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The following was written by classmates for our 50th Reunion Booklet. Led by a dedicated team of local classmates, the project was titled:
"BHS CLASS OF '60 FOOTPRINTS"
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Whenever I hear the song “Forever Young”, I think of Geof and see that incredible grin of his. Twenty years is way short of what a lifetime should be. Geof had the dreams and hopes that we all had at that age. I have often wondered which of those he would have followed and which ones he would have reworked as he went along.
From the time I met him in fifth grade, Geof was one of my best friends. He spent so much time at our house helping with the horses and just hanging out that our whole family referred to him as “other brother”. He loved the outdoors and animals and talked about trying to become a vet. He worried about the difficulty of the science classes he would have to take. Would he have kept that dream?
I was sitting at my desk at college answering a letter I had gotten from him that day. He was so pleased that he had gotten a good grade on a science test and thought he really might be able to go the vet route. As I was writing, the phone rang and my mother told me that Geof had died that morning after an accident the night before. There are dreams and then there are nightmares.
Geof was a funny, sometimes outrageous, serious when necessary and always fiercely loyal friend. There are a lot of us who were lucky enough to share that friendship and, short as it was, cherish the memory even forty-eight years later. Geof was such an interesting, ornery, delightful person as a young man. It would have been great to watch him grow old with the rest of us.
(Peg Rust)
I went through school with Geof, he was one of my favorite people. Always so kind, always friendly, always had time for you, one of the nicest kids I knew. I was not only shocked but extremely saddened when he was killed. It was so soon after we graduated......at that point I thought we were immortal! Didn't seem at all fair. It really upset me.
After meeting and marrying Ross, I found that Geof's older brother Paige was one of Ross' best friends in school. Small world.
(Marilyn Golden)
It hit very hard when we all learned of Geoffʼs tragic death his sophomore year at Colorado State.
I remember that he took Dixie Stein to our graduation party at Bloomington Country Club. It was Mr. and Mrs. Proctor who sponsored our class there, and Geoff and Dixie stood at the front entrance greeting everyone who came to the dance. There was a sparkling fun in his eyes, and he and John Rodgers made a good team as partners in crime. One amazing time Geoff waited outside the chemistry class we were both in our junior year, and walked me down the hall and downstairs where I worked in the library and he went to study hall. I was mystified why he did that and was too shy to say anything that I remember, probably something awkward and stupid.
I saw Geoff in the public library where I worked after graduation and he often talked to me in a teasing way. He always made me laugh.
(Judy Rockwell)