by Marcia Hill Gossard ’99, ’04 Ph.D. | Photos by Henry Moore, Jr.
Tom Besser has been selected as the Rocky Crate D.V.M. and Wild Sheep Foundation Endowed Chair in Wild Sheep Disease Research. In 1998, Crate (’69 DVM), an avid big game hunter and Wild Sheep Foundation member, donated more than $1.5 million to WSU and the Wild Sheep Foundation from his estate. Those funds established an endowed chair position dedicated exclusively to research on wild sheep diseases and graduate education. Subramaniam Srikumaran, who is retiring, held the position from 2004 to 2015.
After serving a combined total of 79 years with the college and teaching approximately 4,000 veterinary and graduate students, Charles Leathers and Bill Foreyt in the Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology retired on January 31, 2016. Dr. Leathers, who joined the faculty in 1977, taught pathology and was the associate director of the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab since 2000. Dr. Foreyt, who taught parasitology and wildlife diseases, came to the college in 1976 and conducted research on parasite and disease interactions between domestic livestock, wildlife, and humans.