Carmi Odegaard and Jim Marking Pass Away

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Steve Odegaard and his family.  Recently, Carmi Odegaard, Steve's father, passed away.    http://osheimschmidt.com/sitemaker/sites/OSHEIM1/obit.cgi?page=profile&section=info&user_id=875635  Steve attended Hillcrest, so I did not become acquainted with him until we were in the same classes in 7th grade.  We also had the same classes in 8th grade, and most of our others years in the school system.  We became rather good friends during our Jr.-Sr. High days.  We were on the same basketball teams from 8th through junior varsity.  JV. especially,  was  a fun time. 

In 9th grade, we were placed into homerooms according to the alphabet.  Each HR selected one person to run for Jr. Hi student body president.  For some unknown reason, I was selected in our HR.  Steve was my "campaign manager".  After the election, Lefty Johnson went around to our classes, pulled those of us who ran out of class for a few minutes, and told us who won and how many votes we each received.  Kevin (O'Connell) won, Tom (Bozied) was second.  I think I had all of two votes.  I don't recall who the others were.  If anyone has that information handy, please make a comment and I will update this post.

Steve's dad had a number of jokes that were truly hilarious and clean.  Many of them poked fun at his Norwegian heritage.  HIs dad also had a big Chrysler, a 1958 model if memory serves me correctly.  We spent many hours driving around in that.  I seem to recall riding around around in a green and white Dodge Coronet (?), perhaps 1956 vintage, that Steve had in high school.  There was also an early 1960's Pontiac Tempest, and later a Ford Falcon.  I think we took the Falcon to Minneapolis to watch the Twins play baseball when we were in college. 

A memorable period in high school was the time Steve and Tom owned the driving range, just south of the drive-in.  Many of us spent numerous hours out there, particularly during the summer of 1968.
We would hang out there, and hit a bunch of golf balls, but we had to go out and pick them up afterwards.  Today, there are a number of apartments on that parcel of land. 

Steve's younger brother Les played football at SDSU, and later coached in Rapid City.  I sometimes ran into him at coaching clinics and at track meets.  Joe, Steve's youngest brother, was 10 years younger than we were.  He was a student and athlete of ours during his school days.  Lee Colburn also had a younger brother, Jon, in that same class, while Susan Redmond (Zimmerman)  had a younger sister, Teresa, in that class.  They were some of my first students when I started teaching in 1973. 

Also passing away was Jim Marking (http://eidsnessfuneralhome.com/sitemaker/sites/Eidsne1/obit.cgi?user=875907Marking).  I believe his wife, who passed away ten months ago, was Rodney Koehn's aunt.  Coach Marking was the men's basketball coach at SDSU when we were in high school and college.  His teams were known for their intensity.  They were much fun to watch, as they like to fast-break at every opportunity, and were capable of scoring quickly and in bunches.  Lee was a great fit for Coach Marking's style of play.  In high school, Coach Thury said that if we were a little winded, that we could take it easy on offense and rest a little bit if we needed to, but that we should never rest on defense.  Otherwise, the opponents would likely score.  Lee, though, had a different approach.  He said something like "I might be too tired to play defense, but I'm never too tired to play offense."  That attitude was why he was so fun to watch.  I was fortunate enough to get to know him somewhat; he was a tremendous influence on me and many others that were in his basketball coaching class at SDSU. His eldest child Nancy was a little younger than we were.  She married Marty Johnson, Lefty's son (a fine tennis player).  Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Marking family.