Biographies & Other Info

You are encouraged to send me a brief (or longer, if you choose) biography. Tell us what you've been up to these past 40+ years. Your education, military and work careers...your family, and what you enjoy doing when not chasing the dollar. Tell us about your hobbies, where you've traveled and if you have retired yet.

Kareen (Switzer) LaValley

Like many of you, I did not actually graduate from Zama but moved in my last years.  I graduated from high school in Virginia and then started college, got married to a Navy man,  continued to go to college when I could, eventually graduating from Old Dominion with a psychology degree in 1970.
Got divorced shortly after graduating, hooked up with another man who ended up going into the Navy and I ended up marrying him and traveling to Japan and Hawaii and eventually ended up in Seattle WA when he got out of the Navy.  In Seattle, I got a job with a bank and became a loan officer.  I lived in the Seattle area for about ten years, working for the bank, moved to Vancouver, WA and decided to change careers and go to law school.  I went to Lewis and Clark  Law School in Portland, Oregon and graduated in 1992. I thought I would become a business attorney due to my years working in the business world, but the trial bug hit me during my last year of school and I ended up as a criminal defense attorney, first working on the Oregon Coast and now in Roseburg, Oregon.  I am very satisfied with my life and career today.  I never would have seen myself where I am today back when I was at Zama. (April - 2008)

William "Bill" Root

When the family left Zama, in June of '63, we ended up at Fort Meade, Maryland. I was a junior at Anne Arundel HS in Gambrills, MD. My brother, Bob, and I moved to Idaho the following year where we both attended Greenleaf Friends Academy in Greenleaf, Idaho (near Boise) - where I graduated in 1965. Rather than jump right into college, I enlisted in the Army (8/65) and served in Fort Jackson, South Carolina as a military policeman (where I was peripherally involved in a murder investigation). The Army then had the good sense to send me to France as a construction engineer (83rd Engr Bn), until Charles DeGaulle, in a fit of pique, kicked the US military out of France (1966). They sent me to Karlsruhe, Germany, where there were now too many American troops. They asked if anyone would like a transfer; I raised my hand and soon found myself in South Vietnam (4Bill Root - 20066th Engr Bn - Construction) in May of 1967. I left Vietnam in June of 1968 and landed at Travis AFB the same day RFK was shot. I made a few false starts at university but ended up being hired by United Parcel Service (UPS) where I remained for 33 years - until 2002 - when I retired. In retirement, I keep busy gardening, traveling with my wife, Mary, and using all three of my computers to create web sites and write "stuff". Mary and I have one daughter, Megan, a recent University of Washington graduate. We have a 17 lb. cat named Mooch, who keeps a wary eye on the parade of raccoons, possums, and feral cats who know my wife is likely to feed them... We live in Bothell, Wash., a city located about 15 miles northeast of Seattle.

(May - 2008)

Paula (Norwood) Weinheimer

Paula NorwoodPersonal:

Education: Degree in Marketing

Accomplishments:

Now: Disabled, but still get around. Travel when funds and health permit. (May - 2008)

David "Dave" Lowe

Dave Lowe in 1965June of 1965 saw me as one of the “65 in ’65,” getting my ZAHS diploma in Zama’s Chapel Center. At the end of the summer it was off to the University of Hawaii for four years in the occasional company of Dee Carmack and Maury Ellis (Mulligan), finishing in 1969 with a degree in sociology and – just to prove my remorseless impracticality – a minor in history. When the University of Hawaii handed me my diploma, I wasn’t really too sure what I was going to do the next few years, but my draft board was. The induction notice was in my hands within weeks of graduation, and I was whisked away to Fort Ord for training; then on to Panama until December of 1970. My entire working career was spent in the San Francisco Office of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. Much of that was spent dealing with agricultural labor, in the course of which I developed a real love for the open spaces and scenic wonders of the American West. For nearly a decade, I was assigned to what was called the “Outer Pacific,” where tropical isles such as Palau, Guam, Ponape, and Majuro became almost as familiar as San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Sacramento. That career ended with retirement in 2003, and a move back to my Pacific Northwest birthplace, with no particular plans except to wander and play in the forests and along the beaches of Washington and Oregon. One cannot play forever, though, and I found myself back in school, where I am now working on the last academic quarter of a paralegal certificate program and upholding the academic honor of the middle-aged among my mostly much younger classmates. (May - 2008)

Jeanne (Duke) Fredericks

Greetings fellow "Zama-ites". My years at Zama were unforgettable. Hard to imagine that I arrived there as an 8th grader in September of 1960. After graduation in ‘65, I enrolled with the University of Maryland (Camp Zama). By December of 1966, I had moved to Okinawa, continued with U of M, and met my “Prince Charming”. Bill and I recently celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary. We have two children, four grands, and two greats. After a few years in the banking industry, I found myself surrounded by diamonds and gold. I had become one of Florida’s early female certified diamond specialists. For the next 20 years I managed several jewelry stores in Florida and Georgia. In 1999, I retired from retail and began my latest adventure. I am a flight attendant with a major international carrier. Half my time is spent flying between New York and Europe. The other half is spent with family in Georgia. We have lived on St. Simons Island since 1985. (History buffs might enjoy a trilogy of books by Eugenia Price.) Our family-owned printing business (Watermarks Printing) keeps me extremely busy when I am on terra firma. My time working on the ZAMA yearbook several decades ago seems to have come full circle, as I find myself surrounded by paper, printers, artists, and ink. I would like to thank Bill Root for creating this website, researching scattered classmates, and giving us all the opportunity to get in touch with each other. We shared some very important years and experiences that in some ways have stayed with each of us for close to half a century. Thank you Bill!

Blessings and Harmony to each and everyone of you!