CHS Class Of 1965 Featured Alumni Page
In Alphabetical Order
Last Updated 11/15/2008
We Now Have 72 Different Stories
This is the place where we will feature our classmates and what they have been doing over the years. If anyone would like to tell their story, please go to the Committee Page and E-Mail us a request and we will forward a form to you. Check this area often for new additions.

Our Current Feature

 

Welcome to another edition of CHS Class of 1965’s Featured Alumni. I am Sharon Erickson Howell, and today we are featuring Sandy Fraley. Hi, Sandy, and welcome to our interview series!

Hi, Sharon, and thank you for inviting me to be a part of the Featured Alumni series.

You and I had an interesting talk on the phone to create this interview, plus a few emails back and forth before we set our talk time, and in the process, I got to know you a bit. You’ve had a fascinating life since high school graduation 43 years ago. What would you like to share with all of us about those years?

I was in Catholic grade school until eighth grade and then entered public schools.  I spent my freshman and sophomore year in Kettering schools and only my last two years at CHS.  When I got to CHS, I was very shy, scared and tall.  After graduating from high school, I stayed home and attended U.D.  There I majored in psychology and education.  In the middle of my senior year at U.D., I started teaching.  Because I was one of the youngest in all of my classes, I think that set the stage for doing everything a little too early.

When I graduated from U.D., I was understandably bored with living at home. I moved to Boston with friends for two years, to have some fun.  I worked in human resource jobs and was a cocktail waitress at night.  I ran out of money and returned to Centerville.  I was lucky enough to get my same teaching job back at Croftshire Elementary teaching sixth grade.  Two years later I was offered the Assistant Director of Personnel job in Kettering and did lots of recruiting throughout the tri-state area.  I got my masters degree at Wright State in Supervision and Curriculum and I took the position of principal at Rolling Fields Primary School, a K-2 school in Kettering.  Those years saw a closing of two elementary schools in Kettering and I became a “roving” principal…filling in for principals who were on leave.  I met Rich Ochin in 1977.  I studied Judaism when I lived in a Jewish neighborhood in Boston in the early 70’s.  Rich was Jewish and meeting him gave me the incentive to continue my studies.  I converted in 1978 right before we were married.  We lived in North Dayton at the time and I took a position as elementary principal at Helke Elementary, a K-6 school in Vandalia.  I started my work on a doctorate in Supervision and Curriculum, but stopped two courses shy of my degree.  It was already creeping into my consciousness that public education was not my heart.  In 1981 Rich bought the insurance agency that he had been working for since he had come to Dayton in 1975.  Unfortunately, we were both too young to take that big a chunk out of life and the insurance agency was not successful.  We had started thinking about having children very late.  I was 37 when I left my position and began in vitro fertilization.  Three in vitro attempts and many thousands of dollars later we had no pregnancy and little money.  With Rich’s work at an end and no children, we realized we could do anything we wanted, live any place we wanted.  So, we headed back to Boston.  There I worked at various human resource positions for the City of Boston and for two not for profit agencies.  I even had my own h.r. consulting agency for a year there.

In 1997 we decided to move to Sarasota in the hope that it would be a better climate for my health.  I had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 1995.

I’m currently working as a professional counseling astrologer.  I have studied astrology, tarot, numerology, etc. since I was 17.  I didn’t acknowledge any of that nor was I even conscious that I had an intuitive gift.  At age 50, I was very sick and could do very little.  I would work with friends on their charts and it soon became full time counseling.  My work is very fulfilling and I stay very busy, both with astrology consultations and workshops. I do about 60% of my work by phone throughout the U.S., Mexico, Columbia, Brazil, England, Scotland.  I don’t advertise; I am fortunate to have built my work by word of mouth.  My astrology is very Jungian based...i.e. I look at the planets as symbols of the energy a person has come into consciousness to work with and work on.  I help people validate who they are here to "be".  Many of my clients are working with their own therapists to transform their consciousness by incorporating the energy of their complexes as detailed in their charts.

I do very little outright prediction except in terms of the timing issues that are symbolized by the planets. When I first started the one-on-one counseling, I spent a year at a local new age book store reading astrology charts and tarot for many who wanted to decide heavy weight issues like "what color Mercedes should I buy...blue/black?"...not my forte!  I'm more accurately described as a counseling astrologer.   

In lots of ways I’m a very internal person.  Though I enjoy many close friendships, I’d often rather regenerate my energy by being by myself, with my cats and my husband.  I call Rich my “face person” because he’s the extrovert and I’m the introvert.  He’s the one who gets me “out there”.

Wow! Despite feeling that you were “faking it”, you did a good job of selling everyone on your abilities. I don’t know how many others have managed to do that, but it’s not something I’ve ever been able to do. I’m impressed!  You moved up rapidly through the education hierarchy. And you pretty much worked in management until you decided to pursue who you truly are. Not everyone even figures that out about themselves, much less is able to change directions and make a living at it. I really admire that. What about your extended family? Where are they now?

In 1994 my mom died in her sleep.  The shock of that seemed to set off my fibromyalgia. I felt like all my life I’d been holding my breath, faking it, trying to convince myself and everyone around me that I loved being an extravert…out in front of the world, managing and directing.  At 50, the fibromyalgia knocked me low, forcing me to stop and take stock of where I was in life.  I suddenly was face to face with who I really was.  I became aware that I really didn’t have to bring home any great titles or achievements to be worthwhile as a person.

My brother, Steve, is four years younger.  He has a wonderful wife and two children who each have two children.  Steve is Department Manager of Mechanical Estimating at Danis Construction.  My sister, Cynthi, is six years younger.  She is not married and is the Director of Hithergreen Senior Center in Centerville.  I hope many of you who are still in Centerville are involved with the center’s activities or go up and say “hi” to Cynthi and tell her you read about her here.  Cynthi and Steve went to Alter High School.  Dad died in 2005.  When I was young we moved a lot because of Dad’s promotions.  We lived in North Dayton, Kettering and Centerville.  Now Rich’s and my family include our friends and their children and our three cats, Murray, 20, and Sam and Jake, both 14. They’re street cats from Boston.

I’ve often felt the same way you used to feel professionally, so I can totally identify with it. It’s hard for someone who’s fundamentally shy to act like they aren’t, and I’d describe my husband as the “face person” in our family. He can talk to anyone. I can’t. You’ve found where you’re meant to be, professionally, so you’ve found your comfort zone. What are your hobbies and interests?

I love attending live theater and dance, and it’s all here in Sarasota.  My astrology and my intuitive nature became enhanced when I became involved with the C.G. Jung Society here.  My studies and work with that organization validated what I had sensed all my life; that our beings are comprised of both conscious and unconscious energy.  As individuals and as a culture we are driven more by energies that are unseen and unacknowledged than those energies that we are “sure” of.  I have begun giving time to the local hospice network and hope to do more with that group as time goes on.  I also love the outdoors in general, when my energy allows and the heat isn’t overpowering.  I garden, swim, golf, bike.  I’m an avid reader and love to decorate and play with color.  These next few months I’m hoping to become more proficient at photography so that I can pull together a book of poetry and pictures.

And outside of all that, your life is totally boring, right? Your astrology and how you combine it with psychology fascinate me, although I suspect it’s frequently done that way. It took you a while, and a serious illness, to find and believe in what you were supposed to be doing. Do you have any regrets about the path your life has taken, as you think back through the years?

I wonder if my life would have been different if I’d stayed in Dayton.  But I like change too much for that to have happened.  I’m close to my family, but I get bored easily so I couldn’t have stayed to do the traditional family things.  I do have some “wonder if’s, but I know that all that I’ve done has been meant to be, so I’m really pretty content.

I can identify with that. I couldn’t wait to get out of Dayton, spent 18 years moving around the country as the trailing spouse to my husband’s job changes, and then got terribly homesick and we moved back. There are things I miss about living in larger cities, but our kids are here and I’m tired of moving. And I’ve made such neat friends through talking with old classmates! What about memorable trips you’ve taken?

Money is a challenge for us, because the in vitro’s were very expensive and set us back financially.  Living in Boston was also expensive, but each of those experiences was worth it.  We’ve taken trips with Rich’s business to Mexico and many beautiful places in the U.S.  I would love to go to the U.K., Greece, Italy, Israel...but, who knows.  Maybe I will have to visit those places vicariously through my reading.  With me, wherever I am, that’s where I want to be.  So traveling to places isn’t such a treat…though I love it once I’m there.  I have lots of friends and family who visit and that’s always a treat.

I know the answer to this next question, but I’m going to ask it anyway. Is your life now as you thought it might be back when you were in high school?

I didn’t think about life in high school.  I had no sense of goals.  I guess I’ve always just taken it one day at a time.  I didn’t want to get married…never thought I would want to restrict my freedom that much.  Then I met Rich and it was ok.  I know now that I needed to be free of all the “should’s” that our generation was raised with, and one of those was we ‘should’ be married by our early 20’s.  We worked so hard for our parents’ approval, when we only needed our own approval.

Boy, are you speaking the truth. Despite the general cultural norms of the 60’s, we all still operated under our parents’ expectations, and felt we disappointed them if we didn’t follow through. I think I would have been afraid of my own approval, because I didn’t really know what I wanted to be when I “grew up”. And neither did you, nor did most of us. Some of us are still searching for what we really should have become. You’re one of the lucky ones who found it. Knowing what you know now, would you do anything differently, in retrospect?

Not really because when I was young I wasn’t conscious enough about who I was to assert myself and state what I intuitively knew I would be good at.  For instance, I really wanted to go to Duke University and study parapsychology, but I didn’t have enough self-awareness to assert for that.

Wow! I had no idea that a university like Duke would have even offered a parapsychology major back then. That would really have been off the beaten path, and if you’d had the courage to stand up to your dad and tell him that, I almost shudder to think how he would have responded. I don’t know of anyone who had a private dream like that, but I’ve studied that area also, so I can identify with it. When you’re shy, following a dream like that is like rocket science! Now, it wouldn’t be so off-beat. Despite the permissiveness of the 60’s, that would’ve been really pushing things. But I admire you for knowing in some corner of your mind that you belonged that direction. I wish I’d known myself that well, even in a corner of my mind, back then.

Changing the subject completely, what are your memories of high school?

My high school years, especially at CHS were years of feeling like I didn’t belong and feeling that it was safer to stay below the radar.  At 6’1” that was tricky!  I do remember Mrs. Tite and how critical she was of my writing.  I was so sensitive to criticism then.  I remember Mr. McDaniel and loved biology.  I remember Miss Acheson because of all the things I couldn’t do physically.  I do wish now that p.e. had included golf…that I could have been good at.  I was never fast and I had very little body awareness.  I do have a vivid memory of the day JFK died.  It must have been the first time I felt unsafe in the world.

I was invited to join a sorority soon after I came to CHS.  It included Nancy Missal, Marquita List, Carol Behm, Karen Worner and I think Melinda Welsh.  If Melinda wasn’t in the sorority at least I considered her a friend.  We had a lot of fun and a lot of good get togethers.  I remember actively considering becoming a nun because Nancy Missal had made that decision.  I attended a weekend with her at a convent in Pennsylvania.  I was very serious about it, but my father nixed the idea and I am grateful now.  In my senior year I became friends with Peggy Vlerebome.  I remember being so amazed at how confident, active and intelligent she was and what a good writer.  I also thought her very brave to go to Indiana University.  I wished our friendship had developed more.  I didn’t have a dating life.  My family was very insular and I felt that it was expected that I stay home on weekends. Even the music of the 60’s didn’t resonate all that much with me, maybe because I wasn’t “in love”.  I vividly remember the senior prom.  I went with an Air Force guy, and I was very embarrassed because he was in full dress blues.  That certainly didn’t fit my need to be inconspicuous!

Gee, and I was completely the opposite, even though I didn’t date at all until after I graduated. I never dated anyone from CHS. I think the people I knew back then weren’t the ones who were in sororities, because I didn’t even know they existed in high school. But I loved the 60’s music! What are your plans for the future?

I want to be able to stay flexible and out of pain as much as possible and live, lucidly, until I’m 90!  Now there’s a goal for you!!  Realistically, I plan to live one day at a time with consciousness and with a sense of responsibility for making my small world a more caring place.  The more I allow myself to be myself, the more I stay pain-free.  I know I need connections and people in my life who draw me out.  My husband and friends are always up for fun and for going places, so that helps keep me going strong.

I like your understanding of how your body works with fibromyalgia, and what you know you need to do to keep the pain under control. Others in our class also have it, but don’t always act wisely with the knowledge of what they need to do. But then, neither do I, knowing what I need to do for pain control but remembering what I used to be able to do not many years ago! As someone mentioned to me not long ago, many of us feel younger mentally than our bodies tell us we are physically! Do you have any retirement plans?

None at all. I think our generation has more debt and more challenges ahead.  Besides, Rich and I would be bored with out-right retirement.  It seems there is so much more to “be” and I’m just too curious to give up experiencing.  Hopefully, my body will cooperate.

Many of us know we’d be bored with retirement in the traditional sense, and have turned to what we really wanted to do to begin with, or have turned a hobby into a second career. As we live longer, I think it’s a moral imperative to have something to give way beyond the traditional retirement years.

Sandy, this has been a wonderful talk with you. As with so many of our classmates, I never knew you back then, but I wish you lived closer now (even though I know you love life in Sarasota) so we could talk on a frequent basis. As we approach the end of it, do you have any thoughts to leave for our classmates?

Learn to live your life day by day to the best of your ability. Try to get to where you’re living your nature; who you’re here to “be”.  That’s not necessarily what you or society think you “should” do.  Live and let live is certainly my motto.  Be the best you can be, with compassion in mind.  Be open to all possibilities.

Years ago, when I was converting to Judaism, my mother went to her priest for guidance.  I am grateful to him for what he said to her.  He told her she could feel blessed that I believed in God enough to find my own way of worshipping.  Though Rich and I do not define ourselves by any dogma or ideology now, we do believe that there is an underlying intelligence that guides us all.  Some will call it God, some Goddess, some All There Is.  But, if we listen to our inner guidance we will hear that divine voice and continue to be good people.

Since I know you come up here periodically to visit with your brother and sister and for workshops and appointments, you’re one of the people I’d really like to have a chance to sit and talk with at our 45^th reunion in 2010, and I’d like to stay in touch with you in the meantime. I think I might have to stand in line to talk with you if you come to that reunion! I know Peggy Vlerebome comes to the reunions, and you and she could have your own reunion within a reunion, which is really what they’re all about, anyway. Until next time, this is

Pat Cox

Welcome to another edition of CHS Class of 1965’s Featured Alumni. I am Sharon Erickson Howell and today we are featuring Pat Cox. Hi Pat, and welcome to our interview series.

Hi Sharon, and thank you for inviting me to be a part of the Featured Alumni series.

It’s been a very long time since we graduated from CHS, and you and I didn’t know each other back then. What’s been keeping you busy over these past 43 years?

Since graduation from Centerville High School, let’s see. What have I been up to? Well, I went to Sinclair Junior College, graduated from the Electronic Computer Programming Institute of Dayton, Ohio, went to work for the Standard Register Co. and, on the eve of Martin Luther King’s assassination, decided there had to be more in life. I packed up and moved to Columbus, Ohio, got married to a loser, moved back to Dayton for a while and then moved to Houston, Texas where I spent the next 20 years or so as a Corporate Trainer for Safeway Stores Inc. That’s where I met Troy, my husband of 31 years. I was the queen of disco and quite the social butterfly. Troy and I got involved with Catholic Charities where I did a number of Toastmaster Roasts to raise money for the Houston food bank. We did much for Special Olympics through our grocery connections and I became quite the public speaker. We kayaked, scuba dived, entertained, vacationed 5 times a year and worked on our favorite charities. We had a home in Houston and a vacation home on a lake in Texas, where, on the weekends, we fished, sat in the hot tub and drank beer and socialized with the neighbors. You can understand why I have been hesitant to tell you what I have been doing for the last 43 years. I have not discovered the moon or found a cure for cancer like some of our other classmates claim. I’m all about living and giving. If scuba diving were a science, then I would be a scientist. I vote, pay my taxes and am a loyal fan of friendship.

 For the past five years, I have been caretaking Troy’s father, a Korean and Vietnam Veteran. He had a stem stroke in 1991, an amputation in 1998 and suffered from an array of debilitating diseases. After two more amputations in 1996, he passed. During this time and for the past 10 years, I worked as a freelance videographer. My specialty was mock-trial work. I learned much about who is suing who and about the legalities of lawsuits. Mostly I worked on airline crashes, drug suits and monopolies. The work was fascinating and it took me to places I would never have seen otherwise. Confidentiality was key in this line of work.

I became interested in stained glass 30 years ago, and have pretty much made it my business of late.

Wow! Pat, It’s too bad you’ve lived such a terribly boring life, and haven’t discovered the moon or some other obscure planet or found a cure for cancer. Has one of our classmates done these things, and I missed their stellar achievement in the process of writing up their story? Age is definitely taking its toll on my memory! You’ve lived a fascinating life and done a great deal, and your scuba diving and kayaking put my weekend biking to shame. And caretaking an elderly parent requires more patience than I would probably ever have, even though I know of other classmates doing just that, so I stand in admiration of you in that area, too. And on top of everything else, you have a strong creative side, at which you’re clearly doing well. I wish you lived closer to Dayton. I’d like to get to know you personally. My best friends are now former classmates that I never knew back then. So, after all this, tell us a little about your extended family, and about Troy.

Troy Mallett, my husband, is 9 years my junior.  We met when I was 28 and he was 19.  We have been married for a whopping 31 years. I waited until he turned 21 to marry him. My parents thought I had been taken over by aliens.  They met him and fell in love too.  My dad greeted him with a fishing pole.  He is a joy to be around and my best friend for life. We currently live in Rock Hill, S.C. on 2 acres in an equestrian neighborhood surrounded by a cow pasture in a cedar & pine forest.

No children… I live vicariously through my brother Jim’s three children and six grandchildren. Bravely, Troy and I took 13 of them to Disney World on a fabulous vacation. We had the time of our lives. We call it pre-spending their inheritance.

My father, Nevin, dropped dead on my toilet of a heart attack while visiting me in Texas in 1989 at Christmas time. I can laugh about it now, but at the time, it was devastating.  My mother, Mary, passed in 1997 from pancreatic cancer. I moved from Charleston, SC back to Dayton to take care of her so she could die at home.

Mostly, our current family consists of two cats, Harley Doowapp Davidson and Cheeto, our Humane Society adopted son, and up to last week, our bird, Gizmo, who died of a heart attack at age 26. We were taking bets as to whether the bird would outlive me.  I won!

Well, I’m deeply relieved to know that you outlived the bird, because you promised me your story about three years ago, and had you died first, I never would have gotten it! I don’t think Gizmo’s life story would have been half as interesting as your’s is. What a horrible way for your father to die, and for you to know about it. I’m not sure I could ever laugh about something like that, but I admire you for being able to now. You’ve told us a bit about your hobbies, but it sounds like you’ve turned one of them into a business. Would you elaborate on that part of your life for us?

Sure!  We spent 10 years living in Charleston, SC, and, of course, Charleston is all about gardens, secret gardens.  I had rheumatoid arthritis by this time and I needed an outlet and activity to keep my joints flexible, so I started designing concrete garden stones in stained glass.  Then I started designing them in mosaics.  I actually got pretty good at it and have just been invited to join the South Carolina Artisans Society.  They want to put some of my work in a museum.  That’s when you know you’ve reached that pivotal time of your life when being showcased in a museum means, “dang, you’re old!”  I also have a retail store in Charlotte, NC, where I sell my work, Tiffany Lamps, hand-blown glass balls, which I design and have blown in the Appalachian Mountains, wind chimes, sun catchers and lots of glass things.  Since I don’t take myself real seriously, I tend to sell a lot of things for little profit, so, another place you’ll never see me is on the cover of Forbes.

Now, that’s a very creative way to keep your rheumatic joints flexible, create beautiful and original works of art, and earn money, too. You aren’t our first class member to turn a hobby into a second career, but it seems to be a fairly typical thing for our generation to do. Not too many of us are sitting around in rocking chairs or watching daytime TV. on a regular basis. And, when you’re not creating stained glass beauties, selling them, or being featured in the museum, what do you guys do for fun? Actually, your daily life sounds like fun to me.

We love cruising, hiking, RV’ing, kayaking, crabbing, fishing and pretty much anything that involves living.  You’ve never lived until you pull an angry crab into a little kayak and then miss the bucket he’s supposed to go into.  It’s truly a moment you’ll never forget.

Well, that covers a great deal! And how lucky you are to have the physical stamina at this point in life to be able to enjoy some fairly vigorous activities. I know that kayaking “ain’t for sissies”. The closest I’ve ever come to that was canoeing…once. We went years ago with our three kids, who delighted in swamping our canoe at regular intervals. I decided that I was not meant for the water. Do you have any regrets about “the road not taken”?

Now, let’s see! Regrets? There are a few. I wish I could have known all my classmates better, then, maybe I would have felt more comfortable returning to one of my class reunions. I regret that Mrs. Anglemeyer passed before I got to say goodbye to her. I regret that I lost track of most of my high school friends. If they knew me now, they would know that I am enjoying life the best I can. I regret that I have rheumatoid arthritis (a gift from my father). I would not change a thing about the choices I have made in my life. I do regret, however, that I do not have the ability to win the Nobel Peace Prize like so many in our family of graduates. When I read these life stories of all of you, I’m overwhelmed by your accomplishments.  I regret that I never told Doug Bushong how much I admired his kindness and intelligence.  I’m sure he turned out to be someone remarkable.  Oh, and I regret that I never joined the Drama Club.  After that weight thing with the Drill Team, I figured there wouldn’t be a place for slightly chubby, but delightful drama queen.  I did, however, join the Dayton Little Theater Group later down the road.

I’m awed even more that you’re able to do activities like kayaking with rheumatoid arthritis, because I know how much determination you have to be active in the face of that much constant pain. And creating beautiful stained glass requires a dexterity that has to be challenging for you, if your hands are affected. As for knowing your classmates better, coming to a reunion is the best way to remedy that. Our last reunion was quite a bit different from past ones, and the people who came had ample opportunity to meet people they’d never known back then, plus reconnect with old friends. The old cliques are gone now. And our class website is a great way to re-connect with those that you’d like to hear from again. Reconnection has happened through the website for several classmates. And, again, refresh my failing memory as to who in our class has won the Nobel Peace Prize. If any of them have, they sure haven’t bragged to me about it! Your accomplishments are going to sound pretty impressive to many of our classmates, myself included.

Now, a short journey back to the Dark Ages, those days when we were just kids in classes together. What are your memories of high school?

Yes, I was in the French Club and I was president of the Pep Club. Does anyone even remember that I was your junior class Editor of the Wapiti? I tried out for the drill team and didn’t make it because of weight discrimination. My friends cried for me.  I took it as a challenge.  I had already been studying dance with Mary Hyatt in Centerville for 13 years, so I became captain of her drill team. We worked our butts off and received an invitation to march in the Cotton Bowl in Florida.  It was a highlighting achievement for me.  Amazingly, I didn’t see one person from CHS’s drill team at the Cotton Bowl.  It taught me my first hard lesson about discrimination. I was the president of our Tri-Hi-Y and I remember we sold out our Sock Hop at the YMCA with Ivan and the Sabers in one day. My dad bought me Beatles concert tickets for my 16^th birthday present and I took my best friend of 53 years, Ellen Shannon.  We almost got arrested in Cincinnati because one of us threw a Coke bottle out of the window.  The police called my parents.  How embarrassing!  Mostly in high school, though,  I hung out with Carma Shank, Shelly Tettman, Marcia Howard and a bunch of the 1963 graduating class.  I was in two sororities.  Were they even legal in high school?  My 16^th birthday party lasted two days.  It started at LeSourdsville Lake and ended in a really big party.  My fondest memories of high school were in Mrs. Anglemeyer’s Class.  She was my friend and my mentor.  Also, much of my life centered around the Kettering Skating Rink.  It was where I spent most of the weekends when I wasn’t with the band.  My parents ran the concession stand at the football games, so I was held captive selling hot dogs and soft pretzels at every home game.  That is torture when you are 15.

Most of you knew me in high school because of my brother Jim, and Ivan and the Sabers. It was pretty much my life then. What people don’t know about me is that my dad managed the band and that taught me much about discretion. For example, one night my mom called me at Ellen’s and said I had to get home right away for supper.  Reluctantly, I came.  I sat down to dinner with a young gentleman named Michael Landon, Yes; it was “the” Michael Landon. My mom picked him up at LeSourdsville Lake between gigs with the band and invited him to dinner. He had just signed a contract to start a little show called Bonanza. He was courteous and polite and very, very good looking to a 16 year old. Herman’s Hermits arrived in my driveway one day driving a big, black hearse. I got to hang with Jay and the Americans, Jan and Dean, Marvin Gaye, The Beach Boys and on and on. I learned so much about discretion. I was with Otis Redding when he got on his last plane ride. It was a sad occasion in our house. This was my life away from Centerville High School. At the same time I was a high school student I was living with celebrities.  It was great preparation for the future.  I was asked to publish a teen magazine but my parents thought I was too young.  They were, unfortunately, right!   It was fun and the parties at the Cox house were always great! 

I am totally speechless! All these music legends, and you were hanging with them. Discretion, I understand, but your neighbors had to have seen a few things. Big black hearses in anyone’s driveway aren’t exactly every day occurrences. And Michael Landon…when did he NOT look very, very good looking, clear up to the last public pictures of him? He didn’t appeal just to 16 year old girls! Jeez, what memories you’ve got. The rest of us pale by comparison. I think I must have been living in a cave somewhere during my whole high school years. And after all these memories, and what you’re doing today despite the arthritis, what are your plans for the future? I’m almost afraid to ask.

My goal today? Troy and I want to arrive at old age with a great cruise itinerary, a bigger and badder RV and a great attitude. I still need to see Greece, Italy, Australia, Alaska and many parts of the U.S. before I go. Oh, and maybe I’ll run into all of you someday. We certainly hope so!   Come by the house if you happen to be in South Carolina.  You’ll find me in the swimming pool hanging on to a noodle for dear life, pretending to be an Olympic swimmer and you’ll find Troy bungeed tightly to his little John Deere tractor so he won’t fall off!

Today I am happy in my stained glass studio creating some beautiful mosaic piece that I feel confident no one else can duplicate. Early in my life, I wanted to be a lawyer. Coming from an Italian migrant blue-collar family, it wasn’t in the cards. It wasn’t meant to be. I find the most beauty in the simplest things these days. I wouldn’t change a thing! My biggest accomplishment besides my husband, Troy? I still have a great sense of humor!

Boy, do you ever! You had me chuckling through most of the reading of what you sent me. Well, I can tell you one way to accomplish part of that last wish, and that’s to come to the next reunion in 2010. We won’t all be there, and the girls you hung with in high school will have to be talked into coming…maybe by you?...but a lot of people will show. And several of those people can be accessed—I think—through the website, if we have the right email addresses for them. If not, I can help you with home addresses and sometimes with phone numbers. Our old classmates often are thrilled to be contacted by those from the past, particularly if it’s someone they knew, and never expected to hear from again. It’s really pretty flattering to be sought out by old friends! 

Now, Sharon wants words of wisdom from me!  My wisdom comes from a person with a debilitating disease, in denial about getting older.  Here it is:  If you are a person living with chronic pain, stop complaining.  There is always someone in worse shape than you and me.  People, we are older now, so, take your medications.   Keep moving!  Spend some of that money you’ve all worked so hard to save all of your life.  Adopt a puppy or a kitten from the Humane Society.  It can do wonders for your attitude.  Give back in some way.  I just donated some of my artwork to Hospice for their children’s garden.  It wasn’t much, but it made me proud of my meager accomplishments.  Be proud of your lives.  From what I’ve read, you’ve all done remarkable things with your lives.  I’ve much to learn in the future.  I just hope I don’t croak before I get it all done.  My heart tells me one thing but my body has a different agenda.  Some of you know of what I speak!  Let’s all just enjoy it as long as we can.  It’s not too late to go skinny dipping.

I think I know exactly what you mean, Pat. My body is 61, but recently I was asked how old I felt mentally, and to my surprise, I responded with “about 40”. I hadn’t even thought about it until then. Questions like that aren’t posed to most of us every day. I, like you, have my share of aches and pains, but I can’t seem to stop pushing myself each day to see if maybe I can still get away with something I used to be able to do, and I think you’re the same way. I really, seriously hope you come to the reunion in 2010, which isn’t all that far away now. You’ve changed a lot and become who you were meant to be; so have a lot of the rest of us. Come and meet us again! Until next time, this is

Jim Stark

Welcome to another edition of CHS Class of 1965’s Featured Alumni. I am Sharon Erickson Howell, and today we are featuring Jim Stark. Hi, Jim, and welcome to our interview series.

Hi, Sharon, and thank you for inviting me to be a part of this series. I knew you’d get around to asking me one day!

I know you’ve been in this immediate area your whole life, so how about telling us what all you’ve been doing all these 42 years.

I went to Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa for a degree in psychology, realized how much more education I’d have to have to be able to work in that field, and switched to a business degree. When I came back home, I started out at Rike’s, then went to Elder Beermans, for maybe 3 ½ years. Viet Nam was a big issue, and I had to participate in some way, so I went into the National Guard, which necessitated some annoying time away from home for a few weeks periodically each year plus one weekend a month for 6 years. My dad had just bought Centerville Bowling Lanes, so he asked me for some help, and I ended up working for him for 17 years. Eventually I sold the business; went to Europe for three months. One month I spent in Paris with Freddie Meyer of ’Ivan and The Sabers‘ fame.  He still performs around Europe. His web site is www.freddiemeyer.com ,then click the American Flag. Its fun!!!! I came home and opened the first Dayton office for Sprint with Ray’Red’Huss. Class ‘61. We became the number one sales team in the country very quickly in little old Dayton, Ohio, and we stayed in that office for 6 ½ years, in the long distance voice and data business. Along the way, my dad and I and Phil & Jerry of Foodarama fame donated seed money for the CHS radio station in what eventually became the new high school, not the one we all graduated from, and I also contributed seed money for the Washington Township Recreation Center, which started out as a YMCA. After Sprint, I took about five months of leisure, then got my commercial real estate license and became an independent contractor. We have merged or acquired five companies over the last four years and now are number two in the Day/Cin markets.

You have a well-deserved reputation for knowing just about everyone from not only our class, but several classes above and below ours, and I think you know about everyone else in the area, too. Everyone I’ve asked you about over the last almost a year, you’ve either known where they were, where they are, or have had contact with them recently. That’s amazing to me, but I know you got to know most of them through both school and the bowling lanes. Tell us about your family. Where they and what are are they doing?

My dad died at age 86, eight years ago, and my mom died at age 96 in 2006. Both my brother Tim and I were adopted, he as a toddler, myself as an infant, and we had pretty terrific lives because of that. Tim, 58, worked for Bob Evans for 20 years, and due to some personal health problems, is unemployed right now. I have a deeply loved daughter, Lauren, 28, who lives in San Francisco. She graduated from Montana State University, loves climbing mountains, extreme snowboarding, and works for Adidas in San Francisco. She educates and trains managers of retail stores to train their staff on products and services. Her territories are Calif., Ore., Wash., Nev., AZ, and Hawaii. We had a family wedding in Peru, South America in May and I sent her there to represent the North American part of the family, because I couldn't get away then. Needless to say, she’s pretty excited about that! I’ve been divorced from her mother for many years. I’ve had a very special lady in my life, one I wish I’d been lucky enough to have met a long time ago. Her name is Ann Bruning, former owner of Bruning Clock Shop locally, but she’s originally from Long Island, NY and a graduate of the University Of Dayton. By sheer coincidence, her best friend is Joanne Wallace Sabatino, from our class, who now lives in Florida! Life is strange!

Jim, your enthusiasm and zest for life are infectious, and you know everyone. I know you’re happy with the path you’ve chosen since high school, and you obviously love meeting and getting to know people and real estate sales. Do you have any hobbies? Not everyone does.

A little known fact is that in high school my family, Bob Heffner’s, Karen Armstrong’s, and Freddie Meyer belonged to the Crestwood Swim Club, and our swimming and diving team won many records and championships from age 11 thru 17. It was super to be recognized for those victories. Outside of that, I enjoy playing golf, love travel, dining out, fine wines, and gourmet cooking.

I, along with some other women, would just love to invite you to our homes to demonstrate your expertise! What memorable trips have you taken?

I’ve been to Japan, Europe, and all over the U.S. I’ve traveled quite a bit over the years.

Do you have any regrets about the path your life has taken, and is your life where you thought it would be, back when you were in high school?

I don’t really think I have any regrets. Just about everyone has a few things they would have done differently, but mostly, things have turned out just fine. And no, I had no idea back in high school what I wanted to do when I grew up! I don’t regret the choices I’ve made along the way, and my best achievement by far has been my daughter. I’m glad to be still here and still doing things that I really love to do. I’d maybe like to have been able to be a restaurant critic, because in my line of work I eat out frequently and I’ve learned to appreciate excellent food and wine. AND, I’d like to be a better golfer!

Well, you’ve had a great life since high school graduation. What are your best memories of those four years?

First and foremost, I remember Ralph Bender. I took speech as an elective, and he changed my life. I can handle public speaking easily now, thanks to his training back then. I remember Jim Van Tine’s government class, and Dick Hall. I knew, and still know, so many people from CHS. To name just a few: Bill Meckstroth, Monica Ponchellia, Ash Bloom, Steve Williamson, Wayne Kirby, Dwight Doench, Dennis Fallang, Bill Williams, Bob Heffner, Lila Waltrip, Joanne Wallace, Janet Scott, , Jerry Dice, Phil Meismer……and the list goes on and on. Those people who live locally, I still have frequent contact with, and I talk to Dwight, Wayne, and Bob. Wayne, Dennis, Dwight and their wives, and Ann and I gather regularly during the summer on the back terrace of the Yankee Trace Golf Club on Wednesday evenings for ‘Jazz on the Green’. We tell old stories and new ones; it’s fun! I’m also close to a lot of people from the classes of ’64 & ’66. The classes around us sort of blended together over time. One thing I remember most from my senior year, just days before graduation, is driving on Far Hills Ave., just south of David Rd. across the street from Steve Williamson’s apartment playing with the radio dial, not paying attention to what I was doing, and rear-ending a large Pontiac Grand Prix, putting the trunk in the back seat. When the driver got out, who did I see but Mr. Tite, with Mrs. Tite in the passenger seat. I really thought I was all washed up with high school at that moment and graduation was just a memory!!! BUT I STILL GRADUATED!!!

You’re probably one of the most amazing people I’ve talked to from our class. I think we know the answer to this next question, but I’ll ask it anyway. What are your plans for the future?

I will continue with commercial real estate because of the challenges and satisfactions of being a consultant for peoples businesse's, real estate, and investment portfolios. I don’t have any retirement plans at all. I know it will happen eventually, but I can’t predict when that time will come. Right now I’m enjoying my life too much to envision stopping what I’m doing.

My ending question to all my interviews is the same, Jim. What words of wisdom do you have for our classmates?

My words of wisdom came to me right after our 40^th reunion, which was one of the best ones our class has had. It’s been featured on the class website a couple of times.

REFLECTIONS 

Reflections of laughter, tears, other emotions, and shared moments years ago when we lived younger lives together…..

MEMORIES

We are forever bonded by those threads of time and in those quiet moments of our own personal reflections from then to our newly created…..

MEMORIES

To look upon you again, into your eyes and to hear the history of your life’s journey and moments shared with me and all of us were just fabulous…..

MEMORIES

Those smiles and oh! The laughter of yesterday and today makes us warm. It’s really like coming home and so many…..

MEMORIES

Wow! The echoes of those lost, please remember! Please remember! Please remember! Even though I was with you for a shorter time have…..MEMORIES.

Remember your friends, because you don’t know when or if you’ll see them again.

This has been a beautiful interview, Jim, and I’d like to hope that those reading it will lose some of their reluctance to talk with me as you’ve done today. As you told me, a lot of people are preferring to look forward, not backward, but sometimes a pause for reflection is good for all of us, to put all of our years of experience and living into perspective. Thank you for talking with me today so willingly, and I know that we’ll see you at the 45^th reunion.  Until then, this is

 Sharon Erickson Howell.

Karen Copp

Welcome to another edition of CHS Class of 1965’s Featured Alumni. I am Sharon Erickson Howell, and today we are featuring Karen Copp Lachat. Hi, Karen, and welcome to our interview series!

Hi, Sharon, and thank you for inviting me to be a part of the Featured Alumni series.

You’ve had a busy, busy life since we all graduated from CHS 42 years ago. Will you tell us a little about what you’ve been doing?

I have a B.S. in psychology from University of Kentucky and an M.A. in school psychology from Ohio State. The school psychology degree got me into the career I am in now, because they had an opening for a full time education guidance counselor for the Air Force in Okinawa, Japan. At that time we were registering everyone for Community College of the Air Force which would give them an associate degree related to the job they held.  Since this associate degree is from a fully accredited community college, the credits will transfer to a bachelor’s degree program in many areas, even management.  I have been a civilian with the Air Force for 28 years now and have had assignments in many locations such as Washington, D.C., Germany, Japan, Hawaii, Colorado, and my current assignment in Texas.  I have been running the education program on Randolph Air Force Base for about 14 years now.  I am the equivalent of the chancellor of our college system here on base.  There are five different colleges that have sites on the base the help military and civilian personnel get their associate’s, bachelor’s, or master’s degrees in a variety of programs such as aeronautical engineering and computer and information science.  We have 28 classrooms, a 3 million dollar budget to help pay for the airman’s tuition, a large testing center, and we offer professional military training.  I enjoy this job tremendously, but it has gotten much more stressful since the Iraq war.  Our students get sent overseas in the middle of their courses, so they switch to distance learning so be able to complete.  This program is similar to the ones at all the other locations I have been in.

Wow! You’ve got a heavy responsibility in this job, but I could hear the pride in what you’ve created in your voice, and It’s certainly justified. I can also understand why retirement, even though age 65 isn’t too far away, might not be at the top of your list. What about your personal life?

I was married for 15 years and it was good for a long time, but it fell apart in 1984, and we had no kids. My parents retired to Florida, and my mom died of lung cancer in 1984; my dad died of it also in 1999. I have a sister, 57, who teaches in Cincinnati, another sister, 53 who’s a dental hygienist in Florida, and a brother, 50, who’s in real estate in Flint, Michigan. We’re sort of scattered all over the country. And I have my 2 “kids”, my poodles, Beau and Fiesta, who I compete in a variety of shows. I stay very busy!

I know you’re very busy, Karen, because it took us months to connect and talk long enough to get this interview with you. And it was worth the wait! What are your hobbies?

I love to garden, but last year was the first year I haven’t had a garden in years. My main interest is in training and competing with Beau and Fiesta, and there was an article about what the competition on the CHS ’65 website a few months ago about that. We had a very hot, wet summer last year here in Texas, and we were challenged with training our dogs, because we have no inside facility in which to train. It was too wet and muddy for the dogs, and we have to keep them in shape. I’m also heavily into my own physical fitness, because of the physical work involved in training and in the show ring. I work out five days a week, and my workout is pretty structured.

I envy you the dog training and competition. I’d love to do that with our own two dogs. And boy, does it force you to keep in shape, which I am not! What memorable trips have you taken?

My most memorable trip was the March on Washington to get our troops out of Vietnam, even though it was quite a while ago. When I was in Europe we would take a troop train to Berlin to go shopping (this was before the Berlin wall came down).  It kept stopping so no one got ambushed. I was also on a troop transport plane coming back from a trip to Korea. I sat there for a while before I realized that my feet were resting on a casket and I found out that the plane was bringing bodies back from a terrorist attack.  THAT was a jolt!

All I can say, again, is what an incredible life you have led! What do you consider to be the accomplishment you’re most proud of? You’d done so much!

I’ve watched a lot of military people go way beyond what they thought they could do academically. I got them into college level material, and they found out that 30 hours of their training from technical school would transfer as college credits. I have enabled them to get their advanced degrees and then retire and become successful in their second careers!  I now support the counselors, and help to work around the regulations when we need to help someone meet their goals.

That’s an incredibly satisfying thing to know you’re doing, especially with all the red tape the military can put in peoples’ way. What about any regrets you’ve had, or anything you might have done differently?

I don’t really have any serious regrets with the choices I’ve made, and the only thing I’d have done differently would have been to finish my Ph.D. I went overseas in the middle of working on it, and I just couldn’t get back into it, so I made a career out of what I’d already done.

And it worked out probably better than you could have imagined. Did you think you’d be going into work like this, back in high school?

NO!!  I thought I was going to be a veterinarian, but the schools wouldn’t accept me because I was a woman, so I chose psychology instead.

I had no idea there was that discrimination back then. My brother wanted to be a vet, but he couldn’t get into a school in Ohio, and was talked into poultry science instead. Very bad counseling, which YOU would never have done!  Now he works in computers. What about your memories from high school? You’ve led such a busy life; do you remember much from back then?

Truthfully, I don’t. I don’t remember any of my classes or teachers from back then, but I do remember field hockey and the tennis team. I remember Susan Johnson, Sally Mowry, who I talked to a week before she died, and few others, but I have not really kept in touch with anyone.  We all went such different directions.

I can understand why you have few memories from back then. Your life has been bursting at the seams for years now! What about future plans and retirement plans?

My goal is to keep running my dogs on the agility field at age 95, which is how old one of the men in our group is. And I just might make it. I’m eligible for retirement in two years, but whether I retire depends on my financial situation by that time. I love my job, so it’s not the end of the world if I’m not ready yet.

You have a terrific job and a terrific hobby, and working with dogs in training is one of the most satisfying things I can imagine. Do you have any words of wisdom for our classmates?

Look on the positive side! Don’t give up! There has to be a way out or a brighter side.

And you’ve clearly found both through all you’ve gone through in the last 42 years. Thank you for taking the time to share your busy life with us, Karen. Until next time, this is

Larry Manny
(Did not want to submit photo)

John McEldowney

Welcome to another edition of CHS Class of 1965’s Featured Alumni. I am Sharon Erickson Howell, and today we are featuring John McEldowney. Hi, John, and welcome to our interview series!

Hi, Sharon, and thank you for thinking of me for this series!

All right, as everyone knows by now, I always start off with the same question, so here goes. You were popular and well known back in high school, and everyone is dying to know…. what all have you been doing over all these years since we graduated from CHS together?

After high school, I went to the University of Dayton and graduated in 1969 with a marketing degree. First I was at Gem City Savings, right out of college, where I worked in the Savings area for five years, learning all about savings plans, bonds, and customer service. I moved to Sarasota, Florida in 1974, and I worked in a similar position at United First Federal. It was here that I learned about the lending business. I returned to Dayton in 1976, and was an assistant branch manager at Gem City Savings, Far Hills office, where you,