Mary Spiking:  

Life Well, to be quite honest, I didn't actually graduate from Center, but I spent twelve years of my life (K-11) in the school system. Boone Elementary, Center North, and Center Senior. Always a Yellow Jacket! I lived at 9120 Western Hills Drive. My parents sold that house, and built a home in Northwest Mo (King City) as that was where they wanted to retire to. So my senior year, I graduated from King City R1 School District. I went from Big KC to Little KC! I did return to Center for the Class of 1976 Commencement exercises. It felt strange to sit in the audience watching all my friends getting their diplomas, I kind of thought at one point my name might be called. I'm sorry to say that I lost touch with all my friends that I grew up with over all these years. Actually, there is one Classmate I have talked to a couple of times, but he is really busy. Jim Montee has his Law Offices in many of the communities in NW MO. After HS, I returned to the City to attend Floral Design School in Grandview. At the present time I own and operate two Floral shops. One in King City, and one in Maysville Missouri. In 1978, I married a wonderful guy that grew up on a 1500 acre dairy farm. Yep, you guessed it, Mary was driving tractors and milking cows!!! Nothing was greater than all that. A four speed, 3/4 ton pick-up was our main transportation. lol Any of you that knew me very well knew I was somewhat of a TOMBOY growing up. Well, I guess that came in handy. Even moreso when my brood ended up being three boys. In 1998, we sold the cows and rented most of the crop ground out. My husband, Larry, is a production Supervisor at the Johnson Control Battery Plant in St. Joseph, MO. Our sons all gr...Expand for more