David Loehr’s 1999 James Dean Birthday Party

     Updated 8 March 1999. URL is http://our.tentativetimes.net/99bday
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I’m trying to get this page on-line today (2-25.) It won’t be right yet, but I have to go out of town again. Please check back in a week or so, for I must find my notes.

Enjoy David Loehr’s 1999 Birthday Party For James Dean

Contents
Story
Pictures
Links Out

Cake provided by Lyndon Biegas, age 8, Shelbyville Tennessee.

   David Loehr with Lyndon Biegas

Each year archivist David Loehr of the James Dean Memorial Gallery holds a dinner-dance for James Dean’s birthday. This page concept is shamelessly copied from my page about last year‘s dance. And I bet I’ll do the same thing in the year 2000.

     The wonderful Fred Stevenson, a.k.a. The Big Bopper, dj-ed the dance with his able assistant, Marcie. He was thoughtful and turned the volume down during dinner so we could all chat. Thanks, Bopper!

      Professor Terry McGinn came down from Michigan to slave over the stove. We had a choice among many lasagnas (beef, seafood, vegetarian,) an unusual tangy salad, a million calorie dessert, coffee & sodas, and birthday cakes.

    Miguel Silva, our visitor from Lisbon, Portugal, arrives with Maxine Rowland and Lenny. Miguel was able to stay a week!

    Miguel Silva exchanged Dean stories with Phil Ziegler.

     Here’s 1998 (and 1997) Lookalike Contest winner Rob Qualls from Hammond, Indiana with Lori Kalivoda of Green Bay, Wisconsin. (The color went bad in my original picture, but it’s a great shot in black and white.)

It was Fairmount resident Jane Bauer’s (on the left) birthday too. She was delighted to run into Linda LaVine, down from South Bend. They chatted all evening, for Jane taught at South Bend Adams for most of her career. Jane’s Lutheran church also got Linda’s church started in South Bend! Linda is very active in that church and choir. Linda also just returned from that big weekender out in Iowa, (Starlight Ballroom?) the one right before the one (in Minnesota?) that’s on the anniversary of the crash when we lost the Big Bopper, Richie Valens and Buddy Holly. (Note to self, find notes or just admit you are totally out of it, Sandra.)

     This is the best smile I’ve ever captured from Heath. He’s enjoying life as a college student in Michigan. We all miss him here in Fairmount.

And here is Lyndon Biegas with his friend —- (on the left) and his mother Terry.

    Mary Ann Michna was recently featured in Nuvo magazine in Indianapolis. She has a studio in the old Studebaker building down there. Have you bought Mary Ann’s own special James Dean videos

    Sue Pelletier’s son Adam shown here with __ . Remember Adam at the James Dean Trivia Contest

     Adam’s best friend Aaron Saffer and his friend __ enjoyed the whole evening!

Carol Thailing from Cleveland with a friend who is new to James Dean and Deaners. (I’ll add more when I find my notes.)

    All the way from Bowling Green, Ohio, where they study art, here are Tara Lauby and Lisa Bulten. Terry is in green vintage clothes, and Lisa is in pink. Betcha you don’t recognize Lisa from the ’98 James Dean lookalike contest, eh?

    Elizabeth Fletcher in blue, with Dana Strode to her right, from Fairmount, arrived with
    Lisa Kindler and to her right, Connie Stewart, shown here with Lenny. These four fine Fairmount residents never miss this party or the chance to dance.

    Somehow we forgot to ask Phil Ziegler to read his nostalgic poem this year. But you could read it the Nostalgia magazine here in Our Tentative Times.

Many of us visited for hours at the James Dean Memorial Gallery before the party. There were guests from Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois and **Portugal!**

      Another tradition is to take flowers or a token to the gravesite. Here is the grave around noon on February 6th. Come summer, take a 2-litre pop bottle full of water, to water the plants. They dry out fast in the windswept cemetery. And please note that the trio of trees behind Jimmy’s headstone has been chopped off. They are no longer a landmark.

    Brewmeister of Caffeine, Terry McGinn brews up "one for the road." Thanks Terry, thanks David, thanks to the Big Bopper and thank you Jimmy, for being who you were. Thanks to all the fans who braved the February weather which was, by the way, quite fine for David Loehr’s annual James Dean birthday party.

Links Out

There are two pages of last year’s 1998 birthday in this magazine, and yes, I did use them as a template for the ’99 birthday. Read about our wild night with The Atomics from Maryland.

Another picture page of the party with the Atomics.

Photos from the 1997 birthday

Here is the Tell-Mama music index.

David Loeh’r James Dean Memorial Gallery is on line at www.jamesdeangallery.com

Here is the index for Deaners magazine

Our Tentative Times home port is Otto’s Cover

Please send email about this weekend to Sandra Weinhardt, [email protected]