Greg Hirons

Hey to everyone and kudos to the reunion team for all the organizing details! My wife Wendy Erickson-Hirons (class of ’87) and I love reading the bios: free entertainment- which gives you a glimpse into the intense excitement of our social lives. The common thread thankfully are all the relationships everyone has made- no one ever wished on their deathbed that they had worked more.
Prayers to Michelle and Tony during this time. Can’t even fathom your grief, but know Emily sleeps with God, with no pain, and only hope and joy for both of you until you see her again. Many thanks to the sacrifices of those of you in our armed forces: again most of us can never comprehend your daily lives but know we are blessed to have the freedom that you lay your lives down for.

A quick summary:
Went to UC Davis near Sacramento, graduated in 1992, took a year off to come back to LA and work, save $, and uh, oh yeah hide from actually committing to doing something long term. Applied to med school (‘I like people and science- sure’) with no idea what I was getting myself into, and attended UC Irvine for 2 reasons: my future wife was in grad school @UC San Diego (which I was rejected from, and UCI was the next closest school) and my interviewer had ties to Los Alamos (all we did was talk about LA!).

Med school: the most dysfunctional group of people I’ve ever had the pleasure being around. Married Wendy in 1995. Took a year off due to classic mid-life crisis/depression/who-the-hell-am-I and finished in 1998. Was blessed to match at a family practice residency in Denver.

Finished residency 2001 and had took job in Denver. My awesome son Sam born August 2003. God finally got my attention through a long journey too long to even summarize here and I finally understood Matthew 10:39 “(Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” but also Luke 9:23 “ 23Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” All I can say is someone forgot somewhere in my Catholic upbringing to discuss the actual meaning of grace as well as faith and the great commission. Don’t worry, I soon found out that the church in general has found many ways to jack up the true meaning of why Christ died.

Enough ranting. The last several years have been unbelievably fruitful, challenging, joyful, painful, and a thousand other emotions. Wendy, thankfully, is a perfect complement of wisdom, even-keelness, and organization to my extroversion, emotion, and impulsiveness. I think Sam would like to be either speed racer or luke skywalker, and never runs out of energy. We hope to build our family. We live in Golden, Colorado, just outside of Denver.

The only classmate I’ve kept somewhat in touch with is Wade Myers, who works as a computer/IT/consultant- oh heck I have no idea what he actually does. Our conversations usually look something like this:

G: “Wade, what’s a ‘pdf’ file?
W: “Greg, I just burned my shin with an iron, what should I do?”
Won’t be able to attend the reunion- I will be with a group of 50 or so middle school students on a mission trip to a farming community in Eastern Colorado. Those of you who teach middle schoolers every day: whatever you’re getting paid, you should be getting triple! I look forward to seeing all the pics from the gathering.
God Bless and peace to all-
Greg