Local baby boomers gather for reunion

Marshalltown's first baby boomer high school class gathered for its 40th reunion recently, and it was a telling experience in at least one respect: It was the first reunion that saw many of the class members already retired.
   Most have not, though, at least not yet. They're all either 57 or 58 years old now, the kids born right after World War II. Some stayed in Marshalltown all of their lives. Others "escaped" and vowed never to come back. But many more expatriates at least try to make it back every five years for their Marshalltown High School reunion bash, which traditionally has included a first evening reception, golfing and a closing banquet.
   Some of the 1964 grads left for college the next fall but came back to town later to help run their family business or to start their own operation. Vic Hellberg (the chairman of this year's reunion committee) is now his family's third generation jeweler in downtown Marshalltown. And Bob McGregor came back to help run his family's chain of furniture stores.
   Others, like Dick Tomhave, returned to launch new businesses. Some came back to professional careers in their hometown, including Dick's wife Darlene Smith Tomhave and Ann Byers Berg, longtime local educators who are both among the early retirees.
   Many of the '64 grads are scattered all over the country now. Pat Gould Duff is an executive at the Flamingo Hilton in Las Vegas. Debby Garland Johnson is a teacher in Juneau, Alaska. Dave Westen lives in White Settlement, Texas, and this year he published his first book of poetry.
   A couple of the class became well-known fixtures on the stage, screen or tube. Mary Beth Supinger Hurt Schrader has starred in several flicks, and her

classmate Merritt Olsen has seen acting success over almost four decades, and he's now a theater director in the state of Washington.
   Some class members settled in the south or the west. Greg Barton, Sue Adland Bakken and Doug Wheeler moved to the Denver area, where Greg is a pharmacist, Sue is an art and journalism teacher and Doug is a Denver city planner. John Gerwin and Larry Boggs both ended up in the Birmingham, Ala., vicinity, where John is a physician and Larry a financial advisor.
   Other class of '64 grads achieved success closer to home. Stan Thurston is president of Life Care Services in Des Moines, and is frequently seen on television in Central Iowa plugging his company's senior citizen housing program. Jeff Downing ran a residential and commercial development firm in Polk County until he retired to Arizona.
   Five guys in the Bobcat class of '64 married girls from their class, including the aforementioned Dick Tomhave and Darlene Smith, Paul Cox and Mary Morris, David Dunham and Gayle Yandell, James Degrado and Kay Momberg, and Dan Collins and the late Mary Packer.
   Mary, who died last year, is among the group of 25 class members who didn't live to see their 40th reunion. Two of them (Dennis Weyker and David Rutledge) were killed in Vietnam in the late 60s.
   Most of the 40th reunion attendees that we talked to said that they'd be back for their 45th reunion in 2009. And that would be the first reunion when the generation that once coined the phrase "don't trust anyone over 30" greets each other as sexagenarians.

-Story and photos from