The Rock Wall

This week we have Caroline Kealy with us, an MU Journalism student who is going to help us with our internet presence. She is a native of Chicago and really likes our small town. One of our first chores was to teach her how to say El Dorado.  She and Kimball are hatching big plans for future projects. She has met the boss, Reese, and has her approval.

-Sharon Toliver Henderson called me one day last week and asked for the original of the photo and story we had in the paper about the 50th wedding anniversary of our classmate, Janice 

Coale Rice, and her husband, Doug.  Only problem, it was all news to me. The celebration a couple of weeks ago was arranged by their daughter, Chelsey, and their daughter-in-law, Melissa, who lives in Utah. The girls wanted to keep it a secret but Doug and Janice found out the day before. Sharon said there we hardly any of our classmates there. Do tell. But Janice counted 80 people, Doug said.

I told Sharon that we are friends with the Rice’s and go to church with them. I called Doug on Friday and we talked at least a half hour. He was going to leave it up to Janice whether to give me a photo and article to run free. At the time I sat down for our weekly chat, I hadn’t seen it. Kimball had received it and saw that it also had my name on it. Only problem, Janice sent it to my old socket.net address we haven’t used in several years. She sent it to Kimball’s correct address: sunpub@centurylink.net. I guess they must be in some organization together. My email address, if you care, is kwlong@centurylink.net. The general address for the newspaper is sunpub@centurylink.net. To be safe, please ask us to confirm receipt.

Remember that we go to press Monday evenings so  our deadline is noon Monday.

While we were talking, Doug told me they were married Dec. 27 fifty years ago. Doug was 25 and Janice was 23 when a mutual friend introduced them. He said that when he saw Janice walking up, something said to him, “You’re going to marry that girl.”

They have a daughter, Chelsey, who lives in El Dorado Springs, and a son, Todd, who lives in Utah and pastors a church there. Todd met his wife by photo. DeWayne Burdette, who was our pastor at Concord for several years twice, went to the church in Utah to preach. He took a photo of Todd to a young lady who went to the church in Utah and he gave her photo to Todd. It worked.

I’ve talked to several people who didn’t know about the event and said they would have gone. We would have. Doug thought Ron Swopes did an outstanding job of hosting the event at Circle S. Now you know. Guess the younger generation thinks everybody is on facebook or some other social media. Not quite.

– I saw a picture of a girl wearing an Auntie Acid T-shirt (who looks a lot like Geraldine, auntie not the girl) “Everyone says you should follow your dreams, …so I’m going back to bed.” KL