Dear Alumni and Friends, This is the last “Director” letter I will be writing for the Greenlee Glimpse— my 14th letter, in fact. After the Spring 2017 semester, I will be stepping down from administration and returning to the classroom or wherever else Iowa State needs me. It has been a great honor to serve our brilliant faculty, industrious staff, loyal alumni, generous benefactors and, most of all, our talented students in advertising, journalism and public relations. As I look back on what we accomplished since 2003, I am amazed at our success, which we could never have achieved without you. Here’s a brief rundown: • We created the Student Advisory Board, asking leaders of student media and organizations, to help with the direction of the School. We also created an Alumni and Friends board of recent graduates, to keep a strong connection with their alma mater. • We created bylaws and structure for our Advisory Council whose membership includes our most distinguished graduates. A member of each body sits on each organization so that it is fully integrated. When we say, “We Are Greenlee,” we mean it! • When I arrived on campus, we had to deal with renewed arguments about duplication, but we created a quality program and the College gave us new resources, helping us grow enrollment and faculty numbers. • We overcame diversity issues to win a national award. • We streamlined curricula, leading the nation in that endeavor, so that our students graduate in a timely manner, reducing student debt. • We increased enrollment when other j-schools declined. • We launched a public relations degree. • We went from $800,000 to almost $6 million in endowment. • Our faculty and staff have won more than 40 LAS, ISU and national awards. • We promoted eight women and eight men. • Best of all, we were re-accredited three times by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and twice by the Iowa Board of Regents. • Because of support from our alumni base and benefactors, we provide about $200,000 in scholarships each year and enjoy a near 100% placement rate for our graduates within six months of commencement! Our faculty members work hard to ensure that students are getting a quality education. We have some of the most skilled practitioners and journalists in the business. And their hands-on instruction is augmented by our research professors and graduate students who help with critical, conceptual and creative thinking. The combination makes our graduates stand out! To give you an idea about faculty productivity, consider this. In the past five years, they have published six books, 22 book chapters, 96 refereed journal articles, 143 refereed conference papers, 17 invited academic papers, 10 encyclopedia entries, 36 major non-refereed articles and chapters and received one Fulbright award. You are part of the reason for the productivity. Your donations help our professors travel to conferences to present their research and our lecturers to work in media and bring back cutting-edge techniques. I would like to end this letter with an acknowledgment of the tremendous support that Dean Beatte Schmittmann has given to the Greenlee School. She has worked with our alumni, benefactors, faculty and students to find my replacement. I have no doubt that a new, dynamic leader will take the reins and lead Greenlee expertly into the future. Thank you for your support of me and our program. You have meant the world to me, and I will be ever grateful. Kindest regards,
CONTENTS Year in Review
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Iowa State Daily Media Group staff finds success in its first year operating off campus.
Distinguished Service We recognize the broadcasting career and impact of alumnus Dean Borg, ’65, ahead of his retirement from IPTV.
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Advancing Greenlee The Advisory Council adds new members, perspectives and a variety of communication expertise.
Ethics and the Election Lissandra Villa, ’16, shares her experience covering the presidential campaign for some of the country’s most respected newsrooms.
15 Alumni
Class Notes Find out what your fellow alumni, former professors were up to in 2016.
Remembrances We remember those lost in 2016, including former professor Paul Yarbrough.
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School’s Out for the Summer Greenlee students and faculty ventured out of Ames to take on professional experiences. Renowned Educators Catch up with our faculty and read about their latest national and university honors and awards.
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Features
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A Lesson in Impression Ty Stafford, ’11, has secured his place on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list and continues to turn heads in the world of advertising.
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Contributors EDITOR IN CHIEF & DESIGN Matt Wettengel
Branding the Adventure After 29 years as Iowa State’s top marketer, Carole Custer, ’71, has defined her alma mater’s identity.
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Moving Forward With the school positioned for success, Director Michael Bugeja prepares to return to the classroom.
PHOTOGRAPHERS Emily Blobaum senior in JL MC
Megan Gilbert senior in JL MC
Meredith Kestel junior in JL MC
JL MC 344 STUDENTS
Front row, left to right: Robyn Riley, Alyssa Priebe, Lauren Juhl and Meaghan Szpak. Second row: Amy Griffith, Samantha Carlson-Dubois, Rachel Anderson, Allison Walters, Marina Stare, Paige Phillips and Curran McLaughlin. Back row: Brian Mozey, Luke Manderfeld, Kevin Horner, Garrett Kroeger and Brandon Ghazali. Not pictured: Shannon McCarty
Front row, left to right: Alex Cory, Lauren Iverson, Katelyn Horner, Emily Sudlow, Christie Smith and Erin Hooker. Back row: Traer Schon, Michael Kramer, Rachel Given, Jessica Bennett, Tom Nelson and Leah Gage. Not pictured: Felipe Cabrera
SPECIAL THANKS TO Deb Gibson senior lecturer Alyssa Rutt program coordinator Maria Charbonneaux communications specialist Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 3
Year in Review
Daily reclaims ‘Best Student Newspaper’ Designation By Alyssa Klahsen
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For years, the Iowa State Daily has been innovating and transforming the ways it delivers the news to Iowa State University students and the Ames community. This past spring, the hard work paid off: The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), a national organization dedicated to encouraging the free practice of journalism and stimulating high standards of ethical behavior, named the Daily the “Best Student All-Around Newspaper.” In judging, SPJ looks at content, coverage, design and online material from specific issue dates chosen by the organization. The Daily beat out newspapers
like the UCLA Daily Bruin and the University of Mississippi’s Daily Mississippian. Danielle Ferguson served as the Daily’s editorin-chief for the issues awarded and, following her May 2016 graduation, now works as a breaking news reporter at the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader. Ferguson credits the national recognition for motivating the newspaper’s current staff. “[The Daily staff have] been given a really good base to keep trying and feel confident,” Ferguson said. continued on next page
Photos by Emily Blobaum/Iowa State Daily
Year in Review
continued from page 4 This isn’t the first time the Daily has been named the best student newspaper in the country; in 2007 the Daily also claimed the national title. ISD Editorial Adviser Mark Witherspoon praised both the Daily’s student and professional staffs for their dedication to providing a high-quality publication to the ISU community. “We have been an excellent newspaper, at least in the eyes of SPJ, for 10 years now,” said Witherspoon. “I think excellent newspapers evolve with the times, and I think we’ve done a good job of doing that, especially in the last few years.” This year’s Editor-inChief Emily Barske was also named as a national finalist in the feature writing category for her piece “Our Way of Life,” a piece on coaches’ wives from the Daily’s annual Hoops publication.
Now reporting from Campustown By Lauren Iverson The Iowa State Daily is on to bigger and better things. Last December, the student-run newspaper parted ways with its original home in Hamilton Hall and settled into a brand new Campustown office. The new headquarters, which cover nearly 8,000 square feet, is fully equipped with a photo and video studio, editing suite, a board and conference room, a shared classroom space, offices for professional staff, as well as a completely open floor plan for the newsroom and Model Farm creative agency. Iowa State Daily Editor-in-Chief Emily Barske is excited to see how the new space affects collaboration and innovation.
“We wanted to bring people into the newsroom so they can be a part of all projects, not just when they have an assignment,” said Barske. “Now we have a place to put them.” The new space, located above the CVS on the corner of Welch and Lincoln Way and a new Fuzzy’s Taco Shop that opened last September, is a dream realized for Daily alumni who relied on delivery options and Vend-o-Land to get through nightly production. Other Iowa State occupants of the Kingland building’s second floor include University Relations, the ISU Foundation’s phone center and the Offices of Institutional Research, Responsible Research and Research Integrity.
Left: Assistant Sports Editor Ryan Young, Sports Editor Luke Manderfeld and a reporter work in the Daily’s new Campustown office. Photo by Emily Blobaum/Iowa State Daily Top right: The Daily’s new studio features an in-house photo and video studio, which includes a separate room for equipment storage and checkout. Photo by Meredith Kestel Lower right: Each of the Daily’s professional staff members, including Editorial Adviser Mark Witherspoon, has offices in the Daily’s new facility. Photo by Emily Blobaum/ Iowa State Daily
Renovations underway to convert former ISD office into classrooms Construction on the Daily’s former office space in Hamilton Hall began in the summer of 2016. The space will soon house two new university classrooms, scheduled to be open for use by the fall 2017 semester, in addition to expanding the building’s commons space. The new spaces will each hold up to 40 students and include features that foster group collaboration, such as moveable seating, multiple television screens and white boards. Photos by Meredith Kestel
Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 5
Year in Review
Angela Powers selected as Greenlee’s 16th director Dr. Angela Powers has been named as the 16th director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication. She is the first woman to be appointed as director and will assume the position on July 1. Powers led the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Powers Communication at Kansas State University from 2004 to 2012, where she is
currently a professor. During her time at Kansas State, Powers drove change through partnerships with KSU media relations, alumni, media foundations and industry, creating a media convergence center engaging journalism, advertising and public relations students across campus. In addition, she focused on developing more international opportunities for students and increasing diversity. She is the 2015 recipient of the national Barry Sherman Teaching Award in Media Management and Economics. Powers was selected after an international search that began in August. The search committee,
appointed by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Beate Schmittmann, included members of the Greenlee faculty, staff, Advisory Council and colleagues from the college. “I am excited to lead the distinctive and continually growing Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, with its award-winning students and faculty,” Powers said in a statement following her hiring. “The school is fully accredited and is ranked sixth in the nation for quality and affordability. I look forward to working with faculty and administration to set new standards for scholarship, teaching and service in our dynamic field.”
School aspires for An inspiration to all accreditation of PR degree By Tom Nelson On May 2, the Accrediting Council of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC) granted Greenlee its 11th consecutive reaccreditation. In fact, the school’s self study was so impressive it now appears as an example on the ACEJMC website. But the Greenlee School doesn’t care to stop at just one accreditation. Currently it is seeking a similar credential with the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) for Greenlee’s public relations major. The certification in education on public relations (CEPR) is granted by the PRSA, said Alyssa Rutt, Greenlee program coordinator. Greenlee wants this accreditation for the value it would add to its two-year-old PR degree, said Erin Wilgenbusch, senior lecturer and PRSSA adviser. The process for the PR accreditation is very similar to the process for the ACEJMC project. Two years prior to the actual inspection by the accrediting body, the school conducts a selfstudy to determine what work needs to be done for compliance. Rutt, who is managing much of the preparation for the PR accreditation, compares that process to “a student studying for a test. We are comfortable going in.” On Oct. 4-6, PRSA representatives visited campus to inspect the workings of the PR major. While the site visit went smoothly, results aren’t expected until early 2017.
2016
IOWA STATE TIMELINE By Stephen Ortiz and Matt Wettengel Photos by the Iowa State Daily, ISU News Service
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Senior Lecturer and Meredith Professional-inResidence Deb Gibson received the 2016 Faculty and Staff Inspiration Award from the Iowa State Alumni Association last spring. Gibson, who’s taught at the school since 2000, said the award and the nominations that led to it mirrored her own experience as an Iowa State journalism major in the late seventies. During her acceptance speech, Gibson recalled intially feeling overwhelmed by her first reporting and writing class and its bootcamp-style coursework. What helped her persevere and continue into a lifelong career in the industry and eventually
January 14 Iowa State Daily moves operation out of Hamilton Hall After 75 years in Hamilton Hall—formerly the Collegiate Press Building—the Iowa State Daily moved slightly off-campus to the second floor of the Kingland building in Campustown. In Kingland, the Daily inhabits four times as much workspace, an open floor plan with space to collaborate and in-house video and photography studios.
teaching, she told the audience, was encouragement from her first journalism instructor, Dr. Dale Boyd. Gibson vividly remembers receiving her final grade from Boyd’s class, which, along with her A grade, included a note from Boyd: “Your work shows bursts of brilliance and professionalism, but to succeed you must overcome what appears to be great shyness.” “To this day, I regret not telling Dale Boyd thank you for giving me that push that I needed, for telling me ‘yes, I could do it,’” Gibson said. “It’s with a full heart, that I thank my former students for telling me what I should have said to him.”
Year in Review
Ahead of retirement, Borg wins 2016 Schwartz Award Eldean “Dean” Borg, senior correspondent and producer for Iowa Public Radio, was selected by the Greenlee School faculty as the 2016 recipient of the James W. Schwartz Award honoring distinguished service to journalism and mass communication. He was presented the award on Oct. 28 at Hamilton Hall. The Forest City native is a ’59 Greenlee graduate in technical journalism. He also holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Iowa. His degrees have helped distinguish Borg as one of the state’s foremost voices on public policy and politics. In addition to his IPR reports, Borg has hosted and moderated Iowa Public Television’s popular “Iowa Press” broadcast since its inaugural broadcast in 1971. In 2008, Borg received the Jack Shelley Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Iowa Broadcast News Association. Shelley was the Greenlee School’s 1993 Schwartz Award winner. “I’m fortunate to have learned from—to have been prepared by—Jim Schwartz,” Borg said upon learning he had won the honor in his former professor’s name. “Not only in the photography and journalism law classes where he shared his expertise, but four years of observing his professional standards and personal character that served as a model for my classmates and me. “I profited because Jim was good. Good at his profession and superb at mentoring students.” Borg credited former ISU agricultural journalism and broadcast professor Harry Heath with teaching him broadcast journalism. “It wasn’t in a formal classroom, but in a radio studio that Professor Heath crafted in the journalism department basement. He developed an arrangement with KASI, a downtown Ames commercial station for a daily, five-minute broadcast from our remote studio.” Borg’s reputation for quality journalism and ethical character made him a prime candidate for the Schwartz Award, Michael Bugeja, Greenlee School director, said. “Of all our recipients, in the decades we have been giving this award, few have led such a renowned career in service to Iowa than Dean,” Bugeja said. Borg’s colleagues agreed. Bugeja shared testimonials from several of them in a speech given at a reception attended by Greenlee School faculty and staff, Advisory Council members and Borg’s family. “Katherine Perkins, Program Director for News and Talk at IPR, says Dean understands ‘context’ in the news. That is perhaps the most difficult thing to teach aspiring journalists, but Dean is a model of it. To quote Katherine, ‘His reports allow listeners to understand not just what happened, but why. He’s an invaluable person to have in our newsroom. He knows everyone and has seen it all. And in addition to all of that,’ she adds, ‘you won’t find a nicer or more thoughtful colleague,’” Bugeja said in remarks given at the speech. Borg and wife Sheila have five children, including son Lindsey Borg, director of integrated communications for Raytheon’s Intelligence, Information and Services business and also a Greenlee School Advisory Council member. Less than one month after receiving the Schwartz Award, Borg announced his retirement as the host of “Iowa Press.” His final broadcast aired on Friday, Jan. 13, following IPTV’s live coverage of Governor Terry Branstad’s Condition of the State address on Jan. 10. Borg retired as the longest-serving program host in IPTV’s history, after 46 years of hosting and moderating the weekly broadcast.
January 18
Above: Borg (center) with Associate Director Michael Dahlstrom and LAS Dean Beate Schmittmann at the annual LAS Awards ceremony. Photo courtesy of LAS College Below: Borg and his family attended the school’s presentation of the 2016 Schwartz Award in Hamilton Hall on Oct. 28, 2016. Photo by Megan Gilbert
February 25
ISU men’s basketball team beats No. 1 ranked Oklahoma
Harmon named senior VP for student affairs
The No. 19 Cyclones defeated No. 1 Oklahoma at Hilton Coliseum in their first victory against an AP No. 1 team since 1957. The final score was 82-77, thanks, in part, to Monte Morris who secured a lead for Iowa State with just 19 seconds left in the game.
Martino Harmon, previously the associate vice president for student affairs, was selected senior vice president after the university conducted a nationwide search to fill the position. Harmon has worked in student affairs at Iowa State since 2013 when he joined the program under 20-year veteran Tom Hill. Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 7
Year in Review
Alan Mores
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AD VIS CO OR UN Y C AD IL DS
Mores graduated from Greenlee in 1980 with a degree in journalism and mass communication. Today, Mores, longtime co-publisher of Harlan Newspapers, serves on the board of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry and is president of the Iowa Newspaper Association’s services board. Mores has served once before but is returning to Greenlee’s Advisory Council because of his strong desire to help the school’s faculty, staff, students and administrators, who have helped his family business grow for over 77 years.
The council partners with Greenlee faculty and staff to provide professional guidance and industry insight. Here are the newest members who will help steer the school under its new director. By Paige Phillips
Ann Omvig Maine Omvig Maine graduated from the Greenlee School in 1975 with a degree in journalism and mass communication. She recently retired from her post as editor-in-chief of Traditional Home magazine at Meredith Corporation in Des Moines. Omvig Maine credits Greenlee professors for “their mentoring, guidance and just straight advice. That is something I try to achieve with those around me.”
March 10
Chris Conetzkey
Conetzkey graduated from Greenlee with a degree in journalism and mass communication in 2009. A former editor in chief of the Iowa State Daily, he is currently the editor of the Des Moines Business Record. In addition to serving on the Advisory Council, he is also on the publication board for the Iowa State Daily. He resides in Des Moines, Iowa.
Gladys Nortey
Nortey holds a bachelor’s (1995) and master’s (1998) from Greenlee. A former ISU track athlete, Nortey now resides in San Jose, Calif., and works at Intapp in Palo Alto as director of marketing. She has also served as an adjunct professor of advertising at San Jose State University.
April 25
Foreman named equal opportunity director
Dunn Jolly named dean of College of Human Sciences
Margo Foreman came to Cyclone country from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis where she worked in equal opportunity for 17 years. As the equal opportunity director for Iowa State, Foreman will serve as the Title IX coordinator, ensuring the university’s compliance with the anti-discrimination law.
Iowa State hired Laura Dunn Jolly, a professor of textiles, merchandising and interiors from the University of Georgia, Athens, to serve as the dean of the College of Human Sciences. Jolly is an alumna of Oklahoma State University, where she studied clothing, textiles and merchandising, and has previously taught at several universities, including Texas Tech University and the University of Kentucky, Lexington.
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Year in Review
Tara DeeringHansen
Lawrence Cunningham
Deering-Hansen graduated from Greenlee in 1999, where she received a degree in journalism and mass communication. Once editor in chief of the Iowa State Daily, she now works at Hy-Vee, Inc. as its vice president of communications. She currently lives in Clive, Iowa.
Denise Essman
Essman graduated from Iowa State with a degree in marketing in 1973. She is currently the president and CEO of Essman/Associates and Essman/Research and resides in West Des Moines, Iowa. Essman said she decided to join the Greenlee Advisory Board because she was familiar with many of its members and her husband, the late Al Essman, graduated from and taught at Greenlee.
Nancy Padberg
Padberg is a journalism and mass communication graduate, class of 1988. She resides in San Francisco, where she works as a Digital Director and Strategist for Health and Education at Hearst Media. Some clients from her 20 years of experience include Disneyland, Whole Foods Markets, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Pillsbury, Petco and Stanford University.
Cunningham graduated from Iowa State in 2002. Since then, he has worked in the advertising industry for companies including Learfield Sports, Stamats and Catchfire Media. In 2014 he returned to Ames and now serves as the general manager and publisher at the Iowa State Daily Media Group.
David Chivers Chivers is the president of Register Media and The Des Moines Register. He also serves as regional president for the USA Today Network, which includes financial and strategic oversight for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Chivers earned his undergraduate degree at Central College, M.B.A. from the University of Iowa and M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications from Roosevelt University in Chicago. He resides in Des Moines.
Elias Johnson Elias Johnson earned a degree in broadcast journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University in 2006. An Iowa native, he currently works for the ABC-TV Des Moines affiliate on its Local 5 news team, and he also anchors Good Morning Iowa. He resides in Urbandale.
Angela Ossian Ossian graduated with a degree in journalism and mass communication from Greenlee in 1987. After a 25-year career in advertising and marketing for companies including the Des Moines Register and Principal Residential Mortgage, Ossian currently resides in Ankeny, Iowa, and commutes to Ames for her job as director of marketing for the Iowa State Center. She is also the founder and editor of YogaIowa, a statewide quarterly publication.
May 7 Undergraduate commencement held at Jack Trice Stadium As a record number of Cyclones— more than 4,500—transitioned from undergraduates to alumni, Iowa State moved commencement from Hilton Coliseum to the newly-renovated Jack Trice Stadium. Graduation went off without a hitch in the new, outdoor space under partly cloudy skies. Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 9
Year in Review
Left: Villa’s adventure after graduation took her through many respected newsrooms, including National Public Radio and Time magazine. Below: Villa snapped a photo of an electoral vote projection on the Empire State Building while in New York City on election day. Photos courtesy of Lissandra Villa
Lessons from the front lines Lissandra Villa, ’16, reflects on her adventure through several renowned newsrooms and her takeaways from the recent presidential election.
June 30 Madden ends 50-year career Warren Madden, senior vice president for business and finance, retired after 50 years spent working in Beardshear Hall. Madden graduated from Iowa State in 1961 with a degree in industrial engineering and rejoined Iowa State a few years later as a contracts and grants officer. Madden held several university positions over his five-decade career at Iowa State and received several awards, including being voted Ames Tribune’s “Citizen of the Year” in 2013. 10 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
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s a 2016 graduate, I was part of the generation of journalists that experienced the 2016 presidential election as both a student and a professional. This gave me the opportunity to study the election from several vantage points—from covering the Iowa caucuses on assignments for my Greenlee classes and student publications to working in a handful of professional newsrooms. In the last year I’ve held internships with the Des Moines Register, Time magazine and NPR’s election desk, which led me to my current job as a general assignment reporter for BuzzFeed News. If this election was anything for journalists, it was an exercise. It was a long, exhaustive review on the basics of journalism that covered everything from journalism ethics to best practices in the field. One of the lessons reinforced by this cycle was that journalists should not speculate. It can be very easy when all signs point to a certain outcome to believe that it will happen. But to close the door to other possibilities violates the understanding that
the press is not comprised of fortune tellers. In this year’s election, I would be hard pressed to find a journalist who disagrees with me that as an industry, even if not individually, we began to operate under the assumption that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would be the one moving into the White House in January. It was not even a sign of bias to believe such an outcome because the majority of indicators pointed to a Clinton win. An educated guess would have put money on those results. But, as this year showed, presidential elections are never done until the polls are closed, ballots are counted and the electors from the Electoral College cast their votes. Since graduating in May, I have had the pleasure and good fortune of working alongside distinguished journalists who cover politics in my home state of Iowa and for national and international news outlets. Many of the issues we wrestled with were the reallife versions of conversations we had in my classes at the Greenlee School. In one instance, I remember an editor refusing to
July 1 Hotel Memorial Union becomes student housing With record enrollment at Iowa State for fall 2016, the Department of Residence worked with the Memorial Union to turn the hotel into student housing. The former hotel provided up to 80 beds for students in the heart of campus.
Year in Review
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If the last year was anything for journalists, regardless of their age, it was a reminder that the fundamentals of journalism never cease to matter because sometimes they are all we can depend on.
allow the outlet to explore whether President-elect Donald Trump had any mental health issues. It was not something I had ever thought about before, but to this day it bothers me whenever I hear anyone make cavalier statements about his psychological health. A sensational piece is not worth shoddy journalism, and I am proud that a lot of the work journalists did throughout the 2016 election cycle respected that. For all of the heat the press continues to take, it is worth noting that excellent journalism was also produced. We need not look far for examples of work that truly did a service for the public. How else would voters know that their president has been accused of sexually harassing women? And while Trump’s tax returns never were released, voters gained a lot of valuable information about how he has operated financially because of tireless work by dedicated journalists. Trump was a candidate who was thoroughly scrutinized, and, for various reasons, voters still chose him. While for some people “thoroughly scrutinized” equates to excessive coverage, it is difficult to come up with some aspect of Trump that was not pursued. Whether voters read the articles or not, basically every lead reporters received on Trump was followed. And this is the part where “low energy” former Gov. Jeb Bush got separated from Trump—Trump knew how to play to the media, where other candidates did not. This election was a giant Post-It note with Henry Fairlie’s words written on it: “The media are the child
July 11–13 No.1 university in the No. 3 city In mid-July Iowa State and Ames topped two national lists: Iowa State was rated the best university in Iowa by Time Money, and Business Insider said Ames is the third-best college town in America. Time Money said Iowa State provided the best college at the best price in the state, while Business Insider cited Ames’s proximity to Des Moines as well as its famously beautiful campus and “A+” nightlife for reasons it ranked No. 3.
of the public; the public then becomes the child of the media.” This election has been a powerful reminder that there are forces in the world actively working to deceive the public. This has been a year that the boundaries of truth have been tested, and the conversations of what and how to report have had to take place with the understanding that the climate is set up for lies and fake news to proliferate. This is a conversation America will continue to struggle with because lies have real consequences. It is right to be critical of the press, but it is wrong to not trust journalists. To not understand the difference between journalism and the rest of the media is a mistake the nation can ill-afford. Journalism is the public’s lifeline to the world. The rest of the media are what separate the two from each other. This election was evidence that the public needs truth-tellers more than ever. It is our job, as journalists, to report facts objectively and tell all sides of each story. Only in practicing the basics of our profession can we regain the public’s confidence in our work. Of course, I do not speak here for any particular newsroom. I can only speak from my experience as a new journalist at the beginning of my career. As I reflect on the election, I have no problem admitting that I still have guilt over ignoring fake news I scrolled past on my Facebook News Feed to avoid arguments. Perhaps it is our responsibility as citizens
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to confront such content every time we encounter it. It’s a burden which may feel massive considering how much of it exists, but a responsibility arguably worth undertaking to preserve the integrity of the information we share with each other. The election of 2016 was a walk in the dark for many journalists, who were forced to take shaky steps forward without knowing the stability of the ground beneath them. As I’ve learned, if the last year was anything for journalists, regardless of their age, it was a reminder that the fundamentals of journalism never cease to matter because sometimes they are all we can depend on.
July 15 Iowa State breaks record for external funding In fiscal year 2016, Iowa State’s external funding hit an all-time high at $425.8 million. External funding is provided through state, local and federal governments as well as private corporations, foundations and other universities in the form of grants, gifts and contracts. Funding for Iowa State’s researchers made up more than half of all external funds. Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 11
Year in Review
Lucht organizes ISU women’s leadership conference By Leah Gage Tracy Lucht knew that nationwide, women make up a smaller percentage of professors than men do, at all levels. And as faculty members ascend the promotional ranks, far fewer women make the climb than men. That didn’t set well with the Greenlee assistant professor and alumna. So on Sept. 12, 40 women professors from across campus attended a morning-long workshop organized by Lucht and Amy Erica Smith, assistant professor of political science. The session was sponsored by a grant from ISU’s Office of the Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion. “We really wanted to build community among women faculty at Iowa State and also give people some specific strategies that they could use to be effective in their jobs,” Lucht said. Dr. Joy Gaston Gayles, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in diversity and equity issues, provided the women with techniques and advice to help grow their careers and become confident in their goals. “My biggest takeaway was the importance of finding a group to support you,” said Lucht. “Dr. Gayles said that your group could be anyone, but they need to support your career goals.” Gayles also encouraged attendees to create strategic plans for their work mapped out similarly to a book, so that specific times or areas in their lives were dedicated to a chapter in those books. “Dr. Gayles talked about making time for yourself and for your research,” said Smith. “She also talked about understanding that it’s OK to ask for help and that you should proactively seek help.”
Photo by Megan Gilbert
Two new Meredith apprenticeships train students in digital media By Lauren Iverson The rise of digital media is taking contemporary publishing by storm, and two Greenlee students are receiving on-the-job training in it at Meredith Corporation in Des Moines. The Greenlee School’s Meredith Apprentice Program expanded this year by adding two digital media positions. The new apprenticeships allow the selected Greenlee students to assist in the creation of social media campaigns, digital content and search engine optimization techniques. In addition to these new opportunities, Meredith also employs five Greenlee editorial apprentices and four graphic design apprentices, for a total of 11 this year. Only 5 positions existed when the program began in 2004. Deb Gibson, Greenlee’s coordinator for the program, relishes the growth the apprentices experience during the nine-month experience. “They utilize what they’ve been taught at Greenlee and then they’re mentored in opportunities that allow them to really enhance those skills,” Gibson said. “It’s such a wonderful training ground.”
Meet Greenlee’s first Meredith digital media apprentices
As a Meredith Digital Apprentice, I work for Meredith’s Digital Lifestyle Brands, including Shape.com, Fitnessmagazine.com and More.com, among others. I primarily contribute content to More.com, a reconstructed website previously known as DivineCaroline.com, which targets millennial women looking for the best in fashion trends,
celebrity news and trending stories. I write online stories, create slideshows and assist our social media team with optimizing content for our different brands. I also directly assist my manager with crafting digital campaigns designed to target our desired audience and increase engagement across all digital platforms.
August 22
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Kaili Meyer, senior in journalism and mass communication
Bethany Lozier, senior in advertising As the new digital apprentice for Diabetic Living magazine I get to work in a ton of different areas and engage with our small team on multiple projects. My main task is to run our social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. After analyzing search terms, conducting research on trends and perusing other healthrelated content, I map
August 31
Student Government renames Free Speech Zone
Fountain of Four Seasons celebrates 75 years
Over the past year, free speech on college campuses has been a hot-button issue covered by some of the nation’s largest news entities. To avoid any misinterpretation that Iowa State’s Free Speech Zone, between Parks Library and The Hub, was the only place on campus where free speech is encouraged, Student Government voted to rename the space Agora, Greek for “public gathering place.”
The Fountain of Four Seasons, a campus fixture since 1941, celebrated its 75th birthday outside the Memorial Union. The fountain features four Native American women, each representing one of the four seasons.
out our action plan for the weeks ahead. I also write stories for print. My favorite part of the job is interviewing different professionals and people with diabetes who are making a difference in their communities. It’s a lot of fun having the privilege of writing someone’s story and seeing it through from interview to print.
Year in Review
Collaborating across campus
Greenlee faculty teamed up with other Iowa State departments on research initiatives in 2016
Data-driven political findings
By Maria Charbonneaux and Brian Mozey
Politics, women and media Interdepartmental collaboration is written into Kelly Winfrey’s job description. Winfrey serves as an assistant professor with the Greenlee School and coordinates research and outreach for Iowa State’s Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. Her research focuses on where the topics of communication, women and politics intersect, and as you might imagine, the 2016 election cycle was a boon for her work. Winfrey is currently comparatively studying the type, quality and quantity of national media coverage Winfrey of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during the campaign. She’s also looking at how local media coverage of Clinton and Bernie Sanders influenced Iowa caucus goers and how Iowa voters’ perceptions compared with coverage of Clinton after she received the nomination. Finally, she’s analyzing how gender was discussed on Twitter by both Clinton supporters and her opposition, focusing on hashtags such as #imwithher and #repealthe19th. Winfrey also coordinates Ready to Run Iowa, a non-partisan campaign training program that prepares women to run for elected office, serve in appointed office or become more involved in community leadership through a series of workshops. Winfrey said the Catt Center has received an influx of inquiries for its Spring 2017 program since the 2016 election results were known. “We’re always looking back and looking forward,” Winfrey says.
Communicating science research
Photo by Megan Gilbert
When research scientists have findings to share, they don’t always know best practices for engaging the public. Greenlee Associate Director and Associate Professor Michael Dahlstrom and Assistant Professor Dara Wald hope to change that. Both are organizers of the Iowa State University Science Communication Project, an interdisciplinary team of faculty that works to encourage effective conversations between researchers and the public, policy makers, media and advocacy organizations. Collaboration is the key objective. Wald “We’re surrounded by people who value science inherently, but that doesn’t mean that the public is going to accept your word or your findings without question, especially if your findings don’t support their strongly held beliefs,” Wald said. “[The public] will often challenge you on where you got your data and how it aligns or doesn’t align with their experiences. It’s important to listen to public concerns and beliefs and create conversations in a way that’s respectful and bridges any distrust.” To date, over 250 practitioners and academics have participated in the SciComm@ISU Annual Symposium on Science Communication to explore the challenges of communicating complicated, controversial science topics.
How do local government agendas and media coverage line up with what citizens are feeling and saying about public policy? A collaborative research team of political science, computer science and Greenlee faculty are trying to make it easier to answer this question. The three-year project is focused on computational communication and is part of a Signature Research Initiative funded by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The team has been collecting the data and hopes to make the results more accessible to Boyles journalists and the general public soon. “The ultimate goal is to create a forward-facing product down the road that journalists could use, as well as local government officials, so they can better connect with constituencies,” Assistant Professor Jan Lauren Boyles said. “We are currently working on the database and analysis backend. We are moving toward designing a user interface that will make it easier to query or search social media surrounding policy agendas.” Associate Professor Jay Newell and his Media Planning class worked with political science Department Chair Mack Shelley, student volunteers and the Des Moines Register to produce a data-driven analysis of political advertising in Iowa throughout the presidential election. “From an advertising side, [we looked at] the amount of political advertising. From a political side, [we looked at] politicial preference of people who are being firehosed with a vast number of ads,” he said. Newell Based on the data they analyzed, Newell and his colleagues determined that people were more likely to change their political preferences in markets that had larger amounts of political advertising.
Newell’s Fall 2016 Media Planning class: Front row, left to right: Lucas Brandt, Bennett Ford, Emily Belloma, Katie Alexander, Katie Wallner, Christina Creel, Jessica Newton, Megan Mojeiko, Robyn Riley, Megan Olson, Kayla Benefiel, Jacquelyn Bell. Back row, left to right: Jeffrey Bayram, Alex Beach, Ian McBrayer, David Coconate, Omar Shibat Alhamd, associate professor Jay Newell, Corbin Jerde, Mia Guion, Amy Kuckler, Laura Wood, Megan Danielson. Not pictured: Anna Fromm, Brittany Gilkes, Danny Schnathorst, Jeliah Seely, Lauren Waugh,Hailey Warren. Photo by Megan Gilbert
September 8
September 13
Another year, another record enrollment
CyRide turns 40
Iowa State reached yet another year of record enrollment with 36,660 students, an almost 2 percent increase over last year. ISU students hail from all of Iowa’s 99 counties, each of the 50 states and more than 120 countries. Enrollment at Iowa State has almost doubled over the past decade.
CyRide celebrated the big 4-0 in Ames this fall. With an ever-growing number of Iowa State students to ferry around town, CyRide has expanded to more than 100 buses and nearly 200 employees. The per capita ridership on the fare-free transportation system is comparable to that of public transport in cities the size of Boston. Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 13
Year in Review
Sidey winner makes connections in Washington By Maria Charbonneaux
Photo courtesy of Alex Hanson
It’s one thing to learn journalism principles in a classroom. It’s another thing to see professional journalists in action. As the recipient of the 2016 Hugh S. Sidey Scholarship in Print Journalism at the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, junior Alex Hanson received a $5,000 scholarship and behindthe-scenes access to various media outlets as part of a trip to Washington, D.C. While Hanson appreciates the money, it’s the connections made on the all-expenses-paid trip that he values most. Hanson, who is the managing editor of the Iowa State Daily and works part-time at Iowa Public Radio, has aspirations of working as a government reporter or a radio producer. The trip gave him the opportunity to meet professionals working in both fields. Highlights of his trip, which was organized by the White House Historical Association, included watching a live broadcast of NBC’s “Meet the Press;” visiting the newssrooms and offices of The Washington Post, McClatchyDC, Sirius XM, NPR and Politico; and touring the East Wing of the White House. A self-described politics junkie who covered the Iowa caucuses for the Iowa State Daily, Hanson was excited to make the trip during an election year. “It was amazing to talk to the political reporters and get their take on all this election drama,” said Hanson, who is majoring in journalism and political science. “Probably the most beneficial was being
able to network with all these people who are in the trenches everyday.” Hanson was also excited to see how professional newssrooms functioned, with some staffers monitoring for breaking news while others studied analytics that provided instant feedback. Hanson also attended a White House Historical Assocation board meeting, where Michael Duffy, the deputy managing editor of Time magazine, gave the keynote. Duffy was familiar with Sidey’s work.
“It was like his speech was directed at me. He knew Hugh Sidey, so he was drawing comparisons to my essay,” Hanson said. Hanson’s winning essay, “The Most Important Job in this Democracy,” focuses on the importance of fair and responsible journalism that holds public officials—especially the president—accountable on policy and issues in an age of tweets, GIFs and outrageous statements. Or, as Hanson summarized, “We need more Hugh Sideys.”
Greenlee Alumni and Friends branching out to more cities By Lauren Juhl Greenlee Alumni and Friends is an organization that allows graduates and supporters to join together to strengthen relationships with the Greenlee School. Recently, grads Teresa Krug, Nikki Kerns and Amy Thompson joined the steering committee and have organized chapters in their cities. “The more connected the students are with the outside world, the better. If I could help facilitate that in some way, then yeah, I’m really happy to do that,” said Krug, a 2007 Greenlee graduate. Krug works as a producer for the Al Jazeera Media Network in New York, and said she hopes to grow stronger relationships between the Greenlee alumni community and students. “I am so proud of Iowa State and Greenlee, so I wanted to participate,” Kerns says of her decision to
September 27
become involved with the group. Born and raised in Ames, Iowa, Kerns didn’t venture far to go to college. She did, however, head west soon after graduating in 2012 when she moved to Phoenix, where she now works as a marketing manager for Meritage Homes. “Greenlee taught me to go for what I love and that sentiment carries on today,” she said. Kern’s hope is to create new connections in the Phoenix metro area through her participation. Thompson graduated in 2011 with a degree in journalism and mass communication. She is now a communications specialist in St. Paul, Minn. As a part of Greenlee Alumni and Friends, Thompson hopes to meet new people in the Twin Cities and says that creating a chapter in that area is important to connect the many alumni residing there.
“I loved my education at ISU, so it made sense for me to be involved after I graduated,” Thompson said. In other Greenlee and Alumni Friends news, Danielle (Gibbons) West, ’11, now serves as the group’s president. While a student, West served as PR manager for the Iowa State Daily and president of PRSSA. She now works as PR marketing manager for LifeServe Blood Center in Des Moines. West joined Greenlee Alumni and Friends three years ago and served as its event coordinator. “Staying in touch with Greenlee and finding out what the school is up to is important to me, (and) so is staying connected with fellow alumni and people that are involved in the school,” she said. For updates, follow Greenlee Alumni and Friends on Facebook and LinkedIn.
October 11
10th annual Chamberlin Lecture features Moffeit
Jump-Start Internship and Networking Fair continues
Miles Moffeit, a six-year investigative reporter for the Dallas Morning News and 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalist, spoke about the importance of investigative reporting and empathy in the 2016 Chamberlin Lecture. Sharing lessons he’s learned from his career reporting on corruption on many levels, he implored students to be mindful about using their journalistic powers responsibly.
Greenlee hosted its fifth JumpStart Internship and Networking Fair in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union. Employers looking for advertising, mass communication, journalism, marketing or public relations interns or employees made the trip to campus to meet with over 120 students.
14 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
Year in Review
Intern Adventure
Photo by Brad Nettles/Charleston Post & Courier
157 students used their summers to gain professional experience with the following employers:
Spending summer off campus By Katelyn Horner
Photo courtesy of Daniela Dimitrova
New experiences over the summer deepened the dossiers of three Greenlee faculty members, providing them opportunities to bring back to Iowa State classrooms. Assistant Professor Jan Lauren Boyles, Associate Professor and Associate Director Michael Dahlstrom and Professor Daniela Dimitrova lent their expertise to both students and industry professionals during their break from Iowa State. The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication chose Boyles as one of eight professors to return to newsrooms across the country and incorporate their new experiences into their classes. Boyles spent two weeks at The Post & Courier newspaper in Charleston, S.C., as a fly on the wall in the newsroom observing editorial meetings, shadowing reporters and spending time with photojournalists. Boyles plans to implement new ideas into her beginning reporting and writing classes after her experiences over the summer. “Rather than having students focus on having a polished narrative, I’m having them write more incrementally and for breaking-news situations,” Boyles said. “I’m going to integrate more video and photo into the class as well.” In July, Dahlstrom taught master’s degree and
doctoral students at the University of Augsburg in Augsburg, Germany. This was part of the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Research’s first summer school on social, cultural and communicative aspects of health research. Dahlstrom’s research seminar opened students’ eyes to how mass media affects personal and societal perceptions of health, while his publishing workshop showed students how to present research findings and establish credibility in published format. “We did some [projects] where students had to analyze health stories in the news,” Dahlstrom said in explaining the research seminar. “We looked at theories underlying a lot of health communication and critiqued them as to why they might not be the best.” Dimitrova was invited to teach doctoral students at Jade University in Wilhelmshaven, Germany. During the summer school, Dimitrova taught research methods on the topics of content analysis and communication technology. Dimitrova helped students with research and the development of their project ideas. “A lot of the workshop themes [from Germany] are something I can bring into the classes I teach at the master’s level and even in my orientation class where students start and are kind of unsure what to do,” Dimitrova said.
October 11
October 13
Author, activist Steinem speaks on campus
‘Project Eñye’ brings multicultural perspective on filmmaking to campus
Feminist icon, social activist, journalist and author Gloria Steinem brought her speaking tour “My Life on the Road” to Iowa State’s Stephens Auditorium. Her talk covered a range of issues, uncluding feminism, masculinity, racism and diversity.
Greenlee’s Program Coordinator Alyssa Rutt worked to bring “Project Eñye: A Voice for First– Generation Latinos between Two Worlds” to Iowa State, as part of the university’s Latino Heritage Month activities. The documentary about firstgeneration, American-born Latinos was shown and followed by a discussion with filmmaker Denise Soler Cox (center).
Alzheimer’s Association American Diabetes Association American Red Cross Bayer Bernstein-Rein Calvin Klein, Inc. Cape Eleuthera InstituteThe Island School Casey’s Inc. Chicago ORT Technical Institute Cultivation Corridor CUSP Magazine Des Moines Menace Eastbay Eau Claire Express FLM+ Grey Dog Media Iowa Cubs Iowa Public Radio KAAN 95.5 FM Kansas City Star KHOI Community Radio Knocked-Up Fitness KTTC-TV Kuder, Inc. Kum & Go Louisville Bats Meredith Corporation MetLife MVP Marketing+Design NTPA Championship Omaha Magazine Osceola Medical Center Porter Novelli Principal Financial Group R&J Broadcasting Red Light PR Sun Post Newspapers Susan G. Komen Textron Aviation TH Media The Daily Nonpareil The Gazette The Hollywood Reporter The Sandbox Agency Weber Shandwick Wisconsin Public Radio ... and many others!
Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 15
Year in Review
FIVE NEW LECTURERS HIRED TO KEEP PACE WITH ENROLLMENT
Nathan Huss
Christine Jensen
By Allison Walters Nathan Huss is a public relations manager at Two Rivers Marketing in Des Moines, a husband and father. He’s also a recently hired lecturer at the Greenlee School. Juggling two hectic jobs is a balancing act for which Huss is finding success. He first taught a Greenlee public relations writing class in spring 2016. This past fall, Huss taught an account management class two nights each week. His public relations background gives him the ability to bring real-world experience into the classroom to contribute to Greenlee’s program. “I do a lot of interesting things that I think will be insightful to students,” Huss said. At Two Rivers Marketing, Huss works on nine different accounts and travels for clients. While still adjusting to his double-work life, Huss is most excited about teaching students how to make an account succeed. After completing his undergraduate degree in communications at Bowling Green State University, the Ohio native wrapped up his master’s degree with a focus in marketing at Heidelberg University and stayed close, accepting a position in the private sector in Ohio. Huss has worked in the administrative side of higher education in the past and one day wants to work full-time as a lecturer before he retires.
By Alyssa Priebe
October 27 Futures Forum explores multimedia in 2016 election Three political media pros—Kathie Obradovich, political columnist for the Des Moines Register, Lissandra Villa, reporter for Buzzfeed News, and Tim Albrecht, founder and owner of Albrecht Public Relations—shared their perspectives on the media’s role in the 2016 election. 16 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
but now she focuses on public relations writing and publicity methods. Jensen is excited for this next step and hopes students take more than facts away from her courses. “I hope they have essential skills, but beyond that I want them to be marketable to clients, meaning they know how to communicate their ideas and provide insights that benefit their employer,” Jensen said. When she isn’t encouraging Greenlee students, Jensen enjoys visiting her two daughters and grandkids in Des Moines as well as dragging her sports-enthusiastic husband to various musical and theatrical performances. Jensen would also like to say how grateful she is for this position. “The faculty are collegial and helpful and you don’t get that often,” she said. “Sincerely, I’m happy to be here. I know it’s a good place to be.”
October 27 Time magazine’s Stein discusses Internet trolling, bullying Joel Stein, author of Time magazine’s August 29, 2016, cover story “Why We’re Losing the Internet to a Culture of Hate,” discussed how trolling on the Internet is infecting real-life interactions, including politics. Stein addressed the psychology of trolling and also commented on his personal experiences with online hatred as part of his lecture. Warning people not to react to trolls, Stein explained, “As a term it originally came from ‘trolling’ which involved throwing a net into the ocean behind a boat and seeing what you caught. If you don’t react then they will move on.”
Photo by Megan Gilbert
Christine Jensen smoothed the wrinkles from her hot pink dress and confidently entered the oak double doors of Waldorf College. Her hours slaving away in dark rooms and at the typewriter showed through the black leather-bound portfolio she handed to the receptionist. “I know you have a PR director, but if you need extra help, I’m here,” she said. The receptionist smiled and said, “Actually, our director just left.” A few weeks later her phone rang, announcing her new job as the college’s public relations director, a job that launched her 33-year communications career. After her first position, Jensen worked in the public relations departments for various businesses including DuPont Pioneer. Her extensive experience paired with previous teaching positions have prepared her for her new role as lecturer at Greenlee. Jensen taught a class previously in spring 2016,
Year in Review
Pauli Escobedo
Photo by Meredith Kestel
Karen Doty By Brian Mozey Karen Doty thanks Truman State University every day for requiring one fine arts class before graduation. Without that class, Doty wouldn’t have found her passion in graphic design and journalism. Doty, a graduate assistant for the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, grew up in Colfax, Iowa, and attended Truman State for her undergraduate degree. She came to Iowa State for her master’s degree and, soon, a doctorate in human computer interaction. This academic year she’s
teaching Greenlee courses in visual design. “I was attracted to the [Greenlee School] at the beginning,” Doty said. “Coming from a journalism background, I like to see the variety of students and, already, I noticed that the students I’ve had have been very driven and reach for higher standards.” As she completes her Ph.D., she’s working with Microsoft HoloLens, virtual-reality glasses people can wear for daily activities. She hopes to take the knowledge of this futuristic technology and implement her findings into her design course. Doty wants to teach at the collegiate level after graduation and develop a course merging graphic design, photography and journalism, showing how each subject relies on the others for success.
Photo by Megan Gilbert
By Rachel Anderson
In 2010, Pauli Escobedo walked across the stage for the fourth time in pursuit of becoming Miss Iowa. She had worked for years for that crown and hoped this was her year. And it was. Being crowned Miss Iowa gave Escobedo the opportunity to travel around the state to talk to and mentor young girls and boys. She did all of this while still an Iowa State senior majoring in kinesiology. When her reign ended, Escobedo decided to pursue journalism. She was hired at WQAD-TV news station in the Quad Cities where she grew up. Following two years of hands-on learning in the news field, Escobedo returned to Iowa State and tackled her master’s degree in journalism. She now works as a lecturer teaching entry-level classes in reporting and writing. She also serves on the school’s diversity committee, a result of the journalistic gender and race issues she observed while working as a reporter.
Gary Sawyer By Amy Griffith Gary Sawyer joined the Greenlee family this year after a long career in community journalism. In his most recent role, Sawyer served as editor of the Herald & Review in Decatur, Ill., for 15 years. Starting out, he didn’t always want to be a journalist. He grew up with a passion for baseball and went to Iowa State to pursue a career as a baseball play-by-play announcer. While majoring in journalism and serving as sports editor of the Iowa State Daily, Sawyer discovered his love of the news industry. Sawyer graduated from Iowa State on a Saturday in 1978 and started his first job as a reporter at the newspaper in Denison, Iowa, the following Monday. On his second day of work, his editor quit and by the end of the week, Sawyer was in charge. “The entire staff was just the editor, two guys in sports and me,” Sawyer said. “After the initial panic, I realized what I learned at Iowa State served me well. I just had to do it. If you’re a journalist, you make so many mistakes as you’re learning. Experience is a great teacher.” Sawyer said throughout his career, his favorite stories to cover were the ones where his newspaper made a difference in peoples’ lives and helped others in his community. “The beauty of community journalism is that there will always be a need for someone to be out in the community and covering it,” Sawyer said. “Facebook isn’t going to interview the local quarterback. There’s always going to be a need for these journalists.” Sawyer said family brought him to the Ames area, but he’s had a close connection to Iowa State, after earning his bachelor’s degree and eventually his M.B.A. from the university in 1995. He’s excited for his first year of teaching back at the place he credits with launching his career. “If you’re the editor of a community paper, you have to be a good teacher to help young journalists learn. It’s been interesting adjusting to figuring out how to teach a class and gearing the information to where the students are at and not where you think they’re at. It’s a lot of fun,” he said.
October 28 Greenlee bids adieu to academic adviser
Katlyn Campbell/Iowa State Daily
After accepting a position as the Associate Director for Diversity and Inclusion in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Iowa, Jason Wiegand, Greenlee School academic adviser, said goodbye to his students and office in Hamilton Hall. In a farewell email to Greenlee students, he wrote: “I was completely unprepared to resign from a job that I love so much. As I have shared with colleagues I deeply admire everyone here at ISU, and it feels wrong to even call what I do a job. “Advising and recruiting students at the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication is now a part of my identity.” Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 17
Faculty
2016 faculty awards, accomplishments By Emily Sudlow Michael Dahlstrom, an associate professor, was recently promoted to associate director of the Greenlee School. As associate director he is responsible for scheduling classes, determining which courses should be offered at Greenlee and the instructors best suited to teach each class. In addition, Dahlstrom serves as the chair of the school’s curriculum committee. Associate Professor Raluca Cozma was appointed director of undergraduate education. Cozma has already begun to work toward change within Greenlee, implementing a faster turnaround process for appeals and providing greater transparency for awarding scholarships. Cozma credits her success to her colleagues, as her role relies heavily on the voices of her peers. She also encourages students to seek mentors in the industry. “Everyone has a journey--mine has been defined by my mentors,” Cozma said. Dennis Chamberlin, associate professor, was named a Fulbright Scholar for 2016-17 and is spending the academic year in Lviv, Ukraine. Chamberlin teaches at the Ukrainian Catholic University, sharing his skills in photojournalism and multimedia storytelling for the university’s newly initiated master’s degree program. The program specializes in documentary photojournalism. Sherry Berghefer was promoted to senior lecturer. Berghefer specializes in visual communication after 11 years working as a graphic designer. She hopes to expand the courses available for visual media at Greenlee, and recently began working as the faculty adviser for SIR magazine. Jay Newell, associate professor, was awarded the Distinguished Advertising Educator Award by the American Advertising Federation and also received the Distinguished Teaching Award by the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication. He was nominated by former students for the educator award and by fellow peers in the professional community for the teaching award. “The word ‘distinguished’ is funny,” Newell laughs. “It is not how I would describe myself.” Academic Adviser Jessica Hansen-Moench was awarded an Early Achievement in Academic Advising Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in September. She has served Greenlee as an adviser for three years. On top of advising over 240 undergraduate students, she has taken on the school’s course scheduling responsibilities. Deb Gibson, Greenlee’s Meredith Professional in Residence, received the ISU Alumni Association’s Faculty-Staff Inspiration Award in May. She was nominated by several of her former Meredith apprentices. Gibson joined the Greenlee faculty in 2004. Lecturer Jeff Ames received the Harry Heath Advising Award from Greenlee students in April. The award was based on students’ appreciation for Ames as not only an adviser but also an instructor. Ames has been a Greenlee faculty member since 2008 and specializes in video production and broadcast journalism.
Jeff A ME S lecturer
Kim CU R E L L
account clerk, admin. & grad program secretary
Deb GI B S ON
Meredith professional in residence, senior lecturer
Jay NE W E L L
associate professor
Kris A NGA R A N secretary
Beth HAAG
Sherry B E RG H E F E R senior lecturer
Gang H AN
lecturer
associate professor
Andrew PR I T CH A R D
Juli PROBASCOSOWERS
assistant professor
internship coordinator
Not Pictured: Gavin Aronsen, graduate assistant Dennis Chamberlin, associate professor Michael Dahlstrom, associate director and associate professor Daniela Dimitrova, director of graduate education and professor Pauli Escobedo,* lecturer Joel Geske, associate professor Nathan Huss,* lecturer
& Staff Kathy BOX
Jan Lauren BOYLES
Diane B U GE JA
Year in Review
Photos by Megan Gilbert
Michael B U GE JA
administrative specialist
assistant professor
senior lecturer
director & professor
Jess HAN S E N MUEN CH
Catherine HUGGINS
Su Jung KI M
Tracy L U CH T
Alyssa R UTT
Gary SAWYER
lecturer
assistant professor
assistant professor
communications specialist
Raluca C O ZM A
associate professor
Lisa MUNGER OAKES lecturer
academic adviser
program coordinator
Maria CH A R B ONNE AU X
lecturer
Christine Jensen, lecturer Suman Lee, associate professor Kathie Obradovich, lecturer Shane Scherschel, systems support Bret Vorhees, lecturer Brenda Witherspoon, lecturer
Dara WA L D
assistant professor
Michael W I GT O N lecturer
Erin WI L GE NB U S C H senior lecturer
Kelly W I N F RE Y
assistant professor
Read monthly updates from Greenlee School faculty members online at: www.greenlee.iastate.edu/news/ achievements.shtml
*see pages 16 and 17 Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 19
Year in Review
Many thanks to our Carol Amick and William Moonan Frederick Anderson and Deborah Anderson Phyllis Anderson Wayne Anderson and Jacquie Anderson Steve Arbuckle and Emily Arbuckle Janet Aronson Deirdre Baker and Steven Baker Jim Barber and Marcia Barber James Barry and Nancy Barry Richard Bartecki and Sarah Breen-Bartecki Justin Bernard and Kati Bernard Philip Blobaum and Cynthia Blobaum James Blume and Debra Blume Lindsey Borg and Deborah Borg Jocelyn Boss and Aaron Boss Vincent Bradley and Anita Bradley Thomas Brindley and Karen Brindley Patrick Brown George Bryant and Renee Bryant David Buns and Martha Buns Ann Burckhardt Grant Burger Janis Butler Rollow and Larry Rollow John Byrnes and Susan Moore Byrnes Mary Alice Carter Margy Chamberlin Betsy Chapman and William Dingwell Charles Koch Foundation Cecilia Chu and Andrew Kwan Franklin Clark Gary Clarke and Beth Clarke Jerry Clements and Judy Clements CMGRP, Inc. Kathleen Colburn David Copenhaver and Susanne Copenhaver Jeff Couch Karen Crosby and Robert Crosby Ronald Deaton and Julie Deaton Mike Deupree and Kathy Deupree Debra Dietzman and Gordon Dietzman Ryne Dittmer Pamela Dombrowski and Gerald Dombrowski Eldon Drake David Drennan and Karen Drennan Steven Dropkin and Teresa Dropkin Mary Druding Denise Essman James Evans and Marlene Evans David Ewoldsen 20 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
supporters in 2016 Jim and Martha Fifield Bob Freese and Betsy Freese Veryl Fritz and June Fritz Neil Gadbury and Donette Gadbury Regina Galer Michael Garrett and Donna Garrett Janet Gehrls Dan Geiser and Debra Geiser George & Maryann Reynolds Trust John Gilbert and Beverly Gilbert Gregory Gowey and Melinda Gowey Thomas Graves Fred and Martha Greder Roger Green and Nancy Green Bob and Diane Greenlee Lawn Richard Griffiths and Patricia Griffiths Wil Groves and Marjorie Groves Michael Hagan and Lisa Hagan Mary Halstead and Steven Halstead Gary Hansen and Elizabeth Hansen Holli Hartman Barbara Harville Chuck Heggen and Marcia Heggen Marty Helle Cathy Heng H. Keith Henry and Mary Henry Stan Hernly and Joni Hernly Jenny Herring Randall Hight and Beverley Hight La Veda Hinton and Robert Hinton Carolyn Homan and Thomas Homan Bette Honeck Mitchell Hoyer and Sherilyn Hoyer Jeffrey Hunt and Cynthia Hunt Theodore Hutchcroft and Beverly Hutchcroft Rosemary Hutchinson and Richard Hutchinson Raeanne Hytone and Steve Heinecke Barb Iverson Brent Jensen and Julie Johannsen Lyn Jerde and Jay Jerde Kerri Johnson and Brad Johnson Nicholas Joos and Jill Joos John Kain and Barbara Brown Kain Arlan Kay and Lori Kay Bob Kern Scott Kirkpatrick and Allison Engel Kirkpatrick Alan Larsen and Lynn Larsen Craig Laue and Johanna Laue Ramon Leach and Barbara Parsons Leach
Year in Review
Your dedication and continued support of the Greenlee School provides countless opportunites for our students, faculty and staff. We awarded $191,225 in scholarships to undergraduate students and $222,756 in graduate student assistantships. Our students have access to the latest technology and our labs are equipped with the newest software. Together, we are preparing future leaders in advertising, journalism and mass communication and public relations. Melvan Leaver and Marilyn Leaver Donna Lee John Leidner and Mary Leidner Robert Leinen and Janice Leinen Mary Ann LeMay Edith Lillie Bartley Ronald Loch and Kathleen Loch Karen Love and Gary Love Ann Lowry Ryan Lund and Heather Lund Doris Mac Farquhar Vincent Mahaney and Glenda Mahaney Dorothy Marston Alison McCool Dana McCullough and Michael McCullough Dustin McDonough and Kim McDonough Carol McGarvey and Tom McGarvey Martin McGrane and Sandy McGrane Ruth Mellman Stanley Meyer and R. Jane Meyer Marlene Mileham and Robert Headrick James Miller and Stephanie Miller Randy and Lisa Minear Kenneth Molsberry and John Vincent William Monroe and Chris Monroe Rick Montgomery and Susan Montgomery Kathleen Moran and John Young Alan Mores and Donna Christensen-Mores Carol Morgan Patricia Morgan Michael Myers and Coleen Myers Marcia Myers and Kenneth Myers Fredrick Nordstrom and Connie Nordstrom Sandra Novitzki Thomas O’Donnell Mary Beth Obermeyer Kathie Obradovich and James Obradovich David Ogle and Kris Ogle Mattie Olson and Roland Olson Ann Omvig Maine and Michael Maine James Opoien and Becky Opoien Alan Oppedal Sheryl Parrish and Robert Parrish Jimmy Patten Albert Pefley Lowell Penning and Patricia Penning Rand Petersen and Mary Louise Petersen Nicholas Pierce and Donna Peterson M. La Rue Pollard
Mike Pollitt and Margo Pollitt Sonia Porter Cheryle Power and Michael Power Scott Reeder and Joan Reeder Joy Reese Derr and John Derr Richard Reisem Frank Remde and Nancy Remde Dale Renner and Kelly Renner Weston Ritchie and Karen Ritchie Nancy Rothwell and Michael Rothwell Deanna Sands Michael Schilling Max Schnepf and Linda Schnepf Kelly Schwalbe and Kathleen Fenton Kathleen Schwanz Richard Seim and Alene Seim John Slothower and Nancy Slothower Gordon Smith and Olive Smith Robert Sogge and Norma Sogge Donald Somers and Sylvia Somers Mary Sommers and Matthew Sommers James Stephens and Margaret Stephens Ronald Sterk and Kay Sterk Jayne Sykora Marcia Taylor and John Taylor Jan Touney Tony Trease and Lynn Trease Roy Uelner and Sandy Uelner Todd Urbatsch and Amy Urbatsch Dirk van der Linden and Lee Ann van der Linden James Van Nostrand Robert Vieth and Sandra Vieth J. Newton Wallace Linda Watson and Bert Watson James Watson and Terese Watson Ryan Weaverling and Heather Weaverling Ruth Webber Larry Wentz and Lola Wentz Timothy Wigans and Lynn Manternach-Wigans Robert Wilde Murray Williams and Amy Williams Ronda Willsher and David Gardner Richard Winter and Flor Villanueva-Winter Dori Witte and Richard Vincent Witte Sarah Wolf Gary Zoet and Janice Zoet
Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 21
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Choose your adventure
Choose your adventure
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Photo by Megan Gilbert
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hat draws prospective students and faculty to Iowa State? For many, it’s the promise of an adventure. Greenlee alumna Carole Custer remembers one California student who decided to transfer to Iowa State immediately after seeing one of the “Enjoy the Adventure” commercials. “One—I can count on one who did it all because of a commercial,” she says, laughing. In order for marketing strategies like this to be effective, the entire university needs to speak with one voice. For the past 29 years, that voice has belonged to Custer. As the director of university marketing, Custer oversees the establishment and promotion of Iowa State’s brand and manages an internal marketing agency for the university. Her clients come from departments all over Iowa State—with the exception of the athletic department—and her oversight ranges from revamping a website to designing promotional merchandise. Custer ensures that Iowa State’s communication materials are all cohesive and effective in conveying the university’s brand. Each flyer, banner and webpage must send the same message to prospective students, faculty and alumni. Want to use the name “Cy” in a title or slogan? You have to clear it with Custer first. She considers the context, asking herself, “Would Cy really do this?”
Top: Carole Custer, ’71, has kept a close watch on Iowa State’s brand identity over the last 29 years, helping it grow along with the university. Above: As the university continues to expand and units hire employees who manage its marketing, University Marketing’s branded-house strategy keeps the school’s image consistent across all platforms by enforcing strict brand standards. Images courtesy of the Office of University Marketing
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If we don’t have students, faculty and staff who are loyal to us and feel like they are getting the kind of experience they want, then marketing is nothing.
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—Carole Custer
University Marketing’s work can be found across campus on banners hanging from buildings and light fixtures and on graphics inside buildings. The team’s work also appears in print materials and on several units’ websites, which they strive to keep consistent with Iowa State’s brand identity. Images courtesy of the Office of University Marketing
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Even for something as small as a key chain, Custer insists on maintaining “a sense of pride and professionalism.” She emphasizes that every piece of merchandise must mean something. From the Iowa State University pin fastened to her shirt to the cardinal-and-gold beaded bracelet dangling from her wrist, Custer wears her Cyclone pride for the world to see. She considers it a part of her job description. “I can’t market a product that I’m not committed to,” she says. That commitment stems from her own experiences as an undergraduate at Iowa State. Graduating from Greenlee in 1971 with a degree in science journalism and an emphasis in broadcast, Custer dreamed of becoming a broadcast anchor in New York City. She ended up in Mason City and landed a job as a TV anchorwoman—the first in the state of Iowa. After relocating to Jefferson, Iowa, with her husband, Roger, she worked as the marketing director for a bank. When the Iowa Lottery launched in 1985 in Des Moines, Custer served as its first communications directorand later as its marketing director. This experience, combined with her position as president of the ISU Alumni Association at the time, made her the perfect candidate when former University President Gordon Eaton created a new job in 1987. Originally titled assistant to the president for marketing, this position introduced the magic of the discipline to Iowa State. Custer was hired, stepping into a position that had no precedent. “I relish those kinds of jobs because I get to fashion it out of whatever I think the needs are,” she says. After 29 years, Custer still claims she has the best job in the world. However, at such a large university, her job is a pretty big one. Luckily, she isn’t alone. With a laugh, she says she has a staff of about 45,000 — counting anyone enrolled in or employed by the university as part of her team. “If we don’t have students, faculty and staff who are loyal to us and feel like they are getting the kind of experience they want, then marketing is nothing,” Custer says. “Those that are here have to be my mouthpiece.” The marketing team includes Custer’s assistant, Marcia Anderson, ZLR Ignition, an advertising agency, which handles larger branding campaigns for the university, and Push Branding and Design, a design firm that creates on-campus marketing and websites. All marketing materials produced by these agency partners, or by other entities within Iowa State, are created according to the university’s brand standards. Custer refers her clients to the Office of University Marketing’s website, which offers design guidelines, typography options, a color palette and other information about the brand. Each of these elements is important to the marketing strategy, which can be a difficult concept for some faculty and staff to grasp. Jenny (Rickels) Pollard, ’06, ISU Recreation Services coordinator of
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Jenny Pollard, below, has worked to uphold the Iowa State brand as the coordinator of marketing for ISU Recreation Services. In her role, she relies on the brand standards set by the Office of University Marketing for everything she does. Images courtesy of the Office of University Marketing Photo by Meredith Kestel
marketing, taped the design guidelines above her keyboard as a constant reference. However, she admitted that young professionals and students sometimes find the guidelines challenging, often complaining that it limits their creativity. The T-shirt design is a frequent challenge for the organizers who want a new design and color each year for the same annual event. T-shirt colors are limited to cardinal, white, gold and khaki. A black-andgold combination screams University of Iowa, and other colors are confusing and unidentifiable with Iowa State. While some faculty members think this is a challenge, Pollard says she accepted it as another layer she doesn’t need to worry about. It is a commitment to the brand Custer built that makes recreation services even stronger aligned with the university’s goals. Other departments found they became more successful in their efforts as the university increased the brand strength. Brian Meyer, ’83, program director for agricultural communications at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, said he found that legislators, flagship communicators and stakeholder groups recognized their fliers and information as Iowa State-connected just by the colors and font style on their printed materials. This past fall, Custer, Meyer and the design team created the CALS lamppost banners around campus so they blended well with other university signs and gave students information regarding agriculture at Iowa State. Meyer attributes the number of enrolled students to the brand’s consistency. “With such a diverse campus, a common thread keeps us under the same umbrella,” Meyer says, regarding the brand’s steady look. “It’s hard to argue with increased enrollment.” Increased enrollment is one way to gauge the importance of branding at Iowa State. That was the goal of Custer’s “Enjoy the Adventure” campaign launched about nine years ago. This campaign was implemented after several rounds of research into what prospective students, faculty, staff and alumni thought about Iowa State. It was important to Custer that “the adventure” was actually what people were experiencing here. For the marketing departments on campus, the adventure campaign opened doors for creativity in an otherwise steady and consistent brand. Travis Ballstadt, ’94, digital media coordinator for the College of Engineering, uses the adventure theme every day for the videos he posts about engineering students. He broke the adventure into three levels. “There is the general Iowa State adventure, then we have the adventures within each major and finally we have the individual adventure,” Ballstadt said. “Every student and faculty member has his own adventure.” He captures this while walking through the engineering buildings on campus. Ballstadt often posts more videos on a rainy day because, when inside, he peeks into the labs and stumbles across students creating and learning, alone or together. One particular day stands out. Ballstadt walked through the Lab of Mechanics, turned a corner and found a student sitting on the ground. The student printed out a ukulele on a 3D printer earlier in the day, and now sat in the hallway, tuning his printed ukulele just right. Ballstadt grabbed his camera and shot video while the student tuned his instrument. He then posted the interview with the student that afternoon. While Ballstadt’s published content includes videos of campus and interviews with faculty members and researchers, it is always
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Photography is a tool that University Marketing uses to convey the Iowa State brand in an interesting and provoking manner. The department works with myriad photographers to capture top-notch images from across campus. Photos courtesy of the Office of University Marketing
the student adventure that draws the most views. This observation helped Ballstadt create an Iowa State high school recruitment video. The target audience was a high school in Texas; the video gave information about opportunities at Iowa State to students interested in engineering. Ballstadt decided the most effective recruitment video would be one that included alumni from the high school who now are engineering students at Iowa State. He interviewed these students about their adventures at the university. It was a very specific video for a small niche audience, but one he believes was effective because it tied into the marketing slogan. This commitment to the adventure campaign is what Custer looks for in published content, whether it is for a small or a large audience. “Marketing is a discipline,” Custer said. When people think of Iowa State, they might think of Cy or the colors cardinal and gold. They may think of their own adventure or the one that awaits them. With the record enrollment, more students, with their individual voices and experiences, will identify the brand and become a part of it. Custer works to educate new faculty and staff by hosting summits every semester where she discusses the university brand and provides updates on research relating to the marketing strategy. The university marketers in various departments, such as Pollard, Meyer and Ballstadt, all see the effort she makes to maintain the brand’s consistency. “Carole’s philosophy is that a rising tide floats all boats,” Pollard said. With an everyday commitment to the brand by all departments and campus organizations, it grows stronger. Custer works tirelessly to bring the brand forward, better than before. “I hope my legacy is that I brought a new understanding of how important brand is to an institution,” she said. Photo by Megan Gilbert
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A LESSON IN IMPRESSION
Photos courtesy of Ty Stafford
After starting a YouTube channel as a student, Ty Stafford has combined his natural extroversion with his advertising degree to carve out his own niche in the industry. By Matt Wettengel
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Ty Stafford knows how to have fun.
Photo by Matt Wettengel
It’s a life philosophy for the 28-year-old. Unlike people who only carve out time to enjoy themselves after 5 or on weekends, Stafford is a 24/7 fun kind of guy. And yes, this even includes the time he spends working. As a senior content strategist at Omelet, an independent boutique creative agency in Culver City, Calif., this isn’t particularly hard. Omelet’s office, located in a building known as the Pterodactyl, resembles a melted industrial-style Rubik’s Cube. The exterior, a concord of polygonal shapes made of polished metal and panes of glass, could easily house a modern art gallery, but for Ty and the team at Omelet it serves as a catalyst for the creative work they produce. Since moving into the space in the fall of 2015, the agency has gotten comfortable. Its workplace culture and style, reminiscent of companies like Google and Apple, is on full display on the top floor of the Pterodactyl. Featuring an open layout and amenities including a fully-stocked kitchen and bar, outdoor patio with furniture and a grill, a conference room complete with a pingpong table and a dog-friendly policy, the office is a millennial’s workplace fantasy. It’s in this new age setting that the 2011 Greenlee School advertising graduate works his magic for a list of high-profile clients that includes Nickelodeon, Walmart and Pokémon. The space also provides opportunities for team members to seclude themselves when they need to escape the bustle of coworkers holding client meetings, brainstorming
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sessions or client research on the agency’s video game consoles. Stafford’s role is a hybrid one, created just for him, that allows him to work on both strategy and creative, says Mike Wallen, Omelet’s chief content officer. “He’s kind of hovered and weaved in and out of the lanes of strategy and social content thinking, which is kind of a new thing with agencies, where you’re kind of straddling the line between why you do something and then the making of something,” Wallen explains. His landing the position wasn’t a coincidence, but a strategic move by Wallen, who wanted to offer Stafford’s expertise in social media and brand influence to Omelet’s collection of high-profile clients. But Stafford’s isn’t a tale of working up a corporate ladder. Throughout his life he’s been known to operate outside of traditional norms. Whether he was starting a mime club at his high school or sharing personal stories with the world via YouTube, his unabashed willingness to be himself and follow his passions has allowed Stafford to take on the world his way. And his career is no exception. Infusing his new media-savvy, dynamic personality with his ability to connect with people, Stafford has made a name for himself as a successful brand manager and influencer. In his first job with Red Bull he helped the company redefine itself as more than an energy drink company. Running the company’s YouTube channel his first four years after graduating, he helped it stake its place as a media brand. His work with Red Bull garnered him recognition as one of the nation’s top young professionals in 2016, when he landed a spot on the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for marketing and advertising. As the then-27 year old told the Iowa State Daily last February, the unexpected news made him scream and run around, waking up his friends. If his interview with the Daily is any indication, Stafford is
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not afraid to put himself out there. If you need more proof, look no farther than the YouTube channel he started as a freshman at Iowa State University. His channel, Ironing My Underwear, was named after his obsessive high school routine of ironing his entire outfit, including his boxers, each day before school because he hated wrinkles. The channel has served as a platform for him to share personal experiences, insights and commentary with the world through his nine years of vlogging (video blogging). His head-on, confessional-style videos about things that scared him, such as making out, the Spice Girls and cigars; guides on how to do things including survive freshman year, not suck at dating apps, and be popular; and “briefs” on topics like why 4 a.m. is the weirdest time have attracted almost 28,000 subscribers to his channel to date. Back when he first started it in Iowa State’s Martin Hall, Stafford simply viewed the channel as a creative outlet, another way to express himself. He had no idea of the transformational role his burgeoning social media presence would eventually have on his career or that it would put him on a path to becoming a recognized member of the advertising and marketing industry.
Capitalizing on his presence Stafford has always had a knack for connecting with others. While his mother, Lila Stafford, says she encouraged each of her four kids to participate in public speaking, she recalls Ty always being very personable. So much so that he drove more than one of his elementary school teachers to tears. “I can remember his grade school teachers, when we’d go for parent-teacher conferences, they would always cry because they just loved him,” said Lila. “And I used to be a teacher and I couldn’t remember crying over any kids. But he’s one of those people who loves everybody and in turn they love him.” To those who know Stafford, his mother’s statement rings true. With his wide green eyes, powerfully exuberant voice and infectious laugh, he’s hard to miss. The fact that he stands at over six-and-a-half-feet tall helps too, but his vivacious
personality has blessed him the natural ability to own any room and strike up conversation with just about anyone. Before his charisma led him to amass a large YouTube following, it allowed Stafford to take on leadership positions as early as his grade school years. In his first campaign for student council in grade school, Lila recalls taking an approach to campaigning by repurposing a cardboard cutout of James Dean to encourage his fellow classmates to vote. Replacing Dean’s head with Stafford’s and covering the cigarette in his hand with a sign that read “Vote for Tyler Stafford Pres. Crossroads” led him to an electoral victory for the council presidency. From that first elected post, Stafford went on to serve on the student council in junior high and through high school. He also explored other opportunities to utilize his outgoing persona, including taking his talents to the stage. When his first audition at the Des Moines Community Playhouse didn’t earn him a role, he set to work building confidence. Perhaps ironically, creativity is something Stafford says he’s always struggled with. To him, it’s like a muscle that requires flexing to keep strong. Back then that meant taking improv classes and practicing his oratory skills at home. At his next audition for the playhouse’s production of “Treasure Island,” he landed the lead as the young treasure hunter Jim Hawkins. His resolve is the result of a vital lesson his mother worked to instill in her kids once they reached first grade: the importance of setting goals and sticking to them. She would have the kids write out their goals each year and monitor their progress periodically, something Stafford embraced wholeheartedly. Even with early accomplishments under his belt, Stafford endured his share of setbacks. After his redemption at the playhouse in seventh grade, he tried out for his school play the next year hoping to score the lead. Instead he was cast as a rock with no speaking parts. Similarly, after serving on the student council throughout high school, he was devastated when he lost the presidency his senior year by a small margin out of the couple thousand votes cast by his peers at Valley High School in West Des Moines. “Part of me felt bad, but the other part said ‘this
Opposite and above: Omelet, the ad agency where Stafford works in L.A., offers many amenities to its employees, including an outdoor patio and a view of the Hollywood Hills. Photo by Dawaune Hayes Bottom: In his first campaign for student council, Stafford and his mother repurposed a cardboard cutout of James Dean to promote his candidacy. Photo courtesy of Lila Stafford
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Features is life, and you’re going to have to know how to deal with this,’” Lila says. “From the outside it looks like everything goes his way, but it really hasn’t. He’s had a few things happen that have put him back in his place, which as a parent I’m thankful for.” Beneath his social disposition and general likability lie Stafford’s own set of challenges in the form of ADHD and dyslexia. At home, his parents were able to support him and his siblings, who all shared the same diagnosis, but when each of them began to contemplate going to college, Lila admits feeling a little scared. But pretty soon after Stafford moved to Ames to attend Iowa State, she realized she had no need to worry.
Defining his adventure Stafford’s Iowa State adventure began as an open option freshman in the fall of 2006. While taking several majors’ introductory courses, his interest was piqued in an Advertising Principles class taught by Associate Professor Jay Newell. The course introduced him to advertising’s many facets and explained how it can be applied to more than just selling products. “We try to show all of the options in advertising, not only from a career standpoint, but also from understanding what it can do in the world,” Newell says. After his freshman year, Stafford was inspired enough to declare a major in advertising. His classes at the Greenlee School allowed him to take unconventional approaches to solving problems and kept him flexing his creative muscles. His Advertising Creativity course particularly stood out because it had so few rules while simultaneously offering structure, which he’s come to realize is more or less how the industry works. “There are no real rules, but the client’s going to give you some structure to keep it on brand and you go from there,” Stafford says. “So that was kind of my first opportunity to explore what that even meant, because so frequently in school things are so structured. You do the assignments, you take the test and get your grade. It was so unlike that.” He remembers the grading method former Greenlee Lecturer John Thomas used — laying out all assignments in front of the class, sorted by the grade they received. There were piles of A’s, B’s, C’s, D’s and a pile of “I don’t knows,” where Stafford remembers finding most of his work. He took some pride in that, not only because they tended to get A’s, but because if his instructor wasn’t sure about it, there had to be a chance it might work. In addition to his newfound interest in advertising, Stafford also continued to hone his public speaking skills, eventually declaring a double major in speech communication. As he explored the theories and ideas behind each major, he noticed himself applying many of the concepts to grow his fledgling YouTube channel. “It was truly just for fun, but I could apply some of the things I was learning both in speech communication and the advertising classes to build these audiences and form my personality online and it kind of became weirdly addictive and really fun to be able to do something that was just for me,” Stafford says. Even though it wasn’t for a class or a grade, Stafford continued his amateur vlogging throughout his four years at Iowa State. Eventually he was able to leverage his channel and advertising knowledge to land professional opportunities, including a job as a student brand manager for Red Bull. In this role, he was responsible for promoting Red Bull and its products in the Iowa State community and introducing Red Bull products to new consumers. To accomplish this, he relied on what he knew — video production — and took innovative approaches to associate the brand with key moments in students’ lives. Some of his tactics included filling a filing cabinet with cans of the energy drink, leaving it in a dorm with a sign that read “Test Answers” and recording students’ reactions with a hidden camera. He created a fake fraternity to stealthily inject the brand into the Iowa State Greek community’s annual bid day serenades ceremony. Iowa State also exposed Stafford to other organizations where he found more opportunities to put his interests, talents and online fanbase to use. In his senior year, he produced a video that won a $10,000 prize for Dance Marathon to create an educational fund to support children whose educational pursuits were affected by their illnesses. He entered the Ford Focus Global Test Drive Contest uncertain that his submission would even qualify — the rules called for entries to support charities that worked in education, environment or hunger. Dance Marathon’s philanthropic mission didn’t fit the criteria, but Stafford decided to test the limits and focused on creating an educational fund for the organization he had passionately supported throughout his four years as an undergrad. 30 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
“YOU NEED TO BE WILLING TO CRACK SOME EGGS AND RUFFLE UP SOME FEATHERS IF YOU’RE GOING TO DO SOMETHING THAT’S GOING TO RAISE SOME EYEBROWS.” —TY STAFFORD
Stafford’s work with Red Bull earned the company two Webby Awards, recognizing Red Bull as the Best Variety Channel in 2014 and 2015, and a Streamy Award, honoring it as the Best Sports Channel in 2014. The company also won an Emmy for its “Red Bull Stratos: Space Jump” video that Stafford worked on. Photo courtesy of Ty Stafford
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Each video’s views and votes also factored in the competition, so Stafford turned to his YouTube fan base, which had grown to over 18,000 subscribers by his senior year. With their assistance, his entry gained the most attention, receiving over 1,000 more votes than the next video. After a phone interview, he received the news that he had been selected as a winner. In addition to the $10,000 he also won a trip to Spain to test drive a 2012 Ford Focus. “Ty is a perfect example of what any student at Iowa State can do,” Newell says. “While it’s important to study advertising and learn the history, to learn the ethics and some of the processes, it’s more important to actually be making things and to do things.” His personal drive and extracurricular involvement did prove to be immediately beneficial to Stafford’s career. Just a week and a half after graduating in May of 2011, he boarded a plane for Los Angeles, where he had accepted his first post-grad job as a Digital TV/Video Strategist for Red Bull Media House.
Turning heads in the professional world
Now in his sixth year living in the Los Angeles metro, Stafford has found his place living and working in the big city. He’s met a nice girl named EB, who works in media, and the two moved in together last fall. He’s worked with friends, including fellow Iowa State graduate Andrew Lopez, ’12, to carve out a place in the comedy scene by hosting their own stand-up show in his backyard, an idea that attracted sponsorship from YouTube and Uber. But he still hasn’t totally gotten over the circumstances that led him here in the first place at 22. “The fact that a brand like that was willing to trust someone so young with its entire YouTube strategy
In the five years since Stafford graduated, he’s combined his passions with his background in advertising and speech communication. Above left, above: He and his friends started their own comedy show to carve out a niche in the Los Angeles stand-up scene. Their event, dubbed “The Sleepover,” welcomed new and established comedians to Stafford’s backyard to perform until it attracted sponsorship from YouTube, which now hosts the monthly show that Stafford and his friends still emcee at YouTube Space LA. Above right, above top: Stafford’s time at Red Bull was filled with adventures, as he traveled to create content with the company’s international partners. Photos courtesy of Ty Stafford
was crazy,” he says. “I had come from just making YouTube videos in my dorm room to now being responsible for this global distribution strategy, this global audience that’s watching online and communicating with them, as well as the creative that’s going to be on this channel. It was incredibly overwhelming.” The experience that earned him the job hadn’t prepared him for everything he encountered. But Stafford has found that the best results often come from throwing yourself in the fire and operating on a trial-by-error basis. And he admits there were errors — enough to make him worry he might be fired after his first six months. Like when he was tasked with making sure a video of stunt performer Travis Pastrana’s attempt to break the world record for distance traveled by a car driving off a ramp was posted at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Everything was ready to go, but in his excitement to start celebrating he missed one step and the video didn’t go up. “All it took was one mistake like that, though, to never do it again,” Stafford recalls. “Sometimes it takes messing up and hitting your lowest low to be able to reach your highest high.” Some of his highs with Red Bull included traveling the globe to create content with the company’s international partners, including videos from the world’s biggest one-on-one break dancing competition in Brazil; almost breaking YouTube in 2012 with “Red Bull Stratos: Space Jump” a live
broadcast of Felix Baumgartner’s record breaking freefall from the stratosphere, which won an Emmy for Outstanding New Approaches – Sports Event Coverage; and working on six different original series for the channel, which YouTube ended up buying. In his four years with Red Bull Media House, Stafford became an authority on producing content, growing audiences and working as a brand manager via YouTube. He had also established a reputation for innovation and results. This was evidenced by the channel’s subscription growth from 100,000 to over 4 million followers and surpassing 1 billion views and honors including two Webby Awards recognizing Red Bull as the Best Variety Channel in 2014 and 2015 and a Streamy Award honoring it as the Best Sports Channel in 2014. Meeting people was another perk of Stafford’s job, and ultimately one that led him to his current position with Omelet. He first met Wallen when Red Bull was collaborating on a project with the agency and the two hit it off immediately. “I was very fond of his energy, his style and his smarts and he certainly had an unconventional, yet very advanced knowledge of social,” Wallen remembers. As the two continued to talk, it became clear Stafford was looking to make a career move. “The work I had done at Red Bull was a blast to work on, but there weren’t as many mountains to climb when it came to their YouTube efforts,” Stafford says. It was an opportunity Wallen didn’t want to pass up. Omelet has a unique hiring policy — it doesn’t hire Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 31
Features to fill positions, it hires people based on their talents. And social media strategy was in high demand for many of Omelet’s clients, making Stafford’s experience strategizing for one of the world’s betterknown brands a valued asset for the team. Stafford’s social savvy didn’t only earn him a new position on Omelet’s staff, it also inspired his new coworkers to nominate him for Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list after less than a year with the agency. The team acknowledged that his work with the energy drink giant had a lot to do with its evolution from an energy drink company into a media brand. The honor was never something that had been on Stafford’s radar, but he hopes his distinction serves as proof that “exploring things that you’re passionate about will end up taking you somewhere exciting and maybe somewhere you had no idea you’d ever even end up.” Like on a jog with Michael Phelps, where Stafford found himself at the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Summit in Boston last October. In his time with Omelet, Stafford has become an integral member of the team. Some projects he’s worked on include a distracted driving awareness campaign for AT&T, a campaign for Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Pokémon’s Super Bowl 50 commercial, which aired ahead of the company’s launch of Pokémon GO, the augmented reality game that took the world by storm in 2016. He’s found working at the mid-size agency to be reminiscent of his college days, because similar to taking college courses, “you’re being challenged on a daily basis with things that are very new to you and you either come out on top or you let it defeat
you.” Unlike other agencies, Omelet’s team members choose which accounts they work on, allowing them to use their talents on clients they’re passionate about. Since graduating Stafford hasn’t forgotten the place he credits for putting him on his path. Stafford has Skyped with or visited Newell’s Advertising Principles course almost every semester since he left campus in hopes of inspiring current students with his story. As an industry veteran from the days when cable television was the hot new thing, Newell says he benefits as much as students do from hearing Stafford’s perspective on the advertising industry today. “It’s a new world he’s working in,” Newell says. Last fall, Stafford was honored for his continued dedication to his alma mater and his early professional achievements with the Young Alumnus Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. As he tells students in Newell’s classes, there’s no universal formula to guarantee success in advertising these days. But his experiences have taught him that “being polarizing, in general, tends to get you more recognition, whether it works or doesn’t, than just staying in the middle. “You need to be willing to crack some eggs and ruffle up some feathers if you’re going to do something that’s going to raise some eyebrows,” he advises aspiring advertisers. Perhaps an indication that he’s exactly where he needs to be at Omelet, helping clients navigate the 21st century’s increasingly sophisticated media landscape and still making sure he’s having fun.
Stafford was presented with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Young Alumnus Award by Dean Beate Schmittmann, right, at the college’s annual Honors and Awards Ceremony on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016, at the ISU Alumni Center. He was nominated by Associate Professor Jay Newell, left, who has invited Ty to speak with his classes each semester since he graduated in 2011. “I invite Ty to talk to my classes as much for my own illumination of what’s going on now as it is to get students revved up about following in his footsteps,” Newell says. Photo courtesy of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
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MOVING FORWARD After putting the school on a path to success, Dr. Michael Bugeja prepares to pass the torch.
By Matt Wettengel, Photos from the Greenlee School archive
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P R a ress igh m t as Int : B t e er ug r’s na e st t i o j a b ud n e en al i ga ti nt nh n he i s m as 70 car s c s a ee o m nd r a m fo s a un un n i c d ed at h it i o i s or n pl a at ac n d So e r ut in t epo h h D e h r t er ak i ot gh for a er U St e ni at du te d e Un cat i v i on er si t y.
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ubscribers to Director Michael Bugeja’s Good News from Greenlee newsletter have read about the many positives that have come out of the school over the last 14 years. Whether he’s touting the accomplishments of students, faculty or staff or sharing school updates or the latest happenings in Hamilton Hall, Bugeja’s efforts to publicize others’ success have become a hallmark of his leadership. It also embodies his two-pronged administrative philosophy that landed him the top position at the Greenlee School back in 2003 — one of contribution and transparency. Bugeja views his philosophy as more an act of artistry than a managerial style. “Everyone wants to make a contribution, and it’s your job as an administrator not to shape the nature of that contribution, but to take everybody’s contributions and build a mosaic out of it,” he explains. The masterpiece Bugeja has created throughout his tenure at the school has earned both the school and himself national recognition. In 2014, the school received the Equity and Diversity Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. One year later Bugeja was honored with the 2015 Charles E. Scripps Journalism and Mass Communication Administrator of the Year from the Scripps Howard Foundation. These distinctions honored Bugeja’s role in fostering diversity at the school — no easy task in a homogeneous state like Iowa — which he was able to accomplish through his work transforming Greenlee into a collegial and family-like environment. The results speak for themselves. In the last five years, the school has enrolled record numbers of students interested in pursuing degrees in advertising, journalism and mass communication, or, as of 2014, public relations. Bugeja has been successful in assembling a faculty full of nationallylauded professors and scholars, as well as experienced lecturers who help the school manage its growing teaching loads. He’s also positioned the
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school as a leader in the push for transparency in higher education and maintained its status as the longest continuously accredited journalism program in the state of Iowa. “The school today is thriving,” says Beate Schmittmann, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “Dr. Bugeja and his colleagues have grown the school into one of the largest programs in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and have laid the foundation for a strong national reputation.” While he’s quick to acknowledge that the school’s success was much more than a one-man job, Bugeja’s tireless work and visionary leadership have helped the school find its place among the top communications programs in the nation. This collaborative effort took time and would not have been possible without the experience Bugeja brought to the position from his past teaching and professional experiences.
The road to Greenlee Bugeja’s career spanned the worlds of both journalism and academia. After graduating with a degree in German from Saint Peter’s College (now Saint Peter’s University) in New Jersey in 1974, he went to South Dakota to pursue a master’s degree in mass communication at South Dakota State
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University. His time as a graduate student at SDSU was a critical point in Bugeja’s life. Not only did it affirm his passion for journalism, it showed him his place at the front of the classroom. And his love for teaching wasn’t the only one he gained. Bugeja also met the love of his life, Diane Sears, who took an agriculture journalism class that he taught as a grad student. After earning his master’s degree in 1976, Bugeja began working for United Press International, first covering the South Dakota and Nebraska Supreme Courts and eventually working his way up to become a state editor After three years with UPI, Bugeja decided to move his career into the classroom full time, with Diane by his side. The two married on Sept. 16, 1979, the same year he began his first professorship at Oklahoma State University’s School of Journalism and Broadcasting. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, Bugeja also took on a new role as the faculty adviser of the OSU student newspaper, The Daily O’Collegian. Seven years in Stillwater earned Bugeja tenure, his Ph.D. in English and creative writing and a strong rapport with the student body, which selected him to receive an AMOCO Foundation Outstanding Teaching Award in 1985. But he wasn’t ready to settle down. In 1986 he took another professorship at Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. Bugeja’s successful teaching career continued at Ohio, where the student body twice nominated him for the title of “University Professor.” He received both awards, in 1987 and 2000. After 10 years in the classroom, Bugeja’s staunch advocacy for ethics and his ability to effectively engage his students and peers led to his appointment as a special assistant to the university’s president, Robert Glidden. In his executive role, Bugeja was tasked with
Features Left: The late Barbara Mack, Bugeja, former professor Lulu Rodriguez and Associate Professor Joel Geske dance after receiving news that the school’s bid for reaccreditation was approved in spring 2004. Below: Bugeja and Professor Daniela Dimitrova both started at the Greenlee School in the fall of 2003. The colleagues collaborated on a book and Bugeja helped Dimitrova navigate the promotion and tenure process.
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Bottom: In February, Bugeja received the 2017 Distinguished Service Award from the Iowa Newspaper Association. Photo courtesy of Iowa Newspaper Association
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This was someone the faculty felt was going to be a good leader for us.
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—Eric Abbott, professor emeritus fostering students’ sense of responsibility, accountability and ethical behavior following a tough period involving professional scandals and alcohol-related student riots at the university in the mid-’90s. To carry out his mission he developed an award-winning character education program, “Your PATH at Ohio,” and presented it to student, administrative, faculty and staff groups at least once a week throughout his five-year appointment. He also assisted Glidden in writing annual State of the University addresses and other speeches. “[Glidden’s] vision of leadership eschewed top-down management and put the onus on administrators taking inventory of various talents of employees and, out of that mosaic, molding a productive, collegial workplace,” Bugeja says. This style of leadership heavily influenced Bugeja’s own. Following his executive appointment, Bugeja returned to the Scripps School as an associate director in 2001. One year later, the school began an outside search for its next director. With his range of experiences across the spectrum of higher education and journalism education, Bugeja felt inclined to take the next step in his career. So he decided to pitch
his leadership philosophy to the University of South Carolina, Kent State University and Iowa State, which were all searching for the next leaders of their journalism programs. But after 17 years in Athens, Ohio, Michael, Diane and their children lived in what Diane describes as her dream home and had just completed a basement remodel. She wasn’t ready for another move. “I told him, ‘Don’t you dare apply for a job and get one’ and of course he went that weekend,” she recalls with a laugh. Though they had grown comfortable, she eventually came around to the idea that Michael had more to offer another program. The Greenlee School was the first to host Bugeja for an interview in spring 2003. The school was in need of a new director and new direction, following an intradepartmental dispute the year before. In the spring of 2002, a contentious conflict among the faculty led to three junior faculty members’ resignations. This highlighted pedagogical differences and a generational divide among the faculty. As Professor Emeritus Eric Abbott explains it, senior faculty members, many of whom had more
professional experience and training than their younger colleagues, “were worried about it being lost when we brought in people who were capable of doing a lot more research, but maybe didn’t have as strong a professional background.” Differences of opinion about the direction of the school and a perceived lack
Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 35
Features capital. Bill Monroe, ’69, then-head of the Greenlee Advisory Council, and Dick Doak, ’62, and the late Don Muhm, ’52, both long-time staples at the Des Moines Register, met with Bugeja to discuss their alma mater and Bugeja’s vision for the program. “They really sold me on the place because of their passion,” says Bugeja, who shared their high regard for the fourth estate and commitment to newspapers. And that was just his first fateful encounter of the day. He was picked up from his meeting with the three alumni by the late Barbara Mack, a Greenlee associate professor. “‘I hear your nickname is Mickey,’” Bugeja remembers her simultaneously stating and inquiring. Upon confirming that, she informed him she had a horse with the same name and asked if he’d like to go to her barn to meet him. Having lived and worked in rural states before, Bugeja says he recognized this as a personality test and agreed to take a detour to Mack’s barn. Following the meeting of the Mickeys, Bugeja and Mack went for a cup of coffee, over which they discussed horses, the Midwest and journalism. “I immediately felt a strong friendship with her,” Bugeja says. Once he finally made it to campus, he met with more of the school’s stakeholders. He had meetings with Iowa State administrators and Peter Rabideau, then dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and he presented his two-pronged leadership philosophy to the school’s faculty and staff. His philosophy followed in the mold of Glidden’s at Ohio and recognized that it was not an administrator’s job to control the nature of their team’s contributions, but to facilitate and recognize them to create a model learning community. His work teaching and researching ethics also instilled in him a dedication to lead openly and transparently. “You could sense some tension among the faculty, but could also sense that many of the people wanted somebody to help them out of this tension,” Bugeja says. In the
Leading by example: Throughout his tenure, Bugeja has contributed to scholarship productivity by publishing six non-fiction books, eight book chapters and 79 articles of his own. end, his ideas made a strong first impression on the faculty he was vying to lead. “When Mickey came with his experience in leadership and a rather clear idea of what a school might be, that was really needed,” says Abbott, who served on the director’s search committee. “We needed somebody who would believe in us and get us to believe in ourselves. “This was someone the faculty felt was going to be a good leader for us. That was important as part of the healing process, that we felt like we had some role in identifying someone we wanted.” “We knew what he was being asked to do was going to be difficult,” says Diane, who discussed the school’s situation with her husband, but they both felt he was the right person to take on the challenge. So, he called Rabideau to ask whether or not he was a serious contender for the position. Though he couldn’t supply the necessary paperwork at the time, Rabideau assured Bugeja that he was the one they wanted for the job. That was good enough for Bugeja, who called to cancel his other interview at Kent State immediately. In his view, the situation at the Greenlee School was an opportunity, not a hindrance. The school had demonstrated its ability to succeed before and could do so again. It just needed a more collegial environment, and Bugeja was well-qualified to help it develop one.
Leading with an open door When Bugeja first moved into his office in Hamilton Hall, Teresa Krug, ’07, was also starting her own adventure at the Greenlee School. The drama that had created tension among the faculty went largely unnoticed by students. As a new student in a school that had just welcomed a new director, Krug decided to go introduce herself. “I was really struck by how open he was and how encouraging he was,” Krug remembers of her first interaction with Bugeja. He was reading an article about a member of the military who had disappeared and was frustrated that nobody had done a follow-up. “After telling me about this story he kind of implied that I could do the [follow-up] as a freshman at Iowa State University,” Krug says. “I remember walking away from that conversation thinking ‘Wow.’ It really elevated what I thought about myself and what I
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of transparency from the school’s administration also contributed to tensions among the faculty. Having read a story about the school’s woes in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Bugeja felt he could help the school and its faculty recover from the controversy and resuscitate its reputation in the academic community. He had worked in the wake of controversy before and knew that the school’s predicament was by no means an end-all for the esteemed program. “I believed that this school, with its long tradition dating back to 1905, with its many Pulitzer Prize winners, with its outstanding student media, especially the Iowa State Daily, deserved to have a first-class rating within the accredited institutions, of which it has been a part since 1948,” Bugeja says. So he flew to Des Moines in February 2003, en route to Iowa State, where he was one of four finalists for the Greenlee School’s directorship. His first meeting came with three Greenlee School alumni in Iowa’s
Features After that first program evaluation, Bugeja worked to transition the self-study from an administrative task to a shared one, delegating the writing of the report’s sections to the school’s standing committees. Under this model, which the school still uses today, committees co-author sections of the report that deal with their areas of oversight. All these are then edited together into a comprehensive assessment that the faculty reviews and submits. “We have a really good system that [Michael] created, so it wasn’t just a one or two-person responsibility, but it felt like everyone was involved in the writing of the self-study,” says Professor Daniela Dimitrova, who joined the faculty in 2003. Bugeja’s method paid off through improvement in each subsequent six-year assessment, with the school receiving only one noncompliance in 2009 and none in 2015. “I couldn’t wait for the site team to arrive,” Bugeja says of his feelings ahead of Greenlee’s most recent reaccreditation. “I was like an eager student waiting to take my final exam to show my instructor we had mastered this process.” The system of shared
governance Bugeja applied to the school’s accreditation process became a hallmark of his leadership, and he extended it to students as well with the creation of the Student Advisory Board, a group of the student leaders of Greenlee-affiliated media, clubs and professional organizations that meets monthly to provide their perspectives and feedback on the school and its processes. From the beginning, Bugeja has taken great efforts to make sure the school was run transparently and that the faculty have a voice in its operation. But transparency wasn’t initially welcomed by everyone. In his first meeting with faculty of the Director’s Advisory Committee, Bugeja brought his laptop and asked everyone to tell him what was right or wrong with the school. He typed notes while committee members launched into a lengthy discussion. When asked what he planned to do with his notes, he shared his intent to present them to the whole faculty. “Anything you say in a meeting is public knowledge, this is a public institution, and that’s how we’re going to progress,”
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thought I could accomplish.” Bugeja’s open-door policy first exemplified his vision for making sure the Greenlee School was known as a student-centric institution. He wanted to ensure that everyone felt comfortable in Hamilton Hall — that faculty could focus on their teaching, research and service while students still felt everyone, even the director, was accessible to them. Outside of acquainting himself with his new faculty and students, Bugeja encountered a new level of administrative responsibility in his directorship. Right away he found himself faced with one of the most daunting tasks in higher education — navigating the school’s reaccreditation process with the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. The process requires programs to complete self-assessments, evaluating their performance against both its own goals and the nine ACEJMC accrediting standards, and Greenlee’s report was due in Bugeja’s first semester. Thankfully he came into his position with an ally by his side who had an intimate knowledge of the school — Joel Geske, the former associate chair. During Bugeja’s on-campus interview, he remembers Geske greeting him with a hug and welcoming him to Iowa State. From that moment on the two felt like kindred spirits; Geske served as Bugeja’s associate director. “The first one was chaotic, part of which may have been because I was in charge of it,” Geske says jokingly about Bugeja’s initial reaccreditation cycle. But the administrative duo wrote that first self-study together and, in true journalistic fashion, submitted it right before their deadline. The accrediting team identified two noncompliances for Greenlee. Following the site team’s visit in spring 2004, Bugeja and Geske worked with the faculty to resolve both before the council’s final vote, when the school’s reaccreditation was unanimously approved.
s. Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 37
Features Cozma was one of several new faculty members who benefited from Bugeja’s recruitment. As new professors and lecturers joined and others left, the faculty has evolved into a family even sitting down for monthly lunches the Bugejas have prepared for faculty meetings since the beginning of Michael’s tenure. “We care about each other and appreciate each other’s contributions and that’s part of the culture that he managed to nourish,” Cozma says. Bugeja hasn’t only constructed a supportive environment, he’s gone to great lengths to personally mentor faculty and students alike. He still hosts monthly roundtable meetings with junior tenuretrack faculty members to help them navigate the promotion and tenure process. “As a mentor, he’s very supportive and encouraging, but he also knows when to be a little bit tougher to make things into a learning experience,” says Dimitrova, whose promotion, along with Associate Professor Jay Newell’s, in 2008 were the first at the school in 10 years. “It’s so easy as a faculty member to just get wrapped up in the day-to-day teaching, researching, publishing, serving on committees, and seeing that big picture can be hard. He was always pushing me to think about the next step.” He’s also supported the school’s lecturers, whose industry experience and willingness to teach have helped the school manage its increasing enrollments. In total, he’s led 16 professors and lecturers to earn promotions or tenure. Having served under a variety of administrations, including new presidents, provosts and deans, Bugeja has had to navigate shifts in vision and university priorities throughout his directorship. While he admits he butted heads with some, his transparent approach to leadership allowed him to remain true to his original vision under each new leader. While he enjoyed his share of successes growing the program, with enrollment increases each of the last four years and growing the amount of scholarships available to students, he also found some difficulty bringing certain aspects of his vision to fruition. He oversaw the communication studies department’s split from the school in 2007, and the school’s attempt to add a Ph.D. program ultimately failed. In spite of these setbacks, he has continued to work with the same fervor he brought to the
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Greenlee Advisory Council. This group of experienced alumni and industry professionals has helped promote the school’s value to its stakeholders through its “Why Greenlee” campaign, which highlighted alumni’s Greenlee experiences and ended up a guiding principle for the school and its offerings to students. From that campaign, the school developed its Greenlee Promise, which it touts to this day on the school’s website and on a banner that hangs inside the west entrance of Hamilton Hall. The council also helped the school in its branding efforts and provided input on curricular changes, including support for the school’s addition of a public relations degree in 2014. Members also brought opportunities for internships and formalized partnerships with their professional organizations. “You can’t have a journalism school that has no corporate benefactors,” Bugeja says. Some of the first corporate affiliations he worked to establish were with the Scripps Howard Foundation, Lee Enterprises and Meredith Corporation. In leading Greenlee to become a Scripps partner school, Bugeja helped secure three internship scholarships that are still available to Greenlee majors each summer. He secured funding for 10 years’ worth of First Amendment Day celebrations on the Iowa State campus from Lee Enterprises and new learning opportunities for students from Meredith. In addition to the yearlong, paid apprenticeships Meredith has offered Iowa State students since 2004, the corporation has also helped the school financially. Its funding of the Meredith Media Suite helped the school keep up-to-date with technology and its support of a professional-in-residence secured Senior Lecturer Deb Gibson’s future at the school. “Meredith has been extraordinarily generous and part of our corporate family,” Bugeja says. Bugeja also worked to establish lasting relationships with the school’s dedicated alumni, which led him to secure gifts that support student scholarships, faculty development and programs that have become Greenlee’s signature events: the Futures Forum each semester, sponsored by William F. and Linda Z. Tubbs, the Chamberlin Lecture series, supported by Margy and the late Gene Chamberlin, and First Amendment Day celebrations, funded by a number of benefactors. For years these events have provided insightful perspectives from locally and nationally renowned figures to Greenlee majors and the greater Iowa State community. All of these factors played an important role in establishing a common identity among Greenlee students, faculty, staff and alumni. “When I came here people would say, ‘When I leave Iowa State’ or ‘When I leave the journalism school,’” Bugeja says. “Now they say ‘I’m a Greenlee major,’ they don’t even say PR, advertising or journalism.” The change in culture was noticed outside of Hamilton Hall, drawing new students and talented faculty to the school. “It was the way he saw the brand of the Greenlee School that got me invested in it and it’s something he’s been working tirelessly for,” says Associate Professor Raluca Cozma, who joined the faculty in 2009. “While we have this reputation nationally for research ... we really prize our students and want to create the best experience for them.”
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Bugeja told objectors in the room. To this day committee meeting agendas and faculty meeting minutes can be found hanging from a bulletin board on the main floor of Hamilton Hall. The school also posts key metrics, including enrollment, retention, graduation and graduates’ job placement rates, to the school’s website for all to see, another tenet of Michael’s commitment to transparency. “In order to make the leap from where the school was to where it is now, we had to rely on transparency,” Bugeja says. “We had to put everything that we were doing, to the best of our ability, out there, whether it was minutes of a meeting or our plans for the future.” By engaging all faculty and staff members in everything from setting the agenda for faculty meetings to creating the school’s strategic plan, the faculty became involved in the decision-making process, giving faculty members a say in the direction of the school. “Mickey understood correctly that the faculty really felt burned by having some things happen that they didn’t know about and didn’t like,” says Abbott. “So I think his approach was to make sure that everybody had an opportunity to learn and to participate in what was happening.” Bugeja also transformed the school’s culture from one of competition to celebration, highlighting the accomplishments of faculty members each month in the Good News from Greenlee newsletter. Bugeja’s diligence in promoting the positive things coming from Greenlee earned him a reputation as the school’s biggest cheerleader. But his efforts were about more than just making the school look good. They were part of his larger vision to distinguish Greenlee as a student-centric institution that offered professional training to meet the evolving demands of industry. He wanted to build the Greenlee name into a powerful brand. He and the faculty worked to streamline the school’s curricula ahead of the 2007 recession and university budget cuts. Together they ended seven emphases that had been offered and pared the course offerings down to 50 or so, focused on classwork that aligned with modern expectations of communication professionals. While it was controversial at the time — eliminating classes and changing graduation requirements — it allowed students to become more versatile in their skillsets as the industry began to demand just that of practitioners. It also helped more students graduate in four years or less, which in turn reduced the amount of debt they incurred at Iowa State. This was especially important to Bugeja, who says he feels strongly that student debt negatively impacts students’ abilities to take on careers of service in community journalism. “The secret of our success was to find opportunity in scarcity,” Bugeja says. “While other schools were fighting their workloads during the Great Recession we had the best years ever during the scarcest years for funds because we had streamlined the curriculum.” Outside of the traditional classroom, Bugeja worked to support student media as a part of students’ experiential learning opportunities. Throughout his tenure he has provided travel stipends that allow members of student publications and professional organizations to attend conferences, as well as funds to cover the costs of entering students’ work in local and national competitions. Industry has continued to play an important role in shaping Greenlee into its current state through the
job back in 2003. Whether he’s responding to emails immediately after waking up, usually around 3 or 4 a.m., taking impromptu meetings with students or colleagues throughout the day, making phone calls to solicit more support or resources for the program or preparing his latest piece for publication, Bugeja’s work ethic remains unmatched.
Back to the classroom As the Greenlee School prepares to usher in a new era of leadership under Dr. Angela Powers, who will start as the school’s 16th director on July 1, its outlook is much brighter than when Bugeja was brought on board. “Dr. Bugeja has been a tireless advocate for the school and its students,” Schmittmann says. “We are all greatly indebted to Dr. Bugeja for everything that he has done for the school. He has truly given his very best.” As she and the search committee heard throughout their interviews with directorial candidates, Greenlee is in a great position to continue building on its strengths as a professional school. Schmittmann believes the school has a tremendous opportunity to make an increased impact on the Iowa State campus.
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“All students need to appreciate the power that can be wielded by words and images, for the greater good or for deception, and learn how to question and assess information in order to make thoughtful decisions,” Schmittmann says. With Bugeja’s directorial era drawing to a close, he’s heard from colleagues who hope aloud that his legacy will be maintained at the school under its next leader. But, true to his form as a servant administrator, his retort is always, “I know nothing of legacies — all I know is love and admiration.” And that love and admiration, for his faculty, staff and students, is what he believes has led the program to success in his 14 years as director. His mission has always been to help the program succeed by unifying and empowering those around him. While his love isn’t something he’ll be able to stop once he returns to the Greenlee faculty after a yearlong sabbatical, he looks forward to taking it back into the classroom. In an era where disinformation abounds through fake news and “alternative facts,” he looks forward to teaching new generations of students how to be ethical communication professionals. “What I will miss tremendously is not advancing the careers of my colleagues in a way that an administrator can,” Bugeja says. “My job will be to work as hard as I can as a professor for my students.”
You’re Invited! Celebrate Michael Bugeja’s 14 years of Greenlee School leadership at a reception on Friday, April 21, at Iowa State. To RSVP or send your well-wishes, notes and memories to Bugeja, email greenlee@iastate.edu.
Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 39
Alumni
Class Notes 40s J. Newton Wallace, ’41 Publisher emeritus, Winters Express. Now in my 70th year with the Winters Express. Still drive to Express five days a week. 427 Main Street, Winters, CA 95694
M. Keither Molsberry, ’42 Now 97, I retired at age 50 when we sold our Molsberry Advertising, Printing and Mailing Company in Azusa, California. Retirement wasn’t fun, and I decided to go back to work until I had to quit. So far, I haven’t had to quit. Good genes, activity and nutrition keep me away from doctors and prescriptions most of the time. I still drive to our apartment and work five days a week. I read that Greenlee Director, Michael Bugeja, is retiring. His leaving will be the culmination of perhaps the most successful era of growth that has transpired during more than a century of communications education at ISU. In the early years, Blair Converse was a noted head of the department. The work here has created a high percentage of very successful careers. I think of 1917 and Genevieve Callahan, who after finishing here at Ames College (as it was called then), became the long- time editor; building Sunset magazine. In the 1930s and 1940s, we had the great Rod Fox, who drilled about 20 or so of us neophytes each year on basics in journalism, truth, ethics and newspapering. At that time, Ken Marvin ably headed the department and taught printing and advertising. Kay Goeppinger taught magazine writing, and rounded out the very small but fantastic staff. In 1948, our ISC Department became an accredited curriculum. I remember Jim Schwartz, who was student editor when we both graduated in 1942. Jim came back to head our Communications Division. The Greenlees, Robert and Diane, got their foundation here at ISC in radio, and through their success and appreciation, funded our Greenlee School, which began our tremendous expansion in numbers of students and faculty for the curriculum. Roy Reiman went from journalism here to create the national Reminisce Magazine. Roy gave ISU Reiman Gardens, and now with associate Jerry Wiebel, is still building his very successful Our Iowa magazine. All of us should be very grateful for our basic journalism education that became the foundation for our individual successes. I am glad to give back in a small way by creating the Molsberry Advertising Scholarship that helps two or three communications students each year. Hopefully, some of you others can do even more. We are so fortunate to have had Michael Bugeja as director of our school for the past 14 years. His building of this great school while here has been 40 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
unprecedented, and in my view, probably cannot be duplicated. I so very much appreciate what the school has, and IS doing for all of us past, present and future in communications. 8144 Maddingley Ave., Las Vegas, NV 89117
Mary Hausrath, ’46 At 91, still play tennis five times a week. Husband Al, Bomb photographer, ’46, edits a retiree newsletter for Northrup @rumman, w/o bought TRW, where he worked 25 years on intercontinental missiles. He helped design the Atlas missile which put the first American in space. I still remember putting three months of the Iowa Homemaker “to bed” over Christmas vacation in 1944-45. 2741 Palos Verdes Drive N. Palos Verdes Estates, CA 90274
Lois Stewart, ’46 Sorry I missed out on last year’s newsletter. I always enjoy it--though I fear I have outlived most of my contemporaries (92 last month). I still live in my brownstone in increasingly fashionable Park Slope, Brooklyn. Spend most of my time playing Scrabble at the local senior center.
John B. Anderson, ’49 I’ve lived at Edgewater Retirement Community
Sylvia Hauser, ’88 By Shannon McCarty
A truck driver. Not a journalist, not a doctor, not a police officer. When Sylvia Hauser was little she wanted to be a truck driver. “I thought it was cool,” Hauser said. “My dad did hauling every once in awhile, and I’d ride along with him.” Hauser later decided against being a truck driver, but she still followed in her father’s footsteps by attending Iowa State. “I realized that when I got out and met Ivy League grads that I had probably had just as good of an education as they had,” Hauser said. Her first major at Iowa State was engineering, which she said she picked out of the blue. She quickly realized she never wanted to tackle the mountains of math engineering required. The following semester she switched to journalism due to her love of reading. When
in West Des Moines for five years now. Jo passed away in October 2014. I like being close to two of my daughters. There are lots of other Iowa Staters here and we enjoy watching ISU basketball together. Keith Kirkpatrick of WHO radio is a friendly dinner companion. 9250 Edgeline Dr. #206, West Des Moines, IA 50266
50s Barbara Parsons Leach, ’50 Nothing new to report this year, except due to illness just don’t write anymore. Thought I’d let you know there are a few 1950s folks still around. Husband Ray, ’50, at age 89 in October 2016, still very healthy and very active. 5097 Skyline Drive, Syracuse, NY 13215
Janet Aronsen, ’51 I’m alive and well at age 87, still writing and editing our quarterly magazine at Ashby Ponds in Loudoun Co, Va. Three children and two grandchildren liven things up. As I look back at my Iowa State experience, I always am amazed at the years I spent there in the Press Building and how much they applied to the rest of my life. Congratulations to Michael Bugeja Hauser looks back at her time at Iowa State she remembers the Iowa State Daily the most. “It was the first time my writing had gotten any exposure,” Hauser said. “I learned very quickly that you should have your facts straight.” Hauser spent most of her time covering and reviewing arts and entertainment, which led to her receiving numerous complaints. Now-retired professor Giles Fowler was always there for Hauser when she felt she wanted to quit reviewing entertainment for the Daily. “He was very encouraging about my reviewing,” Sylvia said. “I still see him once in awhile.” Hauser now lives in Kansas City where she works as the content editor for Morningstar, which offers independent investment research across the globe. Hauser says she got to where she is today by “dumb luck.” She started out working for the magazine, Dog World, which she described as “boring and miserable.” “I would cry every Sunday night when I knew I had another work week ahead of me,” Hauser said. She finally made a move and said she would tell young graduates in a similar situation, “It doesn’t last forever.” Hauser added it’s important for Greenlee graduates to keep an open mind and to have many interests. “I always thought that I would work in newspapers for the rest of my life,” Sylvia said. “That’s just not really an option for many people.”
Alumni
Celebrated 85th birthday and 65th wedding anniversary in 2016.
called “community journalism,” a cover for whatever he and we wanted to talk about. Long time ago: I remember writing a paper on a new process called offset printing! The memorable things from that class were the students: Sidey brothers, Tom Pettit, Don Muhm, Roy Reiman’s older brother Ray and others whose names have faded. A great introduction to journalism at Iowa State. Jim Schwartz, Rod Fox, Harry Heath, and others were the faculty. We had come to spend a year and a half (to get that credential, an M.S. in TJl); but I had joined Dutch Elder’s Extension Information Service before I wrote a thesis. By then it was obvious that Iowa State was the best place in the country to do what I wanted to do. Carl Hamilton needed someone to look after a few grad students in 1961--no one else was on the graduate faculty, and it should be easy to get me approved--I’d just finished a Ph.D. at Wisconsin. Two years later, with incentive of Vietnam-era draft, there were enough students in the department to need a full-timer to lead them. I chose extension, and Carl found Don Wells; both Don and I were happy. I enjoyed 30 years with Extension Information, succeeding Dutch as head for 17 years--retiring in 1980 to go into the international world: three international ag research centers (ICRISAT, CIMMYT, ISNAR) then retirement for the uncertain world of international consulting--18 years and 46 countries interrupted in 1986-87 to fill in as temporary professor of Jl and Mass Comm for LaRue Pollard when she left for the rice institute in the Philippines. The market retired me in 2002--the phone quit ringing. I’d gone through the immigration desk in 46 countries--probably a record among graduates, but Eric Abbott will probably break it, now that he has retired--in fact, the two of us shared some consultancies before I left the field. But life continues to be fun, diminished notably by more than three years as a widower. Writing is mainly memoirs: over 400 pages on “Work in a Wider World (travels as a consultant); bio of my spouse of 64 years; my own bio; founder’s memoir of Green Hills Retirement Community--I’m the longest survivor, and I’m trying to put down a bit of history on Extension Information Service, which was abolished in 2014.
1316 Main St, Adel, IA 50003
2200 Hamilton Dr. Unit 707 Ames, IA 50014
Ann Burckhardt, ’55
Virginia Still, ’55
My news: Hip, hip, hooray. My arthritis- damaged right hip was replaced Sept. 8 by a new titaniumplastic model. Surgery was minimally invasive: home the next day, simple rehab. Most relieved to see months of pain, shots, pills reduced. Mobility came to an end. Serving as editor for monthly newsletter of my 300-unit senior cooperative. Also write and copyright for my church’s quarterly monthly color magazine. Today’s grads’ careers, as reported in Glimpse, are amazing.
Remembering wonderful times at Iowa State and proud of the education I received! Many, many, many hours were spent at the Press Bldg publishing the Iowa State Daily, The Green Gander humor magazine and many other publications. I married fellow journalist Norm Still (Ag Journalism ’55) in 1955. He died in 2006. Our children and now our grandchildren were and are Iowa Staters also!
for his 14 years of leadership and his support of the alumni. The Greenlee School is graduating excellent journalists. 21085 Cardinal Pond Terrace, Apt. 104, Ashburn, VA 20147
Eldon Drake, ’51, M.S. ’49, Ph.D. ’51 Thank you for the latest Glimpse. It brings back such precious memories of my three scholastic years, 1948-51. The GI Bill (WWII, U.S. Marine Corps, South Pacific) gave me a master’s degree in Voc. Education in 1949, and my doctorate in 1951, along with a strong minor in Technical Journalism. All three years the department didn’t have a doctorate program. I was so very fortunate to get coursework with such an outstanding staff ... Rod Fox, Katie Goeppinger, Gwen Haws, Harry Heath and Dept. Head Ken Marvin. My first professional position was at my old alma mater, Utah State University, where I served in Information Services and Teacher Education for 35 years (1951-86). My wife and I sponsor two scholarships yearly at Utah State University. Just don’t have finances to add another. Wish we could be more assistance to you! 330 N. 300 E. #11, Logan, UT 84321
Paul D. Andre, ’52 I left the Minnesota tundra last January and am now working on becoming a certified Arkansas hillbilly. Living with my daughter and son-in-law on a ridge looking down on a section of Table Rock Lake, just a few miles south of Branson, Mo. 386 County Road 629 Green Forest, AR 72638
Floramae “Rusty” (Gates) Geiser, ’52 Still playing tennis and golf; volunteering at church, hospital, food pantry. In August had rewarding time with family during Danube River cruise. Proud to be an alum of Greenlee and Iowa State! 9269 Garden Pointe, Fort Myers, FL 33908, rustystan@comcast.net
Eugene Maahs, ’53
7500 York Avenue S. #423, Edina, MN 55435
Bob Kern, ’55 It’s been a few years since the last “annual” report. At 92 you don’t know how many future opportunities. So, one more time: March 2016 marked 66 years since we came here to get a “credential” in agricultural journalism--Illinois had no major, so my 34 semester hours of journalism and speech left me with a degree in “general agriculture.” (A switch over time: now an ISU ag grad would have to go to Illinois for the credential.) There were great names among the T Jl student body that spring. Ken Marvin, dept. head, had a class
608 30th Street, West Des Moines, IA 50265
Keith Ballantyne, ’57 Survived another year but some health issues will keep us in cold weather this winter. The condo will get lonesome—as will we! 844 Hillcrest Drive, Ashland, OH 44805
Doris Mac Farquhar, ’57 Still following same routine: Migrate to West Palm Beach, FL (with cat) in November to enjoy music, grandchildren and volunteering at MacArthur Beach State Park. April brings return to Wellsville, NY (with same cat) to enjoy friends, gardening, golf and 40th year of singing with Genesee Valley Chorus. 195 E. Pearl Street, Wellsville, NY 14895
Robert Hagan, ’90 By Garrett Kroeger
As a public relations director for a National Football League organization, Robert Hagan, 1990 Greenlee grad, tackles a new obstacle every day. And that’s why he loves his job with the Minnesota Vikings. Hagan first started with the Vikings back in 1991 as a public relations intern. But after 26 years with the team, he is now Minnesota’s PR director. Through the decades as a public relations professional for Minnesota, Hagan has dealt with some negative team publicity. In 2014, news surfaced that star Vikings running back Adrian Peterson had allegedly beaten his then 3-year-old son with a tree branch. That report caused the Vikings to receive a lot of scrutiny from NFL fans around the country. “Every PR situation you try to make sure to put the organization’s best foot forward,” Hagan said. “You always try to make sure the organization is viewed in a positive way.” While Hagan has dealt with some difficult situations as the Vikings’ PR director, he also has handled some good ones--like when Minnesota opened a brand new, multimilliondollar stadium in 2016. During his time at Greenlee, there was no true public relations major. So, Hagan studied journalism with an emphasis in PR. As a student, he landed internships with two television stations--KARE-TV in Minneapolis and WOI-TV in Des Moines. Although those two internships helped Hagan snag the Vikings gig, he does wish he had done one thing differently during his time in Ames. “I wish I had worked in the Iowa State sports information department,” Hagan said. “But everything else was great.”
Donna Lee, ’57 The younger generation does more exciting things than I do. My daughter-in-law from China became a U.S. citizen. My oldest granddaughter, from Vermont, started at Georgetown in international relations. My oldest step-grandson graduated from Carnegie Mellon and now works on the Mars rover at NASA, Cal Tech. Another step-gran, at U of Michigan, works on the newspaper’s computer stuff (the only one doing anything related to journalism). As for me, after hobbling around Spain and Italy, I am due for a new hip in October. 44 Seaview Avenue, Cranston, RI 02905
Marcia Myers, ’57 Another year gone by in Sarasota. Ken and I continue in our same routine-- gold, bridge, volunteer work, cultural interests. It all keeps us going. Looking forward to the Class of ’57 60th reunion next year. 5408 Eagles Point Circle #303, Sarasota, FL 34231 Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 41
Alumni Don Uker, ’57 Currently retired after a 25-year career in broadcasting and 20 plus years as a professional speaker. After moving to Arizona I put together a road show and performed at many of the retirement parks in the Casa Grande and Phoenix area for three years. Following that I put together another crew and televised Central Arizona College Basketball for three years. Along the way I’ve authored four books, mostly for my own pleasure (I enjoy writing). In 1982 I became one of the public address announcers at the Iowa Boys State Basketball Tournament in Des Moines. This year will be my 35th year at that post. I was one of the first five folks in Dr. Joseph North’s television program when it began at Iowa State, and it was he who ensured I get involved with the journalism program. Between these two programs I got what I consider to be the best education anyone could have ever received. After viewing the news today I am so thankful that you folks taught me what news really is, instead of what it seems to have become. I am deeply thankful for that and for those instructors who shaped my life and inspired my dreams. I served as president of the Iowa Broadcasters Association in 1972 and have held many civic and community responsibilities along the way. I have three children, a son deceased and two daughters, one in St. Paul, Minn., and one in Arizona. My wife of 58 years passed away three years ago, and I’ve reunited with a gal who worked with me 30 years ago. I’ve had a wonderful and interesting life, and I’m under the illusion that I’m not done yet. Again, I am so thankful for the above mentioned folks who gave me the tools, showed me the path and challenged me to follow it. Summers: 222A South 15th Street, Box 5, Denison, IA 51442 Winters: 1546 East Melrose Drive, Casa Grande, AZ 85122
Betty LaRoche, ’58 Rollie Henkes stopped by for a visit following his Alaska cruise. Fun to catch up on news of his family, travels and fine magazine, “Woodlands and Prairies” as well as stories of our fellow journalists. 1291 SW Davenport Street, Portland, OR 972012227
Sandra Uelner, ’58 Roy and I have settled into our independent living apartment in a community very near our former home. We still visit campus once or twice a year and enjoy seeing the ongoing changes. W156N4881 Pilgrim Rd, Apt 417, Menomonee Falls, WI 53051
Barbara C. (Culver) Van Sittert, ’58 Still working with our gift to Goldwater Institute to produce videos demonstrating merits of Constitutional government and fiscal responsibility. Really fun and valuable. Trip to London and Paris at Easter (met up with Mary Gerard Krienke (1958) and Bjorn, and ate our way around Paris for a couple of days). Then we’ll be going to London and Rome, driving to Perugia, and that region in January. Call (602-795-5008) or email us. Love to hear from you! 1040 East Osborn Road #1402, Phoenix, AZ 65014, bvsphoenix@gmail.com
Neala Benson, ’59 We are embarking on a new adventure! We have sold our home of 53 years and are moving to 42 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
Annapolis, Md, to be near our daughter and her family, which includes our two youngest grandchildren. My advice to all of you is to move more often than every 53 years! Our books alone have taken days to store and pack. Ames has been a great place to live, and I am sure that it will be a bittersweet departure when we pull out of town and head east. Congrats to everyone in the Greenlee School for the many honors and awards received and best wishes for continued success.
that are more like mini-magazines still dominate much of my time, along with outreach activities and bellchoir, for fun. Unit 25 6500 E. 21st Street N., Wichita, KS 672063907
George White, ’62 My wife Martha and I are enjoying our 6th year of retirement and our 23rd year in Davenport. Our
614 Hodge Ave., Ames, IA 50010-5916
Eldean Borg, ’59 I’m leaving Iowa Public Television’s Iowa Press host/moderator chair after 45 years. Continuing special public affairs program assignments and work with Iowa Public Radio and NPR. Receiving the 2016 Schwartz Award from the Greenlee School is among my highest honors, because I so highly respect the faculty and the journalists they have prepared to lead our profession. 722 College Boulevard, Mount Vernon, IA 52314, dborg@iowapublicradio.org
60s Stephen Wells, ’60 Still happily retired. Both our kids and their families live in nearby Ann Arbor, so we see them frequently for holidays, birthdays, many other gatherings during the year, hosting occasional overnights for the older grandkids. I maintain an aggressive daily fitness regimen (swimming, running, biking, weights). 6135 Forest Trail Way, Brighton, MI 48116, steve_wells1939@sbcglobal.net
Edith Lillie Bartley, ’61 Life goes faster but stays the same. Same house, same grandchildren, same activities (tennis, church, cook, travel). All is well. 253 Hicks Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201-4029
Vincent Bradley, ’61 Classmates- still enjoying paradise life in our 50th state of Hawaii. Retired here for our 12th year. Visited Iowa this fall for my 60th high school reunion. AlohaVince Bradley 6370 Hawaii Kai Drive #14, Honolulu, HI 968255211
Christopher Brenner, ’62 I retired in 2006 after 44 years in the weekly and later daily newspaper business in northern Illinois. I keep busy volunteering with the Lions Club and Grayslake Historical Society. I garden, collect “stuff” and visit grandchildren. And, of course, read several newspapers.
Mary Druding, ’62 An amazing trip to Cuba last October (2015) was an exceptional glimpse into the realities of life in a communist society. Go with a group if you want to see the music, art and dance that are being promoted and the farms where oxen are used, because there are no parts for the tractors. It is an exquisite island, with hundreds of mansions--now dwellings for multiple families with the outside of the structures neglected for more than 50 years. I went with Road Scholar, and it was an exceptional trip. Cuba is a country where nobody is starving-- but with a few exceptions--no one is well fed. At home, newsletters
Emily Cress Cacic, ’13 By Alyssa Priebe The moon reflected across the crystal-clear water of Daytona Beach. Spring breakers crowded in the sand, snapping pictures in photo booths, challenging each other on massive obstacle courses and slipping into banana suits during raging pool parties. Several stories above, Emily Cacic rested in her hotel room, crossing her fingers nothing would go wrong. But just like it had the past 10 days, Cacic’s phone buzzed. “Hello?” she answered, dreading the answer. “Hello, Mrs. Cacic?” the security guard’s familiar voice responded. “I hate to tell you this, but the tide pulled the DJ’s hut back again.” She hung up the phone and rushed to fix the crisis. This is just one of many problems Cacic solves as the senior experiential producer at Periscope, an independent creative agency. Sure it’s stressful, but she loves the adrenaline rush that comes from planning marketing event experiences for different brands like Target, Best Buy and in this case, Del Monte. Cacic fell in love with Periscope as an intern while majoring in journalism at Iowa State. Following graduation, Periscope didn’t have any openings so she applied at another marketing firm in Minneapolis. Within two weeks of working there, Periscope offered her the position of marketing coordinator. She happily accepted. In the past five years, Cacic has lived in Ohio, Texas, South Dakota and now, Denver, due to her husband, John Cacic’s (Business ’08) work in the U.S. Air Force. During this time, Cacic has managed to keep her career at Periscope as its only remote employee. Although she adores her position, Cacic isn’t sure she’ll be there until retirement. “Thinking about it when I’m 40, it doesn’t sound appealing,” she said. “It’s so demanding. I know there will be a new chapter eventually, but I’m not ready to start it because I’m still having a great time.”
Alumni three daughters and their families live less than an hour away; we’re able to watch grandkid’s football, wrestling, baseball, soccer, etc. I still enjoy writing and my second novel “Toxin 666, Terror in the Heartland” will be published in December. 2811 E. Hayes Street, Davenport, IA 52803-2237
James Grunig, ’64 Another year of retirement from the University of Maryland Department of Communication. I continue to interact with colleagues and friends in public relations around the world and attend Maryland basketball and football games. 41 Brinkwood Road, Brookeville, MD 20833, jgrunig@umd.edu, @jgrunig1
Mary Beth Obermeyer, ’64 My journalism events this year include getting my papers ready for the University of Minnesota Archives; being on the History of Dance panel at the Cowles Center; speaking this February in Des Moines for the joint meeting of ISU and Drake University alum of Kappa Alpha Theta. And, I am beginning the fifth draft of my fourth book, temporarily titled, “When Winter Came.” I started it in 2012 when I came across my grandfather’s medical journal of the winter of 1918, The Great Flu Pandemic. My first three books were about dance and music and so this is new for me. Also, this book is not a memoir, not about me. I am enjoying the research and scientific content. I was encouraged when the third book, “The Days of Song and Lilacs,” won a Midwest Book Award, Memoir, one of three finalists from 12 states. It has the silver seal on the cover. (Not a get-rich-quick scheme!) I did have a surprising amount of publicity, dropped out of nowhere (unusual): eight pages of photo/ article July issue, “Lake of the Isles Living.” Four pages are on me as an author, dancer; four pages are on my home. https://isuu.com/lakeoftheislesliving/ docs/july My architect husband died unexpectedly two years ago, no medical history. He had a 101.4, made a doctor appointment and died in his office of a seizure, no history of seizures. Very sad and new chapter in life. One of my projects has been to have a contractor finish the corners of my house, especially the fourth floor, had been his office, needed just the drywall and paint. And a bathroom on the first floor. Our daughter, Kristin and family live nearby in Edina, including husband Chris, two grandsons, Jack, 17, and Brooks, 15. Jack is looking at colleges, loves his music, a singer, especially musical theatre. And tennis. Brooks is our academic (not that Jack doesn’t do well) and is interested in architecture/engineering. And soccer.
Diane (Sharbo) Paul, ’65
grew up. Copies may be purchased at Amazon.com.
Bob and I are living in the upcountry of South Carolina in Greenville. Love it here! Very friendly. Lots of history, culture and fun community activities. Enjoying OLLI classes at Furman University. We are very busy every day. We are so glad we made the move south! We’re heading to Germany for a river cruise in a month and next summer we’ll travel the coast of Norway with my siblings and their spouses, spending extra time in Bergen (Mom’s home) and Oslo (Dad’s home). Retirement is fun.
3004 Pawnee Circle, Manhattan, KS 66502-1973
18 Drystack Way, Simpsonville, SC 29681, dianespaul@gmail.com
Even at this age, I use my Greenlee education each day. I’m so lucky to be freelancing, as the main writer on Welcome Home magazine, a central Iowa lifestyle publication. I also do other spot writing and editing work. My husband Tom has officially retired. Our three kids and Magnificent 7 grandchildren are thriving. How did they get so old? Hello to my classmates.
Joe Elstner, ’66 Retirement is still great. Still maintain contacts from my 38-year PR career with Northwestern Bell, US West, Southwestern Bell and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Lots of good memories about thousands of local, regional and national news stories. Wife Diane and I stay active with volunteer and church work, and I’m still doing musical things at church and with our classic rock band, The Decades (search under Decades Band St. Louis and you’ll find us). Gotta be the oldest rocker in St. Louis County. Best to all alums from the Schwartz/Fox/Kunerth era. 618 Forest Leaf Drive, Ballwin, MO 63011, keyboardguy2020@gmail.com
Freiderick Anderson, ’67, M.S. ’73 Enjoying life retired at 71. Granddaughters, ages 7 and nearly 2. Helping 1st graders “Read to Succeed.” Serving on a low-income housing board. Writing the Rotary Club’s weekly e-newsletter. Singing bass in the church choir. Deb and I are two years from our 50th. 2208 Lincoln Rd, Bettendorf, IA 52722
George Brandsberg, ’67 Last year my wife Dee and I published a new novel titled “Cottonwoods.” It’s a nontraditional Western set in western South Dakota in 1907-08. The main setting is in Butte County, S.D., on the farm where I
Doug Shonrock, ’79 By Michael Kramer
2405 Russell Avenue S., Minneapolis, MN 554052334
Marilyn (Freeman) Wessel, ’64 At the end of 2015, I finished up a two-year stint as a member of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle editorial board during which time I enjoyed working with other community members helping to shape the paper’s editorial position on a wide variety of issues. I must say I’ve missed the contact this year, but the hours of research and meetings have quickly been replaced with politics and volunteer work on a number of important political campaigns. That plus travel, time with friends and family, hiking and reading have made 2016 a good year for me. 714 North 17th Ave., Bozeman, MT 59715, tomandmarilynwessel@yahoo.com
Inspired by his successes selling advertising for the Iowa State Daily, 1979 Greenlee graduate Doug Shonrock has parlayed his undergraduate experience into a career that has landed him with one of the largest advertising firms in the nation. For the past 20 years, Shonrock has worked for subsidiaries of J. Walter Thompson. Currently located in Philadelphia, Shonrock serves as managing director after stints with firms in Boston, Chicago and Phoenix. Shonrock’s specific role lies in the user interface. As the managing director of a program named Atlanta and director of technology products at J. Walter Thompson
Rick Davis, ’67 Filed final traffic column for Riverside (Calif.) PressEnterprise in 2015. Also wrote last sports features for San Diego Union Tribune the same year. Finito to a career … 925 Resaca, Cibolo, TX 78108
Carol McGarvey, ’67
5717 Kingman Avenue, Des Moines, IA 50311-2005
Phyllis (Bowen) Anderson, ’68 My life journey is leading into unexpected areas as I learn who I am without the presence of my husband, Doug, who died in September. After more than 47 years together, I miss him and am adjusting better than I anticipated. I’m escaping Nebraska’s winter and returning to Mesa, Arizona, for sun and friends there. I continue to explore painting with acrylics. I enjoy it so much. Our oldest son Curt’s only child Cannon, 6, attends kindergarten in Montana. Middle son Scott and youngest Ross both live in Arizona. I’m blessed with great friends and a supportive family. 4210 Colfax Ave, Lincoln, NE 68504, phlls.ndrsn@gmail.com
Lawn Griffiths, ’68 I was in J school when Bob Greenlee was a student, and we were on the Iowa State Daily staff together, as was Eric Abbott. I spent 40 years with daily newspapers as a writer, editor, columnist and blogger, retiring in 2012. I was the first president of the Towers Residence Association (’67-’68), but know some of the halls
Inside, a subsidiary of J. Walter Thompson, he and his team of four developers work with the technology platforms involved in communication and talent acquisition processes for companies like Comcast, Home Depot, Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic. They collect data in areas such as work experience to create and improve a seamless path for candidates to apply for jobs. While at Iowa State, Shonrock originally intended to be a journalist, but around his fourth week of school, Shonrock found his true passion and began working for the Iowa State Daily selling advertisement space, “which I absolutely loved,” Shonrock said. “I probably missed more classes working for the Iowa State Daily than I did go to class.” Back then, only one non-student was employed with the advertising side of the Daily. Other than that, the students did all the work. “It was a very collegial operation, everybody took it seriously. If you got 12 inches of space in the Iowa State Daily, you were writing some pretty significant stuff,” Shonrock said. “There’s no question that what I learned and who I was able to network with from Iowa State and the journalism school at Iowa State was directly related to how I started my career and how I got to grow it.” Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 43
Alumni
Kelby Wingert, ’15 By Kevin Horner Ducked behind an armored military Humvee, the captain gave her the signal. Go time. With excitement, she pulled the pin and started the fuse — watching it sizzle down toward the pile of explosives the E.O.D. (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) crew had amassed during that day’s training. Boom! Although the controlled explosion was outside her sightline, she could certainly hear — and feel — the effects of the ground-shaking blast. The captain even let her keep the pin as a souvenir. Not something the typical person gets to do every day. Then again, Iowa State alumna
have been demolished. I continue to do lots of writing and editing for my organizations. I also edit book manuscripts. My own book, “Battling Rocks Over the Barn-- An Iowa Farm Boy’s Odyssey”, with 75 essays drawn from my 1970s columns in the Waterloo Courier (Xlibris, 2015), was an Eric Hoffer Literary Award Finalist this year. (www.battlingrocksoverthebarn.com). The Kiwanis Club of Tempe weekly newspaper I have been doing for 26 years was judged best in the Southwest District of Kiwanis for the 24th time this year. I serve on a half-dozen boards and hold about 20 roles in Presbyterian church work. Enjoying four grandkids and 43 years of marriage. Arizona is just getting hotter. Life is great at 70. 1952 E El Parque Drive, Tempe, AZ 85282-2902, tempelawn@msn.com
Marjorie Pfister Groves, ’68, M.S. ’73, & William A. Groves, ’68 Papua New Guinea might not be on everyone’s bucket list, but it’s been on ours for years. Wil’s Uncle Lon (WWII Marine pilot Capt. Alonzo Newton Hathway) was shot down by the Japanese over Simpson Harbor in 1944. His plane and remains have not been found, although similar Avenger TBFs have been retrieved. We spent a week in Rabaul with diver Rod Pearce and other Aussie and Kiwi ex-pats and crews. We also learned about the 64 active volcanoes around Papua New Guinea, climbing one of them. On the Australia and New Zealand segments of the trip, Wil went scuba diving and Marjorie snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef after hiking a couple of glaciers. Wil had gone back to being a farmer after his brother George had a stroke. George is getting better so Wil’s gig might last only for the harvest. 2995 Neely Ave, Jewell, IA 50130; Marjorie: marjoriegroves@hotmail.com Wil: domehome@netins.net
Marielle (Barker) Harrison, ’68 I retired as a clinical social worker. Enjoying my daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons as often as I can fly to the state of Virginia. Involved in armchair politics re: climate, organic food and other issues of concern. Love posting photography on Facebook. Writing some, memoir, poetry. Smitten with the
44 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
Kelby Wingert isn’t in a necessarily typical situation. Since graduating from the Greenlee School in 2015, Wingert has earned the role of sports editor at the Fort Hood Sentinel in Fort Hood, Texas — a military base about an hour north of Austin. Depending on the time of year (or time of day), Wingert might be covering a high school football game at Cowboy Stadium, shooting pictures of a soldier returning from deployment or blowing up explosives with the Army’s bomb squad. As sports editor, Wingert is in charge of creating all content — photographic and written — even remotely sports-related in Fort Hood. And
since the Sentinel is a weekly paper, Wingert is doing the majority of this work on her own. “When I first got [to Fort Hood], it was actually a little too slow-paced for me since I was used to working at the Daily,” Wingert said. “They transitioned me into the job slowly. First I was doing just sports stuff, then I was introduced into more and more military things because I was totally new to the military before I got here. It’s been a learning experience.” When Wingert walks down the street, looking for photographs, sometimes she’ll be taken off-guard by one of the locals casually saying, “hello ma’am,” or “how are you doing, ma’am?” — given she’s only 25. “I’m definitely not old enough to be a ‘ma’am’ yet.”
camera on my iPhone. Visited my sister and her husband with my brother in July. Great 10 days on the Big Island. Taking advantage of Minnesota fall weather by biking at the lakes. Hello to old friends. Elder caregiver for two companies in Minneapolis area.
Gary Speicher, ’69
5440 Vernon Ave. S. #345, Edina, MN 55436, marielle.harrison@gmail.com
Bill Monroe, ’69 Chris and I moved to our Minnesota lake home in June after her retirement from the Iowa Newspaper Association. We saw a sign recently that sums up our experience here: “If you’re lucky enough to be at the lake...you’re lucky enough.” We’ll experience a month or two of winter then head south after Christmas returning in March. Congratulations to Michael for his incredible service to Iowa journalism as head of the school. Never has so much progress been made in such a short period of time. He has set the table for the new director to take us to even greater things. 37313 County Road 66, Crosslake, MN 56442, isubill13@gmail.com
Ronald Patrick, M.S. ’69 Two years ago (2013-14) I served as Lions Club International District Governor with 40 local clubs to oversee. Since then I have served the Lions as coordinator of the District Leadership team. In this endeavor I coordinated the district and area local officers’ training program. Recently I have completed the development of a video explaining the history and impact of the Nebraska statewide mobile screening unit, which served more than 120 elementary and high school students. It has tested more than 120,000 school children annually for sight and hearing. Often the Unit has helped detect 10 to 20% of the children needing referrals for further testing by professionals. This has impacted the student selfesteem as their health and school performance have been improved. 32765 Road 758, Grant, NE 69140
2016 has become a “transition year” for Sue and me! We have sold our financial planning practice to our business partners at Premier Investments of Iowa and hope to complete our transition interviews by early 2017. Where did the past 50 years in this industry go? I plan to continue with the farm as “advisor emeritus” helping with marketing and developing new business and continue my teaching to faculty/ staff at Kirkwood Community College. Sue is looking forward to more free time to be a grandma to our only grandchild, Jennah, who just turned 2. Chris and Kara still live and work in Chicago. Amy Speicher now lives and works in Williamsburg, Matt Speicher lives in Ames and works for Iowa State and Sarah lives and works here in Cedar Rapids. We wish all of our journalism friends continued good health and happiness! (Be sure to check out www .walleyewisdom.com for all our fishing adventures!) 3813 Tahoe Lane SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52403
70s Kent Baker, ’70 Major changes for me this year, as my young partner assumed the roles of editor and publisher and majority owner of The Record, our newspaper that now serves more than 5,000 readers in 13 communities across three counties. I have been so blessed to have a partner who has always wanted to own this newspaper — even back in his high school days. I have much enjoyed the past 16 years, since I returned to Iowa and transitioned back to newspapers at the newspaper I had always wanted to own — also since high school — after 25 years in television. I’m still working, albeit less and less; traveling more, slowing down, having fun and still causing just as much trouble as possible. P.O. Box 419, Moville, IA 51039-0419, kbaker@wlatel.net
Lloyd Bettis, ’70 Retirement at last! On 12/31/15 I retired as CEO of a national tax consulting practice that I joined in 1989 and purchased, along with other members
Alumni of management. Prior to this, I worked at Jewel Companies, Northern Trust Bank, First Chicago Bank and ConAgra. I combined my Ag Journalism degree with an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. While not a practicing journalist, the skills I learned at Iowa State played a critical role in my business success. Retirement brings time for golf, tennis,
fishing, church activities and multiple responsibilities with not-for-profits, including being board chair for ISU Foundation. Life is good and continues to be shared with my wife of 45 years, Kathryn, and a 35-year-old son, Chris. 1628 Del Ogier Drive, Glenview, IL 60025-2322
Daniel Skelton, ’70
Kyle Moss, ’03 By Kevin Horner
Retired from KICD Radio Station in April after 19 years broadcasting farm news and markets for the Spencer, Iowa, station. We continue our farming operation near Sioux Rapids, Iowa. 4940 200th Ave., Sioux Rapids, IA 50585-8522
Tom Brindley, ’71 Retired as Controller of Alpena Community College in August of 2010. Writing a bi-weekly column for the Alpena News. 419 S. 1st Ave., Alpena, MI 49707, bindletom@hotmail.com
John Lytle, ’71
After an interview for Yahoo’s “Role Recall” series, Robert Redford arose from his seat to shake the hand of his interviewer. “That was a lot of fun,” Redford said. The man on the other end of the handshake was Kyle Moss — senior producer for Yahoo SuperFan Movies & TV and Greenlee School alumnus, class of 2003. Since he started at Yahoo as a producer in January 2009, interviews like these have become the norm for Moss. During his sixplus years with Yahoo, he’s done several other similar interviews with famous faces such as Katie Couric, Sandra Bullock and Gary Oldman. Just another day at the job — well, not really. “When you walk into a room and Robert Redford is sitting there, no matter how many times you’ve done it, your heart kind of skips a little bit,” Moss said. “Just to hear [Redford] talk about all of his movies and what was going on behind the scenes…it’s really just surreal.” Back in the early 2000s, though Moss was surrounded by the vast cornfields of Iowa, he still managed to get a taste of the Hollywood lifestyle. He covered entertainment and sports for the Iowa State Daily — even serving as the music coordinator twice for VEISHEA. If any celebrities went through Ames from 19982003, they usually came across Moss at some point. “I sort of had an idea that I would be moving to a bigger city [back in college],” Moss said. “I always knew [I’d be working] in the entertainment industry — doing interviews with celebrities, somewhere within that capacity.” Although his career started with writing columns for the Daily, he is now leading a team of video producers and editors — creating entertainment for Yahoo’s broad, global audiences. From “Dancing with the Stars” to “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” if Yahoo is creating a video about movies or television, Moss is most likely behind it.
Enjoying a second year of retirement following 38 years with Drake University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Substitute church organ practice and performance fill extra hours. 1014 68th St., Windsor Hts., IA 50324, john.lytle@drake.edu
Meredith McHone-Pierce, ’71 Last spring a group of us were some of the last to stay at the Memorial Union Hotel before it was converted to student housing. We’re sure students won’t appreciate its history as much as we did! Although retired, I keep up with what’s happening in food and agriculture as a volunteer at the World Food Prize Foundation in Des Moines. In the past few months I’ve led tours of the historical Hall of Laureates for groups and individuals from across the United States as well as students and farmers from India, Pakistan and China. I truly enjoy sharing Dr. Norman Borlaug’s tremendous accomplishments with worldwide visitors. 23109 330th St., Adel, IA 50003, meredithpierce@iowatelecom.net
Janis (Tilton Selland) Wong, ’71 Continue to provide writing, editing and media relations assistance to individuals who have a story to tell and organizations who have a message to communicate. Hilo, HI 96720, ohanawong@yahoo.com
Harlan Brown, ’72 I was a technical writer for about 35 years until I was laid off in mid-2014. I had two opportunities to go back to work later that year, but my Parkinsonism had progressed to where returning to work was not feasible. My neurologist gave me no hope of recovery, and the Wall Street Journal published a news story in October 2015 that said, “While drugs such as L-dopa and surgeries such as deep brain stimulation can help manage the symptoms, all attempts to slow, stop or reverse the disease’s course have failed.” But prayers were answered, and I found a doctor in Texas who has helped Parkinson’s patients achieve full remission. I made remarkable progress for 12 months. God is good! Then Lyme disease complicated the recovery. However, I have been blessed to find a doctor here in North Carolina who has helped Lyme patients achieve full remission and who also knows how to put Parkinsonism into remission. The health
battle has become a full-time job! I hope some day to write a book about my journey and what I have learned. The Lord is good. 2324 Rolling Pines Ave., Durham, NC 27703-5924, harlan_brown@yahoo.com
Rae Jean (Willey) Leu, ’72 It has been another very busy year. I’ve been doing a little writing and hope to have something published. It is a slow process as I am still working full time. 6119 Pedernal Ave., Goleta, CA 93117, rjleu@aol.com
Dennis Miller, ’72 Counting down the days to retirement as Abilene Public Library reference librarian (December, 2016) which hopefully will provide an opportunity to visit Iowa more often for longer periods. Looking forward to getting back for some games at Jack Trice. 205 Pilgrim Rd., Abilene, TX 79602, dennis.miller@abilenetx.com
Harlen Persinger, ’72 Haven’t thought much about retirement. I’m still doing some freelance photo projects along with operating my grandparents’ farms in Grundy County. World adventures included travel to Denmark and Germany for the International Federated Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) Congress in Berlin and Bonn. In September, I also spent a few days with 22 other U.S. editors on an Ag Communications Learning Mission to Cuba. I will head to Haiti with a One Mission Society group affiliated with my local church prior to Thanksgiving. My most memorable event was receving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Agricultural Editor’s Association (AAEA) during the Ag Media Summit in Saint Louis. It was truly an overwhelming honor. Celebrating 100 years of the Army ROTC Program with fellow comrades at Iowa State was also a special event. I always enjoy all the news clips from ISU associates in the journalism curriculum. 207 N. 123rd Street, Milwaukee, WI 53226-3811
Warren Riedesel, ’72, I suspect that like me, other retirees are often vacuously asked, “So what do you do with all your time?” For us, the answer is four grandchildren born since my 2012 retirement. I also serve as property manager for our condominium association, and my wife Mary and I travel a good deal. I enjoy staying in contact with many former agribusiness colleagues. 701 16th St, Des Moines, IA 50314, mrsrhts@mchsi.com
Allison Engel, ’73, The plays my twin and I wrote (“Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins” and “Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End”) are enjoying multiple productions around the country. “Red Hot Patriot” is in Denver and northern California right now, and “At Wit’s End” is in Florida and will have a long run at the Cincinnati Playhouse in spring 2017. 2017 will also see the Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 45
Alumni
Jay Adams, ’93, M.S. ’96 By Samantha Carlson-Dubois
publication of our new book (written with Maricia Moore), “ThriftStyle: The Bargain Shopper’s Ultimate Guide to High Fashion at Low Prices.” We visited 150 thrift stores and worked with Hollywood costume designers on this. Watch for thriftstyleblog.com to go live in January! 45850 Vista Dorado Dr., Indian Wells, CA 92210, AENGEL2664@aol.com
Connie Groth, ’73 Owner, Key West Photos. PO Box 1266, Key West, FL 33041-1266, cgroth@keywestphotos.com
Margaret (Askew) Johnson, ’74 Deputy Director and Legal Counsel, Iowa Public Information Board 909 Maple St., West Des Moines, IA 50265, meg_colaw@hotmail.com
Terry Rich, ’74 Working as the CEO of the Iowa Lottery 4113 Greenview Dr., Urbandale, IA 50322, tlrrhi@hotmail.com
Julie Wolf, ’74 One year into retirement and still enjoying all the opportunities an abundance of free time provides 1110 N. Henness Rd. #134, Casa Grande, AZ 85122, Quilterjulie@yahoo.com
David Drennan, ’75 I am in charge of the 100th Anniversary dinner/ reception for Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity on March 25, 2017, at the ISU Alumni Center. Our daughter, Katie, got engaged Labor Day Weekend, and will marry April 14, 2018. 1954 Sumter Ridge Court, Chesterfield, MO 63017-8733
Martha (Mueller) Greder, ’75 Instructor at NIACC; Director of Education at Trinity Lutheran Church; both for 16+ years. 362 Lakeview Drive, Mason City, IA 50401, marty.greder@niacc.edu
Harry Lipper III (Hal), ‘75 Took early retirement — and promptly rejoined — the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the lead U.S. Government agency working to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies. After heading communications for USAID in Asia, as well as Iraq, Jordan, Serbia and Montenegro, I’m now based in Bangkok and taking short-term assignments in the region and further afield. I’m writing this from Malawi, in southern Africa, where USAID is providing assistance to protect people from malaria and HIV infection, improving education and helping feed 6.5 million people who are suffering food shortages due to drought. Unit E5-20 Phrom Phong BTS Station #014, Sukhumvit Road, Klongton, Klongtoey, Bangkok 10110 Thailand, hal_lipper@hotmail.com 46 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
Story-teller. Public Relations expert. Adventurer. Dad. Jay Adams is a man of many hats. Currently positioned at Denver Water as a communications specialist, Adams has found his footing in a business that is continually evolving. He credits his success to re-inventing public relations by utilizing a journalistic approach. With a keen interest in writing from a young age, Adams praises Iowa State’s on-campus WOI-TV program for his most valuable lessons. “I feel incredibly fortunate both with my initial experience at WOI-TV and the many different journalism and mass communication courses that Iowa State offered. All of my learned skills have stayed with me and helped me be where I am today,” Adams said. All told, Adams spent four years at
WOI-TV, working while he completed both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He spent a few years as a producer for WHO-TV in Des Moines, then carried his story-telling, curious-natured self across the country to Denver, where he worked for CBS 4 as a producer covering everything from wildfires to the Broncos. After 20 years of fast-paced schedules and difficult hours, Adams decided to carry his skills to public relations. In his current position, he considers himself a “one-man band”: On any given day he might produce, edit and/or use his photography and videography skills to create content for his company’s YouTube channel, internal magazine, newsletter or blog. When he’s not working, the proud father of two skis, snowboards or rides mountain bikes.
Marlene Mileham, ’75
Larry Wentz, ’77
After more than 40 years as a professor and 27 years as Director of Communications at Linfield College, I retired in July. It was a rewarding career, but now I am pursuing my own writing and photography.
It’s been more than 4½ years since my life-saving liver transplant at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. No, not too many nights at the Cave-In, but an autoimmune illness. About 17,000 Americans a year are waiting for a new liver. I’ve used my extraordinary good fortune and position as a public person to become an advocate for organ donation and to dispel many of the myths. I’ve anchored at every TV station in Sioux City at least once since coming here in 1991. I’m quickly running out of options! My wife Lola and I have been married 12 years. I’ve vowed to take her to London and Europe to retrace the steps of the Summer of ’76 JLMC Tour. “Hi” to all my fellow travelers from that great time.
Gale Mino, ’76 WGAC Radio, reporter/anchor. 626 Clinton Way W., Martinez, GA 30907, galemino@knology.net
Mike Moran, ’76 I am enjoying more than 30 years with Ford Motor Company in communications with current opportunity as Global News Manager. As an auto and mobility company, we are truly changing personal transportation with electrified and autonomous vehicles. My daughters are succeeding as young professionals in physical therapy and journalism — exciting to see their accomplishments. Jan continues to practice law in Washington D.C. — never enough attorneys in the Nation’s Capital! I always enjoy hearing from fellow alumni. Hoping Cyclone football progresses under the new coach — Go Clones!
Lori (Hoberg) Adams, ’78 Working virtually, living on a lake and getting to do lots of travel. A perfect combination for me. 274 Kruse Beach, Arnolds Park, IA 51331, lori2056@msn.com, @OkobojiLori
Susan (Stephan) Holloway, ’78
8042 Rising Ridge Road, Bethesda, MD 20817, mmoran3138@aol.com, @mike__moran
Director of Content Strategy/Senior Creative Director, Communications and Brand Strategy, Michigan State University.
Steve Arbuckle, ’77
5684 Bayonne Ave., Haslett, MI 48840, holloway.susank@gmail.com
Graduate Student Affairs Officer, UCLA Computer Science Department.
Klark Jessen, ’78
1420 Sycamore Ave., Glendale, CA 91201, arbuckle@cs.ucla.edu
Enjoying Boston. 9th year @MassDOT, Massachusetts Department of Transportation as the Social Media Manager.
John (J.C.), Kain, ’77
1 Beach St. #2, Beverly, MA 1915, klark.jessen@gmail.com
Welcomed grandchild #3 in May. Retired in July. 4121 E. Windsor, Phoenix, AZ 85008, algona81@ yahoo.com, @johnckain
Karen (Lage) Potratz, ’77 Senior Account Supervisor, Charleston Orwig, Hartland, Wisconsin. N3W31675 Twin Oaks Drive, Delafield, WI 53018, kpotratz@charlestonorwig.com
Murray Lee, ’78 Living in the “Creative Vortex” and epicenter of the craft beer movement in the South, seems like those two things dovetail nicely. Wife Delce has retired from the Forest Service, but, for me, old photographers never really retire. It was amazing to see the photo gear ISU is supplying the fledgling photo students and studio space to boot. I wish them luck in a newsprint business that has confused the still image with
Alumni moving images.
James Blume, ’79
97 Woodward Ave, Asheville, NC 28804, murrayalanlee@gmail.com
Retired from Meredith Corp. in Sept. 2014 after 29 years there. Was a great run at a great place. Now doing a bit of part-time work and part-time volunteering, here and there. Very much enjoying doing nothing full-time.
Peg McClure, ’78 Illustrated Annie Sorensen’s book, “A Boy Called Love.” Other projects in the works. 11505 Craig Ct., Apt. 204, St. Louis, MO 63146, pegdrewthat@gmail.com
Kenneth Sidey, ’78, ’00 Warren Cultural Center, Executive Director. 208 SW Mills St., Greenfield, IA 50849, ksidey@ yahoo.com
Dirk van der Linden, ’78,
9300 Carmel Drive, Johnston, IA 50131, jamesdblume@gmail.com
Karla (Funk) Cook, ’79 I am busy taking care of my husband and working freelance. This is the first time I have had a break between part-time jobs in 20 years. 15 Cambridge Drive, Red Hook, NY 12571, krcfunk@yahoo.com
of hours at a convenience store in Wichita. Daughter Katy is taking health education at KU and has a supervisory position at the student rec center. In a stunning dual upset, students of mine were named Journalist of the Year and magazine staff of the year by our state journalism organization. My mother has faced some health issues, so I’ve been getting up to Central Iowa on a more regular basis. She’s hanging in there. I have enjoyed staying in contact with quite a few J-School classmates this year. I do have to credit our cat, Roxie, for supplying a calming influence through our challenges. 1403 Park Avenue, El Dorado, KS 67042-2332
80s
We are empty nesters now. Our son Grant graduated from Iowa State in May (in the Honors Program and with a 4.0 GPA no less) and is now working for a computer consulting firm in West Des Moines. We were part of the first graduation held at Jack Trice Stadium. After making various trips to ISU the past four years, we probably won’t visit as often now. Boy, how Ames has changed in 40 years. We continue as publishers of the newspaper in Belmond, but after 31 years, should retirement be near? We’ve sat through over 1,200 city council and school board meetings. When obituaries come in for folks from the community, I can sometimes write more about the dear departed than can their families. Maybe that’s good... maybe that’s bad…
Gregg Hillyer, ’79
PO Box 81, Belmond, IA 50421
405 Whitekirk Dr., Lake St. Louis, MO 63367, gregg.hillyer@progressivefarmer.com
909 Colfax St., Evanston, IL 60201, Noiamboat@hotmail.com
Michael Swan, ’79, M.S. ’88
Debra (Bell) Geiser, ’80
Here are the stats: It’s year 18 for me at Butler Community College, where I serve as Mass Communications Department chair, Sports Media adviser (year 14 of that program) and Grizzly Magazine adviser. Wife Linda is the Family and Consumer Sciences teacher at the local high school. Son William is attending Wichita State (English) and working a lot
The circle of life continues for Dan and I in Cedar Rapids—his mother died in September and we will welcome a Hawkeye graduate into the family when our son graduates from the University of Iowa in May. The current election cycle has us exasperated and appalled, but we stand by the journalists who work hard to bring us the many sides of each candidate, good and bad. I use the skills I learned at ISU and in
prestigious American Society of Magazine Editors internship program in New York City, where she worked for Family Circle magazine. “One of my favorite ISU memories is when I found out I was chosen as an intern for the American Society of Magazine Editors internship program,” said Evers. “I remember opening the email and crying in bed with relief— I’d spent a ridiculous amount of time on my application and only 30 people nationwide got accepted, so it was a big deal for me!” After graduating, Evers worked primarily as a freelancer for over four years. This brought her all over the country, but her love for Los Angeles helped solidify her choice in returning.
“Los Angeles is my favorite city in the U.S.,” Evers said. “I actually moved here the year after graduation before moving all over the country ... and then settling back down here because I can’t stay away! It’s a beautiful city filled with some of the kindest people I’ve ever met. The weather doesn’t hurt either.” Although she loved growing up and attending college in Iowa, moving away has allowed her to experience the culture and rhythm of cities across the country. “I’ve grown a lot in my career and as a person since 2012,” said Evers, “and I can’t wait to see where life takes me from here!”
Ronald Sterk, ’78 Career continues as senior editor, markets at Sosland Publishing Co., Kansas City, Mo. Never a dull moment in the markets. Most major news has been personal this year with births of two grandchildren (now three total) and loss of a parent. Keep up the great work at Greenlee. 7240 Madison Avenue, Kansas City, MO 641141268
Chelsea Evers, ’12 By Meaghan Szpak On a typical day, Chelsea Evers can be found on set shooting behind-the-scenes material for Instagram stories, scrolling through Pinterest and blogs for new ideas or even sometimes appearing in videos to try new foods or an experiment. Evers graduated from Iowa State in 2012 with a degree in journalism and graphic design. She is currently a social media strategist at BuzzFeed in Los Angeles. “If you ask anyone I know, they’ll tell you I never shut up about how great Los Angeles is,” said Evers. During her time at Iowa State, Evers was actively involved in campus publications, including Ethos, Catalyst and Trend. Evers also landed an apprenticeship with Meredith Corporation and was selected for the
I’m starting my 19th year at The Progressive Farmer magazine, the nation’s largest circulation magazine serving agriculture. We continue to expand our brands and content platforms to meet the needs of readers and advertisers. As Editor-In-Chief, I’m responsible for the magazine’s overall content strategy and developing programs and tactics to increase revenue. As a result, I work closely with our sales team. Many days it seems I’m wearing two hats—editor and publisher. Daughter Dana was married last fall to Joe Ivancic. They continue to make St. Louis their home. Ethan enters his senior year at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. He plays wide receiver for the Ravens football team. Rylan enters his freshman year of high school. He’s busy with football as well and spent part of the summer hiking in the mountains of New Mexico at the Philmont Scout Ranch. Juli continues her work at the Department of Mental Health.
Deirdre Baker, ’80 I have transitioned to being, again, the Education reporter at the Quad-City Times, Davenport. Big stories this year so far: Woman from Walcott, Iowa, makes decision to trans-gender to male, with feedback from his family and friends. Second, Iowa pays almost the most in the Midwest for special education, yet kids do worse on standard assignments. Why? Daughter Kirstin, 26 and married to police officer Gage Rodewald, lives now in Ankeny. I continue to support the Cyclones. 27012 208th Ave., Eldridge, IA 52748-9312
Richard Bartecki, ’80 Continuing to spread the word to students around the world about the value of studying abroad. Visited Iowa State this fall for a great football game against Baylor and the campus was even more beautiful than I remembered from so long ago.
716 S Los Angeles St. #306, Los Angeles, CA 90014, chelseaevers@gmail.com
Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 47
Alumni the journalism department every day in my job and in my life. Thanks, ISU! 108 Brentwood Dr. NE, Cedar Rapids, IA 524021506, debrageiser@mediacombb.net
Alan Mores, ’80 Co-publisher, Harlan Newspapers; spouse Donna Christensen-Mores, attorney/compliance officer/ human resources, Myrtue Medical Center; son, Jackson, KU Medical School, Masters of Public Adm; daughter, Chandler, junior, Stanford University. 1401 Pine St., Harlan, IA 51537, advertising@ harlannet.com
Lee (Horn) van der Linden, ’80 See Dirk van der Linden. Publisher, Belmond Independent. PO Box 81, Belmond, IA 50421
Gary Keller, ’79 By Robyn Riley Gary Keller, ‘79, credits his out-of-class opportunities, connections with friends and believing in himself for getting where he is today. As the development director for the Mount Rushmore Society in Rapid City, S.D., Keller finds his career very rewarding. “I’ve learned that if you can write, you can do absolutely anything,” Keller said. While a student at ISU, Keller got involved. He was the creative director for Greenlee’s American Advertising Federation chapter, became a member of the TCA Club, entered film contests and got to know professors outside of class. After college, he worked at a radio station writing commercials. From there, he has been on staff at an advertising agency, made cable television commercials, produced corporate videos, became the first film office director for South Dakota’s tourism and economic development, handled media relations at the University of South Dakota and managed PR for several nonprofits. Today, he is in his fourth year of bringing in donors for the Mount Rushmore Society His career highlight? “Working on ‘Dances with Wolves,’ and working closely with Kevin Costner. That was cool,” Keller replied. He worked with Costner almost immediately upon arriving at the South Dakota Department of Tourism and Economic Development in 1987 when Costner was scouting possible locations across the western U.S., Canada and Mexico. Costner ultimately chose South Dakota because there was access to local Native American talent and because it had the best buffalo herd for filming. In 1991, Keller attended the Academy Awards when the film earned seven Oscars. Keller’s advice for those looking to get into the journalism and PR industry is to get involved in clubs and competitions and get to know professors. “Joining out-of-class activities will gain you lifelong friends and mentors to help you in life and in your career,” Keller said.
Elizabeth Anderson, ’81 I still do copyediting and proofreading for Meredith Corp. and other clients. Loren continues to enjoy retirement. He was inducted into the Alpha Gamma Rho National Hall of Fame this last summer. We get to Ames frequently for sporting and cultural events, and I serve on the House Corp. for the ISU chapter of Alpha Chi Omega sorority. John will graduate in December from Kansas State University. Kate graduated from Iowa State with a degree in journalism last May. She married Drew Warnock (Aero E, 2014) two weeks later and they now live in Maryland, where Drew works on a Naval Station and Kate works for a marketing firm. 3103 SW Court Ave., Ankeny , IA 50023, anderkruse@mchsi.com
Steven Dropkin, ’81 It’s been an odd year of things “going away”... people (none very close, fortunately), pets (closer), stuff (every major appliance and some house components have been following the plannedobsolescence timetable), money (see previous item) and ... work. Real-estate photography, it seems, is something people really like -- but don’t want to pay for. It’s time to pivot and determine my next market. My tenure on the board of our neighborhood non-profit newspaper ended, too. If we were a band, we’d call it “creative differences.” It was fun, though, writing for the paper and dealing with some of the challenges of print in an age of instant video. Ah, well. We still get to enjoy our health, good times with family and friends and a toddling grandchild! Have a good year, everyone. 489 Michigan St., Saint Paul, MN 55102, te55117@zoho.com
Dan W. Geiser, ’81 See Debra Bell Geiser, ‘80. Director of Instructional Design for Advancement Resources in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 108 Brentwood Dr. NE, Cedar Rapids, IA 524021506, dangeiser@mediacombb.net
Albert Pefley, ’81 I work full time as a general assignment reporter at CBS 12 in West Palm Beach. I’ve been at this station since 1989, covering everything from hurricanes to shootings. 4418 Lacey Oak Dr., Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410-6106
Ken Clayton, ’82 Another fun and challenging year in the trade show business with Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids. Once again, I was able to work on projects across the country and on several continents. This year, I was able to travel to airshows in Santiago and Berlin, which gave me chances to brush up on my Spanish and German. 6000 Wayside Circle, Cedar Rapids, IA 52411, clonedogg2@mchsi.com
Thomas O’Donnell, ’82 I’m still with the Krell Institute, writing about high-performance computing and other science. I run our social media presence, too (such as it is). The highlight this past year was a trip to Ireland with wife, Paula, and son Thomas. Paula and I also participated in the Department of Natural Resources’ Project AWARE on the lower Des Moines River for two days and opened our schoolhouse near Bentonsport for participants who wanted a tour. I’m watching the latest ISU Foundation machinations and thinking of what Bill Kunerth would have to say about it all. 7005 Horton Ave., Urbandale, IA 50322, @iowascinterface
Mike Kolbe, ’82 I’m blessed to be in my 33rd year with the Harlan Newspapers, one of Iowa’s few great, family-owned newspapers. As the advertising director, I’ve experienced many changes in the makeup of our customer base and the way we conduct business on a daily basis. I’m also fortunate to be a member of the Harlan City Council and involved with many local and regional organizations, keeping my plate full. My wife, Tammy, and I spend our free time on the water, camping or on weekend outings. Our three children are now (mostly) on their own. I finally got a second-generation Cyclone, with our daughter now a senior at ISU. (I love the other two also). Go Cyclones! 1606 Erie Dr., Harlan, IA 51537, mk78rs@yahoo.com
Dave Kurns, ’82 Still leading the editorial team at Meredith Agrimedia, which includes Successful Farming magazine, TV and radio shows, along with Agriculture.com and Living the Country Life. Still feel privileged to work among the best ag journalists and great people. Agriculture may be struggling, but that means farmers need more service journalism than ever. As for Meredith, I sense there will be more changes to come in a very dynamic media business! 3430 NW 75th Place, Ankeny, IA 50023, dkurns@gmail.com, @davekurns
Jennifer (Speer) Ramundt, ’82 Things here are pretty much the same as they were last year. The only significant change is our daughter, Sarah, graduating from the Greenlee School in May. She’s now a graduate assistant on the TCU athletics marketing staff. Our son, Will, is working on a graduate degree in classics at the University of Arizona. He continues working in Italy as an archaeologist every summer. I’m still at Meredith Corp., helping manage a portfolio of enthusiast titles, and Randy remains at Channel Seed. Meredith Corp., assistant managing editor/copy chief in the Core Media group. Go, Cyclones! 211 38th Place, Des Moines, IA 50312, jsramundt@dwx.com
48 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
Alumni Beth Wolterman, ’82
manager of Laughlin, Nevada.
Christopher Larsen, ’87
I retired from the Ida County Courier in 2015 when it was sold. I continue to freelance for the paper and Our Iowa magazine.
P.O. Box 29726, Laughlin, NV 89028-9726
After being promoted to major this spring, I finished a two-year assignment at the Army’s Human Resources command in July and headed to our new gig, back in the fantastic Pacific Northwest. Amy’s gotten on as a family nurse practitioner with one of the hospital systems here; youngest son, Elliott, is a high school senior and will be able to graduate with kids he knows from our previous time in Washington. I’m lucky to find a Cyclone contingent everywhere I go; there were three of us working on the same floor at Fort Knox!
1210 Ridgeview Dr., Ida Grove, IA 51445
Philip Blobaum, ’83 The years march on as it’s been 33 years since graduating in December 1983. I’ve been glad to come back to visit more often as my daughter Emily is continuing her studies in the Greenlee School and working at the Daily. It amazes me how ISU has grown in student population and the many new buildings in the campus area. It is always fun to come visit. 1210 37th St., Des Moines, IA 50311, philipbb@juno.com
Jeffrey Hunt, ’83 Shareholder, Parr Brown Gee & Loveless. 787 17th Ave., Salt Lake City, UT 84103, jhunt@parrbrown.com
Brian Meyer, ’83 Serving on a national research/extension impact writing group for the national land-grant university system. Working with the Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Foundation on a series of stakeholder meetings, held at AAAS headquarters in Washington, D.C., and subsequent reports on pursuing a unified message on federal food, agricultural and natural resources research funding. Iowa State University, Director of College Relations for College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. 2316 McKinley Circle, Ames, IA 50010, bmeyer@iastate.edu, @bgmeyer
Jim Wyckoff, ’84 Hello again ISU JLMC alumni. As Father Time keeps ticking away, there is now way more working career behind me than in front of me. That’s a good thing, by the way. When I began submitting these annual ISU updates, my children were the age that my grandchildren are now. I’ve had a very rewarding career thanks to my sound foundation laid at ISU in the early 1980s. I still work from home, publishing a commodity and financial market newsletter. It’s been 17 years since I had to walk into a company office wearing a tie. Laurie and I still enjoy adventure — be it hiking, jeeping, boating, biking or just keeping physically fit. However, our greatest pleasure is spending time with our kids and grandkids. Life continues to treat us very well and we wish the same for all who are reading this. Until next year ... Jim Wyckoff Panora, IA, jim@jimwyckoff.com
Kim (Groe) Emery, ’85 Owner of Firefly Publicity. 1860 Woodland Drive, Red Wing, MN 55066, kim@fireflypublicity.com, @kimemery
Brian Paulson, ’85, M.P.A. ’88, In June 2016, I was promoted to become town
Valerie (Terpstra) Van Kooten, ’85 After 30 years of teaching writing and acting as a grant writer for Central College, I embarked on a whole new career. In September ’16 I was hired as the Director of the Pella Historical Society & Museums. We are in charge of five historic sites in the area, as well as the sponsor of Pella’s Tulip Time. So, it’s a big job, but I’m loving it. And I still get to use my writing skills on a daily basis. Kent and I are loving life, enjoying our two grandsons immensely, traveling quite a bit and celebrating our last child leaving the nest when he bought a home last fall. Life is good. 2051 Old Hwy. 163, Pella, IA 50219, valerievankooten19@gmail.com
Mark Vander Leest, ’85 Still living in KC and proud to have my daughter, Paige, now a junior PR major, named as a Greenlee Ambassador for the coming year! 6213 Rosewood Court, Mission, KS 66205, markvkc@gmail.com
David Houvenagle, ’87 I had a book, “Clinician’s Guide to Partial Hospitalization and Intensive Outpatient Practice” published by Springer Publishing Company in June 2015. It was endorsed by the Association for Ambulatory Behavioral Health in June of this year. It is available on Amazon.com and other online sellers. Our Lady of Peace Hospital, Louisville, KY as a therapist. 3103 Commander Dr., Louisville, KY 40220, houvenagle@aol.com
Brian Button, ’92 By Felipe Cabrera
Brian Button’s passion for green grass and fresh air goes back to his childhood in Waverly, set in the trees and hills of northeast Iowa. Fly-fishing and water rafting filled up his weekends and inspired his eventual double major in journalism at Greenlee with a focus on science writing and environmental science. “I’ve always had an interest in science,” Button said. “I could understand a lot of the basic concepts well enough I could conduct interviews.” After 12 years as an air quality information specialist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Button helped the DNR relaunch its monthly nature magazine in 2007. The newly named Iowa Outdoor Magazine focuses on outdoor recreation and activities, with Button serving as its editor in chief. “We rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up,” Button said “We did a year and a
3308 125th Ave., N.E., Lake Stevens, WA 98258, writerguy10@yahoo.com
Coleen Myers, ’87 My name was Coleen DeVries when I was at Iowa State. Because my husband’s job is in Ankeny now, we made the move to Ankeny from Williamsburg, Iowa, in May 2016. The nice part for me is living closer to my sons and five grandchildren. I continue to do many volunteer activities as I enjoy retirement. 3411 NW 15th St., Ankeny IA 50023
Scott Reeder, ’87 I made an exciting career change this past year. After more than 20 years working for newspapers and seven leading statewide and national news services, I decided to become self-employed. I’m writing a book about a homicide I covered when I was a young reporter in the Quad-Cities. Research for the book has had me traveling all over the Midwest and South. I’m also working with an National Public Radio affiliate to create 10, 1-hour podcasts on the case. And I continue to write a weekly column for about 70 Illinois newspapers. I’m having the time of my life.
half of research, polling current subscribers and conducting focus groups.” Button said it is important to strike the balance between maintaining current subscribers while creating content for potential new subscribers. With his efforts, the relaunched Iowa Outdoors Magazine more than doubled its subscribers. “We were overwhelmingly ecstatic, satisfied with the work we did,” Button said. The magazine is a small one, with minimal staff and a stable of freelance writers and interns. Still, its editorial subjects have included NASA’s James Hansen and NFL player-turned- MLB star Bo Jackson. Button understands the importance of shaping complex language and scientific ideas in a way the general public can understand while maintaining scientific accuracy and integrity. He refined his skills during his time at the Iowa State Daily, covering scientific events and guest speakers and then taking his science writing skills to the Ames Laboratory. “You learn how to identify several categories to ask about when you’re covering research,” Button said. “Researchers in the field will open up to you more when they feel you know what they’re talking about.” Button has advice for startup magazines: “Do the research,” Button said. “…figure out your niche, home in on content that separates you from everyone else. Know your audience and create content that fits the need.”
Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 49
Alumni
Jason Bertsch, ’97 By Luke Manderfeld It wasn’t Jason Bertsch’s first thought that going to a party in Los Angeles would change his life forever. But that’s exactly what altered his life’s course. After a short career in journalism, Bertsch, a 1997 graduate of the Greenlee School, moved from Boston to Los Angeles on a whim with his wife, looking for a change in scenery. At a party, Bertsch met a producer at DreamWorks Studios who produced the movie “Shrek.” Just three weeks later, Bertsch jumped onto the DreamWorks team and started producing “Shrek 2” as a copywriter. After almost 13 years, he hasn’t left. Bertsch didn’t plan to go into animated movies at first. After his graduation from Iowa State, Bertsch helped produce for Iowa Public Television. From there, he latched on to WGBH in Boston to make documentaries on charity organizations that assist third-world countries. He didn’t plan on leaving journalism, but he didn’t see a big difference between producing documentaries and animated movies.
Although he doesn’t consider himself a journalist anymore, Bertsch still credits his skills in journalism for creating a stepping stone for him to reach his current position. A Midwestern native, Bertsch also said his modest attitude doesn’t fit well in a glamorous, hustle-and-bustle city like Los Angeles. “You can’t be modest about it or you’re going to get stepped on,” Bertsch said. “That was the hardest thing for me to do.” Bertsch is happy in his current job as a production supervisor, but his aspirations are to produce movies of his own. And even if that doesn’t pan out, Bertsch still wouldn’t mind, as long as he has a hand in the process. “I just want to help create the movies that get made,” he said. “As long as I do that, I think I’ll be happy.”
lead writer-editors and social media specialists (designated tweeter, as I wrote last year). Like a lot of businesses big, small and in-between, Accenture is placing heavy emphasis on content, written or otherwise, for its marketing and communications efforts. They have a lot of smart people working for them to help clients make sense of all this new technology, but they’re too busy to write their own tweets or blog posts, so that’s where I come in. Otherwise, it’s been another eventful year around these parts. Chicago witnessed an invasion of Cyclone fans in March for ISU’s Sweet 16 matchup at the United Center against Virginia in the NCAA Tournament. The game outcome didn’t make our Easter weekend, but it was very cool seeing Cyclone fans effectively take over every bar in the West Loop. Now, as I write this Halloween night, Coach Hoiberg has the Bulls off to a 3-0 start and I’m preparing for the Cubs battle with Cleveland in Game 6 of the World Series (that’s no typo - “Cubs” and “World Series” in the same sentence; it’s really happened). Hopefully by the time you read this, the right team and fans will still be celebrating the end of a long, long title drought. Warm wishes to my old ISU Daily friends and all Greenlee alums and best of luck in 2017. - Bruce Elmhurst, IL, Cell: 773-391-4068, @BruceBlythe
Joan (May) Bundy, ’91 620 Briarwod Dr., Sherman, IL 62684, scottreeder1965@gmail.com
Joel Dickman, ’88 We’re going on year 8 in San Diego, where I manage the ABC affiliate and my wife, Sarah, is a veterinarian. Son Luke began college this fall in Northern California. Daughter Olivia goes to college next fall and is strongly considering going back to Iowa. 10126 Prairie Fawn Dr., San Diego, CA 92127-3412
Malinda (Miller) Geisler, ’88 We continue to grow our agritourism business at Geisler Farms. We host wedding receptions during the spring and summer, host the public for our corn maze and pumpkin patch in the fall, then sell precut Fraser fir Christmas trees during Christmas time. All is good. www.growingfamilyfun.com 5251 NE 94th Ave., Bondurant, IA 50035, info@growingfamilyfun.com
John Naughton, ’88 Times continue to move forward in an increasingly digital industry. Who knew that those typewriters we used, those floppy disks, would end up in a landfill somewhere before long? It’s been a fun and challenging year in journalism. I’m still covering (mostly) high school sports. On a personal level, I’ve done quite a bit of travel and have been attending a few concerts: Drake, Beyoncé, Elvis Costello and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame induction concert. Have a great year. 2923 Country Side Dr., West Des Moines, IA 50265, littlejon3@aol.com, @JohnNaughton
Craig Olson, ’88 I recently changed companies again to ISOFlex Packaging. The plastics industry has a great deal of ownership changes, mergers and acquisitions. Our daughter Rachel has graduated from UNI and is working in West Des Moines. Our daughter Katie is in her junior year at Winona State in the nursing program 50 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
and recently became engaged to be married! 413 N. 29th St., Cumming, IA 50061, craigolson170@gmail.com
Nancy (Shonka) Padberg, ’88 Nancy leads organizations in digital media and marketing strategy with metrics and audience in mind, innovative thinking and a collaborative point of view. Nancy worked in Los Angeles and Santa Monica for 15 years with brands such as Whole Foods Markets, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Tahiti Tourism, Pillsbury, PETCO, Ally Bank, is a former executive of The Los Angeles Times, VP Global Marketing of Scoopshot App and founder of a digital agency. Nancy was named one of the Top 100 Women Making a Difference by Los Angeles Business Journal, earned her M.B.A. from Pepperdine University and is a former Big 12 collegiate golfer. She is former five-year Board Member at Pepperdine University and current Board Member for ISU Greenlee School. To learn more see Linkedin for 38 recommendations https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancy1 or follow at @NancyPadberg. 10 Grove Street, Mill Valley, CA 94941, nancy.padberg@gmail.com, @NancyPadberg
90s
Bruce Blythe, ’90 Hello again Greenlee alums & Cyclone fans! All good here in Chicagoland. In September I began my third year at Accenture, where I’m one of the company’s
Hubby and I are still living in the Grand Canyon state (this is our 16th year here) and will have been married 25 years come next May! We both graduated from ISU, really with the same major except Paul’s was in distributed studies (JLMC, speech & political science) in ’82 and B.S., accounting ‘90. I still operate my own law firm (seven years running now!) focusing on family law, emphasizing LGBTQ and animal issues. Paul still works at Wells Fargo in technical writing; if you count all the years he’s worked there during his two stints, it’s been about two decades. He’s presently working from home while they remodel his office building. Our cats, Brookie and Cheddar, and dog, Emma, keep him company when I’m at work. 834 W. Palo Verde Drive, Casa Grande, AZ 85122, joan@joanbundylaw.com
Karen (Risch) Hieb, ’91 This year has been marked by two significant events for us—our trip to the Grand Canyon and the addition of a new room on our house. The Grand Canyon trip was beyond amazing. We drove through New Mexico to get there, and through Colorado on the way home, and we marveled at the variety and beauty of God’s creation all along the way. A few months after our return, Tim finished building our new room, just in time for a big family gathering in July. Before this project was complete, we could only invite four or five guests for a sit-down meal. And if I happened to need anything during the meal from the refrigerator or the silverware drawer, I had to ask someone if they wouldn’t mind moving since there wasn’t much space in our kitchen. For someone who loves to cook and show hospitality, this new room is such a gift to me! On the professional side, I continue to be blessed to be part of our small team at Children Desiring God, the ministry where I’ve worked now for more than 12 years. We are few in number, but by God’s grace and power, we accomplish a lot with each new year, from national conferences with hundreds of attendees from all over the U.S. and several other
Alumni
countries to God-centered resources for children and youth, including our revised first-grade Sunday school curriculum that we released this summer with its 334 pages of visuals to use with 40 lessons of teaching material. I’m so grateful for everyone on the team here at CDG. And I’m grateful for all of my instructors and opportunities at Iowa State so many years ago. What I learned at ISU is still being put to good use. Thank you! 6745 West 192nd Ave., Eden Prairie, MN 55346, karenmarie@usfamily.net
Heidi (Schuessler) Hurdle, ’91 My family and I moved this summer from Lake Forest, Ill., to Phoenix (for my husband’s job), and I continue to work at Bing.com where I love my job and team. I’ve worked there for five years and enjoy the work tremendously. When we’re not working, Dan and I like to hike, mountain bike and spend time with our two Bernese Mountain dogs. We are officially now empty nesters, with a son and daughter away at college for the first time. I currently am Managing Editor at Bing.com (Microsoft). 14625 S. Presario Trl, Phoenix, AZ 85048, heidianna2@hotmail.com
Julianne (Haywood) Johnston, ’91 I have a daughter graduating in May from ISU with a degree in Food Science and a daughter entering ISU next fall. Then we are officially “empty nesters.” It’s fun being back on campus to visit and cheer on the Cyclones! 27554 120th St., Parkersburg, IA 50665, jjohnston@profarmer.com, @JuliJohnston
Ann (Foster) Thelen, ’91 President of Thelen Public Relations in Des Moines, Iowa. 9312 Huntington Circle, Johnston, IA 50131, ann@ thelenpr.com, @AnnThelen
Jennifer (Holm) Dunlay, ’92 Risk Communicator/Public Information Officer, Johnson County Department of Health and Environment. 14213 Westgate Street, Overland Park, KS 66221, jldunlay@gmail.com, @JennyD1970
Marietta Nelson-Bittle, ’92 After a few years of owning a school PR business, I’ve decided to answer the call to pursue ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I attend Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque and will pastor three small, rural churches in Southwest Iowa beginning in January 2017. 52560 230th St., Glenwood, IA, 51534, mariettan62@gmail.com, @mariettan70
Peter Tubbs, ’92 I’ve returned to Iowa Public Television as a Producer for Market to Market. I only hope my second tour at IPTV is as good as my first. Viva la TCA! 642 39th, Des Moines, IA 50312, petert45@gmail.com, @petertubbs
Kara Sjoblom-Bay, ‘95 My husband and I retired in 2014. Since then, we’ve been checking out different cities. In 2016, we settled in San Diego and bought a condo. I’ve been working on a novel and planning our next overseas trip. We’re loving retirement and being back in California. 1025 Island Avenue #607, San Diego, CA 92101
Kayci Woodley, ’12 By Rachel Given Like many G r e e n l e e graduates, Kayci Woodley started her journalism career with the Iowa State Daily. She was the only female on the sports desk her freshman year and moved up to assistant sports editor her sophomore year. The Illinois native then bounced to the ISU Athletics Department for her junior and senior years covering the wrestling team. While an athletics intern, Woodley learned more about sports public relations, and she was intrigued. Greenlee lecturer Beth Haag led Woodley to the NCAA internship program in Indianapolis, Ind. after her 2012 graduation, where she was selected as one of 19 interns and worked in the public and media relations department. After less than a year with the NCAA, Woodley was offered a job with GRand Solutions, just a few miles north of Indy. There
Larry Vavroch, ’95 2016 has been an interesting and busy year in the Vavroch household. As operations manager and public affairs director of Family Radio’s Central Iowa station, KDFR, 91.3 FM in Des Moines, I continue to host and produce a bi-weekly public affairs program that covers a wide range of community issues. In addition, I host and produce public affairs segments for our FM stations in Milwaukee, Wis.; Kalamazoo, Mich.; Pueblo, Colo.; Great Falls and Butte, Mont., as well as for our AM stations in Aberdeen and Redfield, S.D. and Akron /Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Since graduating from Greenlee, I’ve done extensive newspaper and magazine writing with my goal this new year of doing more freelance writing. Linda is currently employed on a temporary work assignment for a local staffing agency so that keeps her very busy. Our 25-year old daughter, Lisa Marie, works full-time for the FDIC and is based in their Kansas City office. One aspect of her job is visiting banks in the region, and she recently bought a house in Kansas City so we are very proud of her and commend her work ethic. I cannot leave out the four-legged members of our family that now consists of two dogs. Our American Eskimo clan includes Spyke, our older male Eskie, and Miss Maci, a three-year old Eskie girl that our daughter adopted from a shelter in Kansas City three years ago and brought home to Mom and Dad. Prayer has been our source of strength as we cope with all the seemingly endless changes in our lives these past several years. Each day is a gift from God, and we strive to live today to its fullest. 2021 53rd St., Des Moines, IA 50310, kdfrpa@gmail.com
Marc T. Hollander, ’96
she covered all aspects of the racing industry, until the NCAA lured her back. Today, Woodley manages all levels of the NCAA social media as assistant director of social media strategy in the digital communications group. While most schools focus their social media on selling tickets and driving people to games, the NCAA focuses its brand messaging platforms on sharing student athlete stories. Drawing on her ISU expertise, Woodley also covers the Women’s College World Series every year, as well as the NCAA Division I wrestling championships. Reporting on those D-I wrestling championships at Madison Square Garden in 2016 ranks as a career highlight. “It was the first time the championships had ever been held there,” said Woodley. “So to be a part of such a historic moment in the sport of college wrestling. but also at a venue where the greatest athletes, musicians, you name it, have performed or competed in that arena, it was just unbelievable to be a part of that.” When she isn’t working, Woodley plays in several recreational flag football and soccer leagues. She also started playing golf recently, even receiving a marriage proposal on the greens. She said yes. 2114 N Pennsylvania St., Indianapolis, IN 46202, woodleyk@gmail.com, @NCAAKayci
service sector, marketing law firms and CPA firms. Both are dynamic industries and have pushed my writing, editing, creative, online and event management skills from ISU. Additionally, we are spending more time analyzing our business, and I have benefited from completing my M.B.A. at Iowa State in 2009. Mandy and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary in November with our two kids, Madeline (12) and Malcolm (8). We continue to participate in kid activities and pursue hobbies like cooking, baking, travel, riding bikes and enjoying life in the Des Moines metro. We enjoy keeping up with fellow alumni and friends on their various social media accounts — Go Cyclones! 4306 Aspen Drive, West Des Moines, IA 50265, marcthollander@gmail.com, @marcthollander
Darcy (Dougherty) Maulsby, ’96 I’ve said that Iowa’s motto should be “We don’t meet if we don’t eat!” My passion for farming and food inspired me to write my latest book, “A Culinary History of Iowa: Sweet Corn, Pork Tenderloins, MaidRites and More,” which was published by The History Press in August 2016. I feel blessed that this book sold out within the first 18 days of its release. Want to know where in Iowa you can dine at a James Beard award-winning steakhouse? Any idea where to find Iowa’s own distinctive style of potato chips, which might be the world’s best chips? What if you want to step back in time and enjoy a slice of homemade pie at an Iowa icon that first opened in 1852? You’ll pass the test with flying colors — and impress your friends — when you delve into Iowa’s culinary history. This was a fun project that follows on the heels
Since 2007, I have worked in the professional Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 51
Alumni diversity of my work. I also wrote a large publication earlier this year for the Business Record, innovationIOWA, which I’m working on again now! Self-employed at Kort Communications, working on newsletters, press releases and articles.
1735 340th St., Lake City, IA 51449, yettergirl@yahoo.com, DarcyMaulsby
my focus to commercial projects and multimedia. It was also my fourth year as a continuing-education instructor at Kirkwood Community College, where I began teaching basic computer classes as an adjunct in the fall. It’s been a lot of work but I’ve enjoyed the challenge of educating a broad spectrum of students. On the personal end, I ran my third half-marathon this fall in my hometown, the Quad Cities, and continue enjoying life and traveling with my husband of four years now.
Kristie Bell, ’97
1310 Yewell St., Iowa City, IA 52240, srahimphoto@gmail.com, @shuvarahim
3260 Sussex St., River Falls, WI 54022, kelseylholm@gmail.com
4105 Ovid Ave., Des Moines, IA 50310, bell.kristie@gmail.com
Martin Mehl, ’98
Brent West, ’01
Sr. Lecturer, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA,
Nate Clayberg, ’97
1291 Hollysprings Ln, Santa Maria, CA 93455, mehl.martin@gmail.com
Employed in the Customer Care and Recovery Group at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Living in the western section of Urbandale, Iowa.
of my first book, “Calhoun County,” from Arcadia Publishing, which tells the story of small-town and rural Iowa through the eyes who lived it. When I’m not writing books, I continue to run Darcy Maulsby & Co., a marketing/communications firm that serves agribusiness clients across America. I also help on my family’s Century Farm, enjoy cooking and baking and serve as president of the Calhoun County Farm Bureau and Calhoun County Corn Growers.
Communications Director at Kum & Go
In July I started my own business and media services business called need10. My areas of focus have been in business strategy, marketing, systems development as well as voice-over talent and sports broadcasting. I am based in the Waterloo area. Principal, Chief Strategist and Voice with need10 Solutions & Media. 2426 Dugan Ave., Independence, IA 50644, nate.clayberg@yahoo.com, @NateClayberg
Jennifer (Johannsen) Mehl, ’98 Information Security Analyst, University of California, Santa Barbara. 1291 Hollysprings Lane, Santa Maria, CA 93455, jennifer.mehl@gmail.com
Shuva Rahim, ’98 Two passions — teaching and photography — consume my life these days. In 2016 I marked my eighth year as a photographer, shifting
Jennifer (VanDerBosch) Lyons, ’89 By Brandon Ghazali Since she was a kid playing “newscaster” in the basement of her Chicago home, Jennifer Lyons has always known her future would involve broadcast journalism. “That’s why I chose Iowa State, because I knew it had a good journalism school,” Lyons said. Following a Sioux City internship Lyons landed a part-time gig as a WHO-TV photographer at WHO-TV in Des Moines, where she worked for two years while attending ISU full time and remaining active in the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority. “I needed money, and why work at McDonald’s when I could get a job in TV?” she recalled. It was during her time at WHO-TV that Lyons would learn about news production from weekend anchor/producer Scott Pope after begging the station to teach her how to produce. “I knew I wanted to be a producer. I never wanted to be on TV -- that was never my goal,” she said. After a short stint at KWQC-TV in Davenport 52 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
Cheryl (Oldenburg) Schultz, ’99 Mount Mercy University, Academic Advisor. 4624 Blossom View Ct. NE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52411, cheryl_oldenburg@msn.com
00s Amy (Pint) Kort, ’01 We’re having a great time here in Ankeny! Our 4-yearold Abigail is enjoying pre-kindergarten, while I work at home while raising 1-year-old Simon. I continue to freelance write and consult, which I’ve been doing for about four years, while my husband, Jonathan, works in IT at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. After 12 years of working at corporations, I enjoy the flexibility and
producing its early morning show, Lyons returned to WHO in Des Moines, this time as a full-time news producer in charge of several newscasts. But in 1994, Lyons was ready for a change. “I started having babies and I wanted to move back home,” she said, expressing a desire to raise her children near her family. So she and her husband, a teacher, headed for Chicago, where she found a part-time job at WGN-TV as a weekend overnight writer, which allowed her to spend time at home with her children. Working her way up step by step, producing more newscasts and content for WGN, Lyons became its assistant news director in 2008. Her responsibilities included managing the reporting and production processes for WGN-TV, WGNtv. com and the cable-only CLTV station. On working in a large news market like Chicago, “It’s a lot of politics and unfortunately violence, and the players are a little bit bigger, the costs are just a little bit more,” Lyons said. Lyons was named news director of WGN in July
1903 SW 19th St., Ankeny, IA 50023, amykort@live.com, @ames007
Kelsey (Foutch) Holm, ’01 Marketing Director, Real Resources, Minneapolis.
4507 160th St., Urbandale, IA 50323, brwest78@gmail.com
10s
Trey Hemmingsen, ’11 Working in Denver as a Training & User Adoption Consultant. I develop learning materials and design courses to facilitate user adoption of software and processes. Focused on process improvement, change management, project management and overall training of ServiceSource and Dell internal employees. 2653 S Osceola St., Denver, CO 80219, themmingsen@alumni.iastate.edu
Tyler Kingkade, ’11 Recently recruited to BuzzFeed News. I am now a national reporter at BuzzFeed covering violence against women and harassment. 26 Irving Ave, Apt 3B, Brooklyn, NY 11237, tyler.kingkade@gmail.com, @tylerkingkade
2014. She has final say in what gets broadcast, and it can be hard to decide how issues like gun violence or government scandal should be reported. “Every story is different. You have to look at the information you have and you really have to examine each story for its own self,” Lyons said. Lyons doesn’t bring up her awards or ratings when looking back, but instead mentions the stories she and her team have been able to cover: the White Sox winning the World Series, Barack Obama’s inauguration, 9/11 and the Iraq War. “It’s an awesome responsibility,” she said. Lyons, who still visits Iowa State, has some advice for Greenlee students: “If you have a dream to inform, don’t be afraid to go out and attack the dream and make it happen. It’s an awesome job and it’s a great responsibility, but you can make a difference in this world and that’s the neat thing about being in journalism. And take advantage of internships!
Alumni Jessie Opoien, ’11
Thomas Page, ’12
I cover state and national government and politics at the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin.
T.J. has spent the last four years as the Communications Director for the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, a state trade association representing Iowa’s ethanol and biodiesel producers. Most recently, I’ve taken on a new role as Market Development Manager for the Iowa Corn Growers Association.
306 W. Main St. #607, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703, jessieopoien@gmail.com, @jessieopie
Kari (Dockum) Leahy, ’12 I continue to live with my husband, Sam, in Johnston with our two dogs, Neeko and Nora. I am entering my fourth year with Hubbell Realty Company as the Marketing Assistant.
2413 Raymond Dr., Des Moines, Iowa 50310, tjpage7@gmail.com
10586 NW 71st Lane, Johnston, IA 50131, kedleahy@gmail.com
Most recently I made the jump from the professional world back into the educational world, about which I am quite excited. I might not be traversing the world regularly, but the opportunity to
Ivy (Christianson) Tiedman, ’12
educate children is a challenge I am most ready for. I’m sure I will impart much of my Greenlee knowledge onto whichever classroom will have me. Though I’ve definitely forgotten what it’s like to have homework on constant basis, so my graduation in May cannot come soon enough! The education program at Drake has been stellar, but I would be remiss if I didn’t communicate just how much I miss the atmosphere of Greenlee. I’m continuously nostalgic about my time there and hope the students know just how good they have it. Peace and blessings to all my 2012 grads! 6009 College Ave., Des Moines, IA 50322, ivyleec@ gmail.com
Former Faculty Notes Veryl Fritz, ’51, Faculty ’82–’97 My — how quickly time passes. I attended memorial services for retired Professor Karl Friedrich in October. A remarkable person. Congratulations to Professor Eric Abbott on his 41 years of service to Journalism at ISU. Eric achieved an unmatched record as an educator and researcher at ISU ... and internationally. June and I are still living at our acreage near Indianola, Class ’51 - B.S. - Ag Journalism Faculty 1982–1997. 17134 Hwy 92, Indianola, IA 50125
Dr. J Paul Yarbrough, M.S. ’66, P.h.D ’66, Faculty ’68–’82 At age 78 I’m deep into nostalgia. The calendar shows that it has been 33 years since I left ISU to join the Cornell University Faculty. It doesn’t seem that long ago. My memories of the ISU JLMC faculty, staff, students and educational enterprise we shared remain vivid. We had a good thing going in 1968-82. I’m proud to have been part of that endeavor, and I have been glad to see that the Greenlee School has built upon our efforts and continue to stress excellence. Multiple health problems keep me homebound, but all my family — sons Jim and Tom, three grandkids and five great-grandkids — living nearby I don’t have occasion to be lonely. Still hearing from oldie friends and colleagues adds zest to my life. Editor’s note: Yarbrough submitted this update prior to his death in October. Read more about his time at Iowa State on page 54.
Eric Abbott, B.S. ’67; Faculty ’64-’16 Although I officially retired Jan. 1, 2016, I have continued to work on my ISU research project and other international work during the year. My last Jl MC grad student, Sostino Mocumbe, completed his thesis examining how smartphones might be used to deliver video animation educational messages to farmers in Mozambique. This fall, we received a special supplementary $19,000 project grant to study how smartphone apps might be used to deliver agricultural messages to extension and farmers more effectively in Mozambique and Uganda. I continue work with the ISU Farmer Decision Making Strategies for Improved Soil Fertility Management in Maize-Bean Production Systems Project funded by USAID. This year we will be testing several innovative ways to better communicate agricultural messages to farmers. The project will end in October 2017.
In April and August, I made two trips to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, to complete my study of the impacts of agricultural land reform on farmers in the most vulnerable regions of Tajikistan. I have been studying impacts of land reform with USAID and the World Bank since 2006, and my latest report indicates that farmers who have received certificates confirming their rights to land have invested more in their land, produced more crops, diversified production from just cotton and wheat to vegetable crops, and also are now eating more fruits and vegetables as a result. In March, I presented a paper at the World Bank Land and Poverty Conference documenting some of the major impacts of the World Bank project to land reform. I still maintain a small basement office in Hamilton Hall, but no longer teach. Outside work, Tatyana, Andy and I traveled to Jamaica in January to celebrate the new year and Andy’s birthday. Then we traveled to Argentina in February, and to Iceland in September, so we saw ice at both ends of the Earth. I also completed my 28th RAGBRAI bike ride across Iowa with son Matt, and a 140-mile ride on the Katy Trail across Missouri with my brother. In all, I have traveled more than 85,000 miles this year. Finally, I continue as captain of the Greenlee School bowling team, which won the first place trophy in May. 2924 Eisenhower Ave., Ames, IA 50010, eabbott@iastate.edu
Stephen Coon, B.S. ’67, M.S. ’70, Faculty ’81–’04 We continued to enjoy life in Ames full of activities at home and occasional trips to visit our children and granddaughters. Beth serves on our Stone Brooke Homeowners Association Board of Directors. She is a member of several other community organizations including P.E.O. and the ISU Women’s Club. Beth and our next-door neighbor (her friend since high school) helped organize a very successful Ames High School Class of 1960 reunion this summer. Meanwhile, Steve was one of the speakers at his Marshalltown High School 1960 reunion in September talking about his international media training over the decades. In October Steve delivered three, two-day workshops in Maputo, Beira, and Nampula, Mozambique, about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in the U.S. and the newly approved Lei do Direito à Informação in that African republic. The program was sponsored by the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy, National Forum of Community
Radio Stations, IREX and World Learning (October 16–29, 2015) Photographs taken by the U.S. Embassy Public Affairs section during the workshops are posted at http://on.fb.me/1XXSKln IREX interviewed Steve about project and that video is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhEcD4pfhss. Liz142@gmail.com, Scoon42@gmail.com
Elizabeth Hansen, M.S. ’76, Faculty ’76-’79 In retirement, I’m continuing to be engaged in professionally-related pursuits, including serving as a writing coach for the photojournalism portion of Western Kentucky University’s Mountain Workshops, chairing the Steering Committee of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, serving on the board of the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and serving on the Greenlee Advisory Council. I’m also mentoring at an elementary school, serving on the Board of Directors of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington, studying Spanish, and leading an oral history project for my neighborhood association. My husband, Gary, who retired from the University of Kentucky in June, and I are traveling and enjoying spending time with our children and grandchildren. We plan to spend Christmas in El Paso and Mardi Gras in New Orleans. 976 Stonewall Road, Lexington, KY 40504, liz.hansen@eku.edu
Adriane Leigh Charlton, ’71, Faculty ’92–’95 I’m “working at being retired,” volunteering my writing and photography skills, taking care of my family and animals and trying to improve my golf game. I have a lifetime of images, both personal and professional, which need attention, so that’s an ongoing project. My husband and I have a lovely motorhome and have experienced the western U.S. National Parks and travelled the Midwest to visit family and property. Life is often challenging, but worth it. Good health and love to all. P.O. Box 940, La Quinta, CA 92247; leighcharlton@earthlink.net
Marshall Maddy, ’83, Faculty ’86–’91 After 28 years in the classroom (five years in Exhibit Hall at ISU), I am now in the marketing department at Newberry College. P.O. Box 1142, Newberry, SC 29108 mmaddy@newberry.edu Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 53
Alumni
Former Prof. Yarbrough Dies
By Eric Abbott
Editor’s note: Greenlee Professor Emeritus Eric Abbott worked closely with Paul Yarbrough during his years at Iowa State, and also took two sabbatical leaves to continue working with him at Cornell University. There’s nothing as practical as a good theory. It’s an old saying, but former ISU journalism professor Paul Yarbrough, who died Oct. 1, 2016, persuaded thousands of initially doubtful students that knowing and using theory was essential to their careers. He also practiced what he preached by using theory to address a number of key problems faced by Iowans. Paul joined the journalism faculty as an associate in 1968 after completing his Ph.D. in Sociology at ISU, and became a full-time assistant professor in 1971. (Prior to that he had a joint appointment with Sociology). He and his wife, Eddie (Fran), and sons, Jim and Tom, came from southeast Georgia, where Paul and Fran had edited and published the Pearson, Ga., Atkinson County Citizen. Paul had been state president of the Georgia FFA chapter (Future Farmers of America), so he also brought with him a strong interest in agriculture. At the time, the Department of Technical Journalism (now Greenlee School) offered a B.S. degree in agricultural journalism. Paul had a passion for knowledge. He would devote hundreds of hours to carefully reading up on any research topic, whether it was home remodeling (his house was always under construction), what lilies to plant in the backyard or soil conservation practices of Iowa farmers. Woe be it unto the graduate student who failed to do the homework necessary to fully understand the selected topic! Paul also was a skilled statistician, and his careful and thorough analysis of data often yielded interesting and valuable results. But the emphasis was always on the practical outcome. What did the results mean for communication practitioners? How might they improve their performance as a result of the research? When Paul received his Ph.D., the ISU Sociology Department was famous for development of “Diffusion Theory,” a theory that attempted to explain the process by which innovative practices are introduced and flow through a social system. The theory was made famous by Everett M. Rogers, a Ph.D. student of Sociology Department Head George Beal, but it was actually the brainchild of Beal and colleague Joe Bohlen. Paul spent a considerable amount of time in his career exploring this theory, and in later years revising the parts of it that focus on communication. Diffusion, he found, is a dynamic process, with potential adopters one day rejecting a new idea, and the next day perhaps embracing it. One of the best predictors of future adoption is the number of information sources people are using to read about a possible new practice. After joining the journalism faculty, Paul quickly became a leader in the department’s graduate program, which grew in enrollment to 55 students by 1972. He also became the department’s main researcher for the ISU agricultural experiment station. By 1975, he was elected as chairman of the national research group focusing on agricultural 54 | Greenlee Glimpse 2016
Paul’s ISU Research Highlights
experiment station communication research. By 1980, the grad program had 16 funded graduate assistants and was expanding its international focus. Paul spent a summer at the East-West Center in Hawaii. In 1981, Paul was one of three internal candidates for a vacant department chair position, but J.K. Hvistendahl was selected. Paul continued with his research, and made invited presentations of his nutrition and agricultural research findings around the country. In January 1983, Paul left Iowa State to assume a position as a professor in the communication department at Cornell University. There, over the next 16 years, he helped build up the graduate program of the department, culminating in the launching of a Ph.D. program. He retired in 1999, but remained living in Ithaca, N.Y. He died on Oct. 1, 2016, in Ithaca after an extended illness. His wife died in 2005. Sons Tom and Jim both live in Ithaca, N.Y., and cared for Paul until his death. Paul enjoyed his years at ISU, and especially his time working with graduate students. On his last day teaching the graduate 501 theory class in December 1982, the class held a surprise party in his honor. There was cake, but also a special Cyclone-colored T-shirt inscribed with “Dr. Y – No. 1.” When family members sorted through his closet after his death, the T-shirt was still hanging there. He was buried beside his wife at the Stokesville Baptist Church cemetery near Axson, Ga.
1970: Could the predictions and ideas of radical communication futurist Marshall McLuhan actually be organized into a rigorous theory and tested? Paul’s graduate student Donald Skiff wrote his M.S. thesis attempting to make sense of the famous futurist’s often controversial remarks. 1971: Paul and ISU political science professor Charles Wiggins joined forces to study the role of journalists in covering the Iowa State legislature. Findings showed that key veteran journalists from the Des Moines Register, AP and other papers set the agenda for others. Journalists also agreed that their important role was to serve as watchdogs of state government. 1972: With a grant from ABC, Paul and colleague Jerry Nelson studied the types of programs and advertisements viewed by AfricanAmericans living in Waterloo, Iowa. It was one of the first major studies of TV viewing by blacks in the United States. They found that blacks preferred to watch programs that featured or integrated AfricanAmerican actors. This led to the introduction of more programming with minority actors. 1973: An Iowa study of farmers showed those who are concerned about environmental pollution tend to use specialized newsletters and other sources to learn more. They also tend to talk more about environmental issues and are more active in community affairs. 1976: Another Iowa study of farmers showed they don’t see the link between conservation activities they might adopt and reductions in pollution. Most are concerned about the environment, but don’t see themselves as part of the problem. 1976: A major household nutrition study found that communicating with mothers about the importance of preparing nutritional meals for their households is of little value in changing actual household nutrition. The key influence in the household is the father – if he won’t eat it, the wife won’t fix it. Thus, fathers need to be included in any communication campaign trying to improve household nutrition. 1977: Paul and graduate student Karen Bolluyt presented a three-day conference on how to assess the effectiveness of efforts to communicate experiment station research results to the public. Paul spent considerable effort helping develop and implement methods of communication evaluation that could be used by both government and nongovernment agencies. 1979: After farmers began using computers, Paul and colleague Cliff Scherer initiated a series of annual studies documenting the adoption of household farm computers in Iowa. The studies continued for 20 years. Findings indicated that the adoption and use of farm computers would mainly provide an advantage for larger scale farmers with good management skills. It could help them grow bigger and more efficient. Later, with the Internet, it could help them declare independence from the small towns near them.
Alumni
Two Distinguished Alumni and Staunch Supporters Die Donald L. ‘Don’ Arends Arends, a distinguished alumni and Schwartz Award honoree, died Oct. 29 of complications from cancer. He was 87. Arends was a long-time supporter of the Greenlee School, serving on the Advisory Council and providing generous scholarships and funding for the school’s technology. A Des Moines native, Arends attended Theodore Roosevelt High School, earning athletic honors playing high school football, swimming and diving and competing in track and field. From 1946 to 1948, Arends served as a Seabee in the U.S. Navy. During that time he boxed as a welterweight and played football for teams representing naval operations in Port Hueneme, Calif., and Norfolk, Va. After leaving the Navy, Arends attended Iowa State University from 1948–1952 on the GI Bill. His education at what is now the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication propelled him into a lifelong love affair with writing and creativity, and he utilized both in service to others. After graduating, he won a spot in a marketing training program with General Electric in Schenectady, N.Y. After several years with GE, Arends combined his entrepreneurial spirit and gift for writing to establish his own business-to-business advertising agency, Arends Inc. in LaGrange, Ill. Kaiser Aluminum in California became his first account and he built his business from there, concentrating on industrial communications, advertising and marketing. Arends Inc. is now in its sixth decade. Throughout his distinguished career, Arends also made significant contributions to his alma mater, according to Director Michael Bugeja, “He was a wonderful writer and not only in public relations and journalism, but he also wrote children’s books. He is also one of our benefactors, and had done so much in terms of scholarships and technology for our students.” Arends’ children’s books include “Grandpa Grouper, The Fish With Glasses,” and a chapbook series, “The Farmhouse Adventures of Norm, the Ninja River Mouse.” In 1990, the school honored Arends with its James W. Schwartz Award for distinguished service to journalism and communications. Arends was married to the late Martha Arends, also from Des Moines, for 51 years. Arends is survived by his wife, Jane; his daughter, Nancy Strehlow; sons, Michael and John; stepdaughters Sherri Pennel, Sandra Kubis, Carolyn Johnson and Cindy Sadighian; 20 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Louis M. Thompson, Jr. Thompson, died on March 25, 2016. A long-time friend of the Greenlee School, Thompson served as chairman of the school’s Advisory Council and reviewed essays for the school’s Hugh S. Sidey scholarship annually until his death. Thompson, who graduated from high school in Ames, received his B.S. and M.S. in journalism and mass communication from Iowa State in 1961 and 1969, respectively. He was a career officer in the United States Army from 1969 until 1975, serving in Korea, Vietnam and at the Pentagon. Thompson’s career in journalism took him to the White House, where he served as the Assistant Press Secretary to President Gerald R. Ford. From there, he launched the American Enterprise Institute’s communications program and was Senior VP for communications, economics and publications for the National Association of Home Builders. He became President and CEO of the National Investor Relations Institute until his retirement in 2006. In retirement he was an active consultant to the Securities and Exchange Commission and served on the New York Stock Exchange Individual Investor Advisor Committee. In 2001, Thompson received the highest award conferred by the Greenlee School, the James W. Schwartz Award for distinguished service to journalism and communication. He was an adjunct lecturer in communication studies at Germanna Community College. He was elected to a four-year term on the Orange County School Board in 2009 and served on the Orange County Education Foundation, a cause he felt very deeply about. Thompson was married to and divorced from Anne Strand Thompson and Laura Russell Thompson. He is survived by seven children, Louis M. (Kathleen) Thompson III of Richmond, Va., Eric Thompson of Springfield, Va., Chris (Margaret) Thompson of Richmond, Va., Meg (Dave) Weigel of Jacksonville, Fla., Beth (Joe) Ranucci of Jacksonville, Fla., Emily (Tyler) Huband of Richmond, Va., and Helen Thompson of Orange, Va.; his brother, Jerome (Gretchen) Thompson; and sisters, Ann (Newt) Trail and Carolyn T. Abbott. He was the proud grandfather of 11.
We remember Mark Eugene Davidson, 58 of Ames died in his home on Aug. 8, 2016. Davidson was born on Dec. 22, 1957, the son of Horace and Lillian (Rehberg) Davidson. He graduated from BGM High School in Brooklyn in 1976, and he earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural journalism from Iowa State University in 1985. On May 20, 2006, Davidson was united in marriage at Collegiate United Methodist Church in Ames to Isabelle Lutziger, whom he met in 1997 while taking dancing lessons at ISU. He was owner of an independent insurance company and an active member of Collegiate United Methodist Church and due to his passion for music, he joined the Chancel Choir and well as the Chancel Handbell Choir. Davidson is survived by his wife, Isabelle Davidson. Teresa Buche Friederich, 87 of Columbus, Georgia, formerly of Ames, died on July 7, 2016. In 1952, Friederich met the handsome, fair-haired, exchange student Karl Friederich, while working in Omaha as a medical technologist. The two ultimately married and throughout their multiple moves, Friederich recreated warm and loving homes for the family, including their five children—Charles, Catherine, John, Barbara and James. After relocating to Ames in 1967 and working at Mary Greeley, Friederich taught students in the CLA/ MLT program at DMACC in Ankeny. She also served the Ames community as a volunteer, teaching English as a second language to recently arrived immigrants, counseling young women at Birthright and staffing the information desk at City Hall and the counter at Worldly Goods. She is preceded in death by her husband, Karl, who taught for the journalism school at Iowa State University. Friederich’s legacy lives on in her five children, 15 grandchildren and 22 greatgrandchildren, who will remember her always as a strong, intelligent, brave and loving woman. Finn Bullers, 52 of Kansas City, died on January 31, 2016, due to heart failure brought about by pneumonia. Bullers, who had muscular dystrophy and diabetes, was a reporter at the Kansas City Star for nearly 15 years. Bullers’ career as a journalist started at Iowa State University, where he studied journalism and become editor of the Iowa State Daily in 1985. For Bullers, journalism was a sacred trust, and he felt no greater triumph than being the voice of the people. After leaving the news business in 2008, he became a full-time advocate for people with disabilities and fought changes in KanCare that limited the amount of in-home care he and other Kansans were allowed. In 2014, The United Spinal Association named Bullers Advocate of the Year. He is survived by his two children, Christian and Alora; stepmother Alice; brother Tom; as well as many aunts, uncles and cousins.
Lou Thompson, right, with his former professor, the late Jack Shelley.
Greenlee Glimpse 2016 | 55
Greenlee alumni contribute greatly to the school’s status as a top communications program. You’ve experienced the second-to-none adventure that Greenlee offers — whether you reported for the Iowa State Daily, broadcasted news for WOI or ISUtv, worked to publish student magazines or found lasting mentors in faculty members. The Greenlee School prepared you for your adventure after graduation and now you can support current and future Greenlee students, who are pursuing their callings in advertising, journalism and mass communication or public relations by donating to your alma mater today! Your contributions are greatly appreciated.
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