Where Are They Now? Garnaas & Tuntland are the "masters" of the Class of 1960

By today's standards, the school mischiefs committed by high school students of the '50s and '60s would be considered quite mild and innocent. Possessing keys for most school building doors, taking a noon-hour spin in a 1937 Chevy, and signing "not so nice" teachers' names to a harmless letter are a few of the shenanigans that Allan Garnaas and Darrell Tuntland were involved in as high school buddies in Sheyenne. Still, these examples of "good, clean fun" resulted in detention time for Allan, Darrell, and others who were also involved in the pranks.

Thankfully, the "naughty" acts were offset with the community centerpieces of school studies, church activities and sports involvement. This kind of "Leave It to Beaver" lifestyle influenced Allan and Darrell's future educational and career decisions.

Graduates of the Sheyenne Class of 1960, Allan and Darrell both earned master's degrees, in Landscape Architecture from Harvard and Industrial Engineering (Operations Research) from Arizona State University, respectively. With three of their other high school classmates (Donald Hendrickson, Duane Berglund, and Ken Throlson) earning doctoral degrees, it is obvious that a good number of students in this class were exceedingly intelligent and highly motivated. Darrell's wife Carol also holds a doctoral degree from Pepperdine University, leading him to quip, "While three of my classmates are doctors, I married one, so there!" He remembers the time he and his wife went on a Mediterranean cruise with the Berglunds. "There we were, three docs and me! I couldn't get a word in edgewise!"

Both men were inspired by the simple living in a small town to venture on to successful military experiences and civilian careers. Allan served almost four years as a U.S. Naval officer. During his 1967-70 active duty tour, Allan's exposure to Navy Officer Candidate School and his time in Vietnam from 1968-69 were formative for him, as they had a major influence on his life and career choices.

Allan chose St. Olaf College in Minnesota as his post-secondary institution, as did all six of his siblings. Music, ministry and nursing were the prevalent career choices for his siblings, but Allan took a different path. He attended Yale University Divinity School for a year on a Rockefeller Brothers Fellowship, then earned his Master in Landscape Architecture (MLA) from Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1974. For 35 years, Allan managed his own landscape architecture firm, Allan Garnaas Associates (AGA) Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning, which he launched in 1981. AGA's mission and goal is to "connect or reconnect people with nature." The company has served clients in numerous states in both the private and public sectors. AGA has provided design services for the U.S. Naval Academy, public schools, and park and recreational lands.

Allan's parents, Alf and Miriam (Narum), were active in the Sheyenne community. Alf was the president of the Farmers & Merchants Bank, and Miriam was a wonderful musician who played the organ at the First Lutheran Church for 55 years and taught piano lessons for almost that many years. Allan's siblings live in Fargo, Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Louis, and in Acton, Mass. Of course, the people of Sheyenne and the surrounding area greatly miss Allan's sister Paula, who lived south of Sheyenne and passed away in late 2012. Along with owning farming interests, Allan remains connected to the area through Paula's sons, Eric (and wife Sarah) and Michael, who still live on the Myhre homestead farm.

Allan and his wife of 41 years, Joanne, have lived in Alexandria, Va., since 1977. Allan and Joanne's only child, Maija, earned a Bachelor of Arts in Molecular Biology and a doctoral degree in Molecular Biology/Genetics at Princeton and Harvard, respectively. Maija works in Cambridge, Mass., for Moderna, Inc., which is a biotech company that specializes in messenger cell therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. It is interesting to note that Maija played four years on Princeton's women's varsity soccer team, the first and only Ivy League team to reach a NCAA Division I Final Four in a 64-team tournament field.

Darrell's impressive military experiences began at NDSU with a mandatory two-year participation in Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). While standing in line to register for college, a young man ahead of Darrell in line told him to check Air Force instead of Army on his card, and thus a total life choice for Darrell was made because of one off-handed remark, "Tell 'em you want Air Force 'cause they have nicer uniforms."

Darrell continued with two more years of ROTC and a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the USAF. His 22 ½ year Air Force career started in Biloxi, Miss. He now marvels, "Can you imagine a young farm kid from North Dakota going to the Deep South in the mid-60s?" From there, he went on to Washington, D.C.; Libya; Colorado Springs; Thailand; Anchorage, Alaska; Los Angeles; the UK; and then back to California.

Retiring from the Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel in February of 1987, Darrell landed an engineering job for McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach, Calif. He worked on several classified military projects, and after four years was named Configuration Control Board Project Manager for a Tactical Systems program. Darrell stayed with that program for 16 years. Eight years after McDonnell Douglas merged with the Boeing Company in 1999, Darrell retired from the Boeing Seal Beach plant.

Darrell still has North Dakota connections, as his older sisters Ilo Fox and Carol Rosenau live in Lisbon and Carrington. Together, they own and rent out farmland. The land is located in Grandfield township, where Darrell spent the first four years of his life. A second plot of land four miles south of Sheyenne is where parents Ivan and Myrtle (Lindstrom) bought a farm. After their parents passed away in 1992 and in 1997, the siblings took over ownership of the farm. His cousin Peggy Gudmunson and second cousins Roger and Gary Westby continue the ties to the Sheyenne/New Rockford communities.

Darrell and Carol's son, Todd, was born in 1970 and their daughter, Sonya, in 1972. Todd attended NDSU and earned an architectural degree. He is with a firm in Los Angeles. He and his wife Selena have two sons. Sonya attended the University of Colorado for elementary education. She now has her master's degree in education and has taught elementary students for more than 20 years. She and husband Marc live in California with their teenage son.

Both Allan and Darrell share a genuine love for music. Allan's interests reside in playing guitar and singing both solo and in choral groups. In fact, he still enjoys taking voice lessons to this day! Darrell's hobby of singing barbershop has led him to become a member of the International Barbershop Harmony Society. He and his fellow singers compete and entertain audiences.

The two men continue to travel the world. On a particularly memorable trip in 1982, Allan enjoyed studying with notable landscape design professionals in Japan and China, given the long-standing interest in the emphasis on "simple elegance" design embodied in these Asian cultures. Also an avid traveler, Darrell says, "While many people can say that they have visited all seven continents, I have actually lived in four of those seven."

The men's thoughts turn to their idyllic upbringing in the countryside of Eddy County. Descriptive images that come to their minds are "the beautiful prairie," "the fire siren ringing at 9 p.m.," "although we didn't have Disney-like activities to entertain us, we made the best of what we had," "riding pigs through the rag weeds," and "dragging up and down Main Street in Sheyenne, which often culminated in a root beer float at the Tastee Freeze."

Allan and Darrell also remember the annual 4th of July parades in Sheyenne. The small community still goes "all out" to provide big celebrations for that holiday. Perhaps it is that kind of respect and allegiance to our country that inspired these men to join the military and use service-inspired careers to benefit others.