Glen A Bengson

I attended Hanover Col. near Madison IN. Upon graduation the Cinti draft board said I had a year of grad school, or two years of Peace Corps, then I was A#1 on their list. This was 1967, approaching the height of the draft. So naturally I dodged the draft and enlisted in Navy OCS in Newport RI, then two years home-ported at Pearl Harbor (Hawaii, of course, to which we return often now) with cruises to Viet Nam and Korea. I met Cathy at Hanover and we were married after my OCS.

After Navy duty I returned to Cinti and got a MEd from UC, then taught three years in Newport KY (tho I no longer received combat pay). The summer of 1973 I enrolled at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, was ordained in 1977, and for the next 30 years served churches in the heart of Texas, Memphis, Youngstown, Columbus, and Xenia, retiring in 2008.

Cathy was always interested in theater, directing and acting, so we, and our children, have been involved in theater in lots of ways, even acting in modest (very) roles.

We've been fortunate to travel frequently (join the Navy, see the world) both for pleasure (see Hawaii above), and educationally- Haiti, Israel, Jordan, Greece, Tanzania, France. Over the years I've been particularly involved with various efforts to relieve hunger, especially through church programs and Bread for the World, a national advocacy group, as well as other social justice, ecumenical and interfaith activities.

We now live in a condo in Powell, Oh, north of Columbus, near our daughter and her children. I still make attempts at golf, noticing a little improvement since retirement. Norm Straker has been our dentist since we originally moved to Powell in 1988. I see long-time friend Phil Moeller often, and look forward to seeing others at the reunion.

My most vivid memory is still Esther Levy's dramatic "A" that she wore while we read the Scarlet Letter in senior English. Leaving school early for Red's Opening Day was also always a highlight. And I almost forgot the lunchroom "forks in the ceiling" that someone else mentioned. We were certainly daring.