The CL Davis Foundation for the Advancement of Veterinary and Comparative Pathology honor Dr. John Gorham, Dr. Thomas Jones, class of 1935 and Dr. Floris M. Garner, Class of 1950, former chairman of veterinary pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington D.C. by naming them Legends in Veterinary Pathology.
Dwight Damon (’62, Zoology), an orthodontic dentistry innovator, is the 40th Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award honoree.
Roger O. McClellan, DVM, an expert in toxicology and human health risk analysis, was honored as the 39th recipient of the Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Nobel Prize winner in chemistry Dr. Irwin “Ernie” Rose received the 35th Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award. A graduate of Spokane’s Lewis and Clark High School, he attended WSU in the mid-1940s and was influenced by Herb Eastlick, a prominent WSU zoology teacher.
John N. Abelson, who earned a bachelor of science in physics in 1960, was honored as the recipient of the 35th Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award. Abelson was a distinguished molecular biologist and member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Time magazine named WSU graduate William Julius Wilson, noted sociologist, one of America’s 25 most influential people.
John Gorham, internationally renowned veterinarian and WSU faculty member, received the 28th Regents Distinguished Alumnus Award. Gorham was the first student to earn a graduate degree from the College of Veterinary Medicine and contributed heavily to the study of feline and canine disease.
Allen C. Wilson receives the Regents 25th Distinguished Alumnus Award for his work in molecular evolutionism. Wilson received an M.A. in Zoology in 1957, studying under bird physiologist Donald S. Farner. Wilson came to WSU from his birthplace in New Zealand. During his career, his work was recognized with many prestigious awards, including the MacArthur Fellowship.
Neva Martin Abelson receives the Regents 23rd Distinguished Alumnus Award. She is the wife of famed-chemist Phillip Ableson, and co-founder of the global test for Rh blood factor which has saved millions of babies’ lives. Neva was one of the first women to earn a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University, and the first woman to be in charge of the hospital’s nurseries there. Later she was a professor of pediatrics and pathology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work in pediatrics piqued her interest in the Rhesus factor and its relation to blood disease in tiny infants, which at the time was a likely cause of death or mental retardation.
The Washington State Historical Society recognizes trailblazers from WSU in the Washington Centennial Hall of Honor: Philip Abelson (Class of 1933), “Father of the Atomic Submarine;” Enoch Bryan, WSC president (1893-1916); Gary Larson (Class of 1972), acclaimed Far Side cartoonist; Edward R. Murrow (Class of 1930), preeminent broadcast journalist; Archie Van Doren (Class of 1937), father of controlled atmosphere storage for apples, conducted research for WSU at its Wenatchee Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center; Orville Vogel (Class of 1939), agronomist who revolutionized wheat breeding, made possible the Green Revolution. He worked for the USDA at WSU in Pullman.
The Regents 16th, 17th, and 18th Distinguished Alumnus Awards are respectively awarded to Mel Hein, the “greatest all-around player the game of football has seen;” Robert Stevenson, the former head of Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co.; and world-renowned chemist Jacob Bigeleisen.
Weldon B. “Hoot” Gibson, Charles Schroeder, and Marshall Neill receive the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth Regents Distinguished Alumnus Awards.
Karl Sax, internationally acclaimed scientist, receives the seventh Regents Distinguished Alumnus Award. Sax attended then-WSC from 1912 to 1916, earning a bachelors of science in agriculture, and while at WSC he met and married his cytology teacher, Dr. Hally Jolivette. Sax is perhaps most well-known for his research in cytogenetics and the effect of radiation on chromosomes.
J. Clifford Folger, Nixon’s 1960 campaign finance chairman and member of the board of directors of IBM, and C. Glenn King, one of the two biochemists to isolate vitamin C, are selected for the fourth and fifth Regents Distinguished Alumnus Awards. Folger receives his award on June 3, 1963; King on April 11, 1964.
William Julius Wilson, Ph.D. (’66) received the 1998 National Medal of Science, the highest scientific honor in the United States.Wilson was a behavioral and social scientists and received the medal “for his innovative approach to studying urban poverty, his dedication to the proposition that rigorous social science change will improve his fellow American’s lives, and his advocacy of policies which reflect more accurately what we have learned from research and which therefore take a broader point of view with respect to the interactions of race, class, and location.”
Wilson received the award at a White House ceremony April 27, 1999.
On October 18, 1976, President Gerald Ford presented the National Medal of Science to WSU Professor Emeritus, Orville Vogel. Vogel helped develop wheat varieties with stronger stalks and higher yield potential, which now grow on five continents. This research launched the “Green Revolution,” a push in agricultural research to help feed the world’s hungry. Vogel worked at WSU from 1931 to 1973, receiving his Ph.D. here in 1939.
The Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award honored the first three recipients: Phillip H. Abelson, Henry T. Heald, and Edward R. Murrow.
Phillip Abelson graduates in chemistry and two years later earns his master’s degree in physics from WSC. He is later recognized as the “father of the atomic submarine”, the co-discoverer of neptunium (element 93), and later serves as editor of Science magazine and president of the Carnegie Institution. He is also the first recipient of the WSU Regent’s Distinguished Alumni Award. He is the son of Olaf and Elle Abelson, who first attended WSC in 1905 and built a home where Fulmer Hall now stands. The Philip M. Abelson Hall was named in his and his wife’s honor in 2002.
