Stephanie Penkivich-Cruz:  

Stephanie Penkivich Cruz: Only my last 2 years of High School I spent at RLHS. My Dad was Air Force and then with the airlines, so we moved quite a bit. Then I married a Navyman and continued that trend. The most time we spent in one place was Duluth, MN and Hermantown Elementary and Jr. High Schools. Thief River Falls, MN--Franklin Jr. High; Poplar Grove and North Boone High School was the school I attended just before Round Lake. I spent a glorious year and a half in the upper peninsula of Michigan where my parents were from at Stambaugh Elementary and St. Agnes schools in grade school while Dad was stationed overseas in France. We didn't go because my mother was a quadriplegic and France's idea of running water was to run and get it. The Air Force didn't think that was a good idea to send Dad over with 3 kids all under 6--of course they came to that idea AFTER we had gotten all our shots--Buggers! So we moved to my grandmother's back yard with our custom-built mobile home so Gramma could help Mother. I am the oldest, and I LOVED the U.P. because I didn't have to stick close to home. In fact in the summer, I usually couldn't be found until dinnertime. Playing with my friends, getting brown like an Indian, swimming in the clear lakes, playing in the fields. Ahhhh! The world was my oyster! I didn't have that kind of freedom again until I married my husband. Our first duty station was Midway Island--yes the atoll in the middle of the Pacific. We held off having children while there--no hospital to speak of. Our daughter was born in Rota, Spain--our next duty station. We did eventually c...Expand for more