Contact:

Ann Arbor, Michigan
dwyer@erim-int.com

• Western High School All-City Team 1963(Dennis Manrique, Craig Dwyer, George Saldana, Coach Gunnerson, Mark Manrique, Rick Skarbo, Jim Nagy)
• Craig and Barb Dwyer c.1994, Emily '93 and Tony '97
• Old Geezers and Young Chicks (Craig and Barb Dwyer, Jeani and Ed Picard) c.1998
• 1962 Western High Team Photo #1 (Front row: Jim McNairy, Dennis Manrique, George Saldana, Rick Skarbo, J. Bean, John Stebila, Eddie Baird; Second row: Mike Benedict, , J. Connor, Tom Marudas, Jim Nagy, Salvador Prado, Frank Bernoudy, Craig Dwyer, Wilbur Gunnerson)
• 1962 Western High Team Photo #2 (Top row: Dennis Manrique, Mike Benedict, Wilbur Gunnerson, Jim Nagy, Frank Bernoudy, Jim McNairy, J. Bean, Craig Dwyer, John Stebila, Salvador Prado; Bottom row: Tom Marudas, Eddie Baird, Rick Skarbo, George Saldana, J. Connor)
• 1963 Western High Team Photo (Top row: Rick Skarbo, Unknown, Unknown, Jim Nagy, George Saldana, Mark Manrique, Dennis Manrique, Wilbur Gunnerson; Bottom row: Unknown, Topper Moosekian, Frank Bernoudy, Craig Dwyer, J. Connor, Unknown, J. Bean)
• Doug, Move Your Big Fat Head!: (1st row: Randy Penn, Unknown, Sally Williams, Susan Williams, Elaine Cooper, Sally Sherk, Diane Greer; 2nd row: Peggy Sherk, Barbara Foster, Mary Beth Ceresko, Mary Lou Shefsky, Tina Solis, Alice Ceresko, Janice Enck, Susan Roll; 3rd row: John Szuba, Tom Koch, Sue Spilski, Marcy Snyder, Jackie Jones, Christine Szuba, Linda Foster, Carol Danboise, John Sherk, Randy Cooper; 4th row: Joyce Allen, Bonnie Danboise, Stan Johnson, Fred Johnson, Carl Boyd, Craig Dwyer, Greg Penn, Ron Enck, Doug Webster, Tom Szuba; 5th row: Rick Skarbo, David Sahagian, George Saldana, Pete Adams, Mark Manrique, Ron Boyd, Larry Dalton, Richard Szuba, Jay Osrowske, Ed Picard, John Powser, Harry Hauck) c.1962
• Craig Dwyer c.2000
• John Savinsky, David Sahagian, Ed Picard, Harry Hauck, Craig Dwyer, Dennis Manrique c.2000
• Barb and Craig Dwyer c.2000
• Barb Dwyer c.2000
• Harry Hauck, Carol Danboise, Lynn Makkonen, Craig Dwyer, Mr. Boyd, Carl Boyd c.2000
• Barb and Craig Dwyer c.2000
• Reunion Committee (Dennis Manrique, Craig Dwyer, John Savinsky, Ed Picard, David Sahagian) c.2000
• Chowin' Down (Fred Savinsky, Chuck Ebbinger, Lynn Makkonen Ebbinger, Barb Dwyer) c.2000

027, 040, 092, 133, 184

Many things have happened to me over the intervening years, some of which I will try to recount below. I swam for U of M for three years, but was going nowhere fast, and so gave it up my senior year. It was pretty hard for me to improve as necessary when I got no summer workout. One year, while Tom Sullivan was running the team, I tried getting up for the early morning workouts at Brennan pool, but I just couldn't maintain that and an afternoon shift at a steel factory too. After graduation, I worked part time for Conductron, a local high tech company in Ann Arbor, while going on for a masters degree and continued with Condcutron after graduation. Conductron folded up shop in Ann Arbor, but moved some business to their main facility just outside St. Louis MO. I met my wife, Barb, down there in St. Louis, and then shortly after resigned to return to Ann Arbor for a job at Radiation Inc, another local high tech company. They folded up shop the following year and I took a job out at Willow Run Airport at what had been the U of M Willow Run Labs, but had become ERIM. ERIM was engaged in optics, holography, and synthetic aperture radar much like Conductron and Harris (In fact Conductron and Radiation Inc were started by people from Willow Run Labs. Anyway, ERIM turned out to be a good job, and I've been here 24 years.

Barb and I have two kids, Emily and Tony, who are now 22 and soon to be 19. I am a grandfather as of December 1995. Dahlia is Emily's daughter and is the cutest little girl you could imagine. Tony just graduated high school this year and went off to Michigan State U this fall. You might think we are suffering the empty nest syndrome, like Hilary, but that is not the case. We sit for Dahlia several times a week, as Emily is still attending EMU, and Tony comes home frequently on the weekends.

After quitting swimming, I started jogging. I learned that the exercise had a very beneficial effect on my ability to concentrate and do mental work. My grades fell off my Senior year in college after I had quit swimming. At about age 30 I started having trouble with my ankles and knees with the running, but fortunately lane swimming and later Masters swimming got going, so I went back to the water. I swam masters only 3 years, from 1978 to 1980, then gave it up for lack of time, but continued swimming on my own on a fairly regular basis. I continue today, usually trying to get in a reasonably hard mile workout several times per week. Once during my business travels I got a chance to go swim laps in the Santa Clara swim club pool, where Christine Von Salze, Don Scholander, and later Mark Spitz got started. I felt pretty nostalgic about that. The high school kids were swimming at the same time. The pool is 50m by 25 yards, and being as how it was school swim season, it was divided into about 25 short course lanes. We lap swimmers were divided from the kids and of course knew better than to try to do what they were doing. I go over occasionally to watch a Uof M swim meet. I saw Dennis Manrique at one of these in about 1977. He was coaching a high school team and swimming masters himself, and in fact had won the Masters state title for 100 yard breast. I started swimming masters the following year, and of course was beat by Dennis, but did okay. I took several third places over the three years I swam and even one state championship myself. I also saw Lynn Makkonen at one of these meets and Don Cox. (11/97)

• The first thing that always comes to my mind is those frigid ordeals at Brennan from 7 to 11AM. Equally vivid in my memory, however, is the relief that came after. Six people would pile into Ed Picard's car (our website innovator and one-time transportation benefactor). If we were lucky, the sun would have been beating down for several hours on a tightly buttoned up car by then, so that the interior temperature was like a hot oven. So we all scrambled to crowd in. In fact someone would usually say, 'hurry up, get in and close the door, you're letting the heat out'. That felt sooo goood. Dennis Manrique usually sat in the front seat with his winter letter jacket on, scarf and sock hat too, shivering and periodically taking a very deep breath to catch up on his oxygen defiicit from the workout. I can't remember ever opening the windows during the half hour ride home.
• On our way to the swim meets, Rick Skarbo sitting in the back seat of Ed's car and crooning some of the rock classics of the day - the one I remember vividly is "Hey little girl with the red dress on ..." Remember that one, Rick?
• The great distance races of Pete Adams, George Saldana and Doug Webster. Pete as a freshman shattering the state record in the 400 freestyle. Then, in the next year a seemingly unbeatable Pete being challenged by an equally determined George Saldanna. Pete was able to outsprint George over the last fifty with his trademark kick. Then in his senior year, racing Doug Webster neck and neck the whole race. I was a freshman swimmer at U of M that year, observed the race as one of the timers. The cheering crowd became a deafening roar for the last fifty yards. Doug was a pretty good sprinter also, but he also had a trademark flip-turn to edge Pete out. Both were well under the record. Doug was great, and Pete was gracious in the loss. As the announcer said, it was one of the best races the state had ever seen. I still follow the high school swimming here in Mich. Of course they have converted to the 500 free, and the record has been broken many times since then, but not until almost 30 years later, about five years ago, was there a repeat of that kind of race, where both swimmers were close the whole way, did their best times, and both broke the previous record. The winner of that race, Eric Bailey, is the curent record holder at 4:27.
• Tom Szuba, or "little" Tommy Szuba as us older guys used to call him when he was 10, went on to become the greatest swimmer in state history. But I also remember timing the 200 IM at the class B state finals when his older brother Dick Szuba had his day. His conditioning allowed him to edge out a closely contested race.
• Patton swimmeres did more winning than losing, but the wins always came over time with lots of hard work, and the experience of improvement through continuous hard work is really the best memory. (3/98)

Swimming is responsible for my keeping my sanity through all the stresses of work (and the downsizing in the military industrial complex) and raising teenage kids.Thanx to Ed Picard for creating this great website. What a wonderful thing he has done. It is a great pleasure to read the various entries, see how people are doing, remember and reflect back on things. I especially resonate with the thoughts of Ed and Sully on the thanks we owe for this experience, and how, one way or another, it has become an anchor for the rest of our lives. Great to be reconnected with Ed. We did a lot of "geezing" indeed, even for a pair of old geezers, on my visit to Ventura at the end of Jan.'98. Thanx to Hauck and Sully who, as Ed said, poured out their souls into the kids on the team. Thanx also to Dennis Manrique, who took me under his wing and most encouraged me to join the Patton Team. He was also my mentor in the breaststroke. Great to hear how great Dennis is doing with the masters swimming--we always knew you had the heart of a champion, Dennis. (3/98)