Iowa City West High Class of 1973
Home of the Trojans
The site is great. I’m glad you let me know about it. I had fun looking at the pictures on your Web page. Here’s mine, taken with a Sony Digital camera, pointed at myself, uploaded and voila! Feel free to add it to the page. By the way the red nose is from spending the day out kayaking.
I’m still into sports, my favorite right now is Flying Trapeze. I even joined (not ran away with) the circus.
Sometimes it seems like yesterday when we graduated. I have not been to any reunions, but I might come to this one. A lot depends on my schedule. I am enjoying the success of out sports teams. My brother and two sisters graduated from City High. My brother tapes all the City games and wrestling meets for the fans and players. I like to rub it in when West beats City. I now have two children at Johnston High School. Both are Juniors. Dennis 18, and Ellen 17. They are both doing very well. My son has lettered in Cross Country, swimming and track since he was a freshman. My daughter was just voted into the National Honor Society.
Bill
Thought I would let everyone know that there are three teachers retiring next month. They are Dale Dye, Don Leaman, and Rod Lanaghan. Between all three of them, there is 90 years of teaching experience.
I am thankful that they all stayed around and actually taught both of my sons at West. It is neat that Matt and Eric (my sons) were taught drivers ed by Rod and so was I. Oh, well!
Hi Dave, this is Rich Altmaier. I have changed jobs, leaving Silicon Graphics and joining Applied Materials.
See ya,
Rich
I’m with a startup company, Aptix, that makes a hardware/software product for prototyping/emulating an electronic system at high speeds, using programmable logic and programmable interconnect chips. We also offer services, for those of our customers that desire help with this aspect of their project. I am a consulting engineer in our services group. I travel quite a bit, but luckily many of our customers are right here in the Silicon Valley. My current project is going to be part of Japan’s next generation digital High Definition Television (HDTV).
Our customers read like a who’s who of electronics. Many major IC companies are our customers, and I think that every company that is a major player in cellular telephones is using our system to try out their circuits before they build the final production version. If you have a cell phone, Aptix was likely used in its development! We are working hard to make the company successful so we can go public.
I’m single with no kids. I own a home in Walnut Creek (CA), and commute to San Jose, or wherever the job takes me. Before Aptix (last 2 years), I worked 15 years designing inertial guidance systems at BEI Systron Donner (Concord, CA), 4 years designing aircraft autopilots at Rockwell Collins (Cedar Rapids, IA), and 2 years working on 2-way FM radios at Motorola (Schaumburg, IL). I got my BSEE at Iowa in 1976. I have around a dozen US patents.
I signed in on the Guestbook, but after looking at the bulletin board decided I’d fill in a few more gaps. The Web page looks great! Anyway you can guess that I work for a computer company, Better On-line Solutions. We’re and R & D company that produced 5250 emulation software and hardware for midrange to PC connection. I’ve been there 1 1/2 yrs in customer service and sales, but recently dropped the customer service for accounting and sales of our PC only products. I am pursuing a degree at Paradise Valley Community College in business. I am going part time so it will be awhile before I graduate.
I’ve landed in the “Old West” and been here 18 years. Randy Kral and I moved here in ’80, we were divorced in ’84 and I remarried later that year. My husband is Hugh Cole, an almost Arizona native. We have 3 sons, Kelly (KJ) Kral, age 19. He was admiring the work on the Class of ’73 Home Page and the West High Home Page. He area of study in school is in Graphic Arts and Computer Animation. Nathan Cole, age 19 is my step-son who lives with us. Nathan is interested in joining the military and pursuing a career in electronics or airplane mechanics. Kassidy Kral, age 15 is “our baby”. Kass is a Sophomore at North Canyon High School (my son’s go to North, I went to West, and my husband went to a North, what’s with all these directions!) Anyway Kass is interested in the Fine Arts. He is an accomplished guitarist, in the Drama and Speech Clubs, and takes dance. He hopes to win an Oscar or Grammy one day.
Our family interests include: Hiking, camping, boating ( we have a 22 ft cuddy cabin), sports (Go Suns and Coyotes!), academic pursuits and computers! We are a busy group. Our house is like Grand Central Station with 3 teenagers and all their friends gathering here. I enjoyed reading the bulletin board. I haven’t been back to Iowa City for 8 years. West High has really grown since ’73, wish we had an 850 seat auditorium for the chorus concerts back then!
Let me know about the 25th reunion, I’d like to try to make it back for it. So now that I’m found, I’ll try to not get lost again, write me, anybody!
Adios,
Sheila
Hello fellow Trojans. I haven’t been able to attend any of the reunions due to my many untimely commitments. in ’83 I was acting in a play in New York City and could get away. In ’93 I was swamped with TV work in Tokyo Japan. I didn’t know until this moment that we are going to have a 25 year reunion. I hope I can join this one.
I am now living in Singapore and working with a Sony Television channel called AXN Action TV. I’m the Creative Director and Head of On-air promotions. I started in August ’97. Previously, I was in Hong Kong at a Rupert Murdock channel called Star TV heading up the promotions for Star TV Japan. And prior to that I was a TV producer and teacher in Japan. That began in ’91. Prior to that I lived in the Transcendental Meditation community of Fairfield, IA for over six years. I did come up to IC once in a while to visit my folks but I only saw a few of you once in a while.
Before that I worked in theatre in Boston, Providence and New York.
I’m not married, nor have ever been. I do have a smart beautiful Singaporean girl friend who actually found this site for me! He Chinese name is Yi Ling although she prefers to be called Elaine.
I just bought a Harley-Davidson for insensible transportation and to fulfill my high school dream — twenty five years later! Oh well. Please write if you have a chance and let my Mom know I’m thinking of her if you happen to run into her at the A&P.
Thanks.
PS Coralville people: especially let me know what is happening in that incredible example of suburbia.
Just thought I would pass along to everyone that the boys basketball team from West won state last night (March 21st). They did an excellent job and it is the first time since 1977, that a West team has brought home the state championship. We are very proud of all the guys on the team. It feels so good to be the champs in this town!!!!
How are you? I’m a creative director a satellite TV channel called AXN, owned by SONY. I live in the glorious Singapore and love it here. I’ve been in ASIA for over six years. Japan, Hong Kong are some of the places I’ve lived. Where are you? Got any e-mail addresses of our classmates? (I told him about this web site). Becky Gilpin and Mark Zanger are the only people I’ve kept in touch with at all.
Any way I hope to hear from you. I hope all is well.
I wanted to let everyone know that if they wanted to donate money to a baseball field that West is trying to raise money for, to let me know. It doesn’t have to be much…whatever anyone could give. It would be nice to have the class of 1973 mentioned as a class that had donated. I would be willing to collect the money and give it to West from us. They have a deadline of March 15th. This came up fairly suddenly and they have some money already donated but could use more. Our class name would be on a permanent display somewhere by the field. We would like to have the field available for this coming season.