My brother, Dennis Workman, also graduated from Chamberlain in 1977. He came as a senior, so he had only one year there.

On July 1st 1976 my family moved from our home in Salt Lake City to Tampa - quite an adventure at the time for a 15 year old Utah boy! I remember how excited I was at the prospect of becoming a Floridian for the next 3 years!

Entering Chamberlain High School that first day as a soph was memorable, to say the least. Coming from a very dry desert state, my first thought was "this place is like a sauna, can this be for real? no air conditioning? This is Florida for heaven's sake!" I remember my first week in math class (there were no empty seats and I recall standing in the back of the room for the first week until a couple of students dropped the class and I was able to secure an empty desk). One day the teacher (I forget her name) came up to me, looked at my math paper, and asked "why is your paper so wet?" Sweating profusely from my face and forehead, I looked up at her and said "why do ya think?" I told her I just got here from Utah and she replied "oh".

Besides the climate adjustment, I had no friends, other than the few I had become acquainted with at my local church during the 8 weeks leading up to the first day of school. Boy, did I feel out of place! This Utah Mormon boy was out of his element!

But over time I did become acclimated, both to the weather, new people and new surroundings. I eventually made many good friends at Chamberlain High School and look back on that three year journey as among the best experience of my life. Most of you may not recall me at all (I stayed in the shadows most of the time), but I remember you. You were friendly to me and that's what I remember most about those years.

Through this experience I learned that we're all the same. We value love and friendship. We're happy when we learn of other's good fortunes and we mourn with each other during times of trial and loss. We have each other's back. That's what we do. That's who we are.

As a side note, the reason we moved to Florida in the first place is that my father was called upon to lead the newly formed Florida Tampa Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Days Saints, directing the work of nearly 200 full-time volunteer missionaries for a period of 3 three years. This mission still exists today and so you may, every now and then, run into some young men wearing white shirts and ties, or some cheerful young women, out on the streets (they are among 70,000 to 80,000 worldwide). They may even knock on your door at some point. They work hard full-time - simply serving and sharing a message of hope. That's what they're doing, in case you didn't know. That's it. So please be nice. Invite them in for a drink of cold water and, if you have a moment, listen to what they have to say and allow them to offer their service.

I've enjoyed re-connecting by reading posts from this site and would relish the chance to correspond with any of you for any reason. I am not shy about sharing my my faith, my life experiences and my views on a wide range of things and would love to hear about yours as well. Please send me an email at getheat@msn.com (that's my work and personal email).

I love you all!