ELSIE LYON HINKHOUSE:  It’s been a sad time for me having lost my husband Jim on December 31.  He had been in the hospital with pancreatic cancer but was determined to come home on December 30, our 54th wedding anniversary.  He passed on at home with family caring for him that day and night.  I moved to Morning Star, a senior living facility, the end of February.  It is located close to my daughter Amy, son-in-law Rich and two wonderful grandchildren who all keep me involved.  I have many activities including DAR, PEO, bridge clubs and activities at Morning Star.  Boise, Idaho continues to surprise me with beautiful weather as it is located on a high desert and it rarely has very cold temperatures and little snow.  But there are great ski resorts an hour or so away which keep my grandkids and their parents skiing on weekends.  I’ve been to Sun Valley and Bogus Basin to watch them ski.  Wishing all of my wonderful classmates a great holiday season and all that is wonderful in 2017.

GENIE (EUGENIA) SMITH DURLAND:  I just got the reunion materials from Hood and wish, as always, that I could go. Now, in our retirement, it’s too expensive and in the past it seems we were always too busy. In our 80s, Bill and I are still in pretty good shape and active. At the moment are spending our time participating in rallies and marches protesting the bogus election of Trump and meeting locally and nationally with peace and justice groups we’ve long been associated with to work on how to deal with what may happen next. Enough of that.  Personally, we have (between us) 8 children, 17 grandchildren and 3 great grands. Our youngest son (the ours in the yours-mine-and-ours) lives in Denver with his fiancé and two little boys; we see them often and are now considering moving to Denver from Colorado Springs to be closer to them and our daughter, Julia, who lives in Boulder with her three children – Carlton, a Chef; Amber, who works three jobs trying to save enough money to go to Thailand for training in massage therapy and acupuncture and Logan, a high school senior. Julia is a special education teacher at Boulder High. We also have a daughter, Fadwah Halaby, who is a certified nurse-midwife with her own independent practice in south Florida; she lives in Delray Beach and practices in Boca. She has six kids, all grown and is the grandmother of our 3 great grands who live here in Colorado, near us. If I went on with details about all our children and grands, this would be about three pages long, so I’ll stop there. Also personally, I keep busy editing Bill’s writings. He has published two more books in the past three years and has written ten plays, nine of which have been produced before appreciative audiences here in Colorado Springs and Denver. That’s about it. Wish I could see all who come to the reunion, but it doesn’t look like it’ll happen unless I win the lottery or some such thing.

SUE WINTER SMITH:  I will send whatever I can dredge up which isn’t much because not much is happening. We are still living in Issaquah in a retirement apartment home. We like it here even though it isn’t our home of so many years. It’s different but has many advantages, one being I don’t have to cook dinner anymore or vacuum or clean the bathrooms. We just returned from two weeks in Hawaii with friends. We were on the island of Kauai which is my favorite. The weather was perfect; temperature was upper 70’s, low 80’s. Ideal! We returned to upper 40’s, rain and wind and I am freezing. We will spend Thanksgiving with our son and his family here in Issaquah. His children are our youngest grandchildren, CJ and Erica. We will see our oldest, Aislinn, when she is on her way home to Ellensburg from college at Western WA. She is doing her student teaching this year and will graduate in June. The program at Western is very intense and they turn out superior teachers. Number two granddaughter, Brynn, is a sophomore at Evergreen college. She intends to be a writer and will be a very good one. Her sister, number three granddaughter, Ari, will graduate from HS in June. She is in the Running Start program and attends Skagit Valley Community College as well as HS. She graduates on a Friday and the next day Aislinn will graduate from Western. Fortunately they are in close proximity so we can go to both. A couple of weeks later we will have all the family here to celebrate our 60th anniversary. This is a lot of rambling, but there you have it. Do with it what you will. Thanks for doing this. I do like to hear about everyone, but will not be at the reunion. It’s too far and too much going on then.

ANN LARKIN:  After replacement of both shoulders and one knee I hope for a surgery free year ahead. I have cut back on some activities, but remain active in church, AAUW, DAR and my quilt group. I also enjoy the Detroit Symphony coffee concerts and am looking forward to my granddaughter’s graduation from medical school in May.

BARBARA THOMAS YINGER:  You already posted info about our trip to the Amazon in Brazil and areas beyond – that was last March.  So everything else is status quo.  The main thing I’d like to say is that I hope to see as many of our class as possible at the reunion.  None of us know for sure how many years we can keep doing this, so my thing is to take each chance for a visit that we can make now.  Hope to see “you”.  How could I have forgotten to mention that Bob and I celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary Aug. 19, 2016.  Our children, Laura and Scott gave us a dinner with extended family at an elegant restaurant in Frederick.

NANCY PAUL STIMSON:  I am still alive and well, although have hit the age where my friends are either falling or dying. Have to be careful. We will be going to my daughters in Doylestown for Christmas. February will find me off to South Africa and May will find me in Rome and the Greek Islands. July will welcome my first great grandchild and September will be the wedding on the Vineyard of my grandson. Have to stay healthy for all those events. Am not sure I can make reunion ‘cause that may be a baby shower weekend.  Merry Christmas to all

MOLLY SMITH SPERANDIO:  Nothing new with me.  I’m still upright when I want to be and doing all the things I like to do.  So, life is good!