Shawn Shepherd:
CLASS OF 1975
Stigler High SchoolClass of 1975
Stigler, OK
Keota High SchoolClass of 1975
Keota, OK
Muskogee High SchoolClass of 1975
Muskogee, OK
McLain High SchoolClass of 1975
Tulsa, OK
Booker T. Washington High SchoolClass of 1975
Tulsa, OK
Shawn's Story
My current email is shawn1729 "at" yahoo or find me on facebook "dot"com/shawn1729
After I left Stigler in the middle of tenth grade I attended Muskogee High School. The summer of 1973 I lived with my Grandmother in Keota. Fall of 1973 I attended Keota High School, but was kicked out after only about a week for having long hair, so I started at Stigler but soon I moved to Tulsa to live with my biological father and attended school there.
September 1975 I enlisted in the Air Force and served 2 years 8 months and 3 days. Almost 2yrs of that was in Northern California at Travis AFB. In the spring of 1976 while at Travis I attended an extension course offered on base and received a diploma from the local high school, Vanden. The last 5 months was at the Pentagon (Disneyland on the Potomac is what we called it back then). I received an Honorable Discharge in May 1978. I sometimes think about how different my life would have been had I stayed in. The early out was obtained due to a hardship condition.
My training in the USAF was as a computer operator, so upon my return to Tulsa I landed a job with Sooner Federal Savings, at the time it was the largest savings and loan in the state. This lasted about 10 months, since the equation of: too much money plus immaturity times too much time on my hands equals catastrophe.
In the spring of 1979 is the beginning of what I choose to call the Lost Years. Now do not misunderstand this, these years did contain some productivity. Maybe 3 or 3 1/2 years scattered throughout the 7.
Early 1986 my life changed, I moved from Tulsa to Dallas to get away from people and places. The futility of this particular ploy was lost on me at the time. But it goes even further than that for me, because as large as Dallas is, I still managed to run into 2 people that had moved there from Tulsa. Events involving my oldest son led to a move to Florida in the summer of 1989. This lasted only a few months, but Florida is a nice place to visit.
September 1989 I moved to Los Angeles, actually Torrance which is on...Expand for more
e of the beach cities. I began my career in the housing industry there. I felt like I was on top of the world, I had a job that I was good at, I enjoyed, and the money was OK. It was a job that required a certain degree of responsibility. Of course the pitfall took me years to understand and overcome. That pitfall being Alcohol, it seems in retrospect that not only was drinking accepted but actually expected. Through the next few years I worked at different apartments. Fall of 1994 I finally hit bottom lost my job and apartment and began living in a garage, in effect homeless for over a year. December 1995 I was attacked by a drug addict associate, and my jaw was broken. This event brought about the slow but eventual beginning of my recovery. The end of January, I admitted myself into the VA Hospital outpatient program for addictions. That 1 month program, of course, did not immediately cure me.
March 12, 1996 I arrived in Seattle, I had been led to believe that there was a Veterans Program here. Actually their really wasn't. After being mistreated by the administrators at American Lake VA Hospital I decided to go my own way. I spent 3 months at the Union Gospel Mission, applied for and was granted funding to go to school. I began attending Lake Washington Technical College, and then a job offer presented itself. June 27th I started working at an apartment and I began drinking again. January and February 1997 a couple of incidents brought on the reality check phase. In March I decided to quit drinking and implemented that plan of action March 23, 1997. I am happy to report I have been clean and sober since that day. Over the next couple of years I worked at different apartments around the Seattle area.
Summer of 2003 the apartment I was managing was sold and I did not want to work for the new owners, Seattle Housing Authority, so I started my own business. It has been great being my own boss and setting my own hours.
This is the condensed version, the full unabridged version is available at any time, just ask. Shawn
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