Iowa City West High Class of 1973
Home of the Trojans
West won the state championship in football. Of course, the Weldon family was there. Larry does the team taping and our oldest son Eric is the Director of football operations and helps coach the kicker. It was a very exciting game against DM Dowling. But we did it. It was so nice for the guys and the school.
Bonnie
Hello to everyone, and thanks to Bonnie Weldon for getting me in touch with this site!
West is in the finals for the football playoffs. If we win on Friday, we win another state championship. Love those Trojans. Of course, I will be there as Larry tapes the game for the West coaches and our son Eric is the manager and kicking coach. Go West!!!!
We joined the “modern world” last month and finally got internet. I’m still learning how to use it. Kim and I are still married. We moved back to Trojan country 4 winters ago with our 3 daughters. We are elated to be here. Our oldest daughter, Janey(14),just started at our old alma mater. Gwen (12) just started NW and Claire(9) is stuck all alone at the elementary school with no big sisters around. She got over that in 20 seconds. We bought a house on the same street where I spent many years growing up. Arnie and Julie, we live next door to the former O’Neill house.
During the last reunion I was working for some ritzy private school in Indiana as Food Service Director. Well boy does the pendulum swing… I have been working for almost 3 years now at a huge prison where I am an Inmate Work Supervisor in the Dietary Department. Talk about cultural immersion! I love my job and feel very protected wherever I go. Inside the walls, there are some great Correctional Officers and Staff who take security issues very seriously. It takes them less than 1 minute to get to the kitchen to help us if we need it. On the outside I have family members and friends who watch out for me. And if all else fails, God is on my side, too.
Kim is happy as a lark since he flushed his PhD plans down the toilet several years ago. He is teaching Math at a small town High School about 40 miles away from here. He did his student teaching at a boarding school in Kayenta, Arizona, on a huge Navajo Reservation. The Navajos have some beautiful concepts regarding time, respect, community.
This decade I am totally involved in community. I am always looking for ways to have more Coralville Pride. Pat Vaughn, this last summer I had the honor of sitting next to your sister on a “25th reunion” float for the Centennial Beauty Pageant a bunch of us Coralville girls were in long ago. It was very fun. We weren’t very good at throwing the candy at first. A couple of little boys got beaned in the head good by us. I got to have coffee at Bonnie Tappan Weldon’s house a few days ago. It was the high point of my week. She is like our class historian and it was so fun to reminisce with her. I hope she’ll let me do it again.
I hope our class can get it together to have a 30th reunion. I’ll help if you need me. I’ve seen other “old faces” around town that I have been very happy to run into. There are a few faces I am still looking for, but I’m afraid I don’t know what you look like anymore. It’s been like old home week since we’ve moved back. That’s all I have to say except, thank you David Gerlits for all of your hard work in setting up this fun web site.
Deb
We’re still here!!!! And what a long strange trip its been in September. Our main event has been Sam’s (my son) attendance (or lack thereof) at City High. Seems there are some mighty powerful germs here in the Midwest and the poor boy from Back East (that’s what they call anything east of Ohio here) has caught every one of them. Flu symptoms, intestinal troubles, and a couple of persistent earaches have kept Sam laid low. It has really challenged him to keep up with school work as well as keep up his morale. Encouraging words are in order from those of you who may have some.
I have has been enjoying being reunited with family. My brother Robin was here tonight for the whole evening. We see my Grandma regularly. They had a picnic at the Rehab. Center last week. Big feed. Our 4-yr-old Kevin bobbed for apples…and won! Sam spent the time at the coloring contest booth even though he was too old to enter. My husband Dave colored some too…very soothing. Coloring is good therapy. Grandma seemed to enjoy the whole thing. She is still very present with us even though she has her spells. She enjoys good conversation and company and complains when she doesn’t get it. She woke Becky up with a 4 AM call a couple days ago. She got lonely and thought Becky would help. So it goes. Grandma will be 94 soon.
Kevin is being 4-5, and I am bearing up moderately well. I have always said, “Give me a teenager anytime…God spare me from 4-7-year-olds” He needs some friends to play with and we still haven’t found him any. He loves to go to church on Sundays to play with the kids in Sunday School. We go to the Unitarian Universalist Society here in Iowa City. Its a good church for the skeptical and anti-dogma crowd. A very open-minded group dedicated to reason and individual spiritual growth. (read that…you don’t have to be real sure WHAT you believe…just trying to figure it out!). Anyway…Kevin is fine, healthy and ornry.
Dave’s work is coming along at Northwestern Mutual Life. Its still a little scary starting a new (what kind?) business but things really are looking up. I work a few hours every afternoon in the office doing all that good clerical stuff. I can do those things faster than David. He sees the people. And I work for free!
As I type this, there are many of you on line for the virtual reunion. As we do not have a java based browser, I could not participate. It’s not for lack of trying though!
It has been a beautiful weekend here in West Des Moines. The girls and I are making medieval costumes for school and Halloween. Painting has also been on the agenda and garage cleaning.
September was a sad month for my family. My mother passed away from breast cancer. She was a wonderful woman and a great asset to the senior citizen community in Iowa City. We will miss her much.
My girls are very busy and so then am I. Hannah is still in the diving season. It is a nerve wracking sport for parents. She also sings in the Vocalese choir (jazz) at Valley HS. Hailey has finished with fall softball and has yet to start up with gymnastics. She is going a mile a minute as a 6th grader and reminds me a lot of myself.
I am very busy in the wallpapering and painting business. Special techniques with paint are very popular these days. I also belong to a book group which meets once a month and volunteer as a Talking Canvas spokesperson at Hailey’s elementary. Dave is always busy at Delavan but taking care of three acres keeps him busy on the weekends.
I hope to meet up with the Huey’s some day at Valley!
My best to all of you- Katie
My son, Sam, decided to go back to PA to live on the farm with his Dad. However, his return was conditional on his father getting him back to I.C. for every Christmas and summer. I can live with that. It was just too hard on Sam to give up his buddies and school.
Daughter Lily is back to school at West Chester, PA. She says she has a lot of writing this semester and thanked me for making her take typing in high school. She hasn’t seen her grades from midterm yet. She says she’ll keep me posted. Hope you are all enjoying the fall colors.
Actually there are more fun and exciting things going on than I’m relating. Dave has joined the Chamber of Commerce and gotten involved there (to get networked, you know) looked at a service club called Sertoma (Service to Man) but the dues will prevent me from joining right away. Activities still abound in town…especially since the University is back in business for the fall.
The weather has been nice although cold and wet the past few days. No turning of the leaves yet…how about where you are? Overall the Great Adventure is paying off in fun and excitement.
Here’s wishing a warm and cozy autumn season for everyone.
Becky and Dave Daniel
We drove down to St. Louis Friday night and stayed at the Hampton Inn off I-70 in St. Charles, a suburb of St. Louis. Saturday, me, my son Dennis, my nephew Brian from Iowa City, and two young guys from church, Jim 22 & Kurt 21 (this was Jim’s first and second major league game) drove twenty minutes to the North Haney metro station, parked all day, for free. Then took the metro right to Busch Stadium. It was unbelievable. It had the electricity of the Rose Bowl. You could feel the crowds energy ready to bust loose when, not if, when Mark McGwire would take one out.
Every time he came up to bat, they played this loud music, the crowd would stand, no one was sitting, and they were cheering and clapping. If the pitcher throw a ball, the boos would be as loud as the cheers. Then…when the pitch came, and McGwire’s bat made contact, at that instant, the sound of a loud crack, you knew that ball had no change of staying in the field. IT WAS GONE!!!! The fans just ROARED!! Mark took his trot around the bases, and even a few of the Expo infielders were giving him a high five. Then after going into the dug out, with the crowd just roaring, clapping, cheering, shouting Mark, Mark, Mark, he’d come out, and when didn’t think the fans could get any louder, they did. It was unreal. T.V., radio, doesn’t come close to the “feel” of the moment(s). Five minutes after a home run, the crowd was still buzzing about what they just saw.
Then when I thought the crowd’s reaction on #’s 67,68,69, couldn’t be beat. #70 was totally unreal. When he came up to bat, that last time, it was like everybody KNEW he was going to get #70, it was just a matter of which pitch. The last one was epic. He launched the ball to the upper terrace in left field. I have been to the Rose Bowl, an indoor Arena Bowl Championship, and I have never heard fans cheer, clap, yell, react to one sports accomplishment, like this in my life. McGwire had to come out twice before the crowd settled down. It was great. Then when we left the stadium, people outside were offering $20.00 for our ticket stub(s) and up to $50.00 for our score card(s). NO SALE! I’m keeping mine forever.
Thinking back, while inside Busch, watching baseball history unfold, as for me, the outside world didn’t matter. I was totally absorbed in the game, and what Mark McGwire was doing. All I was thinking about, was baseball, and we were seeing somebody, as big or now bigger then Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, all of baseball wrapped into one man. For those two days, Mark McGwire, to me, was baseball, and what it was meant to be, and how the game was to be played, and enjoyed.
Bill Dane
Thanks to Dave for designing this web site! Tami (Thompson ’74) and I have been married for 21 years. Two kids, Christopher (10) and Nicole (8) and two miserable cats.
Moved to Phoenix (Glendale) Arizona in March of ’98 where I am the CEO (big deal) of the Glendale Chamber of Commerce.
This is hopefully our last stop on the work train as we came her for the weather and lifestyle. Six months and we have become official “Zonies” (native Arizonans), no intentions of moving anywhere near snow!
Tami is a stay at home artist and part time teacher. She hopes to corner the jewelry market with the Sun City crowd.
Chris is an avid golfer and Nicole a swimmer. Me, I like a good cigar and a rum and coke in my spare time. Jimmy Buffet in the desert.
Things are good with me. For the last six years I have been working for an Accounting firm., which is so unlike me. They are all wonderful people, I never thought I would be sitting in front of a computer, dealing with numbers, but hey it’s a good change after doing pottery for 15 years. I’m officially a bookkeeper and secretary for six accountants which keeps be very busy.
I bought an old house is Hailey, which I have been fixing up over the last five years. It has been a lot of work, but I enjoy it. All I have left to do is the kitchen. I just finished building a studio, but instead of clay, I am now doing watercolors. My goal is to go part time next year and paint more. I don’t know if I can make a living at it yet, but give me a couple of years.
My favorite things to do besides paint, and gardening, hiking, skiing and snow shoeing. Sun Valley is 10 miles to the North of Hailey, so winter is a nice thing, and the valley I live in is beautiful.
Got to go now, but I will try to keep in touch.
Barb