How did The Evergreen State College get the name of The Evergreen State College? The Jan. 25, 1968 issue of the Daily Olympian tells part of the story under the headline "Our College Gets a Colorful Name : Trustees Call Signals For Evergreen State." Notice the "Our" in there. That word would not appear in any headlines after TESC opened. Anyway, here's what the article had to say:

"The board of trustees of The Evergreen State College went at the task of picking their new name Wednesday with all the delicacy of a demolition squad disarming a time bomb. Board members, who named Dr. Garrett Heyns, Olympia, to an advisory committee to help select a president, voted unanimously for the name: The Evergreen State College, with emphasis on the word The. The word was apparently added to prevent any other institution from filching the name. 'This is the Evergreen State,' said trustee Al Saunders, Tacoma, who made the motion for it. 'It will probably be the only college with that name.'"

"Trueman (Bink) Schmidt, Olympia, chairman of the board, asked if the trustees didn't think they should at least consider some of the other names suggested. At its meeting in Spokane January 10, the board narrowed a number of suggestions down to Capitol State College, Olympia State College and Washington State College at Olympia, as well as Evergreen. 'The word capital is overdone,' Saunders said. 'There is capital this and capital that in this community. It might be thought of as a business school,' he added. Using the word Olympia, he said, might 'tie the school to the city,' thus irritating such places as Aberdeen, Hoquiam and Centralia. Schmidt said naming it Washington State College at Olympia could cause confusion with Washington State University. Trustee Halvor Halvorson, Spokane, remarked that such a name was opposed in his area. Halvorson also noted that putting Olympia in the name might confuse it with Olympic College at Bremerton."

Gallery 4, November 1 – December 9

Paintings, prints, and sculpture by six artists who explore the expressive and perceptual qualities of abstraction in visual art. Artists whose work will be exhibited: Anne Appleby, Karen Kunc, Alan Lau, Robert Maki, Benjamin Moore, Darlene Nguyen-Ely.

Gallery 4 hours: Monday - Friday, 10am - 4pm
phone: 360.867.5125
web site: www.evergreen.edu/gallery

Catherine Wagner’s poems in Macular Hole have elicited resounding, answering calls from several continents. "These are poems of sex and identity, poems of spleen and craving, poems of grim energy and outspoken crisis. I love them. I am bored by so many of America's new bloods but this woman can write. Her neo-surreal vision and neo-dada attitude are matched by an exceptional feel for the magic of simple language—her poems organically grow down the page without effort, every line seeming right. She manages this by infusing every new image (and every repetition) with a corresponding voice posture. Very American, very urban, very modern and yet harking back to the best 'beat' legacies."—Josephine Ebert, U.K. poetry critic. Here in the United States, Rae Armantrout has this to say: "Jack Spicer's Martians are back, but now they're talking wild girl-talk. In Catherine Wagner's Miss America, public and private collide in a new way, like matter and anti-matter. This is a conflagration. "That is damage talk," she says, "Want to watch me/Make it. " And I do. In fact, if I died, I might want to come back as Catherine Wagner." Such enthusiastic identifications don’t come cheap: Wagner’s poems are worth their weight in flesh and gold.

CATHERINE WAGNER was born to missionary parents in Burma and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. Wagner is a graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and the University of Utah’s Ph.D in Literature program. She is the author of Macular Hole (Fence Books) and Miss America(Fence).

By 1993 the TESC Library had some air quality problems and the place experienced "sick building syndrome." Initially the problem was blamed on the toxic chemicals released when a new carpet was installed. Many employees reported symptoms such as nausea, dizziness, nosebleeds, etc. and refused to show up for work. Expensive consultants were hired to find the source of the problem, and they concluded, "The symptoms building occupants have been exhibiting cannot be explained by any chemical concentrations found."

So, the answer had to be supernatural.

According to the story, a group of employees, including at least one faculty member, privately hired an Oregon psychic to perform a spiritual cleansing. And this gentleman performed his services over the phone. Yes, I said, "over the phone." A few people did grumble because the psychic was really the wrong gender to be doing this important work. Yes, I said, "wrong gender." Even so, his efforts paid off, since the problem apparently went away. And before I make snide judgments on this apocryphal bit of Evergroove folklore (actually, I'm being kind here, since I'm pretty convinced this story is really true), maybe I need to consider this could be related to the ghost I mentioned in Part 6. Come to think of it, has anyone seen that ghost since 1993?