By Jerry Kunkel

Back in 1957, who would have thought forty-five years later our first newsletter would be in cyberspace? The Internet represents a profound change in the ability of people to connect with one another, despite the years and miles that separate us. And many have discovered it’s a great way to answer that old question: "Whatever happened to...?"

So take a look at whatever happened to the EHS Class of 1957. Let’s start off by updating our own numbers.

OUR NUMBERS

                    Total    Deceased   Unable to     Located      Located   EHSAA
                                         Locate                           Rate    Mailing List
ALUMNI
NAMES           332       32 (6)*         1           331 (42)*      99%       299

(Located includes deceased)
*Since last reunion

ALUMNI MARRIAGES

Thirty-three class members (12%) are married to EHS Alumni. Twenty class members have married each other; 12 remain married.

WHERE ARE WE?

We liked Oklahoma rather well, seeing as nearly half of us stayed here. The second most popular state? Texas, where else? Over half the class (62%) lives either in Texas or Oklahoma. Nearly two-thirds live in areas of more than 150,000 population.

THE BREAKDOWN OF STATES

Alabama 1 *                            New Mexico 4 2%
Arkansas 2 *                           Nevada 2 *
Arizona 9 3.0%                        Ohio 3 *
California 15 5.0%                    Oklahoma 124 44.0%
Colorado 17 6.0%                         Enid area 82 24.0%
    Denver/Co. Springs 15 5.0%       OKC area 30 9.0%
Florida 2 *                                  Tulsa area 11 4.0%
Hawaii 1 *                               Oregon 1 *
Idaho 2 *                                Pennsylvania 3 *
Indiana 1 *                              S. Carolina 1 *
Illinois 2 *                                Tennessee 2 *
Kansas 15 5.0%                        Texas 51 18.0%
    Wichita area 8 3.0%                  DFW area 20 7.0%
Louisiana 3 *                                San Antonio area 5 2.0%
Massachusetts 2 *                        Houston area 7 2.0%
Missouri 6 2.0%                         Utah 3 *
New York 1 *                            Virginia 6 2.0%
N. Carolina 2 *                          Washington 3 *
Nebraska 1 *
*One percent or less

REUNION ATTENDANCE

                1967     1977     1987     1992     1997     AVG
CLASS
MEMBERS     82        77        105       93        90        89
GUESTS       26        34          72       59        61        50
TOTAL        108      111        177      152      151       139

One hundred eighty-three alumni have attended one or more reunions, and thirty-two have attended all reunions.

Attending a reunion for the first time in 1997 were Pat Howard Preble, Janie Stricker Hildabrand and Bob, Jack Madison and Mary, Colleen Cox Thomason and Jerry, Leonard Davis and Barbara, Bob Zimmerman, Judy Taft Levy, Donna O’Neill Nelson and Jim, Dwayne Janzen and Gloria, Bruce O’Bannon, Betty Barnes Ramsey, David Large and Karen, Ronald Hayes and Jewel, Marvin Palmer, Bob Lakey and Mickey, Rolan Phillips and Ginger, Paul Britton, and James Pride. Eighteen from the class attended a reunion for the first time. Most said they came back after all these years to "renew old acquaintances."

Another GREAT reunion. A total of 90 class members and 61 guests attended the event held July 3-5, 1997 in Enid. Thursday night started out with the return of many class members. Some of the new faces attending for the first time were Leonard David, Joan Kudlac Winterringer, David Large, and Marvin Palmer. It was great to relax and catch up on the last 5 years (or more) of life’s great experiences. FRIDAY afternoon was at the Midwestern Inn and brought back memories for many of the class members – HOT and HUMID July 4^th weekends in Oklahoma. Walt Bowart arrived with his 4 children (now adults). They attended our reunion interviewing and taping throughout the weekend. It was great to see Walter after years of not being able to locate him. Friday night (July 4^th) started off with a bang at the Officer’s Club at Vance AFB. Ruth Ann Brown Sailors displayed a video she put together covering the last 100 years of Enid High School. A video of three past reunions was run for guests to enjoy. SATURDAY. Saturday afternoon found Tom and Ruth Ann Sailors entertaining at their home. Saturday evening opened at AZZ’s, a private party house, with a class picture. Individuals gathered from different groups for class and individual group pictures. The DJ, Dale Wheba, made everything very special. Dale entertained with different trivia questions from the 1950’s. Dance contest with prizes was won by Gene Robbins and Peggie Stroike Lukenbaugh. The Jitterbug winners were Gerald and Carolyn Gerten Collins. Trivia prizes were won by Barbara Failing Jackson, Judy McInturff Overfelt, Judy Taft Levy, and Ruth Ann Brown Sailors. While several in the class were shy about the dancing spotlight, you should have seen Dennis Gibson, Ruth Ann Brown Sailors, and Howard Roe’s wife, Joan. Some people look good in the spotlight – these did! Zella Murray said, "DJ Wheba was the highlight of the reunion." Many others agreed.

This is our first try at a newsletter. We would like to have your inputs. If you have anything you would like to have put in the newsletter, e-mail it to us at alums@enidhighalumni.org. If you have an e-mail address, we’d like to know it. Give it to us so that you can keep up-to-date on class activities and so that we can contact you. You may also be able to submit articles for a newsletter. Send your e-mail address to alums@enidhighalumni.org.

by Walt Bowart

This Website, unlike the printed version of this newsletter, is open ended. It allows sidebars and digressions in the new form called hypertext. You can’t say too much. There’s plenty of room. Leave a message in the Guest Book. Explore the FAQ’s page. Join the Chat Room and talk to other classmates. Tell us your story. Spare nothing. Dare to add your history to the eternity of cyberspace. Join us in writing the history of the Class of 1957, filling in our lapses with the events that touched you then, and maybe still touch you now.

Who can forget Jerry Bales doing the dirty bop for the first time in EHS, or the traumatic loss of two of our junior classmates in a motor scooter (with sidecar) crash head-on into a semi on U.S. 81? Who can forget the history making moment when Leonard Harrison was the first black person admitted to EHS without any to do, then was denied entrance to a Teen Town a few weeks later? And who can forget our national experiences, through the simultaneity of television – our personal traumas from the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK? (Tell us about your experiences during these moments of our nation’s dark history.)

Tell us about your feelings when you learned of the news of our first classmate to pass on, Paul Gauley (MIA) in Vietnam in 1967.

We have lost 32 classmates to accidents, heart attacks and other illnesses, but we remain a class that has beaten the national demographics where the grim reaper is concerned. We will discuss all this in detail – perhaps later.

Relax. If you are reading this, you are among the survivors. At least so far, but don’t get smug. Nobody gets out of here alive. We have the greatest adventure of our lives still before us.

We have not only grown up on planet Earth together, most have become parents, grandparents and even great grandparents together. We may not have shared the same space, but we have certainly changed over the same time.

Next year we can retire if we choose. In meantime, we are "Senior Citizens" and we can get discounts at restaurants and movies if we ask for them.

Though 66% of us left Oklahoma and scattered to the four winds (see sidebar "Where Are We?") we have continued to share the same time. Not one of us has learned to defy gravity that we know of. We’ll have to wait thirty more years to see if those cows that were recently genetically engineered to live twice as long as nature intended will turn out to have zero defects. Scientists say that our bodies have been engineered by God Almighty to live 200 years or more.

Most of the diseases of modern man are on the run. The last disease to conquer is the one called "old age." With new cures for heart disease and cancers, human life has increased and is continuing to increase. Our spawn will have the choice of living to a great old age. We can be jealous of that, for whom among us thinks that by age 61 we have begun to make sense of our experiences. Now, if we had a mere 140 more years, maybe we would make some sense of it.

Our generation of "Baby Boomers" is still the largest generation in U.S. History. We produced the Sixties. We went to space. We got high with a little help from our friends (some of us). We dared to explore the greatest frontier – consciousness. We have changed the world, even those of us who were raised in Enid.

So how to you want to be interred? Mummification is making a comeback. Then there’s cryogenics, the freezing of the body so that it can be resuscitated after the disease that took it’s life has been cured. Tim Leary thought about having his head frozen in nitrogen, but just before the end he changed his mind. Instead he wanted to be buried in outer space. Tim didn’t make it into outer space, but his ashes were scattered there. Walt Bowart had discussed just such a plan with Tim, years before, but Walt believed in reincarnation and Tim didn’t. Walt wants his carcass to be eaten by vultures – like the Indians. How about you? Have you left instructions for your memorial services? What about an Irish Wake? Have they gone completely our of fashion?

The purpose of these newsletters it to bring us together before it is too late. We have the chance to get together again to celebrate our auspicious beginnings, our good education, our departed friends and teachers, and our love for each other. (Some of us have been through the required therapy needed to overcome the common phobia of human contact that was one of the most debilitating cultural handicaps of our time.)

We sincerely invite your comments. We especially encourage you to fill out the questionnaire (also included in the print version of this newsletter). Let us know what time of year (AD 2002) would be most convenient for you to attend our 45^th reunion. By 2002, with most having retired, there’s no reason to hold the reunion in the heat of the summer. Most can come at anytime, and would apparently prefer to gather in the spring or fall when the humidity has abated. Let us hear from you on this question. See the questionnaire.

The editor has many questions for you:

Did Peter Bogdanovich’s film "The Last Picture Show" mean anything?

If God gave you the power to change anything in the world in the past, the present or future, what would you change?

What have you always wanted to do that you have procrastinated about until this day? Whatever it is, it’s still not too late. Get on with it.

Tell us about your best vacation. How about some secrets of those golden years of ’56 and ’57 when we were all blood brothers and sisters, prisoners of the American dream that never happened?

Tell us something good that you’ve never had and don’t want.

More questions will follow.

Walter Bowart, Senior Editor

by Jerry Kunkel

A great deal of time was spent working to update and locate class members, some of whom we had not seen in forty years.

Since the 1997 reunion, over forty additional class members have been located and put on the EHSAA mailing list. These include:

Charles Cummins                Linda Irwin Lovely                Wendall Stanton             Gerald "Jerry" D. Baker

Barbara Ann Cook (dcd.)     Jane Johnson Thompson        Teddy Summers              Donna L. Board Wagner

John T Davis                     Patricia Sullivan Earle            Sharon Kehn                  Charles L. Ford

Ruth Etherton Ukena          Judy Lang McMahan              Eileen Thorne Welch        Sharon Sue Fox

Connie Ewing Schlarb         Clair Linn Thompson               Judy Tucker Cross          Chester (Sarge) Garris, Jr.

Jim Froese                       Robert R "Bob" Tyler               Jeanine Paris                  Lena Maxine Grim Meranda

Carol Goss Summerall         Hope Peterman Booth            Arlene Walker Martin        Gerald D. Prichard

Walter Gragert                  Charles E "Chuck" Warren        Electa Lee Peterman       Gale L. Webb

Alice Gundlock Tinsman       Doris Ann Reinhart Brannon      Gwen Widney Gage

Leonard Harrison                Bonnie Hesser Daniel              John Silver

Lucy Hope Darr                 Jamie Brown (dcd.)                Walter Grantz (dcd.)

David Ladd (dcd.)

There is just one class member we have not been able to locate. If you have any information about him, please contact us at alums@enidhighalumni.org:

Michael O. Lacey

The Colorado Locator Supreme, Carol Ross Schenck, has been busy keeping up with the happenings of our Colorado class members. Her findings are as follows:

Sandra Leslie Schrock and husband Phil (Class of ’55) recently moved to Colorado Springs, CO and into their new home. They have a panoramic view of the Air Force Academy as well as Pikes peak and other beautiful mountains.

James Pride has been practicing dentistry in the Denver, CO area for more than 30 years. He and Yvonne have four children. They like to travel and are enjoying watching their children grow up. James volunteers at the Morrison, CO Museum using his dental experience to dig fossils out of rocks. He loves to ride his dirt bike (motorcycle) with his friends.

Larry Baldwin and wife Ginger live in Englewood, CO. They have two children. Larry is Regional Vice-President of PROCORP Assn., Inc., a Management Consulting Firm. Ginger is a 4^th grade teacher at Ft. Morgan Elementary Schools.

Stanley Unruh and his wife Barbara (Bobbi Jo) are both retired from the teaching profession. Stan was a Bank Director for 33 years, and Bobbie Jo put in 35 years as an English teacher, a high school principal and finished her career as an assistant superintendent in their school district. They have one son, a daughter-in-law, and two grandsons. Stan and Bobbi Jo have been able to travel a lot and plan on doing more in the future.

Howard Roe has taken off his NFL referee whistle for the last time. Howard, during his 13 years, has officiated 232 professional football games, 2 conference championships, and 1 Super Bowl game. He says, "Now is the time to retire." Howard and wife, Joan, have two daughters, a son-in-law, and one grandson. Howard has recently been elected President of Rocky Mountain Association of Colleges & Employers for a 15-state area. Joan enjoys holding piano recitals for students.

Carol Ross Schenck and husband Len have lived in Colorado Springs, CO for the past 18 years, but have decided it is time to retire. They have been self-employed since moving to Colorado from Arizona. They are planning to travel and and be close to Carol’s two daughters and a long awaited grandbaby.

Bob Linderer and Joyce (Roberts/Class of ’58) have been married for 38 years. They have lived in the Denver area for about 35 years where Bob worked for CIBA-GEIGY as National Account Manager/Managed Health Division. Now happily retired, Bob is keeping busy as president of their local country club and both are enjoying their three grandchildren.

Rick Warren works for Van Gilder Insurance Corp., in Sterling, where he and Judy have lived for years. They have a son, a daughter, and three granddaughters. Rick and Judy have a second home in beautiful Estes Park, CO, which they enjoy very much.

Kay Mason Byler is a retired teacher after 20 years with the Jefferson County Schools in the Denver area. She has a son, a daughter, and a grandson that is four. To start her retirement off right, Kay is planning a trip to Zurich, Switzerland to visit her youngest brother, Hart Mason. Kay’s future plans include relaxing and enjoying new opportunities.

by Judy Taft Levy

Many thanks from all of us who attended the 1957 40^th reunion. Much appreciation for all of the many hours spent searching for all of us who moved away and left no forwarding address. Thanks for the many meetings you held selecting the reunion site and date, preparing the invitations, planning the entertainment, making arrangements, scheduling events, and the mailings and phone calls to get us there.

Also, we appreciate the reunion stress that must have come from "Will anyone show up?" Then more meetings, phone calls, more mailings, more phone calls – sounded kind of like putting on a "royal wedding."

So to the EHS Class of 1957 Reunion Committee, please know that you all created a great deal of pleasure and fun by reuniting old friends and acquaintances, and it was a wonderful opportunity to remember when we were young. It was great seeing people we hadn’t seen in 40 years – what fun in spite of a few pounds, and few wrinkles, and some balding and graying on top. The eyes and the smile never change and that was what we saw in each other. My how we have all matured. After 40 years, I even forgave the girl who called me "a dip" in the second grade. Forgave – not forgot.

Jean Yarborough Hartsuck is keeping quite busy these days. Jean has been Treasurer of All Soul’s Episcopal Church in OKC for more than 10 years, was Vice President of the Casady School Board of Trustees, and currently heads the OKC Orchestra League and served as a founding director of the Enid High Alumni Association. Dr. Jean received a PhD in Chemistry from Harvard and husband, Jim, an MD from the same school. Jim is an OKC cardiovascular surgeon.

Judy Ewing Sutton says, "I am retired from teaching Science at St. Mary’s Academy in Englewood, CO. I now enjoy traveling with my husband, antiques, photography, Tai-Chi, and our three grandsons."

by Jerry Kunkel

This Website is a powerful tool for reviving old friendships and bridging geographical distances. It is available solely because of the Enid High School Alumni Association (EHSAA) and is independent of all reunion activities. Privacy is important. There may be some weirdos out there (from another school, of course) so we don’t post addresses or phone numbers.

We do want you to post your information where other class members can tune in. Tell us your news, what you’ve been doing, and why you’ve been doing it.

However, we must have a 1957 Class Newsletter Coordinator (CNC). With the help of some other EHSAA board members, we were able to do this one 1957 Newsletter, but we all have other commitments and if there are to be any further 1957 Newsletters someone else must "grab the ring". See Class Newsletter Coordinators Needed on the Notices Page. Thanks!

Special thanks to Webmaster, Lee Hoover, (1960) whose understanding and patience with me has made this all possible. Thanks Lee!

Also, thanks to Larou Ornano, EHSAA secretary and reunion coordinator, who went "way beyond the call" to help. Thank you Larou!

And finally thanks to the other founders of the Enid High School Alumni Association, Dr. David Selby (1953), John Cromwell (1958), Owen Wilson (1955), Pat Carroll (1968), Ken Keithly, Superintendent Enid Public Schools, and Butch Lingenfelter, Principal Enid High School. We made a dream come true!