Don Davis

Don Davis

I have been asked, “What has kept me involved wi= th our class”. If anyone has t= he answer to that question, please e-mail it to me.

If you can remember back 50 years ago, before cable, computers, Facebook, etc. (if someone had menti= oned computers to me, I might have taken typing more seriously, and wouldn’= ;t be sitting here using two fingers.), the Shawnee Mission area was a very transient area. I moved to th= is area from Indiana in the 8^th grade and enrolled in Indian Hills Junior High. The four new junior highs were, I think, a year old. I had gone to a school with nine g= rades in one school and there I was in a new school with only three grades. I remember going to lunch the firs= t day and hoping I could find my way back to class as the building seemed so big. Two years later, we all = moved to Shawnee Mission High school with about 2700 in a school built for maybe 1500. Petty-coat skirts were = still in, which just added to the congestion.&nb= sp; The following year, we said goodbye to many of our classmates, who m= oved on to the new Shawnee Mission East and we added North to our school name. I was supposed to go to East as I = lived at 68^th and Nall and was on the East= side of the boundary line. I never= felt like I fit in at Indian Hills, and since the kids I knew from Countryside Christian lived in the North area, I transferred back to North. If you look at our class yearbook,= you will notice many kids in our junior year book moved prior to our senior yea= r, and many who graduated with us were not here in our junior year.

I have talked with many of our classmates in the last = ten years working at finding the lost (I have also brought three back from the dead), and many were new to the area and didn’t feel that connected.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> In fact, after talking to some of = them, I guess I felt more a part of the school than many to them. I wasn’t involved in sports, drama, debate, etc. Of course= , I joined the Pep Club, as most of us did, because it was that or study hall.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> By my senior year, I was working a= t the old Kroger Store in OP. I rea= lized, when I wrote the history of our class, from my point of view, that I didn’t remember as much about our senior year as I missed much of it = by working.

As I sat in the middle of the football field the very = warm night of our graduation, my thoughts were, “hey, this is over, what happens next.” My dad w= as in the hospital with a heart attack he had suffered the Saturday before gradua= tion so I didn’t know what the future held for me and my family. He would = die five years later, after many complications, and I would lose his wisdom as I started my life.

I don’t have the degrees or successes many of our classmates have experienced, but I feel very fortunate with the life God has given me. My greatest success= in life was accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. My second success was when God introduced me to Toni, my wife of 46+ years, and we had three sons. Now we are blessed with four grandchildren. My main line o= f work was in the grocery business and I am now retired. I stay very active in leading a Li= fe Group, occasionally teaching our Sunday school class and working on our genealogy (which I started after finding classmates for our 40^th Reunion).

So back to the question, why have I stayed involved wi= th the class? We went to the 10th Re= union, but many of our classmates were still on active duty for Viet Nam. We then skipped the 25^{th,
which I understand was a good reunion, and never planned on going to any in=
the
future. Somehow I made contac=
t with
either Linda Sell McConwell or some other class=
mate
and the next thing I knew Linda was calling t see if I would help on the 40=
^th
Reunion. I made the mistake of
saying yes; and the rest is history.
The fun part of the job is finding people, who have been lost for ye=
ars
and hooking them up with the class again.&=
nbsp;
Or, getting classmates together. We have three classmates in The
Villages, FL. I noticed it be=
cause
“The Villages” is a unique name. I e-mailed each of the three and p=
ut
them in touch with each other. It
turned out that they lived within blocks of one another and didn’t kn=
ow
it. Or, someone e-mails me an=
d asks
for the information on their close friend from our school years. Or, I find someone who has been on=
the
deceased list for twenty years and they are glad to know they are still
alive. The sad part is hearin=
g the
voice on the other end of the line tell me that their spouse has passed
away. Or,=
one of
the callers being told that a classmate is on the way to bury his wife. Or a class made telling me that her
husband is dying and she just can’t talk with now.}

My hope is that we have a great turn out for our 50th Reunion and that we would learn the use the message board on our class webs= ite more than we do. It is a grea= t way for us to stay in touch. smnorth60.com

Our class of over 600 is a very good cross-section of = the world. We have artists, autho= rs, doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers, salespeople, business-people; the list = goes on and on. We have classmates= , who have traveled the world and worked in many exciting places, classmates in e= very state, and classmates who have live in the same home for over 30 years (tha= nk God for them as they are easier to find).&= nbsp; We have classmates of every political point of view and religion. So= , I never know what story I might hear with the next phone call.

Don Davis