1999 Graduation Breakfast

Well, our lovely host and hostess for the past years, Gordon and Dene Thomas, bought a new house this year, but we found them.   Unfortunately, we were having such a good time playing pool and basking in the sun on the spacious deck that we forgot to take a group picture, hedonists that we are.  Note, however, that we did not forget to take pictures of the food.  It has recently occured to us that we should have named our chapter Eta Pi (Ate a Pie), which would fit in with our devotions to both the Muse of language and the Muse of food.  Hey, that guy to the left looks suspiciously like Shawn Rider, the web guy!  And Leishmann Award winner Carissa Neff, fueling up before she moves to Florida for Ph.D work, is really perusing the food, unlike one of our favorite teachers, Joy Passante, who is practicing more of a "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," approach.  We should all take lessons from such a one, inspired by the Muse as her writing is.

Over the years, our professors have gotten into the habit of arriving at the breakfast with champagne and flowers in honor of the graduates, so, starting next year, we will name our breakfast "Champagne and Flowers."  We thank our professors for establishing such a beautiful tradition.

No talking here; these are the afficionados of food. More revellers huddle and conspire by the fireplace

Deb Hieronymous organized the vote for Outstanding Faculty Member; Gary Williams was one of the recipients.

And here's Deb getting quality time with our other honored professor, Rick Fehrenbacher

And this is where the group picture should be, (burp, slurp), in memoriam to all of our "imaginary friends."