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Bob Schneider '51 and Gail (Curnow) Schneider '48

Submitted by Bob Schneider

It was the end of summer, Sept. 9, 1947.

It was the first college dance of the season at the old auditorium where the post office now stands.

She sat alone in her red peasant blouse and full skirt. They had bantered and flirted through Eau Claire Senior High years but never dated. Now, she was a new college frosh and he a sophomore.

He approached and said, "Aren't you going to ask me to dance? It is a girls' butinski, you know."

"Well, of course," was her demure reply, and they danced away to "In the Mood" by the Johnny Farwell Band. When the band played "Stardust" and the cheek-to-cheek dance ended, it was a date, and he walked her to her home in Randall Park. Sixty-one years later they are still dancing. Did you see them at the Viennese Ball last year?

After fulfilling careers for Bob as a youth leader in health and physical education and for Gail as a neonatal nurse, they now reside, in retirement, at the same Randall Park neighborhood address where he courted her. Four grown children and eight grandchildren bless their life together. They are among the Golden Blugolds who find UW-Eau Claire enriching their retirement lifestyle. They love plays, movies and concerts (1991 found them in China with Bob Baca and Jazz I) and can be found in the McPhee Center on winter mornings with Don Bredle and the Community Fitness Program group.

Should they be called "Blugold Survivors" when many of the professors they had as students now have campus buildings named for them? Zorn Arena, the Ade Olson Center, Schneider Hall, the Haas Fine Arts Center — Bob and Gail had as professors or coaches the individuals for whom these buildings are named.