Velma Seat was an original unit owner at Benton Manor from 1960 until she passed away in 2003. Her apartment #37 had great west views and east from entrance and bedrooms. She was a wonderful tenant and I treasured her association with our building. I wanted to re-post her obituary as Velma, like so many at the Plaza, was retired from O.S.U.

Aug. 6, 1914 - Nov. 17, 2003, Velma M. Seat of Corvallis died Monday. She was 89. She was born in Johnson, Wash., to Lee and Bessie Maxwell. She received a degree in home economics from Washington State University. She married Archie Seat shortly after graduation. They later divorced. She began doing promotional work with Puget Sound Power and Light in Seattle. Later she did promotional work for the Frigidaire Corp. and then with the Carnation Co., becoming a familiar figure on television and in Seattle newspapers, where she provided information on how to use Carnation products.In 1958, she joined the Oregon State Extension Service as a Washington County Extension agent. After a few years, she transferred to OSU as a food marketing specialist in charge of promoting Oregon agricultural goods and providing support to producers in the development and marketing of their products. On a sabbatical in the mid-1960s, she obtained a master's degree in adult education from Columbia University. Upon returning to OSU she developed the first correspondence course in the state on food buying, followed by courses on meat, seafood, food safety and the world food situation. She also began the weekly market basket reports highlighting the best seasonal buys. She also produced articles and tapes for radio distribution. She served on a national committee on the world food situation and participated in development of a correspondence course on that topic. She received recognition of these services by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the American Agricultural Economists Association. After retiring from OSU in 1982, she became a professor emeritus of agriculture economics. She moved to the Regent Retirement Residence in April 1999. (We had a lot of O.S.U. faculty and alumni at the Plaza.)