Peter Vaughan ʼ74 is a retired biologist whose career toggled between academia and applied projects in public health and environmental conservation. He and his wife, Cathy Anson ʼ74, raised three sons who are now “fully fledged.”
Q: What is your proudest achievement?
A: I was one of two co-investigators on a nationwide controlled study in Tanzania to test the use of an entertainment-education (EE) radio drama to change knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to HIV/AIDS prevention and other public health challenges. With a high level of confidence, we were able to show that exposure to the EE drama decreased the number of self-reported sexual partners and increased the use of condoms in five annual nationally representative surveys. One of our papers was named one of the 10 most important HIV prevention papers of the 1990s by a European public health agency, and the study helped spread the use of EE to other countries and address other public health and environmental challenges.
Q: What piece of advice would you give your 16-year-old self?
A: Trust yourself!
Q: What's your favorite family tradition?
A: For the last 35 years we have rented a cabin in northern Minnesota for a week in the winter to cross-country ski, snowshoe, cook (and eat), play games, read and relax with our three sons.
Q: What is the best prank you've experienced or planned?
A: As a graduate student, I spent five summers at the U of M’s Lake Itasca Biological Research Station, situated inside Itasca State Park. One summer, I was assigned the office on the ground floor nearest to the parking lot. I had a near constant stream of tourists come knocking on my door asking some variant of “Is there anything to see here?” After a while, this became tiresome, so one day I made up signs that said “Feed The Live Bears” with arrows, and then I tacked these signs to trees starting in front of my office window and leading around the campus to the bathrooms by the station’s dock. We had great fun watching people troop off to feed the bears until the station manager found the signs and traced them back to their origin and me.
Q: In what ways are you the same as your childhood self?
A: I learned to paddle a canoe as a young child and did a few short canoe trips with my family. In the summer of 1971 (after ninth grade), a Blake teacher took me and several classmates on a 10-day trip in Canada’s Quetico Provincial Park. That ignited in me a love of canoeing and wilderness travel that has lasted the ensuing 53 years. For example, this summer, my wife and our three sons did a 10-day trip canoeing down Yellowstone Lake and then we hiked into the Thorofare region, reputed to be one of the most remote areas in the lower 48 states.
Q: What teacher inspired you the most? How?
A: Rod and Chuck. I know the question implies naming a single teacher, but I always thought of Rod Anderson and Chuck Ritchie as a single unit. Those of us who were fortunate enough to have them as coaches and/or teachers were shown by example what it means to lead a life of integrity that is consistent with one’s values, even when it is really hard to do so.
Q: What is the most surprising thing about you?
A: Now in retirement, I am learning to play guitar. This is surprising because I have never exhibited the least bit of musical ability and am renowned for my inability to sing in key. Progress is grudging, but it is fun!
Q: What book has influenced you greatly? How?
A: Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand Country Almanac.” Leopold was the rare scientist who was able to do both groundbreaking ecological research and also write eloquently and beautifully for a lay audience. His “The Land Ethic” prompted me to reassess many of the assumptions and values I had grown up with and served as one of the important guideposts to my career decisions.
Q: I was once mistaken for…
A: Peter Vaughan, the theater reviewer for the Minneapolis StarTribune (no relation). Actually, I was mistaken for him at least three times, but most memorably on main street in Park Rapids, Minnesota, by a local actor I had gotten to know. He confronted me demanding to know why I had panned their recent play. He challenged me to fisticuffs right on main street! Fortunately, this was not the first time I had been mistaken for the reviewer, so I was able to defuse the situation quickly.
Q: Based on something you’ve already done, how might you make it into the Guinness Book of World Records?
A: I spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Solomon Islands working as the manager of a marine turtle conservation project. One of our research goals was to better understand the geographic movement of the turtles that nested in our sanctuary, so we did tag studies. One of our tagged turtles was relocated (and eaten) in Papua New Guinea, some 1,400km away, the second longest tag return for a hawksbill turtle at the time. So, close, but no Guinness record …