Photo credit: Kate deVeaux

Now out with her tenth publication on the shelves in the Unites States, Suzanne Selfors (M.A., 1990) has found her calling in writing children’s books. Although the journey to get there wasn’t easy, she said she has found her voice.Selfors’ story begins at the end of her driveway as she watched the school bus drive away carrying her youngest daughter to her first day of elementary school.

“I thought, ‘my life is about to change.’ This is my youngest child; she’s gone off to school and I can actually do something different now,” Selfors said. “I walked up my driveway, sat down at my computer, and I googled local writing classes.”

Selfors registered that same day at the University of Washington in their extension program for short story writing. Selfors had already graduated from the UW years earlier in 1990 with a master’s in communication with a popular culture emphasis. At that time she was interested in studying film, writing a thesis titled “From Menace to Messiah: A Cultural Study of the American Extraterrestrial Encounter Film.”

While at the UW, Selfors had an internship with KCPQ Television, where she was later hired after graduation as a research assistant. Channel 13 had just become the Fox affiliate, so the opportunity was well received.

“I was studying all the trends and trying to help the sales staff convince advertisers where they should place their advertising based on demographic and research information,” Selfors said.

However, Selfors decided to quit her job when she got married and began to start a family. She read to her children every night, even when they were babies, and started to notice something.

“There was a renaissance going on in the children’s publishing world. The Harry Potter books had changed the market and publishers were hungry. I fell in love with Lemony Snicket’s books, and a series by Suzanne Collins called Gregor the Overlander,” Selfors said. “I realized that I really wanted to write fiction.”

Selfors took the ferry from Bainbridge Island every Tuesday and Thursday night to go to the short story writing class at the UW.

“It was the first time I’d ever written an opening chapter for a novel,” Selfors said. “So that was nerve wracking for me. But the positive feedback gave me the courage to move forward with my story.”

In one year, from September 2002 to September 2003, Selfors had written her first adult novel that was set in Ancient Greece, found a literary agent that wanted to represent her, and it was being submitted to 12 publishing houses in New York City. Unfortunately, she got 12 rejection letters in return.

“It was a really dense historical novel and had a lot of research so I can look back and see why it got rejected,” Selfors said, “but I was stubborn so I wrote another adult novel, set it in ancient Greece again and it got rejected.”

When Selfors then wrote a third adult historical fiction novel that did not get picked up, she became discouraged and was close to giving up. But, nonetheless, the next story she wrote was a children’s novel titled “To Catch a Mermaid.” She finished writing it in 2005 and her agent sent it out immediately.

“He sent it to seven houses and all seven made offers on it,” Selfors said. “It went to auction, which is every writers dream because you have publishing houses fighting over you. So I realized I had found my voice and that’s what I was meant to write. It felt right.”

She said in contrast to the historical fiction novels which she had to fight her way through, the children’s books just flowed. Her kids were a major inspiration for “To Catch a Mermaid.”

“I wrote that first book for them,” Selfors said. “I read it to them while I was writing and I knew I was doing something right because at the end of each chapter they would beg me to keep reading.”

Selfors said writer’s block has never been a problem for her and that she has been creating stories in one way or another her whole life.

“I just have a brain that is very noisy,” Selfors said. “I have stories just waiting in line to be told.”

Her latest book “The Sasquatch Escape” debuted last month and is the first in a middle-grade series called, The Imaginary Veterinary Series. Four books in the series are currently under contract, with more to follow. The award-winning illustrator, Dan Santat, is designing the covers.

Selfors said that the best part about her job is getting letters, drawings, and gifts from young readers. She has also written four teen novels that inspire deeper letters from adolescents. Selfors said she responds to every single one.

Selfors is writing for three publishing houses at the moment (Bloomsbury Publishing; Little, Brown and Company; and HarperCollins), but when she has time she would like to try writing an adult novel again someday. Her first Greek novel ended up being published in Greece, so “I figured if the Greeks like it, it can’t be that bad,” Selfors joked. She wants to revisit the novel to smooth it out and try publishing it in the United States again.

“I’m happy that I’m building readership,” Selfors said. “It’s been slow and steady, but with each book I produce it does a little better than the last one.”

Her books have earned starred reviews, been Indie Picks, and Junior Library Guild award-winners. They’ve been included on the School Library Journal Best Books list, YALSA Best Books for Teens List, and multiple state lists, to name a few accolades. And they’ve been Scholastic Book Fair best-sellers.

“A lot of people think to make money in this business you have to be a New York Times best-selling author, but you don’t,” Selfors said. “If you continue to put out work that does well, you can make a living out of this.”

Although, with that being said, Selfors does hope to be a New York Times best-selling author one day.

Scott Wilson (B.A., 1978; M.A., 1986) is the current editor and publisher of the Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader, an independent newspaper and web site that started in 1889.

While he attended the Department of Communication, Wilson was involved in news writing, news editing and was also the editor for The Daily in 1977. Wilson received his BA in Journalism. He used the degree to partly pursue his interest in the political history of journalism and media. Wilson then later returned to UW to get his masters in communication in between jobs, studying mass media ownership patterns. He also spent several months freelancing in Nicaragua and other Central American nations during the time of the U.S. led counter-revolution against the Sandinista government.

Wilson described his education and experience at the Department of Communication as “A direct pipeline from the UW School of Communications to the professional field,” referring to how he and his peers received jobs right out of college in newspapers and television.

Serving as the editor of The Daily gave Wilson the experience to be able to work for weekly newspapers in Port Townsend and Whidbey Island upon graduation. Wilson then shifted into dailies with the Everett Herald and the Tacoma News Tribune, where he was the Olympia Bureau Chief, encompassing mainly government and politics.

During Wilson’s time at the Department of Communication in 1977, he established his connections though an internship with his current news job at the Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader. It was not until later in 1989 that Wilson bought into the news company, making him a co-owner. Since then, he has been the editor and publisher of the newspaper. Wilson said that he hoped the news source would achieve “strong independent media, both print and online, in a world awash with corporate media”

Wilson set the strategic direction of the company while supervising the managers of its five departments. He also contributes by writing and editing stories, selling ads, and being deeply involved in civic projects.

Throughout his time at the Leader, Wilson has contributed to a number of news series that not only served a read in the newspaper but also changed the community.

In 2000, a Chimacum High School student assaulted another student in the school hallway. The assailant was arrested, convicted and then sent to a penitentiary. But reporter Fred Obee, with Wilson as his editor, decided to take a second look at the case. In his research, he learned that the student was a shy, socially awkward young man who had been bullied for years. After further investigation, Obee unearthed a series of incidents of harassment by Chimacum’s “popular” students over the weeks that led up to the attack. He learned that the harassment had peaked on the day of the incident. That was when the shy student grabbed his weapon from his locker and fought back. The Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader then reported and detailed the poor work of a local defense attorney, who called no witnesses to support the young man’s story of continual harassment. Obee’s follow-up story, when published, was sent on to former Washington governor Gary Locke, who then commuted the young man’s penitentiary and set him free from McNeil Island.

In 2010, Wilson and the Leader staff worked to produce a news series that encompassed a bio-mass plant proposal that generated uproar from environmentalist groups. The series outlined the actual science of the biomass and emission questions, rather than simply the “he said, she said” coverage. As a result of this work, the air emission question was resolved to the public’s satisfaction. The series was then used to inform the community and alter the focus of debate.

Even though the times are changing with growing technology, it does not mean that news ceases to serve its purpose. Wilson led the Leader in a direction where it can coexist with digital media while still being a successful news source. Wilson offered his advice to current communication students saying that students should “learn multi-media skills and independent business skills. That way you can start a media outlet in a community that has lost its independent voice.”

By Chris Duclos

Mimi Pierce with her dog, Sophie.

This past fall, the Department had the pleasure of visiting with alumna Mimi Pierce, and hearing about her recent venture into the world of nonprofits. A longtime advocate for the arts and education, Pierce is spearheading the development of the Nordso Foundation, an organization dedicated to the cleanup of plastic waste from the Salish Sea.

In honor of her late son, Martin King, the foundation hopes to educate the youth on the ecological effects of plastics on sea life, and the importance of keeping our environment clean and healthy for future generations. The Foundation plans to use Martin’s boat, the Nordso, a 26-foot trawler, as a tool to build on the excitement for the community, and to go out and begin the complex job of cleaning up the Salish Sea.

Although the foundation is still in its early beginnings, Pierce says she is excited for what’s to come, and cannot wait to get this tribute to her son up and running. Starting a foundation is difficult, “sometimes one step forward and two steps back,” said Pierce. But every day brings new possibilities, and Pierce is more than willing to lead the way. “There aren’t too many 88 year old people I know who want to start a foundation,” she laughs.

Pierce hales from Seattle, and is a retired real estate agent. She grew up an avid skier, writer and was top of her class in high school.  During her time as a student in the Department of Communication, she served as the Business Manager for The Daily. In her sophomore year, she left school to join the Marines. She served for one year in World War II before returning to UW to complete her degree. From her first marriage, she had two sons a year apart, George King and Martin King. She later completed her Masters in Teaching from UW and worked as a teacher of grammar at Mercer Island High School.  After some time as a teacher, she moved on to work in real estate and did very well over her 7 year career in this field.  She also was an avid sailor and the skipper of her own 27-foot sailboat. Today, she is very active and involved in the arts community, serving on boards or committees of PONCHO, Pratt, and Cornish. She also loves to play bridge, cook, and take her dog, Sophie, for walks. Rather, “she’s taking me for a walk!”

“Helping project teams communicate.” That’s the slogan for Communication Resources Northwest, an organization started by alumna Meg Winch (B.A., 1984).

In many industries, it’s standard practice for companies to compete with each other to “win” projects to work on. An organization will issue a request for proposals and one of Winch’s client firms will issue a proposal to design a building, build a highway system, plan a waterfront, or whatever the job may be. With a huge number of firms competing for the same job, it is Winch’s goal to choreograph, prepare, and coach her client’s formal presentation to win the project.

Born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in southern California, Winch’s father was transferred to Richland, Wash., to work at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. After graduating from Hanford High School, Winch selected the University of Washington for her undergraduate education, majoring in Speech Communication.

“The level of rigor and inquiry that is supported and encouraged by the University has encouraged me to think about issues and topics much more deeply, which I think has served my clients very well, in that as an organization we tend to…really seek to understand the culture and characteristics of the organization in which we serve and the projects in which we work,” Winch said. “That traditionally leads to a far better outcome.”

After receiving her master’s at Purdue University in Communication and Group Dynamics, Winch returned to the UW in 1985 to do some doctoral work. She was soon recruited to work for a consulting company that focused on presentation work.

“After about a year working there, I decided to branch out on my own and formed (Communication Resources Northwest) in 1989, primarily so that I would have creative control over my work and focus the company on providing very research-based, rigorous services in communications to our clients,” Winch said.

While her graduate studies allowed her to study communication systems in places as diverse as nursing homes, an automobile manufacturer, a bottling company and a high-tech developer, Winch’s company is centered in specific areas.

“We focus primarily in the private sector for architects, engineers, contractors and planners,” Winch said. “In the public sector we work with a variety of county, state and federal organizations on project management, facilitation and those sorts of things.”

Even in a more concentrated field of work, Winch said, the communication is still incredibly diverse across organizations. It’s her job to understand the communication system in which her clients operate to enact change, rather than superimposing her vision of what the world should look like.

However, Winch said, there are also similarities across all organizations.

“Work happens through communication and I think organizations are defined by their communication system, probably more so than in any other way,” she said. “They’re similar in that people still need to communicate messages. They have a strong desire, and I would say in fact, an emotional and psychological need to be heard and understood.”

While some of her more fun projects have included working with the design team of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and working as part of the design-build team delivering renovations to Fantasyland at Disney World, Winch said the most memorable is whatever she is working on in the moment.

“Always treat what you’re doing right now as most important,” she said. “I find that it changes the communication to be more successful.”

In the public sector, working for the Leavenworth National Cemetery stands out to her as well. She said although it was a sobering experience, she felt that she was able to add a lot to the development.

Winch also serves as chair of the Snohomish County Human Rights Commission, where she spends most of her free time. Without any idea that she would own her own company, Winch said it has allowed her to raise children and work professionally at the same time.

“It was something that we started simply as an ability to have creative control and it never occurred to me that I would be owning a company for 25 years,” she said. “But it provided a great venue for doing the types of work that I like to do.”

Floyd McKay (Ph.D., 1995) has worn many hats throughout his career, and he says that the progression has been natural. “I think journalism is an area in which you can move, not only from one medium to another, but really from one field to another and use your journalistic skills,” McKay said.

Born in North Dakota, McKay moved to Oregon when he was 12 years old. He is a graduate of Linfield College and began his career with a community newspaper, The Springfield News, in 1958. Two years later, he moved to the Oregon Statesman, now the Statesman Journal, in Salem where he began covering the political scene. It was during this time that McKay was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, a prestigious award given to mid-career journalists for a year of study and exploration at the University.

He left the Oregon newspaper industry in 1970, joining KGW-TV, the KING Broadcasting Company station in Portland, as the news analyst.

“I had no idea that I would ever wind up in television,” McKay said. “We didn’t watch much television at home.…When KING hired me, they really took a risk. I suppose they were looking for a pretty face and there I was.”

McKay won an Alfred I. duPont Columbia Award with a documentary he produced about the Northwest timber industry while at KGW-TV. He said this production “helped set the agenda as we moved away from old growth and into an era of managed forests.”

Other memorable reporting topics included covering regional elections, as well as a documentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 1982, which still stands today.

After 16 years with the news station, McKay was ready to leave local television and joined forces with a man he had become acquainted with throughout his political reporting career. McKay was named administrative assistant to then Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt for two years, who he said shared a lot of the same priorities about what needed to be done in the state.

“By the time I left full-time journalism in 1986, I had really done most everything I had wanted to do in journalism in the region and I wasn’t interested in being a national journalist,” McKay said. “So teaching was a really good natural progression.”

After his service with the governor, McKay went back to school to get a master’s at the University of Maryland and was hired at Western Washington University in 1990. He served as chair of the Department of Journalism from 1994 to 2002. This is when he decided to come to the University of Washington to achieve a Ph.D.

“I needed a deeper background particularly in media history, which is one of the subject areas that I was teaching at Western,” McKay said, “and although I had done quite a lot of reading, I had never really taken any academic courses in the area, and of course that’s an area where the UW is very strong.”

Although McKay technically retired in June 2004, he hasn’t stopped writing. He has continued to do freelance work and wrote a twice-monthly opinion column for The Seattle Times for six years. In 2008, he began writing for Crosscut.com.

“I’m really enjoying getting back into writing with Crosscut,” McKay said. “It’s been a good experience for me and a new form of media, which is always interesting for someone who is now is his 70s.”

McKay said he is reporting on plans to ship coal through Northwest ports, which “is among the most significant reporting jobs that I’ve done despite the fact that I’m supposedly retired.”

But don’t think he left out radio in his bag of tricks.

“We have a little show up here in Bellingham called The Chuckanut Radio Hour, which is sponsored by the local, independent bookstore Village Books,” McKay said. “We do an hour every month and my role is to interview an author. It’s been fun because I never did radio before.”

The basis for everything he has done in his career lies in quality writing.

“There are always jobs for people who can write well and who can analyze detailed material and write for an average reader,” McKay said.

With all the job changes and mediums, McKay said, “It really makes it an interesting career. I have no regrets at all on that.”

When Ken Mochizuki (BA, 1976) graduated from the University of Washington, he moved to Los Angeles with one goal in mind — a professional acting career.

But five years later, things changed. Mochizuki returned to Seattle and discovered an uncanny passion — children’s book writing.

“It just kind of happened to me,” he said.

Mochizuki’s first children’s book, “Baseball Saved Us,” was published in 1993. The novel tells the story of a Japanese American boy during World War II, living in an internment camp with his family, who creates a campwide baseball league for himself and other internees. The book sold well and pushed Mochizuki onto the map as a distinguished, local children’s book author. It was reviewed in the New York Times and was named one of 100 most important books for children of the 20^th century by Ruminator Review.

Mochizuki’s success continued when he went on to publish four more children’s books, including Beacon Hill Boys and Passage to Freedom.

As a college student, he never would have guessed he’d someday be an author. As a student in the Department of Communication, Mochizuki dreamed of a career as a filmmaker or an actor. He recalls faculty member Don Pember as being particularly influential in his introductory Communication course. He also remembers taking a TV/radio production class and using the TV studio at UW Medical facilities, which utilized a color TV, seen as state-of-the-art back then. Then in 1975, he developed an interest in acting and began performing around campus with the Ethnic Cultural Center.

He wishes he had taken advantage of more of the Communication Department’s offerings. At the time, he said, there was too much distracting him.

“I should have applied myself more, studied more, taken advantage of what the school had to offer,” he said. “Instead, I got involved in other pursuits. The Asian-American identity movement started happening on campus. I got involved in a lot of other things.”

Immediately following graduation, Mochizuki packed his bags and moved to California to give a silver screen career a shot. But once in L.A., he said, he felt like a little fish in a big pond, as it was his first time living outside his parent’s home. The reality of dealing with life’s challenges, including paying bills, rent, and getting scammed hit him hard.

“It was a big shock, I have to admit,” he said.

While in L.A., he worked for East West Players, the oldest Asian-American theater in the country. There, he got his first taste of the acting world. Long hours, low pay and superficial people became part of his day-to-day life.

“Weekends and five-day work weeks didn’t mean anything anymore,” he said. “And that whole world was really just a lot of big egos and walking resumes, for sure.”

As an actor, he held a few notable screen rolls including an appearance on an episode of M*A*S*H. It was also during this time that he began spending more time reading to research and prepare for auditions.

“I started reading all the great novels and classics I was supposed to read in high school and college but never did,” he said. “Hemingway, Steinbeck, Charles Dickens.”

A playwright friend of his lent him a typewriter and Mochizuki began writing down ideas, particularly stories of his high school days, which later became the novel Beacon Hill Days. Mochizuki used this new passion for writing as an excuse to move back to Seattle to pursue a new line of work.

“L.A. is very flat, brown, pretty drab and it takes forever to get to a body of water,” he said. “Plus, Seattle is home.”

After making the 23-hour drive back to Seattle, he began working at the International Examiner as a freelancer and later as a staff writer. He remembers an editor named Ron Chew who would help him edit stories and taught him the importance of concise vocabulary.

“It served me well to become a children’s writer later on,” he said. “You have to know that one word is equal to five or more ordinary words, in journalism.”

He worked at the International Examiner from 1985-1989 and later in 2006 and 2007. He also wrote for the North American Post from 1990-1997, a Japanese-American Seattle-area publication.

By 1997, Mochizuki was writing children’s novels full time and making appearances around the country at schools and educational conferences.

In recent years, Mochizuki says he’s felt the effects of the sluggish economy, which tightened budgets and has led to fewer school visits. To make ends meet, he’s now a non-fiction freelance writer. Recently, he’s been writing non-fiction stories about Japanese-American families who lived during World War II and their experiences in the Minidoka internment camp. In the next few years, he’d like to get back into children’s book writing.

When he recalls his days at UW, he’s thankful for the versatility and variety of the subject matter offered. He advises Communication students, particularly those set on journalism, to pursue internships and take advantage of resources within the department.

“Get out in the world,” he said. “See how it works, be around people who are really good at what they do. One common denominator is how smart all good journalists are. They’re always reading, they’re always curious. What you should have above your desk is a big question mark.”

Throughout Robert Merry’s (BA, ’68) career, his passion for political reporting has only become stronger as he climbed the ladder, earning positions at some of the most prestigious political newspapers in the country. Today, Merry serves as editor of National Interest, an online and print magazine focusing on American foreign policy. Getting to this point in his career was never an easy ascendance, but his discoveries of strengths in so many areas have made the hard-earned success worthwhile.

The inspiration of becoming a newsman came from his father, who worked as a reporter and managing editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma. Combined with his deep interest in history, Merry knew he was destined “to be a newsman covering events of historical dimension.”

He pursued this career path with rigor as an undergrad at the University of Washington. He became a campus stringer for Newsweek magazine, contributing stories in an era where “a lot was going on on campuses around the country,” with the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement being the biggest newsmakers.

In the midst of that excitement, Merry was also working for The Daily, where he began as sports editor, then moved up to managing editor, and then editor. “I spent far more hours in that place than I probably should have.”

As a student, he also discovered his interest for conservative thinking when, as part of a research project, he came into contact with William Buckley Jr., a conservative American author and commentator. “That was sort of a pivotal moment in my intellectual consciousness. By the time I left here I was really passionate about what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a newsman in Washington or New York.”

Intelligence training during Vietnam

But his enthusiasm to get out in the real world to work as a journalist had to be restrained. America needed him to serve his country, and he could either go the easy way by volunteering, or the hard way, through the draft. “It was 1968, and the Vietnam War was raging. So it became necessary for most of us getting out of college to go into the reserves, as many of my friends did,” said Merry. “I was not comfortable with that option, so I kind of shopped around for something that would allow me to serve my country at a time of need, but also get something out of it.”

Merry enlisted for German language training which morphed into intelligence training. He found himself in Germany in a counter-espionage shop in Stuttgart, working against the worries of the Cold War. “There was always a concern about infiltration of U.S. forces by hostile East Bloc intelligence agencies. So I was an investigator on such matters.”

On his return to the States, Merry was 25, married and had just welcomed his first child. He earned his master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University, and was then recruited by The Denver Post. Just six months into his tenure as a reporter he found himself covering the Colorado senate. “I loved that – politics, legislation, government. But I never really gave up my ambition to move to Washington.”

After two years with the Post, Merry moved back to the East coast, having been recruited by the National Observer in the fall of 1974. “When I wasn’t covering politics I covered the culture of political America – the mood of the country, idea trends that could have impact on where the country was going,” he said.

Every week he would fly out to a different location in America, and come back a couple days later with notebooks full of information. “Sometimes I would be on an assignment that would take three weeks. So it was great freedom to come up with ideas and pursue them.”

But this freedom only lasted so long. Come summer of 1977, Warren Phillips, CEO of Dow Jones, landed his helicopter on the newspaper’s campus in Silver Spring, Md., and told all of the employees the doors of the National Observer were closing. “It was a lovely paper, beautifully written, but it never made a dime for the company,” said Merry. “But I was very fortunate to be invited into the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal.”

Nine glorious years at Wall Street Journal

The nine years that followed, in Merry’s mind, will always be one of the biggest highlights of his career. At the WSJ, Merry was deeply involved in covering the stories he had always dreamed about as a student. “I had nine glorious, wonderful fun-filled years covering Congress, politics, the White House, organized labor, economic policy, some foreign policy. It was a very heady time. I enjoyed every minute of it.”

Merry covered organized labor on a beat system with a colleague. They divided it up with Merry taking the politics, and his coworker taking the economics end of it. Their work was combined into a weekly Tuesday column called the “Labor Letter.”

In 1980, he was asked to cover Congress in a specialized beat. “I covered four committees in Congress: the tax-writing committees, House Ways and Means in Senate finance, and budget committees of both houses,” he said, “So I covered fiscal matters, taxes and spending. Then there was social security, Medicare and trade; issues that also fell under that jurisdiction.”

It was a very intimidating assignment for Merry, having to understand such detailed information and explain it in a way that the layman can comprehend, but it was a challenge to which he rose.

“Covering Congress is the second-most fun you can have in Washington journalism,” said Merry. “That’s because there are so many power centers – 535 members of Congress and every one of those offices is a power center in itself.” But the absolute most fun a journalist can have in Washington, according to Merry, is covering a presidential campaign.

In 1984, Merry was assigned to cover the presidential campaign, during which he traveled with incumbent Ronald Reagan and challenger Walter Mondale. He feels a journalist’s experience in this area today is much different from what it was 30 years ago, with less access to the candidates, and more tension between reporters and the campaigns. “But in my day it was great fun because it was this huge moveable story, and you were in this bubble covering it, and most days it was the biggest story,” he said. “It didn’t get much better than that.”

From reporter to manager

Merry then became a White House reporter, but reaching his 12^th year as a journalist he couldn’t shake the feeling of wanting to run a newsroom. When the opportunity to become the managing editor at Congressional Quarterly came along, he jumped at the chance.

“That’s when I basically took the painful step of leaving a newspaper and a company that I really adored to head off into the unknown wilderness of newsroom management.”

Suddenly, Merry was managing 55 people and in charge of putting out a weekly news magazine that focused on Congress, politics and public policy, as well as a number of other newsletter-type publications. “It was a big transition, but I think I took to it.”

Merry’s work took CQ from being a beleaguered publication with “not much journalistic impact” to one where talented young writers came to nurture and significantly expand their careers; a magazine with newfound power in journalism circles.

After 10 years at CQ, Merry was promoted to CEO, president and publisher, and later editor-in-chief. At the start of the Internet boom, Merry took on the creation of CQ.com, with the intent to give readers the information they were looking for in a faster, more detailed, more functional way. That’s when business exploded. “During my 12 years as CEO we tripled the revenue and turned it into a much more powerful company. It was great fun and I loved every minute of it.”

But as soon as his success with CQ was in the palm of his hand, it was taken away. “Largely it was because the newspaper business was becoming tougher and they needed the capital to keep moving the business forward,” Merry said. “They sold CQ.” First, it was the books division, then the rest of the business went one year later in 2009. “At the signing of the parchment that transferred ownership of CQ, my job terminated.”

Robert Merry the author

But his spirit was not. Amid all the reporting and managing, Merry was also working as an author, an accomplishment of which he is most proud. “I just found that I really love attempting to take big stories of very fascinating human beings and weave them into stories of American history.”

His first book, Taking on the World (Viking, 1996), is a biography of prominent postwar columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop. Research for this book goes back to 1989, when Merry was asked to write a chapter for a book on Senate leadership, more specifically, Robert A. Taft, the Senate Republican majority leader for a significant period of time in the 1940s and ‘50s. A fellow writer pointed Merry toward the Alsop papers in the Library of Congress to begin his research.

“All of a sudden it was clear to me that the Alsop papers were just this treasure trove of information about what was going on in America during their time,” Merry said. “I immediately thought of the idea of using those papers as a foundation for a book on their lives and using their lives as a window on America during those decades.”

In 2005, when Merry had his CQ job under control, he wrote Sands of Empire (Simon & Schuster), “a study of the underlying intellectual ideas that I thought were guiding American foreign policy-making in the post-Cold War era, and guiding policy-making often in questionable directions.”

Merry’s third book, A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent, (Simon & Schuster America Collection, 2010) is a narrative history, completed during Merry’s transition out of CQ. And just this summer, Merry published his fourth book, Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians.

His authorship keeps him busy to this day, as Merry is currently working on a book on the 1890s and the presidency of William McKinley and the Spanish American War.

A new challenge at The National Interest

Today, Merry works as the editor of The National Interest. A year ago, in a statement about his newest position, Merry said, “I have long admired The National Interest as a leader in thoughtful and provocative debates on American foreign policy. I am thrilled to take on this new challenge.”

Despite the struggles in his career, Merry has always come back with a renewed passion for journalism. There’s a lot to say for staying on top of the game, especially when the methods and technologies for disseminating news have completely changed since he began his career. Merry says this fact is only good news for the young journalists coming into the business.

“News is news — you have to have it. Just because the old business models of distributing news have found themselves beleaguered doesn’t mean that the news business is going to become somehow obliterated,” he said. “I believe that if you’re young and you’re interested in news and writing, then there’s going to be plenty of opportunity as new organizations bring about creativity and emerge. There will be some marvelous opportunities for young people in news.”

Now a daily news anchor for WBZ-TV in Boston, Emmy Award-winning journalist and University of Washington Communication alumna Lisa Hughes (B.A., 1990) still recognizes Seattle as a crucial component in her education, career, and even her family.

Despite growing up in Moscow, Idaho, and having a Washington State University professor as a father, Hughes fell in love with Seattle and knew she wanted to go to the UW by the time she was in eighth grade. After spending her freshman year at the University of Idaho to get her grades up, Hughes transferred to the UW.

“I feel like having to navigate a larger campus and getting to know people from all over the country, having spent my whole life in the Northwest, was great exposure to the wide world,” Hughes said.

After being an anchor and reporter in Boise, Idaho, and Coos Bay, Ore., Hughes began working for KIRO-TV in Seattle in 1995, where she earned her first Emmy Award for Hard News Story in 1996. The News and Documentary Emmy Awards is a major national broadcast journalism competition that promotes journalistic excellence to the best news reports and documentary films aired on national television, or streamed over the Internet each year.

“To come back to Seattle and to be working in that market was so exciting for me,” Hughes said. “I was so happy to be there and I love the people I worked with, so that (award) was really meaningful.”

Her most memorable story from Seattle was covering the Pang warehouse fire, as well as the Oklahoma City bombing.

“At that point in my career, that was the biggest story I had ever covered and I was equally touched by the people I met there,” Hughes said. “I still think about them and that really was a transformative experience.”

After working for a short time as a correspondent for CBS Newspath, the CBS-TV Station Group’s satellite news service, Hughes moved to Boston to become WBZ-TV’s daily news anchor in 2000. In her first year there, she was named Best Newcomer in TV by Boston Magazine and Best News Anchor by the Improper Bostonian. Later, Hughes received another Emmy Award for On-Camera Talent Reporter in 2008 and won a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for her at-home interviews with the 2007 candidates running for governor.

It was clear that being in a new place was not going to stop Hughes from making an impact. Despite covering a little more politics and being considered “the new girl” for about five years, she found many parallels between Seattle and Boston.

“The cities are very similar in the sense that they are beautiful cities with a highly educated population where higher education is really important,” Hughes said. “And people are really into their sports teams, both college and pro.”

Hughes said that when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 after an 86-year drought, it “honestly was like the whole city had won the lottery.”

“I would say that really stands out in my mind, and since then the Patriots, the Celtics, and the Bruins have all won a championship, and to be able to be a part of those celebrations was really fun,” Hughes said.

Hughes added that it breaks her heart that the Sonics aren’t in Seattle anymore and that she still wears her vintage T-shirt even though the logo is cracking off.

Although she considers the Red Sox win to be one of the most memorable stories since moving to Boston, Hughes said on the other end of the spectrum, nothing was bigger than covering the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Hughes coincidentally flew over the World Trade Towers that morning on her way to a meeting in New York.

“I got off the plane, walked through La Guardia and one of the towers had been hit,” she said. “While I was on my way into the city, the second tower was hit.”

Hughes spent five days in New York covering the tragedy.

In addition to her work at the station, Hughes is involved in a number of community organizations and charities. She is on the board of First Literacy and she often collaborates with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s office for Read Boston events.

“As an anchor in a city like Boston, you are given a lot of responsibility,” Hughes said. “I feel like I’ve been really lucky in my life to have worked at good places, with good people and had incredible experiences and if I can lend my energy, voice and effort to help nonprofit groups, then I am happy to do it.”

She has also contributed to events at the Perkins School for the Blind, the Daniel Marr Boys and Girls Clubs, Horizons for Homeless Children and more.

“I really don’t think there is a better way to connect with a community than being involved with the groups that are working to make life better for other people,” Hughes said. “Those groups attract a very dynamic, driven crowd and I felt in many ways that I got to know the city because of those people who educated me about what their group does in the community…and included me in their effort in some way.”

In a reciprocal sense, Hughes said she thinks people come to local television for a sense of community, where everyone is experiencing the same excitement or concern.

“I would say the most rewarding part of my job is being involved in helping people understand where they live and getting to work with the people I work with,” Hughes said. “That was true definitely in Seattle where I still miss my co-workers every day and here too where I work with a wonderful group of people.”

Although Hughes is passionate about her job and charity work, she said family always comes first. A few years ago Hughes, along with her husband and daughter, went to the home-opener UW football game against Syracuse.

“It was a beautiful day and my daughter was so excited,” Hughes said, “and somebody offered to take our picture so we got a great photo before the game started.”

About two years later, after arguing with her husband about what photo to choose, Hughes put the photo from Husky Stadium on the cover of the book they were putting together for potential adoptive families to look at as they were hoping to adopt a child. In July 2011, they got a call that they had been chosen by a birth mother from Kentucky.

Not knowing why they were chosen, Hughes and her husband flew to Kentucky. After enjoying a great conversation with the birth mother, Hughes finally asked, “I’m just curious, what was it?”

The woman replied, “My boyfriend and I are huge football fans.”

“Ah ha!” Hughes said. “Not only did the Huskies win that game but it played a huge role in the future of our family. So when Husky Stadium is rebuilt and reopened, we are coming back for a game.”

For more than four years, Dave Ammons (BA, 1970) has worked as the communications director for Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed, and is responsible for all of the agency’s internal and external communications. For 37 years before that, he was a staple at the Associated Press, serving on the Capitol Press Corp longer than anyone in Washington state history. His transition from reporting to working in government has gone smoothly, but it wasn’t the easiest decision for him to make.

Ammons said he never thought he would leave the comfort of the AP, the company he joined in 1971, fresh out of college. “I assumed I would retire out in the Press Corp. AP was a great employer with the highest caliber of integrity and full standard of American journalism,” he said. He worked as the contact between the Legislature and the Press Corp and enjoyed sitting “at the left hand of the governor” at press conferences. Gregoire is the seventh governor he has covered.

He has reported on numerous legislative sessions, campaigns and elections in his time as a journalist, with “very intense” moments. “Being a public policy guy, I really enjoyed following the issues through the whole process.”

He also covered many big news stories outside of politics, including the search for D.B. Cooper after the airplane hijacking in 1971, and the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, “my favorite all-time story,” he said. “My stories went all around the globe, just like the ash did.” Natural disasters were also his territory, including floods and an avalanche on Mount Rainier where nine people perished.

Ammons also remembers encountering the now infamous serial killer Ted Bundy in his line of work. Bundy worked on the Truth Squad in the Evans campaign in 1972, recording former governor Albert D. Rosellini at campaign events to track his consistency among the groups to which he spoke.

Later, Bundy went to work for the state Republican Party and was headquartered in Olympia, where Ammons went to numerous lunches with him. “I, of course, only saw the good Ted Bundy, and not the mass murderer,” he said. “I remember coming back to the office and telling people, ‘We should watch this guy, he’s going places. So sharp.’ That gave me some humility as to my judge of character.”

Ammons’ passion for writing and his interest in politics went hand-in-hand throughout his career. Growing up in a politically aware household certainly had an impact on the career path he chose.

“My father enjoyed following elections, campaigns and public policy. He was a very interesting and engaged person, so I think I picked it up from him.” He also credits “excellent government teachers” for encouraging his studies in politics.

Despite his interest in everything political, when he was presented with the opportunity to work for Sam Reed, he knew he had a tough choice to make. First, he had to get past the negative viewpoint of how journalists see working for the government, in general.

“Being a reporter, you’re kind of a cowboy. You have nobody telling you what you need to do, you just call it as you see it,” Ammons said. “I always figured if you’re working for government you would be asked to spin the truth.”

Making that decision of whether to leave a job that’s spanned his entire professional career was a difficult one, Ammons said. “But after I made the choice, quickly it turned out it was the right choice for me. It helped me reinvent myself professionally.”

Ammons says the experience of going from one passion to the next has been refreshing. While his skills from his journalism career transitioned well into his position in government, he also had to learn some new ones. “When I came over, I had to learn some more platforms including social media. It forwarded my writing and editing skills. I’ve learned about government from the inside.”

Ammons’ daily work includes news releases, writing for the blog “From Our Corner,” updating social media, communication with the press, and basically being the voice of the office as a whole. The secretary’s office also includes Washington state election work, and maintaining state archives, the library and history.

One of the things Ammons is most excited about is the Legacy Project, a collection of oral histories of influential people throughout Washington state history. The stories are distributed to libraries statewide and accessible online for free. So far, 13 volumes have been produced.

With the election just weeks away, Ammons has also been helping Reed with his farewell tour. “He’s visiting all the counties to leave a positive legacy message as well as just saying ‘farewell’ and ‘thanks’ to community leaders and people that have helped him in the past.”

With Reed leaving office, Ammons will also be looking for a new position, whether he stays in government or moves on. In the meantime, he’s staying busy teaching courses at Evergreen State College, supporting the Washington Coalition for Open Government, and participating in his church, Westminster Presbyterian.

Wherever he ends up working next, Ammons is sure that it’s the University of Washington that gave him the ability to succeed in all areas of his career. “Learning how to learn has stayed with me, and being a lifelong learner is something I’ve encouraged myself to commit to,” he said. “I’m appreciative of the high caliber of education I got at the University all those years ago. I am such a proud Husky.”

By Kirsten Johnson -

For decades, each game-day looked the same. The siren sounded, fans rose to their feet and the voice of Lou Gellermann (BA, 1958) echoed throughout Husky Stadium.

“Hello, Dawg Fans!” he’d cry out.

“Hello, Lou!” they’d heartily reply.

The game began.

“Boy was that a rush,” Gellermann said, his eyes lit up.

Now in retirement, Gellermann, 76, cherishes those old memories.

“When you’re sitting at the top of 72,000 people and they react to something you say or do, well, it’s moving,” he said.

While most students and faculty come and go over the years, Gellermann spent the better part of his life at UW. Long before his 40-year stint as the P.A . Announcer for Husky Stadium, Gellermann was a Communication student, a member of the men’s rowing team, as well as the men’s swim team. As a kid, he grew up just blocks away from campus near the Metro Theater.

These early days were some of the best times of his life. He recalls the old crew house, nestled beside the stadium jutting off the banks of Lake Union. He and his teammates would trek down in the earliest hours of morning for practice, just as the sun was rising.

“We lived at the boat house,” he said. “Slept out on the porch, hired our own cook, washed dishes, cleaned oars.”

Gellermann rowed for all four of his undergraduate years. In 1958, his team won the Moscow Cup in at the Henley Royal Regatta in England. To this day, he remembers the elation of winning the title.

“We were the underdogs, definitely,” he said. “When we won, it drew us closer together.”

Gellermann maintained decent grades but most of the time, he said, he was more fixated on rowing than classes. He recalls one faculty member in the department who, despite Gellermann’s love of crew, urged him to nurture his announcing skills.

“He was just real friendly and a good guy,” Gellermann said. “He really meant a lot to me. I was not very good at journalism. As a matter of fact, I didn’t care much about it and that’s a bad combination for a student to have.”

Gellermann’s first gig as an announcer was at Roosevelt High School, after he graduated from UW. His old professor would come to the games and the two would shoot the breeze together.

“He was the only professor that cared enough about me as a student,” he said. “That really touched me.”

Later, Gellermann landed a job as a press box announcer in 1964 at the U.S. Naval Academy. To prepare before games, he’d practice alone in the hallway of the pavilion, letting his voice resonate through the space.

“I’d practice the script that they’d give me so I was ready to go when we were under pressure,” he said.

In 1968, Gellermann received his job of a lifetime when UW Sports Director John Reid offered him a position in the press box to announce the internal public address football games and men’s and women’s basketball games.

By 1985, Gellermann took over the external public address job and in 1995 dropped his basketball position to become the Husky football announcer full-time until his retirement in 2008.

In his room hang UW memorabilia and an old crew photo. Now, he looks back on his Communication degree gratefully.

“The degree meant a lot to me,” he said. “I just loved that school.”