It was a great trip, and I visited with a lot of people. I didn’t get this recorded right away so I have probably already forgotten a lot of the people I visited with and I may have their names wrong but, in an effort to record as much as I can, I took a list of everyone on the contact list from an email that was sent and I am recorded (as best as I can remember) any interaction I had with them. I have everyone listed in my journal but since most of my interactinos were a simple hello, I will only record the ones that you may be more interested in. I talked to thirty six people so that is about half of the seventy six people who were there.
Brian Eakett
Weird story about Brian. Brian was a friend in high
school and we visited for quite a while at the reunion and then he started
telling me that two weeks ago he was diagnosed with liver cancer and he was told
he had six months to live unless he got a transplant. Canada wouldn’t do the
transplant because he wasn’t sick enough, the US would do it but it would cost
a couple million dollars so he was considering going to Turkey to get it done.
Brians wife is from Edmonton so Lisa and her hit it
off at our last reunion and were having a long visit at this reunion. A while
after I had visited with Brian I went over to Lisa and Brians wife and I
mentioned how it sucks about Brians liver. At first she pretended not to know
what I was talking about but when she realized that Brian had told she got mad
and said that they had agreed not to talk about it yet. I guess he needed to
get it off his chest and talk to someone.
Later when Lisa and I were visiting with Todd and Loni,
I shared some of these stories and Todd mentioned that Brian is an interesting
guy. He worked at the IGA in Cardston for a few years as a meat cutter. He left
because they got unionised. He spent everything he had and bought an old run
down gas pump and convenience story directly across the street from the Raymond
High School. He then found some damaged chocolates and candies from somewhere
and sold them to the high school kids for a rediculously cheep price and made
millions. He then sold the gas station and bought several properties in
Lethbridge.
I mentioned that maybe he could afford a transplant in the States. Brian wore and old T shirt and had a long scraggly beard. He did not look like a millionair.
Cyndi Cameron Palmer
I had the biggest crush on Cyndi, she was friendly and
pretty and was in my ward. Her mother and my mother were friends. She was also
very pretty.
When the Calgary Temple was having their open house Kira and Justin volunteered at the open house. At the time they had been given the opportunity to adopt Cameron and since they already had a handicapped son it was a big decision to adopt another one. They were at the temple dedication when they learned that Camerons birth parents were in town and Cyndi and her husband were able to help them find a quiet place to make some phone calls. I don’t remember all the details but lets just say and Cyndi and her husband played a part in Kira and Justin adopting Cameron. I had a short but good visit with Cyndi and her husband.
Dawna Folsom Baugh
I remember Dawna, she was our Prom queen or what ever
they call that in Canada. She also MC’d the entire dinner. Lisa remembered from
the reunion that Dawna recently retired from teaching at BYU for thirty years
as a home economics professor. She was heading out on a big European tour to
celebrate. The next Sunday Lisa was
talking to Lorraine Henry and realized that Lorraine knows Dawna quite well and
is going on the tour with her. What a small world.
Deborah (Deb) Jones Prete
I knew Debbie well. She was in my ward and her dad was
my bishop for a long time. He always called me King Frederick. Debbie was my
first date. She didn’t attend the last reunion I went to, but then I saw her in
the bookstore and I told her she should have gone to the reunion. When she saw
me at this reunion she told me that she came to the reunion because of what I
said the last time. Good.
Ed Mackenzie
Ed
and I were pretty good friends but he was from Mountain View and we never got
to hang out. What I remember most of Ed was that one of his front teeth was a
silver tooth. He had lost his tooth when a pool ball took a nasty bounce and
knocked his tooth out. We had a good visit and his silver tooth has been
replaced with a more natural looking one.
Fred Holland
I had to say hi to the only other Fred I knew growing
up. I had a good visit with Fred and his wife. She is suffereing from cancer
and it is kind of sad.
Gary Zemp
Gary and I never hung out but his mother taught me
piano lessons when I was a kid. We had a good visit but he didn’t believe that
his mom taught me piano lessons. I then asked him if his house burned down when
he was a kid. It had. I told him that I remembered that well because for a few
weeks she taught me piano lesson in a hotel room.
Ginny Williams
Ginny was the face of the reunion committee and sent
out all the emails. In high school she was very popular and dated a very
popular guy. I doubt I said two words to her in
all of high school. She ended up marrying Rick Williams who was way more
outgoing than I was but still not considered one of the popular kids.
Rick and Ginny Williams were Jackies next door
neighbor when Ross and Jackie lived in Cardston and I got to know them a little
better then.
Hal Sloan
Hals family owned a service station in waterton so we
saw each other often. We were sort of friends. We had a great visit at the
reunion.
Kathy Cahoon Russell
I had a really good visit with Kathy. I believe her
dad and Aunt Nola are first cousins. Her dad was also my band teacher in Junior
High.
Lance Bevans
Lance was always kind to me but we ran in very
different circles. We were never friends but always cordial.
During the reunion he sat right next to me but at a
different table. They were projecting class pictures from various grades and
seeing who we could recognize. My third grade class picture came up with Mrs
Grant. I mentioned to Lisa (but loud enough for everyone around me to hear)
that’s Mrs Grant she was the worst teacher. Lance heard me and asked if I
remembered how that year she pulled the two of us out of class. I remembered it
clearly and that was the biggest reason she was my absolute worst teacher. He
then proceeded to fill me in on the rest of the story.
First, let me give you a bit of background on why I
“disliked” her so much and maybe why I wasn’t her favorite student. Mrs Grant
was recently married and had been Miss Sheffield before getting married. I
found it crazy that she was a newly wed because she was a crabby old lady who
wore huge “coke bottle” glasses and was still half blind.
We got off to a bad start because I usually put my
long legs out into the aisel rather than keep them cramped under my desk. Most
teachers would step over them or tell me to get them out of the aisle, but she
was blind and tripped over them. Boy did she get mad.
One day during recess I caught a garter snake on power
house hill and in a naïve attempt to gain her favor I thought I’d bring it into
class and give it to her as a peace offering. That went over like a lead
balloon and once again I suffered her wrath.
So one day after recess, Mrs Grant comes into our
class with this little kid who looked around the room and pointed to me and
Lance. She then hauled us into this small interegation room and slapped us
both. I don’t actually remember getting slapped but that is how Lance remembered
it and I totally believe it to be true. That is what she was like.
Apparantly this kid who pointed us out was beat up
during recess and his glasses got broke. He accused Lance and I of being the
culprits. It felt like we sat there for hours with Mrs Grant screaming in our
faces saying things like, “you know you did it so just confess”, and “why are
you lying about this”. It was torture. Finally after what seemed like hours, my
imature mind decided that if I just confessed then it would all be over. Well
that didn’t work, I confessed and suddenly we ended up in the principals
office. The principal was a breath of fresh air after what I’d just been
through.
They finally released us and I went home and never
heard about this incident again. I never thought about poor Lance. Lance lived
on a farm and they had held us for so long that he missed his bus home. I guess
his dad worked in town so he walked to where his dad was and told him what had
happened.
As fate would have it, Lances dad had “Miss Sheffield
for a teacher when he was a kid and hated her just as much as we did. He took
Lance and headed right back to school and let them all have it. It has been
sixty years since this all happened but suddenly I felt an overwhelming sense
of satisfaction. Thank you Lance and Lances dad for not caving in like I did.
Loni Sheen Price
Loni was very popular in High School and her dad was
my 5th grade teacher. As it turned out, Loni’s daughter Sheena and
her husband Matt became very good friends with Kira and Justin when they lived in
Calgary. They still see eather other frequently. I asked Sheena a couple of
times if her mother remembered me. I guess she didn’t (which is not at all
surprising) but at the reunion Loni and I had a great visit and talked about
our kids and about her dad who as an infamous teacher.
He is the guy who gave me my one and only strap in all
my years of school. I was quite proud of that. Mr Sheen would be writing at the
board and if he heard someone talking he would whirl around and throw the piece
of chalk at the kid. He was fast and deadly accurate. In case you’re wondering,
I got the strap for chewing gum in school. Who would have thought. I hate gum.
Lori Larson Morrison
I remember Lori well and we had a good visit. I was
surprised to see her in a wheel chair. When I first saw her I thought she might
have type 3 SMA but she told me she has Familial Spastic Paraparesis. It is
genetic just like SMA where both your parents have to have the gene and then
the kids have a one in four chance of getting it as well. She is one of five
kids and three of them have this disease.
Shirlee Watson Miller
Let me tell you a story about Shirlee. We were in the
same ward so I saw her often and she was always nice to me but she was a girl
so I was too scared to every carry on much of a conversation. Back then we
would have “Road Shows” every year. Those were short little plays that the
youth in each ward would put on for the other wards.
One year we did a play wehre Shirlee and I were the
parents of this family and I had to kiss my wife (Shirlee) on the lips. I think
I was coming home from work or something and just gave my wife a quick kiss. In
any case I was terrified but the kiss was the highlight of my young life.
I shared the story with Shirlee and she asked if “she
was that scary”? She wasn’t scary at all, she was just that beautiful. I asked
if she remembered it and she didn’t so we assumed that if it had been bad she
would have remembered it but at the same time it wasn’t so great that she
remembered it.
Sterling Martin
I have a story to tell about Sterling, he is from
Glenn Wood so he went to school there until High School when they bussed into
Cardston. He was always nice to me (or so I thought). In auto mechanics one
year we formed teams and each team tore down and rebuilt an engine. I was
teamed with Keith Webster, another social outcast like I was but we were both
pretty smart. When were putting our engine together long before anyone else.
The remainder of the class decided they needed to slow us down so unknown to us
they filled the cylinders of our engine with motor oil. That is kind of a dangerous
thing to do because it could break a piston rod but we soon figured it out and
were still the first ones to get our motor running.
Years later while we were in Rosemary, Sterling was
visiting a relative in Rosemary and saw me. He told me he needed to confess to
me and that he needed my forgiveness, he said his concience had been bothering
him ever since and he needed to confess. It was quite funny. We had a good
visit.
Terrie Olsen Bullock
Funny story about Terrie. At the reunion she comes up
to me and says hi. She remembered me right away but it took me a while to place
her. When we had our motels we would move up to Waterton in early May and stay
there until late September. That meant that we had to take a bus while school
was still on. There was a bus that took the Waterton kids to Pincher Creek but
no bus to Cardston. We had to drive a few miles towards Mountain View where we
caught a bus to school. The name of the family that drove the bus was Olsen and
Terrie was one of their kids. I rode that bus for years and I obviously new
Terrie but I never talked to her (she was a girl after all) and I never
realized that she was in my grade. I don’t think she knew that I was in her
grade either. I guess this is another
missed opportunity. I should have just talked to her.
Todd Wolsey
He was there and we visited for a bit. Not long ago, our
friend Ken Wolsey told me that he was planning a trip to his fathers homeland.
It turns out that Kens dad grew up in Cardston and him and Todd are related. I
introduced them to each other via email and hopefully Todd can show Ken some
family history up there.
Walter Armsworthy
I remember Walter well and we had a good visit but I
just learned of a cool new connection. Walters son and his family just moved to
St George and his grandaughter Jo Jo and Ella are becoming good friends. How
cool is that?
Larry Harlty was into music big time his entire life and continued with it as an adult. I think he was even in a band. He wrote a song dedicated to the class of 1976. It is a rock song and while I’m not a fan of the genre, the song is pretty cool. Lisa told him he needed to play that song on repeat while we were riding the float. He did. Here are the lyrics of the song.
1976 Cougars, SONS OF THE PIONEERS
There's a certain storied High School, with classmates beyond belief.
Their mascot is a Cougar, and their History stands tall
You can hear the stories whispered, up & down the old school hall...
Onward Cardston Cougars, back then we had no fears...
1976 Cougars, the son's of the pioneers, sons of the pioneers, yes the sons of the pioneers...
He and Joker ran the show there, taught us how to move the Ball.
Walter & Todd, ...Daryl, Shane & Hal.., on the court bringing down the house
But no-ones as cool as Lance Bev-an's, cause you know what, He's Got Cows!!
Onward Cardston Cougars, back then we had no fears...
1976 Cougars, the son's of the pioneers, sons of the pioneers, yes the sons of the pioneers...
Lori & Loni, Paula, & Marni,
Ginny, Dana & Cindy too..
...Football, Wrestling, Track & Drama,
Great "INDIGENOUS" Mates too.
Lots of class came from these classmates,
"Hard to Beat" would still ring true!
Onward Cardston Cougars, back then we had no fears...
1976 Cougars, the son's of the pioneers, sons of the pioneers, yes the sons of the pioneers...
There've been joys and there's been heartache, lots of laughs and several tears
We accomplish tons with loved ones, but now our Grand Kids get our Cheers.
Still the Bonds that Shaped us way back then. . .
Echo Fondly across the years!
Onward Cardston Cougars, back then we had no fears...
1976 Cougars, the son's of the pioneers, sons of the pioneers, yes the sons of the pioneers...
Onward Cardston Cougars, back then we had no fears...
1976 Cougars, the son's of the pioneers, sons of the pioneers,
...yes the sons..., ...of the pioneers
-----------------------------------------------------
For good measure, here are the words to our
fight song.
Forward Cardston, Forward
Cardston,
Forward Cardston High!
Fight with Valour, and
with Honour,
Win or Lose or Tie,
On to Victory, On to
Glory,
For our Blue and White.
Mighty Cougars, Lead us
Onward,
Fight! Fight! Fight!
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