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Woodrow Wilson High School Alumni Update - August 2010
http://www.wilsonalumni.com

Don't miss your upcoming reunion and special in-between-year get togethers- make sure to check the reunion section below.

FIRST FOOTBALL GAME OF THE SEASON AND IT'S ALUMNI NIGHT!, SEPTEMBER 3
Come support Wilson Football and our new Head Coach – Ken Duilio. Coach Duilio and the boys have been training hard in their preparation for this season and the team is looking great! Wilson will be one to watch in the 5A Division this year. There is a definite excitement and buzz about our football program.  September 3rd is also Alumni Night. We encourage all Alumni to come attend our first home game. If you are a Wilson Alum, we want to recognize you. Please sign-up at the ticket entrance and make sure your class is represented! Alumni can also join the Trojan Touchdown Club at a reasonable price of $25.00 which includes a window cling, season program and admission to the Alumni Game. Show your Trojan Spirit and wear your Trojan Gear!  Our thanks to the many parents who have worked hard to clean and re-paint our stadium this summer. Our thanks to our community and business sponsors for all your support. Visit our website for more updates and information about Trojan Football at www.trojantouchdownclub.org.  Go Trojans!

ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS IN WILSON STUDENT DIRECTORY
Wilson Alumni: Advertise your business to the Wilson Community and support school-wide programs! This year's Student Directory will include the Wilson Community Parent Network, featuring businesses owned by or affiliated with Wilson families and alumni. For $25, list your business in the Business Directory; business-card sized ads are $65. Contact Valeurie Friedman (valeurie@comcast.net; 503-246-0622) to place your ad or for more information.

WILSON FOUNDATION WORKS TO SUPPORT OUR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
The Wilson Foundation has set a goal to raise $100,000 this year to retain teaching postions and keep class sizes down. We are hoping for 100% participation by Wilson families. Your first opportunity to give will be at registration. Watch for "pledge month" in October and a kickoff evening with Wilson Foundation Ambassadors. Thanks for supporting our teachers and students. For more information, or to volunteer, please contact Wilson alum Lucy Brehm'77 (lbrehm1@gmail.com) or Chris Dearth (dearth@pcez.com).

MEL KRAUSE MEMORIAL GOLF TOURNAMENT - BENEFITTING PIL ATHLETICS, SEPTEMBER 20, 2010
Steve Rudolph '75 (member of the PIL Hall of Fame Board of Directors) would like everyone to know about the upcoming 2010 PIL Hall of Fame Golf Tournament to be held on Monday, September 20, 2010 at Broadmoor Golf Club in Portland, Oregon. The tournament is dedicated to the memory of Mel Krause, one of the founders of the event. Your participation in this and future events will continue to provide educational and athletic opportunities for deserving student-athletes in the PIL High Schools. This event gives all an opportunity to relive some exciting memories and demonstrate your interest in supporting the current PIL coaches and athletes. This is an excellent way to enjoy a fun day of golf, meet old and new friends and support a worthwhile cause. If you have any questions, contact Steve Rudolph at cell/office (503) 449-0438 (cell) or SteveIRudolph@eaton.com (email). Reserve your spot now to guarantee a place in the 2010 event. Click here for the Entry Form: http://www.wilsonalumni.com/newsletter/2010_PILHOL_Golf.pdf. They anticipate a full field.

MEL KRAUSE MEMORIAL GOLF TOURNAMENT
benefitting PIL Athletics
Monday, September 20, 2010
Broadmoor Golf Course
NE 33rd & Columbia Blvd
Portland, Oregon

 

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

BOAZ FRANKEL UN-ROAD TRIPS HIS WAY TO A TV SERIES
After graduating from Wilson in 2000, Boaz Frankel studied theater at New York University, where he produced and starred in a campus show called "Clips and Quips". According to Peter Ames Carlin from The Oregonian, Boaz worked as an intern at NBC and recently went on a two-month Un-Road Trip in the spring of 2009. He is producing, co-writing, and hosting a new cable TV series about his journey for the Halogen Channel. To read more about Boaz Frankel's unpredictable life, click here: http://www.wilsonalumni.com/alumni-spotlight/BoazFrankel2010.pdf.

POET LIVES ADVENTUROUS LIFE
Peter Ludwin '60 has lived an adventurous life. "I spent nine winters I spent in the Texas Big Bend country, from 1998-2006," adds Peter. "I had a 16-foot trailer in the desert near the Mexican border, lived primitively with no running water, and loved it. For a couple of those winters I was a shuttle driver for a local river rafting company, and on a couple of occasions I was hired as a musician to go on overnight trips in the canyons and play music for the clients. I knew people who lived in caves, tipis, yurts, dynamite shacks, buses, straw bale houses and just about any kind of shelter you could imagine. It was a significant experience in my life." Peter tells us that he spent seven weeks during the summer of 1990 in Ecuador and Peru, from the Amazon to the Andes, plus the eighteen Decembers he sold Christmas trees in New York City. Peter also played in a jug band that made an album and played at the 1974 World's Fair; and he has spent his autumns picking apples near the Canadian border.

In 2009 his first full length poetry collection, A Guest in All Your Houses, was published by Word Walker Press of Glendale, California. Peter was a recipient of a Literary Fellowship from Artist Trust and was the 2007-2008 Second Prize Winner of the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Awards for poems on the Jewish experience, as well as a finalist for the Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award during the same time period. He has published widely across the United States, as well as in England, Japan and the Czech Republic. A Guest in All Your Houses is set entirely in the interior American West. Peter tells us that a second manuscript, composed of international poems, is nearly complete, with a Northwest manuscript not too far behind. For the past nine years he has been a participant in the San Miguel Poetry Week in central Mexico, where he has workshopped under some of the leading contemporary poets from America and England.

After Wilson, Peter attended the University of Washington and dropped out in his junior year because ROTC was a requirement to graduate. "Ironically, I wound up in the Army less than a year later, being ultimately sent to a base in Bavaria, where I stayed for 28 months," adds Peter. "I had a Top Secret Security clearance (I was basically a radio spy), and traveled during that time over much of Europe, plus going to Turkey and Morocco." After the army, Peter moved to Berkeley, where he stayed for 16 months before returning to Seattle. For the past ten years, Peter has been an art show manager. But he considers his writing to be more important. He has one book of poetry out, and two more manuscripts nearing completion.

When asked about Wilson, Peter stated that his most influential teacher was Donovan Griffith. "He was my Spanish teacher, and was very outre for late '50s Portland," states Peter. "It was really through him that I became aware of the alternative cultural scene that was percolating amid the bland grayness that seemed to typify Eisenhower America. I also have to thank my English teacher during my junior year. Unfortunately, I don't remember her name, but she was very understanding and helpful. I felt I belonged in the Honors English class, but my test scores didn't gain me entrance. She recognized something in me and gave me books to read she didn't assign to the rest of the class. In my senior year I was admitted to the Honors English class and got straight A grades in it."

Words of wisdom for current Wilson students? Peter says, "Listen to your own counsel, follow your own dream and vision and be cause over technology rather than mindless effect."

 

SHARE YOUR STORY
Send us the details on where/what you have been doing since graduating from Wilson, and we'll post in an upcoming WWHS Alumni Update e-newsletter.  Send details to Linda Doyle.

 

ALUMNI RECALL WILSON'S PAST

PASSING THROUGH THE HALLS OF WOODY HIGH
Recently returned to Portland after many years on 'the road less travelled' but certainly not less enlightening. It has been said that the road of excess leads to palace of wisdom...well, only if you survive long enough to get there... :) I welcome the opportunity to reconnect with those I may have known well and those I may have missed the opportunity to know but shared a common experience of passing thru the halls of Woody High.  Sean McCoy '80

MR. MURRAY
I'll keep it simple. Mr. Murray taught me the art of writing the English language, a gift that has blessed every aspect of my life. George Buckingham, '72

 

MESSAGES FROM CLASSMATES

LOOKING FOR 1982 CLASSMATES
Looking for classmates for future reunions. Brenda Dascomb (Hanson) '82.   Click here to contact her.

 

IN MEMORY OF

KNOWN CLASSMATES/TEACHERS NO LONGER WITH US
Please send an email with details to Linda Doyle if you have an obituary that should be posted here.  Below is a list of classmates who have passed away.  Here are the names for those who have just been added to the list:


Read more about classmates, teachers, community members who have passed away...

 

REUNIONS

CLASS OF 1960 TO HOLD 50-YEAR REUNION ... SEPTEMBER 10-11-12, 2010

 

CLASS OF 1961 ... TO HOLD 50TH REUNION ... SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

Click here for all the reunions and the latest details.

 

CURRENT STUDENTS

CHALK ART FESTIVAL, SEPTEMBER 12, 2010
Join us for the Chalk Art Festival on Sunday, September 12, 2009 at the Hillsdale Farmers Market, sidewalk in front of Rieke Elementary School from 10am to 2pm. It is FREE. All ages/ abilities welcome! Celebrates arts programs at Wilson HS, Robert Gray MS, Jackson MS, Hayhurst School, Capitol Hill ES, Rieke ES, Markham ES, Stephenson ES, Maplewood ES. Click here to learn more about our past chalk art festivals: http://www.wilsonarts.org/chalk-art/chalk.htm.

PURSE DONATIONS NEEDED: BENEFIT FOR THE ARTS AT WILSON HIGH SCHOOL
The Wilson Area Arts Council (WAAC) will be hosting IN THE BAG: Benefit for the Arts on Sunday, November 14, 2010 from 1:00pm to 4:00pm at O'Connors, The Annex in Multnomah Village (owned by Wilson grad Steve Arel '67). Join us for a boutique purse sale with wine and appetizers, where you will find beautiful new and gently used purses and handbags. All proceeds benefit Wilson High School Music Program.

But first we need your help. We aren't asking you to open your purse, we are asking you to donate a purse to support the arts. Let's face it. We all have one or two purses in our closet that are attractive and perfectly useable (even brand new), but never see the light of day. If you have such a purse, WAAC wants your purse. If you know someone who makes purses and would like to donate one or two, let us know.

To donate your purse, email Linda Doyle at LSDOYLE@EARTHLINK.NET or call Jaci Evans at 503-502-7612. You can also drop off your new or gently used purse at the Chalk Art Festival, Sunday, September 12 from 10am to 2pm at the Hillsdale Farmers Market, in front of Rieke Elementary School.

LOOKING FOR OLD DRAMA POSTERS
Wilson High School is looking for Performing Arts Posters from years past.  Currenty, we have a wall of ASB Presidents and Rose Princesses in the foyer.  Wilson plans to move these photos out of the foyer and to their new spot in the main hall.  We will then put up old and current performing arts posters in the foyer.  If you know someone who has a poster from a prior Wilson Production 1956-2006, we would like a copy.  Please contact Erica Meyers at: emeyers@pps.k12.or.us or call 503-916-6142.

WILSON STRINGS PROGRAM GIVES STUDENTS A CHANCE TO MAKE MUSIC
That's all in jeopardy. How can you help? Due to budget cuts over the last 15 years, decreases in music programs at the elementary levels, particularly in strings programs, have caused the demise of the Wilson High School orchestra. We need to raise funds in order for our students to continue to access support in this area during the 2010-11 school year. GOAL: To raise $8,000 to help pay for the "Strings" expert. HOW YOU CAN HELP ... Make a donation.  Donate by going to: http://www.wilsonarts.org/artsdrive.htm.  Thank you to those who have already sent in their generous donation. But, we still need more. Your generous donation will support a long tradition of music at Wilson. Thank you!


STAY IN TOUCH

WWHS ALUMNI - WEBSITE
Check out the WWHS Alumni website and don't forget to complete the simple online form to join the WWHS Alumni database. To help us reach as many graduates as possible, please consider adding the link to our website (http://www.wilsonalumni.com/) from your website. Pass the word along to your Wilson High School classmates about the Wilson High School Alumni website and the opportunity to register. Tell your friends.

SPAM OR UNSUBSCRIBE
If you are receiving the WWHS Alumni Update, please make sure to add the following email address to your address book (lsdoyle@earthlink.net). This way your internet/email provider will not view the e-newsletter as spam. Thanks! If you would like to be removed from the list, just send an email to Linda Doyle.