ALUMNI NEWS
With not much to report… I managed to squeeze some info from Jack Lee who says he really doesn’t see anyone from our class except Ed Frank, his monthly lunch date. Jack is still working hard full-time, enjoying his three grandsons and playing bad golf. Ed, who also had nothing to report, did don his white dinner jacket as a trustee for Kinkaid. I caught a glimpse of him from the bleachers up above…
1969
Phyllis McGuyer Sefeldt wouldn’t contribute until I ran into her at Bering’s as she was off to Santa Fe to meet her daughter for a quick holiday. She looks great and between she and Lynn, they know where everyone is!
We gathered for our Reunion dinner at a private room in the North China Restaurant secured by our intrepid classmate Carole Smithwick-Kiebach. Our attendance was near 60, about the same as our advanced ages. We played our favorite 60’s songs (loudly) and told some good old stories about our lives. My two amazing bodyguards kept order and played mean guitar at my after-party, which rocked on until 3 a.m., amps blazing!
Lynn Meyer Fort said kids, grandkids and husband are all doing great. They are looking forward to Taylor’s ’03 wedding in California in May 2015. I can personally say that California weddings are the MOST fun! (still paying for it…) Speaking of California, Shawn Gallagher Dalio and husband Chuck are headed to Santa Barbara for some rest in July. Their daughters, Kelly Tepper (married to Adam Tepper ’01) and Kitty Hochner (married to Lex Hochner ’99), are expecting sons two weeks apart (June 2nd and June 18th). Leigh, their youngest, received her MBA from UT Austin last May and her CPA over the summer. She is working for Ernst and Young in Houston. Lisa Shackelford Moody and I spent a great day at The Woodlands where she lives and works. It was my first visit and I couldn’t even believe it. We had so much fun and even visited The John Cooper School… Ring a bell? Lisa’s children and mine have all met, whether it was in New York or Austin, and it is a really small world. We are enjoying this circle of life… Not sure if there are any others in our class, but Bruce Lively is a great-grandfather!!!!! WOW!!! She is a beautiful baby girl the proud great-grandpa writes… His youngest daughter is now a breast cancer survivor; his oldest granddaughter has been accepted to honors college; and the oldest grandson, a football player for the Katy Tigers State Champs, will be a “Red Raider” in the fall. Congratulations to you Bruce! (I hope I live long enough to see mine graduate from high school!) Speaking of… I went from zero to five grandchildren with the oldest now three years old… And another on the way in October. Life is good and busy, but at least everyone is back in Texas! Annie Owen is still working hard, but she managed to sneak off to Puerto Rico for a birthday getaway. Can’t wait to see where she goes for “the big one”! That’s right everyone, we’re on the edge of Medicare… Can you believe it??? Don’t forget to show up for the next reunion and be sure to bring your card… Drop us a line, once in a while... Elizabeth and Annie
Don Pickels Houston, Texas donwayne69@gmail.com The official news is that our Class of ’69 has returned from several years in the grave. We had our 45th Reunion this past April, and it helped revive our Class!
Carole teaches in the highly regarded Katy School District and has two sons, Eric and Andrew ’98 (fs). Andrew and wife Jen recently had a daughter named Michelle and live in Washington, DC. Carole’s husband is recovering nicely from his second cancer surgery and chemo, and recently started a five-days-a-week, five-week series of radiation as a safety measure against another quick return of the beast. He was in the middle of chemo during the Reunion and could not join us, but promises to be healthy for the 50th!!! Thankfully our football captain Jeff Cross showed up to our class party despite his official duties helping to run the Houston Shell Open Golf Tournament. Jeff runs the Wortham Insurance Nonprofit Organization practice, but somehow makes a profit for his partners. He and wife Elise play golf at Sugar Land’s posh Sweetwater Country Club and ballroom dance together, plus are seen with son Trey at many “long” Astros and Texans games! Many Fridays Jeff lunches with Captain Don and his posse at Frida’s on Ella. My Physics II & Chem. II wingman, Dr. Rick Frachtman, attended our dinner with lovely wife Anne. Rick is an expert radiologist formerly of the Diagnostic Clinic and Memorial City Hospital, now working from home when not cursing our erratic Rockets. The three Frachtman kids all graduated from UT Austin, while two made it through Kinkaid. Rick speaks fondly of great vacations to Fiji, Alaska, Scandinavia and the Rock of Gibraltar. Me, I love Bali and have photos to prove it! We were happy to see Kinkaid booster Pam Kidson Adger and hubby Cal ’63, both smiling broadly at our ancient stories! Pam has worked for the Gerald Hines Property Group (join the club!) over 25 years, now in marketing. She also worked with Kinkaid Trustee Staman Ogilvie for “a great 15 years”. She is proud of her “perfect” 10-month-old grandson, Camden. The long-awaited “reconciliation” between our beloved Murphy Lents and
horse-whisperer Marcy West was handled peaceably at our dinner. Marcy still rides many fine horses on her nearby Texas ranch, and Murphy manages to do the same near San Diego, California, with his love Dianne. Murphy sold his Texas brick company to a California outfit, and then moved out there to manage it. Hope he’s not “gold-bricking!”
Murphy Lents
Along with Murphy, Marianne Tatum (New York City) and Bonnie German Chandler (Harvard, Massachusetts), the other “longhaul” classmate was Navy Captain Sam Wright, the busy Director of the Service Members Law Center in Washington, DC. Sam has “retired”, but still draws a pension and answers complex legal questions posed every day by veterans. He entertained us with real stories about “a few good men” in Cuba (shades of Tom Cruise)! He still reminds me of our undefeated 1969 Prep Bowl team which aired on old Channel 2 for three victorious shows hosted by Ron Stone and Doug Johnson! That and our 1969 Talent Show were my two personal Kinkaid highlights (to heck with my valedictorian thing)! Our bubbly Broadway lady Marianne Tatum joined our Reunion parties with her charming Brit partner Clive who entranced the after-party guests with saucy English tales. Marianne lives in New York and still toils as an actress, looking younger than her years. She was joined at the after-party by the fun party girls Lynne Barlow Bentsen and Kristy Liedtke, who somehow shared a sleek black limousine nicer than mine! Their cool presence and laughter helped re-ignite the Falcon Spirit we all hold dear. Lynne works as an ace fund-raiser for clients like UT, U of H and many others. She is proud of her two children and two grandkids, Sydney and James. We are all sad that she and Phil Kleas did not perform their daring “Cirque de Soleil calisthenics act” (on YouTube), which so captivated everyone in the “run-up to Reunion”! Another Reunion celebrant was our former “Pigeon” editor Bill Liedtke, now residing in Oklahoma City with understanding “saintof-a wife” Adelaide. After many years as an oil/gas attorney (join the club!), Bill is now a partner with Waterloo Holdings, which owns about 120 restaurants in 20 states. Can I get a Whopper here? His talented daughter Victoria (one of three Liedtke kids) is actually a successful pop-music star in the Brooklynbased duo “Hey! Hello!” and can be seen currently in several creative YouTube
SUMMER 2014
videos when not busy touring Europe, South America or Japan. Billy surprised us at the after-party with his fine guitar and vocal chops. Kudos to all who love and play music! Bill asked me to invite all Kinkaidians to visit him, but not during their normal Okie 9-month flood/tornado/earthquake season! Another long-time guitarist & old friend-ofmine, Dr. Tony Arnold, attended the Reunion and had to endure the teasing of folks like me. He’s still an anesthesiologist in Corpus Christi with wife Jennie and three strapping sons Jason, Steven and Danny. Tony’s main hobby is building and selling high-end guitar amplifiers (check him out on E-Bay!). He and I sometimes have a blast going saltwater fishing or seeing great concerts, such as the unforgettable Jethro Tull/Procol Harum pairing at the Woodlands Pavilion around 1999. Tony’s eldest son Jason is getting married this summer, so plan your schedules, people! The Reunion dinner was improved by the attendance and wry wit of classmates Jim Frankel, Welcome Wilson and Katy doctor Mark Bing. Jim looks 40 and builds quality custom homes all around Houston, while Welcome looks more my age, does real estate deals and sometimes pounds the keyboards like he did at our 1969 KHS sock hops! Bing was funny, as usual, still curlyhaired, and full of sage advice about certain pills sold “on TV!” I want to commend another good friend, “EZ” Gary Wilkerson, and his lady Jane for driving in from Canyon Lake where Gary builds custom homes when they’re not tooling around on Harleys or seeing more music concerts than anyone I know! Every year they mount Harleys to attend the huge Sturgis, South Dakota, week-long bikers’ bash, along with almost non-stop rock concerts! Last year they hosted me for a lively ZZ Top concert on the Guadalupe River – I’m pretty sure it was fantastic! Gary’s sweet daughter Christy recently married an impressive young veteran of the Afghan war. Let us also salute our own dashing Doc Dana Harper, who came to the dinner in good humor despite being the chief chiropractor for our beloved Texans and Astros, coincidentally the two worst teams in football and baseball, respectively! We won’t blame that on Dana, who may still be the fastest man Kinkaid ever graduated! He also planted my 12-foot-tall wax-leaf ligustrums about 25 years ago when he was a nursery guru and they were three feet tall!!! Final thanks go out to our kind and efficient Bonnie and Carole for their persistence in arranging Reunion logistics and corralling email addresses. Bonnie amazed me with stories of my alma mater Princeton, where her daughter Holly went to college, and the fantastic reunions they have every year. Bonnie quit her career as a newspaper reporter to become a “full-time farmer” with goats, chickens, ducks, a horse and llama! Her two children sound about as smart as their brainy parents. Her husband John is a Harvard astrophysicist! Both Bonnie and
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