R.I.P, Jim Johnston Sr.

Legendary coach, state and national pole vaulting champion, Brickie basketball all-time high scorer, phys ed teacher, and head of a well-known family of athletic stars Jim Johnston, Sr. has passed away. He was known to many as Coach, and often referred as JJ. His son Jim Johnston Jr. is the assistant track coach at Hobart High School, and grandsons Riley and Cody, are senior and sophomore, respectively.

Our sympathies go out to the Johnston family.

Click here for the memorial page for JJ here on our website.

Click here for the obituary on the Rees Funeral Home website.

Click here to see the funeral service on Facebook live Saturday at noon.

Click here for a story about the Johnston family in the NW Indiana Times.

Homecoming Picnic Canceled

The BrickieFest Homecoming Picnic, scheduled for September 26, has been canceled. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the need for social distancing protocols, and the uncertainty about the football season, the Hobart High School Alumni Association made the decision to cancel. The picnic was scheduled for the Saturday of Homecoming weekend, at Festival Park.

The decision was made in the interest of the safety of the public. If the picnic were to be held, the HHSAA would be responsible for enforcing social distancing protocols, and turnout would very likely be low. After holding an alumni picnic every year since the original BrickieFest in 2011, this is the first time we have had to cancel. We are all hoping that by this time next year, we will be getting ready for the 2021 picnic.

Coach Steve Balash Announces Retirement

Steve Balash has announced his retirement from Hobart High School, after 48 years of teaching and coaching. Steve is a 1968 graduate of Hobart High School.

Best wishes for your retirement, Steve!

Happy 10th Anniversary to Us!

Happy 10th anniversary to the Hobart High School Alumni Association! The HHSAA was founded on July 17, 2010, and we spent the first year of our existence planning for the first BrickieFest, which occurred in July 2011 and brought in over 1600 people!

We announced in our May newsletter that we would celebrate our 10th anniversary with a Scholarship Drive, and we are happy to say that over $850 has been raised for that effort. If you would like to contribute, send your tax-deductible check to: HHSAA, PO Box 68, Hobart, IN 46342, and write "Scholarship Fund" in the memo line. Scholarships remain the largest expense item of the association.

Our mission remains: "The mission of the Hobart High School Alumni Association is to develop and maintain a close relationship between Hobart High School, its constituents, and its alumni for their mutual benefit. The Association is committed to, and involved in the support and well-being of Hobart High School and its alumni."

Thank you for your support!

Rosalind Howell Passes at Age 92

Our sympathies go out to the Howell family. Rosalind Howell, widow of legendary football coach Don Howell, has died at the age of 92. Here is a link to Rosalind's obituary: https://www.randallroberts.com/obituary/Rosalind-Howell

Congratulations To Our Newest
Board Member, Debbie Vega!

Members of the Hobart High School Alumni Association elected the slate of officers presented in May, including a new member to the board, Debbie Vega, Class of 1971.

Here is the current list of HHSAA board members:

OFFICERS
Paul Addison, Class of 1970 (President)
Lynn Sheets Kostbade, Class of 1966 (Vice-President)
Debra Broker Opolski, Class of 1970 (Treasurer)
Tracy Estabrook McCullough, Class of 1978 (Secretary)

AT-LARGE MEMBERS
Craig Osika, Dean of Students, Hobart High School
Beth Scott Barney, Class of 1970
Debbie Vega, Class of 1971

STUDENT MEMBERS
Adam Barney, Class of 2021

Hobart Historical Society Wants Your Stories!

This year is the 175th anniversary of the Hobart School System. (The first school building was built in 1845 where the Masonic Temple stands today.)

The Hobart Historical Society is looking for stories of your school experiences, whether as a student or teacher. The stories could be of your favorite/least favorite teacher, a funny incident in science class, shenanigans on a field trip, how you got caught skipping school to go to the beach, or even how you met your spouse in English class. It could be something from elementary school, middle, junior high, or high school. It doesn't matter if you graduated in 1941 or 2019. They want your stories! If they get enough stories, they will be published in a book celebrating this important event.

Send them to: Hobart Historical Society, P.O Box 24, Hobart, IN 46342-0024.

NOTE: Our HHSAA newsletter has a feature called Your Brickie Stories. If you would like your stories printed in our newsletter, send them to paul@hobartalumni.org.

Class of 1965 Reunion is Canceled

Barb Phillips Rowley of the HHS Class of 1965 has informed us that their reunion for August 22 has been canceled, and has been rescheduled for August 21, 2021.

Our May 2020 Newsletter is Out!

Click here, or click at the left on HHSAA Newsletters, and then click on the top link. Our May 2020 edition of The Brick & Mortar Board, the newsletter of the HHS Alumni Association, has been published. This issue includes:

• We announce our 2020 scholarship winners, and launch a 10th anniversary Scholarship Campaign.
• The Annual Dinner Meeting is canceled, but paid members of the HHSAA will receive a ballot in a week for the election of board members and officers.
• Our Alumni Spotlight is on Jim Dagenais, Class of 1961, who served as a corrections officer in California and Afghanistan.
• The HHSAA all-class Homecoming Picnic is still scheduled for Saturday, September 26, at Festival Park.
• And all the regular features: Your Brickie Stories, Class Reunion Roundup, New and Renewed Members, and Recent Obituaries, which link to the website.

Annual Dinner Meeting Canceled for 2020

There will be no Annual Dinner Meeting of the Hobart High School Alumni Association for this year. The meeting was originally scheduled for Friday, May 8, but with schools being closed until the end of the school year, and the stay-at-home order, all due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the meeting will not be possible at that time. And because nobody knows now how long the situation will last, rescheduling can not be done at this time, either.

The election of board members and officers normally takes place at the Annual Meeting, so this year, ballots will be emailed to paid members of the HHS Alumni Association (and sent by regular mail to those who do not use email). Those ballots will be sent out on or about May 8, the original date for the meeting.

We have also awarded scholarships to HHS seniors at the Annual Meeting. Those scholarships will still be awarded, and the recipients will be announced in our next newsletter as soon as they are chosen. Applications are still coming in, and the committee will meet promptly after they are all received, and make the decisions as soon as possible.

We hope you still have Saturday, September 26 marked on your calendar for the HHSAA Homecoming Picnic at Festival Park. That event is still scheduled, and we all hope people will be able to gather together again. Keep an eye on this website for further information.

Keep safe and keep healthy!

Class of 1959: Do You Have Any
Information on Missing Classmates?

Would you go to the In Memory pages for the Class of 1959. You can click "In Memory" at the left, and select "Graduating Year: 1959", or just use this link: http://www.hobartalumni.org/class_inmemory.cfm?year_id=1959&inmemory_default_sort=0&yp=. Near the bottom, there are a number of classmates for whom the year deceased is missing, and in some cases where the year is known, there is no more information than that.

If you have any information on classmates who have passed, would you send it to Deanna Maxwell Kwasny at kwas1@comcast.net. It would be greatly appreciated.

Information from John Mattix on the
2021 All-Class Reunion

John Mattix has sent the following information about the 2021 All-Class Reunion, as the group at this year's reunion voted to change the date and the venue:

The 2021 Reunion will be held at:
The Manatee Recreation Center in The Villages, FL.
1512 Hillsborough Trail
The Villages, FL  32163

The date is February 20th, 2021; and it will run from 12:30 PM to 4:30 PM. The actual time of the banquet will run to about 3:30 PM, allowing time for cleanup.

The cost per person has not been determined, as a caterer has not been selected. I also must decide if the caterer will provide a cash bar; or if it will be BYOB. We are moving it back the start time an hour from 11:30 AM to 12:30 to allow attendees more time to arrive, as it is farther for some to drive!

I know this is an early notification; but this is a significant change from the past; and it's what the attendees at the last Reunion voted on. If anyone has any questions they can contact me. 

John Mattix
215-514-1582
hoosier_1968@hotmail.com

Snowbirds and Others Flock to Lakeland,
Florida, for the 2020 All-Class Reunion

Standing: Kevin Fenwick (1970), Mark Haller (1971), Dave Smythe (1970). Seated: Paula Freeville Luedtke (1970), Patty Brown Helminski (1971), Mitch Gowan (1970).

Standing: Debbie Guernsey Jenkins (1973), Claudia Shurr Smythe (1972), Elaine Booten Haller (1972). Seated: Roger Jenkins, Renee Rippe Denault (1974), Lori Williams (1974), Valerie Fedorchak Esserman (1972).

John Mattix (standing) and Paul Throne.

Craig Osika is named 2019 Coach
of the Year by the Post-Tribune
The Post-Tribune has named Hobart Brickie Head Football Coach Craig Osika as the 2019 Coach of the Year. Click here for the article. Nice going, Coach Osika!

Congratulations, Coach Osika,
on an Amazing Football Season!

The Hobart Brickies' winning streak and chance for the state title ended Friday night with a 29-24 loss to the East Noble Knights. However, it was a fantastic season under second-year coach Craig Osika, with the Brickies winning 11 games in a row and going all the way to the semistate game. Congratulations, Coach!

Read the full story in the NW Indiana Times.

Order Your Brickie Window Clings!

Looking for a gift for your newly-graduated Brickie?

You can get Hobart High School window clings for $3 each, or two for $5, by sending your check, made payable to the HHS Alumni Association, to Lynn Kostbade, 410 N. Joliet Street, Hobart, IN 46342.

Another great idea is a lifetime membership to the HHS Alumni Association, for $100. Send your check, made payable to the HHS Alumni Association, to HHSAA, PO Box 68, Hobart, IN 46342. Please include the name, addresss, email address and graduating class of your lucky lifetime Brickie!

Classmate Obituary Information Welcome

Thanks to Jennifer Eastwood Davis, Class of 1962, for compiling this extraordinary list! Because they are links to YouTube, Vimeo and the like, they often go out of date. We are doing our best to keep the list up to date with working links. If you find a link that doesn't work, please email us at info@hobartalumni.org, tell us what year and what song link isn't working, and we will try to fix it right away.

Music can bring back lots of memories. What was playing when you were in high school?

Yearbooks Available Online from the
Lake County Public Library

The Lake County Public Library has been digitizing Hobart High School yearbooks. Most of them from 1908 to the present are online. Click "HHS Yearbooks Online" at the left to access the collection. You don't need to register or log in, and you can save the yearbooks as PDF files.

Survey Results for Redesigning the HHSAA
Website to Include Smartphones

Thanks to all of you who responded to our survey about redesigning this website so that it will look good on smartphones and other mobile devices, and still look good on traditional desktops and laptops. The results show strong support for such a redesign. However, as webmaster, I have been reading comments from other sites who use Class Creator (who provides the programming services for this site), and there are still a few bugs to be worked out. Not all features of the site work correctly yet on all phones.

So, we will wait a little while, as Class Creator fixes the few remaining problems, and then we will go ahead with the redesign. For those of you using desktops and laptops, there will be a minimum of changes to the way it looks for you.

Here are the summary results to our survey questions:

1) Do you have a smartphone that you use to access the Internet?
Yes (83.3%), No (16.7%)

2) If "Yes" to #1, have you ever tried to access the HHSAA website on a smartphone?
Yes (30.0%), No (57.5%), N/A (12.5%)

3) If "Yes" to #1, would you be likely to use a smartphone to access the HHSAA website if it were redesigned to look good on a smartphone?
Yes (65.0%), No (17.5%), N/A (17.5%)

4) Would you mind a few changes to the HHSAA website to make it look for everybody, if it meant that it would look good on a smartphone as well as a desktop, laptop or tablet?
Yes, I would mind (9.5%), No, I wouldn't mind (90.5%)

Yes, We Have a Facebook Page!

If you use Facebook, please visit our Facebook page. Just login to Facebook, and search for Hobart High School Alumni Association, or paste this into your browser address bar: https://www.facebook.com/hohighalumni/

Facebook is frankly much better suited for classmates talking to each other than this website is. There is a Message Center on this website, but it requires notifying the other person by email, and they have to come back and login here to get the message. Facebook is just quicker.

Plus, you'll get news about special events on the Facebook page, as well as here.

Follow Us On Twitter!

If you have a Twitter account, we invite you to follow us @hobartalumni. We will not bombard you with announcements, but we will keep you up to date on upcoming class reunions and other events.

Once Again: Don't Confuse Us
with www.AlumniClass.com!

Several people have joined the website at www.alumniclass.com, and some have even paid $10 for it! That website is for selling merchandise (not that there's anything wrong with that), but that is not the Hobart High School Alumni Association site. This one is!

Our site costs nothing to register. In fact, you can see everything except classmate profile information (email addresses and regular addresses) without signing in at all.

You won't get news of HHS alumni activities on the other site. They have no affiliation with Hobart High School or the HHS Alumni Association. Be sure to stay tuned at www.hobartalumni.org!

Welcome to the HHSAA Website!

The HHS Alumni Association raises funds for scholarships! We awarded one scholarship at our first HHSAA annual meeting in April 2012, and have awarded two or more at every annual meeting since. Donations for scholarships are tax-deductible and can be mailed to: HHS Alumni Association, PO Box 68, Hobart, IN 46342-0068. Write "Scholarship Fund" in the memo line. Thanks!

Do You Share An Email Address? If you share an email address with another HHS alum, you can use the same email address as your login, as long as you have a separate password! Remember, your Primary Email Address is your username to login.

Do You Have a Profile on the AlumniClass.com Website? That's Not Our Site!
Many of you have a profile on a website called AlumniClass.com (www.alumniclass.com). If you look at the bottom of their page, you will see this disclaimer: "This Site is independent of and has no association with any school, school district, or web site."

Linking from the HHS site: Recently, the Hobart High School website (www.hobart.k12.in.us) changed its Alumni link from the AlumniClass.com website to this one. If you created a profile on that website, it is still there, but please be reminded that AlumniClass.com is not the real Hobart High School Alumni Association. Our apologies for any confusion.

Are You Getting Annoying Emails?
If you are receiving email notifications from this site about people who have registered or changed their name, you may be subscribed to their profiles without meaning to. Just click on Notify Me at the left, then under Profile Subscriptions, check Unsubscribe From All Profiles In All Years. That should take care of it.