I love the madness of March. You don’t have to be a basketball fan to know that “March Madness” has become an annual ritual and part of our American vocabulary. Here at Puget Sound, we had our own double version of it this past year when both our men’s and women’s basketball teams went to post-season play, and we hosted two thrilling games in the national tournament. Cheered on by deafening, enthusiastic crowds, our teams advanced, respectively, to the quarterfinal and semifinal games, until each was finally eliminated by the team that went on to win the national championship.

December 13, 2007

By Paul Schrag
Weekly Volcano

When Ronald R. Thomas assumed the mantle of University of Puget Sound president in 2003, then Board Chair William T. Weyerhaeuser said, "Ron Thomas is an outstanding choice to lead Puget Sound at this time in the school's history. He clearly understands Puget Sound's commitment to its liberal arts mission, and he demonstrates the skills needed to advance the university's strength and reputation within American higher education."

Sounds good, Bill, but you forgot to mention that Ron Thomas rocks.

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

By Jake Ellison
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter

TACOMA -- Tucked away in a middle-class neighborhood, surrounded by modest homes, is a 116-year-old private university that's quietly becoming a magnet for out-of-state students.

Today, only a quarter of the young men and women filling the University of Puget Sound's red-brick, Gothic-style buildings and strolling the manicured lawns are from Washington.

I never imagined, not in my wildest dreams, I would be in Hanoi listening to Bing Crosby. Bing must have been dreaming, as his voice played over the sound system, wishing for a white Christmas in 80-degree Hanoi heat. Still, it was rather comforting and just as strange to see a huge Christmas tree right there in the Hotel Metropole courtyard, decorated with big, red balls and twinkling white lights. Boughs of holly all around, even. And mistletoe. Here we were: Christmas in Hanoi, the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Who would have thought it?

by Ronald R. Thomas

In 1881, before the transcontinental railroad had successfully breached the Cascades, the son of an Indiana farmer arrived in Olympia with his wife and young daughter. The little town he glimpsed through the train window reminded him of a New England village rescued from the pages of history, its muddy streets rutted by the great wooden wheels of prairie schooners that had, throughout the 19th century, carried pioneers from the East in search of opportunity.

We Northwesterners are an independent bunch. A little hard to figure. We’re not too fond of formality or routine or the expected. Neckties don’t rate high on our fashion list. We’re conservative on some things, liberal on others, libertarian when we want to be. Some might say we’re contrarians: I like “independent” better. We’d rather blaze our own trail than follow the one laid out before us.

I love pretentious movies. Or maybe I love movies that make no excuse about being serious and important, that strive to express a strong sense of meaning, that make me think. I actually really liked this year’s Oscar-nominated The Tree of Life, for example, even though I think I drifted off during part of the dinosaur section.

The actual “fire” in “fireside dinners” went out a while ago. We stopped putting a match to some logs and kindling on these evenings back in 2005; I think it was when a faulty fireplace flue caused the President’s House to fill up with smoke. We all had to assemble outside for a few minutes until the smoke cleared and we figured out how to turn the alarm off. I admit the smoke did lend a certain excitement. And I’m still not sure if the menu for the night was supposed to include “smoked short ribs.” But that’s how it turned out—pretty good, too.

The News Tribune
April 24, 2004

President Ron Thomas called the University of Puget Sound to local, national, and global leadership at his official inauguration Friday.

Recounting the university's long history in Tacoma and acknowledging - though indirectly - the campus' sometimes strained relations with the community, he pledged a future in which UPS would achieve its national ambitions through service to the local community.