>In Box For the university’s 175th anniversary year, we look back on a few reader letters from past issues of the alumni magazine, The Scene. Winter 1990 I can add something to the story of the 1935 State Capitol fire. On April 25, we had a biology senior oral, and afterward I rode my bike … to my home a mile north. I had hardly gotten into the house when the young neighbor girl came running and said: “Mr. Monk, the Capitol is on fire!” I realized that … Eaton Hall was in danger. I hurried back to campus and to my office on the third floor of Eaton. I found President Baxter and Spec Keene trying to find a way into the attic. I had a key to the staircase door. The three of us went up to the attic and dragged the fire hose up to the roof, but there was no water pressure. So I went back to the lab and filled buckets with water as long as the pressure lasted. Then I went to the first floor to fill more buckets. … (Students) supported themselves on the roof by fastening the now-useless fire hose to the chimney and letting themselves down to spot fires and put them out with wet burlap sacks. … Eaton suffered little damage thanks to the student volunteers, but the Chemistry Building (now the Art Building) did lose some patches of roofing. — Cecil R. Monk Professor emeritus of biology
Spring 1995 I was interested to learn from the Willamette Scene ... that George Cannady was the first AfricanAmerican to graduate from Willamette. He was in the same class as my brother, David Moser, and they became good friends. Although I was a graduating senior when they were freshmen, Willamette was a much smaller school then and we all knew almost everyone else on campus. Even though George’s skin was a different color, we never thought of him as being any different than the rest of us — he was just George. In their senior year, he and my brother were co-senior scholar assistants to Dr. Gatke, professor of political science. — Marjorie (Moser) Durham ’32 Spring 2011 I was a basketball player back in the early 1950s at Willamette. Each year it fell upon the coaches to submit the names of players they felt deserved to be on the all-star team of the Northwest Conference. Our coach, John Lewis, put in the name of “Oonie Gagen.” Oonie was an entirely fictitious player. However, he made the honorable mention list of the Northwest Conference that year. John was a great coach, and he enjoyed good humor. — Jack Hande ’53
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SPRING 2017
Where’s Tufton? Tufton Beamish hides in the most unusual places. Mike Durrell ’64 found Tufton’s name on p. 7 of the fall issue, listed on a display of an exercise science Myometrics motion capture system.
Can you find Tufton in this issue? Send your sightings to magazine@willamette.edu.
Love WU Willamette students fall in love with the campus, the academic challenge and sometimes each other. How did you “WU” your partner? We want to hear your stories. Email
magazine@willamette.edu or send letters to
University Communications Willamette University 900 State Street, Salem OR 97301. Published correspondence may be edited for length and clarity.