@MIZZOU ASKS YOU

Best Friends Forever

@Mizzou readers share stories about their best college friends …

My best friend, Conrad L. Lohoefer, BJ '49, and I became friends in high school. We were pals and often double dated while attending community college. We went into the service on the same day during WWII and kept in constant contact by frequent mail. After the war we attended MU together starting in the 1946–47 school year. We both graduated and now laud our alma mater with our MU logos — he in Texas and me in Maryland.

We roomed together in the attic of a private home because we weren't from Missouri and housing was scarce. We also owned a car together (without it causing the problems that our parents told us would occur) and often traveled together from Amarillo, Texas, and back. Plus we met in Los Angeles one summer and traveled home together. I mention this because on the way, the car generator went bad. We drove across part of New Mexico and Texas by moonlight late at night, turning on the lights only when a rare car came toward us. Luckily the car did not die until we arrived at my house — and then Conrad had to walk home.

Why MU? Because Conrad wanted to go to the best journalism school available, and I had a teacher who I admired tell me to select a highly accredited university, so I agreed to go with him. We have maintained our friendship for more than 67 years, have visited each other often and still communicate almost daily via e-mail. And in that way, being in our 80s, we still sometimes share those memories as we mature gentlemen are prone to do. Only a few years ago our wives joined us for a great time at the MU/Texas Tech game because Conrad's wife attended Tech. Now how is that for an enduring friendship?

Incidentally I taught math and coached at Hickman High School in Columbia during the 1948 and 1949 school years before I earned my first degree. Then I received a teaching fellowship at Washington State University and earned a master's degree there in 1951.

— Forrest L. Miller, BS Ed '49, MS '62

I graduated from Mizzou in 2000 with a bachelor's degree in elementary education. I have been a teacher ever since; first in Boonville, Mo., and now in Hopkinsville, Ky., where I reside with my husband. We moved there for his job in forestry, but I always say I would love to go back to Columbia.

I met my best friend, Julie, in the dorms during our first year at Mizzou (she graduated the same year with a degree in communication science and disorders). We met in Lathrop and immediately formed a bond, living together throughout the rest of our years at Mizzou. We had other roommates, too, and through this large network of people, I met even more of my closest friends at Mizzou.

Julie lives in Alabama now, but she says the same thing that I do: We would love to move back to Columbia some day. We talk at least twice a week over the phone or by e-mail, and we visit each other and take trips together. I visit Columbia and my friends who stayed there about once every two months.

Mizzou was such an all-around great experience for me and my friends. Thanks!

— Lisa Bargielski Loos, BS Ed '00

On my first day moving into Lathrop Hall on a hot August day in 1994, a 4-foot-10-inch girl came bouncing in with a strong southern drawl welcoming me to Mizzou. “Hi Ya'll!” she said as she bounced on one of the twin beds in my room and introduced herself. My outgoing, laid-back family usually would have welcomed her, but on this day we were hot, tired and going through the emotions of being separated. She didn't take our blank expressions personally, and my family always remembers the little college girl with the big personality on that hot day.

Heidi Lochbihler Garner was the name of this southern sorority girl, and though I wasn't in a sorority that year, we became best of friends and neighbors in Lathrop Hall. We spent practically every meal together, studied together and became best friends. The following year I joined her sorority, she became my pledge mom, and we lived together for the next two years.

Five years later, I was the maid of honor in Heidi's wedding. I went to visit her in Tennessee, Texas, New York, and Ohio. I listened to how hard it was when her amazing husband, Brian Garner, BA '98, went off to Afghanistan right after their first daughter was born.

Thirteen years later, Heidi and I are still best of friends. I just went to Pittsburgh to visit her and her family, and it was like college again. We chatted as if it were yesterday, just like we did in the dorm and Chi-O house. We sat on the couch and chatted about current events, catching up at the same time. This time it was about Paris Hilton while we watched Larry King Live.

If it wasn't for Mizzou, I wouldn't have such a great friend and a wonderful godson (her son). Most of all, I wouldn't have the memories that make Mizzou one of the best decisions I've made in my life. I thank MU for Heidi and my other best friends!

— Sara Eisenbath, BHS ’98

The friendships I made at Mizzou are the most valuable gift I received during my time there. I was fortunate to have a wonderful group of good friends who were all interconnected in various ways through campus activities. We have managed to stay in touch as we’ve all gone through graduate, law, business or medical school; begun our careers; and started families. Last year we had an unofficial 10-year reunion back in Columbia, meeting at the Columns for a big group picture with kids in tow and then heading over to the Heidelberg. In particular, my three best girlfriends from my Mizzou days, Emily, Nicki and Elizabeth, have been incredibly special throughout the years. We were all in each others' weddings and have visited each other as often as possible despite living all over the country. Next month we will have a girls' reunion, and I can't wait!

— Karen Randolph Rogers, BA Political Science, '96

As a member of Alpha Phi at Mizzou, I met some of my closest friends in the sorority house. We were roommates, bridesmaids for each other and were there when babies were born. Now 20 years later, we're all still the best of friends. Although we are separated by 2000 miles, we're only a phone call or an e-mail away from each other. As our group approached age 40 this year, five of us decided to celebrate this major “event” together.

The girls in St. Louis left their husbands at home with the kids and flew to Arizona to meet up with two of us who live here, less than a mile from each other. We took off the next day and drove to Rocky Point, Mexico, where we spent four days in the sun, on the beach and in the ocean laughing and reminiscing about our days in college and all of the fun we had together. Other than aging a little, none of us had really changed from who we were then.

We all had a great time and bought matching bracelets to mark the occasion. In fact, we had so much fun together that we're already planning our “girls trip to Vegas” for next year and a “Happy 42nd Birthday” trip somewhere else because we're pretty sure we won't be able to wait until we turn 45 to see each other again. We hope a few more of our old roommates will be able to make the next trip with us. God Bless our friends and the days we spent at Mizzou!

— Jill Waldrop, BA '90

The fall of 1969 was a tremendous time for seven coeds. The bottom floor of Francis House was occupied by Roswita (Rita) Wagner Gale, BA '73, MA '’74, and Sharon Eubanks Ehlen, best friends from St. Louis; Rhonda Wilkins Daly of Columbia, and Patti Simon, BA '72, MA '73, St. Louis; Vicki Becker Kennison, BS Ed '73, Denver, and me from Rochelle Park, N.J.; and Dinah Bear, BJ '74, Los Angeles. We have many fond memories of Francis House and enjoyed the fact that it became a female dormitory while the rest of the McDavid/McReynolds complex was male. I remember the panty raid in October, the 1 p.m. fire drill in the snow just before exams and big sisters from other floors.

It was fate that brought us together, but as a group we clicked and continued our friendships amid moving to apartments, pledging sororities and getting married. By the time we graduated in 1973 our little group still banned together and pledged to keep in touch.

Now almost 40 years later, we are still going strong. We held our first reunion in Hallsville in 1977. Since then every few years we get together at one or another of our homes in places like Kansas City, Lake of the Ozarks, Washington, D.C., Congers, N.Y., Rockville, Md., Alexandria, Va., and Hampstead, N.C. We took a grand reunion vacation to Hawaii in 2000 and are now planning to visit Alaska.

At first we kept in touch by writing group letters to each other four times a year. We now do this by e-mail. Through the years we have made a series of friendship quilts and now that several of us have daughters, we are starting a second generation of friends called the Little Ya,Yas. Mizzou has always been a No. 1 university for undergraduate and graduate education, but lasting Mizzou friendships have also enriched our lives and provided a meaningful support system as we have grown into our careers as working women, mothers and beyond. Thank you Mizzou for nurturing minds as well as spirit.

— Sharon Aulepp Schwarz BS Ed '73

My closest friends from Mizzou are the “Jones Hall Girls.” We met as community advisers in Jones Hall, and despite our many differences, became close friends. Together, we survived the many adventures of residential life and college. Since then, we have remained close. We generally get together at least once a year, celebrating St. Pat's in Chicago, visiting New York City for a weekend, and meeting at several of our weddings and bachelorette parties. Although we no longer live in close quarters, our friendships are still close.

— Beth Leuenberger Orns, BSW '99, MSW '00

I met my two very best friends at Mizzou — one from Chicago and one from
St. Louis. We graduated in 2002 and 2003 and talk almost every day. We went from Hudson and Gillett halls and became paralegals and executive assistants, but the friendship has only grown stronger!

— Stacey Miller, BA '02

My closest girlfriends are still those I met my freshman year of college on the third floor of Schurz Hall in the “Communications in Society” Freshman Interest Group (FIG). We met on move-in day, and grew close over Long Island iced teas at the Blue Note, during Labor Day road trips to Mount Rushmore and while aimlessly visiting super Wal-Mart at 2 a.m.

I am a city girl from Chicago, so my friends taught me what a chigger was and introduced me to Sonic. I took them on “el” train rides in my hometown and dragged them to Overland Park, Kan., when I was in Nordstrom withdrawal. On the last night of our senior year, we bid adieu to Mizzou by swimming in Brady fountain. And even though we moved across the country — I'm in New York City, and the girls are in Chicago, Atlanta, Portland, Ore, and northwest Arkansas — we still get together at least once a year. But instead of drinking 25-cent beers at Harpo's, we're usually standing in each other’s weddings!

– Lindsay Powers, BJ ’04

Christie and I met on move-in day, and we were not sure at first what to think of each other. One day as we were crossing the Quad, I spotted Matt and Todd, a couple of guys I knew from my high school. I eagerly waved at them to come join us. I had no idea what was running through Christie's mind. She had been on the debate team in high school in Springfield, Mo., and Matt and Todd had been arch-rivals in debate. She hoped they'd pass without recognizing her! Despite Christie's misgivings, we all became fast friends. I soon met her friends, Tori and Jenny, and a somewhat shy high school acquaintance Michael.

Although our majors varied from journalism and business to biology and philosophy, the seven of us became nearly inseparable. We met every night for dinner in the dining hall, we took several classes together, and we played practical jokes on each other. Our freshman year Christie and I held a Christmas party in our dorm room, complete with a secret Santa gift exchange. Eleven years have passed, and we still diligently exchange secret Santa gifts during the holidays. We're spread all across the country now, but we still keep in touch with e-mail, calls and visits. Together we've celebrated birthdays, weddings, and the recent birth of Christie and Michael's firstborn. Little did I know during my freshman year that the friends I made at Mizzou would be lifelong.

— Amanda Fletcher, BJ '00

I met many great friends at Mizzou, with whom I stay in touch, or who still conjure up amazing memories of valuable times spent together. I have forgotten the names of many, but the times and folks who stand out the most are Richard Wilson, Lorrie Palmer, Mark Gallagher, Rock Legrande, Richard Hemple, Chip Taber, Colleen, Carleen, Bill Mullis, Zakir, Paul Weiss, Caroline, Shirley, PJ and Mary Lou Williams.

I also remember the rock band Avogadro's Number; The Blue Note; Ed Smith, the film teacher; French teachers Annie Summers and Xavier; the glamorous art history teacher who smoked cigarettes in the museum during slide shows; the crazy little English teacher who rode his motorcycle on the sidewalk to inform me that I got an A on the written final test; the geology teacher who lovingly threw erasers and chalk at students in the large auditorium who answered too many questions; the German history professor who accepted my 10-page original work of historic fiction in lieu of a massive research paper on the history of the Germanic people; the great media teachers; and the TA who burst into tears after informing the class late in the year that those with a grade B or higher could leave, and most of us did … to go play Frisbee on the Quad!

Mizzou is an excellent place for education, life enrichment, friendship and, as we all know, love. I miss the Columns and the trips to Rocheport. I miss the 3.2-percent beer at the Shack, and the chopped cow sandwich and bottomless cup at Ernie’s. I miss the pool joint Booches with its greasy burgers. I miss the way the street lights on the main drag form the shape of an eagle from the footbridge. I miss the Tiger Hotel and the sign on top. And I miss the mass of people, teachers, students and staff who congregate in that sprawling mini-city that crisscrosses the world in front of Jesse Hall — grand old Mizzou.

— Evan Stewart Eisenberg, BA '83

I followed my boyfriend from Iowa to the University of Missouri-Columbia. I didn't know anyone. He had friends there, and I met a girlfriend of one of his friends. We started hanging out, and now three years later, Hannah Larson is my best friend in the world, and I would be completely lost without her.

We are no longer with the boyfriends who brought us together, but truly believe that our friendship is the best thing that’s ever happened to us. It all started at Mizzou. Hannah has since moved to California, and I will soon be moving to Boston. We still talk every single day and e-mail about three times a day. I'll never forget my experience at Mizzou and will always be grateful that it brought us together!

— Jessica Numann, BS '06

On many occasions, I tell people that the best time in my life were the four years I spent in Columbia. I came to Missouri because of its fine undergraduate journalism program. I knew no one when I arrived because I was an out-of-state student from the Philadelphia area.

My first roommate, Paul, was from St. Louis. We roomed at Mark Twain. He introduced me to several of his friends, some who lived at the dorm and most who lived at the ZBT house on Richmond Ave. He got me interested in the fraternity. I wound up joining and enjoyed four years of good times and some studying.

Paul and I, along with our friends, Corey and Max, went through the journalism sequence together. We graduated in May 1975, and I am happy to say that I am still friends with them 32 years later. I don’t get to see them as often as I would like because I live in Austin, Texas. Paul and Corey live in the St. Louis area, and Max moved back to Milwaukee. I am proud to know these guys and am fortunate to have had them as friends for all these years.

— Rich Segal, BJ '75

I have stayed close with many of my Mizzou friends. In August 2006, I married Nicole (Nikkiy) Johnston, BS animal science ’01. We married in Las Vegas where she is a mortgage consultant and I am an appraisal intern. We met at the Holiday Inn Select in Columbia during our senior year. I was a front desk supervisor, and she was a friend of the restaurant supervisor. Hanging out with work colleagues, who were mostly Mizzou students, in the then “Spanky's” club at the hotel was the beginning of our relationship.

Chip Canoy and I have been good friends since we were freshman in 1995. We were college roommates, and I ended up moving to Las Vegas a year ago, living just 10 miles from him and his wife.

I still keep in frequent contact or have worked with many of my fellow Hotel and Restaurant Management alumni, including Devon Sullivan, BS '00, Scott Werneke BS '00, Nicole Cleveland, BS '00, Tom Cahill, BS ’00, and Rob Salvino, BS '00.

There are so many friendships and good times from my years at Mizzou, 1995-2001. Ah … the memories.

— Bob Bestgen, BS '01

On the first weekend we were both at Mizzou, Steve's floor at Smith and my floor at Wolpers had a keg party. Names were chosen at random, and he called me for a blind date. He picked me up in the Wolpers' lobby with a blanket, a mug and a Sears yellow jacket and penny loafers. “How tacky!” I thought. Of course, I was wearing a Villager outfit, my Weejuns and a monogramed yellow London Fog coat. However, I did think Steve was cute, and eventually I got a whiff of his undershirt that his mom had bleached (it smelled sooo good).

We went out in the woods somewhere, and people drank lots of beer. Having grown up next to Anheuser Busch in St. Louis, I learned to hate the smell of beer so I actually have never drunk it. This has been quite amusing to share with my high school students during my 30-plus years of teaching.

During our date, Steve and I talked and laughed, realizing that our sisters were about a year apart in age and were both cheerleaders at the same huge high school in St. Louis. Well, Sept. 20 will mark the 38th anniversary of that blind date, and we've been together ever since. Steve, BS CiE '73, has been my best friend and husband for the last 34 years. Our daughter and son-in-law also are Mizzou alumni: Katrina Marie Rauh Schmitt, BS BA '00, and Jeffrey Robert Schmitt, JD '03.

— Shirley Rauh, BS HE '72

I met my friend Mark Stolzer, BS IE '79, BHS, '84, during my first week at Mizzou, in a figure drawing art class. I had no idea that “figure drawing” meant naked people. I was chatting with Mark, my new classmate, when a woman came in, stood near our easels and took off all her clothes. It was an effective icebreaker, to say the least. Mark and his wife Margaret Wynn Myles Stolzer, BJ ’80, have been my friends-at-a-distance for 31 years.

— The Rev. Catherine Tyndall Boyd, BJ '80

How about my wife? She’s my best friend and has been for a very long time. We met on a blind date at a Mizzou football game in September 1973. (Sorry I don’t remember the Tigers’ opponent, probably because I was paying more attention to the girl who would three years later become my wife.) I was a junior and my wife was a freshman at Stephens. And I should mention that the blind date wasn’t with me.

You see, it was my assignment to get dates for eight buddies who made the drive from my hometown of Higginsville, Mo., for Tiger football games. Fortunately, I had help “on the inside” at Stephens, a friend who knew which girls would be willing to have a blind date that included a pre-game party (somewhere), the game and an after-game party (somewhere). She and I then matched the girls with the guys based on important characteristics such as name, eye color, height and facial hair (on the guy, not the girl).

Well, as it turned out, my best friend at the time, Ainsworth, was paired with the girl for whom I experienced love at first sight, Michele. Being from Maryland, Michele couldn’t understand Ainsworth’s Missouri accent. But because he was nice, she agreed to go on a date with him the following weekend. After that, it became imperative for me to take matters into my own hands and find out if Ainsworth was serious about Michele. He wasn’t. So I asked her out on a date. She said “yes.” That was the beginning of a long and very happy relationship, including dates to all home football games (and several away games) for the ensuing three years we remained in Columbia. She became my new best friend — forever.

— Ed Schwitzky, BA ’75, MS ’76

Richard “Robo” Roberson, BS BA '’72, and I were in the same NROTC class in 1968. We lived across the street from each other. He was a Sigma Chi pledge, and I was a KA pledge. We would often walk home from class together, especially after Wednesday drill. That first year, we just tolerated each other. He thought I was an ROTC geek, and I thought he was just plain crazy. I was a little more “gung-ho” at the time, and he was significantly more subdued in his enthusiasm about the Navy. When a drill meet was scheduled the same weekend as Old South, the choice was simple. The drill team lost out. The next year we started driving school buses for the Columbia Public Schools until our college days ended. (It enabled us to miss every Wednesday drill, which was an added bonus to the $2.25-per-hour pay.)

Upon graduation we both headed off to Navy flight school in Pensacola, Fla. Robo was six months ahead of me (as a result of my early, weak attempt at an engineering degree). Trader Jon's (see Officer and a Gentleman), Elk's Run (Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan by a one-man band), and the Airport Lounge (the infamous jukebox) were our favorite haunts while in flight school. In February 1973, when I was medically grounded, I thought it would be fun to go to Cardinals’ baseball spring training, then in St. Petersburg, Fla. My wife, Becky (Chi Omega), and I decided to ask Robo and his wife, Gail (GDI), BSN '72, to go with us. I called them at about 11:30 p.m. one night. He called back at midnight having found someone to do his job for him the next day, and we were off on an all-night drive to St. Pete. Mike Shannon, the Cardinals' announcer, gave us his beach house for the weekend (he owned a farm next to my parents’ in Callaway County).

I have many memories, for example, Robo's description of the roast duck dinner we had one night was unforgettable (other restaurant patrons might not have been amused), but when I jumped off a sea wall and bruised my heel, that was priceless. We went to Busch Gardens the next day, my heel hurt so bad I couldn’t walk, so they gave me a wheelchair. Robo pushed me around for awhile but got tired of all the sympathy I was getting. At the top of a ramp, he let me go with a little push. I flew into the bushes after an out-of-control 30-40 feet “ride.” But how could I get mad at Robo?

Later that spring, the four of us, along with some other Navy couples, went on our first float trip on the Blackwater River in the Florida panhandle. Unfortunately, the night before we had watched the new movie Deliverance. The Blackwater had an uncanny resemblance to the Georgia scenery in the Burt Reynolds/Jon Voight movie. We kept waiting for “Dueling Banjos” to be around the bend. Surviving that, we made it back to Robo’s apartment to see Secretariat win the Kentucky Derby.

Robo was later transferred to Bermuda to serve out his Navy commitment. I finished flight school and headed for Brunswick, Maine. My squadron was then deployed to, where else, Bermuda. Becky joined me there, and we were reunited with Gail and Robo for more escapades, courtesy of the U.S. Navy. Once, when riding down a Bermudan highway (20 mph speed limit), Robo slammed on his brakes, and the back seat with me in it dropped to the street, sending sparks flying. The car was held together with Bondo. Another time, my Navy commander, who complained that his office was too bright, said if I could find him curtains by the next day, he’d sign my request for 10 days of vacation. I called Robo, who used his island contacts to find some curtains, and we installed them that night under cover of darkness. I can still recall my boss’s scream when he saw the “manly” blue and white polka dot curtains. Nonetheless, he gave the go-ahead for my vacation.

When Robo got out of the Navy, he wrangled a way to do it from Brunswick. Everybody else from overseas on the East Coast got out of the Navy in Philadelphia. A couple of six packs of beer on the golf course ensured that we didn’t care about the score, and Robo threw no golf clubs as he had in Bermuda.

Over the next 17 years of my Navy career we would often stay with Robo and Gail in Kansas City, Mo., where they had settled, when we returned to visit family in Missouri, and our children got to know theirs and vice versa. Robo and Gail, along with several other couples, held legendary Halloween parties. The 1985 party stands out in my mind. They were concerned that the I-70 World Series would cut down on attendance, so they made sure everyone knew that multiple TVs would be at the party facility. There were more than 300 people at the party (only one was a Cardinal fan besides me) to watch Don Denkinger blow the call at first base. Costumes weren’t mandatory, but almost everyone came dressed up. As I was in C-130 flight school in Little Rock, Ark., I wore a flight suit (with helmet) and danced with, among others, Tina Turner (Mary Anne) and Frank White (Helen, complete with authentic uniform and blackface). The “gator” and “double-gator” were revived by popular demand.

Upon my retirement from the Navy in 1992, we returned to Columbia. Robo and Gail's three children, Jay (Sigma Chi), Danny (Sigma Chi/ATO), and Katie (DG), as well as our two, Scott (KA) and Amy (Pi Phi), all went to Mizzou, albeit at different times. Although the Roberson kids didn’t need much (they'd learned everything from Gail and Robo), we acted as surrogate parents for doctors, auto mechanics, etc. When Scott married Amber Hensley (Pi Phi) eight years ago, the wedding was in Kansas City. Robo and Gail were there to share Navy tales with all of our non-Navy friends. Two weeks ago, their oldest, Jay, was married, and we attended that wedding. The old gang was getting older, but some things never change. The gator and double-gator were brought out of retirement on the dance floor (although they're more challenging at age 57 than they were at 19).

Of all the couples we met at Mizzou, Robo and Gail have managed to put up with us for 35 years.

— Mike (Butchie), BA '72, M Ed '97, and Becky Rowson, BS Ed '72

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Last Update: November 15, 2007