Janet Abrahamson
Joan Berg
Earl Berglund
Karen Bruss
David Carlson
Janet Davis
Lois Eichten
John Erickson
Ellis Frans
Patricia Grothe
Marlys Hanson
Wayne Hartzmann
Charles Johnson
Gerald Johnson
Judy Ann Johnson
Judy Carol Johnson
Sherwin Johnson
Karen Koehn
Gary Larson
Gail Lindberg
Suzanne Lindblad
Robert Luger
Joseph Mattson
Gary McClellan
John Melin
Mary Jo Moody
Carol Anne Nelson
Lyle (Bob) Nelson
Mylo Nelson
Charles Peterson
Julaine Peterson
Joyce Reylek
Mary Ann Rickaby
Duane Rudquist
Sarah Rundgren
Janet Schmit
Janice Schmit
Carol Smith
Marilyn Strand
Rueben Tangren
Arbutious Thompson
Karen Titrud
James Videen
Gwen Westman

"The football team isn't the only place where you need a line. "
Band 1; Choir 1, 3, 4; Class Officer 3;
Lettermen's Club 1, 2, 3, 4; Basketball 2, 3, 4; Football 1, 2, 3, 4; Baseball 1, 2, 3, 4;
Annual Staff 3.

12975 Evergreen Drive
Lindstrom, MN
651-257-5043

Email

Wife:
Children:

Married in North St. Paul
Born on October 29, 1969
Born on October 17, 1972

August 20, 1966
no children
Four children

After I played in the All-Star football game in August of 1958, the coach at the University of Colorado in Boulder flew me out to see their program & campus. I practiced with them 3 days (gasping for air as we ran laps in that altitude!), but worried CO was a little too far from home & I wouldn’t be any help for my mother. (Dad had died in July.) I had already pre-registered at Gustavus in St. Peter and went there to practice football when I got a call saying Murray Warmath wanted to talk to me. He offered me a full scholarship and I suited up to be a Gopher. During freshman practice of fall football, they switched me from quarterback to center because All-American Sandy Stephens was also a freshman and able to handle the quarterbacking job just fine. I played offense at center and defense as a middle linebacker. During a scrimmage one of my best friends clipped me in a downfield block that tore up my knee. After surgery & rehab running the steps of Memorial Stadium, I tried spring football but realized I couldn’t help a Big-Ten team and probably wouldn’t get much playing time. Because I wanted to play football, I transferred back to Gustavus but was ineligible to play my first year (’59-‘60) and unable to pay the tuition the second! That ended my plans for playing football past high school.

In order to raise money, I worked on some construction jobs and then at Brown & Bigelow in St. Paul, but in the back of my mind I still had the idea that I could be a teacher and maybe do a little coaching. At the U they had me all registered in phy ed--big, dumb football player, I guess—but it was math I wanted to teach.

Winter quarter ’63 I started at St. Cloud State and graduated after second summer session of 1965 with a major in math and a minor in phy ed, which qualified me to coach. I student taught at Columbia Heights in the spring of 1965 and the district offered me a position for junior high math and wrestling. Not exactly one of my sports, but I claimed I could do it and continued for 15 years, adding junior high football and girls’ basketball. I then moved to the high school faculty where I taught math, even a bit of phy ed, and coached football (best year was on the coaching staff for the state championship team in 1979), boys’ basketball and girls’ basketball. Teaching & coaching at the Heights was very rewarding and I enjoyed everything but the commute, although even that didn’t get bad until my last couple of years. Retirement came in January of 1998.

Bev had also been hired in the Heights as a 7 th-grade teacher in 1965 and we met the first day of teachers’ workshop. We had the same group of kids for a couple of years and had a lot of fun with them.

We wanted to raise our children in a small town and moved from Brooklyn Park to Lindstrom in 1972, to Doc Albright’s house on Maple St. We moved in 1999 and currently live in a townhouse a couple of blocks north of the high school.

Having the grandsons around is our favorite pastime and we’re thankful they live in Lindstrom, but we also like to get out of town occasionally. Our traveling has taken us to 48 states, a lot of Canada, and to Mexico, Scandinavia and Western Europe. We’ve worked on three Habitat-for-Humanity blitz-builds (completed house in 7-10 days!) and we do a little community volunteering. I stayed off the golf course for the past two years, getting new knees (decades of playing sports), a hip (mishap hanging Christmas lights), and some back correction (born that way), but we both plan to get back to swinging the clubs.

It’s been a great 50 years. It sure has disappeared quickly!