ND Class of 1968               Contact: Tom Figel, 312-223-9536 ext. 301

May 1, 2007

Good Friends Gone

           Relatively few of us were from Iowa in those years but we found each other: Greg Seaman in Frank O’Malley’s class left after freshman year for the University of Iowa and, eventually, a law practice in his home town of Carrol; Fred Ferlic, who went on to glory with Steve Anderson in South Bend; Pat Casey from Des Moines, John Kamp from Lemars; Mike Lonergan from Mason City, Brian McTigue, who became a stalwart of the Action Student Party; and Bob Kohorst from the vicinity of Harlan, which is near Carrol and about an hour east of Omaha.  Thick-chested, broad-shouldered, and bubbly with good humor, Bob was off the farm and deeply into the General Program’s studies.  There he met Ned Buchbinder, who will post his own memories of Bob on our class blog http://ndclass-1968.figelpr.com.  Ned was the first to tell us this spring of Bob’s death, which occurred last November.  Bob would call occasionally.  Always, in a modest way, he talked proudly about his family.  A few times we saw him.  During his bachelor years, when Nancy (Carlin SMC ’69) and I were in Lake Worth, FL, he got to like the area and would make an occasional weekend visit.  By then, he was practicing law with a Harlan firm.  Farmers and farming operations were his clients and farming was part of the worldview he assembled from all his reading and good sense.  During one visit, Nancy was pregnant with our son Peter and said she felt “big.”  Bob’s reply was no comfort.  “The older cow bears the bigger calf,” he told her.  We heard about and then met Kathleen, the wonderful, young St. Mary’s graduate who returned to Harlan and soon became a lawyer herself.  After they married, Bob and Kate began their own firm.  After a visit to family in Colorado years ago, we were in western Iowa at mid-morning and made the detour north from I-80 into Harlan.  At the diner near the courthouse, the five or six patrons studied us and then advised us that “Bob’s office is there.”  Our kids marveled: “Everyone knows him.”  Kate had just given birth to the first of their two sons, to John.  We had a great visit, one that included a recipe Kate gave Nancy for poppyseed coffee cake.  It gets used and Kate always gets praised.  Please remember Bob and his family in your prayers.

            Dennis Hunt has died, too.  A Californian who was a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan at one time and then began a career as a leader in the field of public relations, Dennis was on his way to Rochester, NY, where he would give a speech and visit with Jim Stoffel and Pam.  Jim Hutchinson forwarded Jim’s note: enroute to the airport in Los Angeles at the end of April, Dennis died in a car crash.  Then Wally Moxham, who became friends when he and Dennis lived in Stanford our freshman year, wrote that: “My wife and I are leaving tonight to go to the services and I understand Rich Carter and Dan Harshman, and I am sure others from the Notre Dame community, will be there to remember Dennis. The California Endowment, where he has been working for the past five (5) years as Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs, has further information at their website which is http://www.calendow.org.  Rich Carter said that, in addition to Wally, Dan Harshman and Jim Stoffel, Rich and two of Dennis’ nephews were the pallbearers.  The Carters live in Orleans, MA, on the Cape: “My daughter, Alexandre, had her wedding here last June and Dennis, Jim Stoffel and Rick Schleef of our class all came to the Cape for that event. Dennis was a great friend for over 42 years – since we were freshmen together at ND in Stanford Hall.”

            In Southport, Connecticut, at the end of January, Michael O. McHarg, Sr. died, leaving his wife Kristine, two sons and a granddaughter.  Mike was a quality assurance manager for the Heim Bearings Company in Fairfield.  His Notre Dame football passion gave him a reputation.

            For these reasons and for the future, let’s make sure we get together next June, when our class has a reunion.  You know Tom Weyer will be there and will have something to say.  Brian Sullivan will be in good voice, too.  We ought to turn out for a Silverhawks baseball game that weekend.

            In the meantime, Roger Guerin says that Bob Ptak has been spending a lot of time at a home in Bonita Bay, near Naples, FL.  Richie Rogers, who comes to games with his brother Neil and other classmates, last year started something that he plans to repeat now that he is retired from the FBI and from paying for triplets to attend college.  With tickets for games on successive Saturdays, Richie stayed and made a week of it in South Bend.  The Parkview was his base for a lot of looking around and visiting with everyone who came by. 

            John McCoy, while traveling back to Washington from his winter home in New Mexico, sent an alert that, on March 1, President Bush nominated Mike Baroody for Chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a nomination that quickly produced objections from Sen. Barbara Boxer and others who charged that, coming from the National Association of Manufacturers, Mike would not be objective in considering product dangers.  The comments confirm that politics is a blood sport.  Impugning the integrity of someone with Mike’s character and love of family is dishonest.  Perhaps one of the Washington classmates knows the outcome of the nomination; I couldn’t find the answer at the beginning of May.

            TechniScan Medical Systems in Salt Lake City added Kenneth G. Hungerford II to the Board of Directors in March.  Ken is president of ADAC Automotive in Grand Rapids, MI, a position he has held since 1985.  On Ken’s watch, the company has seen sales growth increase by a factor of ten.

            Don Hynes, who lives in Portland, OR, has published his second book of poetry titled The Living Dark, available for $20 plus shipping at www.donhynes.com.  Don and his artist wife Linda Ethier come to the Midwest once in awhile: he attended the Frank O’Malley conference years ago and has visited John Walsh and Dia in other years.  The Living Dark, as you will find in the samples on the web site, makes for pleasant reading while Mike Hampsey’s new CD plays. The second pressing of Mike’s Celtic Christmas CD is available for $20 from Mike at P.O. Box 1433, Warren, PA 16365.  Don, who still seems youthful – and is younger because he is a member of the class of 1969 – says he is enjoying three amazing grandchildren while continuing to manage large construction projects, most recently for a group of Catholic nuns.  He sea kayaks the San Juan Islands, tramps the woods of Oregon, hangs out with the soon to be retired not-so-rowdy boys and roots for New York baseball while enjoying his next best home town, Portland, Oregon, home of the latte, the tattoo, crowded bookstores, and the all night sound of rain.

            Pat Collins and Emily learned – the hard way – that Pat’s family has a great predisposition to a certain form of cancer, a mean thing that, so far, has caused trouble for Pat’s siblings and, now, for two of the three children.  Michael, the second son, is recovering from surgery and Salley will have a quick procedure for removal of some small growths detected early in the game.  Years ago, blinded by charm, Emily never asked for the medical records.  She is still blinded.  On the other hand, she says, one family’s problem is someone else’s opportunity: researchers at the hospital in Washington, D.C. are crazy with joy: the Collinses are nearby and they are lab animals with one good problem after another. 

            Elise Stephens Reeder ‘SMC 69 forwarded a Christmas letter she and Dennis received from Pete Hurley.  The family lives in Paris, where Pete, a Colonel in the U.S. Army, teaches at Sciences Po, runs USAREUR’s battlefield staff ride program, and runs European Operations for the Association of the U.S. Army.  Pete’s note to the Reeders says: “The boys and I were back at Notre Dame at the end of October, and had our usual special time.  Lots of thoughts about ‘the Colonel (Stephens)’ (seems funny to be a Colonel myself!)”  Pete is writing screenplays, including a love story about General “Blackjack” Pershing.  The picture on the Christmas card shows Lil Hurley and sons Raymond and Christopher winding up a 50 day bicycle trip across the United States.  (By the way, Joe Blake has yet to report the same accomplishment.)

Brian Muskus reported his retirement from Honeywell and his family’s departure from Japan.  Brian and his family have returned to the U.S.  Best way to reach him, he says, is brian.francis.muskus.1968@alumni.nd.edu.

           Paul Ramsey is in Chicago the first weekend of May.  Enroute from the West Coast to his home in New York, he is stopping in Chicago for a birthday dinner with Chuck Amato.

            You can add comments to these notes, submit other notes and send photographs, too.  Thanks for the help. Send news to: Tom Figel, 1054 West North Shore, Apt. 3-E, Chicago, IL 60626, tel. 312-881-7391, tfigel@figelpr.com.