Est. March 31, 2000 28,033 Previous Hits September 2, 2002 Editor:Tommy Towery http://www.leealumni.com Class of 1964 Page Hits This Issue e-mail ttowery@memphis.edu Staff Writers : Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly , Joy Rubins Morris ,Terry "Moses" Preston Staff Photographers: Fred & Lynn Sanders Contributers: The Members of Lee High School Classes of 64-65-66 |
Est. March 31, 2000 28,033 Previous Hits September 2, 2002 Editor:Tommy Towery http://www.leealumni.com Class of 1964 Page Hits This Issue e-mail ttowery@memphis.edu Staff Writers : Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly , Joy Rubins Morris ,Terry "Moses" Preston Staff Photographers: Fred & Lynn Sanders Contributers: The Members of Lee High School Classes of 64-65-66 |
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Two Twins Which Is Which? It was good to see the Blaise twins again, along with Ron's twin grand- children. Unless I'm wrong, that would be Uncle Don on the left and Grandpa Ron on the right! Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly Anderson, SC Class of '64 _______________________________________________________ I believe Ronald is on the left and Donald is on the right but, it's been a long time. Edna and I really had a good time at the Mullins Mini-Reunion and regret that we didn't attend the picnic on Monte Sano. We truly enjoyed seeing everyone again. I was telling Coach Bill Godsey about all the people who showed up and couldn't believe he remembered the names of as many students from that far back! He has breakfast at the McDonald's across from Parkway Place quite often during the work week. I believe he would've enjoyed being at the mini-reunion also. Bye for now and keep up the great work on our website, Johnny and Edna (Freeman) Sharp Class of 1964 Stay healthy, happy and keep on smiling! ____________________________________________ I would guess the twins pictured are Donald and Ronald Blaise. Gary Kinkle Class of '64 Miami, FL ______________________________________________ I believe the twin on the left is Don Blaise and the one on the right is Ron Blaise. They lived across the street from me for years, but I could still be wrong. Don is married to one of my best friends, so I will be embarrassed if I am wrong. Characters they were in the neighborhood. It was nice to play like little kids on tv used to play. It was fun biking, playing cowboys and Indians, and just exploring the place where we lived. Hope I am right,. We even went to church together, so if I am wrong, I am reallllllly wrong! Paula Kephart ___________________________________________________ I am going with my first reaction when I looked at the picture, and before I read the narrative. I thought that "the twin sitting on the left side of the picture (holding the little girl with out-stretched arms) is Donnie and the twin sitting on the right is Ronnie ... as in Blaise." I knew them through their younger brother, Doug. Also Dude! Since you made a plug for Dell PC's, I have to add one for Hewlett-Packard and our newly added brand, Compaq. Keep up the good work ... I enjoy reading what's new each week. Mike Griffith Class of '66 Roswell, Ga. (Atlanta) ____________________________________________ Those are the Blaise twins. I've been in contact with them a couple of times since finding the Lee site. We were good friends at Lee and it was great to catch up with them. I haven't seen other recent pictures of them, so I'm kind of taking a guess here: Ron is on the left, Don on the right (or vice versa). Rainer Klauss Class of '64 ______________________________________________ The Blaise twins. They haven't changed so much. I think Don is the one without glasses. I could be wrong. The babies are beautiful. It's nice seeing them again. Sherry Adcock White Class of '64 _________________________________________ I think the twin picture is of Donnie and Ronnie Blaise. My guess (and it's just a guess) is Donnie on the left in the chair and Ronnie on the right. Hey, I've got a 50% chance of getting it right even if it's just a guess. How's that for a blonde? Jennifer White Bannecke Class of '66' ____________________________________________ And the answer is... Tommy, Thought I'd send you a photo of Don and I holding my now 13 month old twin grand daughters Katy & Kirsty, but I'm only gonna let you know that I am the one on the right. Maybe it would be fun for the class to guess which one of us is which after all these years. Love our class site... God keep you and bless you and yours. Ron & Janice Blaise In beautiful East Tennessee. ________________________________________________ |
Central Presbyterian Church Huntsville, Alabama _____________________________________ |
Greater Love Hath No Man - A Tribute to Bill Boone By Terry 'Moses' Preston, Class of 1964 Graduating from one of the first three Lee High School classes has afforded many of us with the opportunity to become the 'first' at various things. For example, Mike Acree became the first person to graduate from Lee High School, Collins Wynn and I were the first Lee High Graduates to report to active military duty, Don Cornelius was the first Lee High grad to throw a touchdown pass in a college football game, and the list goes on and on. But the most noble and certainly the most unselfish 'first' belongs perhaps to Bill Boone, Lee High Class of 1964. We believe that Bill became the first Lee High graduate to surrender his own life in an altruistic attempt to save the life of another person. Here is his story, as told to me by his father on a warm spring day at Oak Park more than twenty years ago. At some point in time after his graduation from Lee, Bill's horizons were expanded to global proportions. He sailed the oceans as a merchant marine and traveled to many distant, exotic shores. On one such trip he met an Australian girl, and the two of them were soon deeply in love. They mutually decided to live as Americans, and their marriage provided her with the opportunity to become an American citizen. The marriage produced many happy moments, and two beautiful freckle-faced daughters. Bill's nature had always been that of a kindhearted, friendly, unselfish person, and he treated his wife accordingly. Unfortunately his tour with the merchant marines took him away for long periods of time, but they enjoyed their time together when he was home. Sadly, Bill departed one day on a voyage from which he would not return. On this day something went terribly wrong on his ship. There was a fire in the hold. Bill and several others scrambled from the burning hold to safety on the deck of the ship as smoke billowed from the hold. But standing safely upon the deck Bill learned that there were others still trapped inside. Without regard for his own personal safety Bill bravely descended back down into the hold to try and save his friends. He perished in the attempt. His loss was a devastating experience for his parents, his brother J.L. (Lee High class of 1965), other family members, and his daughters. It was also especially hard for his young widow, who subsequently left the children with Bill's father and returned to Australia. This is a tragic and heart breaking story, but it is also an inspiring one. Embodied within the actions of our friend and classmate William Louis Boone on that fateful day is the very spirit of one of the truly greatest teachings of Jesus Christ: "Greater love hath no man than this: that a man will lay down his life for his friends." Bill Boone laid down his life for his friends, and in so doing he became Lee High School's first great hero. For more than two decades his name has been deeply etched upon the walls of my heart, as though it was carved in stone with a diamond chisel, as one of the greatest among us. I raise my glass to you, Bill Boone! And I thank God for having known you! There are other inspiring stories of heroism among our classmates. There may be some that even predate the supreme sacrifice of Bill Boone (I am not aware of any that do). Perhaps this web page is the forum for sharing the stories of all of Lee High's heroic sons and daughters. If you know of one, please feel free to submit it as your own personal tribute to that hero. ________________________________________________ |
Labor of Love by Bob Alverson Class of '66 This article has nothing to do with high school memories or school relationships. It deals with a cause close to my heart and a desire to encourage others to become involved, either with their money or their time or both. Monday is Labor Day. A day when many people take one last trip to the lake or beach, cook out, or just get together with family and friends. For me Labor Day means something totally different. This Labor Day weekend will mark the twenty-fifth of the last twenty-seven that I have spent about thirty hours in a television station overseeing twenty-one and a half hours of live broadcast dedicated to fighting forty neuromuscular diseases. What started out as an assignment has become much more. In 1976, Dick Wright, the Operations Manager of WHNT-TV came to me and said we would be doing the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association and I would be the producer. It was an assignment, granted one I had never attempted or even seen done. That summer I went to a weekend meeting of producers and emcees. The one thing that stands out in my mind about this meeting was a video I saw called "Memories." This video was just music and video of a father and his little son playing in the park. The final shot showed the father and son in reality just watching other play because the little boy was in a wheelchair. I found out that Duchenne Dystrophy, which strikes only the male, is normally diagnosed about age six and I had a son about that age. It hit home and I was hooked. This past weekend I produced a video that I have called "25 Years of Memories." It is just pictures for past telethons set to music. As I shared the final product with my wife on Sunday evening we both sat there and cried and the same happened on Monday morning when I showed it to Robert Reeves, who started co-hosting the local portion of the telethon with his dad in 1984. There are picture of kids and adults that lost the fight with one of these neuromuscular diseases. One was a little seven-year-old girl who came on the show for the first time. She was a little doll. The next year we did a memorial to her because she did not make it. Steve Bishop, a young man I met when he was six. I watched him go from walking to a wheelchair in just a few years. Steve was a quiet person but was fun to be around. He would have been one of our fellow Lee High graduates except the passed away about two weeks before his graduation. He had Duchenne Dystrophy. I realize this is pretty heavy for a weekend that is supposed to be fun but there is a point to it all. You can still have your fun weekend but before you leave home, or before you turn the television off to go to your backyard cook out call in a pledge. Make that donation and help us defeat these dreaded diseases. Progress is being made and you can help. Make that pledge in honor or your classmates, your health children and grandchildren. It only takes a minute. _____________________________________ |
From Our Mailbox Subject: The Church Picture Last Week Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 14:03:44 -0500 From: <judytate@houston.rr.com> I also went to Central Presbyterian Church. Judy Bills Tate ________________________________________ Subject: Missing Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 23:30:53 -0700 From: "Rod Vandiver" <rotny52@hotmail.com> I would sure like to make contact with two classmates from LHS. Eddie Jackson and Thurmon McCormick. The last time I saw them was when I went to Huntsville while I was in Memphis going to "A" School in the Navy. That was in late 1966. If anyone knows either or where they are please send me an email at Rotny52@Hotmail.com. Thanks Rod Vandiver _______________________________ Tommy, I think this site is excellent! Don Philip (Phil) Rairigh Class of '64 p.rairigh@att.net Mailing address: 66016 Quincy Rd. Burns, OR 97720 ________________________________________ Subject: Hello Date Tue, 27 Aug 2002 From: Jennifer Bannecke <jbannecke@yahoo.com> Hey Tommy, Craig and I just returned from a week in Colorado Springs and a week in Ft. Lauderdale. While we were in Florida we came upon an old Mouseketeer! We ran into Karen (of Karen and Cubby). I didn't want to embarrass her and ask could I take her picture so I took it when she wasn't looking!! Just thought you might like to see it. Picture is attached. Karen is in the middle. Jennifer White Bannecke Class of '66 _________________________________ |
First of all I want to thank all of you who sent me your concerns and prayers for my mother. I'm sorry I didn't have time to reply to each of you personally. It means a lot to have all of you behind me, just like the big family that we have grown to be. I know a lot of you know what I am going through because you have been in the same situation. It's not fun. The good news is that my mother's surgery for the broken hip went well and she is in no pain. She is in rehab here in Memphis right now, and should be there for another two weeks. The bad news is that last Tuesday night, Sue and I had to go move her furniture and what few earthly possessions she has left, from the assisted living complex where she has resided for the last two years. She will not be able to go back to that place, and we are now in the mentally painful process of trying to find a facility that can provide her with the care that she will now require. This is one of the most difficult problems that I have faced in many years. Work continues to burden my days, but I only have seven more of the 112 new computers still in the boxes needing to be set up. In a little over two weeks I have installed the rest of them in the computer labs. That also leaves me with about 70 computers that came out of the labs that I now need to place in faculty offices. We have a state contract for Dell computers Mike, but at home I still have two Hewlett Packard computers. Four of the last six that I have bought for home are HPs. I have an HP film scanner to my right along with an HP flatbed scanner, and my primary laser printers at home and at work are HPs. My color printer at work is an HP2000c and we have just ordered an HP 5000 color LaserJet for the dean's office. I also have an HP 4200 flatbed scanner at work. I love HP printers. (Is that a good enough plug?) Thanks to Moses and Bob for their contributions to the content of this issue. We always welcome stories from any of you; you don't have to wait until you are asked. T. Tommy ___________________________________ |
Subject: Mini-Reunion Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 09:48:28 -0700 From: George Williams georgewilliams@afcjiffylube.com> Tommy - Just wanted to say thanks to you and everyone who helped in any way to organize the events and to all who took the time to show up for the mini-reunion in July. The Golf tournament was great. You may not believe this, but; My wife grandson and I, were in New York for two weeks, vacation. I was walking down 8th Ave. at 8:30 a.m. on August 7th and here comes Jerry Brewer and his wife Connie. We couldn't believe it. We talked briefly, I went back to our room to get my wife so we could go on a tour with Jerry. When we returned, couldn't find them, so we went on the tour. Around 5:00p.m. we were getting back on the tour bus after visiting Ground Zero, and I here this voice, Hey Lehman, yes, it was Jerry. I gave him my cell number and told him we were going to the Yankee game the next day, call me if you can go. We were at Yankee Stadium the next day, in the middle of the Bronx, trying to get autographs at the players entrance, I here this voice behind me, Hey Lehman, yes, it was Jerry and Connie, Jerry said he saw a hat that said Yankee Racing and said that has to be Lehman. Now what do you think the odds are for high school best friends to see each other at a mini-reunion and then all of the above? It was unbelievable and put a special memory to our trip. By the way, it was really nice to meet Connie. Jerry is very lucky. Ask Jerry why I always walk a few steps behind my Italian wife? Bye Lehman Williams Class of 1964 __________________________________________________ |
