JUNE 2007
’69 CLASS CORRESPONDENT
CAPT Bob Gravino
2 Summer Street
Ipswich, MA 01938
(978) 356-0825 (H)
E-mail:
Class Website: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ckreiler/index.htm
GREG SHAW has once again documented the end of winter and the arrival of spring. The Eleventh Annual Spring Training Baseball Trip traveled to the west coast of Florida for this year’s event. Shown in St. Petersburg are Rudy Peschel (CGA ’63), Jim Card (CGA ’64), GREG, Paul Pluta (CGA ’67), Ron Swaboda of the 1969 Miracle Mets (a friend of Paul’s) and Steve Froehlich (CGA ’73). In the second photo, the group is joined by Jim Paskewich (CGA ’68) in Bradenton. GREG and Paul remain the trip plank owners with unbroken service since 1997.
GREG and PATTI are living in Gainesville, Virginia (Lake Manassas) where PATTI is the Supervisor of Instructional Technology for the Manassas City school system. GREG has joint faculty appointments at The George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University, teaching in the areas of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Their daughter, Mrs. Jessica Feldman, is a program manager at the Federal Reserve and is the Equestrian Team coach for the University of Richmond.
I previously reported that MIKE and JUDY BILLINGSLEY relocated in 2005 from Georgia to the Boston area, where JUDY is working in clinical research at Boston Scientific and MIKE is assigned as the pastor of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Hopkinton. In November, MIKE, daughter Tammy, and Grandchildren Kaitlyn and Michael ran the Turkey Trot in Hopkinton.
LARRY WHEATLEY and BOB POKRESS are planning a Class of ’69 summer party for Saturday, August 4, at LARRY’s house in Cotuit on Cape Cod. Mark your calendars; details to follow.
BRUCE GRIFFITHS had a mini-reunion with his Foxtrot Company Swab Year roommate JIM HARTNEY in Oakland in late April. BRUCE was in the San Francisco Bay area on business and met JIM for lunch at Scott’s in Jack London Square. “JIM is a retired Master from American President Lines living in Martinez and is a lecturer at the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo running their simulator. In a pretty incredible story, he married the Thai woman (PAT) that he had fallen for when he was commanding officer of a LORAN station in Thailand many years ago. Years went by and on a lark he went back to the village when his American President Line vessel docked in Bangkok. They met again and were married! It was good to connect with JIM—we hadn’t seen each other in fifteen years. GAIL and I are looking forward to a grand time in the Grand Teton this September. I think I had some influence in getting RICH and ANNETTE FORD to sign up for the event; I offered one free adult beverage of their choice if they’d attend.”
CHUCK HILL’s wife, NORMA, was selected as “Most Outstanding Supervisory Employee” of the Department of Treasury’s Tax and Trade Bureau. The award will be presented in June. Look for a photo in the next Classnotes column.
Classmates to the south of New England keep sending me e-mails that indicate spring has arrived in parts other than here in the Northeast. JOHN and LESLEY MINER: “Hope spring is happening up north! We seem to be skipping around between spring, summer and early fall weather here but stuff is growing (Note: They didn’t mention winter, which is all that New England has experienced!) so life is good. We had nice visits from SUE & CHARLIE HUBER and CINDY & JIM BURK in April and will be with them all again at the Coast Guard golf tournament in July.” JIM SMITH: “It was 84 degrees and sunny yesterday (4/29) in Key West. And again today. And probably tomorrow, too. Son Cale (CGA ’94) is a financial analyst in Islamorada, giving us easy access to Corley, our 2½ year old granddaughter. Cale is part-way through the rigorous CFA exams. Daughter Saralyn is Dean of Training and Development at the Velocity Sports University in Huntington Beach, California. She is still a Pro-Beach Volleyball player; we just watched her at the AVP Tournament in Miami. MARILYN and I are just dandy. Life is good.”
My 3/c year roommate, JOHN MCBRYAN, is the Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of Embraer Aircraft Maintenance Services (EAMS). EAMS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Embraer Aircraft, performing aircraft maintenance and overhaul, as well as component repair, at a new facility at Nashville International Airport in Tennessee, and employing 200 people to serve their customers in the United States. JOHN and CHRIS live in Franklin, Tennessee, and when JOHN is not traveling for Embraer to Brazil and Portugal, they divide their time between their two married sons who live in Florida and Seattle. (Note: This update on JOHN was in the April Classnotes, but the two photos were inadvertently left out. I’m rerunning the information to accompany the photos.)
GEORGE BOND has been active providing training to the Coast Guard Auxiliary in his role as Chief of the Advanced Learning Division of the Auxiliary. Over his spring break from teaching high school in Northern Virginia, he conducted leadership seminars on Cape Cod, and his schedule for the summer will focus on the Coast Guard’s core values of Honor, Respect, and Devotion to Duty and the 28 Leadership Competencies.
BOB POKRESS passed along some happy family news: “SUSIE and I got another promotion within the various grades of GRANDparenthood (sort of like the multitudinous levels of Admiralhood) when we became grandparents for the third time in April. Our daughter Becca and her husband Mark became the proud parents of their first child, Danielle. Son Matt and his wife Shay are expecting their third around the end of June, so SUSIE and I will be getting Palm Pilots just to stay on top of all the various family events and activities in which grandparents are expected to participate.”
RICK GUPMAN’s daughter Jennifer was married on April 21st in Chincoteague, Virginia. KATHY and I attended the moving ceremony, which was held at a state park on the waterfront overlooking Assateague Island. We made overnight stops with our son Tim, Eastern Region Security Manager for FedEx, and his family in New Jersey.