Michael Moore

The name of the "Bingo" game in Mr. Martin's class was, officially, GOBBLE. Every player had a card, which we bought for a quarter BTW, with class names arranged as a bingo card. Remember that Mr. Martin could no more remember the names of people in his calsses than he could pi to the thirtieth place, so he had a deck of index cards that he would shuffle through and select the target of his often tangential and/or abstruse questions. Every time a name was called it was covered on the card. If you covered a line, as in bingo, you stood up and said "GOBBLE," and won the pot. The only winner that I remember was Hal Miller, who might have organized the game. He was that kind of an entrepreneur.

I think that class solidified my resolution to never become a secondary school teacher.

Ted Witte

I'm really enjoying reading all the funny responses and discussions on this Forum...

Thanks!

Perri Kaplan (Krom)

I used to skip Mr Martin's class all the time.  I would just tell him it was time for me to go to the nurse to take my medications....and just leave.  I do remember him telling us all about his experiences in the war - - and he would be very animated as he would tell us "There were Japs on this side, and Japs on that side - -but I made it out.." or some such thing.  My parents never could figure out how I got an A in Physics !

James Nimocks

A condom on Mona Lisa's nose? Leonardo Davinci created his masterpiece and this is the end she came to? You people were precious in high school!!! 

John Koon

Yes, I suppose that it was humiliating for Da Vinci enthusiasts to see the Mona Lisa decorated with a condom.  But the greater disgrace was for a good Catholic girl like Mona to be seen with a birth control device! Especially in the 1960s.

James High

Poor Mr. Martin! He really got "thrown in th'grinder" almost every class but always kept coming back for more. I never could quite decide whether he just was  being obstinate, incredibly dedicated to his profession or simply oblivious to the abuse. In retrospect, I tend to think it was more a blend of the the latter two with emphasis on the last!  Nevertheless, I came to admire his "A+" tenacity for fighting through us "Japs ! " on a daily  basis. Speaking of grades, like Perri, I recieved a remarkedly good one. I was both shocked and delighted since I hadn't learned a lick except for an appreciation of Randy Round's excellent imitations of the P.A. speaker summoning Mr. Martin  elsewhere in the buiding. As near as I could figure, he must have drawn names out of one hat and randomly matched  them with grades drawn from another!  Which was fine with me--I always prefered being lucky to smart. 

Richard Dicter

Mr. Martin & Dr. Bloch at Vandy cost a vastly different amount of money,  but they had one thing in common. They both made garbage out of a potentially interesting subject which has some good practical applications every time they were in a room. If they thought they were teaching anything, I couldn't tell.

But again, looking back we had a large number of really talented and dedicated teachers.

James High

Hey Richard ! We did indeed have a bounty of talented and dedicated techers and I felt blessed to have had the good fortune to be in many of their classes  ( but a few, not so hot. ) We seem to have attended  W.H.S. during it's peak years both in terms of the quality of facualty and student body ( more Merit Finalists than whiskers on Aunt Millie's cat ! )  Some of the teachers were on par or,  in my experience, perhaps even better or more inspirational than their counterparts at Vandy. To me, Mrs. Kirwan was an oustanding example. Sadly, the same cannot be said of Waggener today--a mere spector of it's old self. Ít's hard to conceive that the School Board could have come up with a plan that would have more thoroughly reduced our once justifiably proud school to the shambles it now is in; a mockery of it's prior academic excellence and outstanding reputation as the finest public school in the state. It would be too easy for me to get off on a tangent about the  subject, so  I suppose it's better to shut up about it . Perhaps it would be wiser to enjoy the happy memories and just let the rest go; nothing to be done about it but to rave and complain to no purposeful end. Nor am I a great conspiracy theorist ( but what the hell? ).... I hope that metallic, creaking sound I hear isn't a can of worms being opened.... By the way, Zip, I previously mentioned that it seemed, at least in part, that Mr. Martin might have been doggedly dedicated to his profession in order to have weathered the abuses commonly associted with his classes. In no way was that meant to imply he could teach worth a gob a' spit!

Ted Witte

FYI, I just got a notice that the Class Creator system (where we have this website) is currently experiencing technical difficulties resulting in a delayed response time.  The system is running slower than normal.  The IT folks are working on the issue now.

Ted

Heather Scarlett (Hurley)

Pam Nelson, who transferred away from WHS after 9th grade, recently visited Louisville and had dinner with the Rust group.  She is now logged on as a member of the class so you can send her messages.

Pamela Nelson (Kimball)

Thanks Heather,

I had a wonderful time at Rust along with my husband,Rick! Emma brought us along and we are so grateful to her for being a major part of our Louisville visit 10/1 til 10/9 last month! We so enjoyed seeing her, walking the bridge, St. James art fair and just talking and catching up with my best bud! It was great to see so many of my old friends at Rust! Also got to see Sally Schaaf Wiggins and Elizabeth Schaaf which was also great fun!

My family actually moved away from Louisville in August 1961, at the end of my 10th grade. We moved to Hudson, Ohio, but my brother, Bob Nelson never left Ky and married his high school sweetheart, Jane Walker, and they have been living in Shelbyville for for many years.We try to get back as often as possible. 

If anyone gets out to Seattle, we are a 30 minute ferry ride from there on Bainbridge Island, so give us a call, we'd love to see you!

Emma Rieser (Borders)

Pam, 

Loved spending time with both you & Rick. I hope to get out your way sometime next year. I was glad so many of the class of '63 showed up for the Rust Dinner. It was a wonderful way for you to reconnect after all of these years.

Love to both of you,

Emma

James Nimocks

When I entered the big bad world of Waggener High I kept some old friends and met some new ones. Among the new "friends" were Jim Wadlington and his henchman, Dayton Stansbury, in Mrs Guess class. These were the days of pink and black, and "pins", remember those?

jim and Dayton harassed me mercilessly as preteen boys were wont to do and I did my best to avoid them, not easy when every morning they had a shot at me in home room. I was still small, maybe 100 lbs soaking wet, and probably easy pickings. Well time passed, hormones kicked in and I added pounds and inches. Fast forward to fraternity rush in the fall of 1964. I am visiting the AGR fraternity house at UK and who is standing in line greeting guests? My old pal Jim Wadlington, still about the same size he was in seventh grade!  By now I was able to look down on him and with a positively wicked smile, crunched the bones of his right hand and moved quickly on! Is that petty or what? But at the moment revenge never tasted sweeter!

Ruth Tobaben (Gilbert)

Hello to all.  I know how this may sound a bit strange, but I need to connect with a person from the class of 1968.  I am trying to find a cousin of mine who graduated from Waggener in 1968.  Any help would be great.

Everytime I come to Louisville is not the time of a Rust control meeting.  :-(  Maybe next time I will make it.

Thanks to all for the birthday wishes...being 70 is not so bad///so far.  !!

Rod Larmee

Hey Ruthie,

Who you looking for?

Thx,

Rod

Richard Dicter

Hi Ruth--

i'd glad to try to help you but do you know the city/town for your cousin and the name would help of course?

Hope you're doing well.

Thx,

Richard

Ruth Tobaben (Gilbert)

I am trying to locate my cousin, Batty Reeb (Holtsinger)...who knows if she is still married.  She graduated from Waggener in 1968.  So fa,r free google searches have not been helpful.

I ran into her about 8 or 9 years ago at Kingfish down on River Road when I was visiting my Aunt Ruth in Louisville.  Recently my aunt passed away at a ripe old age of 95...almost to the end she was such a "steel magnolia".  She had no children of her own.  According to KY law all of her blood relatives need to be notified of her death.  I am the exectutress of the will...fun  :-(  I have found everyone else!  :-)  

When I went onto the 1968 Waggener site I noticed she was one of the ones "lost".  I never thought to use the Waggener connection to try to find her.

Thanks for your offers of help.

Robert (Mickey ) Lunsford

Ruth I could only find this Rroger and Betty Holsinger @ 4362 Peck Pike , Milton  ky or 25 Morehead Ct Milton Ky Same phone # for both 502-268-3882.

Ruth Tobaben (Gilbert)

I think you migh be onto something.  Somehow this rings a bell with me.  You are the greatest!  I wll let you know how it goes.  I will call this number tomorrow.  :-)  Class of '63 still rules!

Sharon Dickison (Magruder)

A very Merry Christmas to all.  May the new year bring you good health, happiness, and all you deserve in the coming year.

John Koon

This is just a great internet site.  Thanks to Ted Witte for organizing, designing, and maintaining it.  Ted: a great job.  And judged by the consistent use it gets, the class really appreciates your efforts. 

(To the extent that others participated/participate in this effort, thanks to you also.  I just don't know who you are.)

John

Jeanne Hathaway

I'll second that motion, John!  Thank you, Ted, as always, and a big shout out to everyone else who contributes content. From what I can tell by talking to other friends we have to be the most connected high school class in the country!

Jennie Donnelly (Green)

Thanks to Ted for adding the survey for the 55th reunion. Are all of you looking at the 2018 calendar? I notice that most people voted for June 9, 10 and 11 for the dates of the reunion. In 2018, those dates fall on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Was that the intention? Just wondering...

Ted Witte

Ted Ogle has an article in the Courier Journal about "Don't Privatize Air Traffic Control."  Here is a link to the PDF file for reading:

http://www.mastersdiving.org/waggener63/2017documents/DontPrivatizeATC.pdf

Sharon Dickison (Magruder)

,Hi All.

Not sure this is the correct place but I thought it would be fun to write down memories of our beloved teacher  Mr Ben Huff Averitt who just passed away.  He called me a rose between two thorns because he always saw me walking between the two Schueler brothers.  A story I found numerous was one where he told us how he caught a cheater in one of his classes.  He suspected this student of cheating but had not been able to catch.  After giving a test one day as he was grading the tests he caught the culprit.  The student sat behind this particular student and on one of the questions wrote "I don,t know."  Mr A laughed as he graded the cheaters test.  He had finally caught.  His answer to the same question was "I don't know either."  He enjoyed returning that test to the student.  Ha ha  Mr A told this story about where he was when he heard about the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor.  He was out side playing basketball.  I think he was 16 at the time.  That is all I have right now.  Does anyone else have stories they can share about this very special man?  I would love to read them.  I just got a lovely card from his niece, Carol, telling me how much he enjoyed hearing from all of us.