It’s hard to believe that we graduated 40 years ago! I’m sorry to admit that I’ve been a slacker at staying in touch, but Facebook has been a godsend to me in that regard, and it’s probably how I’ll stay in touch in the future. Kudos to the fantastic group who organized this event!

By 1984, I had graduated from Iowa State in psychology and dropped out of 2 Ph.D programs, one in Claremont, California and one at the University of Iowa. I wisely, if belatedly, concluded that I wasn’t really cut out to be an academic! Having become a novice political junkie by then, though, I began to dabble in politics, and I finished our first post-AHS decade and began the second working on a U.S. Senate campaign and then for a state senator in the Iowa Legislature. I struggled throughout the economically challenging times of the late 70s and early 80s, and finally decided that I needed to get out of Iowa. In retrospect, I guess I needed to find my purpose for that stage of my life, because starting a traditional career, seeking a spouse and beginning a family didn’t seem to feel right for me.

By 1994, I had moved to Houston, TX, then the San Francisco Bay Area and finally to Los Angeles, CA. I took up yoga meditation through a religious organization called Self-Realization Fellowship, and I eventually went to work for them at their LA headquarters for ten years. It was a very meaningful time for me, and I managed to come back to Ames briefly for our 20th reunion. However, shortly after that my mom passed away from lung cancer, my father remarried and moved to Arizona and suddenly I didn’t have a home to go back to in Iowa any longer. LA became my home, and I settled in for almost two decades.

I didn’t make it back for our 30th reunion; it was hard enough keeping in touch with my five siblings spread out across the country! Instead, by 2004, I had returned to school to become a physical therapist. As I learned my new profession, I began to think about where I’d like to live for the rest of my life. I finally settled on the Pacific Northwest and took a hospital position in Olympia, WA and moved, thinking that that's where I would remain. Of course, life had other plans for me. Just as I was leaving LA, I became friends on Facebook with my now husband, Tom Moldenhauer, who was one year behind us in junior high but who had moved to Minnesota as we entered Ames High. We didn’t know each other until we arranged to meet in Ames during Veishea, 2011 but within a year I was moving again and, as of May 31, I am now a first time newlywed!

We live in West St. Paul, MN, with two lovable dogs, a yellow Lab named Dino and a Springer Spaniel named Gus. Tom works with developmentally disabled adults and I work in home care PT.

I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to grow up in Ames, and I’m looking forward to sharing memories with you all this summer.