25th Reunion

Please mark your calendars for our 25th high school reunion.  Reunion weekend is September 6 - 7, 2013.  Our class party will be Saturday, September 7th.  Location and details are TBD.

You may have noticed I created a Facebook page for our class as well.   Not everybody uses Facebook, so I'll try to post the pertinent details to our blog page as well.  Anybody can post to this blog page, but you will need a Google ID and password.

In the near future, we'll need a party planning committee (volunteers needed!) and we'll try to locate and communicate with as many people as possible.

I hope this message finds you in good health and good spirits.

Dave

SPA Reunion Homepage

Alumni/ae Annual Fund: The Spartan Challenge

Dear Classmates,


I've never worked in sales, nor have I had desire to. I was raised to be self sufficient and I guess it's unnatural for me to ask for something from another. I've also never worked in fund raising for charitable or uncharitable ventures. I did once dabble in fetish films, but that's a story for another day.


My point is, I'm uncomfortable posting a plea for funds for SPA or anybody else, but I'll throw this out and let you make your own decision.


The Annual Giving Office has a May drive for new donors to the Annual Fund. (Since our class has historically low participation rates, I guess we're viewed as very fertile ground.) For class years 1981 - 1995, if the donor rate is raised from 10% to 20% during the month of May, an anonymous donor has pledged $5,000. That works out to 131 new donors, or about nine donors per class year. I have some thoughts and uneducated guesses about the identity of the anonymous donor, but that's secondary.


If you're planning to make charitable contributions this year AND you've never given to the SPA Annual Fund, I hope you'll consider a donation in any amount during May. All the pertinent information and easy donation instructions can be found by following the link (that I will somehow, f'ing figure out how to attach to this post.)

Even you're not planning on giving, click the link and check out the photo they chose for this campaign; you won't regret it.

I hope spring weather is finding you and your families happy and healthy in whatever part of the world you're making home!

Sincerely,

Dave Salchow

Congratulations to Jesse and Laurie Bradley!

Congratulations to Jesse and Laurie Bradley on the birth of their new daughter Liliana! Liliana joins her older brothers Joel and Silas.

Jesse is the Senior Pastor at Sebastopol Christian Church in Sonoma County California. http://www.sebchristian.com/home.aspx?iid=55106

Me? I'm still afraid I'd spontaneously combust if I ever stepped into a place of worship.

Dave Salchow

Unsanctioned '80s Holiday Party

The traditional decade party hosted by SPA was cancelled this year due to low attendance last year. However, a bunch of people have been contacting the reunion committee to see if it's taking place. Enter our holiday hero, Chris Cheney, who has organized the rebel Spartans' party:

Friday, Dec 26th

The Blue Door Pub

Fairview & Selby in St. Paul

9pm onward

No free beer, but free cheer. 

Please spread the word to other '80s SPA alums. And contact Chris with any questions: ccheney@everestfg.us

Thank you for your support

Hello everyone,

I hope everyone who attended the class party is still feeling the warm fuzzys from last weekend like I am. I wish I could write as well as Cat to express my feelings about how great is was to see everyone again. I was simply blown away by the number of you who came out, and by the few surprise visitors who dropped by.

Did anyone else have that bizarre experience where you're looking at a total stranger for 2 to 5 seconds, then suddenly the recognition kicks in and memories flood back? To me, that was the most surreal part of the evening.

I'm humbly grateful for the recognition I received for my part organizing the reunion. I thank you very much. The truth is my role as organizer and communicator made me a little more visible, but the class party was truly a team effort. Your reunion committee consisted of Rich Barlow, Chris Cheney, Dan Deuel, Fred Kaemmer, Cat McKenzie, Amy Myrbo, and Jennifer O'Brien. Everybody pitched in contacting and reconnecting with classmates. I intentionally took a half step back from the party details because it's simply not my forte. I probably would have booked the local 'Crapplebee's' and served those little cocktail weinees and meatballs. The team picked a great location and I couldn't image the food or drink being any better! A special thanks goes out to Jennifer who managed all the details with Cafe Lurcat.

I'm not a prolific or good photographer, but I'm posted my photo on a flickr page. (Somebody let me know if that didn't work.)

I hope we can continue this blog and share our lives in other ways; a lot of us are "friends" on Facebook, if you care to join us. We were only successful contacting around 60% of the class and we have no contact information at all for about 10 of us. Some people prefer to leave the past where it lies, so we'll never get everyone to join. But if you run across any classmates during your journeys, please direct them this way and maybe we'll have a few more for the 25 year.

Your friend,

Dave

Send me your pics

Hey alums,

Thank you to everyone who attended our 20th class reunion. Echoing Cat's blog posting, I also had a wonderful time reconnecting with everyone. Overall, the reunion was a reassuring and grounding experience. Sometimes it's nice to be reminded where we came from and how far we've gone – nothing does that better than a class reunion. Whether it's running experiments on Super Colliders in Switzerland, defending low-income/disadvantaged clients in Seattle, broadcasting with NBC in NYC, following successful artistic careers or educating the next generation of leaders (to name just a few), it's safe to say our class is a pretty impressive bunch. It makes me smile to think we all suffered through our teen years (or more) together.

A big thank you goes out to the committee (Dave Salchow, Amy Myrbo, Rich Barlow, Chris Cheney, Fred Kaemmer, Cat MacKenzie, Daymond Dean, Andrew Arashiba) who helped track down classmates and organize the big day. I always looked forward to emails from this group as each one found a long-lost face and shared their news. Planning the whole thing was MUCH more fun than I anticipated.

Thank you to Theresa (Zottola) Drift for sharing her pictures from both the All School Dinner on Friday and our class party on Saturday. I've created a flickr page with these images for everyone to share. If you have more, feel free to email them my way, and I'll add them to the set. My email is jobrienreg@hotmail.com.

Good luck and best wishes, everyone. Let's stay in touch.

One Big Hug

So....since I've been back in NYC everyone keeps asking me how the weekend was.  I just smile and say GREAT! So much FUN! 

But I was sitting here...trying to really put into words how it felt to be around so much familiarity and family at the same time and came up with this. 

For me at least...this was what seeing you all, being with you all was like...with almost everyone it was like no time had passed...conversations were not silted or halted...and the joy that bubbled inside of me at seeing old faces was truly geniune...

I wrote this next line to a friend who asked for details about the weekend it sums it for me the best...

It was really comfortable once everybody got over the whole "what are you doing now" thing in some ways it felt like one big long supportive hug the kind that makes you feel stronger when it's over...the kind you'll long for again when it's not there right at your fingertips.

Thanks Class of '88 for memories good and bad...but for not forgetting where we all came from. 

OK I'm done being sappy now - please those who ever head out to the Big Apple give me a ring so we can share glass , tell more old stories and have one more hug. See you all soon! Love Cat "Cathy" McKenzie

Thanks and Share Your Pics

Fellow classmates,

First

Last weekend was very fun. While I don'ts suspect we will have the same number together again in the next few months, I do hope that those of you who traveled from far and wide had enough fun that you are ready to return again (if not before the next significant gathering, then at least in 5 years). There were others who said that they wanted to come and hope to see pictures from the event. I dropped the ball on this but there were plenty of flash bulbs. So I am begging for a huge communal favor – Please be willing to share your pictures!

The blog that Dave set up would be a great place to post pictures for everyone to see (we're older now, so I trust nobody did anything that would cause trouble). If you haven't already gained access to the blog, then contact Dave Salchow at davidsalchow@yahoo.com.

Thanks,

Chris Cheney

All-School Reunion

What a great time everyone had at the SPA All-School reunion dinner last night. It was a bizarre and nostalgic experience to walk through the halls once again. Dinner was in the brand new dining hall with cathedral ceilings, which were surprisingly free off flicked pats of butter (or other sticky items). Someone also noted how much of the art and murals survived the renovations, but the lockers didn't (they're all tall, and beige). Monkey Island has also disappeared (replaced by 2 old couches). Those of us that spent most of our time in the music rooms were so impressed by the new facilities.

But the best part was seeing familiar faces of class mates and teachers at dinner. It brought back lots of memories both good and not-so, but all worth laughing about years later. Our classmates were kicked out of the dinner and landed at Plum's (on Snelling & Randolph) for more drinks and stories until the wee hours. Thank you, Theresa (Zottola Drift), for taking so many pictures last night!

Looking forward to seeing even more people at Lurcat tonight (Daymond tells us we're breaking attendance records). Bring cameras!

P.S. We've been told that Blake will also being having a class reunion there. Let's go show 'em who's boss, everybody.

Guess Who's Coming

Here are some familiar faces we'll see this weekend. It's not too late to join us. Just contact SPA ASAP to get on the rsvp list. 651 696 1308 or online.

Directions to Cafe Lurcat and Parking information

Hi everybody,

We have a little bit of reunion business to take care of this evening. I'll try to think of something disgusting to post later.

Directions to Cafe Lurcat:

http://www.cafelurcat.com/

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1624+Harmon+Place+on+Loring+Park,+Minneapolis,+MN+55403&ie=UTF8&ll=44.971599,-93.285384&spn=0.015575,0.028539&z=15&pw=2

Cafe Lurcat is located at 1624 Harmon Place in the shadow to the west of Downtown Minneapolis. Beautiful Loring Park is right across the street.

• From the East:
  Travel west on I-94
  Take exit 231B for Lyndale Ave toward Hennepin Ave
  Keep right at the fork, follow signs for Lyndale Ave S/Lyndale Ave N/Hennepin Ave N
  Keep left at the fork to continue toward Lyndale Ave S
  Keep right at the fork, follow signs for Lyndale Ave/Hennepin Ave and merge onto Lyndale Ave S
  Continue on Hennepin Ave
  Turn right at Maple St S
  Maple St S turns right and becomes Harmon Pl
  
  
• From the South:
  Travel north on I-35W
  Slight left at MN-65 (signs for I-94 W)
  Take the ramp onto I-94 W
  Take exit 231B for Lyndale Ave toward Hennepin Ave
  Keep right at the fork, follow signs for Lyndale Ave S/Lyndale Ave N/Hennepin Ave N
  Keep left at the fork to continue toward Lyndale Ave S
  Keep right at the fork, follow signs for Lyndale Ave/Hennepin Ave and merge onto Lyndale Ave S
  Continue on Hennepin Ave
  Turn right at Maple St S
  Maple St S turns right and becomes Harmon Pl
  
  
• From the North:
  Follow I-694/I-94 to I-94 east/south
  Follow I-94 east toward downtown Minneapolis
  Take exit 231A-B for Lyndale Ave/Hennepin Ave
  Merge onto Lyndale Ave N
  Turn left at Dunwoody Blvd
  Slight left at Hennepin Ave
  Turn right at Maple St S
  Maple St S turns right and becomes Harmon Pl
  
  
• From the West:
  Follow 394E toward downtown Minneapolis
  Take exit 8A to merge onto Dunwoody Blvd/Wayzata Blvd toward Hennepin Ave
  Continue to follow Dunwoody Blvd
  Slight left at Hennepin Ave
  Turn right at Maple St S
  Maple St S turns right and becomes Harmon Pl
  

Parking:

There is ample parking in the area, although not all of it is free.

(Cafe Lurcat is circled at about the center of this image.)

Valet Parking is located right in front for a cost of $7.

There is a significant amount of metered on-street parking in the area, which is free of charge after 8 PM. However, these are difficult to come by, so a significant amount of searching or luck may be required.

There is a free weekend parking lot underneath I-94 next to the Basilica only about a block-and-a-half north of Lurcat. Don't park in any of the reserved spaces.

Finally, there are a lot of paid parking ramps and lots within a few blocks. The closest is on the corner of Maple Street and Harmon Place on the same block as Lurcat. The cost is $5. Another good option might be the Minneapolis Community and Technical College ramp on Hennepin between N 16th Street and Laurel Avenue. The cost is $5.

A little further down Hennepin toward downtown, on the corner of Hennepin and 12th Street, there are several $4 lots plus a municipal parking ramp. Finally, there is parking near the Walker Art Center and Parade Stadium to the west of I-94 which would include a nice walk through the art park and flower garden.

If all else fails, Cafe Lurcat is conveniently located within walking distance of the City of Minneapolis impound lot.

I hope this post is helpful to some of you. I'm looking forward to seeing many of you at the all-school reunion this Friday and more of you at the class party Saturday night!

Dave

Hi Everyone,

I am sorry that I cannot make it to the reunion on the 27th. It would be great to see everyone. So in the spirit of letting everyone know what I am up to, here goes, briefly.

After college I went straight to graduate school in biochemistry and received a PhD in 1998 from Michigan State University. It took me nearly six years to get my PhD due to the amount of extra curricular activities I partook in; namely ultimate Frisbee, Bells Amber Ale, concerts, and general socializing. I also met my future wife, Laurence, while I was in graduate school. Laurence also has a PhD in biochemistry and she is from a town near Toulon, France. As a result, we go to southern France for a couple of weeks a year. Good food and good drinking makes for a tough life. Near the end of our time in East Lansing, Laurence and I got married in 1999. We then began our journey around the country getting additional scientific training prior to our current positions. We lived in Seattle for a little under a year since the person I was working with decided to move his laboratory to San Diego. So we moved to San Diego.

In San Diego, I worked at a company that is now closed, and Laurence worked as the Scripps Research Institute. We lived in Encinitas, CA, which is a fabulous town. The biggest challenge out there is traffic, and it is horrid, but the fish tacos and sun make up for a great deal of traffic. We also had our first kid out there, Alex, who is now 7 ½. After 2 ½ years in San Diego I decided I wanted to get an academic job rather than work in industry. I applied for a number of assistant professor positions at universities around the country and I was lucky to be in a hot field at the right time. As a result of this we moved to Kansas City to take positions at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. If you are curious about the Institute and what our lab does here’s a link, we are science geeks, no doubt about it (http://www.stowers-institute.org/labs/Washburnlab.asp). Kansas City is quite a change from southern CA, but in fact we like it more. Much less frenetic, people are nicer, and we don’t spend 2 hours in the car everyday. In Kansas City, we had our 2nd son, Rafael, who is now 3 ½. They are both nuts and want to play just about every sport imaginable, although Rafael has a tendency to make up his own rules.

Here is a recent picture of all of us. Hopefully the two of them get their hair from their mom’s side of the family.

Hope all of you are doing well.

Best regards,

Mike

Update from Russell Baccaglini

Hi all,

Wow, 20 years I can’t believe it! I was not even 20 years old the last time I was at SPA. I broke out the year book and it brought back great memories (after I spent about 5 minutes laughing at the cover picture … I still can’t believe they printed that). As a late comer to SPA and an east coast boy, I am really grateful for all the friends and good times I had. Let’s just say there was not much of a comparison to Henry Sibley High School in Eagan. Of course, Dave had to remind me of French class. After how difficult the third year of French was I can’t believe I was stupid enough to take year four … and if you were in my class I am sure you would agree … with how stupid I was. Thank goodness for math and science (which equals geek).

I booked an airline flight so I am committed and am looking forward to the weekend.

If you’re interested, here is what I have been up to since SPA. I went to college at Columbia University in New York City. That was a great time and a blur … more like an alcohol induced haze with enough studying to graduate in four years. I went to work at Price Waterhouse as a management consultant after college. About 2 years after IBM bought the management consulting division of PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2002 I finally realized traveling every week … week after week … year after year really sucks. I even spent a year and a half managing a project at Thomson West in Eagan around 2003 (you can kick me at the reunion for not contacting you if you like … work just seemed to be too important at the time). In 2004 my father was in the process of easing into retirement as a financial advisor for Thrivent Financial. I woke up one morning and decided to make the career change and join him. It was rough to start over, but it was worth it and things have been great after the first year or two.

I attended the summer of 1991 Paul Simon concert in Central Park when I was in college. One of the 750,000 people there was my wife, Jola. Of course she was just someone I was sandwiched like a sardine with on the great lawn of the park at the time. We have been together ever since. Here is a recent picture of the kids. From the left Anna (13), Mary (17), Paul (4), and Emily (6).

Jola came to the USA from Poland just about a year before we met. I’m not sure if my French or Polish is worse. That said it has been great to get the perspective of someone who was not born in the USA. Let’s just say we are really fortunate. We live in beautiful New Jersey ... surprise surprise:). Here is a somewhat recent picture of the family on vacation.

I am really looking forward to catching up with everyone. Feel free to send me a email to catch up if you like at rjaep@optonline.net.

Class Photo of Chris Cheney

Chris had some trouble uploading his own "senior picture" from '88 off the yearbook site, so I'm helping him out. While I don't remember Chris with this 'do, I remember others who did have this rockin' look.

Last week to return your RSVP

Hi again,

The RSVP is due back to the alumni office by Friday, September 12th.

If you haven't done so already. please take a moment to return the card. Even if you can not attend, consider sending along a note to classmates.

I can't wait to see everyone!

Dave

Yearbook Yourself

http://www.yearbookyourself.com/
A co-worker found this site, and in light of our upcoming party, I thought I'd share it with you. It's a riot. Here I am from 1983!

Art Exhibit and Reunion Invites

Hello again,

Well, we've brought the blog into the gutter and clearly I started it. While we're here, let's share some stories about those nasty lower gym foyer restrooms....

Actually, let's not. We have a little bit of business to take care of.

If there's any confusion about Rich Barlow's art exhibit, the reception with Rich is Friday, September 26th from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Time permitting, Rich plans to devote some Q&A time for our class at 6:30 p.m. (Did I get this right?) This will somewhat depend on the turnout and demand for Rich's attention as the reception is an all school activity. Running simultaneous with the art reception will be tours of the Randolph Campus if you want to see what has changed or find your old lockers. The All School Dinner Party begins at 6:00 p.m. with the buffet dinner beginning at 7:00 p.m. There is a cost for the dinner party ($35), but you can come to the art reception and tour campus free of charge. There is some overlap with the timing of the event, but I believe you can take it all in and not feel rushed.

If you are not able to come Friday, the art exhibit will be open on the Randolph Campus Saturday, September 27th from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. We'd love a great turnout to the Friday evening reception, but you can still check out the art on Saturday. Also occurring on campus Saturday is the doubles tennis tournament starting at 9:30 a.m., a Sculpture Installation at noon, Girl's Varsity Soccer at 1 p.m. and Boy's Varsity Soccer at 3 p.m. Our class party is that evening beginning at 8 p.m.

Finally, check you mail box for the invitations! The RSVP' s are due back no later than Friday, September 12th. That's only three weeks folks. There's always a little give on these things, but the count is important to make sure we have enough food. Please don't procrastinate on this.

Thanks again for supporting the blog and your excitement about the reunion. On behalf of the Reunion Planning committee, we're looking forward to seeing you all soon and a very memorable weekend!

Your friend,

Dave

now you've done it

Hey Dave,

Thanks for bringing the level of discourse down & getting the crowd all warmed up for me. I knew that someday I'd find a use for this image:



I suppose I ought to add my two "what's up with me" cents to justify adding some "being a smartass" cents.

I live in the Willamette Valley where we've cornered the market on natural beauty but have a very high unemployment rate. I'm very lucky to have a mindnumbingly boring job in the software industry in a town full of baristas, bartenders, and waitrons with master's degrees. I'm about ninety minutes away from the ocean, the mountains, or annoying hipsters (Portland). My 11-year-old daughter starts middle school in a couple of weeks.

I always thought that the Blogger account "random question" feature was a bit lame - they're trying just a little too hard to be clever and funny and never quite hit the mark. However, the question that they gave me when I signed up actually got me remembering stuff...so much stuff, in fact, that it exceeded the character limit!

Random Question:
When your science teacher smashed a frozen rose with a hammer, did you warm the petals to bring them back to life?

We never performed such heavy metaphorical acts in our science classes. However, I do remember:

• Every boy in Ms. Keeling's Life Sciences class shifting uncomfortably in his seat when a girl whose identity I mercifully conceal (not I!) asked, "Is semen nutritious?"


• Intentionally blowing up light bulbs with Amy to stave off the boredom of some experiment that was cutting into our precious locker-decorating time.


• J.J. Toupeé saying "Whatever you do, don't inhale the gas" seconds before Christopher failed to waft and instead huffed the N20 streaming out of our beaker.


• Eric A. dropping burning splints through the hole in the closet down into the biology classroom below. An impressive amount of time and number of splints elapsed before the teacher from that classroom burst into ours. No, I was not the lookout. By saying nothing, I was merely maintaining my, uh, journalistic neutrality.


• Hans and Spencer air-guitaring their way into Merle's classroom, singing "Ph-ph-ph-physics! Da-nuh-nuh!" to the tune of Def Leppard's "Foolin'."


• Mr. Ertl encouraging us to fondle, lick, and otherwise abuse mighty rocks. That's a piece of Schist! Aww, noooo, it's Gneiss! Uh-huh-huh, you said "Greywacke."

Alrighty, I'm gonna go get my weekend on, but I'll be back soon with a funny photo or three.

TTFN
The ghost of Miss McLouden

The time I thought I "killed" Gerard

This story makes me laugh every time I remember it. It borders on "bathroom humor" so don't bother reading this post if that offends or disgusts you.

....

Anybody still here?


....

Gerard and I played on the wildly successful SPA freshmen basketball team together. Well, mostly he played and I practiced and held down the end of the bench. The gyms on campus were full, so we huffed it daily to a gym on the St. Cate's campus. If you've played organized basketball, you might be familiar with the Jump Stop drill. Players each have a ball and move up and down the court in a series of straight lines. At the coach's whistle, you alternate between ordinary dribbling and jump stops. A jump stop is like a standing broad jump where you attempt to land on both feet simultaneously. It's a strategic way of stopping your dribble because you can legally choose which is your pivot foot. Otherwise, the foot to land first is your pivot foot. Thus, we practiced jump stops.

One nondescript afternoon, Gerard was immediately behind me. I remember dribbling a few feet ahead, when suddenly Gerard began yelping and screaming! I whirled fully expecting to see Gerard's leg twisted into some unnatural position, or his arm bent the wrong way. Instead, Gerard was waving his arms madly in front of his face and yelling "Dave! Jesus!"

What really happened?

Who knows what was served at lunch that day. More likely, I can't recall what food my mother prepared the night before, but something had died and "turned to the dark side" in the nether regions of my bowels. On that particular day, apparently a section of my gastrointestinal system occupied it's own plane of hell. The jarring force of landing consecutive jump stops overcame my sphinctal-muscular system and I, knowingly or not, created a death cloud of sorts in my wake. Gerard was the unfortunate soul in line behind me. It wasn't exactly a miracle to be investigated by the Vatican, but it was enough to break up a jump stop drill.

I'm glad I didn't prematurely end Gerard's athletic career and I'm glad they didn't need to evacuate the building. I regret the unfortunate circumstances and that I didn't set any official school records that day.

I wish there was a moral to this story. Sorry Gerard.

Dave

What a small world!

I just had to share what a small world it is. I went to pick up a race packet for the YWCA Women's Triathlon and who do I run into? Lesley Johnson now Crosby. She was also doing the race and mentioned she had run into Ann Wilson now Courington at the Lifetime race in July. So I started searching for Ann, not knowing her married name and found her in the race results. After searching the Eagan phone book (do I sound like a stalker yet?) and using Mapquest it turns out she lives less than 3 miles from my house. Too wild. It was exciting to see her. It brought back so many memories. I'm looking forward to catching up at the reunion.