Aggie Alumni to meet for 2018 reunion

Aug. 2, 2017

By NCTA News

Curtis, Neb. – Aggie alumni of the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture will gather June 16, 2018 for their next reunion and annual meeting.

Graduates of the Curtis-based high school and college will meet in Curtis for a day of social activities, campus tours, and an awards banquet, announced NCTA Dean Ron Rosati and Dave Mehaffey, Aggie Alumni Association president.

The high school-turned-college is starting its 114^th year of academic programs when NCTA classes begin on Aug. 21. The reunion is for graduates or attendees of the high school years 1913 to 1968, or those at the college from 1965 to present.

For the honored Class of ‘68, the reunion marks their 50^th anniversary and the final graduating class of the University of Nebraska School of Agriculture (UNSA) and its predecessor high school, the Nebraska School of Agriculture (NSA).

The first college, the University of Nebraska School of Technical Agriculture (UNSTA) was launched in 1965 and operated simultaneously at the Curtis campus with the UNSA high school before the transition in 1988 as NCTA.

“Alumni of the agricultural high schools and colleges will receive more details in the Dean’s newsletters mailed this fall and next spring,” said Mehaffey of Bellwood, an ’83 UNSTA agricultural mechanics grad.

“As with any other institution, alumni move and have a new mailing address so we do our best to stay in contact with more than 4,000 living alumni through mailings and social media,” added Mehaffey who was elected president at the group’s June banquet in Broken Bow.

There, nearly 90 attendees heard a campus update from Dean Rosati and were entertained by fellow UNSTA alumnus, R.P Smith, who is a Custer County rancher and cowboy poet.

Larry Trumbull, previously of Stapleton and now retired to North Platte, celebrated his 70-year class reunion.  Graduating from the Class of 1947 (with 102 graduates) Trumbull was in stock judging and Ak-Sar-Ben for all four years of high school.

“We were so glad to see several of the Aggie high school graduates join us,” Mehaffey said. “It was a great time for reminiscing and celebrating the accomplishments of NCTA and the current students.”

Aggie Alumni Association officers for the 2017-2019 term are:  President Mehaffey, Bellwood, President-Elect Ann Ramm Bruntz, Friend; Secretary Catherine Potter Hauptman, Curtis; Treasurer Trevor Ginkens, Harrison, Newsletter Editor Mary Crawford, Alliance, and Past President Kim Bowers Mortensen, Curtis.

Board members include: Boni Perks Edwards, North Platte; Jerry Sundquist, Dan Stehlik, Taylor Rossenbach, all of Curtis; David Bruntz, Friend; Dave May, Bennett; and Gene Heller, Rising City.