Dick HALE and his wife, Nancy, report that their daughter gave birth to triplets this summer, which gives them now 23 grandchildren, well ahead of Helen FITCH Trebaol with 21. (January, 2005)
David Hale HAND and his wife, Sandra, have just returned from a trip to China. Dave describes it with text and pictures in a PDF file. Please note the file is 5.8 MB in size and may take a few minutes to download. (January 8, 2005)
Larry PORTER writes...
At the beginning of August, 2004, we drove from Alamo, CA (east of Oakland) to Vancouver,
British Columbia, to attend a World Conference on earthquake engineering. The drive in each
direction takes three days, but by adding a day it was possible to visit several Alohans along the way.
Northbound we saw Norman HALLER in Camas, Washington, just north of Portland. Norm and
his wife Rita showed us Multnomah Falls on the Columbia River as well as the world famous
Rose Gardens in Portland.
The five-day conference in Vancouver was a major international gathering of engineers and scientists that
meets every four years in a major city of a country with seismic risks. At this particular event there were
over 2700 people in attendance from more than 65 countries. The largest group by country came from Japan
with over 300 people registered. There were attendees from Cypress, as well as people from Russia and Iran
that I had met at previous conferences. Our table at the main dinner was half Japanese, half Icelandic.
Even though English was the official language of the conference, a knowledge of other languages was
extremely useful. We noticed that several American engineers who are now studying in Japan have started
to learn Japanese. After the meeting closed we reentered the US and drove south to Whidbey Island,
which lies in Puget Sound, northwest of Seattle.
On Sunday, August 8th, an afternoon party at Diana ALLEN Bublitz's home in Clinton - the southern
end of Whidbey - became a mini-reunion when Charles RYDER arrived from Oak Harbor (a town in the
middle of Whidbey). In recounting their experiences on Whidbey Island Charles and Diane suddenly
realized that about two years earlier they had seen each other while looking at the same piece of
property in Oak Harbor, without realizing that they were high school classmates.
The next day we were lunch guests of Alberta SWANSON Finley and her husband Van in Everett,
a town on the mainland forty minutes by ferry east of Clinton. Alberta and Van live in La Conner,
forty miles north of Everett which places it east of the north end of Whidbey Island. Marilyn
FERGUSON Whitman had planned to be there, but sadly she was in California to attend services
for her sister Elizabeth who had died a few days earlier. Although the Alohan Trackers were not
acquainted with Elizabeth personally they had come to know her through the critical role that she
had played in locating Marilyn, the subject of one of the most intense searches that had been
conducted for a missing Alohan.
That afternoon we passed through Portland on the way to Wilsonville twenty miles to the south. The
West Coast had a heat wave during August; it was 103 deg outside of Powell's Bookstore in
Portland at 6 in the evening. Powell's has become a Mecca for book lovers, with one of the largest
collections in the world. The main store is a nine story affair occupying an entire city block, with
the technical books being housed nearby in another large store.
An hour later we ate dinner with Harold PREWITT and his wife Laura. They had just moved north to
Wilsonville from Springfield, a suburb of Eugene. Wilsonville is now a major shopping center in Oregon
- a no sales tax state - with the opening of the first Fry's electronics store near the only Costco in
the state. The next day as we headed south we were able to speak by phone with June JEFFERSON McGlasson
in Gladstone (another Portland suburb), Allan DEUTSCH in Corvallis and Sylvia ENGDAHL in Eugene,
although no personal visits could be arranged.
The heat wave held. It was over ninety when we reached Medford, Oregon, at 7 PM that evening. The
following day we saw a major forest fire north of Lake Shasta, California. The temperature was 113 deg
in Redding at 4:30 PM. We visited the new Sundial Bridge in Redding, a very large single tower cable-stayed
structure with a design that proved quite difficult to realize physically in its construction, as the
chief engineer recounted to us during the conference. The auto log showed the north and southbound trips
to be nearly the same at 1000 miles each in spite of the different routes taken.
Besides the knowledge gained from the conference and its technical meetings,
the most outstanding things we remember from this trip were the incredible warmth
and friendliness of the Alohans that we saw along the way. Their hospitality in
showing us around their homes, neighborhoods and towns gave me and my wife, Dora-Thea,
insights and details that we could never have found on our own.
(December 9, 2004)
Probably not very recent, but just brought to our attention is that the History Channel will sometimes show Come Home Alive: Gateway of Death: Mexico
"COME HOME ALIVE details the ordeal of Stuart HAVENSTRITE, a geologist who was working in the state of Michoacan in 1997. For 72 hours, he was held by three young Mexican men who demanded $5 million for his release. From the moment his assailants attempted to force him into the trunk of his rental car to the arrests that came in the aftermath of his release, GATEWAY OF DEATH provides a gripping, insider's view of what it is like to be in the middle of a nightmare, as Stuart details every stage of his ordeal."
The show is available as a 50-minute videotape (VHS) for $24.95 from the History Channel. (September 17, 2004)
Jim PURSELL,
boys' physical education teacher and track coach at Unihi, died January 25, 2004 in Laguna Woods, CA, at the age of 103.
A nice write-up about Coach
Pursell can be found in the USC Athletic Department
sports news. The photo at the right was taken in October, 2001, when Coach Pursell
visited the USC campus. He was the last survivor of 9 siblings -- his younger brother,
Bob, died in 2000 at the age of 93. Coach Pursell's track team of 1950 were Western League Champions and several Alohans set school records that spring. (May 12, 2004)
Passport
by Bruce Herschensohn (published October 1, 2003 by I Books)
"... a sweeping novel of the lives of twelve people thrown together by chance in the exotic territory of British-ruled Hong Kong and of their fateful reunion during the Chinese takeover decades later. In the years between the time of their separation and the moment of their reunion, some cross paths, some achieve international recognition, some become notorious, and others seem to fall off the face of the Earth. Their passions and careers mandated that they live in ways many would regard as a dream-and others, a nightmare. When they finally reunite, some will discover that it is not only the Cold War that is a part of the dustbin of history." (April 19, 2004)
Click for enlarged view
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Carlos BEA was nominated to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bush and approved by the Senate by a vote of 86-0 on September 29, 2003. Take a look at the official announcement and also an earlier story from the Los Angeles Metropolitan News-Enterprise of April 16, 2003. Carlos gets our heartiest congratulations on this honor. (November 29, 2003) Added note: Carlos was sworn in on January 23, 2004 and now serves on the Circuit Court. (Note added January, 2005)
Visit the new Alohan Guestbook, the latest enhancement to this web site, and leave a message for other Alohans to read. (April 24, 2003)
The most dramatic change to this web site is the recent addition of names to the five panels of the class picture. For most browsers, moving your cursor over a person's face will now produce a yellow rectangle with a number and, for most faces, a name to go with that face. Take a look at the Memorabilia page, click on the class picture, and enjoy seeing who you can recall from 1950! But we need help to get everyone identified --- we're 88% of the way there --- so if you can tell us the names of those people who are still "just numbers" or who have a question mark after their name, drop us e-mail at the address shown on the pictures.
Providing identifications so far have been (alphabetically): Barbara ADAMS Unruh, Hugh BURNS, Charlie CORBATO, Pat ELLISON Dalcher, Ivan FINKLE, Peggy FOELKL Campanelli, Peter GILPIN, Barbara GRILL LoVerme, David HAND, Fred HENDLER, Emily HILLS Aasted, Charlotte HOIJER Teeples, Ena NUNEZ Tinkham, Larry PORTER, Joyce WEBB Reynolds, and Ed ZWIEBACK. (updated September 19, 2004)
The Tracking Team has been very busy
(and lucky) the last few months. Recent finds (since about 7/01/02) of missing Alohans
include:
Barbara Ann BLAKESLEE Mushlitz - Newburgh, IN, but now deceased
John Henry DICKERSON - Sherman, TX
Arlene GALLAGHER - Torrance, CA
Jack R. GALLAGHER - Las Vegas, NV
Scott GAMMON - Olympia, WA
Marie Estelle GREENBLATT Lindsay - Raleigh, NC
Barbara Ann HILL - Los Angeles, CA
Ramona HUANTE Chase - Santa Monica, CA
Patricia HUFF McCutcheon - Westmorland, CA
June JEFFERSON McGlasson - Gladstone, OR
Cornelia JOHNSTON Houser - Cave Creek, AZ, but now deceased
James KENNEDY - Redondo Beach, CA
Robert J. KING - location withheld
Wilberta Ann LEHMAN Raymond - West Chester, PA
Jeanne (Jean) MASHBURN Carter - Crozet, VA
Margaret Ann NEIL Heath - Rohnert Park, CA
Ena NUNEZ Tinkham - Los Angeles, CA
Sophie PAPPAS Mastor - Los Angeles, CA
Barbara Ann ROBERTS Wilson - La Mesa, CA
Sylvia ROBERTS - Baton Rouge, LA
Elsie RODRIGUEZ Banuelos - deceased
Bretharte SMITH O'Hara - Los Angeles
Jean SMITH Winkleblack - Shelton, WA
Betty Jo STOKES Lipsick - deceased
Patricia Mae STRONG Wing - deceased
Faith WEBER Harris - Danville, CA
Mae Betty WEINBERGER Paul - Dana Point, CA
Gertrude WOODS Johnson - West Hills, CA
Gerald WRIGHT (WILLIAMS) - deceased
Currently missing: 11 out of 407 classmates. Take a look at the Missing Alohan page and see if you can help us find them. (March 2, 2005)
Operated by Alohan Al KREBS,
the Corporate Agribusiness Research Project has unveiled its new and streamlined web site which monitors corporate agribusiness from a
public interest perspective through research, education and a regularly published e-mail
newsletter THE AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER.
In his 52 years since graduating from
Unihi, Krebs has written not only for numerous newspapers and magazines both in the U.S.
and abroad, but as a free-lance investigative journalist and public interest advocate has
lived and worked in New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C and Des Moines, Iowa. His
book The Corporate Reapers: The Book of Agribusiness (Essential Books:1992) has
been acclaimed as "the bible of corporate agribusiness" and in 1998 he was the recipient
of the National Farmers Union's Milt Hakel Award given on an annual basis to an
outstanding journalist for national coverage of topics critical to family farmers and
ranchers and to rural communities.
At present he serves on the board of
directors of the National Family Farm Coalition, Family Farm Defenders and the Advisory
Committee of the National Organic Consumers Association. A graduate of Seattle University
('57), he currently resides in Everett, Washington. (May, 2002)
The editor-in-chief of the our
Chieftain, Vivienne SINCLAIR-Vuosalo, has been located in Helsinki, Finland, where
she and her husband retired 10 years ago. This makes her the most distant known Alohan
(approximately 5565 miles from Unihi), edging out our previous record holder, Marcia
HANDLER Christensen of Aabenraa, Denmark.
Vivienne is retired from three
different careers. After getting her BA and MA in Spanish from UCLA (where her professors
included both Charlie Corbato's father and Ed Gonzalez's -- Ed was Unihi class of 1951),
she joined the US Air Force. Twenty one years later, in 1978, she retired as a Lt
Colonel, having served in Germany, Spain and Viet Nam, as well as all over the US. Her
favorite assignment? As Assistant Professor of Spanish at the US Air Force Academy. (She
was the first woman to teach there, starting some five years before female cadets were
admitted.) After retirement she continued with her love of teaching Spanish, running an
extensive program for a Berkeley-area adult school for 14 years. Then she and her husband
Leo, a Finnish-American professor of Political Science, retired to Europe, where they
split their time between Helsinki - for his research - and Fuengirola, on the Costa del
Sol in Spain - donde ella puede hablar español todos los días. During the
first five years of their retirement, she found herself with a third career, as a
much-in-demand English language consultant and translation verifier for a number of large
firms in Helsinki. She also taught aeronautical and technical English from 1993-95 to
Finnish Air Force personnel slated for F/A-18 Hornet aircraft training in the US. More
recently she and her husband have edited the first of a three volume collection of
articles by Paul Sjöblom, "Finland from the Inside, Eyewitness Reports of a
Finnish-American Journalist, 1938-1997." (April, 2002)
Ed ZWIEBACK and
his wife Mona Panitz made their 2nd tour to China this last October. This trip included
many stops, from Beijing in the north (photo at left was taken in Tienamen Square) to
Hong Kong in the south . They report that the wide range of experiences was truly
memorable and seeing the extremely high-tech and modern areas and also the ancient areas
together with all the social challenges made the travels very interesting. Ed has posted
pictures of their trip at http://zwieback.8m.com/index.html (October,
2001).
Ivan FINKLE reports: "Not
being campers but having a deep love for the mountains, my wife Bobbie and I found a
unique way to enjoy the Canadian Rockies. We spent 6 days in September heli-hiking. With
lodging provided in ski lodges, the helicopter transported us to the snow covered peaks
outside of Calgary. There a guide led us across pristine mountain tops, some still snow
covered, some covered with fresh snow. After an hour or so the helicopter picked us up
and delivered them to another gorgeous area. Great trip. Next year back to the Yosemite
High Sierra Camps (if we can get it!)." (September, 2001)
Bobbie and Ivan
Malcolm RILEY and Bill CARVER are developers of a new 70-acre shopping center planned for Palm Desert.
The National Real Estate Investor (Oct 1, 2001) reports on the development as follows:
New power center planned for Coachella Valley in California
Riley/Carver LLC, a partnership formed by Los Angeles-based Malcolm Riley & Associates and The Carver Cos., Indian Wells, Calif., plans to develop a
70-acre power center in Palm Desert, Calif. Desert Gateway Shopping Center will be located off Interstate 10 Freeway at the intersection of Monterey Ave.
and Dinah Shore Drive.
Designed by Pasadena, Calif.-based MCG Architecture, the 700,000 sq. ft. upscale retail center will be anchored by a 148,759 sq. ft. Wal-Mart with an extra 74,702 sq. ft. available for a supermarket, and a 153,000 sq. ft. Sam's Club. Approximately 350,000 sq. ft. of additional retail stores and restaurants will complete the center.
Bill reports that Desert Gateway will probably open in Spring of 2004.
or David Hale Hand
at 
