Diane Snakenburg Rodger

After graduation, I attended Saint Mary's, married Tom Coffey (class of '59) and followed him to Germany for Army tour (3 years) Susanna was born there in 1965. After return to Raleigh, I graduated from Meredith College with a BA degree in history.Caroline was born in 1970.

1980 was a year of important changes with the beginning of my own business in March and marriage to Dave in October. Tarheel Concepts was a promotional advertising business selling products into the research triangle park market primarily and grew over a ten year period to ten employees and several hundred customers.

There were a few memorable successes such as winning the Papermate new dealer award, a trip to Switzerland to visit the Victorinox swiss army knife factory, and a cruise to Amsterdam with other top companies. There were also many painful business lessons to learn such as "cash is always king", customers don't always pay, and that managing people is the biggest challenge. I was happy (and fortunate enough) to sell out in 1990 and move on to more fun things such as golf, oil painting, duplicate bridge, and of course my four wonderful grandsons.

My latest venture is chicken keeping in the backyard where 450 plus visitors came for the Tour d Coop. We will be featured on PBS in September on "Growing a Greener World." (No invitation is needed to visit the coop during the reunion weekend!