Welcome to the Knightstown High School Class of 1957 Page. 

2009 Mini-Reunion

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We had another “Mini Reunion” on June the 26th, 2009. Pat Nicholas suggested that we have it in the fellowship room at the Presbyterian Church in Knightstown. It was a great location for our little get-together and we all offer our thanks to Patsy and the Presbyterians for letting us use the room. We brought in pizza and soft drinks and had a feast and a wonderful time. It’s so good to see our old classmates and talk about all the fun times we had.
Everyone agreed that we should do it again next year so mark June the 25th, 2010 on your calendar and we’ll see you then…….!!

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Here’s a gallery of pictures from this year’s mini-reunion:
(click on the thumbnail to see a bigger image)

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Senior Trip Pictures

Here is a gallery of pictures taken on our Senior Trip by Lonnie Young. These were given to Pat Nicholas by Emily Young, Lonnie’s Mother. So sad that Lonnie has passed on..
I think these were taken at a rest stop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and we were washing up and changing clothes in shifts.

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Wanda Frazier Smith also found some pictures of our Senior trip and is sharing them with us.. Thanks Wanda…!! I have added them to the gallery.
We sure appreciate being able to see these. I wish we could find more.
(click on the thumbnail to see a bigger image)

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Here are my comments about our class made at the Alumni Dinner in June of 2007.

Knightstown High School Class of 1957

I’m happy to be here tonight to reflect on the life and times of our little family of classmates that graduated from Knightstown High School 50 years ago in early June of 1957.
I guess we couldn’t be called an outstanding class, just average, but we certainly were a class with a lot of firsts and lasts.
We were the last class to be conceived and born in the great depression of the 1930s and the first to begin our schooling after the end of WWII. Our preschool years were dominated by that great conflict and we still have a few dim memories of air raid drills and rationing and some of us had uncles, cousins and fathers who served and fought
We remember newsreels at the “Alhambra” with scenes of fighting in Europe and the south pacific and we especially remember the awful excuses they sold for candy bars during the war.
It was a time of great sacrifice by the American people but it was a time of peace and innocents for us preschoolers in Knightstown. We could pretty much roam around anywhere in town without the slightest fear of anything beyond a scolding or spanking for crossing US40 or getting home late for supper
When I wasn’t playing I used to go and sit on the porch with the old folks in the neighborhood and listen to their stories of years gone by. What I wouldn’t give for a tape recording of some of those stories. There was one dear old lady on the corner who told me her husband was killed in the civil war. She used to tell me stories about Indians living in Indiana when she was a little girl. The memory of her stories has always given me a sense of a living connection with history. I don’t know her name but I’ll always be grateful to her.

Some of us remember the end of fighting in Europe, then the death of FDR, then the end of fighting in the pacific. Each of these events was marked by the wailing of the big siren atop the old town hall on Franklin Street which went on and on for a long time.

A month or so after the fighting was over we started first grade.
Most of us started in Miss Waggoner’s room in the Globe and Telescope building but some of our classmates started first grade in the two room Central school on highway 109. That must have been quite an experience.
We were the last class to buy the 25 cent victory stamps which you pasted into a book. When the book was full you turned it in and got a war bond. They must have stopped the program pretty soon after we started school because I still have my book with only three stamps in it.

Looking back on it, those early grade school years were wonderful but we all had our ups and downs. Some of the memorable highlights were playing “king of the rock” at recess time, buying Kits and Jawbreakers at Flori’s on the way to school, going to the Saturday afternoon cowboy shows and sitting in the front row, cap guns and hurrying home from school to listen to Superman, Sgt Preston, the Lone Ranger and Captain Marvel on the radio.

In those days Knightstown always had a big parade to the cemetery on Memorial Day and services at the fountain (which still worked back then). It was also a big deal watching all the traffic going through town on the way to the 500.
Then in a day or so after Memorial day,,, we experienced that wonderful “free at last” feeling when school was out for the summer,,, and a great relief that we passed.

Later on in grade school some of us started playing instruments and joined the band. We were pretty bad at first but we got better as the years went.

In the summer there was church league softball, swimming in Montgomery creek, ad hoc track meets by Donnie Sylvester’s house and there was always a basketball game going on somewhere.

During the summer between our 5^th and 6^th grade years the North Koreans invaded their countrymen in the south and we all held our breath for few days waiting for World War III to start That was pretty exciting even if we didn’t fully understand what it would mean.
Then there was writing from 1 to 10,000 in the sixth grade.  What was that for….????  5,242,,,, 5,243,.  I started making my fives look like eights, on purpose,  5,244, 5,245, 8,246.  But uh, uh Crystal wasn’t buying that. So,,,, I was one of the dumb ones who had to come back after the rest of the kids were out for the summer to finish my last thousand or so. I can’t think of any good it did me,,, except to make me know,, for sure… I didn’t want to be an accountant when I grew up

Some of us got our first jobs at a very early age. I was 11 when I got my first job at the Regal Grocery store and some in the class had already been working for several months. Of course the farm kids had been working hard since before they were in school.

There were plenty of jobs available to kids in Knightstown in those days and almost all of us worked. Knightstown was a busy place. There were all kinds of businesses from one end of main street to the other. You could get anything you needed right here in town,,, from a wedding ring, to all the materials you needed to build a house and furnish it, food to eat, baby diapers, medicine, a new car, get your picture taken and,,, when the time came, someone to bury you. There were several hundred manufacturing jobs here too. You didn’t ever have to leave town. We had it all right here
There were 2 fine banks to keep your money safe and all sorts of places to spend it,,, three or four grocery stores, a couple of hardware stores, 4 or 5 clothing stores, 3 Jewelry stores, a dime store, 2 drug stores with really cool soda fountains, Furniture stores, Auto dealers, restaurants, two lumber yards, and we even had a bakery and a movie theater. And, of course we had the requisite number of churches
We worked,,, but we had about as much freedom as any kids in history.  That’s because if we ever got out of line any adult in town felt free to put you right back in your place.  It was like we had a whole town of foster parents.

We started 7^th grade and how exciting it was to have every class in a different room. About then,,, the boys discovered girls and vice-versa and it was wonderful,,, and terrible at the same time. Lots of new stuff to fret and worry about.
Also about this time some of the luckiest classmates got television sets at their house.  (One didn’t show up at my house for a couple more years.) I remember watching my first football game on TV at Dick Flack’s house. I think that was in 1950 and I think it was between the Rams and the Eagles but I really don’t remember. We only got two channels or maybe three if we were lucky. Sometimes we could get the Cincinnati channel if the sun, moon and stars were right. We had a big antenna on the roof with a motor that rotated it to get the best reception but the picture was usually snowy anyway.
In the seventh grade we got a class sponsor, Claude Sipes who really didn’t relate too well with 7^th graders but was really a good guy, and we started squirreling away money for our senior trip.  We sure were enthusiastic about making money. I remember we wanted to have a dance right away but that got vetoed.  Alas, we couldn’t sponsor a dance till we were Freshmen and we had to be happy with bake sales and such for a while.
To this point I’ve neglected to say anything about basketball. To say that basketball was at the center of our social life is not overstating the truth. Everything we did seemed to revolve around the Friday night games. It was the biggest deal in town. Each and every Friday that there was a home game the gym was packed to overflowing. Most of the boys in our class played, with varying degrees of skill, I was never all that great but I sure aspired to be, and most of the girls in our class wanted to be cheerleaders and some indeed were.

Rock and roll started to be around at about our 7^th grade year in 1951-52 and was a big influence in our lives by the time we were freshmen so you might say we were the first Rock and Roll class, (another first). How sweet it was to be dancing with our current love to the music of the platters at the sock hop after the game. I also think we were the first class to use the word cool unrelated to temperature.  James Dean was cool.  Skirts, spinner hubcaps, leaded in hoods, and  dual glasspacks on cars were cool,  three two barrel carbs were the coolest.  Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, the Platters and BoDiddley were cool, Johnny Mathis was not and Kitty Wells and Hank Williams for sure,,, were not. Rock and Roll was here to stay and it was cool… The girls were cool in poodle skirts and saddles but tight skirts worked too. Pegged Pants were definitely cool, some were so small at the bottom they had zippers so you could get your feet through the cuff.  Short sleeve sport shirts buttoned to the neck with the sleeves rolled up exactly twice was cool.  Just a plain white tee shirt, a James Dean jacket and pegged jeans was just about too much….!! which was a cool way of saying the coolest.  The girls also wore pegged Levi’s in about one size too small for normal breathing,, with penny loafers and sweaters,, but not usually to school..

Most of the boys had cars and a lot of the girls had free use of their parent’s cars so some of the little country roads near town were busy places many evenings, that was very cool and nobody told. Sometimes we would drive all the way to New Castle just to cruse through Crider’s parking lot to see who was cool and to pretend we were cool too.
Many evenings after school you could find a large percent of the class at Wood’s or Jolly’s drug store just hanging out and having fun. We liked each other…!!

When it was really cold we had some great times ice skating on the little lake at Sunset Park then we’d go to somebody’s house for cocoa or coffee. 

We had Teen Town at the Legion home on Sunday afternoons where we could dance and just hang out. It was a wonderful time… and we knew it even then.

Those of us lucky enough to be in the band had great times doing all the stuff we got to do. We were always pileing on the bus and going somewhere. When we were Sophomores we got to go to New York City and march down 5^th Avenue. Now that was really something to us small town kids…!!  That was also the year we won third place at the State Fair marching contest. That was a pretty big deal too considering we were going up against the really big schools in the state.

 When we were Juniors we put on about the best darn Prom this town had ever seen. The whole class got really involved in decorating the gym and we had a “ball before the ball”. Decorating was probably more fun than the Prom itself. We transformed the gym into a wonderland,,, which was spectacular.!! The crepe paper began to sag a little about 11PM at the Prom,, but by then nobody cared.

That was also the year our revered Falcons beat the New Castle Trojans for the first time in memory. The whole town went wild….

Then we were seniors and we took over the Command Post at the radiator on the main floor of High School, as seniors were privileged to do. That was a great rockin’ and a rollin’ year but maybe a little anticlimactic after all the neat stuff we had already done. 

We, of course, had a wonderful time on our senior trip to Washington and New York and then, sadly our school years were over.

We were the last graduating class to have a team named “Falcons” and also the last made up of only kids from Knightstown and the immediate vicinity. That too was a little bit sad.

I think Knightstown reached it’s zenith sometime around our High School years and maybe our American civilization did too.,,, But maybe all the other classes feel that way too……….

In closing I’d like to remember our classmates who have passed on.

• Richard Craig
• Frank Criss
• Cobern Hamilton
• Raymond Miller
• Buddy Roland
• Ivan Wyatt 
• Lonny Young

They were good people and dear friends.May they rest in peace…….    

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Here’s our Commencement Program. Did anyone know we had class colors and a class flower… what…!!!..??? 

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Reunion Pictures 

Here are some pictures of the Class Reunions of the Knightstown High class of 1957. 

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Class of ‘57 Reunion in 1992 sent by Mary McCleese Terry

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 This gallery has pictures of the 20th reunion in 1977.  I missed it and after seeing the pictures I’m sure sorry I did.  The pictures were sent to me by Kay Richey Hinshaw.  Thanks much Kay…!!!!!

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Here’s some pictures I took at our 45th reunion in 2002….

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Here are some pictures from our 50th reunion in June of 2007.

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51st Mini-Reunion June 20th, 2008 We had a “Mini-Reunion” at the Truck Stop in Knightstown and it was super seeing old friends again. Sorry more couldn’t make it. We missed you…!! Both Ronnie and I took some pictures which I’m going to post here.

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This is a place for class members to put in a profile to let us know what you’ve up to these past 50 years since we left KHS and what’s happenin’ now.  Just write something up and send it to me in an email and I’ll take care of putting it on this page.   simman@charter.net
So far there are profiles for:

• me
• Pat Sorrell Nicholas
• Kay Richey Hinshaw
• Ellen Rowan Webb
• Dick Flack
• Larry Lindsay

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Ed Knight

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I live in St Charles, Missouri with my wife of 32 years, Mary.  She is a simulator engineer and works at Boeing. I also worked in the simulation industry most of my working life in different jobs and ended up as a program manager.  I’m now retired and a house husband. I collect antique fishing lures and it’s a wonderful hobby.  I have good lure collector freinds both here in the St Louis area and all over the country.  I have a web site dedicated to the hobby, www.oldluresrock.com

Here’s a picture of me at 16 with my car trying to be cool.

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Pat Sorrell Nicholas

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After graduating high school in 1957, I went to Ball State, but only stayed two quarters. I was miserable and after the second quarter, my Dad finally let me quit. I got a job in Indianapolis and loved it. Then in September 1958, I married Bob Nicholas and we moved to Angola, Indiana while he finished college at Tri State. By then we had one little boy and another on the way and we moved to Terre Haute and also lived in Dayton, OH for awhile. We eventually went back to Indianapolis and lived there until 1967 when Bob got transferred to Davenport, Iowa. By then we had two more children, a girl and a boy. We lived in Davenport until 1981.I was divorced in 1975, but stayed in Davenport because we really liked it there.

Eventually I had an opportunity to move back to Knightstown. By this time my two oldest boys were out of high school, and then the two younger ones graduated from Knightstown. During that time I worked for Tom Mayhill for about a year and then went to work as the Executive Secretary for Central Indiana Youth for Christ. That lasted 7 years and I started working at Fort Ben for 8 attorneys and stayed there until I retired in 2000.

I’ll tell you retirement is a real joy after all the years that I worked. I’m thoroughly enjoying it.My children are all married and I have 11 grandchildren who are a huge joy for me. I stay busy by working part-time at the local Library and also doing a lot of things at my church. I direct the choir, sing and serve as an Elder and other things as they come up. I also volunteer 2 evenings a month in the Gift Shop of Hancock Regional Hospital at Greenfield.

My sons live in Cincinnati, OH, Adairsville, GA, and Houston, TX. My daughter lives in Indianapolis. They are a wonderful bunch and we have a great time when all of them are around.

If any of you want to communicate with me, my e-mail address is: pnicholas@isp.com

 Pat Nicholas

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Kay Richey Hinshaw

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After graduation I worked and attended I.U. in Indianapolis. Jack was in the Army and we planned to marry. The Army posted Jack in Germany and I was going to be married in my church in Knightstown. Jack told me I would die in K-town. I ask him if I would be deader in Paris. Two very strong willed people.! I moved to Indianapolis, worked a full time and a part time job, continued school and had a very busy and fun social life - danced and attended ballgames , What else did I know? Life was wonderful in those days. Guys took you out because they liked you, enjoyed your company and had fun being with you. Did not hurt that I was a lousy tennis player, golfer and bowler. Not like today when girls let guys win. Always had fun - never improved. At the time I thought life was perfect and looking back I don’t think I was far off. 
 Jerry Cooper and I were both in K-town for Jubilee Days - we went out, married, had a son- Jerry, Jr. “Jay” and were married 27 years. Jerry was in the Air Force and posted in San Antonio, Texas, where we moved. Quite a change. It drove me nuts to realize that if I phoned any number in that huge directory and spoke my name they would not know or care who I was. Being military we were not alone. We attended a huge church and if I remember correctly it was bigger than K-town - very warm and friendly. The weather was great. Very, very different from Indiana. I loved the food. Living in San Antonio was a wonderful, wonderful experience. The military was determined I live in Germany - I was determined otherwise .If we did not go to Germany it was out and home. Music to my ears.

We returned to Indiana and were desperate for a house, Ruth Ratliff let us rent her North Jefferson Street house. It was fun being back in K-town with our son for those months. The winter was miserable - cold and snowy - realized how much I loved the South and not having any snow. We moved to Indianapolis. Max probably remembers - he, Jerry and I were the movers. Not fun - right Max? It was a horrible, horrible winter - so snowy that one day the city buses did not run nor were you allowed to drive your own auto. Could hear San Antonio calling. Wrong number. It was Northern Virginia. The Marine Corps this time. We lived in Annandale - a beautiful area. Had the best neighbors - just like family. Our church was very small - complete opposite from San Antonio as far as size - same warmth. The highlight of living in No. Va. was Jay being in the Northern Virginia Patriot’s Drum Corps. The director was a member of the Army’s Old Guard and a saint. There were 500 members, age 5 through high school. They were in parades all over the area. We were very active with them and loved every minute of it. D.C. is a beautiful area with lots of history, culture, patriotic experiences and is cosmopolitan, expensive and crowded. I returned to school while there. Tons of educational opportunities and lots of well educated people. Still we wanted Jay to have more the life we had had growing up. Jerry was able to go Army and transfer to Fort Ben so we moved to Speedway. Unfortunately, the 50’s were gone and would never return.

Life in Speedway was similar to life in K-town. I was a stay-home Mom as were my friends so we did the Mom things. I thought it was a law that you had to have popcorn and coke for Friday night dinner. The huge difference is there were very. very few dances - only prom.. We were very involved with the band - Jay was a percussionist and in theater. After the games it was Pizza instead of hamburgers for both parents and students. And instead of sock hops it was to the home of one of the students. During our Speedway time I did some part-time and temporary work mostly for the government. We thought Speedway was a great place to raise Jay, however not the best place for a government career or for good weather. We planned to return to the D.C. area as soon as Jerry, Jr. graduated from Speedway High. It took us longer than we had anticipated - Jay was almost out of Purdue before we returned - Springfield this time. I went to work for the Corps of Engineers and returned to school. Had great neighbors from all over the world. Still lots to do and great weather. Could have been a great place to retire from. Jerry wanted and was granted a divorce.

God is good! After hearing an advertisement for a T.V. show “Old Flames” I phoned Jack’s mother. After she caught me up on the news she told me Jack was there for dinner. Ask her if he would talk to me - he was not real happy with me that I did not marry him. She put him on the phone and I realized he had no idea who was on the other end of the line so I said my name. He commented that had I not said my name but that many words he would have known me - I sounded just the same. I could hear wedding bells ringing! I knew I had made a terrible mistake all those years ago and I was not about to make another. Later Jack told me that he had decided 32 years was long enough to be mad at me! I had a train trip to Texas planned with a stop over in Indy. Jack said he would meet my train and take me to see his mother. He was at the train station and 32 years vanished - it was as though we were married and I had gone to Chicago for a couple of days.

After retiring from the Army Jack went to Austin Peay U. for construction and at the time we reunited he was building custom homes. The Army did not keep their promise regarding medical coverage which was not a problem for Jack since he could go to VA but it was a different story for me. Jack decided to return to government for 5 years so we could have medical coverage. It could have been anywhere although I think he probably preferred Tennessee and I probably preferred North Carolina. It was Speedway and the Postal Service. We bought a house and were going to sorta camp out until Jack retired again, then we were going to build our dream house and do a million and one things -dance- while growing old together. That was not to be. Jack was diagnosed with lung cancer.
We were blessed to be in Speedway. Our doctor’s wife and I had been very close friends for years and our doctor was quick to get Jack on treatment. Jack had Christian doctors and they were so kind and caring to us - were sorry that they could not do more but said it was in God’s hands. Everyone at Methodist was a blessing to us. My old Speedway friends loved Jack - who wouldn’t - and rallied around us as did his friends from Carthage. We had wonderful support. Jack lived almost 2 years. Of course, we wished we had married all those years ago, however, Jack said had we been married when he was in Viet Nam he would never have come home because he would not have had his mind on his business. That keeps me from going nuts - most days. We had some wonderful years - heaven on earth. There is probably not a positive adjective that does not apply to Jack. He was not perfect but very close. He was still very strong willed as was I. Thank goodness! My son loved Jack - wrote a beautiful tribute for his funeral.

We now have two grandchildren a 9 year old, Jade and a 6 year old, J.T.. They love PaPa Jack and speak of him as though they knew him 50 years. Jack wanted to be a grandpa so badly. He would love those children. Don’t think I could go on without them - they are Jack’s gift. We were blessed that we were married and I am thankful that I was with Jack at the end rather than him being alone on a far away battlefield. I miss Jack terribly but know he would want me to be strong, so that, Jade and J.T. keep me going. The grandchildren live in Fayetteville, N.C. so I am there often - that is where Jack started out. I love the Army and Fort Bragg so am in 7th heaven when there. J.T. is going to be a 5-Star General which makes his Granma smile. It would be great to hear from old K-town friends.
Kay      kayhinshaw@yahoo.com

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Ellen Rowan Webb

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After high school graduation, I attended and graduated from St. Vincent School of Nursing in Indy where we also attended Marian College. My first job was at Community Hospital (now Community East) in a dept. with one title but 9 different departments, none of which I had been trained to do in nursing school.  I loved every minute of it and became very involved in the “Inhalation Therapy” (now known as Respiratory Care) part of the department.  Within 9 months I had become the manager of the entire department due to the maternity leave of my boss.  She never came back to work.Two years after going to Community.

I became a founding (charter) member of the Indiana Society for Respiratory Care. It still goes strong and I am the only charter member still living or remaining in the state.After 4 years at Community, I was hounded by several people to apply for a job at I. U. Medical Center to start a dept. of “Inhalation Therapy”. The Med. Center had nothing that resembled a dept. and the doctors knew it. During that time I sat for the only credentialing exam there was for respiratory therapists. The final part of the exam was given in Washington, D.C. and it was oral. Not so today. Fortunately, I passed. My new job at the Med. Center hinged on it. I was the 2nd person in the state of Indiana to take and pass the exam and the only R.N. The 1st person was a nun in So. Bend. Most therapists today think I should be dead because my credential number is 3 digits instead of 6 digits or more.While at Community,

I met an engineering student from Purdue whom I married in 1966. By that time I was at I. U. Med. Center and my boss had asked me to start a school for “Inhalation Therapy”. When I told him I didn’t consider myself an educator, nor did I know anything about schools (there were none anywhere for “Inhalation Therapy” then), he said he didn’t care and he wanted a school, so do it. In the meantime my husband was traveling from Indy to Bloomington each day working on an MBA (had finished an EE at Purdue) and the Army starting sending him love notes about Viet Nam. He finished the semester, before he went to Navy OCS and ultimately spent 3+ yrs. in the Navy.I researched until I felt I had a preliminary proposal to submit about the school. It was to be the first degreed program in the nation, starting with an A.S. degree, then B. S. and ultimately a Masters. The top doc liked it and said get the paper work going. Since I.U. was so slow and cumbersome at getting anything done at that time, I thought it would be years before anything happened. It also had to be approved by the Commission on Higher Education. Much to my surprise, the program was approved in 2 months or so. Where to get students? I called a Freshman counselor in Bloomington and asked to talk to some of her students who didn’t yet know what they wanted to do with their lives. I got one student. She ultimately graduated the program, but never worked even though she became credentialed.

The program existed until about 1 1/2 years ago when Clarian took over the higher education of Allied Health Professions. The A. S. program was dropped years ago and the program was for B. S. candidates only.In 1967, I moved to Newport, Rhode Island where my husband was home ported. I never saw the one student again, nor did I ever teach her a thing. All core curriculum was taken in Bloomington and clinicals were at the Med. Center. There was no IUPUI. She did her clinicals after I moved to RI. We lived in Newport about 2 years where our daughter was born and died. She lived 3 days and my husband was at sea. The following year we were transferred to Washington D.C. and lived in Falls Church. After he exited the Navy, we moved back to Indy, and one month later, our son was born. I was a stay at home mom for the next 6 years. There was a restlessness in me and I didn’t recognize what it was, but I went back to the Med. Center to work in the Respiratory Therapy dept. on a part time basis as a hands on therapist. That was mid November of 1974, and by Jan. 1st of 1975, I was head of the dept. in University Hospital which had been built in my absence, but I had designed the dept. before I left in ‘67. The dept. was built exactly like I designed it and it remains the same today with the exception of a corridor which was made to meet code. The dept. head today was an on the job trainee, under my supervision in 1978, obtained her A.S., then B.S., then Masters in the I.U. program.I stayed at the Med. Center 12 1/2 yrs. this time, but divorced in 1976. The dept. had grown considerably and there were many, many problems. It took about 5 yrs. to turn it around. By that time we were doing therapies that no one else was doing and ultimately we became the largest dept. in the nation. After all that, I decided it was time to move on. I went to work as an independent consultant for Puritan-Bennet Corp., a manufacturer of respiratory equipment. It was a job that covered many aspects from product development, marketing, technical writing, investigations, working with foreign customers, etc All during my years at the Med. Center, I worked part time on weekends (nights) at various nursing homes as a staff nurse. Kept my fingers in the nursing pie, so to speak.

When business took a downturn at Puritan-Bennett, they stopped using consultants and I was on a job search. Ultimately, I went to work in 1989, for a little known company, at that time, call Vencor. It was a company that had 6 long term care hospitals based out of Louisville. I started as Assistant Administrator for Clinical Operations in their Dallas Hospital, then became the interim Administrator. Six months later they asked me to move to Corporate Office in Louisville and start a new dept. there. So I did. The company grew into a 2.5 billion dollar company and then went into bankruptcy. I was with them 9 years, but was downsized in the mayhem that came at the end. The company is now known as Kindred, and they own, not only the hospials, but about 200-300 nursing homes.

In 1994, I remarried and that lasted until this year. I won’t bother to get into that, but it was doomed from the start. That is book in itself.
After Vencor, I worked as an R.N., staff nurse in several places, but ultimately sought a job in Columbus, IN, at a not for profit retirement community. I am Director of Nursing at this community and have about 200 residents. Our health care center has 70+ patients and the remainder live in apartments and may or may not have assisted care. I have been there almost 5 years. I’m sure everyone remembers Joyce Skaggs. She was a resident of this community for 23 years before she passed away about a year or so ago. Joyce and I had many conversations about Knightstown.

Now, I try to teach my nurses about respiratory care since the nursing schools teach them almost nothing. They can’t even get the terminology right much less know the anatomy and physiology of the respiratory system. Many of our patients have big respiratory problems, so I guess it is good that I am there to see that the nurses get educated somewhat in this area. Nurses will never take the place of respiratory therapists even though the Dean of the School of Nursing at I.U. told me in 1965 that nurses should do “everything” for a patient and that she would fight my profession until we were gone. Funny how she, many years later, wound up on a ventilator and wanted the respiratory therapists at her side most of the time. I guess, for her sake and others, that she did not win her battle!

My son lives in Overland Park, KS. He has not seen fit to marry and therefore, I have no grandchildren. I’m too young for that anyway. My mother will be 90 next month and she lives in WVA. My father passed away in 1988 and my brother in 1991. I live in Franklin, IN, now and have no plans to retire any time soon.

Little did I know, as that farm girl from Knightstown, that I would get this far in the 50 years since graduating from KHS. As much as I hated that farm, I learned a lot from living on it. Some of what I learned has helped me get where I am today, and, as much as anything else, I truly believe that our education at KHS prepared me for all that I have encountered.

Maybe, if I ever retire, I will write a book, but as I think about it, it would have to be several different books. Where are those English teachers when I need them?
Ellen,

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Dick Flack

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I’m still working in the graphic arts (anything regarding print material design and production) going on 43 years. My wife Brenda, a ‘58 graduate of New Castle, has retired from working in a bank for a number of years. We live in Indianapolis on the northeast side and spend time with our grandkids when we can.
Dick

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Larry Lindsay

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I attended Ball State University earning a B.A. degree in Health and Physical Education in 1961. I married Gail Leaser (KHS class of 1956) August 21, 1961. Gail graduated from Ball State University in 1960. Gail taught elementary school four years before and during our first two years of marriage. She earned her Master of Arts Degree in Elementary Education in 1965 and I completed my master’s degree work in Physical Education and Educational Administration in 1966. I earned my doctorate in Educational Administration (Leadership) in 1977.

We have five children, Brad, Blake, Molly, Bryce and Brock. Brad and Molly live in IN and Blake, Bryce and Brock still live in the Dallas Metroplex area. We have five grandchildren, four girls (Hanna, Emily, Olivia Gail, and Kaitlyn) and one boy (Colton Bryce), ranging in age from 11 to one month old.

I began my professional career as a teacher and coach and moved into school administration as an Athletic Director in 1967. I later served as a high school principal at Westfield Washington High School and at Carmel High School.
I moved into central office administration as an Assistant to the Superintendent for Secondary Education at the MSD of Washington Township (North Central High School district) and was appointed Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education in MSD of Wayne Township (Ben Davis High School district) to head up the peaceful integration of inner city schools to the MSD Township schools across Marion County.

In 1981 we moved to Dallas, TX where I began serving as Vice President for Positive Life Attitudes for America and the Executive Director for Education and Training for the Zig Ziglar Corporation. During my days with the Zig Ziglar Corporation we developed curriculum and educational in-service training for more than 15,000 k-12 schools and colleges across America. The Dallas Independent School District was one of our large clients and we were instrumental in helping to motivate and teach inner city youth to become a success in life. During those days we founded Lexington Academy, a Christian Preparatory School for underachieving students, where I served as a Board member and the Superintendent/Headmaster until 1995.

In the fall of 1995 we moved back to IN where Gail could help her father, Reverend Byron Leaser with assisted care until he developed acute dementia and spent his final three years at the Warren Methodist Home a few miles north of Marion. Bryon passed at age 98. In returning to IN I took a position as chairman of the Masters in Education degree program at Indiana Wesleyan University. I later founded and chaired the School Leadership post-masters degree program and the Doctor of Organizational Leadership program.

I am currently commencing my third year in service as Chief of Staff for President Henry Smith. We live in Country Lake Estates on the edge of the Indiana Wesleyan University main campus in Marion, IN. Indiana Wesleyan University has grown during the past 12 years from a degree seeking student population of about 4,000 students to approximately 15,000 students this fall.
Larry

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