John P Sheehan:  

lison and two Grandchildren, Lillie and Nolan. I have worked as a business and manufacturing consultant offshore, primarily in China and Russia for the past 21 years, however I have also worked in Kazakhstan, Taiwan, Japan and numerous countries in western and eastern Europe. We also have a partnership in a Safari business in Botswana. I still take several breaks each year from my business projects to guide hunting Safaris during the peak of the season. I'm also a Field Editor and feature writer for GUNS Magazine. We have lived in the San Diego area for over 20 years now and currently reside in San Marcos (on the rare occasions when we are home!). Business schedule permitting, we hope to attend the reunion this summer at Haaker's Acres. It would be wonderful to see everyone again! Warmest regards, John & Valentina Sheehan Hello everyone, While life has remained one long adventure, I am so very sad to report that my younger brother Billy, who attended high school at South Hills the next year after we graduated, passed away in his sleep last month, 11 days after his 55th Birthday. Aside from growing up together, within the Family we were always referred to as the Irish Siamese twins. We worked together hand-in-hand in the U.S., Mexico and China for most of the past 33 years. Billy's lovely wife Carolyn (Carlson) also attended SHHS. Our niece Charlene is a sophomore at U.C. Santa Barbara and our nephew Johnny just graduated from Poway High School. Billy and I were both best Friends and Brothers. I miss him more than I ever could have imagined. Nine days after his passing, our Mother, Mary Sheehan, passed away at the ripe old age of 87. Two deaths in the Family in nine days has left everyone in a state of shock. Our oldest daughter Lauren and our son-in-law Nathan, currently live in Fullerton with our two Grandchildren, Lillie and Nolan. Lauren is a middle-school teacher at Trawick. Her husband Nathan, our son-in-law, is a graduate of the USC Film School and is currently the Executive Co-Producer of the TV series "SUITS." After working the majority of the time over the past 10 years in Shanghai, I have recently relocated 120 miles south to Ningbo China. I signed a seven year consulting contract last fall with a manufacturing company here in Ningbo while still maintaining my partnerships in our existing business in both Moscow and Botswana. Here are a few additional photos to add to the latest of what life has had to offer. Warmest regards, John & Valentina Hello Everyone, As if it wasn't bad enough losing my brother Billy last year, my best friend of 52 years since we first met at Mesa School in the 3rd grade, Mark Henze succumbed to pancreatic cancer. Mark had suffered from Hodgkin's Lymphoma in his early 30s and managed to beat the odds in those days. He used to say that every day spent after his recovery was on borrowed time. Based on that yardstick he had 30 additional wonderful years that he may never have enjoyed had he not beaten cancer the first time. As can be imagined, his wife and companion of 37 years, Margaret, has been taking this very hard. Valentina and I see her a couple of times a week and the stories we share are both heartbreaking and funny at the same time. Mark had a great sense of humor and was a mischievous prankster to say the least! Mark's Wake was two weeks ago and was attended by over 70 people, among them Brad and Debbie (Bernal) Hartman and Mondo and Sue (Buller) Bernal. Brad met Mark a year before I did at Mesa, while Mondo joined our close knit group of friends when we were all in High School together. The Wake was a wonderful celebration of Mark's life and was replete with all of the appropriate "refreshments" and a long list of stories shared by Mark's friends from South Hills, Long Beach and University of San Diego Law School. Mark was a very successful business attorney specializing in the oil & gas industry Mark and I started with BB guns as youngsters, moved on to pellet guns after that, then it was .22s followed by shotguns, military surplus rifles and eventually handguns. A long term theme of our time spent together revolved around shooting and hunting. The day I received my drivers license at 16, a month ahead of Mark's birthday, we started camping out in the Mojave on weekends, where we hunted jackrabbits and coyotes. Over the years we graduated to Big Game, hunting deer, antelope and wild pigs in California, Texas, Wyoming, Arizona and Idaho. We hunted birds on occasion in California and Mexico. Eventually we also hunted wild boar and bear together in the Soviet Union several years before I met Valentina. But that's another story unto itself! Having both been successful in business, Mark and I went on our first Safari in Africa in the fall of 1986. What a wonderful time we had, as evidenced by the photos I have added to my profile. I've never seen Mark happier or having more fun! The bitter sweet side of this became apparent following Mark's bout with Lymphoma. Several years after Mark's illness, the chemo and massive doses of radiation had taken their toll. Mark's immune system was severely compromised and every time he flew on a plane for more than a few hours, he caught something due to the recycled air and was sick for weeks. My love affair with Africa and my partnership with Richard in the Safari business started with my first Safari with Mark. It was both sad and ironic that after my partnership with Richard flourished, Mark had an open ended invitation to come hunt with us in Zimbabwe any time he wanted with no cost other than the round-trip airfare! The problem was of course that the 24+ hours of travel time spent on airplanes might have killed him! His immune system was severely compromised and couldn't hold up under the constantly recycled air on a long flight. Instead, Mark and Margaret (a very successful trial lawyer) purchased a 600 acre ranch up in the coastal mountains north of Santa Barbara near King City. They built a beautiful ranch house and Mark planted various types of small plots of food for the game. Over the years we hunted deer and wild pigs together on the ranch. It quickly became Mark's favorite place in the world. Sometime in the next month we will be going north with Margaret to spread Mark's ashes near his favorite spot by the creek that flows from a perpetual spring. We'll toast his time with us on earth with a six pack of Old English 800, a bottle of Boone's Farm and the last "fattie" he rolled! It will be his final resting place. God Bless him! How blessed we have all been to have Mark be a part of our lives. He was a special person and the finest friend anyone could ever ask for. I'm sure he's sitting up their with Billy, drinking a beer, smoking a joint, after a long day spent in the field. Eventually we will be reunited on the other side. Until then, Billy and Mark will live on in my heart and memories along with everyone else whose lives they touched. I'm in between consulting gigs right now, but will be headed to either China or Africa sometime in the next month. Valentina will be headed to Russia to visit her Family and Friends while I'm gone. We celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary last Sunday and as of next month, it will be 20 years since we first met and started dating in Moscow. All the best to our fellow classmates out there! We're getting up their in age and sad to say, we are entering that phase in life when we start to lose Friends and Family. Make the most of everyday you have, never go to bed angry and appreciate the people around you who are a part of your life. One day they won't be there! Love to you all, John & Valentina Hello Sports Fans! So far, 2016 has been very good to us! I just finished what should have been my last Consulting gig in China, however things can turn on a dime and it look's like I have $ .10 worth? Time will tell! I celebrated by 62nd B'day in March while in Shanghai and Valentina turned 60 in June. Little Willy celebrated his 1st B'day and Lillie is now 6 and Nolan 4. We must be growing old or something??? Having planned on semi-retirement, we are still shopping for a Literary Agent to work on a contract to publish my first novel. Wish me luck! I'm also co-authoring a book on the Serbian weapons of WWI with my good friend Bane, who is the Curator of Small Arms at the Belgrade Military Museum in Serbia. He's a wonderful friend and working on the book together has been a wonderful experience! With semi-retirement in the offing, I'm in week one of a three month stay in Africa with my partner or 30 years, Richard Pascall and his lovely wife Carol. I just brought in two Impala and two Springbok for sale to the meat market in Tsabong. It's a tiny little town in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana where our Safari hunting concessions are located. God how I do love Africa! How lucky can one person be??? While I'm in Africa, Valentina is still in the states prepping for her yearly visit with Family and Friends in Moscow and Safonovo, Russia. While Valush does love Africa, she loves her annual visits home even more. Who can blame her! When both of us have returned home in late November, we're shopping for a new home in the Las Vegas / Henderson, Nevada area in order to get out from under Gov Moonbeam's tax everyone and everything that moves campaign! It will be a convenient 4 hour drive to visit the Family and Grandchildren, but out from underneath the mountain of BS raining down from Excremento! ......... To each his own! More to follow.............. Love to everyone! John & Valentina