La Jolla High Class of '64's 50th Reunion: November 2014

Thomas Keener

The short story...
Spent 4 years in the army listening to Russians on the radio.
Traveled another 4 years... sold the 1st waterbeds in Berlin... herded cows in northern Norway... worked on the set of Moses, The Lawgiver with Burt Lancaster... spent the Yom Kippur war in Israel...
Came back to San Diego, got a degree in Environmental Design at SDSU.
Spent a year studying indigenous housing in Africa.
Spent another 2 years traveling in the Pacific and Asia, mostly looking for surf.
Finally found a career doing computer-aided mechanical design, mostly gas turbines engines at Solar.
Eventually made enough money to move out of La Jolla.
Retired a few years ago, so now I play a lot - making sculpture out of animal detritus, bodysurfing, and motorcycling.

I've been to 80 countries, ridden half a million miles on motorcycles, surfed many of the world's great spots (unfortunately usually when small,) fallen in and out of love too many times, and I'm still having fun.

Michele Harris Royle

50 years of my life in a paragraph -

I started working at Pacific Bell as an operator in 1965. By the time that I retired in 1991 I had done various jobs (each one more enjoyable than the last) from mail clerk, to secretary, to supervisor, to transmission engineer, to budget analyst, to account executive, and finally to outside plant engineer. Retirement came too soon in my life so after a year I went back to work in the private sector for a retired judge. It was just she and I - what a change from the corporate world. Loved working for her during our 6 years together. During these 30 odd years there were other really great things that happened. In 1969 I married Ron Royle (formerly of Mission Beach but who attended La Jolla for his Jr./Sr. year before he quit and joined the U.S. Navy). We had a great life together for 7 years living for a month in North Park, then 1 1/2 years in Ocean Beach and then buying our home in Encinitas in 1971 (which we still live in today). In 1976 life got even better. We started our family with the birth of our daughter, Jessica, and then followed up 11 months later with the birth of our son, Matthew. Life was great! We went to the beach, we went camping, did out annual summer to Catalina, RV’d about and traveled north to Canada and south to Mexico. We had numerous cats and 3 dogs. School. soccer, and baseball kept us on the go. Our daughter married in 2001 and has given us three adorable grandkids (2 girls and a boy ages 12, 11, and 9). They live close by so it’s fabulous when I get to help out or just visit. Our son chose to move first to Hawaii in 2006 and now he is living in Cambodia. You ask why…I don’t know why! Ron and I, with all of our retirement time, love to garden, ski in the Wasatch Mtns. of Utah and do a lot of RV-ing throughout the United States plus traveling far afield to places like Greece, Turkey, England, France, Germany, Finland, Russia, Amsterdam, Czech Republic. We are about to go local and stay on the Queen Mary in Long Beach and then our first time trans-Atlantic cruise to Italy, et al. I never thought that my life would be what it has been but heck you only go thru life once and you might as well enjoy it to the fullest. I have enjoyed it and then some. Our 50th high school reunion was amazingly fun. Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to gather us all together. Looking forward to seeing everyone for years and years to come. (Except Mr.Cooper as he would frown on this being a proper paragraph)! May we all live long, healthy, and happy lives.

Peter McElmury

To the Class of ’64,

Pat, my wife of 46 years, and I really enjoyed the Class of ’64’s 50th Reunion. It was a joy to see so many classmates at the Happy Hour on Friday and even more so at the Reunion Dinner on Saturday. For months I had been reminiscing in my mind about all the years many of us had known each other. I went to Bird Rock Elementary for K & 1st grade, La Jolla Elementary from 2^nd thru 6^thgrade, and then La Jolla Jr.-Sr. High School from 7^th thru 12^th grade.

Everyone at the Reunion looked great! Oh the memories! I have tears in my eyes now as I write this. I remember the good times with many of you. I think we were having fun back then, mostly getting along with each other, many of you studying much harder than I was and many of you participating in lots of school activities; things that I should have been doing instead of riding and racing my 10-speed bicycle all over SD and LA Counties. German was by far my favorite class and subject.

After HS graduation I gave SDSU a try and learned I had not prepared myself for the fast pace of college. I joined the US Marines, became an artillery fire control chief, was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey to study Vietnamese, then to Viet Nam in April 1967 and a battalion of 8 inch howitzers self-propelled. I came home to the “world” in May of 1968 a Sergeant. I am a proud veteran, and was “over there” during the infamous 1968 Tet Offensive. While there were no parades for us, I would do it again. I am very proud of our military today and the job they are being asked to do.

In June of 1968 I met a beautiful young lady, Pat, and we were married in December of that year. I graduated from San Francisco State University in 1972 with a BA in Accounting. In 1995, after two years of night classes, I earned an MBA in Finance from Webster University. All these years I worked for quite a few corporations, public and private. My last eight years were for a huge property management group in San Francisco and I enjoyed it a lot right up until the last day in July 2011, retiring the same week I turned 65. I am a ham radio operator, Amateur Extra class, with call sign AA6SF. I sail RC sailboats on Spreckels Lake in Golden Gate Park, compete in high power rifle matches in the East Bay and Sacramento and I just got an iPhone 6 to replace my Motorola Razor flip-phone. My son created a website for my radio practice group, 2MeterCriticalMass.com and hasn’t given up trying to teach me how to administer it by myself.

Our son, Daniel, is a Mission Bay HS grad, class of ’95 and varsity baseball letterman. He earned a BFA in Photography from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Last year I performed the marriage ceremony for Daniel and his beautiful wife Viktoriya. We live near each other in San Francisco. Pat and I are quietly hoping for a grandchild.

My best wishes for the entire Class of ’64.

Fair winds and following seas to all of you.

Peter McElmury