Alumni

Alumni notes

1999

Jessica Fargen began work in December as a reporter for the Associated Press in Omaha.

Stacy Fuller is an assistant account executive at Rapp Collins Worldwide in Chicago. She graduated in May and began work for Rapp Collins in July.

Sherri Neall is an admissions counselor at Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pa.

Alicia Peters is marketing coordinator at DWL Architects + Planners Inc., in Phoenix.

Heidi White and Matt Peterson joined the copy desk at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock, Ark., last fall. Peterson started in October and White in November.

Sarah Wright is working for DDB Needham in Chicago. She is an assistant media planner on the McDonald’s account.

1998

Benny Chung is a sub-editor at the New Straits Times Press, the leading English daily in Malaysia.

Erin Schulte joined The Wall Street Journal interactive edition in New York City as an editor and writer in October. She had spent the previous 16 months as a general assignment and city beat reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock, Ark. While in college, she was a senior reporter and news editor at the Daily Nebraskan and won first place in the Hearst competition for in-depth writing. She was a Dow Jones intern at the Traverse City Record-Eagle, in Traverse City, Mich. Her Dow Jones residency was at Temple University, where she returned the next year to help direct the program.

Paula Lavigne Sullivan began work in August as a reporter at The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash. She is assigned to the crime/breaking news team and also works for the suburban team. The paper has a circulation of 130,000 weekdays and 153,000 on Sundays.

1997

Anne Stack Alleman is a reporter at the Joliet Herald News in Joliet, Ill. The News is owned by Copley Press, which also owns three other dailies in the greater Chicago area. Alleman writes at least one story each month that runs in all four papers. She started at the paper as a regional reporter, then moved to a position where she does features and general assignment reporting and then to full-time features. She married Jim Alleman May 1, 1999, in Lockport, Ill.

Laura King-Homan and her husband, Bob Homan, a 1995 Teachers College graduate and master’s degree student in journalism, moved to Vacaville, Calif., last summer. She is editor for the Fairfield Daily Republic in Fairfield, Calif., and he is working for the quality control department of Sega, the video game company.

Doug Kouma started Aug. 30 as a copy editor in the Special Interest Publications division of Meredith Corp. in Des Moines. He had been a copy editor at the Des Moines Register for more than two years.

Joy Ludwig began work as the education reporter for the Ottawa Herald in Ottawa, Kan., in August after leaving the Hastings Tribune in Hastings, Neb. She is also doing general assignment reporting and some page design at Ottawa. She is living in Lawrence, Kan.

Jody Ryan is press secretary for Nebraska’s U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey.

Julie Sobczyk is a copy editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock. She does several jobs, such as rim editing, slotting and wire editing and says she enjoys both her work and her colleagues, who include a number of NU grads.

1996

Greg Bousquet has been promoted to associate art director at the Swanson Russell Associates Lincoln office. Bousquet, who has been at SRA since 1996, is involved in the strategic direction of specific accounts and also coordinates layouts and designs for major projects and campaigns. Prior to his promotion, he worked as a production artist and graphic designer for the Nebraska-based marketing communications firm.

1994

Kristine Johnson is the main anchor for the FOX 10 p.m. newscast in Providence, R.I. She moved to Rhode Island after graduation to work as a part-time assignment editor at WPRI when it was an ABC affliate. She was later made an associate producer and then a producer. The station was purchased by CBS and then by a company named Clear Channel Inc. When Clear Channel signed an agreement with another company, WPRI began producing a 10 p.m. newscast for FOX. The station is now officially known WPRI and WNAC. Johnson did part-time reporting during the summer of 1997 and was made a full-time reporter in early 1998. She began anchoring the 10 p.m. news in July.

Tom Mainelli accepted a job as a reporter/editor at PC World in San Francisco. Since September, he has been writing and editing stories for the PC World Online News section. His wife, Rachel, a recent UNL graduate, is teaching Spanish in the San Francisco area.

Scott and Gretchen (Hirsch) Monroe are the parents of a boy, Thomas Noah, born May 27, 1999. Gretchen, who graduated in 1995, does freelance graphic design work for the State Department of Education’s vocational rehabilitation program. Scott works for Nebraska Printing Center.

Kara Morrison received a first place award in the national newspaper feature writing contest sponsored by the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors. The winning story was titled “Believers, breeder await sacred cow: how a Pentecostal minister, an Orthodox rabbi and a Catholic cattle rancher started raising holy heifers.” The story appeared in the Aug. 16, 1998, edition of the Lincoln Journal Star. Morrison has been a reporter at the Journal Star since June 1998.

1993

Dianna Lopez Fisher was promoted in August to be associate director of alumni and parent programs at Drake University in Des Moines. She married Robert Fisher Oct. 15, 1999, and completed her master’s degree in public administration at Drake in December. Her husband is co-manager and investor of Varsity Brasserie and Coffeehouse, which opened Nov. 11, 1999. He was previously co-owner of Bistro 43, Des Moines’ only five-star restaurant. Lopez Fisher has helped with marketing and advertising the new restaurant and has developed management, training and crisis management plans. She also helps maintain the Web site and makes media buying recommendations.

Grant Kauffman works at J.D. Edwards and Associates in Denver. He was a broadcasting major at NU.

Bret Koehler worked in the marketing department at Harris labs after graduation. Five months later he moved to Osborn and Barr in St. Louis where he worked on John Deere, Monsanto and Merck Crop Protection. In September 1996, he took at job at Campbell Mithun Esty in Minneapolis where he worked on Toro and Andersen Windows accounts. He still does print work for Andersen Windows and Toro but has also done radio for MoneyGram, a competitor to Western Union. He is also doing TV advertising for Breathe Right Nasal Strips.

Julia Mikolajcik Vanderpool is the mother of a girl, Alexandria Carmen, born Jan. 21, 1999. Vanderpool and her husband, Anthony, also have an older daughter, Victoria.

1991

Tracy J. Mueller is a senior public relations specialist at Boys Town USA. Her primary responsibilities include media relations, media training, writing and community relations for 18 satellite sites in 15 states and Washington, D.C.

1988

Jann Nyffeler started in November on the universal desk at the Dallas Morning News. As part of the group that copy edits the main news sections, she works a four-day week. She had been a copy editor at the Wichita Eagle for three years and, before that, worked at the News and Observer at Raleigh, N.C.

1985

Chris Wallace Stage is enrolled in an interdisciplinary studies program at Arizona State University. She worked at KOLN-KGIN TV in Lincoln and at KHAT radio before going to Thailand with the Peace Corps and getting interested in international business. She earned a doctorate in organizational and intercultural communication at Arizona State University in 1996 and is now with an interdisciplinary studies program at ASU.

1983

Rick Selah is president of Selah Associates Inc., a Dallas-based advertising agency specializing in broadcast creative and media. He is also founder and publisher of Youth Sports Today, a family-oriented photomagazine. YST is published monthly in a variety of suburban markets in North Texas and has recieved accolades for an innovative and entertaining style of community sports coverage.

“The biggest perk so far,” said Selah, “was the opportunity to spend two days interviewing my childhood hero Roger Staubach and his family for our December ’98 cover story.” He’s also had the opportunity to profile Jerry Jones and Chad Hennings of the Cowboys, Ken Hitchcock, Derian Hatcher and Brett Hull of the Stars and Rafael Palmeiro and Rusty Greer of the Rangers.

  He credits his three children, Chris, Kebra and Chandler, with being the inspiration for the magazine. “I had to find a way to make all those hours on the soccer, baseball, football and lacrosse fields financially productive,” he said.

1978

John Ortmann joined the faculty of the Colorado State University (Fort Collins) Department of Rangeland Ecosystem Science as associate professor. Ortmann formerly worked at the York (Neb.) News-Times and at Ayres and Associates Advertising in Lincoln. He returned to NU in 1990 and earned B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in range science. His master’s research concerned the management of invasive eastern red cedar trees on Nebraska grasslands, and his Ph.D research concerned basic and applied aspects of seed dispersal by animals. Ortmann’s duties at CSU will include youth education, developing distance learning tools and improving communications between the department and its various publics.

1972

Deanna Sands is one of 100 Nebraska alumnae who have been invited to become a charter member of the Cather Circle, a group of women who have demonstrated superior leadership in their careers and who will work with current students as mentors. Sands, managing editor of the Omaha World-Herald, recently finished her term as national treasurer of the Associated Press Managing Editors and was re-elected to the board of directors for a three-year term.

1958

Beverly Buck Pollock, Ogallala, is one of 100 Nebraska alumnae who have been invited to become a charter member of the Cather Circle, a group of women who have demonstrated superior leadership in their careers and who will work with current students as mentors. Pollock and her husband, Jack, publish the Keith County News at Ogallala.

1944

Marj Marlette, winner of the COJMC Alumni Association’s 1998 Outstanding News-Editorial Alumni Award, died Nov. 4 in Lincoln after a brief illness.

Marlette covered the courthouse and corrections beats for the Lincoln Journal for 31 years, including coverage of the Charles Starkweather murders, the topic of a book she was working on at the time of her death. In 1982, she was named to the State Parole Board by Gov. Charles Thone, and two years later, she became editor of Corrections Compendium, a national magazine for corrections professionals. Marlette remained active in the American Correctional Association, Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty and the Transitional Life Center for Nebraska women coming out of prison. In January 2000, the Marj Marlette Resource and Reporting Center opened in Lincoln for women being released from the state correctional facility at York and as a sentencing alternative for women in Lancaster County Corrections. Marlette is survived by her husband, Ralph; three children; four grandchildren; and a brother.

1940

L. Jean Sanders Daugherty, Albuquerque, N.M., died in September 1998 after a four-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

1933

John Quinn, Lenexa, Kan., died in June. He began writing for Variety while he was a student at NU and covered entertainment in the Kansas City area for Variety for more than 60 years.