University of Minnesota Alumni Association

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Feedback on the Winter '24 issue

Iwas a police officer for 30 years at the U and decades ago, I was working a George Burns concert. By chance I was invited into the green room to meet him. We talked and I asked him the secret to his longevity. His answer became the motto I live by: “The secret to longevity is you have to have a purpose in life. The day you get up in the morning with no purpose is the day you start to die.” Now at 80, my days are filled with things to accomplish. I think Mr. Burns had the correct answer to my question regarding longevity.

Lee North
Peoria, Arizona
Life Member

In the last issue [of Minnesota Alumni] there was a nice article about a 50-year love story that started at Sanford Hall. 

If you like stories like that, I have one: There were six fraternity brothers from the Pharmacy Fraternity, Phi Delta Chi, who had a picture taken with our then-girlfriends in 1972. Each of us married those young ladies, and over 50 years later, all of us are still married to those same women. Since only about 5 percent of marriages reach their 50th anniversary, the fact that all six of us friends did is a remarkable statistic.

We still get together at least once a year to reminisce about our days at the U. 

Rich Hansen (B.S. ’72, Pharm. D. ’74)
Fort Myers, Florida
Life Member


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