by Yvonne Y. Yang
If you have any input for the web site, please write to [email protected]
Visit the web site today at http://members.fortunecity.com/pineridgeweb/ -- and please be sure to sign our guest book! Thanks!
A number of folks have offered to help with the reunion, but we are still without a leader. Please consider whether you'd like to volunteer--event coordination is a valuable skill that can go right on your résumé. And remember, you'd be working with a group of folks who are both gifted and talented!
For a 2002 reunion to happen, we need a brave soul to step forward now.
by Deborah Fisher
I am FINALLY finishing my training in June and joining the faculty at Duke (Department of Medicine) in July. I will spend at least half of my time pursuing clinical research in gastroenterology. Most of my clinical work will be supervising residents and fellows at the VA medical center. My husband still has one more year of training (cardiology). While he needs to find a "real job" too, we hope to stay in the Raleigh-Durham area long term because it is near the grandparents...which brings me to the stork news: Rebecca Giselle Campbell was born in March 2001.
Claire (Futamase) Collie recently moved from Texas to less than 2 miles down the road from me. She is doing a forensic psychology internship at University of North Carolina. Sounds very interesting to me, but she should probably say more about it.
Looking forward to the 2002 reunion!
Editor's note: see a photo of little Rebecca, along with one of Carol Shubinski and her daughter, Annabel, here:
http://millennium.fortunecity.com/cedar/558/photos.html
by Gretchen Kraft
Flashback: 1984
Well, George Orwell's spooky year came and went and the world was still standing. I wonder how many of us actually read that book. Did you? In Mrs. Switzer's 8th-grade English class (Frost Intermediate), we had to read "Animal Farm," but not "1984." I always thought that was strange. Regardless of what we were reading for school, the rest of the country was reading "Eat to Win: the Sports Nutrition Bible," "Wired" by Bob Woodward, "...And Ladies of the Club," "Full Circle" by Danielle Steele and "The Talisman" by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Charles Schulz' "Peanuts" became the first comic strip to appear in 2,000 newspapers.
1984 was a great year for pop music: "When Doves Cry" and other Prince hits, the "Footloose" soundtrack, Van Halen's "Jump," "Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker Jr., Culture Club, Michael Jackson (Michael and his brothers embarked on their very successful "Victory" tour in 1984 also), Lionel Ritchie, "Owner of a Lonely Heart" by Yes. I could go on and on. Eliminator (ZZ Top), Synchronicity (The Police), Seven and the Ragged Tiger (Duran Duran), and Sports (Huey Lewis and the News) were albums on heavy rotation.
Filling the top slots on the Nielsen ratings for the '83-'84 TV season were: "Dallas," "Dynasty," "The A-Team," "Sixty Minutes," and "Simon and Simon." We were also watching Magnum, "Riptide," "The Fall Guy," and, of course, "Love Boat" was still chugging along.
The top five grossing movies for the year 1984 were "Ghostbusters," "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"--the movie that set the wheels in motion for the PG-13 rating, you may recall, "Beverly Hills Cop," "Gremlins," and "The Karate Kid."
In sports, Houston Rocket Ralph Sampson became the first rookie to be named to the NBA's All-Star Game. Boston College's Doug Flutie was named Heisman Trophy winner for the year for his famous "Hail, Mary" pass. In other sports news, we watched Mary Decker fall and Mary Lou Retton leap and soar at the Summer Olympics in L.A.
1984 was, it seemed, a big year for women: Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman to be nominated from a major political party to run for the office of vice president. Ferraro, age 48, campaigned with presidential hopeful Walter Mondale of Minnesota. Both lost in a landslide to the GOP ticket of Reagan and Bush.
The Washington Post recently had an interesting article about 12-year-old prodigy Greg Smith. Okay, so this guy is a senior in college at the same age when we were graduating from Pine Ridge, but there are numerous parallels on the social issues faced by gifted children.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16604-2002Jan8.html
It's fun to catch up, but let's also take a look back. Tell us what has stayed with you all these years since Pine Ridge. Some possibilities:
Please send us your memories for publication in future issues. Anonymity granted upon request!
Steve Curtis, recently in Northern Virginia to visit his parents over the holidays, met up with locals Geoff Suiter and Diana Waldron at a hip Shirlington eatery. Check out the photographic evidence:
http://millennium.fortunecity.com/cedar/558/photos.html
Unfortunately, we're still out of contact with Cathy Edmonds Wehibe, Jill Hanbury, Marilyn Deady Paitel and have lost touch with Kristin Carpenter, Marc Farrar, Lisa Feinberg Sper, and Jared Scogna. Does anyone have a way to reach these folks? If so, please write so we can get them back in the loop.
On the positive side, we just connected with Tonya (Viscomi) Hutson, thanks to a little sleuthing by Jen Watt. Welcome aboard, Tonya! Here is her address:
Anyone else had luck finding old classmates?
Here's the latest on who we've contacted and who we're still trying to find:
We have some leads on the following folks, but haven't heard back from them and so could use more information:
We don't have leads on these folks yet:
by Valerie Granfield Roush
Hi all! I've finally been prompted to write because I changed jobs (and so changed my e-mail) and I didn't want to become the latest "lost and found and lost again" feature, so I figured I'd check in. I find that the most inexplicable (pathetic?) aspect of the Pine Ridge newsletter is that I actually remember 99% of our classmates. I guess elementary school had more of an impact than I ever would have guessed (or maybe I just peaked early, like George W.)
So here's the usual bio info for the curious: After attending Frost Intermediate with most of you and James Madison High School with some of you, I fled the South and went to Williams College in the Berkshires of Mass. (though I recall randomly reconnecting with some of you while visiting friends at UVA). Here's a surprising tidbit: at Williams I played right wing on the first line of the women's ice hockey team. Got married to my high school sweetheart, Dan Roush (T.C. Williams '87) a week after college graduation and then headed straight to UVA Law. Clerked for a federal district judge for a year and then became a labor & employment litigator with O'Melveny & Myers in D.C., where I spent 4+ years measuring my life in six-minute intervals. With the big three-oh approaching, I had some sort of epiphany (panic?) and made several (excellent) life-altering choices.
On April 25, 2000, my daughter Allison Granfield Roush was born, and I haven't slept since (ok, at least not past 6 on a Saturday!). She's this amazing hilarious blue-eyed angel (nope, I'm not biased at all) who has changed our lives for the better in every possible way (ok, except for maybe the sleep thing). And then in March 2001, I left the big law firm life to become in-house Labor & Employment Attorney for Sodexho Marriott Services in Gaithersburg, MD, where I spend my days trying to handle all the labor and employment issues 110,000+ employees can create. In my spare time, I act silly with Dan and Allison and our yellow lab, Max, I pretend to be a photographer, and, on rare occasions, I still read a book just for pleasure. So that's it -- sorry to disappoint those of you in my 6th grade class who predicted that I would be a fashion designer in the story we created that predicted what we would all be doing when we grew up (see the weird stuff I remember from Pine Ridge?)
I have to admit I bailed on my 10 year high school reunion but I am very intrigued by our upcoming elementary school reunion--I have to see if all of my random memories have any basis in fact--so I hope that it's still in the works. My only plea is not to do it during the month of June, when most of us will have 10 year college reunions. Oh yeah, and here's my e-mail address, one of those "forward for life" addresses which will follow me no matter what happens with my next epiphany:
While we still have a list of unlocated classmates, we will spotlight one or two each issue in an intense data-gathering effort. This issue we're looking at John Pieper and Sara Plantz. Send in your memories and information and maybe together we can find John and Sara.
Kinds of information to think about: did you know middle names or names of parents or siblings? Where did they go to junior high or high school? Did they move out of the area? Where and when? Have you had any contact since Pine Ridge? Where and when? Send in what you know, and we will compile and share it and follow any leads. Our goal: 100% location.
by Jennifer Juul
Hmmm...my life in a nutshell? I just finished my masters degree at Illinois State, where I live with my fiance, Jim, and our two dogs. We're moving soon, and I'll be able to include those details in a full update later on.
Please send us an update on your life, post-Pine Ridge, for publication in a future edition. Here are some ideas to get you started:
We look forward to hearing from everyone and sharing our stories.
Are you experiencing difficulty receiving this newsletter? Send a description of the problem. We are not technical experts but will do everything we can to solve the problem. The newsletter is also available at www.bigfoot.com/~pineridgeweb.
For those without electronic mail, please direct correspondence to:
or call:
Content depends largely on what YOU send in. Drop us a line; your classmates would love to hear what you have to say.
Be true to your school! Pine Ridge rules!