Class of 1959 Paducah High Graduate.

Graduated with B.S. from University of Central Oklahoma in 1979.

Graduated with M.S. from University of Wyoming in 1986.

Worked in Lubbock, Texas for one year as a bookkeeper, then went into the U.S. Navy and was stationed in Arlington, Virginia.  While there, I married and moved to Tallahassee, Florida.  My husband died in 1971.  We had one son who died in 1978 and took a large part of my heart with him.

I moved to Midwest City, Oklahoma in 1971, met my current husband, James Ray, in November, 1971 and we married in 1974.  We have lived in Texas, Wyoming, and Oklahoma in the U.S.

We both taught and lived overseas in Dhaka, Bangladesh for seven years, then Jim became principal in Kathmandu, Nepal and we lived there three years.  We woke up to a cuckoo bird's call and viewed the Himalayan Mountains every day from our home.  We traveled all over the world including Egypt, Austria (my personal favorite), Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Thailand (our second home), HongKong, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Hawaii, and probably some others I've left out.

  I've ridden and washed elephants, chased tigers, seen rhinos and cobras in the wild (and in my backyard).  In Egypt, we sailed down the Nile, rode camels at the Pyramids, rode donkeys above the Valley of the Kings and toured Karnac.  We spent a summer in Spain and weeks at a time in Thailand.

I have wonderful students who stay in contact with me and they literally live all over the world.  We just recently saw one from Burma who is now living in Australia and made her first trip to U.S in April.  I taught Chemistry, Biology, AP Biology, and Earth Science for about 17 years. It was the perfect life for me and it has been hard for me to give it up.  I still love to travel and we spend a lot of time traveling within the U.S.

In 1998, while we were living in Nepal, we adopted a beautiful baby girl and moved back to the U.S. in 2000.  She is now 10 and the joy of our lives.  She will be entering sixth grade in the fall.  So, while the rest of you talk about your grandchildren, I am enjoying my daughter.  I always was a late-bloomer.

We currently live back where we started, in Midwest City.  I am a full-time homemaker and mother and spend a surprising amount of time in the car!  We are in the process of buying a second home in Paducah and I am looking forward to spending time there again.