The last time Clinton Gruber '47 saw his B-24 bomber he was falling away from it, 18,000 feet above Germany. But not until 35 years later, through a chance encounter on the Internet and the kindness of strangers in two distant countries, would he learn the complete story of the incident that nearly took his life that fateful day of Dec. 1, 1943.
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Some 520 Pacific University students and alumni served in World War II. About 31, roughly equivalent to an entire senior class at the time, never came home.
It had been barely a year since Calvin Van Pelt finished his freshman year at Pacific University when he landed at Utah Beach on D-Day, the great invasion that was the beginning of the liberation of Europe from Nazi domination.
It was spring, 1942 and there was war all over the world. The Great Depression had ended, but now the Allied nations were fighting for their lives as the second European war of the century metastasized with horrific swiftness into global conflict.
Pacific University strengthened its collaborative relationship with the United Kingdom's York St. John University through a unique Internet signing ceremony on Tuesday, May 11
She’d already been on the job since August 2009, but the inauguaration of Lesley Hallick in March as Pacific’s 17th president formalized the transition with a vintage Pacific ceremony.
The first lū‘au at Pacific wasn’t very good, according to Hawai‘i Club co-founder Fred Scheller ’43, MA ’54. Fifty years later, not only is it good, it’s one of the biggest and best outside of the Islands.
Jan Shield was walking through the trees on his windswept property on Chehalem Mountain near Newberg, Ore. when he noticed a bird’s nest on the ground. The Pacific art professor had found other nests similarly dislodged and marveled at their structure and materials. Twigs, straw, mud, feathers, twine scavenged by avian architects.
It takes a lot of kŌkuna (cooperation) from parents, students, alumni and friends to stage a Pacific lū‘au—and one special woman to pull it all together.
You’ll find them at weekend health fairs, migrant camps and clinics throughout the area. Pacific’s graduate healthcare students are learning and helping at the same time.