November 13, 2012

From several days ago, Bloomington Pantagraph has obituary for our classmate, David Richards who passed away September 28, 2012.

November 7, 2012

Today's Bloomington Pantagraph has obituary for our classmate, William (Bill) Kincaid who passed away Monday, Nov. 5, 2012.

September 7, 2012

Today's Bloomington Pantagraph has obituary for our classmate, Stephen Ferguson who passed away Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2012.

July 30, 2012

Rose, this photo is me tabling an event for the “Invisible War” movie, the director is from Tucson. He likes to do this kind of movie. This one is about rape in the military. Thanks,

Ann Rush Van Hook


July 29, 2012

April 2012, spent the month having the house painted (first time in 10 years) and the pool emptied, cleaned and refilled and sprinkler system redone, due to our terrible heat here in Arizona, have not used the pool much this year.  June found us in Santa Barbara the last 2 weeks of the month,  weather was wonderful,  80's but still cool around the water in the mornings,  no fog - nothing but sun,  went up to the Santa Ynes Valley (Solvang, Los Olivos & Santa Ynez) to visit family,  my cousin Diana & her husband Rick own Longoria Vineyards and have their tasting room in Los Olivos,  always fun - - wine tasting & the family discount.  On the way back to Arizona stopped in Palm Springs, as always and spent several days doing the antique shops and looking for merchandise for the business.  Mr. Cat was very happy to see us and be retrieved from his "2 story condo" at the vets.  Plan to go back to Santa Barbara in September;  we have our silver & artwork repair & framing all done there,  Can't find any qualified people here in the area that meet our standards.

Click here to see some of my photos.

Morey Barekman


July 29, 2012

I make artworks with my wife, artist Jane Baer
Please visit our artwork website - www.baersart.com
Click here to see our latest work and some of our grandchildren.

Phillip Baer


July 29, 2012

Without going into a lot of detail, here is a summary of activity, for the past year:
 
1.  Retired last August, from forty years in banking.  Had a great run and enjoyed both lower level management as well as senior management positions.  Would I do it again?  You bet I would! 
2.  In November, my wife and I took a "congratulatory" Panama Canal cruise.  Would certainly recommend that, to anyone.  Met some wonderful folks onboard ship. 
3.  In January, my wife and I, with her brother and wife, took a week trip to Hot Springs Arkansas.  Among other things, went crystal rock hunting and dipped the bodies, into the mineral hot springs;
4.  In May, took a two week trip, to visit with our son and granddaughter, in Wichita, Kansas.
5.  Just returned from a week working trip, to Ensenada, Mexico, as part of our church's outreach to a local Christian camp;
6.  For the past sixteen years, and still active, in being a motorcycle instructor under the Motorcycle Safety Program.
I am enjoying the fruits of my labor.  So, yes, retirement is great.
Also, my wife has expressed the fact she is glad I am home more. 
Still lots to look forward to.
 
John C. Finan


July 29, 2012

I volunteered for 6 weeks this summer to teach music/percussion to 24 12-14 yr. olds (junior high).  The recital was so well received that we have been asked to perform at the Culture Fest at Miller Park  August 18th or 19th.  Final arrangements have not been made.

Karen Sperlin


July 29, 2012

Rose, your Colorado trip sounded "interesting."  Maybe you all should visit Utah next time; beautiful, diverse scenery...and with far less population mucking it up; but always seems to take "second place" to Colorado for tourist destinations and for skiing  Strange, as our "powder" snow has been professionally rated as the best in the world. And we are two hours closer to seven ski areas than Denver is to any .  ( I know this as we lived there for a few years; just west of Denver (and at a 7,000 ft elevation) in a community development called Genessee).  By the way, we are not LDS (Mormons) but have lived in Utah, off-and-on due to our business, for over 40 years, and have learned to co-exist quite well.  So, don't let that keep you or any friends away from a truly beautiful state with seven National Parks and numerous other sites to enjoy. (No, I don't work for the Utah C. of C; just got carried away).  In the interest of honesty and transparency, we also have several forest fires burning now. However, what saddens me most are scenes of the drought plagued cornfields I miss seeing back in good old Illinois.
.
Parke E Simmons
Susan J Simmons


July 27, 2012

We are saddened to learn we lost another classmate this week. Sandra K. Arndt Miller passed away July 24, 2012. Her obituary is here.
July 30 note - there has been a mixup with Sandy. It had been earlier reported that Sandy had passed away 10 years ago - source unknown. We believe this 2012 date is truly "our" Sandy Arndt Miller.

July 27, 2012

We made a "Colorado or Bust" trip in June. The trip didn't turn out as planned but that is life. We attended the annual National Rally for the Aliners Owner Club that was held this year in Ft. Collins, Colorado. Yes, the same Ft. Collins that was in the news in June because there were wildfires in the Rockies. The AOC rally was at the KOA - safely 15 miles east of the fires. Surprisingly and thankfully we smelled smoke only briefly.

Our unexpected diversion from what we had hoped to be a fully enjoyable trip to beautiful mountain scenery and to find some cool mountain air started in western Kansas. 105 degree temp. The problems? We thought a/c in our camper was broken and the altitude. Who would have thought that western Ks. was over 3,000 ft higher in sea level than Central Illinois? I think it was the extended time of being exposed to the extreme heat and being without benefit of a/c that got to me. Long story shorter, Norm ended up taking me to ER in Goodland, Ks. They really couldn't find anything wrong with me. They did put me on oxygen to help me breathe better. That did make me feel better. Before the oxygen I was feeling so bad I thought we'd have to return home without ever reaching Colorado.

Being on oxygen was a pain in the butt on a camping trip at least we got to continue our trip. Daytime temps at rally in Ft. Collins were upper 90's. We found our camper's a/c really wasn't broken. It just struggled in the temps out there. The rally started Tuesday evening and ran thru Friday morning. I spent as much time as possible in a/c. The rally had activities going on almost constantly. We gals made ourselves Southwestern bracelets one hot afternoon with many colorful rock beads in southwest colors. There were a number of seminars to attend. A market place each day too with items of interest to Aliner folks. We had a giant door prize drawing that took 2 nights to get thru. Almost everyone brought an item from their part of the country to donate as a door prize. Norm and I won a box of goodies from the Dakotas - wine, salt water taffy, beef jerky. We donated a nice solar light.

There were around 80 Aliners there and somewhere near twice that many AOC members in attendance. It's a bit rare to see an Aliner on the road or in a campground normally so it was quite a site to see this many of this unique camper in one campground at the same time. We had attendees from coast to coast. One couple was from Australia! Would have liked to seen them towing their Aliner to Colorado! grin. We all had a great time at the rally.

After the rally, Norm and I had planned on staying at the KOA thru the weekend and early the next week but the hot temps in upper 90 each afternoon just would not give up and there was no cool weather in site. We had wanted to take a drive to Rocky Mountain Natl. Park since we were so close but I couldn't imagine me going any higher in altitude than the 5,000 ft. we already were. We did stay any extra day to go to the local oxygen supplier to stock up on enough oxygen to get me home. We took a quick look around Ft. Collins. I wanted to drive a little bit west of Ft. Collins but that was not to be. The roads heading west were blocked to all but fire fighters. Understandable.

Sat. morning we folded up our camper to head east. That morning we did smell smoke from the fires.... and, for first time wood ash was falling from the sky. We didn't feel like we were in any danger of being in the fire as it was 15 miles from us and there was no forest in between. We both just needed to head for home and get relief from the constant heat in Colo.

An uneventful trip home. A day before we got home, I was able to get off the oxygen and I've been fine ever since.

I bought an iPad this Spring. I really enjoyed having that along on our trip. I've never had a laptop or any mobile device like that before so this was fun. With my 4G cellular option on my iPad I could send and receive emails while riding down the road out in the middle of nowhere. Cool! I could take pictures with the iPad and immediately email them to friends. I know, no biggie to you with cameras in your cell phones. I have a plain jane cell phone that doesn't have a camera so this was all new to me.

We saw a lot of country between here and Colorado. Most not very pretty because it was so dry. Even drier than here in Illinois and that is hard to believe because we are sooooo dry. Be sure to check out my Colorado rally photos.

Rose


July 27, 2012

Have you had a change of mail address or email address? If so, PLEASE email Zona or Rose. We want to keep in contact with you and we can't do that if we don't have your current address. Also, if you know of a classmate that has moved or changed address, let us know that too.

Rose