My highlights from the past 50 years:
I first attended the University of Texas in Austin in the fall of '66 which was right after the August 1st tragedy when Charles Whitman became infamous as one of the first (if not the first) to kill and wound so many people in a public space... he shot from all sides of the UT campus main library tower. That made for quite an unusual start to my college years! During the summer of '70 I was married to fellow RCHS '66 classmate, Kent Niemann, and 46 years later it seems we are lifers... mostly a good thing. Kent wanted to give college another try by studying art instead of engineering, so we headed to Austin where tuition at UT was cheap. He managed to get three degrees under his belt by the fall of '76 when it was time to start a real job to support the family... we were expecting a baby soon! Our always wonderful daughter arrived in San Antonio on Jan. 1st... the best way to ring in a new year ever!! A couple of years later we moved back to Rapid to raise our girl in a town we knew was a great place to grow up! In '94 we were surprised when a career opportunity popped up for Kent back in Texas, so we made the tough decision to leave all that was friendly and familiar in South Dakota once again. The lone star state has been good to us... Kent's business has thrived and so has our daughter. She now lives with her own family just a couple of miles from our house in Austin. We are lucky grandparents to have the chance to be with Cal who is 4 and Sam who is 2 almost every week... so much fun to watch them grow and change. Kent retired from the business in Jan. this year and is gradually relocating himself fully to Austin from San Antonio. It's time to kick back, relax, and enjoy time with our kids while we can! Life is good!! Looking forward to seeing many of you at the reunion in Sept. 50 years... Whee!!!