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Suzy Justad asked me to share this news about her brother, Paul Justad, CHS class of ‘69. Sweet tribute writen by sister Janeen Provo. Hugs to you all.
February 12, 1950 - April 13, 2024
My beautiful brother. He was a happy man. And a good human. He was all about love. And music. And family. He was so much. A luminary. An inventor. An author. An artist. A song writer. A guitar player. A grandpa. A brother. An uncle. A friend. A darling. Rest in peace Paul. You are so loved.
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Dennis Hanson
It's getting hard to accept all the member's of our class of 69 that have passed. Paul was our class president who ran against Bruce Hubley for that honor. I was Bruce's campaign manager and my handing out bubble gum with "GO BUBBLY - WITH HUBLEY" was funny - but Paul was dating a gal in college .. So we were all pretty impressed by that romance. We did have a pretty horrible senior float at home coming in 1969.
Justad and I became good friends at Ball State. He was the landlord of six apartments above the Civic Theatre in downtown Muncie across from the police station - and his crib was so very very cool. I quickly rented an apartment from him and we were neighbors from 1970 to 1974. Paul lived alone - because he was living for free by renting the apartments. HIs hallway had a 1970 Volkswagen Super Beetle billboard. He had his guitar and I had my mandolin. It was impossible to study at night because we had a lot of customers stopping by for a little sample of something ... and the nightly music scene. It was a great time to be a Hippie and Paul and I adapted well to that life style. Justad had his ford econline van - that we all piled into and headed south to sunny Florida. We dashed and dined our way to Key West - but barley had enought gas money for our return trip back to Ball State. The Vietnam war was raging so our student deferment got us a Diploma.
We had such fun times at Ball State ... It is obvious that our guardian angels were working overtime So It is finals week and everyone has their head down studyiing ... it's snowing really hard ... on the radio it's annonced that school is canceled tomorrow. Everyone emptys into the street for a massive snow ball fight. We jump in my Dune Buggy - Justad is in the back seat and throwing snowballs at all the students on the sidewalks as we drive thru campus .... out of the corner of my eye I see this one big snowball headed right at Justad- and it was a perfect shot. Hit Paul right in the face. We all had a big laught about the chances of someone hitting us while we were driving at 30 mph thru campus. I drove that Dune Buggy for years all thru the summer and winter. It had a gas heater. I named her "NO DOOR LENOIR" after my aunt Lenoir.
Paul and I stayed in touch thru the years. Planned a few boating trips that never happened. He dropped me a note last month asking for some Civic Theatre pictures. He was a great guy with a good heart who always seemed to have his Guitar near by. Goin a miss ya man !!
Denny Hanson