Classmates Bob Lanning, Lenny Wildrick and Karen Wenrich got together for a visit in April 2020 just as COVID-19 was ramping up and planed a geology reunion, assuming the pandemic would be over by the fall of 2020. Locating fellow geology classmates seemed like it should have been easy, but it wasn’t. For help, the group contacted Roger Cuffey and Duff Gold, who were always dear to all of us, and who have kept in contact with many of us over the years. Roger informed us that we were mistaken, that by his calculations the pandemic would not be over by October 2020 nor even by the following April. How right he was.
Roger said that because the classes of ’69 and ’70 were his first students after he had arrived at Penn State, he remembered us well and would love to come and join us for the reunion. And so he did. In the ensuing one and half years while we waited for the pandemic to wane, we tracked down thirty-five of our forty classmates from the two classes. Reunion plans were made for October 2021.
Sixteen classmates and nine spouses braved potential pandemic and travel cancellations to attend the reunion at Karen Wenrich’s and Lenny Wildrick’s ranch in Tucson, Arizona. Everyone arrived and stayed for four days. Roger drove all the way from State College to Tucson over a period of several days; we all assumed that he stopped at every bryozoan locality across the US. Class members came from all ends of the U.S.: Bob Lanning and Minuen Odom came from Springfield, Missouri; George and Susan Burgess from Fairbanks, Alaska; Mike and Connie Arden from Galveston, Texas; Larry Bennett and Linda Billera from Golden, Colorado; Bill and Vicki Fuchs from Reno, Nevada; John and Harriet Grimes from Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania; Joe Head from Marion, North Carolina; Joe Jellick from Columbus, Ohio; Judy Malkames Bishop from Miles City, Montana; John and Naomi McCormick from Cedar Falls, Iowa; Art and Margaret Thorn from Lititz, Pennsylvania; Dick Turpin from Gilbert, Arizona; Ihor and Zenia Kunasz and Karen Wenrich and Lenny Wildrick from Tucson, Arizona.
The reunion included lectures, field trips, dining, and visiting local sites.
Phil Pearthree, Arizona State Geologist, and Marie Pearthree, Central Arizona Water Conservation District, explained how Tucson went from a water disaster with serious land subsidence/fissure development and a
depleting aquifer system to one of the two showcase cities in the U.S. for bringing back their groundwater supply system through artificial recharge.
Phil Pearthree led a fantastic field trip to the Picacho Peak area to view ten feet deep subsidence fissures caused by water withdrawal. Then Asarco provided us with a tour of their Silver Bell Copper Mine with two of their geologists. We were treated to geological discussions and stops to crawl around on the rocks and collect copper minerals.
That evening all of us gathered at Lil Abner’s Steak House, an 1800’s Butterfield stagecoach site, for an outdoor grilled meal accompanied by a country western band. Saturday, Karen and Lenny hosted an outdoor party in Tucson’s gorgeous October weather on the ranch patio and yard. On Sunday, attendees went on their own for local site visits, such as the Sonora Desert Museum.
Roger drove the 2200 miles back to Penn State from Tucson, and despite battling a snowstorm in the Midwest, he had a great time, according to Duff. It was a great time for all of us, and we are so glad, as one of our classmates said, that we were able to give Roger a “good sendoff”, since he passed away three months later, in January 2022.