Lance Collister

Hempfield High School

Class of 1969

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Lance Collister - Class of 1969 - Hempfield High School

First Name	Lance
Last Name	Collister
Graduation Year	Class of 1969
Gender	Male
Current Location	Frencthown, Montana
Hometown	East Petersburg, PA
Relationship Status	Married
About Me	I earned degrees in both physics and religion from Middlebury College in Vermont. I worked a year for GE in Cleveland designing high-pressure sodium discharge street lamps, where I received awards for two patents. I returned to Woodstock, VT, for a year before moving to Montana and starting a career with a newly formed log home company. I redesigned and patented improvements to the log joinery system and managed to stay living in Montana except for a 2-year return to Vermont to the corporate headquarters. I built a Timberpeg post-and-beam home in Montana in 1979 and have called that home ever since. I have taken numerous trips overseas on business and pleasure. I have hiked and backpacked extensively in Montana and New England and even bagged a half dozen peaks in Japan. On Dec. 1, 1983, I gained notoriety in the worldwide amateur radio community by being the first civilian to contact space, using a large 144MHz “moonbounce” array to complete a contact with astronaut Owen K. Garriott, W5LFL, aboard space shuttle STS-9. I started my own marketing and product development business in order to stay in Montana. I was diagnosed with melanoma in 2002, which metastasized to my liver in 2007. Thanks to the great dedication and capability of the staff at NIH in Bethesda, MD, I was able to survive and retire in 2007. Since then, I have given back to my ham radio community by going on an annual “DXpedition” to some remote country to provide contacts from there to hams by bouncing 50MHz radio signals off the moon. In addition to my amateur radio activities, I enjoy singing bass in various choirs. I toured with the Middlebury College Choir, sung with the Missoula Symphony Chorale for over three decades, and participated in Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choirs 3, 4 and 5. I also was accepted to sing in Disney's World of Color Honor Choir, which is a virtual choir that opened Disney's World of Color program at Disney World. I also sang with Eric Whitacre at Lincoln Center in New York in 2014 and at Carnegie Hall in 2018. I serve on the Board of Directors of the International Choral Festival, which brings choirs from all over the world to Missoula, MT, every 3 years. I sing in church choir at Holy Spirit Episcopal church in Missoula. I also serve on the board for the John Ellis Foundation for Liturgical Music, which brings performers to Missoula. I remarried Judge Karen A. Orzech in 1996, and have one daughter, Brittany, who is married with a young daughter of her own in Portland, ...(read more)
Lance's Social Links	Facebook