THE HARVARD ALUMNI CLUB OF UTAH

Dear Family,

Memorial weekend has always been big in our family. That was the weekend when we all went to the farm to plant our huge garden and all participated (with various degrees of enthusiasm) and ended it with a gigantic barbecue, Mike, his kids Mom and I will got to St. Charles, ID, for a couple of days to do repairs and get ready for the reunion,

It is also graduation time. We had lunch with Emily and her family as Josh graduated from high school and will attend BYU Idaho with a scholarship in the fall. Way to go Josh!

Al presented the Julie Wirthlin Scholarship at Andover High School graduation in Michigan. Read her post... it is great.

We belong to the Harvard Alumni Club of Utah but never went to a meeting. This time it was held at Steve Covey's mansion up east of the Provo Temple. That is Covey of Covey Franklin Corp. It was quite a place with a two story library and an indoor olympic pool and basketball court next to the family room.

We went to hear Gary Browning speak on his experiences in Russia. It was like stepping back in time 50 years! One gal came up to us and said, "I was the sister to your secretary Diane Higgenson; you operated on my foot and I baby-sat your kids and helped on one of your papers!" It was Julie Higginson and that memory came from a part of my brain that has not seen action for some time. Everyone remembered Mom from sitting with her in the nursery in the Cambridge Ward long ago.

Gary was getting his degree in Russian Studies at Harvard and became a prof at BYU. He was also the first mission president of the St. Petersburg Mission. Rob served under his sucessor, Tom Rogers.

Both these men and Manfred Schutze of East Germany were called toi be Patriarchs of the European East Area. Prof. Browning still goes over there and gives these blessings. He has been there 17 times and given > 1000 blessings, He discussed his experiences which I found particularly interesting as we shared some common things.

There were so many old friends.

The next day we went to another event held at the prestigious Alta Club in Salt Lake. It was a breakfast with Kim Clark as the speaker. Way back then as an undergraduate at Harvard, he was my Stake Young Adult Rep when I was on Richard Bushman's High Council.

Kim went on to become Dean of the Harvard Business School and now President of BYU Idaho. He spoke about the innovations in education that were going on up there and I am glad Josh will be a freshman there.

We have been blessed to know so many people who have gone on to do great things and it is a blessing to see them once again.

Have a good Memorial Weekend,

Love, Dad