Frank Casias:  

it through. If you ever saw "Animal House", we were it. I could put a name to every character in that movie.It was the hardest thing that I ever went through, but I wouldn't give it up for a anything. It was a time in my life for making lifelong friends . We still get together annually for a golf tournament weekend and every 5 years we hold our fraternity anniversary gala. Brothers come from whereever they are, just to tip a few and remember the "good ole days". We've lost a few along the way but we remember for them. SCHOOL YEARS I attended St. Thomas, from 1958 to 1961(grades 1 to 4). Sister Desailles was the school principle. Had a close friend named Tony, who was from Spain. He played the accordion, which he would play at the Christmas program. The school was next to Normandy playground, where a lot of us would get involved in their May Day event. We moved during the summer of '61 to the San Fernando Valley. I attended Melvin Ave. Elementary School for the 5th & 6th grades. Here I had a Mrs. Wong for 4th and Mr. Harold Raskin. (which by the way, my son had when he was in the 5th). Though I was there for only 2 years, I made several friends, one of which is a good friend of mine to this date. During these years, President Kennedy was shot, the Beatles came to America. I graduated from Melvin and attended John Sutter Jr. High School, which was a distant walk. But I enjoyed the shops that I took there, wood shop, metal shop, print shop, drafting. I got involved in the drafting area that blossomed into taking architecture and electrical drafting. While at Sutter, I lettered in baseball, football and basketball. A couple of my teachers/coaches I later had in high school. Due to a problem that I had in my 1st year of school, (which when we moved to go to St. Thomas for the 2nd grade, the nuns felt that I was not up to their 'standards, holding me back to repeat the first grade. When I returned for the 8th grade, they advanced me up half a semester, so I was now an 'A8'. So when it was time to graduate from Jr. High, it was in January. I graduated on Friday and the following Monday, I was in high school. (what ,,,no vacation?) I attended Grover Cleveland High School, in Reseda. I set my major as a Mathematics majors, minoring in Spanish and architecture. At first I struggled with the higher maths but soon caught on. When it came time for gym, I got involved in the sports program. I tried out for baseball, but was outplayed by players who had been in little league most of their youth. So I joined the tennis team and played doubles. In the fall I went out for football and made the JV team, as a lineman. I later moved to defense as a linebacker. I eventually lettered in Varsity. When I was in the advance classes for architecture, we were approached by one of the other shop teachers to re-design with complete plans his cabin at Arrowhead. So, we organized ourselves as a 'firm', with each person taking on a different aspect of the project(i.e., framework, interior, foundation, etc.) we got the plans approved by city hall and over the summer he had the cabin done. In the fall he invited our 'firm' up for a weekend. When it was time to graduate, January 1970, we were the last Winter Class to graduate. We were only 263 members, since a lot of our class had elected to either graduate in the earlier June or wait until the later June. Two weeks later I was in class at Pierce Jr. College. Majoring in architecture. But I had classes everyday in all sorts of hours. which made it hard to get a job. I changed my major to computers, then to accounting. I took a break and got a job with a friend of the family, he was a company's Controller. So I got my taste of working in an accounting firm, though I was not actually doing the book keeping, I was sending out to clients records about some of their clients credit reports. I got involved with doing inventory of all the offices assets. It was a learning experience, which I didn't use until years later. But I liked having money in my pocket, so I went to work in the aerospace industry and was there for 39 years.