Inbox

Spring 2022

Celebrating Our Community

Let me say that the issue of the PSU Magazine that arrived yesterday was a delight!! The stories were well written, the photography was wonderful, and the selection of subjects was just right!! Design is really attractive—meaning it catches my interest. And, I know that the magazine is produced with a tight budget...as everything is at PSU. I worked in University Relations in the early ’90s, and I know the budget restraints are always a consideration. Yet, the magazine is a fine representation of the PSU that I do love! Thanks for your efforts and the finished product that I certainly enjoy. —Don Riggs ’83

What a thrill to read of the amazing success of some fellow PSU grads. It makes me proud! —Dolores Eyler MS ’78

Portraits of PSU Veterans

Please tell Mr. Pimentel [featured in “Once a Warrior”] that we have much in common. I graduated from PSU in 2000. I, too, went in the Army in 1967 and to Vietnam in 1968, where I was subjected to many rocket attacks. I disliked the war and the Army, although now I’m glad I served. I was 100% service-connected disabled because of my participation over there. I use both a wheelchair and a walker. I was drafted into the Army at the Portland Induction Center on July 5, 1967. When I got out, I surrounded myself with hippie friends who protested the war. As a side note, Arthur Honeyman used to live with us at my mother’s boarding house. He wrote a poem about my father and his cigar smoking. Art and I would laugh ’till our sides hurt over this and that when I was in college. Loved that guy. —Stephen (aka “Lanny”) Patterson ’00

In 1953 we organized the Portland State Vets Club. At the time we were mostly Korean vets from all branches. I could be wrong on the date, but I was a member. We eventually came up with pins to be like the frats. I still have mine. Stressful time. —Jim Long ’57

PSU’S 75th Anniversary

I was excited to read the articles about Frederic Littman and also Ray Grimm in [“Pieces of History” (Spring 2021)] as they were highly influential teachers of mine at PSU from 1967-69. I was also part of a “chain” of European sculptural techniques arriving to Portland through both Littman and his student Manuel Izquierdo who taught me later at the Museum Art School. My parents were also of the same wave of immigration from Nazi Europe in 1940, so I shared a culture with my teachers. —Joan Rudd ’69

Inbox Thoughts

Charles Blatner’s Inbox letter in the fall issue is simply factually incorrect about systemic/structural racism. I wish he would drop his defensiveness and look more closely at what is called unsanitized history. The United States has had a racism problem since the very beginning. Wonderfully, it is the stated ideal of the Declaration of Independence that proclaims that all men are created equal as a self-evident truth. The lofty ideal is there in print even if it has never been a reality. Which brings me to Mr. Blatner’s second error, that recognizing systemic racism is about blaming systems and rich guys. It’s not! It’s about setting aside our white fragility and assuming responsibility for building a more just and equitable society, recognizing our previous flaws, yet embracing the ideal of the Declaration of Independence. It entails the hard work of being accountable for a future free of racism, both systemically and individually. Please, Mr. Blatner, pick up the mantle of that hard work. It is a noble cause. —Rev. M. Michael Morse

Read the virtual print edition of the Fall 2021 Portland State Magazine or download a PDF.

I had to laugh at what the Inbox letter writer, Bob Jones, had to say in the Fall 2021 issue about how the May 1970 PSU student strike was all the doing of “a minority of off-campus radical activists who tried to engage a vulnerable student body” at Portland State. The PSU Strike, as well as all of the many protest marches from campus through downtown Portland that school year, were 100% organized by our group of PSU student activists. This photo clearly shows the strike leadership—all PSU students—peacefully standing in front of the famous hospital tent in the Park Blocks across from Smith Center on the afternoon of May 11, 1970, just moments before hundreds of Portland Police officers violently attacked us, sending 30 students to the hospital. We look forward to our upcoming May 11“50 + 2” ceremony to be held in the Park Blocks commemorating the PSU Strike, where we will be able to set the record straight on all of the actual events of May, 1970. —Doug Weiskopf ’71 [Editor’s note: See this page for event details.]

The recent editions of Portland State Magazine brought back a flood of memories, especially the photo of “Mim” McKee [in Inbox]. I was a 23-year-old Marine Corps veteran in my sophomore year at Portland State College and flunking out of my pre-med biology major. I had just left the counseling center where I was told I could expect to succeed in any career field except law or medicine. Luckily, I met an old friend I had not seen since high school, Jay Sturgill ’67, who had just graduated with a geology degree. He introduced me to lab instructor Miriam McKee. Her love of geology was infectious and sharing her geology experiences in Arizona and Alaska led me to become a geology major, then an exploration geologist, and then an environmental geologist. Other classmates with geology careers included James Basille, Mike Free ’71, Kathy Manning, Kent Mathiot ’71 and Ruth Simmon ’69. Oftentimes we gathered at the old Cheerful Tortoise to socialize. —Mike McCarthy ’70

We want to hear from you! Send your letters and comments by email to psumag@pdx.edu or by mail to Portland State Magazine, University Communications, P.O. Box 751, Portland OR 97207-0751. We reserve the right to determine the suitability of letters for publication and to edit them for clarity, accuracy and length.