Newsletter for the Alumni and Friends of
Hicksville High School Hicksville, New York

The Editors:
Buffalo Bob Casale '61	Linda (Piccerelli) Hayden '60
Pat (Koziuk) Driscoll '56	Bob (Gleason) Wesley '61

Contributing Editors: Bob Gillette & Walter Schmidt

Webmaster: Roger Whitaker

To contact the editors, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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HICKSVILLE VIETNAM WAR ERA MEMORIAL - PROJECT UPDATE

Donations in May again surpassed last month with $2,070 in new receipts, bringing the current donation total to $15,642 towards our needed goal of $25,000 to build and maintain the Memorial!

Fourteen new donors in March brings the total list of donors to 147 individuals, couples and organizations. If each HixNews reader can contribute as little as $10, we will achieve our goal. Please remember, all donations are tax deductibile.

Please note that donations have been received from still less than 10% of theHixNews readership. So, if you have yet to donate, please help us now.

The Memorial's Center Plaque, which currently resides at the Hicksville VFW Post, enables our treasurer, Bill Walden, to also have it on display at additional donation sites, as was done for the HHS Alumni Foundation fundraising event in April. I would like to also note that we are very proud of Bill, who, in addition to his work as commander of Hicksville's VFW Post, was also recently elected commander of the Nassau County VFW!

An alphabetical list of donors through May, along with details you will need to mail in new donations, can be viewed in this month's MEMORIAL UPDATE in the Honoring Our Veterans section of the newsletter.

As in the past, when you visit this month's detailed UPDATE in The Honoring Our Veterans section of this newsletter, please remember that clicking on the two links near the bottom of the page will bring you to the complete Confirmed and Unconfirmed Lists of Names as of the end of May. And, If you have any new information to send us, please email it to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

We hope you had a great Memorial Day Weekend and were able to take a moment to remember those who paid the ultimate price in defense of our nation's Freedom.

On behalf of the Project Team,
Joe Carfora, Project Coordinator, HHS 1962

Home of the Comets
Class of 1966 Fifty Year Reunion

Hello Hicksville High School Alumni,

The Class of 1966 is celebrating our 50th reunion the weekend of June 18, 2016.
From: 6:00-11:00pm
Cost: $50.00 per person Includes free valet parking

ANTUN'S CATERERS, 244 West Old Country Road, Hicksville , New York 11801
ANTUN'S CATERERSAppetizers FullDinner
Entertainment provided by Disc Jockey/Musician & Co-Founder of the Brooklyn Bridge, Tom Sullivan Class (class of 1963)
The Worst That Could Happen (1969) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ErNvnpMaE4

Contact Information:
Stephen Goldstein
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

CLASS OF 1971 SAVE THE DATE FOR OUR 45^th ReunionJuly 8-10, 2016

We hope you will be able to attend. We arranged hotel accommodations at the Historic Roosevelt Hotel in the heart of midtown Manhattan at Madison Ave. and 45th St.

www.theroosevelthotel.com

Details:

• Rate: $189 per night + tax/single or double occupancy (a really great rate for NYC!)You may extend your stay 1 day before or after the weekend for the same low rate
• Includes free WIFI and complimentary entrance to 24 hour health club
• To make your reservation call 1-888-833-3989. Please mention The Hicksville High School Class of 1971 Reunionin order to get this discounted rate. Your credit card will not be charged until your stay. PLEASE NOTE: Cancellations will be accepted no later than 24 hours before July 8th (or 7th if you're planning to come in early), otherwise your credit card will be charged.
• Please reserve your room by Nov. 2, 2015
• We are in the midst of planning the entire fabulous weekend (because 45 years is a long time to catch up with one another in just 1 night). We're also looking for assistance with planning our event weekend.

For questions about the reunion or to volunteer for the planning committee, please email us:

• Carol (Greenstein) Epstein: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
• Arlene Gottesman: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Looking forward to seeing you in New York City in July 2016.

Your classmates,
Carol Epstein and Arlene Gottesman
415-846-6907

The Newsletter

Photo Gallery

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Birthdays & Anniversaries

Memory Lane

Ed & Mary Osborne

Ed and Mary Osborne

Ed and Mary Osborne, pictured recently in their Broadmoor-area home, will be presented with one of the area's top business honors for their work at AMI Industries Inc. and in the Colorado Springs community.

LOYALTY, INTEGRITY

The work of Osbornes nets Lifetime Entrepreneurship Award United Technologies Corp. might not have a manufacturing plant in Colorado Springs without the work of Ed Osborne and two colleagues at AMI Industries Inc., which survived bankruptcy to later be acquired by the Connecticut-based aerospace and industrial giant.

Osborne's work at AMI, along with his wife Mary's 39-year career as accountant - including becoming the first female partner of a local accounting firm - netted the couple the Lifetime Entrepreneurship Award from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs College of Business. The award will be presented Friday at a campus luncheon that is a fundraiser for the business school.

The award, one of the area's top business honors, has been presented annually since 2009; a committee of business school officials, alumni and local business and civic leaders selects the winners.

"Ed and Mary have seen tremendous success in business due to their loyalty and integrity," Venkat Reddy, the business school's dean, said in a statement. "Their generosity has deeply enriched our community, extending the disenfranchised, the elderly, artists and those pursuing an education."

Osborne had just retired from the military when he joined AMI in 1982, mere months before the aircraft seat manufacturer ended up in a two-year ownership dispute that would eventually land it in bankruptcy, with little cash and no board of directors to make major decisions. AMI had been sold to California- based Algeran in late 1982 for $8 million in cash and notes, but a dispute between Algeran and previous owner Advance Ross of Chicago hamstrung

the company for 16 months until a court hearing returned control of the company to Advance Ross. The former owners called Osborne, who had been hired as a structural engineer to analyze seats AMI was making for the space shuttle, and two other AMI executives, Jim MacDougald and Tom Elke, to a meeting after the hearing to tell them they had been named to AMI's board.

"They told us that since the court ruling was being appealed, they would not put another penny into the company or take any out. We were on our own," Osborne said. "We were $6 million in debt to California banks and were losing $250,000 a month. "The first thing we did was take the company into bankruptcy to protect the employees and customers, but we had to reduce the staff from about 350 to 180. We also shut down the receiving dock, because we had so much inventory and work in progress that we had enough spare parts to survive for quite a while." MacDougald, Elke and Osborne started quality control, profit-sharing and employee-suggestion programs, and worked not only to keep Boeing as AMI's largest customer but to expand the relationship to include manufacturing flight-attendant seats for all of the aerospace giant's passenger aircraft, Osborne said. The three shepherded the company through a four-year bankruptcy process, persuaded a local banker to lend them $2 million to buy the company, and eventually won contracts to provide crew seats to European aircraft maker Airbus and regional jet manufacturer Canadair.

"We had been turned down by many banks (for the financing to buy AMI), but Bob Baker at United Bank told us that if he couldn't make this work, he shouldn't be in banking," Osborne said. "The first full month we owned the company, we made $125 which was a tremendous improvement from what we had been losing before then, and we only had two months in the 15 years we owned the company that it didn't make a profit.

To get the loan, all three men had to personally guarantee the debt, which meant they could have lost nearly everything they owned had AMI defaulted. By the time the three men sold AMI in 1997 for $30 million to North Carolina-based Coltec Industries, Osborne had become president of the company, sales had more than tripled to $30 million, AMI's workforce had grown back to 350 employees, and the company moved to a new plant.

Ed and Mary Osborne are among the largest donors to UCCS. They have donated millions to the college and have agreed to donate more than $10 million through a trust created as a result of the AMI sale.

In recognition of their support, UCCS named its largest building the Osborne Center for Science and Engineering. The couple began donating to the school through its TheatreWorks theatre company and gave to its "Reach the Peak" scholarship fund, its mechanical and aerospace engineering department, the campaign to build the engineering building, and several other UCCS programs.

"Of all the things we are involved with, we decided the best thing we can do to give thanks to the community where we have been successful is to support the university (UCCS) as the key to the future growth of the community," Mary Osborne said.

The couple, who grew up as high school sweethearts in Long Island, N.Y., ended up in Colorado Springs when Ed Osborne, a West Point grad, was recruited as a faculty member for the Air Force Academy.

Mary Osborne graduated from the College of William and Mary with plans to go to law school, but the newly married pair headed off to Army assignments in Europe. While in Turkey, Ed Osborne was contacted by the Air Force Academy to join the faculty.

First he had to complete graduate school at the University of Michigan. During graduate school, the Army sent him to Vietnam, where he flew 213 combat missions. "I was flying F-100s and was only hit once," Ed Osborne said. "It was my second-to-last mission and we were attacking a 37-millimeter gun site during a rescue of a downed pilot. I was nose-to-nose with the gun and only through the grace of God did I survive. I consider every day since then to be a special gift."

Osborne arrived at the academy in 1969 and spent 13 years there. He was a finalist to become dean of the UCCS College of Engineering and Applied Science, but didn't get the job.

"It wasn't a good fit, because (UCCS) only had electrical engineering and computer science at that time and no mechanical engineering," said Osborne, who ended up joining AMI instead and later helped win a nine-year battle to start a mechanical engineering program at UCCS.

Since retiring a year after the AMI sale, Osborne has served on many nonprofit boards and still serves on six, including three as chairman, the local and national boards of Discover Goodwill, the University of Colorado Foundation and the Theatreworks advisory board.

Mary Osborne has been a longtime board member of the Pikes Peak Hospice and Palliative Care, and serves on the board of its foundation.

The couple also are major financial supporters of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and the Colorado Springs Philharmonic.

The couple share a business philosophy that "honesty and integrity are the key to any relationship. Honesty is about being truthful and integrity is about doing the right thing.

When you mix the two together, that is the foundation of any relationship in business, customer, employee or partner."

Casale's Corner

Meredith & Abbey

Our 14-year-old dog Abbey died last month. The day after she passed away my 4-year-old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey.  She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey got to heaven, God would recognize her.  I told her that I thought that we could, so she dictated these words:

Dear God,

Will you please take care of my dog?  Abbey died yesterday and is with you in heaven.  I miss her very much.  I'm happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got sick.  I hope you will play with her.  She likes to swim and play with balls.  I am sending a picture of her so when you see her you will know that she is my dog.  I really miss her.

Love,
Meredith

We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey & Meredith, addressed it to God/Heaven.  We put our return address on it.  Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter all the way to heaven.  That afternoon she dropped it into the letter box at the post office.  A few days later, she asked if God had gotten the letter yet.  I told her that I thought He had.Yesterday, there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch addressed, 'To Meredith' in an unfamiliar hand.  Meredith opened it.  Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, 'When a Pet Dies.'  Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to God in its opened envelope.  On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey & Meredith and this note:

Dear Meredith,

Abbey arrived safely in heaven.  Having the picture was a big help and I recognized her right away.  Abbey isn't sick anymore.  Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart.  Abbey loved being your dog.  Since we don't need our bodies in heaven, I don't have any pockets to keep your picture in so I'm sending it back to you in this little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by.  Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping you write it and sending it to me.  What a wonderful mother you have.  I picked her especially for you.  I send my blessings every day and remember that I love you very much.  By the way, I'm easy to find.  I am wherever there is love.

Love,
God