Scuba is cool!

Every year we've taken a family photo for our Christmas cards

Sue Albrecht:

Hello former classmates and old friends:

I'm sorry to say we won't be attending the reunion because the Zahn family reunion is in Mackinaw City, MI, that weekend.

The summer of '79, Lori Aronson and I stopped to watch a baseball game at McCarty Park when we recognized Harvey Kuenn and Joe Wirtz (WAC76) were playing. Bruce Zahn (WAC76) was also watching the game, and he walked over, started talking, asked me out, and that Christmas, we were engaged. We were married two years later with Joe as best man and Ron Knudson and Kevin Neibauer (WAC 76) as ushers. It took me a while to get used to being at the end of the line alphabetically, and when I introduce myself, some people think I'm only saying my sophisticated first name and ask what my last name is.

Bruce's job as a YMCA Executive Director has taken us to Peru, IN, Sterling, IL, Moon Township, PA, and finally Michigan City, IN (near the border of the State of Michigan and on Lake Michigan). I have worked in the legal department at Clark Oil in West Allis, in public relations at Wisconsin Bell, downtown Milwaukee, as Bruce's secretary in Sterling, as a police dispatcher in the town by the Pittsburgh airport, and now as the Police Chief's secretary at Purdue University North Central. I am a lifeguard at the Y and have taught swimming lessons, Nautilus training and pre-and post-natal exercise classes. In August, 2002 I became a Rape Aggression Defense instructor for the University (see pic below).

When I was 32 weeks pregnant with our first daughter, Veronica Lynn (mild child, age 15), I went into labor and flew 80 miles by helicopter to the nearest neonatal unit. America Tiffany (wild child, age 12) allowed me to stay home. Our family grew in October when Bruce's mother and her dog came to live with us. The girls' activities have turned me into a swim team, cross country, track and stage mom.

We enjoy bicycling and in line staking, but our family obsession is SCUBA diving. Bruce and I have been diving for 14 years, and he has been an instructor for 12 years. Ronni has been diving for 3 years, and Ricci completed SCUBA Rangers (children 8-12) and in June received her Junior Diver certification. Bruce and I have been to The Keys and the Bahamas, and we have taken the girls diving in Lake Michigan and local quarries and snorkeling with the manatees in Florida.

For three summers, Bruce and I did underwater archeology in the Straits of Mackinaw, MI. Our last summer, he and I located a wrecked Mackinaw boat that the State Archeologist had searched years for. For our 10th anniversary, we were the only two on a casino boat near Charlevoix, MI Ð however, the boat was 40 feet underwater. While we lived near Pittsburgh, we volunteered at the zoo to clean the shark tank--the keeper fed the sharks before we went in. For my 40th birthday (we all survived 40!), Bruce and I went to the Fantasy Island resort in Roatan, Honduras. We coordinate group trips, so send us an E-mail if you want to join us!

Calm seas and clear waters,

Sue