Herbie Lanoux:
CLASS OF 1969
Paxon High SchoolClass of 1969
Jacksonville, FL
Herbie's Story
I left Jacksonville in September 1969 for school. Berry College, an extremely conservative school which I hated. I transferred my junior year to West Georgia College. I had a motor cycle accident in 1972 in which I was pretty banged up and left school to pay off the hospital bills and moved to Atlanta.
I worked several office and bank jobs, and began dancing in a local nightclub show at which time I finished my degree in Psychology (1978) and started my masters program at which time I discovered I was not cut out to be a psychologist and began performing full time.
I moved to Miami in 1979 to choreograph and perform as male lead in Mel Black¿s Jewel Box Review. I stayed for 3 months and then moved to New Orleans.
I went from performing in review type schools to theater at which time I also had day work to support my habit by working banks etc. while doing theater at night until I got my first national tour. I worked in bars as a bar tender on Bourbon Street between shows, I worked locally and toured out of LA, Houston and Dallas until 1985 when I moved to Granbury Texas to join the company of the Granbury Opera House. I acted choreographed and danced built sets. I left there in 1986 to tour with ¿A Chorus Line¿ in which I played Paul San Marco, Bobby Mills, III and Greg Gardner. I then returned to New Orleans to work full time in Theater at the Rose Dinner Theater, Minicapelli¿s Dinner Theater, Le Petit Theatre, NOCCA and Theater Marigny. . I did the original choreography for Ty Tracey¿s ¿Lamora and the Kiss of the Voodoo Queen¿ which ran for 2 years. I also did set designs for local productions, choreographed, acted and directed. Won several awards.
I moved back to Granbury Texas in 1987 and stayed for another year, and then moved to Fort Worth where I worked in the set shop for Casa Manana and Stage West. We built the sets for a touring company of ¿Dream Girls¿, mounted Cathy Rugby¿s first production of ¿Peter Pan¿, among many others. I also continued to perform in the ¿Rainmaker¿, ¿Fallen Angels¿, ¿The Seagull¿ and toured with the Fort Worth¿s Opera production of ¿Rumpelstiltskin¿ to name just a few. Iwas fortunate to work with many "famous" people, Van Johnson, Tim Conway, Tom Postan, Debbie Reynolds, Gloria Gaynor, to name a few.
I moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in August, 1989 as technical director for Theater Tesseract. Even though our audiences grew and the productions were of A1 quality, th...Expand for more
e City took the building back and did not renew our lease and the theater closed. I also worked at the Skylight Theater and Fireside Theater during this time. but did not perform any longer.
At this point in my life I was tired of moving and tired to being alone. I decided to return to school and looked around for a promising career that did not involve relocating and travel. II became a paralegal in 1991.
I met my current partner, Robert, in 1992 on a visit to Atlanta and I moved back to join him shortly thereafter. Robert is an architect.
We have been together for 26 years now and have two fabulous children Our oldest Daniel is 19 years old, and is from Romania and is autistic. Our youngest is David. He is from the Ukraine and is 16 years going on 40.... Those with children will figure that one out!
We were in Romania in June, 2001 for 1 week. We returned home on a Saturday with Daniel and international adoptions from Romania closed the following Wednesday. The adoption was final before we went to Romania.
I had to go alone to Ukraine in 2003, in which I spent 5 weeks during the adoption process. We did not get to review any children until I was actually in the country. I returned home with David to introduce him to his new family. Thank god for email and cell phones. Robert and Daniel were virtually with me the entire time even though they were still here in the US.
It was actually kind of cool being in a former communist country by myself. It was real easy to get around and there were always people who spoke English in the big cities. However, when we were in the small towns and villages it was harder. I traveled most of the time with a translator, but was always a cell phone call away if she was not there. In Kiev which was my home base, I had to navigate alone unless I was actually in the adoption process, i.e. meeting with the adoption committee, judge, orphanage, etc.
Both boys are incredible joys in our life.
We are involved in the community and schools. I was president of my neighborhood association which actually consists of 5 intown neighborhoods. We are both school room parents and actively support our children and teachers.
I have been with my current law firm for 11 years as a paralegal and systems administrator.
I am currently 6' tall, 175 pounds, 33 inch waist, grey and have a mustache (which I have had most of my life since leaving high school in 1969)
That¿s about it.
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