Back to the Future: The Class of ‘88
October 21, 2008Lots of people promise to keep in touch after graduation. This group of William Mitchell grads has kept true to that vow—and kept themselves healthy and connected in the process
by Phil BolstaIt’s a festive scene at the downtown Minneapolis Buca: As many as 20 law school classmates are laughing, bantering, teasing, and telling stories while passing heaping plates of Italian food. The hour is late but no one gives a second thought to class work or exams—and hasn’t for two decades.
Welcome to a tight-knit group from the William Mitchell class of ‘88. Now in their late 40s and early-to-mid 50s, these former classmates and lifelong friends continue to deepen and strengthen the bonds that first linked them together in their 4:20 pm first-year class in 1984. All were part-time students who worked during the day and attended law school at night.
Along with Denny Unger, Dan Beck, and Kelly Everhart, Tim Mahoney, at 48, was only 24 when he started at William Mitchell. “At that time, we were the younger ones in the group,” says Mahoney, executive director for Special Counsel (formerly known as The Esquire Group), a full-service legal search and staffing company in Minneapolis. “Now we’re all old!”
The group includes more than two dozen high-powered attorneys and executives, most of whom still live and work in Minneapolis-St. Paul. “What’s most enjoyable is that we can still get together, get caught up, and have a great time,” Mahoney says. “In many ways, it’s like we never left.”
That camaraderie was evident almost from day one. “Things really clicked following our first game of ‘Gunner Bingo,’” says Steve Bohrer, assistant city attorney for the city of Eau Claire, Wis. “We’d make bingo cards filled with names of students who we thought were ‘gunners’— people always ready on the trigger, always shooting their hand up to say something in class.”
Professors never suspected that some of the students furiously scribbling away during class weren’t all taking notes. “The person who talked in class the most would get a free spot right in the middle [of the bingo card],” adds Deb Sundquist, an attorney specializing in workers’ comp defense for Aafedt, Forde, Gray, Monson & Hage, a Minneapolis law firm. “When we’d get a traditional bingo with their names up, down, or diagonal, we’d whisper ‘Gunner Bingo!’ That was funny and really helped us bond together as a group.”
So did Friday nights. “At the end of the week, we’d meet at Sweeney’s on Dale Street or Ciatti’s on Grand Avenue and sit around and enjoy each other’s stories,” says Unger, vice president of Land Title, a New Brighton-based commercial and residential title insurance and abstract company. “We would generally not talk about school; we’d talk about the other priorities in people’s lives, whether that was families and kids or jobs or recreational sports. Those Friday nights are some of my fondest memories.”
It was a tight group but by no means a clique. “We were pretty inclusive,” says Steve T’Kach, who now runs the Federal Witness Protection Program for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. “It wasn’t like there was a formal membership; anybody who wanted to stick their head in and banter with us was more than welcome.”
Ultimately, everyone in the group was cooperative rather than competitive. “There’s enough pressure and work with law school that you don’t need additional tension from a bunch of cutthroat classmates,” T’Kach says. “Our group had the mindset, ‘Let’s cooperate to graduate.’ You wouldn’t have been in our group if you were cutthroat.”
Regular Reunions
While each alum stays in touch with a handful of classmates he or she feels closest to, the whole group, often including spouses, gets together at least once or twice a year at organized events. Back in their William Mitchell days, Mark Kleinschmidt began hosting parties at his Minneapolis condo and continued the tradition after moving to St. Paul. “Mark is very generous,” says Judy Strobel, director of media relations for Global Volunteers, a St. Paul-based nonprofit. “My husband looks forward to these get-togethers as much as if he had been in the class himself.”
Kleinschmidt, the CEO of St. Paul Radiology, left the details of the parties to his trusty henchmen. “Mike Swanson and Tim Mahoney were the ringleaders as far as getting people together and would set up parties at Mark’s place,” Unger says. “Mark was older than us and had a nice condo. He always agreed to host a party if we organized it.”
Beck, laughing, puts it more succinctly: “Tim Mahoney basically invited himself and a bunch of other people over to Mark’s place for a party.”
The school chums also enjoyed fl ying to Las Vegas during their school days. “Early in the fall, six to eight of us would go to Vegas for a weekend during break,” Swanson says. “Deb McBride had a knack for finding a good slot machine. She’d win a couple thousand bucks every time.”
Today, many in the group look forward to Bohrer’s annual end-of-the- summer music festival in his Eau Claire backyard. “This year, I had four bands—everything from bluegrass to Eastern European folk music to classic rock and roll,” he says. “It’s a neighborhood party, but I also include my law school class. We typically draw several hundred throughout the afternoon. People bring lawn chairs and blankets and sit out and socialize.”
Swanson and fellow classmate Lynn Starkovich, CEO of Walker Methodist, who ended up marrying each other, threw yearly Hawaiian parties back in the day. But as classmates married and had children, they switched to annual Easter egg hunts. “Mike and Lynn had thousands of eggs hidden in their beautiful yard, and they each wore a full bunny costume,” Strobel recalls. “There would be 100 kids under the age of 10 plus their parents and grandparents. My son was in fourth grade before he finally said, ‘Gee, Mom, why does the Easter Bunny sound like Mike?’”
A Death in the Family
Nearly two-and-a-half years after beginning law school, the group’s bond was forever deepened by a tragic event. “It was Martin Luther King Day in 1987, so a lot of us were off work,” remembers Laurie Anderson, now assistant general counsel for Apogee Enterprises. “I got a call from my roommate, Judy Strobel. She said, ‘Laurie, are you sitting down?’ She told me that Lynn Shodahl was driving to work on 35W when a semi crossed the median and crashed into her head on; she didn’t make it through surgery.”
Shodahl was a mother and model student who was taking extra classes and going to summer school so she could graduate early. “Lynn was one of those students who everybody wanted to be like,” Sundquist says. “She was incredibly bright, attractive, and personable. Professors loved her. Everyone loved her. We felt like the best and the brightest was taken from us. Lynn’s memory and the memories we created with each other following her death really bound us together as a group.”
With help from professors Russell Pannier and Mike Steenson, Shodahl was graduated posthumously. “Part of what helped make us such a good family is that we had professors who cared about our learning and about us as people,” Strobel says. “I have a picture of Laurie Anderson, Lynn Starkovich, and me holding Lynn Shodahl’s diploma at the ceremony. Afterward, Lynn’s parents, Glen and Shirley Shodahl, took us out and we all celebrated her graduation.”
The involvement with Lynn Shodahl’s family continues to this day. Glen and Shirley have been warmly welcomed at regular and special group events, from Easter egg hunts to weddings. “Glen and Shirley are still an important part of our lives,” Strobel says. “When we were in law school, our study group often met at Lynn’s. Shirley would feed us or come over with food to wherever we were meeting. She was just extraordinary to us.”
Fourteen years after the tragedy, Mike Swanson and Judy Strobel attended Lynn’s daughter Amy’s high school graduation party in Grand Rapids, Minn. “Amy has turned out to be an amazingly talented and very accomplished person,” Anderson says. “She’s since graduated from the University of North Dakota.”
Support System
Through 20 years of dinners, parties, weddings, and funerals, the class of ‘88’s bonds have grown stronger. “We have a lot of respect and admiration for each other,” Sundquist says. “I guess you could call it love. That’s kind of sappy but true.”
Whether through phone calls, emails, or one-on-one get-togethers, group members make a point to stay in touch, especially in times of tragedy or triumph. “I recently went through a divorce, so I’ve been in contact with close friends more often,” Anderson says. “These are people you can count on when you go through tough times or want to share good times.”
When Starkovich was diagnosed with breast cancer this April, her classmates rallied around her. “It’s been huge,” she says. “Everybody stops by or calls. They’re the best friends and the ones I rely on and turn to.”
Mahoney echoes that sentiment. “I have my 30-year high school class reunion this weekend, and I haven’t kept in touch with anybody in that group,” he says. “I have several friends from college I’ve stayed in touch with. But there’s a real affinity between those of us who went through law school together.”
That spirit runs deep. A few years ago, when Judy Strobel’s son needed to learn about the U.S. government and obtain memorabilia from Washington, D.C., for a third-grade paper, she called on the first friend she made at William Mitchell. “Steve T’Kach wrote the most beautiful personalized letter to my son and scoured Washington to obtain memorabilia for him, including a pennant from the Washington Nationals baseball team,” Strobel says. “My son was even able to present his paper in an FBI T-shirt that Steve sent him. His teacher could not get over the fact that someone in the U.S. government would take that kind of time to explain the importance of citizen and informant safety to a thirdgrader.”
As far as T’Kach is concerned, his friendship with his classmates is its own reward. “My parents died when I was young,” he says. “I commuted to college full time at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls while working two or three jobs. I had friends at school and worked at a college bar, among other jobs, but I never developed that kind of dormroom camaraderie and those kinds of friendships until I went to William Mitchell. I think it speaks for itself that here we are 20 years later and we still hang around.”
