Veterans’ Day 2014

at the Vietnam Memorial Washington DC
at the Vietnam Memorial Washington DC
Vietnam Memorial Wall, Washington, DC
Vietnam Memorial Wall, Washington, DC

My fishing buddy is a 3 tour Vietnam Vet who was injured in action and, like many other Vietnam Vets, was never the same as before he saw action.  He observed me thank another vet for his service to our country and then coached me on what would be more meaningful to a Vietnam Vet.   He told me to say:

“Thank you for your service and welcome home”

He told me that was one thing Vietnam Vets never heard…..”welcome home”.   Well, to all our class vets (listed below) and to all our country’s vets, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY AND WELCOME HOME.  I do hope all our classmates take a few moments to say thank you to all the vets especially our classmates who sacrificed so much so that we can enjoy the freedom we have today.  Please click on the word “comment” below and add your personal message to our vets.

If you are a member of the class of 1965 and are a vet and don’t see your name below, please click HERE and send me a message and I will add it as soon as I see your message.  If you know of a vet who served our country and was a member of the class of 1965 who is not listed below, please let me know.

Lynn English High School’s Class of 1965 Veterans include:

Donald Baillie Naval Reserves

William Berkson  Army

Frederick Bollen Army

Robert Bonin Marine Reserves

Richard Bowlby Navy Reserves

Kevin Buchanan  Army

Richard Burke Army

Howard Burnett Army National Guard

Tom Cahill  Army

Roger Caldwell Navy

Richard Callahan Navy

James Cogen Marines

Anthony Colangelo  Army Reserve

John Collier Army

Harry Corson  Army

Ralph Cronin  Army

Don Cyr  Navy

Tom Devine  Marines

John Donovan  Army

Brian Doucette Navy

Donald Ellis  Air Force

David Emerton Marines

Tom Fabrizio Air Force

Bruce Fisher  National Guard

Lawrence Flanagan Air Force (died while serving in Texas)

Arthur William “Bill” Fogarty Army

Ronald Gerstenhaber Air Force

Thomas Gillis  Navy

John Gotimer Navy

Reverand Arlyne Grant Army Reserves

Norman Grant Marines (killed in action in Vietnam)

Donald Hamel  Navy

Mark Hammond Coast Guard

Robert Hartshorn Navy

Robert Johanson Army

Jim Lampes Mass Army National Guard

Allan Leavitt  Army

Peter Lelecas  Air Force

Wayne Livermore  Army

Richard Lorette  Navy

John MacDonald Air Force

John Martin  Air Force

John McCarthy  Army

Walter Mehm Navy

James Middleton  Army

Robert Muller Army

Haig Nalbandian Air Force

Paul Nardone Air Force

Ralph Nelson  Army

William Nelson  Army Reserve

Robert Newhall Army

Stephen Noone  Army Reserve

Kevin O’Connor  Air Force

Richard Olson  Navy

John O’Neil Air Force

Albert Paradis Army

John Pension Navy

Leland Perry Army

Edward Pettipas  Navy

Bruce Phillips Navy

James Prendergast NH Army National Guard

James Prunier Air Force and Army National Guard

Robert Reed Army

John Reppucci Navy

Michael Rodgers Army

Anna-Marie (Ruth) Frederick  Air Force

Charles Sarcia Army Aviation

David Schulze Air Force

Michael Schulze Navy

John Sewell  Navy

Frank Simone  Air Force

John Sonia  Navy

Christo Stratos Navy

John Sturgis Army National Guard

Robert Tibbetts Army

John Warwick Army

Douglas Waters Army

Bradley Wentworth Army

Joe Whalen  Army

Paul Yacovitch Army

Francis York Navy

David Santos and the Yacht Blue Moon

Dave Santos is one of our classmates and will not be able to attend our 50th reunion.  Here is a message I got from him while trying to update his contact infomation:

“Bob,
Got your message about the reunion, sorry we won’t be able to attend.  We have just commissioned our latest sailing yacht and will soon be setting sail for the Spanish Main.  Thus, at the time of the reunion we will either be sailing the South American coast or perhaps treking in Bolivia, Peru, or Chile.  So as far as recounting previous sailing adventures around the world, we will leave that to you.  I trust you have a copy of that account.
Regards,
Capt. Dave Santos”

Dave and his wife completed a 11 plus year sailing trip around the world in the Yacht Blue Moon about 10 years ago.  Click HERE for a brief account of their trip around the world.

We wish Dave and his wife bon voyage!

Who Will Attend the 50th Reunion?

A page (50th Reunion Attendance Page) has been created which will be updated fairly frequently.  It will list the names of people who have confirmed that they are coming to the 50th reunion.  Since we haven’t announced when and where the reunion will be yet, the page is basically blank.  To check the page out either click on it near the bottom of the list on the right, or click HERE.  It will fill up as we get closer.

Now don’t jump the gun and start sending in your names.  We do have to PAY for the reunion.  How much also still has to be determined.  But I do warn you, the names that go on the page will be people who commit to go to the reunion with their payment.

Fred Bollen requested something like this for our website and I think it is an excellent idea.  I do hope the reunion will be well attended and, perhaps, seeing the names of people you may know  might just encourage you to go yourself.

I won’t be doing any blog posts to announce when names have been added, so you are going to have to check into the website occasionally and check the page.

Just as an update, we have not selected a venue, style of reunion, date or cost yet.  That is still a work in progress.  So, you still can click on the comments below the next post (Our 50th Reunion… 2015) to make your suggestion.  But the ball has started to roll and the decisions will be made very soon.

OUR 50th REUNION… 2015

Hello everyone,

The reunion committee has started the planning work for our 50th reunion in 2015.  Very shortly, they will be meeting with an event coordinator at one of the venues to discuss “possibilities” on what the reunion will look like.  NOW IS THE TIME FOR YOU TO PROVIDE YOUR INPUT.

Do you want a sit down dinner, a buffet dinner, roving servers providing finger food with perhaps a salad table?  Do you want some other activities like a tour of the school or perhaps something else?  Do you have any ideas you want to share with the reunion committee?  If you do, click HERE and tell us about them.  Don’t wait …. NOW is the time to provide input while things are still be planned.  A planning meeting is less than 2 weeks from today.  The ball is rolling to our 50th reunion!

Ideas will be posted as comments to this post.  You may tell us to post the comments anonymously if that is your preference.  Remember, once we have made the plans, it will be difficult to change them… so NOW IS THE TIME.

Hopefully, everyone will want to attend this reunion.  If you are shy or feel you didn’t know many of your classmates, try to contact the people you did know to join up for the reunion.  There is a page called “Communication Between Members of our Class” to see who has made their contact information available for sharing.  Even if someone hasn’t made their information available, we can provide help in connecting people together.  Just let us know by clicking CONTACT.  If you haven’t updated your contact information you better do it or you might miss out on important reunion related communications.  Update your contact information by clicking the “Address Update Form“.

You may also post your ideas directly by clicking the “comment” line immediately below this paragraph.  It will either say “add a comment” or it will say “X comments” where X is a number.  You can read the comments by clicking on the same comment line as well.

A Tour of This Website

It has been a while since I explained how the website is laid out and how to use it.  There are a number of people who may not have seen previous tours.  As you work your way down this page, please don’t be afraid to click on some of those items over to the right of this page.

The “HOME PAGE” is the Blog page (that is where you are now).  The “blog” is announcements or posts.  Memorial list additions, Scholarship program announcements and things to tell you something has happened (like the 13 additional photos) are posted on the blog page.

On the right side of the Blog (or Home) Page is a list of pages within the website.  At the top of that list is “Subscribe to the blog”.  Here is where you can put your email address to have the website automatically send you an email when ever a new blog item is added.  To subscribe, put your email in the box provided and then follow the directions.  This email list is NOT available to me and I can’t edit it.  It is used internally within WordPress (the program that we use for our website).

Below the subscription is the “Main Menu” which are links to the various pages within the website.  At the top of that list is “Home”, which will bring you back to the blog page.

Next is “Contact”, which brings you to a form to fill out to send an email to our class website.  The emails are not posted publicly.  The email goes to our class email address.   I review all the emails and either forward them appropriately or answer them directly.  Just below Contact is the “Address Update Form” which you can use to update your contact information, veteran status and provide permission to share your contact information.  By the way, if you COMMENT on a blog item, it WILL appear publicly when it has been approved for publication.

Below that are a number of photo galleries (including photos from reunions, from the graduation program and yearbook, and a 5-part photo essay of how the school looks today (or about 1 1/2 years ago).  When you click on a photo in the photo gallery it gets bigger so you can see it better.  At the bottom of the photo, click Close to close the photo and go back to the photo gallery.  You will notice that the Main Menu is still visible so you can go back to the Home Page if you want to.

Next is “Remembrances” which bring you to blog postings for Veteran’s Day and other events.  When ever a blog posting is made, the general topic is selected.  Remembrances is one of those topics.

Next is one of the least popular, but most visited pages, our Class Memorial List.  This is pretty much self explanatory.  Note, we have quite a few missing people.  Some of them may be members of the Memorial List but just don’t know.

The next two items are related.  The Lost Classmate list  which is people we can not find even though we have looked multiple times.  The Need Updated Contact information list is people we THINK we know how to contact but either we don’t get a reply when we try to contact them or we are not sure the message is getting to them.  OR…. in some cases, we haven’t found the time to try to make contact.  Since the word “we” in this paragraph really means only a couple of people, you can see the difficulty.  Of the 648 people we have in our database (632 graduates and 16 people who did not graduate with the class for one reason or another), we currently know the status of about 74% of them.  That means about 166 people haven’t been contacted or are deceased and we don’t know that.  The list is everyone that we are still looking for.  That may grow a bit as a 1/2 dozen or so have not replied to a general email we sent out.

The next item is “Communication between members of our class” which is how members of the class can get each others contact information.  Basically, you have to give us permission to do so (you can do that by checking the box in the “update address form”).  This page also has a list of people who HAVE given their permission.

We do have a scholarship program which is the next item on the list.  It lists the contributors and scholarship recipients.  I encourage you to contribute to this program.  Contributions are made by mail and if you want to contribute, just use Contact to let me know and I will email you the form which has instructions on it.

Classmate Activities is a place to put things classmates want others to know about concerning themselves.  Generally it is not often used.  (it might be the Facebook of our website … LOL)

The last items in the Main Menu are who attended the 45th reunion and a list of the reunion committee members.

Below the Main Menu are a list of the blog categories.  If you click on one of them, it will give you all the blog items with that category.  It can reduce a search of the blog items a bit.

Below that are some links to other websites of interest.

Questions?  Use “Contact” or click Here.  Clicking on either brings you to the Contact page.  You can ask your question there and I will get back to you.

Regards, Bob Maleszyk (your webmaster)

 

13 new photos added to the 45th reunion gallery

Thanks to Paula Robinson for sharing thirteen more photos from our 45th reunion.  They have been added to the gallery which now has 125 photos in it!!!  To go to the 45th reunion photo gallery, click HERE.  Feel free to input comments on the photos.  To make a comment, just click on the photo to make it larger and the name of the photo will be in the lower left side of the photo.  You can then send your comment in (make sure you reference the name of the photo) by clicking HERE to go to the contact page.  Fill out the form on the contact page and write your comment in the message box.  Then click send.  By the way, Paula’s 13 photos were the last ones added so they are at the bottom of the 45th reunion photo page.

paula robinson 10

100th English and Classical Football Game

Sue Rummel wrote this nice little piece which I hope you enjoy. Feel free to respond to Sue’s request for comments.

Did you know that 2013 marks the 100th time English and Classical High School met on the gridiron for Thanksgiving Day football. What a milestone for these two great schools.  After almost 50 years since graduation I can’t remember a year without checking the Thanksgiving Day football scores to see if English won.  Little did I know that this was the 100th rivalry game with English victorious over Classical 13 – 12.

I’m sure everyone has special memories of the games at Manning Bowl.  As a cheerleader, I remember arriving at the school on game day and marching in formation with the high school band from the school to Manning Bowl.  What a thrill marching through the streets and onto the field before games.  We also practiced with the band in order to take part in the halftime shows.

Our football stats over the years show Classical with the winning edge, but it’s nice to know that during our years at English in 1963, 64 and 65 the Bulldogs held the Northeast Regional Conference title for basketball (see photo below).

For more information about the 2013 Thanksgiving game and to see the football history between English and Classical click HERE.

As we approach our 50th reunion in 2015 it would nice to hear some of your memories about our years at LEHS.  Comments are welcome.

Sue Rummel

Gym banners... check out basketball
Gym banners… check out basketball

Veterans’ Day 2013

Monday is Veterans Day.  To all the Veterans who served our country … Thank you VERY Much.  When vets came back from Vietnam, they were not treated as well as returning vets are today.  Today, you do see folks thanking the vets when they are at home.  I hope members of the class of 1965 will thank our classmates/vets, who served in the Vietnam era (and after) by adding your words of gratitude at the end of this posting.  Last year only a few people added their words of thanks.  So to the Vets of our class (and all Vets), please accept these few words of gratitude from all your high school friends.  Thank you VERY much. 

Our class had many men and women who served their country.  Many saw action in Vietnam.  Some died while in service to our country.  Many will never be the same as they were in high school.  All were very young.   The names of our Class of 1965 vets are listed below.   If you are a member of the class of 1965 and a vet and your name is not listed, please let us know by clicking HERE or by using Contact (to the right under the Main Menu).  I will add your name to the list.  If you are a vet and have some words to say please feel free to “comment” at the bottom of this posting.

Many companies and restaurants are doing different things as a way of saying thanks to veterans.  I did a little digging to find out what freebies and discounts might be available to vets on Veterans’ Day.  Our vets may want to take advantage of some of these opportunities.  I found five (there are lots more) places on the internet which tell you about different offers.   I set up all five places with the links.  All you have to do is click on them to go to them.  They will open in a separate window or tab.

yahoo finance

Veteran Owned Businesses

Kiplinger

About

Coupon-wizards

 

Lynn English High School’s Class of 1965 Veterans include:

Donald Baillie Naval Reserves

Frederick Bollen Army (saw action in Vietnam)

Robert Bonin Marine Reserves

Richard Bowlby Navy Reserves

Kevin Buchanan  Army (saw action in Vietnam)

Richard Burke Army

Howard Burnett Army National Guard

Roger Caldwell Navy (saw action in Vietnam)

Richard Callahan Navy (saw action in Vietnam)

James Cogen Marines (saw action in Vietnam)

Anthony Colangelo  Army Reserve

John Collier Army (saw action in Vietnam)

Harry Corson  Army

Ralph Cronin  Army

Tom Devine  Marines (saw action in Vietnam)

John Donovan  Army (saw action in Vietnam)

Brian Doucette Navy

Donald Ellis  Air Force (saw action in Vietnam)

David Emerton Marines (saw action in Vietnam)

Tom Fabrizio Air Force

Bruce Fisher  National Guard

Lawrence Flanagan Air Force (died while serving in Texas)

Arthur William “Bill” Fogarty Army (saw action in Vietnam)

Ronald Gerstenhaber Air Force

Thomas Gillis  Navy

John Gotimer Navy

Reverand Arlyne Grant Army Reserves

Norman Grant Marines (killed in action in Vietnam)

Donald Hamel  Navy

Mark Hammond Coast Guard

Robert Hartshorn Navy

Robert Johanson Army

Jim Lampes Mass Army National Guard

Allan Leavitt  Army (saw action in Vietnam)

Peter Lelecas  Air Force (saw action in Vietnam)

Wayne Livermore  Army

Richard Lorette  Navy

John MacDonald Air Force

John Martin  Air Force

Walter Mehm Navy (saw action in Vietnam)

James Middleton  Army

Robert Muller Army (saw action in Vietnam)

Haig Nalbandian Air Force

Paul Nardone Air Force

Ralph Nelson  Army (saw action in Vietnam)

William Nelson  Army Reserve

Robert Newhall Army

Kevin O’Connor  Air Force (saw action in Vietnam)

Richard Olson  Navy

John O’Neil Air Force

Albert Paradis Army

John Pension Navy

Leland Perry Army

Edward Pettipas  Navy

Bruce Phillips Navy

James Prendergast NH Army National Guard

James Prunier Air Force and Army National Guard

Robert Reed Army

John Reppucci Navy

Michael Rodgers Army (saw action in Vietnam)

Charles Sarcia Army Aviation (saw action in Vietnam)

David Schulze Air Force

Michael Schulze Navy

John Sewell  Navy

Frank Simone  Air Force (saw action in Vietnam)

John Sonia  Navy (saw action in Vietnam)

Christo Stratos Navy

John Sturgis Army National Guard

Robert Tibbetts Army

John Warwick Army (saw action in Vietnam)

Douglas Waters Army (saw action in Vietnam)

Bradley Wentworth Army

Joe Whalen  Army (saw action in Vietnam)

Paul Yacovitch Army (saw action in Vietnam)

Francis York Navy

DETAILS of the 50th Reunion (2015)

Nope… not available yet.  BUT…. NOW is the time to give your input.  WHERE do you want the reunion?  Do you want the reunion to be a weekend affair with the 50th reunion proper on one of the nights?  How do you want the reunion to come off (buffet style food, formal dinner, all night finger food, no food at all)?  What other things do you want to see at the reunion?  Use your imagination and provide input to the reunion committee.  How do you make your suggestion? 

  • One way is to click CONTACT  and send a private message to the committee (make sure you tell us to publish your suggestion anonymously if that is your desire).  If you don’t tell us to make your suggestion anonymously we will publish your name with the suggestion.
  • Another way is to COMMENT (look directly below THIS post).  Look for the the words “add a comment” (if there are none) or “x comments” where “x” is the number of comments.   Click on that and your comment will go on line once it has been approved (I watch for spam).

Things you should consider when making your suggestion:

  • Cost (can everyone afford it?)
  • Location (how will everyone get there?)
  • Facility size (will the crowd fit?)
  • Seating arrangements? (if you want a sit down dinner)
  • Lead time? (some venues require booking well in advance and generally need to know about how many people are going)  By the way, if you want to help with this, it might be helpful to let the reunion committee know, NOW, that you intend on going to the reunion.  We may also need a deposit if we have to pay for booking up front (of course that hasn’t been even discussed yet).

NOTE:  Usually I don’t see many responses to posts.  I hope that will change with this post.  It is important to make your feelings known.  I am looking forward to publishing lots of suggestions (even the suggestions are the same).

As of today, there is at least one comment.  Check it out below.