Chapter 3

link to Virgil Reunion 2010 (Picture folder 53 pictures and CLASS ROSTERS)

60 years ago Jim Knapp was a Kindergarten pal. Now we've reconnected via Facebook and got together at Virgil school's 80th reunion at the Opry Barn (Nashville of the Northeast) of the Country Music Park. Jim is aka Jimmy-Jeep and runs his 500,000 mile Jeep push truck and it's web site at http://jimmyjeep.50megs.com/ . After Virgil he did ceramic tile installation at construction sites like Disney World in Florida for years. That's where he began his push truck hobby and is secretary at the Daytona Antique Automobile Racing Association. You see sprints, midgets, and modifieds can't start by themselves and need a push. You wont care but a guy in his Florida club bought the # 61 Richie Evans racer from Saratoga that I baby sat for in Chapter 124. He still participates all over the East Coast including the World of Outlaws series. Indiana is now his home.

Below his grandson Cody below gets to participate in the track action on occasion. Jim was also manager on our '61 Varsity team that won the Class D Championship and the Cortland County Tournament Championship (patch eBay worthy?). Lost later to King Ferry in Regionals at Ithaca H.S. Half of our team mates came to the 2010 reunion.

Back in the day he used to come down to the house and push our old 88 midget racer around. I also notice that my taste for plaid shirts, dungarees, and loafers has not changed much. We change and we stay the same.

The reunion was a blast, reconnected with about 50 of the 150 there that I hadn't seen in 50 years. Fellow alum Aunt Carol Olmsted Warren was the star of the show being the oldest (89) and only member of the class of 1938. I think she gave the best talk of all. By the time my class took the stage, many attendees were drooling in their mashed potatoes. I remember Steve Sherman as shy in school, but he was the able Master of Ceremonies doing his Red Skelton imitations.

Most were locals but people also came from far and wide; Florida, Tennessee, Alaska.  KAPL Nuclear Engineer Jim Levy couldn't drink as he was flying his plane back to Clifton Park that night. Bob Lang brought his Peruvian wife he met in the Peace Corps; has homes in Michigan and North Carolina. My class mate Jeanine Pierce Morse is President of her company, Management Recruiters near Anchorage that places engineers in jobs around the world. Another class mate, congenial Jim Holler got a hired man for the day to milk the 40 cows he still farms. Classmate Dorothy Miller Carr has a daughter that now lives 2 miles from my current home 150 miles from Virgil. Wonder if she has kids taught by my daughter-in-law?

At the old school, still used for Elementary only, the classes now seem to have shrunk. Yet the blackboards are the same as is the original tile flooring in the elementary wing. Is that possible in 80 years?

Stopped in at the beautiful new Hope Lodge at Greek Peak and reconnected with Manager Al Kryger '56. Don McKee '49 of McKee Surveyors, had just left off some 1953 information on Greek Peak. I worked for both of these guys and had done some survey work on the ski area. Don probably flew his plane in from Florida, but I missed him. I did run into John Cutler '64 in a restaurant. As an ECO with the DEC he had also taken an early retirement incentive. Brief chat with Dick and Phyllis Osbeck '55 who we last ran into in June 1981 at a poolside in Wailua Bay, Marriott Kauai Coconut Beach Kauai, Hawaii.

I have all Virgil Graduates listed on this link

Picture Notes

Kindergarten 1949-50 Quonset Hut

Left column 1: boy on desk

column 2: boy sit in back Roche?

column 3 front to back: Ray Towers, Charlotte Barnes, Jim Knapp, boy,

column 4 front to back: Edwin Endler, Jim McDuffee

column 5 front to back: Terry Olmsted, boy Westley Lang?, boy

column 6 front to back: Tom Rew, boy Jim Ray Price?

column 7 front to back: Danny Francis, Sherry McGuiness

column 8 front to back: Florence Butler, Arnie Price

column 9 front to back: Iris Ingrham, Ray Stevens, Billy Mays

column 10 front to back: Kay Carrier, Sharon Sherman

Mrs Wood

potentials? Daryl Moore, Carl Totman,

Ted Keeler, Larry Carrier, Carl Horton, Dick Ingraham, Dick Hafler, Frank Gleason, William Crosby