School Story:
-For 3 years, logging hundreds of miles running across Centerville and Bountiful after school every day, training with the Cross Country and Track teams, with Coach Lynn Dubois following behind to pick up stragglers in his truck (the wimp wagon)
-Losing to Bingham High School in the State Cross Country Championship race my senior year by just 6 points, because I was the only varsity runner for Viewmont who choked in that race...finishing like 150th...as one of the team captains...my last race of High School. Brutal. I still relive that one in nightmares every once in a while. Thirty years later, I've felt that same anxiety return as I've watched my daughters compete in the cross country state meets at Sugarhouse Park in SLC--although they've never choked like their Dad
-Paul Cutler and I singing Simon and Garfunkel's Sound of Silence and winning Battle of the Bands our senior year. That was a cool memory.
-Not being able to fit Mr. Murphy's guitar class into my schedule, but still learning to play guitar by watching my friends Chad Adams and Ryan Hurst and bugging them to teach me
-Listening to KJQ's Cary and Bill on the "Radio from Hell" program every morning (I still like the Violent Femmes and Camper Van Beethoven) and recording a traffic jingle with Paul Cutler, Clint Payne and Dave Hess, that they used to play every morning during traffic reports. I remember when the KJQ "Milk Beast" visited our school and handed out free chocolate milk. That was really meaningful to me for some reason?
-I loved Mr. Bailey and his Current Issues class, and his incredible lectures, passion, and mastery of the content he taught. Mrs. Cyd McBride for her love of math and compassion for me and her other students, Coach Dubois for being one of the finest men and examples I've ever known, Mrs. Dubois in English class my junior year, for her funny, positive and quirky nature and love of all things having to do with pigs, Mrs. Townsend for her exasperated looks when I tried to define my interpretation of the random poems we studied and memorized in her AP English class, and Miss M for her passion, focus and musical genius, although I wish I'd had more maturity at the time to accept her disciplined methods and show more appreciation for the incredible way she helped my confidence grow in music, performing in front of people and doing hard things
-Performing in the musicals directed by Miss M: The Sound of Music, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, 42nd Street, and The King and I
-Singing with the Madrigals throughout the year, and daily during Christmas as we sang in small concerts every night all over town, which often included setting up heavy risers we performed on, that we had to haul in and out every gig
-Choir trips to Southern California
-Singing in the Tabernacle for the Christmas Concert every year with the combined VHS choirs
-Making "Iron Rod" James Bond-themed movies with the other members of the Viewmont Seminary Council that we'd unveil every few months. I think we made 3 or 4 different short movies
-Doing an Elvis impersonation with Meghan Dover and her ventriloquist skills during an assembly, in an effort to get fellow Vikings to recycle aluminum cans
-Dancing hip hop with Ammon and Aaron Jones and Matt Smith during an assembly to C&C Dance Factory's "Everybody Dance Now" trying to channel our inner Vanilla Ice
-Attending Boys State after my Junior year and being able to go back and run it as Governor my Senior year, and being able to meet amazing high school juniors/seniors from all over Utah, some of whom I still network and work with today
-Earning money every summer working in food stands at Lagoon, and eventually singing and getting paid to sing in the Lagoon Band
-Friday night Stomps at the school, where sawdust was sprinkled on the floor. I remember dripping in sweat from moshing with everybody, and all the cute girls who STILL agreed to dance slow dances with sweaty me. I still cringe about that
-Fashion my senior year...hair long on top, bangs to my chin, shaved up underneath on the sides and back, trying to imitate the River Phoenix/young Indiana Jones hair vibe, wearing a bandana on my head every day of my senior year along with the sweet Girbaud jeans or Guess overalls that I spent entire paychecks on, with one side unbuckled to look cool. Teva Sandals, often worn with socks?? and Birkenstocks as well, fake eyeglasses. Boat shoes with no socks. Pegged jeans where you had to point your toe to get them on. Drakkar, Eternity, Obsession cologne and that pretty much rounded out my everyday fashion ensemble. What a time to be in High School!
-Hard to argue that you could grow up in a better place or time, than Bountiful and Centerville during the 80s/early 90s.
