PSU Magazine Winter 2001

ALUM NOTES Karen O'Connor is manager at A lten Sakai & Company in Portland. O'Connor is a certi– fied public accountant and for– merly specialized in systems for small businesses for the agency. H aley Dahlquist is an associate broker with Re/Max Executives in Wilsonville. Brian Gurney is a freelance graphic artist living in Portland. Gurney designed the winning entry for the annual Valley of the Moon Vintage Festival held in Sonoma, California. His win– ning design was used on posters and T-shirts. He previously worked as a commercial illustra– tor. Michael Maxwell is the dining room manager at the Western Culinary In titute in Portland. Lonnie Port is the high-tech sales manager for e2E Corpora– tion in Portland. L Mary Ann Dunlap is an adult nurse practitioner with the Providence Family Med icine clinic in Sherwood. Robert Swoboda MST is the band and choir teacher with the Hermiston School District. Swoboda also performs in numerous ensembles in the community and directs a local church choir. Mary Troutman is practice manager for Russell Troutman, M.D.P.A ., a medical office located in Naples, Florida. ( Donald Beebe is an assistant relationship manager in the Ore– gon Corporate Banking depart- ennifer (Snook) Butcher '98 turned a year of hard work into a bronze medal in the Paralympic games in Sydney this past October. The blind athlete had never heard about the competition before she joined the staff of the Jennifer Butcher poses with her newly won Bronze medal and her husband and coach, Bryan, at the 2000 Paralympic games. Washington State School for the Blind last year as a teacher. In less than seven month she managed to get into shape and win a spot on the United States Par– alympic team. "The games were fantastic," she says, "not so ,ij much because of ' the competition ' but because of all of the athletes that were there. Everyone was interested in the events and every night the pool area wa sold out, and there were 17,000 seats. It was really amazing." 26 PSU MAGAZINE WINTER 2001 ment at US Bank in Portland . Daniel Dorsett is a credit offi– cer with US Bancorp Leasing & Financial. Dorsett authorizes new credit approval for compa– nies in need of general equip– ment. He lives in Tigard. Peggy Linstrom writes, "[ am grants manager for the Oregon Health Science University School of Nursing. I'm also tak– ing graduate-level classes, trying to decide if I want to continue toward a master's degree." Greg Pawson is an audit man– ager with Perkins & Company in Portland. Pawson, a certified public accountant, focuses on audit and accounting services for closely held businesses. Kari Kockler is a physical ther– apist at Ortho-Rehab, Inc., in Aberdeen, Washington. Kockler was a member of PSU's national championship women's volley– ball team, winning A ll-Ameri– can honor in 1988 and 1989, as well as Academic All-American honors in basketball in 1990. Rosanna Schewerda MT '93 is controller at Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland. Schewerda is a mem– ber of the PSU A lumni Board of Directors and chair of PSU Weekend 2001. J D r. Michael Griffeth has com– pleted his residency in ophthal– mology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. Griffeth is associated with Dr. Jeffrey Hansen and Castleview Hospital in Price, Utah. David Keck is a reporter with the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, a newspaper in Ontario, California. Butcher, who turned 28 in October, lost her sight in col– lege to a progressively degenerative condition called Star– gardts disease. Up until that point her athletic future had been bright. She has swam competitively since the age of 12, although it got harder and harder to walk away with the medals. She graduated from Linfield in 1995 unsure of what she could do. She had always planned to be a teacher, but wasn't sure she could manage it as a blind person . A year after she earned her teaching certificate at PSU, Butcher was offered a position at the Washington State School for the Blind in Vancouver. Having led her there, fate dangled one more prize in front of her. The possibility of renewing her competitive swimming career in the company of the world's top disabled athletes. The Paralympic games have been connected with the Olympic games since 1960 when both competitions where held in Rome. "Para" in Paralympics is from Latin and refers to 'on par with' or 'parallel to' and not paralyzed. A total of 4,000 athletes from 125 countries participated in the Para– lympic games this year in Sydney. Butcher was one of four Paralympic athletes from Oregon who attended the 2000 games. She competed in four events: the SO-meter freestyle, the 100-meter freestyle, the 100-meter breaststroke, and the 200 individual medley. She took the bronze medal in the 100-meter freestyle race in her category. "It was the best thing that ever happened in my whole life," she says. "I'd love to be able to help some of the kids at the school be able to experience that." -Merlin Douglass