To illustrate how enjoyable class reunions can be, I offer some comments about our 50 year reunion. We had 268 in our class.

Our reunions have always been three day affairs, starting Friday afternoon and going thru noon on Sunday. The big banquet is always on Saturday night at a Country Club. For the 50 year reunion, we had a videographer who produced a 2 hour DVD from his recordings. Several people volunteered to talk about some memorable events during those years. We were a little mischievous but not to the point of being destructive or causing repairs to be made.

Events discussed included the tear gas incident in trigonometry class (know a better way to postpone an exam for which everyone was not prepared?) and some of the gals told about kissing contests on the band bus en route to away football games. (the band and football team traveled on chartered Trailways buses) The star halfback asked where he was during those contests and he was informed that he spent 4 years getting onto the wrong bus. Also mentioned wasthe fact that a classmate was banned from chemistry class. Several in the class were curious as to which of the powdery substances in the lab would make the brightest flash if it came into contact with the flame from a Bunsen Burner. It had been determined that it would likely be powdered magnesium. He was lucky that he was not expelled.

We had a number of very successful classmates. The chemistry/physics teacher screamed at one guy, “I don’t know why you are wasting my time and yours in this class!” He obtained his PHD in microbiology and became a college professor. He also had a hobby of making bows and arrows and made them for several movies including “Lonesome Dove” and “True Women”. He then taught the cast of the movies how to use them. Four other classmates were also college professors.

Another guy was in the USAF for 20 years and was Advance Agent for Air Force One during the terms of Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and GHW Bush. He traveled to all 50 states and 53 foreign countries. Also another classmate worked at White Sands Missile Site, was transferred to Washington, DC and became a Systems Engineer and later Program Manager working on military aircraft.

One of the gals in class became a MD and specialized in infectious diseases, her area of expertise was Tuberculosis. Her research and published paper changed the way TB was treated and led to the closure of TB sanitariums in the USA, Europe and eventually the world. Since she is known worldwide, feel free to enter Dr. Janis Gunnels into your search engine if you are interested.

One of our teachers, who was in her 3rd year of teaching when we entered high school, was a guest at out 50 year reunion. Since she has outlived our other teachers and still lives in the area, she is invited to a lot of reunions. She told us that our class has the highest number of highly successful individuals that she has seen. It can be great to attend class reunions.

By Jim Towler