Rep. Peter Defazio, D-Eugene, and Lane County Commissioner Bobby Green are two graduates from the University’s 125 years of graduating classes who have chosen to stay in Lane County. And they’re not alone.
“Of the 10 domestic and 13 international (alumni) chapters, Lane County is the largest in the numbers of participating members,” said Tom Klotter, the marketing manager for the University Alumni Association.
Klotter said the association became a formal dues-paying organization in 1990, and it now has 153,000 members. The first University class graduated in 1878 and included five members: Robert Bean, Nellie Condon, Matthew Wallis, George Washburne and John Whiteaker. Klotter said graduates join the Alumni Association for a number of reasons.
“They join to help out their alma mater, further their connections and for the benefits,” he said. “It includes such things as free use of the library on-campus.”
The University alumni who have stayed in the area after graduation became part of the community in a variety of ways, including starting businesses.
One such person is Christine Sullivan, who earned an art sculpture and philosophy degree in 1976 under her maiden name, Christine Davis. She credits her education with giving her the confidence to start her own advertising agency.
“(Having a degree) broadens who you are and your capability to see the universe in different ways,” she said.
Sullivan sold her agency, Sullivan, Pattison and Clevenger, in 1998. Today she spends time on some advertising work but also volunteers for a number of projects, including serving on the University’s 125th anniversary committee. She said her memories of her college education were colored by her non-traditional status at the time.
“I got my degree when I was a 29-year-old mother with a 12-year-old at home,” she said. “I wasn’t around traditional college events a whole lot.”
One of the cornerstones of the University, the football program, drew another student to Eugene. Rich Ruhl was an inside linebacker for the Ducks football team from 1992-1996 and decided to stay in the region upon graduating with a sociology degree.
“Eugene was a perfect fit for me,” he said. “I was into lakes, rivers, outdoor programs, so after visiting all the schools, I picked Oregon.”
Ruhl said his senior year was his favorite one, both in the classroom and on the field.
“The Rose Bowl year was the most memorable because of the magnitude of the game for me,” he said, referring to 1996.
Another University athlete, Annette Peters, stayed in Lane County upon graduating in 1988 under her maiden name, Annette Hand. While today she teaches at an elementary school in Springfield, she first chose to stay in the area to continue working with her track coach.
“I participated in track and field, cross-country,” she said. “I was a ’92 Olympian in the 3,000 meters in Barcelona.”
Peters said her choice to settle here was also tied to her getting married and starting a family.
“I thought it was a wonderful community to raise a family in,” she said.
William Sullivan, a University German masters graduate in 1979, ended up in Eugene because of the liberal arts school. He decided to pursue his love of writing by becoming a freelance writer.
“I starved for the first seven years,” he said. “Then I had an idea to hike through 18 wilderness areas in Oregon and write a book about it.”
Sullivan wrote “Listening for Coyote” in 1988 and said the positive reaction to it had an unintended effect.
“The success of the book imprinted me on the Oregon psyche as ‘the hiker guy,’” he said.
While he has written five hiking books since that time, Sullivan has worked in other genres as well. “A Deeper Wild”, the story of Joaquin Miller, one of the early settlers of Eugene, was published this year. The author has planned additional books for the future.
“I’m hoping to write a murder mystery in German,” Sullivan said. “I am also doing the first book of a four-part series about the Vikings in historical fiction.”
He said he will continue to stay in Eugene, in part for its attributes of being a “nice-sized town” with a “literate environment.”