4/19/02
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PHS Alumni On-Line Apr 19, 2002
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8 Bulldog notes today:
Judith McRae Brock (58)
Carol Sue Custer Perkins (59)
Jean Bishop Ryckman (62)
Dave Whitmire (62)
Linda Harshbarger Pasco (63)
Cliff Brown (67)
Paul Case (67)
John Morgan (69)
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From: Judith McRae Brock (58)
I am so surprised that no one has mentioned Taj, Mrs. Voorhee's Afghan dog . . . full sized. Many times it would surprise us as we came up to the front door along her tall fence.... Maybe the dog had passed away by the time the 60's arrived. Another interesting fact about Mrs. Voorhees . . . she always started her day with a warm glass of water and the juice of a fresh lemon squeezed into it. She claimed it purified her body and kept her thin and young.
Judith McRae Brock (58)
Palm Springs, CA
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From: Carol Sue Custer Perkins (59)
Isn't it strange how differently people see them selves from the way others remember them.
I remember Mike Meek as being popular and having so many friends.
Judy Moore and I talked about how differently we see ourselves. She felt self-conscious about being so good in sports that she felt unliked. I perceived her as being one of those girls that was liked by everyone.
Me? I felt invisible.
I moved away to California after the freshman year and didn't return until time for CBC. Quite a few kids greeted me as if I had never been gone. I had a chance to read my transcript from High School in Mr. Hanson's office and it changed my whole self image, for the better thank goodness. We need to be kinder to ourselves.
Does anyone remember the big old house on Henry second from the corner? I think it was called the old Perry house. Doc Hastings family bought it. It was rumored that there was a body buried in the sunken garden in back. When I was in Captain Gray, it was quite brave to go through the back yard.
Carol Sue Custer Perkins (59)
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From: Dave Whitmire (62)
I had the privilege of being in the Tri-Cities this past weekend and my grandnephew was running in the Pasco Invitational Track Meet. I remember being in the very first invitational. Ron Wells was our coach. He came to us from California.
The only meets that compared to his dream meet were the Walla Walla Relays and the West Valley Relays. He said to me, "One day this will be the biggest meet in the state." At that time, trophies were given to the first three places, and ribbons for the rest. Needless to say it is the premier meet in the state and has times and distances better than our state meet. Athletes from 150 different schools were there on Saturday. Nice to see Mr. Wells' vision come to fruition.
I can say after watching the meet that I remember why I don't miss the early spring in Pasco. Saturday dawned with the usual bright sun and just a wisp of wind. By the time the meet started the wind was really kicking up. Eventually, it was 45mph plus and the dust, sand, and grit were everywhere. Some of the young kids from the west side were having fun by jumping up in the face of the wind and seeing how far backwards it would push them. Don't know if they ever found that one little kid that tried it.
Anyhow it was a wonderful meet with two boys going over 16' in the pole vault and one girl breaking the state record in the 100 hurdles (against the wind). I'm sure that Doyle Clapper, our premier vaulter at the time, is envious of the boys mark. Unfortunately, we didn't have girl's competition at that time. Had we, I sure that we would have done very well.
For you ladies that played girl's basketball, was it two dribbles or three before one had to pass the ball? You couldn't go across mid-court either. One just passed to a teammate and then they got their 2 or 3 dribbles and so on. I remember that they did have tennis for girls. We were very competitive in that. Do they still give out the "Miss Tennis" award? My late wife Roxie Kahle was the first one to receive that award. Joe Luft got it for being "Mr. Track." Joe was an outstanding shot putter for that time. He eventually wound up at 55' plus. There are few boys that ever get that far even today.
Before I sign off I would like to thank Doug and Dennis Cresswell for being the inspiration for me to compete in track. If you are out there and read this -- thanks. It eventually paid my way through college. I'm sure that many of us were inspired to do something by someone that we admired. Thanks again Doug and Dennis.
Dave Whitmire (62)
Olympia, WA
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From: Jean Bishop Ryckman (62)
Just wanted to add my two cents on the discussions about Ninya Voorhees. Ninya (I finally got up enough courage to call her by her first name after I turned 40) was a wonderful influence for many of us. A true eccentric, she remained her "own person" until her death a few years ago. I studied ballet with Mrs. Voorhees for many years and performed in a number of those recitals. I not only learned ballet from her but also jazz, modeling, posture, proper walking and sitting, and general etiquette. To this day I cannot enjoy gum because I still hear Ninya's voice in my head saying, "Young ladies do not chew gum in public." She had high expectations of her young ladies and loved us all dearly.
I moved away from the Tri-Cities right after graduation vowing never to return. When I came back 13 years later, I immediately signed up for Ninya's adult ballet classes. She was in her 70's by then and could still do the splits!
Ninya was living in a nursing home when she passed away and there was no funeral. I couldn't stand having her just fade away so a couple of us local "young ladies" hosted a Ninya Voorhees tea. Her nieces came from the west side of the state and brought her photo albums and paintings to share. They let us take home whatever we wanted. It was a wonderful gathering. They also brought a video that had been made the last year of her life as a part of a tribute because she was named outstanding nursing home resident in the nation that year.
Thanks for letting me ramble about this woman I loved so dearly.
Jean Bishop Ryckman (62)
Pasco, WA
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From: Linda Harshbarger Pasco (63)
Hi, happy to be added to the database. I was in the class of 63 and live in Pasco, WA. I am married to Ned Pasco, class of 61. I still see many of our old classmates around town all the time. Does anyone know what happened to Maeva Gross? She was in the class of 63 and I haven't heard her name mentioned in a long while.
Linda Harshbarger Pasco (63)
Pasco, WA
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From: Paul Case (67)
Man, I wish I could actually remember something from my early years to write about! I don't know how some of you remember the things you do in such detail. Maybe I was too busy partying in high school to have much to remember. But I expect some of the things I did after high school, including a year-long vacation in South Viet Nam, should have affected my memory more, but I have many clear recollections of that period of my life. One of these days I'll write a brief auto-bio to see how much I do remember.
I did remember my 28th wedding anniversary this year. Celebrated with a nice dinner at Olive Garden (their white chocolate raspberry cheesecake is excellent!) and really surprised my better half (she's a Bomber, but almost half Bulldog by now) with some sparkly earrings. Now if I can just remember where I left my wallet . . .
Couple things regarding the web site - the Google search engine doesn't appear to be working - at least not from my computer. And I can't find a link to report problems with it to Google, but I'll keep looking. If anyone has any suggestions, hints, etc., please let me know.
I added some links to the Bulldog Reunions page that may be helpful to those of you planning reunions or anyone else looking for long lost classmates or friends (enemies or someone who owes you money, too, I suppose).
Quick update on subscribers - up to 389 active. Got a bunch of e-mails that bounced back on the last newsletter.
That includes at least three that had a reference to SpamCop, such as, "You have been blackholed by bl.spamcop.net!!!" I'm not sure what that's all about, but I hope our newsletter isn't being identified as Spam!
Anyway, if you check the web site every now and then you'll find out if you've missed any newsletters. Several bounce each time due to "storage space exceeded," etc. If you've got one of those Internet freebie e-mails you may want to check that now and then.
Don't forget the stadium turf project fundraiser for Edgar Brown. They still need money to complete the turf upgrade and move on to the next phase of improvements. It's really going to be a first-class facility and deserves community and alumni support. The home page link and the one on the links page will get you to instructions on how and where to donate.
OK, enough for now. Time to get this in the mail and enjoy a Jagermeister - cheers!
Paul Case (67)
Pasco, WA
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From: Cliff Brown (67)
To Joe Cherry:
Lauri or Lori Smalley or Smauley moved to Oak Ridge Tennessee, where she lived at 396 West Outer Reach Drive. It broke my heart too . . .
This is a repeat of an earlier post, but what the heck. So many new folks signed up I figured some might enjoy it. It's part of an unfinished book for my grandkids, if and when I have some. Paul, I apologize if it clutters up your server unnecessarily.
Washington State
Southeastern Washington, where I grew up, is one of the most geologically interesting places on earth. It is located just west of the Blue Mountains, the most rugged, if not the highest, which the Pioneers had to cross when coming west. It has the Columbia River, which is one of the most powerful rivers in the hemisphere. Except for behind some of the dams it is not as wide as the Mississippi and is not as long, but I think it carries more water. It has been rerouted many times by glaciers, which came down from Canada and pushed it aside. As a result, there are several prominent dry waterfalls and riverbeds, generally empty except for some lakes now formed by irrigation run off. The glaciers quite often would block some river in Montana - I think it might be the Libby?? - which would then form this tremendous lake east of that part of the Rocky Mountains. They say it covered a very large part of the current state of Montana. Then, when the ice receded, at one point the entire lake was released to drain out in a matter of days, in a type of enormous inland tidal wave bringing large amounts of topsoil and rolling huge boulders hundreds of miles from their home. This may have happened as much as 40 times. The melting glaciers also brought a lot of interesting rocks with them, which stayed behind when they melted. Then, the Cascade mountain range has several volcanoes?? Mt. Rainier being just one which would periodically erupt and cover large parts of the area with lava. We have one place where a portion of a petrified forest can be seen which was once covered with lava. The river has made all sorts of fascinating carvings in this lava as it worked its inexorable way south. It turns west at a point on the current border between Washington State and Oregon called Wallula Gap. I once worked on a tugboat that pushed wheat barges through this gap, which today has towering rock walls on each side, on which you can see the many layers of lava and sand formed by the historical forces. The geology profs at Whitman College, in Walla Walla, which is only about 25 miles east of there, have it great. They are living in a museum.
The Snake River runs into Southeastern Washington from Idaho and joins the Columbia about three miles southeast of Pasco, where I went to school from the third to the twelfth grade. It is the river many of the pioneers followed into the Northwest Territory. As it cuts through the Blue Mountains, it passes through Hell's Canyon, which it formed over thousands of years ago and over which Evil Knievel attempted to jump with his motorcycle in the 60's.
Pasco is a pretty run down place, these days. When I lived there it was much nicer, or at least we thought so. The Northern Pacific railway had a main terminal there since the junction of these two large rivers made for a convenient trading post in the early days. Just upriver from Pasco on the Columbia is the Hanford Atomic Works??? Or that is what they used to call it. That's where they made the plutonium for the first atomic bombs. I think they shipped it to Oak Ridge, Tennessee for further processing. Anyway, Pasco is down river from the "Area," and maybe that explains some of the craziness I got into in junior high school and high school. It might even explain my Mom's health problems. They've just started to get serious about researching the impact on the local population of various radioactive releases in the 50's and 60's.
Further upriver from the Area is the only part of the Columbia, which is free-flowing, meaning not backed up behind any dam. This is the farthest place upriver where salmon still spawn naturally. On the other side of the river from Hanford is the Columbia Basin, which is one of the finest, most productive farming areas in the United States, richly irrigated by water from the lakes formed by dams further upstream, including the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest in the world at the time it was built.
I don't think anyone really knows the source of the name Pasco. One rumor I heard was it was an acronym of sorts for Pacific Steamship Company. The river in front of Pasco, ever since McNary Dam was finished, is pretty wide still. It is the last place on the Columbia River where tugboats can push large barges. We even had an ocean going barge, called the Kenai, come up to town actually, to Kennewick, on the other side of the river, or Finley, which is a small place just down river from Kennewick. I think it was loading stuff for a trip to Alaska, when they were building the Alyeska Pipeline. Perhaps it was unloading something for the fertilizer plant in Finley. Anyway, I remember pulling up under the bow of the Kenai, looking up at this huge metal thing and thinking - it was actually more of a spine permeating feeling: "Wow, this has actually gone to sea!" Something in me changed right in the shadow of that bow. I knew eventually I'd go to sea. And I did. For a while. But I'm getting ahead of myself . . .
Cliff Brown (67)
Bogota, Colombia
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From: John Morgan (69)
Currently the principal at PHS and continuing to bleed purple.
John Morgan (69)
Pasco, WA
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