More Class Reunion Photos

Finally...

Well finally... I promised (in the last post) that we would be posting more photos in the "near future." Egad! The near future became the distant future... The water has been flowing under the bridges on Whiteshield Creek and the Washita River for nigh unto 2 months since the last blog, which was posted June 9th. August 1st is only a couple of days away. Oh well, Grandpa always said, "Better late than never..."

From Bud's camera, I have 47 photos of the reunion. I can't post them all in the same blog, so I hatched a plan to post four at a time. I plan to post about twice a week. That should keep the suspense at a moderate level. Here are the first four. Enjoy and feel free to leave comments.

First Photo

Thanks to Bud's camera, here is the first photo. Shown are 22 of the 25 classmates who attended the reunion. Not shown are Greg & Joyce Ruch and Johnny Patton who arrived later.


Click on the image and it will enlarge

Front row L-R: Sue Page (Hinkley), Judy Cribbs (Thomas), Carolyn Burke (Wynn), Myrna Spitler (Hethcox), Bud Wynn, Norma Castleberry (Jones), Sharon Johnson (Dugger), Howard Stewart

Back row L-R: Lowell Mooney, John Carpenter, Ronnie Rennels, John Smith, Jerry Morton, Eddie Stalcup, Richard Giviens, Mahlon Driver, Carol Waters, Jimmy Noblett, David Flick, Harry Lee Payne, Bill Jordan, Johnny Shockey

We will be posting some additional photographs in the near future.

After Fifty Years...

Fifty years... Six hundred months... Eighteen thousand two hundred and fifty days... Four hundred thirty-eight thousand hours... In terms of accumulated time, they're all the same. That's the amount of time the Hammon Class of 1959 has lived since graduation from high school until we gathered to celebrate our 50th high school reunion. That's the amount of time water has flowed under the bridges along Whiteshield Creek which passes through the west edge of Hammon. That's a lot of years and a lot of water under the bridges. Time changes things. Time changes people. Or does it?...

Time has changed a lot of things in the lives the Hammon of Class of '59. With the passing of time, our classmates have scattered literally from the east coast to west coast of the United states. We have begotten children and sent them out into the world. Our children have given us grandchildren. In some cases, our grandchildren have given us great-grandchildren. Most of us have completed our working carers and are now living in retirement. I'm not a psychologist, but from a personal observation, I observed that time doesn't change personality traits. At least not from my psychologically untrained personal observations.

I thoroughly enjoyed attending the our class reunion. It was a joy to see and visit with high school classmates over the past Memorial Day weekend. Time may have changed our personal appearances somewhat, but not our personality traits. I can't judge my own personality too well, but I believe all of my classmates have retained the same basic personality traits they had on the day we graduated. As I visited with classmates, I reflected back and saw that each was amazingly like he/she was in 1959. After fifty years, time has changed a number of things about each of us. But our personalities remain the same. And that's a good thing.

There were a number of cameras at our reunion. A lot of photographs were taken. In a few days, Bud and I will begin posting some of photographs of the reunion. I am inviting classmates who had cameras to send some of the best shots to me or Bud. We what to share these golden graduation anniversary shots with our classmates and high school friends.

David,

These are the only emails I have on file. Joyce and Greg have an email address, Joyce posted a response recently. Maybe she'll send us (you) her address. As I come across others, I'll send them to you. Hope we can make this a permanent blog and a means for class members (and other Hammonites) to stay in touch with each other. Perhaps you could post the abc's of how to access and post on a blog.

I was very pleased with the turnout and hope everyone had as good a time as the Wynns. It's always good to see classmates, their spouses, and friends. I will send you the photos I took at the reunion, and Sharon Dugger promised to do the same. I promised to send John Patton and Bub Murdock copies. Remind me to do that if you will. Thanks for all of your help getting the reunion organized. You, Ronnie (and Cindi), Richard and Judy made it happen. You know the old saying "It takes a Village."

Stay in touch and get cracking on that Cheyenne Village history.


Castleberry, Norma (Jones) njcjonesey@verizon.net
Cribbs, Judy (Thomas) nanniejt@sbcglobal.net
Flick, David dlflick@suddenlink.net
Givens, Richard rldj@cableone.net
Givens, Virginia ginjoegib@aol.com
Mooney, Larry moonwalk63@msn.com
Page, Sue (Hinkey) grandma91@roadrunner.com
Rennels, Ronnie crantquilt@aol.com
Rhea, Catherine (Mosley) mskitty588@msn.com
Wynn, Bud hwynn1941@comcast.net

The School Days of Our Lives...

Time is measured precisely in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years. Almost without exception, we all carry a device that measures time. I wear a wristwatch 24 hours a day. I have one of those neat indiglo watches and, day or night, I can discern the precise time. There is never a moment in my life when I'm without it. I remove it only when taking a shower.

When I was a child, time seemed to pass ever so slowly. Birthdays seemed to take forever to arrive. The same could be said about Christmas. However as I grew older, time seem to pass more rapidly. Birthdays come and go much more rapidly. It's the same with Christmas. The older I get, days seem to pass more rapidly. Yet time passes at the same rate of speed today as it did in in 1947 when I entered first grade.

Have you ever thought about how many days we spent going to school from from first grade until we graduated? Using my trusty calculator, I computed the number of days we attended elementary, jr. high, and and high school. Believe it or not, we attended school approximately 2,160 days from first grade through graduation from high school. It seemed to be a huge number of days in May of 1959.

Which leads me to consider how many days have passed since we graduated. How many days will have passed from the day we graduated until we celebrate the 50th anniversary of our graduation? Again, using my trusty calculator and considering the leap years, I figure the amount of time that will pass between gradation day and 50th anniversary graduation celebration day is something close to 18,263 days. Wow! On one hand --the one with the wristwatch-- that seems like an awful lot days. On the other hand, --the one without the wristwatch-- it seems as though it was only a few days since we graduated. The days of our lives have passed rapidly. Where have they gone? How have we lived them?

As I close this blog post, there are 22 days remaining before we gather in Elk City to celebrate 50 years since graduation day in 1959. Putting it another way, 18,241 days ago, we graduated from high school. In 22 days we will gather and tell stories to one another about the 18,263 days of our lives since May 23, 1959. What a day that will be! Here's looking forward to seeing my classmates of the Hammon Class of '59. See ya'll in Elk City!

Reunion Update-May 6

Heard from the Head Grape yesterday. Ginger will not be able to attend the reunion. We'll miss seeing her. Thanks for encouraging her to come, Richard.

I visited with Jerry yesterday. He will attend. He has chatted with Bill Jordon, who also plans to attend. They will show up after lunch, having played in the HHS Alumni golf outing that Saturday morning.

This gets us to an even two dozen if all confirmations show up. In addition to Buster Dodson, the Almostmadeit Club still includes: John Carpenter and John Patton, Roy Drinnon, Lowell Mooney, Margaret Reagan, Karen(Tucker)Ogletree, Edith Whiteman,Nannie (Woodhouse) Wheeler,and Shirley (Young) Wilson. I tried to call Shirley. She must have moved.

So, we're not finished yet. Can anyone help me encourage these "laggards" to join us. It would be good to see all of them.