THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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In Memory |
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Alumni
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Ruth C. Bale, '24, the only alumna to live in three centuries, died Aug. 9. She was 106. Born in 1893 in Raymond, she earned a bachelor's degree from the UW in 1924, taught high school for a year in Poulsbo before returning to the Willapa Bay area to care for her mother. Even though she was bedridden the past few years, she never missed a Husky football game on the radio. The UW athletic department sent her an autographed team football for her 106th birthday Frederick Robert Bergseth, '37, professor emeritus of electrical engineering, died July 23. Born on Oct. 5, 1915 in West Seattle, he was a graduate of the UW and MIT. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he joined the UW electrical engineering faculty in 1947 for what would be a 38-year teaching career, highlighted by an Outstanding Teaching Award in 1981. He was 84. Mary Kathryn Boozer, '55, died Aug. 9. An associate professor emeritus of biobehavioral nursing and health systems, she earned degrees from the Univ. of Colorado and the UW. She joined the UW faculty in 1956 and retired in 1987. She was 75. Mildred Alice Disbrow, '68, professor emeritus of family and child nursing, died Oct. 3. She joined the UW faculty in 1968 and helped develop the doctorate in nursing science program. She did research and taught many courses on maternal child health, and was best known for her research on child-abuse prevention. She was 83. Frank William Jones, professor emeritus of comparative literature, English and drama, died Sept. 2. A native of Liverpool, England, he was a Rhodes scholar and recipient of the Natl. Book Award, he headed the comparative literature program at the UW for many years. He joined the UW in 1955 and taught until his retirement in 1978. He was 85. Arthur Wesley Martin, Jr., professor emeritus of zoology, died July 25. He joined the UW faculty in 1937. His research focused on the physiology of different animals and he published more than 150 papers in scientific journals. He was 89. Robert Muilenburg, CEO of UW Med. Ctr. from 1984 to 2000, died Sept. 20 of brain cancer. He was 59. Born in Middleburg, Iowa, Muilenburg was the first person in his family to go to college. He earned a master's degree from the Univ. of Iowa in health and hospital administration, worked at hospitals in Illinois and Utah, and joined the UW Med. Ctr. in 1978 as associate executive director. In 1984, he was named CEO, a position he held until the spring, when his illness forced his retirement. In addition to overseeing a hospital perennially ranked among the best in the nation, he created the medical center's highly acclaimed art program 15 years ago, bringing more than 700 paintings and sculptures to the hospital. In his honor, the UW Board of Regents voted to rename the medical center's Cascade Tower as the Robert H. Muilenburg Tower. The family asks that memorial gifts be sent to the arts program at UW Med. Ctr., Box 356151, Seattle WA 98195. Stanley Reed Murphy, '59, a professor of oceanography and mechanical engineering, died Sept. 11. He earned a bachelor's degree at Fresno State College before coming to the UW in 1959 to earn a Ph.D. in physics. He was instrumental in establishing the Sea Grant program in Washington and nationwide and in 1980 was appointed director of the Applied Physics Lab. He taught at the UW from 1968 until his retirement in 1987. He was 76. Todd Porterfield, 23, a UW civil engineering major, was killed Aug. 8 while taking part in a cross-country bicycle ride for charity. Porterfield died in Lexington, N.C., when he collided with a pickup truck hauling a 30-foot horse trailer along Interstate 85. The senior from Bellevue was participating in the Journey of Hope, an annual bicycling fund-raiser sponsored by Push America, a national outreach project of the Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity. Along with 60 other riders from Pi Kappa Phi houses across the nation, he set out from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and was only a week away from the finish line in Washington, D.C. Porterfield was a 1996 graduate of Eastside Catholic High School, where he played football, ran track and coached track for junior high students at Sacred Heart School. He later earned a $30,000 merit scholarship for academics and community service and enrolled at the UW. He was one quarter away from graduating. Arnie Weinmeister, '48, a legendary Husky football player who went on to guide the Teamsters union through a tumultuous era of alleged corruption and controversy, died June 28 of congestive heart failure. He was 77. A 6-foot-4, 225-pound tackle with great speed, Weinmeister, nicknamed "the Big Horse" earned numerous honors playing for the UW before going onto a seven-year pro football career and induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. After that, he served the Intl. Brotherhood of Teamsters for 36 years, including his election of intl. VP in 1973. He was known for his quiet, unassuming style of negotiation, and often reached settlements for workers without having to resort to strikes. He retired in 1992. Michael Wessels, a research chemist in the UW's Dept. of Environmental Health since 1988, died in August after falling from Monte Cristo Peak in the Mount Baker Snoqualmie Natl. Forest in northwest Washington. An outdoors enthusiast, he apparently fell to his death on the way down after scaling the summit. His research focused on contaminated Superfund sites, as well as industrial hygiene contaminants. He was 42.
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