80/80 CLASS NEWS 2. We spent more than 225 days at sea 3. In the 2018/19 Arc, 36 boats started and only 11 finished; in the 2019/20 Arc, 28 boats started and only 12 finished... 4. Crossed 6 Oceans, only Ocean not sailed was the Arctic Ocean 5. Along the way we visited the following countries: St Lucia, Colombia, Panama, Galapagos, Marquesas, Tuamotus, Tahiti, Moorea, Tahaa, Bora Bora, Huahine, Suwarrow, Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Australia, Indonesia, Christmas Island, Cocos Keeling, Mauritius, Réunion Island, South Africa, Namibia, St Helena, Ascension Island, Brazil and Grenada!!! We have now sailed up to Puerto Rico and hope to be able to sail to the Chesapeake Bay by early June. Kim and I are looking so forward to our 40th reunion in Annapolis...we will be sailing in on Someday for our big weekend! Absolutely amazing in the midst of this pandemic! Well done! Stories for life! Thanks for sharing the trip! Speaking of the Reunion, Company Reps are really important in keeping the Class together and making this happen. Please reach out and reconnect with them and your Company Mates. Help them find those who have dropped out of sight and create methods for keeping in touch.
FOR EVERONE – PLEASE GO TO WWW.USNA.COM AND UPDATE YOUR INFORMATION ON THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION WEBSITE. THIS IS THE OFFICIAL LISTING OF ALL OF OUR CLASS AND YOUR CONTACT INFO. PLEASE UPDATE IT THERE AS WELL AS WITH YOUR COMPANY REP! Here are our current Company Reps: Gary Smith, g.garysmith@ icloud.com is covering 1st Company. Please give him a shout. Dale Lehenbauer, dlehenbauer@ carolina.rr.com continues to step up as 2nd Company Rep. Curt Couglin, cogs11@cs.com is still doing a great job as 3rd Company Rep. Make sure you
send him all your information and check in! John Graham, bretjack@aol.com is working to get 4th Company back together. Reach out and check in and make sure he has all of your contact info. Bret and Beth Leadbetter Gordon, bret.gordon@verizon.net and go.beth@verizon.net remain the Company Reps for 5th and 6th Company. It’s a family commitment. It was great to see them at Charlie’s Memorial Service. Beth was sporting a walking cast and Bret was with beard! David Foy, david.foy@navy.mil who is the Company Rep for the 7th Company Seadogs, and a GREAT Company Rep. He reports “I’m Neck deep in Corona Virus fun this week at HQ. Here at Washington Navy Yard, ’80 guys include me, Sam Cox (Heritage Command), Jim Huck (NAVSEA), Rick Lance & Ed Connolly (think still here, been awhile), and now Tony Verduci (CNIC legal counsel).” Cheryl Sponholts, sponzie80@ gmail.com has stepped up to take over 8th Company from one of our great and longtime Company Reps, Mike Ales, AlesM@usmma.edu who turned over the reigns this month. Check in with her – and join the conversation! Randy Farley, 80usna@cox.net is all in with 9th Company, – deep into the planning for the 40th. Dave MacEslin, maceslin@ hotmail.com has 10th Company in his capable hands. They’ve been active with Bill Personius, billpersonius@ gmail.com, our webmaster and doing a great job. Scott Slater, sslater@sccoast. net is our 11th Company Rep. He’s been doing it for a while as have others! Thanks Scott! Check in with him and get the comms started. Brian “Woodie” Wood, woodusn@aol.com has done a great job over the years for 12th Company. Please check in and let him know what you’re up to! Jack Huegel, jhuegel2@gmail. com with the help of his wife, Janis, has been able to get in touch with all members of the 13th Company. They’ve started a monthly newsletter and has had a great response.
Well Done! There was a great note from their email string from Barb and Jeff Tomeo, jtomeo4767@ gmail.com: M Hi everyone, No, No!!! There is no motor home involved; we are living out of our car. It becomes very interesting when some place asks for our a ddress. We get very funny looks when we give them our license plate number. We have been on the move since last August. We were in Carlsbad, CA a few weeks ago then moved on to Vegas. If y’all have never been to Death Valley, you need to add it to your bucket list! Yesterday, we relocated again and are back in CA in San Luis Obispo. I think we’ll be here for a month or so ...or until the wine runs out. I like how they create an acronym from their name and refer to the area as SLO CAL. That just sounds nice! Neither one of us is a blogger so you can’t stalk us as we move around. No particular end in sight though. We have adopted the mantra, “when the time is right”. Jack mentioned taking the time to laugh. Well, that is similar to how this journey started for us. Barb lost her seemingly perfectly healthy brother to illness in March. His only son got married in June and his first grandchild (from his daughter, not the son) was born in August so he missed all that. We all tend to think we have unlimited time but we keep
getting reminders that life is too short and unpredictable. We have always lived far from family and we made the decision to reconnect with them before it was too late. Most of them think we are crazy being on this path, but we have spent more time with them in the past 6 months than in the previous 30 years. We also wanted to get out and experience parts of the country we’d never seen before one of us got sick or we got too old to be adventuresome. Jeff Wit Davis, witdavis1980@gmail. com remains at the helm of 14th Company. They are a very close Company and have stayed in touch. Keep up the great work! Bob Cotterell, rcotterell@att.net and AJ Mullen, ajmullen80@gmail. com are working to herd the cats of 15th Company. Give them a shout! Jeff Maynard, jcmaynard80@ gmail.com is the Company Rep for 16th Company. He’s working to get the contact list up to date! Check in! Bruno Padovani, bspadovani@ sbcglobal.net is still keeping 17th Company connected. Bob Lohneiss, bob.lohneiss@ gmail.com is coordinating the 18th Company. Give him a call and send him an update! Joe Heil, 19th Company Rep, jphssh1@aol.com and joseph.heil@ tmbhq.com has done an amazing job. They get together on a regular basis to honor Don Woollett and are very close and stay in contact through a group text. They are still
’80
JUNE 2020 • SHIPMATE 83