Class of 1980 reunion 2005

Class Secretary: Vin Skinner Jr., PO Box 8724, Portland ME 04104, vskinner@gwi.net

Class President: Christine Tegeler Beneman, 105 Spurwink Rd., Scarborough ME 04074, cbeneman@maine.rr.com

When the Grand Republic, a car ferry in the Bridgeport and Port Jefferson Steamboat Co. fleet, eases into Bridgeport, Conn., chances are Capt. Mark Soderstrom is at the helm. “I’ve done every job there is to do on these boats,” Soderstrom told a Connecticut Post reporter en route from Long Island. Soderstrom taught for two years after earning his English degree, but the sea beckoned. He left teaching and crewed on a tanker, earned his captain’s license, and in 1987 joined the company. “I’ve seen comets streaking across the sky, the harvest moon rising over the Stratford lighthouse, and the most spectacular sunrises and sunsets you can imagine,” he told the newspaper. “This is what I love.”… The Commissioner is back! He earned the nickname when he was the director of men’s intramural sports at Bates, but now Dave Trull is the commissioner of the Tri State Golf League, an inter-club league made up of seven private golf clubs in Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. No hot issues to deal with — no steroids, no drug abuse, no collective bargaining agreements, he says — so he is content to play a little golf when the situation arises. In a recent issue of North Shore Golf, Dave, the golf outing coordinator at Ferncroft Country Club in Danvers, Mass., noted that charity golf tournaments have reached the saturation point. “We might have a different tournament each week in May and they’re all competing against each other to try and get the same golfers,” he said.