Welcome to the Westside High Class of 1961 website! We hope you enjoy your stay here enough to make this a regular stop during your visits to the web.
When you visit, sit back, listen to some of the old songs on the pop-up player toward the bottom of this page, and go to the "Classmate Profiles" section to reconnect with your past and catch up with old friends (don't forget to write or update your own profile).
|
ANNOUNCEMENTS
| • |
We lost another class mate on September 3, 2016. Ron Davis passed after a valiant battle for 13 years with various cancers. Dee and I visited him and his wife Marsha in Sun City, AZ in 2012 where we found out that his oncologist had taken an aggressive approach to treatments and had removed a number of internal plumbing parts among other things. He was however in good spirits as we reminisced on times we spent together at Westside and as fraternity brothers at Omaha University. He even chuckled as I observed that he really had become a “gutless wonder”. Just so you know we had often chided each other as such in our youth.
Ron came to Omaha in the summer of 1960 and I was first introduced to him by a couple of new juniors that were working out at the gym with a few of the basketball players from our class. John Lukason and Bob Garrett said they had met this tall skinny red head who worked in the coffee shop at the Town House Motel and I should go with them to talk him into coming to our workouts (key words, “He’s Tall”). We became good friends and enjoyed a lot of time being together.
Ron didn’t venture too far from Omaha after he completed his degrees and ended up in Corning, Iowa where he was school psychologist from 1973 until his retirement in 2000. He had moved to Sun City to be closer to his aging parents where he really enjoyed not having to mow the gravel in his yard. He and Marsha had fairly recently celebrated 50 years of married life, a goal he strived to achieve I’m certain.
Ron will be missed mostly by Marsha and their children Julie and Lee, but certainly also by close friends and associates. His relaxed demeanor and sense of humor endeared him to most anyone he met.
|
• |
We have pictures!
The class reunion photos have arrived at the homes of those who ordered one. If you didn't, you may see it here.
We also now have the snapshots taken during the 50th reunion weekend posted. If you were at the reunion, relive it; if you were'nt, enjoy it vicariously. And, while you're at it, have a look at the pix from the 40th reunion we just got around to posting.
Did you take pictures, too? Let us know about them, and we'll get them up so everyone can have a look.
|
• |
In the News
 The Omaha World-Herald just ran a nice story about Mary Lou and Gary Hannibal. You can read it here.
|
• |
Classmates win Honors
 Bob Saffer, pictured at the 50th reunion, was inducted into the Westside High School Athletic Hall of Fame this year. You can read about it here.
 Robert Duncan, pictured in a Duncan Aviation photo taken in 2007, was crowned 2012 King of Ak-Sar-Ben. Details are here. As the World-Herald tribute indicates, Robert and Karen have become world-class art collectors. Their collecting was the subject of a major Wall Street Journal article in August, 2014.
|
• |
Help! Our needs are great!
The 50th reunion is past, but we still need you to join the site and write a profile! The heart and soul of this website are the stories we have to tell of our lives since graduation.
We still have about 90 (!) classmates we can't locate. Please take a look at the "Missing Classmates" page and see if there's anyone you know on it. If there is, please contact us with address, phone number, and/or email.
|
• |
Guests
When you look at the "Classmate Profiles" page, you will see we have some "guests" listed in addition to classmates. Guest privileges are granted by the site administrator to classmates' family members and friends and to fellow WHS alums who express a desire to be admitted to the site. You will be able to identify in the guest's profile his or her relationship to the class of '61.
|
|
