The Redemption of Billy Cannon

A Remarkable Story of  a 50 year Journey!

I found this story on ESPN of one of our college heroes- Billy Cannon of LSU, winner of the Heisman Trophy in December, 1959. It is a story of the football culture of the South as exemplified in Louisiana. But it is also about a life-time journey that at one point turned badly, but didn’t end there. Read how a totally disgraced sports hero was able to redeem himself and at the ripe old age of ’72 regain the respect of his friends and the State of Louisiana.

Billy Cannon after being restored to the Football Hall of Fame

To read the story at ESPN- click on the picture!

As many of our fellow class-mates pack their bags for the 50th Reunion celebration this week-end, I can’t help but feeling that some of us have similiar stories to tell about our own journey in the last fifty years; from the brink of disaster to a beautiful redemption of life and purpose. Hopefully, reunion will be a chance for some to share their stories .

Remembering Our Teachers

What Would SOUTHEAST have been Without THEM!

Remind you of someone?

Thanks to the web site of the Class of ’54, (click to see Faculty page) I was able to get links for a few of our Teachers.

Leonard Rice

Mr. Rice was my physics teacher which was invaluable at K-State.

science

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Ballinger

mathematics

As I remember Mrs. Ballinger, she was a good teacher, a disciplinarian, but knew her stuff.

english

Rebecca Birkhead

Four years of English, I’m sure I had Ms.Birkhead for two courses. She was an excellent teacher and always got the most out of every student.

Drama/speech

Maria Fetters

She was not only my speech teacher but convinced me to do drama, including the play “Our Town”, our junior year. As a result of her encouragement, I joined the National Thespians.

Who are the teachers you remember?

Try to decide and get ready to share with classmates your memories and your own appreciation of those that influenced your life and profession.

Anticipation of the Gold

Are these pics really 10 Years Old?

Small group get-together

Is that YOU Harold?

Whose your friend Ed?

Some Surprises

What’s in A name?

The worth of our own name is priceless.

We learned this early in our school years. Roll was called (kept) by our name; grades were attached to our names; we were rewarded according to our names. Come to think about it, much of our entire life identity is inseparable from our personal name.

Memorial bricks

There are many ways to honor individuals using their names, such as with these memorial bricks in the Veterans Couryard at the Truman Memorial Building in Independence, MO.  We also want to honor the names of each class-mate of our graduating class of 1960. 

We need your help! We have added the names of 32 of our “missing class-mates” page, those precious individuals who were apart of our Southeast community but for whom we have no contact information as of 2005 when the list was compiled. So please take a moment to click on the tab above or here (missing classmates) and look at the list to see if you can help us with any of these names. If you can, let us know by contacting anyone on the Reunion Committee or leaving a comment on the missing classmates page.

We don’t want anyone left out of the 50th celebration!

Coming soon: The names of our favorite teacher at Sotheast.

Music fit for a King

And the Knights of Southeast High School!

Ever heard of Rick Wakeman? Very talented and unusual musician, his 1975 master-piece about King Arthur and his knights may just be a fitting choice for our 50th reunion.

There is also food fit for a king at King Arthur Flour

Avoid the summer time blues

Send in your registration for our 50th Reunion this fall.

Remember the song “Summertime Blues”

Summer Time Blues (1958)

of 1958? Before you go too  far down memory lane be sure to firm up plans for the 50th celebration of the Class of ’60 for this fall.

If you are reading this post and haven’t received your personal invitation, it may be because the Reunion committee in Kansas City doesn’t have your current e-mail address. Be sure to get in contact with them if you haven’t received the March 2010 announcement. Contact information and partial post of the March announcement is here.

Watch the 1994 “off-road” Tennessee version of Summer-Time Blues

A 1959 release: Goin to Kansas City

Just getting better w/ age

Some of our heroes from the ’60s are still around and better than ever. I can think of no better example than Ed Ames. Born in 1927, he was fifteen years older as we graduated but I for one remember him as we went out into the world to make a life. He was ‘Mingo’ the faithful indian partner of Daniel Boone in the t.v. series and he was just getting started.

Now after all these years, I discover what a talented man he is and what a fascinating story he represents. Of all the songs that he sang in the late ’60s, the one that stuck in my head and led me to rediscover him, was “Who will answer?” For me it seemed to capture in one song the dangers that these years represented for us and our country; not just the Viet Nam War or the explosion of the drug culture, but trying to find answers for what seemed to be happening in our world.

I will link to the above song, but in honor of our 50th celebration I’ll post a different one from the 70’s:  Try To Remember.

This one from 1967 is on my all-time “best love songs” (to sing to my wife): My Cup Runneth Over w/ Love

A small world after all

Another classmate finishes her race.

Less than six months to our 50th reunion, we have received the sad news of the death of  Fran Baker Fabish in June of 2006. Fran was a graduate of Northwestern University (1964) and married to Rich Fabish in June of that same year.

Rich sent along a picture taken in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2005 at their youngest  (Debbie) daughter’s apartment there in 2005. That makes at least two of us from the Class of ’60 with Turkish connections.

Turkey is a fascinating country that actually sits in two continents, Istanbul straddling the Bosporus Strait. My wife and I visited there in 1986 when our son was stationed in Adana in the US Air Force. Perhaps other of our classmates have had the joy of seeing Turkey. If so please leave your comment.

The mosque that used to be a church.

Saint Sophia with the “two” Istanbuls in the horizon. Turkey is a country that is very much in the news today. It is also the land of much of the history of the early Christian church and therefore it was thrilling to visit places I had only read about before in the Bible. We flew in from Greece on Turkish airlines and traveled extensively by rental car. We’d love to go back.

Thank you Rich for sharing this news of Fran with her classmates. We will add Fran to our “memoriam” list and try to get a link to her bio for a more complete remembrance of her life. Please accept our belated condolences for your loss of your beloved wife of 42 years.

May graduation,when and where?

Does anyone remember the details?

This may be a little embarassing, but after 50 years, I can’t remember these things and I could sure use some help. If you have in your keepsakes box any thing that will jog our memories, please let me know.

Do you still have a graduation announcement we could scan and add to our blog? While we are on the subject, I noticed another class put up the original winners of the voting regarding ‘best dressed’, ‘most popular’, ‘most likely to suceed’, etc. It might be a hoot for us to have that list on our blog as well. If you still have your yearbook of ’60 you could copy the list and send it to me or add it here as a comment.

                                                 

 Please help an old man out.

Alumni Wine tasting event

2nd Annual

Southeast High School

Alumni Association, Inc.

Wine Tasting

join us for an evening of wine, music and fun …

June 5, 2010  6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Donation: $25.00

The Toy & Miniature Museum

52 nd & Oak Streets, K.C. Missouri

(Download the flyer-pdf–Click here)

(All proceeds support educational scholarships and the proposed Southeast High School Museum)