Classmates, wive, widows--

 Extreme frustration on my part.  I had about two page of notes disappear into the the ether zone of my email.  Beats me.  I will try again to recreate what I had written.  Unfortunately, I deleted the information already used.  Woe is me...

 Deaths among the 1958 family.   This topic was last addressed in April notes.  Now must catch-up again.  The first to mention is one of our early wives, Ruth Ann Wyatt.  She died on 30 April 2019, but I did not know it when the May notes were submitted.  She was one of our June Ladies.  She had a great-grandson Sawyer.  That is correct: great-grandson.  Let me hear from other great-grandparents.  As Wayne wrote in an email to me years ago, "A head start helps."  Ruth Ann also had a submission in "Hearts of '58" about their dating, early marriage and life together.  Our ranks among the June Ladies is declining.  Their address was/is 310 Chisholm Trail, Austin TX 78717 for those who want to send a note to Wayne.

 Another death among our wives was Marion Fay.  She was married to classmate Lee and her death was reported by faithful G-2 CCQ George Lawton.  My notes do not record when Marion and Lee were married, but it was many years ago.  Their address was/is 4403 Granada Street, Alexandria VA 22309 for those who want to write to Lee.  She and Lee were members of Washington Farm United Methodist not far from Mt Vernon.  Their church information was provided by a non-grad friend of mine who also reported Marion's passing and with whom I served in the Pentagon.  We are both in a group of "Pentagon veterans" who meet monthly for lunch.

 Based on my personal experience, I can attest that both Wayne and Lee will be lonely without their partners.

 Now,  since beginning this edition of class notes, we have lost two classmates.  The first was Juan E Villanes who died on 23 April 2019.  I think Juan came to the 50th Reunion, but am sorry to say that I missed him there.  Our prayers are with his widow Carmen.  We are not doing well among our four foreign cadets, having lost two of our four total: Juan and Luis Mirasol.   Luis was a colonel who retired from the Philippine Air Force.  Sadly, Luis died 4 Dec 1998 in Manila.  And now we must add Juan to the list of foreign cadet classmates who have died.

 The other foreign classmates were both from Thailand: Pete Kullavanijaya and Sammy Sookmark are still above the grass.  Both Pete and Sammy made four stars in Royal Thai Army.  I believe Sammy became the Defense Minister and Pete served on the Privy Council.

 Our second classmate who recently transitioned to Ghostly Assemblage was Art Meyer.  Art died on 22 May 2019 and joined his wife Sue who died on 17 Aug 2009, almost ten years before Art.  He retired from the Air Force as a Lt Col in 1979.  Art died in Tucson.  They also had an Air Force daughter who was Project Manager of the year in 2008, Lt Col Janet Kasmer, and some point was PM of the year.  Fortunately Sue was still around when daughter Janet received the USAF award for her work as a PM.

 Army Sports Hall of Fame.  This subject made the May class notes, but it is worth mentioning again.  Being nominated to the Army Sports Hall of fame is our Lacrosse All American Goalie, Ray Riggan.  His B-2 roommate, Dick Schonberger is submitting the nomination.  Ray was an All American as a Firstie.  This effort was endorsed by a number of classmates, including Brad Eliot and Bob Dey, but the details are lost along with my earlier effort.  Sorry about that.

 A spring sport, Lacrosse, was lacking in detail about the 1958 team in our Howitzer.  Phil Gibbs, one of our gifts to '59, provided me a copy of the write-up from their Howitzer, but that is lost as well.  Our Lacrosse players included Bob Grete, Mike Harvey, John Evans, George Robertson (of G-1), Brad Eliot, Dave Depew, Cloin Robertson, Jim  Ramsden,  and Dick Smith.  Sadly, of these Lacrosse players, Mike Harvey, John Evans and Jim Ramsden have died and are playing lacrosse in heaven.

 On the subject of Dick Schonberger I should mention that he played on the initial Army 150 pound football team.  Others on that initial 1957 team were Brad Johnson (team captain), John Brinson, Fred Easley, Ralph Wensinger (a classmate who was graduated in 1959), Pete Hidalgo and Jude Theibert.  Hope I have the names correct.  Think I covered this subject in May notes, but do not think I "named names."  The weight for Sprint players has gone up from 154 pounds in our day to over 175 now.  More beef, but no less sprint.

 Our classmate medical doctors.  My list in May classnotes omitted Jim McCauley.  The ever-faithful G2 CCQ spotted my omission and sent a prompt correction.  Thanks, George Lawton!  I knew better but still missed one.  Sorry Jim.  He and I were in the 7th grade together in Alexandria.  

 I had a call recently from Lee Miller who was checking his info on class widows and living classmates.  Hope that I was helpful.  We have about 148 living widows on our class email list.  Difficult to track the widows/wives, living and/or died.  I think we have about 107 wives who have died.  I need to work on stats for total number of living widows.  We certainly had more wives than 255.  Something is missing here.

 For that matter, we had 573 graduate in June 1958, of whom about 328 are living.  I need to check my stats for both living widows and living grads.  This is not unlike trying to paint a moving train.  I do know that we have lost 9 of the 29 classmates who were graduated in 1959 and we have lost our only contribution to the Class of 1960, Tom Taylor.

 EC Meeting.  I enjoyed a Class EC meeting at Andy Andreson's on 28 May.  Andy is the chairman of EC and is having knee surgery on 19 June.  He hopes to be up and around for the WPAOG Class Leaders meeting at West Point on 14-17 August.  And, he should attend the next EC meeting whenever that is.  Sometime in September maybe.

 Audrey Webb attended the EC meeting and provided a written report from the widows.  She, with the assistance of Margie Downing and Betsy Hall, are sending 60th Reunion pins to the widows who have not received them.  I think that Audrey is a member of the EC -- at any rate, she is a regular attendee.

 Mike Daley participated by phone (others joining by phone included Jack Bradshaw, Mike Mahler and Paul Vanture).  Hope this is correct.  I think Bob Hayden replaces Paul Vanture on the EC in October.  And, Mike Daley was added to the during the meeting on 28 May meeting.  Other EC members at the meeting were Lee Miller and Frank Waskowicz.  There were probably more, but my notes are bad along with my memory.  George Lawton attended representing our Perpetual Endowment Fund (PEF).  Lawton reported that Lee Miller says we have 328 living classmates while Paul Vanture said the number is 318.  I like Lee's number of 328 (1) because it agrees with mine (573 - 245 = 328) and (2) is larger, which means more are living.  Maybe I got Paul's number wrong.  Who knows?  Try Paul's telephone number and see if it works and check out the number of living classmates.  I do not think he keeps track of wives/widows.

 Special Dino.  Exchange of emails with Jack May contained information about his cross-country record time of 35 hours plus.  I think his trip was in 1960-61 or so.  No doubt I have the details wrong and will hear from Jack.

There is more, but it will have to wait till next Class Notes.  Tomorrow will be 4 June 2019.  We graduated on 4 June 1958.  61 years!  Hard to believe we were ever that young.  And eager.  And newly commissioned.  With uniforms that fit.  Brass shined.  Shoes shined.  Some off to weddings as grooms.  Others serving in the weddings.  Long ago...

 Must add my normal plea to CCQs -- please send these notes to your company-mates who are not on the class list which I use: usma1958@west-point.org -- this is not the one Jack Downing uses for death notifications.  Jack's has somewhat wider distribution than the one I use for Class Notes.  When in doubt, just send the notes to all your company-mates and see what sort of a response you get.

 For the record, I have sent notes monthly so far this year, making this the 6th edition: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May and June.  If you did not receive them all, send me an email (gsibert@comcast.net) or call at 703-671-1415 and I will send the missing Class Notes to you.  I love phone calls.  I have heard from Bob Shellenger lately and would love to hear from YOU!

 Das ende.  German for "the end" if I remember correctly.  Middle of second section of two for German.  Think I stood around 67 of 100 or so in German.  A liguist I am not...  Dumbest thing I did as a cadet was take German and not Spanish (two years in high school).  Fortunately I did go to Germany after Engineer Officer Basic and merit badges of Airborne, Ranger and Flight School.

 George Sibert, Scribe for USMA 1958