James L. (Jim) Beasley (1967)

Update on our Florida house and Hurricane Ian:

We were at our Missouri house on Table Rock Lake when Ian went through our Florida area on September 28.  When utilities got reconnected, I headed back down on October 21, with lots of equipment to clean up our property.  I made in 15 miles in Missouri, hit a deer, and totaled our SUV.

It took from then until the first of December to get the insurance settlement-ish, get a replacement vehicle (200 miles away in Tulsa), get the title sent to us in Florida, and get it registered, December 22.

The good news is that when I got back to our Missouri house on October 21, the phone rang, and a church group from Peachtree City, GA, wanted to know if we still needed our property cleaned up.  After service that Sunday morning they showed up with chainsaws, a mini excavator, and a crew of workers, and did in 2 or 3 hours what I could not have.  They facetimed us around the property before and after.

When we got here last week, our house was the onlyn one on the block that had all the debris hauled away.

Our Snowbird friends came down before us and fixed a few things that still needed fixing, and I'm still working on them.  It's still a mess down here, and a lot of what used to be here is gone all around us.

Anthony N. Woloch (1972)

Thank goodness for good people doing good works for you Jim in your time of need.

Michael Connelly (1968)

That's a lot to go through Jim, hopefully it's all in the past and you can look forward to a Happy New Year!!!

James L. (Jim) Beasley (1967)

80° and I am feeling better!  

James L. (Jim) Beasley (1967)

If I have not mentioned it already, Mike is still the second leading career rebounder in Class 3A:

Class 3A

Art Sathoff Iowa Falls 1984 488

Mike Connelly Urbandale 1968 457

He also had 31 rebounds in a game in 1968.  A friend of mine, Lloyd Thornburg of Pleasantville, had 32 in 1966.

James L. (Jim) Beasley (1967)

James L. (Jim) Beasley (1967)

I'm sorry I can't find the post, but for whoever mentioned the Weston WannaB Inn on Manasota Key/Englewood Beach, it has been closed since Hurricane Ian, September 28, 2022, more than five months now.  They have been doing bajillions of dollars of work on the place, and we just noticed their new sign says Manasota Key Resort.

There's still a lot of recovery to be done in SW FL, mostly Fort Myers Beach to Venice.  Englewood was hit very hard, and dozerns of structures are gone.  I was "watching" from afar, on Windy.com, and the wind speed at our house was 140 mph.  Our wind was from the north, the "dirty" side, so although we did not get storm surge, everything is leaning to the south.  If you do not know where you were going, it is hard to get around because so many street signs, traffic signs, and street lights are still down.

FEMA trailers are just recently getting deployed, and most of them are still in storage lots.  FEMA has put some victims in resorts.

Fort Myers Beach will never be the same.  I first visited in 1976, and decided I would live here some day.  Five years from now it will be "mid-rise", corporate resorts, another playground for the well-to-do.  It has been a place for the common-folks.

Now we're having the worst Red Tide ever, so beach-going and boating are out.

James L. (Jim) Beasley (1967)

James L. (Jim) Beasley (1967)

Anyone remember the chemistry teacher in the mid 60's?

I believe his name was Charles Day, but I'm not finding a record of him?

Jack W. Gowan (1981)

Jim, I'm not sure when he started, but Charles Day was a science teacher when I was there (77-81). I beleive he was there when my sister (76) was, too. I think he was old enough to have been there in the '60's.

Debra June Betz (Ciskey) (1975)

Mr. Day was the Chemistry teacher..  He ran for the state legislature, unsuccessfully, in 1974. I had him for Chemistry that year and worked on his campaign, stuffing envelopes and the like. Perhaps someone with older yearbooks could take a peek to see how far back he goes. 

Michael Connelly (1968)

Jim,

Charles Day it was 

Anthony N. Woloch (1972)

Mr. Charles Day was my chemistry teacher during my sophomore year (1969 - 1970) and my advanced chemistry teacher during my junior year (1970 - 1971) at UHS.  He wore a long white lab coat in class.  His classes were not only educational but fun, including the memorable 2 fruit fly (male & female) experiment put in a test tube filled with banana auger nourishment.  Thank you Mr. Day!..  .

James L. (Jim) Beasley (1967)

OK, my little geeky side.

Mr. Day had another job, for a company downtown.  Something chemistry related.  I had an ongoing Science Fair project in his lab there, and I would go there in the evenings.  I'm not sure how I had time to do all the things I did.

The project had to do with converting the condensation from cooling plants, like on the roofs of downtown buildings, to hydrochloric acid.

Or, I just dreamed that I did that!!!!!

Debra June Betz (Ciskey) (1975)

Mr. Day drove a car that had a diesel engine. My dad pointed that out to me when Mr. Day stopped by our home one Saturday to drop off yard signs to distribute for his campaign.  I really don't know what make it was but it might have been but I remember it was an import. 

Jerry Stuckle (1970)

Yes, it was Charles Day.  And he was running for state legislature in the 60's, also.

I still remmeber the first day of class where he would have a battery connected to a couple of electrodes immersed in a tray of soapy water.  This caused electrolosys, which resulted in bubbles of oxygen and hydrogen forming on the surface.  He used a meter stick with a spoon attached to scoop up a small amount of suds and hold them over a bunsen burner. 

The resultant bank could be heard well down the hall, even with the classroom doors closed.  I wonder how the biology class reacted - they were in the next room with a small connecting room that contained the chemicals used in the classes. :)

James L. (Jim) Beasley (1967)

I guess I didn't dream it then!

Anthony N. Woloch (1972)

Great story Jerry!  I wonder whether or not Mr. Day had warned the pricipal, vice-principal, and/or resource police officer ahead of time.  They were much different times, reasons, and reactions for surprise loud bangs..  

Debra, your observation of Mr. Day's diesel engine powered car was also very interesting.and sparked a real or imagined similar memory with me.  Maybe it is because diesel-powered cars were a pretty rare site in Central Iowa back then, just like Pete TenPas' late 1950's BMW Isetta or Mr. Babcock's new Triumph sports car.  Did Mr. Day perhaps drive a Mercedes?  Being a chemistry teacher, he probably understood the diesel cycle of fuel/air combustion and its advantages over the Otto cycle.  

Sometime during 1969-1972 high school, some of my classmates and I had campaigned door-to-door for Mr. Day who was running for elected office.  We were transported to unfamiliar neighborhoods in Mr. Day's home district, talked with residents, and handed out printed information. 

It occurred for an unsucessful election to the State of Iowa legislature, so we can probably do the math to narrow down the possible year(s), backtracking from the Debra's aforementioned 1974 election. 

Jerry Stuckle (1970)

Anthony,

He was there during my sophomore year, 1967-69.  Don't know how much earlier he was there.

And there was no school resource officer at the time.  We didn't need one. Mr. Watt was our principal.

James L. (Jim) Beasley (1967)

Roy (?) Peterson was our Principal.  Mike Connelly might remember a meeting we had with him the morning after a wrestling meet at Saydel, at which some members of the Urbandale football team made an impression.   

Anthony N. Woloch (1972)

Thank you for your comment Jerry.

I think we got a school resource office sometime during my senior year 1971-1972.  I did not find out till I read about it and saw a photo of the officer in our 1972 Echo Yearbook.

Anthony N. Woloch (1972)

Mr. Ernest Doringsfield? was our pricipal and Mr. Long was our Vice Principal at UHS ("Go Blue Jays!".  Both have since passed on.

James L. (Jim) Beasley (1967)

Senior year . . . I had the required credits for graduation out of the way, but wanted to stick around for, let's see, oh yeah, Football, Basketball, Golf and Baseball.

I took classes like shop (Mr. Hand), typing and Home Ec (Brain fart, can't remember), stuff like that.

As president of the Student Council, I pretty much had an excuse to go wherever and do whatever.  It was normally to the audio/visual closet, to watch game films with Rich Custer or Steve Winfrey or Gary Hintz.

After a year off from serious studying, my first quarter at Iowa State was a shock.  That's when they liked to thin out the herd.

Anthony N. Woloch (1972)

In the Fall of 1972, the Mechanical Engineering Department at Iowa State University said its ME Department had about a 60% attrition rate for aspiring freshmen (i.e., 40% survival rate).. 

James L. (Jim) Beasley (1967)

I started in ME, and taking a year off from serious study did me in the first 1/4.  I went to I Ad, and finished in I Ad/Econ.  Then I did a bit of Graduate work in Labor Relations.

In the early 70's Iowa State had some very prominent people in Politcal Science, Law, Economics and Labor Relations.

The Business College at Iowa State is now one of the best in the Nation.