Nice gathering of our class today at the Pool and Yacht Club.
We had a “Bakers Dozen” show up today and we were seated in the same room as the St. Thomas Academy class of 63 guys. Always fun to visit with these guys.
50 degrees, sunny, no snow or ice as we watched the Mississippi river go bye.
One of our classmates, Ed Kurhajetz joined us today. Ed just moved back to the Twin cities after many years living in Milwaukee. Hope you join the group frequently going forward Ed.
Just before I left home today to attend the lunch I got a call informing me of an upcoming tribute that CDH will be bestowing on one of our class mates. Tom Schwartz has been selected to receive the prestigious Bishop Cretin award from CDH in 2024.
Joe Schufman has already got some info on the class website about Tom’s honor. Click on the link below to see more on this terrific news.————-Congrats to Tom from your fellow members of the class of 63.
You may recall that another member of the class of 63 received the Bishop Cretin award a couple of years back. Steve Nachtsheim received the award in October of 2021.
Classmates Tom and Steve are now in a very special club!
Hope all of you have a great Christmas and a Happy and Healthy 2024.
Tom Troskey
Next class of 63 lunch is Thursday January 11th—-Mark your calendar.
Rob Bollinger, VP of Development for CDH, made a trip to Dallas to see some Cretin/CDH graduates, including Tom Schwartz and Terry Bacigalupo. He sent the following note to us, which has some great photos and great news! Tom Schwartz will be receiving the Bishop Cretin Award for 2024! We anticipate more details as we get closer to the event (in Oct 2024). Congratulations Tom from all your classmates!
Here is the message Rob sent to us —
Seasons greetings from CDH! Steve Walsh and I returned from our trip to Dallas last night and it was a great trip. We had a very good time with Tom and Terry, with dinner and then attending the MAVERICKS vs. LAKERS game on Tuesday evening (courtesy of tickets by Mav’s assistant coach Sean Sweeney, CDH Class of 2002). Joining us for dinner and the game was Jarvis Archibald, CDH Class of 1993 and a member of the 1993 RAIDERS State Championship Basketball team.
As I mentioned to Joe, we let Tom know that he has been selected to receive the 2024 BISHOP CRETIN AWARD, and he said he will be here to accept the award at the CDH Community Awards Dinner at the Saint Paul Hotel on Monday, October 21st. Should be a great event!
Take care and keep in touch, and please pass along the pictures below to your Class of ’63 classmates…enjoy the Holidays!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Click on an image to enlarge
Rob
Rob Bollinger, Vice President of Advancement rbollinger@c-dh.org • 651-696-3343 • 218-368-6926 (c) Cretin-Derham Hall • 550 South Albert Street St. Paul, MN 55116 • 651-690-2443
Just got back from a delightful lunch where a dozen of the class of 63 gathered to socialize and watch the river go by on this beautiful fall day.
With our 60th reunion in the rear view mirror there a couple of items I would like to bring you up to date on.
You may recall that for the 40th reunion in 2003 we established an endowed scholarship at CDH to be awarded to students/family that qualify for tuition assistance each year. This scholarship is referred to as CLASS OF 63–40th FUND scholarship.
Each year it is awarded to one or two qualifying students. This year the recipients are Sophomore Damonte Duncan and Senior Issac Garcia. Congrats to Delmonte and Issac!
The current amount in the Class of 63 40th Fund is $81,000.
THANK YOU to all who have contributed over the years to this endowment.
In honor of our 60th anniversary we established another Class of 63 endowed scholarship in honor of our two classmates George Bonfe and Mike Ryan. This scholarship is known as the Cretin Class of 1963 Bonfe-Ryan Scholarship. This scholarship will be given annually to a CDH student who is physically challenged. The 1st recipient of the Bonfe-Ryan is Senior Nathan Leber. Congrats to Nathan!
The current amount in the Bonfe-Ryan is $61,000
THANK YOU to all who contributed to this scholarship fund.
A special thank you to several classmates who were instrumental in taking the idea of the Bonfe-Ryan to the reality of an endowed scholarship at CDH. Those men are John Runyon, Steve Nachtsheim, Bob O’Malley and Joe Schufman.
Working with Rob Bollinger at CDH we hope to put a regular class of 63 monthly lunch in place in the spring at CDH where we can meet Nathan, Delmonte and Issac.
Each November that we have been having the class lunches (since 2014) we have taken time at our lunch to say THANK YOU to the veterans from the class of 63 and have attached a photo of those class of 63 vets were with us at lunch. Best to you guys.
Click on photo to enlarge
Next class of 63 lunch is THURSDAY DECEMBER 14th—mark your calendar!
Earlier today we held a Mass for Remembrance for our deceased classmates as part of our 60th Reunion activities. During that celebration we projected the images of those classmates as their names were read. You can see/download those images by clicking here.
Terry Bacigalupo came across these newspaper clips of a few of the football players and teachers taken in 1962 while cleaning out some of his old computer files. We are happy to share them, especially since our 60th Reunion looms.
Two 1963 Cretin High School graduates, George Bonfe and Mike Ryan, both experienced life-altering injuries in their early twenties. Despite the debilitating setback, Mike and George lived very productive lives. They have inspired those of us blessed enough to have known them.
As a tribute to Mike and George, we have established a 60th Anniversary legacy gift to Cretin-Derham Hall. We have designated it as The Cretin Class of 1963 Bonfe/Ryan Memorial Scholarship Fund and we encourage not only our classmates but others to contribute to this fund as a tribute to the inspiring resiliency of Mike and George.
What made these two individuals exceptional was their common traits of courage, compassion, generosity, patience and perseverance. Their stories are the impetus behind establishing that scholarship in their honor and to help a physically challenged student attend Cretin-Derham Hall.
George Bonfe
George, in 1965 while coming home on leave from Army training, was a passenger in an automobile accident where the driver died, and George severely injured his spinal column. This resulted in George being in a wheelchair until he died on Veterans Day 2021. George adopted three children and started and ran two successful businesses. He also built and flew an airplane for his own use. Throughout the rest of George’s life, he supported veterans in many ways, from attending their funerals, to sending weekly packages to troops stationed overseas, and visiting with his US congressman on veteran’s issues. Two of George’s children are also veterans.
Mike Ryan
While serving in Vietnam in 1968, Mike was severely injured when he was shot while trying to pull one of his injured Marines from a ravine in the jungle. The bullet injured Mike’s spinal column and he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair until his death in 2012. Mike earned a law degree and married Karen, whom he met while in physical rehab. They adopted and raised three children. In addition, Mike and Karen served as foster parents to 80 high risk infants. Mike practiced law initially as a prosecutor and then as a judge, serving in the Maricopa County Superior Court and the Arizona Appellate Court. He was appointed a Supreme Court Justice for the State of Arizona in 2002 and retired from the Court in 2010.
There is more background on them that you can view at this link.
The scholarship will be awarded to a recipient with a physical disability who wishes to attend Cretin-Derham Hall. CDH supports the establishment of this scholarship. For anyone wishing to contribute to scholarship fund you can do so through one of the following gifting options:
MAIL: Send your check to:
Cretin-Derham Hall
550 S Albert Street
Saint Paul, MN 55116
Attn: Bonfe/Ryan Memorial Scholarship Fund
ONLINE: Go to c-dh.org/givenow to make a credit card gift online. Please indicate: Bonfe/Ryan Memorial Scholarship
PHONE: Call Peggy Gartland Schafer ’79 at 651-696-3318
A dozen from the class got together today and had a couple of hours of pleasant conversation and reminiscing.
One topic of the conversation was of course —How could it be 60 years already since we left Cretin?
Well, the reunion activities are scheduled for Sept 13 and 14th.
Here is what is scheduled.
Wednesday Sept. 13th— Memorial Mass for 86 deceased classmates at CDH Chapel — 10AM.
Wednesday Sept. 13th— Tour of CDH, the old parts and all the new parts, lunch and mingle with staff and students and each other – 11:30AM until probably 2 or 3PM.
Thursday Sept. 14th— Golf outing (THE CHARLIE) at Highland National, first tee time at 9:30AM. Format is a scramble (Britz Scramble) always fun!
Thursday Sept 14th – ONE CDH Alumni banquet at CDH where the anniversary classes of 1963, 1973 and 1998 are honored—5PM
*Additional info and sign up/registration for each of these events will be sent out in near future.
Classmate Jim Hudak joined us for lunch today at our monthly get-together. He spent most of his career in the Information Technology (IT) space, working as a contract Project Manager and more for larger companies in the Twin Cities. He is retired now and has written a book, SCARLET:Blood and Brillance, a sci-fi novel. It will be published soon and will be available on Amazon. We asked him to send us something we could post on our website and he provided the following prologue from the book –
What would you do to keep your country and its allies alive following a nuclear war?
We designed, built, manufactured, and distributed specific tools for electric power, communications, information storage, transportation, and hunting.
We built the spiritual base for our people to strive to stay alive. To collaborate with each other, no matter what. To be all in! WE ARE ALL IN!
The apocalypse soft started in 2000 CE. War spread everywhere. The West prepared by putting all knowledge on the Lattice and made it available via brain chip implants so everyone had access. We made micro-nuclear power devices, powerful small batteries, small data centers, two-man electric drones, laser guns, and satellites for Lattice communications. Fuel and its infrastructure were destroyed. Nuclear war destroyed cities, followed by 20 years of nuclear winters. Nuclear fallout altered pathogenic DNA and the nuclear winters were followed by centuries of pandemics. We are almost gone. Some of us stayed alive and collaborated, fought the pathogens, and won. But it’s not the only thing that kills us.
This is history. Not a projection of the possible outcome. My knowledge of our history compels me to write it so you know what happened and why. But, who ‘you’ are is unfathomable to me at the present time. Maybe you’re a person. Maybe you’re an artificial intelligence agent. Maybe you’re no one or no thing and this won’t be read. Right now, times up, it appears. We’re done, it seems. The spirit of living remains, if in danger.
This is the story of that spirit.
I am the Lattice.
Jim
James L Hudak
We will publish another post when the book becomes available.
We previously featured Boz in a post about him and his band’s resurgence (click here). Well Boz and friends have released their final album “Ute Creek Eulogy”.
Front Cover
Back Cover
Congratulations to Boz and his band personnel and guest musicians!
Here is the press release –
July 1, 2023
FREELAND RELEASES THIRD AND FINAL ALBUM, UTE CREEK EULOGY, 51 YEARS AFTER FIRST RECORD
Freeland, a six-piece band from Minnesota, announces the release of Ute Creek Eulogy, featuring 17 songs and two bonus tracks, all written by members of this long-lasting group of musical friends, some of whom played in local groups together in the 1960s. The title refers to Ute Creek, a canyon near Idaho Springs, CO, where the band moved in August, 1972, to promote their first record, Headin’ Back. The group played a good number of shows that summer featuring their original music but eventually moved back to their homeland to pursue other musical, educational and career objectives.
Four of the members reunited in the summer of 1975 in a new version of Freeland, focused on Colorado (again) club gigs and cover songs peppered with danceable tunes of their own making. When autumn came, the four took another hiatus for life’s various quests.
By 2005 they were reunited again for a concert at Macalester College in St. Paul to memorialize a fellow musician from back in the day. The good feelings and camaraderie of that performance led to Freeland’s second album, Almost Home, released in 2008. Then, once again, the members went their separate ways for more than a decade.
As the Covid pandemic settled upon the land in 2020, the group started planning for the current collection of songs, but recording logistics were tricky given where the members lived: San Juan Island, WA; Pocatello, ID; Park City, UT; St. Paul; Deer Park, WI; and Nashville. Thanks to jet airliners, home studios, a mobile recording setup in a big van, and the keyboard player’s pro studio in Nashville, work started by mid-2021, with a release date of August 2022 to mark the 50-year anniversary of Headin’ Back.
Life and health being what they are, things fell off schedule, just a little. But today, Freeland is delighted to present Ute Creek Eulogy, dedicated to the memory of Doug Rymerson, who died on the day mixing commenced in November, 2022.
Band personnel
Boz Metzdorf – guitar, harmonica and vocals
Tommy Wiggins – keyboards, guitar, drums and vocals
Steve Keys – guitar, bass and vocals
Jeff Schroeder – guitar and vocals
Doug Rymerson – guitar and vocals
Dave Cushing – drums, bass, guitar and vocals
Guest musicians
Denny Hemmingson – slide guitar, dobro
Ron Rotter – drums
Dan Perry – harmony
Track listing
Chasing Down the Sun (Wiggins)
Picks And Axes (Metzdorf)
Ute Creek Eulogy (Keys)
Earth Medicine (Schroeder)
Music’s for Dancing (Wiggins)
To Be Free (Metzdorf)
Buffalo Gulch (Cushing)
Morning Sunlight (Rymerson)
On Your Watch (Metzdorf)
Storm Bound (Wiggins)
River Dream (Schroeder)
Silver Moon (Metzdorf)
Doing Alright (Keys)
Makin’ Our Way (Wiggins)
Nothing But Love (Metzdorf)
Memories are Songs (Wiggins)
The Song Lives On (Metzdorf)
Bonus tracks – recorded in the 1970s!
Kalah (Wiggins)
Ride With The Devil (Metzdorf)
Ute Creek Eulogy is available from Chili Dog Records, Nashville
