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!

Mum's the word

Marcie wants me to remind y'all to order your mums for Homecoming by Thursday. Call Faught's Flower Shop at 870.935.3261 and order one for $10.80. If there are not a certain minimum number of orders, then no one will get theirs.

I never actually did this in high school because I NEVER HAD A HOMECOMING DATE. But now I'm married, my wife is completely oblivious to the Homecoming mum tradition (she went to high school in New Jersey, bless her heart), so I put in an order today.

So ... even if you not sure about doing it for yourself ... do it for me and my wife and let me have my first Homecoming date with a mum 20 years late! :-)

All Night Party

I know, it's been a while. Sorry! I have been addicted to Facebook and haven't had the necessary intervention yet! However, talking to my old high school friends on Facebook made me think about something that I needed to blog about....our All Night Party. I think I was more excited about going to that than I was about graduating from high school. My date for the party was John Bagnal. We went with Takashi Yoneta and Heather Hall and had a blast!! If I remember correctly, the night began with a dance at the Knights of Columbus Hall then on to bowling (??) and the movie. Everytime I see "Overboard" I think about that night. In fact, I need to add a quote from that movie to my favorite quotes on Facebook (Crackberry here I come) - but I digress. The night ended (or morning started) at Shoneys. The place was filled with friends and fun. What a great night! I'm anxious to hear your stories from All Night Party or what you did to celebrate our graduation!

Hurricane Kicks Major Raider "Bootay"...

Last night was the first game of the Golden Hurricane football season at ASU against the Nettleton Raiders, our crosstown rivals and it was an exciting game to say the least. The players were awesome in offense and defense. As the Nettleton coach was quoted, "They just kicked our butt, basically." Can't say it any better than that. :-) You will have a great time watching them for the Homecoming game in October. Go here to read the article by the Jonesboro Sun. Pssst...by the way, SEND IN YOUR MONEY!!!!!!!!

Show Us The Money!

All registration has been sent out to those we have contact information for. We tried to send out the majority of registration through email if we had an email address. For those that did not have email we sent it out through the postal service. If you have NOT received your registration, please email us at: jhsclassof1988@gmail.com. I'm hoping everyone got their email and we don't have some lost in cyberspace or in people's spam email. We really need to get a head count on who is coming for food for the tailgate on Friday night (Oct. 10) so please get your registration in soon. We have paid the down payment for the band, though, so THANK YOU to everyone who has sent their check in.

Also, if possible, join Facebook and join our reunion group, JHS Class of 1988 20-Year Reunion. You can leave us a note there if you are coming or not. Around 40 classmates have joined and it's actually kind of fun seeing everyone and saying "hi!". You can also upload pictures so you can share family and friends photos as well. Please email us if you have any questions. I look forward to seeing your check in the mail! :-)

Friday Football Fun

Its 1985 and its Football Friday. I was on the JV Cheer leading squad. Marilyn Clayton, our sponsor, assigned each cheerleader a football senior whose locker you had to decorate. It was a thrill... super exciting... you actually got the key to get into their locker. You made posters and left them cookies... etc... what an ego trip. No wonder they had such an attitude. I had a super crush on the player that i was assigned.I remember when I would pass him in the hall he would acknowledge me, I would be rendered speechless, butterflies and everything. (You have to right? I mean he got cookies, and balloons, and posters)

When we would get to cheer the second half of the game with the varsity squad i would stare at him and hope that he too would be staring back. No such luck for me. Today i can picture his face but for the life of me not his name. Young crushes fade but the memories of Football Friday will live forever.

Hurricane Pride

Yes I'm back! I was going to blog about favorite 80s movies and how much I loved "Sixteen Candles" but nothing I could say would top Brooke Keton's blog! So as I scrolled down some more, I saw the blog and comments that Coach Coleman was wanting the band to learn "Rock You Like A Hurricane" for Homecoming. Every time I hear that song, I think about high school. A friend of mine down here (in Hot Springs) has the Scorpion's Greatest Hits and plays that song frequently and every time he does, I sing it loud and think of dear old JHS. My daughter started school this year at Lake Hamilton and and friend of ours commented that I would have to start getting Lake Hamilton gear and wearing it to the football games. I went to a few of them this year because Brynna was a Little Steppinwolf and I must admit, it didn't seem like a hometown football game. (Shhh don't tell these people I said that!) I'm a Hurricane. Always have been. Always will be. You would think 20 years would diminish the pride you had in your school (especially when you went to college and became a Bison for three years) but the smallest things throw you back to that time when we were all carefree and cra-zee! So I was wondering what are some of the small things in life that stop and make you think about our fabulous three years at...JONESBORO HIGH!!!!

My Baby's Daddy

Sixteen Candles.....One of my favorite movies from my adolescent years. Everyone remembers that Claire falls in love with the cute, older, poplar guy.... Jake Ryan. He was so dreamy. Remember at the end when she walks out of the church and he is standing there with his arms crossed against the sports car? They kiss over the birthday cake.... he was so cute.

Fast forward to 2006 ,I'm pregnant and i just cant decide about the baby's name. I float the idea of Jake Ryan past my husband, miraculously he agrees. Mistakenly i just assume that he has watched Sixteen Candles 50 times the same as me and he knows about the dreamy Jake Ryan.

So its official... the baby is named. My husband is a proud father for the second time. He goes to work and shows off the pics. When the women down the hall ask the name he replies, Jake. Jake what they say. Jake Ryan. "OH MY GOSH, I love him and i love that name! He was my favorite." Now let me tell you it took me a good 2 months to convince my husband that in 2022 no 16 year old on the football/baseball/basketball team (they always think their boy will play it all) will know who the hell Jake Ryan on Sixteen Candles is. And Ill bet that if your a male that graduated in 1988 you don't either. But the girls.....they know.

A Little JHS Deja Vu...

So the other night I went up the JHS track to exercise with a friend and we were finishing up and almost ready to leave when we heard voices from above. I looked up and saw about 5 teenagers on top of Hurricane gym and one was waaaaaaaaaaaaay up on the tip-top of the dome. It was only 9:30 pm with plenty of cars still in the parking lot from people walking and they were not being too stealthy or quiet I might add. Why they couldn't wait until midnight was beyond me. Of course I made sure to call the authorities and make sure these thugs were apprehended. Then the irony of the situation fell upon me. The summer after my first year in college some fellow classmates and I decided we were going to climb on top of the gym to sing the alma mater. Yeah, I know. No sooner than we swung around the chain link fence, we hear "STOP, GET DOWN!" We ran as fast as we could and jumped down the short side of the roof along the back and escaped being caught. Or so we thought. One of us got apprehended as she tried to do a "drop and roll" kind of action. To make a long story short, the rest of us turned ourselves in. Unknown to us was the fact that some hoodlums younger than us (and STILL in high school, I might add) had gotten on top of the gym and vandalized the roof with graffiti that past weekend. It's funny how it all comes around full circle isn't it? (For those of you that found my actions a little out of line, I'm pretty sure they got down and away from the scene before the police arrived.)

JHS Class of '88, the Final Edition!

“JHS bids farewell to 310 seniors.” – May 20, 1988, Golden Times front page

Sweeter words have never appeared in a headline in the “Golden Times.” Though something similar is written every year, this was special, because JHS was bidding farewell to us, the Class of ’88, the greatest class in JHS history! (a totally unbiased opnion, of course) And though I’m sure even then we knew we’d miss each other, I’m guessing every single one of us was ready to graduate.

The big day was June 3, 1988. It turned out to be a picture-perfect, unseasonably cool evening for an outdoor graduation ceremony.

Back to the May 20, 1988 issue of the Golden Times:

Prom had happened, and photos from it filled the center spread under the headline: “Seniors are in ‘Heaven’ at the Prom”. The prom queen, Tara Clark, and her date, Scott May, are pictured at left.

JHS’ golf team won the state championship, shooting a record score on its home course to culminate the event. Our classmates Steve Tricarico, Todd Darouse and Brian Fulkerson each shot 1-over-par 72s in the state final.

The class of 1988-89 named its class officers … but did we really care? They were just lowly juniors.

The most painful part of reliving these Golden Times issues for me has been recalling these hideously awful so-called “satire” pieces I sometimes wrote, published on the back cover. But I will leave you with part of my column in the final issue, a slight parody of our class chant:

“Parting’s harder than rock and roll,
“We’re the class that took its toll,
“We had a blast, we had a ball.
“We’re the class that really did ‘have it all.’”

October 10 :: A Good Weekend for Reunions

Not only is our 20-year reunion going on the Homecoming weekend of October 10, 2008, there is also a 10-year, a 25-year, a 30-year AND a 40-year reunion going on that weekend as well. And they are ALL going to the football game on Friday night!

In the previous post you saw some changes and updates that the football field is undergoing in time for the reunion. I've also heard of some more:

• Hurricane flags will be flown on the top of the press box
• The band and the students will sit on the visitor side
• Our mascot "Flash" is making a comeback this year and I've heard it's the son of someone in our class!
• In recent years the students have a designated section at the basketball games they call the "Dog Pound", they want the student section at the football games to be called the "Storm Cellar" ;-)
• They are looking for a storm siren to crank out during the game
(if you know of where to get one, let us know)

It's time to get FIRED UP! :-)

Cooksey-Johns Field Receiving Makeover

JHS Football will have a new coach AND a new football field when we have our twenty-year reunion on JHS Homecoming, October 10. Read this article in the Sun to hear all the changes that will be made—just in time for our reunion! Or watch this video that was on the KAIT8 news:

Back from the storm; back to doing some bios soon

If you've been on this blog very often recently, you've probably noticed that I haven't posted a new classmate bio in a while. Two reasons for that: (1) I've been traveling a LOT the last couple of months; and (2) not everyone on my initial list returned my second tier of questions.


I still have one more JHS newspaper entry from 1988 to do and will plan to get some more bios up during the summer, maybe some shorter versions. Click on these names if you haven't seen the previous bios for James Lindeman and Blair Huckabee Dean.


In the meantime, speaking of the reunion's "The Storm is Coming" theme, here is some of what I've been doing in my blog hiatus: Chasing tornadoes with the Virginia Tech storm chase team. We had one especially close tornado intercept; I'm in the van up ahead if you watch the linked video, and I'm at the left in the inset photo , shooting this digital picture of the tornado crossing the road ahead in front of us very late in the day on May 22 outside of WaKeeney, Kansas.

Hope you are enjoying your summer!

Check out the band...

Here's the band you will be hearing on Saturday night, October 11, The SuperFive! The Superfive (formerly the "Five that Framed O.J.) have been performing primarily throughout the Southeastern United States for over a decade. From Texas to the Carolinas and Florida to Missouri, The Superfive has performed clubs, fraternity parties, wedding receptions, charity events, and anywhere else that needed a good time.

The Superfive has both male and female vocalists, which allows them to include a wide range of dance material from the 70's, 80's, and 90's! That extensive song list allows them to play to the crowd, and is definitely their greatest asset! Check out their song list and some samples here.

The Storm is Coming...

Jonesboro Hurricane season is fast approaching! Registration information has been emailed out to those I have email addresses for. If you have not received yours, there may be a problem with your address or it might have gone into your bulk email. I will send out the information to people without emails by early next week. Let us know if you have not received yours and I'll send it again. Please get all registration info in by August 31.

UPDATE-June 11: All snail mail registrations have been sent out this morning. If you have not received your information within the week, let me know and I'll either email or send by post. Get your stuff in ASAP!

In Memory...

The following tribute was written by James Lindeman.

As I’m sure some of you know by now, we lost a classmate and friend last week. Jamison Christopher Woods, known to us all as "Jamo", passed away in his sleep at his home in Hermitage, TN. on May 08, 2008. Survivors include his wife, Betsy Crouch Woods; his son, Jamison Isaac Woods, 5, and daughter, Eva Elizabeth Woods, 2; mother and step-father, Deborah and Sam Wright of Jonesboro, AR; father and step-mother, James and Debbie Woods of Batesville, AR; brother, Mathew Woods of Russell, AR; sister, Lenna Woods of Jonesboro, AR; step-sister, Britney Warner of Batesville, AR; grandparents, Thomas and Marian Woods and Herbert and Charlene Smith of Memphis, TN; father-in-law and mother-in law, Jack and Susanne Crouch of Nashville, TN.

I don’t know that I’m qualified to describe Jamo’s life to anyone. My hope is to say a few words and express a few thoughts, so that we may remember someone who touched our lives. From the pages of online entries in his obituary guest book, it is obvious he impacted many of us. What Jamo didn’t have in stature, he made up for with charisma and personality. To the girls, if he didn’t date you, you were probably on his list. And to the guys, if he wasn’t figuring out a way to talk to your girl, consider yourself lucky. Jamo had a way with the opposite sex unlike most. Maybe his love of mirrors convinced him he was truly Casanova, who knows? Besides his charm, Jamo excelled both academically and athletically. In the classroom, you could always find Jamo in the toughest classes JHS had to offer. On the field, baseball was his sport. Jamo played city and county ball from grade school all the way through high school.

Some people might not remember this, but Jamo actually chose to graduate with our class. In elementary school, Jamo was advanced enough to skip the 2nd grade. That, coupled with his late June birthday, had him on course to be the youngest member of the 1987 graduating class. When all of us were moving up to the high school, Jamo decided to delay taking his 11th grade English. Instead, he took extra electives, allowing him to graduate with our class. After high school, Jamo went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Arkansas State University and a master’s degree in Counseling and Rehabilitation from Middle Tennessee State University. At the time of his death, he was working in the Medicare Finance Administration for the state of TN. He married his wife Betsy in the summer of 1998 and they had two small children; a son, Jamison and daughter, Eva.

It's hard to understand the "why" with this one. He was our age, with a family, and what should have been lots of life to live. Most of us have families of our own now, and our circle of friends is much smaller than it ever was. I'm also guessing that most of the teenaged vanity is gone and that we’ve put our priorities in perspective. I went to Jamo's funeral and seeing Jamison's family celebrate his life and witnessing the impact he had made on others was not only a privilege but also a testament to what’s truly important.

He will be missed.

[You can visit his guest book here.]

The way it was: April 22, 1988

By late April of 1988, it was time to pass the torch off to the next class. Student council elections for 1988-89 were being held, and Kristy Chitmon, not looking altogether happy on the front page of the Golden Times, was helping the youngsters vote.

The spoof musical “It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Superman” was to be performed May 19-21. Junior Michael Crawley got the lead part as Superman, but several of our classmates played key roles: Greg Murray as the mad scientist Abner, Brian Haggbloom as Max, Lourie Collins as Sydney, Kathy Williams as Lois, Marvin Day as Jim and John Works as Perry White.

The Quiz Bowl team came from behind in three consecutive matches in the regional tournament to make it to the 8-team championships on AETN. We won’t talk about what happened to us in the first round there.

In sports, three more of our classmates signed for athletic scholarships: Brandon Rowlett for football at Arkansas Tech, Steve Tricarico for golf at Huntingdon College in Alabama, and Paige Hammond for volleyball at Milligan College at Johnson City.

The JHS golf team was burning the greens up everywhere it went, having won a prestigious golf tournament in St. Louis and then twice broken the school record for lowest team score.

And we were all counting down the days …

A crosstown rival becomes a Hurricane head coach

JHS just named Jo Beth Mathis as its new head volleyball coach. Then named Jo Beth Carmack, she was the star of Nettleton's Class AAA state champion volleyball team that, regrettably, beat our Class AAAA state champ Hurricane for the Overall state title in the fall of our senior year. (The small inset black and white photo of Blair Huckabee playing volleyball in her bio entry below is from that match at the then-very new ASU Convocation Center.) I actually got to know Jo Beth some years later, in the late 1990s, when she was the coach at Lyon College and I was working at the Batesville Daily Guard newspaper. Twenty years after triumphing over JHS, she will be leading the Hurricane on the court starting next season.

Classmate bio: Blair Huckabee Dean

Name: Blair (Huckabee) Dean

Family: Husband, Derek; sons, Crockett (11) and River (6); dog, Zack

Location: Jonesboro, Arkansas

"Active” is the word Blair Huckabee Dean says would probably have best described the way her high school classmates would remember her, and the word that would best describe her now.

It would be hard to argue.

In high school, Blair started on the state championship volleyball team, was a cheerleader on a squad that made nationals our senior year, and played tennis.

Today, as an associate professor in Health, P.E. and Sport Sciences at Arkansas State, she runs marathons, advises educators around the world about physical education for children, serves on at least six boards related to physical activities and children's health, and she's the mother of two growing sons.

“The most important thing I’ve done is earn the title Mom,” Blair says.

Blair met husband Derek Dean while attending Arkansas State, where she graduated with a master’s degree in 4 years. “He played football at ASU and we stumbled upon [each other] in the classroom -- the rest is history,” Blair recalls.

They were married in 1993 and sons Crockett (right, below) and River came along in 1997 and 2001, respectively.

"I can't talk about my family without mentioning a life changing moment when River was diagnosed with Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS),” Blair said. “My son's fight with GBS became a big athletic competition my family was competing in. It was God, the Deans, the doctors, and the treatments versus everything the illness could stack up against us.

“Whether that was the unbearable nerve pain in his feet, the paralysis of his lower body--or all the other effects that go along with having GBS--to us, it was a fight we were determined to win together. We all held on till the end and the interesting thing is that competition has been one of the most positive, life-affirming, incredible experiences ever.”

Coming from a long line of educators, including her father who taught theater at ASU and her mother who had several positions in Jonesboro schools, Blair said she knew she wanted to be a P.E. teacher in the 8th grade. But after teaching private and public school a few years, she “discovered that blowing a whistle was not my calling” and moved on to being a college professor.

And, yes, she runs marathons. In mid-April, Blair will be running the Boston Marathon along with a cousin named Mike -- former Arkansas governor and recent Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. (He is to the right of Blair in the picture below; the other guy is Dean Karnazes, an ultramathon runner who Blair describes as "the fittest man in the world...I'm serious.")

Blair has run in so many marathons that she thinks other people might find it boring.

“People get tired of reading/hearing about the ‘26.2’ and most people know I love to run...and to most people that is the least bit interesting. But one thing they don't know is that it is not necessarily the ‘running’ that I enjoy most but the journey where and with whom running takes me.”

Running once took Blair to Greece with friend Bridgette Lloyd Inboden (JHS class of ’87) to run the Athens Marathon. After finishing the original 26.2-mile route, Blair and Bridgette decided to leap a railing, with security mysteriously absent, into the Panathenaic Olympic Stadium, where they did a victory lap around the ancient, but off-limits, site.

“We were chased out of the stadium scared to death for our lives. I’m not sure what the security guards were yelling … it all sounded Greek to me. Huge lesson learned … don’t trespass in foreign countries where they don’t speak the Arkansas Drawl.”

Virtual Golden Times

I just found this on the Jonesboro High School page thru the Jonesboro Public School website. The Golden Times is now on the internet. Stop by and see what's currently going on at JHS almost 20 years since we graduated!