Subject:Encina Update (quoting/forms/reunions/69/84/90/siblings/fame/mrs lau/columbine/search/store/isp/summer/whatsnew/books/menace) Date:Thu, 20 May 1999 10:01:09 -0700 ENCINA ALUMNI, QUOTING Someone wrote that they were surprised to see their email to me included in the Encina Update. As I mentioned in an earlier update, quoting from emails is a common practice of mine so please make a note if you do not wish to be quoted. Alumni email is the source of most of the material in the Update. Without it, there would be no update! CONTACT FORMS I have noticed that many of you are very circumspect when filling out the contact information forms. Which is fine. I just want everyone to understand what happens to their forms after they are submitted so they are not unnecessarily reticent. 1. I update the alumni database with your contact information 2. I add your email address to the Encina mailing list 3. I add your email address to your class mailing list 4. I forward the contact form to the class reunion contact. 5. Send out confirmation to alumni along with newcomer information. 6. I update the appropriate class directory with the data which you have indicated it's okay to publish online. 7. If you are in contact with friends or siblings, I add them to their respective class directories and refer any inquiries to you. If you do not want your address, city, phone in the alumni database this is fine. But it is not necessary to leave it out of the contact form to keep it out of the online directory. There are boxes you can check on the contact form which indicate which data will be online. The problem is that when all I have is an email address, it's easy to lose contact with you. Having mailing addresses, phone numbers and backup addresses increases the possibility of locating you should you change email addresses. Especially when it comes time for a reunion. I encourage those of you who left off your address and phone to resend the contact info form or just email the information to me for the alumni database. This contact information will not be used for any commercial purpose, only for Encina related activities such as reunions. The only people besides me who have access to contact information are the class reunion committees. BIO FORMS 1. I update the alumni database if necessary. 2. I forward the bio to the mailing list for your class 3. I add the bio to the class homepage or ask the class webmaster to do so. 4. I send confirmation to you. 5. If you have listed your siblings, I add them to the alumni database and to the appropriate class directory and refer inquiries to you. This is one of the best means of expanding the number of known Encina alumni. 6. If you have listed alumni you are in contact with, I add them to the alumni database and to the appropriate class directory and refer inquiries to you. If you did not list your siblings or alumni you are in contact with when you submitted your bio, please take the time to do so. Some other Encina alumni may be looking for your siblings or friends. REUNIONS Kathi Pugh 77 wrote: The classes of 76/77 had a joint reunion for the ten year reunion and I think everyone agreed it was a lot of fun. I really like the idea because I was much closer with the people in the class ahead of me than I was with the people from my own class. Bob Goosmann 74 wrote: The "rolling reunion" idea is an interesting one...hard to say whether or not it would "take." However, as you mentioned, it's really too late for our reunion this year...we're scrambling just to get ready for our class! Wow, I thought this was a great idea but not much interest. I'll bring this up next year before the reunion committees have already made their plans and see if there's more response. CLASS OF 69 Reunion chair Alan Dankman 69 wrote: I have decided the class reunion this year will be held Saturday, August 21st, 1999, as a picnic at Ancil Hoffman Park from Noon until Dusk. This date and format were decided upon after weighing the input from several classmates. I will prepare an official mailing which will contain more details. Please feel free to email or call me. Alan Dankman 916-925-0811 adankman@worldnet.att.net CLASS OF 84 Several members of the class of 84 have written expressing an interest in having a 25th reunion this year: Kari Reser 84 Lisa Wagner 84 Someone from the class of 84 needs to step up and take charge! CLASS OF 90 Denyce Bellinger 90 has volunteered to be reunion contact and to help organize the 10th reunion for next year. Way to go Denyce! Denyce writes: I know of three people including myself who would like to participate in thowing a reunion. This class does seem rather scattered and unorganized but it would be really great if we could pull together a nice 10 year reunion. Put me down as a contact. SIBLINGS Davin Stidger 75 wrote: Glen Stidger 6? Davin Stidger 75 Heidi Stidger 77 Adrien Stidger 79? Barbara Rea 62 found one, Cindy Rea 68 found three, Cathy Harlan 80 found one and I found one more for a total of eleven Elmer siblings: Wynell Elmer 62 Elizabeth Elmer 65 Elwood Elmer 66 Bryan Elmer 67 Vickie Elmer 70 Chris Elmer 71 Mark Elmer 72 Carl Elmer 74 Trina Elmer 79 Mary Elmer 80? Tammy Elmer 82 However, I'm not positive these are all related. I would appreciate it if someone who knows Mark Elmer 72 could contact him and verify this information. HALL OF FAME Nancy McKee 77 did some research and found that Carla Stallings won a bronze medal in the 1982 Senior Division of the USA International Ballet competition: http://www.usaibc.com/allaward.htm I'd heard from several alumni that Eric Mandell 71, frequent contributor to the Update, has led an interesting life so I asked Eric to write something for me: "I had my 15 minutes, or so, of fame in the late 70's/ early 80's as a DJ for the locally legendary KZAP. I had started graduate school at CSUS and won a contest at the station. Went down to pick up my prize, got to talking to the Music Director and she hired me on the spot as her assistant. About a month later, the station was sold and everyone but two others and I was fired. They put me on the air because they thought I sounded just like another DJ whom they had canned and therefore wouldn't alienate the audience. Stayed at KZAP for three years and created the Vintage Rock show which I hosted on Sunday mornings with "Tom Cale." Got hired away by KROY in 1981 and served in management as Promotions Director and did some on air and programming work too. Left to go to Channel 10 as Assistant Producer of "PM Magazine" where I stayed until the show was cancelled in 1983. Did some radio work at KRQR(The Rocker) in S.F. and taught at CSUS until I became Public Information Officer at the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency from 1984 until 1992. The highlight there was creating the "Sacramento WORKS!" ad campaign they use to this day. In 1992 I became VP of Community Relations for KVIE and stayed for three years. Now I'm at the State as is half of town. Other flirtations with fame have included appearances as an extra in the movies "Trigger Effect"- 1995, "The Mad Bomber"- 1972, and "The Candidate"- 1972, the television show Mission Impossible (two episodes)-1972 and several local radio and TV commercials." MRS LAU Aaron Ford 88 wrote: I was wondering about that... You can add me (and probably most of my sisters) to the list. I don't remember a lot of details from way back then but I do remember that she was one of my favorite teachers from Greer (Mrs. Compton, Mrs. Lau, & Mrs. Donovan). That means she must have been an exceptionally gifted and patient teacher because I wasn't the easist child to deal with :-). Debi Hobday 80 wrote: I had read about your mother being a teacher at Greer, and my daughter Lindsey McGuffey went there for K-2 and I asked her if she remembered any teachers she had there, and she said, "Well, I remember my second grade teacher, because I loved her so much, she was a very nice teacher..." and lo and behold guess who the teacher was???? Can you guess??? Of course you can... Your mom... You should be proud.... Lindsey said to tell her hello for her, and if your mom has a good memory of students all you have to tell her is that the year would be I think 88' and Lindsey was the girl with the brightest red hair you have ever seen... Besides, she makes it hard to forget her... heheh... COLUMBINE Beki Keeler 91 sent me this insightful essay which I would like to share with you. From Where I Stand: A Teenager's Voice from Inside the Culture of Death by Sarah Roney April 21, 1999 An 18-year-old Essayist's insight into the Colorado shooting On April 20, 1999, there was yet another gruesome shooting in Littleton, Colorado. Kids killing kids. And again, the entire nation in its uproar is trying to figure out why. I am eighteen years old. I live in a small town near Madison, Wisconsin. A small town just like the ones where these horrifying shootings always seem to take place. Every time those stories come on the television, I can't help but notice how easily it could be my small town next. And I want to know why this is happening just as badly as any parent or police chief or anchorman. The thing is, I am right in the middle of it. I am in the same age group as all of these high school kids. So I may have some insight for the world that has been otherwise unattainable since these shootings started some years ago. The night of the Littleton shooting, as I was flipping through the various news channels that were covering the story in Littleton, Colorado, I heard something that struck a chord in me. An anchorman was interviewing the mother of a victim in the Jonesboro shooting. His question was: "If you look at America in the 1950's, you will find that this kind of thing never happened; whereas if you look at America today, this kind of thing is becoming more and more frequent. Why do you think this is happening?" The woman, of course, could not answer the question. In fact, she didn't really even try. But I did. I thought about it for a long time that night. And again the next morning, when my favorite morning radio talk show asked its listeners why they thought this has been happening. Many people said it's the parents of the kids. Many people suggested television and video games. Many people even turned to popular musicians, looking to put the blame somewhere. But I will tell you what I think it is. What I, a regular teenager riding on the coattails of Generation X, blame it on. It is not the parents or the movies or the rock stars. It is AMERICA. It is this culture of death, this culture in which liberals and feminists and activists are so anxious to let anything be "OK" that the once tightened, knotted rope of society is unraveling right beneath us. Don't you see? There can be no order without discipline. All of those things people think are causing children to run into a school and shoot their teachers and peers and even kids they don't know-the movies, the video games, the parents, the rap artists - they are only REFLECTIONS of our society. Society breaks down, from one big metaphoric "family" into 50 metaphoric "families" and so on and so on, until you have the actual FAMILY, the one with the parents and the kids and the dog. It is not one thing or two things; it is the attitude of an entire "familiar" nation being reflected back at us in the kids. Just as that anchorman suggested, something was different about the 1950's. WE WERE CONSERVATIVE. We had boundaries; we had a definite knowledge of right and wrong throughout the entire nation. We didn't have feminists pushing women so hard to go get a job that a woman who didn't have a job was somehow "bad," thereby leaving kids at home with inadequate parental guidance and often times with parents who were truly unhappy. We didn't have liberals fighting so avidly to legalize everything that it was at the point of completely blurring the line between good and bad. We didn't have a nationwide media surge dedicated to sex and violence so intense that if you weren't playing killing video games at age 14, then you were trying to choose between contraceptives beforehand or abortion afterwards. We didn't have disputes over whether or not we should help someone who is dying die sooner-over whether or not we should ASSIST them in committing SUICIDE. And we certainly didn't have a President who was in favor of NATO bombing and killing children in Serbia come on the television to grieve the loss for the families of children killed in America. We live in a loosely tied society, a culture dedicated to death. If you don't want the kid, kill it. If you don't want to live out the rest of your God-given days, kill yourself. Or better yet, have someone else come help you do it. I guess, no matter how horrible or gruesome or gut-wrenching it may be, it was just a matter of time before someone got that "killing-as-a-means-to-an-end" idea stuck in their head for the part between birth and death as well. Everything that happens in families and cities and states and countries is the mirror image of the big picture. We are falling apart as a society. Am I - some random normal teenager in Farmertown, U.S.A. - the only one who sees that? It's sad and it's hard to believe, but what's worse is that it's scary. I think it's time for our -- America's -- Mom and Dad to ground us -- to say, "If you don't shape up by the time I count to three..." And then really count to three. Because we are running wild and pretty soon we're going to be too far from home to ever get back. There was once a great saying by a famous man that has rung true throughout the history of mankind-in every family and in every society and in every social group and in every religion-it was a frighteningly true statement that cannot be disputed. I am reminded of it now, in the wake of yet another indescribably tormenting result of a nation gone haywire... "By their fruits you shall know them." Someone sent me another perspective from Charles Henderson, who is the About.com Guide (formerly MiningCo.com) for Christianity. In the Aftermath of the Colorado Killings Dateline: 05/08/99 Following the killings at Columbine High, we've been pondering the presence of violence in our society. ... And there is so much of it to ponder, not only among teenagers in the high schools of America, but all around. In Kosovo. In families. In the media. As people struggle to understand what could have contributed to those tragic killings, a long list of causes has emerged. But it seems to me that people look in places that are all too obvious: television shows and computer games, for example, where graphic violence abounds. Though the amount of violence in the media is appalling, I believe it would be a bad mistake to view this as a principal cause of violent crime, so much as it is an effect. A symptom. A mirror that reflects far deeper problems. It has become a virtual mantra in news commentary and on the talk show circuit to say that "we live in a violent society." And so we do. But a brief glance backwards into history reveals that the violence that surrounds us today -- including those shootings at Columbine High -- is quite literally child's play compared with the violence experienced by earlier generations. World Wars I and II, for example. The lynchings of black Americans that were routine not long ago. The abuse of women and children within hierarchical family structures, sanctioned in many cases by proof texts from the Bible. Slavery. The slaughter and enslavement of native Americans by our forebears. Stalin's 10 million victims; Hitler's 6 million. The list goes on and on. In this country and around the world. Littleton is not a peculiar, aberrant, or even an unusual event. In the perspective of history it is the rule. It is the norm. Life is violent. It has been so from the very beginning. Remember the murder that took place in the very first family as Cain rose up to murder his brother Abel. What is unusual is the relatively modern belief that we are a benign species, and violent behavior represents something abnormal. A sickness. When, in fact, humans are carnivores who live by slaughtering animals and are willing to murder each other for control of the food supply. Or oil. Or access to "the markets." We even go so far as to suggest that God approves of much of this. Our literature is filled with talk of just war or even Holy War. The Bible itself contains as much violence as any modern computer game or movie. Beginning with the murder of Abel and running right along to the crucifixion and Armageddon. If you believe that exposing your children to violence is a problem: by all means, keep them away from the Bible. One of the most amazing and unbelievable things is that the biblical narrative we commonly refer to as "Noah and the Ark," which relates probably the most violent and gruesome tragedy in the whole of human history, is transformed into a cute little children's story by well meaning parents, preachers and Sunday School teachers who gleefully describe Noah and his nuclear family boarding the ark with all those animals. Just before the greatest act of destruction and slaughter that the world has ever seen. Committed by the Lord God Almighty. If we are to come to grips with the problem of violence we will have to probe a whole lot deeper than we have done so far in the aftermath of Littleton -- or in the shadow of the ongoing tragedy of Kosovo. The fact is that teenagers understand that life is cruel. They wrestle with feelings of anger, resentment and fear. Inside their growing bodies they feel the pain, and in some cases, they are simply not prepared to accept the tragic realities of life passively, but instead are ready to "take up arms against a sea of troubles" as Shakespeare put it. With results that everyone laments. For this there is no fix. No gun control law, no computer program to filter out violence, no movie rating system, no government censorship program, no matter how powerful and effective. There is no prison big enough, no wall high enough, no army powerful enough to bring an end to the violence. When they send the troops into Kosovo, they will probably refer to them as "peace keepers." But in so doing they will be crying "peace," where there is no peace. When the blood of the innocents cries out for a solution, the best we may be able to do is lament the tragedy -- together. And let a deeper understanding flow from our mutual lamentation. Having just an inkling of how wide, how deep, and how pervasive the problem actually is, we can begin to search together for a solution which, as yet, surpasses human understanding. If there is one thing that differentiates the violence happening today from that in any previous time, it is our nearly instant awareness of it. This is one small reason for hope. For there is just a possibility that the slumbering conscience of humanity will be awakened from that awareness, and prayers of lament will be answered by the One who would make peacemakers of us all. ALUMNI SEARCH 1978 Greg Fox 1987 Ron Cameron Jamie Yarrow 1991 Joe McClure DECEASED Erik Olson 79 wrote: Eric Landers Class of 79 died some time in the last two-three years maybe longer. Others from that class that are deceased that I'm aware of are: Chris Tulley, Kevin Porter and Chris Francino Dina Shrum 86 wrote that the following 86 classmates are deceased: Todd Jansma Aaron Myer Mitch Nevin STORE Graduation day is rapidly approaching and Father's Day is just around the corner. Don't forget to shop at the Encina Store! amazon.com is now selling all books on the New York Times best seller list at 50% off list. ISP I used to share my ATT WorldNet account with my mom in Sacramento as she rarely needed internet access. WorldNet is cracking down on simultaneous use of the same account so I'm looking for alternate inexpensive internet access. I would be interested in inexpensive ISP recommendations for Sacramento. How much is JPS per year? Has anyone tried Netzero.com? They offer free internet access but have ad banner windows you can't get rid of. I was wondering how hard it is to get a connection and how annoying the banners are? What is AOL's policy on sharing an account? My undertanding is you can have five users per account but AOL prevents simultaneous logins (that is, a second user cannot log in while the account is in use). Does anyone share an AOL account between family in different households? Have you had any problems? Thanks for your advice! SUMMER Looking for something cool for your kids to do this summer? Aviation Challenge, Huntsville, Ala., and Atwater, Calif. www.dogfite.com $675 for five days ($775 for Mach III program) Kids in grades four to 12 learn to fly fighter jets (in a real flight simulator). Wilderness survival and square-corner bed-making skills also taught. Spaces every week. Man, we didn't have camps like this when I was a kid... WHAT'S NEW 5/19/99: Danny Reid 87 bio 5/18/99: Margarete MacLeod 80, Danny Reid 87, Michael Growney 85, Valerie Gervin 83 update, Kenneth Evans 84, Harvey Cain 75, Eric Jarvis 86 5/17/99: Youmaly Phothisane 97, Michelle French 97, Julie Wolfe 97, Rodney Vienna 75 update, Heidi Stidger 77, Glenn Stidger 68 5/16/99: LaMont Price 92/bio, Nick Pappas 93, Tim Wilson 92, Aba Nolley 92, Reggie George 92, Ivy Wilson 91, Joe Grasso 79 5/15/99: Toby Contreras 89, Elizabeth Elmer 65, Elwood Elmer 66, Bryan Elmer 67, Daniel Camara 79, John Nunez 74, Davin Stidger 75/bio, Cathy Johnson 75, David Ottovich 76, Julie Hill 89/bio, Nancy Reid 89, China Hope 90, Eric Eissinger 76 Hall of Fame: Add Elmer family to "Most Encina siblings", Eric Mandell 71 5/13/99: Dennis Heck 81, Rick Lewis 87 update 5/12/99: Sue Ashley 69, Mike Ambrozewicz 69, Jerry Carpenter 68 update/bio, Dina Shrum 86/bio, Sara Waldo 86, Amy McClelland 86, Jon Hanna 86 BOOKS This week I'm reading "Single and Single", John Le Carre's latest thriller. Starts slow and turns out okay but not his best work. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684859262/encinahighschool A couple of other books I read recently which were very enjoyable. "Testament" by John Grisham http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385493800/encinahighschool "Rainbow Six" by Tom Clancy http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0399143904/encinahighschool Michelle Kirman 84 wrote: I was happy to see your reference to Wrinkle in Time, which I read first in 5th grade and loved so much that I read it again in 9th grade, when I went to the library and found that the author - Madeline L'Engle - had other books (much to my surprise). If you have not read anything else by her, you should, and so should your children. I recommend them to all... and when I was pregnant with my now 9-year-old son, I bought a set of three L'Engle Wrinkle in Time books. A worthy investment. Here's a link to paperback version of "Wrinkle in Time": http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0440228395/encinahighschool I just got the sequel "A Wind in the Door" for my son to read: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0440487617/encinahighschool The final book of the trilogy is "A Swiftly Tilting Planet": http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0440401585/encinahighschool Good reads! PHANTOM MENACE My company went to see Star Wars Wednesday afternoon on opening day. First I got one extra ticket but my two boys argued over who got to go. Then I got another extra ticket but my wife said what about me. Finally I scrounged up five extra tickets and ended up taking the entire family plus my son's buddies. Although the reviews have been mixed, I found this to be an very enjoyable movie, with some spectacular and memorable sequences. Well worth seeing and we plan to see it again when it's not so crowded. May the force be with you! Harlan Lau 73 Encina webmaster www.encinahighschool.com harlan@rambus.com