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Today's Featured Biography

 
Barbara Panici Alden

OK - some clarification. My first "real" job after graduation was with Garrett Research (sub of Occidental Petroleum), since my immediate supervisor's name was also Barbara, I was asked if I would go by my middle name of Jo Anne. I didn't mind at all, since I wasn't really happy with the name Barbara (for me anyways). So from then on I became Jo Anne and have gone by my middle name since 1972.

After a divorce, I moved to Alaska in 1978. I worked for BP Exploration for 13 years. I met my husband in Alaska and we married in 1987. We moved to Washington State in 1995 (got very tired of long winters!). We have lived in Bellingham Washington, Vancouver Washington and now live in Kalama Washington. Kalama is a small town, about 30 miles north of Portland, Oregon. A bit of an update, we decided to lease out our home and move into our motorhome full time. It has actually been great, no more yard work and housework cut way down. Right now we have a 41' diesel pusher with 3 slides, but I will say we are looking at a larger one. It is amazing what you can get now days! We now live in Fairview, Oregon

Our daughter (Chessa) and son-in-law (Chad) live in Lynden, Washington (about 275 Miles north of us). We have 5 grandchildren - Mitchell 22 yrs., Isabelle 18 yrs; twins William and Shelley 15 yrs and JD 11 yrs. We love being grandparents but they have grown up way too fast!!!

We like to travel as much as possible in our motorhome. My husband loves dirt bike racing and is a member of the Washington Oldtimers MX Club. You have to be over 40 to join. Pretty much each year we go to Idaho, eastern Washington, Nevada, British Columbia (Canada); Central California and Southern California for races. We usually take extra time and do some sightseeing too.

We took trips to Italy in October 2012 for 11 days (too short) and 3 weeks in October 2015. We also met many of my relatives since my paternal grandfather came from Amaseno, Italy. Both trips we only had hotel reservations at arrival (to rest from air travel) and at the end before heading home (to rest from travel! LOL). In between we just drove (put 2400+ miles on the rental car) and booked as we went (mostly B&B's through Booking.com). It is so much better than trying to be in any one place at any one time! If we go again we definitely need to learn more Italian, once you get out of the big cities/tourist areas no English! But it was fun! Great people.

Looking forward to the 50th in 2019. (Can't believe it though!)

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