A Thirty-Year Interval

Back in high school (Santa Fe Catholic Regional High School, Lakeland, FL), I went to many of the football games as a photographer for our yearbook. One nice thing about football games is that people tend to be in good spirits, at least before the game commences. I don’t remember exactly which game the following photo was taken at, but Bill Robinson and I had arrived and five of our classmates turned up while we were getting photo gear organized to go in. Bill snapped this picture of the six of us arranged across the hood of the green El Camino I drove around at the time.

Now for the bad part… I don’t know that I can recognize everybody here, or even if I get all the names, accurately place them with the people. Beth Bordelon is on the left, Lee Pinner at bottom left. Jo Ellen Riley is in here, I think on bottom right. I think that might be Sharon Harrell leaning on my right shoulder. It is Jennifer Venable on my right shoulder (thanks, Teresa!). And it could be Linda Rushing leaning on my left shoulder. It is sad what thirty years can do to the memory. Any of you whose memory has not turned to mush, please help me with the corrections.

The exposure was skewed by the street lights in the background, so the negative was underexposed. The print above was the result of processing the negative a couple of times in chromium intensifier and still required a fair bit of dodging in the center to lighten two faces there. That is clearly seen in the scanned print, since I upped the gamma on the whole thing for this web version.

Time passes… a lot of it. This spring, Santa Fe had a reunion open to all graduates. My sister and I went; I had managed to get discount airfare via Allegiant Air from Lansing, MI to Sanford, FL. The first evening’s activities included concerts by Lake Mirror in downtown Lakeland, followed by more music on one of the streets downtown. There I got to meet up with four of the five classmates from the group shot above plus one more friend from the class of 1979. My sister snapped this group photo of us there on the street.

From left to right (if I have the names right), Lee Pinner (Strain), Beth Bordelon (LeCorgne), me, Linda Rushing (Kibler), Jo Ellen Riley (Gray), and Celeste Cooper.

Unfortunately, Allegiant Air is taking a break from the Lansing to Sanford routes, and I don’t have a budget that will stretch to regular airfare to make it to the 30th reunion of my Class of 1978 this coming October 4th and 5th. Have fun… I hope Ben McConnell gets plenty of great pictures at this one.