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Class News: 1963 March, 2010
Contact Information: Norman I. (Skip) Lee 63119 E Cat Claw Ln Tucson, AZ 85739-2058 Home: (520) 825-7980 Cell: (520) 241-3498 E-Mail: 54wrs@msn.com I am sorry to report the AOG recently informed us of the death of two classmates. Joseph R. Johnson, passed away October 24, 2009. A Memorial service was held on the 29th of October at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Palm Desert, CA with internment at Riverside National Cemetery. Condolences may be sent to his family in care of his wife Mrs. Carole J. Johnson; 78653 Falsetto Drive; Palm Desert, California 92211-4006. On December 6, 2009 Roger A. Sorensen, passed away in Murrells Inlet SC. A Celebration of Life service was held Dec 12th at the First Presbyterian Church of Myrtle Beach. Internment at Arlington National Cemetery took place January 29th. Memorials may be made to the First Presbyterian Church Building Fund, PO Box 1306, Myrtle Beach, SC 29578; or to Happy Wheels, 1400 Madison Court, Mount Pleasant, SC 29466 (a charity benefitting the MUSC Children’s Hospital). Condolences may be sent to his family in care of his wife Mrs. Elly Sorensen; 381 Rum Gully Circle; Murrells Inlet, SC 29576-7761. DC area classmates attended Roger’s internment at Arlington National Cemetery. Following the grave site service, a reception luncheon was held at the Chart House Restaurant in Old Towne Alexandria. In addition to the loss of our classmates two well known wives of classmates just recently passed way. Jerry Adinolfi wrote to tell us that his wife, Marsha, passed away peacefully on January 8th in her home at Coffeyville, KS. Jerry reflected on first meeting Marsha at CWC in 1961 at a "sock hop" during one of our AFA basketball games. Marsha had been chronically ill since her bout with TB meningitis in 1964 leaving her a paraplegic in a wheelchair. “Hey,” said Jerry, “we had a great life since, all 46.5 years with two grown kids and seven grandchildren.” Larry Hoffman’s wife Cheryl died the 12th of January from her 4th stroke since 1991, and according to Larry, largely a result of the lupus that she endured for many years. Larry said when he met Cheryl while attending grad school at Purdue: “it was the greatest day of his life.” Cheryl was the little twin sister of Robert L. Cottrell also attending Purdue and who had been our classmate for a year at USAFA in 59-60--small world. Dean Hess summarized the Footballers reunion and plaque dedication at the Wyoming game: “We had 12 Footballers at the event and although other classes were not in high numbers we did see a few teammates from ‘62, ‘64 and ‘65. We also enjoyed the mini reunion activities. It was great to combine the events. As to the picture below: we could not get the gaggle all together for a photograph but since we were all going the same way in the same day, I feel it was a formation.” (Editor’s note: John Gavin, David Nuss and DeVere Henderson did get in the mini-reunion picture so nearly everyone was covered). On behalf of the Footballers, many thanks go out to all our classmates for helping fund the Plaque.   Last time I was unable to include information from Pat Caruana about an Air Mobility Command program to inform current Air Force folks and to commemorate the contribution tankers have made to the history of Air Force combat support. The series, instituted by AMC, is called “Living Tanker Legends.” The command invited Pat to Scott for this event to address the tanker support in the First Gulf war. Pat formed a panel that included a BG from SAC, Ken Keller, one of his key planners, and Denny Carpenter. In the photo taken at the event: the gent on Pat’s right is Col(Ret) Denny Carpenter who served as one of the wing commanders within Pat’s overall command in the first Gulf War. On Pat’s left is General Arthur J. Lichte, Commander of AMC at the time.  Lou Matjasko asked me to get classmates to think about the personal things they have, from photos, movies, documents, memories and stories, and to start to get them together. This applies to cadet and later active service periods of their careers. “At some point,” says Lou, “we will be asking for this type of input from the class to include in our Class and Academy history presentation gift at the 50th.” More information about the Class Gift will be forthcoming after the Class Gift Committee meeting in April. Nevertheless, classmates, if you would like to contribute to posterity in this overall presentation start putting your stuff together! Thanks to Denny King’s efforts, a security issue for the display case holding our Class Cups was resolved. An acrylic block was installed on the front of the display case doors. Once closed and locked top and bottom the block eliminates any flex of the glass doors yet the names of each classmate etched in the shelves are not obscured by the block and it will not interfere with the spot that might someday house Pat Wynne's ring. The numbers, 1963, are etched in the Block as the designation of our Class. To give you a better idea on how it looks, several photographs will be attached to the Class Web Site version of this article so please go there. Denny says this phase of the project is now complete. Did you know that Pete Ognibene got married? Pete sent this photograph of the October 10, 2009 wedding party. He said “At a time when we have too much sad news about classmates, I thought I'd send along a photo from my recent wedding to Kathleen. You will see four couples in the photo, three from '63 and one from '69: Bob and Shirley Hall, Pete and Kathleen Ognibene, Steve and Anne Dotson, Mike and Vivian Rose (Class of 1969).” Well done Pete and Kathleen!  Short Subjects: I found the next item regarding Chuck Bush on ZoomieNation. Chuck wrote: “A colleague's daughter has generously constructed a Wikipedia page for me. I am pleased and would like to share it with you.” Go to the following Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_V._Bush. Bob Mazet reported he had dinner this past Sunday evening (that would be Dec 1st) with Tom and Peggy Derieg and Jack and Jo Ann McTasney who were visiting Tom and Peggy from the Sacramento area. Turns out Peggy and Jo Ann were roommates at Loretto Heights. The picture below is Dave Nuss with a real fish story. Who caught who?  Butch Verdier wrote abut a photograph he sent saying “Here's a picture of grandson Ben Brown, Class of 2012, having his shoulder boards presented by Dad, Mike ('86) at the Class of 2012 Acceptance Parade in August of 2008. By the way, I'm the good looking one! Sure was a wonderful mini-reunion.  In closing, please accept my heartfelt thanks for all the great inputs to the Class News. Occasionally there is more input than space available but every input is important! Inclusion in the next issue of Checkpoints is my plan but there will be times when added content can be found in the Web Site version of the Class News. Just click on http://www.usafa63.org/index.php. Take care of yourselves out there. |