Points-per-game average for sophomore shooting guard Sophie Cunningham (Columbia), who received first team All-SEC honors.

1 C A N O E 2 : R O B H I L L ; P I N G E TO N : M I Z Z O U AT H L E T I C S

Life Is But a Dream Beth Howard Snyder, BFA ’02, has navigated many artistic tributaries en route to her current shore. As an entrepreneurial teenager in her hometown of Auxvasse, Missouri, she earned $40,000 designing and making jewelry for Poppy, Columbia’s trendy downtown gift boutique. As a Mizzou student, she worked part time at KOMU designing graphics for commercials and building sets for the morning show Pepper and Friends. After graduation, Snyder worked for six years at a Nashville TV station, winning an Emmy Award in graphic design while she “side hustled” painting murals and selling handmade wares.

Now, Snyder owns 1canoe2, a confluence of creativity anchored in Fulton, Missouri. The company, founded in 2009, makes gifts and stationery sold in popular national retail chains including Anthropologie, Paper Source and more than 1,000 independent boutiques around the world.

“I would describe our style as happy, cheerful, accessible, warm and inviting,” says Snyder of the company’s colorful cards, calendars and crafts.

“I try to keep things simple. It’s harder to make something beautiful when it’s really simple.”

The name is short for “one canoe, two girls,” a reference to Snyder and founding business partner Carrie Shryock’s love of the outdoors. The enterprise started in a little red barn outside of Columbia. Snyder bought Shryock’s portion of the business in 2015 and opened the elegant new retail space in Fulton’s Brick District in November 2016. The building is the refurbished former home of the Southern Bank of Fulton, built in 1902. The bank’s original vault and safe deposit boxes still

stand in the shop’s packing and shipping area, where employees send products all over the world.

Snyder credits the faculty in MU’s Art Department for urging her to aim high. Curators Professor of Art “Deborah Huelsbergen is fiercely supportive of her students,” Snyder says. “I remember her saying, ‘You guys are all excellent; you shouldn’t settle for less. If you look at what other graphic designers are doing, all of you can keep up with them.’ That really stuck with me.”

— Marcus Wilkins

autism There’s no shortage of child-development

specialists urging parents to limit kids’ screen time.

But Janine Peck Stichter, professor of special education, knows screens also can serve as portals to kids on the autism spectrum, especially those with limited access to treatment. Stichter and her team had previously developed a real-world social competence intervention for children on the autism spectrum. Now, through several U.S. Department of Education grants, they have adapted that program to an online, threedimensional virtual reality platform called iSocial. iSocial simulates real world environments and encourages users to communicate and collaborate through a goal-oriented, narrative role-playing game. Guided remotely by a professional teacher, participants use their avatars to practice verbal and nonverbal social interactions, building communication skills in a virtual world without suffering real-world consequences.

The latest iSocial study, “Fostering Verbal and NonVerbal Social Interactions in a 3D Collaborative Virtual Learning Environment,” was published in Educational Technology Research and Development in January.

2 — National championships to date for junior track and field star Karissa Schweizer (Urbandale, Iowa) after posting a time of 15:19.14 in the 5,000-meter run at the 2017 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in College Station, Texas. Schweizer won the NCAA cross country championship in November 2016.

3 — Conference basketball coach of the year awards in the career of Robin Pingeton, the 2017 SEC Coach of the Year.

She won the Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year Award in 2004 and 2010 at Illinois State.

Pingeton led the 2016–17 Tigers to a 22-11 record and a second consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament, where they lost to Florida State in the second round.

SPRING 2017 15

AROUND THE COLUMNS

A Cool Sensation Sports fans know about icing a kicker, freezing a hitter and “The Fridge.” Now the Tigers are upping their game by lowering the temperature.

Teaming up with Impact Cryotherapy, MU has installed a pair of “cryosaunas” at the Mizzou Athletics Training Complex. Each unit bathes a single athlete at a time in nitrogen vapor that descends to as low as -184°F. The cold-therapy modality oxygenates the blood when it is drawn to the body’s core, then pushes that blood to the extremities, to reduce inflammation, relieve pain and assist in muscle recovery.

The nitrogen, which is delivered to campus in 50-gallon tanks, is emitted from nozzles inside the chamber’s back wall. Each therapy session lasts three minutes, and the athlete inside must wear gloves and footwear and rotate his or her body every five seconds for even distribution.

The technology is used by several professional sports teams — including the Chicago Cubs and 16 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Freshman offensive lineman Kansas City Royals, winners of the Tre’Vour Simms (East St. Louis, past two World Se- Illinois) chills out in one of ries — and a handful two cryosaunas in the Mizzou Athletic Training Complex. of NCAA programs.

Athletes report feeling rejuvenated and invigorated, and some say they sleep better after having received treatment.

“We have 300 student-athletes, and we have one cold tub,” says Rex Sharp, associate athletic director for sports medicine, of the lower-tech version of cold therapy. “Instead of knocking out a wall and putting in another tub, now we have these.”

“During a demonstration in spring 2015, we must have brought 115 people through [the cryosauna] in one day,” says Sharp of the machines, which cost about $60,000 apiece. “There are so many demands on our student-athletes’ time. It’s all about efficiency.”— Marcus Wilkins

Mizzou’s 19th men’s basketball coach is a Missouri native who has succeeded along every stop of his nine-year head coaching career. Cuonzo (KAHN-zoh) Martin, who led the California Golden Bears to a 21-13 record in 2016–17, will helm the Tigers heading into the 2017–18 season.

His career record of 186-121 (.606) includes a three-year mark of 62-39 (.614) in three seasons at Cal. Before moving to the West Coast, Martin guided the Tennessee Volunteers to a 63-41 (.606) record and into the postseason each year (one NCAA, two NIT).

After reaching the NIT in each of his first two seasons at Knoxville, his final UT squad registered a 24-13 record and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.

Born in St. Louis and raised in East St. Louis, Illinois, Martin is a Purdue University alumnus who played for Hall of Fame Coach Gene Keady and graduated in 1995 before NBA stints with Atlanta, Milwaukee and Vancouver.

“We have everything we need to be the last team standing one day, and that’s my goal,” Martin says. “I don’t think there is anything Mizzou is lacking to be successful.”

T H E R A P Y : M I Z Z O U AT H L E T I C S ; M A RT I N : S H A N E E P P I N G

Right Man for the Job

GREEKTOWN

Greeks Bearing Gifts

M I Z Z O U T H O N : M O R G A N L I E B E R M A N ; B E T A T H E T A P H I : F A C E B O O K ; R O C K- A -T H O N : C O U R T E S Y B E N S T E I N

Philanthropy is a pillar of Greek Life at Mizzou. Students in fraternities and sororities perform service, help people in need and hold fundraising events for their chapters’ beneficiaries — often with a focus on supporting children who need advocates (Rainbow House, Heart of Missouri CASA) or have health issues (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Make-A-Wish Foundation). The annual student-run MizzouThon brings together the Greek community and other Tigers to support the Children’s Miracle Network through a 13.1-hour fundraising dance marathon. This year participants raised more than $304,000.

PHI MU FOR THE KIDS

FRATERNITY FOR FAMILY

Mizzou junior Jordi Stack, a leadership recruitment member for MizzouThon, has been participating in the event since her freshman year.

The Children’s Miracle Network is the official philanthropy of her sorority, Phi Mu, which gave her recruiting efforts a boost. This year 100 Phi Mu members registered for MizzouThon. They earned the Miracle Cup trophy.

Last fall when members of Beta Theta Pi fraternity learned that their chef’s wife needed help, they knew they had to take action. Scott Young had cooked for the fraternity for seven years. His wife, Diane, was sick in St. Louis with a serious blood infection that required surgery, and the bills were piling up. The Beta Theta Pi brothers set up a GoFundMe campaign for the Youngs, with the goal of raising $5,000. Within eight days, students, alumni and friends had contributed $10,500. Diane Young’s surgery was successful.

ROCKING FOR RESEARCH

Alpha Epsilon Pi at Mizzou holds a record for the largest single-chapter philanthropic event in the nation.

The biennial Rock-A-Thon started in 1969, when a fraternity member sat in a rocking chair on stage for 63 straight hours while fraternity brothers fanned out to collect donations for cancer research. In 2015, the chapter raised a record $132,000.

The 2017 event starts April 13 in Columbia’s Rose Music Hall.

STUDENTS FOR SANDY

Last December, when Phi Delta Theta members asked beloved Plaza 900 employee Sandy Cunningham what she wanted for Christmas, the longtime staff member replied that she'd like gift cards to buy presents for her grandchildren. The students set up a GoFundMe campaign with a $500 fundraising goal, which they exceeded 11-fold. Moved by Tigers' kindness, Cunningham paid it forward, donating the $5,500 to MizzouThon.

SPRING 2017 17

Out of Africa M I Z Z O U M A G A Z I N E * S P R I N G 2 0 17

S I N C E A G E 6, L I N D S E Y K I R N K N E W H E R S W O U L D B E A L I F E O F S E RV I C E . N O W T H E M I Z Z O U A L U M N A L E A D S I N T E R N AT I O N A L D E V E L O P M E N T T E A M S . * S T O RY B Y D A L E S M I T H

COURTESY LINDSEY KIRN

After three decades, Lindsey Kirn’s return to South Africa, her childhood home, was bittersweet. As for the sweet, she was now a leader in domestic and international public health communication. She had spent time in the field — Africa, Europe, Asia and North America — investigating communicable diseases and other problems, as well as using strategic communication to support international development and domestic health programs. She’d worked on everything from polio to food stamps. On this trip in 2012, Kirn, BA, BA ’98, was leading communication on behalf of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for the first global newborn conference, which took place in Johannesburg. The event called on experts from around the world to muster strategies and cash against the top five killers of newborns — all preventable — which take 2.7 million infants in the first month of life. And as for the bitter, the journey came with the painful reminder of the tragedy she witnessed as a child in a small town just 80 miles east of Johannesburg — the moment the seed of her high-flying career was planted.

Kirn’s remarkable path out of South Africa and back passed through Mizzou and much more.

19

W PROFILE

“ Many who come into this work are overwhelmed by the poverty they see when they get off the plane in a third-world country, or the people dying in the hospitals they visit, or lack of electricity over great areas.

Lindsey believes she can make a difference.”

When Kirn was 2 years old, her father’s career in petroleum refining relocated the family from Valdez, Alaska, to the remote South African town of Secunda. Now a veteran world traveler, Kirn knowingly calls it “the middle of nowhere.” But back then, Secunda and its people were her world.

The Kirns employed a local woman, Julia, as a live-in nanny to cook, clean and care for Lindsey and her two brothers. Julia and Lindsey were close, and when Lindsey was 6, the nanny named her new baby after her young American charge.

Kirn’s family invited Julia to bring her infant to live with them, but local customs dictated that newborns were to be raised by extended family.

So, mother and child lived apart. Because of the separation, Julia could not breastfeed her infant, and anyway the practice was out of favor at the moment. What’s more, “Local water quality was very bad,” Kirn says. “The baby was given water and contracted cholera. I still remember the moment when Julia received the message that her baby had died. I was sitting on the wall of a courtyard with clotheslines strung across, watching her through the clothes. But I never saw her cry. Women were expected to bear such things. It made a huge impression on me.”

And so, at the age most American children are learning letters, numbers and complementary colors, Kirn resolved to become a physician. “I just knew people were dying from preventable diseases, like cholera, and didn’t need to. I wanted to help.”

That instinct has guided Kirn to the top of her field. “The best people working in international development have an innate orientation toward positive change. Lindsey is one of those people,” says her boss, Kristi Ragan, a project manager for DAI, a consulting firm that supports the USAID Center for Development Innovation. “Many who come into this work are overwhelmed by the poverty they see when they get off the plane in a developing country, or the people dying in the hospitals they visit, or lack of electricity over great areas.

Lindsey believes she can make a difference. I only hire people who believe that, even if it’s Pollyannaish at times.” *

Mizzou Made

*

*

*

By fall 1993 when Kirn arrived at MU as a freshman, she had been taking science courses for years in preparation for a pre-med curriculum.

But when her parents divorced, grief tanked her grades, and medical school moved beyond her reach. Fortunately, she had joined Alpha Chi Omega, which turned out to be both a support sys20 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

tem and a platform for her charitable proclivities.

“Starting second semester, I was in charge of my own education and paying for it,” Kirn says. “My sorority sisters supported me emotionally, and the sorority worked out a payment plan so I could remain a member.” She worked two or three jobs at a time, including serving food at the Pasta Factory, selling clothes at the Gap and watching over swimmers as a lifeguard, her favorite job because she could study between shifts on the stand.

Alpha Chi Omega and Greek life offered Kirn formative leadership roles. She served as chapter secretary and philanthropy chair, as well as working on the Greek Week steering committee.

She led the sorority’s domestic violence program, which raised more than $10,000 across mid-Missouri in 1996 and worked to educate fraternity members about the problem.

Meanwhile, Kirn had switched her major to the helping profession of nursing, thinking of it as a stepping stone to medical school. But problems of time and money loomed, and she decided in her fifth year at Mizzou to graduate with accumulated credits in history and communication.

Nursing school would have to wait. She needed a job to pay school loans. *

*

*

*

The Corporate Life, Take 1

Kirn shines in interviews. Colleagues marvel at her “dynamism” and the “force of her personality.” Even by phone or Skype, her internal fires of intelligence and professional hunger light up conversations like a rock concert. In 1998, she impressed public relations giant FleishmanHillard sufficiently that they hired her on the spot during their first meeting and shipped her off immediately to an investor relations job in Dallas. For the first time since Kirn was 6, she left the path she’d set for herself.

Perhaps predictably, she didn’t take to the job (“It wasn’t my passion.”) and left in 18 months.

A second public relations job, this one in travel and tourism, ended the same way (“I wasn’t doing what I was called to do.”), and so Kirn turned back toward her core.

By 2002, Kirn had landed a regional post in women’s health with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, U.S. Public Health Service.

She traveled five states on the job and enrolled in a public health master’s program at the University of Texas, where she was the lone communication specialist studying alongside medical students.

Even at the low-level HHS position, Kirn’s work caught the attention of an administrator, Rear Admiral Ronald Banks. One day, he sum-

moned her to his office.

“Sit down,” he said, head down as he continued dealing with papers. Finally, he looked up.

“What are you doing here?” he said. Banks’ tone seemed chiding. Kirn didn’t understand the question.

“Well, I’m working for the Office of … .”

“You’re not getting paid what you are worth,” Banks said firmly. “I want you to promise me that when you finish school you will leave for someplace that understands your value.”

And that’s what she did. *

*

*

*

G R E G K E N D A L L- B A L L

The Corporate Life, Take 2

With Banks’ gruff, tough-love recommendation, a master’s degree and two years of public health experience in hand, Kirn returned to FleishmanHillard in 2004. But this time she worked as a communicator on health issues she cared about.

She blew the doors off.

In eight years, Kirn rose from a managing supervisor position to senior vice president as she crafted and managed behavior-change communication for major corporate clients (Merck, Novartis, Pfizer) and massive government programs including the Affordable Care Act. She also led more than 30 advertising, PR, research, and other professionals in rebranding Food Stamps to its current Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP. Along the way, she fed millions, as her leadership helped swell SNAP’s rolls by 26 million people who were eligible but had not been participating.

FleishmanHillard offered Kirn a chance at partner, but, she says, “I declined. It would have meant doing less of the work.” The kind of work she loves. In 2009, for instance, the job had taken her to Kigali, Rwanda, to study locals’ behaviors and perceptions regarding schistosomiasis, or schisto for short, a disease in which hookworms cause blood loss that robs children of iron and slows growth and cognitive development.

“I went to rural districts outside Kigali and talked to many, many people, trying to figure out why they had so much schisto and how to curb the transmission. On almost the last day of oneon-one interviews with health professionals and community health workers, I was walking down a dirt road near the clinic. I looked over toward the lake and saw women in the water fishing while carrying babies on their backs. Schisto is transmitted through freshwater snails. I looked over the other direction and saw men sitting in their huts drinking beer and wearing long rubber boots that protect against the disease. So, it turned out

to be just as much about gender as about poverty.

But it took me being there and observing it to understand what was going on. Before I left, I wrote a behavior-change plan to address the issue.” *

*

*

*

Back Home

From an office within sight of the U.S. Capitol, Kirn now directs communication and technical teams in charge of making the best use of technology and innovation across international development programs. She could name, for instance, after an exhaustive global search employing various media and search strategies, the handful of companies on the planet producing solar-powered refrigerators that could store critical medication or run a business off the grid. Being in a position to deploy such technology could not only save countless lives but also dramatically improve them.

“Lindsey loves being in the field,” observes Ragan, her boss. “But if you have the experience, skills and are articulate and passionate, you need to use your influence where you can make significant change. Oftentimes, that’s at headquarters. Much as we might like, we can’t go village by village fixing problems. If you can change one thing in D.C., you have the possibility to change it in a hundred countries around the world.”

In 2012, after the global newborn conference, Kirn drove back to the remote town of Secunda, where as a child she’d resolved to live her life in service. “I went to find the old house, but of course everything had changed,” she says.

“Still, addressing preventable newborn and child deaths is what I set out to do, and I got to be there for the first global conference focusing on that very issue. Getting there wasn’t easy, but you know you’re doing the right thing when life comes full circle like that.” M

Kirn loves her time in the field, but her work in Washington, D.C., can have a longer reach.

SPRING 2017 21

FEATURE

Astronomy Professor Angela Speck prepares Columbia for its first total solar eclipse in more than 500 years. Story by Brittany King.

22 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

NASA/BLAKE DINSDALE

astronomical view

GETTY IMAGES

MIZZOU Spring 2017

23 SPRING 2017 23

2017 ECLIPSE

On August 21, in the middle of the day,

INCLUSIVE EFFORT As an AAS Solar Eclipse Task Force co-chair, Speck gets the word out nationwide, especially in states along the path. She has travelled across Missouri preparing schools for the event by teaching kids about the eclipse and boosting educators’ knowledge so they feel confident talking to their science classes. For instance, she recommends using official eclipse eyewear, available for less than $1, for the best viewing experience.

Engaging the community in citizen science is Speck’s favorite part of eclipse planning. “I want to make sure schools across the country are well enough prepared to have kids involved,” she says. “I’m particularly interested in kids from underrepresented groups because science is often thought of as being expensive, and it can be a big barrier to people getting excited. You can view the eclipse without special equipment,” she says. “So it can be a much more inclusive thing.”

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MIZZOUMAGAZINE

“ I want to make sure schools across the country are well enough prepared to have kids involved,” — Astrophyisics professor Angela Speck

SHANE EPPING

sunlight will turn to pitch blackness during the first total eclipse Missouri has seen since 1869. Columbia hasn’t witnessed one since 1442 and won’t have another chance until 2500. That’s why Angela Speck, co-chair of the American Astronomical Society’s Solar Eclipse Task Force, has been preparing for this event for five years.

Total solar eclipses, when the moon blocks the sun completely, occur about once a year, says Speck, a professor of astrophysics at Mizzou. However, most occur over bodies of water, so few people see the magical moment when only the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, is visible to the naked eye.

The 2017 eclipse will black out a 3,000-mile stretch of the continental U.S. from Oregon to South Carolina, temporarily darkening the day of 12 million people. Columbians will have two minutes and 36 seconds to view the event. The longest duration, two minutes and 42 seconds, occurs in Carbondale, Illinois.

D I L I G E N T P R E PA R AT I O N Horror stories of massive crowds and paralyzed cities have convinced Speck to take capacity issues seriously. For instance, her friend from Bangkok, Thailand, drove 40 minutes north of the city to see the 1995 eclipse, but the return trip took 10 hours in heavy traffic. Similarly, in 1991, Mexico closed its border to everyone who didn’t have a hotel reservation because they weren’t prepared to handle the crowd.

Speck is confident that Missouri won’t have major problems. She has met with government groups including the Missouri Department of Transportation and the Convention and Visitors Bureau to ensure that viewers have accommodations and others are aware of potential travel delays. “I’m predicting that we’re going to at least double the population along the path. In Columbia, quadruple,” she says. According to census data, 88 million people nationwide live within 200 miles of the eclipse path, many of whom could hop in a car and drive to view it in the nearest town on the path.

CITIZEN SCIENCE The AAS task force also is working on projects to help advance science. Citizen CATE, (Continental America Telescopic Eclipse) is a fleet of telescopes that will observe the eclipse at 60 locations in the United States, including Columbia. Cameras attached to the telescopes will capture photographs that, when merged, will create a time-lapse image of the event.

A similar project, Megamovie, sponsored

by Google and the University of California, Berkley, encourages citizens along the path to take photos and videos of the eclipse and share them. Together, Google and UC Berkley

* Local animals may behave strangely during the eclipse.

Numbers

1869

* T otality path across the United States

The path of the total solar eclipse cuts across the United States from Oregon to South Carolina, covering fellow SEC cities such as Nashville, Lexington, Knoxville and Columbia, S.C. Visit missouri.edu/eclipse for a list of eclipse viewing spots and events in Missouri.

Year Missouri last saw a total eclipse

1442 Year Columbia last saw a total eclipse

will stitch together pictures they get to make a larger image. “We’ll actually get some science out of [these projects] in the sense that we’ll be able to see how the corona changes over time,” Speck says.

1:12:21P.M. Totality start in CoMo

2 minutes 36 seconds

Duration of totality

10°–15° F

Possible temperature drop during eclipse

2500

Year Columbia will next see a total eclipse

READY TO GO Speck and her team have big dreams for the eclipse on Aug. 21, which is also the first day of classes at MU. “I really want to get on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert because he’s an astronomy nerd, and it goes through his hometown of Charleston,” she says.

As for where to view the eclipse, Speck says it will be difficult to miss. “As long as there’s not a big tall building in front of you, if you’re looking south, you’re gonna see it.”

Learn more at missouri.edu/eclipse. M SPRING 2017

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HANNAH YOWELL

STUDENTS

26 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Greek Evolution

Mizzou’s fraternity and sorority system is bigger, bolder and broader than ever before. Story by Brittany King

S

ince the University of Missouri’s first fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, was founded on campus in 1869, Mizzou’s Greek organizations have simultaneously nurtured treasured traditions and adapted to the changing culture. With 58 chapters representing four councils, Greek Life now encompasses 27 percent of the student body and is more inclusive than ever before. Historically black (National Panhellenic Council) and multicultural (Multicultural Greek Council) organizations, as well as the LGBTQ-friendly Greek Allies, work together to create an environment that recognizes there is more than one way to be Greek. They invite diversity. They serve the community. They educate members about social issues. Sometimes they even eschew ornate formals and elaborate fundraising events in favor of barbecues, panel discussions, step shows and scholarship pageants.

MU Greek Life in 2017 aims to ensure there’s a place for all students to become part of a brotherhood and sisterhood that is truly unbreakable.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. members perform in Jesse Auditorium at the annual Homecoming Stroll Off in October 2015.

The Alphas took first place in the competition that year.

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“We had to learn to work together for the betterment of Greek Life.”

Delta Xi Nu founder Tiffany Melecio, BJ ’16

Delta Xi Nu multicultural sorority member Marla Kolostov prepares to be unveiled during her new-member presentation May 2, 2015. Delta Xi Nu became an official chapter at MU on Oct. 27, 2016. Tiffany Melecio, BJ ’16, was part of the founding group at MU and says bringing the organization to campus changed her life.

“We were eight strong-minded women who wanted a say. We were different. We wanted visibility. We had to learn to work together for the betterment of Greek Life,” she says. “The process posed many challenges, and many administrators rooted for us. It was a journey I will never forget.”

28 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

TIFFANY MELECIO

Delta Xi Nu sisters Stephens College graduate Mokeila Hunter, left, and MU junior Jacqueline Thai, right, share a laugh before performing for Fall Fest in the Gaines/ Oldham Black Culture Center.

Delta Xi Nu sorority is part of the Multicultural Greek Council, which was re-established in 2015. The sorority performs in the event every year.

K A P PA P I B E TA : T I F FA N Y M E L E C I O ; C O N F E R E N C E : C O U RT E SY M U G R E E K L I F E

Executive members of MU’s Greek councils attended the Association of Fraternal Leadership and Values conference in Indianapolis in February 2017. They learned ways to improve Greek communities at MU and honed their leadership skills. The four councils — Panhellenic Association, Interfraternity Council, National Panhellenic Council and Multicultural Greek Council — share the mission to not only make their organizations more inclusive but also change the face of Mizzou Greek life. Members say it’s a step in the right direction.

Kappa Pi beta fraternity members step at the Asian American Association’s variety show at The Shack, inside the MU Student Center.

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First black fraternity founded at Mizzou in 1961 (Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc.) First black sorority founded at MU in 1964 (Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.)

MGC founded on campus in 2006, re-established in 2015

Andrew Pham and Lee Hyuk Jin, BS ’16, grill burgers at the Mizzou Asian American Association’s barbecue, one of several celebratory events held during AAA week in the fall. The group invites Alpha Phi Gamma and Kappa Pi Beta, MU’s two Asian-interest Greek organizations, to participate.

Members of Lambda Theta Phi, a Latino fraternity, prepare to step at the annual Fall Festival, an event hosted by the Black Culture Center.

Sage Williams holds his fist in the air after performing a song by Tupac Shakur at Delta Sigma Theta’s King of Hearts scholarship pageant March 10, 2017. Each participant performed selections by a hip-hop artist. At the end of the night, sophomore Tyler Brumfield was crowned King of Hearts for his performance as Chance the Rapper.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. members take the stage at the Blue Note during the spring 2016 neophyte presentation, an induction ceremony for newly accepted members.

Members of Greek Allies and the LGBTQ Resource Center pose for a photo on Francis Quadrangle during Mizzou’s annual Coming Out Week.

Greek Allies was established in 2013 by Julianne Sinak, BS HES ’15, Kayley Weinberg, BA ’15, and Lilly Kraus to bridge the gap between the LGBTQ community and Greek life.

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B B Q, M U LT I C U LT U R A L C O U N C I L , A L P H A P H I A L P H A : M O R G A N L I E B E R M A N ; L A M B D A T H E TA P H I : M A R C M AY E S ; W I L L I A M S : S H A N E E P P I N G

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A member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. leads masked members through Conservation Auditorium at the beginning of an initiation ceremony. These ceremonies, or probates, occur every semester. Friends, family and peers fill large lecture halls to watch as new members are revealed one by one. Guests are encouraged to cheer throughout the probate, which includes a reflection on the fraternity’s history, rapping, singing and stepping.

M A RC M AY E S

Members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. take the stage in Jesse Auditorium during their spring 2014 probate. Alpha Kappa Alpha was the first historically black sorority founded on MU’s campus. In 2013, Kearston Winrow, BJ ’14, and 28 other women reestablished AKA’s presence at MU by reactivating the chapter.

“From the beginning, we wanted to get on campus and set a tone and standard,” she says. “We were heavy on planning programs every two weeks for campus and making sure we were doing community service every week in some capacity. There is something refreshing [about] being part of something with people who look like you, understand your experience as a black woman, and work with you to help positively impact communities that are most vulnerable. I don’t have any sisters, and AKA offered me sisters in every state across the U.S. and sisters across the globe. I love being able to depend on a sorority sister to encourage me, lift me up, hold me responsible, pray for me, and help me live up to the mission, values, and standards of our sorority.” M

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PO ST U R E

GRIP ANALYSIS

P I TC H ER STATS

80%

FA S T B A L L

15%

C U RVEBAL L

5%

SLIDER

NAME

L I A M C A RTER

YEAR

SOPHOMORE

HO M E TOW N

STA N C E

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H I G H L A ND PA R K , I L

IP

9 .0

H

13

R

12

ER

11

SO

7

MZU_MAG SPRING 2017 GR 55 RL 48

BATTERS HAVE BEEN USING VISION DRILLS TO IMPROVE REACTION TIME SINCE THE DAWN OF BASEBALL. BUT NEW MIZZOU COACH STEVE BIESER AND HIS STAFF HAVE EMBRACED A NEW PITCH-RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY THAT HAS TRANSLATED TO THE HOTTEST START IN PROGRAM HISTORY. MARCUS WILKINS ROB HILL

TS 40

AA 38

BLAKE DINSDALE AdR 16

ES 37

TH 11

TH 22

IN 6

AP 19

CB 36

AT 2

KM 7 MB 10

NM 12

CB 8

JB 23

RG 9 AL 1

BB 5

MP 26

KM 30

TS 17 NG 27

LC 28

BS 4

BC 25

CC 24 AS 3 CD 35

LB 44

JK 45

LD 46 BMDO 43

SPRING 2017 33

BMDO 43 LD 46 JK 45

LB 44

TIGER BASEBALL CD 35 AS 3 AL 1

RG 9

CB 8

NM 12

MB 10

KM 7

AT 2

TH 11

ES 37

ROB HILL

MP 26

JB 23

CB 36

IN 6

AP 19

TH 22

AdR 16

BLAKE DINSDALE

BATTERS HAVE BEEN USING VISION DRILLS TO IMPROVE REACTION TIME SINCE THE DAWN OF BASEBALL. BUT NEW MIZZOU COACH STEVE BIESER AND HIS STAFF HAVE EMBRACED A NEW PITCH-RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY THAT HAS TRANSLATED TO THE HOTTEST START IN PROGRAM HISTORY. MARCUS WILKINS

ROB HILL

KM 30

AA 38

TS 40 RL 48 GR 55

MZU_MAG SPRING 2017

34 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

BB 5

BS 4

LC 28

NG 27

When Bieser ascended from assistant to head coach at Southeast Missouri State University

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See Mo

(SEMO) in 2012, he inherited a roster a lot like himself as a player — plucky and determined, if not the most talented.

“I wasn’t a 10-years-in-the-majors guy, and I didn’t get there until I was 29,” says Bieser, who played 60 major-league games between the 1997 New York Mets and the 1998 Pittsburgh Pirates.

“I appreciate guys who have had some struggles.”

Bieser took stock and took action. In the spirit of Moneyball, the 2003 baseball book that revolutionized data-driven player evaluation, Bieser challenged his staff to think outside the diamond and probe the sport’s trendsetting minds. If SEMO was to be a team that could routinely compete with traditional powerhouses, Bieser’s staff would need to find inventive ways to maximize player potential.

Current Mizzou hitting coach Dillon Lawson pondered these perplexities in 2013 while holding the same job title at SEMO. He had long been a proponent of drills that challenged batters’ ability to see and react, using painted or numbered baseballs to improve tracking.

“Vision had been my No. 1 priority,” Lawson says. “Yet most of what I was doing was simply telling a guy to ‘see it out of the hand’ or ‘stop chasing the breaking ball in the dirt.’ ” It wasn’t long before Lawson found Peter Fadde, a professor at Southern Illinois University and coordinator of the learning system and design graduate specialty area. Fadde’s research focused on video occlusion, a method of showing hitters footage of a pitcher’s windup. The video cuts to black at various stages of the ball’s delivery, then the viewer guesses the type and location of the pitch. Repeated hundreds or thousands of times, the system improves the batter’s instincts in live action.

“At the time, Dr. Fadde was the madscientist type of guy,” Lawson says. “No one else was doing this kind of training, but it made sense to our coaching staff. It was logical.”

Keen vision has always been the stuff of legends in baseball; Ted Williams was rumored to accurately read the labels on 78-rpm records while they spun. But Fadde’s research combined vision with prediction and reaction in a new way.

BC 25

The thinking man’s game: (Left to right) Lance Rhodes, assistant coach and recruiting coordinator; Steve Bieser, head coach; and Dillon Lawson, hitting coach, revived Mizzou baseball with a new philosophy that helps batters anticipate pitches.

CC 24

Hitting a baseball is widely considered one of the most difficult tasks in sports. An 86-mph fastball takes 450 milliseconds to reach the plate. This gives the batter about 250 milliseconds to decide whether and where to swing and a mere 200 milliseconds to connect.

If the hitter is skilled enough to make contact — resulting in a collision that lasts one millisecond — he still must deposit the ball past nine defenders or over a wall 320 feet away.

As a former professional ballplayer for 13 years, Mizzou’s new head coach Steve Bieser knows the math. But with a mostly minor-league career that includes more Altoonas and Scrantons than New Yorks, he also knows about scrapping, improvising and persevering. It’s a big reason why his eyes are open to innovative methods and nontraditional techniques that might improve his chances.

The 2017 Missouri Tigers are off to their best start in history, thanks in part to the Bieser coaching staff’s groundbreaking technological approach to hitting. The philosophy — which blends video software and tweaked versions of standard batting drills — emphasizes pitch recognition, or quickly determining the type and location of a pitch as it leaves the pitcher’s hand.

It’s hard to master, but Bieser’s crew might have found the “secret sauce.”

“We’re reaching for things that maybe no one else is doing,” Bieser says. “It’s all about trying to get that little extra edge.”

LB 44

JK 45

LD 46 BMDO 43

“The constraints of human cognition and motor skills are such that nobody should ever hit over .100,” says Fadde, only half joking. “It’s almost as if the natural state of the hitter is a slump. The surprising thing isn’t that guys go into slumps; it’s that they ever get out of them.”

Lawson and Bieser began using the videos and adding occlusion fundamentals into drills on the diamond. They started simply, asking players to blurt out pitch-types, or “yes” and “no” (swing or take), as a coach mimicked a pitcher’s delivery. They altered an old technique in which a batter chooses to hit one of two teed-up balls in different zones, employed bullpen sessions wherein hitters stood in the batter’s box guessing pitches, and gave hitters hyperspecific instructions during batting practice — always incorporating elements of pitch recognition.

It worked. In one year, the training boosted SEMO’s total walks by 30 percent, team batting average by 14 percent and runs per game by 48 percent. Power numbers improved, too, as patient sluggers did more damage connecting with pitches in the strike zone. The Redhawks went from a losing record in 2013 to three consecutive years as Ohio Valley Conference champions.

“The trick was finding ways to add pitch recognition into the players’ established practice routines,” says Lawson, whose success landed him a job in the Houston Astros system before he reunited with Bieser at Mizzou last year. “They’re already watching video; let’s change how they’re watching video.”

COURTESY gameSense SPORTS

S-E-see

When Bieser arrived at Taylor Stadium in 2016, the Tigers needed an overhaul. The team had finished last in the Southeastern Conference, at or near the bottom of every offensive statistical category, and had failed to make the NCAA Tournament for the fourth consecutive season.

As quick as SEMO’s pitch-recognition renaissance might seem, the 2017 Tigers’ campaign has been even more dramatic. Mizzou followed an opening day loss with a 20-game winning streak — the second-longest in program history.

Through a quarter of the season, the Tigers had increased run production by 19 percent, hits by 26 percent, extra-base hits by 62 percent and home runs by 40 percent, compared to the same point in the 2016 season. Missouri also has upped its team batting average from .279 at the end of 2016 to .308 at press time — second in the SEC. The Tigers pounced on Alabama the opening weekend of conference play, sweeping the threegame series from the Crimson Tide and scoring multiple runs in the first inning of each game. It was only the third time Mizzou had swept an SEC opponent

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Bieser and Lawson’s teams use gameSense, a video application that improves, by fractions of a second, hitters’ ability to recognize pitch type and location.

and was the team’s first road sweep in two years.

“There are a lot of people who might say Mizzou will never be elite in the SEC, but I’m a believer that all things are possible,” Bieser says. “We don’t necessarily want nine individual hitters in this lineup — we want an offense. We have got to manufacture runs. We’ve got to be creative.”

The pitch-recognition program might also be contributing to the Tigers’ improvement on the mound. The constant loop of feedback from hitters announcing the incoming pitch has motivated pitchers to be more deceptive.

“Seeing a pitcher release a curve ball in a way where it pops out of his hand is kind of huge,” says Tanner Houck, Mizzou’s ace and preseason AllSEC right-hander. “As a pitcher, you think ‘I have to better myself to hide that curve ball,’ or whatever pitch it is.”

Bieser and Lawson insist the pitch-recognition strategy is evolving. It isn’t a rote program but rather part of an overarching philosophy that permeates every aspect of practices and games. As the season progresses, the coaching staff will continue to harness technology — such as the newly installed TrackMan system at Taylor Stadium, a high-tech radar device that records ball flight, spin rate, etc.

— to advance cutting-edge baseball thought.

In a sport rooted in traditions going back to the 1800s, novel ideas can be tough to discover — and harder to install.

“I’m a constant learner, and I want to see what else we can find out about the game,” Bieser says.

“We don’t have to do it the same way, day after day, the way we’ve always done it.” M

THE PRODUCERS Mizzou has enjoyed an offensive explosion through the first quarter of the 2017 season compared to the same point in the 2016 season.

2016

2017

HITS

RUNS

26.2%

19.2%

DOUBLES

XBHs

76%

61.6%

2017 Stats (at press time)

154 walks .308 batting 54 doubles 267 hits .413 OBP

SEC rank 1st

2nd 3rd 4th 2nd

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PROFILE

Let’s Talk Story by Dale Smith x Photos by Rob Hill

On any given day in the hallways of the School of Journalism, you might hear a particular voice — a big voice. It contains enough rasp and flint that you’d instinctively avoid provoking its higher decibels.

It’s also bright, forthright, quick to laugh, in the moment. That’s Earnest Perry “working the halls,” as one colleague puts it.

Perry, MA ’95, PhD ’98, might be gabbing about politics and sports with his teaching assistants or discussing curriculum with fellow faculty members, but chances are good he’s chatting with students, hearing them out, helping them get it right.

Doctor, Mentor, Driver

Journalism administrator and award-winning faculty member Earnest Perry prefers working face to face. He won a faculty-alumni award from the Mizzou Alumni Association in 2016.

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Sometimes, Perry makes a quick diagnosis and prescribes treatment, such as the time a former student, distraught over ailing grades in a writing class, approached him in the hallway outside his office. The scenario was classic Perry, says former colleague Charles Davis, now journalism dean at the University of Georgia. “It’s very much in keeping with his personality and management style.

He gets more done in the hall than most people do in meetings.”

The student confided in Perry that she couldn’t figure out how to stop making certain style mistakes. “I said, ‘OK, pull out your last corrected paper.’ When I saw the mistakes she was making, I said, ‘So, I want you to go back, look through your textbook, work through all these errors and correct them. The next time you have an assignment, I want you to have that paper sitting right next you so you can look at it.’ Off she went. Next week,

same hallway, she comes back all excited. She says, ‘Dr. Perry, look!’ I check out the new exam, and she didn’t make those mistakes again. Grade went up 15 points.”

That grade wasn’t the only thing on the way up.

In 2016, Perry was promoted to journalism associate dean for graduate studies and won not only MU’s William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence but also the Mizzou Alumni Association’s Faculty-Alumni Award. Not bad for a former reporter who had planned to get a master’s degree and return to the newspaper business.

Perry’s range includes the personas of tough mentor and caring counselor, recalls HHKia Breaux, BJ ’96, Midwest regional director for the Associated Press, who studied under him in two reporting classes. “He was very firm, and he demanded nothing but excellence from his students.” She says rumor had it that his nickname at a former job was “Scary Perry.”

Breaux was in a class with Perry when a big murder story broke in a small mid-Missouri town.

Perry sent her there to interview neighbors of the man accused of killing his mentally handicapped brother. At one residence, a white woman opened the door but refused to answer questions from the young African-American reporter standing before her. “She told me to go to other side of tracks and see if anyone would talk to me there.”

Breaux retreated to her car, crying, and decided to quit journalism. “When I told Earnest about it, he related several instances of prejudice he faced working in Texas.” She didn’t know it then, but his view was much longer than that.

As a historian specializing in civil rights and media, Perry says U.S. society is at a delicate point when it comes to race. “We have had that conver-

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PROFILE

2016 FacultyAlumni Award Winners

Faculty Award Recipients John S. Howe Nicole M. Monnier James S. Noble Earnest L. Perry Jennifer L. Rowe Leo C. Saguiguit Jeremy F. Taylor, Distinguished Faculty Award Recipient Alumni Award Recipients Karen A. Ehlmann Margaret (Peggy) A. Engel Ted Hellman William G. Little Victoria Riback Wilson David R. Russell Marvin “Bunky” E. Wright Jann Carl, BJ ’82, Distinguished Service Award Recipient

sation a long time, but in fits and starts. We may be in one of those transformational moments where we are going to take either a step back or a step forward. My work as a civil rights historian revolves around helping my students understand that civil rights, equal rights, is a long struggle. It continues.

For every win there is a series of losses.”

Breaux had felt a loss but did not know what would come next. “In the end, Earnest refused to allow me to quit. He sent me back to finish the reporting, which I did. That conversation made all the difference in the world to me.” Perry can be tough, she says, but he is compassionate.

“The reality is he’s open and wants to connect,” says Scott Snipkie, JD ’12, MA ’13, a former student and teaching assistant of Perry’s. “Once somebody comes in and makes that connection, he’s there, he’s loyal.”

A Class on Class

The scene is a lecture hall with 250 undergraduates, many from comfy, homogenous suburbs around the country, with Perry stationed front and center. It’s an early session of cross-cultural journalism. The required course is not designed to make students feel upended, Snipkie says, but nonetheless this will be a semester of questioning assumptions and soul-searching. Perry begins: “Everyone who thinks they are upper class, raise your hand.” Maybe three or four hands go up.

“Who is lower class?” Ten or 11 raise hands.

“Now raise your hand if you are middle class.”

All the rest signal.

“OK, let’s think about this way. If you take away your family’s money and it’s just your income, then what are you? At this point, Perry says, “The whole class just sort of stops and says, ‘Well, I guess we’re all poor.’ And I’m like, ‘Right.’ ” From there, Perry leads a discussion of class stereotypes, stigmas and imagery. It’s contentious at times, Snipkie says, with most students calling the rich elitist and espousing an up-by-the-bootstraps, all-in-this-together view of their beloved middle class.

This is just the beginning of the course, and students nonchalantly declare themselves, cocksure. “It’s the opening of their minds to these issues,” Perry says. He spends the rest of the semester challenging their belief in their own cultural sensitivity. By finals week, he says, students are much more likely to ask questions, seek clarifications and ponder the niceties of definitions before rendering opinions.

What Do You Mean?

Perry says the course is not — as some students have complained — an initiation into political correctness. So many people use the term in so many ways that it fails to meet his scholarly requirement for precision. But it’s a hot button he’ll push

2016 Kemper Fellows Mary Beck Sarah Bush Robert O’Connell Earnest L. Perry Alexandra Socarides

Perry won a 2016 Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. He is known for leading students in tough conversations on crosscultural issues.

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SHANE EPPING

2017 Kemper Fellows Billie Cunningham Jung Ha-Brookshire Thom Lambert Michael Podgursky Stacey Woelfel

as he coaxes students along. “I say to my students, ‘If someone walks up to you and says, “I hear your cross-cultural journalism class is politically correct,” what is your response as a journalist? It should be, ‘What do you mean by that?’ ” Perry won’t countenance reporters exercising their assumptions about other people’s ideas and lives. He pushes them outside of themselves. His axiom: It’s not about you.

It’s not really about cross-cultural journalism, either, Perry says. “What we talk about is excellent journalism, understanding that stories are complex, that stories need to have context, and that you need to have voices coming from different perspectives sharing their own lived experience. If you are going to do this job, if you’re going to tell stories from someone else’s lived experience, it can’t be about you. If it is, then you are telling your own story.” On this score, he says, mainstream journalists are “horrible.”

Take the 2016 election as an example. Perry describes the coverage largely as confirmation journalism, in which reporters repeat candidates’ well known characteristics. “We weren’t listening to what people were saying and telling stories from their lived experience,” Perry says.

“That sort of journalism would have opened up people’s eyes as to how others felt about the direction of the country. The common knowledge was that women would overwhelmingly support Hillary Clinton. Didn’t happen. And that Hispanics would go to the polls in record numbers because of Trump’s stance on immigration. Didn’t happen.” More excellent journalism, he says, would have led to fewer surprises.

Heat and Light

“Earnest has a highly developed sense of outrage,” says Davis, his friend and former colleague. It was a productive trait during his seven years as director of journalism studies and is now, as he settles into the role of associate dean for graduate studies.

When he sees a problem, Davis says, the “that’s how we’ve always done it” brand of bureaucratic inertia makes him crazy. For instance, doctoral students had long gotten enough education and practice in research but not nearly enough time learning to teach.

“He and I talked about it awhile,” Davis says, “and then in classic Earnest fashion, he said, ‘All right, I’m going to fix it.’ ” As a result, doctoral students now spend a year working under a faculty member in the classroom, then take over as the instructor of record. Problem solved.

Along the way, Perry has served as an example for other administrators, including HLynda Krax-

berger, MA ’98, associate journalism dean for undergraduate studies. “He has been a great mentor and guide to me in how to manage up, down and sideways,” she says. At the moment, Perry is guiding faculty in the redesign of master’s and doctoral degree programs. “Faculty have great visions of, ‘We want to do this and that and the other thing,’ ” Kraxberger says. “Fortunately, he understands that the delicate dance of faculty governance is best done with skilled communication.”

The journalism historian’s reputation for holding students to high standards is leavened by his gregarious good humor.

Evolutionary Perry

After 14 years at the J-School, Perry remains the tough guy who will tell students to cut back when extracurricular activities distract from their studies. But he has evolved, Kraxberger says. “Over the years, working the halls has made him more accessible,” she says.

Perry would be happy to hear that word — accessibility. “That’s something you don’t get on Facebook or email or a phone call,” Perry says. “I still have students call me just to say, ‘You know, I wish I could stop by your office or see you in the hallway because I’d like to have a conversation with you.’ And I say, ‘OK, let’s talk.’ ” M SPRING 2017 39

MOM

THE LADIES BEHIND THE LETTERS

he role of sorority or fraternity director is truly the mother of all university jobs. These masterful multitaskers, known as house moms or house dads, serve as mentors for students and as caretakers of the grand and sometimes historic homes where they live.

Usually equipped with business or finance experience, a Mizzou sorority house mom juggles complex functions — managing catering services, completing reams of paperwork, arranging repairs, and establishing direct lines of communication with the Greek organizations’ national headquarters and local offices.

A house mom also helps ensure that sisterhood and stability thrive in the communal living environment. She forms bonds with her dozens of young housemates, as well as nonresident sorority sisters. She offers advice and support. She handles emergencies.

She performs a balancing act all day and often late into the night.

Sort of like a real mom, multiplied by 100.

The house moms of Mizzou Greek Life have developed their own sisterhood outside their houses, meeting for coffee and camaraderie off campus every week. Student photographer Morgan Lieberman captured portraits of six house moms. She learned how hard they work, why they love their jobs and what they do every day to help make Mizzou a home away from home.

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PHOTOS BY MORGAN LIEBERMAN m i z z o u m a g a z i n e s p r i n g 2 0 1 7 * pa g e 4 0

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pppp

KAPPA ALPHA THETA

“Some people work 8-5. I work 24/7, and I don’t mind it a bit,” says Kathy Pickett, 62. On Wednesdays she babysits her grandson, who has won the hearts of Mizzou students at every house where Pickett has worked. They’ve dubbed him the Pi Phi Baby, the Phi Kapp Kid and, now, the Theta Prince.

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TRI DELTA

Dacie Cowles, 72, recently retired after 13 years as a Tri Delta house mom. “Sometimes people think house moms are really old and outdated and don’t understand young people,” Cowles says.

“That is completely false. We have all been there. We have all raised kids. We know what is going on.”

PPPP

ALPHA CHI OMEGA

Suzie Davis, 79, worked as a house mom at the University of Florida before returning to her home state and taking a job at Mizzou. The work is nothing new.

“I’ve been a caretaker for years and years,” she says. “I babysat when I was younger. I raised six children. I just continued that profession, but in a different direction.”

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KAPPA DELTA

Marit Vogelsong, 52, grew up in Columbia hearing her mother tell stories about her college experiences in Montana and her deep admiration for her own Tri Delta house director. Vogelsong has worked with Kappa Delta since 2013. “The best part of being a house mom is working at trying to [gain] the confidence of the girls and appreciating the friendships they are willing to share,” she says.

PPPP

PI BETA PHI

It’s fitting that Karla Winchester, 54, lives in a historic landmark. She once owned Grace: A Place of Restoration, an architectural accents and antiquities shop on Broadway. She joined the sorority house last June and learned all 73 occupants’ names by Homecoming.

“If you are going to be called mom,” she says, “you need to know the girls’ names.” In the fall she moves to her alumni chapter, Chi Omega.

pppp

PHI MU

Sheryl Davis, 43, spent 15 years in social services — working with abuse, mental health and addiction issues — before joining Phi Mu four years ago. “I have a different perspective sometimes,” she says. “There are things that seem like a big deal to other people, but aren’t a big deal to me.”

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<<<B ACTER I A TO THE F U TURE > > > A research team at the MUaffiliated Cancer Research Center is turning heads with an untraditional approach to fighting cancer.

erik potter

SHUT TERSTOCK

rob hill

SPRING 2017 45

C

RESEARCH

>>

Cancer research doesn’t normally start this way. ¶ Abe Eisenstark, research director for the Cancer Research Center in Columbia, studies salmonella.

But not just any salmonella. Old salmonella. Salmonella strains he got from his mentor, Milislav Demerec, who got them from 1958 Nobel Prize– winner Joshua Lederberg, who got them from a Swedish scientist named Kaare Lilleengen, who pulled them from Swedish sewage in the 1940s.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Eisenstark and his geneticist colleagues vivisected the salmonella strains with bacteriophages, which are viruses that attack bacteria. They were learning the bacterium’s genetics and creating a taxonomy of the bacteriophages. But eventually they packed the salmonella strains into nearly 3,000 neatly labeled inch-tall glass vials, sealed them in wax, and moved on to other projects. They stored the pertinent information for each vial in a catalog of IBM punch cards.

For decades, the tubes sat on wooden shelves in a rear storage room at the MU-affiliated Cancer Research Center, a nondescript, single-story brick building on Columbia’s east side.

Then, one day in 2003, at Eisenstark’s direction, a scientist named Alison Dino grabbed a few of the samples. One by one, she popped their caps, dropped their contents into petri dishes and placed the dishes under an inverted tissue culture microscope in MU’s microscopy lab. Eisenstark had the wild notion that these tiny bacteria could be a new weapon in the fight against cancer.

Peering into the microscope, Dino was looking for two things: whether the salmonella were drawn to tumor cells on one side of the petri dish and whether they shunned healthy cells on the other side. If they invaded the cancerous cells, that would be good. If they simultaneously left the healthy tissue alone, that would be perfect.

Such behavior would be evidence that the bacterium causing one of the world’s most common food-borne illnesses could be a cure to one of the world’s most common deadly diseases — cancer.

Dino knew how “out there” the idea sounded.

So, when she looked into the microscope, she couldn’t help herself. She started laughing.

Her boss’s wild idea was right.

Bacteria and Cancer: It’s Complicated m i zzou

a zin e 46 mag SPRING 2017

To be fair, the notion that salmonella could treat cancer wasn’t new in 2003.

Research as far back as the 1890s suggested that bacteria (streptococcus in that case) could

shrink tumors. The problem lay in the poisonous side effects, which seemed unavoidable. For a century, it was a research dead-end.

Fast-forward to 2002. A research team from Yale University published a study on salmonella as a cancer-fighting agent in mice. As in the past, the bacterium showed promise, but a follow-up study in dogs was cut short when the treatment proved fatally toxic to one of the dogs.

Nevertheless, Eisenstark, a professor emeritus of biological sciences at MU, read the study with great excitement — or, rather, with greater excitement than usual. Eisenstark compares the joy of reading the latest scientific journals to the joy he felt reading the day’s newspaper comics as a kid. It’s the sort of enthusiasm that explains why he started his doctoral studies at the University of Illinois directly after returning from service in World War II, where he’d worked as a medic in the Pacific theater for the U.S. Army, diagnosing soldiers with malaria. He didn’t even go home first.

So, after reading the 2002 Yale paper, Eisenstark rushed off to New Haven, Connecticut, and spoke with the authors. He had big ideas for a follow-up study of his own, and the Yale researchers encouraged him to pursue it.

His idea built on the Yale findings, which were based on the central observation that viruses and bacteria often prefer to attack organisms at particular sites — a trait called cell selectivity. It’s why a cold virus makes you cough and sneeze but doesn’t give you diarrhea: It likes the respiratory system, not the digestive system. Similarly, salmonella is attracted to tumor cells. The bacterium is adept at penetrating the cell membrane, multiplying inside and destroying the tumor cell’s mitochondria — its power plant. The Yale research showed salmonella will pass 1,000 healthy cells to attack one cancerous one. However, it also releases toxins into the body. The Yale team had genetically manipulated its salmonella strain to make it less toxic, but they hadn’t made it safe enough.

That’s where Eisenstark thought his salmonella might have a leg up. He had a hunch that, after 50 years of mutating in confinement, at least one of the 3,000 strains in his storage closet would have lost its toxicity naturally.

The logic works like this: Imagine a family loses electrical power to their house. They have a backup generator, but that won’t last forever.

They adapt by conserving power, shutting down nonessential appliances. No more big-screen.

Goodbye, lava lamp.

Sticking bacteria in a small vial with a drop of food is akin to shutting off the electricity. Knowing that his salmonella had spent decades in that environment, Eisenstark predicted subsequent generations of salmonella would adapt by turning off nonessential functions, including toxin production. He calls it “natural tempering.”

Judging from the research done on similar long-lived salmonella strains, Dino had a good idea which of theirs might have tempered best. So when she did her petri dish test in 2003, she didn’t pop the caps of all 3,000 vials; she grabbed just a few of the most promising candidates.

She had put only a couple vials under the microscope before she found the laugh-inducing CRC 1674. The bacteria placed in the same petri dish as the cancerous tissue darted straight to the tumor cells, like a parched person seeking water.

Yet, the bacteria placed with the healthy tissue showed no interest. They turned their metaphorical thirsty heads away, demanding bottled water, not tap. Critically, the bacteria also produced

toxins at much lower levels than any strain scientists had studied previously.

They knew they were on to something. The next step was to call Robert Kazmierczak.

Detox

Kazmierczak, the Cancer Research Center’s research senior investigator, specializes in genetic manipulation. His job was to remove every shred of toxicity he could find in CRC 1674.

Although genetic manipulation gets quicker and easier all the time, it still takes years. By 2006, Kazmierczak had made enough changes to CRC 1674 that he designated it as a new strain, CRC 2631. The new version is even less toxic to healthy cells than the original and more disruptive to cancer cells.

But Kazmierczak isn’t done yet. He designed a scaffold for the strain, to which researchers can attach cancer-fighting agents. Think of it as a roof rack for a car — you can attach luggage, skis, kayaks, or, in this case, cancer-fighting proteins. He is also designing a version of CRC 2631 that would use the bacterium’s own genes to produce cancerfighting agents from within the tumor cells.

Such abilities could be key to CRC 2631’s success. The first study of the strain in mice, published in 2016, used animals prone to prostate cancer. The salmonella was able to target the tumors, replicate and live inside them, and even shrink their size. But it was unable to stop their spread.

While the scaffolding work continues, the Cancer Research Center team, which includes

Geneticist Robert Kazmierczak has spent the past decade reducing the toxicity of a cancer-fighting strain of the salmonella bacterium.

Previous spread: Wax-sealed vials in the MU-affiliated Cancer Research Center have stored samples of mutant salmonella for the past 50 years.

47

RESEARCH

If the CRC 2631 strain proves safe and effective in dogs, the research center team will seek approval for human trials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The Long Game

m i zzou

a zin e 48 mag SPRING 2017

research fellow Bakul Dhagat Mehta, will test the strain in a larger mammal to assess its safety and effectiveness. They are working with HJeffrey Bryan, MS ’04, PhD ’07, associate professor of medical oncology at MU’s College of Veterinary Medicine, toward a clinical trial of dogs with leukemia, to begin as early as 2018.

Having Bryan nearby as a collaborator is a godsend for the team. “It speeds us along a lot,” Kazmierczak says. “It would cost a fortune to pay someone to design that experiment.”

Developing a cancer treatment out of salmonella fits the current trend in immunotherapy, Bryan says. Researchers are taking advantage of the cell selectivity of bacteria and other organisms to deliver treatments directly to disease sites. This approach avoids the side effects of traditional cancer treatments that inject chemotherapy into the bloodstream, where it flows throughout the body to healthy and cancerous tissue alike.

Penn State is working on a similar treatment for osteosarcoma cancer in dogs using the listeria bacterium. “You’re seeing this pop up all over the place,” Bryan says.

His leukemia study will use dogs whose owners choose experimental treatment at the MU Veterinary Hospital. Canine versions of human chemotherapies cost thousands of dollars, are much more likely to be toxic to our four-legged friends and are less effective. They only hold the cancer at bay, Bryan says. They don’t cure it.

Science marches fast only in retrospect. The day-in, day-out slog of testing hypotheses — and finding the money to pay for those tests — takes time. Progress accrues over years, even decades.

Eisenstark is well acquainted with the long view on this point. He started his research program in 1948, when he took his first faculty job at Oklahoma State University. He came to Mizzou in 1970 to lead the Division of Biological Sciences. But his ambition for microbiology goes back to his boyhood, when he became enamored of the image of scientist-heroes fighting disease. He loved the 1936 film The Story of Louis Pasteur and kept a tattered copy of Sinclair Lewis’s novel The Arrowhead long into his professional career.

So, when he sealed up the 3,000 salmonella strains decades ago, he did so knowing that they were worth keeping, hoping that they would play a part in a scientific breakthrough.

Given that time scale, the 15 years since the Yale study prompted this new research have flown by. For a man who still finds joy in his work, he couldn’t have asked for more.

“I’m really pleased,” Eisenstark says. “I’m having a great time.” M

Abe Eisenstark, research director of the Cancer Research Center, has worked with salmonella since the 1950s. Kazmierczak, Eisenstark, Alison Dino, laboratory manager, and Bakul Dhagat Mehta, a research fellow, compose the research team developing a salmonella strain that can seek out and destroy cancerous tumors in the body.

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(573) 882-2180

The University of Missouri counts on the support of loyal alumni and friends to make a difference for our students, faculty, staff and programs every year. Lifelong relationships are the foundation of our support. We are honored to have added the following names to our life membership roster in 2016.

Valerie Adair James Lee Adams Laila Al Qadri William Allen Elaine Rita Anderson John Arnold David Aslin Jordan Backes Kerry Bailey Sarah Bailey, D.V.M. Ann Marie Baker Morgan Baker Sharon Baldassare Alberto Baltazar Kerri Barnes, M.D. Nancy Bartmess Carole Bartnett David Paul Bartnett David Baugher Roy Beck Shirley Anne Beck Raymond Beck William Bensiek Lori Bockting Peter Borgman Les Gerard Borgmeyer Mark Boschert, M.D. Karin Bosh Kyle Bosh Breanne Brammer Michael Charles Brannen Dr. Mary Brant Amanda Brenner, D.V.M. Cynthia Bright Frank Brown Kevin Bryant Adam Buckallew James Burger Kyle Burk Lauren Whitney Burk Steven Bush Elaine Byrd

50 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

Tyler Byrd Lester Cable, Jr. Lowell Eugene Cable Charles Caldwell, MD., Ph.D. LTG James Campbell Mark Caplinger Stacey Caplinger Ethelyn Hart Carr Jay Carr Maria Carroll Kellie Carroll John Carter Christine Cates, CPA Master Sgt. Don Chandler Qun Chen, Ph.D. Jugdep Chima, Ph.D. Rachel Chrisman Linda Longworth Chronister Barbara Cirkl Deborah Clift David Clithero Matthew Coffelt Martha Holt Collier Amy Jo Cook-Breeze, D.V.M. Dr. Patrick Michael Cooney Yeong Cooney Jeffrey Mark Coons Eric Copeland Julie Grace Corley Michael Cosby Freddie Cosgrove Laura Duffy Crank, Ph.D. Christopher Culp Katherine Cummins Dennis Curtis Melinda Curtis Logan Dale Mary Dalheim Sue Maxwell Dalton William Dalton Ann Dalzell Borgmeyer Kelci Dampf

Dr. Michael Danter Matthew Davis Suzanne Davis, M.D. Walter Davison, Jr. Douglas Dean Deborah D. Delsemme, Ed.D. Brandon DeWitt Cathleen DeWitt John DiCarlo Phoebe DiCarlo Frank Gregory Dickey, Ed.D. Austin Dockins Alexandra Dockins Dale Doerhoff Ruth Wilde Doerhoff Nicholas Dopuch Rachel Doren Jeri Doty Robert Doyle Holly Drabik John Drabik John Drexler Karen Drexler Dr. Patricia Dubbert Anne Dunajcik Karl Dunajcik Thomas Eland Nancy Ann Ellefson Dr. Lynnda Emery David Engelkemeyer Bobbi Fay Enslen Ray Burnett Erwin, Jr. Patricia Farney Jonathan Finck Ann Finnegan-Fuchs Andrea Fischer, M.D. Andrew Fisher Dr. Anne Fitzsimmons Lauren Flaker Anne Flaker Tanner Frevert Dana Galbraith, M.D.

Jack Galbraith, M.D. Leslie Garner Daniel Gay, D.O. Arpit Ghoting Udel Gibler Nancy Giddens Deborah Lynn Gittinger Sarah Godke William Jerry Goos Michael Gossum Kathryn Gossum Anna Gramke Samantha Green Beth Ann Grellner Deborah Anne Grimshaw James Grimshaw Andrew Grinch Rebecca Grubb Elizabeth Haden Jeremy Hafer Quanna Hafer Dr. Gale Lee Hagee Eric Ham William Hancock Michelle Hanko Madeline Hanlen Randall Hanson Kiran Hapke John Hardin Lynn Graves Hardy Courtney Harris Erich Hartmann Carl Hathcock Charanya Hathcock Dr. Victoria Haynes Kyra Heatly Paul Heddings II Joshua Heffernan Shannon Whitney Heffernan Mark Heinemann Arlene Heins Terry Lynn Heins

Derek Helenberger Alicia Henderson David Bruce Hendin Gayle Myers Hennessey Brendan Henry Charles Hildebrand, Jr. Arthur Ernest Hill Paul Himmelsbach, CFP Daniel Bryon Hinnah Eric Hobbs Robert Hofman Veldon Holaday Lindsay Holland James Holland, M.D. Mary Abshear Holland Jerry Hopkins Paul Hoss Sarah Lowrey Hoss Bruce Hotz Leigh Huesgen John Hunt Katie Hunt Sharla Huseman Nancy Hutchins Katherine Ihnat Lisa Jacobs, M.D. Aashish Jagini Robert James Jonathan Jarvis CPTSharonE.Jentzer,USN(Ret.) Rebecca Johnson Laurence Johnson Dr. John Jones Susan Jones, Ph.D. Matthew Kaiser Mildred Kaiser Michael Kateman Frank Joel Kauffman Kimberley Kaufman Kevin Joseph Kelley Michelle Kelley John Kemp

Mark Alan Kempf Albert Kennett Barbara Kilpatrick David Kilpatrick, Ph.D. Kenneth Kimutis Patricia Brennan Kimutis Elizabeth Knipper Dr. Priscilla LeMone Koeplin Jacques Kolzow Charlie Koors Lindsay Kopp Fred Korte, Jr. Sharon Korte David Law Hadley Leasman Jae Lee, Ph.D. Rodney Legleiter Pamela Linke Dr. Jack Litman Sarah Lord, M.D. Laura Lowe Jesse Lucas, Ph.D. Kristi Luecke Deborah Maczuk Michael Maczuk Geoffrey Maddox Ian Manche Sheila Marushak Christina Matthews Fallan Mayabb, M.D. Trevin Mayabb, M.D. Bradley Dale Mayberry Kristi Ann Mayfield John Harold McComb Michael McCuistion Kenneth McFarland Richard McKean Michael McKee William McMahon III Alexis Fuemmeler Melloy Randy Melloy Lisa Messick Mark Messick Lia Milazzo

Janice Miller Julie Miller Blake Miller Austin Miller Mary Miller Judy Warner Minogue Thomas Mitchell Linda Leigh Moen Terry Moen Matthew Monos Nicole Moore Steven Moore Benjamin Morris Tanya Morris Dr. Daniel Morrison Janiece Morrison William Morrow II Timothy Mullane Scott Myers Erin Nash Janise Kuechler Naughton Charlene Nickolaus, Ed.D. Tyler Nicosia Adam Jordan Nolte Vicki Livesay Nower Katherine O’Brien Sara O’Connor Craig Oliverius Kelsey Ollis Jill Olmsted Dr. Jean H O’Mara Patrick O’Mara David O’Neal, Jr. Timothy O’Toole Eugene Ott Robert Dale Otto II Grace Bellante Overcash Zoe Parham Donna Parker John Parks Leslie Claire Parks Zachary Parolin Eileen Marie Parry Kanji Patel

Mayurkumar Patel Neal Paul Scott Thomas Peppard Charles Perry Angela Pionke Jeremey Pionke Keith Pittrich Sonja Pittrich Lynda Sue Plymate, Ph.D. Randel Price, Ph.D. Patrick Pullins Elizabeth Ann Ratliff Daniel Renfro, D.V.M. Whitney Renfro Angela Renkoski Dustin Renwick Nancy Ricciotti Howard Richards, Jr. Ellen Paterson Rippeto Wendy Risk Angela Ritter Adam Rosenfeld David Rosenfeld Virginia Ross Paul Ross Carolyn Roth Jeremy Roth Edward Ruddy, Jr. David Ryan, M.D. Angela Kay Saettele, M.D. Kevin Saettele Debra Sapaugh Davina Marie Sappington Jacob Sappington Thalia Sass McKenzie Sauerwein Daniel Scher William Schmidt III Dennis Schmitt, Ph.D. D.V.M. AJ Schrage Edwin Schwitzky II Myron Scott Catherine Scroggs, Ph.D. James Seymore, M.D.

James Shaver Meredith Shaw Desiree Shay Marc Shegoski Mary Frances Purcell Sheldon Dawn Renee Shellabarger Jacob Shellabarger Stephen Daly Shipley Robert Shutt Christopher Slaughter John Smith Lenelle Smith Ann Ryan Solomon Marjorie Alice Springer William Springer Christopher Spurlock Marla Kay Steele Aleia Stein Steven Stein Cynthia Stewart Tracy Stickney Miriam Stokes Jim Stone Jill Ellen Stone JoEllen Storch Mike Stuart Diana Stuckey, D.V.M. John Summers Mike Summers, P.E. Devin Tarantino Mason Taylor Janet Cardetti Taylor Paul Taylor Maggie Taylor Sam Taylor Kristen Thackery Dr. Benny Thomas Regan Thomas, M.D. Rhonda Thomas Laurie Ann Thompson Russell Thompson Terry Tinaglia Marvin Tofle Ruth Brent Tofle, Ph.D.

Lt. Josh Travis Ann Trotter Mary Ann Turner Milton Edwin Twente Micah Uptegrove Sarah Uptegrove Alexander Vandiver Jacqueline Verdun Carl Brian Voss Zachary Hyatt Wade Jane Wagner Cheryl Walker, D.V.M. Kathy McCarthy Wallace Zachary Walther Johnny Wang Carolyn Warmann Gerald Warmann Steven Wasserman Tessa Drury Wasserman Patrick Watson Susan Watson Jo Ann Cowan Webb Weldon Webb Jimmy Webster, Ph.D. Thomas Walter Wells, Jr. Lisa Lynn Wilcox Linda Willson James Wilson, D.V.M. James Warren Winn Linda Lee Winn Wayne Wisehart David Wood Lynn Wood Jackie Woodward Matthew Wunderlich Laine Young-Walker, M.D. Ashley Zboray

INTERESTED IN UPGRADING TO LIFE MEMBERSHIP? Visit mizzou.com/life or call 800-372-6822

Check out our Easy Life payment option!

Twelve monthly payments automatically charged to your credit card.

We look forward to having you join us for life!

SPRING 2017 51

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS DATA

Mizzou Giving Day From noon on March 15 to noon on March 16, the university held its first-ever Mizzou Giving Day. Thousands of alumni, faculty, staff and students came together to raise more than $8 million.

Below is a breakdown of a day that was truly one for the record books.

gifts were made on Mizzou Giving Day

3,278 donors made gifts

45 128.40

states participated

$

average online gift

$

$29,537

in donations came in for the Mizzou Alumni Association’s Traditions Fund, which supports Homecoming, Tiger Walk and the Alumni Scholars Program.

701 #MizzouGivingDay mentions on Twitter

3,405,443 impressions on Twitter. More than 3 million people saw and interacted with Mizzou on Twitter for Giving Day.

8,342,149

Total amount raised

$

52 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

80K

Money awarded to academic units

Academic units were able to participate in two challenges during the 24-hour period.

The top five units with the most donations received and the most money raised won a portion of an $80,000 prize pool funded by donors.

TOP 5 PARTICIPATION WINNERS Student Affairs 733 gifts

School of Journalism 283 gifts College of Arts and Science 215 gifts College of Education 190 gifts College of Engineering 176 gifts

TOP 5 MONEY WINNERS

College of Veterinary Medicine $2,042,039 College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources $1,815,288 College of Engineering $1,525,622 College of Education $1,045,265 College of Arts and Science $219,879

SHUT TERSTOCK , BLAKE DINSDALE

3,592

TIGER TALK Class Notes 1950

HBarbara Beck Beeching, BJ ’50, of Bloomfield, Conn., published Hopes and Expectations: The Origins of the Black Middle Class in Hartford (SUNY Press, 2016).

William Meyer, BS ’59, MS ’60, of Pebble Beach, Calif., published Remembrances (Park Place Publications, 2016).

1960

Elizabeth Transou Solberg, BJ ’61, of Kansas City, Mo., received the Carolyn Helman Lichtenberg Crest Award for leadership and volunteer service.

HHAlvin Rosenhan, BS ME ’62, of Starkville, Miss., retired from Mississippi State University.

HHStanley Remer, MS ’68, of Chesapeake, Va., received the 2017 Lifetime Achievement in Social Work Award from the National Association of Social Workers.

1970

HMichael Metheny, BS Ed ’71, of Greenwood, Mo., published Old Friends are the Best Friends (Michael Metheny, 2016).

HPaul Perkins, MBA ’71, of Steelville, Mo., published Death Defied, Life Defined (Clovercroft Publishing, 2016).

Thomas Skovholt, M Ed ’71, PhD ’74, of St. Paul, Minn., published The Resilient Practitioner (Routledge, 2016).

HHWilliam Greenblatt, BS Ed ’77, of St. Louis is president of the St. Louis Press Club.

1980

HHCraig Ault, BES ’82, M ED ’83, of St. Louis is

executive vice president of sales and marketing and director of global sales training and development at CSI Leasing.

HJohn Post, BS Ed ’97, of Republic, Mo., published Laughing All the Way: The Christmas Letters (John J. Post, 2015).

Scott Hess, BJ ’84, of New York published Skyscraper (Unzipped Books, 2016).

Rebecca Barbre Zanin, BS Ed ’97, of Washington, Mo., received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching award.

Randall Jones, BA ’84, of Naples, Fla., published SHOW ME (Smart Business Books, 2015).

Kristin Weber, BJ ’87, of Kansas City, Mo., received the Carolyn Helman Lichtenberg Crest Award for leadership and volunteer service.

Jacque Montgomery, BJ ’88, of Centennial, Colo., is press secretary for Colorado governor John Hickenlooper.

Kevin Wolf, BA ’88, of Arlington, Va., is a partner at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld LLP. James Andrzejewski, BA ’89, of St. Charles, Mo., received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching award.

1990

Pieter Vanlier, MA ’90, of Cleveland is the executive director of the Cleveland Transformation Alliance.

HSarah Mooney, BSW ’92, of North Palm Beach, Fla., is the police chief of West Palm Beach.

Beth Steinhoof Wehmeier, BS Ed ’94, of Portage Des Sioux, Mo., received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching award.

HHGina Lamb, BA, BJ ’95, of Jersey City, N.J., heads the projects copy desk at The New York Times.

Michael Swoboda, BA ’95, of St. Louis received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching award.

Kelly Bley, BJ ’99, of Sewickley, Pa., is a partner at Reed Smith LLP. Angela Heer, BS BA ’99, of Kansas City, Mo., received the 2016 Excellence in Fundraising Award from the Mid-America chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professions.

2000

Brian Dowey, BA ’00, of Loveland, Ohio, is vice president of 84.51°.

Michael Todd, BA ’00, of Harrisburg, N.C., is associate vice president for research of the University of North Carolina System.

Timothy Garrison, MPA ’02, JD ’03, of Springfield, Mo., is the deputy legal counsel to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Tim Reichardt, BS BA ’02, JD ’05, of Ballwin, Mo., is president of the St. Louis County Bar Association.

Beth Snyder, BFA ’02, of Fulton, Mo., opened 1canoe2, a stationery and letterpress company.

Alex Beaujean, MA ’03, MA ’04, PhD ’05, PhD ’06, of Waco, Texas, co-authored with John Lowhlin Latent Variable Models: An Introduction to Factor, Path and Structural Equation Analysis (Routledge, 2016).

Sasha Paul Walchli, BS Ed ’03, of St. Charles, Mo., received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching award.

Mizzou in Budget Squeeze Unfortunately, one the most popular topics on our campus — and others nationwide — has been the state of the university budget.

You may recall that the fiscal year began with a 5 percent across-the-board cut caused by a drop in new-student enrollment from 6,200 in fall 2015 to 4,700 in 2016.

In January, the state withheld $20 million from the university budget when revenues grew more slowly than expected. University leaders plugged the hole with a combination of reserve funds and further cuts. At press time, the proposed higher education budget for 2018 cut another $20 million.

That loss, coupled with what is expected to be another small freshman class, puts Mizzou in the position of dealing with an estimated $50 million problem.

This is the most difficult budget situation I’ve seen in two decades on campus.

In the past, we’ve been able to reconcile state cuts with increased enrollment or tuition increases — or both. But state law now limits tuition increases to the rate of growth in the consumer price index. That predictability is great for students and families. When juxtaposed against deep cuts in state funding, however, the situation becomes substantially more difficult.

Although I prefer using this space to share more positive news, as executive director of your alumni association, I felt you needed to know. You should also know that the No. 1 priority for Mizzou’s leaders is to maintain the core mission of this great public research university, which affects every part of Missouri every day. Tough decisions lie ahead, but, like you, I believe in Mizzou and know it will come out stronger in the end.

TODD MCCUBBIN, M ED ’95 executive director, Mizzou Alumni Association Email: mccubbint@missouri.edu Twitter: @MizzouTodd

H M I Z ZO U A LUMNI A SSO C IATIO N ANNUAL M EM BER | HH L IF E M EM BER

SPRING 2017 53

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS

Bumper Boosters

You don’t have to drive in Missouri to show Tiger pride on the road. These alumni represent Mizzou all over the country every time they get behind the wheel.

LUCAS MARTIN, BS ’01 Lakeland, Florida 4-MIZZOU

JEFFRY BURDEN, BJ ’82 Richmond, Virginia MIZ TGR

BETH MCBRIDE SHOCKEY, BA ’02 San Antonio, Texas M1ZZOU

“I am a very proud alumnus. ‘MIZZOU’ was taken, so I went with the next best thing: ‘4-MIZZOU.’ Reaction varies from ‘What is a Mizzou?’ to ‘You guys have been pretty darn good.’ I have had a few people yell ‘M-I-Z!’ at me and my wife.”

“When I bought my convertible Solara a year ago, I decided to pay extra for a special plate with the Virginia state seal and my own personalized Mizzou message. I fairly often get waves and honks, and several times even have gotten (somewhat) good-natured grief from Jayhawks fans.”

“I have Alaska plates because I was stationed there at the time I got the car, but now I’m in San Antonio. I’d always wanted official Mizzou plates but couldn’t get them because I lived out of state.

This was my next best option. Our alumni group loves it.”

54 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

5 Ways Alumni Can Give Back to Mizzou The Mizzou Alumni Association connects alumni, supports Mizzou and preserves traditions. But those tasks take on many forms. With more than 120 chapters, hundreds of events and a new social media ambassador program, volunteering has never been easier.

1. Helping Students

Members mentor current students through True Tiger, the Black Alumni Network and the Griffiths Leadership Society. They also help recruit new students by speaking at high schools.

2. Contacting Legislators

Members of the Mizzou Legislative Network, a grassroots advocacy coalition, support higher education and Mizzou by contacting legislators and presenting positive messages about the university.

3. Getting Social

With MizzouNet, a social ambassador platform, users share favorite posts from Mizzou-affiliated social media with friends and family.

4. Supporting Your Unit

Get involved with your local chapter or an affinity group. Go to a football watch party, attend a networking event, or speak to current students interested in your field of study.

5. Preserving Traditions

Alumni who want to contribute to special events can offer hands-on help with planning and execution, whether passing out ice cream at Tiger Walk or driving a convertible in the Homecoming parade.

Get involved at mizzou.com/volunteer.

— Brittany King

Story Cunningham, BJ ’04, of Los Angeles practices labor and employment law at Blank Rome LLP. Ian Guerin, BJ ’04, of Myrtle Beach, S.C., published The Beach Ball Classic: Premier High School Hoops on the Grand Strand (Arcadia Publishing, 2016).

HHRobert Allan Mester, BS ’04, MD ’08, of Daniel Island, S.C., is an associate professor of anesthesiology at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Emily Borgsmiller Moxey, BHS ’04, of Sikeston, Mo., received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching award.

Susan Lowrey Gill, BJ ’05, of Blacksburg, Va., is the director of new media at Virginia Tech.

Zach Bickel, JD ’06,

H M I Z ZO U A LUMNI A SSO CIATIO N ANNUAL MEM BER | HH L IF E M EM BER

SPRING 2017 55

State parks, cute little shops, microbreweries, underground art galleries and award-winning dining, all within walking distance. Or at least a short bike ride away. Columbia offers everything you need for a quick getaway. And you don’t have to take out a small loan to get here. visitcolumbiamo.com

Love Etched in Stone cine. On our first date at the Fieldhouse, we were dancing, and I noticed smoke coming out of Dave’s hair. I slapped his head rather hard because I thought he was on fire! I think it was just a stray ash from the second floor, but we still laugh about it to this day.

Despite this crazy beginning, we married two years later at United Methodist Church in Columbia. Shakespeare’s Pizza was our favorite hangout, and we try to stop by whenever we are in town.

Jag Gill, MS ’89, and Merna Hunsley Gill, M Ed ’87, Charlotte, North Carolina

We met at Memorial Union when we were in graduate school and worked full time at the university. After that, the story changes depending on which of us tells it regarding who wooed whom. But we do agree that someone talked someone into marriage. In the span of five years, we married, bought a house, finished graduate work, had two children, changed jobs and moved across country. We might have experienced above-average stress but, then again, Mizzou graduates are overachievers.

Jeff LaCroix, BS BE ’04, PhD ’09, and Tiffany McCracken LaCroix, BS Ed ’05, M Ed ’06, Blacksburg, Virginia Mark Roderique, BS Acc, M Acc ’10, and Mary Wyrwich, BS BA ’10, MHA ’12, got engaged on Traditions Plaza during Homecoming 2014.

P R O P O S A L : L I N D S E Y PA N TA L E O ; B R I C K S : S H A N E E P P I N G

Traditions Plaza’s surface holds 13,348 bricks, but the memories and memorials inscribed upon them can’t be quantified.

In its two-and-a-half year existence, the amphitheater south of Jesse Hall has already witnessed several marriage proposals, lectures, ceremonies, concerts and impromptu gatherings. Below are the stories of alumni who have added personal legacies to Mizzou’s newest nostalgic landmark.

Rebecca Bradshaw, BA ’91, MA ’92, Columbia

My parents, Paul and Ira Ann Hawkins, are the reason I am an alumna, so I purchased a paver to celebrate them. Dad was a lifelong Tiger fan. They started dating when my mother was in the eighth grade. Dad was a year ahead of her. They dated throughout high school and married a few months after she graduated in 1951. She attended secretarial school in St. Louis, but after two weeks apart, Dad took the bus and brought her back to Ironton, Missouri. When my father passed away in 2014, they had been married for 62 years.

Cyndi Muskopf Cerven, BS Ed ’89, M Ed ’08, and Dave Cervin, BS Ag ’85, DVM ’90, Bowling Green, Missouri

Dave and I met when I lived in a four-bedroom house with three other girls. He was after my roommate and often parked at our house because it was so close to the College of Veterinary Medi-

We met in 2002 in the Memorial Stadium press box when Jeff was an interviewee for the Student Athletic Board and Tiffany was on the executive committee. Spending time together at sporting events, service projects, parades in the Helmet Car, and, finally the Engineer’s Ball cemented the relationship. Jeff was an engineer, so in 2004 Tiffany walked over the shamrock. He proposed in 2005.

We shot our engagement video on Faurot Field with the Helmet Car, and MU hosted the engagement and wedding photography as well as the reception at the Alumni Center in 2006.

Jaret Gordon, BS BA ’04, and Jasmine Cipporah Yaghoubian Gordon, BS ’04, Overland Park, Kansas

He was one of the few Jewish boys on campus, and I knew I only wanted to date a Jewish boy. He apparently saw me at Shul, and I had no idea. The next time I saw him was at a mutual friend’s housewarming party, even though I was supposed to be studying for a physics quiz. It was love at first sight. I called my father the next day and told him I was going to marry this boy. Jaret still loved me even after I forced him to go to the library every day as I studied to get into medical school. He improved his business school grades and landed best GPA in his fraternity house. He still loved me even after I had him over for a plain macaroni and ketchup meal.

To leave your legacy, start at mizzou.com/traditionsplaza.

SPRING 2017 57

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS

PRIDE, LEGACY, G.O.L.D. Each year the Mizzou Alumni Association honors volunteers for leadership and service to MU in key categories. The Tiger Pride Award recognizes outstanding volunteer work.

The Mizzou G.O.L.D. Award honors graduates of the last decade who have donated talents and time. Here are the winners for 2016:

at college nights. She’s known for her willingness to share her experiences as a student of color.

Missouri Tiger Pride Award Larry G. Adams II, BS ACC ’90 Larry Adams, a pillar of the association’s Greater Ozarks Chapter, has sustained Mizzou’s spirit on the chapter’s board for more Mizzou G.O.L.D. Award than two decades. His coaching and leadership led to the estabEnola-Riann White, BA ’08, MPA ’10 lishment of the Greater Ozarks Chapter’s scholarship endowAs an undergraduate, White participated in four bands, includ- ment, and he championed the transformation of the chapter’s ing Marching Mizzou, and was a member of Sigma Alpha Iota golf tournament into one of the most successful such events withWomen’s Music Fraternity. She earned a master’s degree in pub- in the association’s network, despite not being a golfer himself. lic affairs and now serves as an academic adviser and diversity recruitment and retention coordinator in the Sinclair School of Regional Tiger Pride Award Nursing. White performs with the Columbia Community Band Matthew Krueger, BA ’76 and supports the Marching Mizzou Alumni Band.

As a student, Krueger was the tiger mascot and served on the Homecoming Steering Committee. As an alumnus, he has been Regional Mizzou G.O.L.D. Award president of the Tulsa, Los Angeles and Northeast Florida chapErika N. Harrison, BA ’08, JD ’11 ters, and vice president of the Atlanta chapter. He has also served As soon as Erika Harrison joined the Houston Texas Ti- at the national level, volunteering as the association’s Southwest gers Chapter, she stepped up to serve as secretary. In 2016 and Southeast regional director, as a long-range-planning comshe became president of the MAA Black Alumni Network, mittee member, and as a governing board member. a national post. Harrison is always a proud ambassador for Know an outstanding MAA volunteer? Submit nominations for TMS_Mizzou_Mag_Ad_3.17.pdf 1 3/21/17 3:30 PM Mizzou, such as when she staffs student recruitment booths the 2017 volunteer of the year awards at mizzou.com by May 1, 2017.

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58 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

of Overland Park, Kan., is board secretary for Jackson County Courts Appointed Special Advocates.

HLaura Brandt Miller, BJ ’06, of Kansas City, Mo., published A Bird on a Windowsill (Laura Miller Books, 2016).

HJulie Plamer-Schuyler, PhD ’08, of St. Louis published Excel 2013 for HR Management Statistics (Springer International Publishing, 2016).

2010

Seunghee Han, EdD ’10, of Columbia published Corporal Punishment in Rural Schools: Student Problem Behaviours, Academic Outcomes and School Safety Efforts (Springer, 2017).

Jeff Taylor, MHA ’10, of Lee’s Summit, Mo., is the COO of Menorah Medical Center in Overland Park, Kan.

Katherine Arens Johnson, BS Ed ’11, of Montgomery City, Mo., received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching award.

HRosellen Downey, MA ’12, of San Jose, Calif., wrote In Other News: Reporters in Reporting (Stephanie Forshee, 2016).

Megan Russell Hall, M Ed ’12, of St. Louis received the Emerson Excellence in

Teaching award.

David Mueller, BS Ed ’13, of O’Fallon, Mo., received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching award.

Kate Nolan, BS ChE ’13, of Kirkwood, Mo., chairs the outreach committee for the Society of Women Engineers.

HBrian P. Dunleavy, MA ’14, of New York published

Crunch Time (Strawberry Books, 2016).

Scott Vonder Bruegge, M Ed ’15, of St. Louis received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching award.

Lucas Peterson, BS ’16, of Springfield, Mo., joined the AmeriCorps St. Louis emergency response team to help with recovery efforts after a wildfire in

Therese Shain, MA Ed ’09, of Fenton, Mo., received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching award.

Olivia Vitale Strazewski, BS Ed ’09, of St. Louis received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching, Maplewood Richmond Heights District and Building, and Maplewood Chamber of Commerce teacher of the year awards.

Brandi Sutherland Family and Community Services MA West Plains, Missouri

There are things that when you’re a firstgeneration student, you just don’t know.

When you haven’t seen your close family and friends go through this process, it’s scary. I wanted to graduate with my master’s before my teenagers entered college themselves. I don’t think my children will be as afraid now.

~ Brandi Sutherland

The best team in higher education is Mizzou and you. Pair your ambition with one of 95-plus online degrees and certificates. It’s a match destined for success.

Choose from bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, plus dozens of graduate certificates.

Find the program for you: online.missouri.edu/MIZ&ME SPRING 2017 59

MIZZOU ALUMNI NEWS Sevier Country, Tenn.

Weddings

HApril Welch, BS BA ’99, and Nathan Kaplan BS ’12, of Columbia April 30, 2016.

Births

Kevin Block, BA ’99, and Jennifer Block, of St. Charles, Mo., announce the birth of Joshua Matthew Jan. 19, 2017.

Lisa Rothstein, BSW ’02, and Matt Goldberg, of Louisville, Ky., announce the birth of Molly Shoshana Feb. 26, 2017.

C L A S S I F I E D A DV E RT I S I N G

Eric Moyer, BJ ’03, and Amanda Deaton-Moyer, of Nashville, Tenn., announce the birth of David Elias Aug. 4, 2016.

ONE-INCH DISPLAY ADS (two columns wide by one inch high): $195 per ad.

Matt McGrory, BS BA ’06, and Mikaela Perconti McGrory, BA, ’08, of Glen Ellyn, Ill., announce the birth of Maeve Isla Oct. 19, 2016.

LINE ADS: $4.20 per word, 10-word minimum. Phone numbers, including area code, count as one word. The first two or three words will be boldface. Three- or fourissue contracts reduce the per-word rate to $3.95.

ONE-TWELFTH PAGE DISPLAY ADS (two columns wide by 2-3/16” high): $380 per ad.

P U BL ISH I NG SC H E DU L E: Fall ’17

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Sept. 6

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MIZZOU Classified Advertising 123 Reynolds Alumni Center Columbia, MO 65211

Issue

HAndy Miller, BS ’10, and Laura Tiehen, BS Ed ’12, M Ed ’13, of Denver announce the birth of Madison Grace Feb. 3, 2017.

Walter Stokely, JD ’12 and Kristen Michael Stokely, JD ’12, of Holts Summit, Mo., announce the birth of Millicent Michael Sept. 15, 2016.

Faculty Deaths

HBeverly J. Crabtree, BS Ed ’59, M Ed ’62, of Springfield, Mo., Dec. 7, 2016, at 79. She chaired the home economics department and served as associate dean of Mizzou Extension for the College of Home Economics.

HHKitty Dickerson, BS Ed ’59, M Ed ’62, of New York City, Jan. 15, 2017, at 76. She was a professor and the department chair of MU’s Textile and Apparel Management program. She won the MU Distinguished Faculty Award in 2002.

Deaths

Frank McKinney, BA ’34, of Scottsdale, Ariz., Oct. 10, 2016, at 104. A U.S. Army World War II veteran, he worked 40 years at Quaker Oats Company.

HHJane Espy Meyer, BA

’41, MA ’46, of Jefferson City, Mo., Nov. 28, 2016, at 97. She was a member of Gamma Phi Beta sorority.

HHJean Ream McClure, BS HE ’42, of Columbia Oct. 12, 2016, at 95. A Phi Upsilon Omicron and Alpha Gamma Delta member, she was tapped into Mortar Board and LSV. Carl Beger, BS Ag ’43, of St. Charles, Mo., Feb. 2, 2017, at 95. He was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.

HHJoseph Hogan, MS ’49, of Tempe, Ariz., Aug. 18, 2016, at 94. He was a U.S. Navy veteran.

HHEdward Nichols, BA, BS Ed ’49, MA ’51 of Rosiclare, Ill., Aug. 22, 2016, at 90.

Carl Rexroad, BA ’49, MA ’50 of Bloomington, Ind., Oct. 27, 2016, at 91. He was a World War II veteran.

Teach your child what it means to be a INTRODUCING

Take advantage of Mizzou’s newest program Tigers in Training! An exclusive benefit for members of the MAA with a child 18 and under.

Sign up today at www.mizzou.com/tigersintraining

60 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

TIGERS CHANGE TIGER LOYALTY NEVER DOES

Three great Tigers of different size and shape share the field: Big Mo representing the incomparable Marching Mizzou; Truman the Tiger; and Li’l Missouri Tiger.

All gifts to Mizzou are great, no matter the size. Not all gifts are created equal, however. Some gifts give you a tax deduction and pay you income for life. That’s what a Mizzou Charitable Gift Annuity will do. For example, Ralph Deuser, MSW ’55, made a gift and received a tax deduction and yearly income for life.

Any unused gift amount will go to the university at the end of his life.* Call 1-800-970-9977 for a free illustration that will show you how a Mizzou Charitable Gift Annuity can benefit you, or email giftplanning@missouri.edu.

Sample Rate Chart based on a gift of $10,000 Donor’s Age

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

Annuity Rate

4.4%

4.7%

5.1%

5.8%

6.8%

7.8%

9.0%

Annual Payout

$440

$470

$510

$580

$680

$780

$900

Deduction

$2,582

$3,231

$3,901

$4,426

$4,908

$5,582

$6,243

$308

$340

$384

$450

$542

$650

$767

Tax-free Income

PLEASE NOTE: The chart shows how a gift of $10,000 given for a single-life charitable gift annuity would perform.

Deductions will vary slightly with changes in the IRS discount rate. The assumed rate is 2%. These examples are for illustration purposes only and are not intended as legal or tax advice. Consult your own legal and tax advisers for advice before creating a charitable gift annuity.

302 Reynolds Alumni Center | Columbia, MO 65211 | www.giftannuity.missouri.edu

*Li’l Missouri Tiger, provided by CGA donor Ralph Deuser, MSW ’55.

Thanks, Alumni Leaders The volunteer leaders of the Mizzou Alumni Association connect the Mizzou family through a network of more than 120 affiliated organizations. More than 12,000 Tigers provide direct service to Mizzou through MAA programs and activities each year.

Thanks to all our chapter, organization, and affinity group leaders for making Mizzou stronger.

mizzou.com/volunteer Adair County Chapter Melissa Eitel

Engineering Jackie Stropes

Mizzou Military Veterans Joe Dillsaver

Social Work Virginia Mohammed

Ag Alumni Association Kristen Marshall

Franklin County Chapter Rich Buckman Kim Voss

Mizzou Atlanta Chapter R. Brent Adams

South Florida Chapter Anthony Garrett

Great River Chapter Al Kennett

Mizzou Black Alumni Network Erika Harrison

South Louisiana Denny Bond

Greater Ozarks Chapter Andy Stewart

Mizzou Letterwinners Club Ed Lampitt

Bates County Club Bryan Milligan

Greater Peoria Chapter Dustin Johansen

Mizzou Philly Chapter Joanna Witte

Bay Area Tigers Veronica Polivanaya

Greenville/Spartanburg, SC Chapter Guy Furay

Morgan County Chapter Andrew Hardwick

Southwest Connecticut Chapter Ashlen Hayward

Motor City Tigers Deborah Diers

Southwest Florida Jason Philips

Music City Mizzou Justin Shepherd

Southwest Missouri Chapter Rachel Greene

Audrain County Chapter Tony Robertson Austin Texas Tigers T. R. Capp Max Kerwick

Birmingham/N. Alabama Chapter Alexis Marcus Roger Schwerman Bloomington-Normal Chapter William Morrow Boone County Chapter Tracy Evers Boston ‘Zou Chapter Lindsey Hoffman Buchanan County Chapter Brandon Lorenz

Griffiths Leadership Society Traci Kennedy Health Management & Informatics Justin Garry Heartland Mizzou Chapter Ray Perez Hilton Head Chapter Roger Clark Houston Texas Tigers Jessica Marziani

Natural Resources Cody Campbell New York Chapter Fabriana Watts Northeast Florida Chapter Matt Krueger Northeast Ohio Alumni Christopher Blake

Southeast Florida Sergio Piedra Southern Arizona Tigers Ronald Pemstein

Southwest Quads Chapter J. H. Wagaman, Jr. Spokane/Northern Idaho Laura Skaer Springfield, IL Chapter Jacquelyn McGinness Betsy Urbance

Business Stephanie Matt

Human Environmental Sciences Liz Townsend Bird

Callaway County Chapter Michael Conner

Indiana Mizzou Crew Warren Mills

Nursing Kathryn Musterman

Central Florida Chapter Matthew Friedman

Kansas City Chapter Ashley Dean

Oregon Trail Tigers Debra Weekley

Central Iowa Chapter Christopher Ulmer

Korea Chapter Ju-hong Hwang

Chariton County Chapter Fred Carpenter

LA/Orange County Chapter Adam Gafke

Ozarks Black & Gold Chapter Marjorie Slayton Betty Lou Stock

Charlotte Chapter Lauren Schatz

Las Vegas Chapter Peter Clancy

Chicago Chapter Jawann Pollard

Lincoln County Chapter Kelsey Flynn

Cincinnati Chapter Sean Hannum

Little Rock Chapter Bronwyn MacFarlane

Sacramento Alumni Chapter John Schade

Cole County Chapter Mark Baker

Marching Mizzou Alumni Band Johanna Reed Adams

San Antonio Chapter Bradley Lehman

Twin Cities Tigers Cary Weatherby

San Diego Chapter Jason Batt

Valley of the Sun Chapter Michael Beck

Seattle Chapter Chris Ward

Washington D.C. Chapter Heather Starek

Columbia, SC Chapter Lex Ames Dallas/Ft. Worth Tigers Scott Phillips Education Linda Kaiser

Medicine Judee Bland Memphis Chapter Julie Cameron

Northwest Florida Chapter Woody Simmons

St. Louis Chapter Vanessa Ferguson Tampa Bay Tigers Kurt Hunzeker Tidewater Tigers Amanda Letterman Tigers of the Corn Chapter James Simmons Tigers of the Lake Chapter John Shelby

Parkland Area Tigers Chris Morrison

Tornado Alley Tigers Mitch Adams

Rocky Mountain Tigers Dan Wilinsky

Triangle Tigers Chapter Melissa Everitt Jill Hammergren Tulsa Chapter Jon Lawrence

Webster County Chapter Laura Vinehout

Alumni in Business P U T T I N G Y O U I N T O U C H W I T H T H E B U S I N E S S S E R V I C E S O F M I Z Z O U G R A D UAT E S

HJohn Morris, BS BA ’50, of Jefferson City, Mo., Feb. 8, 2017, at 89. He was a Beta Theta Pi member and president of the alumni association in 1959.

HHKent Kurtz, BS Ed ’53, M Ed ’58, EdD ’89, of Mexico, Mo., Nov. 1, 2016, at 86.

A Kappa Sigma member, he was a second baseman for Mizzou baseball.

Sept. 8, 2016, at 71.

A U.S. Air Force veteran, he played on the Mizzou golf team.

James Allwood, BS ’67, MS ’69, of The Woodlands, Texas, Sept. 28, 2016, at 71.

Imogene Kness McFate, BS ’67, of Overland Park, Kan., Dec. 15, 2016, at 88.

HJames Thomas, BS EE ’54, of Fort Wayne, Ind., Oct. 17, 2016, at 84. He was a U.S. Air Force veteran.

HHKenneth Lackey, EdD ’70, of Springfield, Mo., Oct. 1, 2016, at 90. He was a U.S. Navy World War II veteran.

HHenry Curry, BS ME ’58, of Milton, Fla., Nov. 15, 2016, at 81.

Byron Baker, BS ’76, of

Everett Boydston, BS ’60, of Camden Point, Mo., May 23, 2016, at 78.

HRobert Hanson, BA ’60, of Ballwin, Mo., April 15, 2016 at 79.

HHWilliam Heyde, BS Ed ’60, of Cape Girardeau, Mo., Oct. 26, 2016 at 78.

HHGlen Barton, BS CiE ’61, of Peoria, Ill., Oct. 24, 2016, at 77. He was CEO of Caterpillar Inc. Robert Jackson, BA ’63, JD ’66, of Kansas City, Mo., Nov. 18, 2016, at 74.

He was president of Sigma Chi. Richard Myers, PhD ’64, of Protem, Mo., Jan. 24, 2017, at 85. He was the director of the National Weather Service Technical Training Center in Kansas City, Mo. HHCharles Denney, BSF ’65, of Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 1, 2016, at 73.

He was an Alpha Gamma Rho member.

William Sutton, BS BA ’66, of Greensboro, N.C.,

Durham, N.C., Oct. 24, 2016, at 62.

HJanet Sanders, BA ’79, of Crystal Lake, Ill., Dec. 9, 2016, at 68. He was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.

HHMichelle L. Ruth, BS BA ’80, of Jefferson City, Mo., Oct. 29, 2016 at 58.

She was a Kappa Kappa Gamma member.

Samantha Crall, BA ’14, of St. Louis Sept. 17, 2016, at 25. She was a volunteer for the Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center and an advanced biology tutor.

A DV E RT ISI NG I N DE X

Alumni Insurance Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3 theAIP.com/mizzou Bank of America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 newcardonline.com Bryant Motors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 800-886-2701 Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau . . . . . . . . . 56 573-875-1173 everythingMizzou.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 800-456-4806 International Fund for Animal Welfare . . . . . . . . . . . C-4 ifaw.org/saveourstripes Liberty Mutual Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 800-531-4954 Miller’s Professional Imaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 800-376-6121 Mizzou Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 giving.missouri.edu Mizzou Alumni Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50, 60, 62 800-372-6822 Mizzou Botanic Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 gardens.missouri.edu Mizzou License Plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 mizzou.com/plates Mizzou MBA Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 execmba.missouri.edu Mizzou Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 online.missouri.edu Mizzou Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 themizzoustore.com MU Office of Gift Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 800-970-9977 Table Rock Lake Chamber of Commerce . . . . . . . . . . . 55 800-595-0393 Tiger Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 800-842-PAWS Tourin’ Tigers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 mizzou.com/travel Washington, Mo., Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 888-washmo1 To advertise in MIZZOU, call MAA at 573-882-6611

H M I Z ZO U A LUMNI A SSO CIATIO N ANNUAL MEM BER | HH L IF E M EM BER

SPRING 2017 63

SEMPER MIZZOU

J’den Cox is one of a school-record five All-Americans on Mizzou’s wrestling team, which placed fifth at the NCAA Championships March 18 in St. Louis.

64 MIZZOUMAGAZINE

J’den Cox lists “good conversation” among his favorite things in life. But after defeating Minnesota’s Brett Pfarr for an unprecedented third individual NCAA wrestling title at Mizzou, he rolled onto his back, covered his face and briefly enjoyed a moment of euphoric solitude.

It was a decidedly personal experience amid 20,000 screaming fans in his home state.

“That’s the best feeling,” said Cox from the post-match podium at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis. “So much builds up in you before that final match. So much emotion.”

Cox, who won an Olympic bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, also won the 197-pound NCAA title in 2014 and 2016. The fourtime All-American finished a perfect 28-0 in 2017 to lead Mizzou, which placed fifth as a team at the NCAA Championships.

The Tigers also sent a program-record three wrestlers to the championship round, where red-

shirt senior Lavion Mayes (149 pounds; Mascoutah, Illinois) and Joey Lavallee (157 pounds; Reno, Nevada) fell to wrestlers from Penn State’s national champion squad.

“Next year, we have a new bar,” said Mizzou coach Brian Smith, who received the National Wrestling Coaches Association coach of the year award. “Four or five in the national finals and multiple national champs!”

However the Tigers fare in 2018, it will be without the most accomplished wrestler in the program’s 94-year history. Cox finishes with the best winning percentage of any Mizzou wrestler with more than 100 wins (96.4 percent, 136-5).

“I didn’t do this for the accolades,” Cox says. I did it for the love of the sport.”

Is he Mizzou’s best athlete ever? Cox will leave that to the fans.

He’s certainly in the conversation.

— Marcus Wilkins

SHANE EPPING

Grappling With Greatness

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Your family’s wellness has been at the heart of our mission for more than 25 years.

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It just isn’t the same without our tiger. Poached for their skin, teeth, bones and paws, their populations have been decimated. They urgently need our protection. Learn how you can help at www.ifaw.org/saveourstripes