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Help locate these missing FHS Classmates
Class of 1953
Barbara Ernestine
Adams Shirley Ann
Helms Thomas D. Rodgers, Jr.
Rachel
Bailey Pat
Horner
Charles Sanders
Libby Joyce Beall
Helen Jackson (McDonald)
Patricia Ann Solem
Johnny E.
Branson, Jr.
Betty Jean Jernigan
Gene Oliver Wallace
Peggy Lou Clark Melba
Eugenia Johnson James Madison Wallace
Jean Dively
Shirley Gay Keiser Laura
Hammond Weaver
Edward Franklin Edwards
Shirley Lowder (Garis) Francis Smith Whitney
Jeanne
Frazee Charles Harold Magarian
William H. Wilkinson
Elizabeth Rose Gardner Russell Bennett Matthews
Gene Howell Williams
G. Stanley McConnell
John P. Williams
Thomas Michael Murphy
Sarah Ann Worrell
If you know where any of our missing classmates can be located,
please contact:
Correspondence from Classmates
John Day, Class of 1953 writes:
September 17, 2003
An Open Letter to the
Class of 1953
Fayetteville Senior High
School
I am sorry that I will be unable to attend the 50th
Reunion in three weeks. I know you will all have a great time. Since I can’t
be there, I thought I would write a brief letter to let everyone know what has
happened to me in the past 50 years, and to extend my best wishes to you all.
This past June my wife and I had a mini-reunion with Patsy McDaniel Donalson and
her husband. We met for lunch over on the Pacific Coast and tried to get caught
up. Patsy is making periodic trips to North Carolina to visit her mother, and
is far more up-to-date on Fayetteville than I am. We may be the only members of
the FHS Class of 1953 that live in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern
California. Patsy will share my gossip with you since I know she plans to
attend the reunion.
Fayetteville seems a long way back – 50 years. I am not
sure I have even driven through Fayetteville the past 50 years. But I have not
forgotten. I was a Bragg Brat, and spent my last three years in high school
with you. There were so many good friends – but I have lost contact with most.
I wonder where they are today.
I believe Chuck Schlapkohl became an Orthodontist (?) and
lived in Boca Raton (?), Florida. Tom Rogers went to West Point, I believe, but
I have had no contact. What happened to Connie Dyess? Mary Oates? Patsy
McDaniel, well, she will speak for herself, but we crossed paths in Boston,
Mexico City, and now Northern California.
I actually found my old yearbook recently. What a kick.
Why do all the women look so great, and all the men are 12-years-old?
I had a number of friends in other high school classes.
George Sibert graduated from West Point and I know he flew helicopters in Viet
Nam, but I don’t know where is he today? Fritz Rall was a year ahead of us – he
also went to West Point, served in Viet Nam, and is retired in Florida.
Elizabeth Harrison was living in Seattle area a few years back (she was behind
us one year). Norwood Bryan was in the class ahead of us, but I ran into him
when he was at Yale Law School. I was always intimidated by a lawyer who sells
used cars.
My memory is not as quick as it once was. I remember our
Senior Play (The Man Who Came to Dinner), and even saw it performed on the local
California stage a few years ago. We had a great group of Boy Scouts out at
Bragg – putting motor scooters on roofs. Got my first traffic ticket on the
road from Fayetteville to Bragg. It would have been really bad, except the
father of one of the girls in our high school was the Judge (and he was kind to
me – I don’t remember her name?).
For me, I went from Fayetteville High straight to MIT in
Boston. It was a big jump in more ways than distance. I had an appointment to
go to West Point, but when we graduated in 1953, I was 16 and too young to enter
West Point. (I had to wait a year until I was 17 before I could begin West
Point.) So I took off for MIT intending a year “holding pattern”. My clothes
arrived at MIT Freshman year in typical Ft. Bragg military transportation style
- they were crated in good North Carolina pine and addressed to the “Military
Institute of T”, Cambridge, Massachusetts (so help me). So my one-year holding
pattern at MIT turned into over five year including graduate school (degrees in
Physics and a Masters in Mechanical Engineering). After graduate school the
Army finally got me for six months as a Second Lieutenant in the Combat
Engineers.
When I got out of the Army, I married a woman I had met in
Boston. We are still together 44 years later, two daughters, and three
grandchildren and having fun growing older together.
We moved to Northern California in 1959 (after seeing
Patsy McDaniel in Mexico when my wife and I were on our honeymoon). I worked as
an engineer in the space program, before going back to the Stanford Graduate
School of Business for an MBA. We live in Silicon Valley in what is our third
home located within 5 miles of our first apartment of 44 years ago.
I have been involved in high technology my professional
career, about 17 years in the semiconductor industry and the last 15 in optical
communications. I have started two companies, one successful and one
unsuccessful. Fortunately, the successful one was second. My last company, a
publisher of market reports in high technology, was sold to a New England
publishing house, and I retired last year after 24 years in technical
publishing.
In community service things I serve on the Board and am
Treasurer for the largest Community Services charity in town. I have been
active in fund raising for a new community pool, am active in the local
Episcopal Church, weigh about 20 pounds more than I did when I got out of
college, swim about a half-mile many mornings, have my share of aches, but
fortunately have been blessed with good health most of my life.
I would enjoy learning about others from the class. How
many still live in the Fayetteville area? If you have a roster of who attends
the reunion, I would love to see it. Also perhaps a copy of the class of 1953
membership mailing list – to see who else is around.
Best wishes to all. If any of you remember me, let me hear
from you.
John Day
Email:
johnday3@sbcglobal.net
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If any Classmates would like to place greetings or a
letter on this page, contact Webmaster1@fhsclassmates.com
Last Edited:
August 20, 2007
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