Archive: stories

A by-no-means-complete guide to Eastern alumni working to make every hour happy. This story has been fermenting for a while. We scoured and searched to compile a list of EWU alums paying the bills by making our beer.

For nearly four years, Eastern Washington University graduate students have been working side-by-side with faculty at the University Hearing and Speech Clinic, learning how to help restore the voices of those with Parkinson’s disease. Students in the communication sciences and disorders (CMSD) program and faculty work with patients in the LOUD Crowd group, a maintenance therapy…

Being inducted into the Inland Northwest Sports Hall of Fame is a tremendous honor. Former Eastern volleyball coach and current Senior Associate Athletic Director/Senior Woman Administrator Pam Parks is one of just a handful of former Eagles to achieve this claim to fame, and only the third to be honored as a coach. She’s in…

I’ve always wanted to write a celebrity interview. You know, the kind that appears in Harper’s Bazaar: “On a clear Saturday afternoon, Sandra Bullock, dressed in a bright pink sundress, met me in the lobby of a Beverly Hills hotel. She’s as witty and self-mocking as a fan might expect.” I finally got my chance…

It would be easy to assume that baritone Thomas Hampson has moved on from his eastern Washington roots. The Eastern alumnus doesn’t need anyone new to mention that he’s distinctly gifted, naturally expressive, charismatic or good-looking (opera buffs call him “Thomas Handsome”). Audiences love him. Hampson (’92 BA government) packs opera houses on both sides…

Shawn Vestal ’08, ’05, MFA creative writing, BA interdisciplinary studies, won the Washington State Book Award for fiction for his debut novel, Daredevils (Penguin Press, 2016). The award, given by the Washington Center for the Book, honors “literary merit, lasting importance, and overall quality.” Winners were announced in Seattle in October. Vestal’s novel, set in the 1970s, tells…

Shannon Kellam is full-time engineering student at EWU, president of the Rocketry Club, and a single mother to a fifth- and third-grader. As if she weren’t busy enough, Kellam also helped to build a 3D-printed prosthetic arm for Spokane Public Schools fifth-grader Isaiah Strom. A team from EWU’s Engineering Department, which included Kellam, engineering tech Frank De…

Last week, a team from EWU’s Engineering Department presented a 3-D-printed prosthetic arm to a fifth-grader at Spokane Public Schools. Rob Gerlick, PhD and assistant professor of mechanical engineering, engineering tech Frank De Abreu and engineering student Shannon Kellam visited Isaiah Strom’s classroom last Wednesday to custom fit his device and teach him how to use…

Eastern Washington University faculty, staff and students – many of them new to campus – started the 2017 academic year by giving back to the community on Tuesday, Sept. 19, during the annual Eagle UP volunteer effort. In all, more than 120 volunteers from Eastern provided a total of 366 hours cleaning, planting and organizing, equaling nearly…

Four years ago, alumni of the Zeta Nu chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity agreed to set out on a philanthropic endeavor to give back to the university that helped bring them together more than half a century ago. The brothers set a target goal of raising a quarter of a million dollars for…