Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

Michael, Sally, Sue, and Tommy

A Visit With Sally

By Tommy Towery

Class of ‘64

It was one of those simple e-mails that started it out. When I wrote in the Traveller that Sue and I might make a side trip to Charleston, SC while on our annual visit to Hilton Head Island, Sally Dawley Stroud, Class of ’64, sent it to me and said to let her know if and when we were coming. She thought maybe we might be able to get together for a drink or dinner since she lived there. Now I know many of you have received invitations like this in the past. To be honest, very few of them ever seem to work out for me, especially on a free-flow schedule like one has while on vacation.

So, when Sue and I got the wild hair late one night to go to Charleston the next day, there was no time to contact Sally beforehand. Instead we drove over with full intentions of touring the Yorktown carrier at Patriot’s Point and then driving back to Hilton Head afterwards. Since Sally was nice enough to extend the invitation, I thought it would only be courteous of me to at least let her know that we did make a last minute decision for the trip and at least give her a call to explain why we did not give her advanced notice.

Sometimes things just seem to work out. When I called Sally she was at work and said that she wouldn’t be getting home until about 6pm, and asked how long we were going to be in town. Touring the Yorktown and all the exhibits would take a while, so I suggested that we might get together afterwards and go out and eat before Sue and I headed back. She needed to check with Michael (remember him showing us how to “Shag” to Carolina beach music at the 2005 reunion?). It turned out that it was not only okay for dinner, but Michael was home and was willing to cook for us – so we all made plans for the evening.

Thanks to good directions (aided by a technological wizard of a GPS system) we found the place and pulled into the driveway exactly at 6pm as scheduled. Sally gave us a quick tour of the new addition that Michael had made to the house, while he finished up his gourmet cooking in the kitchen. This man loves to cook, and he’s very good at it. Never miss an opportunity for dinner with them!

One would expect that two high school classmates would spend the evening sitting around talking about old times and boring the rest of the group, but that was not the case that night. The LHS memories hardly came up at all. We spent most of the evening taking about Shag lessons and Bop clubs, canoe and kayak trips and the many Carolina sites to visit. Sally and I shared stories about skydiving and parasailing and other such adventures. After dinner we were shown the handmade kayaks which Michael had finished and got a tour of their new Mini-Winnie ARE-V. It’s a beautiful motor home and they have great plans for it in their future trips. We also talked about teaching at universities and retirement plans and how to best spend those retirement days. The only time Lee High School came up was when we were explaining to Michael about going to school with the sons and daughters of the German rocket scientists. Somehow that bit of information had not been revealed to him before.

Before we knew it, it was getting late and Sue and I had the long drive back to Hilton Head ahead of us, so we had to say our goodbyes. It was only on the dark drive home that I became aware of the evening’s conversations and how they centered on now and the future and were not all about the past. You would have never known it was a couple of classmates and friends in their sixties from the topics – skydiving and dancing and parasailing!

All in all, it was a wonderful visit, with great food and even greater conversation between some friends who are probably better friends today than they were when they walked the same halls and sat in the same classes in high school.

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Subject:JETS

Alice A. Brigman

Class of '64

Tommy, I noticed Rainer Klauss mentioned my name in the article he wrote about the JETS. I did go to Auburn and finished in March of 1968 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. The only thing I took that was of the Engineering world was the first class in Engineering Drawing after having two years of Mechanical Drawing in high school. I majored in Visual Design at Auburn, but since I have worked for Boeing, an engineering company, for 21 years I would have been better off becoming an Engineer.

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Subject:JETS

Bob Dornbos

Class of '65

Thought I'd buried the high school years. That is me in the JETS photo. Back then Huntsville was the Rocket capital of the world. Everybody wanted to be an engineer. As it turned out, I attended UNA for a few years, then dropped out and went to work for Huntsville Utilites (19 years at a Water Plant/ 18? at the Water Engineering Dept.) Retired a year ago.

I'll rat out some alumni I stayed in touch with: Rick Edmonds lives in Gurley, AL and Gary Darby lives in Humble, TX (near Houston) Was tipped to this website by classmate Sarajane Steigerwald.

Heard they were thinking of tearing down the high school and rebuilding (like they did Huntsville High). That's enough for now.

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