At least every four years David Brooks and I contacted each other for the presidential election. As "yellow dog" Democrats, we bemoaned many defeats and celebrated a few victories. David always knew a lot more about politics than I did, but we both loved the subject. I can imagine David's comments about the fiasco of the Florida election. I miss David especially as elections roll around.

Over five years ago Jo Ann and I traveled to Ohio to visit David. He was already in a nursing home between lengthy hospital stays. We caught David on a "good day." His old humor was evident as we visited. Word of David's death came just as we traveled to North Carolina for the burial of our bishop. We rolled directly on to Kent, Ohio, arriving just in time for David's burial. Ed Beemon (Murrah '62) was among the mourners.  David's family, especially his wife Bette and their four daughters, remain in our prayers. I was blessed to have a friend like David Brooks.
                                                         —Mid Wootten

In addition to attending elementary, junior high, and high school together, we attended  St. James Episcopal Church together and so were in Episcopal Young Churchmen for several (seems like a million) years. She was a beautiful, caring, intelligent, and fun person, who had a great deal of spunk and tenacity. I always enjoyed seeing, and being around, her.
                                                     —Rees Barksdale

I always remember her as one of the "popular" girls. She had lots of friends.
                                               —Jane Adams Nangle

In junior high I tried to model my handwriting on Betsy’s. It was wonderfully plump and curvaceous, catching Betsy’s spirit, I think. I remember going to visit at her house and how happy she was when the phone rang. It rang all the time and she talked for hours.
                                             —Janet Hendrick Clark

The 1961 Résumé said of Betsy, “Never meets a stranger. . . magnetic charms. . . boys, boys, boys.”  At Murrah she was active in Theatre Guild. She was also a member of the All-Star basketball team.

Ronnie Garcia was a quiet but fun guy. Although I was in school with him for years, it was our senior year before we became friends when we sat near each other in several classes. I can remember a "Senior Party" at the end of the year that was a swimming party at a lake. Several of us, including Ronnie, swam out to a floating dock and talked for a couple of hours. On the way back, one of our group got a cramp. Ronnie and I were both lifeguards and took turns helping our friend back to the shore. Later, I heard that he had been killed in Vietnam. I visited the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington and looked for his name. The Park Ranger could not find it listed in the book of casualties. I'd like to think he is still alive somewhere and still smiling.
                                               —Jane Adams Nangle

I always thought that Ronnie Garcia was one of the friendliest guys at Murrah.
                                                       —David Pickett

Ronnie Garcia was always kind and sweet to me. We dated off and on in high school, and of course I thought he was the love of my life at the time. He was killed in Vietnam in 1967. I know that I will always remember that handsome face.  
                                                   —Doris Perry King

At Murrah Ronnie was a member of the ’61 MHS football team that won the Big Eight Championship and served in the Hi-Y Legislature.

The 1961 Résumé said of her, “Blond bombshell. . . wardrobe of abundance. . . ‘hi’s in the hall.” She was active in Theater Guild all three years at Murrah. In the tenth grade she served as homeroom secretary and attended the Latin Convention; as a junior as speech club reporter.

The reunion Hoofbeat in 1982 commented that she sounded “like a devoted wife and mother.” Living in Texas, she and her husband had two boys who played soccer. Their parents coached! Mary Ann worked with computers and enjoyed travel. Sadly, Mary Ann, her sister and her parents have died.

Classmates still remember her big smile and her bounce and enthusiasm.

Like most of us in high school we had a lot of ideas about what we wanted to do and were willing to try any new, challenging activity. Dale probably could have stayed in high school forever. He seemed like that one person who was always involved in something and just enjoyed being in class! Always working on the means but not quite getting to the end. Talkative and outgoing, energetic but never rushed, he was a constant friend.

He graduated from the University of Mississippi with a degree in Business Administration, then proceeded to get his law degree from Ole Miss as well. He followed this with a Master of Law in taxation from the University of Miami.

Along the way he married the former Cathy Bailey, adopted two girls and worked as a building contractor part-time. He taught business law, tax accounting and real estate law at Belhaven College and Hinds Junior College. With his wife he also did vocational testing for students.

Dale was always a religious person. Eventually he became more interested in theology and Christian education. Enrolling at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, he received a Masters in Education and was a candidate for a Doctor of Ministry in Christian Education at the time of his death. Near the end of his life he remarried for the second time. Sadly, he died August 4, 1998, from colon cancer after a short illness.
                                                       —David Wilson

Children:  Will Allman, Matt Allman

Whenever you went to Susan’s house, you knew she loved her family. There were paintings by her grandmother, big Raggedy Ann dolls made by her mother, and wonderful old-fashioned photos of her dad as a boy, part of a large collection of family photos -- Lomaxes and Allmans. You could see her twins, Will and Matt, photographed at every age, in t-shirts and tuxes.  There were big cabbage roses everywhere: in pictures, in Susan’s cross-stitching and on the chintz slipcovers she had picked out. It was the warmest, coziest home imaginable, and it looked just like Susan.

Because she was a true friend herself, Susan had many close friends: friends from school days; KD friends from Ole Miss; and friends from Bryan Tours, teaching days at Callaway, and First Baptist Church where she belonged to a choir “sorority”: the Back Row Altos. It was always a shock when Susan -- so demure -- would start talking about the BRAs. It always took a minute to process that as the Back Row Altos.

Susan was devoted to her brothers, Danley and Bill. Danley, in turn, devoted himself to her in her battle with pancreatic cancer, as did Peggy, Susan’s close friend as well as sister-in-law. After Susan’s husband, Charles Allen Allman, died of a heart attack in 1998, Danley and Peggy have also given the twins a wonderful home and lots of love and attention.

Susan fought cancer as she had lived -- bravely, with determination and grace. She died April 4, 1996. She was 51.
                                               —Janet Hendrick Clark

After leaving Murrah, Jim spent a year at Vanderbilt and transferred to Millsaps. While at Millsaps he continued photographing school events, but more importantly, he met and worked with national journalists covering the civil rights movement in Mississippi. With this opportunity he was witness to the events of the civil rights movement on the front lines and had several photographs published in Time and Life Magazine. With just three academic hours to graduate, Jim had a strange lapse in judgment for a young man so serious and studious and led a panty raid on a girls’ dorm.  Consequently, he found himself out of school and in no time at all was called to serve his country.

He was trained in Fort Monmouth, NJ in the Army Signal Corps where he was introduced to film photography. Luckily his assignments during his Vietnam tour were usually Army propaganda films, local color and Bob Hope shows rather than war footage. After a discharge from the Army in 1973, he returned to Jackson intending to work as an independent filmmaker. Upon his return he met and married Jane Hearn of Jackson.

For several years Jim shot local commercials, football playback shows (Mims Wright Productions!) and was a stringer for UPITN and NBC. After crewing on occasional films shooting in Mississippi, such as Thieves Like Us with Robert Altman, Jim knew that he wanted to pursue motion pictures exclusively. As his exceptional technical skills and professionalism became known within the movie industry, film work was finally becoming more and more available to him. He was fortunate to work with many extremely talented actors, directors and cinematographers. Some of his credits include  Brubaker with Robert Redford, Honeysuckle Rose with Willie Nelson, and The Border with Jack Nicholson. Jim’s life was tragically cut short when he was killed in 1980 in an automobile accident while on location in Del Rio, TX during the filming of the Twentieth Century Fox production, Redheaded Stranger.
                                           —Jane Hearn Lucas Stone