Classmate Biographies

Our people’s lives have taken them so many directions since we last saw them. We hope that you enjoy hearing about them and will want to contribute some news about yourself. Here are some of the many we hope to receive.

Others may be read by clicking on the links shown on the left below.

Walter Bodine

Children/Grandchildren (Names and ages): Ray (35), Don (33), Ken (31), Jon (30, if he is still counting; he died in a diving accident in 2000), Steve (27). Grandchildren (Ken’s): Wiley (3), Kody (1).

Everything we have always wanted to know about you but were afraid to ask: My guess about what people most wanted to know about me is why I was so insecure during high school. I suspect that many of you noticed it in my frequently awkward behavior. In brief it was because of the first ten years of my life as an only child with an alcoholic father and an invalid mother who didn’t plan on me, blamed me for their problems, and abused me. At ten they gave me to a relative of my father’s who raised me in the pleasant environment of her boarding house on McNeil in mid-town Memphis. Aunt Pearl never married, provided a home away from home for a multitude of men who came to Memphis to work, and freely shared all she had with me. She was a marvelous foster mother who died while still caring for boarders at eighty-seven shortly after the Lord led me to my beloved Betty.

I have forgiven my parents. I believe they tried to do the best they could for me with the burden of their own unresolved issues, but I have carried the wounding of those early years on the inside. I credit my recovery to the Lord, who has been a promise-keeping Father to me since January of 1953. At that time a Christian businessman spoke on Wednesday to our assembly at Snowden Jr. Hi, which some of you attended as I did, and on the following Friday night at Bellevue Baptist Church. I attended that Friday night meeting at the invitation of Dorothy Lancaster, our music teacher. The speaker told of the wonderful things Jesus does for people who invite him into their hearts, and I knew I needed what he was describing. When an invitation was given, I hurried down the aisle. What Paul wrote in his second preserved letter to Corinth (5: 17 in my literal translation) is proving true for me: “If anyone is in Messiah, that one is a new creation; the old has passed; behold, the new has come.”

Although I have been conscious of the Lord’s presence since that Friday night, I didn’t grow much spiritually through my high school years. Only during the summer after graduation when David Robertson and Jeanette Pierce (now Jeanette Robertson) invited me to their summer Bible study and prayer fellowship in their homes did my life in Jesus take off. David and Jeanette were a year ahead of us at Central. Many of you will remember them as outstanding people in their class. They were enthusiastic about being Christians, and I tasted the joys of knowing the living Christ in an ongoing relationship.

My journey since then has been a long one of gradual growth both in my relationship with the Lord and in finding relief from the inner pain that has dogged my steps. I retreated for my first year of high school to Tech and then found my way back the next year to Central. The friendship of Jon Simpson (my first lasting friend, who lived near me on McNeil during my early years there), Fred Guyton, and Gordon Stamper sustained me through Snowden and my two years at Central. Jon and I stay in touch; I admire Fred at a distance; and I would dearly love to hear Gordon play the piano again. I thank everyone of you who welcomed me back and showed me kindness during our years together at Central. I have thought of each of you and missed you many times.

I am very grateful to be alive today. In 1989 I was healed of untreatable, terminal illness when a prophetic minister who had never met me called me to stand up in a congregation of several thousand and spoke my healing. Inner healing has come more slowly. John Wimber ( a beloved spiritual pioneer of our generation who is now in heaven) prayed for me in his hotel room during a conference in 1985, and the Lord completely removed the inner pain that was at that time making me almost non-functional. My relief was total for a year and a half, and then I began to feel again the discomfort of underlying issues. The same minister who had pronounced my physical healing in 1989 spoke over me again in another large meeting of several thousand in 1990. He called me to stand by my first name which he then knew, and then by revelation spoke my middle name which he did not know and the names of two of my children which he had never heard. He addressed me with the promise that the Lord was going to heal my “innerds” and that he would bless my children. At that same time I was led into several years of counseling to surface and address the issues beneath the pain. This deeper healing has been gradual and is still going on. I am eager to live as long as I can and to offer every day to the Lord who has done such beautiful things for me.

Mine is a Christian story. I would very much like to hear the stories everyone of you have to tell, from whatever perspective you would tell yours, and look forward to going to the website when all responses are in. I cherished our last reunion (my first); thank Joy, Billy, Sandy, Honey, Gail, and all others who cooperate with them to make these precious times happen. I regret not feeling free to attend this one, but hope to make the next and wish you all a grand time together.

My favorite Central High School Memory: My favorite memory is class discussions with Dorothy Metz, who was genuinely interested in what we thought about the literature we were reading and who instilled in me the importance of such things as a personal sense of values. To hear what others of you thought, have freedom to express my ideas (although I cannot remember whether I ever spoke), and receive Miss Metz’ insights in such a fertile environment was invigorating. .
 
Please Email Your bios

Classmate Biographies will be continually updated as people share the events/activities in their lives. Please feel free to write a short message
or email them to me Billy Schaefer. Don’t worry about how they are written. If something needs editing, it can be. And if you so desire, send a digital photo.