WIXLIB

What Ever Happenedto . . . . . The Studers?Some people visit museums, others arelucky enough to live in one without theworry of what happens at night. Sit ona couch and oops, there’s a throw, studded with familiar Huron or Otsego landmarks. With nearly every inch of wallspace in every room, foyer, hallway, andCarolina room plastered with mugshots of children and grandchildren,scenes of the family farm in Grand Rapids (OH), honorary plaques, studentpaintings, service awards, lighthousesand beaches they have visited, morethan enough tigers to start a captivebreeding program, and a pictorialrecord of nearly every house guest’sstay, the Studers, Lynn and Dawn, havemanaged to remain in contact with thepeople they have served in every teaching position and principal-ship Lynnheld or every nursing position Dawnfilled. And who could forget this duo ofdynamic Huron promoters?For seventeen years, from the mid seventies to the early nineties, this couplededicated themselves to Huron’s kids,Lynn as high school principal and Dawnserving along side him, mostly afterhours, as cheerleader, a sometimescook, chaperone, or occasional nurse.And always, after their daughters Deband Kim flew the nest, they kept thecompany of a dog, usually sandwichsized, hair matted across its eyes, andas gentle and even mannered as its owners. The latest version, Ozzie, doeshonor to the tradition of the leash.Under Lynn’s guidance, Huron Highreached unequaled heights. He arrivedduring those turbulent seventies andtamed the Tigers. Then he set abouthelping shape a curriculum to meet theneeds of a growing community’s highschool and shepherd students into thenext century He empowered his teachers to do their best, encouraged students to excel in every arena from classroom to fields, urged the community tosupport innovative programs, and demand excellence of everyone connectedwith the educational process. It wasindeed a sad week when the news spreadthat he was retiring from teaching toassume his father’s ice cream businessback in Grand Rapids. We all knew thatwouldn’t last and that he would be back.It didn’t, he did, but just not to Huron,unfortunately. With his parents ageing, he remained closer to them working in various capacities for areaschools until he retired again and pulledup stakes for South Carolina.Nestled down just north of Savannah,just inland from Hilton Head and up-stream (or is it down?) from Beaufort,a venerable old town hunkered downamong the moss covered live oaks, liesSun City, an exurb of Bluffton SC. Thisplanned retirement community provides those retirees seeking an activelife-stle whatever they want. When finished, the city will hold about fifteenthousand souls, surrounded by sculptedgolf courses, fitness centers, bocci ballcourts, swimming pools, tennis andpickle ball courts, a manicured croquetlawn, walking and jogging trails, convenient shopping, over a hundred ponds,(almost everyone has lakefront property there) and retail shopping, all conveniently within a golf cart ride ofanyone’s home.So if this sounds like a shill for somedevelopment company, so be it. We aresimply describing Lynn and Dawn’sdream paradise.Most of you will remember that Lynnwas a physical fitness nut. Still is! Justthat his doc nixed any running, so nowhe pumps iron about three times a weekand hits the golf courses on the others(Dawn and Ozzie do the links at leastonce a week, too) where errant shotscould mean a close encounter with agator. Then, in preparation for his umpteenth retirement party, he works as alimo-caddy-van driver/chauffeur – whatever is required – ferrying folks fromthe airport to hotels and around to enjoy other attractions in historic Savannah. He averages about 200 – 400 milesper day, unless, of course, he is herding a gaggle of thirteen-year olds andtheir mom chaperones about town in arented limo-style birthday party. Somewould rather be tortured with local fireants, but Lynn still loves the kids. He’searned a new nickname from a closeencounter he had with his golf cart battery. Seems his wedding band madecontact with the circuit and welded hisfinger to the pole. Only to his golfingbuddies, though, does he now answer to“Sparky.”Lynn and Dawn’s travels these days aremostly between Sun City and his Ohiorelatives, or to the Ohio basketball, football, and volleyball payoffs, but mostlyto their Maryland grandkids, rangingnow from age twenty to their five-yearold “Hawaiian surprise.” They returnto Huron if close by, and Lynn usuallystartles a few of the teachers still remaining on staff from his era. He remains abreast of all his favorite teamsand stays in email contact with friendsacross the country. But they’re bothconfirmed Southerners now, not muchinto world traveling, just the slow-pacedrhythms of an active Carolina retiredlife. Don’t even think about drivingthrough without at least ringing themup for a chat or dropping by for a visit.They both answer email promptly atljstuder@davtv.com. After your visit,you will be inducted into and hang withtheir gallery of lifetime achievementsand friends. Blessed retirement – theysurely earned it!

Our Man in AfghanistanMany of you probably remember struggling through geography lessons yearsago trying to learn all the –stans, as inAfghanistan, Pakistan, Kurdistan,Tajikistan, and wherever it was thatBorat of recent film fame hails from.Pronunciation problems, proper spelling, and, worst of all, pin-the label-onthe-map exercises faced all middleschool learners just trying to cope withtheir zits. Unfortunately, though, manyof those places are as familiar as thelines on map on the palm of one’s handin these post 9/11 days. Many youngmen and women who never dreamed oftraveling much beyond our own national borders have found themselvesserving our country in some of theseplaces now. And that includes Hurongrads.One such is Scott Johnson, ’89, whoreturned from Afghanistan in Octoberfollowing a six-month deployment. Hiswas a non-combat role, but one equallyimportant to the success of our mission there. Scott helped establish thefirst military courts of justice for thecountry’s newly created Afghan National Army. Prior to that, the customusual to nations embroiled in intertribal warfare had been short and vicious - summary justice upon the whimof a tribal leader. Not all of that hasbeen changed, however, with the establishment of these courts, but a start hasbeen made.Scott left Huron for Miami (O) University on a Naval ROTC scholarshipwhich led to his Bachelors Degree inDiplomacy and Foreign Affairs. Graduating as an Ensign, he entered the aviation pipeline and wound his way fromFlorida a couple times, through Texas,to Hawaii – a tough assignment, butsomeone had to do it. He served withdistinction there – we were never attacked, were we? – and then was selected for the Navy’s Law EducationProgram. He attended the University ofFlorida Law School, paid for courtesyof your US Navy. In 2002, followinggraduation and passing of the bar, heScott occasionally had to confer with State-side brass on the course of progress.Here he poses with Rep. Steny Hoyer. Another dignitary advised was Sen. LindseyGraham, with whom he still maintains contact back in Washington.reported for his first tour as a JudgeAdvocate General (JAG) at the NavalLegal Service Office Southeast in Jacksonville, FL, serving as Senior DefenseCounsel. In 2005 he then reported tohis current duty station in Washington, D.C. as an Admiralty Attorney assigned to the Admiralty and MaritimeLaw division of the headquartersof Navy’s Judge Advocate General’sCorps. Is that a mouthful or what!What it actually meant was that after ayear in his current assignment he volunteered for service in Afghanistan asa mentor to the head of the Afghan National Army (ANA) Legal Corps andover 100 ANA Legal Corpspersonnel. The actual head was a Brigadier General Shir, a former artilleryofficer with no formal legal education,but assigned to create and implement amilitary justice system for an army thatnever previously had a stand-alone military justice system. Wow! Just like that,change the entire culture of justicewithin an institution that had alwayspracticed gun barrel justice. But notto fear. Huron grads can handle anything.The bottom line was that by the end ofScott’s deployment, the system con-vened its first-ever court-martial andhad conducted nearly 30 courts-martial total with each of the 5 basic trialcourts hearing at least one court-martial. They also conducted their firstAppellate Court hearing during hisdeployment. Scott fits into a programthat has about 700 JAG’s on active duty,with over 40 attorneys at any one timestationed within Iraq, Afghanistan andthe Horn of Africa in support of theGlobal War on Terrorism. Each position is filled by an attorney whohas volunteered for his or her position,hence, a high degree of commitment ontheir part to mission success. Not tomention the career enhancing natureof the duty!What were conditions like while Scottserved there? He was stationed at CampEggers, located in Kabul and showedup for work with an M-16 slung acrosshis shoulder, a scary thought for thosewho remember Scott. New arrivals generally stayed in a crowded tent for anywhere from one to eight weeks until aspot in the ”safe houses” becameavailable. Scott eventually stayedin ”safe houses” within anolder Afghan neighborhood, fortifiedand secured by armed guards andbarbed wire. His particular safe house

was a 6 bedroom house with 5 bathrooms, living with a roommate in a10’x10'. Now that is just about 20%more room than the double occupancycubicles at Sing Sing.Scott’s responsibilities took him to allthe places you’d love to stop hearingabout on the evening news – besidesKabul, there were Mazar-e-Sharifin the north, Hirat in the west,Kandahar in the South, Gardez in theeast. Travel was by air, though insideKabul armed convoys drove throughexpeditiously chosen routes throughancient neighborhoods marked by thegrime and dust of poverty everywhere.Culture shock took over as Scott realized that even the wealthiest sectionsof their cities would be consideredslums by our standards. Thanks tomodern amenities, though, he couldregularly call his wife Stacey and children, Reagan and Bridget, before hismorning run and before checking in towork.But despite the general lack of mediaattention paid to Afghanistan, Scottreadily avers that progress is beingmade. It’s a coin toss in some ways inthat some Afghani’s are becoming increasingly distrustful of our presence,but most of those with whom Scott camein contact were extremely grateful forour presence there and most definitelydo not want us to leave anytime too soon.In fact, one of the most encouragingaspects of his service was to see thededication and determination of eachANA Legal Corps personnel and howtheir confidence grew every time heprovided them feedback with how wellthey were doing as they slowly butsurely began to master concepts thattake years for American lawyers tofully grasp. While most of the legalcorps personnel had some formal legaltraining, because their military justicesystem was so new and unknown, theywere tentative at first. But with continued education and much provided critical analysis, they became more andmore comfortable with their new system.As for Afghanistan’s future, Scott’sown words should be allowed to conclude: “From what I saw, I have no doubtthat we can succeed in Afghanistan. Isaw an Afghan people who were tired ofwar and wanted to see this new militaryand government succeed. They weredoing everythingwithin their capacity to make itwork. The one el-Borat’s brotherleads his “truck”across the road asa military truckrolls by in thebackground.Here Scott is flanked by the 205th Legal Corps, mostly Afghani’s dedicatedto giving their military legal system asemblance of American military justice.ement working against them in myopinion is time and whether or not theycan maintain enough momentum tocontinue to build on their progress andnot slide backward to a point fromwhich they cannot recover. If they cando this and maintain the support of theinternational community, they will succeed. But it will be a process that willtake 15-20 years and require the patience of the Afghans and the international community.”So there you have it, straight from ourman in Afghanistan, now back in theStates doing JAG work. Perhaps yearshence he can take his daughters overto Afghanistan to show them wheredaddy worked and that he made a difference in the lives of over 25 millionAfghans. Would that we all could makesuch a difference!Scott reports to his new duty stationthis summer in Norfolk as the StaffJudge Advocate for Commander StrikeTraining Fleet Atlantic. In the meantime, you can contact him at his email :scottjohnson osca@yahoo.com.

A tired Jag Officer, ScottJohnson, somewhere in Afghanistan, reporting for duty. Scottwith an M-16, a scary thoughtindeed!

Our Man in Sri LankaThis time our man shows up in SriLanka, another one of those countries which, if old enough, you remember as Ceylon. Not OUR Ceylon,as in Ceylon Junction where you usedto hop the train for your class trip tothe Big Apple, but theirs, that islandnation off the southern tip of India.Another Huron grad is serving therefar from his home port, this timeScott Pohl, ’91.Scott has been working for the UnitedNation’s High Commission on Refugees, or UNHCR, but that’s not howhe started out nor even dreamed ofwhen in Huron. Rather, he attendedSyracuse University in hopes of becoming a documentary film maker.After three years of knocking aboutin New York and Los Angeles, he realized he didn’t want to spend his liferecording the mating habits of exoticAfrican fauna, so he applied to lawschool, then promptly left the country. While traveling about in Indiaand Nepal, he learned he had beenaccepted at George Washington University Law School, so he returned,studied more, graduated again in2001, then passed the New York bar.His interest had always been in international law and human rights,hence his assignment today in SriLanka since January of ’06. But backup a bit and see how it all began.Scott had attended a summer international law program in Geneva, Switzerland. It included classes in thingslike finance law and intellectual property law, but it was the human rightsrelated classes that most interestedhim, particularly refugee law. Thefollowing summer he took an internship with the United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) at its headquarters inGeneva. From that point on he washooked on working in human rights,either with UNHCR, another UNagency, or a non-governmental organization (NGO) like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch.In March of ‘02, Scottbegan working as a“protection officer”for UNHCR to guardthe rights of refugees.He spent his first fouror five months inPrijedor, a small city innorthern Bosnia &Herzegovina (Bosnia)in an area that saw serious ethnic cleansingand atrocities duringthe war there in the90’s. Then he moved toBanja Luka, Bosnia,about an hour east ofPrijedor and the current capital ofthe Serbian part of Bosnia, where hestayed for the remainder of his firstthree years in Bosnia. His next yearwas spent in Sarajevo, the nation’scapital.As you remember, the war in theBalkans ended with the signing of theDayton Peace Accords which supposedly guaranteed the right to returnhome to any persons displaced by thewar. However, major problems confronted those seeking to return. Thewar had destroyed so many homes,and also because of the ethnic cleansing that had occurred and the massive numbers of people moving about,new occupants were inhabiting thehomes previously owned by the refugees. Thus any solution had to reallyfinesse the situation.So the international community undertook a massive reconstructionprogram and created a unique legalmechanism for the repossession ofoccupied property. Scott was involvedin both reconstruction and repossession, as well as other activities related to sustainability of return, access to rights, and monitoring thewelfare of refugees, displaced persons, and returnees. The war hasbeen officially over for over years now,but hatreds still fester. Althoughthe population is largely self-segregated, tensions run high yet, and realreconciliation remains an illusivechimera in that part of the world.Still, Scott remains proud of the partthat he played in the success of thereturn movement. Says he, “I do feelproud to have been a part of the reconstruction and repossession efforts. Repossession, in particular, isa ground-breaking project that willbe and already has been copied inother post-war contexts.” Hmmmm,is there a template here for the postwar era in Iraq? Time will tell.As for the present in Sri Lanka, acivil war is quietly occurring – quietbecause the Iraq conflict grabs theheadlines, and unless some reallyegregious atrocity occurs there, SriLanka merits but a paragraph on theback of the business pages in theWestern press. But make no mistake, occurring there is a daily, dirtywar, in the Argentine sense. Thereare a couple parts of the countrywhere there are proper front lineswith military confrontation, including aerial bombardment, artillerypositions, and shelling. And then inthe rest of the war affected area(North and East) there are constanthit and run attacks, unlawful executions, arbitrary detentions and abductions. Vavuniya, the place where Scottlives, is in one of the areas experiencing this sort of violence. In manyways, this is tougher on the peoplethan a proper war, where it would atleast be clear from where the threatcomes. Sound familiar?

Kids talk, adults listen at one of the stations.Not Scott’s harem but someof the many people withwhom he comes into contact on a near daily basis inhis job. Sri Lanka is acountry noted for its colorful female costumingand it certainly shows inthis photograph.Our thanks to Scott Pohlwho provided us with allof the Sri Lanka colorfulpictures.

ture and quite far from Scott’s formerfilm making dreams. We give him thefinal word on this stage of his career:“Even for foreigners who can keep abit of a distance, it seems impossibleArticle on reunto feel shock or sadness when we hearof another death. It’s probably a goodon fall affairthing, a protective mechanism that allows you to carry on with life withoutgoing mad. In January alone, in theon missing in atown where I live, the UN recorded 70killings, more than half of which werecivilians. And that says nothing ofthose that were not recorded, not tomention the numerous injuries, abductions, arbitrary arrests, beatings,etc. It is ugly.”There is thus plenty of work for Scottto supervise. There are those whohave been displaced for many yearsand other who are fleeing their homesevery day as the violence spreads andescalates around the North and East.Finding a permanent solution for thelong-term IDP’s is really tough.Since return is not really possiblefor them in the current context, thebest permanent solution is probablyrelocation, which involves a government land allocation followed by construction of a new house, the necessary infrastructure, and livelihoodassistance that would make the relocation sustainable. At the same timeit’s also a full-time job trying to assist the new IDP’s by ensuring thatbasic human needs are met duringtheir displacement (shelter, food,healthcare), by pressuring the government not to force people to returnagainst their will, and by negotiatingwith the rebels to prevent recruitmentin IDP camps, among other things.With all that said, Scott continues tolive and work in a town comprised ofSinhalese (Buddhist and Christian)and Tamils (Hindu and Christian),along with a substantial Muslim minority. The town is occupied by theirown government, with troops patrolling to keep order. The securityforces are Sinhalese who speak noTamil, but the Tamil and the TamilTigers hold the real power. No wonder that daily attacks on governmenttroops occur. (Sound familiar?) Scottsays that it’s not a particularly dangerous situation for foreigners likehimself, since to attack would causea loss of financial support.Make no mistake, it’s not a pretty pic-Scott can be emailed atsjpohl@yahoo.com. And the turnaround time is great, too – not likethat other alumn in Thailand wherethe slow elephants make repliesseem interminable.About three-fourths of this piece wasgraciously written by Scott Pohl himself in an e-interview of exchangesmade from Sri Lanka throughoutJanuary and February. Thanks,Scott.Other grads

Huron’s Happy DaysThe Fonz, Arnold’s, Richie, and all thekids. We were reminded a short whileback of the popular 70’s show HappyDays when we received a letter from agrad who spoke fondly of the soda fountain and malt counter at Dickhaut’sDrug Store in old downtown Huron. Butthen why wouldn’t she – her dad, StanDickhaut, owned the place, and that factalone must have made it light on herpocketbook in those days.Doresa Dickhaut Jones, ’48, now ofNew York City, wrote to share some ofher memories of the establishment thatproved so popular to students of Huronand their parents alike for nigh on fourdecades. As a hangout for after schooland on Saturdays, it provided a havenwhere kids with a spare quarter couldshare a treat, or young couples couldslide away from gazing eyes to holdhands and slurp their sweet nothingsto one another while fiddling with twostraws. Many an adolescent problemwas resolved over chocolate and vanillacones, while local soda jerks tried toeavesdrop and then dished up ice creamand gossip to the next couple to drop by.Such was Huron’s version of theinternet in the 30’s through 60’s.In those pre-McDonald days, many alocal talent honed his talents as a sodajerk, for Dickhaut’s was quick to seethe merits of inducting teens into theworld of work and instilling a heartywork ethic into them. Summers alwayssaw an influx of tourists into the area,and the lads behind the counter received a workout as they tried to keepup on the orders. If they messed up,they ate their mistakes, literally, butwere docked. And how far ahead of thecurve they we

held or every nursing position Dawn filled. And who could forget this duo of dynamic Huron promoters? For seventeen years, from the mid sev-enties to the early nineties, this couple dedicated themselves to Huron's kids, Lynn as high school principal and Dawn serving along side him, mostly after hours, as cheerleader, a sometimes