Month: May 2020

PENSACOLA, Fla. — William Powers died peacefully on April 24, 2020 in the comfort of his home in Pensacola, Fla. Born on July 31, 1930 in Davenport, Iowa; he was the son of the late LaVern and Orpha Powers. In 1950, he enlisted into the US Air Force and served honorably. He is survived by his wife, Sally Powers, his three children Mary Mach, William Powers and Matthew Powers (Merrily), and his grandchildren, Jason Powers, Karrie Hilts, Abra Mach and Morgan Mach.

Bill Powers arrived at Michigan Technological University in 1970 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he had been a member of the faculty in English and Director of Freshman-Sophomore English. He spent the next 30 years successively, as the Head of Humanities, the Dean of Sciences and Arts, then as Vice President of Academic Affairs, and at the last as Michigan Technological University’s first Provost.

He believed that university faculty can become administrators, but they also have a continuing faculty teaching responsibility. He taught a course each term and was published – becoming the co-author of one book, the author of chapters in three other books and roughly forty pieces, including papers, short fiction and poetry.

Graveside Funeral Rites will be held on Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 3 pm at Raleigh Memorial Park.

Condolences to the family at www.MitchellatRMP.com.

Obituary and image courtesy of Mitchell Funeral Home at Raleigh Memorial Park.

From “Alumni Work to Fight COVID-19” on Alumni News

“The COVID19 Pandemic is challenging the healthcare facilities around the globe like never before. As the Chief Engineer for EWB-USA, Mike is leading a EWB / Rotary Team in Guatemala to improve the infrastructure of healthcare facilities so they are ready for the increased caseload. Work includes an increase water supply, water storage, hospital triage areas and expanded waiting rooms.” – Michael P.

“Bruce Rossman (’81 Scientific & Technical Communications) is lead media relations specialist at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids. He is part of the team working to share Spectrum Health’s efforts in the medical response to COVID-19 and educate the public regarding social distancing, best practices in slowing the spread of this disease, and Spectrum Health’s research initiatives.” – Bruce R.

“Emerging and reemerging infectious diseases such as the novel Coronavirus disease, COVID-19 and Ebola pose a significant threat to global society and test the public health community’s preparedness to rapidly respond to an outbreak with effective diagnostics and therapeutics. Recent advances in next generation sequencing technologies enable rapid generation of pathogen genome sequence data, within 24 hours of obtaining a sample in some instances. With this data, one can quickly evaluate the effectiveness of existing diagnostics and therapeutics using in silico approaches.” – Mychal I.

“Translational Genomics Research Institute (Darrin Lemmer ’98) in Flagstaff, Arizona developed a genomic test for COVID-19 and set up a clinical lab to test patient samples for all of Northern Arizona. In addition, TGen is sequencing positive samples from the entire state to be able to compare and analyze the SARS-CoV-2 genome to determine the source of introductions into Arizona as well as the presence and rate of community spread within the state.” – Darrin L.

“Glen Sachtleben (‘74 Forestry) is with FEMA in Atlanta working the FEMA Regional effort to support eight states and six tribes in the southeast U.S. fight against COVID19. Recently battled the Easter Sunday tornado outbreak at same time and ready to respond to hurricane season June-November in a COVID19 environment.” – Glen S.

From “Zoom Backgrounds” on Alumni News

“These are all fantastic! My coworkers will be treated to these on Zoom in the coming weeks. Thank you! – April W.

“Yay! I’ve been looking for a Zoom background.
The sunset lift bridge pic will work great.
Thanks.” – Julie B.

“Great idea and great execution. 🙂” – Eric L.

From “Vote for Former Husky Tony Esposito!” on Facebook

“He should be a shoe-in. No brainer.” – Aaron A.

“About time, eh?!” – Curtis H.

“Amen to that 🏒” – Stan S.

The Copper Country woke up to a dusting on snow on May 8, adding to our 2019-20 season total. See where this year’s 186 inches of snow ranks against our historical records.

Whether it was snow on your graduation day or something else, what are your memories of spring snow in the Keweenaw?

Of course, there’s still snow on Mont Ripley. Will it last until June? Check out the Ripley webcam to see how much remains.