Bill Oram: Coach Prime and Colorado are in Eugene, but I’m going to Pullman

Bill Oram: Coach Prime and Colorado are in Eugene, but I’m going to Pullman

 By Bill Oram, Oregonian, Portland 9/22/2023

Sounds like any sportswriter with a pulse is gonna be in Eugene this weekend.

Coach Prime. Nike. Ratingzzz.

If that’s the case, somebody better call a doctor. Check my vitals. Press two fingers into my wrist and give it a 60-count.

You all can have Colorado-Oregon. I’m going to Pullman.

I’m choosing substance over spectacle. Emotion over commotion.

College football has never given us a game like the one that Oregon State and Washington State will wage on Saturday afternoon. Or, more accurately, we have never had so much taken away that a game like this was all that remained.

The Left Behind Bowl? The Pac-2 Championship?

It’s the Truce on the Palouse and we’ve never seen anything like it.

Not where the game-week buildup included a joint Zoom news conference with administrators appearing in front of a co-branded backdrop in a stand of institutional solidarity.

Not with a pledge that the home marching band would play the visitors’ fight song before kickoff.

Not with the famed flyers of Ol’ Crimson, ever-present on “College GameDay,” reserving a place in the sky to wave a Benny banner, too.

No question that Oregon hosting the most talked-about team in the country is a special occasion. Any other weekend I’d be right there alongside my fellow scribes, our hearts all pounding at a robust and physician-approved 60 to 100 beats per minute.

But with Oregon favored by 21 points, what is there to really see at Autzen?

Deion’s sunglasses? Celebrities?

Relative to the fight for survival on tap in Pullman, that all feels cheap. Hollow. Empty calories. And it’s my responsibility to go where the best story is.

If you contend that Deion vs. the Ducks is the biggest thing going down this Saturday in the college football universe, I won’t argue.

But did you ever see a movie called “The Paper”? Ron Howard directed. Michael Keaton starred. You’d like it.

In it, the ink-stained Keaton blares at a condescending rival, “I don’t live in the (expletive) world, I live in New York (expletive) City.”

Cue that energy here.

I don’t live in “the college football universe.” I live in (expletive) Oregon, and in Oregon people are hurting over the death of the Pac-12. They’re angry. They’re sad.

I hear from them every day.

I know people in Washington who feel the same.

In those places — right here — something is being taken away. By realignment. But TV execs. What’s being sacrificed at the altar of media rights is a piece of those fans’ identities.

And Saturday’s game in Pullman will double as a rally, with prideful partisans declaring, “Uh-uh, you can’t have it.”

God, I love the fight.

The heart of college football is the fans. The students. The alumni. The below-zero tailgaters.

Oregon fans, I know, are no less passionate about their Ducks than Beavers fans or Cougs. And many of them are unsettled about the leap to Big Ten, too. But they have trips to the Big House and the Horseshoe to plan for. They have a future rich with heavyweight matchups, national exposure and an endless bounty of cash.

What do Beavers and Cougars fans have to look forward to after this season? At the moment, it is an abyss of uncertainty.

That’s why what their football teams have delivered so far this season is so significant.

The Beavers are 3-0, ranked 14th in the country and have dreams of upending the whole broken enterprise by winning the last Pac-12 crown.

Washington State is also undefeated. Knocked off No. 19 Wisconsin a couple of weeks back. The Cougs, now ranked 21st in the country, have plenty to prove, too.

Maybe it’s the Tillamook County in me that I’m more drawn to the plights of Oregon State and Wazzu than the shimmer and shine of Prime and the Swoosh.

When I heard Oregon State president Jayathi Murthy speak up on behalf of rural Oregonians on Thursday and say, “To write off small communities is completely unacceptable,” I couldn’t help but pump a fist in support.

Of the institutions that killed the Pac-12 and left Washington State and Oregon State literally flapping in the Saturday morning wind, I hear the words of my guy Prime: “They made it personal.”

I love that the Cougars’ firebrand coach, Jake Dickert, has lost his voice screaming for respect. And I admire just as much that OSU coach Jonathan Smith has taken the opposite approach, choosing his words carefully and taking the fight to the football field.

Whatever happens on Saturday in Pullman isn’t going to determine how realignment ultimately shakes out for Oregon State and Washington State. It won’t dictate whether these schools scramble in tandem to the Mountain West or reassemble a zombie Pac-12.

That is all for the boardrooms, courtrooms and joint Zooms.

What we will have instead when those schools connect on Saturday will be about the humanity of football, fandom and identity.

You can have the game of the week in Eugene, if you want it.

I’ll be at the game of a lifetime.

-- Bill Oram boram@oregonian.com Twitter: @billoram

MAYNARD HICKS wrote 'Hills of Pullman' column in the Pullman Herald: Former WSU journalism prof, dies at age 93 in Pullman

Maynard Hicks may have written his "Hills of Pullman" column in the Pullman Herald starting in 1937 and ending in 1977. Photos show "clippings" from March 13, 1958, and March 27, 1958, Pullman Herald.

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Maynard F. Hicks, , 93, former WSU journalism professor

• May 9, 2000 Moscow Pullman Daily News

Maynard Frederick Hicks, 93, a Pullman resident, died Friday at Pullman Memorial Hospital in Pullman, Wash., of injuries received in an automobile accident.

He was born Jan. 12, 1907, to Clyde and Edna Mae Hicks at Silver Bow, Mont. He attended several schools, and graduated from Mount Pleasant High School in Michigan. He attended Central Michigan Normal School, now Central Michigan University, in Mount Pleasant. He graduated in 1926 with a journalism degree.

In 1929, he worked for Central Michigan Normal School, teaching journalism and advising student publications. He also handled public relations and sports publicity.

He earned a master's degree from the University of Michigan in 1936.

He married Desmond Jane "Demy" Bower on Dec. 22, 1931, at LaPorte, Ind. They moved to Pullman in 1937.

He worked as a journalism professor at Washington State University for 35 years. During World War II, he served as director of the Washington State University news bureau in addition to teaching.

In 1953-54, he divided his time between the Department of Journalism and the news bureau.

While at WSU, he had many titles, including assistant to the president and editor of university publications. During summer vacations, he worked with weekly and daily newspapers throughout the northwest. He wrote a column titled "Hills of Pullman" for the Pullman Herald weekly newspaper. He retired as a full professor in 1972.

He taught at Western Washington University in Bellingham and California State University at Fullerton before taking a position at California State University in Northridge. He returned to WSU in the late 1980s, and maintained an office in WSU's Murrow School.

At WSU, he taught journalism and advised WSU student publications, which prints The Daily Evergreen, the student newspaper, and the Chinook yearbook. He also advised the student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi.

In 1992, the "Maynard Hicks Room" in the WSU Murrow Communication Center was dedicated in his honor.

He had been a member of the Kiwanis Club for over 50 years. He was a member of the Pullman Chamber of Commerce Hall of Fame. He was an avid Cougar fan, and received several awards, which included serving as statistician for several WSU intercollegiate sports, and the Wells Memorial Key, the highest honor the Society of Professional Journalists can confer on a member.

He is survived by his wife of Pullman; one daughter, Susan Jane Vitums of Eugene, Ore.; one son, John Maynard Hicks of Seattle; three grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Graveside services for family and friends will take place at Pullman Cemetery at a later date. A celebration of his life will be this summer in Pullman. Kimball Funeral Home of Pullman is in charge of arrangements.

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Pullman’s first commercial radio station, KOFE-AM/1150 was started in 1950 by Mr. and Mrs. Ron Bayton with Maynard Hicks and his wife, Demy, as silent partners. They sold the station in 1957. 

As this was posted in September 2023, KOFE calls are used by KOFE-AM/1240 radio in St. Marie’s, Idaho.

Information online shows that the letters of KOFE in Pullman were preceded by two other calls, KPMN and KBHK

KPMN (1950, CP*)

KBKH (1950–1953) “The Good Neighbor Station,” according to a letter signed by WSC grad J. Ronald Bayton, station manager/owner, on Jan. 21, 1952.

KOFE (1953–1967)

KPUL (1967–1977)

KNOI (1977–1983)

*CP, Construction Permit - Filling out Form 318 to apply for a LPFM frequency indicates applying for a Construction Permit. A CP is the document issued by the FCC granting permission to build a radio station. This means those issued a CP beat out other applicants competing for the available frequency. Once a station is ready to go on air you an Application to Cover a Construction Permit is a license to begin broadcasting.

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 "Maynard Hicks has charge of the radio station belonging to
Washington State College of Pullman, Washington.
He also teaches some classes in journalism."
Source: Central Michigan University "Centralight," June 1947, Mount Pleasant, Mich. He graduated from the university in 1926 with a journalism degree.

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"Maynard F. Hicks: The News Bureau Years, 1942-1954" is documented in the files of WSU MASC/Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections. The documentation is dated Jan. 29, 1970.

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Oct 4 1951 Lewiston, Idaho, Morning Tribune 

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Jan., 31, 1978, "Daily Titan" student newspaper, Cal State Fullerton 

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WSU program set Aug. 6, 2000, to remember Maynard Hicks

By WSU News & Media Relations, July 25, 2000

 

PULLMAN, Wash. — Family and friends of Maynard Hicks have planned a program Sunday, Aug. 6, to celebrate the life of the long-time Washington State University faculty member, who died May 5.

The 3 p.m. public program is set for Compton Union Building’s Cascade Room.

He and his wife, Demy, moved to Pullman in 1937, where he worked as a WSU journalism professor for 35 years.

Hicks taught journalism courses and advised the office of Student Publications, which produces the Daily Evergreen, WSU’s student newspaper, and the Chinook yearbook. He also advised the student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, at that time known as Sigma Delta Chi. He had a long association with the society, dating back to the 1920s. He served as its national vice president for undergraduate affairs and a member of its national executive committee in 1959-60. During that time, he was a strong voice for a complete restructuring of the society, which was in dire straights. He was considered a major player in revitalizing and saving the organization.

After his WSU retirement, he taught at Western Washington University in Bellingham and California State University at Fullerton, before taking a position at California State University at Northridge, where he spent 13 years. In the late 1980s, the Hicks returned to Pullman and he maintained an office in WSU’s Edward R. Murrow School of Communication.

Hicks was active in the Kiwanis Club for more than 50 years and is a member of the Pullman Chamber of Commerce Hall of Fame. He was a member of St. Episcopal Church in Pullman for more than half a century.

The Murrow School of Communication has established the Maynard F. Hicks Memorial Scholarship for Undergraduate Students in Communication. Donations may be made by sending a check written to the WSU Murrow School of Communication, Pullman, WA 99164-2520. Checks should include “Maynard Hicks” in the memo section.

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WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY (WWU), Bellingham, Whatcom County, Wash.

He spent a year or maybe a summer teaching 1971-1973 at WWU in Bellingham. WWU Campus Directories show him as "Prof, Journalism" from 1976-1987. In the 1988 directory he is listed as "Jobs Advisor, Journalism." Note: In 1977, Western Washington State College (WWSC) became Western Washington University (WWU).

CAL STATE, FULLERTON (CSU Fullerton), Orange County, Calif.

During the 1973-1974 academic year, he was on the CSU Fullerton Communications Dept. staff, according to a story in the Jan 31, 1978, CSU Fullerton "Daily Titan" student newspaper. That academic year, "in addition to teaching in the law, reporting and editing fields, another departmental assignment was to provide students and graduates aid in finding jobs," said the story.

 

CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE (CSU Northridge), Northridge, Los Angeles County, Calif.

He was at CSU Northridge for 13 years. A story in the CSU Northridge “Daily Sundial” student newspaper of Feb 3, 1976, says he was a professor in the CSU Northridge Journalism Dept. In 1977, he wrote a book titled, "Where the Jobs  are: Communications," that sold in the United States and Canada.” In 1978 he was a part-time journalism professor at CSU Northridge,” according to a story in the Jan. 31, 1978, CSU Fullerton “Daily Titan” student newspaper. A story in the May 13, 1983, Daily Sundial said he was CSU Northridge “Professor Emeritus,” At CSU Northridge he had been an “advisor, co-advisor to the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi and has also been involved with CSU Northridge's "Careers in Communications Day” since it started in 1979. In the Apil 2, 1986, issue of "The Daily Sundial" student newspaper of CSU Northridge he is identified him as a "faculty advisor for SPJ/SDX" (Society of Professional Journalists/Sigma Delta Chi).

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May 13, 1983, CSU Northridge "The Daily Sundial"

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The CSU Northridge Journalism Dept. was "fabulous. It was after Watergate and Nixon resigning, as J students we were taught to search for truth, interview multiple sources and properly spell names. Professors Mike Emery, Sam Feldman, Maynard Hicks, Cynthia Rawitch ... set the bar high. Source: Comment by Melinda Sue Norrin, Class of 1981: CSU Northridge Journalism Dept. celebrating its 60th anniversary. CSU Northridge "The Sundial" 60 years of Journalism, 1958-2018.

CSU Northridge "Journalism professors Maynard Hicks and Bryce Mclntyre have been a great help and invaluable" to the success of the CSU Northridge's Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi chapter, said Michael Emery, CSUN's acting journalism dept. chair. Source: Sept. 19, 1986, "Daily Sundial," Cal State Northridge student newspaper.

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Maynard Hicks, WSU communication prof emeritus, "takes in the pregame rally at the golf course next to the Rose Bowl. Hicks game to WSU in 1936." Source: Daily Evergreen 1998 Rose Bowl Commemorative Edition Jan. 1, 1998

 

Pullman trees will be replaced (Moscow Pullman Daily News Sept 19, 2023)

 

Pullman trees will be replaced

Ash trees planted on Main Street will have to come out during downtown project; city plans to replace them and add even more afterward

By Emily Pearce Moscow Idaho – Pullman, Washington Daily News Staff Writer Sept 19, 2023

The city of Pullman is planning on removing and replacing ash trees that line Main Street during its downtown revitalization project.

Though the trees will be removed, the city said in a news release distributed Monday that downtown will end up with more trees than what were originally planted by the end of the project.

Project Downtown has been an ongoing process since 2019, when the city received $9 million from the American Rescue Plan to update supporting fixtures within Pullman, according to the news release.

Beginning in November 2022, the City Council was presented with designs on planned infrastructure on the project.

The project is a multiyear effort to reshape downtown Pullman’s streets and public spaces, focused to build community, experiences and the economy, according to the news release. Its projects include digging up Main Street to evaluate and replace the city’s century-old sewer and water pipes, as well as widen sidewalks to make downtown more walkable.

Construction on the project’s Main Street portion is expected to begin in spring 2024, after WSU graduation. It will be finished before the Cougars’ first home football game in fall 2024, according to the news release.

Main Street’s 25-year-old ash trees were a significant topic during the City Council meetings early this year. The council asked for public input about preserving existing trees and considered keeping them in the new design, according to the news release.

After consultation with a team of professional landscape architects and arborists, the council determined it would be necessary to remove and replace the trees. Its decision was in compliance with ADA standards, to eliminate trip hazards and create a safe, walkable downtown, according to the news release.

The existing trees’ root system is shallow, and would continue to spread and affect the new sidewalks, negating the benefit of the investment, according to the news release. Pouring concrete over existing tree roots isn’t a solution, either.

The city also determined that transplantation of the existing trees would pose a significant risk of damaging its root systems during construction, according to the news release.

Existing root systems are too shallow and wide for the mature age of the trees, causing roots to push up in search of oxygen and water, according to the news release. Other roots have encircled their own root ball, which can eventually strangle trees.

The new trees will be set in tree wells with automatic irrigation, something the existing trees don’t have, according to the news release. They will be placed closer to the curb line in larger planter areas, giving adequate space for proper tree root growth and more resources to grow.

The sidewalk design will accommodate permanent landscaping, ensuring the longevity of the trees and allowing them to preserve the integrity of infrastructure, including sidewalks and utilities, according to the news release.

Placement of the new trees will also create more shade downtown, casting onto the sidewalk on the north side of Main Street. The city recognizes the high canopy of existing trees creates natural cooling benefits, but the shade mostly misses sidewalks. The new design will provide consistent shade, as buildings produce shade on the south side of Main Street since the road runs east-west.

Details about Project Downtown Pullman can be found at projectdowntownpullman.org.

Pearce can be reached at epearce@dnews.com.

PHOTO Shadows are cast on businesses along Main Street by the trees that line the road in Pullman on Monday. The city of Pullman announced that it will be removing and replacing these trees as part of its Project Downtown Pullman, in which sidewalks will also be replaced. (Liesbeth Powers/Daily News)

PHOTO Trees line both sides of Main Street as cars move down the road in Pullman on Monday. The city of Pullman announced that it will be removing and replacing these trees as part of its Project Downtown Pullman, in which sidewalks will also be replaced. (Liesbeth Powers/Daily News)

PHOTO Trees line both sides of Main Street as cars move down the road in Pullman on Monday. The city of Pullman announced that it will be removing and replacing these trees as part of its Project Downtown Pullman, in which sidewalks will also be replaced. (Liesbeth Powers/Daily News)

PHOTO Shadows are cast on businesses along Main Street by the trees that line the road in Pullman on Monday. The city of Pullman announced that it will be removing and replacing these trees as part of its Project Downtown Pullman, in which sidewalks will also be replaced. (Liesbeth Powers/Daily News)

PHOTO The base of a tree stands on the edge of the sidewalk on Main Street in Pullman on Monday. The city of Pullman announced that it will be removing and replacing the trees that line the road as part of its Project Downtown Pullman, in which sidewalks will also be replaced. (Liesbeth Powers/Daily News)

Funnel cake, speed traps and Oregon State’s alliance with Washington State to save the Pac-12

Funnel cake, speed traps and Oregon State’s alliance with Washington State to save the Pac-12

By Bill Oram, Oregonian, Sept 11, 2023

The fate of the Pac-12 rests in the hands that handed out funnel cake on behalf of the Rotary Club at last weekend’s Palouse Empire Fair.

Washington voters elected Judge Gary Libey to the Whitman County Superior Court in 2016. He has adjudicated cases ranging from child custody to murder, rape and assault.

On Monday, the court clerk in tiny Colfax, Washington, population 2,766, asked the judge what kind of case was on the docket.

The son of a Spokane police officer and a career litigator, Libey said, “Well there’s going to be Cougars, Beavers, Huskies, Ducks, Cardinals, Golden Bears, Bruins, Trojans, Sun Devils, Wildcats, Buffaloes and Utes.”

The clerk replied: “Whoa, should I call for security?”

The Pac-12 is on trial.

Well, not in a legal sense. Not yet. But after a month of being knocked around like wheat stalks in a Palouse windstorm, Oregon State and Washington State are finally fighting back.

The path to leverage in the Beavers’ realignment battle runs directly through Libey’s courtroom, where they form an alliance of rivals with Washington State.

“There are always two sides to every story and there’s two ways of looking at everything,” Libey told a local reporter a few years back.

Two sides, maybe. But ultimately just one conclusion.

The Beavs and Cougs are seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the 10 schools that have announced plans to leave the conference from determining the fate of the Pac-12. On Monday, Libey granted a temporary restraining order preventing the board from taking any action in the meantime that is not unanimous.

Pullman, home of Washington’s land-grant university, might be the largest city in Whitman County, but Colfax is its county seat and a great place to pick up a traffic ticket — being home to one of the region’s most notorious speed traps.

Can OSU and WSU get their in-state rivals and the rest of the greedy brood to at least slow down on their way to the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC?

The two remaining schools can’t reverse the disintegration of the Pac-12. They can’t reel USC and UCLA back in or make the Utes do a U of U-turn. They can’t restore the regional rivalries that have been cast aside or bring Fox and ESPN back to the negotiating table for a better TV deal.

They are playing the cards they have.

OSU and Wazzu have been the two biggest losers in realignment. They are the forgotten pair. It makes their ongoing dilemma only more heartbreaking that both schools’ football teams are ranked in the top 25two weeks into the season.

Football has dictated realignment, but clearly not the game’s quality.

You can’t help but love Cougars coach Jake Dickert, who, in a moment of bittersweet celebration after his team upended Wisconsin on Saturday night, passionately declared, “We belong in the Power Five.”

When Oregon State travels to Pullman in two weeks for a game that has already been given a primetime slot on Fox — irony much? — both teams are likely to be undefeated. The biggest underlying question of the matchup will not be who gets the win on the field but how they can avoid further losses off of it.

The best path forward for Oregon State, short of an invitation to the Big Ten or Big 12 that nobody expects, is still to rebuild the Pac-12.

To team with WSU and use the financial resources of the conference, abandoned by the rest of their brethren, to lure universities to join them in a conference that combines the best of the Mountain West or the American.

They can’t do that if presidents from the 10 departing schools come together and make funeral arrangements for the Pac-12.

“They’re now motivated by a strong financial incentive to dissolve the Pac-12 and divide the assets,” the San Francisco-based attorney representing OSU, Eric MacMichael, argued in front of Libey on Monday.

MacMichael said one agenda item for a board meeting scheduled for Wednesday was amending bylaws that include a conflict of interest clause. He also shared that schools leaving the conference expected to have the conference cover some of their transition costs next year.

Oregon State and Washington State have already been left holding the bag. Now the departing schools want to take the bag, too?

If the Pac-12 can be saved as an entity, with valuable framework and assets, then it shouldn’t take a country judge — who said the court had no time constraints on Monday except for his 12:30 p.m. doctor’s appointment — to rule that only Oregon State and Washington State should be directing its future.

But this whole saga has, at times, taken center stage in the theater of the absurd. Including the chairman of Oregon’s board of trustees calling for the Big Ten vote from the sand trap at the Portland Golf Club.

OSU has had limited recourse throughout the realignment race, that’s for sure. There are fans who wondered loudly why the Beavers administration wasn’t taking more action to secure its fate.

This is that action.

Plus, in stacking up legal wins against the Pac-12 and the 10 émigrés, the Beavers are winning back some power in a situation in which they have largely had none.

Mark Lambert, the attorney representing the Pac-12, argued that OSU and WSU were operating out of speculation and fear and that meetings had to be held for standard business and not nefarious purposes that would harm the allies.

Maybe so.

But Libey asked the right question.

“What’s to stop those other schools from making those decisions?” he said.

Answer: Absolutely nothing until the guy who handed out funnel cake on Sunday handed down a common-sense judgment on Monday.

It’s possible the Pac-12 and the 10 soon-to-be ex-members were frustrated by the decision.

Someone should have warned them to slow down before they got to Colfax.