50th Reunion Stories

Thought I’d take a different approach to this ‘assignment’ and use it as an opportunity to share some of the memorable experiences I have had with fellow Principia alums and classmates over the years since graduation. I will leave some of the who’s who in the pictures up to your memory but let you know that there is at least one C’74 classmate in each photo. Needless to say – I am blessed with many fond memories – as well as a wonderful new wife who you will have the opportunity to meet at reunion – if you have not already. Ronnie and I look forward to seeing you there.

I was so grateful to Prin for their encouragement in returning for my Sr year on time.

Our Dad’s business was struggling and they sent my sister Cheri back for her 2nd year, but I offered to help at home with my younger siblings.

Seeing I was not returning, a compassionate Prin admissions person called to ask why.

When she heard it was a financial struggle, she immediately said, ‘Come, we will work it out together!’

More obstacles needed to be overcome, since there was no dorm space and I needed to enroll in some classes to graduate, but they were closed.

We took each step , trusting that God was guiding every detail.  Coach Crafton offered a basement room, and each professor helped me to get the credits needed for graduation. What a heartwarming support for our family from Prin!

The healing was complete for my dad’s business - and later in the 80’s , my younger brother and sister attended Prin and he was able to support Prin by organizing the indoor Hexberg tennis center.

After graduating from Prin, I moved back to California and met my husband John Allen while skiing at Mammoth. We married in 1977 and are celebrating our 47th anniversary this year.

I worked in interior design until our daughter Katy (also  a Prin grad was mobile 😂. When our younger daughter Julie started kindergarten I became Journal listed as a CS practitioner.

While visiting Prin, I was asked to serve as a Trustee ( which I enjoyed for 5 years).

I enjoy distance ocean swimming in Newport Beach and learning German on Duolingo. (Our grandsons now speak German with our son in law & daughter Kate in So Carolina!)

I’ve been on the board of our NMIIC Interfaith Council (for Newport/ Mesa/Irvine) . Recently, I helped organize the Interfaith prayer breakfast .

My Life In Two Paragraphs

I remember the afternoon of our graduation in 1974, packing my four-year history at Prin into the trunk of my parents’ car. “WHAT NOW?” Gratefully, within a year I had found my path. My entire professional life has been supporting the ministry of Christian Science nursing. It has been a wonderful and fulfilling experience of spiritual growth, developing lifelong friendships, and serving in many capacities: facility nursing, home nursing, school nursing (10 years at the Upper School), camp nursing (A/U), and OB nursing (all over the US). It has been a wonderful experience, and I can’t imagine my life being more satisfying. 

My son still lives nearby in St. Louis, and my daughter and her family of 4.5 live in Chicago. Grandchildren are hilarious, and I look forward to greeting ‘.5’ in June.

I look forward to see you all this summer.

Graduated in December '74 and knocked about at various jobs; tree surgery, banking, retail sales,etc. Having family (on my mother's side) in Northern Ireland, got a work permit and spent a year with a Ford dealership. While there in 1979 I met my wife (to be -actually we realized we had met briefly in 1972!) and her wee son and after deciding trans-Atlantic dating wasn't working, we married in 1983 and I gained an instant family and wonderful in-laws. Returned to banking (operations) and was working evening shift when I struck up a conversation with a New Zealander contractor renovating a neighbor's home who admired my Triumph motorcycle on my way to work each afternoon. His girlfriend ran a small claims investigations business and they had need of help and so I started working with them in 1983 and ended up spending 20 years with them. The bulk of their work was defending doctors in medical malpractice cases throughout the NYC Metro area so that was a learning curve(!). For the past 20 years I've been a Special Investigator with the Nassau County Attorney's Office. Served on the Community Development Agency in Glen Cove for 9 years and spent several years on the City's Landmarks Commission. Most of my travel consists of back and forth to Ireland to enjoy family and friends and that's fine with me!

Looking forward to catching up!

Happily living in Sarasota, Florida, 103 countries post Prin.

It’s started off after graduation going with my Ferguson friend, Glenn Freeman to Australia. I wound up staying, and hitch-hiked around the world ending up working in Palo Alto, California at a travel agency. (Got Larry Ellison to where he is.) I credit the Prin Abroad Australia as a game changer for me. Then off to Washington DC, working for a travel consulting firm and next starting the third largest travel agency with eight others. Finally with my business partner, creating an airline CRM system that was used by 28 airlines, and 15 companies – hence much of the travel. Sold the company to Sabre (former IT arm of American Airlines in 2012).

Personal highlights:  Creating “Adoption Airfares” to enable families to more easily do international adoptions, the Leo Ryan Award for work with educating about cults, developing tourism in the Falkland Islands, and designing 5 stamps celebrating the California Gold Rush (the Vicar of Bray is the last ship remaining and the wreck remains),  and attending the opening of the Mary Baker Eddy Library. (My grandfather x5 was Mrs. Eddy’s uncle and born in the Bow house.) Favorite countries are Bhutan, New Zealand, Falkland Islands. Married and adopted two children from Russia. Brother Russ was a Top Gun Marine fighter pilot and ran the adversary squadron in Yuma, AZ.

The Story of Linda Bargmann

I was born in Los Angeles County, grew up in Orange County, and then lived in San Diego County until 2000. I still love San Diego, where my daughter, son-in-law, and two grown grandchildren live in Escondido. My daughter boarded at Principia for a portion of her junior year (Dawn Schultz US ’95.)

My husband Clarence and I started our tax and accounting business as CPAs  in 1982, the same year we started cruising, a favorite pastime for decades. After we retired, until March of 2020 when we had to shelter in place like everyone else, we cruised for a month or two or more at a time, all over the world. Clarence passed on in his sleep on a cruise ship in late 2022, and since then I’ve been cruising with my sister, Sandy Laurie (US ‘72.)

After tax season in 1994, Clarence and I met a CPA who had just become a foster mom and quickly thereafter, our home was approved by California Department of Social Services, and we were asked to take a ‘placement’ before we had even finished the foster care classes to become licensed! We were new, so we believed the social worker when he told us, in September, that a temporary home was needed (for one to four months only) to cover an emergency. So, we agreed to foster a small, adorable two-month-old baby boy named Eddie for a couple of months! It’s a long story from there, but that’s the beginning of life with our son, Eddie Bargmann (US ’13, C ‘18.) You can find some details in a Christian Science Sentinel article titled “A Young Life Restored” in the CSS April 18, 2005, and an interview of Eddie in the CSS September 26, 2005.

Clarence and I provided a home and cared for a dozen foster children in California and Missouri, and then discovered that the younger of Eddie’s five siblings (by his birth mother) were in foster care in California. We met them, established strong relationships, and the long-term result was that two of those siblings graduated from Principia: Tiana Ismirnioglou (US ’18) and Nick Ismirnioglou (US’ 20, C ’24).

I’ve been involved with Bible Study Seminars since the 1980s and am still active with Bible study. Since 2002, when the Mary Baker Eddy Library opened, I’ve been immersed in research on the culture of the Christian Science movement, with an emphasis on the Bible since 2008. When I retired from my job as Business Manager of Principia School in 2014, it gave me more time to pursue this hobby. Since 2012, Helen Mathis and I have given workshops at CS churches. In 2021, along with Shirley Paulson and Helen Mathis, I published a book titled An Annotated Bibliography of Academic and Other Literature on Christian Science, which has now expanded into a website.

Sue (Rice) and I dated for the last half of our senior year at Prin College. After graduation, I wanted to relocate back to the Bay area (where I went to high school and still had a lot of friends), and Sue’s family just happened to have moved next to the town where I had lived. So, Sue and I drove back to San Francisco after graduation. We stopped by Sue’s family ranch in northern Colorado on the way, and I got a taste of “ranch life.” I learned to have great deal of respect for those that work in ranching/farming in the process.

Sue grew up in an airline family (her father was a pilot), and Sue always wanted to be a flight attendant, so after applying and waiting, she joined United Airlines in January 1976, just after we got married.

I began my career with General Electric Credit Corporation and was able to relocate to Barrington, Illinois to facilitate Sue’s assignment to United’s Chicago base. For the next three years, I found people to be wonderful but the weather not to my liking, so after a job change, we moved to Kirkland, Washington in 1980. Sue continued to fly for United (commuting to and from Chicago).

In 1983, we had our daughter (Kim), and our son (Rob) was born 1986. After a few interesting side jobs (stockbroker, accounting teacher at a technical school, and controller of a yogurt manufacturing plant), I joined NASD, a regulatory body that regulates stockbrokers and the firms that employ them in 1985 (now known as FINRA) and worked for them for 26 years as a special investigator. Sue continued to fly for United until she retired in 2012 after 37 years. She took over the running of her family ranch in 2004 and ran it until it was sold in 2010. She also helped start a community school in her spare time beginning in 1995.

Some miscellaneous items: I had the opportunity to summit Mt. Rainier in 1985 and Mt. St. Helens in 1988. (I climbed with a 7 iron and hit a golf ball into the crater. If St. Helens blows up again, I might get my ball back!) I’ve also penned two unpublished books: “Growing Up in Heaven, a coming-of-age story in California” and “The Exciting Adventures of Stevo and Bozo.”

Since retiring, Sue and I have had the pleasure of traveling to Italy, Alaska, Greece, England, Canada, and the great national parks of Utah to name a few. Sue loves to garden, and I enjoy golf and getting together with our children and five grandkids. We purchased a weekend get-away cabin 45 minutes north of Kirkland with 180-degree views of Puget Sound and close enough to the water to hear the whales breach and feed. We are looking forward to seeing all who attend the reunion and hearing all about your journeys since graduation.

Having graduated off cycle in the Fall of '75, I began my next chapter with an amazing Black Lab (Radar!), a combination Grad/Birthday/Christmas gift from my brother and mentor, Russ.  Although I remained in New York for another year and a half, happily working in the automotive field, I accepted an offer in sales for a tungsten carbide manufacturing company in Orange County, CA, and became a transplanted New Yorker.  A-1 Carbide Corporation provided many opportunities for advancement, and I continued my stint of gainful employment with them until reaching a decision to transition building passive income through stock investing which continues even now.

Circling back to Radar who blessed me for 15 years, he literally became the impetus for my early and aggressive push to procure a home (with a secure back yard), sans the white picket fence. Ultimately, that decision provided the added benefit of enough security to support my decision to jump off the (traditional) tread mill relatively early.

During my working years and following, I had opportunities to return to Long Island almost annually, and later, multiple trips to Kentucky visiting extended family and exploring my 'southern roots'. 

2024 will mark my 5th Principia Reunion, all of which were quite enjoyable and in three cases, led to connections with California attendees that have become wonderful, local friends.  I continue to be grateful to Principia for the broad foundation it provided and additionally, several life-long friends.  The journey continues!

I have had many opportunities to learn and grow spiritually as an Army wife for 18 years and then in “civilian life” in St. Louis for 28 years. We have been so grateful that wherever we moved there was always a Christian Science church family who welcomed us with open arms! In 1977 I met a dashing young U.S. Army officer at church while attending a Christian Science youth meeting in Berlin, Germany. I was studying music education in Kecskémet, Hungary, for the year, and Howard was a 1st Lieutenant stationed as a liaison officer to the Russian Army in Potsdam, East Germany. We laugh at the fact that during our long-distance courtship the Russian KGB would wire-tap the phone to listen to our calls between Hungary and East Germany. We both had a few adventurous moments behind the Iron Curtain, but the KGB did not deter us and the following fall we were married at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. During our Army years I taught elementary music, played for church, gave piano lessons, and started children’s choirs at Army postings in Arizona, Boston, Germany, Rhode Island, Virginia, and at West Point. While stationed in Germany, we welcomed a daughter Leslie and our son Andy. After 22 years of service in military intelligence and financial management, Howard retired from the Army, and we moved to St. Louis where our children attended Principia Upper School and College. Howard became the Treasurer for Principia, and later served as CFO and Chief Investment Officer. I have always loved teaching and served as Artistic Director for The St. Louis Children’s Choirs. It was a joy to conduct, perform, and tour with talented young singers who became my extended family for 27 years. Wonderful opportunities included singing at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the White House, and over one hundred concerts with the St. Louis Symphony. On tour, these young artists touched the hearts of audiences in Denmark, Sweden, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Australia. Howard and I retired last September and are having fun traveling and visiting friends and family. Our daughter Leslie lives with her husband and our granddaughter in southern Germany, and our son Andy and his wife Katie live in North Bend, Washington. We’ve loved connecting with classmates and serving in branch churches across America, in Germany, and here in St. Louis. We look forward to seeing many of you at Reunion!

My life has been blessed with a wonderful family and a satisfying career. I have also been grateful to experience Principia as a student, parent, staff member, and alumni.

After College graduation, I received a master’s degree in public administration from Syracuse University. There I met my first husband to whom I was married for 12 years and we had a son, Jason, in 1980.

My work began in the Minneapolis suburbs in city government and then I worked in finance in four school districts in three states (Saginaw, MI, Mission Viejo, CA, Palos Verdes, CA, and Boulder, CO) and was the CFO in three of those districts. A highlight was successfully changing the CO state constitution regarding school finance through a citizen effort.

After my first marriage ended, I met Kent Bilsborrow (C’71) at a Prin alumni event in Colorado. It was good sign that we recognized each other! We married about a year and a half later in 1991 and had a daughter, Laura, in 1994. Kent has a daughter, Kari, from his first marriage, and she is a year younger than my son.

Kent and I moved to St. Louis so I could work for Prin in financial administration for both campuses. I was honored to serve on the Principia Executive Committee. With a colleague, we co-founded a self-sustaining summer day care program at Prin to primarily benefit children of twelve-month employees, which continues today. I worked for Prin for almost a decade from the mid 90’s to the mid 2000’s. A physical challenge resulted in me resigning, and that challenge has since been overcome. I considered myself “early retired” and became involved in a variety of volunteer work. While we were in St. Louis, a group of about a dozen Lowrey gals from the 70’s met for breakfast every few months. It was a lot of fun!

Our daughter attended Principia from Preschool through Upper School. She graduated from the University of Kansas as a D1 swimmer. She currently lives in Santiago, Chile and married a great Chilean guy, Osvaldo Guzman Santis, in October 2022. We have enjoyed traveling to Chile and spending time with them and his family. We hope Laura and Osvaldo will move to Denver metro sometime in 2024.

After living in St. Louis for 16 years, we returned to Colorado and currently live in Broomfield, a suburb of Denver. At this time, I am involved with local policy and political issues as a volunteer, studying and practicing Christian Science, playing bridge, learning Spanish on Duolingo, and binge streaming movies and television shows. Kent is continuing his work as an investor in residential real estate. We are grateful that my mom, my son and my granddaughter Kennedy (7), and Kent’s daughter all live nearby. We look forward to seeing old friends and making new friends at the reunion!

Shortly after graduating, I drove to Boulder, Colorado to be a professional photographer under the name of BOLO’S PHOTOS. Things were going well until my professional camera gear was stolen and I did not have insurance. Big lesson learned.

I moved from Boulder to Denver and signed on with IBM, with the knowledge that the largest computer company would not go out of business because they didn’t have insurance. While in Denver, I met Candy Cooper who was working for Adventure Unlimited. We both attended Sixth Church of Christ, Scientist, and in the spring of 1977 we married in her hometown of Cleveland.

Discovered that IBM stood for “I’ve Been Moved” and after being transferred to Colorado Springs, we purchased our first home at the base of Pikes Peak. We bought a Jeep that we named THE STUMP JUMPER and went camping, four-wheeling, hiking, and exploring the Rocky Mountains frequently.  After moving another two times, I took a marketing position with an up-and-coming telecom company by the name of ROLM. I had the good fortune of working at the world headquarters of ROLM in Santa Clara, CA. In 1984, ROLM was acquired by IBM, so as you might have guessed, I had another move; this time to Tampa, FL. 

While serving as manager of major accounts for ROLM Florida, an IBM Company, we were blessed with a daughter, Jennifer, in 1987 and a son, Ben, in 1989. As those of you who have had children know, having children can certainly change your life; in this case, it was all good. In 1994, we made the decision to move from sunny Tampa to St. Louis, so that our children could attend Principia. I was doing the commuting thing for four months and then was able to secure a senior marketing manager position with Southwestern Bell Corporation, which was the telco for Missouri.

In 1995, I got back into coaching and spent almost every weekend at the soccer fields teaching boys and girls how to trap, pass, and shoot a soccer ball. My coaching of sports expanded into serving as an adult leader in the Boy Scouts of America. Even though there were multiple opportunities in the corporate world to relocate and move up the ladder to higher positions, I elected to stay in St. Louis, so that our children could develop grounded in the whole-man concept of character education at Principia.

I took the early retirement package in 2002, which turned out to be a blessing in many ways. After retiring from SBC/AT&T, I acquired a pro-DSLR and several digital lenses and resurrected BOLO’S PHOTOS. I photographed and produced the “Principia Senior Slideshow” from 2006–2015, with a couple of years off for travelling.

My darling wife, Candy, experienced several strokes, and for the next four years, I served as her healthcare provider. I learned the hard way that being a full-time care giver can be stressful and tiresome.  I had my own set of challenges to handle in November of 2016 and learned how short life can be. I’m happy to report that I pulled through, however, Candy passed away in November 2019. As we all know, covid presented challenges and was an opportunity to hibernate. Then in June of 2020, God introduced me to a lady that would help me turn the page and create a new chapter in my life. For those of you that will be attending our 50th Reunion this June, you will be able to meet Anna, who I am engaged to and hope to be married to by then.

I loved Principia College where I received the best education from any of the higher institutions I graduated from afterwards, and I am mostly grateful I met my husband, Chris Bordeaux (C'73).  I graduated in 1975 from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville with a BS in Science Education; from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg with a master's degree in Curriculum Development; and a PhD in Science Leadership from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. It is interesting to see how much Doc Wanamaker and the Science Department at Principia influenced so many of our careers! I spent the next 40 years as a science educator teaching K–12 and graduate school, along with many interesting applications along the way!

Chris and I have three children and during their early years lived in Brussels, Belgium for five years from 1982–1987, when Chris was working at NATO. It was an enriching experience for us all. When we returned, I was asked by several Principia alums working in the White House under President Reagan to help create a Space Science Education program as a living memorial for the Challenger Shuttle Crew that perished. The flagship program became known as The Challenger Center for Space Science Education, serving in schools and museums across the US, Canada, and UK. As Vice President of Education, I worked closely with NASA developing hands-on, simulation-based curricula for space science education. 

Later, in 2002 after 9/11, I worked for the FBI and served on the Executive Staff for Counterterrorism developing training programs for field agents and analysts. This was a God-led transition/translation applying education and training principles in a new arena for me!  

After a face-to-face encounter with God following a serious car accident in 2017 and being totally restored and healed, I finally knew it was time to apply for Christian Science Journal listing. (See testimony in June 2019 Journal). I am now in the full-time public healing practice since May 2018. I have helped many who have asked for prayer and written articles for the Christian Science Journal and Sentinel and addressed Associations. I also served on the Christian Science Nursing Facility Board at Lynn House in Alexandria, VA for seven years and loved every minute of it! I recommend anyone wanting to prayerfully support and serve CS nursing facilities, as it will most likely launch you into the CS practice! It certainly did for me!

Chris and I live at Smith Mountain Lake outside Roanoke, VA. 

Hi, fellow Syl friends! It’s so nice to hear from and about you. I guess it’s my turn to share, but how do I write something about myself that sums up 50 years?

If I stretch back to 1972, I transferred into Principia my sophomore year from Millikin University in Decatur, IL. I was excited to attend Prin, partly because it offered a degree in home economics and education. Unfortunately for me, Prin closed the department the first year I was there and that forced me to rethink staying at Prin or transferring, again. Because of Principia’s flexibility, I was able to pick up my needed classes at a nearby community college and Valparaiso University in Indiana. I transferred all of my home ec credits back to Prin, where I graduated as a “special major” in home ec and secondary education. (Valparaiso’s newspaper wrote an article about me titled “Our Most Transient Transfer”! haha.)

After all that fuss, I wasn’t positive I wanted to teach so spent the next two years working at Marshall Fields and then working for Dr. Doug Swett and Dr. Tom Fennell in the International Students Department at Prin.

Finally, I decided to try teaching and found that I really enjoyed it. I taught middle school home ec in Arlington Heights, IL. Our district program included teaching nutrition, consumerism, and food science. We developed a class that taught 8th graders how to manage money by living on a budget, writing checks, applying for a job, etc. I loved teaching those practical classes!

While in Arlington Heights, I reconnected with a Millikin boyfriend who happened to have my great-aunt as his 8^th-grade teacher. We dated and married in 1980. Our daughter, Bonnie, came along in 1981 and I stopped teaching to be a stay-at-home mom. Our son, Brad, came along almost nine years later. When Brad was in grade school and Bonnie was in high school, I went back to teaching at our local elementary school. I taught computer technology and ended my career working with special needs students.

Both Bonnie and Brad attended Prin College and after graduation moved to the St. Louis area. Bonnie married Charles Staudt and they gave us two (hysterical) boys. Brad married Sandy (daughter of Martha MacWilliams and John Weiss, PC grads) and they have given us two (delightful) girls. We visit them often as Dave and I continue to live in Chicagoland.

After graduation, I married Peter Brunjes in September 1975 and moved to Salt Lake City, UT where he finished his BFA at the University of Utah. During that crazy year, I substituted, worked as a teacher's aide (for $2.75/hour) and got a February contract to teach 2nd grade in a central city school. The kids had already had two teachers that year and it was trial by fire, but I loved it. We moved to Boston in the fall because I'd been accepted to Harvard Graduate School of Education for an MEd in reading and curriculum development. Our first son, Dylan, was born in October 1976 just after I began the program. I took a brief leave and finished my degree in June 1978, the same day our second son, Justin, was born. While attending school, I worked as a part-time security guard at The Mother Church.

Upon graduation, we left Boston without much of a plan and eventually ended up back in Salt Lake City, where I had been offered a 1st/2nd grade split in a westside school. I taught another 13 years in the Salt Lake School District in various schools and levels. I was certified K–12 in biology and elementary education, added certification in English, gifted/talented and women's studies. When I finished my public school teaching career in 1989 to begin a PhD. in Rhetoric, Writing and Literacy Studies: The Cultural Foundations of Education at the University of Utah, I had taught every grade K–12 except kindergarten and 3rd.

Peter and I divorced in 1992. I continued to work on my PhD and teach clinical supervision for teacher certification students. In 1995, I took the position of Director of Student Teaching at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. The rain October–May was hard, but my position offered tuition waivers and both Dylan and Justin graduated from UPS in May 2000. I married R. Bruce Adams, who I met in a feminist theory class at the "U," in 1997. He remained in SLC until 1998 and we commuted between Tacoma and Salt Lake for 3 years. Bruce moved to Tacoma in 1998 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. We remained there until 2000 when I took a position as an English-education professor and Director of the Montana Writing Project at the University of Montana-Missoula where it didn't rain nearly as much. We lived a wonderful life just outside of Missoula until 2014 when Bruce died from complications associated with pancreatic cancer. 

I retired the following year and moved back to Salt Lake City with my two young border collies, Stella and Elvis. Dylan lives in Salt Lake with his wife, Shere, and my grandkids, Lucia (age 11) and George (age 9). Justin has been living in Switzerland since 2001. I get over to see him and his daughters, Ileana (age 19) and Anais (age 17) about once a year (except during Covid restrictions). 

I started knitting again once I realized I was going to be a grandmother--"Heather Grosi" to my grandkids (Grosi is Swiss German for grandmother). I manage to keep busy knitting, reading, walking my dogs Stella and Jackson (we lost Elvis last year), gardening, and skiing. 

So Ruth, after student teaching and going on a Prin Abroad your senior year, what happened next??

• Settled in Elmira in upstate New York, on the Pennsylvania border, just south of the Finger Lakes.
• A long career teaching elementary general music ... Pre-K to 6th grade ... singing, dancing, circle games, drumming ... lots of concerts and happy memories.
• More concerts ... many seasons (and still counting) singing with The Cantata Singers of Elmira, NY.
• Travel: to visit friends and family; for professional development; for choral singing opportunities.
• Volunteer leadership roles with The Cantata Singers, Corning Civic Music (a concert series of guest artists), the Friends of Woodlawn Cemetery (ask me about our Annual Ghost Walk!)
• And then I retired ... but was asked to run for the School Board ... and I was elected.
• Still more ... class 50th Reunion Steering Commitee.
• Mom to a very social beagle, Baylee.

Looking forward to all the festivities planned in Elsah for our class reunion. See you there!!

What have I been up since college? Not much.

For those wishing to continue to read:

• I live in Denver, Colorado (with wife, Monica and our dog, Duke)
• We have 2 kids both employed (yelp, now I’m bragging)
• I was a trainer and writer…and now gratefully found my true vocation…being retired
• Enjoy dog walking, cruising (you unpack…and your are done!) to places such as Hawaii, Greek islands, Japan, Alaska,  gardening (ok, weeding), deleting useless emails from   companies I’ve never heard of …and practicing solitaire on the computer
• Life is good and we are blessed

Dan Canzoniero (C’75) and I got married in the chapel on Graduation Day. In the morning we attended church, graduated in the afternoon, and got married in the evening. We then headed to South America for a month-long honeymoon. When we returned to our new apartment in Ohio, we worked in the Hallmark card and gift store that we had opened together during our senior year winter break. We opened three more stores in the Cleveland area before buying a printing company in Baltimore that makes labels for bottles and cans for the food and beverage industry. Our son runs the business now.

After moving to Baltimore, I did a major in accounting and passed the CPA exam. I worked part-time while raising our two children, a daughter and a son. I was on the Women’s Committee at the Walter’s Art Museum where I was co-chair of a big fundraising event called Art Blooms. A Monet painting came from a museum in Paris, so it was a big success. Later we moved to the Eastern Shore of Maryland where I volunteered as a court-appointed special advocate for children who have been removed from their homes by the Department of Social Services. I also served as treasurer on the Board of a five-site Preschool.

My husband passed away suddenly five years ago. We had purchased a house in Vero Beach, Florida, three years before that which I am still enjoying. Our married children and four grandchildren spend many holidays with me in Florida. I learned to play golf and Mah Jongg and I also play bridge, ride my bike, and do water aerobics. During the summer months, I am in Easton, Maryland where Dan and I enjoyed many years cruising the Chesapeake Bay from Maine to North Carolina on our boat. We also traveled to many countries with the Young President’s Organization, where we met local YPO members. I especially enjoyed traveling to countries that are very different from ours, including Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and India. I am grateful for my Principia education and the wonderful life that I have lived since then.

In the 1950s, I was born and raised in Ike Eisenhower’s hometown of Abilene Kansas. Small town with a big name. Wild Bill Hickock, Chisholm Trail, and Ike made a good foundation to build on.

Fall 1970, my freshman year at Principia was about meeting new friends from around the states and the world. It was the best starting point for many adventures and memories.  My roommates were Elsbeth Krieg, Anderson East, and Yvonne Mortimer, South Africa, The French House. Some of my college buddies were Tanner Girard, Greg Linder, Lee Ames, Phillip Martin, Seth Leadbeater, and others. Fifty years ago, if you wanted to wear jeans to dinner you had to go between 5–6 to meet the dress codes in 1970s. I still remember tucking my bell bottoms into my boots and my Jane Fonda shag haircut.

Principia is a very beautiful and special campus with well-designed and appointed buildings. My favorite Principia artifact is the large Henry B. Fuller’s 1910 painting “The Triumph of Truth Over Error” that still hangs in the Howard Center Concourse wall. ‘Truth Over Error’ is a great mantra to have.

Summer 1971, Yvonne Mortimer and I started a new adventure with other Principia Upper and College females as tenants with Principia’s Upper School, Captain Robert Craig’s apartment house, 8^th Street, Ocean City Maryland and we all were waitresses at Phillip’s Crab House. Recently published in Principia’s Purpose, former Capt. Craig started the Ocean City, MD Lifeguard program and was active for 50 years of service starting in 1920s. Kansas has oceans of wheat and Ocean City was my first experience on the other flat horizon of the Ocean. I love big skies and 360 horizons views.

When I returned home to Kansas, I enrolled at Kansas State University’s College of Architecture and started my professional career 1977 back in Ocean City, MD with Loewer and Assoc. to work my way to Europe. After reading some of the Prin women alumni stories, they too had challenges in the man’s working world. When I became a registered architect in 1989, there were only 12 percent women and 9 percent black architects. Thirty-five years later, women only represent 24 percent of the registered architects. I will always be looking for a level playing field and a seat at the table.  I was licensed as an architect in three states.

In 2003, after 40+ years in the design and construction industry for corporate, hospitality, and residential projects as a federal, state, and private Industry employee, I took early retirement to help my parents as their caregiver and property manager for their Carl Properties. After living and working in 12 different states, I tallied up my adventures outside of Kansas with only one-third of my lifetime and as a Kanas resident currently two-thirds of my life. I still design and construct and am proud as my parents’ legacy gardener. As Dorothy learned, “There is no place like Home!”

I wish everyone a flower bouquet to give laughs and smiles with lovely memories and celebrations of their time at Principia. 

Tom Carroll’s life after Prin

After graduation in 1975 I spent the summer in the intern program at the Mother Church with Dave Buchanan. Dave and I met fall quarter freshman year in English 101 with Mrs. Fennell. We had a great time in Boston as they were getting ready for the Bicentennial. Afterwards, I moved to Denver as Colorado was where I wanted to be as we have a family cabin in the mountains that I grew up going to.

I waited tables for a while and skied a lot and then got a job at Burroughs in the computer industry and have basically been in IT ever since. I met my first wife on a rafting trip with a group of CSers. That only lasted 5 years but was a friendly split. In 1986 got married again and had twin boys Sean and Mack. They have grown to be terrific adults and I am very proud of them. The marriage was a disaster but it was worth it having the boys. Some of my favorite memories are coaching them in soccer and baseball and spending time at our cabin.

I spent 20 years in Denver and then moved to southern California because the second wife got a job offer we couldn’t refuse. We separated and then divorced after a year in LA but I ended up spending 20 years total there and have been back in Denver for 7+ years. I met AmiLynne in 2007 as we lived at opposite ends of Interstate 10. She was in Jacksonville, FL. We got married a year later. You will have to ask us for the story.

As mentioned, several jobs in different IT environments with some time spent in payment processing. I am still working for a software company, X2Engine, Inc. which is owned by, wait for it, Dave Buchanan. I can’t get rid of the guy. Actually, this has been my favorite job in all that I have done.

I haven’t lived in Chicago since 1971 but I remain a diehard Cubs and Bears fan.

Looking forward to seeing everyone and introducing you to AmiLynne and our service dog Beau.

Wonderful reading about everyone's lives post donning our Principia caps and gowns 50 years ago. 

I spent years, either working or volunteering, in social services...welfare caseworker, child abuse/ neglect investigator/caseworker, foster care recruiter, Big Brothers/ Sisters, Optimist Club, Girl Scout leader, PTA, school volunteer in many capacities, school foundation member, youth orchestra board, etc., etc., etc. Also, church organist, board member, and reader. I also attended real estate school and obtained my Nebraska Real Estate License. 

I have lived in Terre Haute, Indiana (current residence), Kansas City, Missouri, and Omaha, Nebraska. In addition, I have worked in various sales positions. My former husband, Jim and I shared 33 years of marriage before we mutually agreed to go our separate ways. 

My favorite and best job was a stay-at-home mother to my two lovely daughters, Lauren and Jamey. Lauren attended Principia College for two years and completed her chemistry degree at University of North Carolina. She then added a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Creighton University and is currently a hospital pharmacist at University of Miami Cancer Hospital. She and her husband, Jorge (oncologist surgeon) and their son, Jairo, live in Miami, Florida. 

Jamey worked for and received a full ride scholarship to play women's basketball at Indiana University. I often baked cookies for the team and traveled to as many games as I could before her career was shortened and her desire to obtain a teaching degree was altered by a severe car accident. While at Indiana University, Jamey made Academic All Big 10 and the Dean's List for academics. After many years of prayer, therapy, courage, and perseverance in her recovery, and with immense gratitude, Jamey now resides in Durham, North Carolina, with her husband, Scott (Microsoft engineer) and their little boy, Nathan, where she is a personal trainer and mother. 

My life now consists of traveling to visit my daughters and grandsons and to Kansas City and away games to watch the Kansas City Chiefs. I have been a season ticket holder for 22 years. A bucket list check off was attending the Super Bowl in Miami. Other travels have taken me to Canada where my parents had a house for over 30 years, Mexico, Aruba, Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos, and numerous beach vacations. I enjoy all sports, music, reading, and movies on Turner Classic Network ( good ol' black & white shows). 

I provided care for my beautiful parents for many years. One of my favorite trips was planning (two years worth!), organizing, and accompanying my father and his " fly boys" to Washington DC on an Honor Flight where these brave and courageous Air Force heroes got to visit THEIR memorial..the World War II Memorial. An unforgettable and emotional event. 

Thank you for your indulgence as my 50 year re-cap is far from succinct. 

With love, 
Valeri❤️

I haven't traveled the world. I am not the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I didn't make the cover of People magazine. Instead, I followed my passion and became a dairy farmer in 1978 with a herd of registered Jersey cows retiring in 2016. I got married in 1982 to the same wonderful girl I am married to today, Sue. We have four children who have been successful in their own lives. Two are married, one is engaged. They have given us two grandchildren with another on the way.

Several Principians have crossed our paths. Jim Richmond (C’60) made his home close to us and used to work for my father. His mother taught religion at Prin while we all were there. Owen Shindler (C’75) lives nearby and was a roommate and best man at our wedding. Lynn (Newman, C’76) Lawson and I served on the Board of Directors together at the First Church of Christ Scientist, Montpelier, VT. Duncan Kellogg-Clark (C’76) and I are in regular contact. One I miss is Warren Clinton (C’65), former business professor and dean of men who visited us every fall until his passing.

Our farm provided us with a wonderful life, and even though I am retired, it keeps me busy. We lease our fields and pasture to our neighbors, so it is still farmed. Owning and operating a farm involves stewardship of the land and animal husbandry which results in a unique experience with God, a relationship we cherish. 

Give me an unending page and I will try to fill it!

Something that has provided significant food for thought for me of late, as an artist, poet, father, husband, little beam of living Love - is the idea of PROCESS vs PRODUCT!

Annabel and I are rewatching Northern Exposure on Netflix. In one episode the local philosopher/disc jockey (Chris) helps a friend (Holling) who is distraught. He completed over his a paint by number painting and was feeling so fulfilled and satisfied. When a friend insults it Holling is ready to give up painting. Chris advises Holling that his problem is that he is caught up in product over process. He encourages Holling to burn the painting as a means of releasing the product and thus focusing on appreciation of the process.

I think the supreme and ultimate reality of being which we call God is likely into process and not product.

Our process with Principia has been ongoing as our son Skylyr graduated in 2020. Our daughter Kyrstyn will graduate after this upcoming semester. Skylyr also spent a year at the Upper School, so we just haven’t been able to be away from the place.

I look back on my own experience at Principia and realize that the south side of Chicago and a paycheck-to-paycheck life was very different from what seemed like a country club on campus.

My dad passed when I was 14. I really needed and cherished what Christian Science offered.

I was pretty deep in process. Once at Principia, I realized that product could also be very attractive. Was that a distraction?

Thinking of my own experience at Principia, a cornerstone of my life has been found in Mary Kimball Morgan’s statement that, we all share the same vocation. We may have different avocations. But the vocation we share is to “come to a measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” as Paul puts it.

Following graduation I worked for a year with a graphic arts and advertising firm in downtown Chicago.

I had gotten to know Chris Cole very well when he was teaching at Prin, we played a lot of tennis together, and I admired the fact that he had gone through the Chaplain Training program. So despite my focus to that point in fine art, creative writing, and zoology, the idea of growing in, and sharing, a deeper understanding of the truth of being sounded very appealing.

I moved to Boston and worked as Foreman of the night shift in Security for about a year while awaiting results of my second application to the training program, which was only accepting one person per year.

I married the very first love of my life, Alice Shultz, who awkwardly was the sister of my best friend Alan!

After completing the three years of study towards a Master of Divinity degree I went on active duty in the Army. First to Fort Old in California. From there to Germany where I visited our nuclear field artillery units scattered throughout Bavaria. Never knew from day to day if a 17 year old German conscript in a Volkswagen Thing, Beetle, or Bus - or a civilian driver in an Opel sedan would be my driver to whichever Kaserne I was visiting that day to provide our soldiers with counseling and worship opportunities. We then moved to Fort Carson, Colorado.

Not a bad string of assignments!

I left Active duty after 10 years. I remained active in the Reserve and was a hospital chaplain at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

I applied to be Assistant Administrator of a Christian Science nursing facility in Michigan. After interviewing they called to say that they did want to hire me, but that they hoped I would take the role of the Administrator. There went my on-the-job training! Since Alice was involved in a Master’s program we decided she would remain in Colorado to complete her degree and I would go to Michigan. Unfortunately, during that year and after 13 years of marriage, she came to feel she really needed time to discover herself and our marriage ended.

I had a business in Colorado Springs marketing structural steel building materials.

It was then I met my enchanting, creative, energetic, child-loving, educator, soul mate, and spouse Annabel. We married in 1996.

In 1998 we awaited the birth of our son Skylyr with our midwives in our home in Colorado Springs. Everyone was so sure that Annabel was carrying a girl that when I caught Skylyr as he flew out, I found myself face-to-face with and overwhelmed with emotion as I stared into the face of our new baby daughter…or so I thought until one of our midwives said, “Okay, time to get him up on Momma!”

I had opportunity to serve as First Reader of the Colorado Springs church and Annabel would remind me that Skylyr was there listening to the lessons on Sunday and Wednesday. That may be how he ‘caught’ my voice!

We then moved to San Diego where I was Administrator of the Christian Science nursing facility.

Later, I was CEO of a not-for-profit in Grand Junction, Colorado.

On September 11, 2001 we awaited the birth of a new member of our family. Skylyr had come at about 2:30 a.m. and we anticipated that this new arrival would too. But Kyrstyn held-out until morning. I left Annabel and the midwives to go put Skylyr in front of Sesame Street with his breakfast, but when I turned on the TV there were the planes crashing into the World Trade Center towers. Kyrstyn was born kind of between the two strikes.

We suspected this might spoil this special day for us for all time, but it was soon clear that news of this little beam of light entering on a very dark day, this little beam of living Love entering on what might otherwise have seemed a loveless day, brightened that day for so many of our family and friends.

Very soon after I had orders back to Active Duty. First Fort Benning, Geogia. Then Fort Lewis, Washington. Finally, Fort Hood, Texas.

During those years the chaplaincy was an entirely different experience. We were an Army at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I ministered to the families of over 80 soldiers killed in action; over 150 wounded in action; and to families and soldiers involved in the shooting incident at Fort Hood."
I wrote a book after leaving Active service entitled "Continue To Love." (Andre Christopher Cieply).

When I retired in 2010 after this ten-year mobilization I realized it was like I had been running on a treadmill.

Annabel was able to spend 12 years as a home-schooling and stay-at-home Mom. Then she worked as a Parent Educator at Fort Hood. A Montessori 1st-3rd teacher in our public school system here in Holland, Michigan. And now as an Outdoor Preschool teacher in an 11 million dollar facility affiliated with he Outdoor Discovery Center!

Retirement has allowed me to focus on being a dad, a husband, a return to being more of a full time practitioner of Christian Science, artist, poet, writer, thinker.

Back to process instead of product.

It’s nice to be back!

Though I do miss being able to walk into the dining hall in the Concourse and sit down with maybe a friend, maybe someone I’d not yet met. To be enchanted by the beauty of process in relationship. I sat in church not to long ago looking at “God is Love” on the wall behind the Reader’s desk. I Thought, “I wonder if there is a one word definition for exactly what Love is?”

The answer that came to me is “relationship.”

“God is relationship” is I think, accurately another way of saying “God is Love.”

Maybe that’s why we all have loved, and continue to love, Prin so much!

See ya lifelong loves!

After graduating from Prin,  I went back to London (where I had gone on a Prin Abroad) as I’d loved it there. The plan was to stay a maximum of one year, working in a CS Nursing Home – rooming with my good friend Jerri Barnes (C’75), who later married Dick Davenport. On arrival in London, we travelled to a CS Youth meeting, and on the second day in the country, I met my future husband, Pete Clay.  We were engaged in three weeks and married in six months. What a wonderful man;  we were married almost 47 years - he passed away in January 2023.  We have a daughter, Ann, who is married and lives in Sydney, Australia with her husband and two children. Our grandchildren are now 16 and 13. 

During my last year at Prin, I took an international relations course with Dr. Collester; I found that it fascinated me.  I followed up on that interest, and I got my Masters in that field from University of Southern California’s London programme.  

I also joined Shell International, where I worked for 25 years. The company offered me many opportunities and travel. My career there had four different phases: oil trading, international auditing, finance, and leadership of change. During that time, we lived primarily in the London area but also lived a few years in Germany and in Switzerland (where Betsy Slaughter-Olivera and I managed to get together). I travelled a great deal – work taking me to about 55 countries.  Along the way, I got my management accounting qualification. Pete was self-employed (as a violin maker) which allowed us enormous flexibility of movement.     

I left Shell in 2004 in order to continue in the field of change leadership. I was part of a consultancy group, and became a partner, working with leaders in large organizations (based in a number of countries) who were going through significant change.  

During that time, we moved to Woodbridge, Suffolk in England – which is now home.

One of Pete’s passions was sailing, and I learned a great deal from him about that. We have a lovely gaff rigged yawl, about 33 feet long, called Nirvana. She’s about 100 years old and beautifully built of wood. Pete and I sailed together many years on her in the UK, Holland, and Scandinavia – with me being his crew!  

In the last 20 years, Pete became very involved in the maritime aspects of Woodbridge and helped start a project along our waterfront. Have a look at Woodbridge Riverside Trust and also the Sutton Hoo Ship Company (who are rebuilding the Anglo Saxon ship buried at a place called Sutton Hoo). For those of you who have seen the movie, The Dig, with Ralph Fiennes –  that’s the story of the ship being rebuilt in Woodbridge. 

Since retiring in 2014, I became part of this work too. My first project was to co-produce a theatrical opera of the Sutton Hoo story (took 3 years, but a fabulous and successful experience); it was called The King’s River.  I knew nothing about theatrical work – but learned quickly! Subsequently, I have become a Trustee of Woodbridge Riverside Trust – and we have all sorts of activities, events and exhibitions in a building called The Longshed.    

Church is an important part of my life, and I’m active in my local CS Society. I am also a CS Chaplain at a men’s prison, where I work every Monday in a Category B prison. I am a member of the Chaplaincy team and spend most of my time on the wings visiting prisoners.  

I love visitors and am so pleased that some of my Prin friends have found their way to stay with us over the years.  

My husband and I met on a blind date. We've been married 48 years but have had only 12 anniversaries—but who's counting, anyway?

We started our married life together in Flint, Michigan. My husband started his 50+ year career in philanthropy, while I began my journey through life by starting 2 retail businesses within 6 years and closing both after 12 years. We had 5 house moves, several different jobs, and the adventure of a lifetime!!! ... But who's counting?   First came a basement business named "Diane's Designs". This quickly became "Seams Sew Nice," a retail sewing store with everything from sewing and knitting machines to specialty yard goods and laces, custom design services, and a ton of classes, all under one roof! The first of our four 'kids' (all Golden Retrievers) was spoiled by our customers and their husbands. Yes, we provided dog treats and free petting and kisses for all who entered our doors! A highlight of these years is having a picture in the Boston Globe featuring the late Catherine Keith wearing a custom piece at a Boston Ballet Gala.

After 12 years, including a 4-year term as Flint's City Administrator (oh, the stories he can tell!), a new opportunity with a corporate foundation led us to Rochester, New York.  I was accepted to study at RIT and The American School of Craftsmen, a part of their MFA program in the Fiber Arts area. This expanded my artwork to include machine embroidery, silk screening, and other handcrafts with wood and metal, as well as textiles/fiber arts.

Fortunately for us, Michigan called, and we returned to Michigan. Specifically, Traverse City, home of the richest Rotary Club in the world, where my husband found himself overseeing the renovated downtown hotel, along with 8 pumping oil wells and two charitable foundations. When not hosting Rotary Exchange Students, I returned to my family roots of working with metal (think furniture) at the local community college to create metal buttons, broaches, and boxes. An interesting commission came my way when I was asked to design a breastplate for the special Aaron's Robe worn by the local bishop during the Lent season. There was a special story in the regional newspaper about the garment. This period also included two summer sessions at the Haystack Arts Camp in Deer Isle, Maine. During our five years in Traverse City, we said goodbye to our first Golden Shailmar and added two more 'kids': Trillium and Honey!

Next, we were on to Grand Haven, another "lakeside" town, for five years. This time, duties covered the whole state of Michigan and many trips to WDC. For the last 25 years, we have been in Grand Rapids, with better airport connections, better statewide access, and more friendly. We said goodbye to another Golden and welcomed our last ... Gracie!

I returned to a lifelong interest in water—I taught infants to swim, was on the Michigan State University Synchronized Swim Team, and taught warm-water, gentle exercise classes to folks of all ages. A highlight was being certified as a Master "Ai Chi" instructor. Think 'T'ai Chi' done in water! The continual reward was seeing participants discontinue or reduce the use of medications and healed from the mobility challenge that introduced them to the class.

As Mrs. Eddy shares in the Glossary, we continue to be blessed - even in retirement - with daily Zeal - reflecting the animation of Life, Truth and Love - expressed in gardening, volunteering, travels, and supporting family and community.

It’s hard to put in words how much my experiences at Prin enriched and forwarded my life! It prepared me for my career as translator and for the opportunity to serve The Mother Church for some 10+ years.  It also fed my desire to share Christian Science in my home country of Finland during years of travel there while living in Boston.  After marriage and family and a few years outside of Boston we moved to Cape Cod, where I’ve been blessed by wonderful friends and active membership in the Hyannis CS church. 

I’m so grateful that my children too have had the opportunity to attend Prin and to make life long friendships there.

I wish everyone a very happy and memorable reunion!

Hi,

This may be too late to post, but just in case, here goes!

I’m loving my home in Chesterfield MO, close to two of my children.  Son David and his wife Lauren Worley Cornthwaite have two sons. Helping out with my Grandsons is such a joy!  Daughter Lauren lives nearby and works at Prin College, as does David.  My daughter Devon is a graduate nurse at the BA in Boston. I get to visit her a few times a year, which is terrific. I have continued to sing, and am currently soloing at the Valley Park CS church.  I directed the Musical Theater program at Cedars Camps for 26 years, taught voice lessons at the Prin St. Louis campus for 19 years.  Now I just love being retired, (except for soloing and helping in the kitchen at Cedars during conferences), working in my garden, and being with family.  Life is great.

Much love,

Diana Gayley Cornthwaite

Jerri’s 50-Year Recap

• September ’75 went to England with Nancy (McFall) Clay and worked at Hawthorne House, a CS nursing facility. Returned in March ’76.
• Married Richard Davenport (C’76) in June of 1976 at the Elsah picnic grounds.
• Moved to Boston for Richard’s Chaplain training program. I worked in security and as a computer programmer at The Mother Church.
• Moved to San Antonio, TX, for first Air Force assignment. Child #1 – Amanda – was born in 1983.
• Richard was sent to Korea for a year on an unaccompanied assignment. Amanda and I visited him in Korea at the end of his tour. During the year he was gone, Amanda and I drove around the country visiting friends and family – attended my 10th college reunion.
• Stationed in Sacramento, CA, and welcomed Child #2 – Bethany – in 1986 and Child #3 – Brian – in 1987. I primarily raised our three kids and was the clerk of a large CS church while we were in Sacramento.
• Richard was selected to be the Air Force’s choice as the chaplain for the Armed Force’s Radio and Television Service. Off we went to Los Angeles. Child #4 – Natalie – came in LA.
• Next, we were stationed at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. We were supposed to be there for three years, but while we were still unpacking, we were informed that Richard was selected for the one Lt. Col. Chaplain slot in residence at the Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama. We left Germany after only 10 months, and my heel marks across Germany and France are still visible from the space station. But the assignment at Air War College proved to be wonderful.
• After those 10 months in Alabama, we moved to Panama City, Florida, where Richard was the senior chaplain at the community chapel on Tyndall Air Force Base. I was very active in the Officers Wives Club and in Chapel activities.
• After two years, we moved to Principia College where Richard joined Chestnut Booth as co-deans of the College. The kids rode the bus to the St. Louis campus for school. After a year, I became a bus chaperone for one of the buses and did volunteer work and substitute teaching on the School campus. 
• I eventually joined the Upper School’s English department where I worked for the next 15 years as both an English teacher and reading specialist having earned a Master of Arts in teaching degree in literacy from Webster University.
• Upon leaving Principia, I attended Eden Theological Seminary, where I earned my Master of Divinity degree. I was interested in exploring the intersection of art and faith with adults. Throughout my degree program, I was able to create numerous inspirational art pieces to enhance the academics of the classes.
• We moved to Laguna Hills, California, (to The Willows) two years ago to be near three of our adult children. We also have three grandchildren nearby. 
• Currently, I work with religious communities doing Bible study, creating art installations for worship, singing in a church choir, occasionally giving a sermon, and offering workshops on a variety of religious topics. 
• I also make artisan jewelry under the name of Metalmorphic Stones. 

After graduating from Principia, I got my teaching credential at UC Irvine, and I taught history and journalism for Santa Ana School district until I retired in 2010. After that I did a year or so of occasional lecturing on cruise ships. I have also published four books, a couple of which are in the Principia College Library.

I have lived in the same place in Newport Beach, California since 1976 and am active in the Newport Beach Historical Society. Still single, probably because when at Prin, there was some fancy dinner/dances and I asked about eight different girls and got turned down each time. I had a brand new suit which I had tailor made in Hong Kong on a Prin Abroad semester at the time and wanted a chance to wear it. I have decided since then to just have a dog and have no regrets!

Recap? Geesh! Well, I have lived in my home state of Colorado for most of the past 50 years! I received an art education teaching degree in the ’80s and taught elementary art for about 30 years, first in Aurora, then Jefferson County. I got my master’s in education in 2000, at long last. I am (now) married to my sweetie, Tina; 14 years “officially/legally” and 35 years together. We live in Golden, CO, are both retired and totally enjoying traveling in our small but PERFECT 2004 Chinook RR . . . lots of backroads and campsites in Colorado and the western states from Wyoming to Texas. We've done international group trips to Peru, Costa Rica, Mexico, Norway, and Egypt and plan to do more. In fact, we are headed back to Costa Rica this spring! Have many happy memories of Sylvester and Prin. Best to you all!

After college, I taught school at Chicago Junior School, a small private school run by Christian Scientists, in Elgin, IL. It was a wonderful little school with wonderful supportive teachers. I taught there for 22 years starting with first grade and then third grade. After going back to school and getting a degree in technology education, I taught technology. I left there in 1998, but through the magic of Facebook have stayed in contact with the lifelong friends I made there.

In 1980, I married Jim D’Errico, the love of my life. We settled in Wauconda, Illinois and lived there for 18 years. He inspired me to be more adventurous, always kept me laughing, and was a great partner in life. We spent many enjoyable years sailing and at the beach. After a horrible blizzard, Jim decided we should move south, and in 1998 we moved to Cary, NC, in the triangle area. I transitioned to teaching technology in the public schools (culture shock!) and after teaching for 39 years, retired in 2015.

Jim passed away in 2019, and we were blessed to have had 39 happy years together. I’m still enjoying life in the south with my dog, Mickey.

This 50th reunion makes me realize how much all of my Principia classmates and housemates were important to my life and growth — and for that, I thank you all! I have two wonderful daughters from my first marriage and inherited two great step-sons from my second wife (DeAnna) of thirty years. Together we have three grandchildren nearby and there’s nothing better than that. I enjoyed a long career in manufacturing metal products and a second shorter career building custom robotic production lines, both in central Connecticut where we live. Now, between grandchildren, branch church obligations, and some golf, I write screenplays for The Effulgence Foundation, historical documentaries of “second generation” Christian Scientists. I look forward to seeing you all.

June 1, 1975  Graduation from Prin College!

June 7, 1975  Married my Upper School sweetheart, Dee Coffer, in Houston. We moved into Univ. of Illinois married student housing units in Urbana on June 8.

June 9, 1975     Began classes to earn a Master's Degree in Library Science.  My Prin College faculty advisor had strongly recommended I prepare for a career in libraries.  

June 1976         Earned Master's Degree. We moved to Elsah. Could not find a library job at either the College or in nearby towns. I did get a job in the Prin College Bookstore as a cashier until February, when the Upper School called and asked me to start work on their campus. The Upper School librarian, Reba Lisle, decided to retire immediately. As I had a degree and knew the curriculum and most of the faculty, I filled the vacancy while candidates were interviewed. I was hired as the permanent librarian and started to earn a teaching certificate.

June 1977         Dee and I moved to St. Louis near the Upper School. Dee took classes in technical illustration and was hired by McDonnell Douglas Aircraft as the first female employee in their drafting department. I served the Upper School as librarian until 1999. Then I was hired as the Upper School principal. I retired from Prin in 2007. Dee and I enjoyed a cruise in Alaska for a week.  

Other important events during this time included parenting two wonderful daughters, Heather in 1980 and Sarah in 1982.  They attended Principia from Preschool through Upper School.  Sarah married in 2006 and moved to Boston.  In 1981 I helped start a computer software company with six school librarians and a computer programmer, called CALICO.  We worked on weekends, developing tutorial floppy disks for school librarians to use.   The company closed in 2005.  Also, we helped start the C. S. churches in Valley Park and O'Fallon, Missouri.  

After retirement from Principia, we moved to Buena Vista, Colorado. I heard about a new school starting up called The Link School, which describes itself on its website as: "An alternative high school for students who are seeking an experiential education where Christian Science is lived." I was hired in fall 2007 and taught night classes in history until 2020. On the webpage is a quote from me: "Teaching at Link has been a highlight of my long career. I deeply enjoyed the challenge of meeting the needs of several levels of students and celebrated the healings of academic limitations over the years. Link certainly lives up to its purpose."  

In fall of 2008, I was hired full time at the BV High School as the middle and high school librarian. Dee fulfilled a dream and opened an art studio in Salida, our county seat. When I retired in 2020, we moved to Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, where we could enjoy painting lovely landscapes together with lower living expenses. Other important dates: grandson Sam born in 2013 in Boston, grandson Davy born in 2017 in Fort Worth, and Heather earning her PhD from the University of Missouri in 2019. She has lived in the Washington, DC area ever since.   

Dee passed on in 2021. I lived alone in an empty house in a small town, attending church via Zoom.  Sarah started researching retirement communities in Fort Worth. She found one called The Vantage. She encouraged me to visit the place,  just minutes from her home. After a three-hour tour, I was sold. I moved in March 2023. I love living here! The 210 self-sufficient residents are happy, have fascinating life stories, and come from across the USA. I am one of the younger residents but have good friends aged 97. Meals are fantastic, classes and activities abound, and free transportation is provided for errands. My exercise options include water aerobics at a nearby YMCA several times a week, line dancing once a week, and helping to walk a neighbor's dog.   

P.S.  This month I spoke with two women living in Fort Worth with CS backgrounds. When they asked my name, they smiled hugely. Both had attended Prin Upper School around 1980 and said I was a favorite teacher!

Greetings to everyone!  Gosh, I’ve been reading some of these submissions so far and wow, I’m impressed! 

After graduation, I went to live in Ridgecrest, California and worked as a secretary in the only civilian-run Naval base in the world, the Naval Weapons Center.  First taste of desert life, and I loved the dry heat and constant sunshine.  Met wonderful people and had a blast.  A year later came back to Chicago and tried to put my French degree to use.  Interviewed with a French bank, BNP, and got a job as receptionist. Loved it!  A local crew from WTTW (public TV station) came by to film us as international banks had just been allowed to offer retail at the time.  (My dream of working as a translator at the UN never panned out as I determined my level of French language expertise would be found wanting.)  Got into retail banking through BNP, but eventually got hired by a private company to sell a collateral monitoring service to commercial lenders in 4 states.  7 years there as the only woman among 65 salesmen; I enjoyed it tremendously.  (Remember what a big flirt I was?)  Ha!

Meeting so many commercial lenders led to being hired by a few banks to do commercial lending. One of them happened to introduce me to my future husband on his sailboat. We dated for a year and were married in June 1986.  We lived in Chicago on the lakefront and got our own sailboat - 5 years of working all day, sailing evenings and weekends.  It was glorious. I managed to get my master's degree in finance during 3 years of night classes and won the award for best business plan of the year, 1990.  Walked down the graduation aisle 8 months pregnant - quite unusual back then!  2 children followed, Jessica (now 33) and Andy (now 31) and we decided to move to the suburbs for better schools.  I gave up my career to be a full time Mom and was very active at their school activities including fundraisers and sports.

Family vacations were usually skiing or sailing - I came to love Deer Valley and sailing in the Indies. One memorable experience was going to Normandy with my dad and the immediate family (14 of us) to see where he landed at Utah Beach on June 6, 1944, and to meet up with a family he knew back then. Random French people paying homage to my dad and thanking him for their freedom were moments I’ll never forget. It was also fun being the translator at mealtimes and events.

Now I’m very active in my local branch church and have worn all the hats.  Trying to determine my next chapter: run an Airbnb in Tuscany? buy a place in France? Grandkids will be pulling me to stay right here, but I’ll keep dreaming.

Upon graduating, I worked for a local hydrologist in Santa Barbara using my geology degree. Several months later, I started working with Union Oil Company (UNOCAL) in Downtown Los Angeles in their Geothermal Energy division with their exploration staff. I was UNOCAL’s first woman landman—someone who negotiates mineral leases with landowners—and traveled throughout the Western States. It was fun to be in a new energy field, contributing to alternative energy resources and using my geology degree.   

As regulations changed and required flexibility to do different things and as parts of the company were sold and merged, I moved into manufacturing and transportation, and corporate procurement and process improvement positions in Los Angeles, Orange Co., and Oklahoma. I’ve been able to travel to Canada, Scotland, and Australia, and throughout the US. I’m very grateful for such an interesting and long career, and my Principia education. 

I met and married an engineer. We traveled a lot together, and eventually we went our separate ways. 

Since I stepped away from my career 12 years ago, I’ve volunteered as president of a Christian Science Nursing (CSN) Facility Board, (Sunland Home in the San Diego area), led the trade association Executive Committee, and have been active in several CSN efforts and committees.  

I also worked at Camp Pendleton Marine Base for almost four years facilitating workshops for Marines transitioning back to civilian life, on job search, resume writing, and interview skills.  

I am grateful for some wonderful trips over the years to Greece, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Peru (a Prin Abroad), Norway, Russia, Africa, and Europe.  

In February, I finished an inspiring three-year term as First Reader in a local Christian Science church. 

Looking forward to seeing you all and reconnecting! 

Hi all-

I can't believe it's been 50 years already. I just spent 2 hours reading those of you who have posted your "bios". It's funny even though I've seen many of you at several of our past reunions and have a rough idea of what you look like now, when I started to read each of the bios I would picture you in my mind as how I remembered you when we were at Prin. One of you mentioned how going to the reunions was a chance to get to know classmates now even though you didn't really hang out with each other during our Prin years, but still knew who we were. I agree wholeheartedly. I've found myself getting to know you now which has been nice.

After I graduated Prin in 1974, I moved back home to NJ and still live there now.  I worked at a few different jobs doing accounting. During those jobs I took courses towards my MBA at Montclair State and Fairleigh Dickenson. And with the intent of hopefully getting my CPA. However, I never graduated from either of those schools or got my CPA. But I did wind up having a great career in accounting with various corporate companies which included being department head in 2 of them. Then I decided to have my own bookkeeping business for 12 years for local small companies and did well with that. Finally, I settled into working for a school district board of education as an accountant. I also had a side business of doing people's tax returns and still continue to do that. I retired 3 years ago and don't miss working at all. I keep plenty busy.

During this time, I met my husband at work at one of the corporations. We had 2 children, a daughter, Josie who's now 30 and a son, Wesly who is 28.  Josie went to URI and FIT and with her last degree which was from FIT in graphic art design. She has a good job in Manhattan using her graphic art degree and lives in a cute, safe neighborhood in Brooklyn. Wesley is still living at home and earning a degree online.

Also, we took a vacation to Costa Rica in 2010 and fell in love with the country and wound-up buying land and building a house in 2011 and we currently rent it out. For any of you who have ever been to Costa Rica, we're about 15 minutes from Arenal Volcano, on the safe side.

I've done a bit of traveling over the years. Italy, England, Scotland, Egypt, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. I've stayed in touch with Gail Woods Johnson, another alumni from our class of '74. We see each other a couple of times a year and only live about an hour and a half from each other. She and I have had a number of adventures together over the years. She's the reason I got to Egypt and England as she was living there because of her husband's job. And I stay in touch with other alumni via phone or texting.

I’m attaching a photo of Gail and I from our visit to their vacation home in NY state and a photo of my husband, Jim on the left and Gail’s husband, Peter on the right. And a photo of me and my daughter from today while we went strawberry picking.

I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone again at our reunion.

Love to you all

Robin Headley Florance

In honor of our classmate Rodger, we are sharing this article to celebrate his life and shed light on his meaningful contributions through his work.

Rodger Forkert - The Panache

If I remember correctly, I was in Lowrey House for two of my four years at Prin. I lived off campus and my last year was with Dr. and Mrs. Andrews, which helped with finances and was a wonderful opportunity.

After graduation, I moved to Boston thinking I might enjoy being a CS Nurse, but after a “not so much,” I moved to Concord, NH to volunteer and live at Rivendell School for two years during which I had class instruction, got married, and worked as a Montessori teacher’s aide in Concord, NH. From there we moved to Greenwich, CT (home for me), and I continued working as a Montessori school teacher’s aide for several years. We lived at Daycroft School for a year where my husband taught art. We then moved to Brattleboro, VT where he enrolled, and I audited, a master’s degree program in International Studies. We eventually moved to Norwalk, CT, settled down, bought a house, was involved in the Norwalk church, and had a high school foster daughter for three years. My husband started a retail advertising business, and I joined a law firm, initially as a typist and very soon an opportunity came to do paralegal work.

In the fall of 1992, we moved kit and caboodle to Seattle, WA (Mercer Island). David grew up in the NW and CA and yearned for the west coast. We were separated two years later. David went south to San Diego; I stayed in Seattle, met my partner, started a paralegal job with Adobe, and bought my home in 1996.

Activities: Sailed for 12 summers on Puget Sound with a female skipper friend, joined the Mountaineers and several other outdoor groups including Seattle Audubon, and became an avid birder. I joined 1st Church Seattle and am actively involved. My youngest sister lives on Oahu to whom I’ve made annual visits. My other two sisters live in CT and FL and are a bit harder to visit but I appreciate having sisters and my two nieces and two nephews.

My partner and I enjoy living separately but share a mutual hobby in bird and wildlife photography with spring and fall annual trips to Yellowstone. I love living in the NW with so many places to explore. I’m most grateful to see how God has directed every step of my life and continues to open the way to love, understand and rely on divine Love more each day.

Have so enjoyed reading the bios and am excited to reconnect!

• After an internship senior year with The Christian Science Monitor, where I learned I really didn’t want to be a music critic, I stayed in Boston and worked in the Clerk’s Office of The Mother Church until I met and married Tony Freyer, who was from San Diego and had a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard. In 1976 we moved to Little Rock, Arkansas where our son, Allan, was born.
• The next 38 years we lived in 8 different states and 2 countries. Who knew professors moved around so much? (They do research and have visiting professorships.) Highlights included living on the grounds of the Hagley Museum in Wilmington, Delaware where Dupont started his powder mills, half a year in London in a 16^th century manor house in the former butler’s quarters (London School of Economics) and the other half in Westwood, California (UCLA), extensive visits to Japan and Poland, 31 years in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (UA), summers with San Diego family, and holidays and spring breaks with family in New Orleans.
• My career path followed my son’s early educational experience. I started out working in a daycare center, then preschool, and then going back to school to get a teaching certificate and a Master's in elementary education. I also took Montessori training and was certified to teach ages 6–12. I helped my school system write a federal grant to become a public Montessori school, preschool through grade 5.
• In 2003, I had a life-changing experience attending a teacher’s institute at Colonial Williamsburg. I had always loved teaching and considered it a calling, but after that summer I was on fire incorporating American history and primary documents into reading and social studies. And my students loved it, too. Including those who were struggling with reading. That fall I applied for and received a full-time administrative position to run a federal grant for professional development in American History for teachers in grades 4–12. The next 9 years were the absolute best jobwise!
• From 2004–2012, I worked in a partnership with The University of Alabama History Department and College of Education, three public school systems, and several American history, art, and civil rights museums, Colonial Williamsburg, and The Henry Ford. The goal was to increase teacher content knowledge and use of best practices in teaching. We ran a summer institute and follow-up sessions during the academic year. The final year our topic was immigration, and we took the teachers on a cross-country field trip from New York (Ellis Island, Tenement Museum) to San Francisco (Angel Island) and Sacramento (Gold Rush). Learning can be fun!
• During all this time I was active in whatever CS church was nearby, filling every position possible. Unfortunately, this included the closing of our small society in Tuscaloosa – one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
• 2013 – Retirement! I spent a year cooking through Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan (choosing recipes serendipitously), and tutoring ESL students. A most delicious year
• 2014 to present – Tony retired, and we moved to Durham, North Carolina to become grandparents to a wonderful little boy, Gabe. We have loved the freedom of these years, the ability to travel the world, especially enjoying cruising on small ships, being with family and other animals, and most recently staying up late at night reading and reveling in lazy mornings.

After graduation from Prin in 1974, I enrolled in a Biology master’s program at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. I had both teaching and research assistantships, but still lived with my parents since in those days we had to pay tuition out of our assistantship salaries. I also spent six months as a concrete worker, which included forming and pouring a bank vault. I graduated with a Master of Science degree in March 1976.

From May to August 1976, I was a laborer (choker-setter, drilling technician, powder monkey, grade-setter, chain saw operator, general cleanup) for a construction company in Oregon building logging roads in the National Forests. On August 14, 1976, Suellen Hill (C’76) and I were married in Salem, Oregon, with many Prin friends in attendance. After a honeymoon on the Oregon coast, we packed everything in my Volkswagen van and drove to Tallahassee, Florida where I was enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Science Education. Suellen walked into the Early Childhood Education Department after we arrived and talked her way into a teaching assistantship in the master’s program even though we were far past the application deadlines.

Suellen completed her master’s in early childhood education, and I finished the coursework for my Ph.D. in Science Education before moving to Elsah in June 1977. The Ph.D. was awarded in 1979 after completing my dissertation. I began a professorship in the Principia College Biology Department upon the retirement of Doc Wanamaker and taught a variety of biology and environmental science courses for 15 years. I also taught a Biology Abroad course in Mexico, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. Our daughter, Anne, was a home birth in Hitchcock Terrace apartment in 1978. Our son, Justin, was born in Jerseyville in 1981. Suellen helped organize a babysitting coop while the kids were young. She was a part-time career counselor at Prin College for several years and served as the first president of the Staff Senate.  For several years we were a dorm family living in Gehner House.

We took advantage of Christmas and summer breaks to travel with our kids during our years at Principia, including trips to Europe, Mexico, Central and South America, New Zealand, Australia, and Fiji. The most adventurous trip was driving to Guatemala from Illinois in summer 1988 with Anne (9) and Justin (7). I taught a field ecology course at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala. Suellen taught kindergarten in the bilingual American School where our kids were enrolled for the summer.

During my Prin College teaching years, I was active in numerous local and state environmental organizations. Roles included serving as vice president of the Illinois Environmental Council and president of the Illinois Audubon Society. I was appointed by Illinois Governor Jim Thompson to the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission in 1987, where I served for seven years, including three years as elected chairman. In 1992, Governor Jim Edgar appointed me to a three-year term as a member of the Illinois Pollution Control Board which required an affirmative vote by the Illinois Senate. The appointment was full-time, so I resigned from Principia College. I was honored to receive subsequent appointments from Governors Edgar, Ryan, Blagojevich, and Quinn, and I retired from the Board in 2012. The Board is responsible for writing environmental rules across all media (quasi-legislative) and acts as an environmental court (quasi-judicial) with appeals of Board decisions going directly to the Illinois Appellate Courts. During my 20 years at the Board, I spent six years as chairman and served a short stint as the first executive director of the Board.

Suellen was a kindergarten teacher in the Alton, Illinois schools before being promoted to district curriculum coordinator. She completed an education specialist degree at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and a Doctor of Education degree at Saint Louis University. She was appointed assistant superintendent of the Jacksonville, Illinois school district and subsequently served as superintendent of school districts in Havana, Morton Grove, and Morrison, Illinois. She retired in 2014 to pursue her fabric art passions from our home in Morrison, Illinois. Our other retirement activities include underwater photography, canoeing, fishing, kayaking, golf (Tanner), and visiting our four grandkids.

In my early career I found sales to be exciting, looking for new solutions to old issues.  I found success with International Harvester and Hopkins Honda. While selling cars I met my husband. We promptly started a family, I have a daughter and a son, they now both live in Minnesota.  I later moved our family to St. Louis so my daughter could attend the upper school. My mother also moved to St. Louis and needed additional assistance. I quickly found myself becoming a CNA and later a CS Nurse. Nine years ago, I moved to Vero Beach Florida. I love the beaches and the close proximity to the ports for cruising. Now that I have a granddaughter, I wonder if I’ll decide to move back to the midwest or if I’ll just fly in for a quick little visit and a couple of hugs. When I first moved to Vero Beach I was on a yes journey. I’m reacquainted myself with that journey so I say yes to Prin reunion, I say yes to meeting fellow students that I didn’t meet before, I say yes to being open minded to wherever our world is taking us next.

I’m watching a pair of woodpeckers and their ‘teenager’ outside our breakfast window as I consider all of the riches that life has held for me since finishing at Principia. Back then, I could not imagine the joy of holding our own offspring, then watching them grow into productive, loving, & giving adults—nor the busyness of feeding, clothing, nurturing them along the way.  

As some of you may remember, Watson consumed a lot of my time in college. Afterwards, I did some graduate work in geology at University of Houston. The oil industry was booming then & I left UH early to work at Pennzoil. I gained the notoriety of being the first woman to ‘sit a well’ for Pennzoil, a bit late for that company. Those adventures took me to onshore wells first, then eventually to an offshore well. Now, how you get out there is its own story. Suffice it to say that I had my first helicopter ride & first lift on a tall crane.  

Sometime in there, Jim and I met. He worked at Texaco & we were both in downtown Houston. Lots of lunches together! We married in the Spring of 1977. I continued at Pennzoil, then had 9 months at Natomas North America until 1982. As anyone who was in Houston then remembers, that was a tumultuous year in the oil patch. For me, it was also momentous: I was promoted to ‘Mom.’ Just as the oil industry went south, we  welcomed our son.  I did work a bit part time, before our first daughter joined us in 1985. Both were students at The Branch School and I was asked to teach a hands-on math program there. Very part-time, but I discovered my love of teaching. 

In 1987, Tenneco transferred Jim to Oklahoma City. Our third child joined us there shortly afterwards. No more job, but was I ever BUSY! I can relate to those parent birds carefully feeding those little ones as they learn to fly. I’ll cut out a few details of that wonderful time, but Tenneco got out of the oil industry & we moved back to Houston. By our son’s third grade year, I was looking for something different for our kids’ education. A good friend and I were given a chance by The Branch School for an experiment in project-based learning. Four of our children—first through fourth graders—comprised most of our class that year. That converted garage of an old house became our laboratory for exploring the world—lots of field trips, experiments, and writing, writing, writing. It was crazy challenging, but it was the beginnings of great things for our children and the start of growth for TBS.  

Next chapter: we enrolled our children at Principia Upper School and Middle School in 1999. I moved to St Louis so they could be day students, but Jim stayed with his job, now at a subsidiary of Shell, in Houston. That is one long commute! But Jim & Linda Lindeman were doing the same thing, so the two Jims joined forces, conquering that commute together. 2001 hit us hard as Neil passed on October 1st. It helped me to be busy working on the first Wooly Mammoth Dig at the College in 2002. As you probably know, our mammoth class discovered that there was a whole mammoth buried in the loess near Rackham. Stephanie graduated in 2003, then continued at the College. We moved the household back to Houston in 2003 and Kristin finished as a boarder in 2006. She then went to Trinity University in San Antonio. Something in their education must have clicked: Dr. Stephanie is an engineer, happily working at Draper in Cambridge, MA. She and our Grand-dog Dixie live in Medford, MA. Kristin did a 9-year stint as an officer in NOAA Corps and walked for her Masters in Energy Policy & Climate at Johns Hopkins three weeks ago. She and her husband Lutfi live in Granite Falls, WA, with our five Grand-cats. 

Speaking of Kristin & Lutfi: When we met him in Kauai, HI, I got to have my next helicopter ride. He is a flight instructor!  

We’ve been here in The Woodlands, TX for a bit over 20 years. I tutored math and science for a dozen or so years. I finally went back to school for that other interest & got my teaching certificate. I finished up ‘work’ teaching math & science at a small gifted-and-talented school near where we live. When I decided to leave, I was asked if I would come back to teach Earth Science in a couple of years. Well, the school gave me a big block of time to do. My ‘Swan Song’ was a very involved geology lesson for my students—great fun for me and I think they liked it, too. 

Enough about work. I’ve also been a Sea Scout leader here for the twenty years we’ve been back in the Houston area, teaching sailing to young adults, 14-20. We’ve taken youth down the coast a couple of times and sail fairly often closer to home. Our biggest adventure was a bare-boat charter & SCUBA trip to BVI. Jim puts up with my feeding my desire to sail, often going to the lake to work on boats with me as well as crewing on them for daysails. I often regretted that I did not get to teach our own girls to sail, but they found their own ways to the water. Kristin went to Hawaii as a SCUBA instructor, met Lutfi there, and joined NOAA, working aboard their research vessels or at their marine sanctuaries. Stephanie spends her days off kayaking the coasts of Maine & Massachusetts, unless she’s off mountain biking somewhere. 

Going full circle as life often does, Jim is on the board for The Branch School. We are both active in our branch church, the one we each joined before we were married, a long time ago.   

Even with it’s twists & turns, ups and downs, life is a grand adventure! I’m grateful for our many friendships that started way back at Principia College and continue to this day. 

Since graduating from Principia College, I have been busy and enjoying my life. I have remained single and have no children. I live by myself in a lovely home in Fullerton, California, which is close to Disneyland. I retired from public school teaching in July 2014 and am thoroughly enjoying a busy “retired” life.

Places I’ve lived since Prin College

California (long term & current residence) and Arizona

Career

Public school teaching – 39 years

• 1975–1977: I began my teaching career south of Tucson, AZ, teaching 5th grade in a small one-school district. I lived with Bonnie McGibbon (C’75) at her family’s ranch the first year and moved to Tucson my second year. Most of my students were either children of copper mine workers or migrants who came to Green Valley, AZ, during pecan harvest season.
• 1978–2014: After a brief stint at a private school back in Newport Beach, California, where I grew up, I moved to the Koreatown section of Los Angeles and taught in Bell Gardens for Montebello Unified School District. I taught at Bell Gardens Intermediate the entire time with Montebello Unified. B.G.I. is an inner-city school serving almost entirely low-income Hispanic children. It’s a rough neighborhood, with several gangs, but I loved the kids. I remained teaching at B.G.I. but moved from Los Angeles to Fullerton in 1989.

Education

• Master’s Degree in Education, California State University, Los Angeles, (CSULA) and Administrative Credential
• Master’s work in Educational Computer Technology, CSULA
• Doctoral work in Education Policy Planning and Curriculum, USC

Hobbies and Activities

• Travel: I love to travel and have had the opportunity to visit 34 countries, several times to a few of them. My favorite countries are Italy and the UK. Russia is beautiful, and I’m glad I got to visit before the recent war with Ukraine. Poland’s history and scenery was fascinating, but Italy’s art, history, architecture, and food trump almost every other country in my opinion. I’ve traveled to almost every U.S. state.
• Investing: I love investing in the stock market and have done so since my 20s.
• CS Church: I’ve been active in committees and work – Executive Board; Lecture Committee; Reading Room Attendant; Usher; Sunday School teacher, Sunday School & Childcare Asst. Superintendent and Superintendent; First Reader & substituting as First and Second Reader. Other Church activities – currently design all flyers for lectures and outreach activities; create two newspaper ads for all of the Orange County CS churches; computer and sound system tech person for our branch church.

I grew up in Corning, New York, famous for its glass ware. Going to college at Principia was a big change from small-town life. I “lived” in the bio lab, and hoped to become a wildlife management major. Doc Wanamaker and I became great friends. Unfortunately, required courses in pre-Civil War literature and sociology didn’t sit well with me, and I left Prin after one term. I hitchhiked all over, taught at the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, Wyoming visited Doc at his home in Idylwild, California, and ended up back in Corning during Hurricane Agnes in ’72 which destroyed homes all along the Southern Tier of New York State. I sandbagged during the storm and even climbed onto a roof until a boat picked me up. I got work removing furnaces from dozens of homes (with Brian DeMuth). I worked as a licensed Stationary Engineer

at Xerox for 26 years with industrial boilers and refrigeration, and water treatment/chemistry. I became a certified EMT for Xerox and for Penfield Volunteer Ambulance (28 years). I also became a private pilot. Best of all, raised an amazing son who now works in cyber security in Florida.

One of the best things that happened to me was meeting Doc Wanamaker. He was a great guide and friend throughout the years. We had many adventures! It was my privilege to accompany him in his worldwide travels throughout Africa and Asia. Also on those trips were Bill Mueller, Mac Stitt and Wes Henry.

I am thankful for my time at Principia.

After graduating from Prin, I went back home to SoCal and immersed myself in tennis - playing tournaments, teaching, managing events and officiating. Sure, a fun time in life…and very few responsibilities!

For most of my post Prin years, I’ve enjoyed various sales management positions within the sporting goods industry (New Balance, UGG, Ellesse, Descente and Rossignol Ski).  I’ve also enjoyed years as the MC/Announcer for Teen Star Santa Barbara, World Team Tennis, US Open NY, and other golf and tennis events is SoCal.  In the early 80’s I took up magic and became obsessed!  Magic is so much fun.  I absolutely love performing at events.

In 1986 I married my beautiful wife Debbie (Davis C’79) and had 2 terrific sons…Bryce and Darren.  Bryce is a CS Nurse/Caregiver and has a passion for country western dancing.  Darren is in accounting and surfs every day before work.

In 1996, I purchased my first motorcycle (Honda Magna) and started riding…or cruising!  I’ve since upgraded to a Harley Ultra Limited and take several trips each year across the west.  Nothing better than getting out on those open 2-lane scenic byways to see unbelievable beauty.

I certainly have terrific memories from my 4 years at Prin. My wife and I frequently get together with our Prin friends and ultimately end up telling stories from our past.  Funny thing…we tell the same stories over and over again, and each time we tell them, they seem to get better and better!   😊

After graduating from Principia with a degree in geology, I was interested in working in the energy field, but thought I didn’t want to live in the south or work in nuclear power.  One job was offered after three months of interviewing: a nuclear project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee :-) I lived in Knoxville for two years, and learned that Tennessee is a beautiful state.

After two years in Tennessee, I moved to the Chicago area and worked for Commonwealth Edison, the electric utility there.  During those years I worked in licensing, construction and purchasing. I also met my future husband, Terry Hallaren.  We worked for the same company, and both completed MBAs in the night school program at the University of Chicago. We were married in 1980, and I became stepmom to Beth who was then four.  Our daughter Emily was born in 1983.  I became a stay-at-home mom, active in church, school, and the Principia Club. We also made many summer trips to the Leelanau Peninsula in Michigan, where Emily was a camper and counselor at Camp Kohahna for ten summers.

We lived in Downers Grove, Illinois, until 2007, and then moved to Rancho Santa Fe, California. After many years of Midwest weather, we’re enjoying life in southern California.  Beth and Emily are each married with two children.  Beth and her family live in Bozeman, MT, and Emily and her family live in Marblehead, MA.  We love visiting them, and they enjoy visiting us.  We also visit our siblings, nieces and nephews across the US. I enjoy branch church work, beach walks, trail hikes and swimming.

Dear friends, I am sorry to miss the 50^th Reunion this year.  A family obligation changed my plans.

Since graduating from Prin in 1975, I have led a life filled with inspiration, changes and unexpected opportunities. 

The current basics are my wife is Ann Gready Westerman, widow of Bill Westerman (C’74).  We live in Bethesda, MD and are members of Fifth Church in Washington, DC. 

My late wife, Linda Melvin Hanson (USx70) and I raised two wonderful children, Heather and Jeremy.  They are both married.  I have 3.84 grandchildren (#4 expected in early August).  Heather lives nearby and we see her sons, ages 6 and 4, frequently.  Jeremy lives in Dedham, MA and we see his daughter, age 2 1/2, and will see her sister (due in August), on frequent trips to Boston.  Both Heather and Jeremy are well educated, independent, successful in their vocations, active in their respective communities, homeowners and parents.  They are experiencing all of the challenges that they caused their mother and me when we were young parents, and I just empathize and smile.

For 43 years, I have worked as a financial advisor and a Certified Financial Planner (CFP).  I founded a team at Wells Fargo Advisors almost fifteen years ago.  My daughter, Heather Hanson-Rivas, CFP, now leads the team, Clark-Hanson Wealth Management.  I listen and offer advice sparingly.

I am active in a number of community organizations.  I continue to serve in our branch church, Scouting USA (Boy Scouts), the local Rotary Club and its foundation, and The Rotary Foundation.

Since a 2011 Rotary trip to Ecuador to improve rural education, I have been increasingly interested in working with The Rotary Foundation and partnerships of Rotary clubs, on building programs and schools to help indigenous girls stay in the educational system and improve their own and their villages’ prospects.    This last Spring, we expanded our focus to include adult basic literacy and math instruction with two new schools in the Bengal area of India, and we just started rebuilding two elementary school in the Kharkiv and the Dnipro areas of the Ukraine.  Because of the war damage, new desks, tables, chairs, blackboards, whiteboards, electronics and printers were necessary.   Over a year ago Rotarians and the Organization of American States, started developing a pilot project to bring education to a handful of mountain villages in Guatemala whose primary language is a Mayan dialect.  The purpose is to create economic opportunities which will encourage the residents to stay in their village and not crowd our Southern US border.  We just received all the necessary approvals to open at the end of summer for over 1600 middle school age girls.  In addition to basic education, they will be taught to become land surveyors and will be employed during next summer’s break.  Previously, they would have been forced into marriage as early as age 11.

I also am a farmer, owning with my brother, Tim Hanson (C’80) over 400 acres in Boyds MD. This year the farm is raising corn, alfalfa hay and mixed hay, as well as a small herd of Angus (beef) cattle. Tim is the lead in this project.   Our previous family farm was mainly a cattle operation supported by hay we grew and baled, and we provided all the labor.  Not anymore.  We have workers carrying out the grain and hay operations and watching over the cattle operation.  Prior to our purchase of this farm, the previous owner neglected the agricultural potential.  Brother Tim and I believe raising grains – corn, wheat, soybeans and beef cattle will be a successful combination, but we still have a lot of preparation, restoration and building before we reach that point.

My life experience has changed greatly in the last seven years.  Within the span of one month my son and daughter each had a wedding.  Both married wonderful, bi-lingual US citizens with families in South America.  My wife of almost 38 years, Linda Melvin Hanson (USx’70), passed suddenly while we were on vacation; my father passed in 2019 and my brothers and I sold the family farm and funded a Charitable Foundation;  I replaced myself as The Mother Church’s representative and chaplain to Scouting USA (Boy Scouts of America), a position I had first accepted in 1997 with two weeks' notice; I downsized and sold my home to my niece, Rachel Hanson (C’15), and married Ann Westerman.  My newest personal project is to build a home on the farm.  Life continues to offer unexpected and inspired opportunities.

Shortly after graduating with a Business major from Principia, I moved to Wichita, Kansas, and married Jim Garvey, a Prin graduate (’72). We had 3 sons. The oldest also graduated from Prin College and is here this weekend for his 25th reunion!

On April 26, 1991, a tornado (F5) tore through our home while our 3 children and I were in the basement. Many lessons were learned: 1) “things” don’t matter; people matter; 2) God is a very present help in trouble; 3) “God, I’ll do what I can, but You will have to do the rest.” Blessings abounded! We moved to a home closer to town and our schools.

After divorcing amicably, I started ballroom dancing. I LOVE ballroom dancing!!

In 1999, I married Richard Haskins and we moved to Tallahassee, Florida, then Ocklocknee Bay, FL, then Carrabelle, FL. We enjoyed the profits of buying and selling houses in that rapidly soaring market. During this time, Richard and I became commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico. I was the captain and he was the pilot of the “Miss Dee Marie,” a lobster-style boat built in Canada. Although our licenses were for grouper, snapper, and mackerel, we primarily fished for grouper and red snapper.

During the month of January, commercial fishing in the Gulf of Mexico is not allowed, so we went to Costa Rica. Over the next few years, we kept returning frequently to Costa Rica. We bought, built, and sold several real estate properties in a few years.

2004 was the year of the hurricanes in Florida. Between August 13 and September 25, the 2004 hurricane season brought four back-to-back hurricanes — the worst in Florida's history: Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne.

We were in Kansas when Ivan started heading toward our home. Richard wanted to go on a road trip northward, so I told Richard I would go back to Florida, get the house ready to weather the storm, and I would evacuate to wherever he was at the time. He was in Billings, MT, when I evacuated, and I flew to Montana. While driving around, we looked at houses, because that’s what we do! We found one in Noxon, MT – “Log home on 42 acres for sale!” After selling our house in Florida (which weathered the storm fairly well), we moved to Noxon, MT, for 12 years.

While in Noxon, MT, I worked as a bookkeeper in various places, including a commercial cabinet shop. When the position of School Clerk opened up, I applied and got the job. The Clerk responsibilities covered 3 schools serving 3 towns: payroll, health insurance, budgets, paying all bills, Secretary for the School Board, contract negotiations, audits, accounting for 21 school funds, etc. It was the most challenging and rewarding job I ever had!

In 2015, wildfires required us to evacuate for a couple of weeks. Our home survived, but after 12 years of living in Montana, our grandchildren started to be born back in Kansas. So, we moved back to Kansas! In August of 2023, we sold our home in Derby, lived in an RV for 7 months, traveling (and fishing) in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. We found a home in El Dorado, Kansas, by the El Dorado Lake State Park, and moved here in April 2024.

I have 3 sons, 2 stepsons, two daughters-in-law, and 4 grandchildren. We enjoy seeing them quite often!

Life is Good!

Hey all - it’s taken awhile to think on what to say, but I’ll keep it simple.

After leaving Principia, I lived in London for 2 years. Married a guy I met and had my daughter Amber.  It was an experience I’ll never forget.  Turns out that marriage didn’t last and I came back to Houston in 1976.

From then thru 1996, I received my real estate license and then worked contract admin jobs. I hired in with Amoco and enjoyed working for the Senior VP at Amoco Power.  Then when BP bought Amoco,  I started working in Upstream with the Overthrust Asset Manager and team of engineers.  Enjoyed visiting the sites in Colorado and Wyoming.  I hired in as a Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) tech in 2002, traveling to all the Onshore ops sites and teaching. Also got to travel to Evergreen, Colorado regularly to visit parents that retired there and then fly on to Durango ops.

In 2008, I hired in to a BP Global corporate job to develop a new reporting tool globally.  This involved working with a small international team and traveling mainly to the UK and Europe.  It was the Best!

Also, worked in the 2010 BP oil spill command center, sadly an experience I’ll never forget.

Finally, I retired in 2013 and live in Cypress, Tx.  My daughter lives behind me (we share a fence) and she currently works at BP. We enjoy my pool and gardening. I still depend on Christian Science for everything.

Life since Prin has been a fun adventure.  Thanks to my Prin music ed professor Ethelyn Sparfeld, I studied music education for two years after graduating, first in Massachusetts, then in Hungary. My "career" centered around education, mostly classroom music with young children, children's choirs, and homeschooling our two daughters.

Early in our marriage, my husband and I taught English in Suwa, Japan and traveled in China, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Later we designed and built our own house on 137 acres 10 miles out of a small town 70 miles southwest of St Louis, Missouri. We began to grow things and appreciated the benefits of feeding ourselves mostly from our vegetable gardens and berry patches and a friend's nearby apple orchard. We traveled yearly as a family mostly in conjunction with our homeschool studies:  Greece, Turkey, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, the Everglades, Colorado, Mexico, China and more.

Presently I've opted out of the vegetable gardening, but still mow a path to the creek and still enjoy the beauty and quiet of living a distance from my neighbors; but now that my husband has passed and our daughters have moved east, I often go into St Louis to be with friends, especially my former Prin roommate Barbara (Mather) Berner and her husband Howard. And I often travel east to see our daughters--Heather who lives in Wellesley MA with her husband and their two precious little ones, and Debra who is a professor at Sherbrooke University in Quebec, Canada.

I'm really looking forward to seeing others of you that I may or may not have gotten acquainted with during my abbreviated stay at Principia when I was much too busy fitting 4 years into 3--which is why I started with the class of '76, but ended with the class of '75. (just in case anyone was wondering ...)

Dear Bucky’s,

A catch-up in one page or less.

I graduated from Prin in 1975. During my Junior year, I met the love of my life Liz, at a Christmas Party for area Christian Scientists at her house in Akron, Ohio. She caught my eye, and heart, and after a series of ups and downs, we married in 1977. I was, at that time employed as a foreman at my Dad’s start-up landscape company. Fortunately, I had extracted that promise “for better or worse” early on, so all was well. During this period, I operated dump trucks, bulldozers, backhoes, Bobcats, trenchers, rollers, farm tractors, and forklifts, and we built brick walks and patios, seawalls, and railroad tie walls.

I then made a U-turn into commercial banking, picking up an MBA and, strangely, four sons, over a 15-year period. Another sharp turn for 6 years as a corporate treasurer, which I found meant doing all the stuff no one else wanted to do. Just after the Millenium moment, went into commercial loan brokerage, then after a three-year shift into house flipping, then back into commercial consulting and business brokerage, with a soupcon of real estate. I have managed dozens of employees, turned around failing enterprises, and I have shown owners how to revive their businesses. All very satisfying.

Along the way, I have served in every position in a branch church, and also as an Assistant Scoutmaster (I’ve taken 20 boys into the wilds and returned with all of them). I flew as an observer on one mission with the Lee County Mosquito Control District in one of their vintage DC-3s at treetop height, and I have flown in a T-34 Mentor, a Cessna 172, a vintage Stearman biplane trainer, and a Piper Cub.

I have traveled from Maine to Los Angeles, from Seattle to Southern Florida. I have visited Quebec and San Juan. I have lived in Ohio, Illinois, Maryland, and Florida. I have paddled a canoe through mysterious Buck Key behind Sanibel Island in Florida, and I have climbed to the top of Cadillac Mountain at Acadia National Park in Maine through the fog. I once hiked into Redwood National Forest to the Grove of the Giants and touched the tallest tree in the world. I have lived in houses, hotels, and tents for weeks at a time. I can cook a stir fry meal in 30 minutes, and I can change a diaper and rock a baby to sleep.

I remain delightfully in love with my wife of 47 years, and immensely proud of my four grown sons and their families. Cora, a Golden Retriever rescue joined us on New Year's Day, 2020.

My hobbies include gardening at our home in Dayton, Ohio, and I am a member of the Society of Miniature Ship Collectors. Liz and I do the NYT daily games together.

Some of my happiest memories are my years at Principia and Buck House. 

Principia teachers played pivotal roles in expanding my horizons. Reflecting on the 50 years since then, it's evident that key teachers had an impact on my path. 

After graduating from Principia, I moved from a landscape labor role to the landscape architecture office of the Lake County Illinois Forest Preserve, thanks to my Prin art portfolio. Following this, I pursued a master’s degree in landscape architecture at the University of Michigan.

Nancy and I were married in 1978. We met at the Lake County Illinois Planning Department. We’ve raised three children, Steve, Suzy, and Stewart. Each of our children have found their own path. We have seven grandchildren. Our oldest is pursuing her master’s in data science at Columbia University and our youngest is an elementary school basketball star. 

In 1980, we started our own company, Hedberg Associates. During the course, a couple clients asked my opinion on their architecture projects, and in turn offered me the jobs which I subsequently designed and built. This evolved into commercial, medical, and industrial construction, luxury home building, historic reproduction homes, site planning, park planning, architectural design, and landscape architecture. I served as a Boy Scout Scoutmaster, Commissioner and District Commissioner, and Former Chair of our Twp Economic Development Corporation. I served on the National Landscape Architecture Licensure Examination Grading Team for over a decade. Currently, I serve on the Board of our Local Historic Society.  

I’m still a Registered Landscape Architect and Licensed Builder in Michigan. I’ve been retired for 10 years, consult and designing on occasion and have building projects going on. We now spend the winters in Ann Arbor and the summers at our remote 100-year-old cottage we’ve owned these past 40 years near Traverse City, MI. 

What I’ve been doing since graduation...

Susie Ostenberg (US'61) and I married the evening of Prin College graduation  in 1974, and we left for a log home and a job in Melville, Montana where I was accounting manager for Fairview Ranch – counting cows. We moved to Billings, MT in 1975 where I worked in accounting (thank you Paul Sparfeld) for Helena Chemical Company, owner of Fairview Ranch. Our older son Josh was born in Montana in 1976.  

We moved to California in 1977 where I worked as controller of the Visalia Times-Delta newspaper, part of the Gannett newspaper group. We transferred to Rochester NY where I joined Gannett’s Corporate IT team in June 1980 and our younger son, Steve, was born in July. I earned an MBA in the evening from University of Rochester and joined Gannett’s Treasury Dept. in 1982, the year Gannett launched USA TODAY.  We attended First Church Rochester with Bonnie (Klaus) and Tom Laver. During the summer, Susie and Bonnie would take our two boys and their boys, Steven and Peter, to the beach on Lake Ontario.

We moved to Reston, VA in 1985 when Gannett’s headquarters moved to Roslyn, VA just across the river from the U.S. Capitol. My roles included Manager Treasury Operations, Asst. Treasurer and Vice President Capital Appropriations and Facilities. I retired in 2013. Susie worked at TRW in their Government Relations office eventually as Executive Assistant to the CEO. Susie was active in PEO including a term as President of Chaper D. Steve and Josh attended Reston public schools and then Prin Upper School and College. 

Our first grandchild, Deacon, (Steve’s son) was born in 2013. At the time, Steve, his wife Amy (Mizell), Josh and his wife Alyssa (Ragnow) all lived in the St. Louis area. Surprise -- Susie and I moved to St. Louis in 2014. We live across the street from Forest Park. We now have four grands - two boys (10 and 7), two girls (both 4). Steve, Amy and family live in Austin, TX. Josh, Alyssa and family live in Ballwin, MO (St. Louis County).

I look forward to seeing everyone in June at the Elsah campus!
I’ll stay brief and give a few details of my life since graduation and I can fill in the rest when we get an opportunity to talk this summer.
I taught in a Middle School in the STL area for 30 years. Upon retirement, I had a terrific opportunity to teach and coach at the Principia STL campus.

I was remarried in 1987 to my dear Karen. Some of you know her and I’ll introduce her to everyone else this summer.

I have two terrific sons. They are both married and from those lovely families, I have three wonderful grandsons.

Karen and I love the outdoors and we have thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, the Colorado Trail and other adventures. We are currently working on the Continental Divide Trail in sections.
In 2009, we rode our tandem bike from Washington State to Boston. Sue and Paul Beeson helped get us to the starting point.

I greatly enjoy being active in our church and teaching Sunday school.
I have the privilege of serving on the Board of the Longyear Museum in Boston!

For more information and adventure stories, come to reunion. I look forward to seeing you all and hearing about what everyone has done and is currently doing. One of the greatest experiences at reunion has been to get to know my classmates that I didn’t know well while we were together in school.

By the way, I love playing pickle ball!

Heaven in the Rockies

Shortly following my June 1974 Prin College graduation, I spent my fifth summer of wonder at the Adventure Unlimited (A/U) ranches near Buena Vista, CO. I say ‘wonder’ as I at times wondered if I didn’t grow more as a person during my summers there than the high school boys in my cabin did.

Besides serving as a resident staff musician and bunkhouse counselor, my primary responsibility as a program staff member was teaching my two-hour Non-Visual Perception (NVP) class twice a day. It was a structured class that required each of the 30 signed-up campers to dawn a blindfold for the duration of the class. In each class session, two non-blindfolded kids kept wary eyes on the participants to prevent any cheating or peeking. In a sentence, my NVP seminar took one’s ‘eyes’ out of the “boy meets girl” equation to begin ingraining upon those participating teenagers the fact that there is SO much more than meets the eye through two hours of nonvisual interaction— something with which I am quite familiar . . . even today.

During the four summers I taught my NVP seminar at the ranches, the flow of thank-you notes from parents at summer’s end was gratifying indeed. Now if we could only teach adults the same perception techniques! 

Speaking of relationships, the summer of *’75* was an eye-opener for me. I began my first Roundup Hi-Stampede session that summer, praying to God to bring a special gal into my life; after all I was in my mid 20s by then and almost never been kissed! Naturally, I had met a number of gals I was attracted to at Prin but not vice versa. And even when I met the Tucson, Arizona high school grad during that first week at the ranches in 1975, I was not impressed with her whatsoever!

Stephanie Eckman was in my first NVP class that summer. She came across as your typical teenage girl with low self-esteem and no luggage! Seriously! Continental Trailways lost her luggage enroute to the A/U ranches! So, with most of her camp wardrobe ‘missing in action,’ her participation in many camp activities was rather restricted—like swimming, horseback riding, whitewater rafting, mountain climbing and rock-climbing—the first several days. So, she signed up to assist my NVP class.

There’s a bit more to this story that includes Stephanie’s first-ever butterflies later that week; my giving her a promise ring that November; her royal treatment by my family at her first Christmas visit to our Escondido, CA, home; proposing to her on Valentine’s Day 1976.

There’s more—but I don’t have the space nor you the time. Suffice to say, a year after we met, our long-distance romance culminated into a wonderful marriage that will have endured 48 years as of August. 28, 2024.

Stephanie and I are registered to attend the College reunion this June. How ‘bout you?”

hap@therainreport.com

As a Bio Major under Doc Wanamaker for 2 yrs at Prin College ('70-'72), most of you I don’t know…but since I was also an Upper Schooler, some of you I do know!

Finished at Oregon State (’76) in Natural Resource Mgmt and worked for the National Park Service as a Ranger-Naturalist in Sequoia NP and Everglades NP until I met my wife and son (age 5) in Anchorage, AK in 1979.  Married June 1980 and lived in Girdwood, AK until moved down to Portland, OR in 1984 to work on an MBA at Portland State that focused on plastics recycling.

Spent the next 19 yrs in plastics (mostly recycling) in MI, MO (for our daughter to attend the Upper School) and WA state (no more heat and humidity).

Helped my wife start a non-profit organization in Gig Harbor, WA in 2004 that is focused on marine enviro ed and conservation “Inspiring “Stewardship of Puget Sound”.

Currently living in Lake Oswego, OR and love working for our local branch church and volunteering with our City Park & Rec Dept managing a large farm—I take care of the apple and pear orchard and help harvest the farm’s diverse produce for Hungry Fighters, the local food bank.  And I make lots of pear/apple sauce all fall for my neighborhood and fellow church members.

Like most of you, I have kids and grandkids: son Chris and daughter-in-law Julie working/living at Principia School; daughter Rachel working as a researcher at UCSC on elephant seals in Santa Cruz, CA and husband Luke (a Kiwi) working for a NZ startup in the US; grandson Josh (16) at the Link School in CO and granddaughter Zoey (12) at Principia Middle School.  All of us spent 3 weeks in December on the N. Island of NZ having Christmas with Luke’s extended family in Hawke’s Bay—at the beach in shorts and flip flops!  Lots of fun.

After graduation, I received a Masters in Library Science at Simmons College in Boston.  My first full-time job was with the Reference Division of the Committee on Publication at The Mother Church.  It was in that city that I met and married Peter H. Johnson who was getting his master’s in international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at the same time as my alumni classmate, Steve Romaine., (C’74).   We moved to New York City where he had a job with Bankers Trust Co. on the Egypt/Sudan desk. I ran the Insurance Library at New York Life Insurance Co.  A couple of years later, we moved to Cairo, Egypt for 3 years for the bank/ We both read at the C.S. Cairo Society and we had our first child, a girl.  We moved back to the NYC area for 3 years as Peter continued to work at the bank and we had our second child, a boy.  Then the bank moved us to London for 4 years and we joined and were active in 7^th Church in Kensington, London.  Finally, we moved back to Darien, CT where we have lived ever since. I worked part-time in an Elementary School Library. Peter moved on from the bank to consulting under his company, Developing World Markets, which has since become a leading lender to Microfinance (Inclusive) Finance in the Developing World. Our grown-up children work in the Arts.  Alice Johnson works in film, TV and Commercials as a 1^st and 2^nd Assistant Director, as does her husband, Lyon Taylor.  Philip Johnson, along with his spouse, Roxy Sears, founded a Pop up Card company and is a musician on the side.

I'm looking forward to reconnecting with everyone. Alice is our family’s third-generation Principian, so our family has a lot of history there.

What I have done since college:

Marital Status: I got married at the end of my junior year of college and went with my Army husband to Monterey CA, San Angelo TX and then to Augsburg, Germany where our son, Ben, was born. When his tour was up, we moved to Bellingham, WA. Unfortunately, that marriage ended. I married a second time and had a daughter, Beth.  We lived in Tacoma, WA for a while, but that marriage didn’t last either. So, in 1981, I moved back to St. Louis to be near my parents and siblings. I was a single parent for nearly 15 years and then met my current husband, Keith. His two older sons were already on their own, but I became a stepmom to his daughter. We just celebrated our 28th anniversary. With our blended family, we now have nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Education: In 1991, I finally got my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration at Maryville College in St. Louis. It became Maryville University the day after I graduated.

Career: I worked as an administrative/executive assistant/office manager most of my career. I also worked during tax season as an office supervisor and tax preparer for a Jackson Hewitt franchise as a second job and still continue this job in my retirement years. This year was my 23rd year in the business.

Church: I have continued to be active at church and am currently the First Reader. I have also been Second Reader, Treasurer, Board member and Chair, Clerk, Sunday School teacher, and pretty much have been on every committee.

Travel: Keith and I have enjoyed traveling all over the country, although we haven’t done much since 2020. When we were first married, we mostly tent camped. Now we stay at nice hotels. In 2019, we took four different trips which included driving cross country from the west coast to the east coast as well as an Hawaiian cruise. Arriving on Oahu completed my goal of visiting all 50 states.

Favorite activities: I love Bible Study and have been to quite a few of them at CedarS Camps over the past 10 or more years. I enjoy doing puzzles as well as spending an afternoon in a good book.
 

While each of the following falls short of your everyday titillating Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce brief, consider each as a break-the-ice conversation starter if you happen to find me hanging out on a concourse couch, as usual, Friday or Saturday during our reunion.

Sort of in chronological order:

• Ditched the Buns moniker almost immediately.
• Cooked Dodger Dogs at Dodger Stadium.
• While in LA after graduation, played softball against Alice Cooper's Vampires team. He'd yell, "heeeerrrr's Buns!!" each time I came to bat.
• Was a drug store assistant manager. 
• Sold redwood hot tubs in Colorado with Givin Mattingly and Peter Martin.
• Real jobs commenced in 1980, first year of 32 (and counting) as a journalist (mostly sports) with four newspapers, 23 of those at the Bakersfield Californian. Have had stories published in eight newspapers, including The Christian Science Monitor. Proud to have irritated Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda for asking a question he didn't want to answer. Probably irritated many others.
• Post Mexican Riviera Cruise, dated briefly a 6-foot-3 Argentinian girl who broke it off because she wanted someone taller. Huh?
• Went to grad school in the early 90s to prove I could be studious, which I wasn't at Principia. Drove 100 miles each way to Cal State Northridge on days off twice a week for two years, then never finished my Mass Comm thesis. Doh!
• Made up for that idiocy by marrying Michigan native Lara Norman, June 14, 1997 in Cambria, CA. Celebrated 25 years of marriage with a Rhine River cruise.
• Daughter and pride and joy Natalie, who will be with me at the Reunion, born 1999. Fordham grad, Class of 2021.
• Have a stepson Alex, 31, who teaches second grade in Beijing. We're headed there in early August.
• Climbed Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, but I guess who hasn't, huh?
• Played rec league men's ice hockey for 15 years.
• Left California and journalism (columnist at the time) in 2008 to live with and help nurture elementary school aged boys, 7 to 10 at a time, with Lara as houseparents at the Milton Hershey School in Hershey Pa. Can't give that 10-year experience justice in this space.
• Hung out with brother John and other thicket-less crazies out in front of Wrigley Field for Game 5 of the 2016 World Series. 
• Wrote first drafts of two screenplays, neither of which has a chance to go anywhere. Just ask Seth Marshall, who annihilated the one he panned.   
• Bide my time with part time work at LNP (the Lancaster Pa. newspaper), golf (hole-in-one 1982), disc golf, playing guitar and drums badly, making scrap-metal robots and volunteering, including stream restoration projects as a Master Watershed Steward through Penn State University Extension. Overly fancy name.
• Other than that, I haven't done anything. 

(Professional name: Emily M. Kendrick)

I look forward to connecting with many of you in June. Here is a collection of the main themes in my life since graduation.

• Educator: I was an elementary school teacher, a mom of two children, and volunteer in public school classroom. Now I have two great adult children and I am a grandmother of two lovely granddaughters…and I volunteer in the art room of the public elementary school in our town. 
• Photographer: I was a photographer for Valley Forge National Park; I taught black & white photography classes in Michigan; I did wedding and family photos; I took color photographs for the online catalog for the Smithsonian Craft Show. 
• Artist: I have taken art classes in calligraphy, ceramics (throwing & hand-building); I self-published a book called “Nature’s Beauty” with my photographs; I wrote the matching Haikus (a form of Japanese poetry). 
• Church: I have served in just about every position available except Clerk and Treasurer. I currently am a Sunday School teacher.
• Pilates: My passion for the last 15 years!

Pictured is my book and a selfie photo of my husband, John, and I sitting in a car! :-)

After graduating from Prin College, I returned to my hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I lived for several more years, before moving to the Boston area.  About twenty years later I set sail for Naples, Florida, which has been my home ever since, except for a few years' interlude back in Boston.  My wife, Ashley, and I live and work in Naples as year-round residents, enjoying the company of our snow-bird friends in the winter, and the quiet and the rains of the summer.  We’ve come to appreciate swamps and even alligators, though mostly from afar.  A big hi to all of my friends (all three of them)!  

Where to start?  Though only attending Prin for 4 quarters, my highlight during that time would be the Prin abroad to Israel and Italy.  Something must have stuck however, since I was pleased when all four of my children ended up going to the Upper School and College.  Over the years I’ve been involved with the Santa Barbara Prin Club and will be going on my 10^th PLL trip this fall.

After leaving Prin I graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and married a man involved in agriculture.  I worked at nine different branches of Bank of America as we moved throughout California, from living in Thermal (Coachella valley) and ending up in Yuba City (north of Sacramento).  There we planted orchards and vineyards, literally, and had our two girls, Jaime and Christina Threlkel.  When that marriage was dissolving, I went back to school to get my teaching credential, then the girls and I moved south to Ventura, CA to be closer to my family.  Shortly thereafter, I met and married Jeff Kidson, a Principia classmate that I had not met before.  We ended up in Goleta, where I still live.  I briefly taught in junior high and high school, then took time off with the arrival of Jennifer and then David.  After being home for a few years, I was led to take a job at The Howard School, a small private school in Santa Barbara, where my children attended.  I retired a few years ago, but still substitute occasionally. Jaime has taught there for over 20 years now and her boys attend school there as well.

What else am I doing besides teaching?  Being a grandmother for Jaime’s two boys and Christina’s daughter is of course the top of the list and fortunately both families are only an hour away.  Jennifer just got married at home last July and lives in San Jose, while David moved to Colorado a few years ago.  Besides teaching and kids, I continue to be active with church, reading – for church and pleasure, traveling with family and friends, walking, and enjoying the beach. I also serve on the board of the Alta Vista Foundation which provides affordable housing for independent Christian Scientists in Santa Barbara.  Feel free to ask me about it!

In 1973, after Tom King (you might remember him since he and I spent so much time in the Syl Little Living room ;0) graduated, I went home to do my junior and senior years of college at the University of California, Northridge, while he got a job and got established.  However, we decided two years was too long to be apart, so we married the next summer (1974). This June we celebrate our 50th anniversary, so it’s proven to be not as rash a decision as some thought at the time.

We were in Houston for our first year of marriage; Wisconsin the next six years, where Joshua was born in 1977, Jason in 1979, and Megan in 1982; next we moved to Minneapolis where Tom joined his dad’s company;  in 1988 we moved to St Louis, where, eventually, Tom started his own company with products he invented for the residential irrigation industry. Even though I never completed college, I had the joy of being an assistant teacher at Principia for 15 years in second grade and later pre-k.

Josh and Trina live in Oregon.  Jason married Taraneh (whom he met at Prin College) in 2022 and joined her and her three children, Robin (11), William (10,) and Marion (7). in Oslo, Norway. Tom and I were in Norway in July getting to know our new grandchildren and helping them all move into a new home.  Hard work, but so much fun!  Megan and Warren live in St Louis, so we get to spend lots of time with Gideon (9) and Verona (5).

Tom sold his company in 2017 and we’re enjoying leisurely time to read, volunteer in our community and church, bike, hike, play pickle ball, travel, and spend time with our grandkids.

After getting an Illinois Teaching Certificate through Principia, I found I needed several additional courses before teaching outside of Illinois. For example, Texas history was required in Texas, and an entire year of courses before or during teaching in California. (Bummer, Dr. Fennell!)

After an unfortunate interview with a principal in a Houston school, I decided that learning to run around a desk from him was not my idea of a good working environment!

While I started in on these courses, I taught junior high students at a small, Christian Science school in northern California. It was the opportunity my teacher advisors would have jumped to have: no textbooks, no supplies, no filmstrips or maps, no outline to follow or required courses. Proposition 13 had closed all the public schools, so small, private schools were popping up in backyards, church yards, and closed wings of public schools. I went to textbook auctions and found class sets of history, science, math books, and English workbooks, but none of the teacher books with the answers! I used up my salary at the teacher resource store!

My father would close every phone call home I made saying, “Just remember, I’ll pay double your salary to come work for me!” The little school was closing, so I took his offer. I’d grown up with our family’s oilfield service business, so this was an exciting step into business that was based on solving problems with science. I got an MBA to help with the business aspect and took corrosion engineering courses to help understand the downhole environment. I gave talks at different corrosion engineering seminars on monitoring corrosion in the downhole environment with sweet gas and/or hydrogen sulfide and had to walk the line between keeping our engineering secrets under wraps and yet answer questions designed to reveal our methods.

All the things I liked about teaching I got to do, without worrying about the classroom management difficulties! I built training programs, complete with pictures and customer testimonials. I ran around the world with my slideshow and corrosion samples in my briefcase. I spoke at Shell Headquarters, Den Haag, in Phillips complex at Stavanger, Norway, Flopetrol offices in Germany, France, Brunei and Kalimantan. I met one customer skiing in Austria! On each of my four trips to Japan I learned at least one of the cultural gaffs I’d made on the last trip. In New Zealand, I had to rent my own car, because the Shell, BP, and Todd Oil Company didn’t allow women to drive company cars.

In each country, it became harder to prove my worth as a “woman in a man’s world.” Some of the perfectly nice men I met could not or would not believe that I was offering them good information.

After several tech jobs in the newer fields of telephony and computers (ROLM, AppleTV) and coursework to get acquainted with the different fields, I took my original interest in using images for training programs back to education. I worked for textbook publisher Addison-Wesley, and then Scott Foresman Addison Wesley, as their multimedia producer. At last, I got to create the resources that teachers love to use in the classroom: videos, laser discs, CD Roms, and later DVDs and computer online lessons, to illustrate a concept or tell a story within the content of the textbooks.

These were transferable experiences for use in my next role as director of learning technologies for the second largest county in California, the Santa Clara County of Education, with 32 districts and over a quarter-million students, and more than 58 different languages spoken by the students. Suddenly I had 8 television channels to fill with content, a coveted afterschool hour on the local PBS station, and an un-integrated network of computer technology contacts in the schools.

Teachers are a tough audience. They’ve been battered by salespeople who leave them with a closet of new devices, but no consistent way to use them in the classroom. I’ve seen computers used as doorstops, and smart boards used as coat racks. With the introduction of content standards for math and English, and the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE), teachers were given known values to achieve with their students. Science and History came later.

I created five TV series to help:

• Math Mentor was a televised phone-in help line where students called our tv station for help with their homework from some of the most popular math teachers in the schools. 
• The Math Squares Tournament used practice test questions from the High School Exit Exam to have two high school teams compete to play tic-tac-toe on camera.
• Writers’ Workshop, for grades 7 and 8 to spotlight students using correct grammar, sentence structure, and descriptive writing to a prompt.
• History Hunters for grade 5, which covered the history standards of geography, US states and capitols, famous people and events.
• Silicon Valley High, a series designed to spotlight teachers using technology in the classroom. It won a national award, and was broadcast to 24 PBS stations around the country.

As an educational video producer, I’d produced several training videos for other clients, notably a series for an online class in palliative nursing care for the California Health Care Foundation.

My most recent undertaking is VerifyIt! (playverifyit.org ) an online civics game for high school students through the League of Women Voters of Alameda. It promotes civic action by helping new and prospective voters evaluate news items and social media posts for disinformation, awareness of specific voting rules in different states, and a crash course in applying the Constitution to challenges in their daily lives.

I’m also active as program chair in a group called Mended Hearts. As a heart patient, I’ve been able to put my skills to use to create Zoom videos of our monthly educational programs.

Wow! Forty-nine years has really flown by, hasn’t it?

After graduating, I returned to California where I knew I would have to complete a 5th year of college before I would be allowed to teach fully credentialed. So, I took two remaining required education courses and then started on a master’s in education with a specialization in reading. I also started substitute teaching, which is trial by fire. I also met my future husband at our CS Association.

The following year, I got a job, teaching first grade in a local public school. I taught there for five years and finished my master’s and received a Reading Specialist Credential as well. Much to my mother’s disdain, I got married during Christmas break that first year!

After five years of teaching, I stopped, and we had two girls in 1981 and 1983. I was able to stay home for five years with them, however after those years I was offered a job teaching third grade at Clairbourn School, a school at that time had a CS staff. The girls and I started back to school together.

Following my now lifetime pattern, after five years teaching in third grade, I applied for my dream job—librarian for the school. I loved having the kids in the library, encouraging them to become readers, and using my teaching skills as well, especially in the emerging technology of the time. I stayed in the library for 25 years! (I had to keep that five-year thing going!)

On a personal note, I have enjoyed 48 years of marriage to a man who keeps me laughing and challenges me as well. We are both active in church, he sings in a barbershop quartet and in a formal, classical choir, plus does model railroading and plays golf. I have now had time to enjoy creative, crafty activities such as scrapbooking, card making, and needlepoint. We both enjoy traveling, our walks most mornings, and swimming laps in our home pool. We have four grandchildren—two in the Bay Area and two in San Diego, so we spend as much time as we can with them.

Life is good.

I am really looking forward to reconnecting with many wonderful people I met during my Prin years.

I never graduated from Prin.  After 2 years at Prin, my dad lost his job, so my brother, Ken, and I were on our way home to southern California.  I spent a year working in Newport Beach as a carpenter, and rooming with Dick Gude (and my amazon parrot) in Costa Mesa.  Those were fun times, except when Dick was trying to get the parrot to talk, and it bit him in the lip.  Ouch!

After that short stint, I went back home to the San Fernando Valley, and graduated from Cal State Northridge.  Soon after graduating, I got married, and we lived in the Northridge area for a couple of years, before moving to San Jose, CA.  I worked in the construction industry, selling doors, frames & hardware for commercial buildings.  It turned out the Bay Area kept me very busy, since it was home to Google, Apple, Facebook, and more, all building like crazy.

In the meantime, the family grew.  In 1981, Jared was born.  He's now a California State Park Ranger, and he has a beautiful wife, and 2 very active sons (7&5).  In 1984, Arianne was born. She and her husband are now very busy raising the cutest daughter and a new son (2-1/2 & 3 months).  In 1989, Reese was born.  He's now an artist, doing pottery in the San Francisco Bay area, and living with his beautiful girlfriend and their dog.

I got divorced in 2009, but life goes on.  I retired in 2018, and still live in San Jose.  Retirement suits me just fine, I love it.  I got the travel bug when my sons studied in Italy and Germany.  That was the perfect opportunity to go and visit them.  There are so many interesting places to see, but not enough time to see them all.  I love to travel, play pickleball, ice skate, and rollerblade.  I now volunteer at a local art studio, teaching blacksmithing, which is a lot of fun.  I also volunteer at the Tech Museum (now the Tech Interactive), showing visitors the exhibits.

As I mentioned before, life goes on.  Last year, in a yoga class, I met my girlfriend, and we've been very happy ever since.  Life is good!!

I'm looking forward to the reunion and can't wait to see old friends (and I do mean old).  50 years, I can't believe it.

Epilogue: I really wanted to see everyone at the reunion, but alas, it didn't happen.  Last week, I broke my hip from a fall while rollerblading.  The surgeon put in 3 pins, and I'll be in rehab for 5 more days.  I'm so bummed to miss all the fun.  I'd love to see photos, so if you don't mind sending some, I'd appreciate it.  Text to: (408) 605-3532.  Thanks, and enjoy your week together.

Here is a bit of the adventure I have been on.

When I graduated early from Principia I went home to Lake Almanor, California and studied jewelry making and stone faceting before heading to Cranbrook Academy Of Art for an MFA in painting. While there I was able to take classes from the Metalsmithing department and learned how to forge and raise a copper bowl from sheet metal. So much fun. Returning home I taught college art, continued to study jewelry making and got a GIA degree in gemology. Yes, my college degrees in fine arts and geology did work together.

After working for a couple of years and saving enough money to buy a car, I decided instead to take a trip around the world (four months by myself, but with God) buying gemstones from the source. The highlights of that trip were Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Indonesia.

Upon my return I took classes in diamond setting in Portland OR where I met my future husband. He was an Iranian graduate student and had been able to get out of Tehran on the last flight before Ayatollah Khomeini landed. It was the Iranian revolution. We moved to Philadelphia while he worked on his graduate degree in urban planning, and I worked as a diamond (gemstone) setter. 

The next adventure was thirteen years in Sacramento, CA, where my husband and I had a fine jewelry business and an art gallery. I was also still painting. There, we also received state arts grants to write and illustrate three children’s books.

Our daughter Roya was born in 1993, and we decided to close our jewelry business and art gallery, as Iran seemed open enough to move there to live. My husband taught at the university, and I taught English as a second language and painted. Living in Iran was lovely, and we flourished. Our son Dara was born during the five years we lived in Iran.

To support Dara, who had been diagnosed with a developmental disability, it seemed right for me and the children to move back to California. My husband spent six months teaching his university classes in Iran then six months with us where he could write and support his graduate students remotely. This was the pattern of our life until he passed on in 2014.

In California, I taught college art and art in elementary schools and decided to get my elementary teaching credential. We then moved to Hawaii to support my mother, and I taught Kindergarten.

When My husband passed on, I stopped teaching and thought that I would go back to painting, but God made it clear that the next right step was to go into the CS practice. In the last couple of years, one way God has been speaking to me so clearly has been through poetry.

Dara and I live in Kona, Hawaii, and Roya, who’s a junior staff editor for JSH, lives in Elsah with her husband, who teaches at Principia College.

Congratulations class of 1974 on our 50th reunion!

Four wonderful years at Principia College changed my life forever, mostly because of all you smart, kind, and funny classmates. A better group of friends could not be found.

Fun fact: I had never visited Principia, so fall of our freshman year my parents, my best friend Ken–who wanted to go along for the ride and I drove from Pennsylvania to Elsah, past the old guard house, straight to the back of Howard House, looking for the men's quad, completely lost. I met my first classmate when I had to lean out of the car window and ask upper class woman Sarah Lindley for directions. She didn't laugh or roll her eyes but very kindly pointed us in the right direction.

Fun fact: After finding Joe McNabb house and my room, I proceeded to the welcome party in the living room where I met my second classmate Dale Henn. My mom was already in the living room and had been talking to Dale. She introduced the two of us, and we have been lifelong friends.

My Principia experience was officially under way, and the best four years were ahead for all of us.

I graduated Principia with a bachelor of Fine Arts. I interviewed for art and design jobs, but kept being hired in sales positions. Eventually I followed a lead and interviewed with a custom printing and manufacturing company IDL (In Divine Love) Worldwide started by a Christian Science family. I acted as a sales representative developing new business with national retail stores working with store designers creating fixtures, signage, and brand presence within stores. I spent many productive years in this creative industry at a time when new innovative retail stores were the destination of every shopper.

More importantly, I was led to find a fulfilling career utilizing my Principia education.

In 1985, I married the woman of my dreams. Mary Ann is beautiful, brilliant, creative, my soul mate, a great metaphysician, and the best mother to our children. As if that's not enough, she has had a full-time career in the beauty care and grocery industry

We started a family in 1998 and have two stunning, smart, and loving daughters, both Principia graduates. Ava (C'20) is a chemical engineer with Boeing in St. Louis. Her husband, Mason Switzer (C'18), is also a Prin grad and a mechanical engineer with Boeing.

Our younger daughter, Paige (C'22), is marketing coordinator at Principia School and loves working for and supporting Principia.

Fun fact: Paige can be heard soloing on Sundays at several churches in the St. Louis area.

Fun fact: Mary Ann and I are currently refurbishing a mid-century modern ranch style home built in 1952.

I look forward to seeing you all at our 50th reunion!

Last Fun fact: There have been more hugs in the Principia Concourse than any other college building anywhere!!

Hi friends!  50 years in a few paragraphs - here goes:

After Prin I worked as a furniture buyer for several companies-first for 8 years in Chicago at Marshall Field.  Loved every minute of my time in Chicago.  I also lived in Kansas City buying furniture, antiques, collectibles and directing the interior design studio for 5 years at Halls. 

Spent a few years as a sales rep for Noritake China and later traveled the MINK states (MO, IA, NE, and KS) selling furniture and accessories to stores and design firms.

I moved back to St. Louis in the 90's to be closer to family and ultimately decided that I didn't want to travel all the time for business.  I joined a local property management firm for the remainder of my formal career.  Got married (and divorced) along the way.

I didn't know what the next adventure would bring when I decided to take early retirement, but it has been fun.  I help people get organized, downsize, and found a third career as a substitute pianist, playing regularly for 5 CS churches. Keeping busy with church work, gardening, and friends.  Life is good!

After graduating in ’74, I spent the summer with Andy Kehe living in Santa Monica, CA, working at Dodger Stadium and lying on the beaches. In Sept. of ‘74 I reunited with my Brooks North homies, Phil Webster and Glenn Hanneman (both C’74), back in St. Louis and worked alongside them at Smuggler’s Inn. Had a wonderful year with them, but needed to get back East so I moved to Washington DC in early 76.

I began my banking career working as a branch manager for a small savings & loan in rural Maryland. Think of a savings & loan in the show “Green-Acres” -that was the S&L I worked at. The most embarrassing moment perhaps in my life happened one Saturday morning when a customer walked in saying he wanted a bridge loan. Not being well trained, I asked “why do you want to buy a bridge.” The moment those words were uttered the customer turned and walked out. That incident caused me to enroll in the MBA program offered at the University of Maryland.

In 1977 Tom Wheeler, another Brooks North homey, and I shared an apartment followed by buying a townhome in 1979 with Ken Freund, C’75 and another Brooks North warrior. At this point I’d moved out of “Green Acres” and began working for a bank in D.C. In 1982 I moved to Richmond VA and after 9 years that bank merged with C&S, a venerable southern bank headquartered in Atlanta, so they moved me to Georgia. Bought a house and started saying “y’all”.

In 1994 I was selected by the Atlanta Games Olympic Committee (ACOG) to be part of their Envoy Program, which resulted in my living in the 1996 Olympic Village and served as the liaison between the country of Macedonia’s lead official and ACOG. I had VIP access to all venues and events as an Envoy. I accompanied the team’s lead official wherever he wanted to go. I ate with the team, participated in the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and even had my picture taken with Muhammed Ali.

In 1999 I married the woman of my dreams…a long wait but well worth it. Nancy and I have been married 25 wonderful years and have been blessed with two unbelievable children. By this time the bank that moved me to Atlanta through acquisition had become Bank of America. In 2000 I left BofA and my Senior Vice President title to move to Wachovia Bank as a project manager.

In 2001, Rachel was born and immediately brought us joy. She excelled academically and was named to the Georgia High School All Star Team in 2019. Rachel graduated from Amherst College in 2023 and is now living in Boston.

Ryan was born in 2004 with an innate curiosity in learning. He has taught himself several languages and loves music. Ryan just finished his freshman year on the Dean’s List at Cal Poly’s School of Architecture. When not studying he is a member of the Sailing Club.

In 2008 I exited the banking industry [finally] and bought a business coaching franchise. I currently specialize in working with owners of businesses with anywhere from 5 – 40 employees helping them scale their businesses. I am truly blessed to have made a big impact in the lives of my owner clients.

My life has taken many twists and turns and I’m excited at re-connecting with some ole Principia ‘74s at the Reunion.

Well, I made the mistake of reading lots of my classmates’ stories, and I must say, this is worse than Facebook! I haven’t accomplished nearly what you all have.

After I graduated from Prin with a teaching certificate, I didn’t teach! I travelled and did short-term jobs for three years (including teaching tennis at an Italian resort) and then I landed back in Phoenix/Scottsdale where I grew up and started working for IBM. Favorite job I ever had. 

I married my husband, Phil, and when we had our first daughter, I left IBM and became an at-home mom. We had a second daughter and when they started school, that’s when I started working and volunteering in the schools. I even taught at a private school for four years after our girls were grown.

I’ve been married 41 years, living in Scottsdale. I love our family. I also dearly love my church family at 2nd Church, Scottsdale. And… I still love to play tennis! 

I’m looking forward to being back on campus, mentally reliving happy times, and seeing everyone.

What have I been doing since graduation 1974?

Three months after graduating from Principia, I started teaching second grade in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. After a few paychecks, I bought myself a blue Firebird Pontiac and was on top of the world!

Six years later, I married Greg McLane (C‘72) and moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I taught elementary school for three more years, and by 1988, we were a family of four! Jeffrey and Elizabeth (and Snickers, the dog).

I was a full-time mom and spent hours volunteering for various organizations in Tulsa. I was the Second Reader at First Church in Tulsa and tutored students in the afternoons.

In 1997, our family moved to Dallas, Texas, where we still live today. During our time in Dallas, I worked for The Mother Church placing Science & Health in bookstores all over DFW and coordinating corresponding book talks by CS lecturers. From there, I accepted the Reading Room Librarian position for my church, which taught me QuickBooks, how to manage a retail space, and how to introduce Christian Science to shoppers. In 2005, I was hired as the Executive Director of The Sunnyside Foundation. The foundation assists Christian Scientists in the state of Texas with financial support for education, camp, CS nursing care, and general assistance. It keeps me busy full time (and beyond) and I love it!

A recent travel highlight is a Principia Lifelong Learning River Cruise to tour art in Paris and the coast of Normandy with twenty Sylvester sisters. Susie Ledbetter and John Glen, the trip scholars, made the trip a success.

When not working or touring, we visit our son’s family in California and our daughter’s family in East Texas. For details…see you in June at Reunion.

I began my career after Principia College, using my double major of Elementary Education and Sociology. I worked at Twelveacres Inc in San Jose, CA as a Teacher, Supervisor of Weekend Staff and Supervisor of the Women’s Dormitory. Then left Twelveacres and was a Rehabilitation Supervisor at Hope Rehabilitation Services in San Jose. This was working with Special Needs children and adults.

Then in 1985, I moved to Florida where my family lived and started my Social Work career with the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. Starting in Developmental Services and then went into Child Protective Services.

I met my husband Patrick McMillan, and we moved to Asheville, NC, where I was a Social Worker Supervisor with the Buncombe County Department of Social Services. We loved Asheville and lived there for 14 years, with our two children Heather and Jeffrey. We enjoyed the Arts and hiking the Blue Ridge Parkway and many sporting events the kids participated in.

In 2004 we began our journey as a Little Caesars Pizza Franchisee in Nashville, TN. Both of our kids worked for the family business which we grew to 10 stores. We still own the stores which our son Jeff supervises. Our daughter Heather has begun another career. Jeff married and now we have two grandchildren, Brady and Emerson, who have enriched our lives so much. 

Now we have time to travel and see so many interesting cultures. We are traveling to Scandinavia soon, so I will not be able to attend the 50^th reunion. I have so many fond memories of Principia and will miss not seeing old friends.  I took my husband Pat to see the Prin years ago and he admired the beauty of the campus. Love to Everyone  

Mostly I’m just lucky. I was a part of a basketball team that was inducted into the Principia College Gold & Blue Athletic Hall of Fame (no thanks to me, a freshman bench gremlin). After graduating, I helped coach the Upper School basketball team to their first ever district championship (right place at the right time). Then I coached basketball at the College and was fortunate enough to have on the team a two-time Olympic basketball player, Howard Kelsey, along with a group of talented athletes. I worked hard to find ways to take credit for their success but didn’t really fool anyone.

I left Principia College coaching and found my way into a career that didn’t really exist while I was in College. I ended up going to work for the 15th largest money manager in the US, Capital Group, and rode along while we became the largest active money manager in the world. I retired in 2009 and was asked to help coach tennis at the Upper School. Since I had never played tennis in school, I decided that to learn how to coach, I would get myself coached by the best coaches I could find, which meant I had to spend my winters in Florida training. I tried to take what I was learning about coaching by being coached and apply it to how I was coaching (I am probably no better at coaching than I am at writing comprehensible English). I have competed on the Senior Grand Prix Tennis Circuit in Florida for the past 11 years or so (thanks to some great coaching) and am still coaching tennis at the Upper School.

Since College graduation I have had wonderful adventures in tennis, mountaineering, motorcycle racing, skiing, skydiving, music performing, public speaking and business, all  but one of which included spectacular failures that were probably entertaining to watch, as well as a few victories (the failure exception was skydiving, thankfully).

Five years ago I was lucky enough to find a girl who mistakenly thought I was an okay guy and married me. When you meet her at our 50th reunion, please don’t tell her the truth! 

We now divide our time between St. Louis, Missouri, Orlando, Florida, and Breckenridge, Colorado.

I am currently living in Frontenac, Missouri and hanging out with local Prin friends. 

After graduation, I jumped into life commuting to the San Francisco Bay Area to work for a large insurance company.   My dad decided that I had enough experience for the two of us to start our own agency after a mere few years of experience.  Hard to remember the business climate in the late 70s and early 80s.  It was great working with my dad and soon my brother Skip joined McNeil Insurance.  Fast forward through challenges and opportunities, the highlight of my life is meeting my wife Debbie Huelster Thompson on a Prin Life Long Learning trip from Paris to Normandy in 2018.  Since we were on a river cruise, there was nowhere for her to hide and I captured her heart.  We were married in 2019 and have been on our adventure since. 

I have enjoyed many travels around the world to beautiful and remote spots to enjoy experiences with animals in the wild.  I don't think I have missed a class reunion and I always enjoy Summer Session because of the opportunity to catch up with good friends and good thinkers.  Like you, we are happily in "preferment" spending our days doing what we "prefer" to do, including following the budding little league career of our 10 year old great nephew and our two great neices, who are 8 and 6.  Life is sweet and it will be great to see you all and catch up in person.

See you soon!

It’s been a fulfilling half century. Most of my career has been in radio and television broadcasting and for 35+ years it was a peripatetic existence.

After 2 years at Prin I transferred to USC and graduated with a communications degree. I was music host for a classical station (possibly because I knew how to pronounce the name of the conductor of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Gennady Rozhdestvensky). One of my teachers ran a news consultancy and helped me get a reporter/anchor job with the Montana Television Network (now defunct) which ran 4 stations in the state. From reporter and weekend anchor in Butte, I became News Director for the company’s new station in Missoula and then for 2 years I was Executive Producer and main anchor for the 2 primary daily news programs carried by each of the network’s stations. It was a big-fish-in-a-small-pond experience. I went onto anchor/reporter jobs in Des Moines, New Orleans, and Orlando.

In 1986 I was approached about a position as editor, reporter and host for Monitor Radio in Boston. After years of covering the seedy range of local news (car crashes, fires, murders etc.) I was thrilled at the idea of devoting my talents to a mission that aligned with both mind and heart. I worked with a great team of people for several years, building an audience and the number subscriber stations who loved the content, professionalism of production and overall quality, as well as an understanding of the meaning of Monitor Journalism. On station visits around the country, management told me they loved carrying our NPR-quality programming at far less than NPR fees.

Then, it was decided that radio would end and that the church would produce several television programs that would fill a 7-day-a-week schedule for The Monitor Channel on cable. Clint Jones and I who worked together on the daily Monitor Radio program, were asked to write, edit and be the co-hosts for Today’s Monitor which would be taped inside the Monitor newsroom and included interviews with reporters and editors about the stories in each day’s newspaper. We were all driven by the spiritually minded purpose of what we were doing, and it was a high-water mark in my career. I and the program won several journalism awards.

The Monitor Channel ceased operations in April of 1992, and I moved to Chicago to be an anchor and reporter for CLTV, Chicagoland Television News. News Directors allowed me to step away from reporting on the standard local news fare and concentrate on think pieces and features. I won for myself and the station several awards (Emmys, AP First Place, Exemplary Journalist from the Society of Professional Journalists). I was also given a show on WGN 720 AM radio. What a blast to run the board in the sidewalk-facing “Showcase Studio” in the Tribune Tower on North Michigan Avenue.

Other highlights:

In 2008 I was the first visiting scholar at Principia College. I was paid through a grant from the Annenberg Foundation. I taught news writing, radio production and a communications class. I also gave the school’s convocation speech that year.

I was taken up in a Navy A-4 Skyhawk when the Blue Angels came to town. I had flown gliders and the pilot, sitting in front of me, gave some instructions and let me take the stick. I’ll never forget that. I told him if they could take every prospective Navy recruit up in one of these, they’d be signing up to be a Navy pilot when they landed. “Not you,” he said. At 6’ 1” I was too tall.

Other points of note:

I crash landed in a B-17, went on a date with Miss Universe, and interviewed Ronald Reagan.

For the last 12 years I’ve been coaching deal teams for a global consulting company…helping them win competitive RFPs on massively huge contacts.

At different church's I’ve been a SS teacher, SS Super, Treasurer, Board Chair, and 1^st and 2^nd Reader.

Nearly 5 years ago Elizabeth (from 1^st church Arlington…we married in 1996) moved to the Philadelphia area. My two oldest children, William and Margaret who have 2 children each, live in the Midwest, our youngest, Marshall, works in North Carolina for 3M.

And…. that’s my life in a nutshell. It’s been satisfying.

What have I been doing these last (50) years? Well, nothing heroic or worthy of public acclaim. But I managed to build a life that gives me tremendous satisfaction both personally and professionally. I’ve been blessed in many ways.

My wife (Connie) and I share (2) sons, (2) daughters, and (7) grandchildren. Nobody served jail time, has addictions, or is harassed by taxing authorities…as far as I know. Perhaps I have low expectations!

After living in the San Francisco Bay area for (17) years, Connie and I moved to the Chicago suburb of Inverness, IL to be closer to our sons and grandchildren. Great to return to my roots, but I must admit to missing the California weather.

We moved to California in 2005 to create a business that we continue to operate. Shade Comforts, Inc. is a specialty construction contractor providing government agencies, corporations, and other institutions with tensioned, fabric shade structures covering amphitheaters, parking lots, patios, pools, and other large areas. Providing turnkey solutions, it sole-sources structure design, engineering, fabrication, & construction. Our business continues to be the most fun one that I’ve operated.

Entrepreneurship (and the creative freedom it enables) is what drives me on the professional level. I’ve been doing it since 1992 after working for others in the computer industry for my first (17) years. Prior to starting Shade Comforts, I started and operated a franchise consulting firm that (among other aspects) enabled me to be a master franchisor for (4) states in the retail toy store business. Yes, I enjoy change and taking on new challenges!

I play Pickleball once a week but realize that Olympic aspirations are beyond reach. Also, landscape design and construction on our property is lots of fun. Finally, my passion for history continues to grow, which Principia’s History Department ignited so many years before. It enriches vacation traveling, which we also enjoy.

I aspire to continue learning from my mistakes in all aspects of life. And there have been plenty. I perceive my past and future as an ongoing work-in-progress in character development. I’ll always appreciate how Principia emphasized that.

Looking forward to catching up with so many of you at the 50th reunion!

Best Regards,

Bill Moore

Graduation Day 1974! You know the spot! This first picture is me with Miles Moore (C'73).

Two months later we were married and spent the next 48 years together. Wish it could have been longer, but Miles passed away -- unexpectedly -- in April of 2022. We had a wonderful life together. The first 10 years we moved often as new jobs opened up. This took us to Houston, Texas, Beloit, Wisconsin, and Minneapolis, Minnesota. While in Minneapolis, our son, Courtney, and our daughter, Stephanie, were born. In 1984, we all moved to Ames, Iowa -- a great place to raise a family and settle down for the next 38 years.

In November of 2022, I decided to move to the Alton/Godfrey (Illinois) area to be close to family and friends. And I am really glad I did. I love going to activities at Prin College -- performances, talks, sporting events.There are also many former (retired) Prin College faculty, staff, and alumni in the area. It has been fun getting acquainted -- or re-acquainted -- with them. So many good memories and stories to share!

If you are planning on attending our Reunion in June, I can't wait to see you! If you are undecided, I hope you will decide to come. And if you have any questions about Reunion activities or accommodations -- or just what Reunion "looks" like -- I will be happy to help.

This second picture was taken last summer on the gondola going up to Aerie's Restaurant in Grafton. This is where we will be having fun and enjoying the amazing view on our off-campus excursion at Reunion. Bring your camera! Can't wait to see you!

All of my friends had children. I kept postponing commitment, going back to school, working, traveling, visiting those college friends. 

When Mark came along, it was easy to change course.  Work was for his small business, travel included Lulu and Dane (still does), as my favorite activity. Volunteering has always taken up a lot of free time. The photo is of a picnic in Switzerland last September.

Dabe's wife Shaylee is next to him.  Lulu is getting married tomorrow, so my paragraph will not be any better than this. Jan

Kids and music have been a constant in my life, and I can't see that combination ending anytime soon. 

In addition, traveling to great places around the world, working in schools, starting my own school, church work and keeping up with family and friends fill my time. 

This year I auditioned and got the part for "Antonia" in Man of La Mancha, so I've been working with a voice coach. My husband and I visit the beach as much as possible. 

I love to cook and finally conquered my fear of boiling a live lobster. I still feel bad about it. Turned out ok though. My best friend is French, and I attempt to communicate aux francais. Actually, I took German at Prin from Dr. Bea Mills who happened to be a good friend of my parents. I absolutely loved her class and even enjoyed a Prin German abroad with Curt and Abby to Kassel. 

Church is absolutely a great experience wherever I've lived. I think I've been a member of 12 different CS churches over the years. All good. Spent time with 3 Prin friends at the Longyear Foundation's tour of Mary Baker Eddy homes in 2015. I highly recommend it! My grandchildren are just amazing, funny, bright, and I am engaged with them as much as possible: Piano lessons and Disneyland! I feel so blessed to have been with all of you at Principia and treasure access to this vibrant world-wide community.  

Chris passed on January 3, 2024 in Sarasota County, Florida

After graduating from Prin, Chris taught for two years at Herringswell Manor School, an American children’s school in Suffolk, England. On the school breaks when the campus was closed, Chris had nowhere to stay. So, he creatively bought a green line bus pass and toured Europe, riding the bus every day and sleeping in Youth Hostels. He also loved studying at Oxford University. He took fantastic photos, and his favorite town was Florence, Italy.

After England, Chris lived in Red Bank and Bloomfield, New Jersey. He commuted to New York City and worked as an Administrative Assistant at Booz-Allen & Hamilton on Park Avenue. After that, he was hired to assist an Ambassador at the United Nations.

Chris’s parents, Keith and Dotty Pickett, lived in Indiana, but also wintered in Sarasota, Florida. Chris visited them and loved Sarasota. He lived in Sarasota for a time and was the First Reader at the Christian Science Church. He also volunteered in their Reading Room on Main Street.

Later Chris moved to Indianapolis near his parents who lived in Carmel, where Chris was raised. He enjoyed a rewarding career in Sales at LazyBoy furniture, where he was recognized as a top Salesman. He retired after 17 years and moved back to Sarasota to help with his parents who began residing there year-round. He was deeply dedicated to full-time caregiving for them in their elder years. Living with them, he made it possible for them to continue to remain in their home till his father passed on at 95 in 2020. His mother is in assisted living now in Nokomis, Florida. She is 94. Chris’s sister, Pamela Pickett Romei, lives in Sarasota as well.

Chris was a deep thinker, an avid reader and lifelong spectator sports fan. He was a very Spiritual, gentle man who knew the Bible well and lived by the Word of God and Christian Science principles. He was kind and very thoughtful of others. He had an inner Peace that was visible to his family and friends. He had a wonderful voice, loved music and treasured Christian Science hymns.

Chris was very thankful to study and graduate from Principia College. He had fond memories of his friends and fun times there!! In recent years, he relished receiving emails and texts from classmates. Everyone’s sense of humor and sharing made him smile often. While he was not able to consider attending his 50^th reunion this year, he was delighted to know about the plans and everyone’s anticipation of returning to campus and being together.

We definitely have a couple's story: We met at the A/U Ranches at Christmas Camp in 1974. Ric worked there as a ski instructor, and I was in Round-up’s kitchen. We danced on New Year’s Eve and went out on the porch at midnight for our first kiss.

Then we renewed our friendship Spring Qtr 1975 at Principia College and wrote love letters all summer. Julie flew from Iowa to Seattle to meet Ric’s family and drove his VW bug back together for Fall Quarter 1975, when we graduated.

We married in Iowa one year after our first kiss on January 1, 1976, with many Prin-os at the wedding. We settled on Bainbridge Island, WA and built an indoor tennis club there. We have two adorable children, Matt and Jocelyn (also both Prin grads). We are very proud of their accomplishments.

A few years later, we bought a tennis club in Jacksonville, FL and built 24 condos, a pool and clubhouse, and lost our shirts during the recession. We ended up at Boyne Mt. Resort in Northern Michigan after working for a New Jersey tennis club.

We bought our first video camera back in 1984, which Ric used for his tennis teaching. Then we produced promo videos for the resort, TV ads for businesses, conferences across the U.S. and documentaries for PBS, which turned into our main income for the last 30 years.

Julie has performed in every musical production available and taught voice and piano all along the way. She is still a soloist, directs large choirs and produces shows.

We travel a lot, with Cozumel being our favorite winter destination. We’ve taken 5 cruises just this past year from Hawaii and Alaska to the Mediterranean and Adriatic and across the Atlantic and part of the Pacific Ocean.

Our 3 fun-loving grandsons are a joy to play around with, lots of skiing, biking and boating. This fall they will be in 8th, 9th and 10th grades.

We do miss our parents who gave us so much devoted love and wonderful opportunities.

We strive to share that kind of love and spend it freely. Please come visit us or join us in some adventures around the world.

I left Prin after my sophomore year to attend UCLA and graduated as a Bruin with a poli sci degree.  I often reflect on that decision to leave Prin, with many regrets, but which seemed so right for me at the time.

Went on to law school in San Diego where I had always wanted to end up, but the practice of law was not for me.  Two years later, somehow, I ended up in commercial real estate for a dozen years, but again that was not my calling either.

I then went on to get my CFP and CFA certifications and established a boutique (that means small) wealth management firm.  Around that time I met my wife of nearly 33 years at a charity fundraiser for which I was the co-chair.  

We ventured twice to China to adopt our children, two wonderful girls.

Our oldest daughter, Allana, now 28, was 6 months old at the time.  Our youngest daughter, Cianna, now 26, was 9 months old when she joined our family.  It has been so wonderful having them in our lives.

Allana graduated from Gonzaga and then received her law degree at USD.  She is a Deputy District Attorney in the South Bay office of the San Diego District Attorney.  After graduating from Chapman University, Cianna got a Master’s Degree in Business Analytics from USD.  She now works for Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego as a Project Program Coordinator for the Foundation arm of the hospital. 

I went back to school a few years ago and got an LLM in tax from USD School of Law.  I was on campus for 4 of my daughter’s 6 semesters at the law school.  It was fun going to the library together to study for our finals.  We never had a class together which is just the way she wanted it.

I graduated in 2020 during Covid so there was no ceremony for us.  The next year our class was invited to attend the ceremony with the class of 2021, my daughter’s class, so we walked together to get our diplomas.  That was a very special moment, although more for me than for her!

My dad always told me that if you enjoy want you’re doing, you’ll never work a day in your life.  That’s how I feel now.  My practice is challenging, exciting, and just so enjoyable.

I also serve on the investment committees for several non-profit organizations in San Diego including the United Way of San Diego and the San Diego Jewish Community Foundation.     

I’ve been back to Prin for a class reunion many, many years ago, a summer session, and the Hall of Fame induction for the basketball team that Terry McNabb mentioned in his post-Prin summary.

Look forward to attending the reunion!

After graduation in 1975, I entered the MBA program at Tulane University. Following graduation from Tulane I moved to Texas and worked in public accounting for a couple of years and then with a major oil company in Texas and the east coast. In 1982 I met Suzette Jackson. We married in July 1983 and were married for 40 years until her passing in 2023. We spent most of that time in New Orleans. I operated a money management business until I retired. Suzette was an executive for a major corporation. We had a wonderful life together raising our two sons. We often spent our free time cruising the bayous of Louisiana with our sons on our boat. I also loved sailing, golf and coaching my sons' soccer teams. Our sons married wonderful women and I am blessed to have 4 grandsons who are a joy to be around. One son lives in Alexandria, Virginia and the other in Houston, Texas. When I am not on a golf course in New Orleans, I spend time with my sons.

It is difficult to put 50 years into one paragraph, but I am going to give it the old college try. I taught elementary art for 30 years in Denver Colorado in the Cherry Creek School District. I have 5 lovely daughters and four lively grandchildren. As an art lover and teacher, I feel life itself can teach you all you need to know to be a better artist. In my work, I have an equal fondness for portraiture as well as landscape painting. The creative process is unlimited and truly an emotion that sizzles and invites increased awareness of beauty. My paintings are my diary. At this reunion, I am looking forward to introducing you to my boyfriend Tim Carrasco. I have beautiful and numerous memories of my time together with all of you at Principia. I look forward to seeing many cherished friends again and creating some new memories.

Six weeks after graduation, Scott (C'73) and I had a “destination” wedding (long before they became popular!) in the Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO. Our red-rock wedding alter was toped by the famous “Kissing Camels” rock formation.

We began our married life together teaching and living in a southern suburb of Chicago. I taught 2nd grade for 5 years, during which time I completed a Masters Program as a Reading Specialist. 

We began the next chapter of our life in 1979 when our first daughter, Ami was born. Her sister Beth followed in 1982. I loved being a stay at home mom for several years. During this time I kept professionally involved by tutoring children of all ages with reading difficulties.

Most of Scott’s career was focused on Nuclear Power Plant security, becoming the National Training Director for a large Nuclear Security Contractor.

In 1993,  Scott accepted a position at The Mother Church as Manager of Security, and we moved to Andover MA, where we still reside. 

In 1994, I was hired to work in Treasurer's department and discovered that I loved working with numbers, analyzing spreadsheets and project management. I retired after working for a member of the Christian Science Board of Directors.

We are blessed with 5 grandchildren who live in the Boston area, loving each of them as a unique expression of God. 

After graduating in 1975, I returned to my hometown of Hutchinson, Kansas, and began what would become a 40+ year career in the banking industry—the majority of which was in home loan lending with Wells Fargo. In 1976, Principia friends introduced me to Glenn Reiff, and we were married in June of 1979. My husband’s passion is collecting cars, and over the years we have enjoyed friendships and Corvette Road trips through the US with our hobby.

Places we have lived – Louisville, KY, Pueblo, CO, Steamboat Springs, CO (36 years), and now Fort Collins, CO since summer 2017. We loved the little town of Steamboat but were ready to move to a place with less snow. We enjoyed designing our homes in Steamboat as well as in Fort Collins. 

Church holds a very important place in my life. Part of the reason we chose Steamboat was because it has an active CS Society, and Fort Collins has a lively church, too. Serving at various times as 2nd Reader, board member, treasurer, clerk, Sunday School teacher, usher, care committee, counting committee, etc., has been a blessing. Love being in contact with dear church friends. Currently, I am also on the board of Wide Horizon in Wheat Ridge, CO.

Hobbies – reading (mainly church related or historical books), travel (all 50 states and many European countries and Caribbean Islands), entertaining and enjoying time with friends, making our house more of a home, walking, and gardening.  

Looking forward to seeing you in June at Prin!

Since my time at Prin I have been enjoying my family life with my wife Lonnie and our combined family of five children and seven grandchildren.  

After my initial venture into the music world while at Principia in 1972, I  began a musical career devoted to old rock and roll music that I loved. After 30+ years of performing in the Chicago area with the band that got its name at Prin (JOHNNY STAR AND THE METEORS), I had the golden opportunity to join a group I admired. In 2006 I became lead singer of Jay and The Americans, a group with a history of hits back in the 1960's. We are currently touring as part of the "Happy Together tour" all over the U.S. with The Turtles, The Association, The Cowsills, The Vogues, and Joey Molland of Badfinger. In fact, we'll be in St. Charles, MO on August 16th of this year for those of you in the St. Louis area. I will forever be grateful for that trip into the Concourse in my gold suit on the back of a motorcycle. See you all at the reunion!

After graduation I joined the U.S. Marine Corps serving primarily at Camp Pendleton, CA.  Later, I got my MBA at the Darden School, University of Virginia. I went to work in banking in New York City. When I was growing up, I lived in eight different states and wanted to stop moving around so basically stayed in NYC.  I married a woman who was born and raised in NYC.  We had two children who grew up living in Manhattan.  Later we got divorced.  

My son teaches computer science at Hunter College and is a member of the Oratorio Society of NY which sings at Carnegie Hall three times a year.  My daughter is a medical doctor and works for the University of Wisconsin, Madison where she is also a professor.  

I worked for many years at Merrill Lynch and lived in Tokyo and London.  When Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch,  I continued working at BofA in Corporate Treasury.  Today, I am the Chief Strategy Officer for a global tech company that does smart building technology and artificial intelligence.  As part of our giving back to the community, I am creating smart buildings in Selma, AL as a free donation. 

I go to the gym and lift heavy weights. It seems like a healthy thing to do, and I enjoy it. Currently, I am reading “Bliss Knapp, Christian Scientist” by Charles Theodore Houpt. A few years ago, I went to the 50^threunion at Prin Upper School.  I keep in touch with a few Buck House brothers, notably Duane Thompson who lives in Sedona, AZ.  We like to go hiking together.  I’ve visited Seth Marshall a few times.  Duane and I visited Seth in Maui.  Awhile back I found the YouTube video of the “Mud Man of Elsah” so hope you all watch it.  If anyone gets to Manhattan, please reach out – we can have lunch or coffee. My best to all. 

What I have been doing since graduation 1975. I graduated with an Elementary Education and English major. After many rejected applications for teaching jobs in the Midwest, I asked myself where else I would like to live and decided I wanted to go where there were horses. So, I began to apply to districts in places like Colorado, Montana, even Wyoming. I received a call from Albany County, WY (first on the list of districts in WY per the alphabetical listing in the Prin Career Center book). They had an opening, but it was not the usual school . . . Thus began my teaching career in a one room schoolhouse on a ranch 46 miles west of Laramie, WY and then 47 miles north on a dirt road through open range. I had one student, a second grader. I taught there for one year and then the next year in another rural school with four students. My last two years teaching I was in “town”- Rock River, WY, - teaching a combined 5th and 6th grade class and then starting a Title One reading program where I touched kids from kindergarten through 12th grade. I also coached the girls’ basketball team and took them to the State Tournament and started a junior high girls’ volleyball team. When I married in 1979 and moved to Riverton, WY, the district had no positions available. Applying to “the phone company” (Mountain Bell) was recommended and I was hired.

I spent the next 36 years working for Mountain Bell, US West, Qwest, and then CenturyLink in sales support and sales. I transferred from Wyoming to Phoenix, Arizona in 1985 and finished my career as the Account Manager (salesperson) to the education market here. I retired in 2016 and am still living in Phoenix.

I divorced in 2006. I have two children. Matt and his wife, Farah, live in Houston, TX, and have two children, Isaac (4) and Amalia (6 months). Julia and her husband, Todd, live in Honolulu, HI.

I matriculated at Prin only one year, 1973-1974 and mostly rode Max Lesko's (my lifelong best friend) coattails, including rooming with him in the basement of McNabb where you, Addison Gardiner, Roger Forkert and other "ghetto" residents rocked the house. Such good memories! Max and good friend Victoria Irwin are my remaining Prin contacts from fifty years ago. Max and I were best men at each other's wedding.

Again, since I was only in Elsah one year not sure I merit any mention but will give you quick update. Married for 34 years to wife Nancy and have one daughter. We formed The Grace Children's Foundation in 1997 and created the Children's Resource Exchange a few years back. We have assisted children on five continents with many needs. I was a professor at China Women's University in Beijing and wrote a column for many years. 

So fun to reconnect with my Principia family. I got a chance to catch up and be with both Jane (Levy) McClane and Nancy Moore at my first Prin Summer Session in June 2023. It was my first Summer Session and I will be back in 2024. I absolutely loved it, and if you have never been I highly recommend it! Great classes with no term papers or grades, what could be better?!

Catching up on old and dear friendships at a Prin Reunion is such a lovely blessing. I look forward to getting reconnected with my Syl sisters at our 50th.

The summer after our Prin graduation I moved to Indianapolis, Indiana to take a job that Dr. Hosmer from Prin actually helped me find. That led to a 28-year museum career at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis as a researcher, curator, exhibit developer and project manager. Such a wonderful career, and one for which I will be forever grateful to Dr. Hosmer for helping me secure. 

Chuck and Jeri Hosmer and their two children, Kathryn and Jonathan even came up to Wisconsin for my wedding in the summer 1977 when Karl Ryan and I were married in my parents’ back yard on Lake Kegonsa. Karl and I were married for 27 years until he suddenly announced he was leaving. I am afraid it totally caught me off guard, as I thought we were very happily married. It was a really hard few years for me, trying to crawl out of a very deep pit of depression. Lots of my own prayers, prayerful support from others, and dear friends got me through. 

Karl and I have three wonderful children: Noah age 40, Lark age 36, and Henry age 32. I love being a nana to Henry’s two boys, Finnley age 7, Lucca age 9, and twin baby girls, Zorah and Sabine born in December 2023. Believe me, my nana life is both busy and rich. I have loved being both a mom and a nana! Best life roles ever! 

I enjoyed 28 years in the museum field, taught Museum Studies for Indiana University, and then directed a yearly festival of religion, the arts and humanities for Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis called the Spirit and Place Festival. I did a lot of writing for the CS periodicals back in the 1990s and also wrote for spirituality.com when that site was still active. I took a break from working for a few years to travel a bit. My favorite trips were Tanzania & Kenya and the Galapagos Islands & Peru. A 10-day interfaith trip to Turkey with adult son Noah was another highlight. I also enjoyed Europe, the Mediterranean, Scandinavia & Russia. I do love to travel. 

At age 60, I had an “and now for something completely different” moment and started my own business, Palm Source Pine Island, a palm tree farm in SW Florida. After some great years of palm farming (unfortunately, most of my farm was destroyed by Hurricanes Ian and Irma), my business partner bought me out in the spring of 2023. I am now gratefully retired from that and free of farming.

On the home front, I am now partnered up with Fred Schiele, who you may remember from our early 1970s time at Prin. Fred was a “Buckie” and a 1973 Prin grad. Fred and I re-met in 2018 at a college reunion. We had briefly dated freshman year, each married other Prin folks, and were both divorced when we reconnected. I honestly had no plans to look for another spouse when we met again at that reunion, but Fred was sweetly persistent. We now live back in Indianapolis, where my grandkids reside and are enjoying a lovely second chance relationship together.

We’re both super involved in our condo HOA, Fred being the President of the Board of Managers and me community building by initiating a pretty comprehensive monthly HOA newsletter and instigating neighborhood social events and several book clubs.

Right now my primary focus is on the two new grand babies is supporting my son and daughter-in-law as they navigate having two babies in the house with their already busy two little boys. I pick up the boys daily after school for afternoon adventures at parks, playgrounds, museums and the library. Such a fun time!

On the personal front before the new babies came along I was considering getting a theology degree from a local seminary. The new twin babies have postponed that plan, so currently I am working my way through a rather extensive booklist of old and new testament textbooks and other readings. I would describe it as sort of a self-study home school program on the Bible. I am loving exploring some of the newer Bible translations available today. I am very active in two interfaith Bible study groups I launched, plus a women’s interfaith group.

All in all, life is a lovely adventure of grandchildren, children, catching up on books I’ve not had time to read, studying some things I always wished I had at Prin, and enjoying the lovely relationships and friendships cultivated both in the past and in the present. Looking forward to catching up in June with all you alums I haven’t seen in 50 years and with those I have.

After Prin I was a shovel man for 2 seasons for a paving company and then decided I should do something different so I went to law school. I practiced law from 1980 and am in the process now of retiring. Should finish up this year or next. I am in the process of moving permanently to the Michigan UP. I’ll be glad to get out of Indianapolis.

Here's the Cliff Notes version of my time since graduation. I married Dan Schless a year after graduating, and we had three sons. Shortly after son #3 arrived, we bought an old house, which I love, but which has given me plenty of opportunities for home projects and maintenance over the years. The marriage only lasted ten years, but Dan and I remain good friends.

I began my career in elementary special ed. in 1990 and retired in 2019, which turned out to be excellent timing. My job was both rewarding and challenging, but I looked forward to going to school every day, which was a very good sign. I began a part-time job at a library at the end of 2001, thinking that I would work there for several years until my sons were out of college, but—surprise!—I’m still there! It really is the perfect part-time job for me.

Four months after I retired from my school job, I became a first-time grandma, which has been as wonderful as my already-grandma friends had told me. I took care of Teddy two days a week until he was three and now take care of his baby sister, Edith, twice a week. All three of my sons live close by, which I’m so grateful for.

My sister (Laurie in Lowry ’77) and my oldest son and I are sponsoring two related Ukrainian families for two years. They arrived in July 2022 and immediately became a part of our family. I happily acquired three new “grandchildren,” ages 13, 8, and 4 at that time. This project has changed our lives, but in a very good way.

Looking forward to our reunion!

Symonds Short Synopsis!

I am still blonde. I am still green eyed.

I still laugh a lot. I still love history.

I still love music and children and Christian Science.

I am a Daughter of the American Revolution.

I had a jazz trio for many years.

I have a boy, Greg, and two girls, Amy and Rachel, from my first husband, Philip Rymer, a British wildlife artist.

We lived in Houston for a while, and Ann Coddington White taught music to my children at the Branch School!

Dear Philip, passed away in April 1986.

I taught at Principia Pre-School 2006-2009, where I met Jack Schlueter, the Upper School art teacher. We married in 2009 and retired to Naples, Florida in 2013.

We spend summers in Blue Hill, Maine and would love to have you visit!

In response to your request for a recap of my last 50 years, I have lived on Mequon, WI, my hometown, all of my life.  I have 2 grandchildren.  My grandson, Asa, is 9 yrs. old and my granddaughter, Coco, is 4-1/2 yrs. old.  They live with their parents, Sarah (our daughter) and Kip Ramsay (both Prin grads) in St. Paul, MN.  Our son, Gregg, lives in Milwaukee and works with us at our family business.  I restarted playing tennis about 12 years ago.  Also, we enjoy playing pickleball.  We just returned from a family trip.  We all went on a Disney cruise to Alaska.  Needless to say, it was amazing.

It is very hard to summarize 50 years in a paragraph. The happiest years started when I married my second husband in 2002 and had lots of adventures. There were two trips to Sandals in Jamaica; numerous trips in the RV; the 105th birthday party for Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee; campground hosting in several National Parks; and an active adult community in Arizona where we made many friends and had lots of fun. In 2021, we moved to Ohio so I could help with my grandson. My husband passed away after he caught Covid, and I purchased a home close to my daughter. I have been able to redo the inside, and my son-in-law turned my yard into an enviable green yard. And my vegetable garden is lots of work but so much fun. I also found a group of quilters in my neighborhood that I have fun with. Life is good right now.

Here's a photo of me and my beloved friend, Rodger Forkert, who recently passed away.  Adventurous Rodger, who spent spring break 1974 at my home in Florida, had this crazy idea not to return  to Prin for his final quarter before graduation. Instead, he stayed in Florida working for my dad and then got on his bicycle and rode from Orlando to Principia! With only one quarter to go, he finished and finally wore the cap and gown! In the background you can see another good friend, Joh Lake.

Prin 50 Years

I feel lucky to have jammed a lot into the past 50 years. Most of it has been good. Nice long marriage, lifelong friends, wonderful family life. Rewarding and interesting career that’s still going on . . . and keeps me from attending Reunion.  

Sad to miss our 50th.    

Early Work

After college, I had no master plan. No life or career goals. Life just happened. But I had a 22 year old’s notion of what I wanted to do: go to New York, wear a suit, have an expense account, get into the TV business – not necessarily in that order. 

Early career work was daunting but fun. Production jobs and newsroom support at KYW TV, WINS Radio, WMCA Radio, Evening Magazine. Sales work followed at the CBS Television Network in NY – which opened up the world of advertising that lasted 30 years.    

Advertising

In 1977, I was recruited from CBS to work at NY ad agency, Ogilvy & Mather, as a network TV buyer. Recruited again in 1980 to work at Lord Geller Federico & Einstein to manage the TV launch of the IBM personal computer. Yes, that long ago. 

In 1987, Ogilvy & Mather spun off an independent, privately held ad agency because of client conflicts. I had worked with the client that forced the spin off and joined the new agency, Hal Riney & Partners, as senior vice president, broadcast. It was a good move. Our first year we billed $12 million. When we sold the agency to Publicis in 2007, we billed $700 million.

It was not only a great 20-year run but also a great time to be working in TV with the expansion of networks and explosion of cable TV. It was a right time/right place situation.

We worked with traditional networks and cable networks not just buying airtime, but also developing and producing content – mostly for network sports. I was involved with a lot of sports sponsorships across many platforms – mostly because Seth ‘Mater’ Marshall (US'70, C'75) wanted me to take him to these events!

Family

I married Gail Homer in 1987 after a lengthy courtship. We were introduced by Gary (US'71, C'75) and Susie Sleeper. Thank you, Gary and Susie. Margaret West Seay (Maggie) was born in 1988 in New York City. We’ve lived in New York City a few times, Bronxville and Bridgehampton.  

Gail is a theatrical producer who fell into an enviable niche as executive producer for medal ceremonies at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. She’s been involved with not only the Olympics but also many international events ever since. 

I’ve kept up with my extended Prin family thanks to Mater’s many reunions at his Lake House which included the Upper School and College. One of the best get togethers was the Upper School football team reunion, coaches Munnecke and Morse included.

Life After Advertising

When the advertising career ended in 2008, I joined Gail’s company, Homer Productions Inc. HPI is just the two of us and serves as an umbrella for freelance work at sporting events. Sometimes we work together. Sometimes independently. Sometimes at the same event but different areas. Will take what we can get!

It’s worked out well. For the past 15 years, we’ve managed, consulted, and/or produced medal ceremonies for the Vancouver, London, Rio, Pyeongchang, and Beijing Olympics, Lausanne Youth Olympics, Buenos Aires Youth Olympics, as well as the Pan Am Games, World Games, European Championships, World Athletics World Championships, Asian Athletics Championships, Islamic Games, Warrior Games, World Handball Championships, Asian Games, and more.

We head to Paris in a week for the upcoming Olympics. Gail works for the IOC overseeing all medal ceremonies. I’ll work with the organizing committee to produce the medal ceremonies for athletics (Track and Field) at the Stade de France.    

This freelance work and travel is great fun – a wonderful space between full-time work and retirement. We don’t want to see it end.  

Again, sorry I can’t make it to Reunion. My best to all Prin alumni!

Fifty Years in a Few Paragraphs; Tough Assignment!

From 1975–1990, I moved about 15 times to locations including: Boston, Dallas, North Carolina, Boise, Idaho, Salem, Oregon, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and then to Switzerland. Even my mom was complaining about the change of addresses in her address book!

This is how it happened. In 1978, I completed my MBA from SMU in Dallas, moved to North Carolina with Boise Cascade and from there went to their corporate headquarters and lived in Boise. When I was transferred in 1986 to LA, I met my husband who was working in the US for a Swiss company. He needed to be back in Switzerland at the end of 1990 for visa purposes, so after 12 years with Boise Cascade and becoming the first female production manager in my division, I quit my job and went with him.  

I mean, live in Switzerland? Who WOULDN’T go? Chocolate and cheese and gorgeous scenery; an awesome experience. We lived in the French-speaking area of Switzerland in the town where he had grown up. (Merci to Ned and Paula Bradley for my French vocab!) Both of our children were born there, and in 1996 we were transferred to northern New Jersey.  

Voilà, here I am still! My husband passed away in 2013, our children grew up, and life moves on. Our son is now living in Copenhagen and our daughter is a little closer in NYC.

I have worked in several different jobs since we moved back here, including substitute teaching, working with an international relocation company, and spending several years in retail with Williams Sonoma. I am now retired and volunteering; currently I’m active with a cat rescue/foster/adoption group that I enjoy.

I’m fortunate to have friends and family who either live in interesting places to visit or who like to travel. So, in my spare time, I travel. I got scuba certified and went scuba diving with my daughter in Belize in December 2019, just before the world shut down. Life is good indeed.

My 50 year summary for the purposes of our reunion at Principia College.

Putting my degree in business administration to good use began when I joined the Boeing Company in 1978. I was fortunate to be able to get my foot in the door as a financial analyst. However, shortly after I had joined, I began a career as a system analyst, working on many development projects supporting the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company, including the 747/757/767/777. It was a fruitful and rewarding experience doing development of new programs and processes in support of such things as floor panels and a completely electronic integrated work statement for the 777 (first time ever).

Soon I was selected to lead the Boeing computing services process improvement effort. I was instrumental in leading teams to develop new processes, establish metrics (for the first time in Boeing history), and make improvements to them that were eventually adopted by Boeing corporate and disseminated throughout the entire Boeing Company, affecting all programs and employees. After management declared victory in the continuous quality improvement arena, they dispersed us to other parts of the programs, and I was given the opportunity as a project/program manager to manage the development and implementation of many major programs including helping establish the Charleston, SC, manufacturing plant. All of that was a wonderful way to spend my days and enabled me to provide a wonderful lifestyle for my family.

In 2007, I met a wonderful woman who I proposed to on the Safeco Field Center Field scoreboard. She was in attendance with me for a July 8 game and accepted my proposal immediately. On August 30 of that year, we were married and began what has been a fabulous adventure. She has been wonderful for me, and I love and adore her.

We have traveled extensively during our marriage until a few years ago when COVID hit. We have been to Hawaii many times (our favorite island is Kauai!). We lived in the Pacific Northwest for 10 years until I retired from Boeing. Then we moved to the Treasure Coast of Florida to be near our son and his wife and our grandson. We had four kids (one of which passed from cancer almost two years ago) and seven grandkids. After three years, we moved to upstate New York to be near my wife’s mother and her two sisters. We were able to enjoy almost three years with her mother before she transitioned. All told it has been a wonderful life with her as we both feel like every day is Christmas. She is the love of my life. I look forward to seeing fellow McNabbys and Principians at Reunion. Feel free to contact me about my experiences during reunion.

July 27, 1953   Born on the campus of Southern Oregon University (formerly Southern Oregon State college, Southern Oregon College, Southern Oregon Normal School)   

June 1971   Graduated Klamath Union High School

Sept 1971  Entered Principia College

Winter 1973  Principia Abroad to Washington, D.C. on Energy Policy. I like to say the Watergate coverup was occurring on one end of the Whitehouse while we were speaking with the players in the Whitehouse movie theater.

Summer 1974  possibly changed history or, at least, influenced it!  Spent one and half months lobbying the Jackson County Commissioners about funds for public transit. Had scheduled a public meeting with the Commissioners to ask hard questions—as a representative of 30 groups making up the non- existent Coalition for Buses!.  The day before the meeting date the Federal Grant to do a feasibility study for the Rogue Valley Transit District was announced.

June 1975  Graduated from Principia College with majors in Math (Computer Science) and Environmental Sciences

1975 to 1976 Security Office Assistant in the college security office.
Finished Chemistry major.

1976 to 1977 Principia gatehouse attendant and started MBA at Washington University

1977 to 1978   Moved back to Oregon and served on Talent, OR planning commission.

1978 to 1982 Elected to and served on Talent City Council

1980 to 1990 Owned Paul Bunyan Burlwood Gallery with mother in Ashland, Oregon—consignment craft gallery serving 250 southern Oregon and northern California artists and craftsman

1982  to 1986 moved to Sacramento CA – worked at Tandy Leather Company store and completed MBA in personal financial planning.  (I have some of the most messed up finances.  But, getting better as I tune into abundance. 
Thanks!, Joe’s Education Department for forgiving my student loans)

1987 to 1990   Sold electronics at Kmart.

1991 to 1998   Built circuit boards in plating shop of Pragitzer Industries

1999  Started MAT program with goal of being a high school math teacher.

2022 to present   Part-time adjunct math instructor at Rogue Community College.
(7 and 8^th grade math, Algebra 1 Algebra 2, and Statistics)

This is my Gandolf persona at the Myrtle Point, Oregon logging museum!

Should I get a shave and a haircut?

Instructor persona!

Sacred Place!

Remember, “Everything is within Divine Timing”—Jennifer McLean

Namaste!!

I loved Principia for my first two years of college, especially the Prin Abroad trip to England with Dr. Tom Hillman, Linda Cornell, and a great crew of students (and a vacation in Europe with many of them). I remember Prin had “Facebook” before digital.

Anyway, I followed Carrie Hollenberg (C’75) to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1974 and eventually graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS in Conservation of Natural Resources, and then moved to Alaska and got an MS in Wildlife Biology. Here's what has followed:

• 28-year career as wildlife biologist in Alaska
• 10 summers as a naturalist guide for week-long trips in Alaska
• 2 autumns as a guide for polar bear viewing trips in Manitoba, Canada
• 15 winter seasons as a volunteer for sea turtle conservation projects in Mexico, Ghana, and mostly Costa Rica (seaturtlesforever.org)
• Was married, but happily single now. I have two daughters and two granddaughters in Alaska and Washington.
• Took a 30-year vacation from CS after Prin but have been active in church again since 2010. But I’m the renegade who likes modern Bible and modern music, like most Protestant churches have now. 
• Still live in Anchorage, AK, but just bought a small winter retreat in Borrego Springs, CA, for hiking, biking, nature exploration, and volunteering. And sun :)
• I’m traveling to my 7th continent (Australia/Tasmania/NZ) in Jan-Feb 2025.
• I’m an avid social partner dancer (swing, waltz, country, Latin, Cajun, you name it!!), but also do some contra and square dancing.

Looking forward to see Prin in full summer glory and reconnecting with all you fine folks.

After a brief stint in Boston after graduation, I moved to New York City and had a 13-year career in human resources working for Elizabeth Arden Inc., Hilton International Hotels, and then Tiffany & Co. In 1991, I met the man of my dreams (John Tegtmeyer, C’78). We were married in 1992, and I moved to Atlanta where he lived with his two young children. So, I went from the corporate world and riding the subway to part-time mom, driving an SUV!!

We currently live in Vero Beach, Florida (where I see classmates Kathy Lewis Canzoniero and Barb King Gohl!) and spend time in Rhode Island during the summers. Over the years I've been very active in church work, playing tennis, boating up and down the east coast, and volunteer work for The Campership Fund for Christian Scientists and for Principia in various capacities, particularly in support of the Development department. Very excited to see everyone at Reunion! 

I transferred from Principia to Texas Tech, in my hometown of Lubbock, for my junior year. After graduation, I was hired by Southwestern Bell as a management trainee and spent 8 interesting years in various network disciplines in Corpus Christi, San Antonio, and Dallas. Then my Principia roommate, Virginia Tucker Johnson (C72), living in Alaska, set up a blind date with her Alaskan friend and fellow church member, Jay Thatcher, who was visiting Dallas. Seven months later I married him and moved to Anchorage, Alaska, where we have been ever since.

I found a young Alaska-based telecom startup company (General Communication Inc) to work for – it was the crazy days of new long-distance competition – and I ended up working 34 years for them as they grew from 40 employees to 3,400. However, every 4 or 5 years it felt like a new company, as we added new businesses, like Internet and wireless, and more employees, so it wasn’t ever boring. We have two children, Meredith (XC 2008) and Graham (C'11), and GCI was very good (at my insistence) at letting me work 20 to 30 hours a week until Graham left for Prin College in 2007!

My BA in music has been expressed playing hymns at church and singing in the Anchorage Concert Chorus – those liberal arts math and writing skills earned the bread and butter in telecom. Jay retired from teaching public high school in 2013, and I retired in 2017. We have enjoyed travelling, spending time in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico, where my sister lives, in Seattle, where our grandchildren (4 and 5 years old) live with son Graham and his wife Makenna (C'11), in Juneau, home of daughter Meredith, and in Anchorage, where our connections are strong and the mountains are beautiful, plus occasional other destinations like Italy, Croatia, Spain, the Caribbean, and Hawaii. Give us a shout if you take that cruise to Alaska!

As I reflect on what impact Principia has had on my life, I feel extremely grateful for the many “new views” that I gained as a student. I am deeply grateful for the strong, spiritual foundation that Principia encouraged in our daily activities, from Chapel, to CS Org, to all the wonderful posters scattered around campus speaking to each student with great quotes and reminders of why attending Principia is life-changing and radically transformative.

A biology Prin Abroad trip to Australia was a major moment in my life. It widened my horizons, and fostered a tremendous respect for my fellow students who each delved into a specific area of biology and shared their findings during the trip. A great collaboration. Also, I had the great opportunity to serve as Doc Wanamaker’s secretary for a number of years. He treated each and every student with a calm and kind demeanor, and earned the respect of generations of Principians.

After graduation, I returned to my home town of New York City where I applied to a number of environmentally friendly organizations including National Geographic, and an organization in Pittsburgh where a few Principians were writing environmental impact statements (John Crandell, Richard Block). When none of these panned out, I utilized my secretarial skills working as a temp at major corporations in NYC until I was hired by Citibank. I worked there for 6 years, learned accounting, and became a staff officer in the National Banking Group and eventually in Personnel/Benefits. During this time, I met and married a wonderful Christian Scientist, Robert Blaikie, and we had two daughters, Heather and Amanda. (Emily Mayer Kendrick was my maid of honor). We moved out of the city to Connecticut where my parents also lived. My work consisted of administrative support for the head of a private school, a property management group, and an investment fund. After 23 years my marriage ended, and my older daughter went to Cornell University to study landscape architecture. She now designs and develops parkland along the Hudson River for non-profit Scenic Hudson. My younger daughter attended Principia School for 11th and 12th grades, and continued at the College. She studied Music/Flute Performance with Marie Beamish. She currently plays with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

23 years ago I married Scott Griswold who attended Principia College at the same time, but went off in search of adventure. (We had met at Crystal Lake Camps at a Winter Camp in 1967.) We reconnected through his mother with whom I exchanged Christmas cards over the years. Scott and I live near Lake Ontario in the suburbs of Rochester New York. I took care of my mom for ten years until she passed. Currently, I keep busy as church treasurer and bookkeeper, and spend time with my grandchildren at every opportunity. Thank you, Principia!!

How can I put my life in a nutshell when I’ve lived in many places and done many things since Principia College in 1974! It’s not only a story about me, but it’s so much more that includes our daughters, husband, son-in-law and grandkids, and family and friends, too!

Post college, in my 20s was spent rather footloose and fancy free trying to eke out a living with an art degree in my pocket. I set out from Boston naively thinking that I’d drive out to the west coast and attend an art school to further my skills. I stalled out in Indianapolis for a year, had a great time and ran out of steam and money. So much for high hopes. I pushed on and, long story short, I ended up back in New England living in western Maine, trying, once again, to use my art skills. I learned from the school of hard knocks (literally) that I needed more skills so I took an apprenticeship in graphic design and production. That propelled me forward. It was in Western Maine that I serendipitously met my future compatible mate, Neil Thomas, and found myself on the road again in 1977 heading south to NC to join up with him. 

The next several years were spent living briefly in the Sierra Nevadas (alternative energy community) and then three years in New Mexico. I count living in NM as some of the best times ever as we explored the new culture. That time was fascinating, and in addition I developed a lifelong love of the unique cuisine that I’ve learned to cook. In Albuquerque, where we lived, I waitressed part time and began a masters art program at UNM which I enjoyed until we ran out of opportunities and money.

In the fall of 1981 we uprooted, once again, to move back east to Western NC where my husband finished out his undergraduate degree in environmental science at Warren Wilson College (outside of Asheville). We ran a dormitory at the school to afford the college costs. I worked as a freelance rug and graphic designer. Our first daughter, Mariah, was born while Neil was in school, and she attended his graduation ceremony in our baby front pack. We moved to Durham for a master’s degree in environmental science for Neil. Then we moved back to live outside of Asheville once again. Music, outdoor culture of hiking in the mountains drew us back. The many moves were rather dizzying for us after all those years!

Finally in 1989, we moved into an old historic neighborhood downtown (finally our own home) where our second daughter, Cece, was born. With two children to raise and my husband starting his own environmental mapping business my artwork took a long nap. The years passed by and the older daughter decided to pursue a ballet career seriously, and so for many years the car headed south of town in pursuit of the best training possible. It took over the family and about ate us up, so to speak. Long story short again, Mariah made it to a professional career that took her to several major companies/cities and then she called it quits for many good reasons after a few years. She met a young British “lad” and moved to the UK where she still lives to this day. The younger one found her interests in Spain for a while and then in mid 2015 she went back to graduate  school where she trained in PT. She has lived in AZ and recently move back east to Atlanta.

All those years as the girls were growing up, I worked a variety of jobs around Asheville, running art and craft summer camps, chocolate production, and running summer camp kitchens. In the early 2000s  with one daughter launched her her ballet career and the other one in high school, I enrolled in the local community college’s culinary program signing up for a baking and pastry arts degree. Baking has been a big passion for me all my life. Upon graduating the two year training, I decided to start a bake shop at my home with a wood fired oven for baking bread and other items. I happily pursued that for about six years until a spinal surgery in my neck in 2014 put an abrupt end to baking due to the need for rest and recovery. 

But alas, through that recovery and since then in the last ten years, I have returned to my artwork making my bake shop a studio! These days I paint birds, plants, and animals in watercolor.

It all has turned out well as I spend my days going to weight training (I’m strong again!), studio time, hiking, camping, reading, cooking, and enjoying two adorable British grandchildren who visit us for a solid month every summer. My life is so good!

That’s 50 years!

(Sorry to miss reunion, but we’re in Maine camping and visiting family and friends.)

“We are all capable of more than we do”, states Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health. This idea has come to challenge me many times in the last several years as obstacles have arisen. One example is that I was asked to run for town board which involved speaking to large groups of people without a mike (and this with a voice like Bambi.) Once elected, I had to stand up to loud bullies at town meetings which I never could have done without the grace of God. Nothing that I have done has been accomplished alone.

I made a significant career change about 15 years ago and became an independent college consultant in order to high school students find the right college match. This work involved significant solo travel to visit colleges which was very uncomfortable at first. Even though I was a science nerd at Prin, I learned to appreciate the arts more and more on every campus that I visited. Back home this led to me volunteering for arts organizations in promotions and fundraising. (I also love the latest Principia calendar featuring many talented artists that attended Principia.) As a result of counseling students, I came to the realization that there was very little on college transfer. I ended up doing interviews that resulted in the book co-written with Susan Henninger called “The Ultimate Guide to College Transfer” in 2017.

I am grateful for times that I can share with our children (Andrew and Emily), daughter-in-law (Katharine) and grandchildren (Jackson and Caleb), all of whom live in the Washington DC area. In reading to our grandsons, the giggles that come from reading a book like “Bunnies in a Boat” by Philip Ardagh are special. Some of you know that I love to dance and dancing with Pre-Schoolers to “We are the Dinosaurs” by the Laurie Berkner Band is no exception. I am looking forward to sharing laughs and maybe even dancing with my classmates soon.

Thinking back over the past 50 years, I realize how much Principia has played a role my life. In the fall of 1974, my advisor, geology professor Forbes Robertson, arranged for me to do an internship at the Illinois State Geological Survey at the University of Illinois in Urbana. I expected to be in Urbana only for the 10-week internship, but twenty-five years later, I retired as head of the Survey's coal research group. "Dr. Robie" had stressed to his students the importance of being able to communicate scientific information to people with other backgrounds in ways that they could understand and relate. I applied that lesson throughout my career in my interactions with other scientists, engineers, business people, politicians, and the general public.

After college, I married a fellow geology classmate, Janis Driver (C'76) ,and we spent 40 happy years together raising a family, serving in church, and of course, working in and sharing the field of geology with others. Janis ultimately became a professor of geology at Principia College, which brought us back to the St. Louis area in time for our two children to attend the School and College. Some of my most memorable
experiences during those years were accompanying Janis on trips to Mongolia while she planned two Principia abroads.

After Janis' passing in 2015, I moved to Colorado to experience life in the mountains. There, I met and married Kay LaMontagne. Although we had never met or even heard of each other before I moved to Colorado, we discovered that our sons were teammates on the College soccer team—Janis had helped Kay's son arrange the keynote speaker for a PAC on the future of oil, and Kay's son-in-law had taken part on one of Janis' Mongolia abroads.

I continue to enjoy exploring and experiencing Colorado, serving on the Mountain Safety Patrol at Copper Mt. Resort in the winter and hiking or bicycling the rest of the year. Let me know if you're visiting Colorado!

15: Years Jim has been retired.

3: Number of times Cathy tried to retire before it finally “took.”

28: Recordings of piano music Jim has made for family and friends.

10: Miniature room venues made by Cathy and Jim.

16: Foreign countries visited.

27: Frank Lloyd Wright sites visited.

201: Surviving species of plants (flowers, trees, shrubs, ferns) on our 7/8-acre wooded lot.

4: Cats adopted in 48 years of marriage.

1,001: Happy memories of our time at Principia.

I am amazed that it’s been 50 years since we graduated. That’s a lot of life experiences to reflect upon. I didn’t have a strong sense of what I was going to do career-wise after graduation with a major in history. I returned to the Chicago suburbs, as I was dating Reid Wettersten (C’72). I had taken a few accounting classes and business law, so I decided to attend paralegal school and specialize in tax and estate planning. I was fortunate to find a position at a large Chicago law firm as well.

Reid and I got married in June 1976 and have 3 children: Amy (44), Bradley (42), and Charlie (38). I took a break from the work world after Charlie was born and ended up getting involved with Children’s Theater, which was an interesting experience and a lot of fun. I also managed a suburban fitness business during the '90s. I decided to go back to school and became a CFP (Certified Financial Planner) in 1994 and worked part-time for local investment advisors. By then, there were three teenagers in the house, and the stress levels increased significantly. Unfortunately, Reid and I divorced after 25 years together. I trained to become a Pilates instructor and moved into the Lakeview neighborhood in Chicago. I ended up working at a fantastic Pilates studio in the River North area for 15 years until the pandemic forced us to close the doors. So, I officially became a retired person.

Having my family all living in the area has been amazing. I have five grandchildren, and I enjoy hanging out and helping with them. I am working on reviving my guitar-playing skills (my boyfriend is a musician and has given me several guitars). I also have been taking voice lessons. It’s amazing the kind of things that were stimulated by the lockdown. I continue my Pilates practice and enjoy yoga and cycling. I wish I could attend the reunion, but I will be in Austria with a group of yoga friends who I have traveled with in the past. I hope you all have a wonderful reunion!

I’m a mother of 5, grandmother of 3 and happy to say, that even though both of my marriages ended in divorce, I have a very close family and feel so blessed, mainly because I’ve learned to love myself finally.

Got married to Peter Burgdorff (C'74) in June 1975, right out of college, with a BA in Drama. 

We lived in Summit, NJ, and I worked receptionist and executive assistant jobs and took theater classes at HB Studio in NYC. Did a lot of community theater while raising three kids with him. We divorced 11 years later and I taught drama to middle schoolers for a year or two. Then I married Sandy Wilder and moved to Westport, CT for 18 years and then to St. Louis and Grafton, IL for another 12. Had two more kids with him. There were many years of being a full time mom and volunteering at the kids’ schools and at church. Along the way, I wrote poetry and journaled, took art classes, and worked at the Principia College Guest House. Sandy and I divorced after 30 years of marriage. Now I live in Portland, Maine, and have three grandchildren and love spending time with my family. One daughter lives nearby and the rest are all over the country—Brooklyn, NY, Arlington, VA, St. Louis, and LA. I am an environmental activist, a facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie, do yoga at least three times a week and take daily walks. I love the water and my stand up paddle board, as well as kayaking and sailing. We have a family cottage in Southwest Harbor, Maine, which we all love and was where we had our family reunion in July.

The Last 50 Years since Graduating from Prin in 1975

I worked in retail in Illinois for a few years before moving to Durham, NC to get my MBA from Duke. I graduated from Duke in 1982 and worked in Texas banking in Houston and Dallas for 10 years.  During that time I got my Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and made a career out of developing CFA preparation materials and teaching in CFA prep classes in the U.S. and also in Windsor, Ontario, and London, Zurich, and Milan. I also did some expert testimony work in finance. I did all this from 1992 – 2018, while living in Fort Worth, Texas. We had a second home in Whitefish, Montana and moved there full time in 2018. I started developing real estate in Whitefish and built 7 high-end homes in 5 years.  (House #3 is our new house and we have lived in it for 3 years.) Now I am semi-retired, still do a little consulting and CFA prep, read a lot, and work on investments.  I still run most every day and do a boot camp three days a week.

While my parents were alive I enjoyed coming back to the College campus since I essentially grew up there - both my parents worked for Prin.

I have a wonderful family.  My wife Lisa just retired from teaching school at the local elementary, our son Connor is in Portland, Oregon, and our daughter Bella is in Denver.  We love Whitefish.

I do attend the branch church in Kalispell, Montana – it is a small group but I like it.

The photos were taken last month and this month in Tucson and on Cape Cod.

I am currently employed at Industrial Electrical Company in Modesto, California where I help keep the industries in Northern California up and running.  I sell electric motors, gearing, and drive to places like cheese factories and tomato processing plants (we keep the country stocked up on pizza!).

My daughter and I are renting a house here in Modesto and enjoy exploring the area from the San Francisco coast to the Sierras.  We just drove to Austin, TX to meet up with my sister, Carolyn (Schneider) Simpson (C’78) and brother Byron Schneider, to view the eclipse in the path of totality.  The clouds parted just in time for a perfect view!

I really enjoy being an active member of our Christian Science church in Modesto and spend most of my spare time there, either working in the Reading Room, at Bible study, or church services.

Wishing everyone a joyous 50^th reunion!

After I got out of Prin in the Spring of 1975, I went to Marine OCS in August ‘75. Commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant on 5 Nov ’75: an Officer and a Gentleman by an act of Congress! Served 4 years, got out in July ‘79. I did 6 years on inactive reserve and was done after that.

After leaving active duty, went to Georgia Tech to study Industrial Management. Didn’t last long at that. Eventually, I started an MBA program at Queens College in Charlotte, NC. After a couple of starts and stops, relocations, and such, I finished my degree in 1989 at DePaul University in Chicago. My major was International Business, so I’m not sure how useful it all was. But I DID finish, so that was a good thing.

Married Kitsy Griest (class of 1977) in August 1977. Was, somewhat, amicably divorced in 1985. Married Julie Schuldt in November 1990. Was amicably divorced in March of 2016. Among other things, we produced three gorgeous, high-powered, daughters: Annmarie: 31, Kathryn: 29, and Mary: 27. Annmarie lives in Jersey City, Kathryn lives in Chicago, and Mary lives in Greenville, SC. They’re, pretty much, the apples of my eye.

When I bombed out of the IM program at Tech, I ended up with Ford Motor Company. I retired from Ford in May of 2020 with a total of 23 years in. Also mixed in there were 6 years with Kenworth Truck Company, 3 years with Jaguar/Land Rover, and 6 years with three different dealerships. If you had told me on the Chapel Green in 1975 that I would have 38 years in the automotive industry, I wouldn’t have believed you. My career happened while I was making other plans, and I can’t remember what those plans were. I enjoyed what I did, and I cashed the checks, so I have no complaints.

In my career, I lived in the Chicago suburbs twice, in Atlanta twice, in Charlotte, NC, in Wilmington, NC, Jacksonville, FL, and San Diego.

I started playing rugby when I was stationed in Quantico, VA in 1976. Didn’t stop playing until 2005. Every time I relocated or moved, I was able to hook up with a local club and have instant friends and a hobby that I enjoyed. Played in England, France, Scotland, Wales (toured Wales 4 times with 3 different clubs!), Canada, and 40 (or so) of the 50 states. Even played a couple of matches with the Chicago-area Rugby Select-Side, so had some success.

I moved to Franklin, NC in November 2020. I live on a steep, woodsy, mountainside. I have 4 dogs and a cat. I’m pretty steady with a lady named Sandy who lives in Inman Park in downtown Atlanta. She likes my remote, quiet, hidden, mountainside and I like the funky, multi-cultural, and exciting, vibe in Inman Park. Match made in heaven, I guess.

And that’s it, I believe. Life is good, filled with blessings, and I look forward to seeing y’all at the 50th in a few weeks.