Ed Laine ’56 is an extraordinary volunteer. He is a founder of the Baghdad School of Fly Fishing (“U.S. troops in Iraq got to fly-fish behind Saddam's palaces at the off-duty school,” a friend reports); has fund-raised for Casting for Recovery, which introduces women who are dealing with breast cancer to outdoor recreation; has been involved in Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, which provides instruction and outings for wounded soldiers returning from Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere; and volunteers at the local ReStore, a division of Habitat for Humanity, near his Charlotte, NC, home.

After graduation, the sociology major entered the U. S. Army, where he was a Military Police School instructor. He then had a career in manufacturing sales. He earned his MBA at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in 1982. “Shortly after that,” he says, “I formed my own manufacturers' rep agency, hired a friend in Atlanta to cover a part of the Southeast and we kept at it until shortly before I retired in 2009.”    
Laine says the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Charlotte is “the flagship operation for the Southeastern U.S. and the largest fundraising store. I've volunteered three days a week since (retiring) and love the work. I'm on the sales floor (still a peddler); I'm the designated ‘Damn Yankee.’”

“The activities and friendships that developed at St. Lawrence continue,” Laine says. He was on the Winter Carnival Committee and was social chairman at ATO fraternity. “Everyone there at the time will recall the Circus and Hawaiian parties we had,” he says. “I also ran the Fish & Game Club for a year, had a brief news show on KSLU and helped broadcast some away football games.

“The thing that sticks in my mind most about those years at St. Lawrence,” Laine recalls, “has to be our student body -- we were a collection of kindred spirits from all over, and the school and the students made it all work.”