Members of the class of 1985 shared stories and time together leading up to this year’s CPA Picnic parade.
Classmates met Saturday and reminisced on middle and high school memories. Their class graduated about 40 students, and over half of them went to school together from kindergarten until high school graduation.
Steve Hamlin flew a paper airplane through his sixth grade classroom as his teacher re-entered the room.
His teacher said, “Mr. Hamlin, if you want to study aerospace engineering, you should go to college.”
Hamlin didn’t know it at the time, but he’d end up getting his master’s degree in just that.
Hamlin and Bill Folks recalled being on the forensics team and accidentally showing up in matching red and white striped shirts. They in turn wanted to make sure their coincidental outfits played a role in their performance. Their improv included them going by the names Peppermint Stick and Candy Cane.
Jennifer Baldridge and Thais Holladay remembered an awkward biology class. The teacher felt uncomfortable covering a chapter about sexual education and would not look at the class during the entire lesson and kept facing the chalkboard, they said.
Holladay said she ended up receiving a D- on the test because of these teaching methods – and she even credits it with her becoming a sex therapist.
Holladay also shared memories of reading the “Count of Monte Cristo” in middle school, and shared it’s been a favorite of hers ever since and something she’s reread many times.
Richard Stout agreed, saying the class taught by Mike Eltschinger helped instill confidence in all of them. Baldridge said he was a favorite teacher by far, and everyone loved reading the story.
Melissa Shipe remembers Folks using his free speech to write a story about then-Principal Charlie Watts, calling him a dictator. Watts is also Shipe’s stepdad.
Many shared memories of typing class – but they didn’t take the class to learn to type better, they said. They took it because it was the only space in the old high school that had air conditioning since it was in the middle of the building.
Shipe shared a story of one of the younger basketball teams putting laxatives in some cookies and giving them to one of the school’s other teams. The team had to cancel the game.
Classmates also shared memories of cheering for powderpuff games, computer classes, self-led algebra classes, putting sawdust down someone’s pants in woodworking class, Ozarks senior trip, and a tooth falling out of a teacher’s mouth and onto their paper.
