WELCOME SUNSET BISONS
About three years ago, when I previously did a Google seach on the words "Sunset High School", I got 4,090
hits. These are schools you have never heard of all over the U.S. that have
the name Sunset. Most recently I did another Google search and got ten times that number. One web site that you will be interested in is by
Bettye Brewer Olive '45. At
Bettye's home page you can find email addresses of ex-Sunsetters from all classes, check
out who in your class is online, and view or sign her guest book. I am sure there are
some other web sites listed for our Sunset, but I just quit looking. [Note: Today (08-01-07) Bettye informed me that she has taken down her Sunset web page. It seemed that some members of the younger classes had put some remarks in her guest book that were inappropriate and vulgarly suggestive. She decided it was not worth the hassle. That is a shame. It's our loss. And, to the young twits that did it. You don't deserve the right to call yourself Bisons.]
Since my previous search, there have been several Wikipedia entries made about schools named Sunset High School. One of the new entries obviously was done by a Dallas Sunsetter. It gives an abbreviated history of the school, the names of some famous people who attended, and various activities of Sunset alumni groups and students. For those not acquainted with Wikipedia, it is something like an online encyclopedia. It is an example of anarchy in action. Anyone can post a topic to Wikipedia. And then, anyone else can edit it. It is monitored to remove obscene and treasonable material. Otherwise, it operates pretty much unstructured. To take a look just click on Sunset. You will be rewarded by a picture of a vintage post card showing the building in its early days. If you click on various links on the Wikipedia Sunset page, you can find out such things as the enrollment patterns of Sunset and the middle and elementary schools that feed into it. You might be surprised by the info you find.
This page here is simply an adjunct to the newsletter put out by the classes of
1938-1946 (plus some others). Several of us work on the newsletter which goes out twice
a year to about 2,000 people. I long have wanted to put one out more often but have never
been able to do so for a number of reasons. A big reason is the cost of postage, at least
$750 per issue. It's not that we don't have the money. Our readers are very generous
with their voluntary donations. As a matter of fact, we have not had to make an appeal
for funds in nearly 15 years. How many other organizations can say that?
Recognizing that more and more of our former class members have Internet access,
either directly or through their grandkids, I decided to try this method of getting the
word out on happenings about Sunset and Dallas. Once before I tried to distribute
an electronic newsletter to about 100 Sunset people via electronic mass mailing but
gave it up. Keeping the email addresses updated got to be a hassle and the current spam
issue is making electronic newsletters less and less popular. This way, anyone who is
interested can bookmark the web address or put into his or her favorite's list and check
in when they want to. There's no cost, either.
This probably will be of more interest to those graduates who live outside Dallas and
Texas (and there are a lot of them). Most of the stuff that gets in here comes from
local news sources, t.v. and local newspapers (Dallas Morning News, Dallas Observer,
Oak Cliff Tribune, etc.) and the locals have already read it. I will be able to
include more pictures here. There just isn't room in the print version. Inevitably,
a lot of these entries will be repeated in the printed newsletter (except for the
pictures), so bear with us. If you find this useful, let me know. If I'm not doing any
good, I've got other ways I can spend my time.
Roy Hayden Kinslow '42
rkinslow@flash.net>