In this edition of the Prep '58 Blog...
A big Prep '58 Thank You to Bill Wittman sent us some great photos from his trip to Scotland. We have them all in a slide show, and we hope you enjoy them.
We take a peek at the December, '54 Petroc. There's a repeat '58 guy mentioned in the issue.
We heard from Brian Dugan...
"I am continuing to get stronger & going to Cardiac-Rehab 3 days a week!
My son is continuing his battle so please continue to continue your prayers!
Merry & Blessed Christmas to All!"
We heard from Bob Bennett about the Greeks. Story later on in the Blog.
A few photos from Vince & Stephanie from a cookie decorating event with a 4-year GG'kid, and...
...another delicious recipe from Desserts with Stephanie. Take a look and give it a try!
Petroc Retrospective - Winter Freshman Year
We have been highlighting an issue of the Petroc in each edition of the '58 Blog and we welcome your comments.
This issue has an interesting article on page 4 that mentions the formal separation of the Prep from the College, and describes the layout and design for the new Prep seal, shown on the cover.
It also celebrates football wins over Xavier and Dickenson for a convincing end to the season, and the emergence of the new crop of basketball heroes - John Crotty and Mike Pedone, among them.
We found John Zamarra listed in the cast of Arsenic and Old Lace for his second appearance in the Petroc as a freshman.
....Bob Bennett
"Hey, Vince:
Greeks on Frosh Honor Roll:
Richard Donovan, Robert Pipchick, Michael Bonifanti, Francis Meola, John Petruzzi, Robert Comizzoli, Thomas Finn, Philip Campana , John Mascarin, Robert Rezzonico, William Sullivan, Robert Bennett, Conrad Donges, Thaddeus Hartanowicz, Wolodomyr Mohutshyi, Anthony Neusch, James Beggans, James Heaney, Henry Wefing and John Ford.
Greeks from 1C: 7/20 35% expected? 14% Most common name? Robert
What do I win? How about a Stephanie cookie?
RB"
Just in case your memory is as iffy as the Editor's, we found a site that lets you access the top news stories from back in the day. You can select the year and month, and the major news events for that period will be shown. Here are a few of the stories we found from 1954 from the thousands that are available.
April 12: The song Rock Around the Clock, by Bill Haley and His Comets, brings rock and roll to the American mainstream.
May 17: The Supreme Court of the United States decides Brown v. Board of Education, ordering an end to racial segregation in public schools.
July 29: J. R. R. Tolkien publishes The Fellowship of the Ring
You can see all the headlines from the 50's right here!
We got a pretty good turnout for the Zoom Cuppa we held on Monday, Dec. 8th.
Rich Campion joined from Canada; Walt Braun and Jim Kozmor from Cali; Bernie Whalen VT, Phil Campana TN, Tom Reilly CO and Rich McConville MA, joined Dave Connolly, Peter Donnelly, George Armbruster and Vince from NJ.
We hope to see even more next month.
We got a high-quality turnout for the Reo Cuppa on Dec 9th, although it was not the largest turnout we've had. Frank Geremia, Joe Machewirth and Vince got together to continue the Cuppa tradition.
We started off with a discussion about what's going on with health care costs, and what options are available, as the rules are being changed this year. That got us to taxes, adjusted gross income, investments and the like.
Lots more chatter, and then lunch arrived. We took a photo and headed home.
We held our 67th Reunion Summa Bash on Tuesday, July 15th at Bar-A in Belmar, NJ and it was a great day!
We had a total of 32 attendees, close to the number of folks that attended last year's event. We have enough room at these events for more than 50, and we hope to set attendance records next year.
We gave away some cookies, and reviewed the latest results from our Annual Fund projects. Since 1982, when Prep started keeping records of fund raising events, the Class of '58 has raised more than $1.7M for the Annual Fund, the '58 Scholarship Fund, and various other events. Nice work!
The team at Bar-A did a great job at our event. We met from noon 'til 4:00, had some lunch and spent time together with folks we might not have seen since the year before. We captured some great photos and video, which you can see here.
And so, another reunion is in the books. We'll take a week or two off, and then get started on next year's Reunion. Let's make that one another record-breaker!
Prep '58 Website - It's worth another look...
On a Zoom call in May, we had a discussion about the Prep '58 website, and discovered that several guys on the call did not know that there was such a thing as a Prep '58 website. Some thought that the Blog was the only thing available for viewing.
Vince went thru a very quick report on the website (see image of the Home page to the left) and invited everyone to check out all that's available. And there really is a whole lot to see!
- The entire collection of Petroc's from our 4 years at Prep;
- the '58 Book Library with reviews by the gang; various photo and video collections, and other features of interest.
- We have all six of the photos from our senior retreat at Gonzaga, with most of the guys identified.
- G'Kid photos sent in over the years;
- Links to the '58 Petrean, Reunions, the After '58 Bio's, and a whole lot more.
If anyone has a suggestion for another feature for the website, send in your idea to Vince, and we'll give it a look.
Click here to visit the Prep '58 website.
Happy browsing!
We started the Blogtoons feature to share some of the humorous cartoons we get from time to time.
Some of them are not technically cartoons, but they all got a chuckle out of the Editor.
Most of them are from '58 guys, but occasionally we will get contributions from a few others...
If you come across one you think the gang would enjoy, send it in to Vince in an email.
Here's a peek at the best of the bunch, so far.
We made it to 41 Bio's...
We hope to get to 50 or more. If you have not sent in a Bio, please take a look at the Bio's we have, and send in one of your own. There's a dozen delicious chocolate chunk cookies just waiting to be shipped for sending in your Bio.
'After '58' got started in March, 2017, when we received this suggestion from Bill Kretzer to collect stories from the '58 gang about what they did after graduation.
"I think there would be a bushel of interest in interviews with each & every ‘58 graduate. I for one, since I went away to college and never returned to NJ, didn’t keep in touch as much as I should have and would be curious to hear how everyone’s life turned out."
Bill sent in his Bio, and 8 years later, we are at 41. We should be approaching 100 Bio's by now, so we're asking for your help to get us there.
We hope every one of the '58 gang will pick up on Bill's suggestion and send in their story in an email to Vince. It takes no more time to put your story together than it would to tell it to your grandkids, so how about it? We will return the favor by sending a baker's dozen of Stephanie Grillo's famous Chocolate Chunk cookies. We've already shipped out over 500 of the best cookies you've ever tasted, and there's more where they came from.
Take a look at the whole collection of Bio's so far.
Bill Wittman - Scotland Photos
"In August, Peggy and I went on a 10-day Rick Steves tour - The Best of Scotland. We had a marvelous time - visiting significant and beautiful sites, great food, with wonderful weather.
We gained a deeper appreciation for the history and traditions of Scotland. We also took time to travel on our own and visited longtime friends."
Click here to see these amazing photos!
Vince shares photos from GG'son Rylee's Cookie Day...
"Vince's wife Stephanie hosted a 'Decorate A Cookie Day' for GG'son Rylee and his mom (Vince's G'daughter, Kortney).
They had a great time, and produced some good looking and delicious treats. Even GG'pop Vince joined in the action!
Vince"
