home messageboard   memorials jenette's poems news links

Ann

Posted by John Stechmann (134.129.194.170) on October 15, 2001 at 14:07:58:

Ann and I were acquaintances during our senior year at Wayland, 1988-89. During that year I was the equipment manager on the ski team, and helped set up the courses that Ann usually mastered at team practice on Wednesdays and Sundays at Cascade Mountain. She was an enthusiastic skier who enjoyed the competition on, and the camaraderie off, the ski hill.

Ann and I also were classmates in English AP and European History AP that year. Her dedication to scholastic achievement was evident, which is why she graduated at the top of our class. Wayland served Ann well, and vice versa.

My fondest memory of Ann concerns a surreptitious excursion in Spring 1989. Ann wanted to go shopping for a new dress, so we decided to skip class and head down to Chicago on a shopping spree. While the Wayland administration mistakenly(!) believed we were visiting a prospective college, Ann and I drove in my parents' 1987 Ford LTD to the Water Tower Plaza, where we spent the day browsing the stores and eating lunch. I didn't pay attention to the gas gauge on the way back to Beaver Dam, but luckily Ann noticed the problem and we were able to coast into the next gas station on fumes. I am pretty sure she wore the dress she had bought at the Laura Ashley store at an Assembly when she was honored for her academics. We enjoyed the inside joke of, "Hey nice dress! Where ever did you get it?!?"

Although I did not know her well, and even though I have not been in touch with her for many years, I do have some wonderful memories of Ann from the Wayland years. I hope her family and friends remember her pretty smile and happy outlook on life, and take comfort in the knowledge that she touched the lives of many persons in ways they'll never know.