Class Notes

1960s

• Harold Pettersen ’61 (Industrial Arts Education) has restored his eleventh tractor, a 1952 row-crop model, in the machine shed behind his house in Little Cedar. He reports that his diploma still says Wesconsin Polytechnic Institute at Porter and he has no plans to update it.
• Walter Mrozek ’62 (Industrial Arts Education) watched his grandson Sam cross the commencement stage in May, 64 years after he did. The family is profiled in this issue.
• Carol (Dahlberg) Ostrowski ’66 (Home Economics) and her husband Ray celebrated their 60th anniversary in June with a dinner at the Depot District restaurant where they had their first date, which has changed hands four times since and now serves ramen.
• Dennis Okerlund ’69 (Mechanical Engineering) returned a Halvorsen Library copy of a machinists’ reference handbook he checked out in 1968. The library waived the fine. He asks that it be noted the book was used for its intended purpose the entire time.

1970s

• Judith Kvale ’72 (Elementary Education) retired after 49 years as a teacher and reading specialist in the Porter Falls Area School District, including the last 12 as a volunteer. Her first class of third-graders is now old enough to retire too, and three of them came to the party.
• Gary Solheim ’74 (Construction) was inducted into a regional builders’ association hall of fame. He credits a 1973 surveying lab on the University Farm, “where I learned that a level can be wrong but a cow cannot.”
• Rosemary Tollefson ’77 (Dietetics) published her third community cookbook, Church Basement Classics, Lightly Corrected, with proceeds going to the Porter Falls Public Library.
• Michael Brandvik ’79 (Industrial Technology) is in his 21st season driving the Millrace Week parade’s antique fire truck. He would like it known that the truck runs fine and the siren is the problem.

1980s

• Lyle Haugen ’81 (Industrial Technology Education) begins his 39th year teaching machining in Founders Hall. He is the subject of this issue’s profile and asks that we stop calling him “the last machinist.”
• Patricia Lund ’83 (Graphic Communications) retired as production manager of a Lake City printing company after 37 years, the last 11 of which included printing this magazine. She says she has read every class note since 2015 at least twice, once for typos.
• Tom Nygaard ’85 (Business Administration) and Anne (Hovde) Nygaard ’86 (Apparel Design) sold the Depot District outfitter they opened in 1991 to two of their former employees, both 2015 graduates.
• Linda Mrozek Haas ’88 (Business Administration) marks 40 years at Porter Valley Bank, where she started as a teller in her sophomore year and now manages the Main Street office.
• Kevin Ruud ’89 (Food Science) retired from a 34-year career in dairy quality assurance and is volunteering at the University Farm, where his great-great-grandfather once farmed the same ground. See The Barn Turns 100.

1990s

• Annika Lofgren ’94 (Journalism) retired as managing editor of a Lake City daily and is writing a history of the regional newspaper business. She contributed to this issue’s oral history and maintains that the headline was correct.
• Dale Rusch ’95 (Secondary Education) was named principal of the year by a statewide principals’ association. He has been principal of Cedar Bluff High School since 2012 and still gets asked about 1994 at every Millrace Week.
• Corinne Brekke ’95 (Graphic Design), who drew the original Ironclads “P”, runs a two-person design studio in the Cities. She has asked that people stop sending her photos of the mark on things she did not approve, but she also keeps them all.
• Pete Wojcik ’96 (Hospitality) is general manager of a resort on a lake two hours north and reports that he has not worn a mascot costume since 1994, “by choice and by court order of my own conscience.”
• Jennifer Moua ’98 (Packaging) was promoted to vice president of operations at a food manufacturer in the Valley and hosts two Porter co-op students every spring.

2000s

• Brian Sandvik ’03 (Civil Engineering) is the Porter Falls city engineer and oversaw the Millrace Loop trail resurfacing last summer. He confirms the historic pedestrian bridge is load-rated well above the Millrace Week 5K.
• Rachel Thorsgaard ’09 (Technical Communication), a contributing writer for this magazine, published her first book, a history of small-town volunteer fire departments in the Upper Midwest.
• Andre Coleman ’06 (Computer Engineering) and Mei Lin Coleman ’07 (Interior Design) welcomed their third child, Ada, in March. Andre reports she has already been issued a Porter onesie and a pewter First Forge disc on loan from her father.
• Sarah Kjos ’08 (Nursing), granddaughter of longtime machine-shop instructor Arne Kjos, is director of nursing at a critical-access hospital and serves on the advisory board of the Center for Rural Health & Aging.

2010s

• Dana Tveit ’11 (Packaging), senior packaging engineer at a Lake City medical products company, is profiled in the Spring 2026 issue for redesigning the trauma kits carried on the region’s ambulances.
• Pa Nhia Lor ’14 (Nursing) marks twelve years at the Tamarack clinic of the Porter County Rural Health Network, where she is nurse manager. She was featured in the Spring 2026 cover story.
• Kayla Fjelstad ’14 (Manufacturing Engineering) left her job running a Lake City machine shop to join the Machine Tool Technology faculty in Founders Hall. Her new office is 30 feet from the lathe she learned on.
• Marcus Ellefson ’16 (Cybersecurity) and Priya Raman ’17 (Software Engineering) were married in August at the Welcome Center depot. The ring bearer was a 14-year-old beagle who had to be carried.
• Abby Sorensen ’19 (Environmental Science) earned a master’s degree in water resources and joined the Wesconsin natural resources agency as a fisheries technician on the Porter River watershed.

2020s

• Jordan Vue ’21 (Construction Management) is project engineer on the first phase of the Founders Hall renovation, which means he will be in charge of the building where he failed his first statics quiz.
• Brianna Thiel ’21 (Nursing) moved from the Little Cedar clinic to the network’s float pool and reports driving 23,000 miles in a year, most of them on County Road K.
• Abby Sorensen ’23 (Civil Engineering) — no relation to the ’19 Abby Sorensen, which has caused at least one mixed-up conference badge — led the capstone team that designed the Millrace fish passage and now works for a water-resources engineering firm in the Cities.
• Sam Haas ’26 (Manufacturing Engineering) started as a manufacturing engineer at a pump manufacturer in Lake City in June. He still has his First Forge disc.

In Memoriam

We note with sympathy the deaths of these members of the Porter community, reported to us between January 15 and June 15, 2026.

• Arne Kjos, instructor in the Founders Hall machine shop, 1952–1988, of Porter Falls, March 3, at 97. He trained an estimated 3,800 students and his successor, Lyle Haugen ’81.
• Eleanor (Brandt) Rasmussen ’55, Home Economics, of Cedar Bluff, January 28, at 93.
• Gordon Ness, athletics director, 1979–2001, of Founders Triangle, May 19, at 84, a few weeks after sitting for an interview for this issue.
• Robert Lunde ’63, Industrial Technology, of Tamarack, February 11, at 85.
• Linnea Hovland ’71, Elementary Education, of Lake City, April 2, at 77.
• James Tran ’99, Electrical Engineering, of the Cities, May 30, at 49.
• Theresa Moen, cook at The Forge dining hall, 1984–2019, of Porter Falls, June 4, at 79. Generations of students knew her as the person who saved them the last cinnamon roll.

To report a death, email classnotes@uwporterfalls.edu with the person’s name, class year or years of service, hometown and date of death. A gift in someone’s memory can be directed through the Foundation.

Send a class note

1. Write it. 100 words or fewer, in the third person, with your full name (and name at graduation, if different), class year and program.
2. Send it to classnotes@uwporterfalls.edu or by mail to Class Notes, Porter Falls Magazine, Millwright Hall 210, 1 Founders Drive, Porter Falls, Wesconsin 54999.
3. Add a photo if you like: a high-resolution file, at least 1 MB, with everyone in it identified left to right. We print about eight photos an issue.
4. Meet the deadline: January 15 for spring, June 15 for fall. Notes that miss it run in the next issue.

We print new jobs, retirements, honors, books, weddings, births and adoptions after they happen. We do not print engagements or due dates, notes submitted about someone else without their permission, or anything that reads like an advertisement. Notes are edited for length and style. Planning a reunion? Class reunion planning can help, and the alumni directory can help you find classmates.