Coach ElRite makes a point in 1977.

We were reminiscing about old varsity sports at Tech (including boxing!). I always argue that we should have a golf team again, even with our limited season. Swimming and diving are great spectator sports, as is wrestling. Every time I visit the rifle range, I marvel at some of the sharpshooters I see there. And Mont Ripley was home to the Alpine ski team for many years.

Looking over old yearbooks, I was surprised to see some familiar names coaching these sports. Sheldon "Moose" Larson was the rifle team coach back in the early 1960s. Moose was also an assistant football coach, equipment supervisor, and was inducted into the Huskies Hall of Fame. Dr. Jim Foster was also a longtime rifle team coach.

Moose, John MacInnes, and Verdie Cox had stints as golf coach, and I see under Coach MacInnes' tutelage, we whooped Northern on the links more than once back in the day. Verdie, of course, coached just about everything, and he designed the second nine holes at Portage Lake Golf Course. One of the holes (toughest on the course) bears his name, as does the men's club championship every year.

Wrestling was the domain of Dick ElRite for many years. Coach ElRite also made the Hall of Fame, and he had his share of success with all-conference selections. He was also an assistant football coach and director of intramurals for fifteen years.

Fred Lonsdorf was the legendary ski coach for thirty-two years, and he helped out with other sports as needed, such as cross country. He's got a portion of the hill named after him now: "Fred's Landing."

Swimming was the domain of man-for-all-seasons Omar LaJeunesse for fifteen years. Omar was also head football coach, and he coached softball (?) and track, too. Judy Fynewever coached swimming and diving for many years, too.

So, I'd like to hear from our former athletes of these great sports. Any special memories of competing for the black and gold? Your favorite coaches? Road trips? Beating Northern and other rivals? Any boxers still around? Email me.

Dennis '92 '09

Oak Ridge Associated Universities has selected Durdu Guney of Michigan Tech to receive a 2012 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award. Guney, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, is one of 30 award recipients chosen from among 111 applicants representing ORAU member institutions. More

A materials scientist at Michigan Tech has discovered a chemical reaction that not only eats up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, it also creates something useful. And, by the way, it releases energy. More

In 2007, Michigan Tech alumnus Jim Tanis ’56 ’58 and his wife, Jan Tanis, were honeymooning and globetrotting. They went to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania and finally Uganda, where they sought out mountain gorillas. It was in Uganda that a life-changing encounter seemed to seek them out. More

Gene Klippel has been named dean of Michigan Tech's School of Business and Economics. He will take over the position on July 1. Klippel replaces Darrell Radson, who left the University in May. Klippel knows the campus and community, having served as dean of the School from 1994 to 2003. More

We need your help!

For the first time in Michigan Tech’s history, we are honoring all Women of Michigan Tech at this year’s Alumni Reunion (August 2-4). To mark this special occasion, the Keweenaw Brewing Company has created a special Hefeweizen brewed with locally grown berries. This beer needs a name! Help us name the beer, and if your entry is chosen, you’ll win a KBC party pack!

Please send entries to alumni@mtu.edu

In the Dallas/Forth Worth area, left to right: Frank Wu '65, Lee Stimpson '79, Dale Kesler '61, Terry Pickl '86.

On Saturday, May 19, the Dallas/Fort Worth Alumni Chapter enjoyed good food and conversation during their potluck social. Big thanks to hosts Karen & Michael Gregory '69.

Twin Cities

Twenty Five alumni from the Twin Cites Chapter met at the American Burger Bar on Saturday, May 19th for a social with special guest Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. After the social they walked over to the historic Fitzgerald Theater for Jeremy Messersmith - Muse to Music.

Cubs Game

On Thursday, May 17 alums from the Chicagoland area gathered for a Chicago Cubs outing complete with a party at Goose Island before the game featuring their craft-made beers. The game was a little chilly, but a good time was had by all!

 

Alumni Reunion is slated for August 2-4 and will be the first ever to celebrate the women of Michigan Tech.

All female graduates, former students, faculty, and staff are invited to a number of special events during Reunion including a Saturday evening “Girls Night Out” party hosted by the Presidential Council of Alumnae.

Visit www.mtu.edu/reunion for more details.

 

More Fun Facts

• Speaking of old sports (but these remain today), 1975 marked the beginning of women's varsity athletics, with the first basketball and volleyball teams, both coached by the late Cheryl DePuydt. A press release from September of that year speculated that "Both women's basketball and volleyball are expected to be popular spectator sports with the student body at Tech. Why? Perhaps they'll come at first out of curiosity, by they'll keep on coming for the same reason they watch the Huskies compete in anything—they want Tech to win."
• In 1979, Martha J. Barrett, from Livonia, Michigan, won the George C. Marshall Award from the US Army ROTC and the George C. Marshall Research Foundation at ceremonies at Lexington, Virginia. She was the cadet commander, the first female to hold that position in the history of ROTC at Tech. She also placed first in competition among 1,500 cadets at advanced ROTC summer camp at Fort Riley, Kansas.

The Associated Women Students produced a guide called The Michigan Tech Woman. It featured "The Clothesline: What to Wear. . . When and Where" (it's clickable). We don't know the year of this one. Maybe you've still got yours. Email me.

Maybe you took golf class with Coach Tom Kearly in 2005?

It's clickable.

Email me.

The Michigan Tech women’s soccer team ranked ninth in the nation in home attendance in NCAA Div. II in 2011. The Huskies averaged 357 fans per game. Grand Valley State narrowly edged Tech for the top spot among GLIAC schools ranking eighth with 363 fans. Other GLIAC schools in the top-75 include Tiffin 56th (207 fans), Ferris State 59th (204) and Ashland 69th (193). More

Michigan Tech senior Mike Hojnacki was recently given the Commissioner’s Award from the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Mike Hojnacki (Milwaukee, Wis./New Berlin Eisenhower) finished his career with 1,288 points, 15th most in Michigan Tech history. He earned Academic All-District IV Honors twice and All-GLIAC North Division Second Team accolades. More

Michigan Tech’s Nathan Saliga broke his own school record in the 400-meter hurdles to finish fourth in a time of 54.27 at the GVSU Last Chance Meet Saturday (May 12). Molly Wiltzius finished sixth in the discus with a throw of 143-8, the third-best in school history. More

Hey Dennis,
Back in the first week of April my wife and I traveled to Kansas City, Mo., to watch our granddaughter play in the National College Club Volleyball Championships. There were 359 college club teams in the competition that included both men and women. Since my Granddaughter attends Colorado State University I happened to be wearing their jersey when I discovered that Michigan Tech had a men's team entered. I was honored to have my picture taken with the team.

I was the teams loudest rooter for many of their games. They had only one fan before I showed up and that was the Dad of two of the players from WI. I can't tell you how proud I was of this group of six young men. They get no support from MTU that I am aware of but they traveled to KC and played their hearts out and I expect had a great time. With only six players I could see the exhaustion in their bodies and on their faces by the third day of the tournament.

The thing that most impressed me though was the integrity and sportsmanship evidenced by these men. I have been following my granddaughter to watch her play volleyball in tournaments all around the country since her Junior HS days and never once observed ANY other team that that called their own "touches" or other fouls even though they would lose the point. I think the referees actually may have put them in for a sportsmanship award.

I don't know how they fared in the tournament or if they won any award. But no matter. I was extremely proud to meet these men and have them representing my university. I will look for them again at next year's nationals and I would suggest that MTU drum up some support for them at next year's events. Maybe the MTU foundation could add the Club teams so that fans could make tax deductible donations.

Bill Rosenthal, '61
Fort Worth, TX

Bill: We've passed this around, it is such a great story.

Dennis,
In 1964 on episode #196 of the GE College Bowl, Ohio Wesleyan Univ. defeated MTU 170-145. That was OWU's fourth consecutive victory. OWU next defeated Alfred Univ. and retired undefeated that year. GE College Bowl records for 1964 can be found here.

Regards,
Art Wildblood '59 (originally '58)

***

Dennis--
Michigan Tech (145) lost to Ohio Wesleyan University (170) in the 1964 College Bowl.

Michael D. Wirt
Pinehurst, North Carolina

***

Michigan Tech lost to Ohio Wesleyan by not knowing who wrote Black Beauty. Very close match.

Myron Berry

Editor's Note: Myron's dad was Doc Berry, head coach of the team. Myron also wrote:

Yes. Many other professors helped for several weeks and lots of students tried out. Lots of interesting stories.

A group of skiers on Mont Ripley in the 1950s.

What was your favorite recreational sport?

443 Total

Broomball (91 votes) 21 percent

Skiing (72 votes) 16.63 percent

Hockey (35 votes) 8 percent

Fishing (32 votes) 7.39 percent

Hunting (27 votes) 6.22 percent

Basketball (25 votes) 5.76 percent

Golf (19 votes) 4.38 percent

Biking (15 votes) 3.46 percent

Running (12 votes) 2.76 percent

Frisbee (10 votes) 2.31 percent

Weight Lifting (8 votes) 1.84 percent

Other (88 votes) 20.3 percent

Some interesting "others": softball, volleyball, racquetball (getting up before 5 to get court time: '77), sledding down Mt. Ripley, motorcycle, sky diving, bowling in the Union, smelt dipping, watching my now-husband playing ice hockey at 11 p.m. or whenever ice was avail!, women's hockey, hiking, camping, canoeing, 4-wheeling, Copper Country Cruisin', Bosch Brewery, walking to town wishing I had money to by the things I wanted, rollerblading along the canal, fishbowling, bocce ball, scuba, flag football, swimming, innertube water polo.

A New Poll

Hi Dennis,
Robinson House was between Wads and DHH in the triangle formed by College Ave & 41. It was a very nice house, newer than Smith, I think. We first used it in the ‘59-‘60 school year. Before that Pryor House was used for only one year as a dorm. That was almost across from the College Motel and beyond the H&T house and the Forestry building.

The picture you posted in the newsletter was after I was there. I only recognize 2 of the girls in it.

Gail Richter

Slideshow Link

Hello Dennis,
The Robinson House was located at 1709 College Avenue. The Robinson House was once a showplace of the copper era. It is now a parking lot between Wadsworth Hall and Douglass Houghton Hall. The house was the first house of Beta Sigma Psi Theta Chapter, now Beta Sigma Theta. The house was rented from the University and had been a residence house for women for three years prior. The Beta Sigma Psi membership moved in during the fall term of 1962 and had its first and only housemother in residence: Mrs. Zella King. The picture of the women residence is obviously prior to this. I pledged Beta Sigma Psi in the spring of 1963 when we still had the Robinson House but had purchased and were renovating the current house at 1210 College Ave.

Sincerely;
John Koskela
BSEE 1966

Attached is a photo of the Solar Eclipse taken from near our house here in SoCal using a Sony A100 DLSR with a 400mm lens at f32 x 1/4000sec x ISO 100 with no additional filtering. This is the full frame image (i.e. NO cropping). Obviously it was taken with a tripod and I used a remote shutter release to minimize camera shake.

John Baker

 

You may enjoy this. Alcoa's 50,000 ton press (think bench-pressing the USS Iowa with 860 tons to spare) has been refurbished for use. It's one of the machines that made the jet age possible:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/iron-giant/8886

http://boingboing.net/2012/02/13/machines.html

Frank Shoffner '62

Frank: That's a big machine!

Dennis,

That is I in the black and white photo at the top[of our TechAlum banner]—I’m third from the right—the shortest one! That was for the 1980 Winter Carnival Queen contest.

I’ll have to look through my stuff to find that Carnival book to get all the names.

Starting on the Left I believe is Terry Schultz?, don’t know the next one, then Cathy Dopp, I’m next, then my roommate in 236 DHH Carol Hoot, then I can’t remember. I’ll try and find them.

Thanks…that was a good memory.

Ellen Loughrin’83 (sort of…)

Ellen: We've been trying to ID all these women for years. Thanks for the great start.

This takes about 10 min worth the watch
OPERATIONAL V-12 DIESEL ENGINE THAT FITS IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND. -
Patience of a Saint and extremely skillful!!!

This is not CNC technology; this guy made everything at home on his lathe and drill press. Took 1220 hours (a year and a half?) to make the 261 pieces. Note the end-loaded crankshaft into the block (like an Offy), 12 individual cylinder heads, TINY rods and pistons, dual "underhead" cams with pushrods to rockers in the heads. And, he did break-in using an electric drill driving the crankshaft!

Even if you're not an engineer, you'll love this!

http://www.wimp.com/tiniestengine

Bob Brown

He's not running for office (he passed away in 1997), but his 1982 wine can benefit Tech!

Bob Carnahan '52 would like the wine auction to benefit the Generations of Discovery Campaign currently underway. He also plans on having it available for viewing at the Alumni Reunion in August. Details below.

The last bid was $225.

***

Dennis:
I 'd like to send it to campus for the August reunion and prominently displayed to capture some imaginative wine aficionados and get the sipping buds bidding this gem up to a respectable Campaign donation level. It could begin in the Alumni registration area, migrate to the Pasty Picnic, and end up at the awards banquet. Maybe some Class of '62 alum will pop a large bid as an anniversary class donation.

Just want you to know how much I enjoy these bimonthly newsletters.

Ciao, Bob

Anyone can bid. Just send an email to alumni@mtu.edu, and they'll record your amount.You can let TechAlum know, too, so our alumni can follow along.

Michigan Tech alumni exploring new employment opportunities can take advantage of a wide range of career services including:

• Post your resume, search for jobs online using NACElink.
• Attend resume and interviewing seminars, Michigan Tech Career fairs, company information meetings, and career networking events.
• Join the exclusive Michigan Tech Alumni Linkedin group.
• Use the video and career planning library.
• Check out the Career Spots video library with great job search tips

Visit http://www.mtu.edu/alumni/products/career-tools/or contact the Career Center (906) 487-2313 career@mtu.edu for more information.

Show your Michigan Tech Pride!

• Official Class Rings and Diploma Frames
• Michigan Tech License Plates
• Michigan Tech Collector Blanket
• University Images—Michigan Tech Clothing and Giftware
  

More Alumni Benefits, Services and Discount program information
http://www.mtu.edu/alumni/benefits

Strategic Faculty Hiring Initiative: Positions in Water and Transportation

Tenure Track Position, Humanities, Assistant Professor of French

Business Systems and Data Analyst, Graduate School

Finance and Budget Coordinator, Facilities Management Administration

Apply using the new online system at http://jobs.mtu.edu.

Complete Descriptions are available on the Human Resources website.

Off Campus

Keweenaw opportunities: http://www.keweenawprofessionaljobs.com/

Other employment opportunities: Check out the Linked in group exclusively for Michigan Tech Alumni.

Also, visit the Career Tools webpage for more options.