Classmate Profiles
Instructions: Hello, Classmate! Our once-in-a-lifetime GOLDEN class reunion is coming soon, and your classmates hope to see you in August! Even if you aren't able to join us, please share below about your after-high school life (~350 words), favorite high school memory/ies, and include a current photo of just you, with your face and hair - or lack thereof. And although your contact information won't be visible on this website, your classmates can contact you via email by clicking on "send [name] a message" link at the bottom of each classmate's profile. Enjoy reading the profiles!
One classmate per profile. To change your profile click Log in. Username = your email.
David Abraham
| State / Province: | NY |
|---|---|
| Marital status: | Married |
| Children: | 2 |
| Occupation: | Scientist |
| Highlights of your last 50 years: | After AHS, I studied physics at U of Iowa (where I worked for James Van Allen on the Hawkeye I geocentric satellite, and my first exposure to computing). After graduation I went to Harvard in the physics department and did a PhD in superconductivity (working on materials at liquid helium temperatures). Following graduation I took a post-doc in Berkeley and switched fields to build atomic resolution near-field microscopes. This served as an entree to a position at IBM Research in New York. I've been there ever since, but have had the good fortune to change fields several times, while remaining in the same location. Starting with near-field microscopy (nanoscale imaging of thermal, electrical, magnetic and structural properties), I moved to cutting edge disk drive technologies, then worked on an all-magnetic solid-state storage chip called MRAM and in what I think is my final act, I'm now the principal research scientist leading a talented team developing the new technologies that are enabling new generations of quantum computers. It's odd to come full circle from grad school back to low temperature physics and gratifying how my education has allowed me to be so flexible throughout my career! I met my wife Carol while we both were windsurfing in Aruba. She is a veterinarian and was working a couple of hours away (but at least still in the New York area), and we got married in 1998. We have since raised two wonderful kids - William and Allison, both of whom are still in college (data science and illustration, respectively). We're quasi-empty-nesters and are now considering the next steps. I'm still working although eyeing retirement in the near future, and plotting what the next stage might hold! |
Andy Abrahamsen
| Marital status: | Committed Relationship |
|---|---|
| Children: | 2 |
| Occupation: | Warehouse |
| Highlights of your last 50 years: | After high school I went to work for the Memorial Union for a couple years. Then decided to Drive for Allied Van Lines; that was a great job! I drove coast to coast, I’ve been to every state in the U.S. except Alaska and Hawaii…it’s hard to drive to these two states. It was like a working vacation, I got to see beautiful places and experienced a lot of cool things! In 1980, I was headed to Spokane, Washington when Mount St. Helens erupted…I spent a week in Idaho waiting for the volcanic ashes to clear enough to continue my drive. If I would have known what those little pill bottles filled with volcanic ash were selling for, I would have filled my trailer full of volcanic ash and retired! I met Leslea, we have two children and five grandchildren, we’ve have been together for 43years. In the last 43 years I’ve worked in the manufacturing business and still enjoy working today. |
Beth Agard Arends (Agard)
| State / Province: | OR |
|---|---|
| Marital status: | Single again |
| Children: | 3 |
| Occupation: | Industrial Engineering/ Cryogenics research |
| Highlights of your last 50 years: | I've lived in Oregon 37 years; raised (and homeschooled) 3 wonderful children, on a fun little acreage, now have 5 delightful grandchildren. Since covid I work for an engineering company, mostly in cryogenics, & travel to the Midwest and around the country several times a year doing projects for manufacturers such as John Deere, for hospitals, resorts, steel mills. Previously in ministry and academics, I worked with OSU international grad students and scholars; appreciated visiting some in their lands--like going into the DMZ tunnels between North and South Korea, during a very tense incident that occurred. Also seeing Israel, and the former Soviet bloc. |
| Share a high school memory: | Endless late school nights working on the Spirit--using a typewriter, of course! And writing stories for the Web. Playing Nurz with friends; our junior trip to Washington, DC. Dreading swim class! Having my brother for my Drivers Ed teacher. Appreciating Mrs. Bauske, Mr. Carlson, Ms Pedolski so much, and other caring teachers, too. |
Gary Albertson
| State / Province: | CA |
|---|---|
| Marital status: | Married |
| Children: | 3 |
| Occupation: | Civil Engineer |
| Highlights of your last 50 years: | 1974 - 1981 - ISU, changed majors mid-way, graduated from ISU with a BS in Civil Engineering. 1981- moved to Newport Beach CA, worked for Fluor Engineering. Enjoyed So. California beach life! 1984 - moved to SF Bay area, (better cultural fit for me) worked for Gen. Engineering Contractor. 1988 - Engineering Design & Construction Engineering Services. 1993 - Married Sally (gourmet chef, wonderful wife & mom!), moved to Davis CA. 1994 - Started my own Construction Management Consulting firm (Project Management Applications. Inc.), mostly love being self-employed. 1994 - First daughter, Sara. University of Kentucky - Animal Science major. Passionate about animals, especially dogs! Look for her at Westminster some day! Married Jarrett 2022, Lawyer for Sacramento County. 1997 - Second daughter, Emily. University of Washington - Business major, could be President one day! Will marry Ryan on 9/1/24 Business consultants in SF. 2002 - Third daughter, Julia - Graduates this year from University of Oregon - Biology. Much smarter than her dad! World traveler, Very Fun! Present - Still live in Davis (college town, very similar to Ames). Love N. Ca. weather and outdoor activities. Could do without all the people, high taxes and whacky politics, but otherwise loving life! |
| Share a high school memory: | Growing up in Ames, my dad was a math teacher at Ames High before his premature death in 1967. I joined him when he earned extra money working at ISU and High School athletic events making me a passionate fan! I knew all the players and they knew me. Winning the State High School basketball championship our Junior year was a dream come true for me! Mike Gardner, Randy Crom and I were like the 3 musketeers. Great friends, Great times, Great memories! |
Kevin Allen
| Marital status: | Married |
|---|---|
| Children: | 0 |
| Occupation: | CPA |
| Highlights of your last 50 years: | Finished football playing career with the Iowa Shrine game. Made last minute decision to attend ISU. Married and graduated. With a BS in Education I was employed by Sutherland School District. Taught Junior High History American Government and was an assistant coach for every sport they had. Divorced and moved back to Ames and enrolled in ISU again. Picked up part time work as an Assistant Football and Track coach as Ames High working with several of my former coaches. Graduated from ISU again this time with a BBA in accounting. Went to work for a firm out of Des Moines auditing grain coops and Community action Programs. Moved to Arizona in 1988 open a tax and accounting practice. Met Patty in 1994 on a blind date and have been together since. Tapering off a little but still working. Kind of like it. |
| Share a high school memory: | Never forget four of us getting to school as sophomores in Dobson's VW. The "WE RIDE" motorcycle rally to the Football homecoming pep rally. Playing and dancing to Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Album over at J Carter's house. Sitting at the Hallway Bar at NG Mall. Slow pitch softball and That Place 99 cent pitchers. And to many more to count. |
Mark Allen (Allen)
| State / Province: | MO |
|---|---|
| Marital status: | Single |
| Children: | 2 |
| Occupation: | Management Consultant |
| Highlights of your last 50 years: | Graduated from KU in Finance Married college girlfriend...we both moved on after 35 years Started a family...two kids...now including four grandkids and two dogs. Started a business...sold it. Started another...sold it. Started a third business...kept it. lol Teach entrepreneurship around two thousand students so far. Split time between Kansas City, Atlanta and Cabo San Lucas Mentor youth on life and growing up. Love my family and my friends. Looking for love in all the wrong places. HA |
| Share a high school memory: | Tom Jorgensen's home room was a trip every morning. |
Susan Allen (Larson)
| State / Province: | FL |
|---|---|
| Marital status: | Married |
| Children: | 1 |
| Occupation: | Retired |
| Highlights of your last 50 years: | I went straight to college and then to grad school on a grad teaching assistantship. I taught classes and helped coach swimming. The first position I took after grad school was the head swimming coach at Texas Tech University. I did that for two years and stopped, due to all the travel involved, when I got married. We had our daughter and I was mostly a stay-at-home mom with some part-time work. It wasn’t long before I was single again. I took a position at a pre-school in Dallas where my daughter was able to attend it with me. Just before she went to Kindergarten, Megan and I moved to Florida to be near family. In Florida, I taught in the school system. I started off teaching P.E. and then changed to working in the pre-K program for “at-risk” children. My responsibilities included parent involvement and parent education. I taught swimming in the summers. I eventually changed careers and became a financial planner, specializing in working with educators. Working with people on a one-on-one basis was my favorite thing. I was able to do that as both a swimming teacher and as a financial advisor. I met my husband, Buddy, in Florida. We’ve been happily married for 26 years. We traveled extensively pre-Covid. Some of my favorite traveling experiences were exploring the Isle of Skye (Scotland): tandem para-gliding in the French alps; walking inside a glacier in Switzerland; watching the tide come in at sunset in Mont St. Michel (off the coast of France); and spending a day photographing the lavender fields in Provence. Pre-Covid we took family trips to Norway one year and France another year. We have so many great memories (and photos) of travels with family and friends! The biggest highlights of my life have been being a parent and grandparent, along with my husband. We love our roles as “Nana” and “Bapa” to our six-year-old grandson, Ansel. We spend our time between Florida and New Hampshire. Eventually we will likely just be in New Hampshire, as Megan and her husband live nearby in Vermont with our grandson and grand-dog. In my spare time I enjoy spending time with friends and family, learning to play the cello, learning more about my photography hobby, watching the flowers bloom in our NH backyard, volunteering with the Bradford (NH) Historical Society, and playing with our dog, Rosie. Currently, our only travelling is between Florida and New Hampshire. So, unfortunately, I will not be at the reunion. I will miss seeing everyone and thank those who are putting so much work into making it a success. My over-riding thoughts are that I have been blessed beyond measure. Ames was a great place to grow-up. I’ll always cherish my wonderful memories and appreciate all the benefits of a great education and the opportunity to grow up in a university town. Ames High Aims High! |
| Share a high school memory: | Best Memory: The friends and experiences from participating on the AHS Girl's Swimming Team! |
Mary Anderson (Childs)
| State / Province: | VA |
|---|---|
| Marital status: | Married |
| Children: | 2 |
| Occupation: | Retired |
| Highlights of your last 50 years: | Took classes at Iowa State, completed the Paralegal Program at DMACC, moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia, and eventually ping ponged between Virginia, Iowa, and California over the years. During those years I worked for a few different law firms, a title insurance company, State Street Bank, and a federal agency in DC. Met my husband, Erik, in Virginia Beach in 1985 and we were married at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California in 1989. We’ve been living in Falls Church, Virginia (just outside of Washington, DC), since 2001 when we bought my husband’s childhood home. We have two wonderful sons, Ross and Ryan, now grown, but no grandchildren (yet). I retired in April 2023 after working 24 years as Web Content Manager for CSOSA, a federal agency supervising DC offenders. I filmed and photographed lots of our boys’ lacrosse games when they were younger, helped with Cub/Boy Scouts activities, planning/coordinating a few ski trips to Wisp Resort and oceanside camping at Assateague Island being highlights. Had some great vacations, ski trips and family get togethers with some favorites being houseboating in Voyageurs National Park, beach trips to the Outer Banks, North Carolina, visiting family in Minnesota, trips to Maui, Sanibel Island, and Germany. Looking forward to checking off some travels from the bucket list after Erik retires. |
| Share a high school memory: | Two trips our Junior year: the UN/DC trip – loved visiting the Smithsonian museums and seeing the Godspell performance at Ford’s Theatre in DC, also Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway in New York; Band trip to St. Louis – remember visiting the Gateway Arch when the tram was shut down for maintenance, so we had to walk up the steps to the observation level at the top – warm day + hot, sweaty bodies = all the windows were fogged over! So many memories: playing clarinet in the band, working at ISU Office of Industrial Education for Office Education, writing articles for the Ames High Web staff. I was in Tom Jorgensen’s homeroom (remember him singing to us in the mornings) and all was good as long as we showed up before he had to turn in the attendance slip. After I started driving, I remember Robin Haugland’s mom wouldn’t let her ride to school with me because she kept getting in trouble for being tardy. I think that might have been the beginning of a trend for me with struggling to be on time. |
Carla Anderson (Vondra)
| State / Province: | NM |
|---|---|
| Marital status: | Married |
| Children: | 2 |
| Occupation: | Retired RN-MSN |
| Highlights of your last 50 years: | I am delighted to say that my last 50 years have given me many great memories! I had a great career working as a RN, which kept me on my toes for 40 years working both at the bedside and in healthcare administration. During vacations we traveled - across US, Europe and Asia. We loved to ski and hike so our family enjoyed many adventures in the outdoors. I served in an Army MASH unit, and I'm proud to say both my sons serve(d) in the Air Force. I have two smart grandkids (boys 9&6y/o)-they give us so much joy! I still love to read and do embroidery. I am grateful for my good health due to Pilates M-F and lots of hiking on weekends! I enjoy wine and absolutely love to cook-Look out Bobby Flay! Life is good! |
| Share a high school memory: | I was a member of AHS choir. We made a Christmas album. We all had beautiful voices! It was hard work but a lot of fun! |
PF (Pat, Patty, Patricia) Anderson (Anderson)
| State / Province: | MI |
|---|---|
| Marital status: | Single again |
| Children: | 2 |
| Occupation: | Medical librarian |
| Highlights of your last 50 years: | I'm the Emerging Technologies Informationist at the Taubman Health Sciences Library, University of Michigan, where I've made apps, comics, a video game; written/published articles, book chapters, and books; taught workshops and built a library collection (with alien and animal costumes!) in a virtual world; 3D printed cool stuff, and soldered chips on circuit boards, which officially makes this the coolest job ever. Her job lets her hangout with the microbiome researchers, precision medicine folk, AI researchers, and get to talk about her explorations in personal genomics. She publishes on social media (especially in cancer communities), online health and search engines, wearables, text mining and tech mining (which are different things), textual analysis, and systematic reviews. In other words, she happily revels in geekery of many sorts. On a personal note, she is very proud of her two wonderful & much beloved kids; sings tenor in the local LGBTQIA choir; writes/publishes poetry & poetry reviews as a side gig; is compulsively crafty; identifies as a brawling broad of budo; and collects graphic medicine (aka health comics), art decks, and edugames. Fun stuff! My current work, art, and life focus on Long COVID. |
| Share a high school memory: | When I came to the last reunion, health issues causing amnesia had wiped most of my HS memories. Now several have come back, and it's hard to choose! Sitting in the hallway in my hippie petticoats before homeroom opened, passing out candy kisses at Christmas and chocolate drops at Valentines. Hank teaching Nancy Sass how to dance on stage with her arm twisted half behind her back (Miss Jean Brodie?). He was almost twice as tall as her! Standing in the back of the auditorium to check how my makeup jobs looked for Pirates of Penzance. Mr. Buss (German) forgetting my name, over and over again, and calling me Panderson (which devolved into Panda). Al Wiser, the choir director, telling us about his vacation in Germany, describing the beers (one translates into "courage"), and then the rest of the year urging the sopranos to hit high notes with "Take COURAGE!!" My favorite memory might be that crazy party at Nancy Sass's house with Twister, and whispered stories of how folk visited "Genuine John's" while underage and told their parents they were going over to John's (implying John Hansen). That was a revelation to me! Another revelation was the National Merit Scholar crew talking about having hacked the school records and getting the data to show that the smartest kids in the school were also those in the drug scene. Since this didn't include me, I was dubious. |