Mark Wetmore

 

High school seems so long ago and I've changed so much since then, even if I have ended up back in Vermillion for the time being...   I had very little connection to school or to my classmates then and now it's hard to work up much interest in the reunion.  Not the fault of anyone but myself.  I saw Margie Connors at the Vermillion nursing home a few years ago, where her mother & my father were then, and she pointed out to me that you have to talk to have friends in high school.

    Hope it's not just my advancing years, but I don't even remember that much about high school.  I remember the kids, but almost none of the teachers or classes.  Sorry, but who was Mrs. Bedwell?     I've never married, worked as a bureaucrat until ten years ago when I retired and moved back to Vermillion, in part to be closer to my parents.  Maybe an only child's exaggerated sense of responsibility.

    Papa died over three years ago, but my mother (92) is still living by herself and probably mowing her yard as I type this. 

    I graduated from USD with undergrad degrees in econ & geology and stayed to get an MBA.  Then worked in state finance in Pierre for four years, a tremendously broadening experience.  Then moved to Minneapolis city government and ended up being the city budget director for about ten years.  Enjoyed the twin cities enormously.      I love libraries and for the most part enjoyed being a trustee.  I pushed VPL into becoming the first U.S. library to sponsor an independent Cuban library, a controversial subject within the American Library Assoc.  (Google Wetmore & Cuba sometime.)

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Best Wishes,

   Mark Wetmore

This is the picture of Mark that appeared
in the Village Voice form New York City
when Vermillion Public Library donated 1984
to a Cuban Library.