First, someone brings her the head of an animal. It might be skinned or not, sometimes it’s half-rotten. She cuts out the soft tissue, that’s the eyes, tongue, brain and any other meat still attached to the bone.

Then the dermestid beetles get it. A fast moving colony of hundreds of thousands of insects gnaw away every last shred of tissue. Next is the challenging, time-consuming and expensive part. She plunges the skull into a hot, soapy bath, where it degreases for weeks, or even months, until the suds have sucked out all of its natural greasiness.

Finally, the clean, dry skull gets a whitening treatment and a coat of clear sealant. It’s been about two months, at least, for a typical animal, but much longer for a greasy animal such as a grizzly bear.

Lauren Hull, who graduated from EOU in 2011, uses creative problem-solving skills from her art degree to transform cows, buffalo, elk, deer, bear, dogs, cats, wolverines, skunks, weasels, badgers, foxes, wildebeest, antelope, monkeys, coyotes, moose and much more into European mounts.

From her studio in Alicel, Oregon, she cleans hundreds of skulls every year. Hull’s Skulls counts hunters and trappers among its clientele, as well as Western decor enthusiasts and taxidermists. Sometimes people even bring her their deceased pets.

Her skill set has developed over the last nine years, and she experiments with different chemical concoctions during her slow season to further refine her process. This scientific approach melds well with her artistic background, Hull said.

“People like to joke about how I would never put my art degree to good use, but I use it all the time!” she said. “Sometimes I get skulls that I need to completely reconstruct, or antlers that I need to graft seamlessly onto skulls. I also have to articulate entire skeletons and create missing pieces. Every season I encounter several problems that I have to use my artistic mind to fix.”

Plus, she gets a lot of requests for her hand-painted pieces. Hull’s distinct style features geometric designs, bold colors and Swarovski Crystals.

She cleans and paints the skulls in a converted barn on her family’s ranch that she renovated as a studio space, while her big black lab watches from a comfy couch. The walls are lined with tiny, white skulls, all eye sockets and toothy grins. A one-of-a-kind chandelier made of 300 coyote skulls hangs overhead.

As a senior art student at EOU, Hull purchased her first beetle colony to clean the fine bones of small animal skeletons, which she carefully re-constructed to look like dragons and other impossible creatures. During her senior exhibition, a taxidermist recognized the technique of using dermestid beetles and skeletal articulations, and approached her about additional work. Her beetles have rarely been bored since.

“My location has really allowed me to thrive,” Hull said. “I get skulls shipped to me from all over the U.S., but Eastern Oregon really is the prime location. Nearly my entire customer base has come from word-of-mouth referrals because the hunting community is so tight-knit. One of the best parts of my job is meeting people from the community and forming lasting relationships.”

Fellow Alumni and Friends,

Two years ago, ��ݮ��Ƶ was designated “Oregon’s Rural University.” This moniker symbolizes EOU’s commitment and interconnection to our region, rural eastern Oregon. Until now, we never knew how much it meant.

EOU serves as the cultural, educational, and economic engine of rural places, and our success is inextricably linked to the communities where students actively engage and learn. As we navigate this unprecedented time, I stand proud of the EOU community and our response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends of this university have adapted quickly to continue living out our mission and values. When spring term classes on-campus shifted to remote-access, academic departments and support staff collaborated to transition curriculum and services in every area of the institution, drawing from our long history of delivering education at a distance.

Although our main campus has been empty these last few months, our students have remained engaged. Club events, leadership opportunities, coursework, and study sessions are taking place in new, virtual environments.

As we ensure the educational success of current students, we are continually reminded of the difference EOU alumni are making in their communities. Stories enclosed here illustrate how the Mountaineer network powers countless companies, organizations, and neighborhoods around the globe, especially in times of crisis.

I am blessed to have graduated from Oregon’s Rural University. I am thankful for all that our alumni contribute to society and the communities they call home. ��ݮ��Ƶ is an engine because its alumni, friends, employees, and students unlock cultural, social, and economic opportunities amid every kind of challenge.

Sincerely,

Thomas A. Insko, ’94
President

The Native American Program at EOU is the reason Katie Harris-Murphy, ’16, stuck around to complete her chemistry degree.

Four years later, she’s the reason Jordan Patt hasn’t given up.

Now the Director of the Native American Program on campus, Murphy said getting involved in clubs like Speel-Ya kept her engaged with her education. Students in the club now look to Murphy for the same kind of mentorship and encouragement.

Patt, who was president of Speel-Ya in 2019-20, said a constant cycle of activities, fundraisers and events keep club members busy year-round. Speel-Ya is the oldest Native American student club in the West, and its legacy is a testament to the longstanding partnership between EOU and nearby tribes.

The club’s largest annual event, the spring Pow Wow and Indian Arts Festival, would have seen its 50th anniversary in May. The event was canceled as part of state and university efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19.

“People come from Montana, Washington and Idaho for the pow wow,” Patt said.

A junior studying business, Patt grew up on the Warm Springs Reservation. In addition to her presidential duties, she also has two on-campus jobs.

Speel-Ya’s presence on campus has grown recently, with Native American Heritage Month programs, exhibitions in the Nightingale Gallery, and partnerships with other student clubs.

“We’re learning how to stand up and push ourselves out so others will see us,” Patt said. “There’s still assumptions that we don’t do a lot, even though the door of our office is covered in posters of our events.”

Posters for fry bread sales, craft nights, art exhibits, film showings, and activism to raise awareness about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) were designed by Joseph O’Brien, who is the student Native American Program Assistant and Indian Arts Coordinator for 2019-20, and a junior on a pre-nursing track.

Patt created an eye-catching poster for MMIW, which became a Facebook post that got 500,000 views and was shared 7,500 times.

“We have an EOU student whose mother went missing in the 1980s,” Murphy said. “Natives know about this issue, but the general public isn’t aware.”

O’Brien is a member of the Pit River Tribe, and is also heavily involved on campus. Murphy said co-curricular activities equip students for success in their lives and careers, while keeping them connected to an on-campus community.

“I always suggest that students get out of their comfort zones,” she said. “My students know how to show up and try new things, they’re not afraid to volunteer, and that’s important when you get a job.”

A member of Nez Perce, Cayuse, Umatilla and Karuk tribes, Murphy has helped students enroll in tribal membership. Her small office is frequented by students seeking an understanding ear.

One of the very first peers Patt shared an EOU classroom with had never met a Native American person before. O’Brien said his identity has been met with skepticism because his appearance is different from stereotyped images of Native Americans.

“I was fighting stereotypes on the daily [as a student], with people thinking my ethnicity didn’t exist,” Murphy said. “The Native American Program helps students find their community and subtly teaches others who we are and that we’re proud.”

Special recognition at the 50th annual Spring Pow Wow was planned to draw attention to the ongoing partnership between EOU and the region’s indigenous people. Murphy said many EOU alumni typically reunite at the event, and online students who study from their homes on nearby reservations often choose the occasion to visit campus. Club members now look toward spring 2021 to celebrate this auspicious anniversary.

“We’ve always been here,” Murphy said. “Pow Wow is a great way to exhibit the diversity on campus and to see something different.”

An abandoned sawmill became a booming center of commerce, culture and city life in Bend after The Old Mill District debuted in 2017.

Transforming former industrial sites into meaningful community spaces has become an industry of its own in rural Oregon. A new EOU degree program equips students to serve as leaders in this emerging field.

Starting in fall 2020, students in the Sustainable Rural Systems program will investigate aspects of rural communities that make Oregon’s cities, farms and forests livable. The on-campus degree is open to transfer students, as well as first-time freshmen.

Courses designed for group-based learning take on real-life challenges alongside community and industry partners. Students builddistinct skill-sets to address environmental remediation or restoration, public policy, economic development, natural resource management and other community-building projects.

“This multi-disciplinary degree prepares students for careers in community building and project leadership,” said Joe Corsini, an EOU biology professor who will teach courses in the Sustainable Rural Systems program starting this fall. “These multi-year projects connect theoretical concepts to the realities of working with agencies, nonprofits and businesses, and teach students to think creatively as they guide rural communities into the future.”

Students select a concentration in either Environmental Resources or Economics of Rural Systems and move through the program with a cohort of peers. As they advance, students take on more responsibitity and become project managers, who model teamwork and mentorship for incoming freshmen.

In an innovative new format, students will work to solve real issues in rural communities. A partnership with Baker Technical Institute provides the program’s first cohort their long-term project: restoring former industrial and commercial sites in Eastern Oregon that have been affected by environmental contamination. With remediation, these brownfields become useful community spaces once again.

Future projects could include refurbishing a historic building, analyzing industry changes after a timber mill closes, or exploring new methods of delivering healthcare in rural areas. Students can explore a wide range of academic fields, but the program’s core includes environmental biology, economics and project leadership courses. By tailoring their curriculum toward specific interests, students can earn a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Sustainable Rural Systems.

“As an employer, we’re looking for graduates who can demonstrate their skills in the field,” said Les Penning, CEO of Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative (OTEC). “This program is designed to do exactly that by putting students in leadership positions to complete hands-on projects.”

For two years, Cheryl Martin, ’76, got to teach in the same school where her grandmother had first inspired her to become a teacher. She spent another 25 years in North Powder, where her experience ranged from kindergartners up to high school psychology classes.

Her “range” also includes the cattle range. Martin has lived and worked on a ranch in Eastern Oregon throughout her career and now in her retirement.

She has a surprising amount in common with chemist and professor Abel Mendoza, ’72. Both serve on EOU’s Board of Trustees, and both are deeply committed to serving the region’s students.

Including Martin, over a dozen people in her family have attended EOU. Mendoza, meanwhile, was the first in his family to go to college. Since then, he’s gone on to earn a Ph.D., conduct research and teach at EOU’s chemistry department. He even saw his daughter graduate in the blue and gold.

Vice Chair of the Board this year, Mendoza sees his volunteer trusteeship as an act of giving back. He enrolled as an international student from Mexico, and found the surrounding mountains a cozy reminder of home.

“For most people, education is the key to joining the middle class, that’s why I’m committed to being involved in it,” Mendoza said. “For me, it was the door to a better way of life. I met professors from a variety of fields who made me feel welcome.”

Mendoza and Martin both joined the inaugural EOU Board of Trustees in 2015. Martin said the experience has strengthened her relationship with the campus community.

“I love EOU, my heart is there,” she said. “I love the world of education, and it has been rewarding for me to be part of EOU at a different level.”

One of the primary responsibilities of trustees is ensuring the university’s financial stability, a task that has shifted in the five years since the board was chartered.

“It’s no secret that the school has gone through difficult times as you look back at the last 15 years,” Mendoza said. “The most gratifying part of being a trustee is that we have made a huge difference.”

Being Oregon’s Rural University comes with a commitment to affordability. Martin grew up in rural Oregon and said the designation calls attention to the board’s focus on ensuring access to higher education.

“We want so badly to keep that tuition level where students can afford to come to EOU without massive debt,” Martin said. “Students need to have options and availability for their paths, whether that’s a two-year or four-year degree or beyond.”

Mendoza’s initial college experience inspired him to eventually earn a doctorate in chemistry and pursue an extensive career with Dow Chemical, where he obtained 28 U.S. patents and over 100 international patents. His 14 siblings have also benefited, and many of his nieces and nephews have followed his lead and graduated college. After retiring from Dow, Mendoza moved to Haines, Oregon and taught at EOU for a number of years before retiring again.

Martin said rural-ness and affordability go hand-in-hand with EOU’s hands-on learning and meaningful mentoring relationships.

“EOU students get to experience a lifestyle of wide-open spaces, a friendly handshake at a local business, a smile from another as they walk down a sidewalk, a short trek to the mountains for recreation, and a university that puts that all together for a great lifetime experience,” she said. “It means that every student feels the compassion and caring of our faculty, board and administration while getting a second-to-none educational experience.”

During the second week of October 2019, 30 EOU students and three faculty members spent four very long days outside of Prineville, Oregon, excavating a partial mammoth skeleton from a gravel quarry. The site was owned by late EOU alumnus Craig Woodward, ’69, who decided to donate the fossils to his alma mater.

Woodward passed away shortly after construction workers uncovered the fossils, but members of his family carried his enthusiasm forward. They worked with university leaders and faculty to make this final donation official with a memorandum of understanding.

Workers from Knife River Corporation had leased the land to extract sand and gravel, when they uncovered tusks about 30 feet below the surface. EOU students and faculty members from the anthropology and biology departments collaborated with construction crews to carefully remove the bones.

Anthropology professor Rory Becker said students in his introduc-tory classes got a first-hand look at archeology in action.

“I think a lot of the students were surprised at how much work was involved,” he said. “It takes coordination of many, many moving parts — plus, straight digging holes.”

For many of them, Becker said, it was a chance to decide whether fieldwork would be a suitable career path. The team’s 12-hour days from Oct. 9 to 13 often began and ended in the dark.

Becker led the dig with fellow anthropology professor Linda Reed-Jerofke and biology professor Joe Corsini. All three agreed that the experience offered once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for EOU students.

“The students were working hard, talking about their ideas, leading their peers,” Corsini said. “They were all excited to get out there.”

Students from three anthropology courses helped remove giant arm bones, including the ulna, radius and humerus, as well as tusks, a cranium and several vertebrae. Becker and Corsini said they suspect the mammoth may have been a juvenile because the ends of the long bones don’t appear to be fused to the shaft.

“The type of sediment surrounding it suggests that it may have been in slow-moving water,” Corsini said.

He was surprised that they didn’t encounter an assemblage of other fossils, such as camels, sloths, bison, and rodents, near the larger mammoth bones.

Mammoths and mastodons both roamed North America about 2 million years ago, and the last of these creatures died out on the continent 10,000 years ago. Eons of sediment and pressure had preserved the bones, so exposing them to air made, particularly the tusks, vulnerable to delamination.

To protect them, the team removed the bones packed in sediment, covered them in plaster, and transported them to campus on a flatbed truck. Corsini, an experienced paleontologist, worked quickly with super glue at the site to stabilize the tusks. All of the elements are now securely stored adjacent to biology and anthropology labs on campus.

“It’s a load of work,” he said. “Getting them back [to campus] intact is the biggest challenge and achievement.”

It also means that smaller bones like teeth and fingers might still be enclosed within the larger sections. Teeth could clarify whether the find is actually a mastodon, and reveal details about the animal’s diet.

Becker said the find will provide three to five years of research papers, conference presentations and capstone projects for EOU students.

“We anticipate enduring opportunities for student contact with the bones,” Becker said. “Far beyond the 30 students who helped dig them out.”

Eventually, they hope to display the remains for visitors to see. The partial skeleton means that an exhibit might be set up to recreate the dig scene. Corsini said he looks forward to sharing the find with students and the community.

“It’s always amazing to see something like that — this huge creature that’s no longer on the planet,” he said. “I always feel a little bit of awe.”

Q&A with student participants

Erin Blincoe is a junior from Baker City, Ore., studying anthropology.

My role on the dig: I was in the upper division class, so I helped oversee some of the other students.

What surprised me: I love working with bones. It was a salvation dig, so it wasn’t a typical dig. We had four days to get everything out of the ground, so it was speedy.

What I learned: I never thought of myself as a leader, but I’m very patient and that worked.

Lydia Hurty is a senior from Stanfield, Ore., studying anthropology and sociology.

My role on the dig: I did all the photo documentation, the shots with a clipboard showing where bones were found.

What surprised me: I got to go around to every item that we found. It was surprising to see the size of it!

What I learned: The ins and outs of what you do on a dig, and watching all the processes that go into it was really informative.

Christopher Smith is a sophomore from La Grande studying anthropology and sociology.

My role on the dig: I have kids, so I couldn’t go on the dig, but we’ve been helping remove sediment from the cranium now that it’s back on campus.

What surprised me: The bones are very brittle after they’re exposed to air. They’re about the texture and fragility of balsa wood. I’d never thought of fossils as being that brittle.

What I learned: In the classroom you get an idea of what you’re about to encounter, but it’s really cool to actually dig in the dirt.

Hannah Wilhelm is a junior from La Grande studying anthropology.

My role on the dig: I did a lot of plastering, covering the bones in plastic and wet newspaper after they were pedestalled.

What surprised me: It was really cool to be near this animal that’s been in the ground for 10,000 years. It takes you to a different time.

What I learned: Taking what I learned in the classroom and seeing it actually happening helped me realize that I want to focus on paleoanthropology.

Self-described fly-fishing fanatic Rob Stuart, ’96, followed his career in finance through several roles at one of the country’s largest banks, but hasn’t forgotten his roots in Eastern Oregon.

Now the President and CEO of OnPoint Community Credit Union, headquartered in Portland, Stuart remains connected to the communities and culture of the Grande Ronde Valley.

After graduating from La Grande High School, Stuart enrolled at EOU to follow his father’s footsteps into the sciences. But his career trajectory changed during a summer cultural geography trip with professor Ralph Lewis. Lewis encouraged him to consider studying business, where his talent for communicating and working with people would shine.

Stuart started as a part-time teller at Bank of America in La Grande right after graduation. Four years later he was the branch manager, and by 24 he was a vice president.

From there, he moved to Portland to manage two downtown branches and establish the bank’s Financial Relationship Management program. He went on to oversee consumer banking in all rural markets in the Pacific Northwest, and become president of Bank of America in Idaho.

“It’s a very well-known fact in Portland that employers love to hire people that come from rural markets like La Grande,” Stuart said. “The primary reason is because when we come to the city from Eastern Oregon, we bring a unique kind of openness and honesty.”

By 2006 he was feeling pressured to move to the East Coast, but then received a call about an opportunity to run a credit union in Oregon, where he wouldn’t have to sacrifice his love for the outdoors or proximity to his extended family.

Despite joining the institution right before the Great Recession of 2008, Stuart led OnPoint’s growth from $1.8 billion to $6.5 billion in assets.

“Consumers were upset with Wall Street and big banks, and it was a really special time to be more of a community institution and a credit union,” he said.

In the Portland area, OnPoint market share grew from 15% to 25% in the last 10 years. It’s now the second largest financial institution headquartered in Oregon and the largest credit union.

Stuart credits much of that success to his rural background. The work ethic and value of authentic relationships he learned in small towns has served him well in the big city.

“Having a strong work ethic is critical,” Stuart said. “When you bring that [grit] to the city, the synergy you create — employers, customers want to grab onto that.”

As CEO, Stuart’s most important job is to establish and protect OnPoint’s company culture, which focuses on community connections, relationships with customers and quality service on large and small scales.

“Our culture reflects the values of Eastern Oregon because that’s where my heart and soul is,” he said.

5 questions to strengthen rural economies

Rural economies have strengths and challenges all their own. Rob Stuart, ’96, grew up in La Grande, but now works as President and CEO of the state’s largest credit union. He sees a few questions rural communities should ask themselves.

1. How do the leaders convince industries to come in and make investments back into the community? Successful rural businesses know that it’s all about turning around and reinvesting in the community.
2. How can we become more recession-proof? You have to have multiple industries so people can stay gainfully employed when timber or wheat prices fall.
3. What are you doing for the future? You have to invest in children and make sure they have every educational opportunity possible. Investment in teachers and universities, those are the centerposts of the future.
4. What are governments and planning commissions doing to encourage big and small companies to think of their community as an opportunity for future plants or factories? You have to create a sustainable marketplace.
5. Is your model sustainable? It’s not my goal to make sure 2019 was a great year, what’s important is that we have a sustainable, safe and sound institution that’s going to perform for another 100 years — it’s the same with communities.

By Katy Nesbitt

A friendship born on the set of an ��ݮ��Ƶ theatre production led to alumni collaborating on a movie to be filmed against the backdrop of northeastern Oregon’s stunning vistas.

J.J. Hill, ’11, and Liberty O’Dell’s, ’11, movie, titled “Out of Character,” features not only EOU alumni writing, producing and directing, but 75 percent of the cast and crew are graduates.

With a small grant, some out-of-pocket expenditure and a lot of volunteer support, the film’s pre-production began in November 2019. Filming is set to begin in 2021. Hill and O’Dell said they hope to have at least some scenes from the movie available to premier at the 2020 Eastern Oregon Film Festival in October.

The storyline for “Out of Character” follows six people involved in a live action role-play game in the woods, O’Dell said. Live action role-playing, or “larping,” is like a game of Dungeons and Dragons come to life with players dressed in medieval costumes armed with swords, shields and helmets. The premise of the movie is the principal characters are to stay in their fantasy personas for several days as they journey through the wilds of Eastern Oregon.

“The purpose of the script is to create something in Eastern Oregon and to showcase the local talent,” O’Dell said.

Hill said the movie is staged like a documentary or reality show about a fictional event, but he came short of calling it a mockumentary. Larping has been portrayed in film as a legitimate and entertaining hobby, like sword-play at a Renaissance festival, while other treatments portray it in a mocking form.

“Our version is a celebration of imagination,” Hill said. “Think ‘Best in Show’ meets ‘Lord of the Rings.’”

The comedic undertones come largely from using the actors’ own personalities to heighten their characters, O’Dell and Hill said. In February they had a read-through with the principal actors, going over their characters and reworking scene sequences.

“When one actor was asked, ‘Who do you think your character is?’ he responded, ‘I get to make that choice?’ I told him we can only write up to our ability,” O’Dell said. “The actors are going to have a stronger understanding of who their character is and we respect their knowledge.”

Hill and O’Dell said they met on the set of EOU’s production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and became fast friends, spending time together playing Dungeons and Dragons, a role playing tabletop board game. Hill said he learned to play the game in high school and it helped him in the theater.

“When I started acting I was nervous about being in character in front of other people, but Dungeons and Dragons got me over being someone else in a safe group of people,” Hill said. “Playing the game is a cooperative imagination experience where you don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

O’Dell said he didn’t play the game until college, but agreed that one of the most important lessons any artist learns is how to portray a story.

“Through games you step into character and explore different aspects of your personality, things you don’t do in daily life,” O’Dell said.

After graduating from EOU, O’Dell studied and worked in New York for about five years. Hill did a short stint in New York as well, but both ended up back in Eastern Oregon — O’Dell in La Grande and Hill in Pendleton. Both said they returned to the region for the sense of community and the scenery.

They got involved with the Eastern Oregon Film Festival and get together with a handful of other actors once a week to do improvisational theater — skills similar to larping and tabletop gaming, where characters are constantly working off of each other.

“One of the things we started with is knowing collaboration is the strongest way to make art,” O’Dell said.

“It is something I had only ever seen in movies,” Brittney Hamilton said. “This activity does not exist where I come from.”

Cheerleading was far from the kind of dancing Hamilton, a junior studying business at EOU, had been doing in Saipan. This year, though, she embraced it and became the first Pacific Islander selected for the Mountaineer Cheer and Dance Team.

Hamilton now expresses herself in two forms of movement — one that honors her native culture and one that developed on the U.S. mainland. She has performed traditional dance and fire poi in the Island Magic Show and the International Dinner and Show.

“Dancing is a way to protect and respect where I come from,” Hamilton said. “It is our responsibility and duty to inform people of our existence, and dance is how we share ourselves with this community.”

The first time she saw cheerleaders, Hamilton said it sparked her curiosity. She was nervous to try out because the style of dance was so different from what she’d experienced in Saipan. Ultimately, the opportunity to dance again drew her in.

“It took a lot of courage for me to put myself out there like that,” she said. “In cheerleading, the dance moves are solid motions and back home dancing has more fluid motions.”

Some members of Hamilton’s hometown questioned her actions since this type of dance was unfamiliar to them.

“My friends were telling me not to do it, but I knew I had to do it for myself,” she said.

Cheerleading keeps Hamilton motivated and occupied, she said. The team practices four days a week for two hours at a time, plus three workouts at the gym each week. In her position as a base, Hamilton focuses on arm and leg exercises to prepare to lift fellow student-athletes in the air. She and her teammates have to maintain stamina and strength.

Out of all of the sports Hamilton has played, she believes cheerleading requires the most trust between team members.

“I don’t think cheerleading is any different than other sports teams in the sense that we all have responsibilities, trust, sportsmanship, honesty, integrity and other values that create a winning, positive team… those are the values we all share,” she said.

Hamilton’s team extends beyond the cheer and dance squad. A network of alumni from the Pacific Islands first connected her with EOU.

“I saw I could get the same degree with the same authenticity here as opposed to
at another university,” Hamilton said. “I also wanted to experience all four seasons. I was
amazed by the snow.”

Winter weather was another phenomenon she’d only seen on-screen before Hamiltonarrived in Eastern Oregon. With plans to offer marketing services or start her own business in the islands, Hamilton has learned to keep one foot dancing in each culture.

Almost 50 years after he set the record for most runs in a season, Steve Carter, ’06, is leading his Mountaineer teammates once again.

Carter established the EOU baseball program’s first endowed scholarship earlier this year. Now, he’s encouraging fellow alumni to step up to the proverbial plate.

After transferring to EOU in 1970 and scoring a record 33 runs, Carter was drafted to fight in Vietnam, where he flew 76 combat missions as a helicopter door gunner. He returned to EOU for the 1972 season, batting .368 over his two years at EOU and earning all-league, all-district, all-regional tournament, and 2nd team All-West Coast awards. Carter started a career in real estate before finishing his degree.

But when they reunited for Homecoming in 2006, a group of his peers escorted Carter to the Registrar’s Office to complete a final writing requirement. The team was being inducted into the EOU Hall of Fame, and he decided it was time to be a graduate, as well as an alumnus.

The only one out of five siblings who attended college, Carter credits his baseball scholarships with his career success.

“If it hadn’t been for baseball, it wouldn’t have happened,” he said. “When I was going there, I was church-mouse poor. You get to a point in your life where you reflect a little bit, and I decided I wanted to give back to get baseball rocking and rolling again.”

The scholarship will support baseball recruits, in hopes that their time at EOU becomes the same launchpad it was for Carter. He challenged his teammates to think of their cherished memories, and do their part to create the same opportunities for future Mountaineers. In addition to scholarships, the revitalized program has already begun fundraising for additional support.

“If everybody who played for Coach Howard Fetz gave to that fund, that’s going to make a dent,” he said. “Even if it’s a few hundred dollars, we have strength in numbers.”

To learn more about scholarships and giving to the baseball program, visit or call 541-962-3740 today!

Meet Head Baseball Coach Mike McInerney

EOU baseball is set to return under , who spent the past eight years as Associate Head Baseball Coach at Western Oregon University in
Monmouth.

At WOU, McInerney enjoyed great success as a pitching coach. In 2019, the team had four draft picks and one professional signing, the most of any school in NCAA Division II.

“I am really excited about the opportunity to be at EOU and to restart a historic baseball program,” McInerney said. “My family and I are enthused to join this great university and community, and I
can’t wait to get started.”

Work began immediately for McInerney, who already started getting his first signings for the program, while adding to his coaching staff as he prepares for the 2021 season.

Head Women’s Lacrosse Coach Monica Plut announced the team’s first-ever signing with Sydney Shaughnessy of Meridian High School in February.

“Sydney is a great asset to our school, team and athletic program,” Plut said. “She is always one of the hardest workers in the room, very dedicated, and has such passion for our sport. She is excited about helping to build a legacy at EOU and for our team.”

Shaughnessy became the after an outstanding high school career. At Meridian last year, she posted 49 goals and six assists as a midfielder.

“If I were starting a college program, I would want to have a team of players like Sydney Shaughnessy coming onboard,” said Tom Welsh, Meridian High School head girls’ lacrosse coach.

“She is a great athlete, student and most importantly, a great teammate. I have no doubt that her work ethic, positive attitude and infectious personality will help Coach Plut build a first-class program at EOU.”

Shaughnessy is the first player from Meridian High School lacrosse to sign with a collegiate program. She will also be the first person in her family to attend college when she starts at EOU in the fall.

“Ever since I was a kid, my family has always told me to follow my dreams and that nothing can stop me if I put in the hard work and dedication,” Shaughnessy said. “EOU felt like that second family, guiding me to my dreams that just became reality.”

The signing marks the first steps for the EOU women’s lacrosse program as it continues to build toward the 2021 season.

Meet Head Lacrosse Coach Monica Plut

Monica Plut became EOU’s earlier this year. She led the women’s lacrosse program at Adams State University, a NCAA Division II school in Colorado, most recently.

Plut started her coaching career in 2014 in Chicago, then coached the state runner-up in 2017. The next year, Plut led her team to the league semifinals and earned a No. 1 spot in the East District.

“Between athletics and academics, EOU has so much to offer for student-athletes,” Plut said. “The coaches and sport programs at Eastern have a strong culture and passion for success, both on the field and in the classroom. I’m excited to join that culture and build upon it with a new sport.”

She started playing lacrosse at 11, and has organized clinics, camps and a travel team to grow the sport. Plut has plans to establish middle and high school lacrosse teams in the area that will eventually bring lacrosse players to campus.

All across the American West, buildings are shuttered as rural economies struggle and box stores challenge downtown businesses. An entrepreneurial EOU alumnus and his friends found a way for one Pacific Northwest town to come back to life.

From the time he was a teenager Ed Marquand, ’73, was drawn to rural life. The back-to-the-land movement of the late ’60s and early ’70s prompted him to seek a small, remote college. In 1970 he packed up his VW bus and drove to La Grande to study . He said he appreciated the small class sizes and approachability of the professors.

“Not only were they great instructors, but great friends,” Marquand said.

An art career took him back to Los Angeles where he worked in graphic art and advertising, taught classes through UCLA’s extension program and studied photography. In 1978 he moved to Seattle to start a graphic design and photography business, and made his home in the city’s downtown.

His business specializes in publishing art exhibition catalogs for museums, and it grew to putting out 50 titles a year and employing 10 people, alongside what Marquand called “a small army of freelance editors, designers and production people.”

In the late 1990s Marquand and his partner, Seattle attorney Michael Longyear, decided they needed a weekend getaway and bought land 15 miles from the small town of Tieton in the Yakima Valley. The couple built a rustic 20-by-20-foot cabin from which they could hike or bike to their hearts’ content just 2.5 hours from Seattle.

While repairing punctures in his bike tires in the Tieton downtown square one afternoon in 2005, Marquand said he spent the day noticing the town’s empty storefronts and started dreaming about what could be done with so much abandoned real estate.

Along with friends from Portland and Seattle, Marquand and Longyear bought eight buildings that had been empty for at least 10 years. The first building remodeled was an old fruit transit warehouse. One of their key collaborators is Kerry Quint, ’70, who Marquand met in his first class, on his first day at EOU.

While the fruit industry is exploding in the Yakima Valley, Marquand said the old warehouses in Tieton were replaced by larger, state-of-the-art facilities.

“There are many many successful orchards in the area, but that does not translate into success for the little town itself,” Marquand said. “The money is not supporting the town, it
goes to the investors and money managers.”

Marquand’s approach and business model were different: refurbish existing buildings and put people to work binding and printing handmade art books. The high level work done in the Tieton publishing studio produces limited edition books published for the likes of the

The venture, which he named , has grown to include hospitality, retail, production, a typographic mosaic studio, art exhibitions and event businesses. Marquand said it employs about 15 people from the community, who have become an essential part of the operation. Marquand now spends most of his time in a converted loft in one of the buildings, overseeing his businesses when he isn’t in Seattle or traveling around the country visiting museum clients.

He said besides the handmade art books, half of the products sold at his Paper Hammer shop in Seattle, are made in Tieton. He calls the business model, “Hands across the Cascades.” The low overhead that houses his large printing equipment makes it affordable and the labor pool for this kind of work is more available in rural Washington.

“One thing about Seattle, if you hire a hipster who wants to be a bookbinder, he could be gone in six months,” Marquand said. “We need someone to do it for 10 years, which is so, so difficult to find in Seattle and relatively easy to find here.”

Marquand and his cohorts didn’t start out to become agents of rural revitalization, but that’s what’s happening.

“These aren’t skills we ever picked up in a studio, but they still tap into our creative imaginations,” Marquand said. “So maybe they aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Two decades ago, Ginger Savage, ’99, lulled her sons to sleep with passages from her economics textbook.

“Kids don’t care what story you read to them at night,” she said. “I woke up with my cheek stuck to the page when I’d fallen asleep. The professor that term gave me an additional quarter to finish because my youngest son had been so incredibly ill.”

Savage was one of the first students, who mailed essays and assignments before the internet provided virtual classrooms and live chats. Her sons were under the bleachers avoiding sunburn when she walked across the stage in 1991. A short 18 years later she watched her son Lee receive his diploma from EOU, too.

Her business background coincided with her commitment to volunteerism in 2008, when the hired her as its Executive Director and first full-time employee. The nonprofit had spent the last six years raising $1.6 million to renovate its historic home in the Carnegie Library.

Founded in 1963, the art center moved into the library in 1971, but left 12 years later when it became impossible to heat. The city owned the vacant building, but it needed significant restoration. The Crossroads Art Center Board agreed to a 99-year lease at $1 per year, and initiated a fundraising campaign.

“Day one I was overwhelmed,” Savage said. “They had just renovated this long-term home, and it was going to take a lot of work to keep it going. I didn’t have an art background, but I had a business
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The nonprofit has grown to include five employees and a committed group of board members. It’s also seen explosive growth in the Baker County arts community.

“We had a great arts scene when I started 12 years ago, but it is remarkable what we have now in Eastern Oregon,” Savage said.

She works alongside artists who have left cost-prohibitive urban living to establish a tight-knit community in Baker City.

“I try not to be offended when people are surprised at the volume of arts and culture in Baker County,” Savage said. “We’re probably always going to have a big chunk of our economy that is agriculture, but art and ag are not in competition.”

But her real motivator for leading the art center is an inherited sense of civic duty. Savage won the 2016 Peggi Timm Civic Leadership Award that Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative awards to a woman in a different county each year for significant contributions to their community.

“I came from a family of people who were always the doers in the community,” she said.

The Crossroads Carnegie Art Center, through Savage’s leadership, inspires children and adults through art classes, workshops, exhibits and mentorships.

“By giving kids an opportunity to be creative through dance, voice, theatre or painting, you see that transformation,” Savage said. “You see senior citizens engaged in the center, you see people with dis-
abilities being engaged with what we do.”

From juggling the busy life of parenthood and distance education, to directing a 501(c)3, Savage has created a welcoming place where people meet and the arts speak.

Being an accountant in Guam, St. Lucia or the Marshall Islands has its perks. Lonny Watne, ’94, said his favorite was St. Lucia in the Caribbean.

These days, he’s the controller at in Newberg, the jewel of Oregon Wine Country.

Watne has traveled the world bringing hotels and resorts back from the brink of bankruptcy. He enrolled at EOU in 1975, but left before he had completed a degree. His career started in Heppner as a cashier and loan officer.

Eventually, though, he realized he’d need to complete his degree in order to move up the ladder. His return to campus as a non-traditional student gave Watne a different perspective.

“I was the Lecture Committee Coordinator, and I was working in the student activities office,” he said. “As a non-traditional student I got to know professors by their first names.”

Diploma in hand, he moved to Portland for a job fixing accounting issues within a bank.

“I got on an airplane Monday morning and got off of it Friday night,” Watne said. “The first project was in their payroll department where they hadn’t reconciled their accounts, then the credit card processing team, then the automated banking transfers department — project, after project, after project.”

The experience prepared him to enter the world of hospitality. He started at the Governor Hotel in Portland as an accountant, then went on to Saipan at the Pacific Islands Club. He fixed their problems in a year, then went to Outrigger Resort in Guam for 18 months. He was a controller on Majuro in the Marshall Islands, and turned that property around. Then he moved to St. Lucia to fix a budgeting problem there.

“I’m not an accountant or a CPA, but I love building budgets and helping others make better decisions,” Watne said.

In 2003 he moved back to Oregon, and started working at the Inn at Cape Kiwanda in 2005. After a few years, though, he moved to Virginia to manage a small hotel. Then Watne went to Santa Fe and helped a hotel try to outrun the Great Recession. He spent a while in California, but got burned out on long hours in the resort business and the San Francisco traffic. So he started working in country clubs like and .

Until about a year ago, when he moved back to his home state to work in one of Oregon’s best luxury resorts. The Allison Inn and Spa has established itself as a center of wine culture in Yamhill County. The resort hosts festivals, and is intertwined with an industry that its guests are passionate about.

And this time, Watne is doing more growth management than damage control.

“Here, I’m maintaining the financial set-up and expanding on it,” he said. “We’re in the process of changing from monthly to daily reporting, so managers have up-to-the-minute data and can make great decisions for tomorrow.”

The sound of several tons of grapes pouring from a truck onto a crush pad is remarkably similar to that of red wine splashing into a glass. 

Both sounds are familiar to Keith Kenison, ’90, and his employees at the winery in Prosser, Washington, where they process about 500 tons of grapes every day during harvest. Kenison is the head winemaker at the facility, which makes all of the reds for Washington’s second largest winery.

Since he started shoveling grape skins out of the bottom of fermenting tanks in 1992, he’s had hands-on experience at every level of .��

“I don’t have a degree in viticulture, but I’ve spent many years at Ste. Michelle Wine Estates University,” he joked.

After five years as a cellar worker, he became a quality assurance technician, and then an enologist in the wine lab. He crafted whites for Columbia Crest for a few years, then 14 Hands selected him when it opened in 2005. 

Now, he oversees almost two dozen employees developing everything from reserves and one-of-a-kind seasonal wines to the No. 1 selling red wine in Portland and Seattle — Hot to Trot Red Blend. 

Through it all, he’s stayed connected to his rural roots. Born and raised in Heppner, Oregon, Kenison studied psychology at EOSC and earned enough scholarships to graduate debt-free.

“I was the first person in my family to get a bachelor’s degree,” he said. “I wondered if it was really worth it sometimes, but I couldn’t have gotten this job without one.”

His practical, customer-first approach means that every decision, from when to pick the fruit to which barrels to bottle together, is made based on taste.

“Numbers and chemistry support our decision-making, but they aren’t driving it,” Kenison said.

In the wine analysis lab, technicians watch the sugar level drop, indicating yeast is growing. They also look for decreasing malic acid, the compound that gives Granny Smith Apples their tartness, as it becomes lactic acid.

14 Hands has 35 wines on the market today and produces about two million cases a year — that’s about 144 million glasses of wine. Quite the expansion from its first run of three varieties and 85,000 cases. 

“I didn’t feel like we could maintain quality with that growth, but the fruit source was developing with and ahead of us,” Kenison said.

The winery is located within sight of the Horse Heaven Hills, in the official . With 300 days of sunshine and well-drained soil, the conditions are ideal for vineyards.

“Eastern Washington is probably the perfect place to grow wine grapes,” he said. “The hot, dry days and cool nights make for a good balance of sugar and acid.” 

All of the vineyards are within an hour-and-a-half of the winery, so Kenison can get the fruit into production quickly when it’s at its peak. 

The nearby hills were once home to wild mustangs, whose power and strength inspired the winery’s name. Kenison said his favorite wines to make, the reserves, are made entirely of grapes from the Horse Heaven Hills and use only traditional winemaking techniques. 

“It’s all barrels instead of steel tanks, with gravity-flow transfers instead of pumping,” he said. “They’re only available at the tasting room here, online and to club members.”

But he’s quick to reiterate that exclusivity does not necessarily translate to quality. He calls 14 Hands “wine for regular people.”

“Wine shouldn’t be mysterious or intimidating, wine is something to enjoy,” Kenison said. “You should drink what you like, if that’s a red with your fish or a white with your Wednesday meatloaf, that’s fine.”

Nonetheless, 14 Hands takes center stage each May at the Kentucky Derby as the event’s official wine sponsor. Kenison has attended the 14 Hands Parade of Horses, and even met the president of Churchill Downs on his three trips to Kentucky. Although its primary market is still the Northwest, the winery has developed a pocket of loyal buyers in Louisville.

Kenison’s winemaker duties extend to traveling for festivals, budgeting for equipment, and even editing the text on wine labels. In the midst of big decisions, he still prioritizes casual wine drinkers and a hands-on approach.

“There are times when I’m standing in the supermarket offering people a taste,” he said. “And there are times I get to participate in our grape-stomping contest. I would’ve won, too, but a truck of fruit came in and I had to get back to work.”

Weddings

Bren Bletscher, currently studying exercise science at EOU, married Alysa Walden on Oct. 12, 2019 in Georgia.

James Mikel “Jimmy” Roeder, ’12, is engaged to marry Precelia Joann “Pressy” Clay on Aug. 22, 2020 in Milton-Freewater.

Births

Nick Toreson, ’11, and wife Sara welcomed William Theodore Toreson on April 2, 2020.

Accomplishments

Hermiston School District named Tammy Fisher, ’07, its 2020 Educator of the year.

Eddy Ramos, ’18, was hired to teach business and Spanish in Stanfield School District.

Glenda Hyde, ’04, received the Distinguished Service Award from the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences for her work serving Crook, Deschutes, Jefferson and Wheeler counties with food safety and preservation programs, nutrition education and safety, and accidental injury prevention classes.

Rebecca Colton, ’09, defended her thesis in the College Student Services Administration program at Oregon State University on March 13. As a first- generation, non-traditional student, Becca credited EOU with empowering her to expand her goals and become an advocate for impoverished rural students.

The Vale Alumni Association inducted Don M. Wayne, ’72, into its Hall of Fame for his 41-year coaching career in the school district.

Jon Dunaway, ’12, is using his Fire Services Administration degree as the new Fire Marshall in Longview, Wash. He was sworn in on Oct. 30, 2019.

Cory Dunn, ’10, joined Alliant’s Employee Benefits Group as Assistant Vice President
this fall.

Obituaries

EOU Distinguished Alumnus Vern Ellis Bean passed away on Oct. 28, 2019 in Walkersville, Maryland at the age of 82.

Bean attended EOU, and earned a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and doctorate in physics from Brigham Young University. 

He had a notable career as a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he worked with scientists from around the world. NIST awarded him the US Department of Commerce Bronze Medal for his work in high pressure physics.

In 1961, he married Carol Allred, whom he met while both were serving as missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Australia. Vern’s job offered numerous opportunities to travel, and Carol frequently accompanied him. 

Vern was predeceased by his wife, parents and siblings. He is survived by four children, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandsons. 

Faculty and Friends

Dr. April J. Plummer

Alumni

1930s

Marjarie L. Jarvis, ’37

1950s

Ruby A. Rohde, ’54

Elizabeth M. Rouse, ’55

Patricia Jenkins, ’57

D. LaVern Partlow, ‘57

Delbert J. Sams, ’58

1960s

George Fenton, ’60

Denny G. Evans, ’67

Loren L. Fihn, ’67

1970s

Beverly A. Ledridge, ’70

Henry W. Thew, ’70

Keith Maddox, ’71 

Gregory W. Royal, ‘72

Joseph M. Yraguen, ’72

Donna R. Patterson, ’73

Dorothy T. Wooters, ’73

Rodney C. Feik, ’74

Marla Kay Rodgers Van Cleave, ’79 

1980s

Martin M. Owens, ’82

1990s

Daniel E. Walchli, ’90

Martha E. Sheetz, ’95

Michelle M. McCoy, ’94

2000s and 2010s

John D. Dick, ’0

Pamela A. Sundean, ’13

The Banner Bank Track debuted this spring, marking the first sponsor-named facility on campus. 

For years, has appeared on signs and sponsor lists throughout EOU athletics, but as of this spring the company has taken it to the next level. The company agreed to a $100,000 sponsorship spread out over the next 10 years.��

Banner Bank Senior Vice President Ryan Hildebrandt said the new partnership is mutually beneficial.

“We’ve been in discussion with the team at Eastern for more than a year, developing this sponsorship — it is a great win-win for both organizations,” Hildebrandt said.

Founded in Walla Walla 130 years ago, Banner Bank has grown to be one of the largest banks headquartered in the Pacific Northwest. 

“We’re active in the communities we serve because connecting — with our clients, one another and the community — is a core value at Banner Bank,” Hildebrandt said. “Being an active corporate citizen is one way we can support where we all live and work.”

He said projects like this one help rural areas in the state thrive. 

“We are proud to serve Eastern Oregon,” Hildebrandt said. “We understand what makes this region special, and we’re delighted to continue to offer capital to help this region expand and grow.”  

Additional sponsorships and corporate donations support a range of student activities at EOU. Contact University Advancement to learn more about these and other opportunities to invest in Oregon’s Rural University.��