{"id":13437,"date":"2025-01-23T15:07:40","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T15:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/?p=13437"},"modified":"2025-09-08T19:42:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T19:42:15","slug":"alumni-class-notes-spring-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/2025\/01\/23\/alumni-class-notes-spring-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Class Notes, Spring 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

1950s<\/h2>\n

1957<\/h3>\n

Stanley Baker \u201957<\/strong> retired as a professor emeritus of counselor education at North Carolina State University in July 2024. He served as a counselor educator for 50 years at NC State and Penn State universities. He also served as a high school history teacher, school counselor, and athletic coach at high schools in Wisconsin for 12 years.<\/p>\n

1960s<\/h2>\n

1965<\/h3>\n

\"AJoyce (Anderson) Pfaff \u201965<\/strong> reunited with classmates at the 2024 Advent Vespers (photo right). \u201cWe were seniors at Augsburg 60 years ago,\u201d she said. \u201cNow we are simply seniors. Loved seeing so many of my former classmates at Vespers last week.\u201d<\/p>\n

1967<\/h3>\n

Thad Danielson \u201967<\/strong> lost his companion of 54 years in April 2024. As a carpenter, he worked with her to build a house of their own design. After retirement, he taught boat building at WoodenBoat School and wrote a book based on his course, \u201cAn Introduction to Wooden Boat Building: Always More to Learn,\u201d which is available on Amazon. In 2023, he gave a talk on his boat-building experience at the Conway Historical Society. He is now painting and working as a personal care assistant.<\/p>\n

1970s<\/h2>\n

1972<\/h3>\n

Mike Eayrs \u201972<\/strong> was featured on October 30, 2024, in a story in The Athletic, \u201cMeet the former Vikings and Packers visionary known as the grandfather of NFL analytics.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom Fischer \u201972<\/strong>, now in his 52nd year as a high school athletic official, received the Minnesota State High School League Officials Distinguished Service Award on March 23, 2024. The award recognizes individuals who go above and beyond in service to their fellow officials. In June 2023, he was awarded the Lifetime Service Award by the Northwest Suburban Conference in recognition of his service to high school student-athletes, parents, and coaches.<\/p>\n

1974<\/h3>\n

Nancy Sandro \u201974<\/strong> composed 22 songs for \u201cTunes and Texts: Songs for the Liturgical Seasons,\u201d available at lulu.com<\/a>. The book includes 18 original songs for the liturgical seasons and four festival songs, many of which have optional instrumental accompaniments and guitar chords.<\/p>\n

1980s<\/h2>\n

1981<\/h3>\n

John Strommen \u201981<\/strong> is the author of \u201cGPS: Finding Direction on Your Faith and Life Journey\u2014How Luther’s Theology Connects Faith to Life.\u201d Strommen wrote the book to bring the heart of Martin Luther’s theological witness directly into conversation with 21st-century Christians hungering to not only have faith, but to live their faith.<\/p>\n

1990s<\/h2>\n

1992<\/h3>\n

Sven Erlandson \u201992<\/strong>, soul counselor and corporate counselor, is the author of \u201cThere\u2019s a Hole in My Love Cup,\u201d which has been in the top five Amazon bestsellers for inner child healing. His podcast, \u201cThe Badass Counseling Show,\u201d has over two million downloads. Erlandson has amassed more than 2.1 million followers on TikTok and 500,000 followers on Facebook.<\/p>\n

1993<\/h3>\n

Doris Rubenstein \u201993 MA<\/strong> was contracted by VEAP, Minnesota\u2019s largest food shelf, to write the history of the organization for its 50th anniversary, \u201cVEAP at Fifty: Celebrating a Half-Century of Helping the Community.\u201d This is the fourth institutional history book Rubenstein has written.<\/p>\n

2000s<\/h2>\n

2008<\/h3>\n

Joseph Skogmo \u201908<\/strong> is the lead pastor at First Lutheran Church in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. Previously, Skogmo served as the pastor at St. Paul\u2019s Lutheran Church in Lowry, Minnesota.<\/p>\n

2009<\/h3>\n

Amanda Symes \u201909, \u201915 MFA<\/strong> is the author of \u201cSasquatch Is My Neighbor: A Collection of Hairy Cryptid Lore.\u201d The book contains nine tales and is available on Amazon.<\/p>\n

2010s<\/h2>\n

2013<\/h3>\n

Melissa Brandenburg \u201913<\/strong> received her Master of Education in Special Education from Northwestern College (Orange City, Iowa) in May. She finished with a 4.0 GPA and was selected as the graduate studies speaker at commencement.<\/p>\n

2019<\/h3>\n

The environmental legal drama \u201cBig Lake Troubles,\u201d by Jeffrey Boldt \u201919 MFA<\/strong>, was named \u201cone of the best legal thrillers of the year [2024]\u201d in a Kirkus Starred Review<\/a>. The book is his second novel.<\/p>\n

2020s<\/h2>\n

2024<\/h3>\n

Claire Jenkins Coffman \u201924<\/strong> was a guest coach for the Minnesota Wild Development Camp this summer and is believed to be the first woman to have held that role. She now works as an assistant and skills coach for the New Hampshire Mountain Kings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1950s 1957 Stanley Baker \u201957 retired as a professor emeritus of counselor education at North Carolina State University in July 2024. He served as a counselor educator for 50 years at NC State and Penn State universities. He also served as a high school history teacher, school counselor, and athletic coach at high schools in <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":470,"featured_media":13635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,68],"tags":[242,239],"class_list":["post-13437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-auggies-connect","category-class-notes","tag-242","tag-spring-2025"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/470"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13437"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13455,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13437\/revisions\/13455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}