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).