Letters

Had a great time at the reunion and it was great to see everyone again. You and your team did an excellent job setting this all up and deserve a big round of applause. Here are the pictures I took at all 3 events. Paschal walk thru, Friday night party and the Saturday night get together at Colonial. The idea of putting everyone's pictures on a CD sounds great to me and I vote go for it. If you decide to do the CD be sure to let me know and I will help in any way you might need me to. Well sir take care and keep in touch.
Randy Widaman

The reunion was a fabulous success. My wife and I enjoyed the night. It was great to reunite with friends of the past. The pictures in the hallway were of interest to all there, and the food and band were both good choices. My thanks to you and all of the others for the hard work that went into this reunion. Rae and I have re-established new relationsonships with past friends and intend to see them soon over dinner. Clif, you contributed signifantly to the reunion along with creating and updating the website, Thanks for all that you have done to make the reunion the success that it was this year. See you at the 50th Paschal reunion!!!!!
Regards, Jim Lewis

To all of you who had a part in organizing the reunion, Thank you so very much. I know that a great deal of preparation and personal sacrifice and expense and hard work was required, and you can all be proud that it turned out so beautifully. I know I had a wonderful time, and I?m sure everyone did. Even many of those who couldn?t attend benefited from it, with the mailings, the terrific website, the biographies, the directory, and the updates. Please share my thanks with anyone I might have missed who had a major part in organizing the reunion. Special thanks to Molly for chairing the effort, and to Clifton for the wonderful website. I hope we can keep it updated, as I think many of us will visit it often for additional updates. It was so great to see so many of our old friends. This was only the second reunion I have attended (the 20th was the other), but I found it to be really fulfilling and nostalgic. Only ten years until the 50th ? You guys better start planning!
Thanks again, Darryl Sullivan

Dear Clifton, It certainly had to be a labor or love for only you know how many hours you invested in the reunion and the website. I had an absolutely incredible time, much more fun than I could have ever imagined. I wish that I had gotten to visit with you more, but I wanted you to know how very much I (and many others) appreciated all the time and efffort you invested in our reunion. I was sad that all the fun had to end and a little sad for those who didn't show up.
Thanks again!!! Ed Aycock

Dear Molly, Clif, Betsy, Susan, Kelle, Candy, Kitty, Sondra, Mickie, Letty, Joyce Ann, Twila and Patrick, oh, I meant John T., and so many others for all the hours and hours of work that went into making our 40th the best ever! I will never forget all the smiling faces, hugs, and screams of excitement when seeing a long lost friend. I had the most fun just watching everyone else see an old friend for the first time and the obvious delight in seeing each other again! Even Frank, my husband had fun! I know the hours and hours of work you each spent in making this happen for all of us, and everyone was so grateful for your work. I loved seeing all your faces and will have wonderful memories of this time forever! I hope the web site continues and for the people far away, it's bound to be very meaningful. Thanks for the memories! Love and God bless,
Linda Lace Bailey

I was so sorry that I wasn't able to attend the reunion. (My brother in law had major surgery - successful, thank heavens). From what I have been able to read, it sounds like you all did a great job and held a very fun and successful reunion. I would love to get a copy of the photo CD when it's ready - just let me know the price. Again, thanks so much for all the time and effort you have put in to the website and the reunion. Even though I wasn't able to attend the reunion, I have begun to renew some friendships via email because of the roster and discussion sites. So, in more ways than you may realize, you've done a great service for the class of '64. Hope I'll see you at the next reunion!!
Penny Locke Gettig

Clif: Add mine to the stack... You have done a fantastic job and have probably succeeded in creating a living thing through the web site. I hate to tell you how addicted I was to the thing. I'll bet I checked it for new postings 10 times a day. If I was away from my computer for a few days, it was always fun to come back and see what was new. I thought it was also neat how the bios increased in length and emotional depth as the process continued over the four months. I think we all probably think "our time" was special but in truth I believe ours was. We were the first of the boomers and we inherited a heavy legacy from our parents. I think our experiences from the Kennedy assassination to Viet Nam to race riots changed us in ways that we did not expect. Perhaps we were the first in a long while to be surprised by the loss of our innocence. As such, we were not cynics, nor are we still. We were hopeful and filled with promise. Such a short time and so long gone from us. In all of this I think we can find the reasons that touching each other one more time has such value and importance. What we carry away from this weekend is truly a gift. As for you, I think you helped that inspiration germinate and grow. I have looked at other reunion sites and they have their moments. There is a particularly wonderful piece on the 62 web site that poignantly describes the feeling those folks had for each other. Clif, I think you have managed to do that for us. I know it took time and I appreciate that gift, but it also took inspiration and that I think came naturally. Thanks again. I vote for keeping the site up and would contribute to make that possible.
John D. Polk

Can you believe it's over?!?!? How much fun and what a special time. The reunion was such a big success, in large part because of your efforts. Thanks again for all you have done and are still doing. And it was great to see you. Don't stay away so long. Ft Worth isn't all that far... Would you post on the website that if any one did not get a chance to see the candids from the Friday night party at Betsey's (and I know a lot of people didn't) they will be at my store for a while, if any one wants to order some. I wish you could have seen some of them before you left. There were several really cute ones of you! The store is Full Circle Emporium, 3460A Bluebonnet Circle. My cell phone is 817-291-6944.
Mickie Cooles

Hey, Clifton! Congratulations on a wonderful and memorable reunion! Everyone I tried to thank at the party Saturday night said it was all because of your hard work. The website is so meaningful and so much fun. And you and your helpers pulled off some first class parties both nights. It was just great seeing everyone. Get some rest, but please keep up the good work on the website. Most of all, thank you for caring so much and including all the rest of us! Eileen O'Donohoe Lumpkin

Just wanted to say thank you for all of your effort that went into this reunion. You put such a finishing touch on everything. Everyone really appreciated all of your work and the wonderful web site. Thank you so much for helping to make the success of this reunion. Sheila Davies Ross

Thanks for all the hard work that went into organizing a terrific reunion. I had a great time, but even more, reconnected with people and learned more about myself in the process. I'm sure you'll get many thank-you's, but you should know that many others felt the same way, even if they didn't write. Please pass on my thanks to all those who helped make it a success. Chip Bruce

What a fantastic, fun time we had. Seeing old friends, making new ones, hearing all the stories again. Thanks to all on the reunion committee for making this a really wonderful weekend. Joe and I had so much fun, I'm not sure we can wait for the 50th! Can't we do this again next year? Jan Johnson Dugger

Thanks again for all that you did for the reunion. Great job.
Jerry Pricer

You would have love the conversation with the 2 people sitting next to me on the plane going home. How often do you get anyone who will even say hi to you? I ususually do my make up an identity thing with my fellow row-mates but this time was so different. They were actually quite nice so I did not have to pretend with them that I was a doctor, lawyer or merchant chief! They loved reading the paper article as well as hearing about the reunion. Of course both of them had dogs so I knew I did not have to make up some stories with them. Actually, one was doing thyroid studies in peopand so we compared the studies with people and dogs. The dogs are kind of behind but doing well. OK. Enough.
Joyce Ann Walsh Burgett

Thanks a BILLION to all of you who made the 40th so amazing. I had the time of my life and was so glad to see that we are doing pretty darned well, 40 years later. The amount of work put into this reunion by Molly, Susan, Pandora, Betsy, Kitty, Letty -I don't even know who worked on it so hard...and the rest of the committee, is so very appreciated by those of us who got to sail into town and just enjoy it. You are the best, and deep thanks from our hearts go out to all of you! And a special thanks to Clifton, who took this reunion into the new century for us with the web page. We have enjoyed the build up of excitement and information, and now can continue to do so for a long time. I could not WAIT to check the web site for the past couple of days and see the photos. Will send mine to you, tomorrow. Love to all. Thanks again. And, I hope that many of us are able to maintain contact with our dearly, renewed friends. My motto, that I never managed to send, is a wish for you all...and a quote from Mark Twain: Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the tradewinds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. There is still plenty of time!!
Pegie Frazier, Denver

My thanks to everyone involved in the planning and execution of the reunion. You did an outstanding job! It's amazing that the unforgettable people and events of 40 years ago still remain.....unforgettable. The sadness of the night was the classmates we have lost. The joy was bragging rights for the most grandkids(Kelle won with 5), the stories Gene Sanders/Bruce Sanders told, talking to Gail about Coach Allen, and seeing other hair deprived heads.
Happiness and continued success to all - Glenn Ingram

Dear Cliff, I just received the reunion book. Great job!
Dave Kobrin

I have some great pictures, made with a real camera. I'll have them put on disks and then I'll have my son-in-law send them to you. You really did a wonderful job on this website, and although there was a lot of work involved for many, this site is what made this reunion so special to so many people and I know that if we keep it up, then 10 years from now we will have the same response that we had this year and maybe more. Thanks for all your hard work and by the way, my clients think you look great!!!!!
Pandora Elder Webb

Hi, I'm back in-country as the old-timers say and still terribly disappointed I missed the reunion. I was wondering if you would mind doing it all over again next weekend? Shouldn't be too much trouble, huh? I wanted to be serious for a minute and thank you, although it grates on me just a little, for taking on such a gargantuan task and making it seem simple. I know the behind the scenes work had to have been tremendous. All of you deserve merit badges for pulling it off so smoothly. I've looked at the pictures and although I'm having trouble identifying very many people, I can see everyone was having a great time. Please keep the website going if at all possible and let me know if I can be of any help.
Pat Boyd Lacquement

I'm not a very emotional guy, but I have to admit that when I walked down the hallway Saturday night at Colonial, I had a lump in my throat if not a small tear in one eye. All the old photos, the purple and white - it just brought back a flood of wonderful memories. My only regret is that there just didn't seem to be enough time to visit with everyone. I'd see someone across the room and think that I would catch up with them next and before I knew it the evening was over! I'm not sure how those of us who just showed up to enjoy the festivities can ever thank the committee for all their hard work. The Friday affair was a real treat, Betsy. Thank Dick again for me. I'm not sure who was in charge of the decorations Saturday night but they were the perfect touch. And, of course, I have to echo everyone's praise of Clif for the website. Clif, if your head is starting to swell from all the compliments, don't worry - you're entitled! I've served on enough committees to know that nothing gets accomplished without the right chairperson and judging from the success of this reunion I have to say Molly, you were the right person. We have been so fortunate to have John Tucker involved in every reunion from the beginning. I vote for the same slate next time around!
Tom(my) Burgett

Just a note to let you know how much my wife and I enjoyed the reunion. Thanks for you r hard work in putting it together. It was a very enjoyable weekend.
Danny Clark

Just a note to thank you so much for the enormous amount of work you did on the reunion. It was so nice seeing everyone after all of these years. The last one I attended was the 10 year and for some reason, this year most people seemed a bit more relaxed to interact with everyone than in 1974. I had a ball! Thank you, Sir!
Marsha Robinett
43133 Shadow Terrace
Leesburg VA 20176
P.S. FYI - Just to correct one item, those of us at E.M. Daggett Junior High also went to Paschal. Thanks again!

Many, many thanks to all the numerous folks who worked so hard to make a great time possible last weekend. Clif, the webpage is amazing. The reunion was, like our class, great fun. Bob and I made it on Saturday, and would have Friday but for our grandson's birthday party on Sat. morning. I missed some very dear friends at the reunion, but we are making plans for our own reunions in Cowtown and especially for the 50th. By the way, my sister said the write-up from the Saturday paper is on her Paschal reunion page, and she graduated in '60! We continue to be infamous and legendary. See you in 2014.
Sincerely, Katrina (Trina) Dean Fink bobandtrina@earthlink.net

I just have to add my thanks to all of you who worked so hard putting the reunion together! Every part of it was wonderful from the name tags to the buffet! You thought of all the details! Your hard work is greatly appreciated! Of course, I enjoyed so much catching up with some wonderful friends, poring over yearbooks remembering what everybody used to look like, and renewing long-lost friendships! Thank you so much to Paulette and Clif for looking for me until you found me! This was my first reunion, but now it won't be my last!
Kathy (Gibbins) Shelley

Hey, Clifton, First of all, let me be the umpteenth person to say thank you again for all your hard work and heart. I'd say it went beautifully, wouldn't you? What an incredible weekend! The best reunion ever! This pretty much set the stage for the 50th! It's going to be hard to beat this one! I must also tell you..the infamous picture from the bonfire of the policeman with the confiscated "weapons" wasn't entirely correct. It seems my husband, who graduated Heights '64, recognized one of those weapons as being one that he made himself! He recognized it in the picture in Star Telegram when it was first published in '63 and saw it again in this Saturday's paper. "This taped up ax handle didn't' belong to Paschal; I made this! I made it because some friends of mine and I were being harassed by some Brewer guys and I made this for protection 'just in case' they came after us! I gave it to one of my friends and he carried it under the seat of his car. (Name unmentioned to protect the innocent! He has established quite an honorable reputation in Ft. Worth!) He was pulled over for speeding by the police one night a couple of weeks before the bonfire and got scared and willingly turned it in. This is the ax!" You can only imagine the look on my face! So, it seems that Paschal wasn't responsible for all the bonfire trouble caused after all! I can't believe it's such a small world! I'm married to a prior ax maker! (Better than an ax murderer, I suppose!) Herewith are the pics Eric took throughout the Saturday's evening. Thank you again, Clifton. It was better than wonderful and I hope to see you gracing our city again soon! Take care and keep up!
Much love, Candy (Sandler) Jackson

It feels a bit strange to indulge in the opportunity that the reunion has provided to think back to our lives as youth and the lessons we were learning. I plan to write the workers like you with my thanks and congratulations for pulling off such a fun-filled and smooth reunion. From past reunions I knew in advance that, given our limited time together, I would feel some frustrations at not being able to visit/converse sufficiently with everyone I would like to. This time, however, I took some consolation in that during my year off (I retire Friday!) I plan to come to Ft Worth now and then - primarily to visit my Mom (who is doing OK but is very thin because she doesn't eat enough at home) and take care of some things around her home (the same place on Hildring Dr, which she shares with my brother Robert, my sister Mary, and her son Jakob). When I do, I will have a chance to visit more with some "old" friends like you. I have a couple of ideas for small projects at Paschal that maybe some alums would be interested in. It would be nice not to have to wait 10 more years to see and to dance (!) with the PHS crowd.
Joe Riddell

I'm so glad that after 40 years I came back to a Paschal reunion and was able to attend the school tour, Betsy's (and Dick's) party and the main event at Colonial. It is hard for me to express in words how grateful I am to everyone on the Reunion Committee and to Clif. So, I will just use one word for the jobs you all did - brilliant! Loved the shirt, too, Clif. I will do my part to keep the website up and running and find more missing Panthers. I was able to reconnect with some good friends after 40 years. The decor, food and music Saturday night were stunning. And, I loooove the directory! There were a lot of people there but a lot who didn't make it - maybe they'll be there for our 50th - I know I will be! The evening flew by and as I walked to my car when things were winding down that night, I swear, my feet weren't touching the ground - I was floating!
Paulette (Irvin) Nall

Dear Susan, Donna and I want to add our thanks to you and the other members of the organizing committee for a truly wonderful reunion. Speaking of the other organizers, what's the story with Clif, or should I say, Dorian? I'm convinced that if we searched his house, we'd find a locked room with an oil portrait covered by a curtain. (As an English major, you'll know what I'm talking about.) He could at least have add the decency to gain an ounce or two since high school, like the rest of us guys. I'm carefully excluding the women from this, since a surprising (considering our ages) number of them still had the great figures they had back in high school. I am, of course, including you in this group; you look just as lovely as you did back then. (Where was this silver tongue when I needed it back in high school?) I'm glad you posted a recent picture on the website, otherwise I might not have recognized you, since I would have been looking for a woman with her hair in a flip (or whatever that style you wore in high school was called); I had a similar problem with Katrina Dean: if she hadn't spoken to me first, I never would have recognized her, since I was expecting her to have red hair, rather than blonde. Anyway, we had a great time, thanks to the tremendous amount of work that you guys put into the planning. My only regret now is that I didn't sign us up for the school tour. I had just walked through the school on my own the previous summer on the spur of the moment, so didn't think about the tour; I realized later that it would have been fun to show Donna around and, furthermore, that it might have given me a chance to reconnect with some people I didn't get to talk to at the parties. This ties in with another bittersweet feeling, that I also felt at the end of the other reunion we attended (the 20th): When it was time to leave Saturday night, I had this nagging feeling that there were probably a lot of other people at the party that I would have wanted to talk to, if only I had known that they were there. I spent a fair amount of time both nights wandering around trying to sneak peeks at people's nametags. It was hard enough to do this unobtrusively with the men, but even more difficult with the women, since I didn't want to seem to be displaying an unseemly amount of interest in their chests. Do you guys have a list of the people who attended at least one of the two nights (or at least a list of the people who preregistered), and would it be possible to post it on the website? I realize that you're all probably pretty much burned out at the moment, but I'm throwing the idea out there, anyway. (Of course, I'm not sure this is going to make me feel any better, since I'll probably just end up saying, "Oh, no! My old friend Joe Blow was there, and I never knew it!") And maybe for the next reunion, which I'm sure you're anxious to start planning, people could post their names on a bulletin board or something when they arrive, so that others could know that they are there; something like this would be especially useful for the next reunion, when we'll all be on the verge of geezerhood and virtually unrecognizable to anyone who hasn't seen us recently (except for Clif, of course). Thanks again for the great job!
Regards, Clay(ton) Sherman

Clifton, It seems the reunion was a great success. Congratulations to you and your cohorts who worked so hard to put it together. Please put me on the list for a photo cd of all the events when it comes to fruition. Thanks for a job well done.
Dusty Wolters

The website "set the standard of excellence" in reunion information, notification, participation, anticipation and continuation of the spirit which made the Paschal High School Class of 1964 so unique!
Please accept my most sincere appreciation.
Kitty Evans Loveless

I can't stop thinking about that weekend. Thanks to all of you who did the hard work. Someone asked me tonight what made it so great, and I finally realized that the website was the number one feature. I think it got everyone thinking and remembering in advance and made the whole reunion more enjoyable.
Carolyn Terrell Coatoam

Just a word of thanks to all of you that donated so much time and effort to make our 40th reunion the best it could be. I doubt there has ever been a Paschal reunion that would compare. The food, decorations, and entertainment were great and Betsy should receive many accolades for allowing us to use her beautiful home for the Friday event. Special thanks to John Tucker, Clifton and Molly for their extra efforts. Sincere thanks and best wishes, Jay Lesok

To all involved in the planning of our 40th reunion...a belated KUDOS!!! It was the most enjoyable reunion all the way around. I enjoyed every minute of it!! Many thanks to Betsy and her sweet husband for opening their home to us. You were, both, the most gracious hosts. The decorations, food, and band at Colonial were perfect. I was left with a very warm feeling from all the camaraderie from our classmates, and the memories will linger always. I was especially impressed with our POSSE guys in their new shirts....large enough to go around their "adult" middles! It was an outstanding touch, guys. A special thanks to Mike Leeman for buying me a glass of wine on Saturday night. The tour of good ol' PHS brought back many memories due in a large part to John Polk, one of my homeroom buddies. Thanks, Letty, for planning this part of the weekend. The "old" part as very familiar and the "new" parts were awesome! Clif....what can I say about the website that hasn't already been said a million times? It is very impressive and oh, so informative! You did a great job with it and deserve all the recognition you receive. It was also great seeing and catching up with Ian Howie. Thanks for finding him and getting him to come! Thanks again to everyone involved. It would have been much less without all of your efforts. Again....KUDOS!!!!! Cynthia Preston Carson