1955

Sandy Phillips, Dave Walton and Bob Garver showed the best of their Southern hospitality for 80 men and women of the class of '55 exploring beautiful Savannah. Their planning produced three days of perfect events.

Al and Betty Van Huyck are living in Round Hill, Virginia. He ran an international consulting business for 22 years. "We worked in 65 countries, all of which I visited during our contracts." He also worked five years on real estate training in Eastern Europe after selling his business, which led to trips to another eight countries plus India, Lebanon and most Western European countries. That is about 90 countries. (An overnight stay is his criteria. He has smashed Gus Aberle's record for traveling.)

Jim and Ann Waldman's son Jeff is a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard, currently on deployment to Turkey flying a C13O on combat rescue missions. Jeff has a 4-month-old baby. Jims daughter Patty '85 earned an M.B.A. at UCLA and is a financial analyst. She lives about an hour from Jim's home in Vacaville, California, 30 miles from Sacramento. Jim had a bout with pneumonia" this winter, which cut his skiing days to just a few. He is back playing tennis four times each week and cycling.

Bob and Christine Bennett live in Sonoma County, California, where he ran a minireunion that included Jim Waldman and John Baldwin. I assume they tried some of the wine created from grapes produced on his three acres of vineyards. Bob conducts wine production classes for amateurs, with eight students attending lectures in his garage. He produces cabernets, shiraz, sauvignon blanc, among others, and participates in amateur wine production contests, twice winning "Best in the Show" in the International Amateur Wine competition in Battenkill, Vermont. Bob is a director of the Sonoma Commission of Libraries, which oversees 11 libraries. He runs two fundraisers promoting the Sonoma wine industry and leads an investment club.

Norm Fine lives in Millwood, Virginia, the heart of hunt country. You will remember him as a stalwart class newsletter editor. He now publishes one or two books annually about horses. This summer he will be in Kenya on a riding safari to visit the Massai Mara for the animal migrations. He plans to stay to write about his experiences for the magazines. He publishes a glossy magazine with a circulation of 15,000 dealing with the hunt. He has been chairman of his hunt club three different times and currently serves on its board.

Watch for an announcement about a Washington, D.C., mini-reunion planned for late April 2009. The committee includes Frank Chase, Bob Perkins, Paul Zimmerman, Bill Lenderking, Paul Mannes, Nick Kotz, Wes Bruner, Betty Brady and yours truly with Ralph Sautter, treasurer. This will be an award-winning event. Karen Mannes and Mary Lynn Kotz have agreed to serve as our cultural docents.

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