If you have trouble using the email program that comes up after clicking on one of the classmate email buttons, just hold your cursor over the button and the address should be shown somewhere on your screen that you can write down and use in your own email program.
Bob Carmichael
Bob called today from Philadelphia, saying that he will not be able to attend our 70th reunion luncheon because of being limited physically to a wheelchair.
His second wife, Elizabeth, passed away about three years ago, and he is still staying in the condo that was owned by her. He claims to still have "all his marbles," and he did sound like that on the phone.
Bob is being well taken care of by Elizabeth's daughter-in-law, and his own daughter, who travels often from California to spend time with him.
He reminisced about some things he remembered from high school days, like when Bruce Brown submitted a paper in an English class (Mrs. Townsend?) about his adventures in surfing, on which she wrote that it would be more appropriate for being submitted for a gym class. He remembered Mr. Ochoa being upset with him for not taking 4th-year Spanish, deciding to take a college-prep class instead.
He remembers his good friend and classmate, Doug Noble, and was glad to hear that he had already registered for the reunion. He said that he would miss not being able to see you again, Doug.
08/15/25
Linda Gail (Phillips) Quails
Our recent mailing to Linda Gail regarding the 70th reunion was returned as undeliverable, so Joe Steins googled her name and came up with the following obituary notice. She attended our 45th and 50th reunions.
08/18/25
Linda Gail (Phillips) Qualls, “Gabby Gail” of Post Falls, Idaho, passed away on April 11, 2025, at the age of 87. She was born on May 19, 1937, in Monette, Arkansas where she grew up as a daughter of Charley and Burtrice Phillips.
In 1947, her family moved to Long Beach, CA, where she attended Wilson High School. She graduated in 1955.
She married Roy Qualls in 1956 and had three children (David, Cynthia and Robert).
She worked as a Reamer Operator for a lock company in Chicago, Illinois, a personal housekeeper in Yucca Valley, CA, and finally as a housekeeper for Best Western in Buena Park, CA where she retired.
She was actively involved in her church as the unofficial greeter, earning her nickname, Gabby Gail.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Charley and Burtrice Phillips, sister Emma Lou Marriott, and son Robert Gail Qualls.
She was survived by her son, David Qualls (wife Jo-Nel), daughter, Cynthia Lou Croasdale (husband Steve), granddaughters Amie Baaske (husband Joe) and Haylee Trousdale (husband Ryan), and grandson Steven Croasdale. She was also survived by two great-grandchildren, Connolly Trousdale and Smith Trousdale.
Family and friends attended a Celebration of Life service at Real Life Ministries Church in Post Falls, Idaho on May 19, 2025.
George Cleaver
I will not be able to attend the reunion. My older sister is now in an assisted living facility in Moses Lake, WA. I am planning to visit her that week. Her 91st birthday is October 7th.
I will return the survey to Joe Steins by email.
I wish all our surviving classmates, whether attending or not, a special day.
George concluded by giving some very complimentary comments about how much he appreciates our class website.
08/19/25
Margarita Isabel (Buschini) Reed
I am a graduate of the class of ’55 and would be interested in attending the reunion if I had met or knew any of the senior class members. Because I was a new senior class member, I did not enjoy my senior year. Wilson was overwhelming—almost a thousand seniors, sororities and fraternities, the well-do-to, the low income, etc. I did meet two girls who were also new seniors, and we all felt the same way. We skipped as may days as possible but made sure we could graduate.
I think my point is, parents should never remove a student and transfer them to another high school for their senior year. Just so you know, I was not permanently traumatized, as I did go on to LBCC, Long Beach State, and did finally get a master's degree and taught school for many years.
08/22/25
Constance Lou (Turner) Baumann
The mailed reunion packet sent to Connie was returned "unable to forward," and Joe Steins found on the Internet that she passed away in Texas in 2023. Her obituary is shown below.
Constance ''Connie'' Baumann, 86, of Kerrville, TX, passed away on October 23, 2023 in Kerrville, TX. She was born in Pasadena, CA, to Lewis and Doris Turner on May 1, 1937. She married David ''Smokey'' Baumann in 1964 in Long Beach, CA and was divorced in 1984.
She went to school at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, CA. She graduated from Long Beach State University in 1959. She worked as an elementary school teacher in San Antonio, TX, and finished her career teaching kindergarten at Barker Elementary in Garden Grove, CA, after 40 years of service. She was a song leader and flag girl in high school and a founding member of Delta Gamma Sorority and the Little Sisters of Minerva at Long Beach State University. She was a devout Christian, received Honorary Service Awards from California State PTA in 1991 and 2001, and Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year in Orange County, CA, in 2001.
Constance was preceded in death by her parents and her brother, Ronald Turner. Survivors include children, Tamara Baumann, David Baumann (spouse Leah), and granddaughter, Thaila Baumann.
08/25/25
Larry Frank James
Our mailing to Larry could not be forwarded, so Joe Steins found that Larry had died in 2020. His parents were Frank James and Gladys Mae Smith, and Larry married Betty Jo Nichols. They had one daughter, Lisa Renee Rosen.
08/25/25
Graham Maxton ("Max") Wetzel
We have just learned that Max passed away in Oroville, CA on July 5, 2021.
08/25/25
Deanna Jo (Gardiner) Henderson
Born July 14, 1937 as Deanna jo Gardiner in Des Moines Iowa. Passed away June 15, 2020 at home. Deanna met and married the love of her life, Clarence Henderson when she was a teenager. They were married on July 30, 1955 when she was 18 and he was 20. They were married 63 years.
Deanna was preceded in death by her parents, Clarence and great grandson.
She is survived by her two children Terri (Scott) Krasner and son Donald (Sharrie) Henderson; 4 grandchildren Jennifer (Matt) Edgington, Lauren Krasner, David Krasner, and Aryanna Lawton; and 2 great grandchildren Asher Edgington, and Jonah Edgington.
Deanna and Clarence where both avid rock hounds and enjoyed spending time together outside. Deanna was a Job’s Daughter and a Girl Scout leader. She was a porcelain artist and took great pride in her art , which she passed on the love of to her daughter and grandchildren. ( she had a piece on the cover of the world porcelain artists magazine. Which she was very proud of.
She will be greatly missed.
08/25/25
Nelda (McMichael) Gruenthal
I would love to attend the reunion, but the reality is, I can’t drive that far on my own. I still get around town (Camarillo, CA) just fine but rarely go more than 20 miles from home. Being a year older than most of you (at 89!), I’ve noticed my reaction time isn’t what it used to be.
I wish you all a wonderful reunion. Please take lots of photos and share them on the website so those of us who can’t be there can still enjoy the memories.
With love, Nelda 09/05/25
Bette (Franks) Bach Fineman
I am the daughter of Bette Franks, who married Richard Bach.
Bette is now 87 and in a memory care unit in Lynden, Washington. She remembers WWHS fondly, her acapella group as well.
Thank you for letting her know about the reunion, but she will not be able to make it.
She is retired from flying General Aviation aircraft, after having had over 50 years of flying!
Hope you have a great reunion,
Erica Bach Berdan 09/05/25
Phil Tenkhoff
My wife, Dorothy, and I are now living in Bellingham, WA. We really love it here and have no plans to move.
Fortunately, we continue to enjoy good health. We have nine grandchildren located in Washington, Oregon, California, and Colorado.
09/06/25
Tom Hulme
In anticipation of our 70th class reunion, Tom contributed this NYTimes article by Frank Brunel about his college reunions. Especially note the final paragraph.
I’ve never attended a reunion of my college class at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — I’m bad in crowds and shy about those sorts of things — but I’m back on campus at least once every few months. For the past four years, I’ve lived less than five miles away.
I stand in quadrangles that I first laid eyes on 43 years ago, when I was 17. I amble past dormitories where my 18-year-old self partied with abandon. I stride down a path where my 19-year-old self, on a first date, stole a kiss. I come upon the movie theater that occasionally had midnight shows, the restaurant with the fluffy biscuits, the arboretum with the precious late-summer shade.
So many memories, so very clear. But what I feel as they fill me isn’t a longing for the heedlessness and headiness of youth. It’s relief, because what I recall most vividly about my college years is how much I distrusted the future — how bad I was at living with the sheer uncertainty of it — and I now know that it was indeed navigable and manageable, with as many unexpected highlights as feared hardships. I now understand that many of us are sturdier than we imagine. We can reasonably contemplate our tomorrows with as much hope as dread.
I’m not talking about politics, and it wasn’t politics that put my stomach in knots back then. It was an awareness of all that could go wrong in a life — or at least fail to go right. And it was my talent for sorrow, which sometimes rivaled my capacity for joy. Rivaled but didn’t exceed it, and only sometimes: That’s what I learned over the years and then decades to come. And when I return to the terrain of my youth, I embrace and say a prayer of thanks for that education.
A rather famous alumnus of my alma mater, Thomas Wolfe, wrote that you can’t go home again. I think you can and you must, because if you have the ability and the agency to do so — if you’re still that vital, still in the game — going home is a reminder that you survived it, traveled far beyond it, had an adventure unlike whatever you’d scripted, for better as well as for worse. It reacquaints you with the necessary truth that the uncertain future needn’t be a torment. It’s more a riddle, stippled with possibility.
