William "Bill" Bailey

Its been a long time since I thought about Childress High School. I cannot make the reunion because that is in the middle of the semester.

Presently, I am Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Arkansas and my wife, Jean Turner, is a Professor in the same department. We have been in Fayetteville since 1991 and love it here. We are about to become grandparents for the third time in October. Heather and her husband Tim live in Lake Jackson, Texas so we are in Texas regularly. Their two boys, Alex (28 months) and Bailey (13 months), were born in Texas. David and Amanda live locally and are expecting our first girl.

Last year I retired from the United Methodist Church where I was clergyman for 31 years. I served churches in Texas, Wyoming and Colorado. Although I have not served a church as a pastor for sometime, I felt that keeping my orders after graduating from Perkins School of Theology at SMU was important as I taught marriage and family classes in Arkansas, which is part of the buckle of the Bible belt.

In addition to my position at U. of Arkansas, I am also adjunct
faculty at Texas Tech U. and at Texas A&M - Kingsville. I help their
doctoral students complete their dissertations with guiding and
directing their research from afar. Education and distance mean
nothing today in our connected world.

I taught high school for three years--Baytown, TX and Silverton, TX
before I went to seminary. I served churches in Casper, Wyoming ,
Wheatridge, CO and Hygiene, CO (yep, a clean town near Longmont).
After that I returned to Texas where I was an administrator at Texas
Tech U. School of Medicine for several years. I started my Ph.D. when
I was 38 and completed it when I was 42. Jean also finished about the
same and I got a job in Extension at the U. of Wyoming in Laramie.

We later move to Indianapolis where we were researchers in aging

and long term care at IUPUI. After the grant ran out, we hoped

to return to the West but it is quite difficult to get two

university jobs. We lucked out with Arkansas.

Presently, I am working with the U.S. military to help their
servicemen and women with financial literacy and financial counseling
programs. It is quite gratifying to help these young (some not so
much) men and women maintain financial stability at home when

we are fighting a hot war that I feel very negative about. We did

learn something from the Vietnam War. It is not the serviceman

but their leadership that keeps making mistakes and sending

them into harms way without sufficient resources in both

personnel and equipment. If we do not move back to

Colorado (Jean is a native) where we lived for sometime,

we are planning to retire in Fayetteville sometime in the near future.

Life is good and we keep putting one foot in front of the

other with gusto!

As a fat old man who has had several heart attacks, I cannot believe
I looked so tall and skinny when I was in high school. Thanks for
putting those photos on the web.

Wayne Havens

The following Article appeared in the Childress Index-Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Wayne Havens was recently awarded the 2008 John F. Lott "Distinguished Citizen Award. The annual award is given by the South Plains Council of Boy Scouts of America.

Havens, A Childress native, graduated from Childress High School in 1963 and earned his bachelors and masters degrees from Texas Tech University. In 1974, he joined Thompson Junior High School in Lubbock, Texas as a teacher and coach After more than thirty years in LISD and forty years as an educator, Havens is now the superintendent of the Lubbock I.S.D. He doesn't spend quite as much time in the classroom, but his heart has never gotten far from the students he continually seeks to serve in every part of the school district.

He was an original board member of the North and East Lubbock Community Development Corporation. His volunteer service is expansive and includes advisory boards for Success by Six, Habitat for Humanity, Science Spectrum, the South Plains Workforce Development Project, and Lubbock Chamber of Commerce, among others. He is on the United Way board and is the 2008 campaign chairman.

Respected by his colleagues across the state, Havens has received several educator awards from professional organizations and was named a Distinguished Alumnus of Texas Tech University, Senator Robert Duncan selected him for his public education advisory group.

In May, Havens will receive the community champion award from the North and East Lubbock Community development Corporation.

Over the past decade, Havens has served on over 30 boards, committees, and organizations. Success by 6 Leadership Council, and a team captain for the March of Dimes Walk America. Havens credited the Scouts as "one of the last strongholds that teach young men what's right and what's wrong."

Havens and his wife, Gina, are actively involved at Calvary Baptist Church and have two grown sons, Brad and Kelly, and four grandchildren.

Sharon Molloy Kelley

In 1960, between my freshman and sophomore year, I moved from Spokane, Washington to Childress and became a part of the Childress High School sophomore class. My freshman class in Spokane was bigger than the entire enrollment of CHS. What an adventure! I loved being a part of Childress High School, the teachers, the friends, the clubs and being an office assistant. In my senior year, I met and fell in love with Billy Smothermon, who graduated in 1959.We married late in 1963 and in 1967 our first son, Dean was born. In 1973 our son, Kevin, was born. We were so happy. We thought we had the rest of our lives together and planned as though we did. However, in July of 1980, my sons lost their father and I lost my best friend. The boys were 13 and 6 years old. What a journey lay ahead for us. By God’s grace we made it, mostly fun, some difficult times, but always interesting. I worked as a beautician, in a dress store, managed S & H Green Stamps, was a church secretary and then went to work for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (finally a job with benefits!!)

In 1995, with both boys graduated from Texas Tech, I moved with the prison system to Lubbock. I turned 50 that year, sold my house in Childress, bought a house in Lubbock, started a new job, found a great church and new friends and sadly lost both of my parents.
Whew!! I didn’t have time for a mid life crisis!!. I loved everything about Lubbock except the traffic. And I thought I was settled into life as it would always be!

In 2000, I got a call from my old high school sweetheart, Ray Kelley. We had “gone steady” the last part of my sophomore year until he moved to Midland to become a draftsman for the oil companies. Sadly, Ray’s first wife, Comilla, died of cancer after they had been married 37 years. Ray’s family and I had always been friends and his sister told him I was still single. Ray called me and it was as though we had only talked a couple of weeks before. It was such a natural thing, I new after the first “date” that I wanted to be with him always. I had been single TWENTY YEARS and missed having a mate. Ray and I married in 2001, he is my best friend, our families are combined, we now have Dean, from Nashville, Kevin and his beautiful wife, Jennifer and the joy of our lives, our granddaughter Claire Elise, from Abilene, our beautiful daughters, Monica Kelley and Katrina Kelley McMullen, her fun and talented husband Courtland all from the Dallas area. I no longer think that this is the way life will always be, I just sit back and wait for what God has in store for us. It is always so much better than I could ever imagine!

Betty Smith Merritt

Most of you probably don't remember me, because I was the quite, shy one! HA! Those days are gone!! I outgrew the shyness and learned to be anything but quiet. I left Childress in November 1963 the day I married a guy in the Air Force, and haven't been back a lot. For 21 years, I lived in a military atmosphere and moved from one side of the world to the other a couple of times! After we were divorced in 1984, my 2 then teenaged daughters and I settled in Denver, CO and have been here ever since.My brother, Don Lewis, still lives in Vernon, TX so I'm there often and will actually be there in May. One of my nieces graduates from Baylor May 12th so I'm flying in for that then spending a week with Don and his wife, Jean, before I go on to Indiana to represent my company at a trade show.I've worked for Johns Manville many, many years now and just set a target date for retirement...1001 working days left to go!Would love to hear from everyone. Is there anyone else living in CO?

I got the information about the Reunion in Las Vegas and will have to let you know later whether or not I'll be there...I was a little disappointed at the location (not that it's not a great place to be for a weekend)but I'm afraid a lot of people won't come because of the expense. Hope I'm wrong. Anyway, will try to be better about checking in with you guys later. Thanks for the effort you're putting into organizing it.

Betty is a member of Classmates.com and she can be reached through that website.

Sandi Dement deVeau

I feel so 'out of touch' with the whole High School scene. However, Joe Don, while in Dallas and since moving, keeps me up-to-date and chastises me often for not remembering who is who and attending the All School Reunions all these years. I just laugh at him. So as far as we know at this point, we will be attending the reunion in October. This should please Joe Don as he has been after me forever to respond. :0 It should be great fun to play 'catch up' with everyone.

I had 35 years with Mr. E (as we all called him , Elza Miller) ... wonderful marriage and lots of fun. After he became ill and had to medically retire for a year ... I was able to move my job (marketing for a woman-owned interior design firm with studios in Lubbock and Dallas) to our home for the year prior to his death in 2000. After a number of years flying in and out of Dallas and establishing friends and professional contacts here ... I up and decided the year after he passed to move to Big D.

A year later, I was introduced to an amazing, wonderful gentleman from Washington, DC. We were an immediate 'hit' and married on a beach in FL at Sunset four months later with only our two daughters and families attending. Elza had told me and the girls the night before he died that because he was having to leave me so early ... he would bring me the person I needed in my life ... not necessarily who I thought I wanted. When I met Tony (Anthony deVeau), I knew instantly that this was his gift to me. Ever since we have done nothing but run and play. He left PRU (retired) last February and has just taken a position with Countrywide to head up a team who will be working with lenders and home owners providing options to each in the midst of this mortgage mess. I'm not sure how I feel about his returning to work, but he is excited and ready to offer his years of experience. So we'll see.

I am a slug bug since I met Tony ... my career had been as a banking officer, community mental health and then med/surg to psych administrator and lastly ... architectural interior design development for commercial space planning = the most fun job I have Ever had. It ruined me for the corporate world forever. Now, I'm not sure what I do except just be me and enjoy every minute of it.

We have our eldest daughter, Stephanie, living in VA and youngest, Nikki, here in Dallas. We have two grand girls in Virginia ages 10 and 7 and a 6 month old little grandson here in Dallas ... love having one so close at hand. As Tony is from back East ... we make many trips back there and now that Stephanie and family are in VA ... of course we are there more often.

My mother is in Lubbock in and out of the hospital. She is now on hospice care so we are there more than here in Dallas at this time.

We are off to the Hill Country and lots of wine tours. :)

Christmas with the deVeau family 2007

Sandi

Clara R.Meek: Living the Good Life in Boerne

Clara Robinson Meek

One of Clara's dreams was to have her own personal retreat or studio where she could work and be creative. Thanks to her husband, Don Meek, she now has that dream studio in her backyard and she is sharing some of her work with us.

Clara's studio in Boerne

Enjoy: Art by Clara

Clara's dog Murray made a previous debut on the blog when he and Bogart dropped by in the form of a Get Well card for Noah. (Monsters Among Us .... November 5, 2007)

Now we see the real Murray admiring himself in Clara's work.

Murray and Murray above left and Murray and Bogart above right

5 comments:

Noah said...
I really liked seeing a picture of my friend Murray. I have the portrait card he and Bogart sent to me I after I was hurt in my box of keepsakes ... along with my squeaky chew toys and "safe" bones and old socks ... all my favorite things! Perhaps one day I'll get to meet them ... and their parents, Clara and Don ... and we can all frolic together in the hills around Boerne!
February 25, 2008 4:04 PM

Jennifer Johnston Smith said...
Clara, Yahn and I loved seeing your artwork, and your studio. I think Yahn may be a tad jealous that you have such a super place to work and think and just let the creative juices flow. I think it's giving him ideas for the future. Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind having such a space of MY own.... Oh, Yahn darling....)O(

February 25, 2008 4:11 PM
clara robinson meek said...
My first love is abstract expressionism. The three top photos are works in progress. I usually have at least 4 things going at once. My work is more about the process and elements and principles. I have only completed 2 paintings because they keep evolving. I'm having fun with it. If anyone likes any of it, that would be a bonus.I'm more proud of the studio itself than what I'm doing inside it. Don built it completely by himself. At the time he was building it, I was busy building back my own health, energy & stamina. I would normally have been hands on from bottom to top. The studio is a beautiful gift for me and I savor it.

February 26, 2008 8:36 PM
Sheila Davis Martinez said...
Clara, I love the studio! It fits in perfectly with your home and with the wonderful landscaping that Don provided. He is quite the artist too. Open house anytime soon?oh...what is the picture with all the circles?So glad you are finally painting again.

February 26, 2008 9:01 PM

Nicki Wilcoxson said...
Clara, I love the work that you have done just as I love your house and backyard and the studio. Keep sharing with us!

March 3, 2008 8:49 PM