Harmon’s Histories: Missoula County High School’s Class of 1941 found fame nationwide

By Jim Harmon/Missoula Current

The box has been in my office for well over a decade. I meant to go through the contents long ago ... but life got in the way.

Finally my wife gently urged me to clean out the mess. Translation: “Do it or I’ll throw it away!” She is such a sweet, yet persuasive creature.

The material had been given to me by the widow of a gentleman who’d graduated with the Missoula County High School’s Class of 1941. It contained photos and notes on a series of class reunions, and information about classmates who went on to have notable careers.

One became a managing editor of the Denver Post newspaper, two people worked for NBC-TV, one helped develop FB-111s and ICBMs, and one kissed Robert Goulet on stage in "Carousel"!

Here’s a partial list:

Mary Ann Walterskirchen – Appeared in "Carousel" with Robert Goulet & kissed him on stage.

Laverne Henning Graw's husband – NBC TV News, L. A.

David Housman – Page Boy at NBC & Arthur Murray ballroom dance instructor.

Bill Wilborn – Helped develop the USAF FB-111 & ICBMs.

Bill Hornby – Denver Post managing editor.

Don Bowerman – 23 years Coast Guard.

Dale Burnett Ryan – 10 years Venezuela.

Max Findell – NASA Manned Space Flight Center, Texas.

Bob Hauck – Golfing fiend.

The first reunion committee noted: “It took us 25 years to get a reunion together – and we’re sure that you thought it was going to take 25 more to get your directories and bulletins. It isn’t that we’re inefficient, of course! It’s just that we’re all so BUSY going in different directions.”

Fitting for the times, the report was done on a mimeograph machine. Remember them, and their intoxicating aroma? I guess you had to be there, to understand.

Anyway – here are the pages of the intoxicating notes, in my small attempt to preserve a bit of local, Montana history. Enjoy.

Jim Harmon is a longtime Missoula news broadcaster, now retired, who writes a weekly history column for Missoula Current. You can contact Jim at harmonshistories@gmail.com. His best-selling book, “The Sneakin’est Man That Ever Was,” a collection of 46 vignettes of Western Montana history, is available at harmonshistories.com.