Gift in Action

Floricel Gonzalez (’16 BS) was attending the School of Molecular Biosciences scholarship awards ceremony holding a letter in her hand. She knew she’d received a scholarship, but didn’t yet know which one. Carefully opening the letter, she read the name: The Elizabeth R. Hall Endowment Scholarship. “My jaw dropped,” says Gonzalez. The prestigious award, given to promising students in medical microbiology, was $4,000. “It was a breath of fresh air that I don’t have to worry about tuition or books for my last year.”

For three days, “Leah,” a charcoal gray Cane Corso, or Italian Mastiff, with a white patch on her chest had not been breathing on her own. Hooked up to a ventilator in the intensive care unit of the WSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital, the machine delivered each breath to her weakened body. After so much time, her owner Holli Peters wasn’t sure Leah was going to pull through. “I thought about taking her off the ventilator, because her prognosis was not good,” she says. But on the fifth day, Leah started showing signs of improvement. She was starting to breathe on her own.

Matt Sammons’ (’16 DVM) summer research trip to Kisumu, Kenya.

Scout is one of thousands of patients who has been helped because of an MRI.

Sometimes it takes many bends in the road to get where you are going. For Nick Snider (’14 DVM), he managed a coffee stand, he and his wife, Jennifer, worked as camp counselors, and he went back to school planning to become a biology teacher.

Some friends throw the best parties. For two years in a row, our friends Dave and Eddylee Scott of Anacortes, Wash. threw a fabulous party to raise money for the WSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital. They hosted the first event in 2010, which raised nearly $7,000 to honor their dog “Cassie” and the veterinarians who cared for her when she was diagnosed with cancer.

Eight years ago, WSU faculty member and alumnus, Dr. John Mattoon and his wife Jennifer created the Our Caring Profession Award to recognize a veterinary student each year who most epitomizes the “gentle doctor.” Qualities like sincere compassion, caring for animals and people, excellence in mentoring and serving as a role model, expertise, humaneness, judgment, and understanding, are the things that make these recipients stand out.