Sarah Toppins

Retirement keeps me busy. The newest activity you might be interested in is that I was an extra in April and May in a new film called "Summer Camp" which stars Kathy Bates, Diane Keaton, Alfre Woodard, Eugene Levy, and Nicole Ritchie. It's about a reunion at a summer camp and they needed a lot of older campers. It'll be out next summer. We just missed the writer's strike.

I'm still Mrs. Claus and have done three Christmas in July gigs in the last two weeks. And in May Santa and I went to a camp for kids with cancer and led reindeer games. We'll go back in December and give out the gifts they asked Santa for in May.

I retired in 2022 and moved to Asheville, NC.

I'm taking a writing course, working on the safety and security task for the community where I live, and working on Leadership Asheville Seniors in planning activities and getting speakers for our days on Food and Poverty and Housing. (I am a graduate of the last year's nine-week program.
I was a real estate agent in the Washington, DC area after careers as a broadcast journalist in Alabama, Florida, & Virginia, and a college journalism professor (U of IL & American U).

I went to high school in Dallas, UT for a BS in film & TV, and U of Alabama for a MA in Political Science (I was a political reporter).

I've done a fair amount of acting in my spare time. I toured on a showboat, acted in a lot of community theatre, and was in the movies "The Replacements" and "Cecile B. Demented" and the HBO series "The Wire" as an extra.

I've also served on a lot of state & national boards for journalism, education, and real estate. My current volunteer activities are serving on a Red Cross disaster team and teaching adult Sunday School.

I've traveled a lot - all over Europe, Ecuador, various places in the Caribbean, Mexico, Canada, Bermuda, China, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bali & New Zealand. Believe it or not, a lot of these trips were business related.

The mammoth snow storm we had in DC in February caused me to get more involved in social networking and reconnect with a number of LJ friends while I was hibernating. I think I know more of you guys than I do from my honor classes in Dallas and might enjoy going to your 40th reunion more than mine. So I made my plane reservation and I'm coming.

I've moved a lot, so I haven't kept up with a lot of people from my past, and would love to reconnect.

My dad was the Presbyterian minister in LJ when we lived there.

I moved away from LJ after 8th grade (1966), so I don't have any Brazosport stories. I went to Beutel and LJJH.