Coming of age in the 1960s, Texas-born Jim Patterson ’73 was a self-proclaimed longhaired hippie who lived all over the world by way of his father’s oil-industry career. He spent much of his childhood in Colombia and...
For Hannah (Taylor) Skvarla ’10, childhood vacations weren’t always the typical family excursions; often, they were volunteer missions with nonprofits. Together, the family members learned about underserved populations...
As a child, Alex Hillkurtz ’90 dreamed of digging up dinosaur bones in exotic lands and becoming a paleontologist. That changed in 1977 when he saw Star Wars. Awed by the film, he studied its “making of” television...
Cara Lawler ’11 always wanted to be a mother. In 2013, she founded Someone a World Away (SAWA), a nonprofit that raises funds for El Shadai Grace Children’s Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. She is now “Mzungu Mama” (English...
Lawyer Kevin Muldoon (JD ’06) always loved politics, but not at the local level. Then after he worked on a property rights case for Newport Harbor homeowners, a group of his clients encouraged him to run for the Newport...
Clint Paulson ’49 can still see in his mind the Los Angeles back yard where he was standing on Dec. 7, 1941. He remembers that he was with his cousin, who was wearing his Army uniform. He recalls details of the radio...
Julia Walton, one of two winners of this year’s James L. Doti Outstanding Graduate Student Awards, has something in common with 20th century poet Wallace Stevens. Like Stevens, Walton (MFA ’16) kept a flame of...
The click of the candidate’s heels on pavement. The clatter of pots and the chatter of cooks in the kitchen of a Mexican restaurant. The voices of voters meeting the congresswoman as she campaigns for the U.S. Senate...
Every veteran elementary school teacher has faced one of “those” classes – a mix of students who hop around like popcorn kernels in a hot pan, aren’t keen to follow instructions and would...
Melissa Grace Hoon 
Dennis Arp