Trojan Family Magazine

Lifetime devotee Herb Klein ‘40 with Ann Hill ‘71, MA ‘74 (center), president of the USC Alumni Association, and his daughter, Joanne (Klein) Mayne ‘67, at the Half-Century Trojan Luncheon.

Photo by Dan Avila

Herb Klein ’40 receives the inaugural Half-Century Trojans Hall of Fame award to honor a lifetime of dedication to USC.

Within the USC Trojan Family, Herbert G. Klein ’40 exists as an exemplary offspring, one who does his alma mater proud through both his professional accomplishments and his direct contributions to the university.

Klein’s distinguished record as both a media professional and a Trojan was honored in November, when the Half-Century Trojans bestowed on him their inaugural Hall of Fame award, recognizing “degreed alumni of the University of Southern California who have utilized their educations at USC to become outstanding leaders.” Klein received the award at the Half-Century Trojans Luncheon, held in Town and Gown over Reunion Weekend.

“Herb, in spirit, has never left the university,” said Mary Kay Arbuthnot ’46, immediate past president of the Half-Century Trojans, in introducing Klein. “His life personifies a belief we all hold dear: “Once a Trojan, always a Trojan!’”

“This Hall of Fame Award, coming as it does from our venerable Half-Century Trojans, is a well-deserved recognition of USC trustee Herb Klein, a superstar in the Trojan Family,” said President Steven B. Sample.

“His guidance and support of our university since his days as a student, as well as his many professional accomplishments and dedicated service to our country, are testament to a man who exemplifies the ideal Trojan – faithful, scholarly, skillful, courageous and ambitious.”

Klein recalls his Trojan days with unabashed fondness. “For me it was a wonderful time of my life. I enjoyed USC from the day I walked in,” he says, speaking from his office in San Diego.

A journalism major, Klein was sports editor of the Daily Trojan, writing a column his senior year called “Sports Scribbles.” He recalls the 7-3 victory over Duke in the 1941 Rose Bowl as one of the most memorable moments of his college career. “I’ve been to a lot of championship games, seen almost every Super Bowl, and that still is one of the most exciting moments I recall,” he says.

Klein has another reason to recall his USC years with affection. He met his future wife, Marjorie (Galbraith) Klein ’41, here when they both took an international relations class during his senior year.

After graduation, Klein went on to a five-decade career as a newspaper man. The Los Angeles native started out as a copy boy for the Alhambra Post-Advocate, becoming news editor in 1946. From 1959 to 1968 he served as editor-in-chief of the San Diego Union, and in 1980, he was appointed editor-in-chief of Copley Press, comprised of nine daily and 20 weekly newspapers. He retired in early 2003 as vice president and editor-in-chief of the company.

Along the way, he made a sustained detour into Republican politics. Beginning in 1952, Klein worked on every political campaign of Richard Nixon’s, whom he had first met in 1946. When Nixon later became president in 1968, Klein served as his director of communications until 1973. He later wrote Making It Perfectly Clear, which looks at the relationship between U.S. presidents and members of the media through various administrations.

During her husband’s White House tenure, Marjorie Klein served as hostess, campaign speaker and a presidential representative at meetings in Latin America. She later founded the ARCS Foundation, which raises funds for scholarships in science at San Diego-area universities.

While amassing impressive professional credentials, the Kleins were also busy building their own USC mini-dynasty. The couple’s two daughters, Patty (Klein) Root ’79 and Joanne (Klein) Mayne ’67 – now director of development for the USC School of Dentistry – are both alumnae, as are two of their grandsons. Herb’s brother, uncle and aunt also attended USC, as did Marjorie’s two brothers.

“One of the things I take a lot of pride in is the fact that there have been four generations of my family going to USC,” Klein says. “USC is a very big part of our family life.”

Klein’s commitment to USC is well-documented. In 1972, he received the Asa V. Call Award, the highest honor bestowed by the USC Alumni Association. He served as president of the USC Alumni Association from 1975 to 1976 and joined the USC Board of Trustees in 1982.

Klein takes a special pleasure in his work as a trustee. “I consider it one of the great honors of my life,” he says. Part of that joy comes from serving under Sample, whom he claims to admire “more than any university president.” He adds, jokingly, “I try not to turn down anything offered to me by the president of the United States or the president of USC.”

As he reflects back on his own long-term relationship with USC, Klein has a final message to younger alumni: “The best thing you can do for yourself is to do well for your university. And that means giving back in treasure and service and loyalty. Those who do that will never regret it.”

Internationally acclaimed vocalist Marilyn Horne ’53 has performed professionally for 50 years, earning a reputation as one of the greatest mezzo-sopranos ever to grace the operatic stage. This April, the USC Alumni Association presents Horne with its ultimate tribute, the Asa V. Call Achievement Award. The legendary superstar shares her thoughts and memories regarding USC and her remarkable career.

What do you remember most about your days as a USC student? The music school was outstanding. We had inspiring and wonderful teachers, and all kinds of concerts and musical activities – a cappella choir and madrigal singers under the direction of Dr. Charles Hirt, singing for football games, lots of fun on sorority/fraternity row, living in the Pi Phi house – crazy things that young people do. I even remember a couple of panty raids, which we thought were such a big deal in those days, 50 years ago. But I always had my mind on my goal as a singer.

What has been your favorite operatic role? I have a standard answer to this question: “When I’m not near the one I love, I love the one I’m near.” It is truly impossible to choose, but I would say the more difficult roles were no doubt more satisfying, as the journey to do them well was of course much harder. The most difficult role I ever sang was Fides in Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète.

You have a reputation for not being a “diva.” What would you say accounts for this “non-notoriety”? Diva has two different connotations. In Italian, “diva” means goddess. Given that definition, you are no doubt a star, but the other connotation is behavioral. In all honesty, I’ve had my moments under the latter definition, but hopefully they were well-founded. Basically I think I’m a team player – I certainly have always tried to be.

What would you tell today’s students – especially the football-obsessed – to convince them not to go through life without experiencing live opera? Jump in and try the waters! I promise you, it will not kill you! You might find a lifelong interest and passion. I’m a huge sports fan and look forward to great, or even small, sporting events as much as I enjoy grand, and not so grand, music events.

You have won so many honors and awards. Do you have any particular feelings about receiving the USC Alumni Association’s Asa V. Call Award? This is certainly a signal honor from my alma mater, and I am deeply grateful and humbled. In my estimation, I would put it up there with the Kennedy Center Award and the National Medal of the Arts.

The 71st Annual USC Alumni Awards dinner takes place April 2 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. For more information, contact the USC Alumni Association at (213) 740-2300, or visit the Web site at (http://alumni.usc.edu).

Alums Jill Pizitz-Hochstein and Erik Hochstein turned passion into nonprofit with their elderly advocacy group, Senior Smiles.

Genius may be born of inspiration and perspiration, but for Jill Pizitz-Hochstein ’93, founder and executive director of Senior Smiles, her life’s calling also sprang from a healthy dose of frustration.

Jill’s grandmother, Sylvia Cooper, was living in a nursing home in Northern California; suffering from dementia and severe loneliness, she would just “sit in the nurse’s station all day long and cry,” Jill recalls.

But, living and working in Los Angeles, Jill was prevented by geography from making more than the occasional visit to her grandmother.

During one trip up north, she went in search of local high school volunteers to come and visit her grandmother once or twice a week, offering in return a volunteer experience they could put on their college applications. When the students began spending time with her on a regular basis, Cooper experienced a profound turnaround in her emotional well-being. Her crying stopped, and her ability to carry on a conversation improved dramatically.

“It changed her whole life,” Jill says. “And we thought, if we can affect her, an extreme case, can you imagine the seniors we can affect throughout California?”

So teaming up with her husband, Erik Hochstein ’92, Jill launched Sydney Cooper Senior Smiles in 2001 to better the lives of seniors throughout the state. (The Sydney Cooper of the title honors her late grandfather and Sylvia’s late husband, who died in 1987).

The couple had never planned on working together. Before the Senior Smiles light bulb appeared over their heads, the two were on steady but divergent career paths. Jill, who earned her master’s in clinical psychology from Pepperdine University in 1994, was working in the acute psychiatric ward at a local hospital; Erik – a star swimmer at USC and a bronze medalist in the 200 freestyle relay event at the 1988 Summer Olympics had earned an MBA, also at Pepperdine, and toiled as a software engineer.

But neither felt passion working for others. So quitting their day jobs and working out of their Santa Monica home, the Hochsteins schooled themselves in every major emotional and physical issue facing seniors. Then they set out to connect the care-deprived with the care-giving.

The beginnings of Senior Smiles were inauspicious. When they first started out, Jill and Erik had one client, a Santa Monica-area assisted living facility, and a total of five volunteers they had managed to recruit. “It was pathetic,” laughs Jill now. But they persevered, pounding the pavement to identify eligible facilities and hitting up local high school and college campuses for volunteers who were then trained in geriatric needs.

Soon enough, the concept of Senior Smiles caught fire. Facilities were eager to bring in volunteers who were well-schooled in the unique difficulties facing the senior population, and volunteers were drawn in by the Hochsteins’ passion for their work and the positive feedback of other Senior Smiles participants.

As the nonprofit took off and the need for volunteers grew, USC proved a particularly valuable recruiting ground. Jill and Erik attracted significant numbers of student volunteers from the USC Volunteer Center and found another invaluable resource in the USC Andrus Gerontology Center. Jill credits USC’s emphasis on community involvement and its own for bringing in such a high number of interested students.

In fact, USC figured prominently into the organization’s most enduring success story. One of Senior Smile’s clients was Sunset Hall, an assisted-living facility in downtown Los Angeles. When the Hochsteins first offered their services, staff members were enthusiastic but added one caveat. “They said, ‘Well, everyone needs your services except for Eugenia – she’s got severe dementia and severe Alzheimer’s. There’s nothing you can do. Eugenia just opens her mouth to eat, she just sits in her wheelchair; she sleeps most of the time.” Always eager for a challenge, Jill refused to take on the facility unless volunteers could work with Eugenia as well. Staff members agreed, and Jill immediately put three volunteers on the case.

For weeks the visitors would go in every day and hold Eugenia’s hand, read to her, talk to her and include her in the activities of other residents. Eugenia offered little reaction. Then, at the end of one visit, a volunteer got up to leave and Eugenia grabbed her hand.

Elated, Jill suggested the students bring in music, which often proves a positive stimulant for Alzheimer’s patients.

“So the students brought in the USC Fight Song – it was a day when we had a lot of USC students on – and they were all moving their heads to the USC Fight Song and singing the song. And they look over to Eugenia and Eugenia’s moving her head to the music.” Eugenia also began tapping her feet and then broke out into a smile that only grew wider as the routine continued.

An afternoon of Trojan spirit proved a watershed moment for the senior. Eugenia grew ever more responsive to her visitors, offering smiles, hugs, kisses and even the occasional verbal greeting. At the age of 101, Eugenia is now more alert and responsive than she has been in years. Her story has become part of Senior Smiles lore, passed along to new volunteers to prove the power of their services.

What was once a two-person pet project has grown into a flourishing operation. In two short years, Jill and Erik have sent out more than 900 volunteers into hundreds of care facilities, hospitals and private homes across Southern California. Senior Smiles volunteers now hail from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and speak more than 20 different languages, maximizing the number of seniors with whom they can connect.

To handle the ever-increasing workload, the Hochsteins have created a yearlong internship program in which they train volunteer coordinators to oversee up to 20 volunteers working in a particular region of Los Angeles Country. But Jill and Erik still stay as hands-on as possible.

“We believe that we should meet every volunteer and know them, because everyone joins an organization to feel part of something,” says Jill. The couple also stays in touch with volunteer alumni to “make them feel like they are a part of helping this organization grow.”

With such rapid growth, funding has been an ongoing issue for the Hochsteins. The duo relies on private donations and their own resources along with the occasional fund-raising event. A recent grant from the Mark Taper Foundation, however, did allow them to launch two offshoots of their organization: Baby Senior Smiles, which sends mothers and their infants into senior facilities to interact with residents; and Family Senior Smiles, which trains entire clans in the needs of the elderly and then invites them to “adopt” a senior into their fold.

Jill and Erik’s future aspiration is to take Senior Smiles national – “to hit the open road,” as Erik puts it. The network is already in place: Former volunteers now living in other parts of the country have expressed interest in starting up their own branches. As for the woman who inspired it all, Sylvia Cooper is now 92 and in such good spirits that the nursing home staff has been able to lessen her anti-depressant dosage. She continues to be visited by Senior Smiles volunteers virtually every hour that she is awake.

To find out more about Senior Smiles, go to www.seniorsmiles.org or call (310) 459-0490.

Do you have a story – or know someone who does – that we should share with USC Trojan Family Magazine readers? If so, please contact Meaghan Agnew at <magazines@usc.edu>.

“Homecoming Week,” wrote USC General Alumni Association president Merritt H. Adamson ’14 in 1930, “has changed the position of the alumnus from that of a doddering old bother, who must be entertained at the expense of other and more interesting amusements, to the chief actor of the performance.” Backhanded praise, perhaps, but the roots of the Homecoming spirit are still evident in the early sentiment. For nearly 80 years, the USC Alumni Association has invited Trojan Family members, in all their doddering, diverse glory, to take part in on-campus cultural activities and to throw their support behind their once-and-future alma mater. And as the photographic evidence proves, some things never change: namely, the USC Victory sign, as potent a show of Trojan spirit in 1959 (below left) as it is today. It can’t be denied, however, that the invention of the foam finger has given today’s Trojan fan a distinct leg-up on his predecessors.

With a pinch of prawns and a dash of vinegar, a USC double-alum whips up a combat-ready field dressing.

Little did the GIs who survived combat wounds in Iraq realize their high-tech battle dressings were concocted from ingredients commonly found in the kitchen.

Known as a hemostatic dressing, this revolutionary bandage – the brainchild of an Oregon-based research group led by Kenton Gregory ’76, MD ’80 – is made from “chitosan,” a natural component found in the shells of crustaceans such as shrimp and lobster.

When the 4-by-4-inch, plastic-backed bandage comes in contact with red blood cells, it adheres to the wound, causing it to clot instantly. The bandage, which is shaped like phyllo dough and feels like a sponge, also kills bacteria on contact.

“Vinegar and other chemicals are added to act as an acid and help it to congeal around the wound,” says Gregory, a chemical engineer and physician specializing in biomaterials and the application of lasers in treating cancers and heart disease.

“Death from bleeding on the battlefield hasn’t changed since the Spanish-American war,” Gregory told the London Times last February. “The first soldier to die in Afghanistan died from a small bullet wound. He bled to death.”

Bleeding to death is, in fact, the leading cause of mortality among active soldiers. “Our goal,” says Gregory, “is to save the soldier at the point of injury. Once they are transported to a surgical suite, they have an 80 percent survival rate.”

Gregory had contracted with the U.S. Army for six years on tissue-replacement and repair products. Early in 2000 the Pentagon asked scientists in his lab, the Oregon Medical Laser Center, to research treatments for battlefield injuries. Up until then, field dressings hadn’t really advanced since the Civil War. “Treatment had always been simple gauze and tourniquet,” Gregory says.

The Army wanted an all-weather bandage that would “work at minus-50, equivalent to the Arctic, [and at] plus-140, [equivalent to] the Sahara,” Gregory told the New York Times in March 2003. When a Chinese-born research team member suggested including shrimp shells, an ancient Asian remedy for clotting, the addition proved critical. Besides stopping bleeding for up to 48 hours, the chitosan wiped out bacteria and halted infection.

Research on the first bandage was presented to the Army on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. When Gregory told the group he was seeking U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval within two years, he was told to expect a five-year wait.

Soon after the meeting ended, two U.S. airliners crashed into the World Trade Center and another hit the Pentagon.

Gregory heard back later that afternoon: “They said, ‘We will be going to war within a year. We’ll need this even sooner.’”

FDA approval took just over a year. The bandage proved one of the groundbreaking innovations of the post-9/11 conflicts. The Pentagon ordered nearly 30,000 bandages, which sell for $90 apiece (each is individually cast and molded); 3,000 were used in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The bandage is produced and distributed by HemCon Inc. (short for “hemorrhage control”), a company formed by Gregory and a retired Army combat surgeon. The shrimp shells are purchased in bulk and boiled in lye to extract the chitosan. The proteins are then freeze-dried.

“There is a heavy-duty physical chemistry that goes on in making [chitosan] into a large crystal,” says Gregory, who notes that a degree in chemical engineering combined with an MD from the Keck School of Medicine of USC has allowed him to push both his disciplines to the limit. A staff cardiologist at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland as well as leader of a 40-person research group, Gregory still remembers chemistry lectures from college days.

“In fact,” he says, “just last week I reached for an undergrad handbook to help answer a question.”

The success of the bandage in Iraq has garnered headlines for Gregory and his company in newspapers around the world. In December, the HemCon bandage was honored with a “Best in Science” award from Popular Science magazine. The 2004 Defense Appropriations Bill, signed into law by President Bush in September, designates $9 million in federal defense funds for HemCon Inc.

“I’m not interested in the attention,” he says. “For a research lab, the measure of success is to produce something that’s useful and can make an important contribution for people. With devices like these to control hemorrhaging, we believe up to 30 percent of combat deaths may be prevented.”

Civilians stand to benefit too. Each year, 70 million Americans go to the emergency room due to bleeding. Ambulances, operating rooms and first-aid kits may soon carry the new bandage. But for now soldiers remain at the front of the line.

“The Army has funded production for thousands more bandages,” says Gregory, who oversees HemCon’s production facility. “Their orders must be filled before the bandages are made available to civilians.”

Karen Karbo ’77 offsets heartbreak with humor in a memoir that details the knotty experience of caring for a dying parent.

“Hollywood,” says Karen Karbo ’77, “has given us the impression that when disease and imminent death face a family member, your inner Florence Nightingale comes to the party. Well, my inner Florence Nightingale never came to the party.”

Perhaps not, but her inner Dostoevsky (her favorite writer) certainly did. In The Stuff of Life: A Daughter’s Memoir, Karbo details the often harrowing and occasionally humorous experience of caring for a father dying of lung cancer. It’s a compliment to her manic wit that, despite its heartrending subject, the book achieves what Publisher’s Weekly called “the near-impossible … [Karbo] wrangles the potentially depressing subjects of death and a dysfunctional family into a funny, uplifting page-turner.”

As Karbo puts it, the “dramatic set-up” was already in place. In 1975, when she was a freshman at USC, her mother developed a terminal brain tumor; thanks to her father, Karbo says she was “very much kept from her mother’s illness and decline.” So when her father was diagnosed with lung cancer 25 years later, she was determined to “make amends” and be there for him.

So the freelance writer left her blended family in Portland, Ore., and moved into her industrial designer father’s triple-wide trailer in sun-scorched Boulder City, Nev. Suddenly Karbo had to deal with a dying man refusing chemotherapy and demanding cigarettes to soothe his rasping cough. Horrified, she fetched the cigarettes, but things grew tougher from there. She was a caretaker who could barely sit still and who, she writes, “trust[ed] doctors about as much as … mechanics.”

And then there was the generation gap. Richard Karbo, who attended USC in the ’50s, was a staunch NRA supporter and a member of the “Greatest Generation,” bred to be stoic and stubborn to the bitter end. Comparing her father’s contemporaries to her own, Karbo, with a wry laugh, says, “We’re more in touch with our feelings, we have more therapy talk at our disposal, but maybe if we did put a higher premium on self-possession and dignity, it might be better.”

These differences created plenty of father-daughter strife: Why didn’t her father ever tell her that her late stepmother, Beverly, hated to be called “Bev”? Why couldn’t he accept new sheets to replace his threadbare ones? And, when it came to his physical and emotional health, why did he consistently keep his own daughter out of the loop?

Yet despite these tensions, there were also moments of great poignancy. Karbo writes that at one point her father told her, “I sure am proud of all the things you’ve accomplished in your life.” And she reveals that her book’s original title – nixed by the publishing house – was Who Will Take the Tupperware? As she explains, she opened her father’s cabinet one day and discovered hundreds of Tupperware containers dating back to 1965. “I could trace my own personal family history through those containers,” she says, adding that the present title is meant to suggest that life includes everything – the “junk around the house that has to be dealt with, and also the larger, experiential kinds of things.”

Part II of the memoir begins with an anonymous quotation: “Inside every seriously ill person there’s a Kafka trying to get out.” Karbo interprets this to mean that the gravely ill must confront the Kafkaesque absurdities of our medical system.

“Because my father was older and clearly had inoperable cancer,” she says, “they were funneling him through the poison and burn system that we have going here. At no point did any doctor say, ‘Maybe all the agony of the chemo and radiation isn’t worth two more months to you.’ It was like he was on this assembly line.”

At the end of that line, Karbo learned that dying at home is not all it’s cracked up to be. “My dad as I knew him,” she relates, “sort of left the building way before his body did.” Unable to discern whether he was asleep or in a coma, Karbo and her stepbrother were forced to find out by rolling him over, one of the book’s most macabre – and comic – episodes. Asked whether the whole experience left her more or less afraid of death, Karbo allows that, despite the suffering, there was something “slightly reassuring” in witnessing the mysterious process that marks our transition from this world to the next.

“In this country,” she adds, “we really tend to take the mystery out of death – it’s almost like a business model.”

And why did she write about this painful business? From her need, she says, to share with others “something going on in the world that nobody’s told me about.

“The most gratifying part is that people have said, ‘You know, when I was with my dying parent or spouse, I didn’t feel like I was the “me” I wanted to be,’” she says. “They had this impression they were going to be this ultra-caregiver, and instead they got impatient and frustrated. One thing they liked about my book was that it made them feel they weren’t alone in their imperfections.”

As for Karbo’s own imperfect stint as a caregiver, she has no regrets. “I think you can be a good enough caregiver,” she says, “and still have the dying person feel cared for – even if you screw up from time to time.”

But with The Stuff of Life behind her, Karbo, who’s written several novels and screenplays, insists her foray into autobiographical reflection is over: “I’m never going to write another memoir. I’m much more of a storyteller.”

Photos: 1, 3, 4, 8. Lee Salem - 2. Dan Avila - 6. Serena Overhoff ‘96 - 9. John Livzey

At the annual Volunteer Recognition Awards luncheon in September, alumni from around the world were recognized for their dedication and service to the Trojan Family. Top honors went to USC Alumni Association President’s Award winners Jea Morf Baran ’48, George Higue ’40, Grace Shiba ’77 and Joyce Sumbi ’60. Pictured here are Ann Hill ’70, MA ’74, president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors; Harold C. Slavkin, dean of the USC School of Dentistry; Higue, a longtime supporter of the USC School of Dentistry; and Judith Blumenthal MBA ’84, PhD ’88, USC associate vice president of alumni relations.

More than 50,000 Trojans, families and friends basked in the Cardinal and Gold glow of Homecoming in November. Pre-game highlights included a special appearance by Homecoming chair Ronnie Lott ’81 (pictured signing autographs for members of the Half-Century Trojans Board); a tour of campus by President Steven B. Sample (shown here at the USC Asian Pacific Alumni Association karaoke tailgate); live entertainment, picnics, games, giveaways and more. The then-No. 3-ranked Trojans beat No. 6-ranked Washington State, 43-16.

A privileged group of USC alumni enjoyed an unparalleled tour through China in September. Peter Berton (pictured, center), distinguished professor emeritus of international relations, gave a series of lectures on the history, politics and foreign relations of China. The trip began in Beijing and included visits to the Great Wall, the ancient capital of Xian, the Three Gorges and Shanghai.

USC alumni club presidents from California to Japan attended the 2003 Alumni Organizations Leadership Conference hosted by the USC Alumni Association in September. The club leaders took part in workshops on event planning, fund-raising, scholarships and communication; in the afternoon, participants were invited to observe the annual Board of Governors meeting with President Steven B. Sample and senior officers of the university.

As Trudy, the Bag Lady/Anchor character in Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner’s play The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, would say, last May provided a “peak experience” for USC Lambda Alumni members and friends. Attendees were treated to a performance of the Tony Award-winning play at the Los Angeles Music Center, after which high-level donors were recognized with a private champagne reception with Tomlin. California State Senator Sheila Kuhl, a previous Lambda Alumni Association honoree, presented Tomlin with her LAARA award; Lambda co-president Tom Peterson then gave Tomlin honorary citations from Gov. Gray Davis and USC President Steven B. Sample. Proceeds from the event went towards funding a new scholarship, the 2004 Lily Tomlin Scholarship in Performing Arts. Former Lambda board member Amy Ross (pictured, left, with Tomlin) initiated and managed the event.

John C. Argue, former chair of USC’s Board of Trustees and a prominent member of the Los Angeles civic and legal communities, was honored in December with the dedication of the John Argue Plaza on the University Park campus. The landscaped plaza, located between Doheny Library and Widney Alumni House, was created and named to recognize the late attorney and alumnus. Argue died of leukemia last year at the age of 70.

“I believe this plaza, a place of natural beauty and quiet contemplation in the heart of our university, will be a living symbol of John’s commitment to USC and the far-reaching effects of his leadership,” President Steven B. Sample told the crowd. Argue’s widow, Liz, thanked those in attendance for honoring her husband’s memory and extended thanks to the Rose Hills Foundation, which helped fund the dedication.

The couple’s children, Elizabeth Argue Pollon MA ’91 and John M. Argue ’90 (pictured), unveiled a plaque in front of the plaza. “This plaza, located on the site of the 1984 Olympic Village, honors a great Trojan instrumental in bringing the Olympic Games to Los Angeles,” the plaque reads. Argue was founding chair of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee.

Town and Gown of USC kicked off its year-long centennial celebration this fall with the opening of the Town and Gown exhibit in the Rotunda of Doheny Library. The autumn portion of the display celebrated the first 50 years (1904-1954) of the support organization’s contributions to USC female students and the physical facilities of the university. Items on display included memorabilia from the USC Archives and period costumes from the Pasadena Museum of History. This spring, a collection celebrating Town and Gown’s next 50 years (1954-2004) of achievement goes up.