Two Austin High School alumni who each have dedicated their lives to helping people — one as a doctor and the other through the military — will be recognized during homecoming festivities in October.

Dr. Dale Anderson, class of 1952, and Col. John Lund, class of 1947, have been selected as the 2015 Distinguished Alumni by the Austin High School Alumni & Friends Association.

Anderson

Anderson and Lund plan to travel to Austin for a reception and dinner on Oct. 1, along with taking in Austin High’s homecoming festivities Oct. 2, including the afternoon parade through downtown and the Austin Packers football game against Red Wing.

Anderson of St. Paul practiced medicine for about 50 years as a family doctor and board-certified surgeon and emergency physician. He also served as medical director of three hospital emergency departments in the Twin Cities and created the Urgent Care Department at Park Nicollet Medical Center in Minneapolis.

Now retired, Anderson travels the country prescribing acting techniques and happiness as good medicines, giving lectures on how humor and positive attitudes promote health and well being. He has been part of the National Speakers Association for more than 25 years, and his book “Never Act Your Age” was awarded a National Senior Media Award.

Anderson, a certified instructor of laughter yoga, coordinates the “Act Now” project, a coalition of dramatic artists and medical artists who promote health and happiness.

Actors experience positive physiologic effects when they play upbeat roles and negative ones when they play the opposite, Anderson said. Emotions are linked closely to chemical changes in the body, and certain emotions seem to promote health, he added.

“We can access more healthful emotional states and healing chemistry by consciously modeling – acting like and thinking like – healthy people,” Anderson said in a press release.

“When you develop a “happy heart chemistry,” he added. “You can become less stressed, healthier and more successful. Analyze and practice what you can do to get your happy heart act together.”

Lund

Lund of Tucson, Arizona, started a distinguished military career of more than 34 years on the day after Christmas in 1947. In his career, Lund served as an enlisted man and commissioned officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, spending time in several U.S. locations as well as in Germany, Korea, Peru, Cyprus, and Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He commanded units at the levels of squad, platoon, company, battalion and brigade, and his last 10 years of service were at the joint staff level before retiring in 1982.

Lund, who graduated from Austin High as the highest-ranking male student in his class, was promoted to full colonel in 1972 prior to returning to the United States from Korea, where he provided significant help toward improving and developing the mapping in that country. That year, Lund also became executive officer to a high-ranking civilian official, or major general equivalency, in the Plans, Programs & Operations Directorate.

For 26 years in retirement, Lund volunteered as a math tutor at a federal job corps center in Tucson and the associated charter high school on campus, devoting an eight-hour day each week. He helped thousands of students — many who spoke little or no English — to learn a trade skill and fulfill their dream of a high school diploma or passing a General Education Development (GED) test.

Lund encourages Austin High students never to stop learning and “keep your nose to the grindstone.”

“Whatever life’s work you choose, know your craft and become an expert,” he said in the release. “Employers will seek you out.”

The public is invited to attend the Oct. 1 reception and dinner for this year’s Distinguished Alumni at the Hormel Historic Home in Austin. Tickets must be purchased by Sept. 28 for the 6 p.m. dinner by calling the Austin Public Education Foundation office at 460-1938.

A school assembly is set for 9 a.m. Oct. 1 at Austin High’s Knowlton Auditorium to honor Anderson and Lund, who each will speak to the Austin High School student body. The public is invited as well.

Started in 1993, the AHS Alumni & Friends Association serves to renew its ties with AHS alumni, current students and the Austin community. It is a committee of the Austin Public Education Foundation.