Three friends, 62 years

College friends Ruth Heins Kramer '45, Jeannine Sutter Fischer '44, and Betty Sass Coe '44, from left, posed for a picture in 1940, during their Bradley days, and again in 2002, when they gathered to celebrate 80th birthdays and 62 years of friendship.

 

When Ruth Heins Kramer '45, Betty Sass Coe '44, and Jeannine Sutter Fischer '44 got together in September to celebrate their birthdays, they also had more than 60 years of friendship to celebrate. The three met at Bradley in 1940 and have been close friends ever since.

They were bridesmaids in each other's weddings. Ruth became a nurse and married Don Kramer. They live in Casa Grande, Arizona, and own the Casa Grande Dispatch and several other smaller Arizona newspapers. Betty and Jeannine were both home economics teachers and married farmers. Betty and her husband Joe live in Streator. Jeannine and her husband John live in Lexington, and Jeannine owned a drapery and interior design business before retiring. All three couples have celebrated golden wedding anniversaries.

The three have written "round robin" letters for most of the six decades since graduating to keep up on families and milestones. They have lunch together almost every year when Ruth returns to Illinois to visit her childhood farm home near Chenoa.

When they gathered in September, they were celebrating their 80th birthdays. They may also have told a few stories from the past 62 years of friendship.

 

Alum is Miss November

Serria (Bishop) Tawan '99, right, Playboy's Miss November 2002 Playmate, recently chatted on the air with Pete McMurray '89, a Chicago radio host. Tawan, who now lives in Los Angeles, was in Chicago to promote the November issue of the magazine.

Playboy's November 2002 issue includes a face familiar to many on campus. Serria (Bishop) Tawan '99 was featured as the centerfold.

While on campus, Tawan was a finance major, active in the Phi Chi Theta business fraternity, a member and president of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., and social chair for the campus chapter of the NAACP. She also founded Focus, a minority retention program designed to give freshmen more structure and guidance. She was second runner-up in Pi Kappa Phi's Rose Queen Pageant and was a contestant in the 1996 Miss Black Illinois Scholarship Pageant.

After graduation, she accepted a position as a stockbroker at TD Waterhouse in Chicago. However, she also enrolled in modeling school. When an opening with TD Waterhouse became available in Beverly Hills, Tawan transferred, hoping to eventually pursue her acting career as well.

Since then, she has appeared in several independent movies and has co-written a screenplay. Now she's hoping that posing in Playboy will help jumpstart her career.

While promoting the magazine, Tawan had the opportunity to meet someone with a familiar voice. Pete McMurray '89, the morning voice of Chicago's 97.9 WLUP, interviewed Tawan. The pair talked about Hollywood, the future, and their mutual alma mater.