JOAN Santi McCoy

Immediately after graduation, Rosemary Pike and I moved to Rockford, Ill. She returned home after 2 months but I remained there for two years, meeting my husband there and eventually moving to Calif to be closer to him. We married in 1965 at St. Peter's in Jeff but lived in Long Beach until we bought Roto Rooter franchise in Fort Smith. We raised our children and built the business. He died in 1985. I continued running the business until i sold it in 2003. I finally remarried in 2000 but divorced in 2007. I have great kids & two precious grandchildren, enjoy volunteer work at the hospital & other community events, get to travel, still snow ski and have a boat docked at a lake 2 hours from here. I've been blessed with good health, great circle of friends and family.
I have always appreciated the education and life lessons I learned at JHS. I've told people that because we were a small school everyone had to be part of everything or there wouldn't be enough to get it done! I think we were lucky to be teenagers during an age of innocence, loyalty to God, country and school where discipline gave us a line not to step over.

Probably our Jr year, Rosemary Pike and I staged a protest. We wanted to be able to wear slacks to school during the winter. We use to wear slacks under our skirts to keep from freezing while waiting for the bus but had to put them in our locker once we got to school. Maybe 8 girls dared to walk together to study hall that morning only to have Mrs. Dennison stop us. In her usual fashion, she told us to go home and change and we would be considered absent/tardy in the meantime. We stated our purpose...to no avail. No slacks allowed. We piled into Mom's old Buick and headed to a gravel road out of town where we changed into our skirts. Why Mick & Paul Irwin were driving down the same road, I don't know. They stopped, heard our story, we all laughed and then drove back to school and later got detention.
I'd like to think Mrs. D probably chuckled under her breath at our "rebellion." Wonder when they finally lifted the ban on pants?