Class Notes | Winter 2025

• 1950s

  • Ron Stephens AS ’54 founded and presided over the Weber School Foundation. The foundation’s success led other Utah school districts to form their own foundations. The relationships he built working with other districts led to his becoming superintendent of Murray City School District. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Utah State University and completed USU’s Education Specialist program. Ron was active in government, serving on the Washington Terrace City Council and as Washington Terrace mayor before serving four terms in the Utah Legislature. After retiring in 1998, he served on the Kaysville City Council for eight years. He held several leadership roles with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints including bishop, stake president, high council member and Utah North Correctional Services coordinator. He also served as Rotary Club of Murray City president for two years. He lives with his wife in Kaysville, Utah. They have seven children, 31 grandchildren and 66 great-grandchildren.

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• 1960s

  • Stephen Jeffs BA ’67 taught German and student government at Roy High School for 34 years. He earned a Master of Education from Utah State University in 1976. He is a volunteer district coordinator and driver safety instructor for AARP. He serves on the Wasatch Peaks Credit Union Audit Committee. He and his wife, Joy Jeffs AS ’63, served a mission for their church in Berlin, Germany. Joy worked as an X-ray technician at the Dee Hospital in Ogden after graduating from WSU. She then dedicated her time to raising their family and later worked for the IRS, retiring in 2003.

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• 1970s

  • David Jackson BS ’74 has been a professional painter and sculptor for over 55 years. He taught art at Bonneville High School for 27 years before retiring in 2000. He earned a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Utah in 1983. David is immersed in the local and national art community and has served on the Eccles Community Art Center Board of Directors for over 24 years. He is the artist behind the famous bronze Wildcat statues on WSU’s campus and other mascot statues for several Utah high schools. David created many large-scale paintings for public schools, including Bonneville High School, Fremont High School and Wahlquist Junior High School. He has contributed art to local and national fundraisers for over 50 years. His work
    is currently represented in galleries across the country, including the Celebration of Fine Art in Scottsdale, Arizona; Maya Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Sportsman’s Gallery locations in Colorado, Tennessee and South Carolina; Bella Fine Goods galleries in Wyoming, Colorado and Arizona; and Gallery Veronique in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has received more than 40 art awards. He has a gallery and studio at his home in Mountain Green, Utah.

  • Kristeen Kirby Polhamus BS ’75 has been widely published in piano compositions nationally, including “Jazz Spree,” “Unicorn Ride,” “Hope
    Avenue” and “Rococo Keys,” along with arrangements of “Simple Gifts” and “Ash Grove.” She taught piano for 45 years and played as a professional pianist extensively in the Salt Lake City area. She has recently been honored
    with the prestigious Best of State award for Arts and Entertainment: Original Music Composition. She is from Kaysville, Utah.

  • David Gray BA ’76 is a semi-retired attorney in private practice. He is a member of the Minnesota State Bar Association, Hennepin County Bar Association and a contract public defender with Hennepin County
    District Court. He is also licensed to practice in Federal District Court. He earned a Juris Doctorate from William Mitchell College of Law, now known as Mitchell Hamline School of Law in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is a member of the Bethlehem Lutheran Church and is a volunteer with Minneapolis-based Community Emergency Services.

  • Joseph Michels BS ’76 formed his consulting practice, Solomon Bruce
    Consulting, in 2007. He advises clients on supply chain management, business operations, executive coaching, government procurement and legal expert witness work. His education includes a master’s degree in systems management from the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California, a Ph.D. in industrial engineering at the Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University, a second master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma and, as a James Forrestal Fellowship recipient, a master’s degree in strategic studies at the Naval War College. While at Weber State, he was named 1975–76 Outstanding Weber State AFROTC cadet by the Ogden Chapter (235) of Air Force Association. He is a distinguished military
    graduate of the Air Force ROTC program at the University of Utah. In 2002,
    he retired as a colonel after 30 years of active duty in the United States Air Force. He later served as the dean of the business college at Montana State University, Billings from 2005–2007. He received the 2024 Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers Fellow Award. In 2020, he was the WSU College of Engineering, Applied Science & Technology convocation speaker.

  • Lynn Arave BS ’78 was a reporter-editor at the Deseret News for 32 years. He began as a sports writer for the first three years and then reported on Utah radio stations for the remainder of his career. After retirement, Lynn was a news specialist for Layton City and became immersed in historical research and writing. He has also published 10 books and maintains blogs about history, hiking and religion. While attending Weber State, he ran cross-country and track and was The Signpost sports editor for two and a half years. He was also a member of the Delta Phi Kappa fraternity. He resides in Layton, Utah, with his wife. They have four children and four grandchildren.

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• 1980s

  • Lyman Gifford BS ’83 retired from Boy Scouts of America after 31 years, where he held multiple roles, including scout executive, working in Utah, Idaho, Texas, Alaska and Washington. He later served as the foundation executive director of Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood, Washington. He is the executive director of the N.O.V.A. Principles Foundation, which provides local law enforcement with a curriculum to teach principle-based decision-making skills to adolescents. He holds a master’s degree in nonprofit management and philanthropy from Bay Path University. Lyman and his wife volunteer in various capacities with their church and community, including chaplains for the Lehi City Police Department. They have three children and 12 grandchildren.

  • Walter “Craig” Bielik BS ’84 has been the communications and community involvement director for Ogden Regional Medical Center for the past 19 years. Prior to that, he was the marketing director for the Standard-Examiner for 13 years. Craig is involved in many community activities and events, including Ogden Pioneer Days. He is the chair of Ogden’s Christmas Village Advisory Committee. He has performed stand-up comedy for more than 25 years. He and his wife, Francene, have two children and five grandchildren.

  • Barbara Batchelor MS ’88 was an educator in the Davis School District for 32 years. After retiring in 2008, she continued as a substitute teacher in the same school, East Layton Elementary, for 12 years. In 2011, she became a supervisor for student teachers at Utah State University, where she provided feedback and encouragement to upcoming educators. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Utah in 1965 and began her first teaching assignment the week after graduation. Her four children, daughter-in-law and two of her grandchildren also graduated from Weber State.

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• 1990s

  • Jim Batchelor BS ’90 is the assistant principal at Clearfield High School. He also served as an assistant principal at Central Davis Junior High School for three years. Before becoming an administrator, he taught physical education, driver education and health for 27 years in the Davis School District. During that time, he served as head wrestling and track coach at Syracuse Junior High before becoming the head baseball and an assistant football coach at Davis High School. In 2005, he became the head football coach at Layton High School, where he coached for 13 seasons. He was awarded Coach of the Year in 2007 by Deseret News. He earned a Master of Education from the University of Phoenix and a Secondary Administrative License from Western Governors University. He played football for Weber State during the 1987 and 1988 seasons, and many of the student-athletes he coached went on to play football at Weber State.

  • Julie Batchelor BS ’94 owns Batchelor Management Advertising and Marketing Inc., established in 2004. She specializes in direct mail advertising for multiple vendors. Prior to establishing her company, she worked for Sysco, Iomega Corporation and Franklin Covey. Her family-owned restaurant, Good Time Spaghetti Co., opened in Ogden while she was attending WSU in 1992. She has served on many volunteer boards over the years and currently is on the Davis County Chamber of Commerce Executive Board and the Layton City R.A.M.P. Commission. She has volunteered for over 20 years coaching youth sports.

  • Shelley Batchelor Sangberg BA ’96 is a tax analyst for the IRS, where she has worked for the past 28 years. She has also worked for Morgan Stanley as a money market specialist and for Promised Valley Playhouse as a box office manager. While attending Weber State, she worked for her family restaurant, Good Time Spaghetti Co. She met her husband at Weber State during a sorority/fraternity exchange. All three of her children are Wildcats, two WSU graduates and one taking WSU’s concurrent enrollment courses as a high school student.

  • David Browning BS ’97 is a physician assistant with Northern Utah Dermatology, where for over 10 years he has been providing care to patients in medical, surgical and cosmetic dermatology. For the past 29 years, he has worked in various positions including in clinical laboratory medicine. He is board-certified in microbiology, hematology and clinical chemistry. He also worked for GlaxoSmithKline in the areas of infectious disease, cardiology, endocrinology and vaccines. He obtained a master’s degree from the University of Utah, where he graduated at the top of his class as a physician assistant.

  
  
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• 2000s

  • Brandon Larsen AS ’00 has been an arborist and forester with Rocky Mountain Power for 22 years. He completed a Bachelor of Science in horticulture from Utah State University. Before his role with RMP, he worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a wildland firefighter with the Logan Interagency Hotshot Crew. Brandon has coached Junior Jazz youth basketball and volunteered with the Bonneville-Roy Mountain Bike Team and the Ogden Bicycle Collective.

     

  • Gabe Archuleta BS ’01, BS ’19 is a mission assurance manager II at Northrop Grumman, an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. He and his wife have two kids and recently celebrated the birth of their first grandchild.

  • Bryan Caldwell BS ’01 received an engineering leadership award from L3Harris in May 2024 for his work in developing a complex model in system availability for Airservices Australia. He is a director of system engineering over reliability at L3Harris Space and Airborne Systems in Melbourne, Florida. He has published peer-reviewed articles in the Reliability and Maintainability Symposium on part derating and deorbital analysis. He earned a Master of Science in technical management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2005. Juli Hiatt Caldwell BS ’11 is a published author. Her book genres include romance, young adult paranormal suspense and mid-grade fantasy. She works as a technical editor at Patrick Space Force Base in Florida.

  • Stephen Batchelor BA ’02 is an educator in the Davis School District who supports alternative education at Renaissance Academy. There, he teaches English, food truck management, and rock and roll history. Before this role, he taught English, French and applied reading skills at Layton High School for 15 years. He also coached football for 13 years at Layton High. He earned a special education endorsement from Utah State University in 2007. His wife, Liz Merrill Batchelor BS ’00, has worked for the Davis School District for 25 years. She is a literacy coach in elementary schools, where she trains teachers to use reading programs for Tier 1 instruction and reading intervention programs. Before that role, Liz was an elementary school teacher for 10 years at Lakeside Elementary School. She serves on the Professional Learning Team for Davis School District. She is a certified trainer for Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling, a professional development program that supports educators. She earned a master’s in curriculum and instruction through the American College of Education in 2024.

  • Julia Cherashore BM ’02, BS ’03 has over 20 years of experience with companies in the financial services industry, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She earned an MBA from New York University in 2009. She has served on the advisory board of Mamaroneck Schools Foundation, which is dedicated to elevating K–12 education, and joined the foundation’s board of directors in 2023. She serves on the board of Friends of New York City Nurse-Family Partnership, a mission-driven nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of mothers and babies in New York City. She’s a believer in education in all its forms.

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• 2010s

  • Daniel Wade BS ’10 is an election systems specialist with the Utah Office of the Lieutenant Governor, where he provides training and support to election administrators throughout the state. He previously spent eight years as an election specialist with the Weber County Clerk Auditor’s office. He resides in Ogden with his husband, Ken.

  • Kimberly Lynne BS ’11 is the information literacy instructor and concurrent enrollment coordinator for WSU’s Stewart Library. She earned a Master of Library & Information Science from San Jose State University in 2017 and is currently studying for her Master of Education at Weber State University. After graduating from WSU, she worked in the Stewart Library as an archival and oral history digitization specialist, helping to make the university archives more accessible to the public. She is the face behind the popular Instagram account @chapter_adventure, where she hosts monthly reading challenges and shares book reviews and recommendations with her audience. She lives in Davis County with her husband and their two boys.

  • Brandon Stevenson AAS ’11, BS ’13, BS ’13 moved to Indiana to work for Cummins Inc. after graduating from WSU. He began as a tech support engineer and became a global business development manager. During that time, he earned an MBA from the University of Southern Indiana. After nine years in Indiana, he moved back to Utah to be closer to his family. He accepted an assistant professor of automotive technology position at Weber State and has been in that role for over four years. He serves on WSU’s Faculty Senate and is working toward a Doctorate of Business Administration with Capella University in Minneapolis.

  • Spencer Arave BS ’13 is an instructional designer for the University of Utah Hospital, where he works with trainers, clinicians and providers to better the user experience of the electronic medical record system. He also works for Warehouse 22 event center, where he emcees various events including bingo nights and variety shows. He serves on the Clinton City Council and emcees many local events. He lives in Clinton with his wife and daughter.

  • Matthew Heiner AS ’15, BS ’21, MBA ’23 is a project manager with the Ogden Air Logistics Complex Activation Department at Hill Air Force Base. He is part of a team that oversees all new requirements and modifications of legacy aircraft, implementing data, tools and training required to update the aircraft. Prior to this role, he was an F-16 lead mechanic and a structures supervisor. He completed his MBA through WSU’s John B. Goddard School of Business & Economics in the top 10% of his class, earning him the distinction of Goddard Scholar. In addition to his MBA, he earned a graduate certificate in aerospace management, a program designed to support the needs of Hill AFB. Nominated by his squadron group director, Matt was awarded a full scholarship, sponsored by Hill AFB, to participate in the aerospace management MBA program.

  • Jessica Slater BS ’15 is the first female chair for WSU’s Department of Automotive Technology. As department chair, she prioritizes articulation agreements with in-state and out-of-state institutions, leading students to the education opportunities at WSU. She believes that opportunity is for everyone and that education should be equitable. She promotes community engagement through the Weber Welcome Car Show and the Annual Automotive Skills Contest.

  • Rachel Badali BS ’17, MBA ’22 is the news coordinator for WSU Marketing & Communications. In this role, she works closely with reporters to share WSU’s accomplishments and promote news coverage of the university. Before that, Rachel worked as a media developer in Marketing & Communications, producing projects like the president’s annual holiday video and the commencement video. Her favorite part of both jobs is sharing stories about what makes Weber State great, Great, GREAT.

  • Daniel Sessions AS ’17, BS ’19 is an educator at South Ogden Junior High School, where he teaches Utah studies, United States history and teaching as a profession. He is also a National Academic League coach. He is currently pursuing a Master of Education from Weber State. As part of his graduate studies, he participated in a study abroad trip to Finland, Estonia and Sweden. The group visited various schools, learning from educators and students about how education differs in those countries. He has participated in community theater since childhood and most recently played the Beast in Beauty and the Beast at the Terrace Plaza Playhouse in Washington Terrace, Utah.

  • Vivian Hardy AAS ’18, BS ’19 recently retired after 40 years in the early childhood field. She worked as a family childcare specialist in the Care About Childcare program at Weber State for 10 years, supporting individuals who provided childcare in their homes with training and coaching, as well as facilitating grants through the Utah Department of Workforce Services Office of Child Care. Before her role at WSU, she worked with family childcare licensing for the military and the State of Utah for 19 years. Her husband, Ryan Hardy BIS ’19, was on active duty in the United States Army for 17 years as a helicopter crew chief mechanic for Apache attack helicopters. He studied professional aeronautics and military science at the University of the State of New York. After retiring from the military, he worked for Lifetime Products as an international planning and operations administrator for 23 years. They walked together, with their daughter, at WSU’s 2019 commencement.

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• 2020s

  • Jessika Clark BS ’20, MPC ’22 is the public relations manager for Weber County. She is tasked with finding innovative solutions to boost community engagement and increase brand recognition on the local, regional and national stages. In 2024, Jessika was nominated as the Young Professional of the Year by the Ogden-Weber Chamber of Commerce. Her husband, Jacob Sangberg AS ’21, is an assistant branch manager at Goldenwest Credit Union and is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree from Southern Utah University.

  • Jasmyne Litanski AS ’21, BA ’23, MSW ’24 is a clinical social worker in private practice at Embrace Counseling in Riverdale, Utah. She uses dialectical behavioral therapy with adult clients and works with families using emotion regulation and trust-based relational intervention. In April 2024, she was awarded Outstanding Student in Community and Macro Social Work by WSU’s Master of Social Work program. She volunteers for Grow Ogden, a community farm launched through Eden Streets to help feed and employ those in need.

  • Chloe Sangberg AS ’23 is a student at Southern Utah University where she is pursuing a degree in elementary education through SUU’s Department of Teacher Education.

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