Welcome Class of 1992!

Rather than continuing to send individual class updates, I thought I'd compile everyone's information at a single source that you can return to as often as you like and even leave comments for each other.

The class is listed alphabetically, and each student gets their own post.

Click on any of the images for larger sizes.

I'll add classmates as I get 'em.

Enjoy!

- Brandon

Stephanie A.

Last update I was living in Texas as a stay-at-home mom and magazine-article writer. I have left all of the above behind!

I am currently living in Boise, Idaho in a house that backs up to my daughter Emily's school. She'll be in first grade in the fall. Our home is right near the foothills and we have a great view of Bogus Basin ski area from our front door. I work as the Membership and Volunteer Coordinator for the Boise Art Museum. My husband Jeff works from home telecommuting to his job in Texas. I recently got a new bike and Emily and I are having fun riding together. Boise is an absolutely fantastic place to live. There is a huge focus on "FAMILY" and "HEALTH" and we are surrounded by beautiful mountains. We especially love traveling to near-by Emmett, Idaho and picking fruits in the orchards there.

Emily played in her first chess tournament last month and we have a chess board set up in our living room on the coffee table where we spend many evenings watching “Hannah Montana” and playing games.














Jeff and I celebrated ten years of marriage on July 12, 2007 with a trip to The Melting Pot and then we raced off to see Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix. My father is living in Chicago, working in the loop and travels back to his home in Texas at least one weekend a month. My mother is currently living in Boise, but preparing to move back to Phoenix, Arizona. Jeff's family live in Boise and it's really fantastic to have built-in babysitting any time we need it!

Life is GREAT!

Kristi A.

Hello fellow 1992 class members! It’s been great to hear about each of you and to see your photos!

I attended UNC after graduation and received my bachelors of science in nursing. I left nursing for a few years and joined staff with the Navigators in college ministry. I worked with students at Oklahoma State University and Colorado College. After that I moved to Vietnam to teach English. I returned to Colorado in 2002 and I’ve been enjoying living in Denver for the last five years now, working as a registered nurse in an outpatient clinic. I’ve worked in oncology, general infusion and now in family practice/minor trauma with Kaiser Permanente. No weekends, evenings, holidays!

In my spare time, I love volunteering with two different ministries to international students at Denver University as well as recently beginning to assist more with the Navigator's international ministry globally.














I share a cute four bedroom house close to DU/Washington Park with three other gals. I initially had international roommates, but right now it’s all American gals—which is a lot of fun!

I’m always trying to get into the mountains as much as possible— hiking 14ers, camping, backpacking, and snowshoeing on hut trips.














Last week I went to Peru for a couple weeks. It was magnificent to trek in the Andes Mountains to meet and give school supplies to the local mountain children, and of course, hike and experience Machu Picchu. I’ve been back to Vietnam several times in the last few years as well. A year ago I went to Guatemala as part of a medical mission trip. I definitely have the travel bug and love serving in poorer countries ☺

While in Denver, I’ve connected with the Navigator’s ministry to 20-30 year olds and have really appreciated the value of “going beneath the water line” in one another’s lives and the desire to reach our friends for Christ through communities. Through this group, I’ve been doing some soul care training and developing life coaching skills.

I’m not married but do enjoy my four nieces and one nephew. I was engaged recently, but thankfully discovered that we weren’t right for each other before the marriage. That certainly wasn’t fun, but I can say I’ve learned and grown a lot through it and it has made me cling to Christ in deeper ways and led to a deeper desire to help others when life makes an unexpected left turn.














Here’s a more recent photo of my family at my grandmother’s funeral in January. My brother David’s daughter isn’t present (she’s almost 3 now) and they are expecting a boy next March.

Again, it’s wonderful to read your stories and blessings to each of you!

Kristi

Greg B.

I hope I'm not the only dude to respond, but I've been bad about any other communication before now, so I guess it's about time. There's way too much for me to go into any great detail, so I'll try to sum it up as best I can.

I am still living in Alaska, and have been here for nine years now. I am the Recreation and School Services Supervisor at a place called Alaska Children's Services, which is a residential treatment facility for troubled kids.

However, I just got my letter of acceptance to begin the testing and interview process for the Anchorage Fire Department, so hopefully I'll be a firefighter in a few months.

I keep busy with sports (soccer, ultimate frisbee, volleyball, basketball), traveling (went to Peru & Bolivia last winter), mountain biking, hiking, rafting, climbing, and being an uncle to my nieces and nephew.

So, there you have it, a (very) brief summary of me.

Hope this finds everyone well.

Daria B.

Hi again, y’all—It was really wonderful getting the updates from you and reading about the good things in your life (especially, your beautiful spiritual journeys! Yay!! ☺ ) and seeing the totally adorable children ☺ so many of you have! I thank our Heavenly Father for those gifts in your lives.

Most of my time and energy the last five years has been taken up with doctoral studies in Human Development. I specialize in how family relationships (including the effects of divorce) affect development of coping and the development of suicidal thoughts and behavior across the lifespan. I balance this sad stuff with looking at how we can grow and develop in positive ways from adversity, as well as with volunteering as a core member of A Child's Heart.

Before grad school, I worked with adults in crisis—those facing domestic violence, sexual assault, and suicide. I worked with young children wrestling with learning disabilities, and with hurting-but-wonderful teen girls struggling with problems of abuse, violence, school failure, drugs, suicide, and teen pregnancy. I then ended up doing some science policy work at the National Academies related to suicide prevention. I also helped care for my increasingly disabled, chronically ill mother until she died in my late twenties.

This long-term role (first taken on as a young teen) has been the defining role in my life thus far, along with that of “big sister.” = ) I have never forgotten what dear Mr. Sciacca told us in Bible class: “People are important. *People* are what matters in life…” One thing my mom showed me through her amazing, difficult life is that our work—regardless of whether it’s a recognized profession or whether it’s the unpaid work of something like parenting and home-making, whether it’s explicitly about “helping” people or whether it’s something like scrubbing toilets, crunching numbers, or fixing leaky roofs—can always be done as a gift to God and others. ☺ This continues to challenge, guide, and encourage me...

As always, I love to travel, do nature things, and be with my family (click here for more on my interests and travels).

Here’s a photo of me at Crater Lake, Oregon (definitely worth a visit! ☺)













...and showing you that I do still hug trees—haha ;-) (here, a massive Sierra juniper)...


















...here, with my dear sibs last Christmas at my German grandparents’ couple-centuries old straw-thatched-roof house (yes, we Germans use real candles on the tree…)














In closing, I want to say that since getting the first class update, I keep thinking of those of you who didn’t respond (as well as of the many unspoken things in some of our short replies). Maybe too busy, maybe simply didn’t care to—but maybe, some of you feel you don’t have good things to report. That life has been hard, and sad. Or kinda empty.

Life is hard. It’s why I didn’t say much when Brandon first asked us for an update, because my life is rich with both tremendous blessings and devastating suffering, so describing it isn’t very straightforward for me. We’ve all reported to each other the high points in our lives, but…the low points may outweigh the good times in some lives. So, if that’s you, I want to hold out Hope to you~

Some of you know just how differently I could tell my full story of these last 15 yrs., but here’s what I really want to leave you with: What I have gleaned from my times of sorrow, times in the Valley of the Shadow, times of being sunken into the “pit of miry clay,” is an abiding hope. ☺ I know Jesus is real. I know God is good, that God never leaves us—never forsakes us. Even when we’re sitting at the bottom of the slimy mud pit of a really pitiful, sorrowful life, Jesus is there, ready to help pull us out and put our feet back on solid ground. And I know now that, no matter how smashed and brokenhearted we become in life, no matter how much toxic waste gets dumped in our soul…Jesus can heal, and heal to the depths of our being. God can redeem even the worst in our lives. As much as I love the good and beautiful things in life, I’ve decided that the only real reason and only real way to keep going in life is to walk it with God.

God is a loving, pure, mind-boggling Being who really is worth knowing.

So, I wish you all the very Best—I wish you Jesus!

Daria : )

Jenni B.

Hello fellow classmates. I am happy to hear you all are doing great. It is a lot of fun to read your updates and see your pictures. Here is my brief catch-up for the last 15 years:

After graduating from CSU, I headed out to California for my graduate work at U.C. Davis, the same school Daria attends (crazy we ended up at the same school!). I finished up my Ph.D. in Microbiology in 2003 and married Jay that year. We then moved to San Francisco so he could start his graduate work in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Yes, I am the Western scientist and he is the Eastern. We have lived in the bay area for the past four years and absolutely love it.

However, we have decided to move to Iowa to be near Jay’s family and to actually dream of owning a home (a million dollars for a 3-bedroom home? I don’t think so!). We are in the process of relocating now and will be settling in the Des Moines/Ames area. I will be starting a job at Iowa State doing research on the bacteria Yersinia pestis, the bug that causes the plague, and Jay is celebrating the opening of his practice.














We have been fortunate enough to travel to some amazing places.

We visited my family in Thailand 2 years ago, bringing my father along so we could communicate (sadly I do not speak Thai any more). We had a wonderful 3 weeks traveling around the country and seeing my grandparents and extended family.

This year we traveled to China. Jay went for 4 weeks before me to study and then I joined him for 3 more weeks of travel. We had a great time, but really miss the food (our favorite was a bowl of fresh, hand pulled noodles for about 35 cents!). Thankfully Jay speaks Mandarin, so traveling around via plane, bus, taxi, and train was pretty easy.


















Still no kids, but now that we will be living in Iowa, we will start to think about it. We did recently adopt a dog. We found her at the local animal shelter; she is a 6-year-old golden retriever who we have named Sandi. Along with Sandi we also have 3 cats, 5 fire bellied toads, a hermit crab, a corn snake, 23 fish, and just this week added 3 pet rats. I am also taking care of a friend’s pet finches and when I have the chance; I raise orphaned wild birds. In the past year, we have had chickens, a rooster, ducks, and several turtles spend some time in our bathroom too. Ok, yet another reason to move to Iowa, so I can some day have a farm.

Well, I look forward to the 20-year reunion! Thank you Brandon for keeping us all in touch ☺

Elena C.

Ok here goes, I went to bed last night and vowed I would sit down and be a better friend and give an update...

We got evacuated from our house last Monday due to the San Diego fires and spent the whole week in Las Vegas. We live in Carlsbad, which is north county San Diego and the air quality was so bad we couldn't be in the neighborhood. The county started calling us in the middle of the night and then they sent in the police who are SO LOUD on their loud speakers and I just couldn't believe we were actually evacuating. In the history of my life when you get school cancelled it's like WOOHOOO — snow, hot chocolate, skitching, hanging out...happiness...not evacuate as fast as you can and hope for the best and go some place far that your kids can go outside. Anyway, we sat by the pool in Vegas and bowled and went to movies; it was really fun. Why do they call it Sin City...kidding.

So I live in Carlsbad and I have two kids now. My daughter Mia is 6 years old my son Liam is 3 1/2. They are totally crazy and they look like each other but not like me or Larry.

Larry and are right about to hit our 8th anniversary!! It's like what?!? I still feel like he's my college sweetheart! We were watching football yesterday, when did the quarterbacks start looking like kids?

I have a vending company that keeps me busy like 12-15 hours a week and I hang out with the kids and enjoy life. I live close to the beach and I just cannot believe how amazing the ocean is, especially when so not used to it.

I love and miss Colorado so much though, certain aspects of it make me feel a very strong yearning. My niece is a senior at CSCS and when she was getting interviewed she had to meet Mr. Micheaux. She asked if he remembered me. He did and my sister went on to give him an update and she said he looked totally shocked like "she ended up normal?!?" He said it was hard to imagine a "mature" Elena. Come on now, was I really that bad? I listened to Sandi Patty, and GLAD in my room when I was fourteen!!! I thought I was a pretty good kid!

That's all and I can't wait to hear from everyone.