Stephen Day

Stephen Day was involved with golf, class representation, and one of the Big Mac Days, during his high school years. Stephen made it through MacArthur, like a lot of us, being involved, but not too involved. After all, for many of us, getting through high school was a chore on the way to the ultimate goal, which was graduating, to be followed by going to college or getting a job and growing up.

The glory years waited for most of us after Mac. Stephen writes me that he thinks his life is boring, but I disagree. Stephen's post-Mac years are rather reflective of the high points that many of us achieved that hardly feel like big deals to us, but viewed from the outside, are good mountains to have climbed.

Indeed, having had a peek at Stephen's beautiful family, he has much to be proud of, but let me get on with his overview of what he's been up to since 1965.



"I graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1971 with a degree in Pharmacy. Worked at St. Mary's hospital in Decatur for a few years. We moved to Grand Junction, Colorado, where I worked for a pharmaceutical company. In 1983, we moved to Mesa, Arizona. I took a position as Director of Pharmacy for a small hospital. Over the years, the organization grew and merged with another hospital group. Today I'm in the same position as the Director of Pharmacy for Banner Baywood Medical Center, Banner Heart Hospital, and Banner Ironwood Medical Center (opening in November). Wow, my whole life in one paragraph."

I can also add that Stephen is married to Fran LeBel Day, and they have three grown children, Krysten, Bradley, and Jaclyn.

In answer to my question about his first car, Stephen shared the following and sent a photo of what it looked like. You have to imagine the color.



"My first car was a 1960 4-door pea green Valiant 3 speed. I went to my dad one day and told him I needed a car for work, to get to school, and there was no way he was driving me on another date (due to the bad experience my date and I had when I reluctantly agreed to let him drive on a previous occasion). All the other guys had cars and I needed one too. He said, 'OK son, I'll pay half,' (then a long pause as he knew I was getting my hopes up)...then he continued, 'up to $150.'

"So I ended up with this ugly faded pea green thing. One very humid day that summer, while working downtown at Osco Drug, someone egged the car (inside). After that it smelled on the inside like it looked on the outside. To this day I blame that damned car for my lack of luck with the Class of '65 ladies! Obviously I still have fond memories of that car and the good times (and memories) that accompanied it."


This 1960 4-door Valiant is shown in "Twilight Blue," not the "pea green" of the vehicle owned by Stephen.

One final note: After my recent posting about Lynn Calhoun, I got an email from Stephen. He wrote, in part, that, "Lynn is my first cousin and he has had it pretty bad in the intervening years since high school. All of what you've written is true....Viet Nam probably triggered the downward spiral....Thanks to you and those who contributed to the piece."

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So what have you been up to in the last, well, 45 years?

Can you help us find our missing classmates?

Add your Mac '65 brief biography to the virtual and real reunion project and see your polished and edited notes published at this blog. To contact Loren Coleman or others on the Mac '65 reunion committee, please use this safe contact form here.

Thank you.

Reunion is set for June 24-25, 2011 !, Decatur, Illinois.

Life Wonders

Ah, 1965. Mick's still around from then, and so are we.

One of the benefits of reconnecting with old classmates, neighborhood MacArthur friends, and even Decatur folks you never even hung out with in the 1960s is the delight in finding out where everyone's lives have taken them.

I have been very appreciative to hear that these blog postings are getting the kinds of reactions for which I had hoped. This is mainly to cause deliberative thoughtful moments about the amazing twists and turns we have all had along the way.

Or, as Stephen Day said eloquently in an email to Keith Day, which was shared with me: "I check for an update from Loren every day. Like all of us, as I learn more of the class of '65, the more I reflect on my life and what I’ve done (and what I should have done). It’s a great pleasure I look forward to every day."

What's next here?

Moving forward with this blog, I'm going to detail some quickie bios, little capsule insights into the various journeys many of us have taken. This is not about, as Rick Livesay pointed out to me, those high school labels about who was suppose to be the "most likely to succeed." There is something very hollow about those designations from high school.

From what I am seeing, the Class of 1965 has people who made radical changes in their lives and some folks who experienced the lives they always calmly wanted. Good for all of us, I say.

Honestly, we have been successful, in a variety of ways. If we have survived, even for short lives, we have made an impact. Some of our legacies will be in our children, our labor, our good works and our bad ones. Most of all, as everyone has grown to know, it will be through those we have touched that we shall know our pasts.

We all did work in some way or another, we have created various things, some have married, most have had kids, and lots of us did what was important to us, no matter what it looks like on paper, from the outside, or to others. We are straight, gay, alone, together, separated, still married, widows, widowers, divorced, confused, centered, and more. We are human.

It seems if there's one underlying theme with the Mac '65 individuals, it is that most have ended up doing what we wanted to do and retained the ability to be surprised as to where we ended up.

The bios I'll share here will be wide-ranging, from as many people as wish to share. They will not be about bragging or comparing resumes. One of the wonderful things about being older (in years but not in our minds) is that we have no one to impress any more (except for that occasional grandchild or godkid, now and then, with tales from the days before emails and texting).

Also interesting has been to hear that someone else you went to high school with crossed paths with you in their travels, unknown to either party. For example, today, because of all this classmate connecting, I was told by Dave Wooten that he was in Enfield, Illinois, at the same time I was investigating an animal mystery there in 1973. Who could have known that our lives had overlapped way back then, without this new reunion process?



As it turns out, that tale of the Enfield horror (click on that name if you wish to read about that, as I'm not going to get into the details here) has turned into quite a story. Thanks to Dave, today, I learned that, believe it or not, a murder was part of the final events there.

Like I have found in trying to connect all the dots from our graduating class, almost ever story has ended up far from what any of us could have predicted. As we know, a couple of them have been murders and others have been sad endings, but most have not. It is time to move on to a few of the happier stories. (This is not to say I won't be afraid to following up on some loose ends in the events that have open questions, regarding some deaths we are investigating, of course.)

I am very curious about you all. I want to know what everyone has been up to and what great, mundane, routine, tragic, or intriguing things you have experienced. From what I hear, I'm not the only one interested, either.

Stay tuned.