Your assignment, due Friday: ENJOY THE REUNION!

Almost all of us had those assignments in school that we took on with some enthusiasm to start, then delayed, got distracted, buried under other stuff, procrastinated, etc. until it was the day before it was due, and we had to scramble something together fast.

With some teachers (who will remain nameless here), we could pull a B- out of a last-minute throw-together. But others would call us on it, and a low D would be considered a great escape.

I feel a little like that with my class biographies project. I started well, doing a couple of bios with lots of photos for James Lindeman and Blair Huckabee Dean , but then time got away, life stacked up, it was hard to collect all the info and the photos from different people who also have busy lives, and the project kinda fizzled.

Fortunately, Facebook has filled in some of the gaps, now that many of us are in the JHS Class of 88 group. You can learn a lot more about anyone from their Facebook account than in anything I could write.

But in the course of collecting some preliminary information on people I intended to profile, I did learn some things about a number of our classmates:

* One of my best friends in high school was Mark Henry, but I had not seen or talked to him in 19 years. I exchanged e-mails with him earlier this year, learning that he was the CEO of a technology company in Dallas. He had also worked on rocket engines for a time ... so, yes, he was really a rocket scientist!

* Lisa Lloyd Holmes enlisted in the Air Force in the early 1990s and has served at least a dozen different air bases, got a master’s degree, and gave birth to three girls, two of which are twins.

* Matt Lewis works in computers for International Paper in Memphis, and found his wife Amanda through match.com. They married in 2005 (a good year for marriages, as that’s when Erica and I tied the knot, too).

* Marty Boyd has been a Craighead County Sheriff’s Deputy since 1991 and is now an instructor at the Law Enforcement Training Academy. He and his wife Tonya have an 8-year-old daughter.

* Cathy Smith Darvis managed seven hair salons with 56 stylists in Texas, then moved back to Jonesboro, married her husband Frank, bought and then sold a local hair salon for a profit, and still does hair styling. (Last I heard she was due to have a child in late September … anyone have an update on that?).

* I worked with C.C. Smith about 7 years in the sports department of the Jonesboro Sun. He has been a teacher and coach in the Jonesboro School District, including coaching a state championship track team. As C.C. used to say some fast athletes: “He’s got some fire!”

* Many of you know Felicia Willett worked with Emeril for many years and now owns and operates a namesake restaurant, Felicia Suzanne’s, in downtown Memphis. But most, impressive to me in the writing world, she co-authored a couple of bestselling cookbooks. I’m just wondering now when she’s going to go on Iron Chef and kick Bobby Flay’s butt.

This is just a sampling of what some of our classmates have been up to. There are many more great stories than I would ever have time and energy or ability to write even if I tried.

The Class of ’88 has reason to be proud of its accomplishments, but that’s really not what next week is about. Once upon a time, we would see each other every day from August to May around the halls of JHS. For a couple of days next week, we get to bump into each other again (with spouses and children in tow -- the Class of 88 has multiplied!), share another Homecoming, and tell and hear some of those many stories from our lives that I didn’t get a chance to write about.

See you at the reunion!