Ralph Zobell

I wasn't the first Zobell to pass through Cheyenne. My roots go back 100 years before I attended high school with you. The attached picture above near Harriman on I-80 between Cheyenne and Laramie is known as the "gangplank," a unique geologic granite formation which allowed the transcontinental railroad to be built on it in 1869. Because of this formation, I know that my great great grandfather Hans Zobell, who came to the U.S. from Denmark, rode the railroad through this passage en route to Utah, a couple months after the Golden Spike was driven there. Here is part of what Hans wrote in his journal of that railroad trip from Chicago to Utah:

"We traveled several hundred miles along the very interesting Platte River and getting further and further from all sights of civilization as we are nearing the Rocky Mountains. We now see several bands of Indians, a very strange sight to all of us, and knowing just who these red skinned men are we could not but have a great deal of respect and admiration for them. I believe these Indians were called Pawnees. Our mind goes back to the first pioneer band and how they had to fight these strange people. We also see great bands of herds of the mighty kind of the prairie, the American bison or buffalo, but they hardly give us a look as we glide along on the smooth track.

"We look for signs of the original pioneer and see plenty of them, markers of various kinds. We are now climbing up the eastern slope of the continental divide of the Rockies and soon reach an elevation of 8000 feet above the sea, the nearest to Heaven any of us had ever been before. Some of us got dizzy-headed at this unusual altitude. We can see snow on the tops of the everlasting hills, also a new sight for most of us (these are the 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado that you can see on a clear day)."

I attended the University of Wyoming for two years where I learned about the “gangplank” pictured above, then served a mission in Indonesia for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (I still keep up on the Indonesian language). Following that mission, I transferred to Brigham Young University where I earned a B.A. and M.A. in communications. I am now retired after working 41 years in sports publicity for the BYU athletic department where I helped Ty Detmer win the Heisman Trophy in 1991.

My wife Janet is a “bonus mom” to our four children and we have been married since 1992. We have 14 grandchildren. Since 1983 I have resided in Orem, Utah.

As you can see from my Twitter site @RalphZobell, I was fortunate to be selected as the Wilbur Snypp Award winner in 2016 http://www.sportswriters.net/ncbwa/awards/snypp/index.html and was honored to be inducted into the EHS Hall of Fame in 2004.

I was editor and sports editor for the EHS Thunderbolt and lettered in cross country, track and band, playing the saxophone. I did not take driver's ed as one of my regular classes at East, but enrolled in a special Christmas holiday course taught by Marv Strauch, who once played football for the Green Bay Packers.

There was only room for the driver and Marv in the front seat of the driver's ed car. He was great at teaching us how to parallel park, even on the left-hand side of one-way streets so that we could pass our driver's test. On one occasion, Marv instructed one of us to parallel park in front of the old Wyoming Eagle Tribune building on 17th Street near the Mayflower Bar. As the car was maneuvering into that parking spot, an older lady pedestrian pointed with a scowl to the sign on the parking meter which read, "compact cars only." Marv rolled down his window and yelled, "lady we can read."

Thanks to teachers like Mrs. Laughlin, Mr. Bondurant, Mr. Hesson, Mr. Stoen and Miss Mistead, we can all read. Thanks to a teacher like Mr. Strauch, I can parallel park and drive better. Miss Allen and Miss Coxbill gave me the opportunity to develop in journalism. Mr. Dennis and Mr. Sprague taught me the rigors of discipline in band and track and field, respectively.

I saw the link posted by Pete Marion on the reunion Facebook page