Some Fairbrook Foxes
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
As I was chatting with my old Ankeney friend Pete Bales at the Beavercreek High School reunion on Saturday, July 17, 2010, I remarked, “no offense, but the people it means the most to me to see here are the ones that I went to grade school with.” This was an absolutely true statement in that I think that the friends that you make in childhood are the ones that really stick in your head as the most memorable. In addition to Lisa Baker, Amy Lupini, Mike Ross, Debra Prystaloski, and Missy Fodor (who can all be seen by clicking on their respective links), there were six other whom I remember best from my grade school days at Fairbrook Elementary. Here are the first three: Read the rest of this entry »
The last trio of former Ankeney Chargers are three individuals whom I didn’t know all that well during school, but who all are fine individuals who share the bond with me of having attended a half-dozen years of school together. Even if none of us were that particularly close in school, I certainly knew them all well enough – and more importantly had a great time socializing with at the Beavercreek High School 20-year reunion on Saturday, July 17, 2010. 
For about two solid years, I had an ongoing crush on Amy Lupini. Of all of the crushes I had had up to that point, Amy was the one that lasted the longest, and one of the many I never landed. Even still, I completely cherish the friendship that I had with her during my fifth and sixth grade years (in which she is seen in the class photo at right). There is no way that I could possibly have felt rejected, considering I never had the guts to tell her how I felt or put forth a request that she ‘go with’ me. So I stood by and idly watched as she went with Jason Painter in the fifth grade and my best friend Eric Welch in the sixth. Sigh. The love lessons we learned in grade school… 
When I first moved from Fairbrook to Ankeney in the Fall of 1984, our former arch rivals from Valley Elementary were converging into the same junior high. Therefore I had a whole new set of faces and potential friends and enemies. The smart kids now had more competition, the pretty girls now had more competition, and the popular kids now had more competition if they were going to be running as class officers. My friend