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Alumni
News
By Elizabeth Grote His grandfather was a Des Moines police officer, shot and killed in the line of duty. His great-uncle was a Chicago police officer, shot and killed in the line of duty. But the threat of danger and tragedy did not stop Des Moines Chief of Police William (Bill) McCarthy, BN'77, GR'93, from following his dream. "There was nothing else I wanted to do - nothing but being a police officer," McCarthy explains. "I never felt worried or thought twice about it. The deaths of my grandfather and great-uncle showed me that becoming a police officer was an honorable profession - something worth doing." According to his wife, Linda McCarthy, GR'99, police work has truly been a lifelong passion for Bill. "The first time we met he told me his life goal was to be a police officer," Linda McCarthy recalls. "And he was appointed to the department one week before we got married - I've never known him as anything else." "I knew firsthand the complicated scenarios and difficulties of police work," Bill McCarthy says. "There is nothing boring about it. Yes, there is a lot of evil out there, but there is a whole lot of good, too." A tradition of public service The McCarthy family has embraced this attitude and commitment to public service for several generations. "Public service was a tradition in our community. It was your obligation, your responsibility, to be involved," says Bill McCarthy, who feels fortunate to have come out of a generation that believed so strongly in community service. "I think if you don't reach out to your community, you miss a lot in life," he adds. "You should be thankful for what you've got, and do your best to maintain that and help those who live in your community." Bill McCarthy's grandmother was a police matron, his uncle was the assistant chief of police in Des Moines, and his wife was a nurse and is currently a legislative aide. That tradition of public service continues with his son, Kevin McCarthy, LW'98, a state representative in Iowa who was recently named the state political director for the Joe Lieberman presidential campaign. "I have always been taught that public service is an honorable profession ... that honest work done for the public good can make a positive impact," Kevin McCarthy explains. "When this happens, the results can be very satisfying." The Drake connection " Linda and I are pleased that Kevin has continued the tradition and we know that others in our family will do the same," Bill McCarthy says. "It's not only public service professions, it's about volunteering in your community outside of work, too." Public service isn't the only tradition in the McCarthy family - Drake University has also become a tradition. Bill, Linda and Kevin all hold Drake degrees, and Bill's father and two uncles attended Drake University as well. Throughout all his experiences at Drake, both as a student and as a community leader, Bill McCarthy has developed a strong belief that the university doesn't "take the backseat to anybody." "I attended an extensive workshop at Harvard with many notable, world-famous professors," he recalls, "but what I discovered was that none held a candle to the competency of Drake professors. Drake is truly an outstanding institution. "Sometimes, as people living in Des Moines, we take Drake for granted," he adds. "But without Drake the area around campus would be completely different. Now, because of Drake, positive things constantly occur around campus." Some of these positive changes are the result of his involvement in a task force led by Don Adams, Drake's executive assistant to the president for community and alumni affairs. The task force helped implement a plan to bring a police sub-station to the campus area. "It has been a great experience to watch Drake become a good neighbor and a leading influence in the community," McCarthy says. "Drake has definitely achieved what it set out to, and that's thrilling. "My family has a broad connection to Drake, and as chief of police, I have a constant involvement in the community," he says. "I plan to help ensure that Drake remains stable and continues to have a positive influence in Des Moines." Elizabeth Grote earned a degree in journalism from Drake last spring. Drake hosts alumni choir reunion The Department of Music along with the Office of Alumni and Parent Programs will host a reunion for Drake Choir alumni classes 1990-2003. The reunion will take place at Drake Feb. 7-8, 2004. Choir alumni are invited to rehearse with the Drake Choir on Saturday afternoon and to sing with the ensemble at that evening's benefit concert in support of the 2004 European tour. Weekend festivities will also include dinner after the rehearsal and a Sunday brunch. For more information, contact Aimee Beckmann-Collier, associate professor of conducting/director of choral activities, at 515-271-3975 or aimee.beckmann-collier@drake.edu. Journalism and education alumni honored at banquets Drake alumni and students were honored last spring at separate events held by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the School of Education. Distinguished Alumni Achievement Awards from the journalism school were given to Peter H. Lewis, JO'82, and J. Peter Pohl, JO'79. Once a writer for The Des Moines Register, Lewis is considered one of the country's pioneer computer journalists. He recently was named a senior editor at Fortune and developed that magazine's new "Personal Technology" section. Before going to work for Fortune, he wrote for The New York Times for 14 years, focusing on consumer technology and the Internet. A copywriter by training, Pohl is a former creative director who currently works as a freelance writer for several ad agencies in Chicago. Throughout his career, Pohl has developed commercials, print ads and collateral pieces for a number of high-profile clients, including Caterpillar, Jeep, Hormel, Kinko's, Subway, Hush Puppies, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Midas, Mrs. Dash and Gatorade. A commercial he created for Jeep titled "Snow Covered" won the prestigious Grand Prix Award at the 1994 Cannes International Advertising Festival. Distinguished Alumni Awards were given to School of Education graduates Sharon Hart, a teacher in the West Des Moines Community Schools, and Mick Starcevich, superintendent of the College Community School District in Cedar Rapids, IA. Hart was a second-grade teacher at Clive Elementary School, received her bachelor's degree from Drake in 1975 and her master's degree in education from Drake in 1991. Starcevich, who earned his doctorate in education from Drake in 1990, became executive vice president of instruction at Kirkwood Community College on July 1. My Gal Friday Drake alum enjoyed 15 years as Bob Hope's secretary: She did it all, from typing his jokes to preparing his daily orange juice.
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE One of Jan King's most cherished possessions is an autographed photo of Bob Hope. "To Jan," it reads. "My gal Friday, Sunday, etc. Love, Bob H." To King, the photo represents the 15 years she spent as Bob Hope's personal secretary for motion pictures and television. "They were 15 of the most interesting and exciting years of my career," says King. That's high praise from the Rancho Mirage, CA, woman, considering she's held jobs as diverse and high-profile as modeling, serving in the Lyndon Johnson administration at the White House and participating in classified military work. But the Bob Hope years were special. During production of Hope's shows, King was constantly at his side, handing him jokes she typed up from the writers and screening his phone calls. Her duties also included walking his dog, squeezing oranges for the juice he liked every day at 3 p.m. and chaperoning the four Hope children when they went out at night. Banter was part of the job King began working part time for the comedian in 1952, then full time the following year until she left Hope's employment in 1967. Her work days ranged from routine - taking dictation, handling trip arrangements - to exciting, such as traveling with Hope overseas, including two trips to Vietnam as he entertained the troops. The young woman, described as a "vivacious blonde" by one magazine of the time, was surrounded by stars: Bing Crosby, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jack Jones. And, constantly, there was the Bob Hope wit and banter. King easily rattles off his jokes: "They were so rich they had two swimming pools, one for washing and one for rinsing." But her favorites stem from the daily banter she and Hope shared. "He liked to sleep late in the morning and he'd call me and he'd say, 'What's the weather like?' And I'd say, 'Well, Bob, it's acting like it might rain.' He'd say, 'Forget the acting and tell me what it's really like.' " One time, Hope responded with a quip when she asked for a few days off. "Well, yeah," he said. "But while you're at it, take a memo for me to hire a younger secretary next time." Another time, when King was at the Hope residence, his daughter, Nora, declared that she wanted to grow up to be just like Jan King. "No, the world couldn't take two," Hope told his daughter. He had nicknames for everyone, calling Col. Parker, Elvis Presley's manager, "Snowflake" because of his girth. He called King "Laura Scudder" or "Julia Child" in honor of her cooking skills. She 'Did a magnificent job' King, born Janet Kruidenier, grew up on a ranch in South Dakota, majored in commerce and finance at Drake and then moved to New York City to pursue a modeling career. Moving to Hollywood, King became a story editor for NBC-TV before she was asked to become a typist for Hope. It was a step down, but ultimately became her route to helping to produce his shows. But after 15 years on the job, King said she knew it was time to move on, a decision that she said seemed to surprise Hope. The day after her resignation, he called to ask when she would be at work. She told him the moving van was already at her door. In a 1967 letter of recommendation Hope wrote for King after her resignation, he praised her as "trustworthy in every respect." "Further, she has accompanied me on many overseas Christmas junkets and under stress, strain and difficult working conditions, always did a magnificent job," he wrote. She landed a job as a researcher and Congressional liaison in the Johnson White House. Later, she worked as a protocol officer at a military base in Arizona. King, who gives her age as "unlisted," never married, although she was engaged a few times. "I really was married to my job," she says. Now King is active in the Rancho Mirage area, going out with friends and supporting her favorite charities - the Pegasus Riding Academy for the Handicapped and Desert Samaritans for the Elderly. King remembers one of Hope's final quips to her came when she reflected back on her work as his secretary. "One day I said to him, 'You know, you took the best 15 years of my life.' And he said, 'Well, what about me?' " Reprinted with permission from The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, CA. Friends of Drake Arts tour San Francisco Members of the Friends of Drake Arts recently spent four days touring art galleries and museums in San Francisco. The group of 12 Drake alumni and friends got a red-carpet tour of several private collections, opened to the group thanks to the generosity of the owners and through the coordination of Colleen Vojvodich, a freelance curator from the Bay Area who spends half her time in Des Moines. The trip culminated with a party at the Bay Area home of James Cohill, a 1992 Drake theatre grad. In recent years, Friends of Drake Arts-sponsored trips have included a variety of excursions to places including Italy and France. New alumni outreach program begins Alumni across the country will soon experience a renewed and energized Drake presence in their home communities. A new city outreach program, to be launched by the Office of Alumni and Parent Programs, will focus on strategic geographical areas of alumni concentration. The program, which is being implemented this fall, is designed to allow Drake to reach out to a larger number of cities than the previous chapter system allowed while creating specialized programming designed to meet the interests of alumni. Drake alumni chapters will undergo some changes as a result of the new program. Drake previously hosted alumni chapters in six locations: Central Iowa, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, St. Louis and the Twin Cities. The Drake alumni chapters in Chicago and Central Iowa will remain unaffected, however, the structure of the chapters in the Twin Cities, St. Louis, Kansas City and Dallas will be dissolved. "As the former chapter chair for the Twin Cities, I am looking forward to the new city outreach program," said Kathy McNee, FA '68. "We as volunteers will be relieved of the burden of scheduling meetings and small events and instead will be able to focus our efforts on assisting alumni staff with creating large-scale events designed to attract a diverse array of alumni." |
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