MT class of '69 has reunior

The Marked Tree Delta Cotton Pickin' Jubilee provides a remarkable setting to have class reunions. A steak dinner at the elementary cafeteria was enjoyed by all the classes going back to the forties. Randy Shinabery was our emcee, with wife Becky trying to keep him reasonable focused, but it was pretty clear when certain individuals were targeted for his "roasting" that he might have been getting even for who knows what might have happened in the mid to late 60's as our class was coming of age in Mayberry, I mean, Marked Tree.

Following the main reunion, different groups headed different places, some went out to the country club, but our class of 69 headed for the Shinabery abode. Some twenty members of our class included Randy and Becky, Greg Cochran and wife Jackie, Beth (Byers) Cossey and husband, Sam, Larry and Sandy Teague, Mike and Carol Dabney, Martha (Gray) Tacker, Janey (McGlothlin) Adams, Kathy (Lovett) and Tiger Buford, who lives in Memphis, George Willoughby and Miki, Lovell Whitfield, having such a good time, Jimmy Don Huff and his wife, Conny, now from Kansas, and Ron and Susan (Patton) Brewington, Danny and Barbara Adams, Stella Browning Russell, Beverly Lane Martin and Betty Swan Spurlin.

I have to say that the statute of limitations has run on most of what was remembered that night. Stories of dynamite, yep, guns, "lost" cars, Volkswagen beetles on the high school steps, and firemen going to the wrong fires filled the evening as old bonds were renewed old friends remembered.

I must note the passing of some of our number and who are missed, including senior class president Charles Thatcher, Billy Gillis, James Branch, Kohn Bray, Jr., Harold Barnes, Linda Hipps, Janice Lawrence, Susan Oldham, Joan Brown Oldham, Ned Penney, Jr., Mike Perciful, Marth Walls Simmons, James VanHoozer and Johnny Wood.