58 | LEHIGH ALUMNI BULLETIN | CLASS NOTES ’73 Patrick Fekula, 1891 Evans Drive South, Jacksonville Beach, FL 32250. (904) 451-4949 (M); Pfekula7@gmail.com This is the second of three columns dedicated to our fellow classmates and their spouses and/or guests who participated in our 50th reunion last year. Yes, for those of you who were there in June of 2023, that’s when the Class of ’73 swept the reunion awards! We won the Petty flag for best performance during the parade of classes, along with the other two class awards: most alumni and guests in attendance (126) and highest percentage of returning alumni. In addition, our class swept the top two individual awards presented by the university when Bernie Suess was presented with the Joseph Persa Award and Celeste Varricchio received the Eugene Grace Award. In addition, Jim Duane received the Alumni Award, which is presented to one member from each of the 15 classes at the reunion. In our last column, we recognized about one-third of those in attendance last June. In this column, we continue acknowledging and thanking the following classmates and their spouses and/or guests for participating: Phyllis and Dave Gould, Richard Greene, Trish and John Grubb, Mike Haladay, Kathy and Doug Hampson,Casey Heeg, James Heller, Rich Henricks and reunion committee member Bob Hoerner and Cathy. Also, Michael Holtz, Pat and Randy Hull, Marc Jacobs, Martin Johnson, Mike Kamnikar, Tim Koehler and Ron Kralik (who scored the TD during our award-winning parade skit) with his spouse, Karen. In addition, reunion committee member and parade skit announcer David Morrison, along with Susan and Paul Krumrine, Robin and Dave Laudenslager, George Lazorchick and Linda and Tony Licata. Thanks also go out to Judy and Jerry Long, Lorraine and John Loper, Shela and Robert Luber, John Lynch, Jim McCauley, Al Miller with his son, Richard, and committee member Edward Morton and Janet. Please look for additional names of the class members and their spouses/guests who attended the reunion when they appear in the next class column. In other class news, Don Stengel, who lives in Fresno, Calif., contacted me after the reunion to say he was disappointed that he was unable to attend but was glad to hear we had a good turnout and success in the parade. He also heard about the extremely poor air quality from the Canadian fire smoke that inundated the Lehigh Valley at the start of the weekend but was happy to hear that the air quality did improve substantially by the time the parade took place. Don related his experience with gray-orange skies and deposited ash from the many destructive forest fires in California. He stated that California was currently under a large heat dome that hovered over the southwest United States. Don went on to say that he and his wife, Priscilla, were fortunate to be able to relocate to their retirement home on the coast, where the temperatures remain fairly cool due to the moist marine air that gets sucked in over the coastline when the hot air rises inland. According to Don, by comparison, the temperatures at his main residence in Fresno were expected to exceed 110 degrees, adding, “Welcome to global warming.” Celeste Varricchio wrote to say that she and her husband, Bob Greenwald, along with classmate Betsy Adams, had the good fortune to watch last year’s Lehigh-Cornell football game from the president’s skybox. “What a view!” she related. But “unfortunately, it was a heartbreaker of a game, Lehigh lost by three points.” One bright note, she said, “We wore our Reunion ’73 jerseys and received numerous compliments.” On that positive note, I’ll sign off until next time! ’74 Bill White, 5418 Holiday Drive, Allentown, PA 18104, whitebil1974@gmail.com By the time you read this, our 50th class reunion will be history. Unfortunately, I write this on deadline before the reunion, so I can’t report directly on what happened. I have no doubt that my next column will be full of information about our triumph in the Petty flag parade competition, great attendance and another rousing post-dinner speech by our president, Gus Gustafson. I can tell you that our theme will be “Undefeated and Unsurpassed” and that our plan is to line up our football team— led by star quarterback Kim McQuilken—before the parade judges to run a pass play against feeble Lafayette resistance. Our classmates defeated Lafayette all four years, beginning with the freshman team before NCAA rules were changed to allow frosh to play varsity. Parade signs will acknowledge another undefeated classmate, national champion wrestler Tom Sculley, who had a 26-0-1 season as a 134-pounder. If I have my way, they’ll also celebrate the exploits of Don Wasson, who consumed 73 Devil Dogs in five minutes to win the inaugural Drake Snack Cakes Cup in 1974 before retiring undefeated in a collegiate eating competition. If you couldn’t make the reunion but are interested in catching up with what some of your classmates have been doing, there may still be a few copies of our 50th reunion yearbook available for sale through the Alumni Office. They’re $40 and include updates and reminiscences from lots of our class members. Here’s an example of the “Life After Lehigh” report from this year’s reunion chair, Jim Galletly, who has done a fantastic job: “I began my career in risk management in a field adjuster role with Crawford & Co., the nation’s largest adjusting firm. Rising through the operational ranks over 15 years, I transitioned into sales and flourished, ending up a regional VP (NE and Mid-Atlantic) by 1998. I was recruited into Aon’s new TPA Cambridge as RVP sales, who led the TPA market in revenue in just seven years. “I moved into the managed care industry and then held varied sales roles until 2015 when I entered the private country club industry in membership sales and continue now seasonally in semi-retirement at Manchester Country Club in New Hampshire. “Socially, I have remained very close friends with around 10 fraternity brothers, other LU alumni and their closest friends, and we have gathered in the Poconos for Super Bowl weekend annually, recently celebrating our 50th Super Bowl with 16 of my closest buddies. Skoal, Brothers! “My other passions are golf and my 1998 Corvette convertible, and I share this passion with a local club with several hundred members, participating in caravan cruises to a variety of lunch destinations where 20 to 30 members travel the back roads of New England together. It’s lots of fun!” Finally, I’ll note that I got to attend Easterns wrestling at Bucknell this year with Bob Shultz, his wife, Suzy, and Doug Henning ’75. It was great to spend the weekend reminiscing, but it also reminded me of some of the ridiculous stuff Bob and I did as freshmen. My apologies to anyone we confused, alarmed or offended. My only excuse is that I was 18 years old, and Richards 1 was full of bad influences. ’75 Thom Hirsch, 139 McHenny Court, Chester, MD 21619, ThomasHirsch44@Outlook.com
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