The last thing Seomin thought when she was assisting a TV crew while fighting the effects of a blizzard and brutal cold during a November football game at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames was that she’d someday be stopping at all sorts of warm, exotic ports of call.

Yes, life has changed considerably for Denise Seomin.

The woman who was an assistant athletic media relations director at Iowa State from August, 1988, to June, 1992, has been in a high-profile job with Princess Cruises in Santa Clarita, Calif., for the past 3 ½ years.

"I’m the public relations manager for Princess,’’ Seomin said. "I really enjoy what I’m doing. I’ve cruised in Europe, been to nations such as Turkey, Spain and Italy, and I’ve been to Alaska.

"I’ve met a lot of wonderful people—including people from different countries and backgrounds.’’

But Seomin said, "Some of my fondest memories are of when I worked at Iowa State. I enjoyed the athletic department, the university community and the city of Ames. It was a time in my life that I really treasure.

"I worked in football, baseball and women’s basketball. On those bus trips during the baseball season, I was the only woman, and I’ll never forget the Nov. 23, 1991 football game against Colorado.

"We had a big blizzard, and I was in the crow’s nest spotting for TV. We were like the only four people in the upper deck because it was closed off. You could hardly see the hash marks because of the snow.’’

The temperature at game-time was 17 degrees, with a wind-chill of minus-15. There had been some doubt that the game could even be played. Colorado’s players and coaches stayed in a Des Moines hotel the night before the game, and Interstate 35 was closed part of Saturday morning.

Tom Kroeschell, the Iowa State sports information director who then was an assistant along with Seomin, said he has "great memories of when Denise was in our office. She was a wonderful, hard-working person. I remember her sitting through some very cold baseball games because we had no press box then.’’

And now there isn’t even a baseball program at Iowa State. It died last year.

She said Princess is "considered one of the top three cruise lines. The Star Princess, which arrives in March and will be on seven-day Mexican Riviera sailings from Los Angeles, will be our 11^th ship. She’ll be the largest and most amenity-filled ship ever based on the West Coast.

"As a company, Princess started over 30 years ago with sailings to Mexico on what was known as the Pacific Princess. It was the ship used in the "Love Boat" TV series. That was a 640-passenger ship, and today we’re going to be doing Mexican Riviera sailings on a 2,600-passenger ship. That gives you some idea of the growth and change in 30 years.’’

Of course, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks changed a lot of things in the United States—including the travel business. If you don’t believe it, go to your nearest airport and take a look at the uniformed security people on duty.

The cruise business wasn’t immune to the changes that took place in the travel industry, but Seomin said things have bounced back well at Princess since Sept. 11.

"We just announced our fourth-quarter earnings, and found in a little over a week immediately following Sept. 11 we took a dip in bookings in terms of cancellations,’’ she said.

"But we quickly began to see things come back to normal. That’s pretty much how it’s been since. From January to March, people start thinking of summer vacations, and we’re real happy with our situation at this point.’’

"We’ve made some adjustments with itineraries and schedules,’’ she explained. "We did some re-deployment of our ships, following consumer trends by staying closer to home. For example, the Regal Princess, which was supposed to sail in the Baltic this summer, has been moved to Alaska and she’ll do 10-day roundtrip sailings from San Francisco.

"The Royal Princess, which was supposed to do a world cruise, has been moved to Ft.Lauderdale, Fla., and is now doing roundtrip Panama Canal sailings.’’

One of the more interesting ideas at Princess concerns trips to historic World War II battlegrounds on islands in the Pacific Ocean.

"We will visit many of the sites that played significant roles in the war,’’ Seomin explained. "The first is a 32-day Tokyo-to-San Francisco voyage in April that is already sold out. The second is a 22-day Honolulu-to-Osaka voyage in October.

"In addition to ports and battlegrounds, we’ll have special events on board. There will be celebrity guests from the period, Pearl Harbor survivors, a USO Night, an officers’ ball, a big band and swing night, lots of movies and programming from the 1940s.’’

"It’s not what it used to be,’’ she explained. "People used to think that cruising was very regimented. You were given a time to dine, and that was your only option. Activities were at certain times and, if you missed them, too bad. That was the only time they were offered.

"What we do at Princess is call it personal-choice cruising. We provide a lot of different options and amenities so passengers can customize their cruise experience. We even have wedding chapels on several of our ships.

"We’re the only cruise line where a couple can legally be married at sea by the ship’s captain. In our main dining rooms, we offer the traditional dining where you’re given an assigned dining time, table and staff for the entire cruise, or you can do what we call anytime-dining, which is restaurant style.

"There are 24-hour AOL Internet cafes on two of our ships. There’s so many things for people to do.

"Then look at the adaptability. If you look at what happened Sept. 11, we were pretty easily able to adjust our itineraries to move our ships right away, without major problems—a luxury a lot of other vacation businesses don’t have. Obviously, a hotel can’t up and move somewhere, but we can take a ship from Europe and put it in Alaska.

"Once people have cruised, they become very dedicated customers. Once they’ve tried it, they keep coming back.’’