Alumni News
Compiled by Paula Wagner Apfelbach '83

40s-50s

The winner of the Wisconsin Education Association Council's first Great Schools Hero Award last October was Ervin Johnson LLB'41 of Darlington. Recalling the financial hardship he faced as a student, Johnson has helped more than five hundred southwestern Wisconsin students to pursue their dreams of college since 1979. He opened his Darlington law practice in 1941 and still works there every day. "He is great!" writes his spouse, (Constance) Phyllis Berget Johnson '39.

Like his cousin, clarinetist Benny Goodman, Jack Rael '42 of Rancho Mirage, California, felt destined at an early age to make music his life's work. While touring with one of the bands he'd formed, he recognized the star potential of a teenage singer on a Tulsa, Oklahoma, radio station in 1946, and began to manage the radio career of Clara Ann Fowler Ñ soon to be known as Patti Page. The Everly Brothers, jazz vocalist Carmen McRae, and comedian Soupy Sales also sought out Rael, and his clients appeared regularly on the Ed Sullivan Show. He formed Lear Music in New York in 1951 and remains active in the business.

During the 135th commencement at Ripon [Wisconsin] College in May, two UW-Madison graduates received honorary degrees. Oscar C. Boldt '48, chair of the Boldt Group, was recognized for his dedication to philanthropy. Since 1950, when Boldt succeeded his father as owner of the Oscar J. Boldt Construction Company in Appleton, Wisconsin, the firm has built nearly every new building at the college. Rolf Wegenke '70, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (WAICU), was honored for his work to help the twenty-one WAICU institutions gain greater visibility in the legislature and to increase the Wisconsin Tuition Grant funds that Ripon can offer. Wegenke, of Sun Prairie, has also served five Wisconsin governors.

Faith Hudson Hektoen '52, MA'53 was one of the first five individuals selected by the American Library Association for its National Advocacy Honor Roll. She was Connecticut's first consultant for children's services, and served in that role for more than twenty years. Recently, that state created an award in Hektoen's honor, to recognize "an individual or group that has made an impact on library service to children in Connecticut at the local and/or state level." She lives in Suffield.

When honorary doctorates were given out at Purdue University's West Lafayette, Indiana, campus during the May commencement, Leonard Mortenson MS'52, PhD'54 was there to receive one. A pioneer in the field of iron-sulfur proteins, he served on the Purdue faculty from 1962 until 1981. In 1985, Mortenson became the Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Georgia, and in 1987, he founded and became the director of that university's Center for Metalloenzyme Studies. He is now retired in New Bern, North Carolina.

Okay, Class of '53, can you name your class treasurer? If you said Louis Freizer '53, you're right. After forty-three years as a radio journalist for CBS in New York, he retired recently as the senior executive producer for WCBS Newsradio 888, an all-news station in the Big Apple. An award-winning news writer, editor, and producer, Freizer will continue work as an adjunct professor of communications at Fordham University in the Bronx.

William Dowling MS'55, PhD'59 was among the 2001 inductees into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame, which is housed at the University of Oklahoma's College of Continuing Education in Norman. The Worthington, Ohio, resident was involved in adult education at Ohio State University in Columbus from 1967 until his retirement in 1992.

Right Backed by Might: The International Air Force Concept (Praeger) is a new work by Roger Beaumont '57, MS'60, who has taught history at Texas A&M University in College Station since 1974.

The University of Wisconsin Press has published books by outdoorsy, Madison-area authors in recent months: Walking Trails of Southern Wisconsin by Bob Crawford '58, who has also written a companion volume about trails in eastern and central Wisconsin; and Catching Big Fish on Light Fly Tackle by Tom Wendelburg '65 and Jeff Mayers.

John Hall '58 has retired from his position as the director of public office buildings for the city and county of Denver, where he has been responsible for 142 facilities. Hall resides in Evergreen, Colorado, at the Everhardt/Herzman Ranch, which was established in 1861 and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Anthony Sinkula '59 has had a banner year. He received an honorary doctorate from the Royal Danish School of Pharmacy in Copenhagen, Denmark, in recognition of his contributions to pharmaceutical science. He also received the Jack Beal Postbaccalaureate Award from the Ohio State University College of Pharmacy, and was recognized by the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) with the AAPS Past President's Award. Writes Sinkula, "All of this has happened since my Ôretirement.' I am currently vice president and chief scientific officer for West Pharmaceutical Services in Lionville, Pennsylvania. Ah, well, retirement will have to wait."

Alumni News: 40s-50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s

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