Bill Cox:
CLASS OF 1969
Whitesides Elementary SchoolClass of 1969
Mt. pleasant, SC
University of South Carolina - EngineeringClass of 1980
Columbia, SC
Wando High SchoolClass of 1975
Mt. pleasant, SC
Bill's Story
Life
It was a dark and stormy night......
Now that I have passed the magical year of 50, hard to believe I made it. But what a ride. After high school got an engineering degree and went to work for Westinghouse, traveling the Southeast as a field engineer repairing those turbines make the electricity that keeps the lights on. Got to live in Miami, Birmingham, Rock Hill, Orlando and now back to Rock Hill.
Siemens purchased the Power Generation portion of Westinghouse.
Got married, found someone crazier than me. Katherine has stayed with me for almost 25 years now. We had a son who passed away at the age of 8. Was a tough time but we got through it together and with our friends.
Currently the turbine operations manager at the Siemens plant in Charlotte, NC. If you are in Rock Hill give me a ring, we can sit on the back porch, watch the fire burn, drink a few beers, and listen to real music (rock and roll).
School
Moultrie Jr high
Linseed Oiled wood floors. Ceilings that stretched half way to heaven. Tall, really tall heavy windows (needed them because no AC, except for the trailers). Copper gravity feed fire extinguishers. Stairs and banisters (made a great slide). Sand lot playground and all caged in. The game of reflexes ¿Slap¿ (heat from the hips or heads or finger tip to finger tip and then there was palm to palm, then when really wanted to do harm: there was ¿Knuckles¿. The Gas station on the corner that was ¿off Limits¿, with it¿s gumball gambling machine. If you got the Multi color gum ball you got a quarter, A whole quarter. Not that I would know. Lockers that would jam, bring your own lock key or combo ( I had all the combos). Build shelves in your locker and be real cool.
Why did the English teacher put half the students facing the other half of the students. Didn¿t she notice the boys sat on one side and the mini skirts sat on the other? The sound of dropping pencils.
Playing the trumpet with Braces. Even the wax did not prevent the pain. Still no excuse for not hitting the notes. Sure did piss off our second band leader, after the nice Mr. Bomar. The second guy was pretty well hated especially when he made Cindy Stelljis cry for not practicing the Clarinet. Why the hell did we take Band?
Who could get the most ¿licks¿? ME
5 for sliding down the banister when the safety inspector was coming up.
5 for putting the ammonia smelling sponge cake (remember the Gym was used for Science shows) leftover from a show that happened to come into my possession and mysteriously ended up in Beth Langley¿s locker. And who had the combinations?
10 for being in the trailer during lunch. I am not going to recount that one, but the school system owes Kurt a new comb and me a new ass, wish I had carried a wallet.
1 for throwing a piece of paper in English ¿I¿ll give each of you one good reason not to throw paper in class, TAP¿. Why not half of us were facing each other, Terry catch. You have to know the rest the 1...Expand for more
0 lick story to know why it was only one and only a TAP and not a WALLOP.
There were others but got lost. The Wallops started again at Lange. Mr. Fickie was no longer in town.
Bill remorses
¿Unfortunately when we got 7th grade, was when they split Whitesides 6A in half for crowd control and that was when it was not politically correct to have the advanced class.¿
Seventh Grade:
Bill Rembers:
History Mrs., Lyon Blake- I think we had a mid year change, I got an A in the subject and an F in 'Citizenship' should have been deported.
Science Mr. Monday - He was a different kind of Guy. Class was in the trailer outside of the Band Room. He only Made it half a year, We had a going away 'party. Bill Magwood, don't know what happened to him. Brought a big bottle (back before metric) of ginger ale or sprite with supposedly vodka in it. We passed it around and then proceeded to break up the ceiling tile and throw pieces onto the ceiling of the adjacent trailer, Mr. Fox's English class, that happened to be were the other half of Whitesides 6A was having class, Charlie Ackerman was sent over to 'check it out' and reported back to Mr. Fox, "They have liquor over there." Well, it never made the paper and Coach Beaks had a private discussion with the class later in the day. Never heard any more about it.
Math J.R. Johnson- Old time teacher, ex military. I remember finding the center of an Arc. Catherine Taylor could not figure out how to do it, So we traded papers will I tried to finish her project. Ran out of time. She erased my name and put hers on my completed project and turned the damn thing in. I ran out of time and got an F on the in class pop quiz.
English Davis - That one also in the trailer, Famous Trailer of a thousand tears, where some of us got one heck of a beating for being in that trailer during lunch.
Kurt and I have already relived that one, and you had to have been there.
College
Which one?
Started at College of Charleston and many did: Tobin, Shealor, Simmons, and Beauston. Made it one whole year thinking Marine Biology was for me. Then dropped out of school for a semester. Went to USC to get my mechanical engineering degree. Member of the Sig Ep fraternity.
When I transferred to Miami, with Westinghouse, there was not much for a naive small town southern boy to do. After all I did not speak Spanish and was now considered a minority. The Cuban refugees were landing at the time and drug trafficing was big. So to kill time I started taking business classes at U of Miami, in order to get an MBA. After all nothing much to do at nights.
Transfered to Birmingham (Alabama, not England) and started to school at University of Alabama-Birmingham.
Before I could finish, I was transferred again to Columbia, and then Rock Hill. I was able to finish my MBA at the wonderful Winthrop College (now university).
So now I am an over-educated person that realizes, the College of Hard Knocks is the only college that teaches what you need to know.
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