(Jun) Carroll Benton

Yes

Hi, I'm Al. Although I am very proud of my fist name, Carroll, given me by my Scottish/ Irish Grandmother, I found that in the business world, "Al" (middle name, Allen) saved a lot of time in explaining the origin of such an unusual first name for a guy. Then Carroll O'Conner (All in the Family) suddenly became a household name but by then I was responding well to "Al".

I began working full time just after HS and attended SIU evening classes at the old high school building before the Edwardsville campus opened. Wanting to pursue a carrier in engineering, I began working for a consulting engineering firm (Fruco & Assoc.) in St. Louis and continued evening classes at SIU-Edwardsville.

In 1964 I joined the Air Force National Guard, served some of that time in full time service state-side during the Vietnam conflict and was given an honorary discharge in 1970.

In about 1968 or so I began working for Wm. Tao & Assoc., Consulting Engineers and attended Washington University, working toward a degree in electrical engineering.

In 1973 I was offered a position with Briner Electric Co. to begin development of a new design/build department. Briner is a family owned company that began business in 1895. I was eventually promoted to Vice President, becoming the first non-family member to hold office in the company. I became their Senior Vice President when a bright young sibling became Vice President.

I retired in December 2006 and I am enjoying this leisure lifestyle very much. My wife Karen still teaches (7th & 8th grade science) but we enjoy getting the motor home out when we can. She' has agreed to teach one more year after this one. That's the penalty for marrying someone 8 years younger than I.

We have 6 grandchildren that keep us youthful and one more on the way (April, 2010) to our German daughter. She's a Psychologist and plans to participate in a couple of International Conferences in the USA this year. We've already agreed to babysit our new grandson while she's busy with her presentations at the conferences, one is in Boston, the other in San Diego.

Does anyone else have weird memories and/or dreams about the old high school on 10th street? That building was intimidating to me, with high ceilings, narrow corridors, lockers with heavy steel doors, alcoves that were converted into classrooms, tall windows rattled with the slightest breeze, the list goes on and on. The exterior was very stately but the interior felt more like a different kind of institution than a high school.

It certainly was a vast contrast and a great relief to enter the new, modern, state of the art (at the time) high school on State Street with long, wide corridors, large classrooms that were numbered logically, a huge gymnasium, modern lunch rooms and a great auditorium/theater.

Maybe the old building wasn't as bad as I remember. Maybe the sudden transition from what seemed to be doomsday surroundings to the much more pleasant atmosphere changed what I remember about the old place.