Katie Kiblen

We just moved to Dexter, OR. about two weeks ago from Mesa, AZ. and it's so great to be back in the state of Oregon!!!  We had lived here for about 18 years in the 70's & 80's and yes you can come home again.   I'm afraid that due to the mess we're in and the move, (I can't even begin to find any pictures to send (we're all grayer) much less most of my clothes) that I won't be able to attend the reunion, but I wish you all the luck in the world.  It sounds like it will be a success!

I met Brian Dwyer in 1968 at the U of Idaho where we were both students and we were married in September of that year.  Our oldest son, Nathan was born the next August and Brian went on to get his Masters Degree at the U of Idaho while I taught school at St. Mary's in Moscow.  We moved to Newberg, OR. where we both taught for four years and then down to Eugene where Brian went to work for LCC and Caterpillar Equipment. In the meantime, we built a house and had two more children, Melissa and Aaron.  We moved to Anchorage, AK in 1988 and lived there for four years and added future traumatic culture shock, when we moved to Mesa, AZ for eleven years.  Needless to say, it's good to be home.

Our oldest son, Nathan, 34, is working on his Ph.D. in Computer Science and teaching in a junior college in Honolulu, HI, something that he gave us grief about for years, but finds that he actually enjoys it.  He loves the interaction with his students and plans to go into research, possibly back east after he finishes his course work in a couple of years.  He's always been a real pleasure to have around and I look forward to his frequent phone calls.  A very gifted musician and he thought seriously about majoring in music at the U of Oregon but computers won in the long run.

Melissa, our daughter, 34, still lives in Anchorage, Alaska, but threatens to move to Oregon and then in with us each time we talk to her.   She wanted to be a nurse for the longest time but never got around to going to nursing school.  She's just as happy working with her animals, one of her great loves, as she is with people and has quite a collection of five cats and a dog.  She's very loving and caring although a bit of a scatterbrain.  I wish she were closer distance wise.

Aaron, 27, is our youngest.  He the advertising editor for a magazine called Hobby Farms and despite all the wild and crazy stunts he pulled while we was growing up, he's turned into a very responsible, if not a little off the wall, adult.   I enjoy him tremendously!  He lives in L.A. and is engaged to a sweetheart of a girl but no wedding date had been set yet, at least not that we know of.  He's our last hope for a grandchild... we have none and I think the other two are getting a little too old.  We'll see.

Brian, after teaching at Lane Community College in Eugene for four years, went to work for Caterpillar where he's been since 1976.  He worked for a dealership here in Eugene for 10 years and then moved up to Anchorage, where he worked for four years.  It's a beautiful part of the country and big parts of us would love to go back there.   It's got some dark, dark winters however so we moved to Mesa, AZ. where Brian worked for 11 years and we had plenty of sun and warm days, about nine months of them.  When this job opened up, we knew it was where we should be, so we loaded up three cats and two dogs and moved, as quickly as we could.  We bought five acres about 20 miles south of Eugene, and plan to build another house in about three to five years.  In the meantime, we'll work on the land and get the garden in.

I plod along, year after year.   I received my M.S. in Special Education at the U of Oregon in 83 and had been working in the field for about 33 years, when all of a sudden, I decided that I should retire and spend some quality time with my animals.  So I did.  The kids had all moved away and the dogs and cats and the yard needed me more than my Autistic kids did.  Not really, but I was pretty burned out by then.  I've enjoyed having some time to myself and Brian and I spent our 35th anniversary in the UK where I got to meet and visit with a friend I've had as a pen pal since the 6th grade.  We had a lovely two weeks, driving through England, Wales and Scotland and coming home, due to some rough weather, we were able of head north and fly over Greenland, which was quite exciting.

Wishing everyone a happy reunion.   I'll be thinking about you while we're planting the garden and later building the house.