To my 1978 Cobber Classmates
It was great seeing some of you at Concordia in October 2013 for our 35th Reunion. If you weren’t able
to make it, we really did miss you but hope to see you in 2018 when we celebrate our 40th reunion.
Class Reunion Highlights
Our Class Reunion started Friday night when Concordia organized an informal gathering for all alumni at
the Courtyard Marriott. It was fun to hang around in the lounge and connect up with not only people
from our class but others in town for Homecoming and various reunions.
We were up early on Saturday morning for our Class Reunion breakfast, held in the area we remember
as the Tabernacle lounge in the Knutson Center/Centrum. For those of you who used to play a game of
pool in the Tabernacle, it doesn’t look anything like it did in the 70’s. It’s a contemporary, open lounge
area and was a great place for our class to get together. Everyone who attended had the opportunity
to introduce themselves and tell about the years they have spent away from Concordia. I must admit,
we have a pretty impressive group of graduates who have worked in business, education, ministry,
music, the sciences and almost every other type of career you can think of. It was really fun to
reconnect and hear about everyone’s family and work exploits. On Saturday night, our class gathered in
the Red River Room at the Courtyard Marriott for our evening get-together. While we would have liked
to have a few more people there, it was great to sit down and have some personal conversations with
classmates we hadn’t seen for a long time.
Of course, there were all kinds of other activities on campus including the Homecoming Banquet,
Homecoming Concert, and football game (unfortunately the Cobber’s lost). I had the opportunity to
tour the new Offutt School of Business along with 1978 classmates (Dave Wagner, Kurt Carlson and
others). Our fellow classmate and professor, Dan Anderson, was there to tell us what is going on in
Business and Hospital Administration.
I’ve inserted a few photos on the next few pages of this letter. They are also available online on our
class Facebook site, Concordia College
Moorhead Class of 1978.
A photo of your classmates at the Reunion
Breakfast – we should have taken everyone’s
name
so you could try to match a name to a face,
but I’m not that organized.
Another breakfast get-together shot.
Time to share what everyone has been doing for the last 35 years!
Random photos from the Saturday get together at the Marriott Courtyard – who do you recognize?
Class News
We must have a pretty shy class that doesn’t like to talk a lot about themselves, because I don’t seem to
be able to get many of you to send me news when I send out my annual email “plea” or post a request
on our Class of 1978 Facebook site. I would like to thank those of you who officially sent me news:
Prior to Homecoming and our reunion last fall, I heard from Randy and Sandi (Johnson) Geving who
provided this update - “We live in beautiful Colorado Springs, CO, where Randy is an agency principal in
Six and Geving Insurance, the largest locally owned insurance agency in Colorado Springs. We have two
children: our daughter, Lindsay, is a sophomore at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, GA, majoring
in elementary education, and our son, Carson, is a junior in high school at Evangelical Christian
Academy. We remain Vikings fans (in spite of how painful it can be) but are enjoying the success of the
Broncos as well. Randy is very active in the community, currently serving as Chairman of the Board of
the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado as well as a Board member of Kirkpatrick Bank, the
Colorado Springs Country Club, and the Leonard ECA Foundation. At any moment of any day, he would
rather be golfing. Sandi is an office supervisor for Pass It On, Inc., an insurance agency specializing in
business continuation planning, and currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of
Evangelical Christian Academy. We are active members of Village Seven Presbyterian Church.
Jane Kan Battles also sent me a note prior to our reunion with the following news. “Since 2008, I've
been working as a Scientific Review Officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
(NIAID), the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is very nice to live in civilization again after working
and living in slower lower Delaware for 10 years. We did keep our house in coastal Delaware because
the ocean is a wonderful refuge. My husband and dog (a 12-year-old Miniature Schnauzer named
Angie) love to spend time there. For the past several years, I have been taking courses from Brookings
Institution Executive Education and in September, I received my Certificate in Public Leadership from
Brookings and Washington University. These courses added much needed relief to my stressful, but at
times boring, administrative job. In my spare time, I sing in the choir and play in the handbell choir at St.
Luke's Episcopal Church in Bethesda, Maryland. In August, I was one of 541 bell ringers who played the
Star-Spangled Banner at a Nationals game in Washington, D.C. Please feel free to contact me if you
come visit the D.C. area and I will do the same if I visit your town. It was really fun getting together with
several classmates the last couple of years. Hope everyone is healthy and enjoying life to the fullest!”
Dave Deutscher and his wife Karen live in Fresno, California. Dave works for the Fresno County Court
Schools, teaching 14 - 18 year old youth who are just out of juvenile hall and on probation until their
regular school districts take them back. Their son Ben just finished producing his first full length film,
"No Town Blues" and it can be found on Vimeo. Their other son Joe is finishing his B.S. at Fresno State. I
personally remember going out to Fresno for Dave and Karen’s wedding with a group of friends about
26-27 years ago; he’s been living and working out there since that time.
Jan Burda, who was at this year’s Homecoming festivities, sent me a note via Facebook with two recent
news items. She became a Zumba and Zumba Gold instructor last November and then in December.
“I have been working at a studio near our home. This summer I will be leading Zumba Fitness Caucus at
the National Education Association Representative Assembly in Denver over July 4th week. A couple of
other Zumba instructors from Iowa and New Jersey will join me. They are also NEA members who will be
delegates to the Assembly.” Jan also was chosen as Teacher of the Year at the Elementary Level for our
Spring Lake Park schools this month at the annual spring social. She, along with a teacher representing
the middle and high school level will go to the state level for competition next. Good luck, Jan and
congratulations on this honor.
Since I wasn’t able to get much news directly from you, I reverted to my ploy from about 3 years ago of
searching some of your recent Facebook posts to gather some news. I will claim that this information
must be at least 90% accurate based on my interpretations of your posts and your photos. My apologies
in advance if I got some of my facts wrong.
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Robert Lund lives in the Phoenix area and his son Jordan graduated from ASU’s College of
Health Solutions this year. Bob appears to be really active and enjoying his family– he’s out
golfing, hiking in the Arizona desert and having fun on a regular basis on his Facebook posts.
Lynn Rostad McBride (who also was with us at Homecoming) teaches in the Fargo Public
Schools and looks like she is having a great time spending time and entertaining her grand kids.
Laree Harschenko Bumgarner lives in Wahpeton, North Dakota and one of her daughters
Lachelle just graduated from High School and was one of the top girl’s high school basketball
players in North Dakota. It also appears to me that Laree likes to take vacation trips to Las
Vegas from time to time – she posts great photos with family and friends from these trips.
Jacki Gedde Peterson lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado and it looks from his family’s
SuperBowl photos that they are big time Denver Bronco fans. My condolences to you and your
family regarding this year’s Super Bowl loss.
Kurt Carlson is married to Rhona Baron and lives in Leavenworth, Washington. They are also
very active outdoors people as I see many posts of Kurt, his wife and their daughter, Polina
hiking, razor clamming and enjoying the beauty of Washington state.
Big changes this year for Randy Skow-Anderson. He and his wife Laurie moved to Cumberland,
Wisconsin where Randy is a pastor at Augustana Lutheran Church and Laurie is Director of
Evangelical Mission/Assistant to the Bishop of the NW Wisconsin Synod. I also noticed that one
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of their kids, Matthew, just received his Masters in Accountancy from the University of St.
Thomas.
Marleen Bye still lives in Ludwigsburg, Germany and teaches Middle School Music for the
Department of Defense Dependent Schools. I often see posts of her and her husband Galen
traveling in Europe and I also think they get back to Minnesota every summer to spend time at
their cabin near Detroit Lakes.
Sheila Ott lives in Switzerland but is constantly on the go, particularly to scuba diving locations.
She posts some great underwater photography photos from her dives so if you know Sheila, I
would highly recommend connecting to her on Facebook just to follow her travels.
There are others of you that I’m also connected to on Facebook but I think I’ve done enough Facebook
“lurking” today so I’ll give the rest of you a break.
It’s only fair that if I report on some of you that I also give you some news about me. Last summer, I
took an early retirement from my Technology Consulting position at McGladrey to become the President
of the Information Technology Alliance, a professional trade association of IT consulting firms. My work
with the ITA is about a ½ time job that I can do from my home office (or anywhere with a phone and an
internet connection) so I’ve been making the adjustment from working 2600-2700 hours a year in the
CPA/consulting world and traveling 50% of the time to working part time and being at home. That may
be a bigger challenge for my wife, Carrie, as she’s had to get used to having me around the house every
day and so far, she has survived. We also moved from Woodbury to Northfield last summer, as we
thought it would be great to live in a smaller community but still be close to Minneapolis/St. Paul. So
far, we are really enjoying Northfield and its college town atmosphere (even though those colleges are
MIAC rivals St. Olaf and Carleton), along with being closer to Carrie’s family who all live in the area. We
bought a place on a lake near Faribault about 4 years ago, so we are only 15 minutes away from our
cabin which is really convenient! Fellow classmate Steve Johnson and his wife Janelle also live in
Northfield and we’ve connected with them a couple of times over the last year. Steve and I worked
together in our first job after college at Burroughs Corporation, so it’s been fun to reminisce about our
early working days and catch up with what they’ve been doing for the last 35 years.
Campus News
Hopefully all of you are getting the Concordia Magazine and other e-news from Concordia to keep track
of what is happening on campus. Here are tidbits of news related to what is going on in Moorhead.
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The Concordia Orchestra completed a historic tour of the Holy Land in May 2014. They shared
two concert performances with members of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music
orchestra, one in Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Jerusalem.
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The Concordia Choir will tour the southeastern United States from February 21st through March
8th, 2015 during its National Tour.
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The Concordia Band completed a spring tour in February 2014 through Minnesota, Wisconsin
and Michigan. Preparation for tour 2015 is under way, which will take them to the Pacific
Northwest February 1st to 8th.
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On May 5, 2014, the baseball field was named in honor of 36-year Head Coach Bucky Burgau,
who is stepping down at the end of the 2014 season. Former World Series winning Philadelphia
Phillies Chris Coste ’00 will take over as manager while Bucky will continue on as an assistant
coach. Burgau is the all-time winningest coach in MIAC baseball history. He recently became the
first coach in the history of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference to earn his 700th
career win. He has the 12th most wins of any active coach in all of NCAA Division III.
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The Update the Jake Project has reached completion. The venture included FieldTurf, Parking
Lots, Stadium Upgrades, and a Multi-Sports Locker Room. The official dedication for these
updates and new facilities will be at Homecoming this year, 2014.
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In 2016 we will celebrate the 125th Anniversary of the founding of Concordia College!
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And last but not least, Residence Life makes a big change this coming school year. Intervisitation
is a thing of the past starting Fall 2014. I guess that means an end to “doors open and both feet
on the floor” too!
JOB OPENING – GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR A CLASS OF 78 ALUM
I’ve been your class agent for about 8 or 9 years now and had the opportunity to help plan both the 30th
and 35th reunion. I’ve decided to give one of you the opportunity to be the next Class of 1978 Class
Agent and this is going to be my last Class letter. Being the class agent is really a pretty easy job – you
write one letter per year and it gives you an excuse to contact classmates you haven’t talked to for years
to find out what they are doing. You also get to help plan our reunion activities on our reunion years
and there are always plenty of fellow classmates who are willing to help with the reunion breakfast and
the Saturday night gathering. So, if you would like to have the opportunity to both connect with the
college and reconnect with your classmates, I recommend that you contact Karen Carlson in the alumni
office (carlsonk@cord.edu) and volunteer to be the next Class Agent. If you have any questions about
what’s involved, feel free to contact me and I’d be happy to answer any of your questions.
As my final reminder, please remember to contribute what you can to the Concordia Annual Fund, 88 of
you (24% of our class) contributed to the college last year and we provided almost $37,000 of support.
Having spent the weekend up in Moorhead for Homecoming reminded me of what a great place
Concordia is and that they are living up to their mission of “influencing the affairs for the world by
sending into society thoughtful and informed men and women dedicated to the Christian life”.
To close this letter up, I hope all of you are doing well and are having a great summer. Although I won’t
be writing this letter anymore, I plan to be at the 40th reunion in 2018 and I hope that all of you will be
there too.
Stan Mork