Jewett Departs Board as Longest-Serving Regent

Congratulations to Class of '66 classmate Harvey Jewett for his passionate and long lasting contribution to higher education for students of South Dakota! Read below the posting put forward by the South Dakota Board of Regents giving tribute to Harvey's service. Of note, Harvey Jewett is believed to be the longest-serving regent in the board's history, being appointed by three governors to successive terms to the South Dakota Board of Regents.

Harvey C. Jewett, IV of Aberdeen completes his work this week on the state’s public higher education governing board after more than 20 years of service. Based on available records, Jewett is believed to be the longest-serving regent in South Dakota Board of Regents’ history.
 

Harvey Jewett

“It has been a wonderful and humbling privilege to serve on the Board of Regents,” Jewett said. “The individual regents, staff, presidents, administrators, faculty, and students have been a special part of my life. I will miss them all.” Jewett began his service in January 1997, appointed by then-Gov. Bill Janklow. He became the board’s vice president in 1998, then was elected president in 1999 and was re-elected annually to that post until 2009, serving an unprecedented 10 years as the regents’ president. Three South Dakota governors—Janklow, Rounds, and Daugaard—have appointed Jewett to successive terms serving on the Board of Regents. “I am grateful to governors Janklow, Rounds, and Daugaard for entrusting me with this position,” Jewett said.

“We owe Harvey Jewett a tremendous debt of gratitude for his leadership to promote strong academic standards and innovative approaches to resource allocation and performance assessment,” said Regents President Bob Sutton. During Jewett’s tenure as president, the regents undertook major initiatives such as the Salary Competitiveness Program, which provided differential salaries to faculty and staff based on performance and moved South Dakota salaries much closer to the regional market. The South Dakota Opportunity Scholarship program began, as did a major investment in new and renovated science facility and laboratory projects. Another hallmark was a strategic focus on research initiatives within the public university system, among those, strong linkages with the Sanford Underground Research Facility at Homestake.

In Jewett’s time on the board, more than 105,000 degrees have been awarded to graduates across the Board of Regents’ system. Also during that time, nearly $1.2 billion has been invested in academic, revenue, and campus infrastructure projects, of which only $48 million was funded by the state of South Dakota. The regents and Northern State University honored Jewett’s service at a reception at the Johnson Fine Arts Center on the NSU campus. Jewett, who holds undergraduate and law degrees from the University of South Dakota, is president and chief operating officer of The Rivett Group LLC and a partner in the law firm of Siegel, Barnett, and Schutz.

Pet Sounds by Howard Louise Breaw: How To Bathe a Cat!

Hello CHS Class of ’66.  Most of you don’t know me.  My name is Howard Louise Breaw.  I am one of three dogs belonging to Al and Shirley Breaw.  I live with the Breaws in Tucson, AZ.  I am fortunate to live in a household where dogs are highly treasured and receive many of life’s amenities that can be attained by a dog.  In fact, I and my two canine housemates, Hunter Louise Breaw and Carmen Louise Breaw, are probably spoiled by our masters, especially Al, a real pussy cat, symbolically speaking.

I know that Al and Shirley recently attended their 50^th High School Class reunion, an event they really enjoyed.  I thought maybe the CHS Class of ’66 should include an option for their classmate's companion pets to share some life stories as well.  So, after discussing this with the Digital Demons, I am happy to announce a new opening in the CHS Class of '66 Blogger called Pet Sounds.  Through the Pet Sounds Blog, classmates can learn much about the trials and tribulations of their secondary families through this new linkage.  After all, "A Dog is a Man’s Best Friend."

I would like to start the ball rolling in Pet Sounds with a blog about one on my Pet Peeves, it’s about that feline species called the cat, a small domestic, typically furry, carnivorous mammal, that seem to be valued by humans for companionship and sometimes for their ability to hunt and eliminate vermin.  Personally, I am not impressed by this trait and I have little use for the common house cat.  If they need to be part of the human experience and live in the same house as other family pets, then they should be clean.  Accordingly, I am offering a simple approach to keeping them clean by using the following guidelines entitled:

HOW TO BATHE A CAT

1.  Thoroughly clean the toilet’s bowl.

2.  Lift both the seat lid and cover lid and add shampoo.

3.  Find and soothe cat as you carry him to bathroom.

4.  In one swift move, place cat in toilet, close both lids and stand on top, so cat cannot escape.

5.  The cat will self-agitate and produce ample suds. (Ignore ruckus from inside toilet, cat is actually enjoying this.)

6.  Flush toilet 3 or 4 times. This provides an effective power rinse for the cat.

7.  Have an assistant open all doors connecting bathroom to the house’s outside.

8.  Stand as far from toilet as possible and quickly lift the toilet bowl’s seat lid and cover lid.

9.  The thoroughly clean cat will abruptly leap from the toilet and enter the outdoors, where he will begin a self-induced drying process. 

Soothing the Cat (Pre-Wash)

Cat During Power Wash

               

Cat Leaping From Toilet (Post Wash)

Cat Running to Dry Out (Post Wash)

Pet Sounds will be happy to receive all stories from Class of ’66 animal friends, including dogs, cats, fish, birds, gerbils, snakes, goats, bovine, equine, lupine, vulpine, ursine, simian, etc.  Please contact or send your submissions to Howard Louise Breaw, Pet Sounds Director, CHS Class of ’66 Digital Demons.

"Thoughts"..................... by Harvery C. Jewett, IV

A bit of time has passed since the CHS Class of ’66 had its' 50th reunion and I find myself still thinking about it. I find myself re-energized and reinforced in the pride I have in Aberdeen and the precious friends I have here, particularly the “old friends” from high school. This past summer, I attended two 50 year reunions. In many ways those reunions were very different but, with the passage of a little time, I think very much the same. I have always greatly appreciated the invitations to the Aberdeen CHS Class of ’66 reunions. As you may know, while I was born and raised in Aberdeen, I did not attend Central but attended an all men’s Jesuit boarding school that my father, his father and brother had attended. I was away at boarding school from just after 8th grade at Monroe until graduation in ’66.

It was a very different place with classes six days a week in a very competitive academic environment with students from Canada, Mexico, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, and Spain, as well as about half the States. We all knew that we would graduate, go our separate ways and see very little of each other in the future. That has all been true, although virtually everyone living returns for the reunions. I still have people who are great friends even though I talk to them infrequently and see them (with two exceptions) only at reunions. The same groups gather, their personalities seem unchanged, and their interests and politics are about the same. Even people like George Wendt (Norm on Cheers) seems just like the people they were in the nightly 10:30 p.m. poker games those 50 plus years ago. The friendships pick right up again.

I did not expect to have these boarding school classmates as my closest friends for life and they really are not. I always expected to return to South Dakota and probably Aberdeen. I always regarded my Aberdeen friends as my “real friends”, for lack of a better term. I attended college in South Dakota with my Aberdeen friends. I lived my entire life in Aberdeen except for later education, a short stint with the U.S. Courts after law school, and a shorter stint with the U.S. Army.

To a very large degree, my closest friends are today those who were my friends or whom I knew in high school or college in S.D. They have really influenced my life to a significant degree. Although I had a Jesuit professor/advisor in high school who had a defining influence in my life and a few professors in undergraduate school and law school who had a positive impact on me, the majority of the people who have influenced my life, (aside from my wife), are the friends I made in Aberdeen and South Dakota. 

At the CHS 50th reunion, it took about one minute to feel right at home with friends from the past. One close friend traveled to Calgary, Canada with me one summer and I had not laid eyes him on since 1966. The same old stories were just as funny, sad stories just as sad, and old victories and losses just as wonderful or pathetic. The women had definitely weathered the storm of age much better than the men! The women had the same terrific smiles as I remember. Alice Disbrow and Ella McDowell looked wonderful but Diz and John maybe … not so much! People were comfortable with themselves and others. It wasn’t just the women this time who were showing pictures of children and grand-children. Even grandpas brag! It was overwhelmingly warm, friendly and comfortable, and frankly reminded me of the price I paid to attend a boarding school away from my hometown.
When I think about those four years at my actual high school, I really recall the intense academic challenge as well as life in the dorms. Friday nights were just another “school night”. School days began at 7:00 a.m. The school had only one dance a year which was for graduating Seniors only. Two special friends traveled to Wisconsin from Aberdeen for my only school dance in those four years. Friends there played a part but were not the focus of my memories.

When I think about high school times in Aberdeen, I really think only about my friends. I did not attend the prom, did not attend the state basketball tournaments, did not cheer at the old football field or basketball arena. I did not participate in school activities. My memory is about going to small towns to listen to bands, drinking beer in the country or at the Starlite, driving up and down Main Street (again drinking beer). My memories are about going to Mina and Richmond Lakes (and again drinking beer), dances at the Y, friends won and lost, loves won and lost, and the real pain of getting on the 2:30 a.m. train to Minneapolis to start school in August. I left my life in Aberdeen behind until December and then got on that train again in January, returning home in June.

At both reunions, I was struck by the number who had passed away and touched by those who died in Vietnam serving our country. Vietnam seems to define people of our age but I did not feel that intensity at these reunions, even though many from both schools had served and some died.

This is a time of great change in my life. I have spent my working life practicing law, operating businesses, and serving on boards of directors, trustees, and the South Dakota Board of Regents and always traveling for work. In June of 2017, I will be “of counsel” in the law firm, not actively involved in the day to day operations of a business, and retired from virtually all boards or entities including, after 21 years, the South Dakota Board of Regents. Business travel will virtually cease. This whole experience has lead me to serious bouts of introspection. I have developed a different perspective on things that I had not thought about for many years. In reflection, there are some events and experiences from my life that I would have done differently. I need to take some people to coffee and apologize for things I said, did, or did not do.

What a varied group in Aberdeen who have lived, worked and raised families all over the country and the world! I have never wavered in being proud of Aberdeen, the place where I was born and raised, lived my life, and met the people from the CHS Class of ’66 whom I have the privilege to call my friends.

Where Were You When JFK Was Shot?

The Central High Class of 1966 was in its sophomore year 53 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas. We probably all remember where we were on one of the most notable days of our lives.

And in the coming days, many of us will relive that time and those days when we see the new movie "Jackie" currently showing in theaters.

It was 12:30 Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963. The country's youngest president was dead within minutes.

Darrylin Nelson (now Hogie) was in Mr. Jones' french class when Principal Willard Ellis interrupted the first afternoon classes with the news.

"Everyone was in shock," she said. "I think that some of us went to a movie later that night and everything was so somber."

Gwen Ryman (Heyd) was in the same class. "I immediately turned to Cassandra Perpignan, a senior seated to my left," Heyd remembers. "Being two years older, I often asked her advice, but she just stared at me, stunned and silent, tears running down her cheeks. ... I knew my idyllic world had changed. Reality and life can be so cruel. But we can still be good. We can still have hope."

Rory King had left Central and was in his lonely first year at St. John's in Collegeville, Minnesota.

"Something in me died with the death of JFK. And nothing in the balance of the 60s — the Vietnam War, the drug culture, the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the sexual revolution — did much to restore it," King said. "I became something of a cynic. It was only the rediscovery of my Catholic faith, many years later, after getting married and starting to have a family, that restored that hope."

Laurel Dano was in typing class, but she mostly remembers the subsequent days of JFK's funeral. "I have two strong memories: The first was the beautiful black riderless horse wearing it's saddle and two boots placed backwards in the stirrups. The horse followed the caisson carrying President Kennedy's coffin. The second is one I think is etched in everyone's memory. Young John Kennedy Jr. saluting his father's casket as it passed. That was heartbreaking."

Jo Wiederhoff (Davis) was in Mr. Aman's music room, sitting between Bernadette Shaw and Geneva Raymond. "The feeling was more than disbelief, it was a spin cycle of mental pictures of a young smiling man holding his little boy. A daughter on her pony. His wife always looked so regal. Class was unofficially over and so was an era the likes of which we never saw again. The rest of the day I don't remember."

Carole Tonigan was in the same music class. "The class was stunned and remained quiet, not really knowing what to think or feel. I don't recall whether we went home early, but I do remember my mother picking me up and she had been crying. I remember watching television constantly. The nation and world were shocked by the news. I remember feeling a sadness that I had never felt before and remember seeing the sadness in my parents."

Alice Laird (Rapport) was in typing class when the announcement came over the scratchy intercom. She mostly remembers the continuous television coverage. "(It) was a first for the networks, Laird says. "That coverage is considered a turning point, because prior to the assassination, TV was considered primarily an entertainment source and afterward it became a leading news source."

"I also remember seeing Lee Harvey Oswald shot," she said. "I think it still qualifies as the shooting witnessed live by the most people."

Do you remember where you were and how you reacted to the news? Tell us your story in the comments below.