Class Of - Shawn Snider

10 Class of ‘58
'
Marlene (Collins) Showalter
Earl Delp
Earlene (Delp) Wallick
At the tender age of 68 – you know, tender feet,
tender knees, and tender backs – Petrea and I spent
about 20 days hiking 115 miles over the Yorkshire
hills and dales of northern England. English food
is actually delicious. So far, 2008 has taken us to
Michigan for a couple of weeks with grandkids, to
the Copper Canyon region of Mexico, to a couple
of weeks traveling as tourists in Ohio (cheese
festival and banana split festival), Indiana (musket
shoot), Kentucky (mutton BBQ and beans), and to
West Virginia for a week in a primitive cabin with
two of my brothers and all our wives. Late August
we’ll be heading to southern Utah and northern
Arizona for about 14 days. Geology lessons from
the Teaching Company are helping prepare us to
appreciate the rocks of that canyon-land area.
Just as exciting as the physical adventures are the
mental ones. As a retiree, I can audit classes for free
at Rutgers University. Some of the more exciting
classes have been physical chemistry, philosophy of
art, forensic psychology, Aristotle, medical ethics,
intro to political science, and microeconomics. I
Ruth Beachy, with other classmates, on the senior class trip to
Washington, DC.
plan to audit more in the fall. Life indeed is making more and more sense as I age. Also, I volunteer one day a week
at the Edgar Allen Poe house in Philadelphia.
Between all this I try to keep my grandchildren guessing just what this old man is up to anyway. It ain’t a bad life.
See you in October,
—Norm Coffman
Hi!
How exciting it will be to see you again! All but four of our class members are still alive!
I always enjoyed roller coasters and that describes my life. Besides the usual roles as wife, mother of
three ‘67 to ‘70, grandmother of six (‘01-‘03), I have enjoyed gardening, tennis, bridge, golf, tango, traveling,
teaching Math and Psy. at JMU, life as a PhD student in psychology at UNC- Chapel Hill in ‘89-‘92 and
especially skiing in the West.
The lows included a brain aneurysm ‘96 which interrupted my completing of a dissertation, and a life
threatening interstitial lung disease ‘05-‘07 when I was on oxygen 24-7 for several months and massive doses
of prednisone for a year. Thankfully that is behind me -- including some of the pounds I gained. Hmm!
Last winter in celebration of my good health, I combined two favorite roles by skiing the slopes in
Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with all six grandchildren ages 3-6, as well as our three children and spouses. For a
week in August, we hosted two grandsons, one granddaughter, and one tomboy-granddaughter (my genes),
all ages 4-6. During their stay, we built bamboo forts on the tennis court, made Shrinky-Dink jewelry, went
to Endless Caverns, Rockingham County Fair, Massanutten Water Park, Harrisonburg Children’s Museum,
and the library, and ate fresh corn on the cob, garden tomatoes and squash. The next week I rested.
WHEW!
My husband, Don, is still practicing law, playing golf and collecting four plus acres of horticultural
specimens. In November, we plan to travel to Australia and New Zealand. Life is good and keeps getting
better. How amazing that the older we get the more like ourselves we become.
Fondly,
—Marlene Collins Showalter
It seems impossible we have reached this point in our lives. Time certainly marches on quickly.
I continue to work as a Radiologic Technologist for Dr. John Collis, a prominent neurosurgeon.
My passions are travel, photography, and scrapbooking. I also love flower gardening. Some of the
places I have visited include China, Israel, most European countries and various Caribbean Islands. My
husband and I are going to vacation in Los Cabos, Mexico, in September.