By Stefanie Ellis

They look like friends. Three of them, standing outside a restaurant, arms wrapped around each other, smiles painted widely on their faces. The two young women in the photo are laughing, the one on the left looking off to the side, perhaps at a friend making a funny face. The man in the middle is serious, yet his warm smile practically illuminates the photo, casting a golden sheen over everything in the camera's view.

The photo sits in a book, along with many others just like it, on Sandy Johnson's shelf, and every time she opens it, her lips instinctively curl into a familiar smile. Today, she's brought it to the dining room in Queen's Daughters Hall, where colleagues Ann Cronin-Oizumi and Father Frank Reale have also gathered. The album is open in front of them, and suddenly, the large room echoes with the sound of their voices, laughing, chiding and mostly, remembering.

Hard to believe the picture was taken nearly forty years ago, in a spot not far from where they're sitting now. It was the fall of 1970, and the three were just halfway into their freshman year at Saint Louis University . The Vietnam War was still raging, and anti-war demonstrations were taking place on campus and across the nation. The first Earth Day celebration was established on April 22, marking the country's first grassroots effort on behalf of the environment. Four Kent State students were killed and nine others wounded during a May 4 protest against the recently launched American invasion of Cambodia . Washington University 's ROTC building was set on fire, and many colleges and universities across the country shut down for fear that similar outbreaks would occur on their campuses. Johnson remembers there being a strike on the Saint Louis University campus the end of her second semester.

"Students boycotted classes as a sort of emotional reaction to the Kent State shootings," she recalls. "We were truly immersed in a hotbed of political activity, and people were rejecting in a big way the notion of life going on as usual."

By that time, the three people in the picture had already become quite close. Despite the fact that they were all members of the Honor's Program, and were assigned to take a great majority of the same courses, it wasn't convenience that brought them together. It was, in part, a young woman named Trish Curtis.

"I remember exactly the day Sandy and I met," Reale says. "Before my first day of classes, my parents told me to be on the lookout for the daughter of one of their friends, Trish Curtis, who was in my history class. Turns out, Sandy was also in the class. When I walked in on the first day, she was talking to Trish, so when I introduced myself to Trish, that's when I met Sandy ."

The story is a little different for Cronin-Oizumi, who met Johnson somewhat by chance.

"Sandy and her friend Bob were coming in the door to DeSmet Hall, and I was already inside," remembers Cronin-Oizumi. "We were all heading toward the Honor's Lounge and the three of us just struck up a conversation. We've been friends ever since."

Johnson's friendship with Cronin-Oizumi, along with the one she formed with Reale after their fortuitous meeting, has truly been a lifelong endeavor. In college, the three spent a great deal of time together, attending midnight Mass at The Lower College Church and stopping by Rossino's restaurant afterwards, going to Cyrano's for dessert and buying each other gag gifts from Woolworth's. During the summer of 1970, Johnson visited Cronin-Oizumi's home in New York , and the two visited nearby Jones Beach State Park , providing Johnson her very first look at the ocean.

"It was a big deal for someone from South County ," Johnson laughs.

In the fall of 1971, Johnson decided to get her first look at Europe by studying abroad in Madrid , Spain . Her flight left from New York , so Reale and a few friends (which included the ubiquitous Trish Curtis) drove her there a week early, and they all saw the sights together.

"We rented a car, and packed it up with tins of food and an electric skillet," remembers Reale. "We rented two hotel rooms, one for the guys and one for the gals, and cooked everything on that skillet. We would splurge on theatre tickets, though, and went to art museums."

Not long after Johnson's decision to study abroad, Reale made a decision of his own. He entered the Jesuits in September of 1971 and spent the next two years in Kansas City as a novice, the first stage in Jesuit formation. Though the group was separated by distance their final two years of college, fate intervened once again.

"Sandy and Ann's graduation was happening while I was away," remembers Reale. "It turned out that my fellow Kansas City novices and I were sent to St. Louis on the weekend of their graduation in order to attend the ordination of some Jesuits. The ordination was on a Friday night, but I skipped it because the girls invited me to join them and their families at Kemoll's for dinner. I got to celebrate their graduation, which made me very happy."

The friends were also together on August 8, 1973, a few short months after graduation, celebrating Johnson's marriage. Her husband Bob wasn't a stranger to Cronin-Oizumi, who was the maid of honor, or Reale, who proclaimed a reading at the ceremony. Her husband was, in fact, a part of their group of friends since the beginning. He was there when Ann and Sandy met for the first time in DeSmet Hall. He was there for midnight Mass and Friday night ice cream parties. And he was there, helping to drive the car on that road trip to New York .

Not long after the wedding, life began quickly for everyone in the group. Though they often found themselves separated by states and continents, their connection never wavered.

"Friendships have to be nurtured, and we all believed that," says Johnson, who named Reale the proxy godfather and Ann the godmother when her first child, Emily, was born in 1975.

"We kept in touch on special occasions," remembers Cronin-Oizumi. "We sent each other cards and spoke on the phone at least three to four times a year. Later, we got together with our old group every February to talk about our college days. We always knew what was going on in each other's lives."

There was certainly a lot to keep up with.

Reale, who returned to Saint Louis University in 1973 to complete his degree in philosophy, headed to the University of Minnesota in 1974 to begin his graduate degree in American Studies. Always attracted to the idea of teaching, he pursued his initial work as a teacher and coordinator of student activities at Rockhurst High School in Kansas City from 1976-1978. In 1978, he went to London to study theology, and returned to St. Louis in 1982 an ordained priest. Six years later, he became involved in Jesuit internal administration, and spent several years serving as vocation director for the Missouri Province and assistant for formation/secondary education. From 1997-2003, Reale served as provincial for the Jesuits of the Missouri Province, which includes approximately 300 Jesuits who serve in five states and Belize. As provincial, he oversaw a six-member executive staff and worked closely with the leadership of the high schools and universities, as well as of the retreat houses and parishes, sponsored by the province.

When his term was up six years later, he was available for assignment by the new provincial.

"I had always been interested in campus ministry and knew there was an open space as the chaplain at Saint Louis University School of Law," remembers Reale, "so I raised the question with the current provincial and talked to Father Biondi about moving into that position."

Reale, currently the vice president of Mission and Ministry of the University, was made chaplain of the School of Law in 2004. It was during his first week in the building that Cronin-Oizumi, who had been a Legal Research and Writing instructor at the School for three years by that time, passed him in the hall on her way to the faculty lounge.

"It was so great to see Frank again," recalls Cronin-Oizumi. "Imagine, working together after all those years with one of your closest college friends!"

Cronin-Oizumi surely didn't imagine the reunion, nor did she imagine returning to her alma mater in a professional capacity, but in 2001, that's just what happened.

"I returned to St. Louis for family reasons," says Cronin-Oizumi. "I decided to visit the law library not long after I arrived. I picked up a legal newspaper and saw the School's advertisement for a Legal Research and Writing professor. I thought, 'this really sounds like something I'd love to do.' Within two to three weeks I got the job."

It was a job for which she not only had the perfect background, but one she has since found great reward in doing. After graduating cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1976, Cronin-Oizumi spent the next year and a half practicing as a labor and litigation attorney at a Chicago law firm, and another two and a half years as counsel to the chairman of the National Labor Relations Board in Washington , D.C. A strong desire to use her legal knowledge to help working people motivated her to transfer to the NLRB's regional office in Los Angeles , where she practiced as a trial attorney for more than 20 years.

During her work for the NLRB in Los Angeles , Cronin-Oizumi tried over 75 cases and appeared in Federal District court frequently. She also trained other attorneys in techniques of developing, analyzing, briefing, settling and litigating labor cases against both employers and labor unions. Her work prepared her well for her future teaching career at the School of Law .

"I love teaching," Cronin-Oizumi says. "I love to talk with students and advise them about their work. Knowing you're helping students develop writing and other legal skills that will affect their careers is incredibly rewarding."

Sandy Johnson would certainly agree. She's been working with students at the School of Law since 1978, a result of yet another fortuitous Saint Louis University connection. After receiving a law degree from New York University School of Law in 1976, where she was a Root-Tilden Scholar, and an LL.M. at Yale Law School in 1977, she had been working as an assistant professor of law at New York Law School when a visit to St. Louis to see her family brought back a host of welcome memories.

"I decided to visit the Saint Louis University campus while I was there, and when I did, quickly called Bob in New York and asked if he'd consider moving back home," says Johnson. "We already had one child and another on the way, and I thought this would be a nice city for us to raise our family."

It was on that same day that Bob Johnson received a phone call from Roger Goldman, a professor at Saint Louis University School of Law who was in New York doing research on federal magistrates in the courthouse where Bob worked.

"The School's dean, Rudy Hasl, had asked Roger to make contact with me," she remembers. "Since I was in St. Louis , Roger contacted Bob and asked if I would be interested in coming to work at the law school. We met him and his family at the Guggenheim and then I came to the School for an interview. I joined the faculty at the School of Law in 1978 and have been here ever since."

Throughout her time at the School, Johnson has co-authored the book, Health Law - Cases, Materials and Problems, which has been used in more than 150 universities in the United States and has been cited more than 500 times in scholarly articles and court opinions, and the treatise, Health Law, which the U.S. Supreme Court has cited three times. She has served as the law school's associate dean for academic affairs, director of the Center for Health Law Studies and interim dean, and was provost of the University from 1999-2002. She holds the Tenet Endowed Chair in Health Law and Ethics at Saint Louis University Center for Health Care Ethics and has secondary teaching appointments in the Schools of Medicine and Public Health.

The day Johnson learned Cronin-Oizumi had been hired to work at the School of Law she was very happy.

"It just seemed so right that Ann would be returning to Saint Louis University ," she says. "I was thrilled that our students would have the benefit of her terrific experience, and that we would be together again."

Johnson, who had worked with Reale throughout the years when he was provincial and she provost, was equally happy when Reale joined the School of Law as chaplain.

"Having Frank and Ann back in the same building just felt like old times," she smiles.

Back in the place where their intellects were challenged, friendships blossomed and education was the key that helped unlock so many doors in their futures. Today, they find great reward in passing along their knowledge and experience to students at the School of Law, and perhaps are even passing along the idea that while futures are often built at Saint Louis University, so are lasting relationships.

"Each of us went to the four corners of the world, lived very different lives, and ended up living and working in the same city, nearly forty years later, pretty much where we first started," Johnson says, a sense of amazement in her
voice. "That certainly makes for some kind
of friendship."

"We've really got a lot to celebrate," Reale adds.

Cronin-Oizumi smiles in agreement. "Here's to another forty more!"