Woodrow Wilson High School Alumni Update - October, 2016
http://www.wilsonalumni.com
edited by Linda Doyle
SCHOOL NEWS
NEWS FLASH: WHS CLASS OF 1976 STEPS UP!!!
At their reunion in August 2016 the fabulous Class of ’76 generated a $500 contribution to the Wilson Scholarship Initiative. This year the school's Scholarship Initiative fund awarded two $1000 scholarships to deserving graduates and made a start on raising $50,000 to endow a fund through Oregon Community Foundation to provide scholarships in perpetuity for Wilson grads. Thank you Trojans of ’76, we are grateful for your support.
WILSON HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION
The Wilson Foundation raises money for additional staff and impacts every student in the school. Please consider signing up today for a recurring monthly donation of $10 or more. All monthly donors will receive a gift in appreciation for their support; for donors signing up to give $20 or more monthly we have a limited supply of PIL passes, good for one person for a year’s worth of free admission to all PIL athletic events. Establish a monthly donation or make a one-time contribution at https://allhandsraised.org/donate/. To learn more about the campaign and about the Wilson Foundation, read Principal’s Chatard’s recent letter to the Wilson community here, and thank you for your support!
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
WHS CLASS OF '84 GRATEFUL NOT DEAD TOUCH OF GREY
Twelve men from Wilson’s Class of 1984 completed the 198-mile Hood to Coast Relay on August 26-27, 2016. They finished 4th place in the Men’s Super Master division (50 and older) and 524th overall out of 1050 teams! The Wilson alums called themselves “WHS Class of ’84 Grateful Not Dead Touch of Grey,” which pays a nod to the music of their time as well as their current hair color. Because all of the runners were at least 50 years old, the team competed in the Supermaster men’s class. Most of the runners reside in Portland, however, some flew in from Idaho, Colorado, and even Ireland for the event.
The team consisted of Sean Fennessy, Tom Diffely, Randy Acker, Mike Yoder, Rob Gilbert, and Ed Sloop in Van 1, which was driven by Ian McLoughlin, and John Whittier, Andy Sloop, Tom McKillop, Ken Venables, Tim Landis, and John Kodachi in Van 2. Fellow ’84 classmates Paul Cameron, Greg White, and Ken Shults pitched in different ways to support the team, including Ken designing the team’s shirt. Well done!
A BOOK 30 YEARS IN THE MAKING ... BY KC COWAN
Most people find their “tribe” in college – making their most lasting friendships there. But for me, Wilson High School provided me with a group of people I am still proud to call my “best friends.” We were all involved in drama and music and formed a bond that continues to this day.
I would have to say that Sara Cole and Nancy Danner are the two with whom I keep closest contact, and a project we resurrected from the past has solidified that bond.
We all went to different colleges – I went to Oregon State, Sara attended Portland State, and Nancy went to U of O. In 1978, Sara had just finished reading “Lord of the Rings” and decided she wanted to write her own fantasy novel. So, she wrote chapter one of “The Log,” in which she named herself Princess Irene of Cabbage who had a best friend, Nan the Dancer. She sent a copy off to Nancy and asked her to write the next chapter.
It then came to me. In Chapter 3, I introduced myself as a character, Kay of the Crystal Seas, and we were off and running. Sadly, Nancy was a student teacher in our senior year and had little time for writing. Although Sara and I always kept her in the loop and asked her to write a chapter, she basically dropped out.
We used familiar settings from our state and changed the names. For example, the girls live in the Valley of William Etté near the Hooded Mountains. We put all our friends in as characters. Not that they were really similar to the people in the book – it was more like casting a play. If we needed a villain, well, Richard would make a good one, so let’s make him the bad guy.
We wrote chapters between 1978 and 1982, eventually filling two large three-ring binders with hand written and Xeroxed copies. Eventually though, life got busy and we dropped it. However, I never threw out my copy. It sat in my basement for decades and when I got married and moved, I brought it with me, even though I hadn’t looked at it once in all that time and we three never even talked about it.
Fast forward to 2012. I was out of work with time on my hands. Out of the blue, Sara asked me if I still had “The Log,” and if so, would I consider typing it up so we all could see it again? Both she and Nancy had lost their copies. So I did and we took great delight in seeing what we had done.
However, when we got to the last chapter, we discovered we had just stopped and not completed the story! By now, we were all invested in it again, so one time when Nancy was up from California on a visit, we mapped out the finish and thirty years after we stopped writing, we brought the story to a conclusion. Irene, Nan and Kay join forces to defeat an evil wizard and save the land. TO celebrate, I printed copies for us at Powell’s Book Machine.
That might have been the end of it, except I had a feeling there was a “real book” in there somewhere. I asked Nancy and Sara if they would let me try to polish it and pitch it for publication. They agreed and I spent the next three and a half years working on the newly renamed, “Journey to Wizards’ Keep.”
Like most first time authors, I made mistakes, pitched it too soon and got a lot of rejections. But on July 31st, 2015, I got a “yes” from Ravenswood Publishing – a tiny boutique publishing company. The past year has been a whirlwind of working with editors, cover artist, and learning how to help market it. Best of all, Sara and I continued writing and completed a sequel, with a third book nearly done.
Who could have imagined my life would take this turn? And that something we wrote just for fun would be published? I just know that when “Journey to Wizards’ Keep” comes out, I will be forever grateful that I found my two best friends at Wilson High School.
Journey to Wizards’ Keep is available on Amazon.com, Createspace.com, Kindle, iBooks, KOBO, NOOK, and Audible.com, starting September 25.
Event: Annie Bloom's Books will be hosting a reading from Portland author KC Cowan on Thursday, November 3, 2016 from 7:00pm to 8:00pm. Event address: Annie Bloom's, 7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR 97219.
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.
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 just been added to the list:
Dan Del Lee '71
Howard Rahn '68
Stanley Ancil Stanton (Wilson teacher) passed away in 2001
Walter "Chuck" Jameson '61
Sharon Moynihan '71
Janet Hill Styner '71
Shirley Faye Mattson '65
James "Jim" MCCulley '65
Jane Clare Kelty Ford '63
Dave Loye '62
Susan Lee Laspa (Kennedy Schuler) '64 who died in Islamist terrorist attack on World Trade Center, September 11th 2001.
Click on this link to read more about classmates, teachers, community members who have passed away... Once on the page, scroll down to find the class year.
UPCOMING REUNIONS 2016
...ALREADY HELD IN 2016
CLASS OF 1959 ... July 23, 2016
CLASS OF 1961 ... July 15, 2016
CLASS OF 1965 ... August 13 2016
CLASS OF 1966 ... September 24, 2016
CLASS OF 1971 ... September 24, 2016
CLASS OF 1976 ... August 6, 2016
CLASS OF 1991 ... July 30, 2016
CLASS OF 1996 ... August 5-6, 2016
CLASS OF 2006 ... September 24, 2016
2017 REUNION
CLASS OF 1967 ... 50th reunion in 2017... August 4, 2017
GET ALL THE DETAILS about upcoming reunions at: http://www.wilsonalumni.com/reunions.htm
MILITARY SERVICE
WILSON GRADUATES WHO HAVE SERVED OR ARE SERVING IN THE MILITARY
Please check out the WWHS Military Alumni page and read all about our amazing military graduates. To add your name and information to the WWHS Military page, Send your information to Linda Doyle at LSDOYLE@EARTHLINK.NET.
Name:
Year graduated from Wilson:
Military branch:
Years of service:
Service description:
Photo (optional):
Do you give permission to post this information on our website (required):
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION UPDATE
NEW WWHS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
Alumni and community members are continuing to move forward to establish the WWHS Alumni Association. Application process for tax-exempt status of association is progressing (with special thanks to Jack Bertell '58). If you would like to join them, contact Jack Bertell '58.
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.
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