A recent Eastern grad is providing a feed for those in need.

More than a third of Eastern undergraduates reported being “food insecure” during the previous academic year. Arick Erechar, ’18, knows we can do more to help. The veteran of the Eastern Cheer Squad is now using his abundant energy to lead a team of student volunteers at the 51¸ŁŔűÉç Food Pantries, a series of drop-in depositories for those in need.

How is food insecurity defined, and how prevalent is it among students at Eastern?

Food insecurity is about not having access to healthy and affordable food. An estimated 36 percent of 51¸ŁŔűÉç students are food insecure.

What are some of the reasons students might struggle to obtain adequate nutrition?

Often it’s a lack of adequate financial support. Other students tell us they don’t know how to budget their money, or how to cook their own nutritious food. Many rely too much on expensive, unhealthy fast food. My sense is that students often don’t know how to start eating better because no one showed them where to begin.

How do 51¸ŁŔűÉç Food Pantries help?

The 51¸ŁŔűÉç Food Pantries help by providing an array of food options for students to choose from. The pantries are always accessible as long as the building is open, which enables students to go when they want.

How did you become involved?

By becoming an AmeriCorps VISTA worker. Helping the community and others has always been a motivation for me, so AmeriCorps was something that I wanted to become a part of — especially since this position enables me to be involved with helping the community that I live in.

Going forward, what can we do to ensure that all of our neighbors — and young people in particular — have permanent access to nutritious food?

Providing support for programs that help alleviate hunger is one of the best things that we as a community can do. Hunger is not a simple problem to fix. It takes time, but it can be accomplished if we all work together to make it happen.

What about you personally? What are your plans after your service is completed?

After my service is done, I plan on either getting my teaching certificate or master’s degree in education so that I can teach at a public school. My goal is to one day become the superintendent of a school district in Washington.

Want to help? Nonperishable, shelf-stable food items, toiletries and, especially, personal hygiene products are always needed. Call 509.359.6255 or email communityengagement@ewu.edu for more information.

51¸ŁŔűÉç students shine in theatre arts competition.

Each year the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts encourages thousands of student theatrical artists to present their best work in eight regional competitions. Those who emerge on top – a mere 125 in all — win an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C. to participate in the center’s America College Theater National Festival.

Eastern students have long distinguished themselves in the Region VII competition. Last year, for example, three 51¸ŁŔűÉç undergraduates advanced to the final round of the Irene Ryan acting competition. One of those students, Varinique Davis (BA, Theater ’18) performed so well that she was awarded a Lin Manuel Miranda scholarship to travel to Puerto Rico with the cast of the Broadway smash “Hamilton.” A fourth 51¸ŁŔűÉç student, Hazel Bean, won the Mark Twain comedy award.

At this year’s regional event, held in February at the University of Oregon in Eugene, two additional 51¸ŁŔűÉç students, MJ “Maddy” Daly and Lysbeth Neel, each won their respective competitions: Daly the “Musical Theatre Scholarship Audition” and Neel the prize for stage management. In April, both represented the university at the national competition, where they joined in master classes at the Kennedy Center, visited with the professional cast and crew of D.C.’s theatrical landmarks, and networked with their talented peers from across the nation.

George William Lotzenhiser, PhD, a long-time Eastern faculty member and administrator who played a key role in the academic restructuring of the institution, passed away January 26 in Spokane. He was 95.

Professor Lotzenhiser was an 51¸ŁŔűÉç alumnus, a former dean of the university’s Division (College) of Fine Arts, and a veteran of World War II. An accomplished musician and music teacher, he is also credited with composing the words and music for both Eastern’s fight song, “Go, Eagles, Go,” and “All Hail to Eastern Washington,” 51¸ŁŔűÉç’s Alma Mater.

The Spokane native was active on campus during his undergraduate years, serving as president of the Associated Students, student director of the marching band and assistant director of the orchestra.

Although Lotzenhiser’s education was interrupted by his wartime service in the U.S. Navy, he graduated in 1947 from 51¸ŁŔűÉç, then known as Eastern Washington College of Education, with both a bachelor’s degree in education and a Bachelor of Arts in music. He would go on to earn a master’s degree in music education at the University of Michigan, and a doctorate in education at the University of Oregon.

In 1960, after he had served 12 years on the music faculty at the University of Arizona, 51¸ŁŔűÉç asked Lotzenhiser to return to the Cheney campus to lead the music department. He accepted and quickly rose up the administrative ranks, eventually serving as the first dean of the university’s newly formed School of Fine Arts, a position he held until his retirement in 1983.

During his time on campus, he witnessed the dramatic transformation of the institution to Eastern Washington State College in 1961 and to 51¸ŁŔűÉç in 1977. In 1981, Lotzenhiser received the Distinguished Alumni Award. After his retirement he was named Dean of the School of Fine Arts, emeritus, with the official observance of his status being part of the June 1983 commencement.

While pursuing his academic career, Lotzenhiser continued his military service as a U.S. Navy Reserve officer, including two years of active duty as a lieutenant commander in the early 1950s. He eventually retired after attaining the rank of Rear Admiral.

Military service also played a prominent role in his personal life. While playing trombone for a Navy dance band during WWII, Lotzenhiser, then still an enlisted man, met and fell in love with B. Kathryn Tuttle, a Navy WAVE petty officer. They married in 1944.

“BK” as Lotzenhiser affectionately referred to her, played a leadership role in many important civic organizations, and was responsible for founding the Women of Achievement Luncheon fundraiser for the Spokane YWCA. She preceded him in death in 2006.

The couple are survived by a son, Jon Call Lotzenhiser of Walnut Creek, Calif., and a granddaughter. Their eldest son, William D. Lotzenhiser, died in 1991.

Visit our website to learn more about how Lotzenhiser composed All Hail to Eastern Washington, as well as details about a 2016 Honor Flight that honored him and other veterans in Washington, D.C.

Charles V. Mutschler, interim dean of 51¸ŁŔűÉç Libraries, was a beloved archivist and historian.

He was an Eastern person through and through. He graduated from Eastern. He worked at Eastern. He lived its history and enjoyed every minute of it. Perhaps no one knew more, or cared more, about the university’s legacy than Charles V. Mutschler, PhD, who died in an auto accident on March 11. He was 63.

Charlie, as his friends and colleagues fondly referred to him, was polite, helpful, genuine and unique. “A kind soul,” is a common descriptor. Here in Eastern’s Office of Marketing and Communication, publisher of this magazine, he often worked with us to make sure we got our facts straight when writing about bygone professors, past administrators, important anniversaries and historical buildings.

Most recently, Mutschler served as a professor of history and the interim dean of 51¸ŁŔűÉç Libraries. A true historian, he loved the library, and his main role as university archivist only fueled his passion.

“I’m going to miss my friend,” said Library Faculty Chair Justin Otto as he paid tribute to Mutschler while speaking to television reporters on the Cheney campus. “He believed in Eastern. He was proud of Eastern. So I think the way we can honor him is by continuing to be a good library that supports Eastern’s students.”

Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mutschler came to 51¸ŁŔűÉç as a freshman in 1973 earning a bachelor’s degree in history four years later. Later he completed two master of arts degrees. The first, also in history, was from Eastern in 1981. A second, in archives and records management, was from Western Washington University. He added a doctorate in history from Washington State University in 1999.

Mutschler began his Eastern career in 1978. He was promoted to archival assistant in the 51¸ŁŔűÉç and the Washington State Archives in 1983, and became University Archivist in 2001. In 2012 he achieved the rank of professor.

Jay Rea, University Archivist Emeritus, mentored and encouraged Mutschler as he pursued his education and training. “When he set out to do something, he did it well. He’s that kind of person,” says Rae.

On campus, Mutschler worked tirelessly to make better use of digital technology so that students, faculty and staff might have greater access to publications and materials. He told stories, shared history, led walking tours of 51¸ŁŔűÉç’s historic district, listened to the concerns of students and just made people smile.

Off campus, Mutschler served as chair of the Cheney Historic Preservation Commission, and was widely known and respected for his deep knowledge of, and love for, all things related to railroads, including railroad history, photography and modeling. He was also active at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Cheney, where he often used his snow blower to clear walkways after a storm.

Outnumbered but undaunted, a dedicated alumnus makes memories at the FCS National Championship game.

By Bart Mihailovich

They say that fear brings people together. Not that I was ever fearful in the sense of being terrified, but it was certainly jarring — and a little unsettling — to stumble into a swirling sea of Bison fans. I do not exaggerate when I tell you there was neither a familiar face, nor a hint of Eagle red, anywhere to be seen in this sea of Bison green and yellow.

That’s what it was like on a cool January morning in Frisco, Texas, just outside of Toyota Stadium, two hours before the kickoff of the FCS National Championship between my beloved Eastern Eagles and the North Dakota State University Bison.

Task one: find friendly faces at the Eagle tailgate. An attempt to triage an onslaught of texts and DMs lead us to where we thought the unofficial pocket of Eag faithful were hanging out. We were wrong. Or were we? Could our tailgate have been overwhelmed by the mass of NDSU fans filling the stadium’s concourse?

Not likely, I thought. I had been paying attention to the Eagle message board and social media channels. I knew Eagle boosters had descended on Frisco. At that moment, however, I briefly second-guessed whether anyone had actually shown up — outside, at least, of the trio of my traveling companions: my wife, Sara ’07, and friends and fellow alumni Rich Dempsey ’05 and Daren Bosted ’06.

That’s when we were plucked out of the crowd by friendly faces who happened to be passing by. “You look lost,” they said. “Eagles fans? That’s the other side!” And so, like thirsty sojourners being steered toward an oasis in the desert, we circled the stadium until we were at last united with our people. And it was glorious.

Eagle fans did show up, my friends, and then some. And while our legion of red and white may not have equaled our rivals in number, I can confidently report that it far surpassed them in enthusiasm.

Between the brats and burgers there was much catching up to do. Having been part of the 51¸ŁŔűÉç community for many years, I am fortunate to have been able to nurture relationships that stretch beyond those with whom I went to classes. As a student, I spent much of my free time working with University Special Events, an organization that allowed me to meet and build lasting relationships with faculty members, deans, administrators and other personalities at the university. I felt like I saw them all in Frisco. Writing for The Easterner and interning for the Athletics Department also allowed me to meet many more 51¸ŁŔűÉç stalwarts; many of these old friends were also in Frisco. Finally, I spent six years serving on the 51¸ŁŔűÉç Alumni Association Board of Directors. You will perhaps not be surprised when I tell you that just about everyone I served with made an appearance. The FCS Championship was not just a football game: it was a reunion of epic proportions.

A little after kickoff, I felt something bounce off the back of my head. I turned around and saw Nadine Arévalo laughing, waving and yelling, “hi!” Eastern’s former first lady and her husband, President Emeritus Rodolfo Arévalo, were a few rows behind us. Seeing their smiling faces brought back a flood of memories from some of our favorite times in and around campus. Sara and I both worked University Special Events, and while there we got really close to the Arévalos — heck, we even invited them to our wedding.

When you choose a university to attend, you hope you’re doing more than signing up for an education; you anticipate becoming part a community, and making memories that will last a lifetime. I’m not saying a single event can or should define the success or failure of that proposition. But when it took me 20 minutes to make a bathroom run, all because I ran into so many people from so many different chapters of my 51¸ŁŔűÉç life, I felt like calling my parents to thank them again for helping me get to Eastern.

Looking back, I can’t believe there was a time in November when Sara and I debated making the trip. Like a lot of you I’m sure, after every playoff victory we went through the whole song and dance of asking ourselves, “If they keep winning, will we go? Should we go? Let’s just look at plane tickets now just to see how much it would be. Let’s talk to the grandparents and see if maybe they are free that weekend to watch the kids — just in case.”

And then, as soon as the Maine Bears were dispatched, there was no debate. We were going. Our Eags were going, so we were going. There are some experiences you just can’t miss. You do them whether you think you can or not. You do them when it means stretching the budget. You do them when it means taking that extra day off. I went to Frisco in 2011 when we beat the University of Delaware for our first FCS National Championship. So I tried to frame planning for this trip through the lens of that one. But besides the eight years which have crept by, there have been some major advancements in the world of 51¸ŁŔűÉç football, and campus life, that would make this trip unique.

At the most basic level, there are more of us fans now. We’ve had a decade’s worth of alumni classes who only know winning 51¸ŁŔűÉç Football. And not just winning, but dominance. Behind only NDSU, Eastern is the second most dominant FCS college football team of the last dozen years. With winning comes fanbase growth, as is evidenced by the Eags’ regular season home sellout streak, the explosion of pregame fanfare and the immensely increased exposure of 51¸ŁŔűÉç in the media.

This luxury of sustained success can sometimes breed a complacency that was unthinkable in 2011. “We’re actually not going to go this year because it’s bad timing for us, but we’ll head down next time they make it — probably next year.” That was a real conversation I had with an alum before heading to Frisco. Back during our first championship game experience, I remember thinking I had to go out of fear that it may never happen again.

Another change between 2011 and 2019 involves social media and email marketing. In advance of our trip, I knew almost everyone who was going and every possible pre- and post-game plan — this thanks to the university’s many social media channels and the digitization of the support system around 51¸ŁŔűÉç Athletics. In both the real and virtual worlds, it is really a great time to be an Eagle.

The flip side of these advances is a sense of “ownership” of winning. So even while knowing we were going up against a dominant, dynasty of a program, I don’t think I’m in the minority when I say I traveled to Frisco expecting a win. In 2011, it was just about being there. In 2019, it was about winning.

And then we lost. Not in epic fashion, not a loss that felt like it should have been a victory. Just a game in which the other team played a little better and got a few more breaks. Looking back, our defeat felt kind of weird. Almost anticlimactic.

Which made what happened next interesting. Everyone from the 51¸ŁŔűÉç section made their way down to the field and over to the Eastern sideline. Just twenty or so yards away, in the end zone, the NDSU faithful were celebrating their seventh championship in eight years. As it was in the pregame, by the same margin, we were a group of red surrounded by a sea of green and yellow. But it didn’t feel like we were outnumbered.

We walked around the sideline and thanked players and coaches. Old roommates and teammates took pictures, hugged and high fived. Even though their emotions were running high, as you would expect, the team and their coaches stuck around to interact with the traveling community of 51¸ŁŔűÉç fans. It was a surreal experience as we blocked out the on-field trophy presentation happening just a few steps away and simply enjoy the fact that a university and its football program could bring so many people into the Texas sunshine.

For us, the experience kept on giving as we made our way 40 miles south to an NFL playoff game scheduled between the hometown Dallas Cowboys and another beloved Washington team, the Seattle Seahawks. It was pretty evident from on-the-field conversations that a majority of 51¸ŁŔűÉç fans were heading down to complete the daily football doubleheader.

Though I’m not really an NFL fan, I couldn’t pass up the chance to join them. Walking through the labyrinth of AT&T Stadium wearing the same 51¸ŁŔűÉç gear I wore in Frisco felt like a badge of honor; especially when other 51¸ŁŔűÉç fans would shout, “Go Eags” (or even when NDSU fans would stop to talk about the game).

I don’t know how much different the experience would have been had we been able to pull out the victory. But I do know that I’m glad we didn’t talk ourselves out of going, and I can’t wait until we can go back again. Frisco is a great venue for the game; a beautiful stadium with great amenities that fully delivers on the unique qualities that make FCS football so special.

I’m also incredibly proud of our fanbase and community. These are the people who make the alumni game day experience what it’s really all about: a celebration of our collective college memories, and an affirmation of the bonds of friendship that run deeper than any one game or season.

I’ll close with just one more thought. Back in 2001, the student section at Woodward Field was on the opposite side of its current location at Roos Field. Attending my first Eagles game as a freshman, I remember it was hot, and the few of us who showed up were forced to shield our eyes from a relentlessly bright September sun. No one wore 51¸ŁŔűÉç gear, there was no gameday experience and, really, there just wasn’t much of anything at all to get excited about.

Fast forward to now, 18-years later. Soon another set of freshmen will be gathering beneath the September sun. For them, as for all of 51¸ŁŔűÉç’s alumni and friends, so much has changed: a football team now to be reckoned with, a university growing in reach and prestige, and an increasingly cohesive and enthusiastic Eastern community. All share in the confidence that comes with success; all can bask in the glow of a future has never been brighter. Go Eags!

A recently completed renovation transforms an iconic, if unloved, Eastern edifice.

By Emily Oliver

On a sunny Friday last October, after nearly six years of planning and construction, a crowd of students, faculty and friends gathered beneath the soaring entryway of Eastern’s newest old structure – the rebuilt, refurbished and reimagined Pence Union Building.

“The PUB,” said a smiling 51¸ŁŔűÉç President Mary Cullinan as she cut a ceremonial ribbon, “has been transformed.”

Crowd members nodded in agreement and anticipation. Even from the outside looking in, it was obvious the new PUB was very different than the old: open and gracious, not closed and opaque; welcoming and warm, not citadel-like and icy. Guests at the event remarked on how its blond wood gleamed, how its polished glass glowed with the colors of the sky, how its angled elevations seemed to reach up and out across its clean-scrubbed entry plazas, as if inviting surrounding structures to embrace it.

“It brings everything together,” said one of the new PUB’s architects. “Before, there were two existing buildings that had never quite connected.”

No kidding. By almost all accounts the two merged buildings connected neither with the campus nor the students they were meant to serve. For almost 50 years in fact, the old PUB and its 1990s-era addition stood as an awkward, unappreciated rebuke; a cautionary testimonial, if you will, to the incontrovertible truth that decisions in brick and mortar have especially long-lasting consequences.

The PUB’s story begins around the same time the Ford Motor Company foisted its Pinto upon an unsuspecting car buying public. The date: November, 1970. The place: 51¸ŁŔűÉç’s rapidly expanding Cheney campus. A new, $2.3 million student-union structure was nearing completion, part of a building boom that would see some half-a-dozen new facilities expand and modernize Eastern’s physical footprint. This project, to be named for faculty stalwart Omer Pence, was behind schedule — the planned September opening had been pushed back to sometime “between fall and winter quarters.” Don’t worry, planners said, the building would be worth the wait.

More than just a home for “student activities and food service,” they promised the new union would rise as a modernist monument; a statement in brick and steel to Eastern’s ambitions, to its sense of itself as an institution on the rise.

But from its start, like Ford’s Pinto, the Pence Union Building was not easy to love.

Though not executed in textbook form, PUB designers were heavily influenced by a wave of “Brutalist” architecture that was rolling across the nation’s collegiate landscape. The austere, angular style was named for the béton brut — the “raw concrete” — that period superstars like Le Corbusier made a conspicuous part of their oeuvre.

For administrators on rapidly growing college campuses, the style offered obvious advantages: Brutalist structures were easy to build, relatively inexpensive and, perhaps most importantly, powerful visual demonstrations of the “forward-thinking” nature of their institutions.

Yet instead of becoming what one period architect called “richly expressive citadels for high culture,” Brutalist buildings soon became objects of derision: dark, maze-like, uninviting, ugly, were all common descriptors. At Eastern, students were baffled by the new PUB’s lack of windows, and found its brooding, fortress-like footprint off-putting. They puzzled over why a student union building, a place that, by definition, was meant to bring people together, lacked open, welcoming spaces. They were even confused, apparently, about what to do with their trash.

Within weeks of the PUB’s grand opening, administrators took to the pages of The Easterner to plead with students to use the rubbish receptacles: “There is no way [for custodial staff] to keep up with 6,000 students, nearly 500 coming in during every class break, who drop paper cups, cigarette butts, gum wrappers, and all kinds of trash on the floors, not more than 20 feet from a garbage can,” an exasperated Walt Zabel, director of student activities, told the paper.

What was perhaps most vexing to students was the stark contrast between the new PUB and the SUB, the previous “student union building,” it replaced. That union, now Isle Hall, was a crowded but convivial space. Bill Stimson, ’70, remembers how at home he felt there, and how much Eastern students — perhaps more so than at other universities — valued its friendly confines.

“That was my whole world,” says Stimson, now a professor of journalism at 51¸ŁŔűÉç. “Eastern was a commuter college, even more so back then, so a lot of people hung out at the SUB. It was the perfect connecting place. A student union building really is the heart of education, and the conversations you have about teachers, occasionally about ideas, and the arguments you have are an important part of college. You need that kind of human connection.”

Imperfections notwithstanding, over the years the PUB did, in fact, provide such connections for thousands of Eastern students.

Mark Nysether, ’78, was one of them. “It was my place to go,” says Nysether, a former Beta Kai Epsilon fraternity member who now runs the Everett-based Sea-Dog Corp., a supplier of marine hardware. He says he has particularly fond memories of ping-pong sessions in the PUB’s game room.

Beyond old-school gaming, Nysether, a transfer student from Everett Community College, was keenly focused on the advancement possibilities offered by Eastern, an institution seeking to shed its commuter-college reputation by emphasizing its status as a residential, four-year institution. On the Cheney campus he quickly built a home for himself, becoming active in both the Greek system and student government. He came to care deeply, he says, about the future of the university and its long term well-being.

That interest has continued over the years, and Nysether has leveraged his business success to make donations to various Eastern undertakings. But there was one project in particular that, almost the moment he learned of it, he knew he wanted to be a part of.

“I had donated to causes every couple of years,” says Nysether. “Then, in the spring, I heard they were going to be doing some fundraising for the PUB. I was in.”

Like thousands of other students over the years, the memories Nysether made in the PUB were tempered by the building’s limitations; that lack of light, those cramped spaces, the incoherent “circulation” — a term architects use to describe how people move, or “flow,” from area to area. A major expansion in 1994, meant to expand student dining options, added a second, less-forbidding-looking building to the mix. But that structure did little to broaden the PUB’s appeal. The two buildings were joined haphazardly, creating a structural muddle that mostly accentuated the liabilities of both.

Finally, as the PUB approached its 50th birthday, 51¸ŁŔűÉç students, administrators and alumni donors like Nysether all found themselves of one mind; it was time to de-Brutalize the PUB.

The push began almost six years ago. 51¸ŁŔűÉç administrators first engaged Perkins+Will, a Chicago-based architectural firm with offices in Seattle, to radically rethink the PUB’s look and feel. The Perkins+Will plan was then pitched to 51¸ŁŔűÉç students, who, by voting to increase their student-services fees, would bear the brunt of its estimated $47 million costs. University community engagement professionals, meanwhile, contacted potential donors such as Nysether, asking if they might be willing to pitch in with private support.

By late 2016, the project had approvals and funding in place. In December, the old PUB shut its doors for the last time as Spokane general contractor Leone & Keeble, Inc. — the same firm that led the recent overhaul of Patterson Hall — began work. Their goal, according to a published account from Perkins+Will’s Anthony Gianopoulos, was to upend the Brutalist approach, creating instead “an easy-to-navigate, open-concept layout that is infused with natural light and supports a rich array of spaces in which students can interact, work, eat, study, lounge and socialize.”

Over the next two years, workers made this happen. They created an open floor plan by gutting the walls and ceilings of the old PUB’s 120,000-square-foot interior and adding an additional 4,000-square-feet. They tore out the awkward connection between the original building and its 1970s-era addition, replacing it with a stunning atrium of glass, steel and blond wood.

This soaring, light-infused atrium space is the heart of the new PUB. Envisioned as a multilevel “stairway through campus,” it ties together all three floors of the re-envisioned building, providing access to student-club suites, conference rooms and food service areas. All of these, Gianopoulos says, were purpose-built to be highly visible to passersby, encouraging students, faculty and staff to connect and engage in a way that wasn’t possible in the old building.

On one side of the ground floor, meanwhile, workers built a “modernized multipurpose room” that includes a state-of-the-art stage, sound equipment and acoustical fixtures for music performances and speaking engagements. On the other side they created a new, expanded space for the Eagle Store, one that couldn’t come soon enough for its managers.

“It’s a lot brighter and more open,” says Lynn Junge, the store’s merchandise manager and assistant director. “The whole PUB is now cohesive,” adds Kristen Zitterkopf, the store’s marketing coordinator. “It’s easy to navigate and very welcoming.”

Student leaders agree. Designers of the new PUB made a point of providing members of Eastern’s Associated Students with new, glass-walled meeting spaces — rooms meant to allow passing Eagles a chance to see their student government in action.

During the two-year construction period, AS51¸ŁŔűÉç offices were relocated to a spot in Sutton Hall that was seldom visited, says AS51¸ŁŔűÉç President Dante Tyler. With the grand reopening the offices are not only back, but highly visible. “The number of students coming in and talking to us has increased,” Tyler says. “More students [now] know what AS51¸ŁŔűÉç is. And being able to talk to them is great.”

It is exactly this sort of engagement that had Mark Nysether hooked on the project from the beginning. It’s thus not surprising that PUB planners chose to recognize his contributions by dubbing the multipurpose space the Nysether Community Room, a space suited for similarly meaningful interactions that, perhaps in a slightly ironic way, the Brutalist designers of the original PUB would also have been thrilled to see.

Nysether, for his part, couldn’t be happier about the whole thing. “It’s amazing,” he says after attending the sneak-peek tour last fall. “It’s just a beautiful, well thought out, well-done building.”

Thanks to an intrepid Eastern researcher, an ‘odd organism’ gets its turn in the spotlight.

By Charles E. Reineke

She is a renowned star of stage and screen, a media mogul and philanthropist. It is a previously unidentified “symbiotic organism formed by close cooperation between a fungus and an alga.” Now, thanks in part to an 51¸ŁŔűÉç biologist, that organism—a lichen—and the voluble celebrity—Oprah Winfrey—will be forever linked, at least in the annals of lichenized-fungi taxonomy.

Earlier this year, Jessica Allen, a lichenologist and assistant professor of biology at 51¸ŁŔűÉç, and James Lendemer, an assistant curator at the New York Botanical Garden, found themselves puzzling over an unfamiliar lichen found growing on tree bark in rural Alabama. The leafy, jigsaw-puzzle-like “foliose” lichen, so called because of those leaf-like lobes, didn’t quite fit the characteristics of any known species. Back in the lab, chemical analysis showed a distinct profile, while an examination with ultraviolet light yielded a bright-yellow glow that further confirmed its uniqueness.

When it comes to the few dozen new lichens identified each year, naming rights belong to the discoverers. Because this glowing member of the genus Hypotrachyna was found near Koscuisko, home town to—you guessed it—Oprah, Allen and Lendemer called it “Oprah’s sunshine,” or, as it will be known in the trade, Hypotrachyna oprah.

H. oprah joins the roughly 20,000 lichen species already identified. There are plenty more waiting to be discovered; botanists estimate that only five percent of the world’s fungi have been fully documented.

Researchers such as Allen and Lendemer are determined to lessen that deficit, a task motivated in part by scientists’ growing awareness that lichens, always a crucial environmental player, are now emerging as an important “bio-indicator” of our planet’s overall health.

“Even though they are really small, lichens are actually important pieces of the whole, overarching ecosystem,” says Allen. They are habitats for tiny invertebrates, she says, like water bears, nematodes and small worms. Insects use them for camouflage and for food. Slugs and snails also eat them, as do larger, more charismatic creatures such as deer — who depend on lichens for winter forage — as well as caribou and bighorn sheep that eat them year-round. Because lichens don’t hold water and naturally produce antibiotic and anti-bacterial compounds, numerous bird species use them for nesting materials.”

“As far as humans go,” Allen adds, “most lichens are really sensitive to the same air pollutants that cause health problems, so we use them for large-scale air quality monitoring worldwide.”

This wasn’t the first time Allen and her research partner linked a new lichen to an A-List personality. “James and I named a species after Dolly Parton, I think, three years ago. So this was the second in our series of Southeastern lichen celebrities,” she says with a laugh.

Allen, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Eastern before completing a doctorate at the City University of New York, gets why some might think linking Dolly and Oprah to lichens is simply a ploy to capture the attention of, well, media organizations like this one. But there’s nothing frivolous about it, she says.

“Some people feel really strongly that you should give species’ names that describe what they look like, only in Latin,” says Allen. “Our purpose was to honor two women who have accomplished some incredible things in their lives, women who are really strong philanthropists. It’s also because there are just very few species named after women. We’re honoring them for their work, but also highlighting this gap that we see in our nomenclature.”

Make no mistake, she continues, lichen nomenclature is a serious business. “The name sticks with the organism, basically, forever,” she says. “You can change the genus, change how it’s organized evolutionarily, change how it fits with our overall knowledge of how it and other species are related to one another. But unless someone demonstrates a flaw in the identification, that second name, Oprah, is stuck to it.”

Allen does concede, however, that she and Lendemer aren’t averse to using the glow of celebrity to give lichens a bit of a PR boost. On this score there is much work to be done.

In an otherwise informative webpage, for example, the U.S. Forest Service admits up front that “not many people know what lichens are, and who would? They seem as though they are from another planet!”

Lichens are indeed odd organisms. Neither entirely fungus or algae, they exist in what biologists call a “mutualistic relationship” between the two. Lichens typically consist of a thallus — the vegetative body produced by the fungus — and a photosynthetic agent that feeds it, either algae or cyanobacteria (a bacterium sometimes mistakenly referred to as “blue-green algae”). Unlike plants, they do not have roots, stems or leaves.

Lichens grow very slowly, reproducing in both sexual and non-sexual ways. They need only air and rain to sustain themselves, and, also unlike plants, can shut down completely to survive long-exposures to drought and other extreme conditions.

Lichen-friendly substrates — the surfaces on which lichens grow — can be found all over, from mountain peaks to coastal marshes, from scalding savannahs to freezing tundra. One lichen, Xanthoria elegans, even survived outside the International Space Station. But lichens seem happiest in warm places where there is plenty of water, air, nutrients and light.

The rural Southeast is one of those places, which explains in part why Allen and Lendemer spend so much time trudging through the backyards of southerners like Dolly Parton and Oprah Winfrey.

The discovery of H. oprah happened, for example, while the two scientists were participating in the lichen-collecting workshop near the Alabama/Mississippi border, about 50 miles from Winfrey’s birthplace. The area is a classic biodiversity hotspot, home to astonishing range of plants, animals and, of course, lichens.

“It’s the last tailings of the Appalachian Mountains spilling down into the coastal plain of the Southeast,” says Allen. “Deciduous trees, mixed deciduous forests, really high tree diversity, pretty dense understory. It’s basically, but not quite, subtropical. Really wet, lots of rain. A tropical influence without quite being subtropical.”

Lichen hunts are decidedly low-tech: pinpoint a promising spot and start collecting. “We use wood chisels to pry them off wood, rock chisels to collect on rocks, clippers for lichens on limbs — these things are usually growing on trees, or on rocks or on the soil,” Allen says, noting that she and Lendemer often attract the attention of curious, if standoffish, locals.

“We end up with whole pillow cases stuffed full of lichens – we look crazy, right? Most of the time they will give you a look, but they never say anything.”

The researchers typically don’t discriminate among lichens in the field, instead taking samples from pretty much every species they see. The reason, Allen says, is two-fold. One, it’s easy to mistake one lichen for another. H. oprah, for example, was likely confused with H. osseoalba, another lichen also found in the warm, wet forests of the southeastern U.S.

The other reason involves a more general need to catalog what’s out there. “We’re basically just trying to document the full diversity of species in the area, preserving them so that other scientists can study them for years, even centuries, to come,” says Allen. “We still have specimens from Darwin and earlier, some collections have samples dating back to the 1500s.”

Back out in the field, newly collected lichens are plopped into paper lunch bags, Allen says, “like you’d send with your kid to school.”

The scientists then record the lichens’ location and note their substrate. Eventually, they’ll haul them off to reside with older specimen in an herbarium, a building housing a preserved collection of plants and fungi.

“We have an herbarium here at Eastern actually,” Allen says. “This work was mostly done at the New York Botanical Garden, which is the second-largest herbarium in the world. But here at Eastern we have our own slowly growing collection housed in the Science Building.”

For specimen deserving of extra attention, like the lichen that became H. oprah, a trip to the laboratory is next. Here state-of-the-art tools come into play. Dissecting microscopes and imaging software help scientists produce a detailed description of the lichen’s physical characteristics. Analyses involving exposure to ultraviolet light — part of a process called thin-layer chromatography — helps determine how the lichen’s compounds compare to previously documented species. Sometimes the scientists take tissue for genetic testing. The process, from collecting in the field to preparing their findings for publication, can take months, even years.

Allen says the effort is more than worth it, especially for researchers like her who love both lichens and the challenge they represent. The love part began, she says, back when she was an undergraduate at 51¸ŁŔűÉç, where she became enthralled by lichens’ peculiar attractions.

“I still think they’re beautiful,” she says. “But as a scientist, I like working with lichens because there is just so much we don’t know about them, and so many contributions that, as a researcher, you can make to the field. And it’s great to be here at Eastern, because there is so much that the students can do, as graduate or even undergraduate student researchers, that can substantially contribute to our body of knowledge.”

Allen and Lendemer’s discovery was published in Castanea, the journal of the Southern Appalachian Botanical Society. Oprah was unavailable for comment.

Chris Patterson wasn’t supposed to survive the streets of Spokane. Now he’s helping others stay off them.

By Dave Meany

The words left quite an impression on the young Chris Patterson. They stand out as one of those pivotal life moments many of us look back on as a possible turning point. Only this wasn’t a motivational speech. Things hadn’t really turned. Yet. But the words have stuck with him all these years: “I wouldn’t be too concerned, because Chris isn’t going to live to see 18.”

The year was 1984. The words came from a state social worker tasked with delivering a 13-year-old Patterson to a new foster home in Spokane.

“I think the lowest point is when you start to realize, it’s just you… and you’ve got to figure it out,” Patterson says quietly. “And there is really nobody else there to do the work, and so you’ve really got to get up off your backside and do what you’re supposed to do. Or you’re going to sink.”

On that day Patterson, a self-described “runner,” a street-wise kid who was proud that he never stayed put in a foster home, was doing nothing but sinking: “I wouldn’t be too concerned, Chris isn’t going to live to see 18.”

“It sort of hits you,” he recalls. “I knew that I was hanging around with a lot of the tougher crowd, getting in fights almost every day.” He knew, in short, that the social worker had it right.

Patterson still doesn’t look like the type of guy you’d want to pick a fight with. A full framed, 6-feet, 5-inches tall, he cuts an imposing figure. His office wall is adorned with the mounted head of a wild boar that he shot in California. Dozens of hunting photos and souvenirs add to the tough-guy aura.

But it’s not the whole picture. His workspace also includes a framed drawing from his young daughter, along with a set of her sweetly smiling class photos. There are awards from Leadership Spokane and Rotary International, both signifying Patterson’s deep involvement in the community. There is an image of Patterson standing alongside U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a testament to the broad reach and wide recognition his work has gained. And there is a bright red banner from 51¸ŁŔűÉç, a prominent reminder of the place that helped him to become the man he is today; a person who is, in fact, deeply concerned about each and every youth who may not live to see 18.

Patterson, who recently turned 50, owns BreakThrough, Inc., a state-supported agency that operates 10 residential service homes for children who resemble his former self, at-risk youth from here in the state of Washington, most of them living in the Spokane and Tri-Cities areas.

“We deal with the most intense population that there is in the state,” he says. “A lot of those kids that come to us can’t be returned to a foster home at the time, they have to actually work with their behavior management. Some of these kids can be pretty destructive to their own path, their own future and to themselves as well as maybe other people. They are really, really challenging to work with until you can figure them out, get them stable.”

“I think his past experiences definitely have a huge factor in how he operates the business,” says Marcus Kelsey, BreakThrough’s quality-assurance manager who oversees the Spokane-area programs. “That’s the reason I came to this company. I was drawn.”

Kelsey’s own life experiences are another reason he was likely drawn to BreakThrough. He also grew up in foster care, living in California and Montana before coming to Spokane. And, like Patterson, he also earned a degree from Eastern, studying visual arts. Kelsey’s path took a turn after he befriended a classmate with multiple sclerosis during his freshman year, helping to care for him during their time on campus. This eventually led Kelsey toward helping at-risk populations. “This is kind of natural to me,” he says.

It’s a natural fit for Patterson as well, who says he loves every minute of his challenging vocation. He knows the road these children have traveled. And he believes he knows how to get them on the right path, even if it means working on seemingly small things like table manners and proper hygiene.

“It’s not a one size fits all,” Patterson says. “Every client has his or her own unique way or specific needs, so we develop a plan for each one.”

After Patterson had his revelatory moment at age 13, he gradually began to develop a plan for his own success. College was a big part of that plan. After graduating from Riverside High School north of Spokane, he entered the Job Corps’ forestry program outside Curlew, Washington — a gig that helped him save tuition money by spending long hours working the fire lines at places like Yellowstone National Park.

His first stop after returning home was Spokane Community College, where he earned multiple associate’s degrees while studying fire science, administration of justice and liberal arts. At the urging of a friend, Patterson decided to try a four-year institution. Being from Spokane, he says Eastern was an obvious, and fortuitous, choice. “It definitely opened up other doors that I didn’t have before.”

Although at one time he thought he might try law enforcement, by the time he enrolled at 51¸ŁŔűÉç Patterson knew he wanted to pursue a career that was closer to his heart — social services. He quickly immersed himself in special education classes and still remembers some of the 51¸ŁŔűÉç instructors who pushed him to succeed, especially Ron Martella, then a professor of education, and Martella’s wife, Nancy Marchand-Martella, a professor in the departments of applied psychology and counseling, educational, and developmental psychology.

“I remember him because of his motivation,” says Martella, now a faculty member at Purdue University, where his wife is the Suzi and Dale Gallagher Dean of Education and a professor of special education. During a recent phone conversation, Martella instantly recalled Patterson’s enthusiasm and commitment to learning.

“He was incredibly inquisitive,” Martella says. “He would be one that would come into the office quite a bit to talk about the material and how you apply it. And so he was always wanting to know more than what was going on in the class.”

Martella spent more than 20 years at Eastern teaching special education and behavior management classes, and still takes pride in the program he left behind. He believes proper training is the key to running successful behavior programs like BreakThrough. Martella thinks Patterson learned critical behavior analysis methods at 51¸ŁŔűÉç that are even more relevant to the occupation today.

“You have to have those skills in order to deal with those issues, and he gained those skills in the program,” says Martella.

During the course of the conversation, Martella spoke glowingly of the many former 51¸ŁŔűÉç students, like Patterson, who are making differences in their communities. He says he has kept in touch with Patterson over the years, even doing consulting work for him on a few cases when he first started his work.

Patterson is thankful for what Martella and his wife did for him at Eastern. “I always respected them,” he says. “They were straightforward, to the point. They taught you, they wanted you to learn, and they wanted you to be successful. And it wasn’t just ‘here read the book and have a test.’ We went over laws, we went over WAC’s, we went over RCW’s, we went over everything there was to know about special education law.”

Patterson graduated from 51¸ŁŔűÉç in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies and a minor in childhood educational psychology. The expertise he acquired led to jobs in private group homes for children, as well as work involving special programs for developmentally disabled adults.

“The more severe the client was, the more I enjoyed the job.”

With his 51¸ŁŔűÉç degree in hand, Patterson worked in the industry until he was ready to start his own business helping troubled kids and their families. “I love it,” he says. “I think the biggest challenge, it’s not the kids. We know why the kids are here and we know why we’re supposed to be working with them. It’s just getting the rest of the adults in the room and the professionals and legislators and everyone else to figure it out.”

Martella seems certain Patterson had things sort of figured out during his Eastern days when he talked about running his own program. “This goes back to when he was a student and that’s one of the reasons why he was driven to learn the material so well because he already had a goal, I believe, of doing something like this when he was a student,” Martella says. “So it doesn’t surprise me at all.”

“He always showed a lot of tenacity in classes and when he started his business.”

BreakThrough now holds two contracts with the state. One, for the residential homes, was developed with the Division of Developmental Administration. The other involves work with the Department of Children, Youth and Families. The business employs more than 100 people, including Kelsey, the quality assurance manager.

“He (Chris) has an unorthodox approach, but I think it’s very fitting. He cares about the kids,” Kelsey says. “I’ve worked with other companies, and I think with him there is a little more empathy, compassion, just because he can relate. He’s been on both sides of the fence, if you will.”

With its low youth-to-staff ratio, BreakThrough aims to help their young clients develop critical social skills such as personal accountability, workplace responsibility and appropriate family communications. Many of the children have learning disabilities or serious behavioral issues, so individualized treatment is supplemented with special programs at school and at home. Patterson must also navigate complicated state regulations and codes to ensure it all runs smoothly.

The name BreakThrough came from Patterson’s wife, Dalene, who noticed her husband would come home and talk about how much of his work involved developing the right program to help troubled youth break through barriers.

There are a lot of barriers to break. According to the policy and advocacy group Partners for Our Children, more than 9,200 children in the state of Washington need some type of care —from foster care to group care. In Spokane County, 9.1 children per thousand are in need of care, the highest rate in the state.

These daunting numbers are no deterrent to Patterson, who nevertheless acknowledges his efforts are typically just a first step in a process where success is hard to measure.

“Success is measured for each kid. And it could be an hour at a time, a day at a time or a month at a time,” he says. On a personal level, success can also come from a simple phone call that reminds Patterson he’s giving back to a system he himself was able to navigate and survive.

“I’ve got kids that I worked with 20 years ago that will find a way and they will call me. They call to say ‘hello,’ to see how things are going. And then they say, ‘I’m sorry.’ Their consistent answer is that they’re sorry they didn’t listen. And they appreciate the fact that someone was there to go toe to toe with them at that worst moment — that moment when they were being the worst possible kid — and I didn’t back down and give up on them.”

Maybe that’s why the tattoo on Patterson’s right forearm is so meaningful. It reads “never quit.” It’s one of his favorite sayings, a “life rule” for both for him and the youth he serves. It’s also a reminder that he didn’t quit on himself after hearing those words so many years ago: “I wouldn’t be too concerned, because Chris isn’t going to live to see 18.”