Wayne Adams:
CLASS OF 1966
Hialeah High SchoolClass of 1966
Hialeah, FL
Henry H. Filer Middle SchoolClass of 1963
Hialeah, FL
Schallert Elementary SchoolClass of 1960
Alice, TX
North Hialeah Elementary SchoolClass of 1960
Hialeah, FL
Wayne's Story
My father was a career Navy man so we moved around quite a bit. I was born in Jackson Memorial Hospital, Miami, Florida. Because of the various places my father was stationed, my brother and I were "Navy Brats." I attended numerous schools listed below.
SCHOOLS:
1) North Hialeah Elementary 1954 - December 1955 (1st grade and half of 2nd grade).
2) Private Spanish Boys School in Barcelona, Spain; January 1956 - June 1957 (2nd half of 2nd grade and all of 3rd grade. Si, yo hablo, leo, y escribo Espanol. I can, in fact, do arithmetic in Spanish without translating to English.
3) One room school house in Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera, the Bahamas; 1957-1958 (4th grade).
4) Kleberg Elementary in Kingsville, Texas; 1958-1959 (5th grade).
5) Schallert Elementary in Alice, TX; 1959-1960 (6th grade)
6) Dubose Jr. High in Alice, Texas; Sept. 1960 - Dec, 1960 (1st half of 7th grade).
7) Filer Jr. High in Hialeah, FL; Jan. 1961 - June 1963 (2nd half of 7th grade and all of 8th and 9th grades)
8) Hialeah High in Hialeah, FL; 1963-1964 (10th grade)
9) Ballou High in DC; Sept 1963-Nov 1963 (Part of 11th grade)
10) Groveton High in Groveton, VA; Dec 1963-June 1964 (11th grade) Note; I am not interested in contact with anyone from this school except for one person.
11) Hialeah High, Hialeah, FL; 1965-1966 (12th grade), Class of 1966.
I didn't really immerse myself in school life and activities, so the only club I joined was Civitan. There was also that brief stint on the basketball team in Junior High in Texas, but lack of height, skill, and talent ended that in a hurry. The basketball experience taught me how much splinters in your butt really hurt. Also the school safety patrol at Kleberg Elementary where we got to wear a shoulder belt with badge, and carry a traffic flag on a long aluminum pole. As I think back on it, it was terribly unsafe sending elementary school children out to control traffic flow, never the less, the badge was cool. Plus, I can boast that no one was run over on my corner during my watch! :-)
I Attended the University of Miami where I got my BS in Professional Chemistry and became a chemist. Anyone who really knew me knew I would end up in a career in the sciences.
I received an MBA (Operations Management), and an MS (Physics) from FIU. I Considered pursuing a PhD in electrical engineering when a professor recruited me, but realized that quitting work and becoming a starving graduate student was not the life for me, especially at age 46.
JOBS:
My first job while in Junior High was paperboy for The Miami News (1961-1962). During college I worked as a gas station attendant, bag-boy and stock-man at the Publix in downtown Hialeah, printers assistant at the old Hialeah Journal, and Lab Technician in the Florida Department of Business Regulation drug testing laboratory.
I took two years off after my sophomore year in college to work as a research lab technician in a paint and coatings laboratory.
After completing my BS, I got a job as Senior Chemist in the same drug testing lab I had worked in during college, until I realized how miserable the salary was gong to be. It turned out that the salary I was quoted was not the bi-weekly salary (the state of Florida pays every two weeks) but the monthly salary.
I then got a job as the senior chemist at the Dade County Se...Expand for more
wage Treatment Lab on Virginia Key. That lasted three weeks. I didn't want to be known as that "Sh*t Chemist" for the rest of my life, as my friends started calling me. Worse than that, I used to eat lunch at a nice restaurant near the Seaquarium where I struck up a relationship with the waitress. The second week on the job, the city provided me with a nice white uniform to wear around the lab, which I made the mistake of wearing to lunch. As soon as the waitress saw where I worked, she avoided me like the plague. I knew I should have opted for the impressive white lab coat!
After three smelly disgusting weeks, I quit, and became a research and development Chemist for three years at the same paint and coatings company that I had worked for earlier. Somewhere along the line I decided management was for me, so I went to school at night and got an MBA in operations management from FIU. Worst career choice of all time!
After graduation in 1979 I spent a few miserable years as Special Assistant to the Plant manager at the old General Portland Cement plant on Krome Avenue. I always thought stories of burnout were pure BS until I burned out.
Eventually I became a high school Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, and occasionally, Math teacher. My closest friends are not surprised by that either after enduring constant talks (more like lectures) on every new discovery ever made in science, plus a myriad of other subjects. LOL I retired at the end of January 2015 after 32 years.
My dream career was to be an officer in the Navy Nuclear Power Program. But I was 28 days too old to enlist. What?! Yes, 28 days. I visited the Navy recruitment office at age 26 in the summer of 1974, I was told that the next Nuclear Power class started on February 1, 1975, and that recruits had to be under the age of 27. I turned 27 on January 3, 1975, so my career aspirations were dashed to the rocks by 28 days.
PERSONAL:
I never left South Florida, Why leave a tropical paradise that tourists pay money to visit?! I lived in Hialeah until 1999 when I married for the first time at age 51 and moved to Pembroke Pines.
I have no children since age 52 is a little too old to start a family, although my wife is 18 years younger than me. I can just see me, at age 70+, attending my Child's graduation riding a Hoveround. (ROFLMAO) "Hey Billy, it's nice your Grandpa came to your graduation."
I grew up attending the Lutheran Church, my wife was a Baptist, so we ended up becoming Presbyterians. I immerse myself in church activities, even serving as a ruling elder for eight years. I am devoutly religious as well as being an ultra conservative Republican. I guess that makes me one of those ignorant, hayseed, Bible Thumping, gun toting rubes that Obama likes to denigrate.
When I'm not "hiding in my closet clutching my Bible and gun", my interests are astronomy (Like no one saw that one coming. <VBG>), computers, computer games, hockey (Go Tampa Bay Lightning), automobile racing, science fiction, and wood working.
If you haven't realized it yet (were you paying attention?), I have a warped sense of humor. After all, when life hands you lemons, suck on them and use that puckered face to scare everyone around you while you laugh as they go running and screaming from the room.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!
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