Ronnie Middleton

I received updated home address and telephone number info for Ronnie and Josie Middleton a couple of days ago. In his update Ronnie make the following comments:

I did retire just as I planned last March and will have one year at my beautiful home here in the Philippines on April 5, 2009. Boy, is it wonderful. My diabetes put me in the hospital for a week back in Dec. 2008 but I'm much better now. I get good medical care from the American VA clinic in Manila (the only one outside of the U.S). With my VA pension and my SS we get along fine.

I told Ronnie that if he would fill in a little more of the details on retired life in the Philippines I'd pass it along to everyone. Here is the additional info Ronnie sent.

I've always heard the hardest part of retirement is deciding what time to get up in the morning. Well, with my diabetes and it's accompanying medication schedule, I am up every morning to take my pills and morning insulin shot at 6 AM.

What is it like here in Paradise? It's fantastic. Over the years we built a beautiful 3 bedroom house of about 1800 sq. ft. It's all marble because marble is cheaper over here than vinyl tile. We have a maid's quarters (studio) in the back and our maid is about $60 a month. Really a tough situation.

The temperature usually tops out at 80 - 85 daily. I live one block off the beach and next door to a beautiful 5 star resort. And of course being a neighbor we can use their water park, bowling alley, and all water sport facilities at almost nothing. About 50 - 60% discount. By the way, they never close. My grand kids love the place.

We keep busy with the grand kids and have a card playing group (over 65) two days a week. We play at a very nice restaurant owned by one of the members.

Well, enough for now. God bless and keep all our 1961 class.

If you wish to email Ronnie his email address has not changed. If you don't have it already its in the Class Email Directory available online. Should anyone want to write Ronnie at his physical address or phone him let me know and I'll send that info to you.

Fair Park 50's Luncheon

Jimmy Stockard provided access to some photos of the recent Fair Park 50's luncheon held in Shreveport. Right below the luncheon photos are some photos of a recent trip the Class of '53 made to Branson, MO. Click on the title to this article to see the photos.

Ruth Elizabeth Loper

Memorial services for Ruth Elizabeth Loper, the wife of classmate David Loper, will be held at 11:00 am Saturday March 28, 2009, at Benton United Methodist Church.

We have David's home address info in our alumni records. If anyone wishes to contact him that way send me a note requesting that info. Mrs. Loper's obituary and Guest Book are available by clicking on the title to this posting.

Please keep David and his family in your prayers as they go through this time of sorrow.

Submission Of Alumni Address Information

Use the Update Address link on the Class Directory web page if you want to provide new or updated address info. No username or password is needed to use this process. However, those safeguards do remain in place for the Class Email Directory.

Mary Rainey Hinton

Mary apparently tried to provide her alumni info via the automated address form that we have online. However, something went awry because all I see on the form is her name. No home address, email address, or other info is showing. If anyone is in contact with Mary please give her my email address and tell her to contact me directly. Or she can click on the "Email News To Blog" link of our Blog and that will come to me. Since we have no contact info for Mary, I am hopeful that she can get in touch soon.

Follow-Up on 3/16/09:

Hats off to Mickey Phillips who used a telephone search web site to find a phone number for Mary in a faraway place called Shreveport, LA. Imagine that! Mickey called and sure enough it was the right person. However, Mary was as surprised to hear that her name had been entered into the address update form as she was to hear from Mickey. Probably the biggest reason for her surprise was because she doesn't have a computer. However, her daughter does have a computer and may have been the person who entered Mary's name on the form.

Mickey said that Mary was excited to hear from another 1961 classmate and asked to be put on the alumni mailing list. That has been done. Mickey also provided Mary with the link to our class web site and suggested she get her daughter to show her the class web site.

Well that's one more we can remove from the missing list. Thanks Mickey. Only 159 more to go!

Mary Elaine Graves Doughty

Today's Shreveport Times has the obituary for Mrs. Doughty. She is the sister of classmate Joyce Graves Gadd. Please keep Joyce and other family members in your prayers. Home address information is available for Joyce if you need it, and the Guest Book for Mrs. Doughty will be online until 4/11/09. You can access the obituary and Guest Book by clicking on the Title line for this article.

Paul Richard Herren

Thanks to Helen Lindsay Rigg for calling my attention to the obituary for Mr. Herren. He passed away on 3/7/09, and is the Father of classmate Pat Herren. You can access Mr. Herren's obituary by clicking on his name in the title bar of this posting.

We don't have current contact info for Pat. However, if you wish you can leave a message of condolences for Pat and other family members in the online Guest Book that is available when you access Mr. Herren's obituary.

Please keep Pat and her family in your prayers as they go through this time of sorrow.

Susie Ann Byrd Gordy

The Shreveport Times dated 3/08/2009 has the obituary for the Mother of classmate Maxine Gordy Barton. You can click on Mrs. Gordy's name in the title to this posting to go directly to her obituary. If you wish to leave Maxine and her family members a note of condolences, the online Guest Book is available, and along with the obituary will be available online until 4/07/2009. If you need home address info for Maxine please let me know. Please remember Maxine and her family during this difficult time.

Twitter Links - revised 3/11/09

There is a new section in the left margin of the Blog for Twitter postings. Click on any name to see what info is in the Twitter postings.

Twitter is a free micro-blogging service that individuals can use to post their comments, but the comments can't exceed 140 characters. Postings usually deal with what someone is doing, or a short comment on some topic. Newspapers, TV stations, and businesses are also using Twitter to post headlines and links to more indepth stories.

Twitter also has real time search capabilities. For example, Twitter user's phone updates provided the earliest news about the plane that went down in the Hudson. Lots of users followed that news event via Twitter search. Since real time search capability hasn't existed before many new and innovative ways of using it are being explored.

While Twitter can be used a lot of different ways, I think of it as a personal bulletin board for passing along info or links to others in your circle of friends. One thing its not, a place for putting private or sensitive personal info, unless you are a movie star, or politician (grin).

Lunch Get Together of Fair Parkers of the 1950's

Jimmy Stockard of the Fair Park Class of 1953 sent this to me. Please pass the info along to anyone you know who might be interested.

Cookie Moore Reed sends the following announcement about the next Shreveport Lunch Get-together of Fair Parkers of the 1950's.

• Wednesday, March 25, 1 pm.
• Johnny's Catfish & Seafood
• 5130 Bert Kouns Industrial. Loop
• All members of Classes of the Fifties (1950-1959) are invited and encouraged to attend.

Cookie’s e-mail:  cookjay1961@yahoo.com