Fran BuddeAcquisitions & Cataloging Specialist
Whose name comes to mind when you're told this person has visited Austria, Germany (three times), Italy, Holland, France, England, Australia, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Canada, and the Grand Caymans? Henry Kissinger? Colin Powell? Nope. Now try again with these hints: snow and water skiing, tennis, Oktoberfest (the original one, in Munich), Italian Grand Prix, hot air balloon, helicopters, zip trekking, boating, and parasailing. Right! who else but our own Fran Budde, Acquisitions & Cataloging Specialist in our Library Technical Services Department!
Not to be counted among the shyest among us, Fran has had a life in motion since growing up in semi-rural Michigan (Livonia, actually) with a family roadside vegetable and fruit stand. She is the third of eight children, and the roadside stand was a major source of income for the family, so early on Fran learned to work hard, take care of others, serve customers well, acquire a good sense for business, and not expect a summer vacation. Maybe that's why she has spent much of the rest of her life taking exciting vacations all over the world.
Or maybe having these mutual interests with a husband, Ron, who worked for Northwest Airlines for many years and so had access to inexpensive air travel, had something to do with it. Ron finished a nice 36-year run as an equipment service supervisor for Northwest earlier this year, which allowed them to relocate to San Francisco and then to Tacoma several years ago. He has more than made up that time with his passion for teaching tennis, though, a passion shared by Fran to the extent of playing on two tennis teams, both destined for playoffs.
Their chief mutual passion, though, is their 23-year-old daughter, Marie, "the apple of our eye," says Fran. Marie attended Bellarmine High School and, through the PLU tuition exchange program, the University of Portland. Right now Marie is teaching German and music at a high school in Tulsa under a Notre Dame University graduate program that provides tuition, course credit, and a stipend in exchange for teaching.
But back to Fran. Lest you think she is all action and no thought, consider that she read "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and Plato's "Republic" simply because she's always wanted to. Next is "War and Peace," but chances are it won't happen as part of her current book club. No doubt she'll work it into her life of motion, though, somewhere among her insatiable consumption of crossword puzzles, reading mysteries and science fiction, and weekend trips on their fourth boat that Ron has taken up to the San Juans for half the summer.