"We are always charmed by neatness of person."
Susan (Daniels) Lellis
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Susan (Daniels) Lellis
I am a Dietitian, working with children. Still working, and I love it! I was married for thirty years, living in Texas, Paris, Washington, D.C. and South Carolina. Life has changed and I am now single, and living in Harwich on Cape Cod, which I love. I have twin daughters; Martine lives in Virginia and Julie lives in North Carolina. I maintain a healthy life-style with yoga, good nutrition and walks on the beach. I have had the opportunity to travel all over the world. My favorite place is probably Machu Pichu. And I’m looking forward to re-connecting with old classmates. 
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Susan (Daniels) Lellis
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Birthday Bash - August 20, 2017
"He took four spools, an old tin can and then by gosh, the darn thing ran."
Alan Darrah
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Alan Darrah has been racing his car on the ice for fifty years. Check out this Landmark story. Learn what Alan enjoys about racing his car on ice.
My career was spent as a heavy equipment and crane operator. I am retired, in good health. My wife and I live in Rutland. From Wachusett, my favorite memory is the day they put pigs in the courtyard. |
Alan Darrah
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"Everything is handsome about him."
Mark Whiting Davis
Mark Davis, of SloGrass
Answer : SloGrass plays When You and I Were Young, Maggie, a Civil War era love song. Great tune! Check out the Lyrics.
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To my high school classmates: thank you for all those great moments when we were one, and the holy spirit danced among us. Acknowledging that each one of us is a brain … and an athlete … and a basket case …and a princess … and a criminal, I’d like to extend a Breakfast Club inspired apology. I’d also like to extend a Dustin Hoffman inspired apology.
After graduating from Wachusett as an outlier (class rank 391 of 396 as I recall), and leaving in a tailspin, I joined the Navy in October; I saw a lot of the world over the next 3 years as an aviation electrician aboard a couple of different aircraft carriers … always with a book in my back pocket … always with a guitar at hand. I found clarity and focus in the works of Ayn Rand. I stopped spinning. I found peace and transcendence in music. I started college at UMass Amherst in 1969 … just a few weeks after Woodstock; I didn’t go to Woodstock, but I was (reluctantly at first) moved by the music and the spirit. It weakened the chains of clarity that had stabilized me and held me down. I worked hard at UMass. Halfway through my junior year abroad in Germany, I was moved by a new light. I let go of Ayn Rand, and embraced, once more, my comfort zone of confusion. I inhaled the history of art in Europe … then the writings of Henry Miller and Carlos Castaneda and Herman Melville. After one more year in Amherst, I moved to Cambridge for a couple years; driving school buses among other things, and just living in the city. I learned to meditate. I then taught music (mostly guitar) for a year in Wellesley, and then for 2 more years in Worcester. In 1978, I went to Maharishi International University in Fairfield, IA and got my BA in Literature in 1982 (after all those years), and played music with a group called The Bebo Band. And … I meditated a lot. I got married. I started selling computers in Fairfield in 1983. Moving back east in 1984, I sold computers in Newton, and then at BusinessLand in Framingham. We moved to Worcester in the late 80s. where I sold pre-press computer systems for a startup company. At around the same time, I also started playing music with a group called SloGrass, a Bluegrass/Americana band, that continues to perform to this day. We’ve recorded 4 CDs along the way. In 1992, my Mom died. Not too long after I got divorced. I met Deb. In 1994, Deb & I were married. Sean was born in 1995, and we moved to Holden in 1996. Austin was born in 1997 and Caterina was born in 2002. We’ve been growing through the joys and challenges of parenthood and family-life ever since. In 1998, I started working for a small company that published monthly real estate magazines. We quickly morphed into a developer of real estate websites. We grew to over 3000 websites, sending out over 70,000 emails per night to our customer’s customers. All was well until the financial turbulence of 2008 started to taking its toll in the real estate market. I was laid off in June of 2011. So now it’s on to semi-retirement; driving a school bus (in Sterling), making websites, making music, enjoying family, investing in gratitude and forgiveness and appreciation and now ... and embracing the sunset … from a distance (or not) … as it approaches. |
Big Birthday Bash - August 20, 2017
"Brevity is the soul of wit."
Jimmy Dickman
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Jimmy Dickman passed away on May 31, 2016. Look for the link to his obituary on this site.
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"Live and learn, die and forget it all."
Bob Dillow
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I graduated from Colorado State U. in 1969. I worked in a family business until we sold it to Norton Co. and remained in that same field until I retired. My wife Maureen and I will have been married 40 yrs. on 1/11/15! We have 5 children,{ 2 girls and 3 boys}, and 4 grandchildren. We love living in the mountains of western N. Carolina with 3 of our children and their families close by. I'd like to give an open invite to anyone that finds themselves down this way. It would be interesting.
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Bob Dillow
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Bob and Maureen Dillow at the reunion
Roger Donway
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Roger Donway resides in Poughkeepsie, with his wife Alisan.
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Basically, I have been spent my life writing articles (more than 200) and editing those of others (more than I want to remember). At all times, I did that work on a freelance basis, but for twenty years I did it for a salary, being the editor of various journals—from philosophy, to history, to foreign policy.
I finally got married, at age 62, to a widow with four amazing children and seven amusing grandchildren. Thus am I able, in old age, to enjoy the delights of being a grandparent without ever having suffered the agonies of being a parent. I live in Dutchess County, New York. Among my favorite hobbies are ballroom dance, tennis, figure-skating, reading groups (Sherlock Holmes and Jane Austen) and on-line education. My preferred travel destinations are through New England and along the Hudson River Valley. |
"Speech shows what a man is."
David Doucette
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Rich and David Doucette, Bob Bullard and Brad Rockwell
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"Am I my brother's keeper?"
Richie Doucette
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Dick Doucette at the day after pizza party.
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"A public office is a public trust."
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At our 30th WRHS reunion, I walked in to Holden Hills at the same time as Joyce Cournoyer. We spent the reunion chatting and dancing and shortly thereafter I moved down to Martha's Vineyard. We were married in 1998. (Third one's a charm!)
I taught third grade for ten years, and ran nursing homes for twenty. In semi-retirement, I drove a school bus from 2002 to the present, retiring in the summer of 2015. I write Vineyard history books (see thomasdresser.com). My daughter Amy runs charter schools in LA; my daughter Jill runs a kids tour group in New Orleans. Between us, Joyce and I have nine grandchildren.
Medically I have a significant hearing loss, but try not to let it slow me down. Philosophically, I quote John Lennon: Life is what happens when we’re busy making other plans. |
Tom Dresser
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Tom Dresser, founder and editor of the Springdale News
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Tom at the line-up to prepare for the class photo at the Big Birthday Bash - August 20, 2017
"What judgement shall I fear doing no wrong?"
Joanne (Drexler) Garland
Joanne (Drexler) Garland
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The UMass/Amherst years, which included time in Japan and New Mexico, were followed by marriage during the Vietnam war. Then the Coast Guard sent us to Pensacola and New York, where we lived on Governors Island in the harbor and watched the World Trade Center being built. I could walk to an office job near Wall Street, which was a great place to bicycle on warm summer evenings.
In 1972 we returned to the Amherst area and settled in Franklin County. A very happy second marriage lasted thirty years. I’m widowed now. Work has included high school teaching, real estate paralegal work, tool assembly, metal machining, and eventually copyediting and hardcover hand bookbinding. Genealogy is my passion. I've also been a hospice volunteer since 1981 and am active in Greenfield's Unity church, arranging flowers and serving as a prayer chaplain. I live frugally with a woodstove in a Victorian house and have hung onto too much "stuff," so when clutter became a problem I sought help. "Hoarding disorder" is now a mental health diagnosis, and peer-led support groups attract media attention. TV crews have interviewed in the house, eager to show the world what a work in progress looks like and that a "hoarder" can be an intelligent person with a sense of humor. As the house returns to order, however, there is less clutter to film, and that's good! Blessed with good health, I seem to have retired. I often run into former students, who are the children I never had. Writing is a joy that I pursue avidly and I hope there will be more to report on that front in years to come. 
Joanne Drexler at the reunion, 2015.
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Birthday Bash - August 20, 2017
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I enlisted in the Army out of school. Got out in 1968 in El Paso, Texas. Stayed here and started my own business for 8 years and sold it. Went to work for UPS as a district personnel rep. for 8 years and then left for the insurance investigation business where I've been for the last 33 years.
My lovely wife Sandra and I have been together for the last 18 years. We have our own business which she oversee. Together we have 5 children and 16 grandchildren. Our youngest daughter, Natalia,just gave us our 16th, a bouncing baby girl 8 lbs. 21 inches, in August. We have one great grandchild as well. We have a home in El Paso, and a home in the mountains of Cloudcroft New Mexico where we spend most of out weekends if we are not in New Braumfels, Texas with our six grandchildren there. God has truly blessed us. |
Peter & Sandra Dubrule
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"Friendships multiply joys, and divide griefs."
Laurie (Duvarney) Hamilton
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I was really surprised to get your letter about the reunion. As you may have guessed from my last name, I married Marty Hamilton. We will celebrate our 46th wedding anniversary this year. After twenty-six years of the Air Force moving us around the world, Marty retired in Washington state and we decided to stay here. I got a job teaching high school math here in Puyallup, WA and retired two years ago.
Laurie (Duvarney) and Marty Hamilton, relaxing in Washington state.
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"The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express."
 Janice (Dwelly) Helle
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After high school I attended Worcester State College and then later in life Assumption College majoring in accounting. I married Rich Helle while in college and moved to Rutland. I am happy to say I was lucky enough to be a stay at home mom raising our three children. Scott, a dentist in Newton, lives in Westboro with his family. Kristin lives in Westminster with her two boys and is VP of BJA Magnetics. Heidi and her family just moved back to the US after living 8 years in NZ and now live in Sturbridge. She is a sales and marketing representative for Covance. Our children and grandchildren have given us many hours of enjoyment skiing and boarding, hiking the mountains in VT, NH, CO, and NZ, as well as, attending many sporting events and recitals.
When Heidi was a freshman in high school and Scott and Kris were in college, I told Rich that I wanted to get a job. He told me, “He wanted to fly jets.” I found a job in Sterling working for Bob Johnson Associates owned by Mike Petit. When Mike decided to retire in 2001, I acquired the business. In 2003 Rich and I decided to go into business together, thus BJA Magnetics was created. BJA Magnetics is a permanent magnet business in Leominster, MA. Besides hiking and skiing, my hobbies are refinishing antique furniture, gardening, politics, and reading. We still both work full time but take plenty of time to ski and hike in VT, vacation at our home in FL and enjoy our new home in Princeton, MA. Life is good. |
Janice (Dwelly) Helle
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