Doug Mix:  

My family moved to RR Robinson in 1970, and I was lucky to spend my last 2 years of high school at Hiawatha High. Played on the football team where we beat my old school in 1970, but lost to them the next season of the '71-'72 school year (that would be Nemaha Valley in Seneca, KS). After high school I went pretty much aimless for about 7 years, then met my wife of the next 32 years, and we now have 2 married daughters and 3 grandchildren with another on the way. After getting married my wife Lois and I went to Pittsburg State University, and finished college in 1984. She graduated first because she was in line just ahead of me. She became a teacher and has taught in Kansas, Arkansas and Ohio over the years, and continues to this day with the Cleveland (OH) Public School System. I ended up with a degree in Manufacturing Production Technology-Metals from Pitt State, and went to work managing foundry operations in a western Kansas ductile iron foundry. After about a year, I switched jobs, and started work for the Poulan/Weed Eater company in Nashville, AR. That job had us moving back and forth from Arkansas to Ohio (2 times in each state) until health problems led to an early retirement in 2008. In 1990 my heart started giving me fits, and I had my first open heart operation 7 days past my 36th birthday. That was a triple bypass operation followed by a sternectomy that was necessary due to a penicillin resistant staff infection that was contracted during the initial operation. This was no fun whatsoever, but was followed 10 years almost to the day later by a series of heart catheter procedures and the installation of 10 stents in various locations around the heart. By the time this series of malfunctions was concluded, three different doctors were urging me to back off of work, and pursue an early, disability retirement. This I did at the end of 2008, and I miss my work and fellow employees, but I don't miss traveling 3 to 5 days a week year around and all the stress and worry of constantly arguing with governmental environmental agencies throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico. My favorite memories of Hiawatha include the beautiful trees, the old school building (3 floors? I'm not sure I remember), the extended lunch hours we had to get away from school because we didn't have a cafeteria (I think it was condemned, not sure of that either). Lunch with JT Bradley, Jim Benson, Neil Tewes, playing pitch and riding in JT's Ford Falcon remain great memories for me. Simple memories, but resistant to the passage of time. Mr. Couch, our soci...Expand for more