REFLECTIONS= OF SCHOOL YEARS
By Dave
It all started in late June, 1950, when a realtor by t= he name of S. R. Bradley was in dire need of making a real estate sale in the area. It seemed he always wan= ted to show my dad this beautiful five-acre plot late in the afternoon or early in= the evening, and County Line Road to Knox road was the best way to get there. D= ad wanted to buy the property, so he and Mom could raise a farm family in the city. Mr. Bradley was very af= raid that Dad would not buy the property because our neighbors to the south were black folks and the neighbors to the north were Mennonites. S. R. could not have been more wro= ng. Dad was thrilled, and the price was right. Mom and Dad bought the= property, and raised five children, four horses, six calves, and three sheep. We had a big garden, eight rows of Concord grapes, the best strawberry patch in the world, and a yard full of Indian relics.
South Park Grade school was built in 1947, and was int=
egrated
in 1950. Mom and Dad were act=
ive in
all our school activities, which included bus rides to other grade schools =
in
the area for educational and athletic activities. I started school at south Park Scho=
ol in
the third grade. Mrs. Mayhew
quickly became teacher, substitute mother, and best of all, a great
friend. She was a fantastic t=
eacher
who made learning a richly rewarding experience. Our principal was a grizzly old gu=
y by
the name of Sam Cashman. We were reminded daily that Sam ow=
ned
the school, the teachers worked for him, and he was the boss! In the spring of 1954, Dennis Butl=
er,
Steve Jacobus, Larry Morgan, and I were playing=
catch
out in front of the school, waiting for the day to begin. Dennis (2 years older than the res=
t of
us) threw the baseball way up in the air, and when it came down, it hit Ste=
ve Jacobus right between the eyes and knocked him out.
I was introduced to organized baseball in 1953. On a Saturday morning, I was ridin= g my bicycle on Knox Road when this fellow and his son chased me down through the dust on the road. It turned o= ut to be Dan Phillips, and his son, Ken Phillips. You’ll never guess who they = were looking for-Dave Housh, who had signed up to pl= ay in the Shawnee Optimist League for the Meyer Lumber company team. I was pleased to tell that they had found me and that I wanted them to follow me home so they could meet my family. That wonderful day, we began a friendship that has lasted all these years. Ken and his wife, Linda are headed to Kansas City for a couple of Royals baseb= all games in late July and will be joining us for the reunion in October. We’ve been to their current = town of Phoenix for spring training on a couple of occasions.
Hocker Grove opened for bu= siness on September 7, 1955. That= 217;s when I met many of you for the first time.= What a group! It was t= he beginning of an educational odyssey that continues to this day. “Wild Bill” Unruh was = the principal, and he let it be known from the start that he was in charge, and that he expected our best every day. As I recall, he got it from most of us! During ninth grade, many of us were privileged to be involved in the school musical, “Dude Ranch Dilemma.” Laura Earnshaw, English teacher, had an idea that we could = write, produce, and direct our own musical production. And, by golly, we did it, with the= help of music from the Broadway play, “South Pacific.” Could we act? Could we sing? Could we get it right? After more than six weeks of hard = work, we thought we were ready, and we performed it very well for our surprised families and friends. Now you know why the five segments about Hocker Grove and the Shawnee Missouri school district= have been called “DRD.” It’s hard to remember, but I don’t think any of us conti= nued to pursue a successful acting career.
We made it to Shawnee Mission High School, later to be= come SMN, in the fall of 1957, and met many new friends from the other junior highs: Indian Hills, Milburn,= and Old Mission. It became clear = from the beginning that the expectations for us were very high. Most of us were expected to go on = to college and pursue careers at the highest level achievement. From what I can tell, that’s exactly what happened. The th= ree years we spent together at North were filled with academic, athletic, and artistic endeavors which, translated, means we worked our fool heads off to make sure that we would succeed, and begin the lives we were expected to live. I feel very lucky to ha= ve known all of you because I remembered back to our time together as I went o= n to college and a professional career. You were always the measuring stick by which others had to perform.<= /p>
After graduating from Emporia State University (then c= alled Kansas State Teachers College) with a degree in Business, I joined the Wyom= ing Air National Guard, Cheyenne, Wyoming.&nbs= p; We had twelve C-121’s, which you would easily recognize as the same aircraft flown by TWA for many years.= Our mission was to move material and personnel to the west coast and= on to Clark Field in the Philippines. Many of our pilots had flown bombers during World War II and newer aircraft during the Korean War.
Doris and I were married in July of 1965. In June, 1970, my career as a staff sergeant came to an end in St. Joseph, MO.= I worked for a short time as an accountant in Fort Collins, CO, and = then moved by back to Kansas City and became a life insurance agent. In 1969 and 1970, I taught at the = Life Insurance Marketing Institute at Purdue University. We then moved back to Kansa City w= here I was the Branch Manager for American General Life Insurance Company for two years. In 1973, we moved to Houston, TX and I became the Director of Training for American General. I earned the professional designat= ion of Chartered Life Underwriter in 1974. In 1976, we moved to Denver, Colorado, where I worked as the Regional Director of Sales for territory that included ten Midwestern states. My territory ranged from Moscow (I= daho) in Pittsburg (Kansas). In 197= 9, we came home to Kansas City, and I worked in the Housh Insurance Agency, adding property, casualty, and commercial lines, and boug= ht the agency from my dad in 1980. Doris and I have a daughter, Deanna, who lives in Manhattan, KS, with her husband, Ryan Likes, and their son, Ira, age 6.&nbs= p; If you’ll look online at www.themercury.com, you can see some of Deanna’s daily videos, and you might even see her doing the weekly news updates online.
I look forward to seeing all of you in October!
Dave Housh