Sometimes some of your buddies do the right things right in the right order, and rather than being just a regular schmoe like you and I, they rise to a kind of celebrity level. Here are some of my buds that did that and what they've been doing with themselves, in no particular order.

Chuck Duke

Chuck fell in love with animating in clay, and with cinematography, somewhere around grade school. We made goofy movies and soundtracks together starting in Junior High. I went on to do technical stuff, but he continued the artistic stuff. Now he's a prime-time animator.

Early stuff: (more archive stuff soon...)

Movie "Star Warz", ~1980

    Cast (left-to-right):

        Obese Won YaKnowMe - Stayne Hoff

        Lube Highwaters - Galen Culver

        Ham Sandwich - Chuck Duke

        (Not Shown:)

        Chewey = John Fulkerson & John Linse
        Princess Lay-Ya = Barb Adams

Other Live-Action Movies:

    Gross stuff, ~1975
    Sinbad, ~1977
    Treads, ~1977
    Lost World, ~1977
    The Spy Who Loved Me, ~1978

    Gem of Morion, ~1979

Since then:

It's just easier to direct you here than to try to list it all...

Galen Culver

Like myself, Galen goofed around with Chuck early on but went on to become a journalist / newscaster / feature reporter - type guy. He is the Charles Kourault / Andy Rooney man for an NBC affiliate in the Midwest, and has been so for over 15 years now.

Although his stuff is usually light and wholesome, sometimes it's dangerous.

Craig Kelly

Craig was in my fraternity with me, Delta Upsilon, at the University of Washington in the 1980's. Eventually the prize money for snowboard competitions got so good he put finishing his chemical engineering degree to the side (1 quarter left) and went for the gold. It appears to have been a good choice -- he quickly became a four-time World Champion, a three-time U.S. Open Champion and a three-time Mt. Baker Banked Slalom Champion (although he's been retired from competition for several years now). I got a chance to snowboard with him at Mt. Baker around 1986, and it was a blast -- but my trailing leg was trashed after the first day.

Here's a recent interview with him, years after he stopped competing and teaching.

On January 20, 2003, Craig Kelly was one of 7 people killed in a tragic avalanche in Revelstoke, British Columbia. We will miss him.  (Details)

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This page was last updated on 11/28/09 .