Washington State Magazine

Marcus Capers has long been known at Washington State University as a natural leader, an energizing presence, and an iron man on the basketball court. He graduated in 2012. See photos below from his career on Friel Court at WSU, including several of his signature dunks. Lifetime Achievements #1 in number of games played—135* #7 in career minutes—3,447 #13 in blocks—82 #17 in assists—232 #18 in rebounds—537*Capers missed only one game in his four-year career, a 65-55 v...
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Former Washington State University art professor Patrick Siler '61 has painted a fantastical mural that covers a wall in downtown Pullman. It's his way of creating "visual fireworks" in the town he taught in for 32 years....
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Mike Leach became head football coach at Washington State University at the beginning of December 2011. Watch videos from his first press conference at WSU and after the April 2012 spring game in Spokane.Mike Leach introduced as WSU's new football coach on Dec. 6, 2011...
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Near Vernita Bridge—where the Columbia River flows eastward on the “Hanford Reach,” and the Department of Energy signs forbid all access—and say: Arid Lands Ecology Reserve All Plants and Animals Protected U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Ask the sagebrush now to tell What the river carried In its waters to the sea. Ask the river or the sun What strange things were here begun, What they all could well Reveal, having witnessed what was done. Here the mighty river’s run ...
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Sue Cobey, a bee breeder who splits her time between Washington State University and the University of California at Davis, where she manages the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, describes instrumental insemination of honey bee queens.Cobey developed the New World Carniolan honey bee stock in the 1980s, and is one of the world’s top experts on honey bee queens, genetic diversity, and inseminating bees....
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The following story is reprinted courtesy of Carl E. Gustafson. Read more about the Manis Mastodon in “Bones of contention,” and how new techniques confirmed that the Manis mastodon bone and its accompanying hand-hewn projectile dates North America’s earliest known inhabitants to 13,800 years ago, 800 years earlier than the Clovis people, long regarded as the New World’s oldest culture.Cover of the original booklet by Cory and Catska En...
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“When President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the go-ahead for the Manhattan Project, he set in motion an extraordinary collaboration amongst scientists and the military to develop an atomic bomb, driven by fears of Hitler’s creating one first. Whether or not the eventual dropping of the bombs on Japan was necessary to end the war in the Pacific will probably never be resolved. But the bomb undoubtedly changed the world, as well as the cultural, historical, and physical landscape of southeaster...
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Band members were grinning as their raucous beer medley swung its way around the audience seated in the St. Louis Fox Theatre. Polka music flirted and twirled. Fiddle player Richard Kriehn raised his violin to take a solo, but in that moment, his bow slipped and snagged itself on the violin microphone. With four million listeners also tuned in via National Public Radio, crunching and screeching filled the air as Kriehn struggled to pry the bow loose. “Great...” thought Kriehn, who was on ...
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From “Historically Yours”, by Hannelore Sudermann:Paul Philemon Kies, a popular professor of English, was one of the keenest collectors at Washington State College. When he wasn’t teaching, advising, or shooting photographs on campus, he was filling his office and home with rare books, autographs, letters, and photographs......He started his collecting habit with first edition books, which he bought to show students. That led him to rare book catalogues, whic...
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Kathleen Flenniken ’83 describes and reads from her second collection of poetry Plume, published by the University of Washington Press in 2012, in this video produced by her son Alexander Flenniken ’11.Set off by images of the Atomic City, Flenniken’s hometown of Richland, Washington, she documents her coming of age and eventually her work at Hanford in the heart of the nuclear age.Recently Flenniken was named Washington’s poet laureate for 2012-14. She teaches poetry and is a co-editor ...
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