"Thank you Pete Reid and Whitman Staff"

From the President

The Whitman College Board of Trustees recently voted to name the soon-to-be-built campus center the Reid Campus Center in tribute to Pete Reid (see "Meet me at Reid Center"). It is an extremely well deserved tribute.

Pete Reid joined the administration in 1949, the year he and Hedda Jorgenson graduated and were married. Through his long career he has become a trusted adviser and friend to many Whitman people.

R. R. "Pete" Reid, Whitman class of 1949, a graduate of Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane, came to Whitman in 1946 after naval service in World War II. He served as president of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity in his junior year and as ASWC president in his senior year at Whitman.

In the spring of Pete's senior year, President Maxey asked if he would stay on for another year or two to help with a new job placement office and to do some traveling for a few weeks each fall and spring for the admission office.

Pete gave his invitation serious consideration and after a few weeks, agreed to join the staff. Little did he know that 50 years later he would still be at Whitman, still be helping the president, and still be helping to make this splendid college work.

Over the years Pete has done just about everything at the college including career services, admissions, alumni office work, and special fund-raising projects. He has been business manager, treasurer, chief financial officer, overseer of the Whitman Farm Committee and farms, special assistant to the president, and constant mentor to the Phi Delts (sometimes in vain) as well as countless others who came to him for counsel and assistance.

He also served as national president of the National Association of College and University Business Officers and on about a dozen local Walla Walla civic, charitable, and service boards. Over the years, he has been Whitman's best ambassador and liaison with the Walla Walla community, rightly earning the title of "Mr. Whitman" for his tireless town-gown contributions.

Pete has served six presidents and three acting presidents. And consider this: About 75 percent of the alumni have graduated during the Pete Reid era!

There are a lot of great Pete Reid stories. "My experiences with Pete as a student were as educational as anything I did in the classroom," says John Stanton, '77. "My junior year, we managed to lose one third of the student body budget six weeks into the year on an ill-fated Stanley Turrentine concert (no wonder we lost the money). Pete bailed us out without ever making us feel like that's what he was doing and while making sure to preserve the system and our respect for it. I have been involved in borrowing a lot of money since that time, and I often think of the lessons I learned from Pete."

An alumna recalls the time her father declined to pay her tuition when she refused to abide by his injunction not to visit her Whitman boyfriend in his senior year off-campus apartment. Pete came to her rescue with a timely college loan that allowed love to blossom and a great Whitman marriage later to ensue.

Hundreds of Pete Reid stories remind us of his caring, thoughtful, understanding mentoring. Pete is a shining example of how everyone at Whitman is a teacher and that teachable moments occur all the time in, as well as outside of, our classrooms and labs.

The progress and distinction of Whitman College are in large part due to the hard-working and caring staff who serve as Pete Reid's, and my, colleagues.

Dozens of retired staffers have helped make this a distinguished college. Among them were librarian Ruth Reynolds, registrar and admissions dean Douglas McClaine, placement director Almira Quinn, electrician and jack-of-all-trades Jack Delaney, dean of women Miriam Wagenschein, bursar George Marquis, SUB directors Vern Kinsinger and Vern Solbach, dean of students and alumni director Gordon Scribner, housemother Cecil Steele, food service director Paul Harvey, alumni director Sally Rodgers, development vice president Larry Beaulaurier, registrar Alta Glenny, building and grounds superintendent Karl Schwarz, dean of students Russ DeRemer, treasurer Janice Abraham, president's assistants Winifred Dunphey and Jean Johnson, and many, many more.

In their place today are secretaries, deans, custodians, librarians, computer specialists, receptionists, security officers, landscapers, painters, editors, nurses, cooks and dishwashers, and plenty more who each in their own way teach here in "teachable moments" that happen everyday all over this special place of learning.

I especially want to salute the following stalwart staffers who will retire at the end of the school year: physical plant landscaper Harold Page, the business office's Jeanne Deeringhoff, and Career Center director Sally Kearsley. All of us here also thank Chris Ellertson for the great job he has done over the past seven years as associate director and director of admissions. We wish him well as he assumes the deanship of admissions and financial aid at Trinity University in San Antonio.

So thank you Pete Reid. And thanks to all the usually unsung heroes who make Whitman College the unique place it has become.

Tom Cronin