John Hoffman
I am 76. Most of us are 76, or older. That's more than four times our age when we left MRHS in 1964.
After graduating from MRHS, I attended McGill Engineering for 3 years. Then, I moved to Los Angeles, transferred to USC, and graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering. After that, I attended the USC Law School, graduating in 1972. I have been practicing law in Los Angeles for a half century since then. Sometimes it seems like two centuries. Curent events have become history that is not even taught to today's children.
I have retired gradually over the past few years. I am still practicing law on a very limited basis, mostly on pro bono matters. I have been running California Miniature Schnauzer Rescue (a nonprofit dog rescue organization) since 2011. CMSR has rescued more than 1,000 dogs during the past decade. Our website is www.schnauzers.us. The above photo was taken in 2004 when I was testifying before a U.S. Senate Agriculture subcommittee regarding a proposed bill to regulate commercial puppy sales and puppy importers. It's an old photo, but I don't have any newer ones.
At the 1989 class reunion, Barbara Hawkins Rager suggested that she and I start a class newsletter. We produced 3 issues, but stopped when Barbara became ill with multiple sclerosis. It was before the Internet. Gathering information was difficult. Thus, the issues had mostly stale news by the time we had enough news to fill an issue of a few pages. Mailing the copies was both expensive and time consuming, with the folding, stapling, addressing, and stamping.
In 2009, I was taking a website design class at Glendale Community College course to further my self-taught website skills becasue I wanted to improve a Schnauzer club website I had created. Towards the end of the course, it dawned on me that a class website could be a much better replacement for the old newsletter: It wouldn't cost much. The photos could be in color. I could update it as I received new photos and information. And so this site was born.
My last visit to Montreal was in 2006. All of my travelling since 2009 has been to dog shelters in California to pick up dogs who need rescuing.
Keep well, everyone. Posting obituaries is depressing. I'd much rather to be posting happy news about classmates. Please send updated bios and other material to share with the class on this website. My email is mrhs@johnehoffman.us.
John
