Gordon Petry

After graduating from Schurz, I was going to room with Ed Rice at Northern. He wound up at the U of I, and I went to ISU (or ISNU as it was back then) and roomed with Dick Hanus.

I never thought about being a teacher, but I got a teacher scholarship, which paid for almost everything except room and board. The catch was you had to teach for a year or three, or else you had to repay the money. Hey, I can do anything for a while. Forty-six years later, I'm still teaching. Besides teaching English (grammar,writing and literature) in public schools, 7th grade though 12th grade, I also taught creative writing and etymology and coached tennis for 20 seasons.

I've given tennis lessons, private, YWCA, park district, Illinois Central College. I've taught piano lessons, guitar lessons, a little voice and some musical composition. I'm a choir director/accompanist for one church and song leader/ assistant organist for another.

I've taught tennis in a church parking lot for the Y. I've taught short story, poetry and play writing in the Pekin Federal Prison on a NEA grant. (I probably am one of the few who was sorry to leave.)

My youngest student was four and my oldest was 84?
In addition to 32 years of junior high/ high school teaching, I taught English for Illinois Central College for seven years and at Bradley University for 15 and counting.

I'm beginning to think I like teaching. I hope all that fulfills the scholarship requirements, so I don't have to repay the money.

My wife Pat and I went on a European vacation, a gift from my son Mike. Another year we went to England the same time as Mike and his wife. With some friends we took an Alaska cruise one year and visited Ireland the next. (Some wonderful deals on line--And yes, I kissed the Blarney stone). My wife and I took a tour of Italy last year. Venice was our favorite.

I wrote a tennis column for a newspaper for two years. I've had a few stories published and just this year, two of my plays were produced.

My wife and kids gave me a wonderful birthday present last year. I got to spend some time with the penguins at Brookfield Zoo, not swimming, but feeding and petting. FUN!

Finally, (and not a minute too soon, I can hear you out there) I met my wife at Illinois State in, of all places, an English class. She wouldn't go out with me at first because I had a full (well, scruffy at least) beard grown for my part in Brigadoon. We were married two weeks after graduation (out of one institution and into another).

She also taught in the Illinois Public schools, first, Momence and then Pekin. She just retired from working as manager of a photography studio. I call her my trophy wife because she is three months younger than me. She has put up with me through thick and thin, and yes, I'm talking about my waistline and hairline, respectively.

I'm looking forward to seeing all of you and renewing some old friendships.

1st person I met --Bob Bell, That insured that my four years at Schurz would be fun

Amy Stodola--I still know how to diagram a sentence (and still hate it)

Miss Falkenroth--What a gentle soul. She'd ask, "What's the square root of four?" and get a answer like "Seven?"
And no matter how bad your answer was she'd gently say, "I don't think so." If Bob Bell makes it to the reunion, ask him for his "spot on" imitation.

Uncle Charley--I was in his physics class when the snowball fight broke out, and he didn't notice. I did learn about pyrex in that class, after breaking a non-pyrex vase with too much heat.

Miss Wincher--rascals would write at the top of her blackboard "Miss Wincher can't reach this," and she couldn't.

Mr. Mcarthy's history class. On the oral quizzes, true was a step forward and false was a step back. He had to know. It sounded like a parade.

Mr. Mietke changing shirts between classes (and pretending to be afraid of Tod Engel--Angel of Death translated from German.)

The biology teacher who describing the size of some worm, gave the class the finger (for quite a while).

John Schwartz--the most outstanding athletic achievement--On the first day of our naked swimming classes (another story for another time), we jumped in the shallow end and swam to the deep end to prove we could swim. John jumped in and then leapt completely free of the water yelling "I can't swim." I've never seen anything like it.

Speaking of PE, I remember holding on to my pants when running to and from the ball diamond. A lot of "pantsing" went on as we ran past the classroom windows.

Don Swanson and I decided to go out for tennis our freshman year. We were too shy to go out as an individual. Neither of us had ever played. Only six people went out for the team. We made the varsity. Our opponents were astonished at how bad we were. But I did earn a varsity letter, my senior year, which I received two days before graduation.

Bud Eldvedt--first of my friends to own a car, and we packed it to go to school on cold days.

Poster parties-enough said.

Miss Minnis--who fell in love with everything I wrote that last semester and read my papers to all of her classes. Thank you. You deserve all the credit (or blame) for me becoming an English teacher.

Last memory--being a human sardine in the third floor hallway right where it intersected the triangle. Talk about up close and personal! And we only had four minutes to get to the next class.