JIM "THE DEACON" KREUZE

"Capital Continues to Sink"..."Underground Rail System Nears Completion"..."Parliamentary Election Results Announced Tomorrow"..."Election Fraud Confirmed"..."Floods Close Highways in the South"..."Drought Plagues the Northeast"..."Military Mourns Expiration of Anti-Communist Act"..."Military Promotes New National Security Act"..."Passengers Killed in Tour Bus Accident"..."Tour Bus Driver Flees the Scene"

If these newspaper headlines ring a bell, you were probably a PCV in Thailand in the 1970's.

What is amazing is that these headlines are taken from recent (2001) editions of the Bangkok Post. The adage is quite true when applied to Thailand, "The more things change, the more they stay the same".

This is Jim Kreuze (Thai 34) reporting from the Big Durian. No, I haven't been here for the past 30 years: it just seems that way. I served as a volunteer at Pakkred School in Nonthaburi from 1971-1976. Highlights during this period included marriage to Mary Ellen Torney (Thai 43) in 1975 and completion of the first 3 books of the English for Thai Students textbook series, along with Chuck and Carolyn Cox, Steve Fox and Larry Boehm (all Thai 34).

Subsequent graduate work was completed at Thunderbird School of International Management (Finance and Economics), U of Michigan (Linguistics) and UC Berkeley (Bilingual Education). Work assignments followed in Isfahan, Iran (6 months with Bell Helicopter); Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (7 years with Northrop Aircraft); Stockton, California (3 years in public schools) and back to Thailand (11 years with Unocal).

Along the way, Mary Ellen and I managed to produce 3 children (currently 21, 19 and 16) and to purchase a house in Lodi, California. After 10 years working for the DEA, Jusmag and the US Embassy, Mary Ellen is currently pursuing her Special Ed credential in Lodi.

I thought that a few comparisons about Thailand THEN (1971) and NOW (2001) might be interesting:

THEN.. NOW

1. Exchange Rate: 20 baht/$...45 baht/$

2. Bangkok bus fare: 50 satang.. 5-25 baht depending on the bus

3. Price of fried rice: 5 baht...50 baht

4. Price of fried noodles: 3 baht...25 baht

5. A beer on Patpong: 10 baht...80-100 baht

6. Taxi service: Broken-down and non-metered, with each trip bargained for...Efficient and metered, NO bargaining

7. Travel time (from Mo Chit Bus Station to Sukhumvit): By White (#2) Bus: 2 hours By Skytrain (15 minutes)

8. Levels of Prostitution and Pollution High...Higher

9. Movie Reviews: Bernard Trink writing drivel...Trink writing drivel (but less often)

10. Legends: Ted Slade roaming Patpong searching for the elusive Apple...The ghost of Ted Slade roaming Patpong still searching for the elusive Apple

During the past 5 years in Songkhla and 6 years in Bangkok, Mary Ellen and I have been honored to receive visits from Carolyn Cox, Myron Berkman and Tim and Jan Ryan. If any of you find yourself drawn back to Bangkok, please give us a call. We can get together at what is still the best ISAAN restaurant in Bangkok, CHAMLONG KAI YANG.

Enjoy your reunion!

Plan for the next one in Bangkok (if the Capital hasn't sunk)!!

STEVE FOX

IT WAS THIRTY YEARS AGO TODAY

. . . Well not quite exactly, but the Sergeant Pepper reference was too good to pass up.

It was thirty years and a couple of weeks ago that we joined the Peace Corps, March 3, 1971. Thanks to Carolyn and Pat for a huge amount of work tracking people down and putting the web site together.

I long ago lost the steam to put out the update letters I sent around way back when -- now, it's evenings of helping with algebra homework and long days at the office trying to promote reform of the Japanese economy. Maybe that's what has turned all of my hair gray.

Like many of the people from Thai 34 I've kept intermittent contact with over the years, there's a fairly direct line from that day to where I am now. With a five-year detour to law school and a couple of one-year jobs, I've been on the federal payroll ever since.

I'm now a Foreign Service Officer with the State Department, working in the economic section at the Embassy in Tokyo. In 20-plus years with State, I've served a couple of times in China, a couple of times in Taiwan, India, and now Japan, plus the odd three years here and there back in Washington.

Try as I might -- it's been at the top of almost every wish list of assignments I've bid on -- I've never gotten posted back to Thailand, though I've been there on business a number of times, most notably from 1995-97, when I was working on refugee resettlement issues from Washington, but had a lot to do with Vietnamese issues.

This summer, we'll move back to Washington for at least a year; I start a yearlong training program in national security and national resources policy at the National Defense University.

My wife Bie (from Taiwan -- it's her name on the home e-mail account here) -- also works for State as a computer systems manager. She's the one with marketable skills, designing and maintaining large networks. She runs the Embassy's classified computer systems and this summer will move to become the manager of the networks (classified as well as unclassified) for the Africa Bureau at State. She's also the finest cook I know, and an avid collector of Chinese antiques. Our son Jeff, the ninth grader, is a passionate Orioles fan, not a bad punster (I encourage that, but haven't had the heart to tell him "Mel Famey" yet, Carolyn and Larry), a violinist, a computer game freak, and almost an Eagle Scout.

Sorry to say, I start class in Washington just at the time of the reunion, so I won't be able to join the festivities. You know I'll be there in spirit, though -- never could turn down a good "tiaw."

I'll celebrate with a good Thai dinner and a bottle of Singha.

With all of the e-mail addresses collected here, I hope everybody will pitch in with updates of what's happened to you over the last 30 years. I'll look forward to them.

Wan laang pop gan mai, na khrap!

LOWELL KILE

.... and Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play.

Wow.

What a blast from the past ... instant nostalgia. During the last few years I've been in contact with Carolyn (Cox) Nickels, Henry D, Pat Hughes ... and have been appallingly remiss in getting back to the Larry and Geri Carey. Have been living in the English countryside for the last 12 years since leaving New York City.

Will provide an update soonest.

Best regards to each of you, Lowell.

CAROLYN NICKELS-COX

(what's the next line?)

....she's been going in and out of style...

In 1984, I moved with my son, Nathan Cox, from Seattle to San Francisco. I began teaching high school ESL with the San Francisco Unified School District within a year (thanks to Myron Berkman/Thai 42), and two years later moved into regular English instruction at the middle school level. After receiving my MA in Instructional Technologies from San Francisco State University, I became a multimedia and technology resource teacher at the middle school and district levels. Now, I am what's called an Instructional Reform Facilitator at a middle school. It's an interesting job, though I am not sure how long I will remain in this position.

Nathan went through the public school system in San Francisco and graduated in 1995. Over the years, he developed an undying love for baseball and the Giants, played on numerous little league and school teams, coached little league for three years in Daly City and went with me to Giants' games for more years than I can count.

Following his graduation, Nathan attended San Francisco State, living his first year in a dorm and later back at home. During his twenty-first year, he married the girl next door, Silvie Cohen. (that was too much...one day he was my baby, the next day, he had cast me aside like yesterday's news...well, that's how I saw it). They moved to Arcata a month after their wedding and enrolled at Humboldt State University. They spent air with a national exchange program, studying at New Mexico State University one semester and at the University of Alaska in Juneau another. They graduated last spring and Nathan is currently doing work on his teaching credential at SFState. He is also subbing for the San Francisco Unified School District, and has spent many a day at my school. The students like him better than me. He is planning on teaching science and math at the middle school level.Nathan and Silvie became parents on October 21, 2002. Little Elysia Mirav Cohen-Cox is the Princess of the Universe. She is growing fast and full of energy and wonder. What a love! And I love being her grandmother.

Like me, Nathan looks forward to frequent school vacations as an opportunity for travel. Over the years, I dragged the boy around the world whenever we had more than a day off. He sometimes thought of it as a chore, but we saw a lot and had some great adventures. I am glad he has the travel bug now that he is an adult.

I have never remarried, though I have survived a couple of near-misses. Just as well. I'm too busy and too feisty.

That's it!

Love, Carolyn

LARRY CAREY

Here at the University (of Washington in Seattle) i work primarily on a project called the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, (SDSS for short). The UW is part of a consortium that is doing this survey of 1/4 of the sky, looking out away from the plane of the Milky-way galaxy. If you are curious, there is a web site (www.sdss.org) that explains the details of the project. The telescope that we are using is located at a place called Apache Point Observatory, in the Sacramento mountains above Alamagordo, NM. (www.apo.nmsu.edu). It's a fairly new design of telescope with a 2.5 meter diameter primary mirror. This isn't all that big for a modern research telescope, (some are up to 10 meter diameter) but it has some bells and whistles that make it sort of unique. I usually spend about one week a month at the Observatory and the rest of the time here at the UW. My job mostly involves maintaining and upgrading the telescope and associated components. (If you are interested in astronomy, the UW Astronomy dept. has a pretty good web site, with some good links as well; (www.astro.washington.edu).

BEVERLY MCLEOD

As for me, what have I been doing for the past 30 years??? Well, after Thailand, I spent 3 years at the East-West Center as a student at the University of Hawaii, getting masters degrees in anthropology and ESL. The East-West Center was a wonderful place then, sort a post-PCV village with RPCVs from various Asian countries as well as students from all over Asia.

After that I spent almost 3 years in Iran teaching English. I had a great group of fellow teachers, but Iran is no Thailand. When the Shah was toppling, and they started putting tanks on every street corner, I had no hesitation in leaving.

I spent a couple of years doing software programming in Silicon Valley--where I still live--but I just couldn't get excited about it. So I headed back to academia and spent 5 years getting a Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I specialized in cross-cultural issues, and wrote my dissertation on the adjustment of Chinese immigrant engineers in this area.

I always thought I'd go abroad again, but I ended up marrying an engineer, so I've lived in Santa Cruz/San Jose for the past 20 years, longer than I've ever lived anywhere. I taught social science writing at UCSC for 3 years, did an internship at Psychology Today magazine, and did a lot of freelance writing for them.

After my son was born 10 years ago, I coordinated a 5-year research project on education for language minority students. Since my son started school, I have focused on volunteering at his school, including tutoring children in reading. I have been learning a great deal about dyslexia, and plan to ease into becoming a professional reading tutor.

Other than that, I'm busy being a chauffeur mom, shuttling from my son's tennis lessons to trumpet lessons to kids' birthday parties.

It is hard to imagine that 30 years have gone by. I looked at my photo album recently, and all the memories came flooding back--the fun times, wonderful food, the parasites! I was amused by Steve's friend's letter and her experiences on Koh Samui. I had heard that it has become a wild rave scene, but I remember the idyllic trip I made there with a few other volunteers from our town of Nakorn Sri Thammarat. It was a sleepy little village then, a welcome contrast from our city home of Nakorn. It makes me sad to think it has been ruined by international tourism, and it makes me glad I went to Thailand when I did. Now young people jet over to Thailand for spring break and think nothing of it. I'm glad I went when it was a real adventure.

I've got another decade of parenthood responsibilities before I can just take off and travel. I'm not sure I'll go back to Thailand, though. Even when I went there on my way home from Iran, it just wasn't the same as being there in the Peace Corps. And my husband doesn't like spicy food!

NANCY HALPRIN-SCHARF

When I came home from Thailand, I went back to work at the facility for emotionally disturbed teens, the same place I worked at before Peace Corps. I also returned to school and earned both an elementary and secondary teaching credential. (Eventually I let the secondary one lapse, but the elementary credential was clear so I just kept renewing it.) After eleven and a half years, I was the Assistant Director of the facility, and I was totally worn out! After being injured and out on disability for six weeks, I decided it was time to find a new line of work...

In July of 1984 I became the Administrator of a small company that scored and processed the MMPI, a psychological screening test used by many law enforcement agencies as well as by psychologists around the country.

In March of 1987 I met Lonny, my soul mate. We were fixed up, took a week to actually meet, were engaged five weeks later and married three months after that. He is a secondary teacher (algebra and geometry.) I "retired" in January of '88 so we could start a family. In 1989 we adopted our first son. The second one was adopted in 1993. Both boys have ADHD which makes life in our house rather interesting.

During my "retirement" I worked part time as a bookkeeper, first for a friend and then for our synagogue. Once our youngest started first grade, I decided to go back to work. I became an elementary substitute teacher. Last year I spent half the year as a long term sub in a first grade class and loved it. This year I've spent 90% of my time at one school, and I am hoping that a full time position will open there this fall.

My husband and I are both working this summer: he because his school is now year round; me because I've been asked to teach summer session. We'll be at the reunion, but we need to leave Sunday afternoon so we can be back in class on Monday. One day off was all we could arrange!

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone next month.

PATRICK CHAMBERS
Guemes Island, Washington State

After leaving Thailand in 1974, I traveled home with Songcharoen, the student who had lived with me for the last 2 years in Thailand. We traveled overland from New Delhi to Europe. Once back in Colorado I went back to school in a Master's program in Adult Education. I completed in 1975 and that summer Songcharoen returned to Thailand. In late October I moved to Seattle (sight unseen) at the urging of the Coxes. I did see Bob Bidwell once in Seattle so long ago and nearly connected with Pat Hughes. With the exception of 5 months in Iran in 1978 (where I last saw Beverly and passing through Chicago on the way where I saw Dennis) and my year in school in Florida) I have lived in Washington since. Just before leaving for Iran I met Paul, my partner since then. I came back from Iran (I left the same week the Shah did) passing through Thailand (where I saw Henry) he and I settled high in the Cascades (at 4000 feet snowed in 4 months out of each year) for 4 years before settling on Guemes Island about half way between Seattle and Vancouver BC. Here we bought 10 wooded acres which we partially cleared and built our house ourselves. We also began growing rhododendrons and now have about 400 species and hybrids.

Eventually after several years of teaching ESL, ABE and GED classes with the local community college, I started working as a trainer for Western Washington University in Bellingham. In 1990 I went to Florida for a year for a doctoral program completing it early in 1992 and have been teaching Master's students in adult education since. I am currently the director of the off campus program in Seattle.

Four years ago one of Songcharoen's sisters, Supawadee ( a Delta flight attendant) got married in the Portland area and he and most of his family came over, including Mom. When they all came up to Guemes we had a wonderful reunion and they even brought green papayas for some fantastic Som Tom and *real* Thai food. They all came back to the Portland area 2 years ago when Tuk, his youngest sister, got married. But Songcharon's wife and 2 college-aged kids weren't able to come either time and I have yet to meet them. Tentatively Paul and I are planning to go to Thailand this coming December.

There it is, more than you want to know. I would like to hear from any of you... I will be in Albuquerque in August.

PAT HUGHES

Well, I thought I'd better get to this "update" before arriving at Albuquerque (god willing and the creek don't rise!). The past 30 years have been an interesting journey, but I thought I'd tell you the story of the evolution of this reunion instead.

After 20 years of searching, I finally located Dennis Lemke in '98 via the internet and with the help of Peace Corps Washington. He flew out to Idaho for a wonderful visit and we got to talking about a 30th reunion. We called Chuck Cox, who also thought it would be a great idea.

I sent out flyers and received some enthusiasm, but nobody was really ready to commit to a reunion 3 years in the future. Bob Bidwell & I thought the best location would be Hilo, Hawaii, the site of our initial training. Bob had volunteered to arrange things for us in Hilo. Then the crises began with our (my partner Trish & I) 3 sets of elderly parents, and I had to abandon the reunion project. Luckily, we had made enough contacts with Thai 34 veterans that folks were talking to each other and the enthusiasm was growing. Carolyn graciously volunteered to pick up the ball and keep the project going. And WOW, has it ever snowballed!!! We now have the foundation of a real Friends of Thailand group. As someone else mentioned, there was a Friends of Thailand group in Washington DC during the time of the 25th Anniversary of the Peace Corps (1987). Steve Fox & I attended their Loy Kathong celebration at the reflective pool and even danced a little! But this can be a ! real ligitimate RPCV organization. I urge you all to join.

Carolyn has created a wonderful web site, and I hope that we can all help her keep it going permanently. Thanks to her hard work, this reunion is going to be the best "tio" I've had in years! Looking forward to hugging you all!

Love, Pat Hughes

BOB BIDWELL

I am REALLY looking forward to the reunion and seeing you and all the other folks who will be coming. I am sure I am not the only one among us for whom the Peace Corps experience was the defining life experience. It scares me sometimes to think where my life path would have taken me without the major change in direction that PC opened up. One thing almost for sure -- I would be a Canadian citizen now (my draft lottery number was # 76, definitely not good in 1970-71!)

After I left Vajiravudh College in 1975, I reluctantly headed back to Minnesota (by way of a very colorful month-long bus trip from New Delhi to London). In my last two years of PC I had decided that I wanted to go into medicine (I had been a polisci major as an undergrad, so this was another major shift in direction), and I ended up in med school at the University of Minnesota. This was with the expectation that I would someday end up back in Thailand, working somewhere out in the jungle a la Tom Dooley. In fact, before I left Thailand I had tried to get into the Univ of Chiangmai med school, without luck. I managed to get back to Thailand to work as a med student at the Lao refugee camp in Nongkhai for part of 1979. In 1981,I came to the Univ. of Hawaii for my pediatric residency training, but after a year dropped out to return to Thailand (again!) to study tropical medicine at Mahidol Univ. and also work part-time with the Pearl Buck Foundation, doing medical evaluations of Amerasian kids in NE Thailand. After that I returned to Hawaii to finish my peds training and then went to Seattle for a two-year fellowship in adolescent medicine at UW (and happily reconnected with Pat C, Pat H and Peggy during that time). In 1988 I returned to Hawaii, where I've been working in adol. med. at the Univ of Hawaii med school. Recently, mid-life crisis hit hard and I dropped down to 75 % time at the med school and became a doctoral student in Social Welfare at UH -- great fun! though, just like 30+ years ago. I find I still have a hard time getting my papers done on time.

My links to SE Asia have remained strong. I travel back to the region frequently, taking med students to Cambodia, back every couple years to visit old friends and students in Thailand, and vacations in Indonesia. About 14 years ago I met my significant other, Tai, who is Vietnamese and also a doc, and he introduced me to the south of Vietnam. In 1993 we adopted our son, Thanh, who is now 13 and has become a very local Hawaii kid. (He is also the first Bidwell in history to ever win a medal or trophy for anything related to sports (soccer and marathons are his major loves in life)). Thanh is from a very rural area west of Hanoi, and through the adoption process I was able to visit the north of Vietnam. We have made several trips back to Vietnam to keep Thanh's Vietnamese roots alive. Tai and I separated a couple years ago but we are still good friends and he continues to be a great dad for Thanh.

It's amazing but I allow myself to think of retirement once in awhile and I am definitely thinking of retiring at least part-time back in Thailand even after all these years. I still feel very comfortable and very much at home there. I also travel to the Big Island quite often for clinics and conferences, and whenever I'm on "Hilo-side" I always drive up to Pepe'ekeo and visit our training site (only one of the buildings is still standing, and the cane fields have mostly been replaced by macadamia plantations), go down to the waterfall (still cool and shady and surrounded by orchids and flowering trees with huge red blossoms), and walk up the hill on the other side of the highway to the place where the guava grew (and are still growing; in the right season I still harvest a bagful and drive down the highway munching on them and thinking of all that has happened since then and now, and wondering where I'll be in another 30 years). Of course it is all very melancholic, but I find it therapeutic to wallow in melancholy once in awhile :)

That's it for now, Carolyn. I look forward to "reuniting" with everyone soon.

MY LIFE AFTER PEACE CORPS
by Paett Ryan

Returning home via traveling around Asia and Europe after Peace Corps, I returned to college for a fifth year teaching certificate at Southern Connecticut State University. Next I taught college bound foreign students in Boston. One summer, I went to Cuernavaca, Mexico to live with a Mexican family and study Spanish in a language school there. I met my future husband, John Croes in Boston. He was a fellow teacher at the school in Boston. He had been in the Peace Corps in Fiji for three years. Two months after a very small wedding in Boston, we quit our jobs and spent the winter cross-country skiing in the Black Hills of South Dakota where John had grown up and his father still lives. Then we spent the spring and early summer camping throughout the western United States. In the early fall, we left for college teaching positions in northern Iran, Were we were the only foreigners in a small town. While there, we went to Tabriz to meet the U.S. consul who had been Peace Corps Iran earlier. I asked him how they planned to get us out if the Shah fell. His exact words were, "Oh no! You are on your own!" Thinking that we might eventually have to walk overland to Turkey, and after a rather harrowing escape to Teheran, we were able to buy our plane tickets out the day before they blew up the Pan Am building. The U.S. consul later became one of the hostages and he was on his own!

After our return, we taught ESL to immigrants in Hartford, Connecticut. Then I spent a year getting my master's degree in teaching ESL at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont where John had studied before me. John picked apples to support us that fall!! For my student teaching and thesis, I worked with a Laotian family. Years later, the father of that family became the first Laotian to become an U.S. citizen in the state of Vermont.

Next, my husband and I became teaching supervisors for Save the Children/UNHCR in the Phanitkihom refugee camp in Chonbur, Thailand. During one of the introductory training sessions for new Thai teachers to be teaching ESL to Lao, Hmong, and Khmer refugees, one of the new teachers turned out to be one of my former" mhaw saw" students from my PC village. She had recognized me after ten years! It was one of those magical life moments when she announced to all that she had become a teacher because of me! Among many events that year, John came down with typhoid fever just as a military coup was taking place in Bangkok. I was able to visit my PC village and see all my Thai friends and some students and I saw AdjanLa-Or. The next year, John and I worked for ICMC/UNHCR in the Bataan Refugee Camp in the Philippines supervising Philippino teachers teaching ESL to Vietnamese and Khmer refugees. The following year was spent in Michigan with John doing foster care placements for older Cambodian and Vietnamese orphan children while I taught in a community college. Basically, because I am a true New Englander at heart, we returned to beloved Boston. John worked at Roxbury Community College and I worked as a teacher/supervisor at an adult re-training program in Chelsea, Massachusetts for mostly S.E. Asian refugees.

Fifteen years ago, we each began teaching ESL in neighboring high schools in northern Massachusetts. John teaches ESL in the content areas of biology and U.S. History at Lowell High School. He took a year off several years ago to get an additional masters in teaching biology. He has also written three books for ESL students. Ready? Listen! And Key Decisions in U.S. History Volumes 1 and 2. Seven years ago at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston, he received a JFK award for excellence in teaching. (Note: Last year we attended a Peace Corps anniversary affair there.)

I've found my niche in life teaching ESL and World History at Greater Lowell Technical High School. It is the largest technical high school in the U.S.A. Lowell is second only to Long Beach, California in having the largest population of S.E. Asians in the U.S.A. The S.A. Asians are one-third of the population of Lowell. Lowell has experienced wave after wave of immigrants since the Industrial Revolution and the latest wave is from Brazil.

Over the years, we have had three Cambodian foster children. When I turned forty, I ran the Boston Women's Tufts 10K race in Boston. Joan Benoit Samuelson won and I came in just about last but had the greatest fun running through the streets of Boston, while the police halted traffic!!!

Among many places, our travelling has included exploring many Mayan ruins in the Yucatan, Mexico, following the Lewis and Clark trail in the west, touring much of Ireland, and we have recently been to Vietnam and Peru. Several years ago, we went to Fiji on a Peace Corps anniversary and visited John's island and village. He had built a library there. Through the years we have had several dogs that had been mostly humane shelter dogs. They have brought us such love, joy and dear companionship.

We have a dream of one day re-joining the Peace Corps. A machine shop teacher from my school went to Russia with the Peace Corps last year. A young male PC volunteer from Lowell has been missing in Bolivia for a year now.

Recently the Greater Lowell area has been a place of much sadness because of so many people that were on the two planes that crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City, were from around here. We have had funeral after funeral and many, many memorial services. I must say that I felt so bewildered by these evil acts. I really find it hard to comprehend that kind of hate. My adult life I always felt myself a citizen of the world first and an American second, but I don't fell that way right now. However, just after it happened, one of the first e-mail's of sympathy and support I received was from a dear Thai friend.

FROM STAN SHIPP

Hi, guys. Had a great time at the reunion. A million thanks to Carolyn for bringing a little sunshine into my summer. It was so good to see everyone. And to spread all that good gossip about the ones who didn't come. Steve Fox, I have your shirt. I got it from Tim 25 years ago. How did he get it? Henry, we really expected to see you driving up in a sportscar. Okay, enough about you guys. Let's talk about me. I went back and got my teaching certificate after returning from T. Then went down to teach in a little Texas border town called Progreso. Oddly enough it was just a few miles away from where Michele was living. Hmmm. Sheer coincidence. Well, after a couple of years there, I went to Mexico and got married in Guadalajara to Concepcion (also answers to Concha, Conchita, Connie). We wound up in Sulphur Springs, Tx. in 1980 where we started small private school. Emphasis on small. Now, in case that sounds like I have my s--t together and know what I'm doing let me assure you that is not the case. And that is what we are doing still, tho I am now starting to think about what I might do next. Albuquerque looked like a nice place to live. Oh, i almost forgot to mention. I have a beautiful daughter, 17 years old, a senior this year, so I probably keep working for at least four more years. Sulphur Springs is kind of a throwback to olden days...Dairy Festival, fourth of July on the square, don't bother to lock your car, etc. The people here would give you their shirts, but it can also be abate dull. Heck, it can be dull as hell. But it's home. We have two dogs, a cat, a Fainting goat, a parrot, a garden, and a red 63 Volkswagen. I really loved seeing you guys and hearing all the tales. They DO improve over the years!

FROM SUE EBERLEIN-LUNDQUIST

I'm trying to put faces with names........but I remember some of you well and have a picture. I discovered Larry Boehm's web site........and he passed the information on .....My e-mail address is there too........HOW EXCITING........we are all getting re-connected. I live in Tucson, Arizona.......have been here for about 20 years.....married Tim Jewett (Thai 37?) in Katmandu..........returned to Pacific Northwest.....Oregon. Got my Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies(Anthropology, English and Education)..joined Vista and helped inmates upgrade their bad discharges from the military. After 5 years, we divorced and I went on to Honduras, Oregon, back to Arizona, California, Arizona. Met and married Albert Lundquist in 1981 and we had Alexis. She's now almost 20. I had a roller-coaster life for the next 15 years or so......many highs...some lows. Got divorced again.....explored and worked in the film industry, business world. For the past 10 years,my life has had much predictability and calm.My daughter is grown and out of the house. I teach foreign students English and computer skills at Pima College Adult Education .I live simply and happily with my 2 dogs and goat. I'm active with the RPCV group in Tucson. I've met some wonderful people with the same spirit of adventure. Life is good. I'm working on my piano and guitar again .

Peter Callanan of infamous water buffalo incident

Left: Henry Domzalski and daughter, Kira, at home in Tanzania. Right: Henry's daughter, Tessa

Chuck Cox, Chris Jenkins (RPCV Colombia and Ecuador) and The Boys

Above are three great photos of Larry Boehm (looking good) he told me I could copy from his pages on the University of Missouri's web site. If you want to learn more about ALL the things Larry is doing there, including something with Missouri Mules, and see more great photos of him from the present (and the past) check out the pages. Be sure to click on the @work and @play buttons to the left of the alligator. You can access Larry's pages by clicking on on the following address: http://www.missouri.edu/~lboehm/index.shtmlhttp://www.missouri.edu/~lboehm/index.shtml