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R.L.
Paschal High School
Class
of 1964
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Last update: August 16, 2010
(On some computers, the buttons on
the right hand side are not visible until one slides the
bottom scroll bar to the right.)
Another few losses since the last post including Cynthia Preston and Don Atkins. As always, anyone with some good news to report is encouraged to let the rest of us know.
The photos from the 45th class reunion are finally up. Click on The Reunion button on the right to get there. Regretably, I could not make it, but we can thank several classmates for making the effort to record the event for posterity. You will appreciate some of the beautiful Panthers of yesteryear, but it appears that somehow a bunch of old men were allowed to crash the party.
It's still four years until the fiftieth (can you believe it?) reunion. Nevertheless, from time to time another lost Panther or two finds his or her way to www.paschal64.com. You can catch up on any news worth reporting on the Updates page. Similarly, if you want to see some recent mugshots of some your classmates, click on the Alumni Roster button on the right.
Looking back at when that 40th reunion photo above was taken, consider this: In 2004, many of us did not yet have email, and dial-up was just beginning to be replaced by broadband, which many of us considered too expensive. Who's still on dial-up now? Digital photography was just overtaking film. Nobody had a Blackberry or an iPhone, and no one I knew was on Facebook.
As technology proceeds, perhaps this website (an oddity when we started it) will prevail as a way to keep abreast when nostalgia strikes. With that in mind, hopefully the website can help maintain a communication path that will serve us well as 2014 approaches.
For the morbidly curious, the In Memoriam page has been updated a bit with at least a high school picture of each when available. For some of our classmates, the rest of the story is woefully lacking. As you peruse the pages of our departed friends and you think of something that could be added about the lives of these folks, please forward your comments to me, so we can post them. Additionally, there are probably a few more of our fellow Panthers who are no longer with us. Such sad news is also requested.
I can always be reached at: alamodoc (at) yahoo. com
Cheers,
Clifton Barnhart
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A Gentle Solicitation For Your Generosity
In the 1960s Paschal was one of Fort Worth's typical middle-class high schools. Few of us had parents who could be considered rich. Simlarly, few of us were from families that were truly poor. Ours were the parents of post-war middle-America, able to give us at least a little head start when it came to inspiring us to be successful. If it were not our own parents, there were those of our classmates who often served as the role models for who we wanted to someday become. If you've attended a reunion or two, or even just looked through our Alumni Roster, you'll see that for the most part, we've become a rather successful group.
Paschal's student body is no longer the monochromatic middle class it was in the 1960s. It now shoulders the label of "inner city school", a moniker not always linked to academic achievement. The two-parent family is no longer the overwhelming norm, and the challenges facing Paschal students today outstrip anything we had to face. Nevertheless, Paschal continues to hold out opportunities for success. Unlike some of the older public high schools we remember from our days, Paschal has continued to attract the best teachers in the city and consistently holds title to the most Merit Scholar Finalists in the Fort Worth/Dallas area.
Now that we've reared our own families, perhaps it's time to consider giving a little inspiration to other kids who will shape the future. Here's a note from two Panthers willing to devote some of their time to helping future graduates of Paschal High:
A couple years ago several of us-- many from our 1966 class -- got involved with building the PTA/Alumni Association scholarship fund. Thanks to many of you, we were able to give 16 small scholarships to some outstanding, deserving young people last year.
This year, we're asking your help again, because all the money goes to help the students. Some of them need only a little financial help to build a better life for themselves and their families.
Please go to the following link, and take a look at what we're trying to do. We'd be really grateful for your help.
Whatever you can give would help a lot...and when you go to this site you can even pay by credit card or PayPal.
Here's the link: www.paschalscholarships.org
Thanks again!
Joe Greenslade
Rix Quinn
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A Reflection On Our Generation
William
Strauss and Neil Howe, in their landmark books, The Fourth
Turning and Generations, define a 'Baby Boomer'
as someone born after World War II and before the Vietnam
war, or between the years 1946 and 1964. This demographic
puts the graduating high school classes of 1964 exactly
on the edge of this social phenomenon. With few exceptions,
the members of our class were born in 1945 and 1946. Consequently,
we represent the year that bridges the generation born between
1928 and 1945, and those born after WW II and before the
Vietnam war.
Some
of us easily adopted a lifestyle very similar to our parents
- fiscally conservative, cautious, and focused on the traditional
American values of the first half of the twentieth century.
We married before we were twenty five, started families,
and found a house in suburbia.
For
others, we were the oldest of the long-haired, pot-smoking,
rock and rollers. We were the first to discover the liberation
of the birth control pill and to oppose the establishment's
positions on just about everything. A few of us probably
met the definition of 'hippie' for some time in our life.
We married later, initially resisted being seen as materialistic,
and had to be dragged into middle-age.
We
were the last to still know how to ballroom dance, but we
were the first to do the jerk, the dog, and the twist. We
bought records by Jack Jones, The Association, Harry Belafonte,
Johnny Mathis, and the Kingston Trio. But we were mesmerized
by Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin,
Jimi Hendrix, Chicago, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and on
and on. We were the last to go hear Andy Williams live,
but the first to go to rock concerts and to retrofit our
cars with stereophonic speakers.
We
are the contemporaries of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush
(both born in 1946, within sixty days of each other). Today,
Baby Boomers make up the lion's share of the political,
cultural, industrial, and academic leadership class in the
United States. It is the largest and richest generation
in American history. It may also be one of the most perplexing.
In light of the currently poor state of the environment,
the uncertainty of the future of Social Security, the burgeoning
cost of healthcare, etc., Andrew Smith, in his novel Moondust,
said of Baby Boomers: " They have the unique distinction
of pissing off both their parents' and their children's
generations."
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We've
lost Allan Ekholm, Darwin Harp, and Sharon
Pace in 2009. See the In Memoriam page.
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Barsha
Baugh is back from Australia and found the website. See
her message in the Alumni Roster
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Brian
Freeze wants alumni to know of the new CD his band and collection
of local blues musicians have just released. Check out www.drwuproject.com
for more information or click on the Updates.
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Remember
Hank Leithner? Jim Glick? Gary Wood? Jim Sanders?
They just found the website and left an Update.
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More
sad news on the Update page, including
the passing of one of our teachers. Thanks to those who
keep the rest of us informed.
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Have
you thought about the scary fact that most of us are now
about the same age our grandparents were when we started
high school? Some of us have even watched a grandchild get
a diploma. Yet looking at those old photos of grandparents
in the 1960s, one can't help but conclude the combination
of preventive medicine and a focus on fitness has worked
in our favor.
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For
those of you who appreciate golf, get your hands on the
April, 2006 issue of Avid Golfer (the Texas edition). Our
classmate, Tommy Koops is featured in a nice article on
page 64.
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A
nice young woman named Melissa Carol Speed found the Paschal
website and recently sent me a picture of Carol Jean Hinton,
just prior to her tragic death in 1969. The photo is now
on her obit page. Melissa's father was married to Carol
Jean before marrying Melissa's mother. Melissa was named
for her dad's first wife. Rather touching, isn't it?
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If
you peruse the website, you will notice that all email addresses
have been modified. The plethora of internet robots, gleaning
email addresses for spam, prompted the step. Any email address
is now stated with '(at)' where the @ sign used to be.
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Click
here for more updates and news
The
Discussions page is still there,
waiting for some of you to act like bloggers and start some
controversial topics.
Send any feedback or alumni information to alamodoc
(at) yahoo.com.
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Paschal seemed to be
a very special place to so many who went there. It has one
of the most active alumni associations in the country and
in spite of its changes over the years remains a school
of excellence. Did you get the Summer, 2005 copy of the
Pantherette? If you're a member of the alumni association,
you did. On the front page is a picture of people lined
up before dawn. You'd think they were buying tickets to
a rock concert or at least the Spurs/Pistons playoff. Nope.
They were parents of kids who live outside the Paschal catchment
area trying to get their sons and daughters enrolled in
the limited spaces available for students from other school
districts.
Please consider joining
Paschal's alumni association. Dues are a pittance, and with
your membership comes copies of the alumni newsletter -
aptly named the Pantherette. You can find out how to join
the alumni association as well as keep up with news about
Paschal at www.paschalhs.org or http://www.paschalhs.org/alum/alum%20home.htm
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"I don't know how I got over
the hill without getting to the top."
Will Rogers
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