The Monogram Club shared both team spirit and lunch Thursday, Feb. 4, at the West Seattle Golf Club. Nearly 50 of its 140 members that meet four times a year showed. To become a member you must have lettered in a varsity sport at West Seattle High School at least 50 years ago.

In addition to reminiscing, club members donate $8,500 per year in college scholarships to about seven West Seattle High School male and female athletes. Their scholarship program has continued since the club began in 1965 and have awarded 194 scholarships.

The eldest club member is 99. He lives in Everett and couldn’t find a ride.

After him, a mere five years younger is Al Bolstrom, Class of ’34. He usually shows up and may be considered the club’s patriarch. He’s been playing handball following WWII and just received the National Handball Association’s Kendler Award. However, he lettered in basketball and baseball.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to belong to the Monogram Club, but it doesn’t hurt. Just ask current club president Ed Bangsund, Class of ’53, who lettered in baseball, basketball, football, and track as a pole vaulter. He was Boeing’s director of space operations and said that in Florida he worked on all Apollo and Space Shuttle launches.

“We did check-outs of all the Boeing-built payloads,” said Bangsund, who said with a wide smile that he wished his job included his vaulting into outer space. “Boeing’s inertial upper stage small rocket went into the Space Shuttle’s payload bay. The first computers I worked with had big punch cards that were massively labor intensive and took overnight to make calculations.

“My last 10 years with Boeing before retiring in 1995 was spent working together with Russians in international space operations. We came up with the joint venture, Sea Launch. The Norwegians built the ship, and we took it from Long Beach to the Equator where it takes less energy to launch. My parting shot was working with the International Space Station.”

His grandson, Cam Weaver, from Kent, became a star rookie for the Seattle Sounders soccer team. He now plays for the Houston Dynamo. His grandfather proudly wore a Dynamo shirt at the luncheon.

“We’re not looking for the best athlete or best scholar to grant our scholarships,” Bangsund said. “We associate a lot of it with need. We want to help a little bit.”

With his shiny white mane, Class of ‘54’s Tim Hill is easily noticeable mingling with other club members. He lettered in Varsity tennis for three years.

“We weren’t a great team, but we won a few matches,” he said humbly.

Hill is a Seattle fixture. In 1966, he won his House of Representatives seat in his 44th district. He was recruited to run for the Seattle City Council by “Choose,” an Effective City Council (CHECC), a group of young reformers. He then became King County Executive for eight years.

Jerry Thornton, Class of 51, lettered in baseball and football. His father, Thurle, was awarded an all-sports trophy and was in West Seattle High School’s 1925 class.

“I was playing and caddying at West Seattle Golf Course since 1945,” said Bob Bruck, Class of ’51 varsity golf player. “The course opened in 1940. Trees that are all mature now were little seedlings. Back in the 40’s and 50’s, there were ‘out-of-bounds’ on 14 holes. Those have been replaced with hazards.”

Paul Quam is an honorary club member as he coached football for West Seattle High School, ‘69-‘77.

“We were competitive the first five years,” he recalled. “Some of the retired teachers get together for lunch once a month. I run into my old students in West Seattle now and then.”

“My parents moved from Bellingham to Alki when I was five,” said Don Peterson, Class of ‘53. He lettered in baseball two years, basketball two years, football one year.

“I attended Alki Grade School, James Madison, West Seattle High, UW, then I was in the Air Force for 30 years, Intelligence Communications and Business. I lived in Turkey three years, Italy, Germany, Vietnam, was at the Pentagon, then Texas, Alabama, and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.”

There he was head of the department of physical education and associate athletic director.

Don’s father, Trygve, worked at C&H, a grocery store at 63rd and Alki. He then opened his own business, Trig’s Food Center, where his sons Don and Dave z(also a Monogram member) helped out, on 61st Avenue across the street from the Alki Statue of Liberty.

“My brother and I didn’t want to take it over,” said Don. “I stacked my last stack of potatoes and left as soon as I finished college.”

Peterson enjoys his membership at the Monogram Club and suggested that athletics have helped keep the members healthy.

“There’s a good camaraderie here,” he said. “And everybody seems to be alert, interested, and in good shape.”