mystery alumna distance runner and SPU coach

FROM 1967 TO 1971, she won the International Cross Country Championships five times in a row. She is a two-time Olympian (1968 and 1972). And before Title IX passed, she was named Seattle’s 1971 “Man of the Year in Sports.”

Who is this legendary alumna distance runner and SPU coach?

Email your answer to Response@spu.edu by Jan. 30, 2023, to be entered into a drawing to win an SPU sweatshirt.


Last issue’s answers

Congratulations to Michelle Sams Allen ’04 who won an SPU sweatshirt for correctly identifying Camp Casey as the former U.S. Army fort SPU
purchased in 1955.

Camp Casey, or Fort Casey, which covers 155 acres on nearby Whidbey Island, is a seaside campus for field study and outdoor education as well as for retreats and conferences.


Response readers not only answered the quiz correctly, but you flooded us with memories of when your children attended soccer camps at
Camp Casey and of kids who were baptized at the pool.

Richard Capp ’65 shared that in the summer of 1960, he, along with three other incoming freshmen, Roger Keller ’65, Gerald Buckley ’65, and Jim Jeffery ’64, helped build the swimming pool bathhouse, painted the barracks, and did maintenance work at the camp. “We had a great time exploring the adjacent grounds of Fort Casey,” Capp wrote.

Gail Stark Lundquist ’65 remembered a weekend band camp she attended on the island during her fall term.

Bob Mason ’72 recalled a weekend he and his wife, Georgene, spent at Camp Casey just before their daughter, Brenda Mason ’97, was born.

Lynn VanderLey Brown ’92 and her husband started going to Camp Casey every year with their church. As their family expanded with children, they continued to visit the camp almost every summer for 25 years. “We returned [to Camp Casey] with just our four kids the past two summers,” Brown wrote. “Our kids have so many wonderful memories from Camp Casey! It is a happy place for our family!”

And David Schreffler ’71 shared that Fort Casey was the first place he kissed his (now) wife, at a retreat in 1970.

David and Gretta Denton pose with an issue of Response magazine at Camp Casey

David Denton EdD ’10, associate professor in the School of Education, and his daughter, Gretta Denton, SPU class of 2026, not only sent in
the correct answer, they submitted this photo of them holding an issue of Response magazine at Camp Casey.

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