Back To School College Students Awaken Pullman, Moscow From Sleepy Summer

Pullman’s police cars and fire trucks have been racing up and down Grand Avenue, chasing mattress fires, helping people locked out of their apartments and ticketing speeding drivers.

A parallel is unfolding in Moscow, Idaho, as the two sleepy college towns on the Palouse abruptly awake from their summer slumber.

This happens every year, as more than 25,000 students pour back into the sister communities of Moscow and Pullman.

Classes start on both campuses Monday morning.

With temperatures reaching about 90 degrees last week, the students were warmly welcomed.

For some, it’s a rude awakening. “The lines at the grocery store are awful,” observed one graduate student, who had enjoyed the laid-back Pullman of July.

At Pullman’s fraternities and sororities, a mad scramble to paint trim and clean up yards led to a week of rush and basic back-to-school exuberance.

Footballs, Frisbees and music were in the air on College Hill, the neighborhood where the Greek system and student houses meet the community.

Past years’ news of riots, brawls, fires and alcohol problems hasn’t seemed to hurt the fraternal organizations.

“Rush numbers are pretty much the same as last year,” said Matt Moses, a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity who is active in the Inter Fraternal Council. “I think sororities might even be up this year.”

Armed with a turbo squirt gun, Moses and his crew of IFC aides guided 175 men through the 25 fraternities.

The 14 sororities blended another 375 new students into their ranks.

But the senior members are aware of their reputation. Before rush started, the Greek system students borrowed a church and met with parents of potential rushees to assure them Greek houses are clean, healthy and safe.

“We told them about all the new alcohol policies set up right now,” Moses said. In addition, Pullman police have made College Hill a patrol beat, with one officer working the neighborhood full time.

Still, vestiges of the past remain. Two students involved in a fraternity brawl last spring face trial in September on charges of assault.

As for the riots and other problems in the neighborhood, “it’s way old news,” Moses said. “That’s the kind of stereotypical image that we’re trying to get away from.”

Young women in colorful clothes traipsed down the sidewalk in front of Sigma Phi Epsilon as Limp Bizkit poured from speakers tilted in the windows.

Several guys played volleyball or sat shirtless, watching from the lawn. Many were chatting up freshmen, trying to get an idea of whether they’d be good “brothers.”

“You’ve got to root through 200 guys and figure out who is going to fit good in our house,” said Chris Bading, the house rush chairman.

Down the street at sorority Delta Delta Delta, a weary Laura Witt greeted the latest group of rushees to walk between the columns of her doorway. “I’ve had three hours of sleep,” the rush chairman said in a voice husky from hours of talking, shouting and singing each day. But she said she was enjoying herself.

Across the street at Beta Theta Pi, Matt Pearce was proudly showing off his house, with its recent $350,000 in renovations. The house was closed by its national headquarters for alcohol violations in 1997. It reopened this fall. “We’re very happy to be back,” Pearce said.

Whatever happens on College Hill this year, the residents will be under close scrutiny from the university.

“I’ve got my finger on the pulse of what’s going on over there,” WSU President Lane Rawlins told faculty at a meeting last week.

The president’s mansion borders the Greek system, giving him a front-row seat to the activities. It also gives him a chance to catch up on the latest music - which doesn’t always suit his tastes.

“I’ve never learned to appreciate music where the drum has the dominant part,” Rawlins said.

Maybe the $300,000 renovation of the president’s house will make up for the noise. The project included remodeling the kitchen and replacing old fixtures, wallpaper and windows.

The Rawlins family moved into their home last week.

With enrollment stagnant for more than a decade , budget problems and experienced faculty leaving for other schools, the new president believes he’ll have his hands full trying to turn the school around.

“Let’s just stop the bleeding first,” Rawlins told the faculty last week. One of his biggest tasks will be to permanently fill four top administrative posts, including the No. 2 position of provost.

Rawlins may have control of the university, but he’s not going to leave the town to itself.

This week he’s meeting with the Rotary Club to share his vision for the university. And his wife, Mary Jo, hasn’t been idle. She’s a candidate to join the board of the Pullman Chamber of Commerce.

“I think they just kind of picked up where they left off,” said Fritz Hughes, executive director of the chamber. Before the couple left Pullman 14 years ago for jobs at other universities, they had been very active in their church and the community.

Standing on a loading dock in 90-degree heat Thursday, University of Idaho sophomore Kristen Konishi guarded a heap of boxes and bags with two freshman she knew from home on the island of Kauai.

Once lonely for other Hawaiians, Konishi convinced four freshman to come to the University of Idaho this year.

In town for only a few hours, they were coping with the shock of the new environment.

“There’s so much wheat here, it’s sickening,” Jamie Dela Cruz said with a laugh.

Not ready to fully embrace life in Idaho, Dela Cruz shipped seven boxes from Kauai, bringing Hawaiian shirts and music and food like the arare rice crackers he knows he’ll never find in Moscow’s stores.

While students brought carloads of goods from home, the stores in Moscow are ready for the additional business they’ll get.

“The town really livens up,” said Marshall Comstock, Moscow’s mayor. “It changes from a rural community to a thriving city.”

With that comes all the problems of a city. “There’s more congestion, it’s harder to park and there’s more calls for the police department,” Comstock said.

“But the students add a lot to the community and we’re glad to have them back.”