Mary and Bill Pattillos celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary on June 21, 2007. This is a picture of the happy couple at the event. They live in Sacramento, California. Bill is in the class of 1941. We exchange emails with Bill from time to time and have mentioned him several times in the print version of our newsletter. We are glad to have a picture to show you. Email your congratulations to the happy couple at billpattillos@comcast.net. .jpg)
When Bill saw his picture here, he said he had one he liked better and sent it along. In the pic, Mary and Bill are offering a toast to us during a Panama Canal cruise they took in August. Don't they look spiffy all decked out in formal attire? Which picture do you like best? They are very happy in each one..jpg)
This is a picture that Bill took about 1940 at Dal-High Stadium (later renamed P.C. Cobb Stadium). He didn't give me any details but at least one of the individuals is a Sunset cheerleader. Does anyone recognize her?
This is a photo I used in the newsletter several years ago and I have forgotten the story behind it. That's Dan Patton at the wheel. I don't remember who Felker was. I have asked Bill to refresh my memory so I don't have to go through all the back issues of the newsletter.
I took the following photos after the Veterans Day program at Sunset on November 12th. My pics of the bronze plaque honoring WW2 Sunset boys who were lost during the war are posted on the News and Events page. I wanted some up-to-date pics of the front of the building on the Jefferson Blvd. side.This is the building entrance we are most familiar with from our days at Sunset. It is still being used by those who care to climb all those steps. There is limited parking on Jefferson. There is ample parking behind the building. I don't know why there is not a flag flying from the flag pole, especially since it was Veterans Day. Remember how every morning someone would blow a whistle and everyone would stop and face the flagpole. Then an R.O.T.C. squad would raise the flag. On Thursdays, parade day, they would slowly raise the flag while the band on the parade ground would play the national anthem. A new student entrance, complete with metal detectors, has been constructed on what we would call the "back" of the building.
A couple of senior classes contributed the sign and marble plaque. Another class mounted the plaque on the brick structure.
This is a five-foot high bronze bison contributed by a senior class. It is located inside the student entrance. The frame on the wall behind the bison contains a ribbon commemorating the opening of the remodeled building last year. It is signed by all the dignitaries that were present. Ruthe Thompson Jackson '38 signed it.
This painted bison is from a mural on the side of a building facing the parking lot on the back side of the campus. Its design is now used by one of the Sunset alumni groups for their logo. The complete logo says "Sunset Bisons" showing that the "English correctness" police are not in charge any longer. Some years ago someone pointed out that the word "bison" is both singular and plural and that there is no such word as "bisons." The "old" new entrance (which was torn out during the latest remodeling) had the word "BISONS" set in stones over the entrance. The English PC people complained and the "S" on the end of "Bisons" was chiseled out. There is a good picture of the campus from the old, old days at www.sunsetap.net (I'll change this to a link later but for now you will have to type in the address in your browser window). It is taken from the northeast corner and shows the building from that viewpoint before the tennis courts were installed. That would be sometime in the early to mid-thirties.
Here are some pictures from my files. I hope they don't duplicate any photos you can find on the Links pages. Some of these pictures are from past events that I did not have room to put in the print version of the newsletter. If you have any photos you want to share, send me a copy and you will see it here.
Clyde Perkins '42 in full bike riding gear. Clyde took up bike riding after macular degeneration took his eyesight. He only had left his periphral vision. He still wanted to get around and do his errands without having to depend on his wife to drive him here and there. He took up the challenge of riding in century races (100 miles) and rode in several including the infamous Hotter 'n Hell in Wichita Falls held in August. Clyde wore a little rear view mirror clipped to his eyeglasses. He said he couldn't see where he was going but he had a great view of where he had been. Unseen potholes in the road ahead made riding very exciting. One time he had a flat tire at the beginning of a race. He had purchased a "leakproof" tube just to avoid such a situation. He managed to fix the flat and remount the wheel just by feel. Imagine that! To participate in a century ride requires at least 1,500 miles of training rides. Quite a feat for an old guy. Clyde has finally given up doing the century rides but he still straps on his helmet and rides around town. Good going, Clyde.
The Ivan Greenhaw Award. The brass plates on the sides of the trophy are inscribed with the years far into the future and await the winning students' names to be etched there.
Here is the presentation of the Ivan Greenshaw Award to the Sunset principal. Pictured from left to right are: Don Martin '51, Margie Greenhaw (Ivan's widow), and Sunset Principal Tony Tovar.
The Greenhaw family with Principal Tovar. Son David on the left holds a picture of his father in Sunset football gear. Daughter Sarah is on the right.
Principal Tovar holding the trophy. Note Principal Tovar's cool Sunset suspenders.
This is a recent photo of the Sanger Trophy in its restored glory. The caption accompanying the photo said "The Sanger Trophy is an almost-forgotten piece of Dallas history. But Sonny Kemble remembers it well. 'As far as athletics was concerned, it was the biggest thing in Dallas,' said Mr. Kemble, a coach at Sunset High School from 1949 to '55. 'When your school got its name on it, you were the big dogs.' The trophy, long believed lost, will return to the public sphere today for the first time in more than two decades."
This is a grinning Don Martin '51 at the time the trophy was turned over to the curator of the Old Red Courthouse Museum. Don did a lot of leg work tracking down the location of the tropny, even going to San Marcos, Texas to interview a former teacher at Sunset who had some knowledge of its tossing as though it were trash. Don and Sonny Kemble '42 eventually found the trophy as well as other trophies and Sunset memorabelia in the boiler room at Sunset.
[Sorry about the fuzzy picture. When I scanned her picture, I could not remember how to call up the descreen filter to get rid of the moire pattern that occurs sometimes when you scan a half-tone picture. I'll have to get out the old manual and try to do better.] This is Louise's Sundial picture when she was named most popular senior girl at Sunset. Her activities as listed with her graduation picture in the January 1940 Seniors section of the 1940 Sundial says "Cheer leader, '39; Senior Play, '39; Safety Queen, '39; One-Act Play, '39; N.F.L. Declamation; All-Round P.E. Girl; Secretary of II-A Class; Secretary of Thespians; Secretary of IV-B Class; National Honor Scoiety; Student Council, '39; Linz Pin, '39."
This is a more recent picture of Louise taken from a web page that describes her acting career. It says "Louise Latham, a Texas native, made her New York debut in Major Barbara directed by 'Charles Laughton and subsequently played many roles on and off Broadway. In the Los Angeles production of Sam Shephard's