Still Running Strong
I loved the piece about “Jogging Memories” (Duck Tale, Winter 2014). Above (right) is a photo we recently took running through Hendricks Park to contrast to the one in the story taken 51 years ago.
One of the people is the same in both photos. Which person?
Richard Leutzinger, BA ’62, is at the farthest left in both photos, the one from 51 years ago and the one today. Richard was a journalism major at the UO and ran with the UO noon group in the ’60s as documented in the photo, and for the last 10 years or so as well. Richard ran 97 marathons between the two photos. And he scored points for the Ducks football team under coach Len Casanova. He weighs 114 pounds, probably not a match for Alex Balducci today.
Second guy, the one in the blue, is me, who joined the UO noon group in 1973 having joined the UO biology faculty in 1971, two years after Fred [Delcomyn, PhD ’69, author of the “Jogging Memories” story] left the UO biology department.
Third guy in the archived photo is Keith Forman, BS ’64, MS ’70, the third Duck to break the four-minute barrier in 3:58.3, impersonated in today’s photo by Tim Godsil, retired accountant from the office of sponsored projects at UO.
And the fourth is Richard! Still running strong after all these years!
Fred, thanks for this great story!
John H. Postlethwait
Professor of Biology, Institute of Neuroscience
Eugene
Tonight I read the “Jogging Memories” story. The picture in the center of the page features the great Bill Bowerman with “unidentified runners.” I don’t know them all, but the third man from the right, two behind the coach, is another great, Keith Forman! He was another Oregon champion and a sub-four-minute miler. We can’t forget our great athletes and their achievements.
David Kenin, MA ’66
Pacific Palisades, California
I remember Keith Forman as a sweet classmate—a 1959 graduate of Cleveland High School in Portland. As freshmen at the UO we were friendly, and he spoke with enthusiasm about running; I believe he and the others were striving to run a four-minute mile. I think of Keith with fondness and wonder what became of him after our 1963 graduation.
Judy Wilson Hayward, BA ’63
Tualatin, Oregon
For the Record
On page 60 of the Winter 2014 Oregon Quarterly (“Flashback”) you asked if anyone out here still had a University of Oregon record album issued in 1954. I do. Unfortunately, I can no longer play it. It consists of two double-sided 78 rpm records that contain two non-Oregon songs, “My Hero” and “Oh What a Beautiful City.” Oregon songs include “Mighty Oregon,” the “Pledge Song,” and my favorite, “As I Sit and Dream at Evening.” Useless as these are to us now, I continue to hang on to them.
Jo Anne Hewitt Aplet, BA ’52
Pacific Palisades, California
Meet You at the EMU
Reading about the Fishbowl renovation (“A Capital Idea,” Winter 2014) recalled personal memories. In 1951, I transferred to the UO and wanted to get into campus activities. I met with a small group led by EMU student manager Clyde Fahlman about starting a “Friday at Four” series featuring live music in the Fishbowl. I put a notice in the Daily Emerald asking for volunteer musicians, and a few showed up. One was a handsome graduate student from the East Coast who had played saxophone in big bands, and he was not very interested in gathering a volunteer combo. However, Richard Stewart, MMus ’54, and I continued our friendship, dances in the ballroom, and in 1954, we were married in Medford. For the next 57 years, whenever someone asked, Dick would tell the story of how we met.
Dorothy Anderson Stewart, BS ’54
Escondido, California
Frosh Glee
Reading the letter on Benny Goodman and the King of Siam (“The King and I,” Winter 2014) takes me back to my first dance at McArthur Court in the fall of 1939: the Frosh Glee. We were fortunate to have had Goodman and his band that night! What an evening that was.
John Busterud, BS ’43
San Rafael, California
More on the Climate
The letter from Dave Bowman, BS ’82, (“Carbon Problem,” Winter 2014) on global warming is not only false, it reflects the propaganda of the oil and gas industry. Climate is the universal picture of the temperature of the entire Earth, its history and its future. Greenhouse gases trap sunlight that should be reflected into space, thus the warming of the planet. Weather, not climate, is what you see from day to day. For example, I grew up in Southern California in the ’40s, when there was rain and snow in the valley. As the climate warmed from greenhouse gases, the forest burned, and my town turned into a desert wasteland. Take the water away from Corona del Mar that you get from afar, and you will be left with cactus and sagebrush. Then your cry will be “Let’s get Oregon’s water.” Not now, not ever!
Walter B. Hull, BS ’59
Clackamas, Oregon
Image Conscious
I find the “new look” of Oregon Quarterly distracting from the content, overly visual, and wasteful of space. It reminds me of today’s television, with its endless flashing images in both advertising and programming. Your use of large images seems to imitate that; they become the content rather than simply augmenting the text. The magazine becomes a picture show instead of informative. This is unfortunate because some articles are very significant—if one can get by the visual barrage. For example, “Natural Law” (Autumn 2014). This may lead to a crucial test in the Supreme Court of constitutional rights—whether “the people” have any remaining, or if only the big corporations do.
Keith Roe, MLS ’73
Vestal, New York
Corrections: In the Winter 2014 Class Notes, we attributed the book Driftwood Forts of the Oregon Coast to the wrong Duck. The author is James Herman, BFA ’11. In the letters section, we misspelled the name of professor emeritus of theater Faber Dechaine, BS ’52.