Tom Lee Retirement/Lst dinner of year

Went to our first dinner of the year and we had baked potatoes and salad.  Then today Tom Lee retired and I went to party!  I even spoke and I had the room howling with laughter telling them I had been his teacher in Sunday School for over 20 years and he even cheated on a religious exam I gave them!  It has been a fun two days!  Joy from India is staying with me finishing her Masters in physical therapy!

Bruce Wayne's Musings: Dining with Jane Cooper Stacy Top 10

Bruce Wayne's Musings: Dining with Jane Cooper Stacy Top 10: Top Ten Reasons you should have lunch (or dinner) with Jane Cooper Stacy There is bound to be some reference to Charleston Missouri. If...

Tomorrow's birthdays!

Two big ones are coming up tomorrow:  Britt Cooper and Sara Stacy Dyer!   I want them both that I am on the ball--a day early!  Besides I have a houseguest coming in today for a week and then another couple!  I may have to cook a meal!

I never lose my ties to the University!

I was there too long and I can still read the signs.  I meet people on the street and they talk about what is happening in their area!  Then you go out and eat and the new group up there sits stunned by what you know about the current system that they don't think anyone knows!  People, Semo was transparent before the word became popular;  they just called it governance!  Get with the uncovering program, admit the mistakes of the past and personalities of anger and move on to give the students a decent education.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox!

Charles Wiles getting better!

Last night Bert and Mary Ann Kellerman and I went out to visit Charles Wiles who recently fell down his steps and broke his neck, hip and shoulder!  Let me tell you, it didn't affect his talking!  We got there at 5:30 and left at 11:00!  All of us old time staff members had tales to tell!

Meeting the new President

I went out to dinner last night with the new Semo President, Carlos Vargas, and his wife, Pam.  And it was so much fun, no worrying about what to say or not to say!  I said what I wanted to say and he gave me an answer!  But, in the process, we had genuine and hilarious confrontations!  I met him when he played soccer with the international students and he did not have a clue what the old lady was doing there!  I like all the clues;  I am in on this game!

Rich Payne and Lohr

Went out to lunch at Gordonville Grill yesterday with Rich Payne, erstwhile football coach with Lohr and we nailed Lohr and all his eccentricities!  I have never forgiven him for introducing me at a football assembly as the Homecoming Queen of 1923!  And I yelled out//I wasn't even born until 1938!   Lohr, you had this roast coming, besides, you came from Sikeston and paid the referees so Charleston would lose!  It's my story and I'm sticking with it!

Cooper Cousins Reunion

I went to Melbourne Arkansas yesterday to visit with my cousins and they came from everywhere, some staight out of the fields where they were cutting hay!  It was a wonderful afternoon and worth every minute of the four hours down and four hours back for a three hour stay on the town Square!  I felt a loving nostalgia of being a part of a family history!  It was a good day!  I didn't have to create a family who cared about each other;  I just had to remember I had a long history of having one!

Off to Melbourne Arkansas today!

One day nostalgia trip!  I have not been there since the kids were little!  More to come!  Daddy had four brothers and one sister, Maude!  Mama had 6 brothers and one sister, Una!  I have cousins and double cousins out the wazoo!

Survived the Martial Arts Demonstration

Last night thru the flood of rain, Raphael came to pick me up and I went on campus to see Eric Miller do his martial arts demonstration!  Both are them are pre-med students and are my scholarship recipients!  Eric made a special trip over to ask me to come!  So I went and nearly collapsed when they did their choke holds!  Later he came over to find me and see what I thought.  What I thought was only a fool would do that!  But he is my fool and I will go watch him do it again in the Macy's Lobby

in two weeks!

Missed calls sometime useful!

I am trying to go thru my phone directory and update or delete relevant information!  I am up to the d's!  This week as I was strolling down the list, I hit two numbers by mistake and they answered. We had great talks by mistake!

One was Dr. David Amberger, a Semo alumnus from Perryville who now owns Aloha labs in Hawaii and who wanted to know abou John Hinni and Mark Stacy!  I will let both of them know!

The second was my ex-brother in law, Lynn Stacy who was now playing golf after a bad surgery!  We insulted each other just like nothing had ever happened!!

Sometimes things are better unplanned!  Just roll with it!

Emergencies of the day!

I got to sleep in my own bed upstairs last night after a week of waiting for them to put in a new furnace/Ac which they did yesterday!  Then I had a tooth ache this morning!  Then I came down to find I had no electricity. And neither did any one else in the area!  

Not to be outdone I called Mark Hoff to come get me and I waved to the Ameren men working and stormed in to my dents office and they worked me in!  I think they wanted me out of the office quickly since I had no makeup on and mismatched clothes!   Dr Rick told me what I needed to get from Walgrens to deal with the irritation and as soon as 5:00 comes, I am going to start tapping the wine!

Shumate and Cheryl

Don't know where the day went but I hardly had time to breathe!  Had a houseful working on the Shumate petition  and site and it is going well!  Then I finished the day going to dinner with Cheryl Mothes and her friends and she took us to see the old Kage School that she and her husband Rick Hetzel just restored into a guest house!  Quite a night!   It's five o'clock in the morning but I can't sleep!  The men are coming at 8 to put in my new unit of Ac upstairs and I have a full day!

A woman on a mission!

My telephone has rung off the wall, I have had a houseful of people and all for one purpose:  getting Ron Shumate into the Semo Athletic Hall of Fame as an individual!  His two teams were in but thanks to the administration who forgot that they were temporary caregivers and not owners, Ron was not inducted as an individual!   Ding Dong the tyrant of manipulation is not the Presid ent of every institution!  The meeting is next week!   It looks like the people around here are finally ready to throw out the people who have silenced them!  Never know how you will be Trumped when this happens with no recourse!

Two coaches and me!

I am friends with the new women's basketball coach from Semo and the softball coach who just was fired after being here 30 years!  They wanted to meet each other and I set it up!  They hit it off!  It is tough to survive in the coaching world and they had this in common!  I bet they will be friends and it will give Lana a way to come back in to Semo athletics!  She has earned the right to be and stay a part of that circle!

International Students are here!

We had a welcome party last night at Centenary Methodist Church and greeted the new students!  Good group from India and Tibet, many who speak English well!  Check out the beautiful girls from Tibet! We have 240 new international students this semester!

Bucket List

On August 24 I am going to Melbourne Arkansas to see my cousins, Gayle Cooper et al!  I want to see them one more time!  It is on my bucket list!  Why? I don't have to have a reason to go back after so many years!  I just want to do it and Mark Hoff is taking me!  Will I be disappointed?  No way!  I will meet new cousins I have not met and expand my familial lineage!  I am my father's daughter ;  he loved his family!  His favorite words were "I like my family to get along!"  Wow!  He would hate the disaster of family we have now!

But he would love it that a trip to Izard County is on my bucket list!!!

Suffer Faithfully!

Jeff Long gave me a book for my library "Bonhoeffer" a bio about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who spoke out about Hitler and was executed!  It is not light reading!  A chapter a day is all I can do!

Today's chapter is about his idea that we should each take up our cross daily and "faithfully suffer!"  To do so is our task, our responsibility and our joy!  My sister, Julia, and I were talking about this yesterday and both of us agreed that our father did this daily without ever holding a grudge or a resentment!  Bonhoeffer went to his death with dignity and pride in his suffering!  Help me pitch resentments and grasp the day with joy!

Brianna's baby

I made a running start to Charleston this morning to see Brianna Simmons baby.  She brought the baby, Ella Mae, to Julia's house!  I also had Karel make up two pots of fall flowers for Julia's yard!  It was a fast trip but Brianna sends me pics and I love it she named her after Mama Cooper and Ellie!

I give up!

Have to put new unit in upstairs next week..furnace and Ac/. Put in in 1993!

Alton Bray and no air conditioning

Yesterday I was a sneak!  I asked Carol Robinson to go out to eat for her birthday and then asked her if we could go by the BSC to see Bruce Gentry!  She never suspected that there was a roomful of people ready to yell out "happy Birthday" and have ice cream!  Then because Alton Bray fell and had stitches, we carried the party to him at ChateAu.  It was a happy day!

Roof is on and looks good!

What a day!  I was awakened by men hammering on my roof and it looked like a war zone with men and machines for ten hours straight!  And all it cost me was my deductible!  Tomorrow Servicemaster comes and cleans and sanitizes my living room and dining room!  Then the gutters go up and the home place is done until the next mishap!

I will enjoy not spending my days with hammers!

New roof going on today!

Yes I heard pounding at six and new roof is going on!  With all my water damage, the men got on roof, saw hail damage and had me call my insurance so for the cost of my deductible, I will have a new roof!   Pic will follow later of completed project!

Today is Colin Dyers birthday!

Colin Baby spent Saturday morning when he was little in the chair with me watching DVDs and cartoons!  Today is his birthday and he is still drawing cartoons!  All that he is he owes to his patient and loving grandmother!

Tina Estrada Stacy Birthday

How lucky I was the day that Tina Estrada Stacy came into my life!  She was and is beautiful on the outside!  I learned that her beauty was not skin deep and her heart was kind!  She is fiercely loyal to those she loves and she lets me know, constantly, that I am in that group!   Have a wonderful day, Tina!  I may be in Cape girardeau but I am thinking of you with love!

I had three visits from my endowed scholarship recipients this week.

Nothing like a visit from them to keep me young!  I am going with Raphael to his soccer game  tonight and with Eric to see his martial arts demo next Saturday!  I am amazed at myself!  Nikki from China came by to say goodbye!  She is transferring to Indiana for a big Ten School!  She brought by a beautiful stone heart bracelet made only in China!

Picture of me

Debbie Bickings took this picture of me yesterday.  I was wearing the new cape that Rose Marie sent me for my birthday!

Harte and Stacy together again!

Tom Harte and I have been partners in crime forever along with Joe Low, now deceased!  Yesterday we went to Pocahontas to the Pie Safe and ate!  I had egg salad and cocoanut crime pie and I lapped it up!  We talked about food and how I used to be a good cook.  I eat out all the time now!  It was an experience!

Brianna has a baby!

Brianna Simmons and Michael Loomis have a new baby in Charleston!  Brianna is Denise Crawford Simmons daughter and this makes Pam a great grandmother and Julia a double great!  It's hard for me to keep up so I have to think it thru!  I just don't see them much!

A scholarship in Mark Stacy's name

It will be announced shortly that Bill W. Stacy and Jane Cooper Stacy have jointly donated an endowed scholarship to Southeast Missouri State University in honor of their son, Dr.  Mark Allen Stacy.  The scholarship will be awarded to a graduate of Central High School and a minority! 

Dr. Mark Stacy is on the teaching faculty of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina where his specialty is Parkinson's!   More news will follow!  Just wanted to share this with you early!

Football clinic

I went to Women's Football Clinic last night and made the rounds (did not go on the field part)!  Love Coach Tuke and saw him and visited with Georgeann Syler and Kate Ford Sanders!  Also stopped to admire the new uniforms and stopped and indulged at the Margarita Bar!

I have a house back!

Yesterday at noon they finished stretching the carpet and replacing the pad!  I went out with Sandy to a program at museum and lunch and when I got home, I texted Raphael as he had asked me to do that the carpet was done!  At four, four international students showed up and moved all the furniture back into place and hung blinds and draperies!

Heather is coming this morning and Merry Maids are coming to wash and put away glassware while I go to Hinni Funeral!   The international students would not let me give them a penny or buy supper!  I am so happy to have my house back!

My night with sisters!

Last night I took Betty Hearnes and Pam Ferrell to 37 for her birthday dinner and it was wonderful!  We all had salmon and bread pudding and it was to die for!  Then we came back to house and I showed them what I have been living thru.

Just as Betty left, Rose Marie called and asked me to sing, "say a prayer for the boys over there". Cause she wanted to play it at the Dar convention and I actually remembered it!   Some things stay with you!