18

Jan. 31, although he did take part in their new pastor’ s installation service Jan. 1. It was a bitter sweet time for both Dan and Lois. They said they are looking forward to retirement from official ministry, but will miss their church family as they will be attending a church closer to home. The church is giving them a retirement / honor dinner Jan. 14. The Nortons are not sure just what“ retirement” will look like yet as Dan will start leading a Bible study in their new community starting Jan. 8. In March, they will be heading to Florida for a few weeks, taking their time driving down and coming home. They definitely want to stay busy serving the Lord in whatever way He leads them.

Congratulations, Dan and Lois, on your 38 years of ministry … Praise the Lord!

Dave Mershon: Dave says,“ At this time in our lives, Toni and I are doing great, and we feel blessed. This golf community( we don’ t golf) turned out to be a wonderful place, being close to family, and the Chesapeake for the boat. As for excitement, we were hit by lightning sailing back from D. C. on the Potomac River. No major damage, but it gave us a chance to check the boat over. This summer we sailed up the James River to the first settlement at Jamestown. At home, we watched the grandkids mature, biked, and volunteered at church and the Masonic lodge. Life is great.”

Bob Raybold: Bob says he spends time telling the lost about the cross, and telling the saved about preterism( things that are past). He also works at a nursing home a few hours on Mondays and Tuesdays and helps sell cars at an auto auction on Thursdays and Fridays. His wife Lana substitutes at a local elementary school. Bob says,“ We sit back and watch grandkids grow up.” Their oldest is a high school junior and has a college picked out already. They also enjoy watching their sports. Bob ends with,“ I don’ t know about the rest of the guys, but I’ m enjoying getting older … maybe that’ s because I don’ t have much pain yet … and the future is bright.”

Warren Speakman called the other day asking for Rob Sharer’ s phone number. He called back this morning to say he got a hold of Rob and they talked for 45 minutes. The Sharers are going to Warren’ s to meet him for dinner.

I’ m really glad to hear that. How about if you all try to connect with an old classmate … be it a roommate, shop mate, whatever? I would just like to see us stay in touch. We were, and are, a great class and I’ d like all to enjoy our great memories and friendships from over 50 years ago. Hope you all have a great year and that we can get together in the fall of this year. Blessings to you and your family,

Dick

Steve Nash 205 Red Fox Court Middletown, DE 19709 302-376-9680 302-383-6860( cell) snash999 @ cs. com

Hi guys,

Happy New Year! Here it is early January, the Christmas holiday season is over, and we are about to settle in for that cold dreary winter that we have to look forward to at this time of every year.( Naturally, I’ m excluding all you lucky fellows that live in

the South or the Southwest.)

This will probably be the last Williamsonian article that you will have read before the reunion. The reunion means so many things to different people. I know for myself, it’ s coming is both exciting and threatening. On one hand, there will be old friendships renewed and re-established and on the other, that personal reminder that it was 50 years ago since we left Willy Tech. 90 percent of our lives will have been lived already and who knows how much longer we have yet to go. If anyone has made lifetime goals, now is the time to evaluate them and decide whether or not they have been reached. I know for a lot of us, we can look to our grandchildren to see if maybe they can carry on with our legacy. Hopefully, they can pick up where we left off. Maybe they can fulfill our bucket list items that we never got to.

I know this article is a bit on the morbid side, I’ m sorry for that, but it also is a touch of reality. When you are gone, will you have said thanks to WTS in some way for the opportunity to have lived a better life? I hope so.

One of the items on my bucket list was to have made it to our 50th. I’ ve still got a few month to go, but we’ re getting close ….

I heard from Ron Westbrook before the holidays and he has a plan that he wants to propose to the administration for some fundraising. I’ ll let Ron tell you about it later on, but I think he spent quite a bit of time coming up with this one.

See you in June, Steve

Edgar Speer 1600 Ulster Lane West Chester, PA 19380 610-431-7574 speerhouse7 @ verizon. net

Greetings Class of 6W8 and Happy New Year( I am writing these notes the last week of December 2016),

Our yearly October class luncheon at Shady Maple enjoyed another good turnout of classmates. We were scheduled for 31 classmates, but some last minute cancellations, due to health / family issues brought our numbers down a small bit. We had some first timers show— MIA’ s for too long! It was so good to see Jack Burns, Tom Paulovitz, and Fran Monahan join us this year.

Jack Burns was as quiet as ever, stately looking as a retired Delaware State Policeman, who is working in private security right now, and hoping to fully retire later this year. Jack had two brothers who also attended Williamson, Class of 6W9 and 7W0. They also were in law enforcement, one for the Delaware State Police and the other for the Maryland State Police.

On a side note, Harry Lane told us he had the good pleasure of being pulled over by a Burns brother while trolling the roads of Delaware! It was so good to get caught up with Jack concerning the last few years of his life journey. At the end of our meeting, we had a discussion of our 50th reunion and our Williamson class gift and Jack shared a good concept of the idea of a yearly gift from our class as opposed to a one shot deal. I have asked Pete D’ Orazio, Williamson’ s director of leadership giving, if something like this was possible. Pete said he would research it and get back to me and Stacy Starr, late January 2017.

Tom Paulovitz: It was good to see Tom as

It gets better every time the Class of 6W8 meets at the Shady Maple. The class had an excellent turnout and several first-timers showed up. Pictured are( from left to right, front): Ron Wildasin, Fran Monahan, Ralph Ames, George Miles, Ralph Maiden, Dan Smith, Ed Speer, Steve Shedlock, and Jack Burns; and( back row): Harry Lane, Dan Maslanik, Tom Paulovitz, Tom Turnbaugh, Dave Slotterback, Dale Laubenstein, Larry Leiphart, Monte Lawley, Will Short, Barry Veet, Jim Thomas, Joe Selgrade, Terry Lieb, and Terry Cooke.( Stacy Starr was there, but missed the photo.)

his last appearance was at our 20th reunion in 1988. Tom is fully retired, having sold his stainless steel business to his partner. His son is still working for the company. Tom and his wife split their time between their Pennsylvania home and their Florida home. They do a lot of travelling in the states and Europe. Tom, like many of us, is a Vietnam vet. He is talking about going back to Vietnam as a tourist to visit the Mekong Delta where he did river patrol. Tom, let me know how the trip turns out as Agnes, my wife, is interested in seeing that country. I doubt that any of the MCB 74( my Seabee unit) firebases, bridges, or runways would still be around to visit!

Henry Carneavale was hoping to join us this year, but a health setback and necessary doctor’ s appointment got in the way. Henry, we are all hoping for great health for your in 2017.

Steve Shedlock and Harry Lane— it was good to catch up with you.

I had a good phone conversation with John Plisko before the lunch and he was looking forward to joining us this year. But, just before the lunch, a buddy offered him a free plane ticket to Florida for some deep sea fishing and John made a good choice! John is retired, living in Somers Point, N. J., and enjoys fishing there all year long. John had been in the hospital for a few days with heart and high blood pressure problems, but all was resolved with meds. John had his own construction business in New Jersey before retiring.

Ron Wildasin, who drives over 600 miles each way to the luncheon every year from Wisconsin, agrees with Stacy Starr that we have the best four hours that we spend together and there is not enough time for all to visit with each other.

Dan Smith shared that he and his wife Linda“ traveled to El Paso, Texas, for stepson Adam’ s wedding celebration on Nov. 10. He will be stationed in Guam for the next three years. Due to the late fall leaf drop, we have been cleaning up leaves ever since we got back. Not much else to report.”

George Miles writes,“ Just a quick response for the Williamsonian. First, I wanted to again thank you for facilitating

the luncheons. It’ s great to see everyone. Second, I just wanted to brag about one of my grandchildren, who at age 14 bagged a buck, turkey, and bear so far this season. While all six of them have their own accomplishments, this one can’ t get the grin off his face, or off mine. Sharon and I are still working on our Bucket Lists and are heading back to the Caribbean for a 3-week sail through the British Virgin Islands in January. We just returned from two plus weeks in Arizona where our daughter lives and after completing all of the“ honey-dos,” we again spent a lot of time exploring lakes, gold mines, caves, the Meteor Crater, as well as standing on the corner of Route 66 in Winslow, Ariz., with a statue of the Eagles and a flat-bed Ford, just“ Taking it Easy.” We are both still overwhelmed with our volunteer chores, with her as the HOA president in one community and me the VP and legal chair in another. I’ m also still up to my ears in our water system and have run into a spate of time consuming failures, line breaks, fires, etc.), which most likely will get worse when the freezing weather gets here. I need to retire from my retirement job!

Stacy Starr has gotten another yearly contract to work two weeks a month in Artesia, N. M. Artesia is in the SW corner of New Mexico. Stacy is still active with the Alumni Association. Stacy designed and personally financed the beautiful stained glass Williamson window that the Alumni is raffling( the article was in the fall Williamsonian). Stacy was so busy selling raffle tickets at our lunch that he missed our class picture. So sorry about that, Stacy.

Agnes and I welcomed our eighth grandchild on Veteran’ s Day, Nov. 11. Fionn( pronounced Finn) James Speer-Gibson was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. We were so glad to be there for the month of November enjoying Fionn’ s big sister, Aoife, and big brother, Luca.

Our son, Ed and Emily, are expecting their third child in the middle of January, joining Beatrix and Edgar, IV. This grandchild is only ½ hour away in Broomall!

We attended an MCB 40 reunion this