William Bates:  

After graduating SHS in 1960, spent four happy years ar Our Lady of the Valley H.S. In Orange.. Although it required two bus rides each way, it was well worth it since the Valley was a great school with talented faculty and super classmates. Some of us still keep in contact via Facebook and this year our class of '64 celebrated our 50 year reunion; nearly 40 classmates attended. From the Valley it was to Montclair State for B.S. dual major in Speech and Speech Therapy. After a year or so at Purdue University the draft found me in the Army; basic at Fort Dix, Advanced Training at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana and, following that, my first assigment for nearly one year at the US Military Academy at West Point, NY. It was great duty working for the Adjutant General of the academy. Then, a transfer to Darmstadt, Germany where I worked in Operations and Intelligence S3 for V Corps Artillery HQ until my discharge in 1971. Purdue welcomed me back and I completed my MS in Speech Pathology in January of '72. As luck would have it, I found a job in Rolla, Missouri with a regional center of the Department of Mental Health and began working as a Speech Pathologist. I married Susan Wagley in Rolla in 1974 and we celebrated our 40th anniversary this past June.In 1989 I became Executive Director of the agency and became responsible for 75 employees and n...Expand for more