Karen Wessell Hull
Bob Poulsen retired in 2013 from the San Diego Superior Court, where he’d been a staff attorney. He works as a volunteer temporary judge in the San Diego Traffic Court; as a volunteer with the San Diego Holiday Bowl football game; as a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary; and as a member of the board of directors for the San Diego SAE Alumni Association. Last May Bob and his wife, Peggy, spent time in Bar Harbor with SAE brother Bob Reymer ’69. “He and his wife, Cathy, drove us all around Mr. Desert Island and to a lobster joint, where I indulged in something I can’t get in San Diego” — lobster, fried clams, and fresh-baked blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream! Most importantly, he and Peggy became grandparents in February 2019.
Our class has a new author. Monty Darryl Vogel published a factual novel in April 2019. Pawns of Pleiku, which draws from Monty’s own 39 months in Vietnam, has received almost all five-star reviews, and is available on Amazon. He originally wrote it shortly after he returned from Vietnam but was unhappy with the way it turned out and set it aside. After an engineering career, he dusted the draft off while recovering from an injury and rewrote it, a feat that led directly to its publication 48 years after his first attempt. Pawns features dozens of photos from Monty’s own scrapbook and detailed operations in the central highlands of Pleiku Province, where he commanded a Special Forces team. Congratulations, Monty!
Hope everyone saw the nice photo of Edie McVay King in the University of Maine Foundation “Legacies” newsletter! The front-page photo shows her and student Drew Brooks ’19 at the May 2019 College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture scholarship banquet. Drew received the Edie McVay King Scholarship while attending UMaine.
Supreme Court Justice John Roberts appointed US District Court Judge George Singal to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington, DC. The court considers applications submitted by the government for approval of electronic surveillance, physical searches, and other investigative actions for foreign intelligence purposes. George is one of 11 federal judges to be appointed to a seven-year term. He is also the second federal judge from Maine to serve on the court. After the University of Maine, George graduated from Harvard Law School and joined Gross, Minsky, and Mogul in Bangor, where he practiced law for 30 years before President Bill Clinton nominated him to the District Court judgeship. Himself a naturalized citizen, George often told new citizens how proud his mother was when called for jury duty decades after becoming an American.
It is sad to note that Carol Snyder Drummond passed away. Carol was a faithful reunion attendee.
Please remember to send your news. Your classmates like to hear about you, your activities, and any hobbies. You needn’t run a marathon or win a prize to send an update!