John A. Schwartz
The Class of 1956 has a few updates we would like to share with classmates.
Gloria Thorpe Bangs ’57 contacted the Alumni Association to inform classmates of the death of her husband, Dick Bangs. She reported that Dick died on March 2, 2018, of ALS, which was caused by his military service. Dick and Gloria met at the University of Maine and were married the day before Dick’s graduation. They lived in Germany for three years while Dick was in the military, and had three sons. Our thoughts are with you, Gloria.
Class President Bill Johnson would like to announce in this column that the Class of 1956 has fulfilled the $10,000 pledge that they made as part of the UMaine Foundation's Vision for Tomorrow matching gift program. UMaine Foundation President Jeff Mills congratulated the class in a letter to Bill: “We are pleased to let you know that the University of Maine Foundation has applied a match of $2,500 for the total crowdfunding contributions of $10,000 to the Class of 1956 Scholarship as part of the Vision for Tomorrow matching gift program.”
Bill would like to thank all who participated and says, “Many thanks to those of you who have contributed over the years to our Class of 1956 scholarship fund. Because of you, we were able to take advantage of this matching gift offered by the University of Maine Foundation.”
The Class of 1956 has a new class correspondent! Thank you to John Schwartz for accepting the job! Please send all of your news to John at the above address so he can get to work on our next column! We would love to hear more about what you are up to, so please write John! Along those same lines, we would like to express a heartfelt thank you to Faith Wixson Varney, who was our faithful and diligent class correspondent for 18 years. Thank you, Faith, for your dedication and hard work in keeping our class connected! We appreciate it!
An update on our class scholarship fund: Our principal balance as of January 31, 2020 was $145,824.73 and our market value was $166,196.82. We are helping descendants of our class with financial assistance by continuing to grow our scholarship fund!
Finally, our 65th Reunion is coming up in 2021! Ashley Nemer Twombly ’10, ’12G, ’60H from the Alumni Association let the class know they will be invited back to Orono in September of 2021 and that she will work with the class officers next year to make all of the final decisions. Watch your mailbox for more info! We hope to see you for our big reunion next year! More details to come!
Hope to hear from many of you soon! Remember to send John Schwartz your news at the above address.
Take care!