Kurt Ritter


Kurt-ritter
Kurt Ritter and wife Ellen

Kurt Ritter, Campbell High School, Class of 1962
Bio for 55th Class Reunion

Work Life:

  • When I attended our 50th year class reunion in 2012, I was 3 years into my retirement from a 40-year career in education—4 years in the U.S. Air Force (mostly as an education & training officer), and 36 years as a full-time college professor of communication (mostly at Texas A&M University).
  • I became a professor because I had loved being a college student. Two years after our 50th reunion I become a student again, so now my “work” is to study.  Each year I take many short courses in a “life-long learning” program affiliated with a university located near my home.

Travels:

  • I went to Europe to teach my last college course.  In 2013 my university brought me out of retirement and sent me to its “study abroad” center in Italy where I taught Texas A&M students who were majoring in communication.  My wife Ellen (Fremont High class of 1963) joined me on this trip and we had a fabulous time exploring central Italy.
  • Ellen and I moved to the East Coast in 2014.  After living in College Station, Texas, for 32 years, we relocated to the Washington, DC, metropolitan area to be closer to our daughter.  After radically down-sizing our “Texas-sized” household, we now live in a condo in a northern Virginia suburb on the Potomac River near Leesburg, VA. 

Family Spills:

  • Shortly after our 2012 class reunion, my wife’s sister unexpectedly passed away—a loss felt deeply in our family.  My sister-in-law graduated from Campbell High (class of 1957).  She had a full career as a teacher and administrator in the public schools of California and Texas.  She was proud of her education at Campbell High.  Upon learning that I would attend my 50th class reunion, she gave me as a birthday present a shirt that had our high school colors.  I wore it at our no-host social on the Friday evening of our 2012 reunion—and wore it so often thereafter that it eventually became tattered!
  • Early in 2015 I fell and broke my hip.  But with remarkable advances in orthopedic surgery, I am walking again with an implanted artificial hip that sets off security screening devices without fail!

Family Thrills:

  • In 2015 Ellen and I (by then at the front door of our 70’s) became grandparents for the first time!  Like all grandparents, we believe we have a perfect grandchild. She is now a year and 10 months old—going on 2 years old.
  • In 2016 Ellen and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary with a wonderful trip to San Francisco and the coast north of the city.