WSU Tri-Cities official keeps school, herself on target

RICHLAND -- There's nothing like strapping two boards to your feet and a rifle to your back to leave your worries behind.

At least that's how Lori Selby finds solace when looming state budget cuts are making her job unpredictable.

Selby, the vice chancellor for finance and administration at Washington State University Tri-Cities, in her free time competes in biathlon -- a blend of cross-country skiing and target shooting. A high performer at work and play, she was crowned the national biathlon champion this past month.

Being responsible for a university's money isn't an easy task these days. If the budget proposed by the governor earlier this year were to pass, WSU would get about half as much per year as it did four years ago, the university's president has said.

The Legislature hasn't yet released its version of the budget, but given the economic outlook, cuts to higher education surely will be a part of it.

No one knows how much less the Richland campus will end up with.

"The uncertainty is the hardest part of it," Selby said. "We don't know what the Legislature will come up with. If it's bad enough, we're out of options."

Yet the university -- i.e. Selby -- has to plan ahead. That means she never really is off the clock these days.

"I don't think you should leave it behind (when you go home)," she said. "It's good to continuously plan strategically."

Having said that, Selby has found a way to switch off all thoughts about budgets, tuition and legislators every once in a while.

She races down a trail, throws herself in the snow with her heart pounding, puts a .22-caliber bolt action rifle to her shoulder and squeezes off five rounds at a silver-dollar-sized target 55 yards away.

For every target missed she skis a penalty loop, before setting off on another 2-mile trail, followed by more shooting.

At that moment, her body, skis and rifle require her full attention.

"Biathlon gives me some balance," she said. "I need to stay focused while I'm participating in a race."

Selby's been plenty focused this winter.

The Washington biathlon season runs from December to early March. In that time, athletes run nine races. They drop their worst result and add up the points from the eight best outings.

When everything was tallied this winter, Selby was the state champion in her age group and gender, for the second year running.

Then she went to nationals in Mount Itasca, Minn., in mid-March. The championships are split into three events -- sprint, pursuit and mass start.

The sprint is a race against the clock, with skiers starting 30 seconds apart.

The pursuit is started in the order in which athletes finished during the sprint. The leader starts first and all others start when their respective gap from the first race has passed. Whoever goes through the finish line first, wins.

The name of the mass start says it all.

Selby is 49. Her age bracket for competitions is 40-49. But being among the oldest in her races didn't stop her from taking first place in the pursuit and the mass start.

Her favorite memory from that weekend is the sprint, however. She finished second, but she finished second to one of the best in the world -- Petra Cervenka, former member of the Czech national team and current coach of the U.S. junior national team.

"It was exciting to be up against someone of her quality," Selby said. "She's a better skier, but she wasn't that much faster."

Not bad for an academic who never had done biathlon until three years ago.

Selby is no stranger to competition, though. She has skied her whole life, has raced on cross-country skis -- minus the gun -- for years, played basketball at Kamiakin High and Eastern Washington University, and coached the Columbia Basin College women's basketball team.

She is no stranger to guns, either. Before taking her post at the Richland campus, she worked for Utah State University.

"They called me Annie Oakley there," Selby said, laughing.

Part of her job was emergency management on campus, which meant working closely with police. She joined the officers on a training course several times, ducking behind obstacles and firing at pop-up targets.

She has been a sharpshooter for a long time -- just not with bullets. To the best of her knowledge, Selby still holds the girls' record for free-throw-shooting percentage at Kamiakin High.

"I always had a natural ability for composure," she said.

It comes in handy on the job, now more than ever.

"The budget's been a pretty stressful thing," Selby said. "This gives me a goal that's not work-related."

The goal now is competing at the World Cup in Finland next year.

"I'll have more competition than I'll know what to do with," she said with a laugh.

Or it might just be the competition that won't know what to do with her.

This story was originally published April 2, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "WSU Tri-Cities official keeps school, herself on target ."