Are you ready?

Although 2012 seems a long way off, I want to be sure you've set aside time to join your classmates for our 50th reunion. I'll be posting updates from class members, so if you have news to share, send me an email or comment here.

My daughter, Leah, has helped to brighten our blog and has added some nice features. You can now subscribe to the blog by email, which means you'll get an email every time I post an update. To sign up, enter your email address in the box on the right side of the screen.

You can also follow on Facebook--just search for Jackson High School Class of 1962, and click on "become a fan" on the top right of the page. We have to keep up with all the social network opportunities!

Best wishes,
Shery

News and photo from Don Lollar

Don Lollar sent the following email about his heart surgery, and also this picture of a family gathering with children from our 10th reunion. If anyone wants this photo for reprinting, email me and I'll send you the jpg file. Remember, you can click on the photo to enlarge.

So glad to hear you're on the road to recovery, Don!

shery, i was asked by a couple of folks for the picture i had of the small family gathering with kids at the 10th reunion. i hope it is attached for anyone interested. oh, you will have to rotate it--i'm still learning.

as an addition, the week following the 45th, i began to have more trouble with my breath during walking. i was clear it wasn't the reunion activities creating such a limitation--my aortic valve has been narrowing over the past years. long story short, august 13th had aortic valve replacement. six weeks later i'm recovering rather well. back at work part time, walking 3 miles a day, and believe the worst is over. in comparison with many of our mates, i feel grateful. it's just a structural problem that needed a good plumber/surgeon. done and movin' on. the porcine valve, euphemism for pig valve, should last 12-15 years, if nothing else comes along.

miriam and i both enjoyed the reunion and do look forward to 50.

don lollar

Bobby Baldridge's retirement

Robert Taylor sent a link to the following article, which appeared in The Jackson Sun, Sunday, September 9, 2007. Congratulations, Bobby, on an outstanding career!

Baldridge ready to retire after 40 years with TSSAA

When he was a youngster, living in downtown Jackson in the late 1950s, Bob Baldridge occasionally talked to entertainers named Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. Perkins was a regular at Tuchfeld's department store, which was managed by Baldridge's father. Perkins often brought his musician friends to the store.

"Elvis just stood quietly and talked to me, but Cash would pace up and down," Baldridge said. "I didn't think anything of it back then. It was before they became real famous."

In a much less glamorous setting, Baldridge became a bit famous himself as a spokesperson for the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association. For 40 years he has helped shape one of the nation's strongest and most progressive high school sports organizations.

But that comes to an end on Oct. 1 when Baldridge, 63, retires.

"I started to retire three years ago, but I finally told them this was it," Baldridge said Saturday, while vacationing with his wife, Judy, in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Only two other persons in the history of this nation's high school state associations have given 40 years to their work. Baldridge takes with him volumes of stories and historical facts about the TSSAA, which governs high school sports.

He was there at the final state basketball tournament for black high schools. He helped with the integration issues of high school sports. Hired on Oct. 1, 1967, by A.F. Bridges, the TSSAA's first executive, Baldridge was on the ground floor of developing the classification system and has directed the football playoffs since their inception in 1969.

"For years I did it by myself," Baldridge said of managing the playoffs. "Football has always been a joy for me."

A 1962 graduate of Jackson High School, Baldridge was the football and basketball manager for coaches Tury Oman and Eddie Crawford, and he was editor of the school paper. He worked at The Jackson Sun and Nashville Tennessean before the TSSAA hired him.

"I went with the TSSAA knowing they were going to move (from Trenton) to the Nashville area (in 1970)," Baldridge said.

He earned a master's degree in business administration and could have used a law degree with the TSSAA while dealing with state and federal governments. He often testified on behalf of the TSSAA about many issues, including Title IX, which helped bring equality to women's sports

"Mr. Bridges was smarter than all of us," Baldridge said. "He put in girls' athletics long before other states did. Baldridge estimates he has traveled 1.2 million miles for the TSSAA and has attended 2,200 state basketball tournament games. "Of course, I got to see very little of those games," Baldridge said. "I was too busy running around checking on things."

You might think the TSSAA's most painful headache the past 40 years has been the public-private debates or the Brentwood Academy lawsuit. Not so, says Baldridge. "The biggest problem we've ever had at TSSAA was going from half-court to full-court play in girls' basketball," he said.

Baldridge served eight years as executive director of the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame and has received numerous honors. But he is quick to note what has meant the most to him."It's all the great people I've worked with in the office and across the state," he said. "That was the best part of it all."