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    Due to the tremendous response we have had for memories of Humes, we are adding another page to increase the speed in which you can view comments from our classmates.  Enjoy.

    The views expressed by those submitting memories to this website are strictly the views of the writer and not that of the website.

    The memories of the following classmates can be found on this page:  Davie Lawrence;  Shirley Cotten;  Jean Johnson;  Cherry Taylor;  Carl Bethea;  Luther Nall;  Mary Ann Propst; Larry Holmes.

HUMES MEMORIES
By:  Davie Lee Lawrence

    I had a grammar school history at Guthrie 1-3, and Gordon 3-6, so I made many friends before I went to Humes in the 7th grade.  Dennis Wilson, George Klein, Guthrie Anderson, George Grimes, Billie Mae Chiles, Shirley Hubanks, Don Sage, Vernon Graham, Bobby Perry, Marjorie Paullus and Geneva North are just a few.  I had a crush on Geneva North in the 3rd grade and she also liked me.

    Some of my adventures:
    Our Gordon class went on a field trip to the Brooks Art Gallery.  I talked George Klein and Guthrie Anderson into hiding in the bushes and sneaking over to the Zoo which was close by.  We missed the bus and had to walk all the way back to Gordon and report to the Principal, Mr. Campbell.  He was the meanest person I had ever met until I met Miss Morman at Humes.  George and Guthrie went in separately to talk to him.  They both came out unpunished and were told to report to class. When I went in, Mr. Campbell hit me 15 or 20 times with his stick, yelled at me and sent me back to class. It took me a while to forgive my buddies for selling me out.

    George Klein, Bobby Perry and I played Little League baseball for Sears in the Rotary League.  Bobby Perry's father, a fine gentleman, was our  coach.  Bobby was a great baseball player.  He  could have made it to the majors.

    My football career:
    I wanted to try out for the band at Humes, but Coach Guy wanted me to play football.  Mr. Coates, the Band Director, tested me.  I turned out to be tone deaf and he advised me to give my undivided attention to something else.  I played both junior and senior high football.  Coach Guy was a good coach.  Coaches Taylor and Shelby were terrible coaches.  Coach Taylor also coached basketball and ran James Frans out of the gym for something he said.  Coach Boyce was a good coach, an excellent trainer, but way too hard on everyone.  He played the bad cop; Coach Phillips played the good cop.  Coach Phillips helped us survive the football season.

    Paul Hathcock was a great lineman.  He later became an assistant principal at a Memphis school before his death.  Don Sage made All-Memphis in junior high, but didn't play after that.  He went to work, bought a car and chased girls.  He probably had more fun than I did scrimmaging in practices and butting heads with rival teams.  I didn't use my best tricks (elbows, feet and helmet) on friends like George Grimes.  George's father was a great friend to the Humes players.  He attended every sports event and coached the High Y basketball team in the 12th grade.  He saved our butts a couple of times from getting accosted by irate rival fans.  Dwight Malone could hit a hole faster than anybody on the team.  He now reminds me of Forrest Gump (no offense intended) who just kept running and running.

    Benny Barnes was the fastest runner at Humes.  We played a lot of football at recess, but he wouldn't go out for the team.  He could outrun everybody.

    When Larry Curle, Paul Hathcock and I were visiting Mississippi State to check it out, Spook Murphy, the Assistant Coach, laid $60 on a table and told us to go get hamburgers.  We smiled at each other and stuffed $20 each in our pockets

    Mr. Nat Buring, a local millionaire, who had quit Humes in the 8th grade to go to work, was a great Humes supporter.  He took Coaches Boyce and Phillips, James Armstrong and me to a Professional Exhibition Game in Little Rock.  He told us if we did well during the season, he would send us to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.  We did pretty well so he gave me a round-trip ticket on the Sugar Bowl Special train, a ticket on the 50 yard line and $100 spending money.  James was a junior so he didn't get to go, but Mr. Buring gave him a beautiful watch (on the QT).

    Teachers:
    My favorite teachers were Miss Fuller, who taught me the few words of Latin I still remember;  Miss Frances Kennedy, my homeroom teacher, who let me skip school; and Miss Branch, who fed the football team some very delicious food.

    You could search the world over and not find a meaner or more vicious teacher than Miss Morman.  She made George Klein sit in a hot window until he almost fainted.  When she left the room one day, Larry Curle tried to get my attention and when I turned around to tell him to stop, she returned and saw me talking to Larry.  She went ballistic and started hitting me with both her hands.  I tried to get away and my chair slipped and she started yelling that I tried to strike a teacher.  Mr. Brindley defused the situation.  He warned me to stay out of her line of fire.

    Even though Miss Moss was an excellent teacher (she had been my 1st grade teacher) she and I had a personality conflict.  She didn't understand my sense of humor.  I just transferred to another class after talking to Mr. Brindley.  I needed the credit.

    Friends:  I will say that I had crushes on most of the girls I was friends with at Humes.  I won't name them for fear of leaving somebody out.  In addition to my sports friends, I had other male friends including George Carros and Harry Karris, two fine young men who immigrated from Greece; but my best friend was George Klein.  His grandmother and my grandmother were close friends all my growing up years.  We had lots of adventures together.  We sold cokes at Russwood Park; balloons at Crump Stadium;  we tricked out way into all the good movie houses downtown by pretending to be interested in jobs.  We sneaked into the Mid-South Fair, Hodges Field and any other event that came along we wanted to see.  George had his eye on the goal of being a disk jockey.  He saved up his money for nice clothes and practiced his speaking voice for years.  I would say he made it.

    I have a wonderful family and am still blessed with good friends.  George and I are still great buddies after all these years.

6-13-04

____________________
HUMES MEMORIES
By:  Shirley Cotten Grimes

    I was raised by my mother, a single parent.  While going to Humes I lived with my aunt and uncle across the street and around the corner on Jackson Ave.  I certainly didn't have any transportation problems like some of the kids who had to walk for blocks or ride the bus from all parts of town.  I attended Gordon, 3-6; Snowden, 7-8; and Humes, 9-12.

    Miss Fuller was one of my favorite teachers.  I remember her sweetness.  She gave me a good foundation in Latin, which I still use;  it being the root of most of our language.

    After George and I started dating we spent all our free time together.  Marilyn Wade and I were very close during those years.  She and her boyfriend Jim Simpson, doubled dated with us many times.  They celebrated their 50th anniversary last year.

    After graduation, I enrolled in Nursing School at Methodist Hospital.  Rhelda Alpuente was my roommate.  After my first year in training, George and I married and moved to Knoxville while George was attending the University of Tennessee.  That ended my nursing career!  After UT, we moved to Alabama where George attended Auburn University for his veterinary education and I found a job in medical records at a local hospital because of my nursing school background.

    After his graduation from Auburn we came home to Memphis for a year and then moved to Louisville, KY, where we still live.  For many, many, many years I worked in George's clinic as receptionist and general flunky.  We have four sons and three grandsons.  No girls for the Grimes family (expect daughter-in-laws)!!!

    George and I will celebrate our 50th anniversary in September, 2004.  I am fully retired and have several volunteer interests.  George still works at the clinic.  It's great to have time to goof off.

6-13-04

______________________
HUMES MEMORIES OF
JEAN JOHNSON GEORGE AND JAMES MANCEL GEORGE

    I started school at Pope Elementary and then transferred to Gordon.  I lived on Pearce Street across the street from Shirley Hubanks and on the block with a bunch of other kids headed for the 7th grade at Humes.  That was a big step for all of us.  We had decisions to make about classes to take and how to find our way around that huge building.  Other close friends were Flora Gatlin and Geneva North.

    I don't remember having a teacher I didn't like.  Although I had never played an instrument, I signed up for the Band Class.  Mr. Roy Coates, the Band Director, did a great job teaching me how to play the flute and read music.  By the 9th grade I was in the Senior Band.  We marched in all the parades downtown and played at all the football games and so many other events.  I will always treasure those memories.

    I took the business courses; typing, bookkeeping and shorthand, which all came in handy in my work life later.  I sold real estate and owned my own business for many years.

    Family:  I had always promised my mother that I would finish high school.  I kept my promise.  When I married James Mancel George in January, 1953, I continued at Humes until I graduated in May.  What a great day that was for my mother and father and me.  I have a younger brother, James and a younger sister, Linda.  My husband and I had a wonderful son, James Danny, who died in 1988.

    Elvis dated my  cousin, Jonell Johnson, a few times while they were both at Humes.  (She was younger than he).  Once when he went over to her house, they used her dad's car for a date.  When they got home, her dad checked the mileage and they were both in hot water for a while.  Elvis brought my brother home on his motorcycle once.  He was really a thoughtful guy.

    My husband, James Mancel George, went to Humes from the 7th through the 9th grades.  He was just a young country boy  from Senatobia, Mississippi.  He was scared, but he made friends quickly.  He and Elvis became good friends and worked together downtown at the movie theater.  They usually walked home together.  He helped Elvis with his first paper route.  He and Elvis worked at MB Parker on Thomas Street for a while after graduation.  They often ate lunch at a small place down the street.  Elvis drank 3 big milk shakes one day and we really had a good laugh about that.

    Even though we all moved in different directions, Elvis remembered his friends as long as he lived.  Many years later, my husband was in Lake Tahoe to see Elvis perform.  Elvis invited him backstage and they talked about old times.  They  were very happy to see each other.

    We will always remember our school friends and dear old Humes.

6-19-04


MEMORIES OF HUMES AND AFTERWARDS
BY:  Cherry Taylor Nall

    I really don't have much to write about for my Humes years.  As my brother, Guilford Taylor, tells me I was not part of the "IN" crowd.  Mainly, I suppose, because I was so shy.

    My favorite subjects were Home Economics with Miss Kennedy, Bookkeeping with Mr. Jones and History with Miss Scrivener.  In my senior year I had enough credits to end with two study halls.  I helped Miss Kennedy and Mr. Jones.

    Since I liked to sew and cook, I thought I would be a Home Ec. teacher;  but that didn't work out.  After one quarter at Memphis State I switched to Business because they wouldn't let me sew.  Through out the years, I have enjoyed cooking for friends and family. When I quit sewing for our children and grandchildren, I learned how to quilt.  That has become my favorite pastime, in fact, it is almost an addiction.

    Verna Nell Faverty was my neighbor on Pearce Street.  We had lots of fun together, even double-dating a time or two.  Betty Chipman and I were good friends.  After graduation, Betty went to Washington, D.C. to work.  She came home for a visit and almost talked me into going back with her.  (Wonder what my life would have been like, if I had?)  But that shy personality kept me home in Memphis.  I always enjoyed the Humes football games, especially when Guilford made the team during my senior year.  I continued to go to see him play.  He made All-Memphis in 1955.

    In June 1957 I married Luther (Luke) Nall, a '53 classmate.  He had just gotten his commission into the Air Force and his rating to be an Air Force pilot.  We moved to Lubbock, Texas for 3 years, and then San Antonio for 6 years.  Most of our Air Force tours were in Texas.  (Join the service and see Texas, not the world.)

    We left San Antonio in 1966 for 3 years in Germany - a very fun and exciting tour.  We got to see a lot of Europe, the easy way.  In 1969 the children and I moved back to Tennessee while Luke went to Vietnam.  After his return, back to Texas we went, this time to Austin.  Our last tour with the Air force was in Fort Walton Beach, Fla.

    Luke retired in 1976 and we moved back to Austin where Luke worked on airplanes.  He retired again in 1998 and we moved to Pottsboro, on Lake Texoma, northeast of Dallas to be closer to our 3 children and 8 grandchildren.

    In 1953, if anyone had told me that I would travel to so many foreign places, plus all the places in the states, I would not have believed that a shy little girl from North Memphis would have had the opportunity to do and see all that we have.  That also included riding motorcycles all over the western part of the United States, in our 40's.  Mid-life crisis?  NO!  just a fun and exciting way to travel.

    God has blessed us and our family.

7-3-04


TRIBUTE TO CARL BETHEA
BY:  Ken Hearn

    I'm not sure when Carl and his family moved to Memphis, but I believe it was when he was in the eighth or ninth grade.  I don't remember him at Guthrie, and since he lived on Kney, that's probably where he would have gone.

    Carl (or Peaches) had two brothers, Billy, about 3 or 4 years older, and Lionel (Prunes), a few years younger.  His father was a machinist, his mother kept house for the family.

    I guess Carl was one of the most popular boys in Humes.  He was a leader in most everything - captain of the football team, Battalion Commander in ROTC, Mr. Humes, and winner of the first Nat Buring Trophy, etc.

    We were friends from the 9th grade one, and involved in many of the same things - football, track, ROTC, and clubs.  We were among those 9th graders initiated into the H-Club.  Later, we double dated, and spent lots of time "hanging out", day dreaming or wishing about the things we'd like to do.

    Carl was my best man when Ann and I wed in Senatobia, Mississippi;, December 22, 1953

    We were both interested in the military, and I was not surprised when he left a football scholarship at Mississippi Southern and entered the Naval Aviation Cadet program.  The few times we met after that we had a a lot of "war stories" to tell each other.  We corresponded some over the years, as we went our separate ways.  He to flying submarine patrol aircraft all over the Atlantic Ocean, and I through Memphis State, and on into the Air Force.  I wrote to him once in about 1961 and invited him to fly out to our home in Texas for the weekend.  I never heard from him, and just assumed he couldn't make it.  Some 20 years later, I learned that he did indeed fly to Perrin Air Force Base, Texas, on a Saturday, couldn't get in touch with us, spent two days in the officer's club and the bachelor officer's quarters, then flew back home!

    We finally got together in Washington, D. C. in 1971.  Carl had recently been assigned to the "battle staff" on the National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP) at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, and I was completing my tour in the Air Force Command Post in the Pentagon.  (NEACP was the aircraft that would take the National Command Authorities aloft in case the United States were attacked.)  We had dinner at our home in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and had a great evening reminiscing.  Later, in 1975, Carl was serving on the staff of the Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet, Norfolk, Virginia and I was assigned to the Armed Forces Staff College, also in Norfolk.  The irony was that his office and my school were about two blocks apart!  We managed to get together for dinner, both families, twice during the six months I was there.  I know his wife Lois, Probably got a little tired hearing about Humes during those gatherings.

    Carl had some very difficult assignments, especially in the 1960's.  His duties on submarine patrol were very long, and dangerous.  Many times he was deployed to garden spots like Iceland, Greenland, Norway, and his most unfavorite, North Africa.  But he loved to fly.  We talked of that love and the different planes he flew -his favorite was the Lockheed P-3 Orion, a four engine turbo prop, in which a typical mission was about 15 hours long.

   Carl retired as a Commander (0-5) in the U.S. Navy.  He briefly lived in Memphis after his retirement, then moved to the Gulf Coast where he died of a heart attack.

7-4-04

                               Humes Memories of Luther Nall

 
I’m not sure how this is going to come out, as I have never tried to record my past.  I can’t imagine anyone, apart from Cherry and our family, who would even be interested; but Cherry is twisting my arm, so here goes.
 
During my Humes years, anyone who knew me would tell you that I was mostly interested in music and model airplanes.  My father and brother had played sports and received permanent injuries.  My mother steered me into music at a very early age, to keep me out of sports.
 
After high school, I went to the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) on a full music scholarship.  I still enjoy music, but I had a stronger interest which led me away from a career in music.  Aviation was in my blood.  I decided to follow my father’s passion and left Ole Miss after one year to pursue a career in aviation. First, I had to figure out how to do that without any money.
 
 I went home and got a job at Goldsmith’s Department Store.  I heard an ad on the radio about the U.S. Air Force Aviation Cadet Program.  I applied and was sent to Moody AFB in Georgia for 3 days of testing.  I aced all the tests except my physical.  I was 3 pounds underweight, and strange as it might seem, I was still 3 pounds underweight when I retired in 1975.  To speed up the process for pilot training, I enlisted and was assigned to Vance AFB in Enid, Oklahoma, and worked as an aircraft mechanic until my assignment to pilot training.  I graduated #3 in a class of 92 on May 29, 1957, and married Cherry Taylor three days later.
 
How Cherry and I came to be married is probably more interesting than what I did with my life afterwards.
 
During our last 3 years in the same grade at Humes and the same church, we never had a class together or dated.  We were both infatuated by any number of other people or activities.  Even though I used to finagle a seat next to her at church, I still never thought about dating her during high school.  When I came home on leave between Primary and Basic Pilot Training, I mentioned to my mother that I wished I had a date for the night she wasn’t going to be home.  Mother didn’t have a phone or a TV.   Every Thursday night, she worked at Sears in the Customer Service Department, and had to deal with all the complaints.   I sure didn’t want to hangout there listening to all the cussing customers.  Well, she looked at me funny like and suggested Cherry Taylor. 
 
Well, I’m still not quite sure if Cherry and Mother were plotting behind my back to get us together. They both claim innocence.  Anyway, on my mother’s suggestion, I called her and she said yes to a date.  I knew that night, walking hand in hand down Main Street in Memphis, that the Lord was telling me that I better get used to her because we would be together for the rest of our lives, and so far we still are! The
first time we visited my mother after we married, she took Cherry off and asked her if I treated her the way I should.  The fact that Cherry thought it strange for her mother-in-law to ask a question like that and how quickly she related the incident to me made me believe that maybe they hadn’t been in cahoots after all.  It doesn’t really matter, but it was fun to tease them.
 
After our honeymoon, we went back to Reese AFB in Lubbock, Texas, where I went into Instructor Pilot Training and stayed there for 3 years as an instructor pilot in the old WWII  B-25 Mitchell bomber, then turned trainer.  Later the AF retired the B-25’s and we transitioned into the T-33‘s.  During that time 2 of our 3 children were born.  Shortly after our second one was born, we were transferred to Randolph AFB, near San Antonio, TX, where I was teaching in the Instructor Training School, first in the T-33’s, and then later when the new T-38 Talons came out.  I got to be in on the category 3 test phase of that airplane.  Three years after arriving at Randolph, our third child was born. We were at Randolph for six years.  After that we went to Ramstein AB in Germany where I flew RF-4C Phantoms in a Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron.  After one year we were transferred to the 7th Corp Hq. in Stuttgart, Germany where I served as a Tactical Reconnaissance advisor to the 7th Corp army commander.  Following Germany, I put Cherry and children in Covington, TN, near my parents while I went to Vietnam for a year.  As was usual, when someone found out, in my records, that I had been an instructor in every plane I ever flew, they made me a flight instructor in the RF-4C, but made me a combat instructor also.  As a result, I flew a lot more combat hours while there than the norm.  Following Vietnam, I went to Bergstrom AFB in Austin, TX in a Reconnaissance Squadron for 3 years, followed by 1 year and  3 months  teaching Tactical Reconnaissance at the Air Ground Operations School  in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida.  I then retired and we moved back to Austin, Texas.
 
There were 3 things outside of my  family and church that I always wanted to do.  They were: to be a pilot, an FAA certified aircraft mechanic and to operate those large machines in a machine shop, i e., vertical mills, lathes, etc.  I have been adequately satisfied in all three.  After retirement from the Air Force, I went to work for the Aerospace Division of B. F. Goodrich where I worked for 8 years as an aircraft mechanic; then when arthritis made me have to give it up, I moved into their machine shop, got my journeyman rating, and ran the shop for 15 years before I retired for the 2nd time.
 
I can truly say I have enjoyed both my family life and my professional life; but the most fulfilling life I have had, which includes my family and a very large number of friends, has been my Christian life.  I served as an elder in two churches in Austin for over 20 years.
 
I hope that all of our classmates  have been as blessed as Cherry and I have been.
 
Luke Nall,  Class of ‘53

7-9-04
                  Humes  and Other Memories of Mary Ann Propst-Coats

 
I don’t know who I really am; who my birth parents were; or exactly where I was born.  I do know, that in 1935,  I was taken to an orphanage in Jackson, Mississippi and given the name of Mary Lee Jackson.  Miss Georgia Tann, who ran the orphanage in Memphis, Tennessee, came down to Jackson and exchanged a boy for me and took me to Memphis.  I wound up in Lawrence County, Arkansas and was adopted at 5 months by Jess and Cledia Propst.  They renamed me Mary Ann Propst.  Much later there was a big scandal about the “babies for sale” at the Memphis orphanage from the 1930’s to the 1950’s.  When it became legally possible for me to see my records, I found out that they were incomplete and that neither my birth mother nor birth father were listed on my papers.  I searched for 20 years, but never did find them.  At least I documented my adoption record for legal purposes.  I guess I will always wonder about the circumstances of my birth.  There was some talk of my having to be protected from someone who wanted to get rid of me. Such a mystery!
 
My adoptive parents were wonderful to me.  I was an only child and I had lots of love from both sides of the family.  They took me to church and I had everything I needed.  When they adopted me, my father was a pharmacist and my mother was a housewife.  We moved around a lot and my father had many different jobs.  We came to Memphis during World War II and I attended Gordon Elementary School, then Riverside.
 
I remember when World War II ended; we went downtown to Court Square and celebrated.  The people were beating on tin pans; blowing car horns and party horns; throwing paper around until it was knee-deep.  What a happy celebration! I have always been happy to be an American.
 
 After the war, we moved back to Arkansas for a short time.  I started junior high in Jonesboro and finished in Wynne, where I became the Spelling Bee Champion.  When International Harvester opened, my father found a job there, and we moved  to Memphis again.  
 
 I enrolled at Humes High School.  I certainly enjoyed my Humes years.  The students were wonderful, easy going  kids who treated me like one of them.  Two good friends I made were Janice Gable and Carol Waldrip.  I also made other friends in the Art class; many of them, older students.  We worked on floats for the parades and got to meet kids from other schools. We rode on the floats in the parades; our best float won first prize.  We had great fun and did some good work.
 
My favorite teachers were: Miss Ann Schroll, Spanish; Miss Mary Fischer, Math; Miss Kennedy and Miss Conyers, Home Economics.  
 
Elvis Presley  was in Miss Scriverner’s home room with me.  She was always bragging about how he would make it big one day.  When he won the talent show singing “Old Shep”, she went on and on about it for days.  Little did we know that what she predicted for Elvis would come true in such a huge way.  When he was first becoming popular as a singer, he moved into some new apartments across from where I worked and we waved at each other almost daily, when he passed by in his first pink Cadillac.  Soon after that he became world famous and bought his mother a house.
 
When we graduated from Humes at Ellis Auditorium in May, 1953, it was one of those really hot years.  There was no air conditioning and my beautiful pink organza dress( that my parents paid $25 for at Goldsmith’s)  was soaking wet and wilted under the heavy graduation gown. I was really happy to be graduated and to be out of that cap and gown.
 
Soon after graduation, I got a job at an office close to Firestone.  While I was working there I met my future husband, Leon Coats, a carpenter from Burlison, Tennessee (in Turkey Scratch), up in Tipton County.  I knew his family from church and they introduced us.  He had build a home right across the road from where he was born.  We dated for seven months before we married and I moved to Burlison. On July 29, 2004, we will have been married  49 years and we still live in that same house.  We have 2 daughters, a grand-daughter, and 3 step-grandsons.
 
 We have lived a good life in spite of many health problems.  I now have a pacemaker and take a lot of pills, but I feel much better than I did.  I won my battle with my weight and now fit comfortably into regular size clothes.   I can do all my own housework and that is a blessing.  My hobbies are crocheting and cooking.  Leon loves to fish. He used to hunt quail, but he had to give that up.  He has done a lot of fishing since he retired from Humko. We attend the Elm Grove Church of Christ in Burlison. 
 
Now you all  know my strange story with the happy ending.
 
Leon built a nice shed out back of our house where we cook fish and hang out.  We would be happy for any of my Humes friends to stop by and enjoy a fish fry with us.

7-14-04

 

Humes Memories - Larry Holmes
 
My school days started at Gordon Elementary, like many others in the Class of ‘53.     I  have to stop and think what my classmates and I did together because several of them also went to church and scouts with me.  Some were a year older or a year younger.  Franklin Greer, Lynn Ballinger, Sydney Mitchell, Dennis Wilson, Jackie Smith, Rachel Maddox and Billie Mae Chiles are some I remember fondly.  Because of a mix up,  Billie Mae and I were thought to be siblings.  We called each other “brother” and “sister” for years.   It all rolls together sometimes.
 
I spent six good years at Humes; but they were rather uneventful  in most ways.  I threw a Press-Scimitar paper route in the afternoon; so I didn’t take part in many after school activities.  I was also very active in church and scouting.  School  came in 4th place, if at all.
 
 I had to take ROTC for 2 years.  I usually went home for lunch, shedding my tie and coat as I left the school grounds, grabbing my bike at a friend’s house close to school, changing to civvies at home, and returning to school more comfortable than I left.  I liked a couple of the sergeants ( regular Army) who were our instructors. One was with the Airborne and wore  trooper boots with his pants tucked in.  He could not stand still and moved constantly as he taught.  The other one was heavier and shorter and was very serious about his instructions.  One day, as he was teaching us about stripping an M-1 rifle, he said, “You will notice that the operating rod is bent; don’t be alarmed; it is made that way.” Less than a minute later, some boy in the back of the room  piped up with, “Hey, Sarge, my operating rod’s bent!”  I remember to this day the facial and verbal expressions of the sergeant as he replied, “Nooo s…..t !!”
 
At school I didn’t have much contact with Elvis, mainly passing in the hall.  He lived upstairs at Lauderdale Courts and I visited a family downstairs in the same  building frequently.  I remember him in the talent shows.  The most vivid experience I remember was at an English class party.  Elvis sang ( this may have been before the talent shows) and the first time he twitched and moved, the bunch broke out laughing.  We had never seen it before and did not expect it.  I think Elvis was so into the song he didn’t even notice.  I saw him downtown several times while I was working at the Cossitt Library and he had made his first record at Sun Studio.   I saw him later at the Overton Park Shell when he opened for Slim Whitman and others from the Grand  Ole Opry.  The last time I saw him was at a concert in Abilene, Texas about 1973.
 
Anne Schroll was a favorite teacher who taught my Spanish class , even though, at that point,  she had not visited Spain nor learned to converse in Spanish.  My  younger sister’s class reaped the benefits of her later travels to Spain.  Miss Lucille Patton, my 10th grade homeroom and English teacher, was always my most favorite.   I never could type the required 30 wpm but I passed the typing course anyway.  It was the only grade I didn’t feel like I earned.  I didn’t enjoy History then, but have since learned to value and enjoy it.  Since moving to Texas in 1968, and raising 6 kids in their school system, I really appreciate the emphasis on Texas  History and  wish that I could have taken Tennessee History back at Humes. 
 
Miss Gwaltney, the Librarian, was a favorite.  I loved her candor and frankness.  It intimidated some; but I loved it.  My Dad was always that way; so nothing new there.   I volunteered in the Humes Library , and then Mike Henderson and I worked at the Cossitt Public Library after school and summers for several years.  I was still working there while at Memphis State.  Mike and I had planned for 2 years to bike out west to Carlsbad Caverns; but, alas, we worked in preparation for Memphis State instead; and it wasn’t until  many years later that I made it to Carlsbad with my #4 son.
 
I went to Memphis State 2 years and worked summers with the Engineering Department of the City of Memphis. When I left Memphis State, I went full-time with the City Engineers.  In 1955, I married Martha George from Covington, TN.  After working with 2 churches in Memphis part-time for 5 years, I became the full-time Minister of Education at the Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas.  I did a 180 degree turn 2 or 3 times and got into real estate in 1983 and am still with the same company - Dalzell  Realtors after 20+ years.
 
Martha and I have been blessed by our five sons and one daughter (in that order) and our 14 grandchildren.  We love living in Texas, but have enjoyed coming to the 3 or 4 class reunions we have been able to attend.

7-14-04