Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

Another Loss In

Our Fami-Lee

Tommy just a little note to let you know that Dale and I lost out Father after 1 year of being sick, We will

miss Daddy.

Thanks Gale

Aubrey H. Thompson

Aubrey H. Thompson 82, passed away peacefully at his residence Friday with family and friends at his

side. Mr. Thompson was a life long resident of Madison County and was very active at Hillwood Baptist Church in Huntsville. He was a retired W W II veteran and retired for Redstone Arsenal Civil Service. He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Mildred Thompson two daughters and one son. Marcella Hargrove, Gale Thompson of Huntsville and Dale

Thompson (Class of '64). Funeral Service will be Monday at 1:00 at Spry Funeral Home. Burial will follow at Maple Hill Cemetery. The family wishes to extend it's heartfelt appreciation to Mr. Thompson's four caregivers for their loving comfort and care.

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Subject: Lee High School

From: Jennifer Lumpkins

<jlumpkins@a-1freeman.com>

My name is Jennifer Lumpkins and I am the daughter of Nancy Taylor. Today is the first time that I have viewed the Lee High School web page. I am pretty active with Classmates.com with my high school. I consider my Mother as one of my best friends and I love hearing her talk about the old school days.

Yesterday she told me that she received an e-mail from you saying that Janice Cobb was looking for her and passed the e-mail over to Mom. I hope that one day they will see eachother again. I wanted to let you know that you have done a beautiful job with your Web page and trying to keep the connection going between friends.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Jennifer

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Tony Thompson

Hi Gang! I was searching Google and stumbled on this site. I would love to be added to the mailing list. Tony

From: Huntsville, Al (now live in Hazel Green, Al )

E-mail: susietee@mchsi.com

Year of Graduation: 1964

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Janice Cobb Shannon

I would love to get the address of Nancy Taylor or Delores Asbill if anyone

knows it. Thanks, Janice

From: Huntsville, AL

E-mail: kayde123@yahoo.com

Year of Graduation: 1964

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Subject: Tribute

Linda and Frank Dykes

LRD4BAMA@aol.com

Tommy, I have been out of town and just catching up on email - enjoyed the Veteran's tribute.

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Last Week's Mystery Classmate

Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly

Class of '64

Unless I'm waaaay off, the mystery photo is of our own Garland Anthony "Tony" Thompson. Tony was my date for our 9th grade banquet -- anyone remember that? His dad drove us, and when my dad looked out the window, he thought Mr. Thompson was a teen-age boy! He was all uptight because it was literally my first formal date. Tony gave me a beautiful wrist corsage with a little amber-colored glass bird attached. Several of us went to see Godzilla at the Lyric after the banquet -- all dressed-up in our semi-formal wear. I had a great time. Tony was not only a real cutie, he was also a wonderful date, and I'd love to see him again!

Tony, I hope the lilies are growing like weeds!

(Tony is on the left, Hank Williams Jr., on the right.)

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Once again as we are nearing the Christmas season my mind goes back to the past and the Christmas times of my youth. A wander through e-Bay this week brought a familiar sight to my eyes - a Revell plastic model of the Redstone rocket. Does that look familiar to any of you?

It must have been the mid-Fifties when I first really got into building the model rockets that were being designed and built out on Redstone Arsenal. I started building and collecting them and they became a top-ten item on my Christmas list. I’ll never be able to recall all the ones that I build, but I remember the Nike Ajax, the Nike Hercules, the Little John, the Honest John, the Redstone, the Corporal, and the complete Hawk battery system. This was the pre-flying model rocket days, and they were just taken from the boxes and assembled. I had so many that one year my grandmother had a man make a bookshelf to hold all of them. I remember she paid him three dollars for it, and when I sold my mother’s house last year, it was still nailed to the wall where I had nailed it when I brought it with me to Memphis in 1964.

Building models was full of fun and challenges. There was always a frustration in trying to carefully break off the little parts that had been die cast with about a hundred other little parts into one Christmas tree looking piece. Sometimes it would take a razor blade to cut the parts loose, and it was that process that taught many a pre-shaving male that a razor blade will cut skin easier than it will just about any other material. Once I had the parts apart, I sat there and tried to match them up with the drawings on the instructions that were printed, with the letters and numbers. There always seemed to be at least one part that was not on the instruction diagram, or one part missing. I think it was a random thing the makers did just to frustrate little boys.

The other frustration of building models was the non-forgiving nature of plastic glue. This was back in the days when every kid thought model glue was made to glue models together and long before it became an almost controlled substance that kids were no longer allowed to buy. It seems that I was always gluing two parts together only to find out that something else had to go inside or between them first. If I discovered this early enough, I could pull the pieces apart but that almost always resulted in long hair like strings of glue getting all over everything. If I waited too long, then I would have to break them apart, and of course the little pins on one piece that fit into the little holes on the other would never line up again or fit back together.

I was never really into painting these, but I remember cutting out the decals, soaking them in hot water, and peeling them off the paper and trying to put them in the right spot on the white plastic. Almost all the guided missiles I built were made from white plastic, and the support vehicles and soldiers were brown.

I was going to make a list of where I bought, or told my family, to buy the models, but thought that perhaps some of you fellow classmates might enjoy trying to remember when you built them, and where you bought them. I know of two major places in Huntsville, and I am sure many of you bought them at the same places. So, as an end to this story and a Mystery Place for next week, I offer the question of where people bought plastic models in Huntsville in the 50’s and 60’s. I also encourage any other modelers to share their experience and memories with the rest of us.

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Construction of Lee High School

by C. E. Wynn

Class of '64

As most everyone knows by now, I spent my childhood years in and around Rison School with my usual band of young ruffians (Walt Thomas, Mike Smith, Mike Chisum, Jimmy and Bobby Durham, Sonny Turner, Terry Preston and others). The time around the 5th, 6th, and early 7th grade was particularly interesting because of the construction of Lee High School.

The school was just about the most marvelous playground a group of young boys could imagine. I do not know the start date of the land clearing and site preparation for the school but it must have been at least mid 1956 if not earlier. Mid '56 would give about 1½ years for construction because, I think, we started at Lee in the middle of our 7th grade year which would have been early January 1958.

Anyway, we explored every facet of the school while it was being built. For example, there was a 3.5 foot storm drain culvert that began on the edge of the school property just south of the flag pole circle outside the main entrance to the auditorium and ran under the entire school. The culvert branched several times with side tunnels some smaller than the main channel. The main culvert, after running under the school, eventually surfaced somewhere near the old football practice field on the north side. All of the culverts had grated openings every 40-50 feet to allow the storm water to drain in.

The fun was in the game we created using the culverts/tunnels as our playground. It was a version of “kick the can” but we could use only the culverts. None of them were large enough to stand in – at 3.5 feet we all had to bend over and kind of crab walk through the maze. Some of the side culverts were so small we had to crawl. Today I get claustrophobic just thinking about crawling around there in the dark. Of course, because of the peer pressure, there was never a chance of not playing the game no matter the terror involved.

While it was under construction, the auditorium was like the world’s largest playground climbing set. As you might imagine, the steel girders were all set first before the other construction started. Somehow we got a rope attached to the exposed roof girder and used it for a super, death defying, swing. Truly, it was a nutty thing to do. We would climb up the stairs leading to the balcony, then slide out onto the exposed girders, grab the rope, and swing like Tarzan down to the unfinished stage floor. It was a miracle no one was killed.

We were there on the school grounds practically every day during the construction and had learned all the good hiding areas well before the school opened. That information served us well for the next 5 ½ years.

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Old And Not-Deliverable

E-Mail Address Removed

From Traveller List

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tomntes@msn.com

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tonismith47@yahoo.com

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