To all the wonderful cookie bakers.  It just wouldn't seem right without them both Friday and Saturday and they are so good.
    To the school for the use of their lovely facilities on Friday evening and the gorgeous US and Texas flags that we used in the tribute to our Veterans on Saturday.
    To Bank of Texas, Thorndale for the lovely flower arrangement that made our prdium so beautiful on Saturday.
    To Angie Schneider Becker, Class of 1965 and her crew for the beautifully displayed snacks of all description.  They do such a nice job both Friday night and Saturday.  They make delicious sandwiches, cheese snacks, cervalat, nuts and everything else you can think of.
    To Mary Ann Sielaff Rodenbeck, Class of 1949 and her helpers for all the great drinks, beautiful set up along with snacks.  They make punch, tea, coffee and they will even serve you or you can serve yourself.
    To Barbara Stolte Smith, Class of 1956 and her crew for registering all our guests on Friday evening at the school and on Saturday at the hall.  It's a real job to try to stop folks long enough to sign our registers when they see a classmate they haven't seen in a long time.  But, they do a good job of it.
    To Elton Ray Barron, Class of 1956 for his expertise at the podium with the microphone.  He has been our Master of Ceremonies for many years and we appreciate his work and good jokes.
    To Angie (again) and Elmore Lincoln, Class of 1958 for moving and placing all the tables in order.  This a heavy lifting job.
    To Vernetha Brandt Moerbe, Class of 1950 and her crew for making sure all have a ribbon pinned on.  Vernetha also makes sure we have plenty of ribbons and even puts the pins in each one, ready to pin on.
    To Shirley Roepke Becker, Class of 1955 and her helpers for pinning on the Veterans ribbons and making sure each one has an identifying name tag.
    To Evelyn Beard Young, Class of 1953 for displaying all our memorabelia so lovely.  Folks really enjoyed browsing through the photos, books and articles both Friday night and Saturday.
    To Curtis Michalk, Class of 1949 of Harlingen for giving the Blessing before the meal.

    We appreciate all the donations we received in our free will passing of the hat.  This is our livelihood as we operate solely on donations.  We received $605 for expenses and $100 for scholarships.
    After stuffing ourselves with Carol's great chicken fried steak, creamed potatoes and gravy, green beans, corn, hot rolls and then our homemade cookies to 160 people, our program started. 

    Note:  Carol Walther Wuensche, Class of 1963 and her family and crew woke up to a disaster.  There were no steaks to be found as were ordered.  They called around and finally found some, but not after a heart throbbing experience by all concerned.  Anyway, they did a great job even though it was harder as they had to hand bread each and every steak.  Our many thanks to them for a job well done.  The food was delicious. 

    We had exes from New Jersey, California, Arizona and Arkansas.  The trophy for the person traveling the farthest went to Carter Thornton, Class of 1968 of Colfax, California.  Carter says he's moving back to Thorndale in a couple of years when he retires.  We'd sure love for that to happen.
    Scholarship recipients for 2007 were noted and since 1986, we have given 159 totaling $79,500, all from donations.
    Classes were recognized and honor classes remained standing for a few minutes.  Beginning with the Class of 1955, their 52nd reunion was held that afternoon at Carol's.  The Class of 1957 held their 50 year class reunion  at the Senior Citizens Hall with about 50 in attendance.  There were between 25 and 30 ex-students.  The Class of 1967 met at Apache Pass and had 29 in attendance until later when some of the Classes of 1966 and 1968 joined them.  All these numbers are from the grapevine and subject to change.  The Class of 1966 met at the Biars home after the game Friday night for their 41st class reunion and even went out to eat together after Homecoming on Saturday.  Then they journeyed out to Apache Pass for more fun.  They are enjoying each other and that's what it's all about. Just great!!!  The Class of 1977 held their 30 year class reunion at Rieger Park.  They had 17 of their classmates in attendance plus spouses and a few other folks.  They had a great time as well.  The Class of 1987 held their 20 year reunion at the Gerald Niemtschk home.  The Class of 1997 held their 10 year class reunion at the home of Mindy Milner.  They had 9 exes out of a possible 24 so that's a good turn out, especially in only 10 ytears.  

    The oldest alumni present at Homecoming was Evalyn Smith Terry, Class of 1933.  She's 91 years young and this is her 3rd year straight to receive this trophy.  We hope she keeps on keeping on.

    While honoring our Veterans, Graham Dickerson, Class of 1935 received a trophy for being the oldest Veteran.  I think he's 89 years young.  Each Veteran was pinned with a red, white and blue ribbon with a gold star in the middle upon entry into the hall.

    As you can see, it takes lots of folks giving of their time, energy and lots of money to pull off a successful Homecoming.  And we did it!!!  It was great and so much fun.  Sure hope you didn't miss it.

It didn't take but a few days for that dreaded call to come in.  Berdie Lee (Gambrell) Gambrell, Class of 1937 called to tell us of the passing of Margie Gambrell Hutchins, Class of 1940 of Groves.  Margie was Berdie's sister-in-law and will be greatly missed.  Our condolences to this family.  James David Rutherford, also from the Class of 1940 of Whittier, California, called Margie the day before she passed away, checking on her.  Now that's a nice classmate.

We received such a nice, sweet note from Polly Locklin Lander, Class of 1934 of San Antonio along with a very nice donation.  Our thanks to her for the help with our expenses.  She kept thinking she would make it to Homecoming and was sorry she couldn't.  She has been to most.  Said "keep it going" and thanks to those who do so much.  So sweet of her.

Our thanks to Preston and Janet Palm Adams, both from the Class of 1966 for the lovely book of their 40 year class reunion to our organization.  It will be on display along with all our other memorabelia each year from now on.  Janet and Preston put a lot of work in on these books and they are wonderful reading.

We received such a sweet note from Doris Grubbs Campbell, Class of 1941 along with her address in Marlin.  Doris is one of our Advisory Committee members and we are so sorry that she has had such a bad 2 or 3 years.  She first had shoulder surgery that did not go well, then fell and broke her hip.  If that wasn't enough, she suffered a stroke on September 1.  She is with her son, Jimmy Campbell, Class of 1966 in Marlin and doesn't know if she will ever be able to live alone at home.  Says her speech is pretty good now and uses a walker to get around but can't walk alone.  Seems like her memory is getting better.  She gets the Champion so she keeps up with the exes.  And Doris, I could read your note fine and we hope and pray you keep on improving.  We sure missed you at Homecoming.  We need to keep Doris in our prayers and wish for a speedy recovery.

We received a nice donation to help with our expenses from Lillian Bartlett Blankenship, Class of 1949 of Fort Worth.  Said she couldn't come this year but wanted Pat Logan, Class of 1949 to know that Harvey died on 9-14-07.  Our condolences to the family of Harvey.  Our many thanks to Lillian for the donation.

We love to hear from our exes.  Keep up the good work.

If you have any information for us or if you need information from us, just give us a call or let us know in any way and we'll do what we can to help.  We love to hear from our exes.