FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Dann Hayes, Director of Media Relations, 641-269-4834.

June 7, 2002

Former Grinnell College Students Honored with Alumni Awards

GRINNELL, Iowa - Grinnell College presented Alumni Awards to 10 of the more than 1,070 alumni who participated in the college's annual Alumni Reunion, June 1-3. Alumni Awards are given to Grinnellians to recognize professional achievement, community service, or service to the college.

Award recipients include:

o Allen M. '37 and Marian Bair Rossman '37
These two Grinnell College alumna, and classmates, have demonstrated a lifelong dedication to liberal arts education. In their communities, Marion has served as a member of the Community Child Guidance Clinic Board and the Oregon Association for Nursery Education; Allen was active in the Human Relations Guild, the Portland City Club and the YMCA. They have also devoted time and energy to the Symphony Orchestra in Yakima, Wash.

oAlan D. Goldfarb '52
Picture a Midwesterner who is an unlikely combination of poet, athlete, and campus activist, who goes on to a career in public service. Alan D. Goldfarb played football for the Pioneers and was a Selden Whitcomb Poetry Prize winner. He earned a master's degree in public administration at Syracuse University and worked for the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development for more than 25 years, ending up in Berkeley, Calif. There, he served three terms as a city councilman. He continued to publish poetry, and is one of the poets from Grinnell College in the anthology Good Company, edited by his classmate, Professor Emeritus of English James Kissane.

o Sarah J. Purcell '92
An assistant professor of history at Grinnell College, Sarah Purcell earned her M.A. in early American history at Brown University in 1993 and a Ph.D. in history in 1997. As a student at Grinnell, she served on the Rosenfield Public Affairs Committee and won two prizes for historical writing. At the core of her calling is devotion to scholarship and to teaching. She demonstrates this dual vocation through her writings, both for scholarly audiences and the wider public.

o Fred H. Helpenstell '52
Fred Helpenstell earned his B.A. in chemistry and zoology and then entered the University of Illinois Medical School. After becoming an orthopedic surgeon, he opened a practice in Idaho. He served on the Idaho State Board of Medical Examiners from 1968-75, was president of the Board of Directors of Mercy Medical Center in Nampa, and was vice-chairman of the Boise Philharmonic Association. After volunteering his orthopedic skills in Nepal, he spent seven years as chair of the Nepal Program for Health Volunteers Overseas. Today he continues to serve in local health clinics.

o Stephen H. Umemoto '62
Stephen H. Umemoto has spent most of his adult life in the service of the world's children. After earning a degree in political science at Grinnell in 1962, he spent two years in the Grinnell Fifth Year Study-Service Program teaching English in Thailand. Umemoto taught for an additional year in Teheran before returning to earn a master's degree in economics and Asian studies at Cornell University. After Cornell he went to work for the United Nations Children's Fund, spending most of his 33 years with UNICEF in Asia. His final Asian posting was in Pakistan, where he worked to eliminate child labor, promote school attendance, improve nutrition, and eradicate polio.

o Mary B. Shepard '77
As an undergraduate at Grinnell, Mary B. Shepard discovered that there was no formal art history major. So she made one for herself and graduated with honors. A fellowship at the University of Virginia led to a master's degree in art history.
She went on to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where she worked in museum education for more than 20 years. Meanwhile, she completed her Ph.D. at Columbia. As director of education at the Cloisters, she produced a number of publications as author or editor, primarily on medieval stained glass.

o Merry Wiesner-Hanks '73
After earning a bachelor's degree with honors in history, Merry Wiesner-Hanks received a Fulbright Scholarship, study in Germany. After that she studied advanced studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she earned her Ph.D. in reformation history. She first taught at Augustana College, where she was also active in feminist organizing. She is now professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has been a central figure in the study of women's history and the development of the discipline of women's studies. She has published important work on women's lives and work in early modern Europe.

o Patricia T. O'Connor '71
Patricia T. O'Conner shared the grounding in good writing that her Grinnell education gave her with the world. She earned a B.A. in philosophy at Grinnell College, and went on to carve a career in journalism. She worked on "The Waterloo Courier," "The Des Moines Register," "The Wall Street Journal," and for 15 years at "The New York Times." She published her first "lighthearted" book on grammar, "Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English," in 1996. She has followed up on its success with "Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know About Writing." Her forthcoming book is titled "You Send Me: Getting It Right When You Write Online."

o David R. Ruhe '71
After leaving Grinnell in 1971, David R. Ruhe earned the master of divinity degree at Yale Divinity School and, later, a doctor of ministry degree from Eden Theological Seminary. He returned to the Midwest as associate minister and then senior minister of the First Central Congregational Church in Omaha. In 1993 he was called to become senior minister of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Des Moines, one of the largest churches in the UCC. He was also elected moderator of the United Church of Christ, and served in this role for two years. An engaged leader, he has also served as a board member for such community organizations as Planned Parenthood of Omaha-Council Bluffs and ANAWIM Inc. in Des Moines, an organization dedicated to providing low-income housing and support services.

o A. Greg Thielmann '72
After earning his bachelor's degree in political science, with honors, A. Greg Thielmann went on to work for then-Congressman John Culver. He studied international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, then entered the United States Foreign Service where he has compiled a distinguished service record during a career of 25 years. Although he has filled a variety of assignments, he has been most deeply involved in arms control and security issues. He is currently acting director of the Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs Office in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department.

o Shane Bellis Cook '56-Special Alumni Award
Shane Cook graduated with a degree in biology in 1956, the same year she married another Grinnellian in Herrick Chapel. She then became assistant to the dean of women at the College. After a brief absence, Cook returned to Grinnell in 1982 as director of alumni relations.

Cook is dedicated to lifelong learning, recognizing that even Grinnell graduates don't know quite everything there is to know. She has developed a global array of experiences for the Alumni Study Tour program and organized the annual Alumni College. As alumni secretary since 1997, she has worked on every aspect of the College's alumni programs.

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