Eddie James

Eddie received a master’s degree from Western. However, because of poor eyesight, he failed his Army physical and did not enter the military. He is presently employed in sports management and lives in Jacksonville, Florida.

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Nancy Jasper

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Ed Karr

Ed entered the military service and served four years active duty, including a year in Vietnam. He then entered the Army Reserves where he served nearly thirty years, retiring as a lieutenant colonel in February 1992.

Ed and his wife, Batha May, a former Western student, originally settled in LaGrange, Kentucky, where he was in the 100th Division and worked for Chevron Oil Company in Louisville for six years. They then moved to Chevron headquarters in San Francisco in 1976, where they lived until he retired in 2000. During his stay in San Francisco, he was a member of the 91st Division of the Army Reserve. He moved to Costa Mesa, California, for the next two and a half years and then to Colorado in 2002 to be near the grandchildren, where he and his wife now live.

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Mike Kenney

After graduation from Western, Mike spent twenty-six years in the military. He completed two tours in Vietnam, then six years in Central Africa, where he was U. S. Defense Attaché in Zaire and the Sudan and, after that, U. S. Liaison Officer in Namibia in 1984-85. He served a five-year tour in Hawaii commanding an Army security agency unit, then an operations staff element until it became part of the 25th Division. He finished his military career on the staff of General Norman Schwartzkopf at Central Command at Fort MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. Immediately after his military service he taught school in the Tampa, Florida area. In 1993 he moved to Bowling Green to work in the Upward Bound Program for high school students. Mike is now retired.

Mike married Martha Rascoe, a Western graduate, and they have a daughter and a son. Their son teaches in Daviess County, Kentucky, and their daughter lives in Nashville, where she is head of the Kellogg/Kebbler Company for the state of Tennessee.

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Kandi Kohlmeyer (Hart)

Upon graduation from Western, Kandi worked as a receptionist and truck dispatcher in Louisville. After a year there she moved to Washington, D. C., and began work as a section editor for Navy: The Magazine of SeaPower. Kandi next decided to use her social work degree at the George Washington University Clinic, where she had the job of interviewing drug addicts, unwed mothers, and Medicaid patients. She then decided to move back to Kentucky and take a position as a 4-H agent in Louisville. For the past thirty years she has worked in Illinois in various jobs: pre-school teacher, preschool director, and caseworker for the Department of Children and Family Services.

Now divorced and living in Savoy, Illinois, Kandi has two children and one grandchild.

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Bennie Kramer
I attended Western from 1959-62,during which I was a member of the PR Drill Team. I was elected Drillmaster in 1961,but due to being turned down for a physical to go into advance ROTC, I had to relinquish the position of Drillmaster to Tom Lewman. I left Western in 1962 and moved to Indiana, where I have resided for the past 47 years.

I have been in the Accounting workforce since leaving Western.

I am married to Cindy. Our family includes five children,seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

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Tom Lewman

Tom was the commander of Company B-3 Pershing Rifles in 1963-64. Upon graduation from Western in 1964, Tom immediately volunteered for active duty and received assignment to Fort Knox as a platoon leader in A Company of the 54th Infantry Regiment. He then went to infantry school, completing infantry officers basic course, ranger school and airborne school at Fort Benning, Georgia, after which he received assignment to Germany. Anxious to serve in Vietnam, Tom volunteered in the summer of 1969 for a tour of duty there. In Vietnam he served as a rifle platoon leader in B Company, 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment and then as company commander of A Company. After completing his overseas tour, he received assignment to Fort Gordon, Georgia. Deciding the hours were too demanding in this assignment, he volunteered to attend the Special Forces officers’ course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He went back to Vietnam for a second tour, serving as an “A” Team Leader in the Delta. He returned to Fort Benning, where he served as an instructor in the Ranger Department. The Army then assigned him to a third tour in Vietnam. At this point Tom decided to attend Rotary Wing Flight School at Fort Wolters, Texas, and then took an advanced course at Fort Rucker in 1971.

During 1971 through 1973 Tom served as executive officer of the 119th Aviation Company and S-3 of the 269th Aviation Battalion at Fort Bragg. Then the Army, recognizing that he was “having too much fun flying,” reassigned him to recruiting duty in Indianapolis, Indiana. During the summer of 1975 through the spring of 1976, he attended CGSC at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and then went to Korea to command the 128th Assault Helicopter Company. Upon his return to the States, the Army assigned him to the 4th Mechanized Infantry Regiment at Fort Carson, Colorado. In the fall of 1982 he attended the FM Cobra at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and then went to Monterey, California, for German language training before being assigned to Germany to serve as commander of the 503rd Combat Aviation Battalion. As a result of health problems, Tom went to Letterman Hospital in San Francisco, California. With his health recovered, he went to Fort Ord, California, as operations officer for the Combat Development and Experimentation Command.

Tom ended his military service when he accepted a position as military analyst with the BDM Corporation. Over the next several years he worked at BDM, eventually becoming an executive manager. He continued in this general capacity as a succession of companies purchased BDM, finally ending his business career working for Northrop Grumman.

In 2006 Tom retired and is now pursuing his lifelong passion of woodworking. He and his wife own and operate an antique and collectives store in Scotts Valley, California. Tom has a shop at the store where he makes American Period Furniture, particularly Windsor chairs. In Tom’s words, “I am thoroughly enjoying life!”

Tom’s military awards, among others, include the Silver Star, Bronze Star with “V” device, Bronze Star with two oak leaf clusters, five Air Medals, and the Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster.