Classmate Updates. Our First and Only Four-Star. From Bentley Rayburn: Great news for our country, for our Air Force, and for the Class of ‘75! General officer confirmation: The Senate has confirmed the following general officer for appointment to the grade of general with assignment as indicated: Lt Gen Douglas M. Fraser. From: Deputy Commander, United States Pacific Command, Camp H. M. Smith, HI. To: Commander, United States Southern Command, Miami, FL.
From Gary Whitfield: Seven of us had the honor and pleasure of attending SOUTHCOM Change of Command for General Doug Fraser in Miami last week. The ‘75 hooligans in the photo: Gary Whitfield, Mike Crider, Jim Dill, General Doug Fraser, Bill Clark, Mark Scott, Robert Stewart, John Kearns.
Senior Leader Retirements. 11 June 09. Maj General Eric J. Rosborg, USAFA '75. From: Chief, Office of Defense Cooperation, Turkey, United States European Command, Ankara, Turkey.
From Chris Glaeser: Karen and I have recently decided to embark on another adventure. The last week of January, I accepted a position with the International Air Transport Association (IATA). As a result, we have been very busy disengaging from our house in Renton, Washington and moving to Montreal in Quebec, Canada. As part of that move, we drove a truckload of furniture from Washington to Minneapolis (for storage), with some of the furniture and a refrigerator destined for Dave’s new house in Prior Lake, Minnesota. We now have Karen’s car in Montreal, and still have our house in Seattle, which we are planning to put into the Seattle rental market as soon as we complete our move. I expect to be doing a lot of travel; so far I’ve been to Geneva, Tokyo, Beijing, Dubai (UAE), and New York, and given international presentations on safety in China, Switzerland, and the UAE. Future trips this year already include Athens (June) & Geneva (July), Frankfurt (September), Moscow (October), Beijing (November), and lots of trips to Washington DC and other trips. I’ve been asked to provide conference briefings to seminars at each of these locations (perhaps as many as 400-600 people at the big conferences). Lots of challenges, very political, and quite high visibility. Also quite exciting, and we hope that Karen can come with me on many trips after we are settled in Montreal. We are certain that we will be enjoying many new things and sights during our tour here in Canada. We are currently working to rent our house in Seattle and find a permanent home in Montreal. We are currently living in a 16th floor apartment on the slopes of Mont Royal adjacent to McGill College. From here there are lots of paths leading up the mountain to spectacular views of the city, and we can walk anywhere in the city within 15 minutes. Additionally, the apartment is only 2 blocks from the pub district and one street away from St Catherine’s Street, a world-famous shopping street equivalent to Oxford Street in London.
From Jim Hartney (Jim/Harts/Hondo) to Jim Carlson: Am passing along a picture of the ever elusive Mark Gilliam (CS-02) and me. Mark and I have been buddies since second semester Doolie Year. I recently spent several days trying to convince him to move to the Williamsburg area. He's taken a retirement package from his company, Applied Materials (same one Jack Shine works for) and is looking for a place a bit more favorable (climate and cost of living were key factors) than he and his wife, Mary, have in Ridgefield, Connecticut. I think I made a positive impression! The pic is from the Monument Ave 10K in Richmond, which get 25-35K people each year. We done good: 48 minutes flat. He drug me through most of it, as he always did when running the Academy roads in our Converse basketball shoes! I will be leaving the NSA after 6 plus years of great work with some of America's finest people. I recently accepted a job in the local area, so it appears that we will be here for the foreseeable future, something my wife, Ardis, is thrilled with! BTW, youngest daughter, Maureen, is finishing Intel Officer School soon and will be stationed at Spangdalem AB in the summer...just in time for a visit from her parents for Oktoberfest!
From Walter Pekarsky to Jim Carlson: Subject: Spirit Missions: Reading the memo [in your previous Note to Class] from the clairvoyant acting Wing Commander declaring that 'all FUTURE spirit missions WILL NOT HAPPEN.' made me smile and think back to what happened when a specific potential future action was banned while we were at school. Shortly after it was declared that streaking would not occur at the US Air Force Academy, the Wing was witness to a world record – the fastest dash through Mitchell Hall by a naked man. The event was reported on the front page of the Denver Post and the unclothed flash was never caught. You never can tell – he might be sitting right next to you.
From Chuck Schmitz: OK, I’m back [from Iraq] as the primary POC and Bob Awtrey is the backup. I'm still in the Guard, at least 1 year to go. Number 1 son is off to Germany with DHS/State Department to work cargo inspection at one of the Germany ports. Number two graduates high school in June.
The scribe was flipping through his local Issaquah, WA newspaper when he saw a picture of Denny Mellen presenting a community award to the Good Samaritan who administered CPR to Denny while bike riding hillside trails last fall. The other biker most likely saved Denny from being a too-early GBNF.
From Phil Saenger: This is me, with my wife retired Col. (Dr.) Arleen Saenger, between us is our 2009 USAFA grad Samantha and on my left her older sister, Kristen who graduated from Virginia Tech and is in her third year of USUHS (Uniform Services University of Health Science) medical school. Kristen swore her in, Arleen and I pin on her new rank. Sam starts pilot training at Sheppard AFB, TX after summer leave.
From Tom Fraley: I nearly choked on my little chocolate donuts at breakfast this morning when I was reading the Stars & Stripes newspaper. Turning to page 5, I see this gigantic picture of Dick Webber smiling at me. He's been appointed the USAF cyber commander. We all know Dick is a tremendously talented individual, and he also must have a great press agent as most general officer announcements only get a couple of paragraphs and no picture. Congratulations to Dick.
From Dave Wallace: Representing Bull Six '75, I had the pleasure of attending today's USAFA Change of Command. Lieutenant General Mike Gould, '76, assumed command from Lieutenant General John Regni, '73. Attached is a photo of 5 of us – Bentley Rayburn, John Gaughan, Jim Burling, Larry Bryant and myself – Mark Volcheff had already left the building when we decided we needed a photo. Gould once again showing his strength of character and the superior training we can proudly say we provided. He paraphrased Jimmy Doolittle's autobiography's "Luckiest Man Alive," emotionally praising his wife for her staunch support. On a lighter note, he acknowledged that there were friends of his in the audience who were thinking "you gotta be kidding me." When I spoke with him, I mentioned the comment I'd made to you guys that his selection was a "sign of the apocalypse." He laughed.
From Wendell (Smokey) Bauman: Well, nearly 100 days after it happened, I am finally getting around to an update for my friends. Sorry to be so slow but I have been unable, until just recently, to be up at my desk for more an hour or so per day for the past 3 months. Now, I am finally capable (using a walker instead of a wheelchair) and have been in the process of updating my email accounts and getting distribution lists made to ease my load for updating folks. I have been really slow to tell everyone about my very serious accident in February because the injuries are due to my stupidity, but here goes.
On 15 February, with the hunting season over, I decided I would take the federal holiday on Monday and go up to the hunting lease I belong to and remove some of my hunting stand equipment from the woods. I got out of church and drove up to north of Greenville, AL at a leisurely pace. I got there and still had a little daylight left. I decided to go ahead and remove the one tree-stand chain mount I had near the campground. Due to short time, I made what turned out to be a nearly fatal decision to retrieve the chain without employing a safety harness. With no other preamble, yes, I took a 16-foot fall onto an old stump, which was there. From there, God has blessed me. I had a cell phone with me and had a good strong signal (something I knew before I even went down there). Because nobody knew where I was or that I had decided to begin work on Sunday evening, it was on me to arrange my own rescue from a hardwood bottom. It actually went very smoothly (another story for another day) and I was in the ambulance on the way to Greenville, AL emergency room for triage before being life-flighted to Montgomery, AL; and when they were unable to handle the severity of the injury, a second life-flight up to UAB Medical Center, Birmingham, AL. A fact for which I will be eternally grateful.
While I have little experience with hospitals, this by far, surpassed anything I had experienced previously. If anybody is curious about my injury, I had an open book fracture of the pelvis with the front gapping 5 and the back sheared loose from my spinal column. In a 3-hour surgery, Dr Rena Stewart, gave me some fancy stainless steel reinforcement in the front of my pelvis and reattached the back of my pelvis to the spine with two large stainless steel screws (yeah), I will never be able to clear the security inspectors at the airport again without being wanded. Following surgery, I was commanded to be non-weight bearing for 90 days to allow the ligaments attaching my pelvis to the backbone to heal. Well, my surgery was on 17 February, and this week was the red-letter week for standing back up. I went to the clinic on Eglin AFB on Thursday morning and they put me on my feet for the first time in 95 days. I will tell you that while exhilarating, I am a long way from walking unaided. They could not devote the resources to actually accomplish what needed to be done, and so referred me to a PT clinic off base where I was evaluated the same day and given 4 appointments a week, the first of which I had yesterday. I left there much sorer and convinced PT is physical torture and not physical therapy (actually, it is going about as I expected). Pretty sore this morning, but able to get around slowly with the aid of the walker and to Barbara’s great relief, able to use a standard commode instead of the bedside one I have used for the past 3 months. Anyway, lots of milestones this week. Barbara is now planning on returning to work in another week and I will probably be capable in a couple of weeks after that. Really sorry for the slow update rate, hope to do better in the future. This accident has driven home to me how important all relationships are in ones life. Have a blessed summer.
Steve Marino's Rising PGA Star Son. From Ed Sienkiewicz: Congrats on young Steve's (son of Steve Marino) tie for 5th (and the $239,400 prize money) at last week's PGA's Zurich Classic of New Orleans stop. I noticed his comments listed in the "USA Today" article.
From Bill Murray: Just a note to tell you that I wondered over to the Bryon Nelson Golf Tourney yesterday with one goal in mind: finding the son of our classmate Steve Marino! And I did it! He had just shot 4 under for the day which made him minus 6 for the tournament and put him in the top 30 and only 7 stokes off the leader, Rory Sabatini, who was in at minus 13. In route I got the autograph of Freddy Couples, one of my longtime favorites who has a swing like butter. When I saw Steve he was on the chipping green with his caddy. Now fans aren’t supposed to be down there with the players, but you know the rules have always been a little out of my reach. So I found this brick staircase that led right down to the putting green. I wandered up to Steve (6 ft 180lbs and bearded) and said, You’re Steve Marino, aren’t you? He looked up casually after using his 56-degree wedge to put yet another chip with five feet of the pin he was aiming for, and says, Yea. I go on to explain that I was a classmate of his Dad’s at USAFA and his eyes light up. He asks my name and we exchange casual conversation. I ask him if he wouldn’t mind signing my hat. He asked his caddy to grab the sharpie and signs right by Freddy Couples. I’m retiring the hat. I didn’t want to mess up his routine, but he was in a great mood after shooting 66, so my only regret was that I didn’t ask him if he minded visiting with me while he chipped. I would have stayed around all night. Some guys don’t mind, but others like to work by themselves and don’t like being bugged. I told him how amazed I was that one of our siblings was on the PGA tour and told him how proud his parents were of him. I wished him all the best for the final round. We shook hands and I left fired up. Having just read the book, Tales of Q School, I felt I could really relate to the grind it took to get to the PGA Tour. Steve is mentioned in the book. You really don’t realize how good these guys are. His driving average is 293 yards, 8 yards better than the Tour average of 285. He’s on the 45th spot right now for Fed Ex Cup points, have made $749K this year (with only about half his events played) and over $4M since he graduated from the University of Virginia in 2002. That’s more money than I will make in a lifetime! So, bottom line is that he’s a legitimate PGA player, and if he stays healthy and the stars align, he’ll be around for a good many more years. He was a real nice young man and it was a pleasure to meet him. Then Bill adds (at the Colonial, a week later, on May 31): Steve Marino, is leading the Colonial Tournament at -17 in Ft Worth after 6 holes in the final round after shooting 3 birdies and a bogey. He shot a sizzling 62 (8 under par yesterday) to get in the final grouping with Tim Clark at -15. The pros are tearing up our little course. Go Steve! He has a chance to win his first PGA tourney today! (note from scribe: there was a 3-way playoff, with Steve Stricker winning. Great to watch young Steve, born in Altus, OK. We'll see more of him!)
The June 4th Rolling Toast. Jim Carlson Reports: We had another first for an Academy class at our 34th anniversary since graduation. We had a 2 1/2 hour "rolling toast", care of classmate Bob Miglin who set up a call-in number for classmates to participate from anywhere in the world. We raised a glass to our Gone But Not Forgotten classmates who have RTB'd from flight plan early. We did it once at 1975 hours (2015 local) in DC. An hour later, we did it again for those on Central time. And finally, we raised our final toast at 1975 hours Mountain time (while I read off the names and years they passed on). Our C-Springs group came out en masse and showed amazing class spirit, 34 years on! (Gallery Below). To the best of my abilities (which means I'm going to leave out some names inadvertently), here are the 75ers gathered at El Padrinos Mexican Restaurant by the North Gate: (photo left to right) Jeff Neumann, Jim Carlson, Scott Hente, Bruce Mitchell, Gary Jewell, Jim Burling, Gary Shugart, JD Barrowclough, Steve Morris, Mark Volcheff, Bill Spencer, Dale Meyerrose, Lee Colburn, Larry Bryant, Jim Eken, Mark Wells, John Loucks. Not pictured, but present at some point: Phil Pearce, Dan Chapman, XX. Not pictured, but met up with: Bill Estelle (with whom I stayed), and Jerry Battazzo.
Other reports: From Duane Lodrige: Bud Calloway and I will be toasting from the cowboy bar in Jackson, Wyoming. From John Venable: Greetings and salutations '75 overseas classmates - from Finland! I'm visiting here for 2 weeks and won't be able to join the group at the time as we're 7 hours ahead in Finland (so will be 3:15am local time) but will try to do it at our local 1975 hours. Hope some of you will be able to join the formation, even if just in spirit. From Bill Lyerly: Greetings from Panama City, Panama, where I am TDY. I will try to call in at 1975 DC time (7:15pm local time here in Panama) tomorrow evening. If for some reason I cannot make the connection, say a "here! here!" for me as well... Thanks so much for helping to arrange this with Bob Miglin. PS: I was last here in the Panama Canal Zone in 1976 when I was TDY here at Albrook AFB and Howard AFB in the Canal Zone as a 2dLt with a Squadron of A-7Ds from our 354th Tactical Fighter Wing (at Myrtle Beach AFB, which has also closed) - and I just drove by and saw my "old" Albrook AFB which is closed. Both Albrook AFB and Howard AFB here in the Canal Zone are just two more of my "every base that Lyerly touched while in the USAF, either while on PCS or TDY orders, has been closed down." This is the first time that I have seen the base since it was closed in the 1990s. Sad... From Bill Davis: I'll be at 38,000 ft over West Virginia at 1975 hrs tomorrow (headed west towards San Diego). Note to self: remember to toast (with coffee).
The 35th in 2010. From Jim Carlson: When I joined our C-Springs brethren to celebrate our 34th anniversary of graduation, and toast our GBNF, I also visited our AOG reunion liaison, Ms. Tiffani Lusson, who accompanied me on a recce run on two hotel options for our reunion. The first hotel is the Antlers, where we held our 30th record-breaking reunion. Apart from the fact that no one (the hotel or the AOG) believed me that we would have 50% of our class attend (and as a consequence, they had to arrange for nearby overflow hotels), I think that for the most part our class was satisfied with the accommodations. Room capacity: 300-500 depending on the week we have the reunion. The other hotel option is the yet-to-be-completed Renaissance Hotel at the North Gate. It is slated for a grand opening in March 2010 (which I hope to attend) -- and we could possibly be one of the first Academy class to hold its reunion at the facility. Room capacity: 1,000. (The scribe notes: The POC's have already polled for your 'druthers as to which hotel we can call home during our reunion in 2010. The Renaissance seems to be leading.) I will not permit another overflow situation as last time. We ALL should be under the same roof! I don’t do much as your class president, but I certainly can stave off the situation where classmates were scattered among 3 hotels (during our 30th reunion). I will also open the coffers to help any classmate whose financial situation prevents them from attending. My personal goal for this reunion is to ensure the 50% that attended the last reunion attend this one. The hard part will be to persuade 50% of the remaining classmates to join us. If that happens, we’ll have 75% of the Class of ‘75 show up for the best class reunion ever in the history of the Academy! We will not know the date of our reunion until April or May next year (when the football schedule comes out). The most likely scenario is the month of October. Hotel availability is: 2nd, 3rd, or 4th week for the Antlers; 1st through the 4th week for the Renaissance.
I have some partial results from the class election of our Class Reunion Committee and sub-committee chairmanships. With many, many, many thanks to Dave Herlong for his patience and diligence in collecting your votes and tallying them for me, here are whom you have determined as deserving of what I pay them for the privilege of serving you:
Class Reunion Chairman: Bruce Mitchell
Class Merchandise sub-committee Chairman: Dean Cox
Class Merchandise sub-committee Vice Chairman: Rudy Roth
Prep School Activities Chairman: Phil Gronseth
AOG Class Registration Chairman: Mark Beesley
AOG Class Registration Vice Chairman: Bill Hughes
Hotel Registration Chairman: JD Barrowclough
Class Dinner Setup Chairman (Thursday Doolie Night): Paul Lotakis
Class Dinner Setup Vice Chairman (Thursday Doolie Night): John Quattrocki
Class Dinner Setup Chairman (Friday Night): TBD
Class Dinner Setup Vice Chairman (Friday Night): TBD
Class Dinner Master of Ceremonies (Friday Night): Al Bready
Saturday Tailgate Chairman: Terry Young
Entertainment Chairman (Friday Dinner): Charlie Beadling
Entertainment Vice Chairman (Friday Dinner): Bill Swiderek
Spouse Activities Chairwoman: Carol Macha (Mike Marro)
Spouse Activities Vice Chairwoman: Mary Herzogenrath (Chumley Collins)
The following sub-committees are still TBD:
GBNF Memorial Activities
Cadet Dorm Visits
Class Sponsor Program (for Class of 2012)
Special Projects
Guest Speaker (for Friday Night)
Lunch with Cadet Wing
Golf Tournament
Guidon Guidance from Jim Carlson.
Here are the ground rules for the guidons:
1. Only "official" '75 guidons will be carried the world over for our photo collection. I plan on getting a montage of those places (and each of you holding one) to view at our 35th Reunion dinner.
2. That means no personalized guidons -- that would dilute the concept of a class guidon. Not that you can't make your own, but it would not be included in the recorded journeys of our unique class flag.
3. There will be only a limited number of guidons that will be produced, all identical (but numbered so that we can track specific ones). My plan is to have 17 of these made (since we are the 17th graduating class).
4. We can order the guidons from the guy who first made them for me (5 created so far) since he has the template and can produce them whenever requested by any classmate. He's former Army and this is his specialty.
OR, we can have them made by others (classmate, Hong Kong, South Korea, etc) probably at lower cost. But we need to insure that quality is maintained (as well as the numbered sequence). Because of the durable material, and that fact that each '75 guidon is hand-made, it's somewhat costly from the guy I use here in Virginia. I've paid for the first 5 at $150 a pop. That's my gift to the class; I neither deserve nor will I accept any remuneration from classmates for these. As my finances allow, I will purchase others (up to #17). However, you guys may order from that same guy on your own if you want – I've told him that your orders might come from all over the country. He will ensure that anyone who orders will get the next number in sequence – and he will stop at 17.
His information is below. I suggest that the Geographic POC’s consider getting a flag for their guys. Especially if their area classmates include airline pilots. There are 30 '75 Geographic POCs, so they will have to pass their guidons around.
To date, 5 guidons (#s 0-4) are with:
1. Marc Isabelle (New Jersey)
2. Jim Burling (Colorado Springs)
3. John Scherer (Wisconsin)
4. Jim Eken (Dubai) --> being mailed to Dave Hickman in Kuwait
5. Paul Lotakis (Seattle)
I expect these guys to do a hand-off to other classmates (such as in the email messages above) expressing a desire to show our class colors around the world. Scott Smith has already agreed to hand his off to John Scherer in Wisconsin.
To forestall me as being the single point of failure to make all this happen smoothly, I've asked Sluggo's wife, Wanda Siefke, to be the coordinator to keep point on where each flag is at any one time. So please work through Wanda when you're ready to hand off your guidon. She will keep a record of each guidon's travels.
All photos of you and the guidon should be sent directly to Marty Stytz, our webmaster. PS: When forwarding the photos, please reduce the pixel size. Windows XP has a free app called “Image Resizer” that makes it easy to reduce a 4-megabyte photo to 100-200 kb without losing much resolution. Plus it prevents overloading someone's email inbox with 8 megabytes+ of photo attachments.
Other Admin. From Jim Carlson: I've been asked by our class archivist, Bill Estelle, for 2 things. 1: A class group photo from the 10-year reunion. Oddly, I don’t have any. Does anyone remember any group photo of us back then? I remember we had our reception buffet at the Pete Field Officers Club. Lyerly showed up in his Army uniform, and I joined the rest of our Navy contingent with mine (had already joined the Navy Reserves by then). Bill thinks we had a group photo taken at Mitchs, but I don’t recall. If anyone can remember that far back, and has anything to show for it, please contact Bill. and 2: Any informal group (or buddy shots). Nothing formal, just casual photos showing the bonding and friendship we shared during our time at the zoo. Send them to Bill, or if you’ve got a super-duper hi-res scanner, you can email them to him as attachments.
Also from Jim Carlson: Guys, you need to take a look at the magnificent work done by our classmate Ralph Reed at our website. He answered my call for web expertise to be #2 to Marty Stytz our webmaster. And answer, Ralph did. With precious little available time, Ralph still managed to produce a work worthy of our awe and admiration. You'll be blown away. Check out the photo presentations.
When you click on these, they will take you to a dynamic slideshow using Tiltviewer technology. The photos look to be suspended in a 3D matrix and you get a fascinating effect when clicking on any individual photos – you can navigate using the mouse or the arrow keys on your keyboard. It's a safe bet that no other class has this kind of presentation. Hats off and a Best Alive cheer to Ralph Reed!
While on the subject of photos, Marty Stytz has been as busy as ever, collecting photos from you guys (and from my Notes to Class) and posting them on the class website.
Trivia and Our Oldest Grad. The closing trivia from the last Checkpoints that inquired, "who is our oldest grad" did elicit some feedback, some correct, some close. First out of the gate, about the day the printed rag arrived, was from Rick Benbow: Hey Paul, Just letting you know I do read your posts with great excitement. To the question who is our oldest graduate, I think it is me sometimes. But my answer is John Cass for the class of 1975. (note from scribe: Rick is correct). Rick's response when I verified: I was fairly sure it was John. He and I had several Management courses together. We also both attended civilian universities before coming to the academy and had that in common. He was always very smart and had a lot of common sense as I remember. I think his GPA was very high. I always enjoyed listening to him tell a story. I believe he went to UPT at Vance. Oh well, back to the grindstone. My golf game is fair to good, still around a 14 handicap. I don't shoot in the 70s, but I do score in the 80s more than the 90s. We live in the Shenandoah Valley near Harpers Ferry in a small town called Charles Town. The house is located just off the 11th green on Locust Hill Golf Course, the #4 ranked golf course in West Virginia (The Greenbrier Golf Resort has #1 & #2), so I do sneak out the back door most evenings and play 2 or 3 holes before dinner. Claire is lovely as always. Thank you for asking. She has been quite busy since moving here 2 years ago. Our son lives in Pittsburgh, just a 4-hour drive, and has 6 children! That keeps Claire busy by occasionally helping take care of all the grandkids, especially when they go on vacation. She has just returned from Disneyworld and is recharging her batteries for the next request for Maw Maw to come up! Take care. You are a great scribe. I mean that sincerely. Thanks for the news on the class. See you in 2010.
George Walrond got a little concerned: This is one I do not want to win, but may actually be in the running. I was the old man in our doolie squadron (1st). Close behind me in age is my current boss Ken Schnell. I'm four days older. We're both prior service and preppies. I'm almost certain we have an older classmate, but not sure. Ken and I both work for Bay County Florida. He's the county's public works director and I'm the county's Engineering Division Manger. We keep the roads repaired, build new county facilities, keep the stormwater flowing and help recover after the big storms. We also have Bryon Boyce a zoomie who graduated in the 80's that's our Transportation Section manager. Needless to say, with all that USAFA talent we have one of the best public works organizations anywhere. Ken and I'll try to get you a picture. I do read your article in each issue of Checkpoints. Thanks for your hard work and good articles. When the scribe told George he didn't win this one, George responded: Whew! Thanks.
The ZoomieNation (Now Defunct) electronic post started some postings on the site. From David Shields: Hi, Just to confirm that someone does read your scribblings, I will guess that the oldest ‘75 grad is one of the prior enlisted P-school grads. Hard to say which one but I would go for George Cook, John Cass, Scott Arnott or my old p-school roomie, Mike Garrett. One of those should get me the prize as the fifth guess. Keep up the good work and looking forward to the reunion next year. From Bruce Fritzsche: Our oldest classmate is John Cass. A great Math tutor, BTW. From Russell Trinter: My guess on the oldest classmate is George Walrond.
From John Loucks: All I know is that Flamer (Dave Fleming) acted like he was the oldest , , ,) And Paul, as for class achievements, I am not sure anyone else has ever turned their AOC's office into the 24th green – complete with sod, a cup, and a pennant. But, my classmates did–to get me off the hook as CIC of ‘76's Hell Week and show our solidarity. I think the AOC was then-Maj Frank Black whose handwriting was like 10 pitch courier!! He called all his buddies to check it out. Anyways, it worked, but only partially. Still got the CDB – thanks to the compassion of the class of '73 in CS-24. But I think that is a distinction for us...thanks to all the phantom streakers..."Small but elite"
From Tony Mahoney: Haven't seen an "official" winner, so my money's on Mike Garrett. (Besides, he has a Harley just like mine! An excellent choice, BTW). John Cass: I always thought I was the oldest. 12/23/49. The oldest grad from USAFA 1975 will turn 60 this year. The rest of us are closing fast. Yikes!
