Benjamin Stevens:  

This is Benjamin Stevens, my sister is Eleanor Stevens Jackson (Sr 73.) I am the youngest of twelve children. My attendance at Grand Prairie High School was the years 1969 7th grade to 1974 ending my Junior year. I was privileged to work three consecutive summers (1972,73,74) with the NYC Program doing janitorial work with Mr Soileau and Mr Ivan who were very good to me. I will always remember them. I won the election for Student Council Vice President on May 1974 (a major VICTORY!) but did not get to serve my term because in August of 1974 I realized that my family was moving away to Lake Charles. That is probably the worst thing that could happen to a SENIOR. I left a class C school of fourteen seniors to go off to graduate with strangers at the class AAAA Lake Charles High School (Wildcats) with a graduating class of THREE HUNDRED. The experience was actually bitter-sweet. I never ordered a new class ring, I kept the Grand Prairie one. I was exposed to much more academically and I was actually noticed by the teaching staff and the honor students. This was the point in my life that I felt that I had actually grown up. I went to school in the mornings (08:00-11:00 A.M.) and had a job in the afternoons and week ends-BUSY! That whole year I stayed in touch by letters with my Grand Prairie High School senior class. I actually came back to visit about a month before our graduations (April 1975.) August 1975 was off to Southern University A &M of Baton Rouge. I reunited with so many students from past schools attended. I had attended Plaisiance and Paul Lawrence Dunbar Elementaries and GRAND PRAIRIE and Lake Charles High Schools. My major started out in Medical Technology but after the lab introduced me to testings as blood counts and urinalysis, it reminded me of the smells of the farm-- S...Expand for more