Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

Repeat Announcement

By popular demand, invitations to the August 19-20, 2005 Class Reunion, originally scheduled for the Classes of '64-'65-'66 are now been extended to include other class year members of our Fami-LEE. Basically, if you want to party with us...come on down. Contact Judy "Fedrowisch" Kincaid at 256-883-9255 or by e-mail at njkincaid@hotmail.com

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Subject:Reunion

Barbara Seely Cooper

Class of '64

Greetings to my Lee classmates. I will not be able to attend the reunion this year due to family priorities (wedding in Atlanta at the same time as the reunion, but I wish I COULD attend to catch up with everyone. My family ties to Huntsville have changed drastically - my Dad passed away last July and Mom now lives in CT near my two sisters - so Huntsville is not on a regular path to visit, but there certainly are a lot of memories and some wonderful friends still living there. Also, now that I think of it, I never did get the video from the reunion a few years ago....Judy Scarborough, whatever happened to the videos? My best to all who attend the reunion!

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Subject: Rick Bragg

Craig Bannecke

OK, Tommy you have impressed me. If you can call Rick Bragg a personal friend I am impressed.

I read All Over but the Shouting and thoroughly enjoyed it. Having lived in the Jacksonville, Piedmont, Anniston, Alabama area in the late 70's when he was in high school I could identify with many of the events and places he wrote about in his book. I enjoy Southern writing and he is a wonderful southern writer who can express himself as only southern people can.

He wrote another book about his mothers father that I believe was named "Eva's Man" or something like that. A very good book as well.

I've kind of kept up with him since reading his books and saw where he was dismissed from the New York Times by editor Hal Raines when they had the writer controversy a few years back. I've forgotten the writers name but he lied about having written many of his articles. Hal Raines, also an Alabamian but from the left side of the political scene and a hypocrite is one to run down the south and the state of Alabama. I thought it rather interesting that he too was later forced to resign after some of his practices were found to be less than ethical. Raines was one of those folks that people down south would say " got above his raisin". Rick Bragg is the kind of writer that is proud of his humble southern roots and apologies to no one.

I've not read his book about Jessica Lynch but would highly recommend the other two I mentioned to anyone who loves good southern down home writing. He is the kind of writer that once you start reading his book you can't put it down and hate when the story has ended.

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Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly, Class of '64 - Is that Jack Dickerson -- Class of '64?

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Bobby Cochran, Class of '64 - "Big John" - John E. Dickerson, Jr.

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Jack Dickerson, Class of '64 - My guess on the mystery classmate is ---- It's me. I, too, was a part of the infamous "F Troop". I think we finished dead last in the camp rankings (and were proud of it). The look of determination on my face is quite scary, though!

I was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant the next spring, took an educational deferment and got my Master's degree from the University of Alabama before entering the Air Force in the Fall of 1969. After six months at Goodfellow Air Force Base learning to be a Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) officer, I was assigned to a tiny listening post at Onna Point, Okinawa. I later was transferred to Kadena Air Base/Torii Station Okinawa, where I was integrated into a team that conducted PURPLE DRAGON operations in Vietnam and Thailand and, on occasion, Korea. From Okinawa, I did a 13 month tour at Osan Air Base, Korea, followed by a five year assignment in Hawaii.

I returned to the Mainland in 1978 for an assignment with the National Security Agency (NSA). During this tour, NSA made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so I left the Air Force and joined them as a civilian. However, I soon found myself in a liaison role with the military, did a short stint with the 6th Fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean off Lebanon, and then was assigned to Okinawa where I worked with the III Marine Expeditionary Force and 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group in exotic places like Korea and the Philippines.I also worked with the guys in the back end of RC-135's, which I understand you crewed on. From Okinawa, I took an assignment to our headquarters in Hawaii where I initially worked as a liaison with the Army's 125th Military Intelligence Battalion and the Marine Corps' 1st Radio Battalion, finishing my tour there as the chief of the Pacific Cryptologic Support Center at Kunia, Hawaii. I returned to the Mainland (again) in 1993 and have served in various capacities within the Agency.

A 2002 heart attack has kept me from being assigned overseas again and I'm contemplating retirement from the Agency within the next five years or so.

I live right outside of Annapolis and am a stone's throw from the Chesapeake Bay. I teach Geography part time at the local community college and that keeps me quite busy after hours.

Tommy, I'm sure our paths unknowingly crossed many times since those glorious days at Little Rock. Keep up the good work!

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Close Encounters

Of a "General" Kind

by Tommy Towery

Class of '64

As you read about last week’s Mystery Classmate, it may not seem like that big of a deal to have a photo of a classmate taken a few years after graduation. The odd thing about the photo and the association of Jack Dickenson, Class of ’64, and me at the ROTCsummer camp in 1967, is that I don’t think either one of us knew at the time that we had graduated from Lee High School together. Jack and I did not run around together at Lee and were not close.I am sure that I knew he was from the University of Alabama, and he might have known that I was from Memphis State University, but in my memory I don’t think that he and I ever were aware of our previous connections. In reading the rest of Jack’s e-mail, it is also possible that he and I might have run into each other again later in our military careers. It’s also possible that he served with an officer that later became my commander during my tour in England, but that’s another story.

I’ve been trying to think up a catchy phrase for such an encounter and have decided to call it a “Spontaneous Micro-Reunion” or SMR for short. For the purpose of this article, a SMR will mean anytime that one classmate runs into another classmate at an unplanned time in an unexpected place. I’m not talking about one of you running into another one of you at Mullin’s during Sunday lunch. That is no real surprise, since it is a local hangout and a place where it is not uncommon for classmates to show up.

I’m talking about a SMR like the one that happened back in the early Seventies when I was visiting an Air Force friend of mine in Colorado. We went camping up in the Rockies and went sightseeing while we were out. We went to an old gold mining camp named Central City and were walking up and down the streets looking in the little shops when my ex-wife pulled on my sleeve. She said, “I think that guy over there is yelling at you.” I looked across the street and I heard a voice yell “Hey! Tommy Thompson.” Well, I’m not Tommy Thompson, but he and I were both Tommys and we ran around a lot together in high school, and our names were so similar that we were often called by the wrong names back then. So I waived and walked over to the guy. It was Gary Kinkle. Here we were, two Lee Generals in a different state, several years later, but having a SMR. I looked up and low-and-behold, up walks Jerry Brewer, who was there with Gary. If you ask Jerry today about the encounter, he will tell you that I had on my Air Force uniform, but I will tell you right now that I never wore my uniform when I was on vacation…no where. But the point of the story is that three of us from the Class of ’64 ran into each other in a small tourist town in Colorado.

Tommy Thompson is not out of the story yet. To complete the shaggy dog story, in 1997 or 1998, Sue and I went to the Sunset Symphony concert in one of the big Mississippi River parks in Memphis. We were sitting there with about 50,000 other folks enjoying the music and watching the sun set when I hear another voice yelling “Hey Tommy.” This time I was not called “Tommy Thompson” because the voice calling me belonged to Tommy Thompson. He and his wife were sitting on a blanket, not five yards behind us, having driven to Memphis that weekend to enjoy the Memphis in May festivities. He did not know we were going, we did not know he was coming to Memphis, and we together enjoyed another SMR. We sat and listened to the music and enjoyed the night air and fireworks together, both amazed that we had run into each other like we had.

I have to feel that I am not the only one who has experienced SMR such as this and I think it would make for some interesting reading for others of you to send in your own Spontaneous Micro-Reunion stories. I know there is at least one out there which involves two classmates and a baseball stadium in New York. There must be others, so send them in.

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