junior class secretary in 1963? seriously?

Sheila Morris April 7, 2019 8 Comments

I would like to say this was photo shopped by my friend James Ray Couser from West Columbia, Texas when I saw it on his Facebook page today, but I pulled out my 1963 Gusher yearbook and there it was…

Okay – whoever thought up this pose for the Junior Class officers must have been smoking something other than cigarettes, and why I was holding a farm tool that was as tall as I was…well, all I can say is that I’m glad Charlotte and Claire thought it was funny – even then.

Thank you, James Ray, for resurrecting this picture. I have had a good laugh and enjoyed a flood of memories surrounding that time, place and the people in my life when I was seventeen. As you will probably remember, I will be 73 this year – actually two weeks from today – so this is a timely reminder of earlier days.

Stay tuned.

Published by Sheila Morris

Sheila Morris is a personal historian, essayist with humorist tendencies, lesbian activist, truth seeker and speaker in the tradition of other female Texas storytellers including her paternal grandmother. In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press published her collection of first-person accounts of a few of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBTQ+ organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBTQ+ history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality. She has published five nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and two collections of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Her writings have been included in various anthologies including Out Loud: the best of Rainbow Radio, Saints and Sinners New Fiction from the 2017 Festival, Mothers and Other Creatures; Cowboys, Cops, Killers, and Ghosts (Texas Folklore Society LXIX). She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike, Charly and Carl. She is also Naynay to her two granddaughters Ella and Molly James who light up her life for real. Born in rural Grimes County, Texas in 1946 her Texas roots still run wide and deep. View more posts