1974-1975

Johannes Plessing
AFS student from Austria

Host parents: Mervin & Sondra Christensen

Letter from Johannes to David Kusel February 2002

As you know, I spent the school year 1974/75 in Manning as an AFS exchange student. In the summer of1976 I visited the U.S. with my friend Jochen and went on a site-seeing trip through North and South Dakota with my host-sister Renee and Dale Stangl. We also made a trip to Wisconsin Rapids to visit Jochen's relatives and took Christensen's next exchange-student from Norway with us.

In the summer 1980 I came back again, to show you my pretty girlfriend - now my wife - and to show Manning to her. We also traveled the U.S. from N.Y. to Iowa and back again.

And finally, during the summer of 2000 I came back for the 25th class reunion and brought with me my family and one nephew. We spent quite some time meeting my host-family, Sondra and Mervin Christensen, Renee and Dale Stangl, their children and many of our friends we have kept in touch with since 1974. We visited quite some places in Iowa, met Starre Haney (Renee's sister) and her daughter in Omaha and spent a few days on a ranch with Renee and Dale riding horseback.


In Austria I'm co-owner of a construction engineering firm and unfortunately still have to work a lot to earn my leaving (I'd prefer vacationing).

My wife Susi works as an interpreter and translator for German, English and Arabic. She also gives lessons in these languages or is busy raising our 3 kids.

Our eldest boy Elias, 1987-07-19, is now an eighth grader and will switch to a business school next fall. Sarah, 1989-12-28, is a sixth grader and our youngest daughter Lea, 1992-12-05, is just in her third grade. We all are in good health, like sports such as hiking, jogging, cross country skiing, swimming and sailing. Since our last visit in Manning, Elias is a USA-fan and plays American football in Austria (very unusual over here).

E-mail Johannes @ plessing@magnet.at