“Mile 766 — a bad day turned to amazing campsite with a view and happy feet. I don’t want to climb tomorrow. It’s about the PCT and family.” Elise (Boldt) Woodsmith ’09 has a lot of days like this on her monthslong journey across the Pacific Crest Trail. And she tackles them one step at…

TACOMA, WASH. (July 19, 2016)- Jen Cohen ’94 is all smiles. But the University of Washington athletic director, appointed to the position May 24, smiles the biggest while talking to, and about, student athletes. “We feel like our students are students first,” said Cohen, who earned her master’s degree in sports administration at Pacific Lutheran…

TACOMA, WASH. (June 15, 2016)- Kate Deines ’16 is a natural on the soccer field and has a long résumé to prove it. She played at the local, college, national and international level, garnering recognition until her retirement from the sport in 2015. When Deines made a pivot from professional sports to the finance master’s…

TACOMA, WASH. (May 2, 2016)- Forty years of nursing experience is not on the usual résumé for politicians, but that did not stop Rosa Franklin ’74 from running for office. Franklin hasn’t been concerned with what is usual. She's concerned with bringing people together to solve problems. Franklin, the first African-American woman to serve as…

TACOMA, WASH. (June 30, 2016)- One frame. That’s all it took for Kevin Ebi ’95 to get his work on a postage stamp – sort of. Ebi, a self-taught nature photographer who has made a living traveling around the world and documenting its beauty, weathered a terrible storm that day in 2008. He made his…

TACOMA, WASH. (Aug. 1, 2016)- Bryanna Plog ’10 seems to have done it all in her years after Pacific Lutheran University – teaching English abroad in Colombia, writing books about travel and interning for a conservation nonprofit. But now, she says, serving as a park ranger feels like the perfect fit. “I really love working…