UPDATE October 2015
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED to a social gathering of the WHS Class of 1966 on Saturday, October 24, 11:30 a.m., at Fargo’s Pizza Company located at 2910 East Platte Avenue in Colorado Springs. The informal event was proposed by our classmates Ron Petty and Bruce McAlexander.
“Are we at the stage that we need to have name badges to try to recognize everyone?” asked Bruce McAlexander in his somewhat serious and joking manner. “That tells me that it has been too long again.”
People who need a ride to the event can contact our classmate Doug Allen, a longtime East Coast resident who is now living back in Colorado Springs.
Direct any inquiries to Bruce by calling him at (719) 685-1420 or via email at LeviMcAlexander1@Gmail.com
Speaking of Bruce’s half-serious and half-joking reference to name badges to try to recognize one another now that we are growing old, our classmate Bob Cook wrote a very interesting message in August 2015 on the topic of recognition. He wrote:
“I’m never surprised when folks don’t recognize or remember me. I moved to Widefield from Germany in January 1963 and attended Widefield High School from the second semester of my freshman year to graduation. I was shy and had few friends, mainly Steve Cox, Rick Helwig, Norman Durkee and Judy Ames. I also was friends with Mike Baile, Mike Parrish and Ken Powelson. They seem to have disappeared. In fact, I heard Mike Parrish is deceased. I didn’t play sports or attend social events. I was into motorcycles and studies, that’s about it. Another difference is that I was small and skinny at WHS. My draft card says 5’8” and 160 lbs. Today I’m 6’2” and 205 lbs. Even folks who knew me don’t recognize me.”
++++++++++++++++++++
AT THIS TIME 50 YEARS AGO in 1965, many of us were roaming the halls of WHS and attending our final year of classes as we became seniors at WHS – only eight months away until graduation in May 1966. “Where is Stella, where is Della?” was the most-often question that our classmates asked as we returned to WHS in September 1965. Noticeably absent from our ranks were our longtime classmates Stella and Della, the Romero twins who were with many of us in Security all the way from grade school through high school. At the end of our junior year in May 1965, we elected Stella Romero and Suzie Gates to be the official new Class Representatives for our senior year that started in September 1965. Stella and Suzie were scheduled to join our classmates Dave Rapelje, Rhonda Richards and Daryl Kuiper who were already serving terms as our official Class Representatives in a decision-making body led by our classmate Twila Wilson as President, Meg Hulsey as Vice-President and Pat Kueck as Secretary. With Stella not being present over the beginning weeks of our senior year, school officials considered appointing somebody else to become the new Class Representative and ended up leaving the position unfilled throughout our senior year. It was later learned that the Romero family suddenly moved away from Security over the summer 1965. Despite Stella and Della not officially being with us during our senior year, many of us always considered them an integral part of our class because they were longtime regulars in our school life in Security from grade school into our high school years. [See the “In Memoriam” section of our class website for the article I wrote many years ago about Della, who passed away in November 2001. Stella remains in contact with our classmates.]
In that same May 1965 election in which we elected Stella and Suzie to join the aforementioned three other classmates as our official Class Representatives for our senior year, there was a very close election between our classmate Eldon Lee and me for a seat on the Student Council for which our classmate Ron Petty was President and our classmate Bruce McAlexander was Vice President. Although many people thought Eldon’s popularity as a sports player almost guaranteed that he would prevail over me in the election, the final count and recount were so close between him and me that the council’s faculty liaisons decided that both of us would be on Student Council in our senior year.
++++++++++++++++++++
OUR CLASSMATE Mimi George Torreano stated in a July 2015 message that she and her husband will be in Colorado Springs for a family reunion over the July 4 holiday weekend next year. She looks forward to seeing some of our classmates while she is in Colorado Springs during that time. Known at WHS as Marie George, she has gone by the Mimi nickname that her mother always called her when the George family lived in Security. Having been Torreano through marriage the past five decades, Mimi and her husband reside in Hawaii.
++++++++++++++++++++
TO VISIT OUR CLASS WEBSITE for which our classmate Paul Snell is the Webmaster, please go to:www.1966whs.com
The software that Paul used to build the website allows people to access the website through a regular computer as well as a smartphone or digital tablet. At the bottom of each page of the website is a link to a Facebook page that can be used by classmates who have Facebook and want to communicate and receive information through Facebook. Please be sure to bookmark the website address on your computer so that you will have it handy whenever you want to visit the website.
++++++++++++++++++++
This update was prepared by me.
Respectfully submitted,
Donnie Martinez
Known at WHS by stepfather’s surname Collier
Martinez is my birth certificate and legal surname
a/k/a Butch, family nickname since childhood
a/k/a Don, presumably the adult version of Donnie
a/k/a Primo (Cousin) to dozens of my Martinez cousins
+++++++++++++++++++