Nicki Sooter Wilcoxson and Jim Wilcoxson

Jim and I would have a hard time telling our stories separately. For the most part our stories have intertwined since we were 15 years old, and now we have been married for 43 years. Jim says we are enmeshed and, yes, that is true so here we tell our story rather than our stories. We, too, will focus on the good and save the bad and the ugly for another day, but we will say that in part it probably has taken all of the good, some of that bad, and a little of the ugly, to give us a true appreciation for the really good we have today.

Jim and I left Lubbock in 1968 after graduating from Tech. We have been in Amarillo ever since except for a one year move to Booker, Texas where Jim enjoyed his first year of coaching. After many years in the golf business, Jim “found” himself, returned to WTAMU, finished his degree and got his teacher's certificate so he could pursue his goal of coaching girl’s basketball which he did for the next 20 years. He enjoyed a very successful career, winning two state titles with the Lady Raiders of Randall High School in 1992 and 1998. In 2004 he became the 135th member of the Panhandle Sports Hall of Fame. I took a more straight forward path and spent 33 years in the school system here in Amarillo first as a classroom teacher, then as a school librarian, and finally retiring as an instructional technology specialist where I worked with teachers and staff development. We have two great daughters, Kim and Jami. Kim and her husband, Vince, and our grandson, Cole who is 8, live in Flower Mound. Jami along with her husband Dorsey, stepson, Hart who is 14, and her son, Jordie who is 12, live here in Amarillo. Our grandsons continue to serve as a constant source of joy to us and we could spend hours telling you how cute, smart, and talented they are, but we will restrain ourselves unless you ask. We don't travel very much except around Texas mostly watching grandsons play baseball, but we are open to some new adventures so we have been to New York City and St. Thomas among other great places and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Both sets of our parents have died over the past 5 years. We do still have ties to Childress as we still have the Wilcoxson home there.

The story of how we first met has been a source of amusement in our family for years. Stepping back to that time in 1960, when my parents dragged me kicking and screaming from our home in Muleshoe to our new home in Childress, they stopped in at the Highway Cafe that very first night in town for dinner. Sitting in the booth across from my family was a man who sold insurance that my dad had previously met on a trip to Childress . Sitting with this insurance man was his son. Introductions were made and I was grossed out that my parents had introduced me to a BOY FROM CHILDRESS! Would the horror of that day never end! I suppose I was a bit dramatic. That was the night I met Jim Wilcoxson and the rest is history. My mother loved to tell that story until the day she died. That was how I met my "BFF". By the way, Jim has never told his side of the story about that night—Ummm….

Our story was previously published as a part of two posts on our blog:

Best Friends Forever (BFF) August 16, 2007

Where in the World is......The Class of '63 August 17, 2007