Gary Herbert ’65 and his wife Jane Herbert ’67 shared some memories with you of their life after IWU:

“I was a philosophy major at Illinois Wesleyan, and a member of TKE. There, at IWU, I met a girl from my own home town, Jane Provancher.  Jane was the vocalist for the Phi Mu Alpha jazz band for several years. We married in 1967.

After my graduation from IWU,  I joined the philosophy graduate program at the American University in Washington, D.C. (M.A.), and, in 1967, the philosophy graduate program at Penn State (Ph.D.).  Jane and I moved from Penn State to New Orleans after my graduation in 1972, and I spent the next thirty-eight years on the Loyola University New Orleans philosophy faculty. The last ten years at Loyola I was also editor-in-chief of the international journal, Human Rights Review. For those thirty-eight years as a member of the faculty, I taught Metaphysics, Political Philosophy, Modern European Philosophy, and Modern Rationalism. It was a good time, but we always felt “out of our element” in Cajun country.

During the last twenty-five years of that time, Jane taught 5th grade language arts. In addition, she involved herself in many choirs and New Orleans staged musicals. She also served as stage manager for NORD theatre in New Orleans for several years. We raised our two sons there in New Orleans, one son (his wife and our two granddaughters) who now resides in Tampa, Florida (he’s an evolutionary biologist on the University of South Florida faculty) and another son (with our other two granddaughters and a grandson) living in Las Vegas, Nevada. (He’s a family and marriage counselor.)

We stayed in New Orleans until 2010. At that point, we returned to central Pennsylvania (on a one year sabbatical). We had fallen in love with the place many years before. I retired in 2011 as the Rev. Guy LeMieux SJ, SAK distinguished professor emeritus of philosophy. We now live just outside State College, Pa., part way up Nittany Mountain, with a gorgeous view of Mt. Nittany, the Tussey Mountain range, and the valleys in between. The view from all around our house is somewhat reminiscent (to me) of the famous Peter Breugel painting, Hunters In Snow. We love the fact that, after thirty-eight years in New Orleans (the Cajun Night Before Christmas) we can enjoy a genuine Christmas season once again.

Jane continues to sing in choirs, and spends much of her time during the day doing voluntary work and working at a local winery. I spend my time working on a manuscript (political philosophy) and golfing as much as I can, hoping, perhaps futilely, to get my handicap down to a point I consider acceptable.”

Mary Sue shared some information about her life after Illinois Wesleyan:

“The summer before my senior year at IWU I worked as a lab tech in physiology at U of ILL. Champaign-Urbana. My boss and his wife, at a dinner for my date and me, warned me that if I truly loved the research lab life, I should not go on to grad school, that I would only price myself out of the job. I took their advice and got married (to the date) the following summer and worked for a year as a lab tech in nutritional biochemistry at U of ILL. until my husband John got a teaching position at U. of Georgia and we moved to Athens, Georgia.

I have a daughter Elizabeth and son Michael. After they got out of high school, I refreshed my skills by taking the second year of the research technology certificate program at the regional technical school and started work as a research tech III in the Textiles, Merchandising & Interiors Dept. at UGA. I was working for a chemist from EPA who was studying the fate of dyes used for signaling by the Army. Twenty years later I found out that it probably was the most important work I ever did at UGA, finding the bad actor in the bunch that turned out to have been used to call in the Medivac helicopters. That dye was removed from use and combat veterans from that era are now given more care for cancers. What is a biology major doing working in a textile dept.? I was hired because EPA was cracking down on the textile industry for their environmental impact. All the chemists and industry people didn’t have a clue as to the environmental impact of what they were doing. I got to make lots of field trips to monitor the effluent from manufacturing plants for color, pH and COD and analyze the muds for dyes resistant to biological degradation. When that project ended, there were many others. I am still working, currently on the transfer of Aspergillus niger from carpet to skin-like material using a robot we designed at UGA for safety to determine what carpet characteristics are safest for the nursery school environment.

How much longer I continue to work depends on my husband’s health. John is a full professor of biochemistry, still teaching. He has prostate cancer and the oncologist told him to start working on his bucket list five years ago. He hates travel, so he started writing historical romances, in longhand! I transcribe them and try to edit them and create covers late at night after rehearsals. He has published five and we are working on #6. Yes, it is exhausting work, especially the arguments on points of grammar at 2 am when my tact has evaporated.

When I graduated from IWU, I had accumulated enough credits to have a minor in voice. Oh, the Co-Choir memories! As much as I love performing, I can do without the touring. Once I settled in to Athens, I found a church choir conductor that lived up to my standards from IWU. He died last month, but I cherish the memories of 30+ years singing two anthems every Sunday and going on tour to the National Cathedral. I still sing but in a different church choir filling whatever slot that needs me most in the chancel choir or the hand bell choir. Summer of ’13, I fulfilled a long time dream of mine: playing the part of Mother Abbess in “The Sound Of Music” for seven performances in a local theater. It was quite the challenge for me as memorization and public speaking are not my thing.

But that is only part of my musical life. In middle school, my son started playing my father’s trombone. We had moved to a lake in the country and the rural school band director was sub-standard, so to keep Michael challenged beyond private lessons, I took him to Athens to join the youth symphony and the Classic City Band. Sitting knitting a Dr. Who scarf for Michael during rehearsal, I was approached by a desperate timpanist trying to hold down the percussion section by herself. “Here, you’re a musician, help me out by playing the bass drum!” as she handed me the big fuzzy mallet. Thus started my education into the intricacies of percussion notation. The bass drum is still my favorite, although I spend more time on mallets (bells, xylophone, chimes), because no one else wants to do it. I carry around a trunk-load of heavy metal in my car to be able to play in whatever group needs me. Athens is a very musical town. I play in a Civil War reenactment band, a polka band, a brass choir, Classic City Band (the oldest continuous community band in Georgia), and the Athens Symphony. Now my son is the conductor of the Classic City Band and you can see us on UTube or the band’s website.

As far as the reunion goes, I’m not sure. I don’t fly due to bad eardrums, they rupture every time I try. I was driven up to Arlington Heights, Ill., this fall for the internment of my 100 yr. old mother by my daughter-in-law. I don’t know what my husband’s health may be. I’m not enthused about such long rides any more as these old bones and muscles are getting grumpier.”

Bob shared some information about his life after IWU:

“I spent a year in Sweden studying at the University of Stockholm from 65-66 before returning and going to work as a reporter in Des Moines, Iowa for United Press International through the efforts of an IWU alum – Bob Page, class of ’59, who would eventually hire four or five other IWU alums in the following years. Transferred from there to Lincoln, Nebraska and then to the Capital bureau in Lansing, Mich. Ended up working at press secretary for Michigan Gov. William G. Milliken from 1977-82 and then moved to Detroit to perform the same duties for Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young from 1983-93. When he left office I opened up a consulting gig and eventually formed a partnership to create a public relations company – Berg Muirhead & Associates – where I am still at it. We provide services to political candidates, office holders and both for-profit and non-profit enterprises.

For a number of years beginning in 1992 I took a van load of Detroit kids to IWU for homecoming weekend on a recruiting trip. Through the years a total of 18 of them have enrolled at IWU and all graduated in four years, which is way above average for kids from an urban background, speaking well of both the nurturing atmosphere they found at IWU and the kids.

I’m definitely planning to attend the 50th reunion and would love to hear what others have been up to.”

Karen has shared some information about her life after graduating from Illinois Wesleyan:

“After graduation, I taught elementary school in Woodstock. Illinois before returning to college to get a master’s degree in education from the University of Illinois. While there I met and married my husband, Bob Snyder. While he finished graduate school, I taught in Rantoul, Illinois.

After his graduation, we moved to the Chicago area where he worked for Argonne National Laboratory an then Amoco Oil and Chemical Company. We eventually located in Naperville Illinois where we still live. While our three children were growing up, I worked for the local school district in special education classes, which I continued when they left home until a year and a half ago when Bob also retired.

For the last fifteen to twenty years we have spent many of our vacations touring on our tandem bike. We have visited the west coast, many of the midwestern states, the Canadian Rockies, Nova Scotia, and the Erie Canal in New York State. Our longest trip being a six week, 2,000 mile trip from the Pacific Ocean through Glacier National Park to Naperville.

Now we are both retired and enjoying our children and grandchildren, and we continue to bike.”