The Winding Road: Class of 1974 Newsletter

April 2023

It’s hard to believe that it has been more than 50 years since we first set foot on the Carleton campus as new students. Much was happening in the country and the world in 1970. The Vietnam War had just intensified with the invasion of Cambodia. Television shows like “Monday Night Football”, the “Mary Tyler Moore Show”, and the “Odd Couple” premiered on our television screens. The transition to co-ed housing on campus was still a work in progress, and Howard Swearer had just been installed as the new college president. Music of all kinds played from speakers mounted in dorm windows, and the Beatles had just released their last album, including Paul McCartney’s “Long and Winding Road”.

With all that’s gone on in the world and in our own lives since then, the 50^th Reunion Committee thought those words resonated well as a theme for our reunion. It truly has been a long and winding road from those early days until now, with more adventures still to come. We look forward to coming together to reminisce a bit about those times, but also to share our experiences along the road thus far, to talk about where we are today, and to imagine what’s still ahead for us. We hope you will save June 13-16, 2024, to join us in Northfield for our Class of 1974 50th reunion.

50^th Reunion Committee Co-Chairs:  Pam Luecke, John McCracken, Jean Watson Thiel

In the months ahead, we will be taking a multi-media approach to keeping you informed about the many activities and opportunities that we are planning to make our reunion a special event. As part of the effort, this class newsletter will be published every three months or so between now and the Reunion. This first issue is being printed and mailed to all classmates for whom we have a mailing address, and the digital version is being sent to your emails. Subsequent Newsletters will only be sent out digitally via email. If you haven’t received the newsletter in your email and would like to receive future editions, just send us your email address at 50threunion@carleton.edu. Each newsletter will also be posted on the Class of ’74 website as well, so you can always catch up on the news.

Click inside for updates from the 50th Reunion Program and Gift committees and to learn more about what to expect from Reunion 2024.

Our classmates came to Carleton from many different places and backgrounds, and the stories of their life experiences over the years since then are rich and varied. In this interview with Mercy Russell ’74, Laurie McCants ’74 tells us the story of a career that began in community theater and spanned the globe.

Do you have a “Carleton song?”  By that I mean a song that instantly transports you back to the early 1970’s in Northfield. Just listening to a few bars of the song takes you back to that special time as if it were yesterday.  I have just such a song….

Music has been the soundtrack of our lives through the Carleton days and beyond. We’re building a Playlist of favorite songs from the Carleton era and we need your input!…

As of this writing, 59 of our classmates have passed away since we graduated in 1974, and we are making plans to honor and remember them in several ways. There will be a memorial service during reunion weekend for our classmates who are no longer with us. We plan to include information about each person along with photos in the bio book that will be printed and distributed for the reunion. We can use your help as we try to gather stories and cherished memories of those classmates who are gone.

A collection of photos of classmates and events on campus during our Carleton years was first launched for our 40^th reunion in 2014, and the photo galleries have grown considerably since that time. We have used the popular Flickr photo sharing site for this project, and there are currently over 500 photos for viewing or downloading.

Some members of the Class of ’74 have maintained a Facebook group for interested classmates since the 40th reunion. It is filled with updates about classmates, photos, and news about Carleton, but the group page required classmates to log in to a Facebook account to view the content or participate in discussions. New for the 50th reunion is a Facebook page that can be viewed by anyone without having to log into Facebook.

While it’s a lot of fun to reminisce about college days, most of us spend more of our time keeping up with the world today and planning for the future. We thought it might be fun to hear what classmates are thinking about and planning for right now. We’ve polled the Reunion Committee to get us started with our own “bucket list” items. We’d love to add to the list with your ideas. Share them with us here at 50threunion@carleton.edu and we’ll keep the list going. There’s lots more to do out there!