1975-78 1978 Gregg Petersen 10829 Hilltop Lane Columbia, MD 21044 410-884-0407 / sig29@aol.com Dear Classmates: It’s time for our fall class letter, but most importantly, it’s time to make your plans to attend our 40th (yes, our 40th!) class reunion June 23, 2018, during Alumni Weekend June 21-24! LAURIE MEYER WAGNER ’78, LIZ PECHA-POELKER ’78 and I want this to be our best-attended reunion yet! For those of us on my email and Facebook groups, I sent a note out in August asking who was planning to attend the reunion, and which classmates and faculty you would like to see at the reunion. To date (Sept. 15), TOM HARRISON ’78, DOUG KINGS ’78, JOE KEEGAN ’78, HELEN HOLTER ’78, MICHAEL POULOS ’77 and SUZANNE MONROE POULOS ’75, DAN DAVIS ’78, GINNY MCGEHEE CONDON ’78, GRETA GLUEK PORTER ’78, SUE FEITH SHANNON ’78, LESLIE SPOON BALESTRACCI ’78, TOM RITSCH ’78, DAVE JUNG ’78, AL BEHR ’78, JOSE ALEMAN ’78, ANITA WALLACE ’78, DONNA HANSEN SCYMANSKI ’78, DENISE BAIRD ’78, LAURIE MEYER WAGNER ’78, LIZ PECHA-POELKER ’78, LISA WOLLAN ’78, MELANIE CIVIN KENION ’78, ERIKA DOSS ’78, BRYAN HABECK ’78, and I are among your classmates that I know of that are making plans to be there. On the same note, I asked whom others would like to see there that we have not heard from yet: DENISE BAIRD ’78 is hoping MARY DILLON HOLTROP ’78, BETH BENEZRA ’78 and BARB SCHINTZ ’78 can make it, too! JOE KEEGAN ’78 is hoping JOE PRATT ’78, Alpha Chi Omega sorority ladies (Ginny, Sue, Laurie and Liz are planning to attend, but how about DONNA PAIRITZ KONSTANT ’78, AMY ORR LARSON ’78, BARB EDUCATE DOLAN ’78, LINDA KNAAK KORTE ’78, SHARON RAUPP LANGLEY ’78, ANNE JEFFRIES MILLER ’78, BEV SPITTELLLEHMAN ’78, WENDY HAUSINGER SUKOWATEY ’78, MARY ANN SWEENEY ’78, SHARON WEIZENBAUM ’78, KAREN ROGERS YOUNG ’78 and others …?), and some other Merriman fraternity men (such as MIKE RAINEY ’78, BILL MARTIN ’78, DAN BOSTEDT ’78, DAN CHIONCHIO ’78, MIKE LANDIS ’78, TOM MALONE ’78) also attend. HELEN HOLTER ’78 is looking for CAT DEPEW ’78 and MEREDITH VALENTINE JOHNSON ’78 to make the trip to Ripon. I encourage you to reach out to your friends such as JOHN ZINDAR ’78, ANITA WALLACE ’78 and others have done. If JOSE ALEMAN ’78 can make it from Panama, surely many of the rest of us can make the trip! At the time of the writing, JEANNE SPYCHALLA LIETZAN ’78, ANN LALUZERNE VANDENACK ’78 and LOUISA GEBELEIN JONES ’78 are not sure they can make it. Louisa hoped to see all of us if she can make it herself. In addition, classmates BRYAN LEMMENES ’78, THERESE DESLAURIERS FOX ’78 and BIZ PENDERGAST ’78 have RSVP-ed regrets that they cannot attend. Recommended faculty invitations: Doug Northrop, Bill Woolley, Bob Wallace, Elaine Coll and Sara Romersberger, as well as William Schang and Dino Zei, both of whom are deceased. HEADLINES FOR THIS LETTER: • ’78 Classmate Updates • Sad News: CYRIL DADDIEH ’78, DR. WILLIAM BROOKS 60, PRESIDENT BERNIE ADAMS ‘77
• Washington, D.C. Alumni Events • Nats vs. Brewers Game and P.J. Clarkes Rally Hours • Packers at Bears Watch Party • 40th Reunion Planning in Progress/Additional Details • Class Gift/Annual Fund MIKE CHAMBERLAIN ’78 of Auburn, New York: “I’m hoping SUE HEDMAN ’78 will be at the reunion, as I’d like to catch up with her. I’ve worked a fair bit with the Environmental Protection Agency in the northeast, both during the time I chaired U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northeast Sustainable Ag program and through my work with New York City’s watershed program over the past 15 years.” TOM HARRISON ’78 of Incline Village, Nevada: “As for news, I am now spending most of my time in Chicago and keeping Lake Tahoe as a vacation home. I decided to go back to work and am now working for the Baird and Warner doing mostly residential real estate in the near downtown areas of Chicago. It’s fun but a lot of work getting it up and running. I look forward to seeing everyone in Ripon next summer.” MELANIE CIVIN KENION ’78, of Brighton, Massachusetts, and ERIKA DOSS ’78 of South Bend, Indiana, traveled to Cambodia and Thailand in July. They spent time discovering Angkor Wat and the surrounding temple complex, toured Phnom Penh and Bangkok, took a train over the River Kwai, swam at Phi Phi Island and took a Thai cooking class in Phuket. Look for their picture in R Connections showing them at Tonle Sap Lake, Siem Reap, Cambodia. RUTH MIALE ’81 sent me an instant message that she heard a recent National Public Radio program with Erika discussing her 2012 book Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America in the context of the current national issue over memorials and statues. As most of you know, Erika is a distinguished professor at Notre Dame. “Shaler Girls” JEANNE SPYCHALLA LIETZAN ’78 of Appleton, Wisconsin, CAMILLE BERGGREN WEHNER ’78 of San Francisco, California, ANN LALUZERNE VANDENACK ’78 of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and CARLA OLSEN LARSEN ’78 of Wayzata, Minnesota, held their annual reunion in August on the West Coast. Look for their picture in R Connections. LARRY LAUX ’78 of Dousman, Wisconsin, was in the Hibbing, Minnesota, local news in early April with the curling team that he “skips.” He also got together with his siblings including my Bartlett Hall roommate, DONNA LAUX ’75, and then went fishing in western Ontario. Yup, he caught some. Larry is married to NINA WULFF ’77. ROB “TEX” MEYER ’78 of Moscow, Idaho, is “still in Moscow, Idaho, finishing another novel, which will also probably go ‘unpublished.’” When GREGG PETERSEN ’78 of Columbia, Maryland, and his brother, MIKE PETERSEN ’75 of Winter Springs, Florida, attended the annual Packers Shareholders meeting in Green Bay in August, they detoured to visit with Mike’s sophomore year Merriman roommate and football teammate JEFF SURING ’75 of Suring, Wisconsin. It was the first time Mike and Jeff had visited in the 42 years since their graduation. See their picture in R Connections. GRETA GLUEK PORTER ’78 of Gibsonia, Pennsylvania, said “Retirement didn’t take very well for me. Retired after 17 years as a director of religious education for a Unitarian Universalist Church. After nine months at home and enjoying being on hand for the birth of my second grandson, I have become a social worker,
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