Here's a Christmas photo of Maida and me with some of our current family members in the foyer of our home.  Standing behind us are Rochester and Little Pete.   The small dog's name is PootHead, the large dog is Poopy and the cat is TicoTom.  Lapa Nova, our scarlet macaw, is not shown.

Well, here we are on this 21st day of January, 2006, about one and one-half years away from celebrating the 50th anniversary of our graduation from dear old Pampa High School.  And, what a 50 years it has been.

Remember those few carefree days between our last classes in May 1957 and our graduation ceremonies?  Ned Moyer, Tommy Strawn, Terry Timmens and I piled into Terry's 1949 yellow Chevy and headed to Ned's father's ranch near Gage, Oklahoma.  Ned's folks were in Arizona, so we had the type of invigorating time that a group of teenage boys can have when left to their own volitions.  Someone had the brilliant idea that we should shave our heads, so Ned brought out the sheep shears, and we did just that.  We all displayed the results graduation night, when we removed our caps to sing "Dear Old Pampa High School" at the end of the ceremony.

That fall, I began my college studies at Southwestern Oklahoma State University.   I had not realized the quality of the education we had received during our days in the Pampa school system until I entered college.  That says much about the value of schooling when it is controlled by a local school board and points out the fact that the trickle-down theory does not work when it comes to educational decisions.  The quality of education deteriorates when the decisions determining what to teach and how to teach it are controlled by government educational theorists and technocrats in Washington and Austin.  Remember the new math and how it plagued our children while they worked their way through the educational system?

I was graduated from Southwestern in May 1960, receiving a BA degree with a major in economics and minors in accounting, chemistry and mathematics.  I was awarded a teaching assistantship from the Economics Department at the University of New Mexico and began graduate studies there in the fall.

Upon completion of my graduate studies in May of 1961, I obtained a position as a Labor Market Analyst with the Employment Security Commission of New Mexico.  Within three years, I had worked my way up to head the research and analysis division of that agency.  In May of 1964, Merrill Lynch offered a position with their firm, and I moved to New York City to begin my training.  I worked in New York City in the Institutional Sales Division and then in Merrill's Albuquerque office as a broker.  In late 1968 and early 1969, the DJIA tried twice to close over 1,000, but could not do so.  I did not feel good about the market's nearer term prospects.  What's a broker supposed to do when the market is so top-heavy that he could not in good conscience advise his clients to buy more stocks?  My clients were informed that the market's outlook was iffy at best, and I resigned my position.

Over the next three years, I helped form a mutual fund management company based in London and functioned as a financial consultant to several different companies.  In 1973, I accepted a position as sales manager for Atlas Building Systems, a module building manufacturer.  Within a few months, I became the general manager of the company and a part owner.  We had two manufacturing plants and twelve sales locations in five states.  In 1975, we sold the company to Morgan Building Systems.  I became the manager of Morgan's Rocky Mountain division, which included the sales locations and manufacturing facilities we had sold to them.  In 1979, I left Morgan and over the next several years, functioned as a financial consultant to several companies from California to Texas.

In 1991, I became a financial consultant and advisor to a fifty year old finance company based in Panama and Costa Rica, which prompted a move to Costa Rica.  The company specializes in import-export financing, the purchasing of discounted accounts receivables and venture capital operations.  The owner of the company passed away in February of 1998, and a friend and I purchased the company from his widow.

My wife, Maida, and I reside in a small village on the side of a mountain overlooking Costa Rica's Central Valley, which contains about half of the country's 3.4 million people.  Maida is a medical doctor, and her clinic is across the street from our home.  Although my company's corporate offices are located about fifty kilometers away in a suburb of San José, computer technology has given me the option of working from my home.  I haven't gone to the office in the past five years.

Maida's daughter is a registered nurse.  She resides with her husband and two sons in Northern Louisiana.  My oldest son is a router expert, heading up the router division for Wang Labs in New Hampshire.  He and his wife have five lovely children.  My second son's quest for knowledge is unending.  He is still a student at age 38.

Maida and I travel frequently in Central America.  Although tourists for the most part opt for the Pacific Coast beaches in Costa Rica, we prefer the Caribbean beaches.  We travel Stateside about six weeks each year, visiting family and seeing the sites.

Our passion is the opportunity the Good Lord has provided us to help people here.  We work closely with Rotarians here and in Florida to provide wheel chairs to those who need them, but can't afford them.  Maida's clinic is open to all, whether they have money or not, especially the Nicaraguans who come into this area to help with the coffee harvest this time of year.  If they require clinical teats or medicines, but cannot pay for them, we handle it.  No one is turned away.  Christmas Day is always special.  For the past several years, we have delivered Christmas baskets which include food and gifts for the children to the poorest of the poor.  To see the children's eyes light up with excitement and to hear their parent's prayers of thanks to the Good Lord makes life worth living.     

We look forward to seeing each of you next year at the reunion.