Trojan Family Magazine

BRANCHING OUT - Henry Lacher (left), director of building and grounds, and USC amateur historian Jerry Papazian ‘77 stand beside their latest labor of love: a newly planted coast live oak that replaced the 1936 USC relay team’s fallen Olympic tree.

Photo by Philip Channing

As Lovely as a Tree

Sixty years after its planting and three years after its fall, an oak tree honoring USC’s 1936 Olympians is reincarnated.

Amble through the University Park campus and you’ll find docile oaks, palms, even bay figs wafting in the breeze, different trees of different ages and heights providing shade and respite. Henry Lacher, director of buildings and grounds at USC, spends his days with the trees: “Each tree tells a different story,” he says. “The campus is determined by its landscape. The maturity of the trees gives it a certain feel, a strong sense of tradition.”

And so Lacher and others were alarmed when, in mid-2002, one of the campus’ most illustrious trees fell over. Named an “Olympic tree,” this Quercus agrifolia, or coast live oak, was one of two planted in 1936 in a ceremony in Associates Park upon the return of heralded Trojan gold medal winners from the Berlin Olympics.

1936 was a banner year for Trojan Olympians. Under the direction of legendary USC track and field coach Dean Cromwell, Ken Carpenter ’39 won a first-place finish for the discus throw, while the 400-meter relay team of Foy Draper ’36, Frank Wykoff ’32 and non-USC alums Ralph Metcalfe and Jesse Owens took home the gold, setting a world record in the process.

A total of 24 Americans won gold medals that year, and along with those decorations, each received an oak seedling planted in a pot upon which was inscribed, “Grow in the honor of victory! Summon to further achievement!” As Owens had garnered three other golds, it was decided that the relay team’s oak would go to USC.

But the trip home proved more arduous than victorious for the fragile seedlings.

“Some of the other trees didn’t make it back on the boat home – people forgot to water them,” recalls Velma Dunn Ploessel ’39, who took home a silver medal in diving and who traveled home with the other U.S. Olympians. “And then when we landed in New York, they had to go through fumigation, and even more didn’t make it.” Only six of the trees are known to exist nationwide today.

Back at USC, the two seedlings were successfully planted in Associates Park, between Bovard Administration Building and the Physical Education Building. Yet, despite having made it halfway around the world to USC’s terra firma, the Olympic trees were soon forgotten amongst the rest of the blooming specimens on campus. Exacerbating their anonymity: Overgrown grass at the base of the trees obscured a marble plaque detailing their history.

“I didn’t know the Olympic trees were there until I read about them in Sports Illustrated about 10 years ago,” says Jerry Papazian ’77, who, as president of Skull & Dagger, sees it as his duty to preserve history on campus. “But I went and looked for them, and there they were! No one was hiding them.”

USC’s Olympic trees may have maintained a low profile over the decades, but the Olympic tradition on campus continued to burn bright. USC has amassed a total of 40 gold Olympic medals in track and field alone, the latest three coming at Athens in 2004. Ron Allice, USC’s current director of track and field, says, “We’ve had two Olympiads at the Coliseum, and this campus has been a part of the Olympic Village; so much of the Olympic movement has imprinted our athletics.”

Which is why, when the 1936 relay team’s tree fell over, the sense of duty to resurrect it seemed so great. Lacher and Papazian immediately swung into action, consulting an arborist to try to either replant it or graft it – to no avail. “It had already been leaning at 45 degrees when it fell, and the whole root plate lifted up out of the ground; the diagnosis was root rot,” says Lacher.

Undaunted, the two searched until they found a near-identical replacement in a nursery in Ventura, Calif.; the budget to replant and rededicate the tree was then seeded to them by the Division of Student Affairs.

And on a sunny Saturday morning in late April, generations of Trojan Olympians and their families were invited to watch as the new Olympic tree was rededicated and both Olympic trees finally received their proper due. Velma Dunn Ploessel was in attendance, along with Roland Sink ’48, MEd ’57, a 1948 Olympics shot put participant; Ron Morris ’57, MEd ’58, a 1960 silver-medal winner in the pole vault; Peter Clentzos ’32, MEd ’47, a 1932 pole vault competitor and the oldest living USC Olympian; Terrezene Brown MPA ’81, a 1964 competitor in the high jump; and Wilbur “Moose” Thompson ’49, MS ’57, a 1948 gold-medal winner in the shot put.

Said Allice at the event: “It’s my job to let young ones never forget those who came before, those who’ve had an unbelievable imprint on sports. Trees will do that. On my future campus tours, the Olympic trees are now going to be one of my favorite stops.”

Meantime, Papazian is holding onto parts of the original fallen tree for sentimental reasons.

“I’m in the process of designing a lucite memento for the bark. It’s looking really nice,” he says.

The president of Carson, Calif.-based Leiner Health Products, one of the world’s largest makers of vitamins, nutritional supplements and over-the-counter drugs, Gale K. Bensussen ’70, takes over the reins this fall as president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors. A USC trustee and a longstanding USC enthusiast, he ruminates on the Alumni Association’s goals, on staying involved through the years and on the USC of today versus “back when.”

What are your goals for the USC Alumni Association over the next year? The 125th anniversary celebration is the cornerstone of our year. We will use the theme to raise scholarship funds and build club membership, and we are unveiling two special programs: USC On the Road and the Trojan Family Album. On the Road will bring USC professors and other experts to cities around the world beginning this fall, and the Trojan Family Album allows alumni across the globe to compile their USC memories in a virtual online scrapbook. We are also planning the greatest Alumni Awards Dinner ever as the culminating event of USC’s 125th anniversary celebration.

What are your fondest memories of your years at USC? The pride of being the first college graduate in my family. My father grew up around the University Park Campus, sold newspapers on the corners . . . and paid my tuition to attend. It was wonderful to have him and my mother in the audience on graduation day.

What changes do you see in the university from the time you were here as a student? We are a much more diverse university, with bright students from around the world. One can see and feel their intensity. Our campus has world-class facilities and has attracted world-class teachers, instructors and professors. We are no longer a commuter school, and the interchange among the students is inspiring to see. That adds much to the “experience” and builds relationships that last a lifetime.

Both you and your wife, Jane Bensussen MA ’69, have stayed so involved with your alma mater through the years. Why is that? There are phases in life. Immediately out of school, one thinks of career, country, family, success. There is little time for deeper personal development. However, we believe that it is after university, as one conducts one’s life, that knowledge turns to wisdom and one can best serve society. Wisdom does not grow in a vacuum. Where else can one be exposed to the diversity of ideas, thoughts and learning better than at USC?

What advice do you have for our newest alumni, the graduates of 2005? Don’t rush success, never compromise your ethics, always strive to be the best, do not be afraid of failure and remember you are a Trojan for life.

Canterbury Tales

Bee Canterbury Lavery ’48 can look back proudly on 50 years of trailblazing – thanks in part to her propensity for amassing memorabilia.

Never initiate a handshake with a royal. Don’t present flowers wrapped in plastic. And never include pork on the menu.

These are just some of the rules of international etiquette Beatrice “Bee” Canterbury Lavery ’48 picked up during two decades as chief of protocol for the City of Los Angeles.

Of course, rules can be broken. Like the time Emperor Hirohito of Japan came to town and accepted a gift – a hand-woven Indian basket – at a reception in his honor.

“The Japanese do not open presents in front of you,” says Lavery. “I had told [Mayor Tom Bradley], ‘Don’t expect him to open it.’ And of course, he tore into it like it was Christmas.”

Emperor Hirohito was the first of many heads of state to journey to Los Angeles during Bradley’s five terms as mayor. As chief of protocol, Lavery organized their visits, planning arrivals, departures and everything in between in down-to-the-minute detail.

When the world wasn’t traveling to Los Angeles, Lavery often traveled the world. Bradley, determined to establish the city as an international trade center, frequently went abroad to promote business, and Lavery went along. Among their most successful voyages was the one to Athens, Greece, when Los Angeles was awarded the 1984 Olympics.

Raised in a Quaker household in Whittier, Calif., Lavery, whose family tree includes Presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison, developed her strong work ethic early. At 15, she was writing for the Whittier Reporter. At 16, she was editing the paper, earning $2 a week, while also editing the school newspaper at Whittier High (where USC alumna and future first lady Pat Nixon '37 was her social studies teacher).

With all that experience, “I was just determined to get into the ’SC School of Journalism,” she says. She successfully did so, quite a feat, because, she says, “they didn’t accept [many] women.”

One of only four females in the school, Lavery worked on the Daily Trojan and in the university’s public relations office. With classmates Art Buchwald ’48 and the late Jesse Unruh ’48, future speaker of the California State Assembly and state treasurer, she got involved in campus politics – and switched party affiliation from Republican to Democrat.

A year after graduation, with few newspapers hiring women, Lavery became the sole distaff member of the press department at NBC. “They assigned me to this infant thing called television,” says Lavery, who wrote stories about NBC shows and stars and planted them in showbiz magazines and local newspapers. “For a star-struck girl from Whittier, it was just heaven, because all the old stars I had grown up with” – stars like Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante and Dinah Shore – “were coming on television.”

Lavery left NBC in 1952 when she married network executive Fred Wile. Over the next 17 years, she was a corporate wife, mother, widow, wife again – to entertainment attorney/producer Emmet Lavery – and sometime career woman, working as fashion director for Bullock’s department stores and advertising director at a swimsuit company.

In 1969, at home with two kids, “I was climbing the walls,” she says. “Tom Bradley had been brought to my attention. I had done some political work ... for [California Senator] Alan Cranston. When Bradley ran for mayor, I signed on.”

Bradley lost, but Lavery continued to work with him and handled press duties during his second run in 1973. This time he won and appointed Lavery deputy press secretary; soon after, he asked her to start an Office of Protocol.

In her 19 years on the job, Lavery welcomed numerous foreign VIPs to the city, including Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, Prince Charles, King Juan Carlos of Spain, Nelson Mandela – and two pandas brought over from China for the Olympics. Securing these popular animals was particularly sweet, since Lavery had helped establish the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles in 1979 and, that year, was part of the first diplomatic tour to China.

Lavery left the Bradley administration in 1992, with the mayor’s blessing, to run the L.A. office of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions. There, she helped the regional consulates navigate local bureaucracy, while enforcing U.S.-foreign treaties and ensuring reciprocity. When the job ended after two years, she opened BCL International, a firm providing consultation in international business protocol to corporations, government officials and educational institutions.

But nothing compares to her time with the city.

“Where we really accomplished something was the 20 years of Tom Bradley’s administration,” Lavery says, citing, among other things, the growth of the Port of Los Angeles and the inclusion of women and minorities in local government. “I can’t tell you how I looked forward to going to work.”

Now she’s helping keep those years alive by lending campaign literature and photos to producers of a PBS special on racism in California. “They called some of the other staff members,” she says, “and one of my [former] cohorts said, ‘Call Bee Lavery. She never threw anything out.’ ”

For Lavery, that’s just normal protocol.

Home-Grown Hero

Kuwait native and USC alumna Al-Zain Al-Sabah explores her parents’ activism in a moving documentary.

Like most adolescents, 15-year-old Al-Zain “Zain” Al-Sabah MFA ’04 thought she knew her parents. Curfew-givers, homework monitors, detractors of teenage fashion – they were just, well, parents.

But on the morning of Aug. 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, Al-Sabah’s homeland, and forever dispelled those childhood assumptions. She, her siblings and their grandparents were stranded in London while other members of the Al-Sabah family, the ruling family of Kuwait, began to flee the country. But Al-Sabah’s parents, Shaikah and Sheikh Sabah, stayed behind, joining the movement to free Kuwait and return its exiled government.

Years later, Al-Sabah delved into the “why” with The War that Hit Home, a portrait of her parents’ roles in the Kuwaiti resistance during the seven-month Iraqi occupation.

Though she spent her early career working in television in New York and Kuwait, eventually she realized that what she really wanted to be was a storyteller.

“There aren’t many Arab filmmakers out there,” she says. “Our voices really aren’t heard at all.”

Soon she came to USC to pursue a master’s degree in film and television and found a mentor in Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Mark Jonathan Harris, whom she describes as “just extraordinary.”

When the time came to develop her thesis project, Al-Sabah wanted to make a documentary that would explore her parents’ activism and illuminate “what it means to be from Kuwait, to be an Arab, to be Muslim.” The 40-minute piece details her parents’ struggle through emotional interviews and archival footage. It’s Al-Sabah’s personal journey into the struggle, however, that gives the film its resonance.

“There are so many deep questions that come out of this subject matter, but I guess that’s what makes a good film. The more interpretations, the better,” she says.

Al-Sabah and her documentary will soon return to the U.S. to make the festival rounds. Meanwhile, she is developing several more documentary projects with the aim to challenge monolithic views of the Middle East, particularly of Middle Eastern women.

“I can’t stress enough that it’s literally a sense of duty that I have,” she says.

April Showers Accolades

Lectures, fundraisers and award ceremonies paid tribute to the professional and personal accomplishments of a diverse set of alums.

1. Lawful Gentry
Alumni, faculty and friends of the USC Gould School of Law gathered at the Carolyn C. and Carl M. Franklin Faculty Lounge in April to honor longtime law school supporter Audrey M. Irmas for her role in advancing the school’s public interest programs. In 1990, Irmas and her late husband Sydney M. Irmas LLB ’55 established the USC Law Public Interest Endowment; the school’s prestigious yearlong post-graduate fellowship is named in recognition of the couple’s dedication to serving the community and USC Law. Irmas, front row center, is surrounded by past fellows. Back row, left to right: Maria Hall JD ’03, Connie Huang JD ’02, Veronica Hahni JD ’94 and Jennifer Summerville JD ’95. Front row, left to right: Matthew Strugar JD ’04, Irmas and Laura Fry JD ’92.

2. Thinking Outside the Box
Sen. Barbara Boxer (right) delivered the seventh annual Carmen and Louis Warschaw Distinguished Lecture at the USC Davidson Executive Conference Center in April. As part of USC’s 125th anniversary celebration, Boxer, who was introduced by Rep. Howard Berman, spoke about her Jewish upbringing and issues of the day to a crowd of nearly 500 students, faculty and community members, as well as C-SPAN cameras. Here, Boxer stands with USC honorary trustee Carmen H. Warschaw ’39. The Warschaw Lecture is an annual presentation of the USC Casden Institute for the Jewish Role in American Life.

3. BAA Soiree
Adam Herbert ’66, MPA ’68 (left), president of Indiana University, accepts the USC Black Alumni Association’s Outstanding Alumnus Award from Leonard Fuller ’68, past president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors and former USC trustee, at the BAA’s 27th Annual Alumni Awards and Scholarship Benefit, held in April at Bovard Auditorium. The other USC BAA honorees were: LeVar Burton ’79, Manfred Moore ’73, Renata Simril MA ’99, J. Michael Thompson, Michael Preston, James Colquitt, Robert Padgett ’68 and Bernard Tarver ’78. More than 600 guests attended the gala, which raised $265,000 for USC BAA programs and scholarships, including the new Bowens-Foggi endowment established by Jacqueline Bowens ’81 in honor of her grandfather.

4. One Hundred Years of Aptitude
More than 400 alumni, faculty, staff and students turned out for the USC School of Pharmacy’s Centennial Celebration gala at the Regent Beverly Wilshire in April. “All of you here tonight can take great pride in the fact that you support a school that is working not only to advance the field of pharmacy, but also to improve the lives of people around the world,” USC President Steven B. Sample told the enthusiastic crowd at the event. Pictured, left to right, are President Sample, wife Kathryn Sample, Jane Bensussen MA ’69 and her husband, USC trustee Gale Bensussen ’70, who will assume the presidency of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors this fall. The Bensussens led the effort to establish the school’s Laboratory for Analytical Research and Services in Complementary Therapeutics, as well as the Leiner Free Radical Research Laboratory directed by professor Enrique Cadenas.

5. Rad Grads
Lisa Leslie ’97, center for the Los Angeles Sparks in the Women’s National Basketball Association, accepts an Alumni Merit Award from Glenn Sonnenberg ’77, JD ’80, president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors, at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles in March. Leslie played on the USC women’s team from 1991 to 1994 and still holds the Trojan record for blocked shots. Other awards winners were: Gordon Marshall ’46, who received the Asa V. Call Achievement Award, the university’s highest alumni honor; Rick Caruso ’80 and Frederick J. Ryan Jr. ’77, JD ’80, who received Alumni Merit Awards; Sally Edwards ’65 and Robert Rollo ’69, MBA ’70, who received Alumni Service Awards; and Gerald S. “Jerry” Papazian ’77, who received a special Fred B. Olds Award.

6. It Went Swimmingly
Nearly 1,500 people turned out for the 25th annual “Swim With Mike” fundraiser, held at the McDonald’s Swim Stadium in April. Hundreds of attendees – including USC football head coach Pete Carroll and members of the national championship team – took to the water for seven hours to raise more than $725,000 for the USC Physically Challenged Athletes Scholarship Fund. “This was the best event in our 25-year history because of the support of the USC Trojan Family,” said USC associate athletic director Ron Orr, former teammate of event namesake Mike Nyeholt. Carroll is pictured with Swim With Mike scholarship recipient Regan Linton, who graduated from USC in December 2004.

USC president Steven B. Sample and his wife, Kathryn, received the 6th annual KCET Visionary Award at a gala dinner and ceremony held in May at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

The Visionary Award is presented annually by KCET, public television’s West Coast flagship station, to individuals whose exemplary civic leadership improves the quality of life in Southern California. The black-tie evening celebrated both the 40th anniversary of KCET’s service to Southern and Central California and the 125th anniversary of USC. Academy Award-nominated director Taylor Hackford ’68 was master of ceremonies for the event.

“Since arriving at USC 14 years ago, the Samples have dedicated themselves not only to USC, but to civic causes which contribute to the vitality of Los Angeles and the region,” said Al Jerome, president and CEO of KCET. “It is excellent symmetry that we will be celebrating KCET’s 40th and USC’s 125th anniversary on this special evening, since both institutions share a mutual commitment to education and the improvement of our communities.”

“This is not only an honor for Kathryn and me,” said Sample, “it is testimony to the hard work and vision of incalculable numbers of alumni, students, faculty and friends of USC. A collective commitment to the vibrancy and health of Southern California has long been a Trojan hallmark. KCET’s own vast contributions to knowledge and information proclaim that same commitment, and it’s a privilege to receive this award from one of our region’s most treasured educational and cultural resources.”

Past recipients of the KCET Visionary Award include philanthropist and civic leader Eli Broad; Nancy Daly Riordan and the Honorable Richard Riordan; and, last year, Kelly and Robert Day, who support numerous arts and health-related charities, including the Keck School of Medicine of USC, both personally and through the W.M. Keck Foundation, of which he is chair.

The Days also served as chairs of this year’s Gala Committee, which included USC supporters Marion Anderson, Edye and Eli Broad, Tim Dietenhofer ’83, Scott Edelman, Lois Erburu ’52 and Bob Erburu ’52, Ilene and Stanley Gold LLB ’67, Marcia Wilson Hobbs, Michael Karlin ’76, Roger Kozberg, Sandy Krause, John Mass, Miriam Muscarolas ’76, Madeline and Bruce Ramer, Gayle and Ed Roski ’62, Jeff Smulyan ’69, JD ’72 and Leslie and Bob Zemeckis ’73.

KCET broadcasts to 4 million viewers a week in 11 counties. Over the years, it has garnered hundreds of awards for its local and regional news and public affairs programming, its national drama and documentary productions, its educational children’s programs and its outreach and community services.

The gala raised $1 million in donations for the station.