Dr. Jerry Newberry ... Wanda Pryor ... and The Voice....

by Jennifer Johnston

I am beginning to feel a bit like the Angel of Death ... so much of what is posted to the blog now involves notice(s) of the death(s) of one or more of our classmates.... Still, I do believe that the continuing evolution of the blog, to cover as much of the history of the Class of 1963 of Childress High School as possible does warrant such difficult posts, because I think it is in our nature to want to know what has happened to friends and/or classmates we once saw nearly every day of our younger lives.... And if there is other news to post which may be interesting or important to us, I will endeavor to do so as long as I am able, and I encourage anyone who has a relevant story, or information, or whatever to contact me so it may be posted here as another knot in the thread of our lives.... But for now, I bring you news of the deaths of two more of our classmates and friends....

The voice called, and I went.
I went because the voice called.
(Hannah Szenes)
 
DR. JERRY NEWBERRY
November 25, 1944 - July 31, 2015

 

Jerry was born in Childress, and died at his home in Spokane, Washington ... leaving behind his wife and our classmate, Diana Veal Newberry, their daughter Kim Gines and her husband Matt and their three daughters, of Deer Park, Washington. Jerry and Diana met each other when they were five years old, and married on August 26, 1967 in Childress.

After graduating with honors from CHS, Jerry took his undergraduate degree and did post-undergrad studies at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Jerry then attended medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, and upon graduation moved to Portland, Oregon to complete his internship. Subsequently he returned to Galveston for his two-year residency and also did a fellowship with renowned heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey.  He and Diana moved to Spokane, where he practiced Anesthesiology for 25 years before retiring from practice. In retirement he was an ombudsman for the state of Washington, assisting the elderly with medical matters.

Jerry and Diana loved the outdoors, fishing trips with the family, their annual visit to Hawaii, and saw much of the world, including Paris, France.

It is said that many doctors go into the profession because they feel a calling to help and heal and succor others, and I like to think this was the case with Jerry, as his work with the elderly after retirement would seem to indicate....

Deepest condolences to our friend Diana, and their family, and to all of Jerry's friends and colleagues....

WANDA SUE PRYOR CASIAS
November 21, 1944 - January 31, 2012



Although Wanda did not graduate in Childress with our class, she was our classmate through Childress Junior High School before moving to Amarillo with her mother, though she did spend some time with us at CHS.... Our Junior year annual has two pictures of her in our Junior Class Play (though not with our other class pictures).

Wanda and I had been fairly close (both in proximity and in friendship) until she moved after eighth grade, since she only lived a block over from my grandparents' house on Avenue D. NW.  She was another of my grandmother's "adoptees" among certain of my friends. And while Wanda and I basically lost contact with each other in the years after graduation, she would always make a point of stopping to see my grandmother whenever she passed through Childress and I would hear some news of her that way, until my grandmother died in 1979.  The last time I spoke with Wanda was by phone ca. 1973, not long after she had married John Casias on March 3, 1972.

I had thought about Wanda on and off over the years, and I recently just googled her name, and found an obituary and a related story which detailed her death, which saddened me tremendously.... I found that after feeling called to the ministry in May of 1980, Wanda and her husband John decided to minister to the people of Mexico, which they did for 30 years, prior to their simultaneous deaths on January 31, 2012. They were murdered in their home by someone on that day, and their bodies were found by one of their sons (one of the 10 children they left behind).

Although the news of the method and nature of Wanda's and John's deaths did bring tears for the vibrant, intelligent girl I had known so long ago, it didn't surprise me very much, because the Wanda I will remember had always been involved with care and concern for her fellows and for mankind.... She understood, as we should all understand, John Donne's words: "Never send to ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." And so I, and her other friends, must take solace in the thought that she found that "calling" ... that desire and impetus to help others ... and draw on their examples to do the good thing, the right thing, the honorable thing, as best we can....

I will end this post with more beautiful words by Hannah Szenes, which I feel are appropriate here:

Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.
Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.
Blessed is the heart with the strength to stop its beating for honor's sake.
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.

May we all listen for the voice deep within us, the voice that calls us to higher service than ourselves ... and may we heed that call for the betterment of others and for this world where we now live....

)O(

The Looking Glass: Equality ... Equity ... and History....

by Jennifer Johnston

Friday, June 26, 2015 is a day that will be remembered and celebrated (perhaps not by some, but that is their problem) as a huge milestone in the history of our country....

On that date, by a vote of 5-4, the United States Supreme Court (Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan and Breyer) ruled that marriage may no longer be denied to a group of our citizens, specifically those consenting adults who choose to marry another consenting adult of the same sex. The ruling was a long time in coming, although it must be said that in the end, it actually came more quickly than perhaps might have been imagined just a few years ago. And although I know there are some who will disagree with me, IT WAS THE CORRECT RULING and should indeed have happened sooner.

I have never understood the rationale behind denying the fundamental rite (and right) of marriage to a huge class of our citizens.... Sorry, but religious objections should have NO CONSIDERATION and NO SWAY in what is a bedrock matter of civil rights.... It is VERY SIMPLE: If you don't want to marry someone of the same sex, if it is against your religious beliefs, then by all means DON'T!!!! No one will force you to do so. But don't try to deny that inalienable right to others...

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal." These stirring words, from our Declaration of Independence, adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776 are beautiful, inspiring ... and poignant.... For at the time of the Declaration of Independence, women were considered as chattel by their husbands; slavery was an institution (not only the slavery of black men and women and children, but of others, including the Irish); and in so many other ways, it was so obvious that ALL men (and women) were not considered or held equal in the eyes of the law....

However, I believe ... I have always believed ... that the Declaration of Independence, along with the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution, were written by good and decent men, who intended that those documents were only a template, and that they would be living, breathing instruments for the growth and future direction of our country, as times and attitudes changed and adaptation became necessary and required.... 

I remember when we were students at CHS there were more than one of our fellow students who were gay ... some might have been a bit more obvious than others, and I grieve still that they were subjected to taunts and slurs and unreasonable harassment ... and I know that there were others, who managed to "hide" within the majority student body, and only "came out" (if they EVER did) many years later.... Many people of our age, and younger, and older, wondered if this day of marriage equality would ever come during their lifetimes ... and sadly, for many, it did not.

So as we approach the July 4th celebration of our independence, let us note and rejoice that at very long last this group of people has been granted rights which they should have had all along, and resolve that discrimination against others is, ab initio, wrong.... And let us also resolve to continue to nurture and grow this country (which by the way was NOT founded as nor intended to be a Christian nation) WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL....

)O( 

Nicki and Jim ... Reflections ... and Auld Lang Syne....

by Jennifer Johnston

When I was young ... when all of us in the Childress High School Class of 1963 were young, more than half a century ago ... I was perplexed by the habit of my grandfather, W.C. Harp, to make frequent trips to the Childress Cemetery to "visit" with those he had known and loved, whose mortal remains rested there....

How morbid, I thought... How gross!!! How terrible to seemingly be looking forward to his own death, to leaving this life and rejoining those literal ghosts of the past. My teenaged mind rebelled against the thought....

But now, after my own decades of this life and watching so many that I have known and loved leave this world, I think I understand more of what was in my Papa's mind.... Truth: More people who were important to me, and who I dearly loved, have left this time and place than I will EVER meet again in this life.... But now I believe with all my heart and soul, as my Papa did, that I will see them again in another place and time, another life, another promised "future"....

Nicki and Jim, this is for you ... and for auld lang syne....

I will always remember Nicki and Jim as a couple; and indeed they were, almost from the moment they were introduced when Nicki's family moved to Childress before our Freshman year at CHS, although Nicki laughingly related a story for the Show and Tell blog about how absolutely mortified she was when she was first introduced to Jim.... Still, it is almost impossible to think of one without the other.... Indeed, they were lovely and graceful in their lives together, for 55 years (50 as man and wife) ... and fittingly I think, in death they were not long parted....

I had known Jim since childhood in Childress, one of the "gang" who played in the streets until dark sent us scurrying for home, and ran through lawn sprinklers, and attended each others' birthday parties, and Trick-or-Treated in costumed packs at Halloween.... By the time Nicki joined us, we had moved on to more typically teenaged pursuits such as dragging Highway 287 and Main Street and the City Park; stopping for cokes and 'burgers at the Dairy Mart; bowling at the new Childress bowling alley where Nicki's parents kept watchful eyes on us; trips to dance at the Blue Room; slumber parties; and trying to ensure that "Tuffy" Maddox wasn't around to note if our feet got a bit heavy on gas pedals, or were "busted" in some fun but ofttimes insane adolescent pranks....

Although of course I knew Nicki, we didn't actually "hang around" with the same people in high school, and it became a true blessing when she contacted me in late summer of 2007 to tell me about the blog she had just started, Relections on the Way We Were: The Class of 1963 of Childress High School. She mentioned that Clara Robinson Meek had said she should contact me to see if I was interested in working on the blog with her ... and the approximately two years that Nicki and I (joined on occasion by some others) worked together on that blog, and the ancillary blogs, Show and Tell and then Voices of the Class of 1963, proved not only to be amazing trips down the fabled Memory Lane, but also became some of the most treasured days of my life.... I was truly blessed to have the opportunity then to get to know Nicki, and Jim as well, as the wonderful, caring people they had by then become....

One further indirect and almost posthumous "gift" from Nicki and Jim, was to get to know their daughter Jami Wilcoxson Wilmarth, and to have a chance to read the blog she kept of their final days together, Aging Gracefully is an Oxymoron; and to see posts by their other daughter, Kim Wilcoxson Migliaccio and their grandson, Jordie Henry.... I never knew until their obituaries were published that Nicki and Jim had another daughter, Amy, who apparently did not survive infancy. But what a lovely family they raised and nurtured, and left with such a legacy of love and golden memories....

I will end this post with words I used in the Reflections blog on January 31, 2007 ... New Year's Eve ... which attempted to update the class on some friends and teachers who had died in the years since our graduation, and I believe it is fitting to recall them here....

"Auld" means "old" and "auld lang syne" translates literally from Scots as "old long since" ... or idiomatically, as "long long ago" or "days gone by:"

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?

Our answer to the questions posed in the song would be an emphatic "No." We should not forget who we once were, where we came from, and those who touched our lives so long, long ago ... even as we move inexorably from past through present into future.

In The Hundred Secret Senses, a bittersweet novel of the meaning of loyalty, sisterhood, fate, friendship, the supernatural and extraordinary love, author Amy Tan wrote:  "If people we love die, then they are lost only to our ordinary senses. If we remember, we can find them any time with our hundred secret senses ... memory, seeing, hearing, feeling, all come together...." The book's protagonist, Olivia, learns "the world is not a place but the vastness of the soul. And the soul is nothing more than love, limitless, endless, all that moves us toward knowing what is true." The ability to use our secret senses to "connect" with those who have gone before us allows us to realize the infinite quality of time.

Nicki and Jim, it was truly an honor and a great pleasure to know you, and you will certainly live in my memory, and in the memories of others, for as long as we are in this life.... I will continue to revisit our blogs from time to time, as I have always done, throughout the years and smile at the memories we made and recorded, together ... I will add to the blog as may be needed from time to time ... and I do believe that we and all those whose lives you touched and who loved you so much will see you again....

 (Post-Posting Note: Nicki may be laughing about this as I type.... It has taken me longer to try to post this than it did to write it.... Some problem with the fonts, though I have typed and retyped it.... Sometimes such things would happen and all I could do was throw up my hands and ask Nicki to try to fix it.... So am posting as it is, with apologies.... Nicki, if you're there.... (smile).... Rest well, my friend....)

)O(

Nicki Janice Sooter Wilcoxson       James Marvin Klosters Wilcoxson
October 7, 1945 - May 13, 2015    November 15, 1944 - May 23, 2015

    

Barry ... Bryce ... and Bobcat Blue....

by Jennifer Johnston

It is with great sadness that I post the news of the deaths of two more members of our Class of 1963 from Childress High School.... We have also recently lost our dearly loved Nicki Sooter Wilcoxson, but I am holding Nicki's commemorative post until she may be joined once again by her husband and our classmate and friend, Jim Wilcoxson.... If any of you have stories or memories of any of these classmates, or if you know of some classmates who have died without our knowledge, please email me....

Barry Lloyd Wakefield
February 28, 1945 - January 20, 2015

Barry was born in California, and died there as well. He the lived and grew up in Childress until our graduation. I remember Barry as being sweet, pleasant and thoughtful. I was talking recently with our classmate Pat Davenport Shapiro, who reminisced about how much fun Barry was, particularly when they worked together for the UIL One-Act Play contest our Senior year, along with Linda Bridges Cook and Jack Petty.

Joe Don Hopkins recently sent me an email about his lifelong friendship with Barry, and I will let Joe's words be Barry's memorial here....

As Joe wrote: "Barry was a very special friend that I have known since the first grade. We became very good friends in High school and did the usual rebels without a clue routine for 3 of those 4 years. This carried over into a semester at Tech before we both dropped out and dealt with our pending draft notices.

"Barry joined the Navy for 4 years and had several Med cruises. Prior to that we got together on some weekends in San Diego when I would come down to San Diego from Camp Pendleton for a weekend of rebels without a clue, Chapter 2.

"Barry's ship visited the port of Houston once when I was attending U of H there and working. He also visited me once or twice there when he was coming home for annual leave. He got out of the Navy in the summer or late spring of 1969, moved back to Childress and then to Lubbock to finish his accounting degree at Tech.

"He moved to California in about 1974 and then settled in at Oxnard from about 1976 until his death in 2015. He worked for the same agricultural  company for that entire period of time.

"I visited him in Oxnard 4-6 times and would see him in Childress once annually when his parents were still alive. I think his mom died in 1997 after his dad died in 01/1991. I would still see him in Childress about once annually or every other year for his family reunions there.

"We talked on the telephone about once a month from about 1980 to 2015. We discussed books, movies, current events, the world going to hell in a hand basket and reminisced about our youthful exploits. We met up in Las Vegas a few times including once or twice with James Claude Holton and James Douglas Greer. We did a pretty fair imitation of rebels without a clue on one or two occasions but they were not impressed in Vegas.

"I think I last saw Barry in 2012 or 2013 in Childress. We spoke by telephone about a  week or two before he died. He was not feeling well and had gone home early from work. We talked again the following week and he was doing better.

"Barry was a dear friend whom I loved and respected very much. He was a solid citizen, hard worker and a loyal and trusted friend to many people. He was well thought of at work and developed friendships with vendors who called on him as well as coworkers. I miss him and long for another conversation with him.

"Barry was a very steady person, never down or critical of anything except our government and the silly state of California. He was patriotic and was a very loving son to his parents when they were alive. Barbara Wakefield always felt that Barry would not get into any trouble when he was with me and my mother felt the same about Barry. We sure had them fooled."

I so appreciate and thank Joe for sharing his memories of Barry with us. And I love the line Joe used about "rebels without a clue".... What an excellent description of a lot of us from the Class of 1963 as we lived through teenaged angst and confusion....

Bryce Wormsbaker

August 21, 1945 - April 30, 2015

A lifelong, avid Bobcat football supporter, Bryce was very involved in helping youth in athletics. He formed the C.A.T.S. (Christian Athletic Training and Strength) program, was a former head of the Little League basketball program and was one of the founders of the Childress Little League football. 

Bryce loved Childress, and he loved to work in his yard and dabbling in horticulture, creating his own little paradise here. He was a member of the First Baptist Church, and above all else was a loving and devoted father, husband and grandfather. 

He was preceded in death by his parents, and by his siblings Alvin, Helen and Myrna. 

Survivors include his wife, Sheila of the home; Son, Kelcey Wormsbaker and wife, Jamie of Lubbock; two grandsons, Ryder Wormsbaker and Gunnar Wormsbaker of Lubbock; two brothers, Neil Wormsbaker and wife, Ethel of Mesa, AZ, and Bill Wormsbaker and wife, Freda of Kingman, AZ;  sister, Tiana Swafford of Amarillo; numerous extended family and friends.  (Information courtesy of Johnson Funeral Home of Childress)

Richard Bach wrote: "Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends." Although it may sometimes be hard to remember that, I do believe it, and I take comfort in the thought. I hope you will as well.

)O(

TRILOGY: Life ... Death ... and I'll Be Seeing You ...

by Jennifer Johnston

Linda Bridges Cook, Raenell Wynn Smith, Jennifer Johnston and JoAnn Neel Lathram at dinner on the Bateuax Mouches in Paris, March 2008

As you know it has been a while since I have written for the blog ... since anyone has written for the blog for that matter. But after a recent request, Nicki has agreed to reopen the Voices blog for occasional updates of interest, and so I return with a sense of "visiting" an old friend ... or several, depending on how many may read this ... though the joy of again writing for this venue where I found so much wonder and delight for two years is bittersweet as we now remember and say farewell to some who have passed from us and from this life.  It is quite possible that more than these three have gone from us, and their lack of inclusion here is not intended as any slight to them or their memory, it is simply a fact that we did not know of their passing at the time of posting. If any of you know of someone who should be remembered and memorialized here, or if there is some momentous news of general interest which should be imparted, please contact me or Nicki as we strive to maintain an ongoing thread and record of the lives, and deaths, and times of the CHS Class of 1963.

JoAnn Neel Lathram

September 15, 1944 - February 22, 2011

I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces all day through ...

The beautiful Irving Kahal/Sammy Fain song I'll Be Seeing You, a standard from World War II, was movingly rendered by Jimmy Smith, our friend and husband of our dear Raenell Wynn Smith, at the services held for JoAnn nearly a year ago, following darling Joby's death from breast cancer after her valiant battle.  Joby's cousin, Shirley Neel Cromartie, told me that Joby had requested that the song be specifically dedicated to her grandchildren, whom she loved dearly ... but even as I felt tears filling my eyes as I thought of that, I felt such a strong sense that the song was indeed for all of us ... a vision, a promise if you will ... that though this life may be finite, eternity is not.

Most of the world's great religions and many philosophies posit the idea that there is something beyond death, differing only somewhat in their interpretations of what that "something" may be.  Some espouse beliefs in Heaven, or Hell, or transcendence, or multiple lives culminating in ascension to a higher plane. But for many of us, whatever our ideas of an afterlife may encompass, there seems to be a deeply rooted belief that we will once again find, will be reunited with, those whom we have truly loved and who have reciprocated that love.  And JoAnn told her friends, and her children and grandchildren, that she knew well that one day they would see each other again. I likewise embrace that belief.

Joby was the third (one third!!!) of our Naughty Nine to embark from this life on that ongoing journey through time and space, following our beloved Paula Leach Schubarth (2002) and Lynn Purcell Durham (2008), previously memorialized in the Reflections and the Voices blogs, along with others of our classmates also remembered there, who left before we or their loved ones were ready (as if anyone could ever be ready) to see them go.

I'll be seeing you in every lovely summer's day
In everything that's light and gay
I'll always think of you that way...

When I think of Joby I do see her in the golden light of summer, with the sun illuminating her dark hair, her eyes sparkling, full of humor and fun ... that brilliant smile and that low laugh ... loving and delighting in her friends and family, generous with her care and concern and kindness for others.  The last time I saw her, in October 2010, at lunch with Raenell and Linda Bridges Cook, I knew that I would not see her again in this life. But though the knowledge was heart-breaking, the reunion of the four of us was warm, and sustaining, and a beautiful testament to lifelong friendships, and to the singular bond of the Nine.  We were girls together sharing birthday parties and other rituals of childhood, then young women giggling over secret and not so secret loves, then wives and mothers and grandmothers, observing the phases and stages of each others' lives, reveling in the pleasures, sharing the sorrows, supporting whichever of us needed a boost when life became difficult.  We were the Nine, as I wrote at the time of Paula's death ... and as noted then, we will always be the Nine, even after all of us have departed this plane.... And I believe to the depths of my soul that we will meet again ... as Joby believed.

I'll find you in the morning sun

Or when the night is new

I'll be looking at the moon,

But I'll be seeing you.

Mike Spradley

1944 - March 17, 2011

Less than a month after Joby left us, we were saddened to hear of the death of Mike Spradley, who though he did not graduate from CHS with our class was our classmate through many years of school in Childress. I particularly remember his stories of one memorable if short-lived stint as a freshman cheerleader for the CHS Bobcats in 1959, a tale which Mike told with relish and with that wonderful deep laugh as he detailed the frustrations of Imogene Pannell (later Murray) in trying to inculcate the esprit of cheerleading into him and Don Seal and Jimmy Czewski.

Mike graduated high school in Lubbock, but always insisted that his blood ran Bobcat Blue, and I know from many conversations with him that he had a deep-seated love for Childress, which he maintained throughout his life.

Mike's parents, Jim and Lornadee Spradley, and my parents, Keith Johnston and the former Billie Harp, and Lyman and Neysa Davenport, Pat Davenport Shapiro's parents, were great friends when we were kids, and I have memories of childhood play and pranks (a fondness for which Mike never lost to my knowledge).  After Mike and his family moved from Childress we lost touch, but reconnected again in early 2001 when we were both coincidentally living in Houston.  

A few lunches and after work get-togethers, as well as conversations with Sheila Davis Martinez, led us to plan the wonderful October 18, 2001 Wimberley Weekend in Wimberley, Texas (just over a month after the horrors of 9/11).  A group of us including Mike and his beloved wife Ada and dad Jim, and Sheila, and Clara Robinson Meek, and Joe Don Hopkins took over a Wimberly bed-and-breakfast and spent a great couple of days reminiscing and catching up. We were also joined for dinner Saturday night by Jeff Jeffers, and placed a group long-distance call to John Danner in the Philippines (both CHS 1960).  Subsequently there was a memorable weekend spent with the Spradleys in Childress visiting old friends including but not limited to Najla and Mary Saied, Lynn and Dana Purcell Morris (CHS 1960), which was the last time I saw Mike.

Mike graced the Reflections blog with some of his wonderful cartoons and with some side-splittingly funny blogposts, and if you have not read these you have missed some wonderful offerings from a natural raconteur.

Yahn Smith

August 6, 1946 - August 28, 2010

Although not a member of the CHS Class of 1963, I have also been asked to post a notice of the death of my former husband, Yahn Smith, who also contributed many pieces of his artwork and some writings to the blog.  Yahn was an incredibly talented artist, a graphics designer and a much sought-after teacher at the Art Institute of Houston before he retired.  He graduated from Bossier High School in Bossier City, Louisiana in 1964 (though as we used to joke he was still older than I), later from the Dallas Art Institute, and took his Master of Fine Arts degree at Syracuse University.

Yahn and I had been married for 42 years at the time of his death, although there were many unforeseen changes in his and our lives during the last few years, and a reflection on those times reminds me again, as it should remind all of us, that the future is unknown and unknowable, sometimes taking twists and turns which cannot be conceived in the most fertile imagination. And that too is a part of life, and death.

I end this trilogy of remembrance by adjuring all of you to make the most of each and every day you are given, to freely love those whom you do love, and to tell them so with some frequency, to take pains that your actions match your words, to treasure your friends ... in the hopes that when we all take that inevitable journey we carry with us golden memories, and leave behind memories of love and laughter and blessed days, until we meet again.  And I share with you the beautiful thoughts of poet Mary E. Frye....

Do not stand at my grave and weep  I am not there. I do not sleep.  I am a thousand winds that blow.  I am the diamond glints on snow.  I am the sunlight on ripened grain.  I am the gentle autumn rain.  When you awaken in the morning's hush  I am the swift uplifting rush  Of quiet birds in circled flight.  I am the soft stars that shine at night.  Do not stand at my grave and cry;  I am not there. I did not die.  )O(