Our last post was dedicated to the memory of Marge Quam, long-time secretary to Mr. Bell, principal of BHS, and his successors. Marge had a long life of 94 years. Unfortunately, I did not have a copy of her obituary that is shown below.
Shortly after her passing, two other long-lived parents dear to us have also gone to their eternal reward. Donna (Kennard) Steen Wallum, the mother of Gary Steen (BHS class of 1967), Craig Steen (class of 1968), and David Steen (Class of 1970), and the mother-in-law of Mary Moulton (Gary's wife) of our class, passed away at the age of 96.
Her obituary had a special meaning for me. Her maiden name of Kennard brought back many childhood memories. Tom Bozied and I lived near each other about two blocks south of Central Elementary. Our houses were separated by the residence of a man named Harry Kennard. To us, he seemed somewhat like a "Grinch." He did not seem to take kindly to our rambunctious behavior. In any case, there seems to be a connection somewhere. There was a Kennard from back in 1920's that was a fine athlete for BHS. Will have to make a visit to the library to verify his prowess.
When services were held for Gerry Albright's mother in August of 2021 ( https://classof69bhs.blogspot.com/2021/08/an-unhappy-triad.html) we noticed that Harry Kennard's grave was very close to Gerry's mom's grave. Both of their plots include other family members as well.
Donna's sister married Pete Retzlaff in 1954. Pete was an outstanding football player and track and field star for South Dakota State College in the early 1950's. He helped the Jackrabbits track and field team win the national NAIA championship in 1953 (https://www.sdshof.com/inductees/pete-retzlaff/; an internet search will yeild many more results about his life and career. For example, he never caught a pass in college, as he was a devastating fullback, yet he earned all-pro honors as a receiver. There are many indirect connections to our class, also. Some of them are mentioned below). The connections to the Steen family is shown in this grainy photo from the Brookings Register of Jan. 12, 1958:
One of the websites states: "
Retzlaff is survived by his wife of 66 years, Patty, four children – daughters Kris Schroeder (husband George), Daniene Skean (husband Samuel), and Carol Moser (husband Dale), and one son, Jim – 10 grandchildren (Rebecca Carr, Laurie Price, Emily Jones, Matt Schroeder, Billy Moser, Kacy Brobst, Erin Moser, Benjamin Skean, Maddy Moser, and Colin Retzlaff), and 12 great-grandchildren." Those of us who attended SDSU in 1972-3 may vaguely remember the name of George Schroeder. He was a freshman on the basketball team when Lee Colburn was a senior. At the visitation, he filled me in on what that season was like, and how enjoyable it was to play with Lee. Space does not permit those stories to be posted here, but if anyone is interested, just let me know. It would be a pleasure to rehash them.
In 1965, our teener baseball team earned a trip to the national teener tournament in Hershey, PA. The pre-season training camp for the Eagles football team just happened to be held there. Bob Webbenhurst (Nancy's older brother) and Bernie Van Essen, our coaches, arranged for Pete to visit with us and give us an inspirational talk as well as autographed pictures of himself. In his practice gear of shorts and T-shirt, his physique resembled that of a Greek god perfectly sculpted by Michangelo.
If memory serves correctly, I believe one of his daughters was also a swimmer for SDSU.
As mentioned above, her oldest son Gary was in the class of '67, the last to graduate from the "old high school," and is the husband of Mary Moulton of our class. Her middle son Craig was in the class of '68, the first to graduate from the "new high school." Her youngest son David was in the class of '70, a year behind us. His wife Julie was a long-time teacher and colleague of ours in the Brookings school system. Craig and Dave continued in their father's footsteps, as they maintained the Steen Bookkeeping Services across the street from Nick's Hamburger Shop. Unfortunately, Dave passed away unexpectedly four years ago (
https://www.rudesfuneralhome.com/obituary/6110659).
The name "Wallum" may also ring a bell with some of us. I believe it was a gas station between DeSmet and Huron for a number of years. In any case, after her first husband passed away, Donna married into that family.
Our condolences go out to the Steen family of the loss of their matriarch.
Sadly, the community and the university lost another pillar of the community when George Duffey passed away June 2, 2022 at the age of 101. He was a long-time professor (chemistry and physics) at SDSU. His son Jim was a year ahead of us, while his daughter Ann was in the class of 1965. At the visitation, Jim indicated that his father and our high school chemistry and physics teacher Guy O. Karnes were good friends. They certainly had much in common.
One interesting tidbit about Mr. Duffey's funeral is that one of the pallbearers was Gordon Niva. A couple of years ago, I met a fellow jogger who looked familiar. He was not, however, who I thought he was. This gentleman introduced himself as Gordon Niva. He attended SDSU from 1968-1972, and was majoring in engineering physics, perhaps one of the most demanding majors on campus. Thus, he knew Professor Duffey well. During our conversation, he mentioned some of his fellow physics majors while he was in school. Bob Busby was whose name jpiqued my interest. He was a great runner for the cross-country and track teams of that era. I became acquainted with Bob my freshman year (I only ran one year), while Jim Egeberg became his teammate for three years until Bob Graduated in 1972. He also mentioned, of course, Jim Duffey. I knew of Jim, as he won numerous science fair awards while a student at both the Junior High and Senior High levels.
However, I was stunned when Mr. Niva mentioned that Ron Havermann was a good friend and classmate. Ron, too, was one of our good friends and classmates. He has lost contact with Ron, but I asked him to let me know if he ever made contact with him so that we could add his contact information to our class list.
One of Jim's classmates journeyed from the Twin Cities to express his condolences to Jim and his family. As is their habit, they met at Pizza King with a few other local classmates and enjoyed the treasures from the only pizza shop that was around in their school days. It appears that they had a good time, as they spent four hours reminiscing and proposing solutions to the world's problems.
Our condolences to Jim and his family at the loss of their distinguished father.
