Brendon Merritt, an Eagle basketball great with an indomitable will to win, died on May 16, 2024.

The force behind Eastern’s first-ever appearance in the NCAA Basketball Tournament, Brendon Merritt was the kind of guy every coach and every player wants on his team. Tenacious, tough, passionate, loyal, driven-to-win: all are descriptors both teammates and competitors used to define him. The attributes of a champion.

Merritt arrived at EWU as a junior transfer from Tacoma Community College, where he led the TCC Spartans’ 2001 team to a 28-5 record including a 25-game winning streak (He was inducted into the TCC Hall of Fame in 2013.)

After a redshirt year due to a back surgery — Merritt’s uncanny ability to overcome injury was a hallmark of his legendary toughness — the 6-foot, 4-inch-tall guard immediately made an impact. As his close friend and Eagle teammate, Keith Brown, told The Spokesman-Review: “Every single game would be a highlight. He was the ultimate competitor.”

The highlights were especially bright during Merritt’s second Eagle season. Alongside fellow All-Big Sky Conference guard Alvin Snow in the backcourt, during the regular season Merritt played a key role in positioning Eastern for a post-season run. During conference tournament play, Merritt dominated the stat sheet, leading Eagle scorers with 22 points as they cruised to victory over Northern Arizona University in the 2004 championship game. After cutting down the net with his coaches and teammates, Merritt was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.

The Eagles’ head basketball coach at the time, Ray Giacoletti, has said that, if not for the injuries that continued to pile up, Merritt had a legitimate shot at a successful NBA career. Instead, he played for two professional seasons in Europe before returning to his hometown of Tacoma, where he loved being a husband to his wife, Erin, and dad to his son, Brendon Jr., and stepson, Brantley.

Brendon James Merritt was 43 years old.

Michael Finley, a former member of EWU’s Board of Trustees, was a champion of tribal rights and culture.

After a life spent in service to his Tribe and community, Michael Finley ’03, ’05, a noted historian, tribal-rights advocate and leader of the Colville people, died on Aug. 9.

Finley, who held both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from EWU, was appointed to the university’s Board of Trustees in 2014 to complete the unfinished term of a former trustee. He was later reappointed by Gov. Jay Inslee, and served until November 2022.

Over the course of his career, Finley  served as a three-time chair of Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, as well as president of the Colville Business Council. In these roles and others, Finley acted as a powerful advocate for the rights of the Colville people, often distinguishing himself during crucial, high-stakes tribal-rights negotiations — issues ranging from the protection of fish habitat to the return of Colville Ancestors’ remains.

But it was his work as a historian, Finley’s colleagues say, that was his true passion. Finley was a guiding presence in the Colville Tribes’ History and Archaeology Department, according to a tribute in the Tribal Tribune newspaper, and “an outstanding researcher, often finding overlooked or new data.” Finley also, the Tribune said, collaborated with noted scholars, interviewed dozens of tribal elders on cultural property matters, and served as chairman of the Colville Tribes when DNA evidence established that one of the oldest, most complete set of human remains ever discovered in North America was, in fact, an Ancient One of the Colville.

The book he co-authored with Richard Scheuerman, Finding Chief Kamiakin: The Life and Legacy of a Northwest Patriot, was hailed by reviewers as an “engrossing” exploration of a pivotal figure in Native history.

Finley was the recipient of a number of awards for these academic and professional achievements, among them EWU History’s 2011 Cecil Dryden Alumni Award for scholarship and service.

“He was an outstanding board member, an outstanding person, outstanding father, husband and leader for the Colville Tribes,” said BOT chair Jay Manning. “He was a great advocate for the Tribe and a great person to work with.” Michael Finley was 44 years old.

Bob Quinn, a geography professor with a passion for the weather, died on Oct. 10.

In 1967, Robert “Bob” Quinn, a newly minted assistant professor of geography at Eastern Washington State College, arrived in Cheney to find himself confronted by the coldest, snowiest winter in the city’s recorded history. His new colleagues no doubt thought it odd that Quinn, who grew up in balmy Southern California, seemed right at home.

Over the next 49 years, faculty, students and staff at what became Eastern Washington University would learn that Professor Quinn was, in fact, a scientist who could make his home in an impressive array of scholarly environments. Among these was predicting weather, snowy or otherwise. 

“I’m not sure that I can spell meteorologist, but I want to be one” a youthful Quinn once told his mother. He would go on to become one of the nation’s premiere long-range forecasters, and today there is a weather station outside Isle Hall named in his honor.

By the time he retired in 2016, Quinn had used his amazing range of talents to guide hundreds of students through coursework in geography, oceanography, climatology and, of course, atmospheric science. He also pursued a passion for riparian ecology, founding a program in wetlands study at EWU and serving for years as the go-to wetlands consultant for Spokane County. 

Teaching and field work weren’t the only things that sparked Quinn’s enthusiasm and loyalty. As both a faculty member and retiree, he never waned as a faithful booster of Eastern Athletics. For many years he served as the faculty advisor for EWU’s club hockey team, while rarely missing the chance to attend Eagles football, basketball and volleyball games in person — no matter the weather.

Bob Quinn was 79 years old.

Raphael Guillory ’94, an EWU professor of psychology who made notable contributions as an Eastern scholar, athlete and advocate for Native rights, died on Nov. 29.

Guillory, who grew up on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in Lapwai, Idaho, was a standout free safety for the Eagles’ 1993 Big Sky Conference championship team. After earning his bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1994, Guillory went on to earn both a master’s degree in counseling psychology and a doctorate in education at Washington State University.

He joined Eastern’s faculty in 2002, and over the course of his career taught coursework in advanced educational psychology, psychology of human relations, developmental theories and applications, and grant-writing. He was widely published in his primary research area of American Indian education, and he delivered numerous scholarly presentations at national conferences.

A dedicated husband and father, he and his wife, Gloria, had five children. He was 49 years old.

“There are no words to express the passing and loss of my dear, beloved husband and the kids’ father,” his wife wrote. “He fought the good fight, he finished the race, and he kept the faith.”

Sarah Keller, founder of the university’s anthropology program and one of Eastern’s longest serving faculty members, died on Dec. 24.

As a child growing up in Boston, Sarah Keller told Eastern magazine in a 2017 interview, she caught the anthropology bug from Digging in Yucatan by Ann Axtell Morris, an account of excavations of Mayan temples.

After earning a doctorate from nearby Harvard University in 1966, Keller traveled across the nation to join the faculty of what was then Eastern Washington State College. She began Eastern’s anthropology program shortly thereafter, and remained at EWU until her retirement in 2017.

Over the course of her 51-year career, Keller’s teaching and research positively impacted the lives of hundreds of students. She also found time to work with law enforcement agencies and local tribes to identify the bones of potential crime victims. For these and other contributions, in 2009 Keller received EWU’s Trustees’ Medal, the university’s highest form of recognition for faculty achievement.

“I do this because I love it,” she told this magazine at the time. “You’re a lucky person if you get up every morning and you want to go to work.”

Keller was 82 years old. To contribute to a scholarship in her honor, visit: ewu.edu/kellerfund.

Pauline Flett, Salish language preservationist and scholar, helped lay the groundwork for Native language education programs across Washington state

By Eastern Magazine

In June 1998, Pauline Flett appeared on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion radio show. With the host translating at her side, Flett told the traditional story of the coming of the salmon in her native dialect of Salish, a language she was working tirelessly to preserve from extinction. It was an inspiring, moving performance, one of many such inspirational moments in the life and work of Flett, a treasured teacher and elder of the Spokane Tribe, who died on April 13, 2020 in Spokane. She was 93.

“She was a trailblazing linguist who taught at EWU for years and compiled the Spokane Dictionary,” says Margo Hill, assistant professor of urban and regional planning at EWU. “She inspired myself and many others.”

Growing up in a Salish-speaking household in the West End area of the Spokane Indian Reservation, as a youth Flett became completely fluent in language. As the years passed and others’ knowledge of Salish waned, Flett became determined to ensure the language would remain accessible to new generations of speakers. She co-wrote the first Spokane-English dictionary, and for years taught the language at EWU, where her meritorious service earned her an honorary master’s degree in 1992.

“Pauline Flett was a beloved member of the EWU community and our whole region,” said EWU President Mary Cullinan in April. “Her work to preserve the Salish language was incredibly significant.”

In addition to her contributions at the university, Flett also helped lay the groundwork for Native language education programs across Washington state. LaRae Wiley, executive director of the Salish School of Spokane, remembers Flett as her first Salish teacher.

“I did an independent study with Pauline through EWU,” Wiley says. “I had never heard a word of Salish in my life and I know I sounded horrible. But she always encouraged me and even translated a few of my original songs into Salish.”

H. George Frederickson, former EWU president, led dramatic advancements in academics, athletics and fundraising.

By Eastern Magazine

George Frederickson, the revered former president of Eastern Washington University who led dramatic advancements in academics, athletics and fundraising, died on July 24 in Lawrence, Kansas. He was 86.

Over the university’s long history, few individuals have had a greater impact than Frederickson. During his decade-long tenure, he was instrumental in transitioning Eastern Washington State College into the thriving regional university today known as Eastern Washington University. He helped create the university’s schools of health sciences, public affairs, and mathematical sciences and technology. And because he saw a need for a fundraising vehicle to help Eastern students succeed long into the future, Frederickson also helped establish the EWU Foundation.

Born in Twin Falls, Idaho, Frederickson held faculty positions at the University of Maryland, Syracuse University, Indiana University and the University of Missouri. In 1977, at age 42, he became Eastern’s president. 

Frederickson was by all accounts a dynamic leader, one whose vision for what Eastern could become sometimes clashed with those reluctant to embrace change. Among his more controversial moves was one that generated perhaps his most high-profile success — transitioning EWU Athletics from membership in the NAIA to the NCAA and the Big Sky Conference. Frederickson left EWU in 1987 to become the Edwin O. Steen Distinguished Professor of Public Administration at the University of Kansas, but made a point of attending the 2010 FCS National Championship Game, where he cheered his beloved Eagles on to victory.

Frederickson was unable to watch the Eagles face North Dakota State in their return to the national championship game. “I don’t drive anymore, and my wife doesn’t see very well,” Frederickson told Cheney Free Press and Eastern magazine writer Paul Delaney at the time. But, he added, “I think that it’s been a blessing to me to live long enough to see some of the results of our hard work.”

For more than half a century, Hank Steiner created a lasting legacy of service.

By Leilah Langley

Henry-York “Hank” Steiner, a revered professor of English at EWU, passed away Sept. 6, 2019. He was 87.

Professor Steiner was born in Chicago, but moved with his parents to Portland, Oregon as a child. After high school he returned to the Midwest to enroll at Grinnell College, a private liberal arts institution in Iowa known for both its rigorous academics and commitment to social justice.

During the Korean War, Steiner served as a military policeman before returning to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree in English at Grinnell in 1956. After earning a master’s degree from Yale University in 1957, he returned to his alma mater to begin what became a long, distinguished career in academia. After two years at Grinnell he accepted a faculty position in English at the University of Oregon, where he also completed a doctorate in 1963. Another stint on the faculty at Grinnell followed, before, in 1968, Steiner was asked to become an associate professor and dean of undergraduate studies at EWU. During his years at Eastern he earned tenure as a full professor and also served for a time as interim director of the University Honors Program.

Long after he reached the age when most people trade in the daily grind of working for the relaxation of retirement, Steiner continue to challenge and enrich his students. By the time he finally stepped away from the classroom in June 2019, he had spent 61 years as a professor, some 50 of which were at EWU.

Steiner leaves behind an admirable legacy of service. As a faculty member and administrator, he helped to create and nurture many new programs, including American Indian Studies, Africana Studies, Chicana/o/x Studies, University Honors and Environmental Science. He taught graduate and undergraduate courses in subjects ranging from eastern religion and J.R.R. Tolkien to classical poetics and rhetoric. Outside of the university he served as an stalwart ski patrol member and director, a member of the board of directors for Expo ’74 and the Spokane World’s Fair, chairman of Spokane Community Action, and chair of the Washington State Folklife Council.

“I’ve been going to class for 80 years, ever since I was seven years old,” Steiner told a reporter for the Cheney Free Press at a “martini bash” — his favorite cocktail — held on the eve of his retirement. “I’ll remember how much fun I had. I think I will be remembered as long as there are people who remember me.”

One of those people will be Jamie Neely, an EWU journalism professor who, at the martini fête, told the Free Press that few professors at Eastern were more well-loved. “He’s generous and kind and smart and funny. He’s been a joy to work with.”

Another is Jessica Boyer, one of Steiner’s former students who is now a lecturer in the university’s Department of Communication Studies. After his death she told Inside EWU, that “he was a shining example of how, when you join EWU, you join a family. When I came back to the university to teach he was right there to help support and mentor me.”

After learning of his death, Logan Greene, EWU’s English Department chair, was also moved to memorialize her longtime colleague and friend. She did so with a poem that reads, in part:

“…Rejoice with him a lifetime lived in joy.
To Hades now and dread Persephone
We give this teacher, sage, philosopher.
Beloved of the gods, this hero rests.”

A social work instructor’s sudden passing inspires a heartfelt tribute.

By Eastern Magazine

LuAnn “Lu” Brown, died suddenly last October, the senior lecturer and associate director of EWU’s field social work education program left a huge void. Senior students whom she counseled, advised, challenged and empowered were particularly bereft, and wanted to publicly assert how Brown’s influence would endure. Their solution? Receiving their diplomas while wearing hand-knit stoles inscribed with the saying “What Would Lu Do.”

Brown served the social work profession, the community, and EWU for more than two decades. A simple list of Brown’s accomplishments, her students say, doesn’t adequately explain the profound impact and influence she had on her students, coworkers and peers as a tireless promoter of social justice.

“After Lu died in October, there was palpable, deep grief in her classroom,” said one of Brown’s students, Leta Lawhead. “Many of us didn’t know how to move through it. Slowly, slowly, and so gently, some of us began to ask the same question. It was profoundly moving. That question shifted slightly, on certain days, and became, “What Would Lu Do?”

Lawhead, who was awarded a Master of Social Work degree during last spring’s EWU commencement ceremony in Spokane, led the effort to knit the commemorative stoles. She proudly wore hers during the June 15 event.

“I remember the first time that I met her in a practicum prep class my first year of grad school,” explained Lawhead. “I immediately knew that she was someone that I wanted to get to know—she had this amazing energy for advocacy and macro work; her passion for empowering and challenging people was contagious.”

George William Lotzenhiser, PhD, a long-time Eastern faculty member and administrator who played a key role in the academic restructuring of the institution, passed away January 26 in Spokane. He was 95.

Professor Lotzenhiser was an EWU alumnus, a former dean of the university’s Division (College) of Fine Arts, and a veteran of World War II. An accomplished musician and music teacher, he is also credited with composing the words and music for both Eastern’s fight song, “Go, Eagles, Go,” and “All Hail to Eastern Washington,” EWU’s Alma Mater.

The Spokane native was active on campus during his undergraduate years, serving as president of the Associated Students, student director of the marching band and assistant director of the orchestra.

Although Lotzenhiser’s education was interrupted by his wartime service in the U.S. Navy, he graduated in 1947 from EWU, then known as Eastern Washington College of Education, with both a bachelor’s degree in education and a Bachelor of Arts in music. He would go on to earn a master’s degree in music education at the University of Michigan, and a doctorate in education at the University of Oregon.

In 1960, after he had served 12 years on the music faculty at the University of Arizona, EWU asked Lotzenhiser to return to the Cheney campus to lead the music department. He accepted and quickly rose up the administrative ranks, eventually serving as the first dean of the university’s newly formed School of Fine Arts, a position he held until his retirement in 1983.

During his time on campus, he witnessed the dramatic transformation of the institution to Eastern Washington State College in 1961 and to Eastern Washington University in 1977. In 1981, Lotzenhiser received the Distinguished Alumni Award. After his retirement he was named Dean of the School of Fine Arts, emeritus, with the official observance of his status being part of the June 1983 commencement.

While pursuing his academic career, Lotzenhiser continued his military service as a U.S. Navy Reserve officer, including two years of active duty as a lieutenant commander in the early 1950s. He eventually retired after attaining the rank of Rear Admiral.

Military service also played a prominent role in his personal life. While playing trombone for a Navy dance band during WWII, Lotzenhiser, then still an enlisted man, met and fell in love with B. Kathryn Tuttle, a Navy WAVE petty officer. They married in 1944.

“BK” as Lotzenhiser affectionately referred to her, played a leadership role in many important civic organizations, and was responsible for founding the Women of Achievement Luncheon fundraiser for the Spokane YWCA. She preceded him in death in 2006.

The couple are survived by a son, Jon Call Lotzenhiser of Walnut Creek, Calif., and a granddaughter. Their eldest son, William D. Lotzenhiser, died in 1991.

Visit our website to learn more about how Lotzenhiser composed All Hail to Eastern Washington, as well as details about a 2016 Honor Flight that honored him and other veterans in Washington, D.C.