Shawn Wiser was a member of the Pullman High School class of 1984. He passed in 1991.
Memories of Shawn
From Jennifer Hodgdon
Shawn and I weren’t particularly friends in high school, but we both attended the University of Washington, and would run into each other occasionally there. At the end of our respective four years there, he told me he was going to China for a year, so we exchanged addresses and sent letters back and forth — his were always decorated with his trademark cartoon pigs. At the end of the year, he wrote to say he was going to be attending Cornell University, where I had been enrolled for a year, and signed the letter “Your eternal classmate, Shawn”. He stayed at my apartment for a few days when he arrived, in August of 1990, and ended up sharing a house with some people I knew from the physics department for a semester before heading off on another adventure: field work in ecology overseas. Unfortunately, he died during that semester.
Photo from Gerry ORourke
From Janette Johnson Rallison
My family was friends with Shawn’s family, so when we were growing up, I saw a lot of him. Perhaps we had a feels-like-a-sibling thing going on because during our junior year of high school, he was pretty much my nemesis.
I don’t remember what started it, but we definitely went out of our way to bother each other. One time during a get-together at Taco Bell, I had people take bets on how long it would be before he said something obnoxious to me. We all had our numbers recorded before he arrived. My guess was five minutes. I don’t remember what everyone else’s number was, but the point is, we all had numbers. No one thought he wouldn’t say something obnoxious to me.
The funny thing was that no one won that bet because we were all acting so expectant and unnatural–continually checking our watches–that he figured out what was going on. Yes, he actually figured out that we were timing him to see how long it would take him to insult me.
Another time a group of us made posters to put up around the school for some school spirit thing, and I put up a big one that included the phrase: And that means you too, Shawn.
As I recall, he immediately tore the poster down, despite my artistry and hard work on it.
Anyway, so that was the two of us during junior year.
Shawn and I went to a church class together on campus before school started every day, and one day I drove my parents’ station wagon there. As a fairly new driver, I had trouble parking in the narrow space. I don’t recall exactly how I managed it, but when I tried to straighten the car, I somehow got it wedged into the parking spot in a weird way. I was certain when I tried to get out, I was going to sideswipe the cars next to me.
I went inside feeling panicked and not sure what to do. The chances were slim that either of the cars next to mine would be gone by the time class got out. Parking on campus wasn’t easy to find. My choices were to 1) walk to high school and hope that my parents didn’t notice the car was missing 2) Just live at campus until some bright day in the future when the parking spots next to mine were empty or 3) ask for help.
Shawn was the only one sitting in the lobby. I told him what I’d done.
He didn’t understand the gravity of my situation. He said I should just reverse everything I did to park the car in the spot in the first place. Like it was that simple. I told him I didn’t remember what I’d done, and I was now going to have to live on campus.
He took my keys, the two of us went to the parking lot, and he managed to straighten my car. I’ll always remember the glorious sight of him magically maneuvering my boat of a car in that small space.
But the most amazing thing is that he never gave me a bad time about my lack of driving skills. As far as I know, he never told anyone about the incident. (Larry Johnson totally would’ve given me grief about it if he’d known.)
When Shawn found out that I was moving at the end of junior year, he sought me out and as much as told me he was going to miss me.
All in all, he was a pretty good nemesis to have.
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If you have a memory or photo to add to this page, contact Jennifer.