Building a Bridge

A number of Ripon students helped rebuild the footbridge that spans Crystal Creek in the city’s South Woods natural area which adjoins the college’s Ceresco Prairie Conservancy. Students who helped are involved in the Reserve Officer Training Corps, Merriman (Phi Kappa Pi) and Phi Delta Theta fraternities. The hardest part of rebuilding the bridge was to lift the three former power poles, trudge through wet mud while carrying them into the woods and then install the poles across the creek.

Ford Attends EAA

President David Joyce and his wife, Lynne, speak with actor Harrison Ford ’64 at an Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) reception in Oshkosh, Wis. Ford, a recreational private pilot, was recently named the chairman of the EAA’s Young Eagles children’s program and was in Oshkosh for the association’s annual AirVenture fly-in and convention. A member of EAA since 1996, Ford is a Young Eagle Flight Leader and has flown nearly 200 Young Eagles in his plane and helicopter since he first participated in the program in 2001. He took his first flying lessons to become a pilot when he was a student at Ripon in the early 1960s.

Meeting at the Top

In March, these two Ripon alumni met at Kit Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. At right is Barbara Lloyd Nickels ’54 of Green Lake, Wis. and Tucson, along with Steve Gillespie ’03 of Green Lake who met at the top. Nickels reported that she drove her car to the top and Steven rode his bike. Steve spent two years at Ripon before transferring to the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.