Deceased:

Julie Heston, M.D. - 2/13/99

Charlanne Gorham McNamee - 6/3/99

Richard Allen Bales - 12/22/98

David Robinson - 1977

Recently found classmates:

Beverly Reiner Sanborn, Joyce Nielsen, Robert Gann, Haig Surabian

Get your tickets for the FHS All Alumni Dinner to be held April 15, 2000 by contacting FHS for invitations: Kim Mecum 457-2788, or PJ Machaedo 457-2847. The party is to take place on blocked off Echo Avenue in front of Fresno High School. It starts at 6-7 p.m for a silent auction and drinks. Dinner catered by Pardini’s begins at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $25.

Donations: Robert Dale, FHS class of ‘65, brother of our Bill Dale, sent Elaine Parnagian Sudjian a video copy of super 8mm movie film taken of the demolition of Fresno High’s Palmer and Le Conte Halls in 1971-72, including a short footage of Heaton Elementary also being town down. Also donated: a FHS Letter Girl Jumper & beanie sent in by Annette Goerlich Halleen which will be on display at the 20002 reunion.

Next time you’re going through old stuff, keep your classmates in mind. Old photos, movies of sporting events, plays or graduations could be fodder for a class video. Only problem: we’ll need a place for storage.

Thanks go out to those who recently donated to the "Hoots & Hooters" newsletter:

Judy Rimmer Lockhart, Richard Linder, Wally Upton, Keith Bush, Susan Verble Gantner, Bob Bolton, & Jim Hamm.

Lessons

by Ron Bangs

I was extremely saddened to hear that Willard Cormier had passed away. He was not only a great English teacher. Willard was my boxing coach.

I flunked English in my sophomore year and was required to take the course again my junior year. At the start of Mr. Cormier’s class, I felt it would be the same as last years’ class; the teacher would be boring and present no challenge. How wrong I was.

One morning Willard asked me to stop by his classroom at 3:40 p.m., stating he wanted to talk to me. I entered and Willard asked me if I was ill.

I said, "no."

He asked, " Do you have problems at home?"

I said, "no."

He then said to me, "You are not concentrating on the subject of English."

I asked, "What do you mean?"

He said that my mind wandered and that "I wasn’t focused on the subject." He then told me, "If you can concentrate and focus on tasks at hand, you can be successful at anything you try."

Many other topics came up, and one was boxing. I was quite interested. I told him I was a good and accomplished boxer. Again, how wrong I was.

My boxing lessons started the next week after school in the wrestling room. As I approached Willard and threw a vicious right hand punch and caused a great draft in the room, Willard was behind me tapping me on the head and saying, "You’re not concentrating."

I got angry and ran at him and swung a left hook, disrupting the air, but this time Willard hit me with a body shot that folded me like a blanket. The pain was immense.

Willard said, "You have to think about what you are doing. You have to focus on the task at hand."

Well, needless to say, my beatings went on for the rest of the school year, but I was able to get to know Willard a lot better. He was very good to me and had high morals. Willard was a principled man. He was very kind and giving. I had dinner at his home. He had a loving wife who was as interesting as Willard. As I spent more time with him, I learned he was an A.A.U. Lightweight Boxing Champion from the University of Illinois and had competed nationally and won many boxing tournaments. Willard taught me to focus on English as well as boxing—I went from a failing grade to a B+ in Willard’s English class. I never forgot him and the lessons he helped me with, not only in English but in life. I was very fortunate to know Willard Cormier. He helped me a great deal. I miss him.

Your fellow classmate,

Ron Bangs

Willard C. Cormier passed away on August 5, 1999 in Augusta, Maine. He was 76.

Reincarnation

by Jon Adams

After serving for 16 years and 350,000 miles as baby carriage & interstate delivery, the once-bearded Jon Adams let this museum piece go for a pittance. It had received the best of care, parts (he, the VW mechanic by trade at Mt. Hood's Mtn. Metric) and 3 hand-crafted motors. Like kids, once they're out of the driveway, they're on their own. So, imagine his surprise when 7 years later, while driving past Gary Kruger's home during FHS days, what should be parked across the street (!)... but that Blue Bus. Once the recipient of a complete make-over before transporting a pack-rat's treasure to the Tower District, the miracle from Wolfsburg is getting the full body-wrap once again. Pretty fancy reincarnation for a vehicle that was once a winter-storage unit for bee-hive frames in Ethel Strong's home town of Gresham, Oregon. That's where Jon's Mom graduated from High School, growing up with 4 brothers on a berry farm. That's also where the guitar came from, Winston Strong's accordion, Rob Strong's sister's flute, etc. "Small wonder."

More From Classmates:

"Thanks for finding me. I have a job that requires enormous amounts of travel. I graduated from U.C. Berkeley and got a Masters in Social Welfare from UCLA. In the early 80's I specialized in gerontology and have become an "expert" in Alzheimer’s Disease. Marriott International has a Senior Living company with 130 assisted living communities throughout the country. They are called Brighton Gardens. Seventy five of these have Alzheimer’s special care units. I am the national director for field operations for these units. I have a bi-coastal territory which includes the West extending from the Canadian border to the Mexican border, and the Atlantic seaboard including New Jersey, North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia. I work out of my home office but I also have an office at the corporate headquarters in Bethesda, MD. Exhausting, but fascinating and fun.

I married a former Marine pilot who got a degree in engineering and a Ph.D. in Physiology. He is a bioteck guru working in Carlsbad, CA. We have two grown sons: one is a computer programmer with National University and the other is currently teaching English in a junior high school in Japan.

I would love to see classmates who live in the San Diego area."

1999 was a busy year for us with the Master Gardener Assn., Literacy Volunteers, the Cranwell International Center at Virginia Tech, working at the polls on election day, lots of travel and the continuing work-in-progress in developing our vision for our house and seven acres.

We continue to enjoy traveling with Elderhostel. In March we spent a week tramping the Gettysburg Battlefield and following the daily action. In summer we spent 3 fabulous weeks "Tracing Mozart" from Prague, Vienna and Salzburg with a side trip to Budapest.

On returning we had much to do to harvest the fruits of our earlier labors with lots of fresh veggies from the garden and fruit from the trees. Did lots of canning and what doesn’t go to family and neighbors finds its way to the Montgomery County Food Bank.

The end of August we visited family in Wisconsin, spending an idyllic few days at a lakeside home near Rhinelander. Then we did another Elderhostel program visiting the plantations along the James River and got a marvelous dose of Virginia history in the process.

Ruth and her husband live in Christiansburg, Virginia, have six children and four grandchildren.

You can call it a mid-life crisis, at 60 no less!!, or early stages of senility. But the fact is that I, DeMaris Cowan, completed the 26.2 mile, Portland, Oregon Marathon on October 3, 1999 to raise funds and awareness for research leading to a cure for leukemia, lumphoma, myeloma and Hodgkin’s disease.

Some of you may know that in October of 1968, my son, David Nowell, died of Mycloblastic Leukemia. Representing my family, I wanted to give something back. I walked to honor David, and three others I knew who died of leukemia and Hodgkin’s disease.

As a member of "Team in Training," I had a coach, a training program and 150 teammates to support me. I committed to train every day, with team trainings on the weekends- and promised to raise $2,400 in donations to the leukemia Society.

I finished! What an experience, almost indescribable, never once did I ever think I would not finish. When at mile 22, I was ahead of my training time, I was blown away. I guess I just got too cocky and the blisters decided they’d knock me down a peg or two. Then my stubbornness & bullheadedness got in the way. I should have stopped at the med stations, and didn’t. So I paid dearly by loosing time when I stopped to massage my feet. I never pulled the socks down to look at the blisters. I knew they were bad. I kept thinking my pain was nothing compared to what my honorees had gone through. I just gritted my teeth and kept on "walkiin." I wore sandals for three days afterward!!

If someone had told me six months earlier I’d be a participant in a marathon, I’d have told them they were crazy. The word "marathon" was not even in my vocabulary. But little did I know what the Lord had in store for me. For years I’ve wanted to do something for David, and this Team-in-Training was just the right venue for me to take. The first-class coaching staff from the leukemia society of American is beyond belief. And then our honorees always kept us focused as to why we were out there.

I know without a doubt that David was with me all the way. He was looking down saying, "Job well done, Mom."

As I wrote to me friends and family, "The walk was secondary to the emotional support and healing I received. Thank you for allowing me to grow and learn, even at 60 years of age. It’s not a miracle I crossed the finish line—it’s the courage I summoned to start the training!"

I’m not finished!! There’s the Nashville Marathon coming up in April. I’ll be walking again to honor not only David, but six others. This season I’m committed to raise $1,500 to find a cure for leukemia and it’s related cancers.

From our classmates:

from Annilee (Ann) Ericksen Meyer...[in July, 1999] "Last week I took a four day (45 hour) sailing class in San Francisco Bay. I passed the written exam but flunked the man overboard drill. If it had been David instead of a life ring...he drowned. I should be thankful Dave only wants to sail and not rock climb or sky dive." (Ann and Dave Meyer presently live in Twain Harte, CA.)

from Jack Brown..."We have a large motor home that we intend to travel with, but our trips, so far, have been short and mostly to the casinos in Mississippi. We’re not "full-timers" on the road, just when the urge strikes us. I left an inquiry on the website about Phil Darter. Anybody know what happened to him? He was in the Navy for years but we lost track. If anybody has his address, phone number or e-mail, I’d like to contact him."

from Kent Edwards..."yes, we have purchased and are running a bed & breakfast at Lake Chapala, Mexico. It is already listed in Frommer’s on Mexico with a star rating. The rooms each have private baths. There is a nice swimming pool, fish pond, fountains, gorgeous gardens and large Mexican hacienda eating & reading area. The rates are $55 per night including a great breakfast. We are developing a website. Come see us!

from Jim Santos..."Had a great 60th birthday party—in Las Vegas. Carolyn put together a four-day party for me with about 25 of our friends from around the country—and they all showed up. We just got home last night and I’m still feeling sort of giddy over the whole thing." [September, 1999]

from Jim Hamm...My third wife, Dorothy, and I decided to take in a foster child last year when we were aged 59-1/2 and 54. The girl was nine years old and full of just about all the damage 11 different foster homes could have done to one child in the past six years. I dreamed of a sweet, cooperative child cuddling next to me while I imparted my huge storehouse of knowledge and experience helping her with her homework. What I got was, to say the least, somewhat the opposite. We did manage to pull her grades up to a "C" level, and she is in therapy and making progress. I hope to see you all at the 2002 reunion."

from Richard "Mud Diver" Johnson...I was fishing with a spinner off the bank and I got this great strike and hooked what I thought was a keeper. After about two minutes of playing him I got him close enough to shore to reach down and pick him up. (I had left my net at home.) Biggest trout I ever caught. I took the hook out and tossed him up on the bank so I could make another cast thinking maybe there was another one out there for me. I made the cast and was reeling in when I heard this flipping noise. As I turned around to see what it was, I saw my fish almost back to the waters edge. I dropped my pole and made a dive for him. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. As I was flying through the air he made one more flip and was in the water and I had a handful of mud. Well, to make an end to this story, I must tell you I had a great time but my friends will never let me forget the one that got away."

from Anita Adams Jones..."When I was growing up on Hampton Way my friends and I use to build forts in the vacant lots. I remember one on Gloria Driggs property before her family bought it. Donald Hyberg came and took a look at it. I’m sure he doesn’t remember. This is when we rode our bikes all over Fig Garden. I use to go over to Winnie Winther’s house around the corner from me. I hope I can come to the reunion 2002. I would love seeing everyone again."

from Nona Thuesen Sheid..."in answer to what we did on my big 6-0: Doug & I spent a couple of nights at the Tickle Pink Inn at Carmel Highlands; then my family (minus Eric who lives in Savannah, GA) surprised me with a lovely limo ride to Erna’s Elderberry for dinner.