Ode to Our 40yr Reunion

I’m in withdrawal. Was that it? Is it over?

I’m sitting here in disbelief that our 40 year high school reunion is behind us.

I’m writing the following to help me gel my view of the reunion weekend moments. I had a great time, why can’t we do this every weekend. But bummer, there’s a real world out there, with bills to pay and retirements to fund. Maybe writing this will help heal the "reunion's over downer mood" I’m in right now.

I hope writing this will heap mounds of thanks upon the reunion committee and their above and beyond hard work. Thanks to all, and I think I’m safe to say a very special thanks to JC and Cathy Lemons Lockhart.

Reunion Committee
Beverly Prophet Galloway
Brenda Digby Thomas
Carol Cooper ‘69
Carol Fulps Henderson
Cathy Lemmons Lockhart
DeAnna Wisdom Griffin
Pam Johnson Allison
Shirley Ellis
Vaughn DeWole


From what I hear, the reunion organizing committee is Facebook enabled, so I’m sure they’ve been actively exchanging barbs about the reunion’s good times. I’ll post this on my newly created blog site (with it’s antiquated web site technology) for those of us not brave enough to journey into the hyper relationship realm.

I’m also writing this for the alumni that couldn’t join us in hopes they’ll get a glimmer of the good times we had. And, I’m writing in hopes of generating more interest in people posting to this web site. If there’s never another post (thanks Vaughn for yours), that’s fine, I’ve had a blast helping put the site together to this point.

Now on with downer relief…

My wife Teena and I arrived late Friday afternoon at the Ambassador Hotel. As I hit the front door, there was Ronny Rigdon and Mike Russ. There were probably 30 or 40 other mates already there, huddled around the reserved first floor registration room 105. As you approached, there was a kind of gauntlet line that you had to go through on your way to the registration table. Everyone was passing out hugs including all the former cheer leaders, so I lapped it up. As I went down the line, I was thankful for the pictured name tags (thanks Carol). For our 50th we’ll probably have to wear 4x4 front and back placards…ha.

Friday Night

I’ve put a list of Friday night dinner attendees below, again thanks to the committee.

Friday night Napolis Restaurant (7th and Taylor) downtown Amarillo was great. Good comradery, good food and open atrium atmosphere. We sat near Trey & Cheryl Burk Dabney. I haven’t talked to Trey that long since Whittier elementary school. We chatted about our old common friends David McAlister, Sharon Middleton, Ellen Errington, Lee Ann Lewis, Georgetta Emberton, Sherry Avon, Leland Pitts, Johnny Camaron, teachers Barney Williams and the striking Mrs Pettigo,

Danny Reynolds, Bobby Nowak and I discussed some of the defining plays of our days long ago football season. Wichita Falls---after the snap, Bobby and I took off, quarter back sneak---30 yard gain with Bobby hanging on to my back collar shoulder pads. Both of us in lock step, running down the field, wide eyed, shouting at the top of our lungs, him right behind me. Just before two guys try to tackle him, he throws me at one of them and picks up another 5 yards. Those were the days. Later, Bobby commented how he could never get too fearfull of playing the "Harvesters". We both questioned what degree of fear shook the hearts of our opponents when they encountered the "Dons".

At the dinner that night, there were some past year graduates who joined us. Wendell Reeves '69 sat next to me, he lives in Austin. He couldn’t remember the spitting contest he won on one of our baseball trips to Lubbock, so I helped him recall (to everyone’s annoyance). Carol Cooper '69 was there, and you know something I discovered- our classmate David is not her brother.

Friday night started at around 7 and ended around 11, it was a good time.

Saturday Morning

Arrived at the Ambassador around 10am to dry run the slide show. Oh, for those who weren't there, we had a slideshow showing about 260, 10' x 10' images on the wall, of days gone by. Most of those images are posted throughout this site. I think, in total, we have over 1200 images in the various Picasa albums that everyone has access to via this site. And, hopefully there are more images to come as people post other pics and especially pics they took at this and past reunions.

That morning, the reunion committee was there preparing the banquet hall for the nights celebration. Some of the decorations came from the PD alumni association, so it was enjoyable to go around the room and glance at past years memorabilia. There was a dance floor and a disc jockey booth.

Mike Felty and Clinton Cates were there Saturday morning. Clinton and I spent a lot of time together in college. I haven’t seen Mike for a long time (maybe 40 years) and I recognized him “without his name tag”, so a tribute to him and it gave me renewed hope for my aging brain cells.





Mike Felty and I discussed the day at Travis where he and Bobby Tarr (and others) put on a rock concert in the school auditorium. Guitars, drums, loud music. I was amazed that Mr Garrett would allow anything like that on his ultra conservative campus. They sang Gloria and I had that tune in my head for weeks. Mike couldn’t remember much about it, and said he wasn’t in the band. I vividly remember the concert, I just can't recollect who performed, please help me out by posting or commenting here.


Saturday afternoon

Saturday Afternoon we drove around with my wife's cousin and her husband. They had heard a lot about Palo Duro but had never seen it. We meandered around the ole neighborhoods, and I took them by my former homes (see the Memorabilia slideshow) and then up to the PD campus. As we rounded the NW corner I pointed out to them the wagon train rut memorial. In driving around the campus one thing that jumps out at you is fences everywhere, it’s a compound. Now remember, I return to Amarillo every 10 years or so… so I guess the times they do change. We all got out of our cars, the temp must have been 100 degrees, and found the school doors locked, but Mike Russ scurried around and somehow got in and opened them for us. The school tour was OK, we probably had 30 or so in attendance. To tell you the truth the school building meant very little to me, it was the people, the groups and the things we did that defined life back then. Most of my memories were outside those walls. I’m sure that’s not the case with everyone. Wow, they’ve really re-did the foyer; open and airy (see school tour photo gallery). The doors to the auditorium were locked so we couldn’t sneak a peek. I really wanted to refresh my memory of Randy Talley and South Pacific, oh well. They’ve put up a lot of pictures and honorarium material to past alumni. It seems almost every graduating class has it’s person of recognition except ours. I don’t remember white haired Windy Nichols the way his youthful picture is portrayed on principle row, near the newly remodeled office area. Mr Garrett’s picture was more of a likeness. Passing by the old typing room (it’s probably not that any more) sparked a recollection. When entering high school, my dad emphasized to me to learn typing, because that was the main skill of his livelihood. I did as he suggested and graduated with not much more than that. I don’t know about you but the new gymnasium seems to overwhelm the campus. Perhaps that’s the price of progress. Saturday afternoon Carol Fulps Henderson and I tried to work in some more pics to the slide show, but it just didn’t work out. Carol’s work can be found in the photo gallery under the heading ‘Alumni’ and of course she did a lot of the name tag work.

Saturday Night Live

Many of us arrived shortly after 6pm, milled around a bit.

Jerry & Janie McCulloch Mechell are delightful. They did a fantastic job on the banquet program from their printing business in Arlington TX. Jerry and I had a long conversation and we are sole buddies on a lot of topics.

Kenny Larkin and I solved one of his long running family feuds. For years he and his brother had blamed their mom for the sudden disappearance of over a hundred of their baseball cards. I told him his brother had given them to me. This was back in probably 1959 or so. How was I to know that his brother gave me Kenny’s half of their collection. Kenny and I talked about the Kids Inc. days. I’ll tell you who Kenny is married to a little later.

Tommy & Kay Miller Ratliff… Tommy I feel for you. Kay has got to be one of my favorite school chums of all time. Especially in Jr Hi with her and Sue Karlin. Kay could host Saturday Night Live, no problem. She kept me and Teena in stitches most of the night. Kay discovered Teena was married to me while they both were employed at Dillards in Tulsa, this was probably 1995 or so. It was Kay and Tommy’s first reunion.

Didn’t Carroll Marriott make a good catch in his wife Debi. She took this reunion right in stride, bringing a class year book and having everyone sign it. Carrol and I talked a little about winding up his football career at WT and about the death of Coach O’hara after the Baylor Big 12 Championship. We both still would like to get some more collaboration on that story. We mentioned the death of our mutual friend Fred Temme. I showed Carroll the class panorama picture (see All School Album), and how I copy and pasted his suit and tie over my turtle neck pull over. I've always been embarrassed that I didn't wear a suit and tie that day. To tell you the truth, I don't think I owned one.

Danny Reynolds and his wife Anne. Who would have thought that Tractor would be the best dancer in our class, perhaps our school. I’m sure Anne had a lot to do with that. Dan and Anne live in Edmond OK. Teena and I get together occasionally with them for a OKC Redhawks game or two each year. Dan and Anne own a very successfully construction business. If you’re ever in the area around July 4th, Dan and Anne put on a BBQ and fireworks show that rivals many small towns. Dan told a short story of the football team’s party after our District Championship game. Supposedly the story involved him and I while we both were in costume. I remember the party, but honestly Dan’s got me confused with someone else.

Jane Callahan is a stunning lady. We sat across at the same table during the meal. We both said hi and waved, that was about it, but even with nothing more said than that... Jane exudes class.

Marty Keeler and Charlie Sanchez, some of my oldest friends. What a blast to see them again. Charlie is one of those past graduates that snuck in Friday and now again on Saturday. What a trooper. If you were there you probably saw us abscond the slide show and divert it to our own purposes (sorry, we couldn't help it). We went over our PD varsity baseball team picture with a fine tooth comb. For years I had thought Charlie had snuck into our team pic only to find out I had mistaken him for Phil Howry. It sure looks like Charlie. Tommy Keeler is not in the pic, why. Marty with his tongue in cheeks making like chewing tobacco, what a hoot. This was the varsity picture, why did McElduff include the freshman and sophomores, you can tell I'm perturbed by that look on my face. There’s more, I should stop here.

Ronnie White, now a native of Pampa Tx. He and I go back to his white van days at Travis. We exchanged pleasantries of former Texan friends. Were are you Bill, Rocky, Buddy, Eddie, Carol, to name a few. If anyone knew about them or where they are now, Ronnie would know.

Larry Crumley and I talked about the time we ran into each other in Hobbs NM around 1990. He was moving in with Amarada Hess and I was moving out with Chevron. It’s a small world.

Vaughn Dewolfe , Cathy and I worked quite a bit together on the blog site, so we were pretty much in-touch before the reunion.

Larry Mohney, Eddie Houston the memories abound. I didn’t get around to a lot of the tables. Hopefully those people will post and fill us in on their table chat.

Three Unforgettable Moments (and a few more)

1. Doug Lightfoot Master of Ceremonies

Probably the bomb shell of the night (for me anyway) was Cathy, 10 minutes before the banquet started, asking me if I would MC. Apparently Barry was a no show so someone had to do it. I tried hard to pass the buck, but have you ever looked into Cathy’s eyes when she wants something (poor JC), there was no way to get out of it. At 7pm I launched the event hopefully saying something pertinent.

2. Jocks and Pom Poms

Cathy gathered up everyone who could spell the word ‘cleats’ and we hurriedly rehearsed a cheer to the school fight song out in the hotel atrium, with toy pom poms in our hands. Immediately after rehearsal we were flung onto the dance floor and proceeded to make fools of ourselves doing the cheer to canned music. It must have been a hoot, there were cameras going off everywhere. Bobby Nowak tricked us all, he willingly agreed to join the cheer rehearsal, then unknowingly excused himself to the bathroom right before the performance. He returned just after the cheer started, had a seat, clapped and proceeded to point and laugh at us. Gggrrrr I guess that’s why he was the smart quarterback and I was a dumb lineman.

In an effort to be as good an MC as I could, I went around to all the tables to ask them to get prepared to share their stories, memories and jokes at the appointed time. The appointed time came, I kicked off the stories with an off the cuff rendition of my Baseball Story (see sports section). I told of the game with Lubbock Monterey and how they always had their sway over coach McElduff. I described the players on the field that day like John ‘Green Teeth’ Taylor, and Marty 'constant adjustment' Keeler. I explained that I was at bat, last inning, being behind by 2, two men on with the count 3 balls, two strikes, and then the pitch. Then I told the room they’d have to read the blog site article to see the conclusion of the story :) Kenny Larkin’s wife Mary came up to me after the story and introduced herself as coach’s daughter. I’m so glad I didn’t dig the coach too much in that story.

JC Lockhart told a story of him deciding to hang up the cleats after sprints one day where the line men were running in step with him. I’ll always remember JC, Billy John Loflin and Rocky Tyler tearing up the turf over at Travis.

Danny Reynolds told of the District Championship party, and the obviously erroneous reference to Doug in costume. Never would I allow myself to stoop so low.

Beverly Prophet Galloway rendered a story, but Kay got my wife laughing so loudly that I really couldn’t hear it, sorry Bev.

3. Carol Cooper

Then the high light story of the night had to be Carol Cooper’s offer to pay $50 dollars to anyone who knew who kissed her on the playground during grade school. She went on to say she’d pay $100 dollars to that same person if they’d do it again. Sadly she had no takers. Indeed the story was funnier than I’m recalling here, everyone had a good laugh. My only regret is not running over and planting a kiss on her to claim the dough (who would have known).

It’s a Wrap

Danny and Anne leading all in a night of dance.

The disc jokey’s 'right on' choice of songs.

The nostalgic 10' images of our glory days.

The Dons and Donnas (I always liked 'Donnettes' better) that crowded around and sang a farewell school song.

Some lingering not wanting to go home.

sighhhh

There, I did it, my downer's over, just remembering our weekend puts me in a good mood, I hope it did you to.

(that's it, thanks all for the memories)

Pics...

40 Yr - 2010 Reunion - Fri Night

40 Yr - 2010 Reunion - Sat Morning

40 Yr - 2010 Reunion - Sat Night