What History Majors Are Doing Now
What do our history graduates do after leaving Truman? Here is a partial listing. Please send additions, corrections, and updates to history@truman.edu.
1991-1995
Julie Barton (BA, 1993). Thanks for the note! I do so like hearing from people back at Truman (NMSU, as I still call it). After graduation from NMSU, I went to Baylor University and received my MA in History. My thesis on the Army Nurse Corps during the Vietnam era is now included, by their request, at the libraries of Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas, and US Army Medical Corps Museum in Washington, DC. After completing my Masters, I went to work in financial sector. I now am a Director of Compliance for the asset management arm of Ameriprise Financial, Inc., in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Regarding alumni study abroad programs: I always think these look very interesting. My issue is that I cannot get away for more than 10 days of work at a time, and with flights that really means I could not attend a trip longer than 8 days at a location. I keep looking for a trip to take – whether from Truman, Baylor or Mizzou (I receive info on their programs as well). Personally, I would love a trip to St Petersburg and Moscow, or a study abroad to Asia (China, Japan, Hong Kong, Northern India, or such).
Denise (Carrender) Crider (BA, 1991). Currently, I am the social studies instructor/department for Calvary Lutheran High School, a school in its fourth year in Jefferson City. I have been in the teaching field for almost 17 years now.
Laura Cruse (BA, 1993; MA, 1995). I graduated with an M.A. in History from Northeast Missouri State University in 1995. Since that time, I have lived in Switzerland for a year, Denver, Colorado, Hannibal, Missouri, Estherville, Iowa, and now Council Bluffs, Iowa. My history degree has come in handy as the bulk of my career has centered on teaching history and English classes at community colleges. (In 2006 I completed a Masters degree in English, and the combination of the subject areas has made academic work very rich.) I wrote an article about the Temperance movement last year, and it is going to be published through Facts on File in January 2009. As a side note: I married a NMSU student, Jason Cruse, before graduation, and since our years in Kirksville we have had four children. We are looking forward to the Bulldogs coming to play against UNO in Omaha next year—we’ll be decked out in purple and white!
Raymond B. Flojo (BA, 1995) is an Attorney with the City of Saint Louis Law Department (City Counselor’s Office) defending the City, its employees, agencies, and departments in civil lawsuits; typically in personal injury, general liability, and civil rights (prisoner/law enforcement-related) lawsuits. Ray is also Adjunct Faculty at Harris-Stowe State University’s School of Business and Sanford-Brown College. At HSSU, he teaches law-related and ethics classes. At SBC, he teaches paralegal classes including Legal Research and Writing.
After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree from Truman State University, Ray obtained his Juris Doctor degree from Saint Louis University School of Law. After law school, he represented corporations, insurance companies, insureds, individuals, doctors, hospitals, other health care providers and professionals typically as defendants in civil lawsuits as an Attorney at downtown Saint Louis Law Firms.
Ray is married to Melissa Graven-Flojo. They live in South Saint Louis City.
Jamie Fries (BA, 1992; MAE, 1993). Since graduation in 1992 with a BA in history and 1993 with an MAE…I taught for four years at Indian Hills Community College in Centerville, Iowa, then went on to graduate school in history at Ohio University. My dissertation advisor was Katherine Jellison. My specialization was in 20th Century US social/cultural history, with a dissertation on Russians/Soviets and Middle Easterners in American popular film of the 1980s and 1990s. I got my Ph.D. in history in 2004, and have been teaching history and the humanities, as well as advising the campus chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, since that year at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.
I have incredibly fond memories of the history department at Truman. Of those still on the faculty, Tom Zoumaras and David Robinson, both of whom managed to be incredibly supportive while maintaining high standards, were especially important to my scholarly development. Bob Cummings (whom I was sad to see passed away) and Jerry Stremel also were quite influential; in fact, I’m quite certain it was the paper I wrote for Cummings on Peter Novick’s That Noble Dream that got me accepted at OU.
I am involved in Study Abroad travel of my own. Last year I was able to take a group to the Czech Republic and Poland, primarily to examine issues related to the Holocaust.
Eric Gater (BA, 1992). He earned an M.A. in History and a Master of Library Science degree from University of Missouri. He works as an archivist for the University of Missouri in Columbia dealing with building and engineering records.
Mark Hada (MA, Education Administration, 1992). Mark is Superintendent of Emergency Services, Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Division, California State Parks. He is living in Sacramento. During his MA program, he taught military history in the ROTC program.
Eddie Hodges (BS, Physics, 1982; MA, Science Education, Physical Sciences, 1988; BA, History, 1993). I graduated with a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction – Science Education – Biology from Mizzou in 2000. I am currently a faculty member in the Biology Department at Truman.
Anne (Thompson) Huebel (BA, 1994). After graduating from Truman in 1994, I earned an MA in History at Kent State and a PhD in History at the University of Minnesota. I was an assistant professor of history at Franklin Pierce University from 2004-2012 and an adjunct professor of history and gender studies from 2012-2021 at Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU) in Michigan. I am now the online/hybrid support specialist (from 2019) and instructional designer (from 2022) at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at SVSU. I enjoy keeping up with Tom Zoumaras on Facebook!
Angela Decker Karlin (BA, 1993). She is the Director of Financial Aid at Rockhurst University.
Jeff Krajewski (BA, 1993). He obtained a JD from DePaul University College of Law in 1996.
Richard Lender (BA, 1994). I am pleased to hear updates from the department. Please keep sending them to me.
B.A. Honours, Politics, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 1994.
M.A. Theology, Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, FL, 2007.
J.D. Candidate, Class of 2010, Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America, Washington D.C., Journal of Law, Philosophy and Culture.
Eric Madiar (BA, 1995) is an attorney and state legislative lobbyist living in Springfield, Illinois. After receiving his J.D. at Chicago-Kent College of Law, he worked as Assistant Counsel to the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives for four years and was Staff Counsel to the Illinois Commerce Commission. Eric works for a Chicago law firm in its Springfield office handling regulatory and government relations matters.
Adam Marchand (BA, 1995). Thank you for the email. I’m happy to update my contact information so that you may keep me updated on events and developments at Truman and in the History Department. Although the faculty has changed a lot since I left Kirksville (I think you and I barely met before I went to New Haven), I recognize quite a few faces from the faculty directory on the website. I am pleased to see the direction the faculty has taken in the last decade–younger, more diverse, more accomplished. I’m very excited about the direction the program seems to be taking.
As for an update on my doings, I can say that I live in New Haven, Connecticut, with my wife, Ellen Doon, and my son, Jack. Ellen is an archivist at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale, and my son will turn three on Pearl Harbor Day. I graduated with an MA in history (concentration in West Africa) from Yale in May 1999, and I continue to work for the unions at Yale. Currently, I’m very involved in labor-management partnership work around health care, and I just returned from a short stint in Virginia doing voter turnout for Barack Obama. I felt thrilled to be part of a historic election.
Mary Vogt McIntosh (BA, 1991). Since March of 1992, I’ve been a local records archivist for the MO Secretary of State’s office. Northeast MO is my area, and I work in courthouses and city halls helping the local elected officials with the records generated by their office since, as I put it, the beginning of time. I tell them what they can throw away according to state retention manuals, what they have to keep, and how to best organize their records so they can use them to help their clientele. My program is called the Local Records Preservation Program and is a division of the State Archives. Currently there are nine archivists across the state that do what I do, and we have several office staff in Jefferson City. My program also offers a state of the art conservation lab with four conservators, and we provide at least $250,000 a year in grants to local officials for records preservation purposes. As I’m based in the Kirksville area, I’m always eager to talk to Truman students, or anyone else for that matter, about what I do and history in general. I’m looking forward to the newsletter and to hearing from you in the future. Keep up the good work!
Sally Patterson (BA, 1991). I am a 1991 History B.A. graduate of NMSU! Go Bulldogs! Since graduating from NMSU, I received a M.A. in Public History (museum focused) at Sangamon State University in Springfield, Illinois, in 1993. I worked contractually at museums and historic sites in Illinois and eventually found my “place” at Lincoln Memorial Garden & Nature Center where I was the Education Coordinator for 10 years. The Garden’s changing “exhibit” of 130 acres provided a way for me to combine my interests in History, Science, and Anthropology to children in an outdoor classroom. When my dad passed away four years ago, I moved back to Northern Illinois where I now work as a Naturalist at the Putnam Museum of Science and History. I won the “Environmental Educator of the Year” award in 2005 for the state of Illinois.
Malcolm Ringo (BA, 1993). He teaches English as Foreign Language at Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Scott Russell (BA, 1995). After graduating in 1995, I received my M.A. in History from the University of Northern Iowa in 1997 and my M.L.I.S. (Library & Information Science) in 1999 from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Since July of 1999, I’ve been a Reference Librarian for the law firm of Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P. in Kansas City, MO. I’ve also become the de facto Archivist for the firm’s historical collection. I’ve also published articles related to law librarianship.
John Thompson (BA, 1992). He earned an MA in Latin American Studies, and MBA from University of Chicago. He lives in Chicago and works in international insurance-finance.