Mountain climbing mother loves Logan
Bonnie Pitblado, a self-professed contradiction and “CSI” junky, said she is uniquely happy with her life right now.
“I’m really a contradiction,” Pitblado, an assistant professor of anthropology, said. “I drive a Toyota Prius, but I also drive a Ford F250. I shoot a gun, but I’m as liberal as they come.”
Pitblado said she is just well-rounded.
“I’m constantly resistant to being put in a box,” she said.
Pitblado said everything she wants is in Logan and she is “ridiculously happy.”
“There’s nothing I’m wanting for,” she said. “It took a lot of bad things to get me here, but I’m not striving for anything now. I have a great job, husband, kid and set of students.
“Look around and everyone has some hole – whatever that may be. I’m in a position when it’s all come together. I’m savoring that moment,” Pitblado said.
Born in Oregon, Pitblado said she has done the majority of her research and fieldwork in Colorado.
Pitblado said she loves the mountains and always wanted to be in the Rockies, but it was just an accident she ended up in Colorado.
“I’m connected at the heart to mountains,” Pitblado said. “They are like a spider fungus in my brain.”
She said she spends her summers doing research. Pointing to a picture of some snow-covered mountains and a meadow of purple flowers, she said it is easy to see why she loves her work.
“I love science, but I have this thing about being out-and-about outdoors,” Pitblado said. “Anthropology is a perfect blend. I love being outdoors all summer, then coming in and teaching.”
She has a 2 1/2-year-old son, Ethan, and a stepson, Derek, who is 14 and lives with them part of the time.
“I’m really enjoying having [Ethan] around,” Pitblado said. “I’m treasuring what it’s like to have kids around. He’s a ball.”
Pitblado said she hasn’t lost her love for adventure since becoming a mother. She even climbed a mountain in her ninth month of pregnancy.
“That was my last gasp of doing anything until he came,” she said.
Last year, when she went to do her research in the summer, she left Ethan at home with his dad, she said.
“Next summer he’ll probably come,” Pitblado said. “Hopefully he won’t go toddling off into a raging river.”
Pitblado’s husband also works at Utah State University in administration as a risk manager. The two were married in 2000 on a boat in Glacier Bay, Alaska, Pitblado said.
She said she and her husband love being outdoors and they are always looking for new things to do. Now she said they are looking forward to taking Ethan on their adventures.
“The other day, he saw skiing on TV and he said, ‘Ethan ski, snow, fall down.’ So hopefully we’ll be getting back into skiing in the next few years,” she said.
Pitblado said she has climbed six or seven 14,000-foot mountains in Colorado, though she isn’t sure of the exact number.
After earning her bachelor’s degree in sociology and anthropology at Carlton College, she said she got her master’s and Ph.D. at the University of Arizona while also playing volleyball in college.
In her office in Old Main, there are bookcases, stuffed with books surrounding the small desk that Pitblado works at. On the door of the office, she has a picture of herself with her dog – both wearing sunglasses.
Pawnee, the dog, named for the grasslands in Colorado, has to wear them because she can’t have UV exposure, Pitblado said.
“She’s getting worse and worse about keeping them on,” Pitblado said. “She will do it if she knows it’s the only way she can stay outside.”
Pitblado said she isn’t a true Aggie, but she hopes to become one soon.
“I’ve tried to get my husband to, but some Ethan-related thing always happens,” she said. “At some point, I will get to become a true Aggie.”
Pitblado is also the director of the Museum of Anthropology.
She said that makes her a little different than other professors because she only teaches one class in the fall and two in the spring.
She said she didn’t have much training in museums, but she learned from her experience.
“I’ve been able to tell students what to do and what not to do,” she said. “The museum is cool because I get to be the artist and put things together.”
-hollyadams@cc.usu.edu