John writes: “In July 2014, I was one of nine in the Midwest inducted into the first Fuel Up to Play 60 Hall of Fame for my work in promoting wellness in our district’s schools. Fuel Up is now the nation’s largest school-based wellness and health program, mainly sponsored by the NFL, the National Dairy Council and the GenYouth Foundation. I have been involved with the program since its inception in 2009. The induction was held in the Dallas Cowboy stadium at the Fuel Up’s national summit. One of my students was also selected as the South Dakota State Ambassador, so we were both able to attend the national summit in Dallas where we mingled with numerous NFL players and Fuel Up student ambassadors and program advisors from 43 states.

I have been involved with wellness for most of my adult life, and have taken classes in wellness at the University of Denver, University of Northern Colorado, and at the National Wellness Institute in Stevens Point, Wis. I have developed a presentation called “So You Want to Live to be 100!”, which I have given to various groups and churches around this area, all based on some of the recent research on “senior” wellness. I recommend reading The Longevity Project by Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin, Healthy at 100 by John Robbins, and Blue Zones by Dan Buettner, to name a few. Fascinating stuff!! I have 80 people at my church right now on a walking program besides the Fuel Up stuff I do with my students. You can make a difference in your own environment – it just takes one or two of us to get our peer group fired up!

I have been asked to be a member of the St. Olaf Fund Board. This board, obviously, is one of the major fund-raising boards on the campus. I will be working with the class fund agents (CFA’s) from the classes of 1960-65. Due to the exceptional and much appreciated work of our 50th reunion gift committee, we did raise a record 10.5 million dollars as our class gift to St. Olaf. It is customary that class giving wanes a bit after the 50th class reunion. It is my hope that we in the class of 1963 can reverse that trend and continue to support St. Olaf in the record breaking manner we did at our 50th reunion! I do welcome your ideas, suggestions or comments concerning our class giving. And I do continue to wish you well on your retirement journey.”