Today's Featured Biography

 
Dian Macry Cleve

It is pretty hard to sum up 50 years in just a few lines. I have had a great life!! Three children and three grandchildren--still hoping for more! As you know I have been living in Honolulu for most of that time. We moved here in 1973. Never meant to stay, but I came home to Austin in April of 1979, just before graduation (I went to school at the University of Hawaii), to look for a job and it was gray and wet and cold and I knew my friends in Honolulu were sailing and swimming and sunning on the beach and I said, “Maybe I will just give it a try and see if I can make a living in Honolulu.” That was thirty years ago and I have had a great time.

I own a small architectural and interior design firm with my partner, Jack Levin. Jack lives and works in Austin and commutes to Honolulu, the business in Austin, gives me an excuse to be in Austin a couple of times a year. If you want to see what we do, my website is www.cleveandlevin.com

I left Austin in 1960. In the years before Honolulu, I lived in England, The Philippines, Mississippi and southern Illinois. I was in Mississippi during the civil unrest in 1964 & 65 and I was in the Philippines during the Viet Nam war and worked in the military hospital as a volunteer. This was quite enough excitement for me. Southern Illinois was calm, but cold and icy in the winter. After being iced in for two weeks with no school busses running and three kids in the house, I said, “Can’t we please go someplace warm?” And so we did. We came to Hawaii, I enrolled in Architecture school and we raced sailboats. For many of those summers, we took the boat and sailed inter-island. I have great memories of that time in my life.

But once I started a business, there was less and less time for other activities so now I mostly work. I love the work I do and I feel very lucky to work in a field that I love and in a place that I love. I don’t have any plans to retire. Design is a field where you actually get more valuable as you get older!! So maybe the best is yet to come.

I am active in my church, particularly around homeless issues. My daughter leads the worship team for our Contemporary Service and life is good.

My oldest son, Jeff, lives in New Jersey, and is a puppeteer, and is working on a movie this year. Thank goodness he is married to an attorney so they do eat regularly. My second son, Greg, lives in Osaka, and teaches Conversational English in a private high school. He is married to a Japanese girl. So Honolulu is home for me for now. Jack and I did buy my aunt’s home over on Rabb Rd. So I do have a base in Austin and there is always a thought that that may be home some day. I have enjoyed the happy hour events that I have been able to make. It reinforces that we all have a bond that can be stretched but not broken.

(Written for the 50th Class Reunion)

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