“From the time I was in junior high, I always knew I wanted to teach,” says Michael Burch-Pesses, Pacific’s director of bands.
Now, a few decades and many musical milestones later, he’s still living his dream.
Veterans Stories
Pacific University is proud to share the stories of members of our community who have dedicated a portion of their lives to service in the Uniformed Services of the United States. You can help us honor all veterans in the Pacific family by sharing your story using the online form.
Headlines
In the 20 years since graduating from the Pacific University College of Optometry, Col. Carol Z. Rymer O.D. ‘92 has found her career in the U.S. Army both rewarding and full of opportunity.
Pacific University's School of Physician Assistant Studies has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) to implement a rural healthcare program that will benefit both underserved populations and military veterans.
Sporting elaborate tattoos on his arms, a pair of studded earrings and faded jeans and shirt, Don Schweitzer doesn’t appear to be a college professor who has just won a prestigious grant.
The last time Clinton Gruber '47 saw his B-24 bomber he was falling away from it, 18,000 feet above Germany. But not until 35 years later, through a chance encounter on the Internet and the kindness of strangers in two distant countries, would he learn the complete story of the incident that nearly took his life that fateful day of Dec. 1, 1943.
Some 520 Pacific University students and alumni served in World War II. About 31, roughly equivalent to an entire senior class at the time, never came home.
It was spring, 1942 and there was war all over the world. The Great Depression had ended, but now the Allied nations were fighting for their lives as the second European war of the century metastasized with horrific swiftness into global conflict.
It had been barely a year since Calvin Van Pelt finished his freshman year at Pacific University when he landed at Utah Beach on D-Day, the great invasion that was the beginning of the liberation of Europe from Nazi domination.