...and their memories

Blake Hennon
Blake started at the DT as a music reviewer, but wrangled by then-Theatre/Feature Editor Alexander Nguyen to write a few theatre reviews and feature pieces for him. As a reward for his services, Blake was sent to review a concert at the House of Blues while he was still under age. Blake, however, talked his way in and was able to review the concert on the balcony away from the guests and bar -- by himself. He moved on to the copy desk, which was perfect for him because he had a knack for using obscure words such as "avuncular" in his stories. Blake has a very dry sense of humor, which the office found out when he was editorial director and had to read about issues that no one on the staff gave crap about. Blake was also the one who broke the recount/revote curse that had befallen the editor in chief elections of late. (Gee, I hope this didn't read like a funeral eulogy.) Add your own memory

Arash Markazi
I was looking at your site the other night while I was at work. Anyway, I'm a junior at USC right now and I was the Sports Editor of the DT last fall (2001) and an Assistant Sports Editor before that in the Spring. I guess I came to the DT at the perfect time for a sports writer as I got to travel to the Great Eight with the men's basketball team, the College World Series with the baseball team and the Las Vegas Bowl with the football team. I'm currently working at the Daily News, doing agate and covering mostly prep sports. I've run across my fair share of DT alumni recently so I though I'd give you some updates. Add your own memory

Yvonne "Evie" Ngai
A quote that describes Evie well: "The Oregonian thinks they're getting a copy editor, but what they're really getting is an obsessive-complusive freak." -- Blake Hennon (spring 2003's editorial director). Says Evie: When Petey was EiC and I was managing editor, we tried to fool the "rookies" (first-time senior editors) into thinking there was an initiation process involved with becoming a senior editor. We told them to beware, that we would make them do something crazy their first night of boxing. I remember two distinctly: Patrick Kinmartin, sports editor, and Katie Lemmon, copy chief. On Patrick's night, we made him run up and down the hallway while yelling repeatedly at the top of his lungs, "Peter is the best editor ever, and Yvonne is a beautiful princess." For Katie, she had to somehow get a DT hanging from Tommy Trojan's sword. She ended up wrapping a paper around a water bottle that was tied to a rope, and she threw the bottle around the sword, letting it loop several times so it would stay. I'm surprised we never got in trouble because of the TommyCam, which caught every moment of our adventure. Then there was the time when I was city editor and freezing to death at my desk in the corner. Mona had bought me a heater and an extra one that she put in Ron's office, although he never used it because he was never cold. So that day, I went in there and took his, too, and plugged it in next to mine in the same outlet. I turned both of them on, and five minutes later, the entire back wall of the office went black. "Pop, pop, pop, pop" went the computers along that wall, one by one shutting themselves off. I'd blown a fuse! After that, I was never again allowed to have both heaters on at the same time. Add your own memory

Gloria Rodriguez
Sez Alexander Nguyen: "Gloria was one of the few girls able to hold her own in the male-dominated sports office." Add your own memory

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