I don’t have a lot of exciting news to report, but you could mention that I’ll spend the weekend of July 4th at the San Antonio, TX home of my brother John (ND ’66) and sister-in-law Georgia. San Antonio is only 200 miles from Houston so I get over there periodically. The three of us – plus my niece and her husband in San Antonio – make periodic trips throughout the year to a place we have on Beaver Lake in northwest Arkansas (where I grew up.) Mike Moore (a fellow pilot like Mike Woods and also my friend from Keenan Hall days forward) was with Cessna in Wichita/Independence, Kansas before finishing his working career with the FBI. While living in Kansas Mike and his wife Anne visited us at the lake house and enjoyed the boating, etc. while seeing us at Beaver Lake a number of years ago. Mike and Anne joined myself plus John and Georgia and my niece and her husband for the Shamrock Series game played in 2009 at the Alamodome of San Antonio; the Irish dominated Washington State in that game. After his retirement Mike and Anne wound up living in suburban D.C. – Virginia (which they like very much); he sees our classmate Tom Curtin and Tom’s wife Kathy (Tom is also retired in suburban D.C. – Virginia) quite often, and we stay connected by e-mail. I see our classmate Dave Zell (whom you will recall I introduced to you at last year’s military commemoration roll call) here in Houston often. We, of course, spoke with Dave while he was with Dan Harshman. I told you that Dave (originally from Little Rock, Arkansas) was Ara’s head student manager our senior year. Dave won’t brag on his four degrees so I’ll do it for him. After leaving South Vietnam as an Army first lieutenant he got a MBA from Penn’s Wharton School of Business. Dave was a Deans List E.E. major at ND. He later got a J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston before obtaining a Masters in Accounting from the University of Houston – so he is both an attorney and CPA. He is now semi-retired but still as needed does business valuations (reviews of finances, etc. in order to prepare estimated valuations.)

My three-year roommate Tom Culcasi (BBA in Marketing) right after graduation married Judy Donofrio (SMC ’68.) I was in their wedding. Tom retired from sales of medical equipment. He and Judy have lived in Lemont, IL for a long time. Their two sons (Philip and Dave) and daughter Maria all graduated from ND. You remember seeing Tom at the neat Sunny Italy dinner you arranged (thank you once again for that!) Sitting between Tom Culcasi and Mike Woods at that dinner was really enjoyable.

Best regards, and have a nice long July Fourth weekend,

Joe