Randy Gillespie:
CLASS OF 1972
Elida High SchoolClass of 1972
Elida, OH
Randy's Story
What have I been up to?? Although nothing spectacular, I've led a pretty interesting life. On my eighteenth birthday, I was drafted with a number of 32. My dad said "Join the Army and die, or join the Navy and have an experience". Two years and die or four years and live. So I arrived in Charleston, S.C. after boot camp in Orlando. Walked up the peer and saw my wooden ship, the USS Fidelity (MSO443). 172' long and a compliment of 65. I was seasick for two of my four years on board (I also don't get in the water anymore). A year after joining the Navy, I married Vickie Mechling (remember her?). I had a beautiful redhead little girl (Nicole) and now I have four grand kids in Ft.Collins, Co. After the Navy, I left Panama City, Fl and because Nicole was only a few months old, we moved to Columbus Grove to be closer to family. That only lasted a couple of years, because I was buried under 20' of snow. Moved to Denver for a job and been here since 1978. I was lucky in my career because I could type. My second year in typing class I was able to hit 80+ words per minute on a manual typewriter (thanks Elida), and I have used that to working with computers. I worked at Chevron, Texaco, HP, Northru...Expand for more
p Grumman, and Compucom as a computer and printer repair technician. I've been fortunate to love my work.
After my divorce in the early 80's, I started playing softball. I averaged over 200 games a year for over 20 years. I was lucky to be able to play at a high level until quitting at age 50. I can still play frisbee and ping pong and I'm into gardening. I have a Salsa garden (and about everything else), and I try to can over 200 jars of salsa a year (the hotter the better!!!). I go to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta every year (about 30 years now) and just enjoy life. I've thought of some of my classmates over the years and often wondered how they all did. My two best friends in high school were Denny Brian and Randy Smith. Whenever I traveled back to Lima, those two guys were always the ones I made sure to see. I was distraught when Randy passed. The biggest nice guy I ever met. And Denny, who can't love a guy who thinks it's normal to jump out of perfectly good airplanes. I was such a pure nerd in High School. Still have a picture of me when I worked at Elida setting up the video equipment. Black horned rim glasses, skinny and a sweater. Yep - the highlight of my Elida experience!!
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