HiLiners62

Here is a link to the music video of " When Did I Get Old " by Derrick Dove & The Peacemakers.   This is a great country blues song sent to me by one of you.  Initially I was confused by the link  because the first thing that popped up was an ad for getting rid of belly fat followed by a suicide prevention ad.  Then I remembered that YouTube ads are randomly selected by artificial intelligence based on your profile and browsing history which was just as discomforting. You probably won't get the same ads, but just skip over them to get to the video.  You may not even get any which might be even more disturbing because that may mean your profile is as empty as a discarded beer can on the 169 mile stretch of desert road between Tonopah and Ely, Nevada.  It is a road with no gas stations, rest stops, restaurants, etc.  I have traveled it often both literally and metaphorically and know this road is just a vast nothingness only Jean-Paul Sartr...

With my part-time job, working for Archie Miller at 65 cents an hour, I hardly had the time or money to golf. Conversely, Willard and Dick spent so much time at the Town and Country Club each summer that they could have gone to court and claimed squatter rights over much of the property. Dick's uncle, Don Muhs, managed the club for a number of summers and Dick was hired to clean up the clubhouse every morning. Willard often joined him, and occasionally, I pitched in as well. Once we finished tasks like emptying ashtrays, sweeping the floor, and cleaning the toilets, Dick would generously let each of us grab a bottle of soda from a 1950s-era vending machine—a contraption where the bottles sat in circulating water, providing some semblance of coolness, though far from cold. There was no ice maker on site, so each afternoon, when Don arrived to tend the bar, he brought along a Coleman cooler brimming with ice for mixed alcoholic drinks. If you ordered just a Coke with ice, he would co...

In 1973, my wife Joan and I started a one year job working at the PAR Anti Ballistic Missile site near Cavalier, ND. Housing was scarce, but we managed to secure a trailer rental in Edinburg, ND, situated 30 miles from the site. At that time Willard was teaching and coaching in Rugby, ND which was only two hours away so we frequently visited each other on weekends during our year in Edinburg. On one particularly cold weekend in January of '74, Willard arrived late in the afternoon. We made plans to drive to a favorite bar and restaurant in Mountain, ND, located midway between Edinburg and the PAR site. It was our "favorite" primarily because it was only 14 miles away compared to our other choices of 35 miles away, but it was good enough for us and after a couple drinks, who cared? We were still young. We smoked too much; drank too much; and had no worries about the future; the future was simply "whatever" as Willard would often say. Because there was a blizzard ...

Fifty-one years ago Willard Jantzen boarded Northwest Airlines flight 723 in Miami with plans to fly to Minneapolis and then catch a ride to Crosby Minnesota to be the best man at my wedding.  Just when the giant 747 plane left the runway and began to climb, a large flock of seagulls scattered.  A minute or so later the captain announced that they were returning to Miami because some birds had flown into the right starboard engine.  As the plane circled around to approach the runway again, it began to rain and the new concrete runway became very slick.  When the wheels of the plane touched the runway, the pilots were unable to fully reverse the three remaining engines properly for braking assist.  The plane began to hydroplane sideways on the wet runway.  It continued beyond the end of the runway into a rough field until the front nose gear hit an old concrete culvert.  The nose gear immediately collapsed and penetrated the floor of the passenger cabin...

  An anonymous post to the Remember Me page provided information on the passing of Les Manstrom last year.  I found the following obituary in the Valley City Times Record: Leslie Carl Manstrom, 78, Valley City, North Dakota passed away April 21, 2023 at Sanford Hospital, Fargo, North Dakota with his daughter by his side. A private family service will be held at the Oliver-Nathan Funeral Chapel, Valley City. Burial will be in Memory Gardens later in the spring. Les was born November 12, 1944 in Valley City to Clifford and Louise (Piller) Manstrom. He grew up on the family farm south of Valley City and attended grade school at Brown country school. Les graduated from Valley City High School in 1962. Right out of high school, Les briefly worked as an inspector of North Dakota missile sites before enrolling at the North Dakota State School of Science in Wahpeton. Les started out in architectural drafting and then transitioned to electrical technology. He graduated as a lineman and...

Thanks to Mary Hill for sending me this.

Hi, Enno. Bonnie Cink Ness here.  My sister Juleen (Jeanie) Cink passed away this morning in Valley City. She had been suffering from severe R.A. and recently dementia, so it was a blessing for her. But unfortunately, my heart is broken.   Thx alot, Enno. Take care. 

  As I am sure almost all of you know, Carol was Willard's sister.  Just yesterday I drove to Valley City to see Willard and spend an afternoon with him.  At one point I asked about Carol.  Will replied that she had died a year ago.  This was a complete surprise to me.  I did not know she had been fighting cancer for some time.   Her husband Cecil died 14 years ago. Carol was such a beautiful person in so many ways.  Her obituary is here:   https://www.golnickschuenemanfh.com/obituary/Carol-Dahl There is a video montage of lots more pictures at the obituary link.

To view the video click on READ MORE and then click on:  Ed Sullivan Clips 60 Years Ago . Thanks to Dick McConn for bringing this video as well as the Marine Corps story to my attention.

Hi, this is Virginia’s sister Joanne (Wire) Zaharia, from Cummings, ND. Virginia passed away this morning (August 18, 2023) in Norman, OK. She spoke so fondly about you last year as your class welcomed her to celebrate Your ‘61 reunion. And of course I remember your family from days gone by. Would you be able to post her passing on the ‘62 website? I remember there was such thing last year, but don’t have the information.  She was so proud to be from Valley City, ND. Here is a link to her obituary: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/times-online/name/virginia-swanson-obituary?id=52965557 Here is Joanne Zaharia's email address if you wish to contact her: mjzaharia@hotmail.com There will be more added to this posting in the next week or so.

  Forty years ago Valley City celebrated its 100th anniversary as a city.   As part of the celebration a book was published by the Times Record listing highlights over the years from 1883 to 1983.   Quite a number of classmates from 1962 have  surnames matching the names of people mentioned in the book.   The name Luessen appears 17 times; Toring and Englert are next at 12 times each.   The majority of surnames that match are indeed relatives - parents, grandparents, uncles, great uncles, etc. If you want to search your own name, click on the attached link to the entire book and then use your favorite search method (Cmd F for Mac OS, Ctrl F for Windows) and check it out.  Instead of searching, you can also just page down to the end and look at the index which lists all the names in alphabetic order and the relevant pages. Here is the link:  Valley City 1883 - 1983

After several unsuccessful attempts to find an obituary for Ann Englert, I ran across the Al Larvick Conservation Fund. Its mission is to preserve historical and cultural heritage through conservation, education and the public accessibility of American analog home movie, amateur cinema and community recording collections. One of the collections the ALCF has includes the home movies of Hamilton Englert and there I found this: Ann Englert was born in Valley City, North Dakota. She attended grade and high school in Valley City and received a BS in Architecture from North Dakota State University. She was the first woman to become a registered architect in North Dakota. Ann was injured in a ski accident on Sugar Loaf hill in Valley City. Ann practiced architecture during her lifetime, but died in 1992 of cancer. She did not have any children during her married life. The ALCF web site is at: https://www.allarvickfund.org/

Back in 1950 Dean McConn owned a new yellow convertible and when Peggy Lee came to Valley City...  Well, read more about that in the following Fargo Forum article.  By  Bob Lind November 13, 2005 If Dean McConn were the mayor of Wimbledon, N.D., he says he'd have straightened out the news media, including The Forum, years ago. That's because Jamestown, N.D., always is listed as Peggy Lee's hometown. That's wrong, Dean points out. She was born in a Jamestown hospital, yes, but she lived in Fargo as a child, and briefly in Nortonville, N.D., but she grew up in Wimbledon. Dean, formerly of Valley City, N.D., didn't know her personally, but his sister did; she taught music at Wimbledon High School and once drove Norma Egstrom, then a junior, to the state high school vocal music contest in Grand Forks. Dean doesn't know how she came out in the contest, but of course, he knows she later became the famed singer Peggy Lee. Years later, because of Peggy, he was able to w...

Below is a link to go back in time.  The link will be active once you click on READ MORE below.  You may have seen this before, but the picture and sound quality of this version is amazing... The 50's  

My wife Thava and I just returned from our trip to ND to attend the Class of 1961 reunion. It was quite interesting to meet and converse with those class members. We stayed at the AmericInn using the same reservation I had made for our canceled reunion. The only flight we could find that didn’t require a long layover in Dallas was a flight into Bismarck rather than Fargo. While driving from Bismarck it was such a wonderful change to see how green everything was in ND and MN, which have received so much rain. I don’t remember there being so many roadside lakes between Bismarck and VC. Where we live in NM we have received maybe 3 inches of rain per year for several years. You’re probably wondering how I managed to get invited to the 61 reunion. When I did the zoom interview with my lifelong friend, Larry Gauper, I happened to mention that our scheduled reunion was canceled. He checked with Barb (Shepherd) Lang and some other classmates to see if it would be acceptable to attend their reu...