Atop a mountain thousands of miles from home, Gretchen Kunigk Fraser ’41 eased into the starting gate, set into a crouch, and awaited the signal to start the biggest ski race of her life. The odds against Fraser were already tremendously long. The fact that she had even made it to this point—competing in the 1948 Olympic slalom event in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and clinging to a narrow one-tenth of a second lead as she began her second and final run in the competition—felt like something of a miracle.

When members of the Leavitt family gathered recently to consider the next steps in their philanthropy, they united around the University of Puget Sound and its ability, according to one family member, to develop students with “well-honed analytical skills to help solve the complex problems facing the people of the world.” After giving to the Puget Sound Fund for many decades, the Leavitt family first established a scholarship fund in 2014.

Cookbook author Cynthia Nims’ romance with food had as good a beginning as any: a ham sandwich.

Nims ’86 had just arrived in Paris for a study abroad program when she tasted a classic French baguette sandwich with ham, butter, and Dijon mustard. The simplicity was “mind blowing,” she says. “It was different from any sandwich I’d ever had.”