Terri Baxter (Whirrett)

Julie, love your pics! Beautiful!  Re: Beich Candy, I used to work in the mail room there ,sorting, in the summer. Then moved to finding rejects on the assembly line! Gained 10 lbs that summer! I grocery size bag of rejects was 25 cents!

Karen Sue (Suzi) Denton (Merritt)

Terri, my dad worked for the railroad and when the crew had to go down to Beichs he would buy several bags of candy.  We gave some of the candy to our friends and family. 

Richard (Rich) Crusius

I am so sorry to have missed our 60th reunion!  Karen and I both came down with Covid the Wednesday before, as I am sure Marvin probably told you all.  Very untimely to get sick and I dearly missed seeing you all!  Karen and I are both fine now and can't wait to see some of you in our December get-togther!

Rich

David Long

Steve and I were friends and usually chose is 57 Chevy over my 54 Chevy Belaire 4-door with the power glide transmission. There was never a shortage of candy on Sunset Drive!

Melvin (Mel) Theobald

Rich and Karen, so sorry you couldn't join us for the reunion. Glad things are better now, but I want to thank you for hosting us at the Bloomington Country Club. It was outstanding. Yes, Marv made a point of saying why you weren't there and offered our thanks from the podum. Look forward to seeing you in Dec.

Terri Baxter (Whirrett)

Suzi, my grandpa was the engineer on the GMand0 railroad. Used to ride the train for free and by myself to Chicago to visit relatives. Felt like a princess, the porters would pamper me and let me sit and eat in the dining car. Such a great memory!

Larry Thomas

I too am sorry to have missed the reunion. Alison got Covid on Thursday and I tested positive with minimal symptoms on Friday morning. All fine now. Thanks for the photos showiong that everyone had a greatl time.

Larry

Larry Thomas

Pardon my poor proof reading.

Debra (Debbie) Fitzsimmons (Price)

Good Morning everyone, I'm so sorry to have missed the Reunion, as I was packing the day before my flight I stepped down into garage and rolled my ankle and had surgery next to day to repair break!! I'm recovering ok, thanks to all who posted pix of the fun time you all had!! Love to all, Debbie 

Karen Sue (Suzi) Denton (Merritt)

Terri, sorry you were hurt. Missed seeing you there.

My dad worked for the GM&O railroad and we only rode 

the train twice.  I think my dad enjoyed driving on our vacations 

and I liked looking for rocks.  Mr Powell gave me a book about rocks when we were in junior high.  I still collect them when we go on trips.

James (Jim) Rookus

While in Bloomington for our reunion I spent a couple hours with class mate George Drye who also was my roommate at U if I and groomsman in our wedding 58 years ago today !  With his permission I am posting his text explaining what he has been going through the past few years .... please remember him and Lena in your prayers !

Jim 

If you want to share that I am in my fourth year  fighting fourth stage esophageal cancer and bone cancer the side affects of radiation therapy and three rounds of chemotherapy you may

I have lost my sense of balance and have neuropathy in my hands and feet and have to walk with a walker 

My cancer is currently in full remission but may return at any time

My dear wife of 54 years takes good care of me

Not much pain but lots of chemo mush in my head 

God is still good to us !

Thank you Jim 

James (Jim) Rookus

I finally decided it's time to reply to many of the recent posts. 

JULIE .... Thanks for the beautiful photos of your fabulous trip.  Most of the architecture was amazing and to realize they built all those structures without the technology of today. Did walking up all those steep cobblestone streets cause the need for hip replacement?  Hope your healing satisfactorily from both hip and shoulder replacements.  You're now an official BIONIC WOMAN !  Missed the opportunity to meet you at the reunion !

DAVE ..... Interesting that a candy company developed foods for NASA !   Do any of you historians know when Beich Candy Co. went out of business?

Terri and Debbie .....  Praying that God will give you both healing soon and as pain free as possible.

AGAIN I reiterate how thankful I was to have attended the 60th and met so many of you 64 Raiders in person, especially many of you I never knew in school but have made friendships on line in the forum !

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE...... temps in the 90's I finally got in the pool for the first time this summer complete with my sun shielding  "sombrero" !  ( I really wasn't in a prone floating position.... just a sideways picture !  HELP MARV!
(All fixed Jim - It's amazing how the photo captured you just as you were diving in)

(Oh - maybe you were going in feet first. Is this better?)

James (Jim) Rookus

Thanks Marv ... I have such a fat head my hat didn't even fall off up side down !

Linda Bristow (Elias)

Debbie:

So sorry to hear that you, too, have suffered an injury.  Here's hoping that you heal well!

Blessings and love, 

Linda Bristow Elias

David Long

Just a thought

During a visit to my doctor, I asked him, " How do you determine whether or not an older person should be put in an old age home?"

"Well," he said, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup, and a bucket to the person to empty the bathtub."

 "Oh, I understand," I said. "A normal person would use the bucket because it is bigger than the spoon or the teacup..""

No," he said.

"A normal person would pull the plug.

Do you want a bed near the window?"

David Brock

Beich Candies--I presume they 'went out of business' when Nestle' bought them back in the 1980's.  Nestle wanted their sales client list to expand into the 'group sales' (schools, scouts and other charitable groups).  I imagine some of the products may be still available under the Nestle name or modified product.

Sandra Jeakins (Singletary Sizemore)

  Rosalie thought the flowers from the reunion were beautiful and thanked us for thinking of her. She had fallen and was in the hospital, but was home when I talked with her. Although, she had covid and sounded really weak and tired.  

Jim and Marvin, thank you for posting pictures from the reunion.  It was a fun time.  I've spent a lot of today looking at the posts on the website, starting on page one, on September 9, 2009.  That was right after the 45th reunon that I had attended.  I didn't go to the 50th reunoin and I didn't start going to the mini-reunions until I retired in 2017.  So I missed a lot of fun by not going to those. But I've enjoyed seeing pictures of the reunions. I wasn't on the website much until I retired.  There are a lot of pictures that I hadn't seen before. Or have forgotten, if I had seen them.

I'm sorry for the people that had wanted to attend and were  unable to.  

Lila Jones and Pat Rosenbaum talked me into going to the 45th in 2009. And Charlie Crabtree talked me into going to the mini reunions in 2017.  I wish somebody had talked me into going to the 50th.  I've enjoyed all the reunions I go to now and am so happy with the friends I've made through them and the website.

Sandra Jeakins (Singletary Sizemore)

I'm sorry to see we lost another classmate. Mary Lou Mason passed away August 22, 2024. Her obituary is in today's Pantagraph.  I only have the Pantagraph online so I don't have the obituary to share.  But it was a nice one with a picture of her that I recognized right away. 

Marvin Theobald

While I did not know Mary Mason it is always sad to learn that we have lost yet another of our classmates that we had so much in common with as we grew up. It is so nice to learn of the accomplishments and experiences that our classmates have had since our high school days. Mary is certainly no exception. Laesch Dairy had such a daily but unassuming presence in our daily lives growing up. I remember the insulated metal box at the back door that the milk man would fill in the early morning hours, and getting pint bottles of milk off the delivery truck at the Oakland School’s annual bonfires.  It was fun to learn that Mary later had such a contributing role with them. Her role as Sales and Marketing Manager at Chateau, her passion and support for local history and nature were all indications that Mary had a special quality that so many of our classmates have had that we don’t get to learn about until after they are gone. These are the kinds of things that make this website so special. Whether during or after our lives it is great to be able be aware of what has become of our old friends and classmates. RIP Mary.

Marvin Theobald

Like Jim I would like to play catch up with comments on recent posts.

I too am sorry so many had to miss the reunion for various reasons. Boo and Debbie who suffered injuries that prevented their ability to come, Larry Thomas and Rich Crusius who contracted Covid, and those that had schedule conflicts or other health issues. You were missed.

Julie’s world photos are very fun to see. Although there are no details provided, the varied people, cultures, geography and architecture are fascinating to get exposure to through Julie’s amazing travel experiences. Thanks for sharing Julie.

While it should not be, it is surprising to me at how many of us had parents that were employed by the GM&O Railroad. Our (being me and Mel) dad worked in the baggage room at the old depot and later in the Locomotive Shops. As kids we would get to go (or sneak rides) to work with Dad at the depot. There are so many fond memories of those times. A&B Hatcheries shipped thousands of newly hatched chicks by train in cardboard boxes with breathing holes in the sides. We would put our fingers in the holes and let the chicks peck at our fingers and what a racket that flock of chicks made. Dad let us help sort railroad mail, we sat on the swivel stools at the café ,operated by Jim Grady, while Dad had coffee in his idle time between trains, we napped on the big wooden baggage carts, we played with large sticks of yellow chalk used to mark messages on the sides of box cars, we would roll down the grassy hill next to the road going down to the cement walkway along the tracks, we got to know the mail truck and taxi drivers that came to wait for the passenger trains to arrive. The taxi drivers often gave us suckers they kept on hand for young passengers.  What great times those were for us.

Ahh! The memories of Beich Candies, Golden Crumbles and Katiedids. Beich’s factory was just across the street from the depot. I have no memory of ever going to the factory, but, how cool to learn that Boo worked there in the summer and that they developed food for NASA. When I was living it Texas in the 90’s and came back to visit Mom, I would go to the factory outlet and buy 20-30 pounds of chocolate cover caramel rejects to take to people I worked with. However, 10 pounds was always reserved for me of which I rarely shared. Good thing that is not longer available or I would be wearing much larger clothes.

James (Jim) Rookus

Reminiscing about our 60th reunion, I was privileged to sit at a table with the one and only lady moose hunter.  I was told by her side kick that she has a couple of huge moose heads, shot by her, hanging in her home.  I think it would be a special treat if we all could see some photos of said moose heads posted here on our forum !!!

ALSO .... thanks Marv for your articulate input, explanations and historical notes of many comments made by the forum regarding the history of some of Bloomingtons past.

Linda Bristow (Elias)

It seems as though COVID has visited a lot of you.  Is it running rampant in Illinois?

Linda

Marvin Theobald

Notice the reorganization of the Home Page. I have put the menu selections in a new order in an attempt to make it a little more user friendly. The reunion and other photos have been consolidated under PHOTOS with a dropdown menu selection for each event. Photos from the 40th reunion were lost several years ago when Milan Jackson passed away. The missing photos appear to have been linked to his personal Photobucket account which is no longer active. If you have any photos from the 2004 - 40th Class Reunion please let me know and I will try to get them posted.

Mel and I visited the BHS library several years ago to obtain copies of the 1961 - 1964 Aegis Newspapers from their archives. We have recently been discussing if it would be practical to post them on the website. Due to the size of the pages and the low resolution that the website automatically reduces them to they cannot be read at the resulting resolution. We are still working on a way to make them available to everyone. Stay tuned. It would be great fun to see the discussion posting them would generate on this Message Forum.

In our BHS library visit we discoved and copied several Aegis papers from 1897 through 1920 which are posted and very fun to see. Check out the AEGIS dropdown menu on the HOME page.

Melvin (Mel) Theobald

Thank you Marv for improving, updating and reorganizing the files on this website. If I may add to your comments, Jack Keefe has been encouraging us to add more historic issues of the Aegis. Thanks to the generousity of Mary Giermann Brucker, all the issues of Aegis from our years at BHS (1961-1964) are now digitized. As much as we would like to make them a part of this website, the files are too large for its limited storage capacity. We are continuing to find a way to make them available, but if anyone wants to receive them in hi-resolution, please send me an email at theobaldart@gmail.com and I willl forward then to you through WeTransfer at no charge. No matter what happens from here, it is our hope that you will all eventually have access to this marvelous archive.

James (Jim) Rookus

A Trip down memory lane.....  remember the first several days of COVID 19 ! 

We didn't dare show our face in public without a mask on our face.  BUT there were none available.  SO, I decided to create my own.  A coffee filter held on my ears by rubberbands, a portion of a 2 liter clear pop bottle with slits on the side slid over an old pair of glasses to hold it against my face.  Believe it or not, I did go to the grocery store with that contraption on my face.  I sure did get a bunch of comments !  That was 4 and a half years ago !  Time sure does fly by !