Class Blog

July 29, 2008

Manhattan Tornadoes

For anyone who'd like to share your memories and/or photos of the tornadoes that swept through Manhattan earlier this year, here's your chance!

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April 9, 2008

Kent's Snake

Did anyone see this?

Click Here: for an article on one of our classmates from the Mercury on April 7, 2008.

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February 18, 2008

Presidential Election 2008

Our class poll shows we are a very active group politically. As the primary season continues for the Democrats, and the Republicans seem to have gotten behind John McCain, how are you feeling about America's future? Who would you like to see in the White House for the next four years? What issues are important to you? Are you actively engaged in campaigning for a particular candidate? If so, why? Are you fed up with the whole thing and electing to sit this one out? Feel free to add a picture or links to candidates' websites in your entries. There are probably at least a few of us who are undecided, so here's your chance to sound off in support of your favorite candidate and encourage your classmates to get out and vote!

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Scott Kaufman on February 18, 2008 11:27 AM

Well, rather than go into detail, I thought I'd submit for comment a piece one of my colleagues I wrote for the History News Network:

http://hnn.us/articles/47143.html

Dani on March 10, 2008 11:52 AM

Way to go, Scott! Congratulations on your book! It looks like it was alot of fun to research and write. Where can I find a copy?

Scott Kaufman on March 22, 2008 12:49 PM

Dani,

Thanks for the congratulations!

You can get a copy through Barnes and Noble, Border's, or Amazon.com.

Re the election - it looks as though we may be heading to a brokered Democratic convention. This could bring the party renewed troubles, particularly if things turn out like they did in 1980 or, worse, 1968. In 1980, Carter and Kennedy split the party. In 1968, there was such opposition to the nomination of Hubert Humphrey that there were violent protests in the streets of Chicago. I hope that neither becomes the case, but with Florida and Michigan unable to devise a plan for a new primary/caucus, and with neither Clinton nor Obama showing any signs of giving in, things in Denver could turn nasty.

Any feelings out there on the Richardson endorsement of Obama? I'll be curious to see if: a) it's part of a hope by Richardson to be named Obama's vp candidate; b) it brings Obama votes from Hispanics who, up to this point, have been largely pro-Clinton.

Dani on March 31, 2008 10:39 PM

Yeah, it looks like there could be a serious floor fight in Denver. The word I'm hearing is, yes, Richardson is vying for the VP nod. Here in Texas, it seems the Hispanics are calling Richardson a sell-out and won't back Obama no matter what. From my GOP perspective, it seems that the Dems have played these two key minority groups against each other for so long in order to maintain their relevance as a party, and now it is coming back to bite them.
Don't look for a cakewalk in St. Paul either. The GOP and the mainstream media are being silent on the fact that Ron Paul Republicans are taking over conventions nation-wide and are getting tons of delegates to their next higher conventions. They heard Dr. Paul say that "winning in the conventional sense is no longer attainable", but they ignored it when he went on to say that we are still trying to win as many votes and as many delegates as possible in the remaining states. Take a look at the conventions that produced Lincoln, Harrison, and Goldwater, and you'll see that Ron Paul still has every intention on trying to win the UNconventional way!
If the left side of the aisle gets so crazy, you want another option, please check out my blog. It's not so much about Ron Paul as it is about returning the GOP to its conservative roots and electing constitutionalists to office at every level of government.

Dani on April 7, 2008 9:29 AM

Oops! I guess I could have posted my blog address to make it a little easier! It's also on my profile on our Classmates page, but here's the address: www.nakedliberty.blogspot.com

Dani on February 21, 2008 3:46 PM

I'm for the candidate who has never flip-flopped on any issue ever; the one who has had an extensive history of success both in the private sector and as an elected representative of the people; the one who has received more donations from active duty & retired military personnel than all the remaining candidates combined; the only one who knows the constitution inside & out and is the only candidate with a 20-year voting record of fulfilling the part of the oath of office about "obeying" the constitution; the only candidate who can bring about the real kinds of changes that actually matter to our survival and success as a nation; the only candidate who will keep our military strong AND not use it to police the world or get entangled in other countries' internal affairs; the one who knows that freedom is the answer to all our ills, but will work to spread it - not through force or show of might - but through active engagement, trade, diplomacy and friendship that will ultimately serve to restore America to the great beacon of liberty we were destined to be by virtue of a regained trust and respect, not 'because we said so"; the only candidate who truly believes in individual liberty and has introduced hundreds of pieces of legislation working to restore our freedoms; the only candidate who has a deep understanding of our monetary system and what we must to to ensure we do not fail as a nation because we run ourselves into financial ruin.........I could go on for days, but if you haven't figured out who I'm talking about yet, it's probably because the mainstream media and those who would like to keep right on ignoring the Constitution when it suits them politically or financially are scared to death that such a person might actually get into the White House! Despite such efforts to keep his message from reaching the masses, a groundswell of support continues to gain momentum each day. We are marching in DC soon to show our true numbers in hopes that the media can no longer ignore us and are also committing to write him in on the November ballot if all else fails. Please check out www.ronpaul2008.com to see what the Revolution is all about! Don't believe anything the media says about him, please watch as many youtube videos, etc. as possible before you enter the polling booth in November.

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December 14, 2007

Ice Storm from Midwest to Northeast

Kansas has been hard hit this week with an ugly ice storm that also wreaked havoc on Oklahoma, Missouri, and Iowa. It has now spread all the way to the East Coast. Many of our classmates are surely affected. If you have a story to tell about "The Ice Storm of 2007", please add it as a comment below.

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October 24, 2007

California Wildfires

An area very near Susette and April

The following alumni are known to be living in the affected areas:

Debo Adejunmobi
Eric Hoffman
Susette (Burnett) Horne - see entry below
Nancho Lopez - added per Susette's entry below
April (Milliken) MacKinnon - see entry below
Darin Williamson - see entry below

Lisa (Hale) Perez and Jennifer (Gilbert) Gebhardt also live in California, but we do not know what city. At least nine other classmates live in areas of California that are not immediately in danger.

Please keep these classmates in your thoughts as the heat, dry landscape, and Santa Ana winds team up for a perfect firestorm. Already, more people have been evacuated than from New Orleans during Katrina!

If you are a classmate living in the area of the fires, please leave us a comment below to let us know how you are!

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Darin Williamson on October 24, 2007 12:17 PM

I'm at work and everything is going fine pretty much in Carlsbad. Air quality stinks and some people are mildly freaked out. We closed at 3 PM yesterday and re-opened today, most of the fire is missing us in Carlsbad. A lot of friends and co-workers have been evacuated or have decided to stay home rather than come to work.

Here's some local news sites that have more information:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/

http://www.nctimes.com/

(Darin sent this message via email on Tuesday afternoon, 10/23 - posted to the blog by Dani.)

Jodie (Woods) Bartelson on October 24, 2007 5:40 PM

I hadn't really heard about the fires until last night. Thanks so much for bringing it closer to home by identifying classmates. My prayers will be with all in harms way. I can't imagine having a fire and my neighbors going through the same thing. It was hard enough when just Chad's grandparents lost their home in a fire and we had two towns of people offering help.

Andrea on October 24, 2007 8:06 PM

April (Milliken) MacKinnon is fine. Soot on the house, but nothing destroyed. Will return home when air quality gets better.

Susette (Burnett) Horne on October 25, 2007 12:03 PM

We are fine. We returned to our home last night (Wed). We evacuated early Monday morning with very little and feel extremely lucky to have our house and belongings.
I already know personal friends who have lost everything, and it's a very sobering thought. Thanks for thinking of us, and I hope my other classmates
here in California are safe.

Susette (Burnett) Horne on October 26, 2007 1:27 PM

I believe another classmate Nancho Lopez is also still living in San Diego. My thoughts are with him and his family.

April MacKinnon on October 25, 2007 1:51 PM

Thank you for your thoughts. We left on Monday and stayed with complete strangers in Pacific Beach. Very surreal experience, but we made it. We are back now and awaiting to hear from friends in Susette's area, Rancho Bernardo. Several of my sons' teachers live over there and we are concerned. But for us, aside from major clean-up (asked to be done without electricity or water...hmmmm, how to do that?), we are safe. Now my goal is to keep our lungs health from all the wonderful soot in the aire.... Thank you for your thoughts.
April

Debo on April 12, 2008 11:33 AM

I know it happened about six months ago, but I thought I'd let everyone know I survived the fires too. I'm in Santa Monica, so it was happening just north of me, but other than some poor air quality, I had no problems. Hey Darin, ran into your brother when I was back in Manhattan in January. We should catch up.

DA

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October 19, 2007

The Official Blog of the MHS Class of 1987

Welcome to the newest feature of our site! Most of you know that a blog is cyber-speak for a 'web log', but for those of you a little behind the technology times (ahem, Krista), here's how it works:

This is basically just a community journal where we can write anything we want about any topic we want. Others can add comments about your entry. You can even post a reply to another person's comment. All related comments are kept together in a chain to form a 'conversation'.  You'll want to check here often to get in on the conversations! It's like our own little water cooler on the web!

Some suggestions for topics include updates on you and your family, stories from high school, thoughts on past or future reunions, opinions on current events, etc. The first topic has been done for you so you can get an idea of what a 'conversation' looks like from the title and first entry to all of the comments and replies that follow.

Myevent.com has the blog set up where I have to input new entries, then anyone can make comments.  It would get pretty boring rather quickly, though, if I were the only one blogging!  To start a brand new topic, email me at danikays@austin.rr.com with a title, your text, and a picture if you want.   For example, there are currently three topics with the titles "California Wildfires", "The Official Blog of the MHS Class of 1987" and "Funny Stories about Learning how to Drive". The archives menu at the upper right will hopefully grow as new topics are added, so check back often to get in on the conversations or, better yet, start one!

We are only limited by our imaginations - What do you want to talk about? Perhaps you even want to start a weekly or monthly blog and you could think of a name like 'Terri Talks' or 'Post's Posts' under which title all of your entries can be found!

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October 18, 2007

Funny Stories about Learning to Drive

Remember all those questions you answered on the 'Indian Tales' page before the reunion? We used many answers to come up with the various prizes and awards given away at the banquet.

I also promised that some of the answers would be used on the site to keep it fresh and give everyone a reason to visit often. Well, I'm fulfilling that promise by using your answers to "Share a funny story about learning to drive" to create a blog entry.

I figured it would be difficult to get the ball rolling on our blog, so I've kept these -and similar stories- as my ace in the hole! Each story is posted below as a comment to this entry. Just click 'SHOW COMMENTS' below to see the 21 entries already added!!

Please feel free to comment on any story below by clicking on 'Reply' just beneath it (inside the comment's box). Or add your own story by clicking on 'Add New Comment'.

If you have a picture of you with a car you drove in high school, please email it to me and I'll post them here!

--Dani (Daly) Kays

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Cindi (Eckhoff) Chase on October 20, 2007 1:42 PM

My brother would take me to Cico Park where there was a great hill in the parking lot so that he could teach me how to drive a stick shift car. Definitely a great way to learn because if you don't press the gas you will just roll all the way down the hill. I was able to use this same technique to teach another person to drive a stick shift car.

Dani (Daly) Kays on October 20, 2007 3:35 PM

I used the same technique to teach my son how to ride a bike!

---This is a reply to Cindi's comment above. To reply to any comment, just click the little 'Reply' button at the end of the comment.

---So now you know how it works, get busy commenting and posting replies, and creating new topics! :)

Alexandria (Cervantes) Mitchell on October 20, 2007 1:44 PM

my ex at the time was my fiance showed me how to drive a stick shift at Cico Park I kept stalling the car could never make it pass the wooden post in the parking lot

Beth (Swenson) Marine on October 20, 2007 1:45 PM

I was 12 and was at the dairy farm and my cousin needed an extra hand driving a farm truck. He said it was easy and as long as I could reach the pedals I'd be fine. So here I was crawling into this huge old grain truck, starting the motor and shifting into first. I killed the engine probably 10 times before I got going and never got out of first gear. But it was the funnest day ever driving that truck. We were in big wheat fields so there wasn't anything I could run into, which was a good thing.

Christine (Rogers) Weixelman on October 20, 2007 2:16 PM

Keri Lake was taking her driving test and she turned on the radio. When Mr Sampson went to turn it off, she [lightly] slapped his hand and said, "I'm driving and I'll listen to the radio if I want to".
(Unbelievably, she passed driver's ed)

Clinton Riley on October 20, 2007 2:17 PM

I vividly remember sitting out front of the school as a sophomore, waiting for my mom to come pick me up, when a FRESHMAN (I wish I could remember her name) walked out, jangling her car keys, asking me, first, whether I had my learner's permit yet ("Uh, nope"), and then whether I needed a ride ("Uh, thanks, but I'm just waiting for my mom..."). Boy did I feel like a geek.

David Miller on October 20, 2007 2:18 PM

I always had the impression that teaching Driver's Ed class got in the way of Coach Marn's tanning time.

Dennis Marstall on October 20, 2007 2:20 PM

I started learning to drive in the 5th or 6th grade with Kent Kiracofe, as his dad would let us drive the car on dirt roads through the gated, KSU pasture land.

Jared Rand on October 20, 2007 2:21 PM

It was summer school. The morning before our night class, I had a lesson from the instructor. It was not a good one. That night in class she talked about what was expected on the final driving test. I asked how poorly you could do without failing. And she said "About how you drove this morning."

Jodie (Woods) Bartelson on October 20, 2007 2:23 PM

I babysat for Mr. Pesaresi the summer I took Driver's Ed. Tara Wood came over and we decided to lock the girls outside and short sheet Mr. P's bed. The next morning when Mr. P came to pick me up, I overslept. During Simulator driving, Mr. P made a comment to the affect of "If I hand't been messing around in other people's bed last night, I wouldn't have overslept." I'm not sure how many shades of red I turned.

Jonell (Borst) Johnson on October 20, 2007 2:25 PM

I can't really remember anything funny about learning how to drive. My brother, Roch, took me out in the KSU football stadium parking lot and taught me how to drive when I was 13. Dad made me take driver's ed anyway for the insurance discount. I ended up taking it in the summer when I was 16 at the same time as my younger sister, Juli. She hadn't had any experience before the class and failed miserably. Our instructor kept telling me how awful she did. I guess she backed up over every single cone! Now that she's a New Yorker, she doesn't have to drive very often. I'm sure she'll love me for telling on her!

Kelly (Pearson) Grossnickle on October 20, 2007 2:26 PM

One time I was driving my brother to school and he was messing around with the radio so, of course, I had to stop him. In doing that I plowed over my neighbor's mailbox.

Lee Hudson on October 20, 2007 2:28 PM

My dad was a cop so there were many pre-driving lectures about what to do and what not do while I was riding shotgun with Captain Hudson. The actual event of driving was easy.

Martha Kropf on October 20, 2007 2:29 PM

After being an "A" student, I almost flunked driver's ed (I was just too nervous!). I had to redo the final drive...but I had fun with Laura Kissel and Carrie Clark learning to drive.

Melissa McCranie on October 20, 2007 2:30 PM

Realizing that the signs on the side of the interstate are for the cars approaching the ON ramp and not the car I'm driving on the actual interstate. I always thought I had to get over to the signs to get to where I'm going......hmmmmm.....suppose there could be life lesson in there somewhere.

Mike Fegter on October 20, 2007 2:31 PM

We had a 1971 VW bug that had so much rust the floor board near the peddles had holes in it. One time I had to slam on the brakes and my foot almost went through the floor board to hit the ground.

Renee (Ward) Gassmann on October 20, 2007 2:33 PM

Mr. Sperman and that huge old white stick-shift station wagon... need I say more?

Rob Parish on October 20, 2007 2:34 PM

One of my scariest moments driving during high school was doing a 360 on a frozen Fort Riley Blvd in front of the Holidome as I tried to slow down for the streetlight. Happily I ended up facing the correct way and continued down the road.

Scott Kaufman on October 20, 2007 2:37 PM

It was my last day of driving school. The teacher -- whose name I forget -- had put some eggs on the ledge behind the back seat. She said that if the eggs remained uncracked, each student would get an "A." Well, all went fine. I was the last one to drive. There was only one other student with us, and as she hadn't driven to school, the instructor and I dropped her off at her house. I assumed that this meant the class was over and that I had gotten an "A." So, I got a little wild with the car and ended up cracking an egg. The instructor then told me that the class wasn't over. Luckily, the egg didn't break, but I still ended up with a "B."

Scott Wangsgaard on October 20, 2007 2:38 PM

In Freshman driver's ed I had not the slightest clue how to work the controls in the real car, not just the simulator. I tried to shift into reverse, but the windshield wipers went on instead. Brennan Dailey was in the car with me and busted up laughing. I also just about gave the other students in the car a heart attack when I would pull into a parking stall too fast and get abusive with the curb.

Teresa (Bonacorda) Cabanting on October 20, 2007 2:39 PM

My mom had a black Daytona and it was a standard, I was pulling out of the "OLD" Wal Mart parking lot and if you remember it was not flat and there was the big ditch across the road - I came within about 3 feet of putting us into the ditch because I could not get the hang of letting up on the clutch and pushing down on the gas "at just the right timing"

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