South Dakota, Redfield Sept 14 - 23

My hometown of Redfield South Dakota.   We will spend a week here for the class of 1959's, 55th  class reunion. .  The class of 1959 had 53 students, and 32 of them showed up for the reunion.  I thought that was a very good turnout.  We had such a blast building the float for the Home Coming Parade.  We also had a chance to get together with some of my cousins and Uncle Allen and Aunt Villa.  It was good to see all of them again.

Redfield, South Dakota

Dave Moeller has a lawn service business in Redfield.  He let us borrow one of his trailers to use for the float.

Lisa and Lana, Uncle Allen's two girls.

I went over to my cousin Betty Moore's home one evening to share some wine with her.  Well we shared a lot of it.

Aunt Villa with Lisa and Lana

Norita - Uncle Allen - Betty

Rich Grunewald, Norita and Betty's little brother.

I love my Uncle Allen.

Allen - Marty - Villa

Rich - Norita - Allen - Betty

This is the little school building where I went to the 5th grade.  It is in downtown Zell, SD.
We had to walk down to it with one of the Nuns from he main convent every day.  Even if it was raining, snowing or what have you.  That was the last year I attended the convent school with all them wonderful nuns.  The next three  years, I went to the little country school about 1/4 mile from the farm house.

This is a sad picture of the house I grew up in.  It is in very bad shape, Don't think anyone has lived in it for many years.  But I had to take Kay out to see it.

This building is the granary.  It was built new when we lived on the farm.  I can tell lots of stories about playing in this building with the rest of the kids.

This was the chicken coop.

Sooooo Sad, I do not think I will ever come back here again.

On the left side of the railing is where my bed used to be.   

Double-crested Cormorant

Turtle River west of Redfield.

Got this guy crossing the road in front of the camper at Hav-A-Rest where we camped at in Redfield.

Now this was a surprise.  Myra Ann and Evelyn with Uncle Allen and Aunt Villa showed up at the campground one day.  Surprised the hell out of me.

Gary Newman and his wife Connie with Myra Ann and Evelyn.  Myra use to babysit for Connie.

The Schaffers and I went over to the Newman's for supper one night.  Gary made beer can chicken.  This one turned out very good.

This one did not fair so well.  But it tasted good anyway.

Gary licking his fingers as he cut up the chickens.  Nice job Gary.

This is the view of Redfield Lake in front of our campers at Hav-A-Rest.

Don and Karen's site

Kay and Marty's site.  We will spend eight days here having lots of fun with the class of 1959.

Don and Karen decorating the tables for the wine fest on Wednesday.

Some of the class out to visit and sample some of the California wines the Schaffers brought with them.

There ain't nothing you can say about this picture.

Don - Margie- Roger (Marty)  When I grew up every one called my my my middle name.  Because my father's name was Martin also.

Max and Zoe enjoying the activities from inside the camper.

Jerry Stevens and myself overseeing the wine operation by Don.

To make things easy to know who everyone was, I made these name tags for each one of the class mates.  I took the picture out of the class annual and put their names on the tags.  For the spouses, I used the class mates picture and put spouse's name on it.  

Karen brought this wine just for me.  Sir Roger's Blue Ribbon selection for 2013.

Some of the class just doing some getting to know each other again.

My very good friend Loree Anderson.  

Karen -Anona- Delbert - Jamie Osborn - Mary Ann.

Loree and Karen design the float colors.

Of course Don has to add his thoughts to the project.

The wind was pretty strong so this is as far as we got the first day.  Getting the tables loaded onto the trailer.

We did a lot of just sitting around and talking.

Marty and Karen just being funny.

Thursday evening we all went to the American Legion Club for hamburgers.

Friday morning we really got started in the float design and building.

All of the class that came to the reunion helped in decorating the float.  Was so much fun.

Gary Newman - Jerry Gavin (not in our class) Roger Moeller - Jerry Stevens - Don Schaffer.

The float is ready to go.

Donna (our Queen) and Karen Schaffer

And we are loaded ready to go to the parade.

Here comes the parade

I took this picture of Uncle Allen, Aunt Villa, and Lisa sitting in front of their old home.

Don and Margie carrying class banner, with me driving the truck pulling the float behind.

Karen taking movies, while Kay is taking pictures.  I took this from the truck as we passed by.

Donna our Queen riding in Roxanne Hardie's car.

After the parade, we all came back to the campground for chili dogs.

Don cooking the dogs, and Frances helping herself to them.

Loree with a nice chili dog.

Our 55th Class Reunion Picture.

Don found this old clock and refinished it, and is presenting it to Kathy for the Redfield Depot.

My sweet wife Kay

This picture is of the stage in the High School auditorium.  I have danced many a dance on this floor.

The Catholic Church in Redfield

Zoe just hanging out.

The 55th Class Reunion was such a great blast.  It was said it was the best one the class ever had.  The whole float idea came about when Don and I sat around his patio table in California one morning while Kay and I were visiting him and Karen.  We called Delbert and talked to him about it.  He said he would be in charge of getting the signs made for the float.  I said I would make all the name tags and ask my cousin Dave if we could borrow one of his trailers.  Don and Karen were getting all the material together to decorate the float.  We spent a lot of hours and many phone calls to make it all to happen.  The four days the class was together made for some very strong bonds again.  I think the next one will be in Branson, MO, in 2016.