Trippin'

We took a trip back to Spade, TX, where I began teaching in 1968. I was the Junior High coach for five years and secondary principal for one year before we moved to East Texas.

We arrived at the Lubbock airport around 3 pm Friday and knew that the Spade basketball game we had come out to see had been canceled. The team had only six girls, and one of them has a bad knee. When one of the others hurt her back, leaving only four players, there was no choice but to forfeit. So we raced out to the school, hoping we could get into the building for one last look before the school is forever closed at the end of this school year.

Apparently they don't get out of school until about 3:40, so we got the royal tour. This is the front of the building and it is not changed much since I was there in 1976. There are air conditioner units in the windows, and the front sidewalk has been widened and landscaped, but that is all that has changed out front. There have been other additions which make the physical plant much nicer. Too bad it is closing.

That is me and Fran T, one of my former pupils standing in the entrance. Fran's daughter works in the office and Fran is the district's business manager.

This is Fran's office. It is across the road from the school on the corner where Henry Cowan had a store.

We left here and went down the road to the Spade Co-op gin where we found Belinda and Carol, two other former students. Belinda's dad was there. He was on the school board back in the day when I was first hired. He hasn't changed a bit. That's my finger in the upper left-hand corner.

While we were there, Jay B. and his daughter, Heather, came by to see us. It was so nice of these guys to come by, and we really had a good time catching up on everyone. This is Jay's wife, Sherri, who runs the community water supply office and was also a student.

We left Spade about 5 and drove back to Lubbock where we stayed with our long-time college friends, J and P. They got us tickets to the basketball game between Texas Tech and Missouri. P and I are ATO fraternity brothers. Although separated by many miles and years, we still keep up with each others' families. They treated us like royalty and we enjoyed their hospitality and the Red Raider victory over Missouri. Our seats were about five rows up on the end of the court, very close to the Raider bench and Coach Knight. We got to see him throw a couple of little tantrums, kicking the sign in front of the announcers and throwing a clipboard on the floor. But the Raiders won by 18, so no harm was done.