Dinner is served tonight at 5:00 pm for all 1962 West Linn High School Graduates.

Dana Wartena Thelin

After graduating from high school, I attended BYU - Utah my freshmen year.  The following year I went to BYU - Hawaii.  In 1967, due much to our senior class counselor and perhaps even with some credit myself, I graduated.  It would be two more years after graduation that I would meet and marry Jay Thelin in the LDS Oakland Temple.  I thought before I met him that I was really having some great adventures, but over the last 42 1/2 years the adventure got even better.

I would like to tell you about all those adventures but that would take a lot of space so I will mention that we had 8 children in 12 years.  We lived in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and finally in Utah where Jay would finish his Masters and have a second career (after 10 years in the army) in Housing Administration at BYU.   I would be involved with PTA and run my own Baby-t-Shirt manufacturing, home business.  At the same time, in the Provo School District, I started developing a new leadership training program called PHASE, Peers Helping Advance Self Esteem.  This would give me many opportunities to be involved in my children lives and in the lives of hundreds of others.

In time our kids would all grow up, go to college, serve LDS missions, follow their dreams and all but two would move away from Utah.  With them gone, we decided to buy an acre of recreational property in Island Park, Idaho so we could have family reunions there sing and make a lots of noise and enjoy each other and the forest and great outdoors.  We developed the property -- which means Jay and I worked for the past ten years to make it nice.

When Jay turned 62, we decided that we should go and do something new.  Our children were doing a great job raising their children and so we applied to the BYU China Teachers Program and started on a new and wonderful adventurer.   This is our 4th year here in China.  The first two years we were under BYU program umbrella.  The third year Shandong University in Jinan,  asked us to return.  Then the fourth year we had the opportunity to go to Jiangnan University near Shanghai in a city named Wuxi.  It has been all an amazing experience as we travel a lot and have seem many places.

We are looking older but still feel really young inside and have traveled to many wonderful places in China.  We have done things and seen things that I never thought I would experience 50 years ago.  This year we plan on returning to the States and actively participate in our children and grandchildren lives.   Of course we are still young at heart and hope to go many more adventures in the coming years.  I think it would be fun to have one of these little green cars up at our land in Island Park, yes...for the grand kids.

To see more about our last 4 years you can go to jayanddanathelin.blogspot.com. 

Welcome 1962 Graduates

Hi Everyone,
Welcome to our site, we are excited about the upcoming 50 year class reunion in 2012.
This blog is a place we can come and keep connected, find out about reunion updates and see our classmates.