Two Carlisle students, one from the Netherlands, reunite after four decades for RAGBRAI 51

Ron Rawson is at a point in his life where he wants to reconnect with the people who resurface in his memory.

That includes Rien Geuze, the exchange student from the Netherlands who attended Carlisle High School from 1974 to 1975. The two formed a friendship, but their connection faded into adulthood.

Rawson recently asked his girlfriend to search for his friend on Facebook. He remembered how to spell his name decades later — Iowans would pronounce his last name as “goose."

Sure enough, the former Carlisle classmate had an account. He requested his girlfriend send a message on his behalf.

But the message Geuze received was more ambiguous: she had someone he knew.

“That’s possible,” Geuze recalled saying, but the next clue he received, St. Louis, wasn’t helpful. Neither was the photo he received of two people on bikes obscured by sunglasses and helmets.

Finally, Geuze got a name: Ron Rawson.

He didn’t need any more clues.

Since that connection on social media, the two decided to tackle the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa together — a ride both had known about since they were high schoolers, back when RAGBRAI was just in its infancy. It’s brought them together in-person for the first time since 1980.

“The biggest thing for me, because my friend is coming over here, is to solidify and renew that friendship,” Rawson, 67, said of what he hopes to get out of RAGBRAI LI.

Rien Geuze makes an impactful decision: Coming to Iowa

In 1974, Geuze's host family picked him up at the airport and took him to Carlisle, the town about a 20-minute drive southeast of Des Moines in a state Geuze had to look up on a map.

Geuze joined the household of Bob and Patricia Stump in a town that he described as a "nice community."

School started not too long after his arrival, where he met excellent teachers — including one who now lives in Colorado that he’ll visit after RAGBRAI — and chose courses he didn’t have in the Netherlands: psychology and bookkeeping (one of the best courses he’d ever taken). He avoided auto mechanics, though he realized it would've been practical.

“I was always happy for what I learned in Iowa and I’ve been using it all my life,” Geuze, 68, told the Register as he prepared to head to Iowa from the Netherlands.

Geuze and Rawson formed a friendship during his time in Carlisle. There was the photography club that Rawson was president of. There was that time they were practicing golf and Rawson, attempting to impress Geuze, took a “mighty swing” at the golf ball that launched his golf club some 90 yards away — Geuze thought it was hilarious, Rawson recalled. And there was a visit to Rawson’s grandfather on a farm in the rural southside of Hartford.

Sure, Geuze was homesick around Christmas. There were times when he was frustrated that he could only walk to places in town, unable to travel farther because the exchange program didn’t allow participants to drive.

Still, the exchange program was the best thing that happened in Geuze’s life, an opportunity he wishes for others. You learn more if you live in a place new to you for a longer period, he said.

“I have three kids,” Geuze said. “I told them, all three, that I really liked it … And now if they want, they can also do it. None of the three decided to. It needs also to come from yourself. You need to be willing to go places and put yourself into such a situation.”

Riding a bike across Iowa is an idea neither forget

When Geuze started at Carlisle High School, a classmate named Lee Hackbarth told Geuze that he spent a week biking across Iowa. It was the classmate’s second time, back when it was known as the Second Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa .

RAGBRAI began in the summer of 1973. Des Moines Register columnists John Karras and Don Kaul biked across the state with the idea of writing about their travels and the people they met. Several hundred people joined them that first year.

Geuze was surprised that such an event existed, that there were enough experienced cyclists to take it on. His perspective was someone who’d observed no real bicycling culture in Carlisle save for children on two wheels not traveling very far.

Geuze learned how to ride a bike at 4 years old, growing accustomed to pedaling several miles to get to school from the farm he grew up on in the Netherlands. The distance ballooned to about 20 miles for high school, including during winter.

He may not have had a bike during his time in Iowa, but he never forgot that RAGBRAI existed, even if he hardly used a bike as a busy adult.

When he retired after a career as an agricultural economist, biking was a way to stay in shape and travel.

Just like Geuze, the idea of RAGBRAI stuck with Rawson since he’d first heard about it as a high schooler. It was something he’d always wanted to do.

Geuze and Rawson’s reconnection over social media eventually led to them to do RAGBRAI this year. So did the full route, and the tradition of dipping bike tires in the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, said Geuze.

Having Geuze to do it with made Rawson, who lives in St. Charles, Missouri, and biked a nearby trail for years, more confident.

“I'm not the only old guy that's going to do it,” Rawson said. “He’s old too, so we’re going to do it together.”

Reuniting with each other — and with Iowa

Geuze continued to visit America after his time in Carlisle. That includes three months at Iowa State University and an internship with the Iowa Farm Bureau several years after he was an exchange student. But his last visit to Iowa was in 2016.

That’s why he informed friends on Facebook that he is participating this year, already planning to catch up with those he can when he’s not in bed by 9 p.m.

RAGBRAI brings Geuze to places in Iowa he’s previously been — his time with the Iowa Farm Bureau took him to Emerson and near Red Oak, both towns on Day 1 of the route.

He’s also excited to see corn in Iowa again.

In early July, Geuze traveled to Missouri to continue his RAGBRAI training, including acclimating to the time difference and the heat. There, he was reunited with Rawson, in-person, for the first time in decades.

Like Geuze, Rawson gets to return to the state he grew up in, the state he left after his second time at ISU for a degree in computer science.

“I lived the majority of my early life in Iowa, and I've traveled extensively for work as I've gotten older," Rawson said. "And I'm interested in stopping in these little towns, which I may not have seen for 30, 40 years, and some never at all before."

Paris Barraza is a trending and general assignment reporter at the Des Moines Register. Reach her at pbarraza@registermedia.com . Follow her on Twitter @ParisBarraza .

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Two Carlisle students, one from the Netherlands, reunite after four decades for RAGBRAI 51