Beverly Wilcox Collins

My husband and I moved to Colorado Springs in 2010 - I am my daughter's back yard neighbor. The house came on the market as a pre-foreclosure and had been occupied by drug users/dealers. Everything had to be painted with oil base Kilz to get rid of the stains and odors (45 gallons Kilz). It's great living next to my daughter and 4 grandchildren, and a great view of the mountains out the window. We live on Cheyenne Mountain, 6 blocks from NORAD.

I volunteered to make the class website and it's been fun reconnecting with everyone. Thanks to JoAnn Butcher for also being an admin with me: "Our class has entered the technical age!!"

I have loved reading about your families, work, hobbies, and play and receiving your emails about reconnecting with high school friends! What an amazing bunch we are - the things we've done and accomplished, the experiences we've had, our triumphs as well as tragedies we've come through, the beautiful children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren we have. As I uploaded the individual senior pictures, I kept thinking, "Everyone is so good looking!"

So what have I been up to since graduating from high school? Greatest accomplishment - 3 great kids and 8 grandchildren I love dearly. I worked in the crazy pizza business for Tom Monaghan/Domino's Pizza and wrote a how-to eBook for making pizzeria style (NY) pizza at home: "Secrets From Inside the Pizzeria." Several classmate friends have become proficient pizzamakers - JoAnn Ritland Butcher, Marcia Davenport Ziel, Bev Benson Post, Peggy Brainerd Buchwald to name a few.

The pizza book has led to meeting wonderful and interesting people like "Famous Dave," founder of the BBQ restaurant chain; David Kay, an Executive Producer for the "The Late Show," who said, "If you're ever in NY, I invite you to be my special guests" (we took him up on the offer and were in the special guest audience one night); Lee Butler-Saussy who read the pizza book and opened up a very successful pizza restaurant in Thomasville GA; Sal Cenicola who owns Sal's Neighborhood Pizzeria (the best Italian food ever) on Saint Simon's Island - he was a former boxer and well known in boxing history, especially with his new Guinness Book of World Record's entry as the longest come-back boxer - after a 25 year hiatus.

In Fall 2017 my daughter, daughter-in-law, an Ann Arbor friend and I enjoyed another trip to the Epcot Food & Wine Festival and some of our favorite Disney World restaurants like Polynesian's 'Ohana and Japan pavilion's Teppan Edo. Also have enjoyed Rick Bayliss' new restaurant in Disney Springs (Rick and I taught at the same cooking school when we were young, and became cooking friends. He also owns Frontera Grill in Chicago.)

If I had all the money and time in the world, I'd love to travel, and had a lot of opportunity to do that while I worked in the International Division for Domino's Pizza - great places like Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, Spain, Italy, British Isles.

Also, I worked a few years in R&D for a small meat company in Iowa creating delicious entrees for restaurants ... I always did love to cook. And I was a Boston Market manager too, where I got the bug to have a restaurant out of my system.

I was caretaker many years for my mother, who lived to 99, and my father, who reached 97. I was active in our Marshalltown Noon Lions club, D.A.R., and the Iowa Barbeque Society...but now that I've moved to Colorado, my life is about fun and family.

It was GY night and after the meeting we played a game -- name that song. Two girls would be picked to name the popular song put on the record player. Each girl was placed at opposite ends of the room and as soon as you thought you knew the song, you ran up front and gave your answer. I hoped I wouldn’t get picked. All the other pairs of girls raced to the front after 2 or 3 bars of the song were played. But then, Ann McGregor and I were picked. As they played song after song, we sat there without a clue, until one song…we both rushed up ... and didn’t have the name of the song right. We were much cause for laughter – that we knew not a one. Ann and I became good friends the rest of high school and have remained life-long friends. She and husband Wally came to visit in 2014.

A 50th reunion story: I was seeing Jan Harvey (Thake) for the first time in 50 years and recognized her instantly. "You look WUNderful!" I told her. She touched at her face and mumbled, "I didn't know if the Botox had taken effect yet." Thankfully, she didn't have a camera to record the stunned look on my face before I recovered and started laughing. It was a Kodak (or Botox) moment.

Cooking - family favorites are pizza, smoked ribs and brisket, bacon carbonara, tenderloin sandwiches and Made-rites, cinnamon rolls, tacos, rolled up pancakes, apple pie, chocolate chip cookies.

Home remodeling - remodeled our kitchen with new cabinets and wood-look tile. Recently finished remodeling a cabin with my daughter in Florissant, CO.

Travel: Spring and summer 2016 there were trips to Sedona, Grand Canyon, Iceland, Germany and Austria. The Sound of Music movie was lots of fun to watch again after staying in Salzburg.

2017 was Food & Wine Festival, Georgia to visit cousin Chuck Nelson, Florida, Caribbean cruise.

At the start of 2018, I have a trip planned to Ecuador to visit a long-time ex-pat friend, the Galapagos, and Costa Rica with my 3 children.

Patrick 30
Tom 25
Ryan 21
Christopher 19
Andrew 17
Haley 14
Brad 12
Colton 11

We moved from the Iowa farm where I grew up to Colorado Springs in 2010. My next door neighbor is my daughter, and we enjoy hanging out - which usually means working on her son's or father-in-law's house or one of our houses, or going out to lunch. In 2012 we did a 10,000 mile vacation starting with Yellowstone, then Mt. Rushmore, Mall of America, my sister's house in Northwood IA, Famous Dave's resort in Wisconsin, Texas in-laws, Lee's Moonpies in GA, Sal's Neighborhood Pizzeria on St. Simon's Island, Disney World, Disney cruise on Disney Dream, and back home from Florida.

We've discovered cruises. Disney, Carnival, Holland American, Norwegian. In 2014 we did the "Love Boat" cruise to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlán, and Puerta Vallarta. In 2015 we did a cruise out of Galveston to the Caribbean and I crossed zip-lining off my bucket list. This year we cruised to Costa Maya, Cozumel (side trip to ancient Mayan city of Tulum), Honduras, and Belize. Last summer included a trip to Germany and Austria visiting military friends at Stutgart and Sound of Music sites in Salzburg.

Our annual family reunion (since 1980) takes place over Memorial Weekend at the Indy 500 race. We've been fans since the company I worked for in the 70s owned a race car. After that a visit to family and friends in Michigan where I lived for 20 years, including a visit to one of our favorite parks - Cedar Point at Sandusky. My daughter writes an online book about how to go to Disney World on the cheap so we go there at least once a year in the name of research (oh yeah!) and visit cousin Chuck Nelson on the way in Atlanta.

In 2018 I went to Ecuador and Galapagos to visit long time friend Juanita and to Costa Rica with my 3 children.

None yet, but my husband has two great grandchildren.

Helen Knoll and Dave Fagle

I thought I would be a secretary, and I had taken 2 years of typing and shorthand. By the time I finished high school, I didn't want to be a secretary. I went to college and got a teaching degree and taught for 3 1/2 years in public school. I taught adult education for many years, then went to work for Domino's Pizza corporate offices as the first food quality assurance/research and development person (they were 250 stores at the time). My last position there was International Development, and I traveled to many other countries.

I can lay tile, install electrical outlets, and still play a mediocre game of racquetball. My daughter and I make warm mittens from vintage wool sweaters (do you have any to donate?). I enjoy entering contests and have won everything from a speedboat to a book and a turkey.

Ann McGregor Junker, JoAnn Ritland Butcher, Peggy Brainerd Buchwald, Pat Barker, Gene Long, Chuck Nelson, Joan Robertson Ballard, Jane Lynch Bauer, Jan Harvey Thake, Margaret Allen Glass, Bob Hayes, Allan Rudison, Zelda Dannen Vry and more.

It is May 2020 and my family has remained healthy. I don't know anyone who has had the virus but do know someones who know someone. In Colorado we are still in lockdown, though some services have started to open on a limited basis. I can go to the grocery store, often choosing to go during senior hours, and must wear a face mask. My daughter and I have sewed up face masks for family and friends.