Connie Esh, The Murfreesboro Post, August 31, 2016
Gathered for their 73rd reunion are, from left, Dottie and A. C. Puckett, Velma Cunningham, Jimmy Lawrence, guest Barbara Kimbro, Paul Dodd, Darla Cunningham and Betty Ford. JOHN BUTWELL / The Murfreesboro Post
Saturday afternoon was definitely “old school” for four of the five remaining 1943 graduates of the “Old Rock School.”
The Smyrna High School Class of ’43 gathered at O’Charley’s in Smyrna for their 73rd class reunion.
All four graduates who attended are over 90 now – but they still plan to meet again in 2017. The oldest classmate Velma Cunningham, 92, brought her granddaughter Darla Cunninghamalong.
Cunningham still lives nearby in LaVergne, grows a big garden each year – and cans and cooks for herself and her family.
“She acts like she’s 50,” quips Betty Ford – whose late husband Preston “Rusty” Ford was a member of the class.
Leads Smyrna alma mater
Driving the farthest to attend was Jimmy Lawrence, 91, of Chattanooga. He recalls that after he graduated from Smyrna, he joined the Army Air Corps during World War II and then attended the University of Chattanooga (now UT-Chattanooga).
“I just never came back,” Lawrence says. “I received a degree in voice. And I sang in the Chattanooga Opera.” And his singing skills showed when he was asked to lead the group in singing their alma mater.
In fact, people at surrounding tables stopped talking and just listened while he sang. One lady from a nearby table even came over and told him that not only did she graduate from Smyrna High 20 years ago – her son will graduate from the school next spring.
Lawrence – who has never married – remembers his first sweetheart, too. “She was June Oliver,” says Lawrence. “We met in first grade. We shared a birthday and called each other twins.”
‘Sharing a love of Vandy’
When Lawrence said he’s still a Vanderbilt fan even though he has moved to UT territory, Ford explained that her husband Rusty had been a Vandy fan as well.
The couple’s son would give his dad the books that Vandy published each year about their football and basketball teams.
Then one year, the school didn’t produce the books. Ford says when she asked her husband if he’d gotten what he wanted for Christmas, he said no.
“He said, ‘I wanted those books,'” Ford recalls with a smile. “He didn’t care about anything else he got – he just wanted his books.”
She adds that her son later created a set of books about that year’s teams in loose-leaf notebooks for his dad.
‘Roll call of five’
The alumnus who called the roll at Saturday’s reunion – Paul Dodd, also 91 – lives on a nearby farm. “I don’t have much to tell,” the soft-spoken 1943 graduate said. “I still live alone. Nothing’s changed.”
The fourth classmate present Saturday and organizer of the reunions is A. C. Puckett, 91, the former mayor and 35-year postmaster of LaVergne. He brought his wife, Dottie Puckett.
Class president 73 years ago, Puckett still presides over the reunions. He says his biggest events in the past year were recently having his life story published in The Post and learning a new card game to play with Dottie.
The fifth surviving member of the class of 36 graduates, Burton Johnson, was not able to attend Saturday at O’Charley’s.
‘Traditions continue’
With four graduates and six guests, it was a much smaller gathering than the one that the Class of ’43 held in 1986 for its 43rd reunion – held at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville.
But Puckett presided over that one, too – and no doubt the 46 graduates and guests also sang the alma mater back then, written by graduate Robert F. Vaughn.
“On the city’s southern border, reared against the sky,” Lawrence led the remaining graduates in song Saturday, “proudly stood our alma mater, as the years rolled by. Forward ever be our watchword, conquer and prevail – hail to thee, our alma mater, Smyrna High – all hail!”
Writer Connie Esh can be contacted at [email protected].