Gail Davison King Medlin:  

For those of you who don't know, I was born in Toronto, Canada and came to the U.S. when I was 4 years old. Since both of my parents were born in England and I was born in Canada under the "Dominion", I have dual citizenship (Canada and England). I don't have any plans to live in Canada again but I just didn't feel right about renouncing my Canadian and English citizenships. I still have my green card and travel on a Canadian passport. By the way, the "green card" is no longer green but white with a blue stripe! I love to travel but never seem to have enough time and money to travel to all of the places I would like to visit. I traveled to Europe in 2002 and visited family in England, and my husband's family in Munich, Germany. We also had the opportunity to visit France, Austria and Italy. I had planned to visit Toronto a few years ago but my husband was diagnosed with Stage IV Colon Cancer and our plans were put on hold. I'll tell you more about that later. I attended Lincoln, Arcane,Simi Elementary and Vista. I learned to play the violin in 3rd grade. I was in Brownie, Girl Scouts and Cadets and have found memories of camping trips, earning badges and cooking. Sixth grade was my favourite year! I'll never forget Mr. Dreever! I'm sure that Margie Girardo, Scott Smith and Ed Stanley enjoyed that class, too. It was Mr. Dreever's first year of teaching and we ruled the school! There were only about 17 of us in the accelerated 5th/6th class. I also played violin in the District Orchestra. I also went to Valley View Junior High and played the violin in the school orchestra. I sang first soprano in the church choir and was very active in the Church Youth Group. I attended Moorpark College immediately after high school and received an AA in Business Administration. I had planned to transfer to CSUN to obtain a Bachelor's Degree in Business. I began working for a local Insurance Agent during college and decided to make insurance my career. I attended company sponsored insurance classes since no formal insurance degree was available at CSUN. I planned to obtain both CPCU (Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter)and CLU (Chartered Life Underwriter)Designations and obtain my insurance license but I was told by upper management that I would just get pregnant and leave so I was not eligible for the program. It really was an Old Boys Club back then. By the age of 21 I was the office manager at the local agents office. I was a Songleader on the Moorpark College Cheerleading Squad in 73/74 and in 74/75. The first year on the squad was a lot of fun and I became friends with the squad as well as many of the football players, wrestlers and basketball players. We traveled to "away games" and my favorite was the weekend in Palm Springs for a football game. Since we cheered for virtually all sports, I kept very busy. The second year would have been fun too, but I broke my arm while riding my boyfriend's dirt bike at Muntz Cycle Park (anybody remember that place?). I had compound fractures of both bones in my left arm, had steel pins and was in a cast for 4 months. That was the end of cheerleading. I met my husband, Mike King, at Moorpark College in May 1974. We dated for 2 years before getting married and would have been married for 37 years in August 2013. Sadly Mike passed away from colon cancer in January 2013. We have one daughter, Christina now 27. My husband was born in Munich but he became a U.S. Citizen when he was 18. His father was an American Serviceman and his m...Expand for more