Retirement Association of Portland State Portland State University—RAPS Post Office Box 751 Portland OR 97207-0751 Campus Public Safety Building Second Floor, Room 212 SW Montgomery at Broadway Office Manager Eben Yemoh Telephone: 503-725-3447 Email: rapsmail@pdx.edu In office: TBA Campus mail: RAPS Web: www.pdx.edu/raps Board Members Co-Presidents Janine Allen Bruce Stern Secretary Brian Lewis Treasurer Ansel Johnson Members-at-Large Kris Kern Cheryl Livneh Michael Taylor RAPS Sheet Editor Doug Swanson Website Editor Larry Sawyer RAPS Representative to Regional & National Retirement Associations Larry Sawyer Committees Awards Steve Brennan, Chair History Preservation Eileen Brennan, Chair Membership Pati Sluys, Chair Program Pat Squire & Dawn White, Co-Chairs Scholarship Joan Shireman, Chair Social Nancy Eriksson, Chair The RAPS Sheet The newsletter of the Retirement Association of Portland State SUMMER 2022 ALL RAPS MEMBERS and their families are invited to the RAPS Summer Picnic, the annual kick-off for the RAPS program year. The picnic will be at its usual venue, Willamette Park, 6805 SW Macadam Avenue. The picnic will be held on Thursday, August 18, beginning at noon, at the park’s Picnic Shelter A. In addition to food, drink, and conversation, the RAPS Awards will be presented at the picnic. The Outstanding Retiree Award is presented in recognition of outstanding accomplishments post retirement. The Special Recognition Award is presented to an individual who has aided both RAPS and the University. Please bring a salad or a dessert to share and a beverage of your choice; the permit for the picnic allows alcoholic beverages. RAPS Board members are in charge of entrees, tableware, napkins, tablecloths, and bottled water. Metered parking is available at the picnic site. Both the shelter and the site are accessible to people with disabilities. The park is also served by buses 35, 36, and 99. Willamette Park stops are 3620 and 3622. Please call Nancy Eriksson, 503-9137200, if you need more information. Mark your calendar for August 18: Summer Picnic at Willamette Park PORTLAND STATE’S NEWEST—Members of RAPS will receive a guided tour on Thursday, September 15, of the Vanport Building, 1810 SW Fifth Avenue, the newest addition to the PSU campus. The tour begins at 2 p.m. Look for more information in the September issue of ‘The RAPS Sheet.’
2 RAPS SHEET n SUMMER 2022 CO-PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE RAPS is important to us, but it’s also important to PSU I LOVE THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER! Not only is it when I gather the bounty of the garden and can tomatoes for the coming year, it is when PSU welcomes its new and continuing students to a new academic year. September is also when the outgoing co-president turns the gavel over to the continuing and incoming co-presidents. RAPS is important to its members, because it keeps us connected, informed, and engaged in many ways. But it also important to PSU, because it keeps us connected with, informed of, and engaged with the University. The past two and a half years have been a challenge for everyone, including RAPS! But the RAPS Board, under the leadership of Pat Squire and her co-presidents, Steve Brennan and Bruce Stern, has exhibited considerable creativity, commitment, and determination in keeping the organization not only alive, but flourishing. The list of accomplishment of the board over the past two years is quite impressive, and includes expanding its scholarship funds and using alternative formats to safely deliver very high-quality programs and activities. We owe the leaders of RAPS a debt of gratitude. I am honored and humbled to be a part of this very important organization, and look forward to serving, with Bruce Stern, as your co-president. With the BA.4 and BA.5 variants, it is clear that COVID19 is not yet done with the world. But there are reasons for optimism because we now have more tools to deal with it, including information, vaccines, and antiviral medication. The RAPS Board is committed to continuing to keep the organization active and vibrant, and to deliver quality programs while looking out for your safety. Under the leadership of Dawn White and Pat Squire, the Program Committee has a number of excellent programs planned for the coming year, and I hope you will be able to participate in them. The annual outdoor picnic, on August 18, is a great start to the year. It is a wonderful opportunity to connect with friends and colleagues. —Janine Allen A familiar face around the office: Eben Yemoh returns for year two EBEN YEMOH, the RAPS office manager for 2021-22, is coming back for a return engagement. Yemoh, a native of Accra, Ghana, won plaudits from board members for his efficiency and initiative. He is in the Master of Public Administration/Health Administration program at Portland State and expects to complete his degree in June. The tenure of most RAPS office managers is one year. Typically, they complete their degrees—most are graduate students—and start their careers or continue their studies elsewhere. Yemoh, who is entering the second year of the MPA/HA program, agreed to continue running the RAPS office during 2022-23. Because COVID forced his predecessor, Samatha McKinlay, to work entirely remotely, Yemoh had to learn the office operation on his own. Once he got his footing, “it got a whole lot better.” He enjoyed working with the 202122 RAPS co-presidents, Pat Squire and Bruce Stern. “They were very communicative,” Yemoh said. “It was as if they were always sitting at their computers waiting for my emails.” “Eben is proactive and often knows what needs to be done before I even contact him,” said Stern. “He is quick to respond and get things done. That’s why I’m thrilled to be able to work with him for another year.” Squire concurred. “Eben’s smart, thinks outside the box, and is thoughtful and respectful of us older folk,” she said. “Besides, he’s fun, interesting, has a nice sense of humor, and cares about RAPS and our members.” A fellowship at Oregon Health Authority is keeping Yemoh busy this summer. The fellowship fits neatly into his graduate work, and he’s made professional contacts within OHA that should help him post-graduation. Yemoh and his wife, Aliana, hope to make Oregon their permanent home. They enjoy biking and hiking, although an injury has kept Eben off his bike and his schedule has mostly kept the couple off the trails. However, they managed to get away to the Ramona Falls trail in the Mount Hood Wilderness this summer. “The falls were absolutely amazing,” he said.
3 RAPS SHEET n SUMMER 2022 RAPS Group Reports Book Group THE RAPS BOOK GROUP has continued to meet through the summer, still using Zoom. We have had some very intense discussions, and are becoming more and more comfortable with remote meetings, though we continue to miss having coffee and dessert together. In May we read Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, a delightfully funny story featuring a very diverse group of people at an apartment showing who are confronted—or perhaps taken hostage—by a bank robber who has failed in robbing the nearby bank. It is a book one reads slowly, taking time to laugh, and to appreciate the common issues confronting the apartment seekers. In June we read The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan. It was a beautifully written book, catching the dreams and the failures of those who farmed in western Kansas, the Oklahoma panhandle, and northern Texas. This had once been fertile grassland, but it was plowed to grow wheat, and then in the late l930s became almost unlivable as the wind picked up the now unprotected dry soil and created great dust clouds. Steinbeck wrote about those who fled westward; this book is about those who stayed. Desperate for a more cheerful, hopeful book, we selected Amor Towles’s new novel, The Lincoln Highway, and discussed it on July 19. It is the tale of three adolescents and an eight-year-old who set out from Nebraska to go to San Francisco, and instead, due to a series of events and decisions, followed the Lincoln Highway to New York. The book meanders as we follow the varied thinking patterns and actions of each boy. The story is told from multiple points of view, and the reader identifies with each. The varied perspectives created a rich discussion. Most of us liked the book immensely. In July we read The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams. The Book Group meets on the third Tuesday of each month at 1:30 p.m. Traditionally we have met in the homes of various members; currently we are using Zoom for our discussions and may continue in this way for a time. All RAPS members are welcome to join the group. —Joan Shireman Bridge Group THE BRIDGE GROUP is not meeting in August. We hope the COVID situation will allow us to continue playing in person, beginning in September. If you have questions concerning RAPS bridge, please contact Steve Brennan, 503-889-0146. My email address is: the.steve.brennan@gmail.com. —Steve Brennan Hiking Group THE HIKING GROUP will take on the Wilson River Trail off Highway 6 in the Tillamook State Forest on August 23. The plan is to start at Footbridge and walk east to Jones Creek, a 7.6-mile in-and-out hike with a potential for a car shuttle. On a sunny but very breezy day in late June, four members hiked the Mosier to Hood River section of the Historic Columbia River Highway Trail, through the Mosier Twin Tunnels, approximately 4.5 miles of asphalt trail with a car shuttle. If you’re interested in joining the August 23 hike, contact Tom Dieterich at tjdieterich@earthlink.net. RAPS hikers Tom Hard, Mary Lane Stevens, Cilla Murray, and Tom Dieterich pause while hiking the Historic Columbia River Highway Trail. The Hiking Group’s next foray into the great outdoors will be the Wilson River Trail in the Tillamook State Forest on August 23.
4 RAPS SHEET n SUMMER 2022 Janine Allen joins RAPS board as new co-president JANINE ALLEN, professor emerita of education, is joining Bruce Stern at the helm of RAPS. Allen was elected to a two-year term as co-president last spring. Stern is beginning the second year of his term as co-president. Allen arrived at Portland State in 1995 as vice provost and dean of enrollment and student services. She joined the School of Education as a professor in 2001 and retired in 2011, but coordinated Education’s doctoral program for an additional three years. “Involvement with RAPS is a way of serving the university that gave me a professional home,” said Allen, a Nebraska native who earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Nebraska-Kearney and a master’s at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She completed her Ph.D. studies at the University of Oregon. “RAPS has done a wonderful job of serving the people who retired from PSU and serving the University by drawing people together,” said Allen, who added that she wants to get the word out about RAPS to the University community. “The monthly programs are really excellent, and the way the board has delivered the programs in a safe manner over the past two years is commendable.” Allen is looking forward to working with the RAPS Board. “There’s some really great people,” she said. “Bruce has such a wonderful sense of humor. He wants us to be a team, and I’m really looking forward to working with him.” Also joining the board is Kris Kern, a Portland State Library retiree, who was elected to a two-year term as a member-at-large. Brian Lewis was re-elected as secretary and Ansel Johnson was re-elected as treasurer. Upcoming RAPS events. SEPTEMBER Thursday, September 15 Guided Tour of the Vanport Building, new home of PSU’s College of Education and the OSHU-PSU School of Public Health. OCTOBER Thursday, October 20 “The Inside Story on Who First Planted Pinot Noir in Oregon. It Might Not Be Who You Think,” a presentation by Michael Alberty, wine writer for The Oregonian. To be held in Smith Memorial Student Union. NOVEMBER Thursday, November 17 A presentation by Nicholas Kristof, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and general manager of Kristof Family Farms in Yamhill, Oregon, on the challenges facing Oregon and his vision for addressing them. In-person or Zoom to be determined. DECEMBER Thursday, December 8 Annual Holiday Party, Augustana Lutheran Church in Northeast Portland.
5 RAPS SHEET n SUMMER 2022 In memoriam: Shelley C. Reece, 1936-2022 SHELLEY C. REECE, a professor of English at Portland State for more than three decades, died December 17, 2021. He was 85 years old. Professor Reece was born April 19, 1936, in Havensville, Kansas, a small town in the rural northeastern section of the state. He received a bachelor’s degree from Doane University, Crete, Nebraska, in 1958. He completed a master’s degree at the University of Nebraska the following year and a Ph.D., also from Nebraska, in 1967. Professor Reece joined the Portland State faculty in 1969. During his 33 years he served six years as director of composition and another six as department chair. His outside interests ranged from participating in local choirs to facilitating informal group study of James Joyce’s Ulysses. His greatest passion was writing poetry. Professor Reece wrote daily, sharing his work in a front yard “poetry box” for the community to enjoy. He met monthly with fellow poets for writing workshops, and served 13 years on the board of Friends of William Stafford, including five as chair. Professor Reece was also an advocate of lifelong learning; he earned a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from Pacific University in 2014. A collection of his poetry, Nature’s Mind, was published this year by Finishing Line Press. He retired from Portland State in 2002 and was promoted to professor emeritus. Professor Reece is survived by his wife of 63 years, Mary; his daughter, Lesley; and his son, Dan. Remembrances may be sent to the Shelley Reece Endowed Scholarship for poetry at https://giving.psuf.org/campaign/scholarship. 1985 In memoriam: Beverly Roth Fuller, 1941-2020 BEVERLY ROTH FULLER, an associate professor of business administration in the Department of Finance at Portland State, died October 1, 2020. She was 79 years old. Professor Fuller was born July 17, 1941, in St. Louis to Russell and Marie Kruse. In 1966 she graduated from Webster University with degrees in chemistry and mathematics. She later earned a master’s in regional planning from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. in 1981 and a Ph.D. in 1987 in finance from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). Prior to joining Portland State, Professor Fuller served as a radiochemist at Princeton University, and an environmental planner, a community planner, and a political campaign manager in Michigan. Professor Fuller’s career at PSU spanned nearly 30 years. She established long-term relationships with many of her students, contributed to publications, led several committees, and was a senior Fulbright scholar at Khabarovsk State Academy of Economics and Law in Russia. She retired from Portland State in 2016 and was promoted to emerita status. An avid traveler, Professor Fuller visited more than 32 countries. She particularly enjoyed Russia, teaching at Khabarovsk State Academy in the east and visiting several cities in the west. Her travels led to many close friendships in Portland’s Russian community. Professor Fuller enjoyed hiking and backpacking and had an appreciation of architecture and interior design, leading her to build two contemporary homes in southwest Portland. She is survived by her three children and their partners: Anne Roth and Joey Thorn, Margot Dahl and Tom DeVoe, and Michael and Rachelle Roth; and grandchildren Katherine Thorn, Rebecca Roth, and Griffin Roth. In memoriam: Margaret ‘Marg’ Louise Lyseng, 1940-2022 MARGARET “MARG” LYSENG, who served as secretary to four Portland State presidents, died June 28 at age 81. Ms. Lyseng was born June 29, 1940, in Harlem, Montana, to Iver and Matilda Lyseng. She was the first of four children. The family moved to Portland in 1942 and Ms. Lyseng graduated from Franklin High School in 1958. Following her graduation from Franklin, she became secretary to Portland mayor Terry Schrunk. After her stint at City Hall, she moved to Portland State and began her long career as a secretary to PSU presidents. Ms. Lyseng was a longtime member of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in southeast Portland, where she served as a greeter and participated in quilting and travel groups. She also enjoyed crafting, baking, lunching with friends, water aerobics, working in her yard, and family activities. Survivors include her sisters, Marion Schmidt and Donna Koch (Roy); her brother, Roger Lyseng (Lori); nieces Stephanie Shuler (Jason) and Connie Crawford (Kyle); and nephews Jay Minsker (Kim) and Nathan Koch (Katie).
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