1989 – Fall ’19 Class Letter
Nikki Zens Lindberg
Mitch Rosin
Dear Class of 1989 and Riff-Raff, by the time you read this, we should all have recovered from our 30th Reunion. It was hard to imagine Bovay Terrace as the former Beta Sig basement (and that’s a good thing, a very good thing). Thanks to all who made the trek! Our attendance was an all-time high, with more than 50 of our classmates in attendance — plus lots of Riff Raff!
Other notable changes around campus: two of the former Bovay lounges and several rooms now make up a large game space on the first floor called The Nest. It wasn’t open, but there was a familiar smell of recreational behavior nearby. Some buildings have new names, like Middle Hall is now Smith Hall and Smith is now Anderson. The gym formerly known as Storzer is amazing (and I think called Willmore).
There is a hole downtown where Bender’s once stood, but across the street was a great new brew pub. Roadhouse is very clean and well lit, but the cheese puffs and mozz sticks are still the best, especially since they come with BBQ sauce, and not ranch or marinara!
Thirty years of changes didn’t stop us from lots of reminiscing, reconnecting and memory-making. Be sure to keep in touch with us via the ’89 and Riff Raff Facebook page! Hope to see you all again in five years if not sooner!
NIKKI LINDBERG ’89
MITCH ROSIN ’89
KATHRYN SCHULTZ ’89 received the Ripon College Distinguished Alumni Citation during Alumni Weekend. She has spent 22 years in government service, first in the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and then in the U.S. Department of State where she currently is senior advisor on South Asia, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, U.S. Department of State.
JAMES CZARNIK ’89 received the Ripon College Distinguished Alumni Citation during Alumni Weekend in June. He is a colonel in the U.S. Army and for more than 30 years has served as a soldier, officer, physician and commander in special operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
SARAH ALMQUIST ’89: “Thank you to everyone who brought their needles and balls to the ‘Happy Hooking’ event! What a great turnout, and a great big thank-you to Gigi who helped us all to yarn bomb that darn tree in the quads. I swear, I was just waiting for Hiroshi to come running out of Beta Sig and light that darn yarn ablaze!”
ALICE GALLAGHER ARCHIBAL ’89: “Thank you to everyone who contributed to Ripon College this spring. It has been a great honor raising money for the College and every penny counts toward something … even if it doesn’t go to buying new furniture for the dorms or carpeting or paint or anything else we saw at Alumni Weekend. We raised more than $40K!”
TRICIA POTTER BAUER ’89: “Well, I won again. Yes, I won the cheese curd-eating contest at Roadhouse on Friday night of Alumni Weekend for the 53rd Annual Cheese Curd-Eating Contest. I am proud to say that I successfully defended my title as Miss Ripon Curd, having eaten 112 cheese curds in five minutes at our 30th reunion! Burn, baby, burn! (the next morning, of course).”
CAL BERGMAN ’89: “I wish everyone would take college life more seriously. Topics such as ‘Rubbers or Galoshes: How to Choose,’ ‘Fraternity Life: A Brief History of the Naked Beer Slide’ and ‘Rugby: How to Pop Pass Your Balls’ are important topics facing the youths of today. Be serious, people. Great reunion!”
ROXANNE OVERSHINER BOWENS ’89: “It was such a joy to host a Sunday morning walk through the trees on the Ripon College campus during Alumni Weekend. Those of you who joined me, I’m sure, had a wonderful time as we hugged trees, took selfies with trees, and, of course, posed for the best glam shots while looking around trees. I hope to do this for our next big reunion, too! Nothing like wood on a Sunday morning!”
AMY WALDER CARRINGTON ’89: “Screw the White Sox. I’m a G-D CUBS FAN!”
CRAIG CASPER ’89: “Having recently moved to Mount Juliet, Tennessee, I realized that my dream of moving to another nowhere place isn’t all that. Maybe I should have looked at San Luis Obispo or Boston? Oh, what am I saying?? No place will ever compare to Mount Juliet!”
TOBI CAWTHRA ’89: “What a great Alumni Weekend and 30th Reunion! I had a wonderful time and hope to see everyone again soon.”
SCOTT CHAMBERS ’89: “It was a true honor to share my family slides from our trip to Washington, D.C., in the Shaler Lounge at Alumni Weekend. Thank you, DONNA DRAKE MUNSCH ’89, for watching the entire show! I didn’t expect it to take 5.5 hours, but your enthusiasm for the bland pushed me to show every single slide from our trip. Thank you also for offering to share your family’s vacation to Tipton, Kansas, on Dropbox. … I can’t wait to see your pics! With a population of only 200, I’m sure you captured everyone in town!”
CAROLYN CLARK ’89: “As the local Marco Island chapter president of the Barbara Bush Foundation, sponsoring a tea during Alumni Weekend (June 28-30) in MLK Lounge to discuss pearl clutching was a highlight of my weekend on campus.”
GIGI HICKS DECKER ’89: “Wow! As a lifelong ‘Happy Hooker,’ I could not be happier with how our yarn bombing went at Alumni Weekend! I loved throwing open the kimono and sharing my swatches, tassels and that sultry garter stitches! See the pics on the ’89 Facebook page! Including the yarn bombing of Mitch’s head!”
LINDA GLAUBITZ DECRAMER ’89 and LAIRD DECRAMER ’77 of Princeton, Wisconsin, report that both of their children are currently Ripon students. “The Ripon tradition continues. Although our kids are polar opposites, CALLISTA DECRAMER ’20 (suave, sophisticated and likes to tango) and SULLIVAN DECRAMER ’21 (overzealous, long-haired and always looking for cash) both work tirelessly towards their goals.”
PAUL DONALDSON ’89: “Well, I wanted to attend Alumni Weekend, but if I have any chance of beating Mitch on the number of nights in hotels and flights for the year, I need to keep traveling. My stallion, however, was indeed ridden hard and put up wet. Also, my belt buckle is larger than described. Yippie Ki-Yay!”
OUSSAMA EL-HILALI ’89: “I smiled. AND I went to the reunion!”
PAT FLORENCE ’89 didn’t attend Alumni Weekend. He also has no cell phone, avoids social media, and lives the life of a hermit in the mountains outside Albuquerque, where he grows Hatch Green Chilies and mumbles incoherently about how New Mexico chilies are better than anything Marc A. Healy or Craig Casper could ever grow. Way to go, Pat, we will all waive on our way to the balloon festival!
GREG FRASIER ’89 cooked up a storm at Alumni Weekend bringing P.J. Clarke’s famous Crispy Haystack Onions at our 30th Reunion! Greg’s expert use of herbs and spices made mouths drool and eyes pop as we sidled up to the cooker with our Black Label Lights!
DARLENE HONIE-LOYER GERICK ’89: “Wow! What a WONDERFUL 30th Reunion! I loved seeing everyone and the event on Saturday night at Bovay Terrace was fantastic. Of course, with the 18 pounds of coke I brought, we were guaranteed to have a special night. Keep on breaking bad!”
SCOTTIE NICHOLS GIROUARD ’89: “Performing for Doc Woolley at the Alumni Weekend was wonderful. My interpretive dance ‘A Tribute to Doc Woolley: A Short History of Everything,’ was well-received. I look forward to our next reunion!”
JIM GLADE ’89: “I’ll learn to work the saxophone. I play just what I feel. Drink Scotch whiskey all night long and die behind the wheel.”
JULIE TAYLOR GONDAR ’89: “I hope everyone had a wonderful time at the reunion. Sorry I couldn’t attend but can’t start early enough on the work needed to get T-Rump out of office!”
KRIS PEHLE GRASSE ’89: “What an amazing weekend we had at the reunion! I loved seeing everyone and getting my fingers in everyone’s hair! Thanks to everyone who let me fluff, streak and Brazilian!”
BEN GUZMAN ’89 and RAMON GUZMAN ’89: “OK, so fine. We are really the same person. What of it, Healy??”
CHRIS HANNES ’89: “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. Oh, and I did attend the reunion with Jess!”
TED HARWOOD ’89: “Yes, beluga whales. Do you really have to ask? #belugachip Come on, people. This is 2019!”
KATHY HAYEVSKY ’89: “I was totally thrilled to join the festivities at our 30th Reunion. As someone who has spent my entire life in Oak Park, Illinois, getting away for a weekend represented a departure from Ernest Hemingway reading circles and Frank Lloyd Wright house tours that consume my time and attention. Granted, living in the same town that gave us Betty White and Kathy Griffin has produced a little bit of a wild side, but I loved my fancy-free time in Ripon! Ooohh, I still have goose bumps from driving through Fond du Lac!”
KURT HEUSER ’89: “Wow. Alumni Weekend was AMAZING! What a great experience. Of course, it would have been better if someone hadn’t bumped my car, but then again, my pals at Dean Sellers Ford fixed the ding and repainted it! “
DON KOCH JR. ’89: “I am NOT Donald Trump Jr.”
DAVID LUONGO ’89 reports that he had an amazing Alumni Weekend! He read his favorite selections from “Musings: The Ruminations of Doogie Howser” on Sunday morning at Alumni Weekend. This special event took place in Evans Lounge. Milk was served and a great time was had by all.
JOHN MATHEWSON ’89: “The Alumni Weekend Annual LAX game on Upper Sadoff Field was great! This year we served beef and Guinness hand pies! I also had haggis, but I didn’t share that with anyone. It was just for me.”
DON MCCREATH ’89 attended Alumni Weekend. Yup. He was there all right … photobombing pics, streaking through the quads, and handing out those damn forsythia blooms.
ANNE BURCHMORE MIES ’89: “I can’t thank my photo therapist enough for preparing me for Alumni Weekend. I look fabulous in all the pics and was ready with totally flattering poses. Thank you all for making our 30th Reunion so much fun!”
KRISTIN ADOMEIT MOORE ’89: “I am so sad that I couldn’t attend our 30th Reunion. But I continue to troll airports for old people in Ripon sweatshirts. It is amazing how many old people wear these things. Of course, none of them actually attended Ripon, but it seems that the sweatshirts are very popular at Goodwill stores.”
DONNA DRAKE MUNSCH ’89: “I attended Alumni Weekend. Got a problem with that?”
BARB THOMPSON PAMPERIN ’89: “Now that I have won BOTH the bean bag tourney at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church AND the Frisbee golf tourney at Alumni Weekend, I plan to focus on tatting doilies! I love those intricate designs, and they look so wonderful on my window sill.”
PHILIP ROBINSON ’89: “What a great 30th Reunion and Alumni Weekend! While I had planned to have my hair join me for the festivities, it turns out that my hair booked a separate trip to the Maldives and had a great time on its own.”
AMY ROSNER ’89: “A Lattice Theory Approach to the Structure of Mental Models is selling so good, I was able to take a cruise to Alaska! It was also great to see everyone at Alumni Weekend. Please buy my book!”
PATRICK SCHMIDT ’89 writes that he is still Wally. This was confirmed by his behavior at Alumni Weekend.
KATHRYN SCHULTZ ’89: “I cannot confirm if I was at Alumni Weekend.” But, she did present the class check, sign the College song, and represented ’89 amazingly well! She also cannot verify that she actually wrote this update for the ’89 newsletter.
DAVE STAPELFELDT ’89: “It was great seeing everyone at our 30th Reunion! Sorry about the smell, but you know I just can’t help myself sometimes. Farting is in my blood, and ya gotta follow your passion. Hope to see all of you at the next World Fart Championships which will be held in January 2020 in the beautiful city of Äteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsijänkä, Finland.”
TIM TOPOREK ’89: “As a lifelong pin-pusher, had an amazing time at Alumni Weekend.” He shared his bowling passion by hosting the internationally acclaimed league team, The Bowling Stones, in a rousing game of lawn bowling on the Tri-Dorms lawn. He also showed off his huge trophy and tournament-winning balls.
RACHEL WALSTAD ’89: “It never hurts to keep looking for sunshine.”
HEATHER JONES WELLS ’89: “There’s nothing so tragic as seeing a family pulled apart by something as simple as a pack of wolves.”
DAVID WEMETT ’89: “I am so proud of my ‘Pumpkins Painted with Seahorses’ art exhibition! As you all know (because I can see how many of you follow the show online), the show officially opened at the Caestecker Art Gallery during Alumni Weekend. Thank you all for your wonderful comments about the octopi and starfish, also painted on pumpkins. The pumpkins were my favorite. I am excited to announce that the inspiration for my next show came from Alumni Weekend and will be titled, ‘Clamato! Squirt Clams and the Roma Tomato.’”
BARB WHITSTONE ’89: “I love my blue flannel shirt. I wore it at Alumni Weekend. Every day. Even slept in it!”
TIM WIEDMEYER ’89: “Thank you all for supporting the launch of my HGTV show, ‘Tim’s Tools: How to Screw, Grind, and Butt-Weld Like an Expert.’ I am sad to report that the show was short-lived, but will now appear as reruns on TLC (Sundays at 3:30 a.m.). Please watch, I’m hoping to get a new show soon!”