June 14, 2008 by Jim Wilks.

The Class of 1958 will hold their 50th reunion this year on Sept. 27th at the Oswegofest. If you were in that class, please contact your classmates and pass the word. More info later.

Jim Wilks - 1962

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April 22, 2008 by Jim Wilks.

I am getting a few e-mails from different classes wanting information about upcoming reunions. Anyone with information about the 10, 20, 30, 40, and up reunions, please drop me an e-mail at wilks@oswegoalumni.org. and I’ll get them added to the OHSAA Web site.

Jim

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April 22, 2008 by Jim Wilks.

Last year (2007) Wanda and I took a well deserved cruise to Alaska (I highly recommend this for everyone). Upon returning to the lower 48, we decided to have a little more fun as well as earn a little travelin’ money, so we went to work for (SDC) Silver Dollar City in Branson, SW Missouri. Wanda hired on as a park auditor and I as a ride operator. After a few weeks as a ride operator, I unfortunately hyper-extended my right knee. The doctor said I needed to be in a position where I got more and a different type of exercise. I then moved to the parking lot in SDC where I parked buses and valet cars.  We both liked the atmosphere and people of SDC so much that we committed to come back again in 2008.  We did and haven’t regretted it yet. Wanda still works as a park auditor and I am in the parking lot, still!!  I now operate trams, trollys and buses as well as park buses and VIP cars. If any of you ever consider working an “extra” job, Silver Dollar City & it’s subsidaries (Showboat Branson Belle, Celebration City, White Water & Ride the Ducks) would be an excellent choice. Click on the link and check them out http://www.bransonsilverdollarcity.com/

Y’all ever get down to Branson and the “City” look us up. We’ll be more than happy to visit with ya.

Jim & Wanda

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November 6, 2007 by Jim Wilks.

It is no longer a rumor about the Alumni Reunion date change. It is confirmed! The date for the 2008 OHS Alumni Reunion and Banquet will be held on September 27, 2008 (the last Saturday in September each year). This will coincide with Oswegofest each year.
So, make plans for this event and we’ll see you there.
Questions, comments??

Jim - 1962

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November 4, 2007 by Jim Wilks.

There are rumors that the 2008 OHS Annual reunion has changed dates from June to September. I am in the process of verifying this rumor. Will advise when verified.

Jim - OHS 1962

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July 27, 2007 by Jerry Jinks.

I see that there has been nearly 3500 logons to the Alumni website but only a handful of postings. The Oswego Alumni are sure a quiet group.

Jerry Jinks

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July 20, 2007 by Jerry Jinks.

The class of 1961 held its second reunion on Saturday, July 14. We met at the Best Western motel in Parsons. Several of us met for dinner the night before with the “official reunion” starting at 3:00 the next afternoon. A sizable number of the class attended including classmates who now live in California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Illinois, Missouri, as well as Kansas. 

Another visual record of the event will be compiled and we could really use any photos you might have from high school days. Digital copies will be best but if you want to send the photos to me by mail I will scan them and return them to you. Send them to:

Jerry Jinks

1910 Deer Cove Ct.

Normal, IL 61761

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July 8, 2007 by Jim Wilks.

     I can well relate to Jerry’s comments about being “Technologically Challenged”. I never thought I was untill the day came when I knew I was! Working for the Union Pacific Railroad back in the “80’s, we (the UPRR) had the latest and greatest in computer techology. Always keeping pace with the business world, the mighty UPRR was constantly upgrading their computer systems. It was really nice as all the programming was already setup for you. If you wanted to write a letter, you simply accessed the “letter symbol” on your screen (much later I learned it was called an “icon”).  If you wanted to save all your work for later use you just pushed the save button and the computer saved it to your screen. (boy we’re talking old stuff now, green screen and all)            

     After a few years of this type of computer use, I figured I could use a computer at home. My lovely, precious wife went to Radio Shack and bought us a TRS80 II Color Computer with 64k Ram. Yep, that’s right, it was a COCO 2. As I recall, it used cartridges and didn’t even have a floppy drive. Well, needless to say, I wasn’t the computer guy I thought I was & through complete frustration, the COCO 2  lasted only a short time.             

     A little later, in 1987, we bought a Hewlett Packard 8086 with 640k of Ram (we’re blazing now) and a 20 mb hard drive with a printer for the amazing price of $2000.00. The guy at the store said, and I quote “You’ll never fill up this hard drive”. Even today, I laugh everytime I think about what he said.           

     Well, being an avid UPRR computer user and thinking I knew all about computers, I quickly found out just how ignorant I really was, and “technologically challenged”, yea, I was. You see, the UPRR computers were on a mainframe with everything already setup on them so anyone could come in and write a letter or a file of some sort. I was using just one of their many “dumb terminals” (all tied to the main frame) If you could figure out how to type, you could use their computers, it was that simple. (remember, this was all before windows was introduced).  When I tried to use my new “top of the line” Home PC, was I in for an awakening. I knew how to start the thing (push, where it said power) and that was the extent of my home computer knowledge. (we’re talking early windows V3.1)where there were no icons, you started programs by going to the c:/ prompt and typing a name for the program. Yes, I tried reading the book, boooorrring, and confusing, to say the least. I had a “friend” at work that was truly a “computer guru”, and I would ask him every day how to do different things on my computer and all he would say was “Read the book”. After several times of hearing the same thing from him, I quickly learned to stop asking him. My wife happened to work for Farm Credit in Wichita and they had just switched to the windows based computers. So when she learned at work, she came home and showed me. From there it was all uphill, trial and error, lots of miscalculations, unintended deletions and more computer crashes than I care to remember. I remember saying to my wife one night, after a particularly trying evening of trying to do what we thought we wanted to do on the computer and then learning that I had just deleted an entire days work, “why are we punishing ourselves, we bought this  @$#%$@^$  thing to help us and it’s only making me mad”.       

     After much trial and error, in 1995, my wife and I started a home based business, www.SBRco.com , that relies heavily on the computer. We do things now that 15 years ago we didn’t even know existed. Graphic design, photo restoration, desktop publishing, E-business, website design and publishing, “blogs” and the list goes on & on & on.                

     “Technologically Challenged - Me ??”, sometimes, I still feel as if I am, like when I started this “Blog site”. But I got over it!!!  Just like Jerry said in his post, I’m still a long long way from being called a computer guru, but I’m working on it.       

     Jerry is absolutely right. Anyone can learn to use the computer. And in a relatively short time. So if you know of someone who has ”thought about it” but never tried it, have them “think about it again” and this time take that first step. It’ll open up a whole “ ’nother world”.                

     Over the years, if there is only one thing I have learned, it’s that the computer is only as smart as the person hitting the keys.  Need help ??? There’s no such thing as a dumb question. The only “dumb” thing would be not to ask that question in the first place.  

Happy Computin’ and Keep on Blogging!

Jim Wilks - Class of 1962 

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July 7, 2007 by Jerry Jinks.

I just read Jim’s “About the Editor” posting and discovered that the OHS Alumni Association Blog is all my fault. Well, I have been accused of worst things and probably will be again.

Last year the class of ‘61 held its first reunion and I put up a message board on my business website to post reunion planning updates as well as other tidbits of information as they came to mind. The response to it was pretty good and I was asked to do it again in support of this year’s get together. The only problem, of course, is that those who don’t use computers can’t access the information. But, I don’t know any way around that for those who just won’t go to the trouble to learn to use the technology. I’m a long ways from being a technology guru but I’ve been using computers since before there was an Internet and frankly I don’t have a lot of patience with those who tell me that they can’t learn to use one. As I’ve commented to a couple of my OHS luddite classmates, “Give me 20 minutes and I’ll have you not only posting emails and searching the Internet but using techno-speak, as well.” So far, no takers.

Believe me, computers are easier to learn now than they used to be. In the mid-1980’s, my colleagues and I received a federal grant to set up a communications network among teachers in response to geographic isolation. We were working in Montana so there was plenty of geographic isolation to respond to. At that time, the entire population of Montana, the fourth largest state, was about 750,000 people. Teachers from all over the state brought their Apple II-e computers (a condition of participation was that the school had to provide them with one) to our institute where we equipped them with the Promethus modem (there’s a dinosaur for you) and plugged them into telephone jacks.

It was a real mess. There were power cords and telephone cables running all over the place. We had splitters plugged into splitters. The university physical plant and facilities guys were convinced that we would set fire to the place and the university attorney was sure someone would trip and sue the institution. We had convinced the state department of education to set up a computer to work as a server and promptly overloaded it leading to more negotiations with the state department to add more capability. The phone lines were also overloading so busy signals were the most common response to an access request. There were no experts to advise us so yours truly learned a heck of a lot including that when it comes to computers the best expert just might be some kid with a passion for the technology. I hired three of them to work with the project and it was a lot of fun watching an 18 year old being so patient with 50 year old teacher.  But in spite of all of the frustrations we thought we were just this side of Star Trek. And, given the times, I guess we were.

So, thanks, Jim for blaming the OHS blog on me. It reminded me of one of the most enjoyable experiences of my career so I am happy to take the blame.

Keep on keeping on.

Jerry Jinks

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June 5, 2007 by Jim Wilks.

Reunion ‘07 has come and gone, for the most part. Attendance was down this year, 75 as compared with 165 last year. This is understandable considering the price of gas. Or was there another reason? I personally know how hard your Alumni committee works to make this happen each year, and I for one, appreciate their efforts.  On another note, those of us that did attend had a wonderful time. We renewed old acquaintances, reminisced and enjoyed an excellent meal. The Class 0f ‘52, ‘62 and ‘77 held individual reunions and had a great time.

For some, reunion time is not over yet. The Class of ‘61 is having their reunion in July at Parsons. Also the Class of ‘72 is having a reunion June 15 - 17 in Oswego. Read all about these at the following link http://www.oswegoalumni.org/updates.html  then get out and GO!

For me (1962), I’m looking forward to 2012 and our 50th reunion.

Take Care and I’ll see you down the road 

Jim Wilks

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