MAJOR, MAJOR, MAJOR CONGRATULATIONS TO THE REUNION COMMITTEES FOR THE CLASSES OF 1959 FROM LHS AND MHS courtesy of Linda Elliot

Our 50th Reunion is now history. If you all missed this one I cannot begin to tell you how much you missed. We had a wonderful time.

It was obvious that many, many people worked very hard to make these events a rousing success.

MHS had folks from 17 states and 1 foreign country represented. Our foreign exchange student, Kerstin Larsson Moro from Sweden was in attendance. Kerstin now lives in Zurich, Switzerland. She said she had a wonderful time and was so glad to be back among her high school friends. Kerstin gets e-mail and if any of you would like to drop her a line every now and again she would be glad to hear from you. The same goes for everyone on the class roster.

The event the first night was the BBQ, which was held at the American Wind Power Museum. The event was catered by Pappas’s BBQ and we all feasted on brisket, sausage, chicken, potato salad, beans, rolls, pickles, onions and cobbler. The food was really good. Cary Hobbs, our honorary class of 1959 member (he really was from class of 1958) came down to act as DJ for the evening. We listened and danced to music of the 50’s. The wind power museum is an amazing place. I had no idea there were so many different kinds of windmills. I learned quite a bit about wind power. Those big wind turbines that we see dotting the West Texas landscape are capable of producing millions of kilowatts of electricity. The lady I spoke to told me that if there were continuous fields of these turbines from Texas up the middle of our country to Canada – the USA would not have to worry about having electricity from now until eternity. Unfortunately, modern technology is not advanced enough for a field like this to be built. The current grid system simply cannot handle the amount of electricity that a field such as this would produce. As it is now, when you see a field of these turbines, some will be working (turning) and others will not be working. This is because the grid can only handle so much electricity. So these powerful turbines have a mechanism, which automatically turns them off when the grid is overloaded. There are people who monitor these turbines constantly all over the world. I am sure there are many of you out there that know lots more about this kind of thing than I do but I was wondering about some of this information so made a point to try to find answers to my questions. I came away from that event a little more educated on the subject of wind power.

The brunch on Saturday morning was held at the National Ranching Heritage Museum near Texas Tech. I cannot for the life of me remember who catered this meal. But it was delicious. We had scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, sliced fresh fruit, biscuits, gravy, juice, coffee, and a cash bar – for a bloody mary if one so desired. There was no planned program – we all just sat around ate and visited. We were pleased to have present, Coach Odom, Coach Rogers, Roy Grimes, and Mrs. Timmons. It was so nice to sit and visit with these teachers from our days at Monterey. After the brunch we had an opportunity to tour the Ranching Heritage Museum – I am not sure how many took advantage of this. I meant to do this, as I had not been there for many, many years. But I was just running out of time. Like many of you, I do not get to Lubbock much anymore and I needed to find some time to visit with a couple of my extended family who now live in assisted living centers.

Saturday afternoon both of the schools were open for tours. We had a guide at Monterey. She is currently the student administrative person. She was very well informed and showed us all around the school. One of the very interesting places she showed us was a place called The Java Shop. It is a mini Starbucks! This small coffee shop is located next door to the cafeteria. The cafeteria has been enlarged but still looks pretty much the same as it did all those years ago. The cafeteria now has 3 serving lines and they have available hamburgers, pizza and hot dogs every day. We learned that meals now cost $2.25 each. The tables are those big round tables that seat about 10 people each. There are two lunch periods – the 9th and 10th graders eat first and then the 11th and 12th graders eat the second lunch period. The band room, library and choir room look pretty much the same. The auditorium has not changed at all. It still looks the same as it did when we were all students there. School plays are still done in the auditorium. It only seats about 1200 people so assemblies cannot be had there unless there are two different periods. There are more students than there are places to sit. Several of us on this tour of the school took the time to have our photographs made in front of the statute of The Plainsman which is a gift to the school from the Class of 1962. It is located in the courtyard. The trees in the courtyard that were small when we went to school there are now large grown trees. There are really nice metal picnic tables for the students to use during their off times. The old gym is now called “The Boys Gym” – a new larger gym has been built and added to the school. We all noticed that now there are the words to the fight song and the alma mater posted on large permanent boards that hang from the walls. Those of us gathered around began to sing the school songs and it was really nice to have the words right there for us all to read. One of the major changes I noticed was the tennis courts are now located behind the school where the band used to practice and march when we were in school. They are twice as large as the facilities were when we were attending school. There is a football practice field where the old tennis courts used to be. For those of you living in Lubbock these changes may not seem like much but for me it was quite remarkable. One other interesting bit of information is that the famed Silver Spurs are at Monterey – as they should be – according to our guide and those of us in attendance agreed on this issue.

After leaving the school, it was time to get ready to attend the dinner at The Lubbock Country Club Saturday night. Wow, to me that whole area has changed. As I recall, one could see the country club from the roadway toward Amarillo. However, now one really has to know where the club is located. One must take a named road off the highway – it sure was not named Yucca when I lived there and then you must turn onto the road where the club is located. Once you have arrived at the gates they appear pretty much the same. We feasted on roast beef, chicken, green beans, roasted new potatoes, mixed steamed veggies, tossed salad, rolls, iced tea, coffee, water to drink. For dessert we had several different selections and everything was very tasty. The program consisted of several stories that had been told to Hank Hunt who acted as the MC for the evening. There was a special presentation. JoAnne Shafer Hunt was asked to come to the front of the area and Marcia Abbott told us all about a once lost class ring. It seems JoAnne took her class ring off to wash her hands and did not remember to put it back on again. Another person found the class ring and kept it safe all those years. Then that person contacted the school and told them that a class ring had been found many years ago and they just did not know who it belonged to. Linda Garner Hogan located Jo Ann’s mother. The ring was given to Marcia Abbott in time for this 50th reunion and she presented the now found class of 1959 ring back to its original owner. Jo Ann was sure surprised. We were shown a slide presentation of all of the members of both classes who had been lost to death. This was a very well done In Memoriam for both classes.

At all of the events raffle tickets had been sold and the raffle drawings were held Saturday night at the dinner. Many of our classmates are very talented people and had donated items to be raffled off with money from the sale of raffle tickets used to fund class projects at both schools. The decision was made to give the money toward scholarship programs at both schools. I do not have the final figure of how much was made off the raffle ticket sales toward the scholarships but this information will be given to you all at a later time. At the end of the program, the cheerleaders from Lubbock High School led their group in the singing of the school song and the cheerleaders from Monterey High School, Judy Jackson Beavers, and Judy Robertson Cobb assisted by Donald Jackson and Dale Bateman led the class of 1959 from MHS in their school alma mater. Prior to that happening though the photographer Bob Allen explained about the taking of photographs and group photos of the graduates in attendance were made. Information on how these photos can be ordered and other information on the ordering of videos etc will be sent to you next week.

After dinner we sat around and visited and just had fun catching up on things. We all left to go our separate ways just marveling at how much has happened to us in the 50 years since we have graduated. For many of us it all seemed like yesterday.

THANKS AGAIN TO THOSE FOLKS WHO WORKED SO HARD SO THAT ALL OF US COULD EXPERIENCE SUCH A FUN WEEKEND.

Sara Tubbs McKee - sandwmk@suddenlink.net  

Marguerite Turner McWilliams - marguer@nts-online.net

Jean Patterson Neuhardt - j.p.neuhardt@comcast.net

Rocklyn Hamilton - rockyham@gmail.com
 

Of course there is the Lubbock High Committee involved as well. The very idea of two committees for one event! If a horse invented by a committee is a camel, what is a horse invented by two committees? A catdog? (The spider has been watching the Cartoon Channel with her granddaughters again. Can anyone out there explain Sponge Bob Square Pants to her? She just doesn't get it.)

LHS Planning Committee