What a Week!?!

It was quite the week (actually about 10 days). We have made some great progress!

First, Lynn Baumgarten (Pesina) sent me a letter, confirming her contact info (she doesn't have an email address). Then, Helen Loebertmann emailed and called confirming she was alive and well (and she had a solid address lead for Keith Prochaska). Lastly, Mark Cacka has apparently found Dave Havelka. . .So that was big progress and brings the "missing list" down to 5 or 6.

Toward the end of the week, the email discussion had a flurry of activity (I hate to think about the dip in worker productivity caused by this thing). It looks like we have narrowed the dates down and have established a committee to work on this crazy reunion project. A big shout out to our committee: Brenda, Jean, Helen, Deanne, Dan, Tracy, Tami, & Deb! (Oh, and Pam has committed to doing a memory book again. . .thanks Pam!)

So, it was indeed the best week ever (in SL 88 reunion planning). Thanks to everyone for your help finding people, your interest in moving this forward, and some good laughs while we've emailed back and forth. . .

The Milk Carton Kids:

Lyle Cuhel

Leroy Konen

Tony Nowak

Asier Onaindia

Mary Yuerk

Unconfirmed founds:

Keith Prochaska

Dave Havelka

Blast from the Past

I've been emailing with Anne M. and we've been typing about some former classmates that moved on before 1988.

We both agreed it would be very interesting to find and contact: Becky Hall, Michelle Brown, Scott Morse and Jesse Phillips. . .Yeah, I know what you are thinking - "I haven't thought about that name in (insert years here)!"

If anyone has even the most remote lead on how to find these people. . .do share. Anne found an address for Jesse Phillips that we are going to try. . .It's in Leonard, MN - I had to look it up. It is half-way between Crookston and Bemidji.

In other news, we are getting real close to finding everyone. . .which would be really cool. We have 9 people left to find. The list is below, if you have a lead, let me know at silverlake1988@gmail.com.

Lastly, we have 18 Updated Reunion Surveys completed. . .2 more and I'll post the results thus far to begin a planning discussions. . .

The Missing Nine:

Lyle Cuhel
David Havelka (anybody have access to a Savage, MN phonebook?)
Leroy Konen
Helen Loebertmann
Tony Nowak
Lynn Pesina
Keith Prochaska
Asier Onaindia
Mary Yuerk

Lost & Found: A Review & Update (part 2)

Just to clarify where we are at. . .

9 people are still missing.
31 people have filled out the Contact Info Page.
2 are unconfirmed founds without a completed Contact Info Page.
22 people have filled out the Reunion Survey.

I now have 20 completed Reunion Surveys!!! I will be posting those results soon. The results will serve as the spring board for planning discussions.

LINKS to the Info Page & Reunion Survey are at the top left of this page.

UPDATE 9.18.08 KARE 11 Athlete of the Week, Jeffrey Monahan has complete his contact info page.

UPDATE 9.15.08 Darrin Witucki has finally completed his contact info page - it's about time!UPDATE 9.10.08 John Vacek has completed his contact info page. Good to hear from you John!UPDATE 9.2.08 Mike Jurek has completed his contact info page.

UPDATE 8.26.08 Today was a good day! Anne M. filled out her contact info page this morning. . .all the way from the Los Angeles area. . .And, later in the day Deanne Shaw (Yurek) filled out her contact info page. Good to hear from both of you guys!

UPDATE 8.25.08 (part 2) Brian Lack has been found and filled out the contact info page!
UPDATE 8.25.08 Mark Ostlie filled out the contact info page over the weekend. Welcome home Mark. . .and welcome home to your family.

UPDATE 8.21.08 Jean Dubnecay (Mickolichek) has been found and has complete her Contact Info Page!
UPDATE 8.20.08 Bobbi Brown (Siemsen) has been found and has completed her Contact Info Page! Whew, she was a tough one to find - good to hear from you Bobbi.

UPDATE 8.18.08: Mike Cacka is a confirmed found and has completed his Contact Info Page.
UPDATE 8.17.08: Hey! Bruce Ardolf filled out the Contact Info Page tonight. Bruce, good to hear from you. I also got a phone call from Heath tonight. . .Heath, it was good to chat with you - it has been a long time. I'm updating the numbers in this post as we go so it should be an accurate reflection of where we are at currently.
UPDATE 8.15.08: Traci Atkinson (Koepp) has been found. Good to hear from you Traci and thanks for the solid leads on finding Anne & Bobbi. Congrats to Traci and her family with the recent addition of 9 month old, Courtney.

Found & Completed Contact Info
Mike Stifter
Pam Konen (Victorian)
Jeff Konen
Mike Klima
Gary Zajicek
Tami Merrill (Victorian)
Dan Hingst
Bonnie Schmidt (Nowak)
Brad Mallak
Tim Rumrill
Brenda Popp (Heuer)
Kari Klima (Cacka)
Mark Cacka
Kathryn Ogren (Hemerick)
Linda Leske (Mallak)
Debra Peterson (Lhotka)
Janelle Weber (Mallak)
Betty Wraspir (Kosek)
Jason Wendolek
Traci Atkinson (Koepp)
Bruce Ardolf
Mike Cacka
Bobbi Brown (Siemsen)
Jean Dubnecay (Mickolichek)
Mark Ostlie
Brian Lack
Anne M.
Deanne Shaw (Yuerk)
Mike Jurek
John Vacek
Darrin Witucki
Jeff Monahan

Unconfirmed Founds (No Contact Info Page Yet)
Don Albrecht
Heath Mickolicheck

Not Found (*indicates a good lead)
Lyle Cuhel
David Havelka (anybody have access to a Savage, MN phonebook?)
Leroy Konen
Helen Loebertmann
Tony Nowak
Lynn Pesina
Keith Prochaska
Asier Onaindia
Mary Yuerk

Two More - 16 to go!

We had two more classmates surface! Janelle Weber (Mallak) and Betty Wraspir (Kosek) have filled out their contact info pages - good to hear from you two!

I need to dig up the emails of the original 13 people I made contact with early on and have them complete an "Updated" Reunion Survey. If we can get the currently found 26 people to fill out a reunion survey, we can move forward with planning discussions. . .

Lastly, a big Happy Birthday to the youngest members of our class. Happy Birthday to Pam Konen (Victorian), Tami Merrill (Victorian), and Betty Wraspir (Kosek). My memory is failing me, but I think it is August 2nd for Pam & Tami, and August 26th for Betty???

Three More Today!

Well, we heard from 3 more SL88 classmates today. Heath Mickolicheck, Deb Peterson (Lhotka), and Mike Jurek all made contact today. Deb had contact info for 4 other classmates - thanks Deb!

An interesting side note. . .I'm willing to bet that Mike Jurek will become the first SL 88 classmate to retire. . .Mike is retiring from the Air Force this fall. Congrats Mike and we're glad you're back safe and sound from the, as you put it, "hot resort locations".

I have been updating my March 27th post (found way below in "older posts") on the Milk Carton Kids. . .Every time we have confirmed contact with someone, I scratch them off the Milk Carton List. . .

So, at this point we have confirmed contact with 24 people, with 18 remaining on the Milk Carton. We're making some good progress. However, only 12 of the 24 have filled out the Reunion Survey ("important links" on the left of this page). If we can build up the number of responses a bit more, I'll be able to post the results and some planning discussions can begin!

Wow, More Progress!

The post cards are indeed working. This morning I had a phone call from Don Albrecht. Don had some insight on the whereabouts of a few folks. And, as always we had a few good laughs. . .Don's sense of humor is as twisted as ever - and he still cracks me up.

We also had a couple of complete contact pages come in from Kathy Ogren (Hemerick) and Linda Leske (Mallak). Linda, by the way is currently the distance winner, living in Washington state.

Lastly, based on the traffic counter on the web page, there are a few more of you "lurking" out there. . .that's cool - take a look at everything and then please fill out the "Contact Information Page" at minimum. Then, sit down with a calendar and do the Reunion Survey. . .

What's on this survey???

Once you have discovered the site, "silverlake1988.blogspot.com" one of the most important things you can do is fill out the surveys found at the links on the left side of this page.

The top link is the "updated" 20 Year Reunion Survey. It asks you if you have an interest in getting together, the format you prefer, how much you want to spend, AND MOST important WHEN you want to do it. . .You may want to look at a calendar before you click on this survey. It is going to ask you to rank order your preference dates. They are weekend dates ranging from (Sept 19 - Nov 28, 2008) AND (June 5 - August 28, 2009).

The bottom link is a Contact Info Survey. It lets me gather key contact info in an organized manner. This info will be important if/when we get closer to actually planning a reunion. MOST IMPORTANTLY - it lets me know I FOUND YOU!!! Thanks and I'll post more updates when I get them. . .darrin

Post Card Progress!

At least one post card was delivered to the right place. Mark Cacka gave me a call tonight. It was good to hear from him. He promptly let me know that one of my survey links was bad. . .Fixed now - thanks Mark.

He was also a gold mine of information. Mark had a pretty good idea were quite a few people where located. I'll take a look at his info, tips, and guesses. With a little luck we'll dig up a few more people.

If you every have any questions, don't hesitate to email silverlake1988@gmail.com Lastly, if you have info like Mark did, please send me those leads. . .every little bit helps.

Congratulations Abby Ostlie!!!

For those of you that haven't heard. . .Abby Ostlie got her new heart!

My wife and I have followed her story on http://www.caringbridge.org/mn/abbyleigh/index.htm for quite some time and when my wife yelled at me from the computer, "She got her heart!" -- my heart almost stopped, as I knew exactly what she was talking about.

Abby, we are all so happy for you.

I'm a loser

I know, I'm a loser. From May 8th (the last post) until now I haven't made much progress, if any. Where did the summer go? I could offer you a bunch of excuses: swimming lessons, weddings, summer camp, summer school, trips to grandmas, work, etc. . .But ultimately, I was just plain lazy when it came to the SL 88 Reunion planning.

I must say, that I am surprised how difficult it is trying to find everyone. I knew we would need to dig for some people but I figured most folks would be found in a viral email fashion. We made contact with 3 more people in May and no one has surfaced since then. . .13 of 42 people have been found.

I spent a fair amount of time this morning doing people searches on the web and gathering last known addresses. I sent out 30+ post cards with the basic Reunion info (SL88blog site, SL88 email, my phone number). We'll see if that generates some activity.

In the mean time, I am posting a new Renuion survey on the left side of this page that will be updated to reflect possible dates (this fall & next summer).

Again, my apologies for getting all 13 of you on board to see nothing transpire this summer.

I will be more deligent in the future to keep updates posted on the blog (even if the update is no news).

Hey! Some Progress. . .

Well, we had a little bit of progress this week.

First, Jeff Monahan let me know the Contact Page & Reunion Survey Pages were shut down. Sorry about that. . .They both had a default end date assigned to them. The adjustment was made and we are back up and running.

Within a day or so we added:

Tim Rumrill
Brenda Popp (Heuer)
and, as of 5/11/08 - Kari Klima (Cacka)

Brenda and Tim both had emails and some ideas of where people are located. I'm going to put together a simple post card this weekend and send it to the last know addresses of the "Milk Carton Kids". We'll see what happens.

Lastly, DON'T forget to fill-out the Silver Lake Twenty Year Reunion Survey! We have a lot more Contact Names than complete Reunion Surveys. If we can build up the number of responses a bit more, I'll be able to post the results and some planning discussions can begin!

Update: Those Found. . .So Far. . .

Well, the viral method of finding and getting in touch with people has produced limited results.

So far we have contact info for:

Mike Stifter
Pam Konen (Victorian)
Mike Klima
Gary Zajicek
Tami Merrill (Victorian)
Dan Hingst
Bonnie Schmidt (Nowak)
Bradley Mallak
Darrin Witucki
and I'm guessing Jeff Konen can be counted as well


I've take a bit of time off from the research and planning of the SL 88 Reunion (April is crazy busy at work). However, I'm back at it and will be hunting down those lost kids on the milk carton below.

Hey, if you have filled out the contact page, remember to fill out the Reunion Survey as well. Once we get 15-20 responses I'll post the averages and general comments to give us some direction in date selection and planning. Later - dw

Have You Seen These Kids?

Lyle Cuhel / David Havelka
Leroy Konen / Brian Lack
Helen Loebertmann / Anne M.
Tony Nowak / Lynn Pesina
Keith Prochaska / Asier Onaindia
John Vacek / Deanne Yuerk /Mary Yuerk



Send Contact Info to: silverlake1988@gmail.com or include on your Contact Information Page (see link at top left of this page).

Pull out Your Calendars / Fill out your Info

Hello everyone. I've noticed we've had quite a few visitors to the blog, yet people haven't filled out the Survey or Contact page.

The Contact Information Page is important at this point, just to keep track of everyone and to keep me from spending a ton of time searching for people. Also, please - pass along any contact info you have for other classmates.

As for the Reunion Survey, it would be wise to consult your calendars before clicking on this survey. One of the major components of the survey is to rank order potential dates for a reunion. So, remember those family vacations, weddings, graduations, and other commitments before you fill out the survey. However, DON'T WAIT TOO LONG to take the survey. We need to keep things moving along.

Welcome to SilverLake1988

Hello everyone! It is Darrin Witucki and I really can't believe I am going down this road. . .

Stifter was over at my house last night and we had a short 20 Year Reunion discussion. The message from Mr. Stifter was clear, "I'm not doing it." I wasn't asking him to do it but I did ask if I could turn to him for help and advice since he and several others were instrumental in putting together the 10 Year Reunion. He said he would give me help and guidance. . .so here we go.

I sat down with a yearbook and put together a spreadsheet of names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. My spreadsheet is looking ugly. I have Stifter's info, Mike Cacka's phone number, and. . .my info. That's it.

Well, you need to start somewhere. I hoping to do a lot of this electronically. First, I hope to gather up all of our contact information in a viral manner. . .that means you need to spread the word or at least tell us the last known whereabouts of someone. Second, I am hoping to figure out what you want to do via electronic survey (see link below). Third, I hope to use this site as the central hub for information regarding the (at this point potential) Silver Lake 1988 Reunion. Fourth, I'm hoping some of you are inspired to take an active role in the planning and work (yes, it does take some work) that it will take to have a 20 Year Reunion.

UPDATED Silver Lake 1988 - REUNION SURVEY:

http://www2.uwstout.edu/GeneralSurveys/TakeSurvey.asp?SurveyID=7L33l30M457KG8