BMX: Becky & Marlene Crossing the Country for WASFAA News
by Marlene Schmitt & Becky Cady

Greetings and salutations from your WASFAA Newsletter Co-Editors, Becky Cady and Marlene Schmitt, for our first issue of 2000-2001. We look forward to bringing you a full year of fascinating articles and scintillating stories written by the very readers and members of WASFAA. In this issue, we have collected some wonderful reports from the volunteer Cub Reporters and great pictures of the WASFAA Annual Conference in Anchorage.

As way of a brief introduction, we wanted to share a bit about ourselves. Marlene has been at Reed College for over six years, serving the past three as Director. She was a graduate assistant (AKA: work-study student) in financial aid at Washington State University while getting an MS in Environmental Science. She proceeded to travel around the world and somehow ended up in Portland, Oregon. Not finding a job in her field, she returned to financial aid. She is a sushi fan, can speak tidbits of several different languages, is into backpacking, and has driven across the country a couple of times (and slept in the back of her Ford Ranger in very cold weather). Marlene loves hikes with lots of wild flowers, reading Sci-Fi/Fantasy books in the evening along with a dark microbrew, 4-wheeling, and being a passenger on Harley's and other such hogs. She's a fun mix of adventure and creativity, with some conservative and traditional veins (at Reed!).

Becky has just transitioned out of OHSU to the private sector and is now working for Collegiate Funding Services. She spent just over four years at OHSU and began working in financial aid as a work-study student at Linfield College in 1989. Having lived in Oregon all her life, except for a six-month stint in Paris during college, Becky is a transplant to the Willamette Valley from the eastern side of the state. She lives with a humorous cat named Sophie in a 1924 bungalow with an unruly yard. Since finishing her MA in Counseling Psychology last June at Lewis & Clark College, Becky has begun adventuring by climbing Mount Hood, joining a softball team (B League-no sliding), attempting rock climbing, and training for the Portland Marathon. Becky is also a fan of reading with a good, dark beer and her other loves include baseball, driving fast around corners, and warm, tropical sandy beaches.

There is also a fabulous opportunity for you to personally make each issue more thought provoking and relevant by completing our WASFAA Newsletter Inquiry. Don't be shy, we love your ideas and input. You can even share them anonymously and you don't even have to answer every question!

Each issue requires multiple articles, so we are eager to know of people in the WASFAA world willing to assist in editing these articles for publication. If you are interested in being contacted once every other month to review one or two articles, please e-mail Becky (rebeccacady@earthlink.net). The more editors we can call on, the less each person has to do!