What a long, strange road it must be from a youth in Fribourg to adult life in the United States and now teaching in rural China..
A glimpse from the curious travels of Kevin Di Palma, villa '67.
-- the editors
Jean Remy passes these from photographers Michel Inoué and Pierre Guibaud .
Just a note for those of you web 2.0 forward-leaning types that Villa St. Jean's digital footprint has extended beyond http://villastjean.com (back from the grave), this blog and the Wikipedia entry..
We are also a group on Facebook, a social-networking site primarily directed at, well, a younger crowd.
It's housed here in Facebook: and is a project of the Material Support Committee, Bossuet division.
If you're on Facebook, please join.
By the way, Facebook is open to everyone. From its 'about' page:
Anyone can join Facebook
All that's needed to join Facebook is a valid email address. To connect with coworkers or classmates, use your school or work email address to register. Once you register, join a regional network to connect with the people in your area.
Discover the people around you
Facebook is made up of many networks, each based around a company, region, or school. Join the networks that reflect your real-life communities to learn more about the people who work, live, or study around you.
-- material support committee.
From an e-mail plea by Jim Kelly, class of '69, about the restoration of the Di Palma seminal project, www.villastjean.com
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I truly appreciate your attention to the restoration of our school's website. It is far more than "just another website". People all over the world enjoy the connection that is VillaStJean.com and the link to their high school, their youth, their teenage years and younger, their home away from home, those formative years that helped make them who they are today.
It helps establish and document some historical information that could possibly only be found as a result of Kevin's hard work and website content. It reminds us of our poor choices and mistakes, and our crowning awards and honors, our mischief and clandestine achievements, and consequences.
It is the thin thread, that connects and reconnects friends and some families who would never have enjoyed the knowledge and experience they now share. (Some of those families live in the same towns and didn't know it. Their children go to school together. They shop in the same grocery stores.) It is the "Bingo" that chimes in a sense of belonging as another alumnus is returned to us and the bond is reestablished. And sadly, it lets us know when one has passed. It is naturally international and that is who we are.
Last night, Tedd reminded us of the great sloppy muddy football game that was the (perhaps) Thanksgiving time Toilet Bowl. ... such dry whit! What else have we forgotten?
Thanks again, --Jim Kelly '69
Crisis averted! La crise plus de!
Update:
Since this note was first posted two days ago, our home site -- http://www.villastjean.com -- has been restored. We still haven't figured out a permanent funding scheme, though..
Original Post:
To spare you the e-mail thread, our beloved first site -- www.villastjean.com -- has disappeared down a black hole. The details -- a credit card bill, a missing designer and a network domain -- are too tedious to repeat here.
But know that all the right people, from the desert to Asia, are engaged. (Specifically, Messrs. Di Palma and MacIntyre, vsj classes '67 and '68.)
With luck, it'll return soon.
And know, too, that we are considering ways to make the villastjean.com site self-supporting. To date, the hosting costs have been carried by its founders.
If you have any suggestions about how we might share in the (relatively) modest cost of hosting our digital alumni site, please e-mail your ideas here.
-- the editors
To Argentina with Mr. Remy.....
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From Francois Remy...
J'utilise le nouvel annuaire ébauché par certains d'entre vous suite à la rencontre qui s'est déroulée le 3 septembre dernier à Lapoutroie (Alsace), fort bien organisée par René de Miscault, pour vous transmettre l'information suivante qui peut vous intéresser ou des membres de votre entourage.
Il s'agit d'un voyage en Argentine qu'organise l'un de mes amis, le Père Beaupère, dominicain, directeur du Centre oecuménique St Irénée à Lyon, dont l'un des objectifs est précisément de proposer des périples à caractères culturel et oecuménique à travers le monde à ses adhérents.
Ce voyage qui se déroulera du 9 au 24 février 2008 ( pendant l'été dans l'hémisphère sud) et dont vous trouverez le programme détaillé ainsi que les conditions en pièces jointes, a la particularité de suivre les traces de notre grand ancien Antoine de Saint-Exupéry et c'est la raison pour laquelle je m'adresse à vous.
Il reste encore quelques places, mais il faut s'inscrire avant le 8 décembre prochain.
Pour tout renseignement complémentaire, s'adresser au Père René Beaupère au Centre Saint Irénée dont les coordonnées figurent dans le message ci-dessous.
Je vous adresse mes amicales salutations .
François REMY
This image stolen from the web site of images maintained by our elders and marking a September reunion.
The picture set is here.
Joel Burnoufme sends along a priceless photo from 1947 of the Swiss Army parading on the school grounds in 1947. (They were doing the same two decades later)
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Le message est prêt à être envoyé avec le fichier suivant ou les liens joints :
villa saint jean 1947
Remarque : pour se protéger de virus informatiques, il se peut que les programmes de messagerie électronique évitent d'envoyer ou de recevoir certains types de pièces jointes. Vérifiez les paramètres de sécurité de votre messagerie électronique pour déterminer de quelle manière les pièces jointes sont gérées.
September reunion pictures send from Europe to China to the Pacific Northwest and, finally, to the Internet. A miracle....
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