School Story - What was your experience in high school and beyond?
I was born in St James and lived there through 7th grade, when we moved to North Mankato. Went to North Mankato Jr High then on to West High School. After high school I went to Mankato State College/University where I graduated with degrees in Mass Communication and Computer Science.
I enjoyed my Mankato HS years, particularly my senior year when I ran cross country and made many new friends that I kept for many years beyond my Mankato days.
Following college I moved to the Twin Cities where I met my wife while working at Sperry Univac in Roseville. Over the years I changed jobs a few times, sometimes for more interesting projects, sometimes because I foresaw layoffs coming. Overall, I very much enjoyed my career.
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High School Memory - during the noon lunch break at Mankato West, the gym was opened up so students could burn off some energy after they ate. I joined a bunch of friends to play pick up basketball games. I remember a big thing was to try to 'save' possession of the ball by bouncing it off of an opposing team member's ankle before it went out of bounds. I played with a lot of new and old friends including Randy Rush, Jim Rapp, Rick Barnes, Randy Anderson, Tim Cattrysse, Tim Baker, Keith Mielke, and I'm sure I've forgotten a few. We had a lot of fun but none of us ever went pro. :)
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Favorite post high school memory - aside from meeting my wife and raising three wonderful children, my favorite post high school (and post college) memory is a trip I took with classmate Jim Rapp. Following our graduation from college, we packed up and flew to Europe for a three month backpacking journey around England, Wales, and Europe. Everything we had was packed into a 40 to 45 pound backpack (depending on who was carrying the tent). We had a Eurail Pass for the continent but since that didn't cover Great Britain, we hitch hiked around there. We did everything from the Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona Spain - I mention this because I saw that another classmate had done the same thing, to getting within a few feet of Pope John Paul at the Vatican. Jim Rapp took a picture of him, but since the crowd was so thick, he had to hold the camera over his head and point it to where he thought the pope might be. He got lucky on one of his six or seven shots, and got one picture picture. The other shots were of Jim's fingers, or the heads of people we didn't know. We took trains everywhere but did a whole lot of walking. We slept in our tent, in youth hostels, in city parks, in train stations, and a few times along the road because we were just plain too tired to find somewhere else to sleep. It was the trip of a lifetime.
