About the Committee
(March, 2008) The members of the reunion committee have been
meeting monthly for just over a year to formulate plans for the
reunion. Following an early meeting at which a date was
selected, Betty and Tish visited a number of hotels to determine
availability of the dates selected, possible menus and cost,
and Janice contacted other facilities in the Shore area. The
class was divided up among all committee members to verify
addresses and to attempt to find addresses for those for whom we
had no address. Alice, Wayne, Les and Dave
subsequently joined paid search services in an attempt to locate
classmates that still had not been found. Those services were
not as successful as hoped for. Pat Ippolito took on the
responsibility for dealing with the high school principal
relative to the tour and matters related directly with the town,
etc. Dave and Eleanor were responsible for preparing letters
and the Christmas card for committee approval and sending them
out, and for maintaining the main data base....etc,
etc. (More to come)
Committee Member
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Member Profile
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| Dave Ackerman
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Dave retired in 2005
after 37 years with Macy*s and now works full time for
the Morris County Sheriff's Office as a Senior Systems
Analyst responsible for planning and implementation of
physical security systems for County facilities.
Dave's leisure time activities include grandchildren,
public access video production and volunteering on
community service committees. He and his wife, the
former Eleanor Schilling, live in Florham Park, NJ and
have three children and six grandchildren. He has
been part of the class reunion committee since
the first reunion in 1962.
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| Betty VanNess Babiarz
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Betty has been enjoying retirement
since 2006. She had been employed for almost 20 years by an
Urgent Care Company with several locations in New Jersey.
For most of her time she was Office Manager and Clinical
Supervisor. In addition, she served as an advocate for the
Union County Rape Crisis Center. Betty has two
children who live nearby and she anxiously awaits to hear
that someone will make her a grandmother soon. She is
currently planning to move to South Jersey and enjoy the
beach.
Betty has served on every Reunion Committee and looks
forward to more. |
| Less Heskett
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After graduation; August 5th
1958 Les entered the United States Navy. He served for a
little over 3 years.
Shortly after leaving active
duty he started working for Jersey Central Power and
Light Company in Morristown NJ. I stayed with JCP&L for
35 years holding various positions primarily in the
engineering department where we designed those beautiful
high voltage power lines on steel towers that you see
criss crossing the countryside.
An early retirement package came
along and I retired in 1996. Since then my wife and I
have been traveling.
We have been to Europe 4 times
including two trips to Italy. We have been to Hawaii,
several trips to Canada, and many cities and National
Parks here in the USA. When I'm not traveling I spend as
much time as possible on the golf course. I enjoy
playing poker with friends every month.
We have been spending more and
more time with our grand daughter Jamie who is now 2
1/2.
My wife Susan and I will be
married for 44 years on May 3, 2008. We have two
children; our daughter who lives in northern Virginia
with her husband and our son who lives with his wife and
Jamie in good old Livingston NJ.
Les has been on the last three
reunion committees and will continue on as long as there
are reunions.
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| Pat Ippolito
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Pat retired as Vice President of
Student Affairs, Kean
University, in August of 2002, completing 37 years with the
university. He now works full time for that same
university as an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the
Elementary Education Program. Pat spends most of his leisure
time answering calls as a Volunteer EMT for the Livingston
First Aid Squad, responding to 700 calls last year, serving
his 24th year as President of the Livingston American Little
League, serving on numerous township committees and playing
golf. He and his wife D'Ann (nee Huber...class of 1960) live
in Livingston. Their
two children Christopher and Meridith are living in Cedar
Grove and Scranton, PA. respectively. Pat has been a
longstanding member of the reunion committee. |
| Janice Lein Szoda
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57 years ago I moved from Orange,
N.J. at the age of 10, to Livingston, all the while
thinking my parents were "crazy" moving to the
"country". After all, we went to Forces Farm on
weekends to buy two dozen eggs, and it wasn't a place
you wanted to live! Being an only child made adjusting
difficult because we moved to a brand new development
and some homes were not yet occupied or finished being
built. However by summers end Richard Hickler, Buzz
Campbell, and Robert Bauer were a part of the
neighborhood and schoolmates. Each Sunday morning my
mother and I would walk to Northfield Center and get the
DeCamp bus to take us to our church in Orange, and then
we would take it back from Orange in the early
afternoon. We were always happy when we saw Pecht's
Bakery and Sam's knowing we were back home. After
graduation I had a few jobs and for 30 years I was a
supervisor in Bobst Group, Inc. in Roseland till I
retired in 2003. I moved to Toms River in 1983 and for
twenty years commuted 150 miles round trip each day to
Roseland. I am now a home health aid and find it very
rewarding helping the elderly who contributed so much to
our society in their early years. My husband Joe and I
are deacons in the Presbyterian Church of Toms River and
find serving God rewarding as well. Our daughter and
son-in-law live in Tinton Falls.
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| Letitia Longhurst
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Tish is semi-retired but still does clerical work for
the Veterinary Center of Morris County and Equine
Ambulatory Services in East Hanover. She continues her
interest in horses, especially the American Quarter
Horse. She enjoys gardening, Australian Shepherd dogs
and new England travel. She excels at vacations! She
is now suffering from a severe case of "Grandmommy Amnesia"
since the birth of the first grandchild in January! A
full recovery is expected as soon as Ella
is sufficiently spoiled! She has lived in Roseland with
her husband for 46 years. This is her first year on the
committee.
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| Wayne Miller
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After high school
Wayne joined the Army reserve along with
George Mohr where they spent 6 months
of active training and then became part
of the reserves for another five and a
half years.
He Married Marge
Picard who you might remember was in the
class of 1959. They have two children
and 5 grandchildren all of whom live in
Florida. He has remained here in New
Jersey living in Hackettstown with his
companion,Doris,
and their two
dogs. They enjoy the dogs and gourmet
cooking.
In 1961 he
started working for Public Service
Electric and Gas Company. He spent most
of his 39 years there in the engineering
departments.
Retired in 2000
and he spends as much time on the golf
course playing with the likes of Les
Heskett. He enjoys playing cards (
especially poker ) with friends and
occasionally can be found at one of the
casinos in Atlantic City.
I am looking
forward to seeing all of our classmates
at the 50th reunion.
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| Eleanor Schilling
Ackerman
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Eleanor has been a member of the
Reunion Committee since the first reunion. Dave and
Eleanor started planning the reunions with the committee
because Justine Monaco, our class president, was in
school in Boston and couldn't be here for the planning.
After each meeting Eleanor would call Justine to fill
her in on what had transpired and for her advice and
input. Eleanor is retired from the Florham Park Library
and keeps busy with grandchildren. |
| Alice Sorensen Bonham
[Click photo to enlarge] |
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I have been married to my wonderful
husband Vaughn for thirty two years. We have lived in the
Mt. Fern section of Randolph, NJ. for all of those years.
After twenty years in banking I
have had a variety of jobs from secretary/bookkeeper,
retailer in clothing, roving shopkeeper for antique dealers
etc. Currently I maintain the books for our church, my
husbands auto repair business, and of course our home. I
also have a distributorship with Reliv nutrition products.
We are very active Christians in
the Congregational Church of Randolph serving the church in
many ways. We have a personal ministry with counseling
hurting people, broken families, etc. and we are greatly
blessed in doing so.
In 1985 I was introduced to
Porcelain Art (previously called china painting). I continue
my own study often with teachers from across the USA and a
few from Europe. In my home studio I teach this art to
adults and children. I have taught at the local Adult School
and do "special features" for organizations.
Music is still a love of mine and I
love doing choral and choir work. I am a member of a choir
of 1500 voices at Ocean Grove, NJ in July of each year.
I travel often with my Porcelain
Art groups, my Red Hat gals, my church, my distributorship
with Reliv International and the Seniors.
I had one biological son who gave
me 5 grandchildren and three of them are married and have
given me eight (8) great grandchildren with one more coming.
We adopted a young couple close to twenty years ago. They
gave us two additional granddaughters and two decades of
unconditional love.
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Jim Bredahl
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Jim was self employed for much of
the time since high school. Other than his own
businesses, he worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories in
Whippany where he attended their Communications Design and
Development Course, was the Sales Manager at Custom
Communications in Fort Myers, FL, and was the Director of
the Technical Services Division for Garden State Brickface
in Roselle. He is now Managing Consultant for The
Montclair Management Group. He lives in Verona with
his wife Susan where they both enjoy going on motorcycle
excursions and spending time with their children and 14
grandchildren.
[some photos] |
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Have a look at the Ladies on the committee hard at work, scouring
the surrounding towns for the ideal reunion location by clicking
here.
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