Keith Perry:
CLASS OF 1970
Roosevelt High SchoolClass of 1970
East chicago, IN
St. Joseph's CollegeClass of 1974
East chicago, IN
Carrie Gosch Elementary SchoolClass of 1963
East chicago, IN
Columbus Elementary SchoolClass of 1963
East chicago, IN
Keith's Story
Life
Since leaving R.H.S., I have been married twice. My present wife is also a 1970 graduate, the former Ruby Briscoe. We have been together for 22 years and have three sons together. Keith Jr.,21, and the twins, Randal and Rendell,15. The twins are autistic but are coming along fine. They are freshmen at East Chicago Central High School. Except for the years '74-'76 I have lived in East Chicago all my life. I work for the City of East Chicago Sanitary District as a wastewater treatment plant operator, and have been employed there for the past 30 years. My wife is retired from Nabisco Brands Inc. We live in the Indiana Harbor section of East Chicago, having built a house there in 1992. I became a member of the '70 Reunion committee prior to our 30 year reunion, and have been busy trying to contact lost and found class members for our upcoming 35 year reunion. I am still a musician as is my oldest son, Keith, who plays piano. I play guitar and keyboards and have done solo recording in my home studio. I plan to provide at least some of the entertainment at the reunion. My wife also has a son, Shawn, by a previous marriage. He also plays piano and is a member of the Naval Reserve and is stationed in New Orleans.I lost my father in 1990, and my mother in 2001. My eldest sister passed in 1998, and I have 3 surviving sisters and 2 surviving brothers. The family is just about equally distributed between the Calumet Region and the Indianapolis area. I usually walk 5 miles a day, which makes it easier to control my diabetes which I have lived with for three years now. I collect! I have model trains, tsll ships, Star Trek ships and memorabilia, chess games, Laser Discs, DVDs, CDs, Videotapes, Guitars, Amplifiers, computer games, I could go on and on. I attended St. Joseph's College from 1970 to 1974 though I didn't graduate. I lead a rock\soul band called Funkreaction from 1974 to 1979. My first wife wa the bass guitar player. We became very well-known locally, and rubbed elbows with big-time acts who passed through this area. (Marvin Gaye, George Clinton, Chaka Khan, the BarKays and the Isley Brothers.) The band broke up in 1979 as did my first marriage. I started playing again in 1986 along with Luther Jackson, who played with me in the band we had at Roosevelt, The Intellectuals. Two other surviving Intellectuals are active members of the Reunion Committee. Robert Lindsay, Chairman and Randy Crawford, Co-Chairman. Leonard Marks is living in Florida. He was also a member of the State Championship basketball team. Howard Dix, bass and Eddie Jackson, keyboards are both invalids. Emery Biddings and Dorris Harvey, drums, both still live and work in the area. I was a Sunday School teacher and choir member. I am an avid science-fiction reader. I watch science-fiction movies big-time. I'm not into cars very much. whatever gets me back and forth to work is good enough for me. I still dress flashy on occasions, but for the most part I'm a T-shirt and jeans type of guy. I was considerd a hippie during my college years with the politics to match, but I guess I turned conservative somewhere down the line. I still have flashes of rebellion, but my children tell me to shut up and go sit down somewhere. Oh well. I think I finally became computer literate last year, and I have only been on-line for a couple of months. After sticking my big toe in the internet for a few weeks, I'm now swimming in the deep end doing the backstroke and the butterfly. I don't remember ever talking about myself to this extent. Hope I don't sound stupid.
School
I started...Expand for more
Columbus Elementary School in the fall of 1957. Columbus was located in the New Addition section of East Chicago. It was a small school, and the student makeup was predominately black with a few Latinos that lived in the neighborhood. I lived in the Brickyard section which was approximately 4 blocks from Columbus, and 3 blocks away from the Calumet section which had no elementary school at the time after Garfield Middle School burned down. My neighborhood was called the Brickyard because of its proximity to Harbison-Walker Refractories, who manufactured bricks. I lived on Kennedy Ave. accros the street from the large sprawling Union Carbide facility which also ran the Linde Air company which was just south of the Brickyard. Our one block neighborhood also include Gannister Ct. on the backside, which faced the GATX railroad complex. My fondest memories of Columbus include the staff, Mrs. Bauer, Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Edwards, Monroe Walton, Anne Shea, Claude Anderson, Jensen Watts, Dan Orlich, Dan Holland and Mrs. Simmons. Mr. Sabik was our principal. Classmates from Columbus also graduated with me from ECR 12 years later. They are lifetime friends. Brenda Robinson, Rocharda Moore, Charles Bennett, Jackie Rollings, June Junikon, Kathy Hazley, Linda Duncan, James Bradley, Thomas Gaines, Curt Hunter, David Prey Irwin Mobley, Stanley Jones I could go on and on. We also knew the students who were older and younger since the school was so small as was the neighborhood. New Additon was about 8 blocks square. It had a swimming pool that we used profusely during the summer months. Columbus was known for their excellent basketball teams, eventually giving rise to one of the greatest basketball players ever, James Bradley. The annual Halloween party was a blast, as was the hula-hoop contest, Talent Show, and Christmas Program, organized by Claude Anderson. Columbus was also the starting point for the stellar careers of Norman Comer, and Raymond Scott, whom I am proud to have been in the first classes they taught. My first crush at Columbus was a girl named Janet Gainer, who was eventually replaced by Rocharda Moore. Beleive it or not, Rocharda Moore and I went to the Senior prom together. She was smart and fine, and is still smart and fine! I also got along well with Joyce White, who left Roosevelt before graduation and finished at Washington. I guess one of the best parts about attending Columbus was that all the students came from such large families, and the information hotline kept everybody ready for what was coming next. My own family had 8 members and the Harvey family had 9 members. We all walked to school, and sometimes their would be 20 + students making the dailey trek from the Brickyard to Columbus. The saddest note of the Columbus experience was when my best friend and next door neighbor, Donald Anderson, who we called Beanie, died of Rhumatic fever. Mrs Shea was our gym teacher. Columbus only had one gym, so the boys and girls had gym together. After they expanded Columbus, we had shower facilities. I remember Mrs. Shea coming in the shower because us guys had been in there for about 40 minutes just playing around. We were more shocked than she was, and that situation never occurred again! Eventually, she left for ECR and was replaced by June Moore. My mother was president of the PTA and my siblings and I were always under scrutiny. We still got away with stuff. I spent the first five years of my Educational life at Columbus Elementary before transferring to Carrie Gosch in the 6th grade, but that is another story. Look for it.
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