(Volle),+Grace+Conard

6352 Pierson Ct. Arvada, CO  80004 303-422-6973 trilliumpl@aol.com
 * Grace (Volle) Conard**


 * 1969: **After a year at SVC spent my sophomore year at Boise State College.  Having in mind a degree in home economics-journalism would be just great.  I set out for Kansas State U.  During my senior year at KSU I was introduced to Erik and was married in Idaho 2 weeks after my graduation in June 1963.  Then off the Illinois where Erik got his masters degree in Spanish linguistics and I was assistant society editor of one of the 2 daily newspapers in town.  In 1965 we revisited Washington, Oregon and then settled in the “little Italy” of Kansas where Erik was on the faculty of Kansas St. College of Pittsburg.  I went to work for the Age Search division of the Bureau of Census.  <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then for the next 2 years I worked as a social worker and advising a group of low income and welfare women on the ins and outs of home management. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Erik decided to get his PhD at the U of Oklahoma in history & philosophy of education so it meant a new state to see. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am employed in Oklahoma City as a women’s staff writer for the Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City Times & Sunday Oklahoman. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I write a weekly humor column and the food stories for the Friday morning women’s pages and will soon be doing the food articles for the Sunday supplement. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a sense we’re foot loose and fancy free—no children, no pets. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I love to cook, sew, travel, entertain, go junking and a list of other things that would fill a page. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s not counting the many things the 2 of us enjoy together. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two years ago we visited the Southeastern states and went on to the Bahamas for a week.


 * 1979: **In 1970 Erik completed his PhD and became dean of Neosho County Community College in Chanute, Kansas. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the next few years I worked as a freelance writer, developed recipes for a national food company, worked as a consultant on the aging, and probably most importantly, became a mother—twice. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the summer of 1976 Erik left the ed business, so to speak. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We sold our house, loaded a U-Haul and that family “institution,” the station wagon, and moved the two kids, a cat and everything else we owned to Colorado. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Erik sold real estate and I freelanced for the Denver Post newspaper. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, after almost three years in the Denver area, Erik is a loan officer with a mortgage company; I am working as a freelance writer. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I write a weekly newspaper foods column, I am in the process of setting up a business in the foods writing field, and am researching a book on World War II—I hope to get it written in the next year or two. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our children are Kathryn, 8, a second grader, and Warren, 5, a kindergartener. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have just been elected to a second term as president of the Denver Professional Chapter of Women in Communications, Inc. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I enjoy cooking, gardening, arts and crafts and activities with my family. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At this point in time it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to make it to the reunion. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I will tip a glass of good “old” Washington State wine or Kentucky bourbon to celebrate the passing of “all those years.” <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Have fun!

<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-tab-count: 1; msotabcount: 1;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Things were further complicated last summer when Erik suffered a heart attack, followed by congestive heart failure. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He manages okay—spends most of his days on the computer working on genealogy. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-tab-count: 1; msotabcount: 1;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kathryn has a BS in psychology and a BSN in nursing from the University of Colorado and is on the staff at Children’s Hospital in Denver. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She and her husband, a stockbroker, live in Boulder. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Warren has a degree in marketing from the University of Northern Colorado and is working at a couple of different jobs.
 * 1999:** The last 10 years have been pretty well filled—I say 10 because I did not respond to the 30th reunion notice because I ran out of time. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A little less than 10 years ago my husband, Erik, suffered a brain stem stroke, followed a year later with the amputation of a leg below the knee as the result of diabetes. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since that time, I have been caregiver, wage earner and chief cook and bottle washer. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the time of the last reunion I was putting together the final details of a three-week (working) trip to Hawaii. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both kids, Kathryn, now 28, and Warren, now 26, took care of things around here so I could go to Hawaii. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was and still am a supervisor and crew manager with an inventory company.


 * 2009: ** The past 10 years has probably been my most challenging. For much of the time I was a caretaker for my husband, Erik, who passed away in 2006 as the result of strokes, heart attacks, amputation of both legs, diabetes and a number of other ailments. Also, I worked in the inventory business and started a home based flower business. A few months after Erik's death I found I had a broken leg--femur to be more exact. I walked around on it for a week and a half before I went to the hospital. I spent about three months in rehab and then was home again, only to be hit by sciatic nerve pain. So, it was back to rehab again. After spending more than a year at home I contracted MRSA and was put in the hospital on IV antibiotics and again sent to rehab. Now, I have had three bad things happen so I am ready to call it quits on the bad stuff and live all the good stuff! My daughter, Kathy, 38, is a sales rep in nuclear medicine. She and her husband have two-year-old twin girls; they live in Boulder, CO. Warren, 36, my son, and his partner build, own and operate two haunted houses in the Denver metro area during the month of October. He also has a lighting business which includes stage lighting as well as search lights. I regret not being able to attend the reunion; my mother made it to her 50th MVHS reunion and I always told myself I would make it to mine. However, things happen. I thought my mother was really old when her reunion came up, but actually, she had graduated from MVHS when she was 15. Obviously, she got all the brains in the family. I keep in contact with MVHS grads from around our era, and plan to visit the Skagit Valley again soon although I do not have any immediate family members in Skagit County at this time. One of my brothers lives in Twin Falls, ID; the other one grows and sells horse hay in the Bend, OR, are a. Have a wonderful gathering; I will be thinking about you.