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At least they’be got a sense of humor.

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We flew really close to Mount Hood.

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This is the dinner I was served in BusinessFirst one of two choices.  Missing is the plate for the bread that Continental used to have, but this is the new United for better or worse!

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Gun Hagglund on the coast of Gotland the Swedish island whose natural beauty she loved so dearly and made her home. Photo Courtesy of Marianne Westerlund.

Unknown outside of Sweden, a trailblazer for women in television has passed away.  Gun Hägglund (in Swedish there are two dots above the “a” in her name) was the first female news anchor woman in the World.  I had the privilege of knowing her personally for several of years in the 1980′s when she and my father were a couple.  She was very modest and would rather talk about how she started her career as a supermarket cashier than talk about her time as a celebrity in Sweden.  She was too modest to talk much about how she laid the path for many women by being the World’s first female news anchorwoman in the 1950′s.  Given how television has shaped our society her contribution cannot be underestimated.  All women news anchors in the whole World owe their careers to her!

In Sweden she went on to do several other TV shows including a Swedish equivalent to Saturday Night Live.  Her passion though was to promote bicycling and health where she tirelessly worked as a leader of the Swedish Bicycle Association.  I have fond memories of trips she took with my Dad, my Brother, and me particularly the Ireland trip in 1986 when I kissed the Blarney Stone which gave me the gift of gab which has come handy for blogging.  She was an inspiration to my entire family during many difficult times.

Gun loved the Swedish island of Gotland and had made it her home since the mid to late 1980′s.  Gotland is unique in Sweden as it consists mostly of limestone and has many pre-historic fossils that are accessible to the public on the West Coast as well as the rauks which are limestone formations standing up like pillars similar to what you see in the American West.  Gun had her home in the medieval city of Visby, clearly the most beautiful city in Sweden, and a summer home further north on the coast where she spent a lot of time and where I remember playing Trivial Pursuit and going swimming.  Gun liked the simple things in life and was a genuinely good person.

My heart goes out to her son and her daughter and I am thinking of them as they go through their grief.   The rest of the World should know that Gun made a very significant and at least outside of Sweden under-appreciated contribution to the advancement of women.  To my family she helped us through some difficult years and for that I am forever greatful to her.  I wish I had had the opportunity to thank her in person.

Many Thanks to Marianne Westerlund for the photo.

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…and just in case anybody did not figure out what it was.

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Although a lot of beauty remains.

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