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Ann McDaniel Stinson's husband Honored as Midlander of the Year

60th Reunion attendees will remember Ken Stinson's presentation about the massive redevelopment Omaha was undertaking of our riverfront, though Ken gave no hint of the degree to which he was responsible for it. You can read about his contributions to that effort as well as many others in this article in the Omaha World-Herald.

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The Music Stops for Tony at bar 98

Tony Snyder, Westside's tireless and much appreciated band leader, died in St. Louis within just a few measures of 99 years old. This is the obituary from the Omaha World Herald.

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60th Reunion

When All is Said and Done

(snapshots are available here)

I apologize for how slow I've been getting around to updating this page, especially since the reunion was such a spectacular success for those of us who attended.

The conversation flowed just as generously as the liquor Friday night at the Smokin' Oak Pizza get-reacquainted event. That's Bob Chrisman talking with Sandy Jenkins in the photo below with Billie Poulson Lenz chatting with Bill Kovar at the other end of the table.

 Smokin' Oak

Saturday morning we were impressed by the thoughtfulness and extent of the $300,000,000 plans for renovating Omaha's Central Park Mall as presented by Ken Stinson in the ballroom of the Farnam hotel. We were also impressed by the eye-popping dollar figure Ken estimated is available for civic philanthropy in Omaha.

The Saturday afternoon tour of Westside was fun and I will guarantee I'd get lost in the place now. The building has grown like topsy with hallways, staircases, nooks and crannies and dead ends showing up in all sorts of unexpected places. We saw the beautiful new indoor golf practice facility and noted the prominence of the plaque marking the achievements of our classmate Bob Saffer.

The evening commenced with many of us taking a tram ride through beautiful Lauritzen Gardens. After coctails, we enjoyed a delightful buffet featuring beef tenderloin. Johnny Ray Gomez and his magical accordion put on a great show after dinner that by the end had a whole bunch of us septuagenarians dancing in the aisles.

 Lauritzen Gardens Atrium

Through most of the activities we were able to connect via Zoom with several of our classmates who had been unable to attend. Among others, we saw Tom Austin, Suzie Falk Ahlstrand, Bid Taylor, Dave & Jo (Poulson) Baxter, Don Magdanz, and Judy Williams Chapman.

Gary Hannibal said he thought our goal should be to have everyone who attended leave saying they'd had a really great time. I can only speak for myself and my husband Dick, but we'd say that goal was well met.

—Linda Siert Johnson

The Reunion Organizing Committee

Top Row: Larry Hammer, Linda (Siert) Johnson, Ann (McDaniel) Stinson, Bill Kovar

2nd Row: Larry McChesney, Carol (Thomsen) McChesney, Dan Olson, Gary Hannibal, Tom Burton

3rd Row: Roger Ball, Bid Taylor

Not pictured: Steve Durham, Suzie (Falk) Ahlstrand

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Play the Old Song

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We have pictures of the 50th!

You attended the 50th reunion, have lost track of the class photo you bought, but want to see how terrific you looked just 10 years ago. We're here to help you out! See yourself and your fellow reunion attendees as the 68- year old version of themselves here.

We also now have the snapshots taken during the 50th reunion weekend posted. If you were at the reunion, relive it; if you were'nt, enjoy it vicariously. And, while you're at it, have a look at the pix from the 40th reunion we just got around to posting.

Did you take pictures, too?  Let us know about them, and we'll get them up so everyone can have a look. 

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Help!  Our needs are great!

• We are having a 60th reunion, so we'd really like you to join the website if you haven't already, and if you have joined, this would be a great time to update your profile!  The heart and soul of this website are the stories we have to tell of our lives since graduation.  

• We still have about 90 (!) classmates we can't locate.  Please take a look at the Missing Classmates page and see if there's anyone you know on it.  If there is, please contact us with address, phone number, and/or email address.

• Ed Reitan agreed to be an associate webmaster back in 2011. Unfortunately, he passed away shortly after our 50th reunion and we haven't replaced him. We need at least one person to volunteer to help out, at minimum to hold a spare set of keys to this car. Several volunteers would be even better.

 Though a rudimentary knowledge of HTML is helpful, it's definitely not necessary: the site interface makes adding and subtracting text, photos, graphics, music, and videos pretty simple. Ideal volunteers are those of you with ideas for things we can add to make this spot a happening place. Right now this poor website is stuck with someone with little interest in nostalgia and who really hates Facebook. If you have any interest at all, please get in touch.

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 Guests

When you look at the "Classmate Profiles" page, you will see we have some "guests" listed in addition to classmates. Guest privileges are granted by the site administrator to classmates' family members and friends and to fellow WHS alums who express a desire to be admitted to the site.  You will be able to identify in the guest's profile his or her relationship to the class of '61.

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Jukebox

This will open a new window or tab which will show up directly on top of this window. Select your tune or tunes from "The Nostalgia Machine," then come back here to browse.

You can get back in two ways: 1) by clicking on the tab (directly above this window) for Westside61. That will make this window reappear and leave the window for The Nostalgia Machine open and still playing your music. 2) by dragging the Nostalgia Machine window off to one side, revealing the Westside61 window. To do that, click next to "The Nostalgia Machine" in your browser's address bar and drag it off to the right or left.