Can You Believe It #2

These are other interesting/amusing things that happened (after all classmates were found) with the blogging for our 50th High School Class Reunion to be held in 2011

9/29/2010 ~ Rick Schaeffer decided to take it upon himself to find out Marianne Van Kirk's birth date and send it to me.  Rick is the contact email we have for Myrtle Chandler because she doesn't have a computer.  Rick graduated from St. Agnes Academy in 1961 in Alliance.

9/29/2010 My (Sharon Phillip) computer hard drive caused major problems...I have to get the October birthday post out in two days....the rest of the story later.  10/1/10  Between my husband and I we were able to get into DOS mode on the computer and save all of my data.  Then I purchased a new computer and transferred everything to the new computer with a new operating system ~ as all of you computer users know, there is always a learning curve when changing to a new computer/operating system.  However, the October birthday post did go out in time.

9/29/2010 Penny Wright entered the reunion "find out information" fun.  She is contacting her brother who is in contact with Marianne Van Kirk's sister, Sally, and will try to get a young picture of Marianne, unfortunately not in time for the October birthday post.

9/29/2010 Kathy Thomas has located her 1956 and 1957 annuals which could be used for young pictures of some of our classmates who have not gotten them to me yet.

Judy VonTour, Wanda Walston, and Connie Sherlock  got into the fun by getting together and scanning young pictures and current pictures with Cheryl Edward's help.

5/14/11 ~ Sometimes when classmates are illusive or don't have email, I've found that facebook is a big help.  By looking at past reunion books, I determine names of classmate's kids and approximate ages.  Then I go looking for those names in facebook.  Lucille Allen's son, Philip Padelio, was very helplful ~ he even snapped a current picture of his mom for the reunion booklet.

In late May Charley Rusk, Glenda Harvey and I made a lot of calls and sent a lot of emails which resulted in getting nearly 25 bios and current pictures for the reunion booklet.

5/17/11 My new email program has an option of being able to "delay delivery".  I thought I would be very clever and schedule birthday messages to all classmates from May through August.  Everything was set, the plan was working....until I accidentally changed the date on my computer and all the scheduled emails went out on May 17th.  It took me two days to answer all the emails from classmates who wanted to inform me that I had the wrong date for their birthday.

In June, I finally personally talked with Arnold Jensen.  He has been very illusive...now we know the reason.  He works from 6 am to 10 pm at his co-owned KOA Campground.  Read about Arnold here.  And...see his campground at this site.

In June, I lost ability to contact Lenny Heckman (phone numbers were no longer in service), but found his son on facebook.  Troy was gracious enough to help out by giving me his (Troy's) address and email address in OR.  In the middle of June, I talked with Lenny's brother's wife, Mrs. Allen (Georgia) Heckman.  The bio for the reunion booklet is now complete.

In June, I also lost contact with Doug Young.  I had a phone number for his work, but he no longer worked there...so I went looking again for Doug via facebook.  The last reunion booklet listed his kids and grandkids' names at the time.  I found Jim his son and Laureign his granddaughter.  Waiting now for a response for them to get his phone number.

In June, I changed my phone service to have 24/7 long distance service everywhere in the USA.  Classmates are amazed when I call them....and usually when I call, the conversation can last from five minutes to an hour.    Almost all of us change in looks over the years, but I've found that the voice and the laugh remain the same.

6/15/11 ~ In finally personally talking with Barb Stewart and Marianne Van Kirk, I was able to get phone numbers for one of their kids.  Barb's son (Charles) and Marianne's son (Tony) supplied me with email addresses and assured me they would get a current picture of their respective moms and show the blog to their moms.  Since this seemed to work so well, I also called Rich Laursen and from that conversation called his daughter, Starla, and got an email.  She will work on getting a current picture of her dad.

6/15/11 ~ George Koester's phone number is no longer in service ~ his cousin Marilyn Koester does not have a phone number for him ~ possibly we will not be able to get information for the booklet for George.