Alumni Sandstorm ~ 10/11/17
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6 Bombers sent stuff and memorial INFO today:
Mike CLOWES ('54), Steve CARSON ('58)
Margaret EHRIG ('61), Pete BEAULIEU ('62)
Maren SMYTH ('63 & '64), Brad WEAR ('71)
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BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: George VALDEZ ('63)
BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: Shirley SCOTT ('64)
BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: Jefferson SAUNDERS ('69) 

BOMBER CALENDAR: Richland Bombers Calendar
    Click the event you want to know more about.
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>>From: Bob Carlson, aka Mike CLOWES ('54)

Re: Columbus Day

The day currently celebrated as "Columbus" Day is one of the
artificial holidays that the congerrs dreamed up a few years
back so they could take Monday off. Before that, it was
celebrated on the 12th of October so the banks could shut their
doors for the day. It is not too certain as to exactly when
ol' Chris stumbled on that island in the Caribbean. The Nordic
people dispute the fact that Columbus was the first to reach
the Americas. They say that Leif "the Lucky" Ericsson got here
around 1000 A.D. Columbus didn't really touch the continent
until his second voyage.

Of course, the Irish dispute all this by claiming that St.
Brendan made to trip in a coracle some 1 to 1 hundred years
prior. And no one is certain when the Portuguese started
fishing off the Grand Banks and probably made land fall in the
Nova Scotia area.

There was a movement many years back to call it "Finder's Day",
but that sort of fizzled. I really think we should call it
"Banker's Day", as they were the ones who started the
celebration in the first place.

-Bob Carlson, aka Mike CLOWES ('54) ~ Mount Angel, OR  That's
	my story and I'm stickin' to it.
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>>From: Steve CARSON (Championship Class of '58)

I am completely ok with Indigenous peoples day.

-Steve CARSON (Championship Class of '58)
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>>From: Margaret EHRIG Dunn ('61)

Re: Radio Stations

I remember one Christmas season (1964) when Greg DUNN ('60-RIP)
and I were driving home to Richland from Iowa that we were able
to listen to WHO, Des Moines, Iowa all the way into my folks'
driveway in West Richland. In those days we drove it straight
thru (no extra money for a motel) for 30+ hours. It was about 9
or 10 in the evening when we arrived. They had good music and
news. The weather reports were not much help once we got past
North Platte, Nebraska. I don't remember if we were able to
pick it up again when we were driving back after Christmas.

-Margaret EHRIG Dunn ('61)
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>>From: Pete BEAULIEU ('62)

Re: More radio stuff

Lot's of entries about KALE, KORD and KPKW. I wasn't into the
records much, but here's some of "the rest of the story"... 

One disk jockey, and then head engineer at two of these
stations (not sure which) was a Kennewick High School Student,
previously from Richland's Carmichael Junior High and Lewis &
Clark Grade School. We were best of friends in sixth grade, but
then due to family moves never saw each other again-until a
serendipity reconnection fifty years later in 2006 in Seattle.
After that we often did McDonald's for Saturday morning
breakfast. Paul passed away earlier this year.

I had often wondered what ever happened to the very bright Paul
Schwendiman. In the sixth grade, while the rest of us were
struggling with arithmetic, Paul was most of the way through a
self-directed dig into the eighth grade algebra book. In ninth
grade he entered the annual Science Project Fair with a
homemade computer that, as a unique exception, was allowed two
corner stalls at the MacIntosh Hall show-and-tell competition.
Schwendiman got bored early with high school and was a bit
marginal. Did not graduate with his class in '62 but filled in
the blanks over the summer (a neglected English class).

By graduation time he had risen to the level of head engineer
at one and then the other radio station. Some of his time was
during school hours. He had been warned that with just one more
school absentee he would be expelled. Then along comes the
routine Federal Communication Commission inspector intent on
reviewing a local radio station licenses. He pulls Schwendiman
out of class to lead the tour and explain the details-the
eighteenth absentee day-and Schwendiman is expelled.

One of his exploits, popular with some in those days, was to
get set up in the back of a moving pickup truck late at night,
and then with a shotgun knock off jackrabbits attracted to the
moving headlights. In the early hours the team returned from a
productive night south of Kennewick and dumped their load of
some 35 jack rabbits into the parking lot of a competing radio
station. The sun comes up, and good morning to you, and have a
nice day! No one ever figured out whodunit.

With a low high school GPA (I think it was 2.4), what now is
Paul's future? Never to be mistaken as a hunk, the slight
Schwendiman ends up in the Army and predictably as a top notch
radio operator. Then one day, at Fort Benning, Georgia, into
the barracks flies some brass hollerin': "Are you the radio
guy?" Yup, sir. "Grab yer stuff, you're now a Green Beret,
we're deploying in 30 minutes!" And, so, Schwendiman finds
himself bound for a Nicaragua incident as the tag along
radioman and outfitted with a new hat. Later he did a tour in
Vietnam working in some kind of a village-level, good-relations
team.

In later years Schwendiman somehow got into the University of
Washington and picked up not one degree but two, one in
economics and the other in communications. From there he got a
law degree. At this same time Pacific Lutheran University sold
its law library and school to Seattle University, so in the
confusion the administrations awarded Paul two law degrees with
the same date. After that he held a leadership position with a
major electrician's union and later still spent maybe fifteen
years as a labor mediator for the state of Washington. Loved
his motorcycle, but was in very marginal health and strength
and eventually was unable to handle it (e.g., about fifteen
years ago a truck drove over his chest and smashed several
ribs). Most recently and with a walker or cane, he fell more
than once. A couple side trips into assisted living.

Earlier this year, Paul fell down some stairs at home where he
hit his head and was found a few days later. This was about 
six months ago. In the past six years I found Paul to be an
unobtrusive and modest guy, not at all rich and still sharp,
and who talked about himself only briefly, when asked. I've
pieced the fragments together, here. He has three younger
sisters, one in Minneapolis, one in Seattle, and one in
Bremerton. For many years every week he faithfully visited his
mother in assisted living and maybe the hospital at the end, in
Everett. 

Maybe some other Bombers remember Paul-"the radio guy"-from his
early Richland years.

-Pete BEAULIEU ('62) ~ Shoreline, WA
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>>From: Maren SMYTH ('63 & '64)

Re: R2K (the original) - 17 years ago this past June

Were you there? Seems to me there were around 1500 of us.

Shirley COLLINGS Haskins ('66) is currently working on the
class of '67 50 year reunion pictures and has finished putting
names and numbers on about 75 pictures. Dunno how many she has
left but when she said "it takes forever..." that prompted me
to look at alla those R2K pictures:

  http://allreunions99352.tripod.com/

-Maren SMYTH ('63 & '64) ~ Gretna, LA - 76° at 1am
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>>From: Brad WEAR ('71)

Re: Duh!

To: John ALLEN ('66)

Wow, usually when I'm "suspect" I deny it, or plead insanity.
If I'm only guilty of calling it a bowl and not the cup then
gee, silly me. 

I remember suffering through many a "Cup" as a Coug when we
battled to see who was going to be the number 8 of the PAC 8.
One thing I think of now and again are the skits the class of
'70 put on at pep rallies. FRANCO, DANA, SAUCIER, and JACOBS 
et al should have been stand up comedians. 

Re: Radio stations

I remember listening to stations out of San Francisco at night
when they changed the direction of their radio beam. The
atmospheric bounce allowed me to listen on most nights when
KALE/KORD signed off. I remember talking about Iron Butterflies
Inagoddadivita two weeks before it played locally.

-Brad WEAR ('71) ~  Plano, TX where it was 97 yesterday, and 
70 today.
Sent from my iPhone
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********************** MEMORIAL INFO ************************
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not a memorial - only INFO today

Caden DIRKS ('19wb-RIP) ~ 5/15/01 - 10/4/17 

Viewing: Thursday, October 12 2017, 1pm
Celebration of Life: Thursday, October 12 2017, 2pm
 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
 895 Gage Blvd, Richland, WA 99352
Committal: Thursday, October 12 2017, 3pm
 Cemetery at Sunset, 915 By-Pass Hwy, Richland
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That's it for today. Please send more.
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