Class of 1953 50th Reunion

Aaron and Tom:

The class of '53 did hold their 50th Anniversary reunion June 27-29, 2003.
It was held near Chicago at the Indian Lakes Resort. We had 55 former
classmates attend along with 42 spouses. Needless to say a good time was
had by all, even the spouses. They came from as far as Florida, New Mexico,
California, Oregon, and Maine. But the longest traveler was Nick Wade, who
came from Oslo, Norway where he has been living for the past 30 years.
It was his second reunion of the year. We had no luck finding him, but he
found the Florida reunion in February and come over to attend. Of course
there was only one classmate there this year, given our own reunion, Jerry
Holzh all, who got Nick's e-mail address. The long and short was that Nick
came back to the US for our reunion. Format was similar to the FL reunions,
Friday dinner, Sat. open with various trips available and golf, Sat. dinner
and Sunday breakfast. A highlight was a memento wall and table, which had
some great displays compliments of Dick Trimarco, Bud Hayden, and several
others, who brought momentoes and added to the collection. The two most
memorable: an old tray from the cafeteria and a freshman beanie!! A unique
feature was the use of nametags with a classmates full name and his original
graduation picture. They gave instant recognition of each one, especially
those who didn't exactly look the same as 50 years ago. Spouses all had their
husbands grad picture on their tags as well so the connection was clear and
immediate.

Like the Florida reunion, we found that the years just melted away as if
it were yesterday.

The full list of attendees:

Barman, Boyle, Clausen, Conklin, Costello, Cummings, Downing, DuBrul, Dunin,
Ebbing, Eckman, Finneran, Fleege, Gladstone, Gormley, Haverkamp, Hayden,
Heffernan, Holland, Holzhall, Hopple, Kakuska, Kleihege, Koss, Kraemer, Kretz,
Lambert, Lauer, LeFevre, McCarthy, McClellan, Mullin , Mundt, Bob Menzner,
Don Menzner, Nebel, Nelson, Otting, Parker, Paulson, Peterson, Phillipp,
Rossiter, Rubey, Ryan, Scanlan, Schmidt, Strzok, Temple, Toomey, Trimarco,
Wade, Watzke, Weber and Wray.

I think Mike Rossiter captured it as well as any with this comment:
The reunion gave us all a chance to see that, we still are part of
our community. We memorized poetry, studied Latin and went to daily
Mass at a place called Campion. And even today, we are special for that.

For me this was a loose end of more then 50 years endurance, but not any more. 

Thanks to each of you for what your efforts did to help us find so many
classmates who could get together.


Bob DuBrul on behalf of the class of '53