Washington State Magazine webisodes

Send us Fan Mail Former Washington State University quarterback Luke Falk (’17 Soc. Sci.) was the Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week six times, started in 40 games, and set a WSU record with 27 wins. In 2017, his final season with Coug football, Falk won the Burlsworth Trophy, awarded to the nation’s top former walk-on. Falk shares the secrets to his college-ball success in his new book, The Mind...

Send us Fan Mail December 2025 was a wild month for weather across Washington. An atmospheric river dumped historic amounts of rainfall on northwest Washington in early December, leading to flooding, landslides, and power outages.   A few days later, a windstorm swept across eastern Washington. Gusts of 83 miles per hour were recorded in Pullman, accompanied by an unusual winter thunderstorm.  In...

Send us Fan Mail When Gary Chastagner was a kid in the 1950s, his parents typically displayed their Christmas tree for about a week. The tree went up on December 24—often after he went to bed—and came down after New Year’s Day. Now, consumers want fresh-cut trees that can be displayed for weeks without losing their needles. Chastagner, a professor emeritus of plant pathology at Washington State Un...

Send us Fan Mail Philip Meech and Caffè Lusso take people on a coffee journey around the world. A coffee roaster and entrepreneur for over 25 years, he wants coffee drinkers to slow down, taste the roasted beans and enjoy the rich variety.  In this episode, Philip talks with Washington State Magazine editor Larry Clark about enjoying coffee, his lifelong love of coffee, the art and science of coff...

Send us Fan Mail Dawn Daniels was appointed as Washington State University’s police chief in August 2025. Daniels shares her journey from WSU student to leading the university’s police department .  Over the years, she has served in various WSU roles including community policing officer, sergeant, and firearms instructor. With nearly three decades of service, she reflects on her career , the evolv...

Send us Fan Mail Opioid misuse and overdoses are a serious public health crisis across Washington state and nationwide.  From 2019 to 2021, the annual number of opioid drug overdose deaths in the state nearly doubled. About 55 people in America die each day from an overdose of prescribed or illicit opioids, including fentanyl and heroin. It’s crucial to get real information and education on opioid...

Send us Fan Mail For over 20 years, Dick Perez was the official artist of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, painting the game’s history and every Hall of Fame ballplayer—a project he continues into his 80s. Marq Evans ( Claydream , The Glamour & The Squalor ) directed The Diamond King , a documentary that tells the fascinating story of Perez , the “Picasso of Baseball,” whose portraits trans...

Send us Fan Mail “It’s only rock n roll, but I like it,” is not really a good answer in Washington State University’s popular history of rock music class. Hundreds of WSU students learn how to really dig into the tunes. They study how rock ‘n’ roll is tied into American society , history, and culture, by analyzing lyrics and music styles from over the decades. A.J. Miller is the main instructor of...

Send us Fan Mail Farming life and the essential work of producing food for the world has long been celebrated in art, literature, and essays. Richard Scheuerman, an educator, author, and 1972 history graduate from Washington State University, wrote three books that take a deep dive into art and books about farming. He covers a huge span of time and geography, from the Bible to modern literature. I...

Send us Fan Mail Students, teachers, and schools learned a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the challenges and opportunities were already there, just emphasized by the global health emergency, says Johnny Lupinacci, associate professor at the Washington State University College of Education . Lupinacci teaches future teachers and education researchers, and he was a high school teacher him...

Send us Fan Mail Weatherwise, July 2024 was a doozy. Palm Springs hit 124 degrees. Alaska had the wettest July on record. Washington DC tied its record for the most consecutive days with temperatures over 100. Hurricane Beryl became the earliest category five hurricane in history. And a Chicago derecho spawned 32 tornadoes in single day.  “All of that happened just in July, which is just astonishi...

Send us Fan Mail The stories of Washington State University are stories of the state, covering agriculture and architecture, geography and geology, history and industry, people and places, and a lot more from the Puget Sound to the Palouse.  Many of those stories are gathered in The Evergreen Collection: Exceptional Stories from Across Washington State , an anthology to celebrate 20 years of Washi...

Send us Fan Mail If you listen to Washington State University sports, you’ll hear calls from a Coug who’s returned home: Chris King. Chris graduated in 2009 from the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication , returned to WSU when he took over radio broadcast announcing duties from Matt Chazanow in fall 2024. King came back to Pullman after announcing for minor league baseball and Division I broad...

Send us Fan Mail Coho salmon in urban areas were dying from stormwater runoff, but scientists didn’t know why until a few years ago. A team of researchers from Washington State University and University of Washington identified a chemical found in tires as the culprit.  Tires contain 6PPD, which keeps the rubber from cracking after exposure to ozone in the atmosphere. But 6PPD also reacts with ozo...

Send us Fan Mail As the Pac-12’s remaining members—Washington State University and Oregon State University—began rebuilding the conference, WSU President Kirk Schulz announced in June 2024 that Anne McCoy was the new permanent athletics director . McCoy hit the ground running earlier in the year as interim AD, since she has worked for WSU Athletics since 2001 in almost every department. She faces...

Send us Fan Mail Remembering to perform a future action is a critical part of daily life.  Psychologists refer to this as our “prospective memory,” and some examples include remembering to pay bills on time, returning library books when they’re due, or getting to doctor’s appointments. Brooke Beech is a Washington State University doctoral student specializing in clinical neuropsychology. She work...

Send us Fan Mail The WSU Fight Song, the roaring crowd, the electric atmosphere. Washington State University’s Cougar Marching Band is often the heart and soul that connects WSU alumni and fans at these games. In this episode, new Cougar Marching Band director Jon Sweet takes magazine associate editor Adriana Janovich behind the scenes. He talks about the music, the marching, the fans, and the inc...

Send us Fan Mail Young people have lots of questions about diet, exercise, and sexual health. TikTok is one of their most trusted venues for finding out information. “They’ll go to TikTok and ask questions,” says Nicole O’Donnell, assistant professor at Washington State University’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication . “They’re learning about health mostly through other people’s stories rat...

Send us Fan Mail 2023 was a year of weather extremes, with damaging floods, fires, and storms unfolding across the globe. The United States logged a historic number of billion-dollar weather disasters, while smoke from Canada’s wildfires choked parts of the country. “It’s kind of odd to be talking about our neighbor just to the north, but they really did have such a big impact in North America and...

Send us Fan Mail A simple decision about what to order for lunch can have profound effects on others. “Food is interesting because it touches so many other communities,” says Samantha Noll , an associate professor of bioethics in the School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs at Washington State University . “When we decide that we're going to eat that falafel sandwich, or that burger...

Send us Fan Mail Palouse prairie of eastern Washington and northwestern Idaho is an endangered landscape. It’s dominated by forbs—flowering plants—that cover the fields with a riot of color that attracts native pollinators. The Phoenix Conservancy is among the groups restoring Palouse prairie . Led by Chris Duke, a doctoral graduate in biology from Washington State University, the organization wor...

Send us Fan Mail Eric McElroy is an American pianist and composer who released his debut album , Tongues of Fire , in March 2023 on Somm Recordings. He wrote the songs to accompany poems from modern poets W.S. Merwin, Gregory Leadbetter, Grevel Lindop, Alice Oswald, and Robert Graves. The poems are sung by acclaimed English tenor James Gilchrist and McElroy performs on piano. McElroy graduated fro...

Send us Fan Mail Dean Janikowski is the kicker for Washington State University’s football team, a 2022 graduate and currently an MBA student at WSU. He also has a great time on Instagram and other social media with photos and videos playing football for the Cougs, riding dirt bikes, and kicking spicy Chicken McNuggets. In this episode, Dean talks with Washington State Magazine writer Becky Kramer...

Send us Fan Mail Kellie Zimmerman is no stranger to the Seattle tech scene. And she’s on a new adventure in the industry. She spent over 15 years building and leading teams in companies such as Concur and Avalara. Zimmerman is now CEO of Bellevue-based startup Brightloom , which leverages AI and data to help restaurants such as El Pollo Loco, Ruby Tuesday, and Jamba Juice accelerate their marketin...

Send us Fan Mail James Donaldson had a great college and professional basketball career, a physical therapy business, and many aspirations, even in retirement from sports.  But over the course of several years, illness, bankruptcy, divorce, and circumstances in life sent Donaldson into a dark mental spiral.  He found his way back, writing a book about his struggles and starting a foundation to hel...