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Rick Cooke
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5440
Sandstone Court |
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5440
Sandstone Court |
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What song
most reminds you of your school days? Smoke Gets In Your Eyes |
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What teacher most influenced you? Minnie Lee Morgan |
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Which
reunions have you attended? 25th |
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Which did you enjoy most?
25th |
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Fondest memories of your days at Central: |
| My life since graduation: —Abbreviated
Version On graduation I left for Harvard, not knowing what it would be like to compete with others who all were at the top of their class. I was overwhelmed and left after two years, coming back to Chattanooga. With my Central Digest experience I was able to get a job on the Chattanooga News-Free Press and worked along side Floyd Keith. I also sang in a folk-singing group with Bob Gaston. After a year I went back to Harvard and graduated in 1967, just in time for Viet Nam. Fortunately I was in Army ROTC and came in as a military police officer, although I never served in an MP position. While at Ft. Gordon, GA., where I served for my entire two years, I met my wife, Hannah. We were married in 1968.
My first job was as a communications specialist for the Coca-Cola Company
in Atlanta. Five years later I began a career in the insurance industry
with New York Life. Later I became
a regional marketing manager for a life and property casualty insurance company
and took a job transfer to Manassas, Virginia, where we have lived for the past
twenty-two years. Ten years ago I
opened a local insurance agency for Allstate.
We lost our oldest daughter, Lucy, to leukemia two years after graduating
from James Madison University. Our
family faced some dark days during her two-year fight, bone marrow transplant,
and ultimate death. Only our church
and church friends saved us from self-pity and turning away from God.
Our other daughter, Laurie, graduated from Clemson, and now lives in
Alpharetta GA., with her husband, Dwayne, whom she met in a freshman calculus
class, and their two children. As
most of you have found, grandparenthood is great, causing normally intelligent
and mature adults to be absolutely stupid around small children of their
descent.
Two years ago I sold my insurance agency and began working part time for
my church as Director of Lay Ministry and director of a food ministry.
In my spare time I write and teach some insurance license courses.
Hannah commutes into Washington DC where she works for the National
Retail Federation, a trade association. She
will be able to join me in semi-retirement in a few years.
We enjoy traveling to see the grandchildren, skiing, and getting together
with my college roommates, their families, and Central friends, with whom we
meet every two years. I took up fly
fishing a couple of years ago. It
was cheaper than golf. There are no
greens fees on the rivers in the Shenandoah Valley.
I’ll throw out some memories: ROTC,
and sponsors—thank you Dottie. Girls
in club uniforms around the rotunda. The
lunch room. Mr. Hoodenpyle. Mrs. Haskins. W.
Hobart Millsaps (there was a guy with class.)
Football—games and practices. Basketball
games. The Digest and The Champion.
So many more memories!
I make an annual fishing trip with Aaron Masters who
lives in Pascagoula MS. We take his
boat and run into the bayous and Pascagoula River and occasionally into the
Gulf. We haven’t caught many fish
but enjoy talking about old times at Central.
He remembers a lot of things that I have forgotten, or remembers things
differently than what I do. Or he
lies. |