Keith Harris:
CLASS OF 1982
New Lexington High SchoolClass of 1982
New lexington, OH
Keith's Story
School
Andrea Clowers was my biggest crush as I recall. I felt I was missing something special when she left New Lex. I have always thought that she was the most beautiful girl that God had ever produced. I would bet that, were she to be repeatedly run over with a truck and then set on fire with rocket fuel, she would STILL had made my heart race from her beauty. I first really noticed her in about 4th grade. But, she certainly was not the only one, not that it would have made much of a difference if the girls knew how infatuated I could be with a few of them... I was never the kind of guy the girls took notice of, ever during my school years. Most people thought that I was so confident, only because I was always joking around about something. This, of course, was the mechanism I used to hide the fact that I was very shy and introverted for the better part of my youth. I started coming out of my shell only in my Senior year. I did have so many people I considered good friends though. I'm not one of those guys that felt that he was picked on or made fun of all the time, but I'm sure that would have been different if I didn't have that class clown ~ court jester kind of personality!
In Junior High... Mr. Wolfe, the Art teacher was my biggest teacher inspiration. For many reasons! Many reasons! How many reasons Harris??? Many reasons... Many Reasons! Funny - Happy and Crazy memories throughout the school years were too numerous to mention. And in High School, it would have been Chuck Deizman, or Steve Allen. (Even though he failed me TWICE in American History.)
After school, I continued in foodservice work, that I had started at Luigi's Pizza when I was 15, then on to Cheney's Dinnerbell. Then, lucky me... I was one of the first hires at the New Lex McDonald's that opened up in October of 1982. Man... If I could go back and change anything in my life!!! I transferred to Mount Vernon to open up a new location there as a manager, which is where I met the girl who ended up being my lovely wife Darcy in 1988. I then moved to Newark f...Expand for more
or a short time when we purchased the 4 restaurant locations there. I finally left McDonald's in 1995, after putting in 13 hard years. I finished that chapter in my life as Maintenance Supervisor over 9 of the McDonald's locations. I had injured my spine in August of 1993, which consequently led to several back surgeries, the first and second of which were in 1995. In that same year, as I worried about my future, I encouraged Darcy to open a nice little boutique we called "The Carousel Children's Resale Shop. It soon bacame apparent that I could not physically do the same kind of work, so after I was released to try a return to work in 1997, Uncle Funky's Pizzaria was opened and was quite successful, but due to the physical work, I ended up needing yet another surgery and elected to close the restaurant in hopes of opening it back up at a larger location, when I recovered from the 3rd back surgery... That recovery just would not come, so I went to work with Mid-Ohio Transit Authority (MOTA) in 1998. This is Knox County's Public Transit System. I loved this job, but after just over 6 years, I finally had to retire under OPERS Disability, from my System Administrator/CEO position in May, 2004. I still suffer severe chronic pain daily and now I only leave the house about once a month for doctor's visits. It's not exactly the life I had imagined for myself. But, I have too many blessings in my life to complain about too terribly much! I have two brilliant sons; Josh 19 and Taylor 15. Darcy and I divorced in 1999, but she has since, had two small kids that I absolutely adore too. Symphani, she is going to be 8 on February 11th, 2010, and Phoenix who just turned 4 in December of 2009, both of which are just too adorable to explain. Kids just grow too darn fast! I own a beautiful home in Mount Vernon, too many wonderful friends to count, and I have still not lost hope that maybe one day I can get my health back together and have some of my physical life back. I always welcome prayers and believe that they have power to heal! Blessings!!!
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