Letter From Our New President

John Wertz

Missoula native John Wertz graduated in 1961 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He received his M.B.A. from Northwestern University and his Ph.D. in industrial economics from Purdue University. John held executive positions at Cummins Engine Company, United Technologies and Banner Aerospace. He and his wife, Mandy, live in Arlington, Virginia. They have two daughters; their youngest, Monica, graduated from UM in 1993. John was a member of the UM House of Delegates before joining the Alumni Board.

Most UM alumni have a strong loyalty to their alma mater. They want a continuing relationship with their University and want to help it improve and prosper. Think of the UM Alumni Association as a vehicle for making the University a premier institution of high learning, a lifelong resource for you, and a positive influence in your community.

The UMAA Board of Directors plans to help expand continuing education and career services, programs for recent graduates, new information technology and courses on the Internet — all for our alumni. Our goals include keeping Montana’s best in Montana and attracting out-of-state students to UM. We want to expand the Alumni Community Lecture Series to other Montana cities, increase UMAA’s presence at non-athletic University events, and facilitate interest-based activities for local alumni groups

We need your involvement. Contact me (jwertz@zgrizzlies.com) or any other UMAA board member, or call 1-800-862-5862 and speak to our executive director, Bill Johnston. Let us know your thoughts, ideas and concerns. You are an essential component to the success of this University. Get Involved and Stay Involved!

John Wertz

UM’s Man in Japan
by Betsy Holmquist

Hideto Masukawa

If you lived in Japan and were thinking about attending a university in the United States and if your interests included Robert Redford movies, fly-fishing and wide-open, safe spaces, a good person to know would be Hideto Masukawa, M.A. ’97.

An exchange student to UM in ’91-’92 from Tokyo’s Toyo University, Hideto has never forgotten his adopted state. After returning to Toyo, he earned a bachelor’s degree in law and made a life-changing decision. “My father was a salaryman for an insurance company and we’d lived in large cities all over Japan,” Hideto says. “We’d had no choice where we would live. When I graduated I realized I could live anywhere I wanted. I opened up the map. I wanted a small, safe community, one with natural beauty and culture.” Hideto applied to UM and in 1994 was accepted into the journalism school’s graduate program. He’s never looked back.

Reporting on Missoula’s city council meetings as a Kaimin reporter quickly taught Hideto how to type — in English. “My deadlines were so soon after council meetings ended that I didn’t have time to translate from Japanese to English. I still type much faster in English,” he grins, closing his eyes and moving his fingers rapidly over an imaginary keyboard. “ To type Japanese, I have to do this.” With eyes open he peers down over slowly moving fingers.

Hideto’s journalism and typing skills serve him well today as a writer for the Medical Tribune, an international newspaper based in Bonn, Germany. He keeps an apartment in Tokyo but jets around the world attending medical conventions and reporting on them, in English, for the newspaper. Hideto credits Charlie Hood, Dennis Swibold and Woody Kipp for helping him achieve the treasured title of “journalist.” His dream is to return to Montana and use his skills to write and film a documentary featuring the state’s beauty, cultures and Native Americans.

Hideto regularly reads the Missoulian, Independent and Kaimin on line. Each fall he attends the American College Fairs in Tokyo and Osaka. There he staffs a UM booth, boldly displaying Grizzly posters and movie posters for The River Runs Through It and The Horse Whisperer. “Robert Redford is very good for Montana and UM in Japan,” he explains. Last fall Hideto helped host an international alumni gathering at Toyo University. Hideto wrote an article on studying abroad that appeared in one of Japan’s largest publications. He soon received a call from Yoshiaki Nohara who had read the piece. They visited about Montana, Missoula and the University. This fall Yoshiaki will enter the graduate program at the UM’s J-School.

Hideto stopped in Missoula this spring “purely for pleasure” and dropped by the alumni office. He happily claims responsibility for seven continuous years of Japanese students living in the apartment on South 5th East he occupied as a graduate student. “I cooked and ate a lot of rice in that apartment,” Hideto laughs. “Now when I visit Missoula I eat at Sushi Hana — five stars!”

He’ll return with special guests in August. Hideto’s father recently retired and as his gift Hideto told his parents and sister he would take them on a trip — anywhere they wanted to go. “I have lots of frequent flier miles and I imagined they would choose Paris or Rome,” he says. “But they chose Montana. We’ll go to Glacier Park. And then we’ll go fly fishing, all of us — on the Blackfoot.”

High Ho, Big Sky
by Betsy Holmquist

On your next trip to Oregon, be sure to visit the hand-carved carousel in Salem’s Riverfront Park. Find the large cream-colored horse on the outside track — the one with a coy tilt to its head — a black mane, tail and legs. Check for a saddle blanket with carved snow-capped mountains, a river and pine tree. Look for a grizzly bear breastplate. Saddle up. Take a ride on Big Sky.

Thanks to a friendship that started nearly forty years ago in Missoula, Big Sky rides today in Salem. Gale ’68 and Mary Ellen Johnson and David ’66 and Marilyn Wichman met when Gale and David were pharmacy students at UM. Following graduation both couples moved to Oregon where Gale and David worked for PayLess Drug Stores. They each later opened their own pharmacies. Now retired, the couples remain close friends, as are their families.

Visiting family in Missoula soon after our carousel opened, Mary Ellen and Gale fell under its spell. Later, at the Salem Art Fair, they saw a booth advertising a carousel for Salem and met Hazel Patton, who was launching the project. Hazel too had been in Missoula and was inspired by what’s been called “the grand-daddy of hand-made, community-sponsored carousels.”

“At first the $5,000 adopt-a-horse sponsorship fee seemed a bit steep,” Mary Ellen explains. “What if the Wichmans would share the fee?” A phone call to their friends brought an immediate and enthusiastic “Yes!”

The Wichmans and Johnsons admire Big Sky.

The families looked to their friendship and its Montana roots in designing the horse. Carvings depict the bitterroot and Oregon grape, the Willamette and Clark Fork Rivers. Clasped hands represent the couples’ friendship and their Missoula-Oregon connection. Butterflies symbolize their Christian faith, a mortar and pestle — the pharmacist’s tools.

The Missoula Ponykeepers carved Big Sky from basswood hand-delivered by the Johnsons and Wichmans. Two years later, the carvers and Theresa Cox, Missoula’s carousel director, returned Big Sky to Salem, ready to be painted. Today he occupies a treasured outside spot on the carousel. “Luck of the draw,” Mary Ellen laughs. “We’ve been so lucky throughout this whole process.”

Big Sky was originally slated to follow Hazel Patton’s lead horse, The General, on the carousel. “Because of color considerations, he’s one horse back,” Mary Ellen explains. “But, he’s one of the biggest on the carousel!”

On Sunday, June 2, to the accompaniment of a band organ, choral groups, fireworks and the delighted “giddy-ups” of hundreds of children, the Salem carousel opened to the public. For more information on the carousel, and to visit Big Sky on line, log onto www.salemsriverfrontcarousel.org.