Volunteer Engagement
Donald Park, Crimson Connoisseur
Story by Lisa Raleigh
We like to talk about all the creative ways we can “engage” our alumni and friends, and one of the most immersive is the WSUAA Crimson Connoisseurs, a wine-and-food travel program that takes foodies and wine aficionados on adventure excursions.
Last summer’s Crimson Connoisseurs program was especially adventurous: a Hells Canyon rafting trip, which brought together 24 participants (including staff and guides) to enjoy five days on the Snake River, fueled by fine food and drink.
The trip’s wine host was Annette Bergevin, ’86, general manager and partner of Bergevin Lane Vineyards in Walla Walla, who brought along 14 cases of her wine. Chef Andrae Bopp of famed Andrae’s Kitchen, also in Walla Walla, curated the gourmet meals served riverside.
One of the alumni participants, Donald Park (’85 Ag Econ, ’88 FSHN) describes himself on LinkedIn as a “beach walker, foodie, homebrewer and experimental home cook.” He and his best friend Yumi Chang signed up for the trip after reading about it in the WSUAA newsletter. (Donald and Yumi, pictured above, flying the Coug flag.)
Even though Donald has long been a WSUAA member, this was the first time he had participated in an alumni program, and he chose one that spoke to his personal and professional interest in food, his wine expertise (he won Annette’s wine trivia contest), his sense of fun and love of the outdoors.
As a result of the trip, Donald is now a Platinum Life Member in the WSUAA, his partner Yumi is now officially an Adopted Coug (and has also become a lifetime WSUAA member), and they are eagerly looking forward to their next Crimson Connoisseurs expedition.
Here’s the story of Donald’s journey, as both a Coug and a connoisseur:
I’ve been a member of the WSUAA for years, read all the newsletters, but never did anything with them, as a group—until this trip showed up in one of the newsletters. I thought it sounded like fun, talked to Yumi about it, and we signed on. Even though we hadn’t done anything like this before.
My one white-water rafting trip was an overnight with my daughters about 10 years ago, but that was a lot tamer, a lot less adventuresome. A five-day trip seemed exciting and the idea of a culinary-themed “glamping” trip with a Cougar-related winery coming along—well, it just checked all the boxes. I enjoy wine and am also partial owner of Monte de Oro Winery in Temecula, California, which just celebrated its tenth anniversary as a winery and twentieth anniversary as vineyard properties in the Temecula Valley.
Professionally, I’m a food scientist, and I got into this field because of professors like Charles “Chas” Nagel, Clark Brekke, Lloyd Luedecke, and Barry Swanson, who were all food science faculty in the 1980s and instrumental in my love of food science.
Professor Nagel, quite memorably, offered an introduction to food science class where we got to make wine—this was a 100-level class!—and then drink it afterwards. That made an impression!
But in my early years at WSU, I wasn’t thinking food science was where I would end up. I had set myself on a path to a degree in agricultural economics, and stuck with it. However, in my last semester, I had an electives class with Barry Swanson, which confirmed that I might want to seek a new direction.
In this class, Barry came in with a box full of packing peanuts and told us we were going to learn about microbiological spoilage; in other words, how microbes get into your food. He told us we would be the food for this lecture. He started with one packing peanut, which represented the first microbe, and told us how much it likes the food (us) it has access to; then, through sleight of hand, he showed that he actually had two packing peanuts in his hand.
So now you have twice as many microbes, he told us, and they’re having fun, the food is good. Then, pretty soon you’ve got four of them, and so on. He went on this way for another few minutes then picked up the box and tossed the entire boxful of packing peanuts into the classroom. The food was now completely spoiled. We all had a good laugh as we helped to pick the peanuts up.
From this I learned: Food science people are a fun group.
I was finishing up my degree in agricultural economics but rather than switch majors at that late date, I finalized my degree and started a second one in food science. This has been the foundation for my entire career ever since. I even paid my way through my second degree by becoming a certified Cougar Gold Cheesemaker at the Wazzu Creamery.
So, as a food scientist—and also part owner of a winery—the food-and-wine theme of this trip was a major draw.
Food and Wine Both Off the Charts
The wine on this rafting trip was wonderful, and even more special because everyone on the trip became friends on the river. Hats off to a fellow wine owner, Annette Bergevin, who was with us the whole time, fly fishing when she wasn’t talking about wine as our expert host. She has a great sense of adventure and her adventurous attitude really presented itself.
The food was also off the charts; just amazing. Chef Andrae could not join us on the river, but that wasn’t a problem. One of the river guides, Seth, oversaw the preparation and plating of each of the exquisite meals and added his own creativity when ingredients were not packed. Remember, we were on a river for five days. If the food didn’t leave with us on the rafts, it wasn’t coming. We had delicious coffee and farm fresh eggs for breakfast, along with spicy chilaquiles, designer omelettes and a wonderful hash. Lunch was prepared riverside midday, and consisted of sandwiches of smoked meats and amazing sauces created by Chef Andrae. Dinners were always at least three courses starting with crisp salads, followed by various meat entrees and dessert. One of the most amazing desserts was made with a chef-made marshmallow over house-made graham crackers, toasted perfectly with the camp-burner normally used to make morning coffee.
Yumi and I had a lot of fun in the weeks preceding the trip, getting geared up. It was absolutely nothing that we were prepared for. We needed all the shirts and shoes and pants and outfits, while WSUAA provided the sleeping bags and tents and food.
We drove up from our home in Southern California, traveling up Interstate 5 until we got to Mt. Shasta, then headed over to Bend, Oregon to spend the night there. We stayed in Bend because I’m also a craft beer fan and Bend is like the Napa of craft beer.
The next day we drove up to the hotel for the rafting trip, in Enterprise, Oregon, near Hells Canyon and, as we were checking in, a couple pulled in right behind us. We learned they were also on the trip, so we had dinner together, talked about Cougs and football, and made new friends immediately. One of the best things about the trip was the people that we met along the way. Everyone had a story and was willing to tell it.
The next morning, we followed Grant, the owner of the rafting outfitter company Minam Store, up to the takeout site to drop off our car. We drove behind him in our convertible; I put the top down, turned the music up and we had a ball going around the hairpin curves following him and his van. The trip to the river was such a beautiful drive; just getting there was an adventure all by itself.
As it turned out, we were active paddlers for the whole trip, based on the boat we chose. But we didn’t realize that all the boats wouldn’t be that way—that all of the other boats involved sitting back while the staff did the paddling. On my first rafting trip with my daughters, everybody paddled all the time so I thought it would be the same. We could have opted out of paddling at some point, but we fell in love with it and just made a habit of it.
Surprise Engagements
We had the coolest guide steering our raft. Her name was Amanda, and her entire goal was to be a tactical genius at water fights. Each raft was supplied with an assortment of water guns, but our raft didn’t have the greatest cache in that category of weaponry, so we really had to plan ahead to win. You’ve got to be more strategic and a better shot if your weapons aren’t as good, especially since one of our fellow rafters in the other boat was a retired Marine and excellent with all forms of weaponry. Even water guns!
Amanda would work us into eddies behind rocks so that we could spring a surprise engagement from behind and ambush our fellow rafters. No one minded getting soaked, though, as daytime temperatures were in the high 90s.
Over the five-day trip, we saw incredible wildlife— wild turkeys, mountain sheep, deer, chukars, and more. We also heard Canyon Wrens but didn’t see them. Canyon Wren calls are like a descending musical scale, and they echoed through the valley.
This trip was everything I expected—only more so because it was with Cougars. And we literally flew our flag. For the last 20 miles or so on the river, we were motoring along because the water was pretty much flat, with no current behind it. Shelly Spangler, president of the WSUAA, raised a Cougar flag on one of the oars in her boat. It reminded me of a painting of Washington crossing the Delaware. We passed the flag around so we could all share in the fun and had a great photo op.
On the last night of the trip, the WSUAA honored Yumi by making her an official Adopted Cougar. She received a certificate, which we have since framed, and a letter from President Schulz. It was wonderful for her to be welcomed into the Cougar family in this way. Now she can wear my Cougar hat legitimately.
More than anything else, it was great fun to be around fellow Cougs; they were all from different class years, I didn’t know any of them at the beginning, but by the end we were all good friends. We took home beautiful pictures as mementos, but we actually don’t need pictures to remember this trip for the rest of our lives.