University of Portland Magazine Summer 2021

FEATURES

2 ON THE BLUFF 3 Visiting Voices 4 Campus Briefs 6 En Route 8 Sports 9 The Experts 10 Dream Teams

38 CLASS NOTES 28 DEAR EDUCATORS

12 Father Mark: UP’s President, Professor, and Priest

by Jessica Murphy Moo A reflection on UP’s 20th president and his cherished years on The Bluff.

20 My Joy

by Valerie Lewis-Mosley Even during this difficult year, her joy has sustained her.

42 In Memoriam 49 For the Love of It

The results of Portland’s very first writing contest are in. We asked our readers to shine light on the heroic efforts of teachers during the 2020/21 school year. Our readers— and our teachers—didn’t disappoint.

29 Amazing

by Astin Mills

Sometimes the student and the parent end up learning a thing or two.

30 302 from 2037

by Claire Lang The professor she never knew she needed.

32 Super Cool

by Daniela Zangara Retired reading specialist (and grandma) to the rescue.

Summer 2021 Vol. 39, No.3 President Rev. Mark L. Poorman, CSC Vice President Michael E. Lewellen Editor Jessica Murphy Moo Designer Darsey Landoe Associate Editor Marcus Covert ’93, ’97 Contributors Karen Bridges, Danielle Centoni, Roya Ghorbani-Elizeh ’11, Anna Lageson-Kerns ’83, ’14, Hannah Pick, Amy Shelly ’95, ’01 Portland is published three times a year by University of Portland.

Copyright © 2021 by the University of Portland.

All rights reserved.

Editorial Offices Waldschmidt Hall, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR 97203-5798 Email jmurphymoo@up.edu Online up.edu/portlandmagazine

22 Follow Your Dragon

34

by Karen Bridges

They Were Here

Recent graduate and set designer Kat Yo ’21 brings her passion for sustainability and Korean folklore— and her dazzling imagination—to UP’s stage.

Where many saw dangerous, crumbling buildings, graffiti artists saw a canvas, and Janna Machalek ’08 saw an intriguing research opportunity.

by Janna Machalek

Printed on 10% recycled and FSC-certified paper in Portland, OR. Third-class postage paid at Portland, OR 97203. Canada Post International Publications Mail Product—Sales Agreement No. 40037899. Canadian Mail Distribution Information—Express Messenger International: PO Box 25058, London, Ontario, Canada N6C 6A8.

Opinions expressed in Portland are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University administration.

Send address changes to Portland Magazine, University of Portland, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR 97203-5798.

EDITOR’S LETTER

What Will We Remember?

THE MAN READ the words haltingly, sounding out the syllables, as he stood before a small group of people inside a church in downtown Salvador de Bahia in Brazil. The church had been turned into a homeless shelter and on occasion held Mass. I remember sitting there with my friend I’d come to visit, thinking that the man doing the reading was brave. In my eyes, anyone who gets up to speak in front of people is brave, but especially someone who has just learned to read. He was doing something that did not come easily to him. And he was doing that in front of people.

My handle on the Portuguese language was very limited, so maybe it was because he was moving so slowly through the text that I was able to catch certain words. I definitely heard him circle back to one word in particular; it repeated, so I started to recognize it. When he arrived at the repeated word, the man showed visible relief. It was a word he knew. It rolled easily from his tongue in contrast to the others that took effort.

After he’d come around to this word a few times, I realized that I knew what he was saying to me. He was reading the Beatitudes, and the word he was repeating was the word “blessed.”

Blessed are the poor in spirit….

Blessed are those who mourn…

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…

He was reading the Beatitudes. And suddenly he somehow was the Beatitudes.

I have never heard a reading given with more beauty, clarity, humility, and meaning. And I took all this from a reading in a language I didn’t know.

That moment, from about 20 years ago, is so clear to me still.

Do you ever wonder what moments from the last year that you will remember clearly—ten, twenty years down the road? Who will we remember as the blessed of 2020/2021?

I have a hunch that among the blessed will be the educators who showed up and tried to connect with people against unthinkable odds. And I am saying the word “educator,” with a broad stroke. I mean the amazing teachers and professors, of course (and please do see our essays that honor educators in this issue), but I also mean our mentors and the humble people who teach us the important lessons in life. Blessed are those who teach. And blessed are those who remain ready and open to what the teachers have to share.

Jessica Murphy Moo, Editor

SUMMER 2021

1

PHOTO COURTESY OF LINDA SMITH

UP STUDENT NURSES JOIN INOCULATION EFFORTS Katherine Lund was among the team of UP’s student nurses who administered COVID-19 vaccines at the Oregon Convention Center.

Thank you, School of Nursing, for taking part in this important historic effort!

2

PORTLAND

ON THE BLUFF VISITING VOICES

Commencement Address for the Class of 2021, an excerpt F R . G R E G O RY B OY L E , S J

There is a vision that undergirds the education you have received. It’s a vision about a community of beloved belonging and creating such a place of kinship and connection and of such exquisite mutuality. The prophet Habakkuk writes, “[We are called then to stand with all who are suffering:] for the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and it will not disappoint. And if it delays, wait for it.”

And you wait at the margins.

Because if you stand there, the margins get erased, and you imagine a circle of compassion, and then you imagine no one standing outside that circle. You choose, at the margins, to dismantle the barriers that exclude. You don’t go to the margins to make the difference. You go to the margins so that the folks there make you different. And so you stand with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. You stand with those whose dignity has been denied. You stand with those whose burdens are more than they can bear. And you get to stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop with the disposable, so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away. And it is a gift to be able to stand there.

And to choose to inhabit your mutual nobility and dignity, unlocking eternity for each other.

Gregory Boyle, SJ, is the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world.

Each year more than 10,000 former gang members from across Los Angeles come through Homeboy Industries’ doors in an effort to make a change in their lives. As Fr. Boyle writes in his second book Barking to the Choir, “Homeboy wants to give rise not only to the idea of redemptive second chances but also to the new model of church as a community of inclusive kinship and tenderness.”

People are encouraged to delight in one another the way Fr. Boyle is convinced God delights in every one of us.

He typically brings his homies with him to speaking engagements and in doing so centers the stories of their wisdom and experiences. Their wisdom is hard won—Fr. Boyle has buried close to 250 individuals due to gang violence— and Homeboy employs four therapists (and 49 more who volunteer) to walk with individuals trying to overcome a childhood of poverty, addiction, violence, mental illness, or deep trauma.

Fr. Boyle sticks to his Ignatian roots when he speaks of finding God in all things, most especially in the community of homies he calls his colleagues, friends, and neighbors. (One of his homies is his spiritual advisor.) Fr. Boyle has received the California Peace Prize, the 2008 Civic Chamber of Commerce, and was inducted into the California Hall of Fame. He is the author of New York Times bestseller Tattoos on the Heart.

SUMMER 2021

3

JOHN KUTASZ

ON THE BLUFF CAMPUS BRIEFS

Summer Jazz

A tango group performs, while a young audience member enjoys backstage privileges.

This summer, every Friday afternoon in Southeast Portland, you can hear live music outdoors featuring Portland’s finest jazz artists. UP faculty member, jazz pianist, and composer Kerry Politzer started the Driveway Jazz Series last year as a way to bring music to people during a difficult year and to keep the jazz community united and doing what they love. Some socially distanced audience members gathered in person and some listened via livestream. Last year’s series ended abruptly with the wildfires. Thanks to a grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council, they’re starting again this summer, and the University of Portland Faculty Jazz Ensemble is slotted for July 30.

FOR DETAILS Visit drivewayjazz.com

4

PORTLAND

Noteworthy Numbers

18

Best Catholic Colleges & Universities

College Consensus ranked University of Portland 18th in the US.

Best MBA in Nonprofit Management

The Pamplin School of Business is featured in Intelligent.com’s “Best MBA in Nonprofit Management Degree Programs for 2021” ranking, listed among the top 40 degree programs in the nation.

1

Best MBA programs in Oregon

Welcome, Dean Michael DeVaughn STARTING JULY 1, 2021, Michael L. DeVaughn will begin his new post as University of Portland’s dean of the Dr. Robert B. Pamplin, Jr., School of Business.

DeVaughn joins UP from the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, MN, where he served in various leadership roles at the institution, including faculty director of the MBA Program and research fellow in the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. His scholarship has centered on organizational learning and entrepreneurship, as well as the delivery of business education.

He also has the inside scoop on UP as a Pilot parent. “UP’s educational, mission-centered excellence has been on my radar for years,” he says, “ever since my son was an undergraduate there. As a Pilot parent, I am already a member of the UP family and look forward to the next exciting, challenging chapter of my engagement with the University.”

DeVaughn received his bachelor’s degree from Brown University, his MBA from Indiana University, and his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining St. Thomas, he served on the faculty at the University of Minnesota and enjoyed a successful career in the private sector with corporations including Ralston Purina, PepsiCo, and Fleet Financial Group (now Bank of America).

Best Value Schools compiled a list of the best MBA degree programs in Oregon. The Pamplin School of Business tops the list at #1 for 2021!

Tier One Global MBA

CEO Magazine released its “2021 Global MBA Rankings” of more than 300 MBA programs from 27 countries, and once again the Pamplin School of Business earned “Tier One” status.

With Thanks ON APRIL 7 AND 8—for the 24-hour fundraising campaign PilotsGive— more than 2,500 donors “showed up” for UP students and gave $835,000 in support of scholarships, academic programs, Pilot athletics, and more.

Thank you to everyone who participated by giving and spreading the word for this year’s PilotsGive. Pilots across the country and around the world participated throughout the 24-hour period, including students, alumni, parents, regents, faculty, staff, and friends of the University.

Your efforts made an impact during a challenging year, resulting in crucial funding that will provide UP students with the support and resources they need to thrive.

SUMMER 2021

5

ON THE BLUFF EN ROUTE

It Is Up to You PHOTOS COURTESY OF DEVONNA BEGAY

Thoughts from a Graduating Senior

FOUR YEARS AGO, with two suitcases in hand, I left for college from my home on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.

I’d only had three previous experiences on an airplane. At the time I had my vision set on becoming a police officer and returning to the Navajo Nation to work in law enforcement. I’d watched the animated movie Zootopia in 2016, and I felt like Officer Hopps, the bunny rabbit police officer, coming from a small town to the big city, Portland. I also shared the same dream of becoming a cop and, like her, I was very scared. I did not know what I was getting myself into.

I am fortunate enough to speak and understand my native language. Many people my age and younger do not. I was raised with Navajo traditional maternal and paternal grandparents. They all only speak Navajo and do not speak or understand English. Both of my parents taught me Navajo and English at the same time.

Hearing the language day in and day out, being immersed in it, I eventually became fluent. My parents have both also taught me traditional practices and beliefs.

One of the main teachings that got me to where I am today is the saying T’áá hwó ají t’éego. This phrase, instilled in Navajo teachings, means “It is up to you.” My parents have always supported my

6

PORTLAND

decisions, but they knew I had to want them. I had to apply to college, file my own FAFSA, advocate for myself, etc. This teaches people that nothing is just going to be given to you in life—you have to go get what you want. You are in control of your future, make it what you want. For this reason, I left for college because I believed having a degree would open up more opportunities for me.

I always knew I was from a family that valued education, even if I did not know the opportunities it would give me.

When I was very young, my mother taught me at home. I lived in a rural location where I did not have access to running water or electricity. At the time, my mother was obtaining her associate degree and would have to drive about two hours to get class materials, and she would also get us books. She taught me and my sisters how to write our names by tracing and teaching us the alphabet and numbers.

One distinct memory that I have from my elementary school years was preparing the trail between my home and the bus stop before the beginning of the school year. My father would remove shrubs and bushes so we could know where we were walking with our flashlights in the dark hours of the morning

to make it to the bus stop on time. We would have to walk to the bus at 5 a.m. for a little over a mile. Every day for several years we made this trek just to get to school.

Now that I look back, I see that my parents did so much for me, and I know I will never be able to repay them for what they have done to help me get to where I am.

In the summer of 2016, I attended a summer college preparation program for Native American students. The program is called College Horizons, and this is where I learned about the scholarship— the Davis New Mexico scholarship—that has helped me pay for college for the past four years. My counselors encouraged me to apply, so I did, not knowing what opportunities it would bring me. One day I came home, and my mom had mail for me. I knew it had to be something good because it was in a large envelope.

When I opened it, confetti came out, and my mother and I read the letter that announced I was a Davis New Mexico Scholar! Receiving the Davis New Mexico scholarship was the ticket that would allow me to leave the reservation and see places that I had only dreamed of seeing. I am part of the first cohort to graduate from UP, and I have enjoyed

seeing more and more Davis New Mexico Scholars come to UP each year.

From my first year until now, I have grown so much as an individual. My first year I was very much a quiet student and did not speak up in class and kept to myself. It wasn’t until I joined Army ROTC that I was assigned to hold leadership positions, and I began to gain confidence in leading. The First Generation (FGEN) program also allowed me to give my input. Eventually, when I became the coordinator, I was the one planning all the events. I have also been the Native American Alliance treasurer for the past three years, which has allowed me to connect with many other like-minded BIPOC leaders. I would encourage others to take on leadership positions and get out of their comfort zones because that is where growth is. Yes, I did gain knowledge in the classroom, but in regards to leadership skills, that happened outside the classroom setting.

I did not want to lose my Navajo (Indigenous) identity in the process of being away from home. So I have tried to maintain those traditional ties to my native language, cultural practices, and traditional ceremonies but also live in the western world. It is hard trying to balance these two worlds; it’s something

that is always on my mind. My parents and grandparents have continued to encourage me to keep speaking my language, and I also know the importance of doing so. Some of the ways that I have tried to keep speaking the language is when I call home, I try to speak Navajo and try to live by the traditional teaching that I was brought up with.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I decided to stay here in Portland because I did not have internet access back home.

I also decided that it would be best to stay here and not see family because of COVID-19 and the impact it was having on my community. I was afraid that if I attempted to go home and, in the process, infected any family or community members with the virus, I could never forgive myself. When I think about the people who have passed due to COVID-19, I think about the language and culture loss that also comes with that loss of life.

In late March I was finally able to go home and get my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine administered by my tribe. Going home and finally seeing family was very emotional. We did not know when we would see one another again. Even though the past year has been very hard, I knew that I had to keep going and graduate because my parents had

sacrificed so much for me to get to where I am today.

It’s hard to think about graduating without sharing some final moments with professors and advisors who have helped me throughout the past four years. It’s hard to think about graduating without an in-person commencement for me and for my family. I am trying to stay optimistic.

The pandemic has also changed my post-college plans. Before COVID, I thought that I was going to apply to graduate schools and continue my education, but this changed because both of my parents lost their jobs last March.

Both of my parents worked in the tourism industry back home, and they still have not returned to work. This has forced me to prioritize getting a job right after graduation. In the process of learning more about my interests, ways I can help others and the social justice movements, I reevaluated my career aspirations as well. I realized that I could do more by helping BIPOC communities in other areas of work instead of policing. Not everything about the pandemic is bad because it has given me time to selfreflect and think about what I truly want to do after college.

—Devonna Begay ’21

SUMMER 2021

7

ON THE BLUFF SPORTS

Student Athlete Hosts Special Olympics Opening Ceremonies WHEN SPECIAL OLYMPICS OREGON (SOOR) asked UP athlete Henry Cheney ’20, ’21 to emcee the 2021 Winter Virtual Games Opening Ceremonies, he was humbled and excited by the opportunity. “One of our directors for athletics asked me if I wanted to do it, and I was so pumped,” he says.

Although UP Athletics and SOOR have maintained a relationship for a couple of years now, the two communities started working more closely after both groups found themselves in a tight spot when the pandemic struck, sitting on the sidelines after COVID-19 safety regulations prevented any sports events or competition. “There was a cool connection where they didn’t have much going on and we didn’t have much going on,” Cheney says. “It was a great opportunity for people to come together and talk about sports and talk about what it would be like to play sports.”

As the relationship grew stronger, they started participating in more activities together: social hours so athletes could get to know each other better, workout classes hosted by several different UP teams, dance parties with DJs. The two groups managed to do this all virtually over video calls, adapting to the challenges both communities faced during the pandemic.

Athletes from SOOR had been waiting in anticipation to compete, and the Winter Virtual Games became the perfect outlet. “Everybody knew how important this was to Special Olympics Oregon,” Cheney says. “Our community, coaches and players, rallied around [the event].” Athletes competed in four

8

PORTLAND

different events throughout the week: esports, basketball, fitness as sport, and athletics, and in the next week were awarded for their participation in each category.

For the opening ceremonies, Cheney, along with co-host and participating athlete Rachel Parsons, presented a collection of messages from coaches, athletes, sponsors, and other volunteers offering encouragement and support for the coming days of competition. “One thing I did love in the Virtual Games was the Polar Plunge and seeing everybody dunk those buckets of water on their head,” he says.

Cheney left the Games feeling excited to work with SOOR again someday soon. “It was such a cool opportunity,” he adds.

“I would do it again in a heartbeat if they asked me.”

—Danny McGarry ’17

ON THE BLUFF THE EXPERTS

BOB KERNS

SHAUN SHEPHERD Auto Mechanic

Apples to Engines AS UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND’S auto mechanic, Shaun Shepherd is responsible for maintaining every vehicle owned by the University. That’s well over 100 pieces of moving equipment—from electric carts to backhoes, high lifts, and lawn mowers. A task that size should be all-consuming, but Shepherd’s creative skills have expanded his responsibilities during his 34 years on The Bluff.

Shepherd has also built and repaired countless railings around campus; welded Howard Hall’s wrought iron window screens and exterior metalwork; reconfigured the dust collection system in the carpenter shop; and invented a bike rack that the University paid to have patented. He has also designed and hand-crafted the stands displaying every Christus Magister medal ever presented by the University, ensuring that the University’s highest honor is displayed with the utmost craftmanship and care.

Shepherd designed new tools to streamline his process building the stands. His expanding tool collection and his

self-proclaimed pack-rat and junk collector tendency have made supervisors cringe over his messy workspace. But he takes satisfaction in his ability to find the perfect tool or part for every unusual request.

Among those unusual requests: renovating and building a rotator for the dome of the observatory that once sat on the west side of campus. Shepherd says, “That was entertaining.

I’m interested in lots of stuff like astronomy.”

He’s also an apple expert. Yes, apples. As a member of the Home Orchard Society and pomologist for the Temperate Orchard Conservancy, he was interviewed on National Public Radio for his ability to identify varieties of apples once considered lost. “I can remember what apples look like. It’s like people’s faces. It’s really a rather crazy thing to do.”

Though not yet ready to retire, he thinks a nice legacy would be if people look at something on campus and say, “Oh, Shaun made that.”

—Anna Lageson-Kerns ’83, ’14

SUMMER 2021

9

BOB KERNS

ON THE BLUFF DREAM TEAMS

Sometimes the Answer Is in the Right Question Student Engineers Tackle Shoreline Trash RESPONDING TO THE needs of the world is more than a lofty goal, it’s a core tenet of University of Portland’s mission statement. And this past year, a group of seniors put that mission into practice when they had to completely reimagine their senior capstone project.

The interdisciplinary team of two civil engineers (Olivia Helinski and Nick Kanno), two mechanical engineers (Ben Bishop and Courtney Cadiz), and two computer scientists (Alex Weininger and Samuel Nguyen) was first tasked with building a “marine debris capture device.”

But things got fuzzy when they realized their original idea to create a tool that would skim debris from the shore of the Willamette was both redundant

10

PORTLAND

(there are dozens of devices on the market) as well as too ambitious for their timeframe.

“Having something moving in the water with some sort of automation would be a huge undertaking for just us with only a year to work on it, especially with half the team being remote,” says Weininger.

So, they started over completely from scratch. This time, though, they started not with an idea, but with a question: What does the world actually need?

“They did months of research, interviews, and outreach with stakeholders along the Willamette River—industry, nonprofits, riverfront property owners,” says the team’s advisor, Shiley School of

Engineering professor Jordy Wolfand.

The goal was to find out what problems, related to debris in the river, needed a solution. “Many people didn’t respond, but the nonprofits were very interested and excited to talk about this stuff,” says Wolfand.

The team learned that volunteers who pick up litter along the shore are integral to a healthy river ecosystem, because collecting the debris before it hits the water is far more effective than trying to remove it once it’s in there. But volunteers say their biggest problem is the physical exhaustion of using typical litter-grabbers, or “stick-pickers,” as they’re usually called. Volunteers wanted something more ergonomic.

“We wrote down problems we were seeing, like wrist pain, and brainstormed what would fix it,” says Helinski, the team leader. “Then we picked the top three features it should have: a forearm rest to take away the strain on the wrist, a bend in the stick for better aim, and an adjustable length for people of different heights.”

Their redesigned stick-picker prototype would make it physically easier to pick up trash, but that solves just half of the problem. Turns out, researchers who study pollution need better tools to track

where debris is coming from, when, and why, so they can find ways to stop the trash at its source. (If they find patterns— say, more trash on the farmer’s market day, for instance—they could see if the farmer’s market needs more trash cans.)

There are additional challenges to tracking trash along a body of water. “We were doing research over the summer on plastic pollution, and we realized it’s hard to track debris because it moves,” says Helinski. “There’s a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of people looking to develop AI (artificial intelligence) debris tracking.”

To make the tracking process easier, the team decided to outfit the stickpicker with a mount for a smart phone,

so users can easily take pictures of the trash they pick up. Weininger and Nguyen then set to work creating software that can use the pictures to automate the process of cataloguing and mapping the trash. The pictures provide information on the type of trash, location, and date it was found, and the software transfers that information to the students’ database and mapping tool.

The team hopes the device and the software technology will get picked up by another capstone team next year and refined, maybe even making it onto the market someday, so environmental stewards will have a better tool in their fight against water pollution.

—Danielle Centoni

SUMMER 2021

11

Father Mark

UP’s President, Professor, and Priest In late February, University of Portland President Fr. Mark Poorman, CSC, announced that he would be ending his tenure as president at UP in July, with plans for a sabbatical and hopes for a return to teaching, writing, and pastoral ministry. We hopped on two Zoom calls in early April to talk about his cherished years on The Bluff.

BY J E S S ICA M U R P H Y MO O

12

PORTLAND

ADAM GUGGENHEIM

SUMMER 2021

13

F

R. MARK POORMAN, CSC, remembers the moment clearly. He was in eighth grade. His family had recently moved from California to Illinois for his dad’s new job as founding president of Lincoln Land Community College (LLCC). After baseball practice one day, his dad picked him up and drove over to a soybean field outside Springfield. They got out of the car—the great expanse of that midwestern sky above them—and his dad said, “Well, this is where it’s going to be.”

The “it” his father, Robert Poorman, now age 94, was referring to was the site of LLCC’s first and temporary campus, where the school’s first class graduated 149 students and eventually grew to an overall enrollment of 13,000.

“He was a great builder,” Fr. Mark says, and he’s quick to say that he means “builder” in more ways than one: a builder of college infrastructure, yes, but also a builder of a college’s vision, and as Fr. Mark says, “a vision of the way things could be.”

The moment made a deep impression on that young eighth grader, who would later become University of Portland’s 20th president, in addition to becoming his own version of a builderin-more-ways-than-one.

ADAM GUGGENHEIM

14

PORTLAND

Of course young Mark standing on that bean field didn’t yet know the path his life would take. In the moment, he knew he liked baseball and that, when you land in a new junior high school in the spring, baseball might be a way for a new kid to make fast friends, even if the snow on the ground at the beginning of the season in Illinois was a bit of a shock to the California kid’s system. He knew he loved his tight-knit family. He knew his dad would take him to the hardware store when he wanted to talk about important “life” stuff. His family had modeled that a life of faith was important, but he didn’t necessarily know how these lessons and values would manifest in his own life.

During his college years, he started to see some clues. At University of Illinois, the robust Newman Club campus ministry offerings sparked the light of his faith and his academic interest in Christian ethics. He saw the importance of intentional Catholic groups to the spiritual growth of a young adult, the partnerships of lay people in the work of the faith (which happens to be a strong value of the order of the Congregation of Holy Cross), and the ways in which priest-mentors could walk with young people during their formative college years.

He eventually realized—as his education and vocational formation evolved over many years— that he could be that priest-mentor for others.

Caleb Hilger ’15, who later took Fr. Mark’s Character Project class at University of Portland, knew Fr. Mark first as a co-resident of Schoenfeldt Hall and later through the League of Extraordinary Gentleman, a Campus Ministry group in which young men engage with mentors about what it’s like to be a man of faith in society and “how you can be a servant leader.” Fr. Mark was Caleb’s mentor. When Fr. Mark offered the class at UP, Caleb was quick to sign up.

Before Fr. Mark started to work at University of Portland, he was a theology professor—his field was applied ethics—and vice president of student affairs at the University of Notre Dame. He was also a member of UP’s Board of Regents. When he was on his way out to The Bluff for a Board meeting, he cooked up an idea with fellow Regent, close friend, and then-Notre Dame business school dean Carolyn Woo. He wondered: What if we could create an undergraduate class that looked at the ethical decisions of the everyday? Not another class for ethics majors or theology majors. No. Those were already in existence at Notre Dame and had their purpose. He was envisioning something new.

What if they offered a class that focused on the development of one’s character, the values and habits that move people toward becoming the person they want to be? And what if they offered

ADAM GUGGENHEIM

SUMMER 2021

15

16

PORTLAND

BOB KERNS

Fr. Mark accompanies Amy Dundon-Berchtold and Jim Berchtold during the dedication of UP’s stunning new academic building— Dundon-Berchtold Hall—in 2019.

the class to students of all disciplines—to engage young people in ethical decision-making that would be with them their whole life long in whatever career or life pursuit they chose? We want theologians to have a grounding in applied ethics, sure, but don’t we also want people in business and medicine and education and child rearing and overall engaged citizenship to have these skills?

Carolyn Woo was sold. They co-taught the class—to great success—at Notre Dame.

Woo holds immense admiration for Fr. Mark as an administrator and as a teacher. “Fr. Mark, as a teacher, is able to hold the attention of students.

He engages them. He has an ear for where youth are…. He solicited probing questions and drew people into self-understanding,” she says.

When Fr. Mark came to UP, first as executive vice president, and later as president, he wanted to bring the class here too.

He ended up talking about the class with the late Amy Dundon-Berchtold and alumnus Jim Berchtold ’63. Amy saw the practical, worldly applications of the Character Project. She had encountered ethical and unethical decisionmaking in her real estate investment career; she’d always had to navigate that. Amy and Jim decided to support the class, and they became an important part of the University of Portland story during Fr. Mark’s tenure as president.

Alissa (Strauss) Hilger ’16 took the Character Project class a year after her (now) husband, Caleb.

She says she, too, saw practical applications of the Character Project out in the real world. “It challenged me to consider what values I wanted to bring forward in my life,” she says. And the skills she gained in the class that had to do with navigating different values were also practical skills for her job as a nurse on the Seattle Children’s Hospital oncology ward. “In the workforce, there are a lot of opinions in the care of a child. There are parents who have different opinions, doctors who have different opinions, nurses who have different opinions…. I had the ability to acknowledge the other perspective without getting fired up.”

They are now married with three children.

Fr. Mark presided over their wedding. He is a part of their story. They admit that every so often when they experience or read about a moral dilemma situation in the newspaper, they say, “This would be a great topic for the Character Project!”

Co-instructors value the class content as well.

After all, developing one’s character is a lifelong challenge. “It has informed my parenting in meaningful ways,” says Dan McGinty, who is director of the Dundon-Berchtold Institute for Moral Formation and Applied Ethics. The institute and its robust programming, such as Ethics Week and annual student research fellows, grew out of the class and support from Amy and Jim.

Brenda Greiner, director of the Shepard Academic Resource Center, who last year was recognized by the Congregation of Holy Cross with a Holy Cross Spirit Award for her collaboration with CSCs, has loved being a part of the class both because of the students—“It was rewarding to see them having an experience they’re going to remember”—and because she got to see a new side to Fr. Mark. She knew him as an administrator. In the class, she says, “I really got to see him in his vocation as a priest and educator.”

Alissa Hilger ’16 says she, too, saw practical applications of the Character Project out in the real world. “It challenged me to consider what values I wanted to bring forward in my life,” she says.

It is remarkable that Fr. Mark continued to teach during the span of his presidency. Most presidents don’t. Being a university president is obviously a big job with all kinds of pressures and demands. But by making the time to teach he sent a message about what he valued.

Being a president of a university is a great topic for a character project too, is it not? Think of all the thorny questions and competing demands.

How do you honor and lead the many different individuals coming from different places and different life experiences so that they learn and grow and contribute in positive ways to the world?

How do you affirm a university’s Catholic mission while also valuing the contributions of other perspectives? How do you lead a university community through a global pandemic? How do you handle the responsibility of leading a community through a campus tragedy or controversial event?

Sometimes campus controversies became part of the discussion in class, because in that classroom Fr. Mark was a president and priest, but he was also an individual wrestling with the stuff of life right along with the students.

When Fr. Mark gave his inaugural address in 2014, he was clear on the value of the Holy Cross education and Catholic social teaching. He acknowledged the elements of UP’s vibrant, multi-faceted community, from its focus on the students to its brilliant and devoted faculty and

SUMMER 2021

17

staff and the community of alumni doing good work out in the world. He then noted an evident need—for more academic and residential space— and set a clear goal: “As we grow, the structural needs of the University are also growing…. We face the need for additional academic and residential space worthy of the importance we place on the pursuits of our students.”

He made good on that day-one promise.

During his tenure the following building projects were completed: the Pilot House renovation, Lund Family Hall, Dundon-Berchtold Hall, the School of Nursing’s Simulated Health Center and Ambulatory Care Unit, the renovation of the Joe Etzel Baseball Stadium, and Chiles Plaza. He continued the long-term forward-press on the new Franz River Campus development and helped to secure support to build the Nelson Physical Plant Building and the Shiley-Marcos Center for Design and Innovation. He also helped to conceive and raise funds for the Marian Grotto situated just next to the Chapel of Christ the Teacher. All of these commitments and partnerships—with supporters who are devoted to the vision of what a University of Portland education can offer the world—have indeed improved the academic, residential, and spiritual student experience. Though he is quick to say these achievements are “collective achievements” and that a president can never claim individual credit, these buildings are a part of Fr. Mark’s legacy.

The University will also build on the strategic work of his tenure—the goals and tenets of “Vision 2020” (UP’s most recent strategic plan) and the continued focus on the University’s robust liberal arts core curriculum. Just as he wanted his Character Project class to be open to students in every discipline, he believes that a well-rounded liberal arts education helps students in every field and graduates in every career to solve problems in the real world. He also recently established a committee of campus leaders charged with finding new ways for UP to embody and enhance the Catholic vision of educating the whole person.

He says that, with each new project or moment of strategic decision-making, two questions kept him grounded and focused: “What is good for the students? How does it impact the experience of the student?”

During a pandemic, the answers to these questions took on new shapes. This year, Fr. Mark and the University leadership have had to make some hard choices to keep students safe and keep the University moving forward.

Fr. Mark notes the “army of people” who made everything work this year, from the President’s Leadership Cabinet to staff’s adaptability to the faculty’s unimaginably quick shift to online learning. With the development team, he set up the Presidential Hope Fund to help students with unexpected needs during the pandemic—an allhands-on-deck effort to make sure deserving students could complete their education.

In March, I spoke with Jean Paul Mugisha ’18.

He was an engineering major, and he, too, took the Character Project class and loved it. He is now an electrical engineer working at Intel. Originally from the Congo, Jean Paul lived with his family in a Rwandan refugee camp for 17 years. In 2014 his family was relocated to Portland. Jean Paul started college courses at Portland Community College and ended up meeting Fr. Mark, who saw Jean Paul’s potential. Fr. Mark was right. He found a supporting scholarship, and Jean Paul thrived at UP. Jean Paul’s well-wishes for Fr. Mark offer a perfect parting blessing: “It is bittersweet to see him go. My community is going to miss him. He is a super kind person…. I’m praying for him. I pray the community will welcome him, that he goes where he feels loved. He’s a really good person. I hope he keeps in touch with the UP community.”

Thank you, Fr. Mark. We wish you well in this exciting new phase of your career.

JESSICA MURPHY MOO is the editor of this magazine.

18

PORTLAND

BOB KERNS

SUMMER 2021

19

20

PORTLAND

My Joy EVEN TH IS YEAR,

I T H A S S U STA I N E D H E R .

My life is a paradox. And so is my joy.

My ability as a healer—a critical-care obstetrics nurse gifted with bringing new life into the world and nurturing the mind, body, and spirit of women—has not shielded me from my own health issues or life-threatening experiences or losses.

My immune system, which is supposed to support and promote wellness, actually attacks and plays havoc with my body.

My existence as a Black woman living in a world structured against me is also the existence of one who knows transcendent joy.

Joy, so central to my life, a gift of the Holy Spirit, is with me even now, when COVID-19 has immersed me in pastoral work to assist others in their struggle to survive and sustain their spiritual and mental health. Even this year, in the presence of so much death, I have not lost my joy.

How? You would not be the first to ask.

For many years, my clinical area of specialty was in women’s and children’s health—birthing babies and caring for mothers. I loved my work.

My day began at 7:30 a.m. Across the street from this New York City-Upper Eastside medical center was a Catholic church. I would enter the church daily, either for morning Mass if I had time, or for a short prayer at the altar of the Blessed Sacrament. My prayer was always one of thanksgiving and a request to bless and protect my day—and that of my staff and patients. I began my day on the unit with a smile and good morning to the staff.

One day one of my colleagues asked me, “How can you be so bubbly so early in the morning? Don’t you ever get up on the wrong side of the bed?”

This colleague was disgruntled with life and wanted me to know that not everything was so peaches and cream.

But I already knew that.

The lessons of joy that transcends suffering are rooted in my ancestors, in my development as a descendant of enslaved African and African American Freedwomen. For my ancestors and elders, the whole of their survival was rooted in the awareness of the Immanent, a power outside of themselves, permanently pervading and sustaining the universe. Theirs was an ability to know the Creator God in every aspect of their being. This awareness of God with them is how my family has defined the experience of joy. No matter what hardship they faced—the indignity of racism and Jim Crow laws in the deep south as well as the de facto segregation up north—they found joy in knowing that Immanuel was with them and for them. Even in their suffering, they experienced the joy of God—for the Son of God, Jesus, had also endured suffering. Their Good Friday sufferings were never felt in isolation. The promise and hope of Jesus always accompanied them in the grandeur and misery of life. It is this centeredness in the presence of God that sustains the ever-flowing fount of joy in me.

The Scripture tells us in Psalm 30 that weeping and pain may occur for a while but that joy comes in the morning. I often look at this Scripture as twofold: that joy will be present at the end of a time of grieving and that JOY, what my cousin Sr. Lynn Marie Ralph, SBS, called Jesus Our Yes, is present even in the midst of mourning and suffering.

There was irony in being skilled and credentialed as a high-risk senior

B Y VA L E R I E L E W I S - M O S L E Y C O L L A G E B Y H E AT H E R P O L K

clinical nurse in an obstetrical critical care unit, while also being susceptible to pregnancy complications. My expertise could not protect me from the experiences and the statistics of disproportionate life-threatening risks faced by far too many pregnant Black women.

But even when I had experienced three tragic premature losses of my own—my joy never wavered. Although one will experience sadness and grief, JOY—Jesus Our Yes—is ever present if we but allow ourselves to be receptive.

Remember that colleague who could not understand my daily expressions of joy? Well, after a lengthy hospital admission to sustain a complicated pregnancy, this colleague came to visit me. He still could not understand how I had managed for many years to sustain such a spirit of joy in the presence of my complicated medical history and numerous pregnancy losses. He could not understand how I continued to stay in a clinical area of practice—day in and day out providing care to new mothers. My response to him then and to others now all of these many years later: God’s joy is sufficient. It is the long-lived lessons gifted to me from a long line of women who have endured suffering without becoming joyless. It is because the joy was not of their own circumstance but infused into them to sustain them through the troubles and hardship. The joy of the Lord is my strength.

VALERIE D. LEWIS-MOSLEY is an adjunct professor of theology at Caldwell University and Xavier University of Louisiana—Institute for Black Catholic Studies. She is a Lay Associate Order of Preachers—Caldwell Dominicans.

SUMMER 2021

21

22

PORTLAND

FOLLOW YOU R DRAGON

BY K A R E N B R I D G E S P H O TO S BY A DA M G U G G E N H E I M

Recent graduate and set designer Kat Yo ’21 brings her passion for sustainability and Korean folklore— and her dazzling imagination— to UP’s stage.

FOR MONTHS, KAT YO ’21 gathered trash underneath her bed. Empty soda water cans, CVS receipts, an old phone cord, cardboard, the list goes on. You wouldn’t have expected it— when I interviewed Yo over Zoom, her dorm room was tidy and organized; a guitar and a few selected photos and artwork adorned the walls. The trash was lovingly curated for a higher purpose. With an artist’s eye and an environmentalist’s passion, Yo gave these discarded materials a new life as a refrigerator-sized dragon puppet for The Imugi Myth, a retelling of a Korean story for her final production on the University of Portland stage.

You’d never know the imugi was made of recycled materials.

The “skeleton” of the dragon is the cardboard from care packages her family sent her, some of them going back to her first year of college. Hundreds of individual scales, circles of vibrant blue, red, purple, and silver fabric are cut from scraps of fabric from UP’s costume shop, meticulously layered from the snout to the horns, and cascading down into a flowing train. Inside the dragon’s head is a sturdy, dense cardboard handle, the center tube of a fabric bolt, which the dancer uses to hold and manipulate the puppet. Insulation made from sponges provides another point of contact and padding for the dancer’s head.

The only non-recycled material are the imugi’s LED eyes that light up and change with the emotion of the scene.

A set designer, costume designer, and a storyteller, Yo has a vision for the world she wants to see—both on the stage and off. And that vision involves sustainable use of our world’s environmental resources and stories that connect us, even when—due to COVID—most stages have gone dark.

SUMMER 2021

23

Yo’s passion for sustainability sparked with her theater work during Spring Break 2020, when she participated in the Moreau Center’s first-ever Environmental Justice Immersion. The week culminated in the Columbia River Gorge with a visit to the Celilo Village. Bobby Begay, a beloved Yakima tribal leader and lead fishing technician for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), hosted the students and spoke of his community’s presence and work in the region to advocate for access to fish and clean water. Begay—renowned in the Gorge community and throughout Oregon as an activist, teacher, and gifted storyteller—advocated for the environment as a deeply enriching component of all human life. “Bobby talked about himself as a voice for the rivers, the fish, the things that can’t speak and need our help,” says Yo. This was early March 2020, right when the news of COVID-19 was beginning to get real. No one was certain yet how much everything was about to change. Yo recalls tribal members bumping elbows with students instead of shaking hands and expressing great concern for the virus. It was a moment of reckoning with her privilege of health and access to care.

Yo’s revelation and concern for Indigenous American communities were not misplaced. The CDC estimates that the mortality rate for Indigenous Americans is nearly twice that of white populations. Tragically, Bobby Begay died of COVID-19 complications in April 2020. “It hit hard,” says Yo. Begay’s stories, and his loss, raised complicated questions for Yo when she considered her own storytelling on stage— who gets a voice? Whose stories are told? Whose stories and voices are silenced?

24

PORTLAND

The Environmental Justice Immersion was a pivotal experience for Yo, and she returned to her studies inspired. “That immersion allowed me to understand why I’m committing,” she says. “Everyone knows environmental justice matters on a vague timeline, but seeing who it affects and how it affects them—it put a sense of urgency on the topic.” She wanted her work to honor Bobby’s memory.

Yo looked for ways to express the connection between storytelling and the environment, to find a way to inspire others, even as COVID was forcing people into isolation. “Can I show you something?” Yo asked me during our Zoom call.

She went to her neatly organized closet and pulled out an oversized, soft, plaid jacket, reminiscent of cozy days at a cabin on a lake in the woods, and also of early ’90s grunge.

She wrapped the jacket around her and seemed to melt into it. “I love this because it was my dad’s.”

When fellow student and friend DJ Biersack ’20 showed her that he also had his father’s jacket from the ’90s, they had a revelation that materials held meaning. “There were stories within the clothes,” says Yo. “We wanted to look at how clothes can tell stories of the people who came before us. You can pass on stories that are woven into the cloth. You get to be a part of this legacy of clothing.” And by encouraging people to reuse and extend the life of clothing, they’d be giving the materials a longer story and working to combat environmental concerns in the creation and disposal of clothing.

Their shared passion led to Dyadic Studios, which aims to promote sustainable fashion. “Starting Dyadic Studios was a way of taking control back and saying, ‘this is who I am and what I want to do—environmental work.’ ”

Yo’s environmental work with Dyadic Studios is still evolving, but at its core, the mission translates readily to her work in the theater. “As a set designer, I try to seek out materials that already exist, and I want to do something different with them. There are so many possibilities.” She found inspiration in the Green New Theatre Movement, particularly Donyale Werle’s work as set designer on Peter and the Starcatcher on Broadway. Werle built the set, which resembles an enormous, elaborate toybox, entirely out of found materials. In this way, the set and the materials tell a story, adding layers to the narrative.

In addition to the materials, Kat has a personal connection to The Imugi Myth story. “Because I’m Korean American, I get to experience through research some things I missed out on in my childhood, the imugi story being one of those things,” she says. It also reframed the way she thought about her father and family interactions. “My mother is very vocally expressive,” she explains, “but my father acknowledges me in nonverbal ways.” A quiet nod, a gleam of pride in his eyes, these powerful but subtle gestures illuminated more complex elements and possibilities for storytelling.

As she worked on this project, she reflected on her own family, revisiting memories. They are a close family; she last saw them over winter break, and whenever she’s home in Sacramento, she goes to see her Korean grandparents once a week. “When I’m away from them, I miss the sounds, the smells, the food,” she says. That longing for the sensory aspects of family and home was woven into her production through lighting, music, and dance.

Yo took this inspiration to The Imugi Myth. “I’d like to bring a different perspective of what theater can be, both through materials, and introducing Korean culture to the University of Portland stage,” she says. Beyond the materials, the story is told entirely through lighting, rhythm, and movement, with no dialogue—a convention of certain types of traditional Korean performances. The “voice” of the dragon comes from the haunting, eerie music of the saenghwang, a traditional Korean flute made of 17 bamboo pipes. With no dialogue to rely on, the production challenges the viewer to pay attention to more nuanced elements. Every detail is rich with meaning.

The Imugi Myth is a modern take on Korean folklore and theater. In the Korean myth, imugi (sometimes spelled “imoogi”) dragons are benevolent beings, bringers of rain, associated with water and agriculture. Yo’s production centers on a girl whose village is suffering from an endless drought. When she encounters an imugi, she helps the dragon gain its power, and in return the dragon brings the rain and the harvest. Yo’s concept won The Regional Award in Allied Arts for an unrealized show at the 2021 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Design Technology and Management Exposition.

The realities of the pandemic have challenged Yo and her production team. Instead of being performed in front of a live audience, The Imugi Myth is filmed. “Having an audience would have been an ideal situation,” she says. “People don’t always realize what an energy the audience is for the actors; there’s a connection you don’t get in film.” But she is leaning into film and editing, learning new skills, making herself more competitive for the job market, and embracing the cinematic aspects.

SUMMER 2021

25

My materials, the story I’m telling, and the process are converging towards who I am, what I want to establish and change in the theater industry.

26

PORTLAND

Sebastian Adams ’21 is the choreographer on Yo’s production team. Like Yo, he has a range of creative skills and offered his own unique perspective to The Imugi Myth. Classically trained in dance at the Conservatory of Luxembourg, Adams brought a modern twist to the traditional mythology. “We did a lot of cultural research,” says Adams. “I felt very motivated to do this piece justice as a Korean cultural heritage play.”

Adams immersed himself in the foundational movements of Korean folk dance. “I wanted to know why the people were dancing,” he says. “I need that connection to the humanistic trait in us all.”

Korean farmers in rural villages historically danced in reverence to the dragon as a symbol of harvest, growth, and rejuvenation. Adams choreographed the dance to begin with these traditional horizontal, earthbound movements, reflecting hardship and connection to the earth. But as the play progresses, and the girl and the dragon work to save the village from drought, the gestures become vertical and reaching. “I played with movements and my background of jazz and ballet, and infused my own style to make a hybrid dance form specifically for The Imugi Myth.”

Indeed, the production is something entirely new. A hybrid of theater, animation, and cinema, of traditional and modern, Yo and her team explore the uncertainty and power of being in between. Stage director Amanda DeRego ’21, who took on the challenge of bringing all of these elements into a cohesive story,

says, “I think too often the world wants us to choose just one thing, or be one thing. But for much of my life, I’ve asked ‘why?’”

Yo, too, feels an affinity for working in this new and liminal space. “It mirrors the biracial aspect of my identity, the way I exist as a person,” she says.

Some of her professors and mentors have suggested that Yo should narrow her focus, find a specialty or niche. And while she understands the importance of a focus, she never wants to cut herself off from an opportunity. “My curiosity is exactly why I’ve done so many things,” she says. “I am someone who is very, very curious.” Her family has a personal twist on an old proverb: “Curiosity killed the Kat; satisfaction brought her back.”

“I am starting to lean towards a style and focus through having an attention specific to the environment. My materials, the story I’m telling, and the process are converging towards who I am, what I want to establish and change in the theater industry.” After graduation, Yo plans to take a gap year and has been accepted to graduate school at California Institute of the Arts for 2022. “Everything’s open,” she says. “It’s a little bit scary—but I want to make art. There’s just no way I can sit in a room with four white walls and not want to paint on them.”

KAREN BRIDGES is a marketing and communications coordinator and writer for University of Portland.

SUMMER 2021

27

Dear Educators, We asked our readers to send in reflections that would shine light on your heroic efforts during this unthinkably difficult school year.

What came in brought us to our knees in gratitude for the essential, brilliant, caring humans you are.

Thank you.

I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y JA S O N S T U R G I L L

28

PORTLAND

Amazing Sometimes the student and the parent end up learning a thing or two THERE ARE MANY moments of grace that were born from deep wells of despair this past year, which I refer to as The Longest Spring Break Eva. But what stands out the most is the moment when Mr. K rode his motorcycle over to our house to connect personally with Teslyn and me, her struggling mom.

Teslyn is my fifth-grader. She is a creative wonder. She also struggles to learn new things.

Some would call her developmentally delayed. I call her a gift we are still learning to unwrap.

Most of Teslyn’s growth happens because of teachers who know how to keep trying. Eventually, something sticks. In kindergarten, Teslyn’s instructional aide used rhythm to model “one-to-one correspondence.” Two years later, I witnessed the same aide using the same rhythm method as the foundation to teach addition and subtraction. In fourth grade, just before we left the school building for The Longest Spring Break Eva, Teslyn had solidified her method for solving addition and subtraction. However, she did not have a foundation for multiplication and division problems.

When it became clear that we would not be going back into the school building for learning, the teachers had a matter of weeks to create something where once…nothing existed. Their pivot was astounding. And it was messy.

Teslyn no longer had her math curriculum provided by instructional aides who knew her level. She was thrust into the regular fourth-grade math curriculum, including fractions. Fractions are hard to understand if you don’t know multiplication and division.

And yet, Teslyn made progress in her own ways, and I learned to support her by standing on scaffolding that the teachers were creating.

Fast forward to December 2020. Teslyn was now in fifth grade. Her curriculum was still astounding, creative, and messy. As the person at home, standing on scaffolding I still did not fully understand, one day I realized that if she could pick up a foundational math skill—multiplication tables—fractions would be much easier.

I put the question to her team, and Teslyn’s primary teacher, Mr. K, responded. He had noticed that Teslyn really responds to music, and that gave him an idea.

A week later, Mr. K pulled up to our house on his motorcycle. He produced an iPod and speaker and taught Teslyn how to use them. I noticed a picture on the iPod’s background photo. It was a school district advertisement from a decade ago that featured Mr. K’s own children. I breathed, as I realized just how much wisdom and experience had informed this moment. Mr. K had raised his own children through this school district, and he has been doing this sacred work for a long time.

The iPod contained songs about multiplication that use repetition and rhythm to encourage memorization. Mr. K asked Teslyn to listen to the music and sing along. He suggested that she move her body while listening—maybe a rhythmic exercise like jumping jacks or writing with chalk—so that the “motor muscle memory” of those multiplication tables could be absorbed.

Over the next month, Teslyn followed Mr. K’s recommendations. She exploded in her multiplication-table awareness. And then she exploded in her fluency with fractions.

And I am amazed. New Testament amazed.

The New Testament writers used the word “amazed” to signal that something from the Divine was breaking open into the world. In Mr. K’s teaching moment, the Divine broke open into my life, and I saw the gifts already present inside my daughter and the power of teachers to build upon them.

Teslyn will continue to have some developmental delays. But now, Mom knows a secret: she is already amazing. Her gifts are already inside her. The wisdom and experience of teachers will continue to build on the foundation she already has. Amazing.

ASTIN MILLS ’04 was a nursing/Spanish major at UP, who benefited from the Air Force ROTC program. She served four years. She wants to express gratitude to those doing equity work at UP.

SUMMER 2021

29

302 from 2037 The professor she never knew she needed 2037 BERRY STREET. Grey walls, a rainy window.

My red flowered quilt, pictures from a previous time. It’s the view I see every day. I sit at my teal desk, rubbing my eyes because all I ever do anymore is look at my computer screen. I know I should be thankful that I’m in school and still learning, yet I can’t help but wonder what I’ll actually retain from another semester of online classes.

I ask myself almost every day how I’ll make it to Winter Break. Each Friday night, the idea of throwing my MacBook out my third-story window sounds more appealing than it did the week prior.

Monday and Wednesday at 4:10, however, everything changes. I’m not tired anymore. I’m thrilled at the opportunity to learn. To listen. To be taught. I pretend I’m in a real classroom, with real people, making real connections. Suddenly, I’m not sitting in my room, at my teal desk, looking out my window at the rain. I’m in a new, refreshing environment that isn’t draining or tiring. It’s the closest thing to a real classroom that I’ve experienced in months.

After two consecutive semesters, I’ve never met her. I don’t know how tall she is, or what her mannerisms are like in real life. I don’t know if she talks with her hands or if she paces back and forth across the classroom as she lectures. I don’t know what it would be like to be in the same physical space. All I know is what I’ve seen from the tiny Zoom box labeled “Alexandra Hill.”

I know that every day at 5 p.m., her dogs bark at the door and she laughs and says, “Ah! Die Post ist da! ” I know that she genuinely cares for the students she teaches and that she doesn’t work for the paycheck.

After fewer than two semesters, I already know that she’ll be one of the professors I look back on and tell my kids about. On September 14 at 4:10 p.m., I came to this realization. It seems that the times in which one is faced with challenges are the most revealing of character. In early September, the West Coast erupted in devastating wildfires that spread through California, Oregon, and Washington, destroying everything in their paths. Childhood homes were burned, forests were torched, people were killed. Smoke suffocated every community for hundreds of miles.

Instead of wishing us the best and continuing on with the lecture, we talked about it. As a class, as a community. She listened. It wasn’t some grand gesture or seminar; it was a simple question. She asked, “Are you okay?” It was not the kind of question that warrants an “I’m fine.” No. She

30

PORTLAND

wanted to know what was on our minds, what our weeks had been like. She wanted to know how we had been impacted, if everyone we love was safe. She wanted to know the small things that were holding us down and opened up the class time for a discussion about our feelings. A space to rant. A space to cry. All in a Zoom meeting.

That is the kind of professor she is, the kind who makes someone feel heard and appreciated and loved without having to say it.

This is what distinguishes a good educator from a great one: an unspoken mutual appreciation. It wasn’t just September 14 that felt like that.

It was September 16, and October 21, and January 25, and April 5, and every day in between. It was each and every time I signed in to German 302, and each and every time I joined Alexandra Hill’s Personal Meeting room. Truth be told, I can’t tell you a specific moment that shows how Dr. Hill is the reason educators are so important, because every moment I’ve spent in her virtual classroom has reflected that. I feel heard and appreciated over Zoom, and it takes a special person to do that. So, thank you, Dr. Hill, for being the professor I never knew I needed.

CLAIRE LANG just finished her first year at UP. She is double majoring in Political Science and German.

SUMMER 2021

31

32

PORTLAND

Super Cool Retired reading specialist to the rescue MY DAUGHTER KEEVA’S first experience on Zoom preschool last April was pretty telling: She wandered off every few minutes, technical difficulties occurred on both sides, and she refused to wear clothes. Virtual learning was off the table before it was ever on the table. At the time, Keeva was only three and a half, so the decision to pull her out of pre-K felt like an easy one—after all, I’d recently been laid off, so I would be home, plus everything would be back to normal by the fall (it had to be, right?!).

As weeks and eventually months passed, as the days lost all structure, we knew we had to come up with another plan. We reached out to my mother-in-law, Rosanne Skinner (a University of Portland grad, Class of 1968, recently retired), who had been an elementary school teacher and reading specialist for over 40 years. Rosanne and I had many conversations about what the solution might be for Keeva’s schooling. Maybe she could just set us up and give me a crash course in teaching. Instead, when cases started to decline in late summer, she booked a one-way flight from Vancouver, WA, to New Jersey.

On Keeva’s first day of school, she put on her backpack and best outfit and proudly marched up the stairs to her “super cool” new classroom.

Over the next six months, Keeva impressed us with her ability to adapt, her incredible memory, and her natural affinity for science and reading— but she was only half of the equation.

Rosanne was the other half. She had never taught children as young as Keeva before—so she saw it as a challenge, one she embarked upon with gusto. Day by day, as cheers and giggles began to erupt from the classroom upstairs, it became clear why Rosanne was often referred to as “the best teacher ever” by her past students. Besides navigating the role of being both Keeva’s teacher and her grandmother with ease, she poured immense energy and enthusiasm into this “job” on a daily basis. We were floored.

At a time where some children don’t have access to any education at all, we consider ourselves incredibly lucky that Keeva has a grandparent who was willing and able to move across the country during a pandemic to ensure her education was taken care of. The other day Rosanne reminded me how lucky she has felt throughout this whole journey too. As she described it, teaching Keeva was her “happy place”—something that allowed her to escape the anxieties of the pandemic and focus on something she truly loved (and still loves) doing.

There really aren’t adequate words to describe what Rosanne did for Keeva these past six months. Yes, she taught Keeva reading, math, geography, and science, but Rosanne did something else completely immeasurable. She grew Keeva’s confidence, she nurtured her curiosity, and she gave her structure when there was very little of that to be found elsewhere. In the end, education became a salve for our whole family during this crazy year—the teacher, the student, and those of us lucky enough to witness the unadulterated joy that learning something new can bring.

DANIELA ZANGARA knows she hit the motherin-law jackpot. It is worth noting that both Pat Moran ’70, Keeva’s grandfather, and Daniela (unbeknownst to each other) submitted an essay about Rosanne for the Portland contest.

Unfortunately, we only had room for one!

SUMMER 2021

33

Franz River Campus The third in a series on University of Portland’s expanding footprint.

34

PORTLAND

P H O T O S A N D C A P T I O N S B Y JA N N A M A C H A L E K ’ 0 8

WHEN UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND purchased the land along the Willamette River to develop the Franz River Campus, a few crumbling industrial buildings came along with the acquisition. Where the University saw safety concerns, a crew of graffiti artists saw a canvas.

For nearly a year, Janna Machalek ’08 interviewed the crew for her senior sociology thesis. Her work was so thorough that sociology professor Martin Monto invited her to co-author an academic paper for the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.

The buildings are gone now. Pirate Town, as the area had come to be known by some, is no more. But Machalek’s contribution persists. The crew invited her to come along and she listened to them. And in doing so, she captured a window into the work and concerns of a small crew of prolific graffiti artists who returned to write on the walls of these buildings again and again and again. They had a range of styles and techniques. They all, in one way or another, told us that they were here.

SUMMER 2021

35

Franz River Campus

Where others see swathes of paint left by graffiti abatement efforts (aka the “buff”), artist SASQUATCH sees shapes that inspire dream-like faces and figures.

DEKOY, a member of the TSA crew, wraps up a piece on an outing to the main chamber of the “Share Davies” building with Machalek and crew-mate ANGST.

36

PORTLAND

OMEN, half of the two-man crew PAULRUS IS DEAD, takes advantage of a found ladder. This playful use of space is characteristic of the duo and contributes to the notoriety of their mysterious tag, the meaning of which continues to be the subject of much speculation online.

An example of the smaller personal messages that often accompany larger graffiti pieces.

JANNA MACHALEK ’08 of rural Alaska has many fond memories of life in Portland while completing this project and her degrees.

Her hope is that her graffiti research will inform others, and that her story will inspire students to research topics that thrill them.

SUMMER 2021

37

BOB KERNS

Introducing Gina Gina Amato Yazzolino ’96 is UP’s—no, your—new director of alumni and parent relations, and she has hit the ground running here on The Bluff. Days into her new position, she masked up and joined the assembly line of volunteers who packed the commencement boxes for our 2021 graduates, the newest members to join the community of UP alums doing amazing things out in the world. She has also connected with Air Force ROTC Commander Col. Scott Grainger ’94 in support of a new Air Force ROTC alumni affinity group.

38

PORTLAND

She wants to hear from you, not only about what you’re up to, but also how you want to be involved in UP’s future.

If you have ideas, please reach out!

Gina has spent her career in the world of nonprofits— from Make-a-Wish Foundation of Oregon to Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Archbishop Howard School at St. Rose. But UP is the first nonprofit where, on her first day on the job, as she drove that familiar bend on North Willamette Boulevard toward the University’s main entrance, she took a deep breath and thought, “I’m home.”

CLASS NOTES

70s 1978

We heard recently from Thomas P. Jordan ’78, who writes: “I have been working in the natural stone business for 39 years. I started in São Paulo, Brazil, working at a stone factory monitoring the production of a large exterior-clad office building in Texas. Since 2003 I have lived in Xiamen, China, as president and owner of CHS Stone, a fabricator and supplier of cut stone for commercial projects in the US and Asia.”

80s 1980

Francine Goteiner ’80 dropped us a line recently: “After graduating from the School of Nursing, I spent the next 31-plus years working in public health as a community health nurse in a variety of positions, focusing on maternal infant nursing. My years before retirement were spent making home visits to Spanish-speaking women who were pregnant and/or parenting young children.

In 2020 I opened an online business reading astrological natal charts via Zoom. You can find me at francinegoteinerastrologerllc.com.

Thanks, and stay well!”

1982

Tina Tehranchian ’82, senior wealth advisor for Assante Capital Management Ltd., was recently selected as Senior Wealth Advisor of the Decade by the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP). Tina is the first woman and the first Canadian to receive this distinction.

1984

Here’s the latest from Erik Krauss ’84, who writes: “I have just completed five years of service at the University of Central Asia where I was a part of a team that built and opened modern campuses in remote areas of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. I was also responsible for all of UCA’s student affairs operations. I have recently taken a position as dean of student success at Sampoerna University in Jakarta, Indonesia.”

1985

Gene DeMello Jr. ’85 was confirmed by the Hawai'i State Senate to serve on the Hawai'i Paroling Authority (HPA) board, an independent quasi-judicial body attached to the Department of Public Safety, for a term of four years. In his federal career he worked as a probation officer, supervisor, and assistant deputy chief before retiring in June 2020 after 28 years of service.

1988

Wade Webber ’88 has been named head coach of the United Soccer League’s

SEND US YOUR NEWS Share the latest on your family, career, or accomplishments. Even a failure or two would be fine.

We just want to be in touch.

Send updates to portlandmagazine@up.edu

Nobel Peace Prize 2020 When David Austin graduated from UP’s newly minted MBA in Nonprofit Management program in 2013, he earned the Moreau Fellows Award for Outstanding Service and Leadership for his work with Mercy Corps. Turns out, that was just a hint of much—much—bigger things to come.

This year, Austin and the rest of his team at the United Nations World Food Programme were awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to combat hunger and prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war.

“Access to food is a human right according to the UN charter, so if people don’t have access to food, we try to get it to them,” says Austin, director of strategic partnerships.

“We’re currently feeding about 114 million people a day in 84 countries.” And due to COVID-19, the number of hungry people nearly doubled in the past year.

Also, thanks to the WFP’s efforts, the UN Security Council passed a resolution last year directly linking food security to peace and international security. “We were able to show with data that global security is directly tied to food security,” says Austin. “Hunger is a driver of conflict globally.

That’s why two-thirds of our budget right now—which is about 8 billion dollars this year—is going to conflict zones.”

Of course, 2020 was the year of pivots. As the transportation world shut down, the WFP used its extensive global supply chain to deliver a lot more than food, including 145,500 cubic meters of PPE to 173 countries, and served as the humanitarian air bridge for nonprofit relief workers around the world.

“We were the last resort, and we stepped up,” Austin says.

SUMMER 2021

39

CLASS NOTES

Tacoma Defiance. His pro career included 53 MLS appearances for Dallas and Miami from 1997 to 1999, and he led the Pilots to the NCAA Final Four as a senior.

90s 1994

Lee Kum Kee Sauce Group has hired Katty Lam ’94 as chief executive officer. Lam has over 25 years of experience with renowned multinational food companies.

Toby Taniguchi ’94, president and COO of KTA Super Stores, served as a panelist for Hawaii Business Magazine’s Community and Economy Forum on February 25, 2021. He is the president/chairman of the Hawai'i Island Chamber of Commerce.

1995

Here’s a note from Rev. Dr. Lloyd George Abrams ’95: “I have graduated five times from five different universities, and UP is the only university to wish me happy birthday. Thank you very much. I won’t forget you.

Another thought: I remember taking a Renaissance class from Dr. Jim Covert ’59. I remember how he had all of us go out on The Bluff (to flee the black death) and take up an art form of some kind like many of the wealthy people did hundreds of years ago.

I never would have even imagined that, in the 21st century, I would flee my city to escape the COVID19 plague and hunt for fossils in the Anza Borrego State Park, Borrego Springs, California. Dr. Covert was way ahead of his time!

40

PORTLAND

I was the one to be blessed from his fabulous teaching.”

Peter Mougey ’95 is a partner at Levin Papantonio in Pensacola, FL, and chair of their Securities and Business Litigation department.

His most recent efforts have been directed to the multibillion-dollar National Opioid Litigation settlement, serving as co-lead of the Distributor Case. According to a press release, The Washington Post called this “the largest civil action in U.S. history.” The proposed settlement “will force drug companies and distributors to pay $26 billion dollars to communities that have had to shoulder the burden of the opioid crisis.”

1998

Joseph Cavalli ’98 was granted tenure during the Clark College Board of Trustees meeting on March 10, 2021.

Cavalli earned his MA in history at UP and has experience teaching in private high schools in Croatia, Italy, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Portland.

00s 2004

Portland Business Journal recently profiled UP alum and Sugarpine Drive-in co-owner Ryan Domingo ’04. He and his wife, Emily, opened Sugarpine in 2018 and offer soft serve ice cream, snacks, salads, and sandwiches with an eye toward locally sourced ingredients.

2006

The Sherwood, OR, Regional Family YMCA has a new executive director: Scott Pierce ’06, who earned his

Neighbor to Neighbor In some ways, the pandemic changed the focus of Tara Benavente’s day-to-day work. In other ways, she is doing what she has always done since she graduated from UP in 2014—bringing her abiding belief in hospitality to the community where she lives. A longtime barista (if you’ve ever frequented Cathedral Coffee in St. Johns, she’ll be a familiar face), she is now working as the program manager for St. Johns Village, a new transitional housing community for formerly houseless individuals.

A social work major at UP, Benavente tends to jump in wherever she sees a need. “I’ve always had a heart for working at the margins,” she says. “I’m a big believer in neighbors taking care of neighbors, that everything we need can be found in the community.” That local businesses donated more than $200,000 toward St. Johns Village seems to support her belief.

She officially works for Do Good Multnomah, an organization that focuses on getting housing and services to veterans. Before opening St. Johns Village, Tara was part of the effort that transformed the Charles Jordan Community Center into a 90-bed shelter, and she also managed one of the emergency motel shelters that opened last year in response to the pandemic.

Then she jumped into getting St. Johns Village ready, painting and caulking and furnishing the single occupancy pods and preparing the communal kitchen, washroom, and restroom. At this point, 16 of the 19 pods are occupied, and she is doing less painting and more community work with the villagers. A recent meeting involved finding the process for tackling the universal shared-space dilemma: dishes.

The residents came to the meeting with great ideas.

MBA on The Bluff. Scott served as executive director of the Beaverton YMCA for five years prior to joining the Sherwood YMCA.

2007

Luke Raynor ’07 and Hannah Wentz were married in September 2020 at the Oregon Coast in the presence of their parents and closest friends.

Dr. Emily Sorenson Reinig ’07 and her husband Zack ’10 now live in Coos Bay, OR, where Emily works in a hospital in Bandon, according to Fr. Jim Connelly, CSC. Christina Trautman ’07 was interviewed in December 2020 by The Columbian about her work as a pelvic floor physical therapist, a specialty that began as she was pursuing her undergraduate degree at UP. She operated her business, The Pelvic Floor Place, out of her home in Hazel Dell, WA.

2008

Elizabeth (Corr) Sheils ’08 reconnected with UP in a recent note: “I am reaching out because I had a pretty cool UP ‘come full circle’ experience. My company (Rock Paper Coin) just closed our third round of funding.

During the process I reconnected with a fellow alum: Mason Walker ’03. It was a lot of fun reconnecting with him. Leaning on him for advice and now considering him part of the Rock Paper Coin family is a wonderful experience. Thought it might be fun to share our story in some way to the UP community. Rock Paper Coin provides event professionals and clients a simple and easy way to process contracts, invoices, and payments for weddings.”

2009

Wonderful news from Kyle Bunch ’09, ’11, who writes:

“Hope this note finds you well. I just wanted to share the news that Rachael and I welcomed another future Pilot into the Bunch family.

Gemma joined this world on January 26. She joins her sisters Amelia (4) and Miriam (7). All my best!”

Tanya Denne ’09 graduated this year from Bastyr University in Kenmore, WA, with a doctoral degree in naturopathic medicine, according to an article in the Baker City Herald. Her work has been centered on a plant named Mucuna pruriens that could help combat Parkinson’s disease.

Paul Senz ’09, ’15 has published a new book, Fatima: 100 Questions and Answers About the Marian Apparitions.

10s 2010

Jennifer Piper ’10 is the new executive director of the Wallowa County Chamber of Commerce and couldn’t be happier about it. She started her new position on December 7, 2020, bringing her full circle to her childhood home of Enterprise, OR. “Now I’m back home in the best place in the world!” she says.

2011

Conor Eifler ’11 won the Oregon Book Award’s Angus Bowmer Award for Drama for his play You Cannot Undo This Action. The script was commissioned by TeenWest and SouthWest StageWorks (whose artistic director is Jamie Miller ’95), and it managed to finish its full production run right before the pandemic turned every theater dark. Congrats!

2013

Simply the best kind of news to share, in a note by Taylor Cothran ’13: “My husband, Brandon Cronan, and I recently welcomed our sweet baby girl into the world. Zoey Cothran Cronan was born at home on December 15, 2020! She is a very happy girl, and we are very happy parents. Her arrival makes my brother, Sully Cothran ’16, a first-time uncle!”

Will Hoppes ’13 has been named managing director of Fidélitas Wines in Richland, WA, according to Great Northwest Wine.

2014

Laura Butler ’14, resident services coordinator at St. Francis Park Apartments in Portland, was featured in an article in the December 16, 2020 edition of the Catholic Sentinel. The COVID-19 pandemic has had wide-ranging effects on Catholic Charities’ efforts to assist vulnerable members of the Portland and statewide communities.

According to a feature article in the Douglas County News-Review, Melrose Elementary School students kicked off STEAM Week with a virtual assembly hosted by robotics engineer Mike Hector ’14, who happens to be an alumnus of the small school in Roseburg and a roboticist for top tech companies around the world.

2015

Tamim Almousa ’15 is an award-winning writer and storyteller, penning feature screenplays, short films, and sketches. His script Knee Socks won first place in the 2019 PAGE International Screenwriting Awards’ Best Short Film Script category.

He got his start volunteering for KDUP and later worked

for the 99.1 FM Portland Radio Project, where he wrote scripts and interview questions, pitched ideas for segments, and much more.

Taran Patel ’15, managing principal for A-1 Hospitality Group, was interviewed about his family’s success in the hospitality industry in the March 2021 edition of the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business.

2016

Distance runner Reid Buchanan ’16 was profiled

by Athletics Illustrated on training for his first marathon at The Marathon Project on December 20, 2020.

Tori Dunlap ’16 was featured in an article in The Beacon, UP’s student news publication, on March 17, 2021. According to the article, Tori reached her goal of saving $100,000 within three years of graduation; she was also featured on Business Insider, Good Morning America, Forbes, and other media outlets on how she was able to tackle such an ambitious goal.

Her mission is to help women by improving their financial literacy through programs she has developed.

2018

Pilots soccer alumnus Benji Michel ’18 was featured in SBNation. Sounds like we should keep an eye on Benji as he works his way up the Major League Soccer and international competition ladder: “With his recent inclusion in the Olympic qualifying squad, Michel has the opportunity to prove his viability as a consistent, versatile option in the attacking core.”

Mustaf Mohamed ’18 has joined Harper Houf Peterson Righellis as a civil designer in its Portland office.

SUMMER 2021

41

CLASS NOTES IN MEMORIAM

Our heartfelt prayers and condolences go out to the families of the following individuals. Requiescat in pace.

After Orv’s death in 2004, Barbara moved to Hillsboro, where she became involved in WOW (Women of Wisdom) and Beaverton’s Faith Cafe. Survivors include four children and 10 grandchildren.

what a character, what a competitor, and a very, very proud man who lived a full life with a loving family and loved to tell you about it.

May he find peace in his resting place and may his memory be a blessing.”

Patricia (Shea) Knapp ’50 passed away on May 9, 2020, in Tempe, AZ. She married her sweetheart, Robert E. Knapp, in 1950, and together they had nine children. She worked in the nursing field in Oregon and Arizona while raising her family. Pat was preceded in death by her loving husband, Bob, in 2012, her daughter Mary in 1991, and her grandson Bert in 2016. Survivors include her eight other children and 17 grandchildren.

Virginia (Ellis) O’Reilly ’52 passed away on December 10, 2020, in Los Gatos, CA. She was an accomplished musician and had a long career as an education counselor, retiring in 1989.

Virginia played violin for the San Jose Symphony and a string quartet, the “Shrink N’ Violets.” She married widower Dr. Robert O’Reilly in 1973, and they enjoyed 40 happy years together until Robert’s death in 2014. Survivors include three stepchildren and four grandchildren.

Rev. Joseph Peixotto, CSC, ’54 died at Moreau House, the Holy Cross priests’ residence in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on February 4, 2017. He was 87. He was ordained a Holy Cross priest on June 6, 1961, and soon left for East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

There he joined Notre Dame College in Dhaka as a physics teacher, a duty he carried out for about 34 years. Fr. Peixotto was the principal of Notre Dame College from 1976 to 1998 and served as secretary of the Education Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh for 15 years. Since 2014, he was the treasurer of Notre Dame University Bangladesh. Fr. Peixotto was presented with the University of Portland’s 2004 Oddo Service Award in recognition of his 60 years in Bangladesh.

Kenneth R. Seal ’54 died on November 20, 2020, in Bellevue, WA. At age 18 he joined the Navy and trained as a pilot in Pensacola and Corpus Christi before being deployed to Okinawa in the Korean War. Ken believed that it is important to serve the greater community, so he volunteered many work hours over many decades.

He served on the board of Group Health Cooperative, was active in local politics, and served in various positions in his local church.

Survivors include his wife, Maria; their seven children; and seven grandchildren.

Fr. Charles Dreisbach ’50 died on June 17, 2020, at the age of 94. He served in the US Navy as a rifle and pistol instructor before going overseas during World War II. During his time at UP, he worked for the U-Haul Company in Portland, becoming their first business manager. In 1952, he entered Mount Angel Seminary and was ordained a priest in May

Barbara (Fitzel) Bruton ’53 died on December 1, 2020, surrounded by her children.

While working at a hospital and enjoying life in San Francisco, Barbara met her future husband and love of her life, Orval Bruton.

She became involved in the English as a Second Language program and supported local migrant worker camps affiliated with Saint Pius X Church.

Robert E. Rudolph ’54 passed away on November 27, 2020. He served his country in the US Air Force and was a lifelong sports fanatic, playing and coaching football, baseball, basketball, tennis, and others. Bob met Terrye in high school on a blind date, and they were married in 1951. Survivors include three sons and 10 grandchildren. According to his family, “In retrospect,

John Lejardi ’47 died on November 13, 2020, at the age of 98. He enlisted in the US Army Air Corps during World War II, serving from 1943 to 1946. After the war, he finished earning his business administration degree from the University of Portland and then obtained his MBA from Stanford University in 1949.

He met the love of his life, Florence, a feisty Italian, and in 1952 they married and settled in Los Altos, CA, where they raised three children. John worked as a CPA for his entire career.

He is survived by his children and two grandsons.

42

PORTLAND

of 1959. Fr. Dreisbach served in various parishes in Eastern Oregon until his final assignment at Sacred Heart Parish in Klamath Falls.

John A. Clarke ’52 died on January 19, 2020.

He grew up in Portland, OR, and graduated from Grant High School. On December 11, 1954, he married Nancy Jane Barlow, and they raised five children. He was preceded in death by Nancy and their daughter, Janice. Survivors include his four other children and 11 grandchildren.

Jack R. Sullivan ’54 died on December 5, 2020, in Lake Oswego, OR. He and Wanda Jean Miller married in 1954, and they lived in North Portland, then Lake Oswego, with their three children. Jack was a CPA and worked at Standard Insurance Company as corporate treasurer.

After Jack lost Wanda to cancer in 2000, he married Wanda’s best friend, Norma Ling, who had lost her husband as well.

Norma gave Jack a new reason for living the past 19 years. Survivors include Norma, three children, six grandchildren, and a host of stepchildren and grandchildren from Norma’s side.

STEVE HAMBUCHEN

Three Slabtown Boys (left to right): Stan Bozich ’53 (deceased), John Becic ’52, Vincent J. “Pesky” Paveskovich ’48

Vincent J. Paveskovich August 21, 1921–January 3, 2021 Some people are born to coach the best out of people, both on the field and off, and self-proclaimed curveball specialist Vincent “Pesky” Paveskovich ’48 was certainly one of them.

The Portland native and longtime baseball coach, teacher, and administrator for Portland Public Schools built his life around his two biggest passions: baseball and the Catholic church. These were the cornerstones of his 44-year career, 38 of which were spent at Marshall High School before he retired in 1998 at the age of 77. Early this year, news of his passing at age 99 inspired grateful tributes from former students who remember him as a father figure who would loan them gas money or show up at their house when they stopped coming to class. Many said he was the reason they graduated.

The youngest of six children of Croatian immigrants, Pesky was born and raised in Northwest Portland’s Slabtown neighborhood, a nickname inspired by the area’s many sawmills where his dad, Jakov, worked. Growing up, he and his older brother, Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer Johnny Pesky, spent every spare moment at the nearby Marshall Street ice arena or Vaughn Street ballpark. Pesky was even stick boy for the Eagles minor league hockey team and bat boy for the Beavers minor league baseball team. His family was so enmeshed in Portland’s early baseball scene and such a fixture of Slabtown that they inspired a book: The Sons of

Slabtown and Tales of Westside Sports by Don Nelson.

Pesky has said his athleticism took root at St. Patrick Catholic Church, where he attended grade school and worshipped for most of his life—his regular seat was known as the “Pesky pew.” And it served him well during his four years playing baseball and hockey at Lincoln High, as he helped the Cardinals baseball team win four straight Portland Interscholastic League championships, earning him a spot in the PIL Hall of Fame in 2006 alongside his brother.

Pesky attended University of Portland on a baseball scholarship, taking the mound all four years with a break from 1942 to 1946 to serve in the Navy during World War II, including stints in Hawai'i and Guam. After graduating in 1948, he played in the minor leagues for the New York Yankees before returning to UP to coach the Pilots to a winning season in 1950.

Decades later, Pesky teamed up with two of his players, Stan Bozich ’53 and John Becic ’52, to form the Slabtown Boys, a group of former ballplayers for UP or St. Patrick’s who established the St. Patrick’s Slabtown Endowed Scholarship for a Portland-area Catholic high school graduate planning to play baseball for UP. When asked why, he simply responded, “We’re human beings and we are here to help each other.”

Pesky is survived by his nephew, David Pesky, and grandnephew Patrick.

SUMMER 2021

43

CLASS NOTES IN MEMORIAM

LONG BEACH BUSINESS JOURNAL

Doreen (Wachsmuth) Weber ’54, loving wife of Alban Weber ’54, died on January 30, 2021, in Colorado Springs. She and Alban married on December 26, 1953. Doreen traveled extensively with Al and their growing family over his 25 years in the US Air Force, with assignments in Washington, Oregon, France, and Colorado.

Survivors include Al, their seven children, and 16 grandchildren. “Doreen loved her children, the Catholic church, birds, flowers, angels, and her husband of 67 years,” according to her family.

January 21, 1941– February 17, 2021 The Honorable Joseph E. DiLoreto ’63 passed away on February 17, 2021. He served for more than 18 years as a judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court before retiring in 2014. DiLoreto had been in private practice in Downey, CA, from 1969 until his appointment to the bench in 1995 by Gov. Pete Wilson. He served on the Downey City Council from 1972 to 1976, including a year-long stint as mayor.

In 2014, Joe retired to continue his passion for motor sports, especially auto racing. He collected and raced Corvettes, Mustangs, Cobras, Jaguars, and Ferraris. “He lived a full life,” says classmate and friend Fedele Bauccio ’64, ’66. With the exception of the first race, DiLoreto never missed a Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. During the inaugural Ford Los Angeles Grand Prix in 1997 (which was actually a street race in Los Angeles), DiLoreto raced a car that had won the famous Le Mans auto race in 1975 after hitting a top speed of 230 mph. He also raced in the Long Beach Can-Am Challenge among others. He won more than 100 races over the years and continued racing until 2019.

For a time, he owned a 1965 Daytona Cobra designed and previously owned by American automotive designer and driver Carroll Shelby (only a handful were made). He also owned the only Shelby-designed McLaren with a Ford engine. Shelby gave DiLoreto the nickname “The Flying Judge.” DiLoreto had the same mechanic for more than 35 years. When asked by a reporter if he ever sat on the bench for speeding ticket hearings, DiLoreto smiled and said, “I’m Superior Court. We don’t hear those kinds of things.”

Our sincere condolences to his family.

Joseph DiLoreto

44

PORTLAND

Vincent R. Teresi ’56 passed away at his home in Mt. Angel, OR, on February 20, 2021. He spent his early career teaching Spanish at Jesuit High School in Portland, followed by serving as communications designer and sports information officer for the Beaverton School District.

Vince and his brother Joseph spent the years 1983 to 2003 as caregivers for their mother as she struggled with a debilitating illness.

He then worked at Kennedy High School in Mt. Angel.

Please include Larry DeLaney ’57 and his family in your prayers on the loss of his wife, Patricia, on January 26, 2021. She passed away peacefully at their home in Sun Lakes, AZ, surrounded by her family. She and Larry met at Washington High School in Portland, and they married August 6, 1955.

Survivors include Larry, four sons, three daughters, and 19 grandchildren.

John White ’58, who taught in Portland Public Schools for three decades then spent

nearly as long as a community volunteer based in Milwaukie, died on October 20, 2020, in Portland.

Survivors include one brother and a niece and nephew. In accordance with his lifelong desire to help others, White left a generous bequest to the University of Portland to be used for School of Education student scholarships and Campus Ministry.

William J. “Bill” Rose, Jr. ’60 passed away on November 4, 2020, at 87. He moved with his family to Portland in 1947 and made a lasting impact on tennis in Oregon.

Bill was a three-time state singles finalist for Jefferson High School, and during his service in the US Army Medical Corps, he played for the Pacific Command tennis team until his honorable discharge in 1956. Finding a home on The Bluff that year, Bill attained a Pacific Northwest no. 1 ranking in men’s tennis in 1957 while leading a dominant Pilots squad that continued one of the longest-running team win streaks in NCAA history.

It was a team destined to be inducted into the Pilot Hall of Fame in 1995 for its 79 straight wins over a 14-year span. In 1964, he became head tennis coach and athletics publicity director for UP. Survivors include three children, one brother, and his faithful dog, Prissy.

The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to UP’s William Rose Memorial Fund for tennis: giving.up.edu/rose.

Thomas A. VanVeen ’61 passed away on November 10, 2020, at his home in Stayton, OR. He enlisted in the US Marines, and upon discharge he enrolled at the University of Portland

to complete his pre-med course of study. He graduated from the University of Oregon Medical School (OHSU) in 1963 and practiced medicine in Stayton for 51 years. He married Greta Cameron in 1971, and their life together was a happy one of 48 years; Greta died in February 2020.

Thomas is survived by one sister, eight children, and 24 grandchildren.

Joseph Stranieri ’61 died on January 9, 2021, surrounded by his family and partner Charlotte MacDonald. Joe taught 7th grade science at Anaconda Junior High School in Montana and retired in 1988. He married Barbara (Berdie) LeBlanc in 1964, and they had two children.

Although the marriage ended, he and Berdie remained friends his entire life. In 1996, Joe and fellow classmate Charlotte MacDonald reunited at their 40th class reunion and began a relationship that lasted 24 years. Survivors include Charlotte, his two children, and four grandchildren.

Steven Lieser ’62 passed away on February 2, 2021.

He spent most summers at his grandparents’ ranch near Prineville, OR, and was manager of the Pilots basketball team and a member of Upsilon Omega Pi spirit fraternity. It was at UP that Steve refined his love of Notre Dame football and drinking beer. On a blind date in 1967, he met the love of his life, Kathy Christensen. Steve later joined Les Schwab Tire Centers, where he spent much of the 1970s helping to develop their purchasing and distribution organizations as well as fostering many lifelong friendships.

Survivors include Kathy, their son and daughter, and one granddaughter.

James Z. Lindblom ’62 died on December 28, 2020.

According to his family, James “went for a walk at his farm the afternoon of Dec. 28, then he lay down on the lawn and went to heaven. He was 90 years old.” Like his parents, he became a teacher, spending most of his 31-year career teaching math and science in the Vancouver School District. He married Lois Mae Lang in 1951, and, after his retirement from teaching in 1980, Jim became a chicken farmer, moving to the countryside north of Battle Ground.

He raised fryers for Lynden Farms and Foster Farms for over 20 years. He is survived

by Lois, one daughter, one son, and five grandchildren.

“A true introvert by nature, Jim Lindblom was a respected, quiet, calm, generous, and loving man who will be greatly missed.”

Fr. Frank Knusel ’63 died on December 25, 2020.

A long-time Archdiocese of Portland pastor, Fr. Frank was commissioned into the US Air Force as a second lieutenant. He credited his years of military service for setting him on a path to the priesthood: “After four years of hauling military equipment to Vietnam and bringing back the wounded and dead to the US, I thought I would find more meaning in life, and help more people, in the ministry or priesthood,” he said. Fr. Frank worked closely with longtime immigration advocate Margaret Godfrey to support the work of the Immigration Counseling Service, Oregon’s oldest and

only independent nonprofit immigration law firm.

Survivors include extended family and a multitude of friends in Oregon, Switzerland, and Argentina.

William Purcell ’64 passed away on December 26, 2020, in Portland, OR, at the age of 82. He married Patricia Edith Vandeberghe on June 27, 1964. Shortly after they married, he began his CPA business in Lebanon, OR, where he was working right up to his passing.

He enjoyed establishing and farming his 20 acres of organic vineyard grapes in the nearby town of Scio and was a loyal member of the American Legion Post 51 in Lebanon. Survivors include Pat, five children, and 11 grandchildren.

Patrick F. Daly ’65 passed away on January 31, 2021, after a two-year battle with cancer. He joined the Air Force after graduation and flew B-52s for the first part of his Air Force career.

Deploying for multiple tours of duty during the Vietnam War, Pat was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses. After retiring from the Air Force in 1992, Pat held senior counterterrorism and security positions at the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Survivors include his wife, Cheryl; their children; and grandchildren. Pat will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full Military Honors at a later date.

Marcia (McCabe) Hubler ’65 died on January 22, 2021, in her home at the age of 77. While facing physical challenges for many years, her mind and natural charm remained constant. In her

freshman year of college, she met the love of her life, Jim Hubler. They were married in 1965 and enjoyed 54 years together, until Jim passed in July 2019. After graduating, she taught seventh and eighth grades at St. Rose Catholic School.

Her most rewarding position was working for the Portland School District as a home teacher to mentally and physically challenged students. Survivors include three children, five grandchildren, and a niece and nephew she raised as her own.

Claudia (Brake) Tedford ’65 died on January 31, 2021.

While working at Providence St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Burbank, she met her husband, Jim Tedford.

According to her family, “She believed and demonstrated that a mother’s calling was to dedicate all her energy to providing enough love for her own family and the many others who were passing through.” Survivors include Jim, three children, and eight grandchildren.

Paul J. Constantino ’66 passed away peacefully at home on December 17, 2020, at the age of 76. Paul served two tours in Vietnam with the 8th Battalion, 4th Artillery. He credited his fellow soldiers, faith, and a lifelong sense of humor for his survival. He later earned his JD from Lincoln Law School (1974), practicing law in San Mateo County for 42 years before retiring in 2015. Survivors include five loving children, one granddaughter, and former spouse Margaret Constantino.

John Henry Leahy, Sr. ’69 passed away peacefully on November 11, 2020, with family by his side.

SUMMER 2021

45

CLASS NOTES IN MEMORIAM

John was a lifelong Catholic and a veteran of the US Navy. John met Maryanne, his wife and partner of 67 years, while attending Washington State. They moved to Portland, where they raised their six children. He is lovingly remembered by his children and 16 grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to La Salle Catholic College Prep, University of Portland, or the charity of your choice.

in Bigfork, MT. Neil met his wife, Christine Clifford, and they married at St. John Fisher Church in 1970.

Neil served in the Oregon Air National Guard, was a career salesman in Portland, and later was an employee of St. John Fisher.

A man of strong faith, he served as a Eucharistic Minister and Communion Service Leader at his parish. Survivors include Christine, six children, and 12 grandchildren.

Michael M. Broun ’71 died on February 13, 2021, due to a heart attack. Mike was a member of UP’s Sigma Tau Omega fraternity and earned a degree in mechanical engineering. He was a Vietnam War veteran who served in the US Navy. He worked for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, then became a substitute teacher at South Kitsap School District. Mike is survived by his wife of 47 years, Linda; three daughters; and three grandchildren.

Harry Chaffee ’72 peacefully passed away, surrounded by family, on January 17, 2021, due to Parkinson’s disease. On November 22, 1969, Harry married his sweetheart, Jeanette.

After earning his business degree on The Bluff, he started a brokerage company that specialized in selling candy and snacks.

Harry enjoyed making many friends through selling gummy bears, salt-water taffy, and chocolates for 40 years. In 2004, he was inducted in the Candy Hall of Fame. Everyone knew Harry as the “Candy Man.” According to his family, “Harry was generous with his time and talents to all he met. The twinkle in his eyes, his big smile, and his hearty laugh gave away his gentle, kind-hearted nature.” Survivors include Jeanette, three children, seven grandchildren, and one brother.

Richard E. Enger ’71 died on January 23, 2021, in West Linn, OR. After his service in the US Army, he received a master of library science from the University of Portland and a master of science in education from the Oregon College of Education. Richard spent his career as a librarian at Portland Community College and retired in 1995.

After Richard’s first wife, Janet Guyton, passed away in 1972, he married Janet Grenier, a union that lasted for 48 years. Richard is survived by Janet, one daughter, and two grandchildren.

Neil Miskimins ’71 passed away on December 28, 2020,

46

PORTLAND

Frank ’76 and Shirley Yazalina passed away on February 9, 2021, and February 16, 2021, respectively. They were married for 62 years and are survived by three daughters and six grandchildren. Frank was a US Navy Radioman in the Korean War and served

as a Portland Police Officer for 30 years.

Robin Carter Thomas ’79 died peacefully on December 18, 2020, in New Britain, CT. She was a family nurse practitioner in various settings. Robin married Carl Addy in 1988. She wanted to be remembered as a loyal friend who loved her friends and family, a lover of nature, and one of those people who lived to serve the common good. She also enjoyed books, history, corresponding with friends, volunteering, and being outdoors.

Survivors include a son and three grandchildren.

H. Dean Lightle ’79 died on September 1, 2020, at his home, with his wife Barbara at his side. They went on a blind date (reluctantly) and fell in love at first sight. Dean and Barbara were married on July 30, 1955, and were married for 65 years. He sold cars, knives, pots and pans, and Fuller brushes; he was a lab tech at Rainier Brewery in Spokane, Hollister-Stier Laboratories, Lamb-Weston, and several locations of ACME Personnel Service; and he became personnel manager at Meier and Frank in Portland. Dean ultimately worked on his own from home. In addition to Barbara, he is survived by his daughter, son, and one grandchild.

M.K. McReynolds ’80 died on January 16, 2021.

She began her career at the Bonneville Power Authority in Portland, where she rapidly advanced through a select management program.

M.K. began her international career in 1990 with a move to England. She covered the globe advising governments, markets, and industry participants and provided

a bridge between the old state-owned utilities and the newly privatized systems.

She was greatly loved and will be deeply missed by her husband, Brian; brothers; cousins; and nieces.

Larry P. Pillers II ’82 passed away on December 6, 2020.

Larry studied mechanical engineering, and UP was where he met the love of his life, Elizabeth “Beth” (Dugaw) Pillers ’82, ’87.

They married on October 12, 1984, at St. Mary’s Chapel on campus. Larry was a brilliant and innovative engineer who amassed more than 30 patents and was known as an unshakable leader and beloved mentor. Most recently, the family settled in Whitmore Lake, MI, where Larry enjoyed spending his time watching Liverpool F.C. and Premier League soccer, improving his home with his many handy talents, and spending time with his family, including the four furry members: Sadie, Storm, Ramsey, and Izzy.

Larry’s family has established The Lauritz “Larry” P. Pillers II Memorial Fund so his legacy of mentorship and education can live on by supporting the next generation of UP engineers.

Donations can be made at www.giving.up.edu/Pillers.

Survivors include Beth, their children, Larry’s parents, and siblings, including Mark Roy (Ivy) Pillers ’83.

Anne (Bliven) Smart ’85 passed away on January 9, 2021, after contracting COVID-19. Her husband, Charles Smart, passed away in October 2020. Please remember Anne and Charles and their families at this tragic time. Anne devoted CONTINUED ON PAGE 48

Vivian (Andrews) Williams and Curtis Williams June 22, 1932–October 10, 2016 and September 7, 1929–February 1, 2020 When Vivian (Andrews) Williams passed away on October 10, 2016, she and her husband, Curtis Williams, had been married 64 years. Born and raised in Texas, they married in 1954, and family describes their love like “that of a fairy tale.” They moved to Portland, and Vivian attended UP’s Schools of Nursing—the Class of 1954 was a tight-knit group. She was one of the first African American nurses to graduate from the nursing school. Curtis worked for HUD and built a successful career in real estate. They raised five children.

Before Curtis passed away on February 1, 2020, his children heard some stories from their humble, dignified dad that they had never heard before (they also found some beautiful love letters from him to their mom from years ago). The family knew, growing up, that they were the first Black family to move into Portland’s Mount Tabor neighborhood. What the children didn’t know was that the neighbors didn’t

want them there; the neighbors organized and offered to buy them out.

(Curtis told the neighbors he’d accept their buyout for $1 million, a fee he knew was impossible at that time.)

Cheryl Scott, one of their daughters, marvels at her parents’ fortitude. She remembers her mother doing house visits to help a neighbor with her insulin.

Was that neighbor someone who hadn’t wanted them there? She wonders. What she doesn’t wonder at was her mother’s focus on doing what was right. “Her first love was God,” Cheryl says. “She was a prayer warrior.”

After graduating from University of Portland, Vivian worked at St. Vincent’s, and she later became a visiting nurse and school nurse at Jefferson High School.

Cheryl remembers her mother polishing her nursing shoes with pride.

This year the family honored their parents by creating the Vivian and Curtis Williams Endowed Scholarship to benefit UP’s School of Nursing.

SUMMER 2021

47

CLASS NOTES IN MEMORIAM

her life to serving others in many ways. She spent her long nursing career caring for people who needed it, including 20 years at the Oregon State Hospital. Anne was a dedicated mother first and foremost. She treasured her children and embraced every moment with them.

Survivors include her children, Travis and Samantha; her father, Mark ’55; sister, Karen ’85; and two brothers.

January 3, 1978– February 21, 2021 We were so saddened to learn of the unexpected passing of Morgan Evans ’00, a widely beloved middle school teacher.

Ask anyone who knew Morgan to describe him and the first thing they all say is “charismatic,” followed in close succession by “highly intelligent” and “hilarious.” His endless stream of shenanigans during Salzburg ’97/’98 are legendary, and the impact he made over two decades of teaching has inspired an outpouring of gratitude from his former students.

Morgan grew up in Red Bluff, CA, the son of two teachers who inspired his own career path. He graduated from UP’s School of Education in 2000 and immediately began teaching at George Middle School in North Portland. He spent 18 years there, followed by two at Vernon K-8 in Northeast Portland, dedicating himself through boundless creativity and enthusiasm to make learning fun.

When the avid sports fan, music lover, and world traveler wasn’t at school introducing kids to Ancient Greek history with dolmas, DJ-ing the school dances, making goofball PSA videos, and hosting Useless Trivia Fridays, he could usually be found at home in Vancouver, WA (aka, the hang house) with his wife, Sarah (Lemos) Evans ’00 and a steady stream of friends.

Morgan is survived by his wife, Sarah, mother Tammy Evans, and sister Lindsay Evans. To honor Morgan’s love of teaching and legacy, his wife and friends established the Morgan Clay Evans Memorial Scholarship to help graduates of George Middle School and Roosevelt High School with financial resources to achieve their academic goals.

Morgan Clay Evans

48

PORTLAND

Jeffrey D. Ginter ’98 succumbed to cancer in the comfort of his own home on January 11, 2021. He was married to Viktorija Ginter ’97 for 20 years and worked as a mechanical engineer and director of operations at Hydro International.

He also enjoyed fly fishing, brewing beer, 80s rock, and traveling with his family. Survivors include Vicky, their two children, his parents, and one sibling.

Lucas Robert Adams ’16 died on May 21, 2020, after a wonderful morning spent with his family, due to a spontaneous cardiac arrest brought on by an enlarged heart. He joined the US Air Force in 2000 and became a Pararescue Jumper (PJ).

During his PJ career, Luke was deployed around the world, completing rescue missions on land and in water, bringing to life the motto “That others may live.” Survivors include his wife, Shea, and their two children.

FACULTY, STAFF, FRIENDS Donna Shepard, beloved wife of Regent Stephen Shepard ’58, passed away on January 10, 2021. They were married for 60 years.

Donna embarked on her interior design career at a small firm in Portland before

starting her own business, DLS Interiors. She quickly established herself as a highly regarded interior designer in the Portland area and will always be remembered for the beautiful homes she designed, including the family home in Lake Oswego (featured in Portland Monthly) and vacation homes in Manzanita and Rancho Mirage.

Those who knew Donna will also remember her deep faith in the Catholic church, which she leaned on heavily when faced with the disheartening diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis in 1994. It was a medically complicated and difficult road for Donna, which she handled with grace, dignity, and implausible humor.

According to her family, “Most importantly, Donna was a wife, mother, grandmother, and beautiful friend. She was a uniquely beautiful soul to those who knew her and will be forever missed.” Survivors include her husband, Steve; daughters, Jennifer and Stephanie; and grandchildren, Shepard and Sydney.

Former UP Regent Brian Casey died on November 24, 2020. Brian practiced law for 10 years at his father’s firm before going into sales at Pacific Institute in Seattle. In 1994 he set up Good News Ministries of Seattle, a nonprofit charitable corporation for purposes of facilitating parish mission work throughout the country.

He wrote a book, Our Walk in His Footsteps, and made recordings of his parish sessions. Survivors include his wife, Peggy; their three children; and four grandchildren.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAWN NELSON

FOR THE LOVE OF IT

Life Through Cookies DAWN NELSON ’82 , longtime kindergarten teacher for Portland Public Schools, says she’s “failing at retirement.” Her willingness to substitute teach may be partly to blame. As a seasoned teacher, she was asked (possibly begged) to participate in distance learning for kindergartners and fourth graders—and a few grades in between—during the 2020/21 school year. But the main reason she hasn’t had too much downtime in the last year is her booming cookie business. An independent “cookier,” as they call themselves in the industry, her record is 65 dozen in one week. (Quick math: that’s 780 cookies made with only one oven and two hands.)

Not only is her work beautiful (and tasty, according to word on the street), but the “why” of her work is beautiful too. Cookies are the way she walks with people through life’s events. Some events are happy: retirement, US citizenship, graduation, babies, quarantine birthday parties. Some involve life’s trials: one client who lost her brother asked Dawn to

create cookies that replicated the tattoos that the siblings all shared.

And she donates lots of cookies to fundraisers—Bakers Against Racism, St. Mary’s Academy high school (her other alma mater), the Make-A-Wish Foundation. It seems she takes any chance she gets to use these sweet goodies to spread, well, goodness.When she traveled to Hawai'i, she made some for housekeeping, and she uses them as ice-breakers for her students.

Sometimes the cookies come with sage advice: There must always be several of the coolest-looking ones at a birthday party—otherwise, she says, “They’re going to fight over it.”

(Trust the kindergarten teacher to have wisdom like this.) She has also gained somewhat amusing insights: “People love to see their face on a cookie.”

Just a heads up, you need to order from Auntie Dawn’s Custom Cookies well in advance. She gets booked up fast and remember, she’s retired (kind of).

SUMMER 2021

49

50

PORTLAND

BOB KERNS

5000 North Willamette Blvd.

Portland, OR 97203-5798

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage PA I D Portland, Oregon Permit No. 188