Zooming with the Aces #20: Turning Points, August 17, 2023

Class of 1960 Zoomers

Row 1, left to right:  Charles Howard, Fred Elder, Dan Tontz; Row 2, Skip Granger, Lee Ayres, Marilyn Tompkins Bellert; Row 3, Calvin Ross, Hal Ottaway (’61), David Robinson, Janice Collins Bailey; Row 4, Diane Rusch Zinn, Glenna Stearman Park, Linda Soderberg McKay.

Getting Started

Following introductions and statements of location, plus a few temperature updates from all, Skip informed everyone about the tragic murder of Midge Walters O’Neill, class of ’61. She was the younger sister of Virginia Walters, class of ’59, and Student Body Vice-President.  Janice and Dan lived near the Walters family.  Hal Ottaway, visiting as a guest of David Robinson, recalled Midge.  His wife was in that class and her brother Kent Vickery, was in our class. 

Calvin then inquired about Myrna Iddings, also class of ’61, with whom he would like to make contact.  Hal has never seen her at any class reunions, and he’s attended all of them. Skip enjoys researching and said he would look for Myrna. Lee asked Calvin if Myrna was the girl he took on  a date on a school bus.  Calvin acknowledged she was and briefly described the incident. Click on the title, “It Happened with Myrna and Me in Her Garage” to read this funny story. 

Topic of the Day:  Turning Points in our Lives

Please understand that the following is a summary not a transcription. Let us know if corrections are needed.

Glenna Stearman Park, Montgomery, MD.   I’ve had many turning points. The most significant one was getting involved in the Feminist Movement. As a graduate student in Art at the University of California in San Diego, I was involved in many encounter groups and protests. Basically, it really changed the way I looked at many situations. I didn’t burn my bra, but wish I had. Much of the art that I created and my theater work dealt with ideas about the roles of women in our culture and others.  Having been the mother of sons and the wife of Joel, I could not hate men. I remember reading an essay that said, “Men don’t wake up every morning trying to figure out how to make their wives miserable.” My sons were not like that. I was tempered by being among many men. 

Glenna’s stories about her work as a professional artist and teacher have often appeared on this website. Here are two classics.  “The Domestic Influence on Art Thesis” and “Art as a Force for Social Change.“

Diane Rusch Zinn, Lawrence, KS.  Perhaps I’ve had more than one, but the main one was our decision to move from Palo Alto to Lawrence. We had decided we really didn’t want to be part of the rat race we saw coming in the Silicon Valley area.  We wanted to go back to where our roots were.  Dick started law school here and we ended up staying here because there was a good opportunity here for him to practice.  Our other options were Kansas City, Denver, and Wichita, but we chose Lawrence, and I’m glad we did.  We’ve been here since 1963, so obviously it was a good choice.  It was a very good place to raise our children and to participate easily in a variety of community activities. We’ve never regretted our choice.

Calvin Ross, Johnson City, TN. Like Glenna, I’ve had multiple pivotal moments. One was at East High. At a football game against Southeast, our 6^th game of the season, I blew out my knee. My family physician said I probably wouldn’t need surgery. I was heading to Stanford intending to play football and knew that Stanford had an excellent orthopedic surgeon. The team physician at Stanford said that my knee injury was very serious and operated on it.  I was in a full leg cast. We rode bicycles everywhere in Palo Alto, but I had to put mine up. That ended my football career. I stayed the year at Stanford, but during that time I was also thinking about ministry. I knew of a denominational college in East Tennessee, Milligan, and thought maybe I should try it. After that, I went to Princeton Seminary, which started me on a career in the ministry. All this was precipitated by a high school injury that changed my life. I have had no trouble with that knee since. If reinjured, it could have crippled me. One of the reasons I went ahead with the surgery was that I knew I wanted to snow ski and play tennis, which I have enjoyed doing.

David Robinson, Wichita, KS. As a young gay man, college wasn’t the thing for me. I was looking for love in all the wrong places and couldn’t wait to get out of Wichita. The Army got me and I think some of you have read my story about that experience on the website. I spent a little over a year in Vietnam and that was one of the best things that ever happened to me. When I got out of the Army, I located in the San Francisco Bay area.  I stayed there for forty years – good times, bad times. In ’03 during the dot.com crash, I had my own business, I closed my business.  I didn’t know where else I could afford to live, so I came back to Wichita.  I couldn’t have made a better choice. I’m lucky in many ways, and that’s part of it. I have a lovely home here, I enjoyed my jobs completely, I retired twice, and I do my thing at the Frank Lloyd Wright Allen House and have made friends from that.  I’ve reconnected with East High people.  That’s a new life.  I’m refreshed and very happy. 

David’s story about his time in the U.S. Army is here – “A Dream Job in Danang?!”

Janice Collins Bailey, Wichita, KS. An important turning point happened when I was going to East High School. I met John Bailey. We married and moved around the country with the Navy. When John finished his nuclear engineering degree from KState, where I taught for six years, we moved to Virginia, then Arkansas, and back Wichita and finally to Emporia, Kansas where we lived for 20 years. After John’s passing, I moved back to Wichita to take care of family. John was a very loving husband and very respectful. I appreciated that all of my life.

Janice wrote this story about John’s life – “John Bailey’s Careers, 1942-2004.”

Marilyn Tompkins Bellert, Sycamore, IL.  Like others of you, I’ve had many turning points. One of them is when I decided to run for public office. After a number of years as a League of Women Voters local government observer in Northbrook, IL, a suburb of Chicago, I thought I could do this as well as some of the people I was watching. My kids went to a wonderful high school and I had worked as a high school teacher, so I ran for the local high school board of education. I was elected three times and served twelve years. It was a fascinating experience.  I especially enjoyed working with a group of women friends who were also serving as elected members of local government boards. We made many good things happen for our community by collaborating quietly behind the scenes.  After that, I served on two national-level education boards and finally spent six years as a member of the Illinois State Board of Education. With Board colleagues in Illinois and across the county over 20 years, I dealt with many really interesting issues in public policy.  One of those was social and emotional learning and character education, which I helped to establish as part of the Illinois Learning Standards. Now, I know that Linda Soderberg McKay was a key national leader in that very important initiative.  Twenty years in public service was a terrific experience and made a big difference in my life. I’m sure glad I’m not doing it now!  

Lee Ayres, Fresno, CA.  My turning point came n 1980, when I was in Pasadena interviewing for a fantastic job.  We checked out the local housing market and discovered that the school district had just begun court-ordered busing. I had two children in elementary school and one who would start in a few years. That presented an issue. It never occurred to me to ask them to move the office, something that happens now due to Covid and other logistics issues. I declined the job. There was nothing else available in public administration that looked interesting to me. I transitioned into real estate in Sunnyvale, California, a perfect little town for my family. My kids walked a block and a half to school. With the booming market in that part of California, this was a good place to be for real estate development. Busing brought about this turning point.

 Skip Granger, Sun Valley, AZ:  My turning point occurred in 1966.  In reflecting on 81 years, I think this is my most significant turning point. I was at KU Law School and went to Kansas City to look for a summer job.  Like many law students, I wanted to become a tour director in the travel business. When I went in for the interview, Jerry Adams said he was going to interview me. It was his first and my first.  As a result, we had a lot of fun.  We became friends and are still friends today.  That interview launched me into traveling all over the world.  Eventually, I was involved in creating innovative travel packages, but I also noticed some questionable business practices such as nepotism at TWA. More than once, I shared my observations with executives. My candor was resulting in my being dismissed from an executive’s office, when a cute little blonde came into the Pan Am waiting room and said, “You’re Skip Granger.”  It was Mary Ann Johnson, and she wanted to introduce me to her boss.  She opened the door and introduced me to her boss, Mr. Johnson.  He was kind enough to give me an opportunity to put together a new travel package for the company. Some people might ask why I wouldn’t just say that the turning point was when I met my wife, because working in travel brought me to her. The travel business was about to send me on my way, but I was a winner because Mary Ann Johnson became Mary Ann Granger. A lot of you have met her and know how wonderful she is. I couldn’t be a luckier man. 

Skip has written many stories for the Class of 1960 website, including several about the travel business. This one tells more about the Mary Ann turning point: “A Traveling Man and a Traveling Family“

Charles Howard, La Canada, CA.  One of the first turning points for me was when I was a student at K State. There were scandals related to the architectural school, which became a problem. After my third year, I transferred to the U of Oregon and graduated from there in architecture. A medical problem took me out of the Vietnam War draft. Instead, I joined the Peace Corps and worked in a Turkish village. We helped bring electricity to the village and gasoline for vehicles instead of using horses, which changed its life. I learned a lot from the people of this village, especially that we could learn to live together. The Turkish government became concerned about the political influence of Peace Corps members on the villagers and terminated the program. My decision to move from K State to Oregon was pivotal. About that time, my family moved to California, where I met a lovely young woman. We are still married and doing well.

Dan Tontz, Dallas, TX:  This goes way back.  I have loved music, vocal and instrumental,  most of my life. But there was a time in my life, back when Janice Collins lived down the street from me, that I did not know or care about music at all, mainly because my mother was forcing me first to play the accordion, which turned out to be as big as I was.  Then, she forced me to play the clarinet.  I was not a happy camper.  Sometime in 1956 when I was 13 years old, my dad suggested I go see a particular popular new movie, “The Benny Goodman Story” with Steve Allen and Donna Reed.  It was playing at the Orpheum Theater. I was astounded;  I had never heard anyone play the clarinet like it was played in that movie. His fingers moved so quickly and the sound was so great. It wasn’t anything like my clarinet. I was totally astounded and amazed.  What happened after that was that it inspired me.  I knew what was possible and got a lot more interested in playing the clarinet. Some of the guys, we formed a little group and would go down in my basement and try to play music together in a somewhat organized manner. From then on I got into other music and instruments. Basically, that movie was what got me going. The movie was fantastic for me, and I’ve had a love affair with music ever since then.

Dan’s website stories include these two: “Playing Musical Instruments Before East High” and “Dance Bands in High School”

Janice added she was happy to hear this story because she could remember hearing Dan practice while playing outside in the neighborhood.  She didn’t take to music as Dan did. Her mother had her and her siblings take piano lessons, and it just wasn’t her thing.  Dan remembered that Janice’s brother didn’t like the piano either.  We used to stand outside the window when the piano teacher came to Janice’s house and cause some disturbance. A few years later, I was in a band and wished we had a good piano player.  They were and are hard to come by. Keyboardists today. Calvin commented he should have seen that movie because music passed him by, even though he took piano lessons. Nellie Taylor, his teacher, would give him a new sheet of music to play, and the next time Calvin looked at it was at his lesson the next week.

Linda Soderberg McKay, St. Louis, MO.  My turning point was related to a song. My husband and I had four daughters. We moved to New York when our youngest was age 4. I remember her dancing through the kitchen in our new home, singing “Voulez vous coucher avec moi, n’est pas?” She was wiggling her little hips in a very adult manner.  I wondered what those words meant and looked them up. The lyrics were a sexual invitation. This caused me to become interested in the words of songs and violent films and television shows around my family. I began working a lot in the community, saw dropouts increasing, and drug use emerging. I thought there needed to be a way for children to talk in schools about values, character and ethical issues.  I began working with a group of people locally and nationally who were interested in expanding opportunities for kids to learn about social values and character. This led to a career for me. I often remember that little girl singing in the kitchen and the affect of that song. You sure wouldn’t want your kid to sing those words in church. My turning point started with a song. 

Linda explains more about character education in “Women in the Workforce.”

Fred Elder, Madison, WI:  I have two turning points.  Both of them are important to me.  After I graduated from KU, I worked for a year in Topeka and I wanted to do some graduate work.  The only way I could do that in terms of engineering graduate work was to drive all the way to Kansas City because that’s the only place KU had graduate engineering programs. So I did that for awhile, and that got old pretty quickly. I decided to try to find a job back in Wichita so I could go to Wichita State. I started my life at WSU by enrolling and I think I got a semester under my belt. In my second semester, I got a phone call at Boeing, which was where I was working, from the person who was supposed to direct my graduate studies. I thought I’d made some terrible mistake already. He asked me to come in, so I drove right out to WSU and we talked for awhile. His name was Dick Graham. It seemed a senseless meeting, about what I was going to do and that sort of thing. Finally, he got around to asking what I planned to do when I graduated. I said I really hadn’t decided. I was just that kind of person that wants more education. He then inquired if I’d thought about teaching. I said maybe, when I get another degree. He then asked me if I would like to start this fall. I didn’t even have a masters degree, but I asked him to tell me more. So, after we did a little negotiation, I started thinking about it, and that started my teaching career. That eventually ended me up at the University of Wisconsin.  So that was a significant part of my life to go into teaching. I owe Professor Graham a lot and one other person that helped a lot, but I’ll save that for the next time we do a similar discussion.

Wrapping Up

Fred emphasized that we need new stories for the website.  Diane asked for suggestions for future Zoom topics and then told all that the next day would be Marilyn’s birthday, so happy birthday #81 from all to her.  She will be joining Glenna, whose birthday was last week, in the 81 Club, and also Linda, who will be 81 next week. 

Several commented that the sound wasn’t ideal for discussion today. Fred suggested during the meeting that some participants had background noise that was interfering with the sound. He asked that we mute our microphones when not talking. Several people did that and it helped, but didn’t eliminate the problem entirely.

Marilyn emphasized that transcribing of the recording is a summary, not a verbatim report, and that we usually try to post it the Monday following the discussion.  If anyone has problems with it, contacting Fred for access to the recording is an option.  Dan complimented the previous zoom reports. 

Fred challenged anyone who wants to participate in the next Zoom session to submit a story for permission to participate. Linda wondered if a theme idea would suffice. Glenna offered a cartoon, but Fred remarked most of hers are unpublishable.  Consensus was that we’re adult enough to handle that.

NOTE: The next Zoom session will be September 21 at 2 p.m. Wichita time.

How do you find stories written by Zoom participants? In addition to clicking on the underlined titles such as those above, you can get a list of stories written by individual classmates. Just type a name into the Search Box at the top of the page (the one with the spyglass icon), click on the name and then browse the stories by the author. All but one of the people on the August 17 call have authored stories and comments for the website.