© 2007 Gonzaga University
Be inspired by real zag stories.
Horace Lowe ´83, ´86 (JD)
Attorney Horace Lowe of Denver works with youth as a grass-roots activist. One of his themes is the value of education, and Lowe uses his own story to make his point. He began college in the Air Force ROTC program at Tennessee State University, but it would be several years, almost 1,800 miles and a stint in the Air Force before he completed his undergraduate studies. Lowe had been discharged from Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane some time before he enrolled at Gonzaga in 1981. He had no idea how to pay his tuition and expenses. One day during his first semester, Lowe was eating cold pizza in the cafeteria and worrying about paying his fuel oil bill. A stranger approached and asked how he was doing. “Not great,” Lowe replied. The man who cared enough to listen was Charles Schaefer, Gonzaga´s financial aid director. That afternoon, Schaefer handed Lowe a scholarship fund check for living expenses and offered a full scholarship too, as long as Lowe stayed on the Dean´s List. Lowe graduated magna cum laude and graduated from the Law School in 1986 after receiving a Graduate Professional Opportunity Fellowship. “I could not be prouder. I am forever telling my Gonzaga story… when I talk to young people about the importance of academic performance in high school and of challenging themselves in college.” Lowe´s advocacy has paid off. This fall, one of his protégés is enrolled in Gonzaga´s freshman class, with nearly a full academic scholarship package. “I may not come to any of our rah-rah reunions,” Lowe said, “but I love Gonzaga. I´m just an old Bulldog barking the Gonzaga message.”
back to the top
Melissa Carstens ´02
One word sums up Melissa Carstens´ Gonzaga experience: family. She transferred to Gonzaga halfway through her freshman year. Transferring to a new school is tough enough, but doing so mid-year, after people had already established their own group of friends, was really daunting. “My first night in CM (Catherine-Monica Residence Hall), I went to the COG for dinner with almost half of the girls in my hall. Maybe they felt badly for the new girl, but they just kept making an effort to include me, even after the first week and first month had passed. They embraced me, and their actions said so much about Gonzaga.” Beyond her new family of friends, though, Carstens associates Gonzaga with family because she saw her great grandfather´s picture among generations of alumni photos in the Rogues Gallery every time she walked through the Administration Building. Dr. John O´Shea, her great-grandfather, graduated from Gonzaga in 1901, 101 years before she did. All of his brothers went here, too. “Looking at his picture on the wall, I know that I have this special tie to a man I never met. We´re family by blood, but also family by school.” O´Shea went on to graduate from Harvard Medical School, returned to Spokane to practice medicine and attended to the Jesuits here during the Depression. To add to the family connection, her grandmother´s cousin was Father Richard Twohy (longtime political science professor and the University´s 22nd president). “During my college years Gonzaga was home, physically, but it will always be home because home is where the family is.”
back to the top
Nick Quested ´06
Four years at any university will get you a degree. Four years at Gonzaga will get you a degree and a life-long membership to a community that supports its members anywhere in the world. Just ask alumnus Nick Questad. Days after graduation, he and a few friends embarked on a two-month trip through Europe. A month into their trip, they arrived in Florence. “We were homesick, tired, and our clothes were in dire need of a wash. It turns out that the hostel we had reservations for was not even in Florence. We had nowhere to sleep! We located the Gonzaga-In-Florence campus, where students and professors there for the summer program quickly took us in.” To these recent graduates, a place to sleep and free food was a blessing. The next night, in search of a restaurant, they spotted a Gonzaga flag in the window of a small bar called The Public House. “The place was filled with GU students, and the walls were covered with pictures of our friends who had studied in Florence previous years.” The warm reception from the Gonzaga community led the travelers to stay on in Florence for an unscheduled week. Back on the road and near the end of their travel, they were walking the streets of Prague, when someone yelled from a window, “Hey Gonzaga!!!” “It was like music to my ears to be halfway around the world and randomly hear the word ‘Gonzaga.´ Hailing us was a GU student whom I had never met, but he recognized us. This is when I realized that I will forever be a member of a community that will instantly befriend each other just because we are all proud to be Zags.” After two months of European travel, Quested´s most memorable experience was the compassion he received from the Gonzaga community.
back to the top
 |
 |
 |
| Horace Lowe 1983, 1986 (JD) |
Melissa Carstens 2002 |
Nick Quested 2006 |
|
||
Attorney Horace Lowe of Denver works with youth as a grass-roots activist. One of his themes is the value of education, and Lowe uses his own story to make his point. He began college in the Air Force ROTC program at Tennessee State University, but it would be several years, almost 1,800 miles and a stint in the Air Force before he completed his undergraduate studies. Lowe had been discharged from Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane some time before he enrolled at Gonzaga in 1981. He had no idea how to pay his tuition and expenses. One day during his first semester, Lowe was eating cold pizza in the cafeteria and worrying about paying his fuel oil bill. A stranger approached and asked how he was doing. “Not great,” Lowe replied. The man who cared enough to listen was Charles Schaefer, Gonzaga´s financial aid director. That afternoon, Schaefer handed Lowe a scholarship fund check for living expenses and offered a full scholarship too, as long as Lowe stayed on the Dean´s List. Lowe graduated magna cum laude and graduated from the Law School in 1986 after receiving a Graduate Professional Opportunity Fellowship. “I could not be prouder. I am forever telling my Gonzaga story… when I talk to young people about the importance of academic performance in high school and of challenging themselves in college.” Lowe´s advocacy has paid off. This fall, one of his protégés is enrolled in Gonzaga´s freshman class, with nearly a full academic scholarship package. “I may not come to any of our rah-rah reunions,” Lowe said, “but I love Gonzaga. I´m just an old Bulldog barking the Gonzaga message.”
back to the top
Melissa Carstens ´02
One word sums up Melissa Carstens´ Gonzaga experience: family. She transferred to Gonzaga halfway through her freshman year. Transferring to a new school is tough enough, but doing so mid-year, after people had already established their own group of friends, was really daunting. “My first night in CM (Catherine-Monica Residence Hall), I went to the COG for dinner with almost half of the girls in my hall. Maybe they felt badly for the new girl, but they just kept making an effort to include me, even after the first week and first month had passed. They embraced me, and their actions said so much about Gonzaga.” Beyond her new family of friends, though, Carstens associates Gonzaga with family because she saw her great grandfather´s picture among generations of alumni photos in the Rogues Gallery every time she walked through the Administration Building. Dr. John O´Shea, her great-grandfather, graduated from Gonzaga in 1901, 101 years before she did. All of his brothers went here, too. “Looking at his picture on the wall, I know that I have this special tie to a man I never met. We´re family by blood, but also family by school.” O´Shea went on to graduate from Harvard Medical School, returned to Spokane to practice medicine and attended to the Jesuits here during the Depression. To add to the family connection, her grandmother´s cousin was Father Richard Twohy (longtime political science professor and the University´s 22nd president). “During my college years Gonzaga was home, physically, but it will always be home because home is where the family is.”
back to the top
Nick Quested ´06
Four years at any university will get you a degree. Four years at Gonzaga will get you a degree and a life-long membership to a community that supports its members anywhere in the world. Just ask alumnus Nick Questad. Days after graduation, he and a few friends embarked on a two-month trip through Europe. A month into their trip, they arrived in Florence. “We were homesick, tired, and our clothes were in dire need of a wash. It turns out that the hostel we had reservations for was not even in Florence. We had nowhere to sleep! We located the Gonzaga-In-Florence campus, where students and professors there for the summer program quickly took us in.” To these recent graduates, a place to sleep and free food was a blessing. The next night, in search of a restaurant, they spotted a Gonzaga flag in the window of a small bar called The Public House. “The place was filled with GU students, and the walls were covered with pictures of our friends who had studied in Florence previous years.” The warm reception from the Gonzaga community led the travelers to stay on in Florence for an unscheduled week. Back on the road and near the end of their travel, they were walking the streets of Prague, when someone yelled from a window, “Hey Gonzaga!!!” “It was like music to my ears to be halfway around the world and randomly hear the word ‘Gonzaga.´ Hailing us was a GU student whom I had never met, but he recognized us. This is when I realized that I will forever be a member of a community that will instantly befriend each other just because we are all proud to be Zags.” After two months of European travel, Quested´s most memorable experience was the compassion he received from the Gonzaga community.
back to the top