WEBVTT

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Good morning. Today is December 19th 2012 and we are conducting an

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interview for the Arizona State
University retirees association video

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history project. We are located in the
S. U. Community Services building.

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Uh I'm Dave swan. Retired faculty
member and administrator from A. S. U.

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The technical staff today include john
macintosh operating the camera,

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roger carter audio and Dave shots. Lee
director linda Vance coy, the chair

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of the as you are, a video history
project is here with us as well.

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Please introduce yourself stating your
name and your positions are at a. S.

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U. Gary Kraehenbuehl. Um I came to a
S. U. As an assistant professor and

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worked my way through the academic
ranks and then uh served at various

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times as director of what was the then
called the exercise and sport

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research institute. Then I was the
department chair, Uh served as

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associate dean of Liberal Arts and
Sciences for five years, then Dean for

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11 years and then finished as senior
vice president of the university.

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Well to begin with, would you let our
viewers know a little about your

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early life where you were born and
raised, trace your path through

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schooling and jobs and until, until
you arrived today, this year, um I was

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born and raised on the family farm in
Illinois. My parents were both

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college graduates, which I think is
probably a little unusual in farming

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but they thought that the rural life
was what appealed to them and so my

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grandfather was quitting farming and
so my dad and mother moved into the

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house on the farm and that's where we
grew up. I started, I started school

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in a, in 1949 in a one room country
school with no running water And one

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teacher and 16 kids. And I attended
that for the first several years. And

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then uh they were consolidating the
schools and so they closed that school

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and we went to uh a little bit bigger
school in a town nearby.

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Anyway, we went through uh grade
school and high school. In high school,

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we had really good basketball teams
One year we were 31 and 1 um losing

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only in the state champion and out of
the state championship game, but in

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the state tournament um and that my
basketball that gave me, it got me a

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scholarship to go to Northern Illinois
university. And so I attended

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Northern Illinois University on a
basketball scholarship. And uh just a

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little funny story about that when I
was in the spring, they had a, an

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event which they call May fate, which
is sort of like homecoming, but it's

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in the spring and it's a big campus
affair that the fraternities and

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sororities get involved in. And uh
anyway, one night in the spring I was

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in the library and I happened to be
sitting by the door where everybody

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had to come in and it seemed like
everybody I knew in the university that

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night came in and and uh stopped and
spoke to me and unbeknownst to me,

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there was a woman sitting across the
room watching this whole thing and

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her sorority was trying to figure out
who can we put up for May Fate King.

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Well she saw that everybody that came
into the library seemed to know me

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and so she went back to her sorority
and said we need to put this guy up

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for May 5th King. Well anyway, to make
a long story short, I ended up as

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being maybe king only because I went
to the library that night and I

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didn't get any work done. I just
visited with friends who are coming

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through. Um anyway, um when I
graduated, I wasn't sure what I was going to

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do, but the basketball coach asked me
to stay and coached the freshman

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team and work on my masters and that
seemed like a good plan. So I stayed

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and uh coached the freshman basketball
team and worked on my master's

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degree and I completed that in a year
and a summer and then I got married

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and went to work teaching in a middle
school in Illinois 78th and 9th

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grades and I coached basketball,
baseball and football and I did that for

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two years

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in those two years. I decided I didn't
want to do that the rest of my life.

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And so I started working on my
doctorate at the University of Northern

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Colorado And I completed my degree,
work there in the summer of 1969

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and uh, I knew I wanted to move to the
Sun belt and so I look for look for

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jobs in the south and I had an offer
from Tulane and one from the

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University of Arkansas And one from
the University of Hawaii. And so I

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said I'm going to Hawaii and so my
first university position was at the

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University of Hawaii. It was like a
4-year vacation. Um, and that's both

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good and bad. It was good because

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you couldn't have kind of slid into
higher education in a much easier way.

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There was, there wasn't much pressure.
They people claim that everybody

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that was their head Polynesian
paralysis, which meant that what he really

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was motivated to do. Very much so if
he did anything, you got ahead anyway

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, I spent four years there and then
decided that we wanted to get back to

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the mainland. Our daughter was ready
to start school and we really schools

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over there weren't very good. So we
wanted to get back to the mainland.

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Anyway, I had offers from the
University of texas and from Arizona state.

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And uh for a variety of reasons I came
to msu,

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What, what year was that 1973, and
what were those reasons you'd like to

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share them? Well, um I had been to
phoenix before, I had a brother that

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was married here. I had a brother who
lived here. Um, I like the people in

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the department better and it just
seemed like there were going to be more

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opportunities. I actually liked the
fact that the department was in, the

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department was in the College of
liberal arts and Sciences. We're at the

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University of texas. It was in the
College of Education and I felt like

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because I was interested in research
that really wasn't related to

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teaching, that I would, I would thrive
or do better in a place where I was

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in the liberal arts and sciences. So I
ended up coming here. An

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interesting little sidelight there too
is um when I received the offer

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from a issue, it was a Western Union
telegram with two incomplete

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sentences. I mean written away
telegrams are written, the first, the first

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partial sentence was offer position,
assistant professor, some salary and

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this whatever. I mean, it was just
very cryptic and the next one said

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respond via cable to and that was it.
And I always laugh about that

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because over the years the offer
letters got to be three pages of legalese

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and you had to sign it four ways and
have it notarized and so on in any

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way. It was, it was, it was funny to
think back that my offer came in a

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two line Western Union telegram.

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So what, what, what, what occupies
your time now after having such a full

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career at the university? Well I
didn't, I didn't stop stone cold when I

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retired. I actually did a few things
to sort of wind down. I had a book

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that had just come out and so for a
couple of years I was on the lecture

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circuit consulting circuit and, and
did a lot of that. The government, the

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governor appointed me to the Arizona
biomedical commission. So I served a

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term on that and I helped the group
that was trying to found the Arizona

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Academy of Arts Sciences and
Technology. Um, so anyway, I did those things.

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In the early years. I got tired of the
travel and uh, and now I, you know

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, I come to occasional events on
campus, but mostly I, I do things that I

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enjoy. I'm interested in family
history and do a lot of family history

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work. Um, I read, oh, I love to read
history and biographies. And so I do

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a lot of reading. I enjoy photography
and do a lot with photography.

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My wife and I travel and anyway, I'm,
I have a backlog of things to do

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that. I won't have enough time to do
in this lifetime. So I stay very busy

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play a little golf too, not much,
alittle