MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Location: file:///C:/6AC444F3/Friends.htm Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" Friends

 

 

 

 

Friends

 

Can a building be a friend?  Do the brick exterior, long hallwa= ys, an auditorium, and a periodic rotten egg smell foster such an alignment?

 

www.visual= thesaurus.com uses words like:  ally, acquai= ntance, champion-protagonist-admirer as synonyms for friend.  Merriam-Webster speaks of friends as having a respectful attachment to each other.

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Shawnee Mission High Schoo= l was that kind of attachment for many of us.  <= /span>Early neighborhood ties had us attending the same junior high schools.  These environments spearheaded a fr= iendship focus.  Our high school contin= ued these central bases.

 

By today’s standards= , Shawnee Mission was a safe haven. The daylight hours kept everyone occupied within = its walls or on adjacent fields and tennis courts.  Extra curricular choices, evening e= vents and sports happenings gave us expanded areas to play.  The building showcased possibilitie= s, housed dreams and ideas.  Many of us = chose to attend and some did not.

 

When the school district s= plit the student population, the outside world entered this treasured environment se= vering numerous day-to-day encounters.  The split was not a surprise, yet it caught us, then= taught us that a larger world with its own rules and own guidelines was waiting.

 

Shawnee Mission became Sha= wnee Mission North.  Yet dozens of friendships stayed strong.  Ma= ny continue to this day.  The camaraderie, desires for our comfort and just plain good times are preserved within them.

 

The building endured as ha= ve we.  It provided us then with something we knew and regarded with trust.=   The staff and faculty gave cooperation and assistance.  While some of us walked away from = the school and its environment, hundreds stayed and formed kinships that last i= nto today.

 

In answer to the original = question:  Can building be a friend?  I vote yes.  It gave us a community with walls = which remains via a community without walls, at www.SMNorth60.com.

 

We were, are, and will sta= y, Shawnee Mission North friends.

 

Thanks to Linda Sell McConwell, our Cheerleader Emeritus (Forgive the pun = but it’s extremely appropriate) , Larry Newlon, our fore= ver volunteer (Bless him), and talented Web Master, whose knowledge and persistence keeps= the site working, Lois, Dave, and Don Davis for their work presented in this fi= rst issue.

 

Any beginning is thought o= f as auspicious by its developers and authors.&= nbsp; This specialty page is no exception.  We sincerely hope you agree.