PSU Magazine Spring 2005

ALUM NOTES Stephan Cragg EdD retired in June from full-Lime Leaching after 34 years at the community col– lege level. He cominues LO Leach online for Shasta College from his Web page, ww,v.craggs– castle.com . He and his wife, Dolores, live in Casa Grande, Arizona. He writes, "We cominue Lo watch the progress of PSU as a leading urban university." Kimberly Fischer is a human resources assisram with Electra Cemral Credit Union in Portland . Curran Mohney is an engineer– ing geology program leader with the Oregon Depanment of Transportation in Salem. Derek Hostetler is beginning a three-year assignment in Mexico through Mennonite Central Commiuee. He will work as a water technician promoter. Kathy Hardie-Williams MEd '95 is a reading specialist with the Oregon City School District. Steve Meulemans is a claims manager with State Farm Insur– ance, where he has worked since 199 1. He is responsible for managing a claims team for nonh and nonheast Oregon. He and his wife, Julie, live in Tualatin. Diane Sicotte is assistant pro– fessor of sociology at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Derek Kochi is project manager at Riecke Sunnland Kono Archi– tects in Honolulu. Nancy O'Farrell is a claims rep– resemative al Allied Insurance Company in Clackamas. O'Far– rell writes, "l am a single mother with a child who is 13 and about LOemer Tigard High School." Elise Wagner created encauslic painting kits that sold oul al An Media sLOres and on the Web this pasl holiday season. Encaustic is an anciem Egyptia n painting medium that combines molten beeswax, d ry pigment, and organic resin . Wagner con– ducts paiming workshops in her sLUdio and al An Media. She lives in Nonh Ponland and shows locally al Buuers Gallery. Patricia "Trish" Hamilton MBA was recemly named direcLOr of developmem and external rela– tions fo r Ponland Slate's College of Urban and Public Affairs. Hami lton previously worked in the local corporate support offi ce al Oregon Public Broadcasting. Casey McGinnis is a PhD can– didate in philosophy al Uni ver– si ty of Minnesota and an oLOlogist at Cy.corp, an artificial imelligence company in Austin, Texas. Crystin Orser is a Portland– based singer and songwriter who goes by the stage name of Crystin Byrd . Her debut CD album, tilled My Silence, will be released in 2005. Christian Poppeliers MS is an assislalll pro fesso r of geophysics in the departmem of physics at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. Kimber Dahlquist MSW '99 is the first college coordinator with the l Have A Dream Foundation, Oregon. The Foundation helps children from low-income com– munities graduate from high school and prepare for advanced study or employment. Dahlquist is responsible for tracking scholarships, financial aid assis– tance, and academic progress, as well as providing support and encouragemem for five Oregon Dreamers curremly in college. Creating living history for a new museum W ITHOUT TERESA NEVA TATE '94, MA '97, the an and facts behind the Our Peoples exhibit al the new National Museum of the American Indian wou ld be lost on most visitors. For almost six yea rs, Tate helped collect and organize the exhibit's artifacts for the museum's opening in September. Our Peoples is one of three permanent exhibits at the Washington , D.C., museum, and gives Indians from No rth and South America a forum to convey– in their own words-their tribal histo ries. The exhibit mainly encompasses the last 500 years and uses many videotaped interviews wi.th present-day tribe mem– bers to tell the history of Indian culture, government , industry, and war. A self-proclaimed people person , Tate loved traveling to vil lages in Mexico, Oklahoma, and Arizona to interview tribe members for the museum. "So many people thin k that history is about the past," she says. "But what I worked on was living history." Tate, 36, left Portland for Washington, D. C., in 1999 with fond memories of managing the Ponl and State's Littman and White Galleries and volunteering at the Portland An 24 PSU MAGAZINE SPRING 2005 Museum, Oregon Historical Society, and the Children'.s Cultural Museum. She had to head east, she said, to advance her career. Being the exhibit's lead researcher was sometimes daunting, but Tate says her PSU edu– cati on in art and history gave her the intellectual too ls to succeed. "It really did prepare me for doing research and fo r synthesizing my find– ings into reports," she says. "My expe– rience at P U was definitely helpful. " Tate now helps verify, co rrect, and update database informati on on the museum's vast 800,000-piece collec– tion. In the fall, she plans to enroll in an art history doctoral program in the Washington, D.C., area. Her goa l is to teach Native American and Latin American art history at a university and also work as a museum curator. She would love to return to Ponland and plans to apply for jobs at both PSU and the Portland Art Museum . "Theres no other place like Portland ," says Tate. "Portland has a certain charm to it that D.C. does not. " - Chris Ehrl ich