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Today's Featured Biography

 
Jim Kelley

It’s really hard to believe it has been 30 years already. When it gets close to reunion time it seems to bring back all the good memories. Those cute little hamburgers with the green “meat” inside, the distinct thud from balls of pizza dough zipping overhead and hitting the front of the kitchen cabinets in Home Ec, the ongoing tally of how many times Mr. Bailey(?) said “um,” during a single class – 110? And how can anyone forget Mike Stufflebeam, Eric Kuntz and friends dancing the Skunk Cabbage Ballet in tutus (guys, you can update your wardrobe here http://www.tutu.com/).

After graduation I spent a year at WVC, then some time at Green River Community College with Harold Cole, Mike Dorn, Brad Barnes and some guy who worked at an asphalt factory and got asphalt all over our pink bathtub (sorry for disclosing the décor guys). We had a great view of Mt. Rainier from the “penthouse” over a Shucks Automotive store in beautiful downtown Auburn. We barbequed steaks and played Frisbee on the roof (some of us even went to school). We had a metal lamp pole close enough that we could jump to it and slide down to retrieve the ones that went off the roof (yeah, sometimes the steaks went off the roof but mostly it was the Frisbee). After that I spent a few years at the UW* where I have to say I appreciated Lori D. and some of her housemates helping me with one of my B-School surveys (came close to getting that project published, woohoo!). Left there in 1980 with a BA in Business and went to work at Boeing, but not before getting married in 1979 to Sue, my wonderful wife of 27 years. After about four years at Boeing I did a very short stint with American Express Financial Advisors while getting my CFP® and then I went to work with some folks at a small investment firm in Bellevue where I have been for about 21 years. We did a lot of work for Boeing groups and launched the financial planning and investment services for their credit union. We’ve got a new project up our sleeves to achieve world peace or reduce global warming or something along those lines.

Sue and I have five fantastic children who keep us on our toes. We’ve home educated them all (read that – Sue has home educated them all, or maybe they’ve home educated us) and our oldest will be headed for a culinary program this fall. She stayed home from college because she wanted to be at my graduation (see below) in Switzerland. All seven of us spent three weeks running around on trains in France and Italy and she had to be there. I finally got it out of my system and got an MBA last year from the University of Geneva along with a joint EMBA in International Wealth Management from Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon. Lots of fun over 18 months split among Jogny, Luzern, Genéve and Pittsburg, PA with about 21 others from ten countries. The year before, Sue and I celebrated our 25th with a cruise to Alaska where we got our cabin as close to the all night buffet as possible and I proceeded to eat about 18 hours a day (the site-seeing was nice, too).

Our family has been terrific! Looking back, I think I grew up about as close to being an orphan as I could get (special thanks to everyone’s parents who used to keep an eye on me), so having an unbelievable family has been a great blessing. If you remember from the ten year reunion, Sue won the Most Pregnant award for her “outstanding” technique in carrying our first child who tipped the scales at 9 lbs, 1 oz. At the twenty year mark she was recovering from delivering our fourth. This time, after five children and four miscarriages, she may feel up to throwing a football if anyone brings their “children” and we can get a picnic set up. Heh, remember the first-ever “powder puff” football event where the ladies got suited up and nearly killed each other? To my knowledge, Sue was the only quarterback under five feet tall to ever rush for a touchdown in a Panther uniform. I’m still very proud :-).

Miss seeing all of you and hope to be with you on July 22, Lord willing. God bless, JK

*Craig, I would have gone to WSU with you – I was just too poor and they wouldn’t give me enough money. Butt, thanks for helping me leave my mark in the world, even if it was only on a fence in East Wenatchee. By the way, you’re not that bad of a driver no matter what they say about you. Let’s join the BMW club with Mark Baker! Shawn, he really is a nice guy – the rest of us made it to work on time while Craig stayed and cleaned up the mess (I was limping of course).

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