MSO - March 1988

Volume 2, Number 8, March 1998
MIDNIGHT SUN ONLINE
-The Online Newsletter for Robert E. Peary High School Alumni-

MSO WEB SITE - http://www.pearyhs.org

INTRODUCTION

Greetings Huskies!

FLASH: Those of you living in the Aspen Hill area, save your Gazette newspaper this week (3/25/98) and read Peary's article by Candace James, with quotes from Neal Pizzano (1976), Elliot Chabot (1973), and Mr. Burlas. The article is also accessible at Gazette.Net, specifically at www.gazette.net/news/community/aspen/story001.html. It won't be online forever, so take a look now. Thanks Neal, Elliot, Mr. B, Ms. James, and the Gazette Newspapers!

GALA AND AUCTION: We hope to see a wonderful turnout this Saturday, March 28 for The Friends of Danny Foundation benefit at Circle D Farm in Woodbine, MD. More than $50,000 has been raised already to assist Danny Haynos's (1971) surviving wife, Gretchen, and four children, with a goal of $100,000. Thanks to the foundation's efforts and wonderful organization, Danny's family will not lose their home. As you may recall, Danny died last October after a courageous year-and-a-half battle with cancer. There are many items being auctioned, from weekend getaways to professional sports tickets to dinners to yachting, lots of merchandise, and much more... so please attend to support this worthy cause. More information is available on the website. If you'd like a list of the more than 102 services/trips/items being auctioned, please e-mail me at blau@clark.net.

DR. DUMAIS: Don't forget that pledges to Patrick Dumais, son of Dr. Dumais, who is participating in a marathon in memory of his father, are due this week. Patrick will be running in the marathon to benefit the Lukemia Society, June 21 - Fathers Day. See Jim Cyr's article in this newsletter for details.

REUNIONS IN 1998: The Class of 1968 will tentatively holding their 30-Year Reunion on Saturday, September 26, 1998. The Class of 1973 25-Year Reunion will be held the weekend of June 26, and the Class of 1978's 20-Year Reunion will be held the weekend of August 7. Please take a look at the missing persons listings on the website to help the reunion committees track-down some of these folks! More details follow in this newsletter for 1968's reunion. Classes of 1973 and 1978 details will be directly distributed by the respective committees and/or available online in the class-specific information sections. There still has been no word about reunion plans for 1963 or 1983.

CLASS OF 1966 50th BIRTHDAY BASH: Class of 1966 classmates who expressed their interest in the birthday weekend should have already received their invitations/reservation forms and information about this event the weekend of June 12. There are close to 200 of you attending, and this might even out-perform your 30-Year! Please complete the questionnaire for the cruise in 1999 too. A form will be posted online about the cruise soon, if you want to save a stamp. And a reminder to please submit your one-liners about turning 50 -- send to Gale if you haven't already.... gale7@juno.com. Some really good ones have already been received! Despite popular belief, Dennis Sponholtz is alive and well and wondered why he wasn't receiving any reunion info. He'll be at the Birthday Bash. The Class of 1976 will be holding an informal happy hour gathering sometime this year to celebrate their 40th birthdays.

MOM'S TALK: Lynne Keady Galletti (1978) and Mom's Talk (WFMD 930AM, Saturdays at 9:00a) live call-in radio show goes CABLE, live each Monday on NewsChannel 8 beginning Monday, March 30th at 10:00a. Tune-in! Even before then, tune-in THIS SATURDAY (3/28) ON CNN at 9:15am (EST) for the network's story of Lynne's show that has become the rage of the region! The radio program's article in the Baltimore Sun last month will be posted very soon too.

CONGRATS: To Ian (1982) and Meg Paregol on the birth of their son, Evan Stuart, born February 26, 1998 - 10 lbs., 6 ozs! And... Tari Alden Norum (1977).... Bob, Tari, Sarah and Hunter are pleased to announce that mid-November they will be receiving a "New Bundle of Joy!" On March 6, 1998, Perry (1980) and Rebecca Tsacoumis had TWINS. Allan William Levy was born on December 5, 1997 to Lauren Steinberg Levy (1983) and husband, Howard. Congratulations all!

ALUMNI KIDS: A section of the website is being considered to post news about the children and grandchildren of Peary alums.... births, accomplishments, graduations, etc. Clemson University has their "Tiger Cubs Club" for this.... and maybe we can have a "Husky Pups Club" to archive these news items, yes? Alums seem to be quite prolific lately.

THANKS to all who were able to attend the get-together at Outta the Way Cafe on March 10 to benefit the Kristen Phelps Memorial Scholarship Fund. Kristen, the step-daughter of Jim Drury (1979), was the fatal victim of meningitis a couple of years ago while attending Magruder High School. 10% of sales that evening went to the Memorial Scholarship Fund and will be presented to one of her classmates in 1999.

GLORY AND HONOR: If you missed the story of Matthew Henson and Peary's North Pole expedition on TNT that premiered earlier this month, contact me to see about getting me a blank tape and I'll be happy to make a copy for you for personal use.

DUANE BLACK: Coach Black was inducted into the Maryland Coaches Hall of Fame on March 7th. Many alums attended the ceremony and photos from the event will be posted as soon as they arrive. Coach Williams received a similar honor a few years ago for his Baseball Coaching career. Mr. Burlas's submission of all the Peary Sports MVPs over the years is still being worked on, and will be posted as soon as time allows.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN GATHERING: The Colorado All-Class Reunion/Soire was held on March 21 at Dave and Busters in Denver. All the details, who was there, and photos will be posted as soon as they're available. Thanks to Ron Bostwick (1977) and Janet Peters (1980) for organizing this event... we'll soon see if the Colorado folks really out-performed our gatherings in Maryland!

WEBSITE: About 80 new alums have come aboard since the last newsletter, for a total of 1,410 online now. Thank you for continuing to spread the word about our effort! We're extremely grateful for your donations to support this project too! As you may realize, this website and newsletter are soley supported by your financial contributions - we have no corporate or business sponsors to cover the costs associated with the servers where all this information is stored or the maintenance of the web pages you have been enjoying. Your financial support is critical to its survival. The website and e-mail listings have become the central location for reuniting, news, re-living memories, and providing schedules for the alumn happy hours, along with news from the newly-formed Robert E. Peary High School Alumni Association, spearheaded by Neal Pizzano, our e-mail listings and happy hour coordintor. Two years ago... who would've thought? Thank you to Laura Vandevender Collins (1973) for using her expert design skills in maintaining the information sections as the online class coordinator for 1973.

BIRTHDAY CLUB: H. Laura Vandevender Collins (1973), who designed and maintains the Birthday Club Pages would like to thank everyone for their patience as she catches-up with updating your submissions to the listing. Thanks again, Laura!

ALUMNI QUOTE OF THE MONTH: "Did you know that during the 60s, Peary's funds were so low that we had to use the same car for DRIVERS ED and SEX education???"

A quick note to apologize for not distributing article reminders as usual (not that this issue is short of being a full-blown issue without the solicitation), and for the delays on updating the main page, but I've been swamped with many things! Thank you for your understanding and patience. More photos from recent events are expected soon, and more Paula Marshall (1982) pics from Spin City, photos of Bruce Cohen (1973) and Leann Rimes and Bryan White when he interviewed them after their recent concert, additional photos from Neil Simons' induction to Clemson's Sports Hall of Fame -- we'll continue to bring you all the latest news that you provide. And yes, AOL users, we're working on that Alma Mater problem where the music automatically begins when you log onto the main page and won't stop! It isn't supposed to.

Articles for the next issue of the Midnight Sun Online are due Saturday, April 25th. This includes and any class-specific information that you'd like distributed and posted to the masses to save you the trouble! *smile*

Bob Lau, Editor/Webmaster The Midnight Sun Online Robert E. Peary High School

PAGE 2