(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: Pape Family, ABT 1965

A blurry family photo taken at my maternal grandmother (Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald)'s home, 1118 Bay Oaks in Houston, Texas. I'm on the far left and age 7 here.  Dad (Frederick Henry Pape) is holding my brothers Brian (2) and Mark (4).  Mom (Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape) is standing in the back, and my sister Karen (6) is at the far right.   The slide this image comes from was stamped March 1965, so the photo was taken in or before that month.

So why isn't my youngest sister Mary in this picture?  There's one of her taken in the same location (in front of the plant) with the same date stamp and just a couple slides before the group photo.  She's in an infant seat, below.  My guess is that she fell asleep and my parents did not want to disturb her for the photo above or for the photo of just us children.

© Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.

Sentimental Sunday: TAMU RPTS Stories: Hill Country Parks and a Wedding, May 1976

This isn't part of the scrapbook I was keeping as the 1976-77 Reporter-Historian for the Recreation and Parks Club at Texas A&M University, but it's an event that involved a number of graduates of that department, not to mention a couple state parks as well.

At the wedding reception:  Above from left:  Tomye Folts ('05, Master of Natural Resources Development '08), Karen Secrest (not RP), Steve Philipp (MS '75 and PhD '79, both in Recreation & Resource Development or RRD), Eva Zweifel ('71, MS RRD '76), Denise Abendschein ('76, not visible), and, across the table, Hap Weaver '76 and Curt Alling (MAg RRD '78).  In the photo below, the order from the left is Tomye, Denise, Steve, Karen, Eva, and (across the table) Curt and Hap.

These photos are from my personal album, or are images off color negatives (hence the poor quality of some).  The description comes from a letter I wrote to my long-time pen pal (also an Aggie) dated May 26, 1976:

Last weekend [May 21-23], I went to the wedding of Carolyn Vogel, RP '76 and the club's former social secretary, and Kenny Scheffer, RP '75.  It was in Stonewall.  Friday night after work I was picked up [in Houston] by Denise Abendschein, a senior and former club Recorder-Historian.  We drove to College Station that evening and spent the night with Tomye Folts, the former club secretary....we also went to the [Dixie] Chicken, where we...ran into Curt [Alling], who...was invited by Tomye to accompany us because he happened to mention that his roommate (Steve Philipp, another grad [student]), was living up there while working at LBJ National Historic Site...

We left College Station about 8 a.m. [Saturday] and arrived in Stonewall at 11 a.m.  We checked into the only motel in town ($14 for we three [girls]), which happened to be owned by the same lady who owned the trailer park Steve lived in.  The lady told us the wedding was at 3 p.m. - we thought it was 1 or 2!  So the five of us drove to Pedernales Falls State Park, about 20 miles east.  Wow, was it neat!  The river falls at about a 70 degree from horizontal angle and is fairly shallow, and the rocks it falls over are smooth--therefore, you can slide down the falls!  I wanted to really badly, but unfortunately I didn't bring a swimsuit.....

Above and below:  Steve and Curt slide down the falls at Pedernales Falls State Park.  Not surprisingly, the following year, the falls area was closed to swimming for safety reasons.

The "page 2" that is supposed to follow in the letter quoted from above is missing, but based on my photo album, it looks like we visited nearby Enchanted Rock before heading home on Sunday.  This was back before it became a State Natural Area under the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (in 1978) and was under private ownership.  Note that the sign says admission for adults is 50 cents, and 25 cents for children:

At right is a not-so-good backlit picture of Carolyn on her wedding day.  About 18 years later, my parents retired and moved to Fredericksburg, just west of Stonewall.  This area is peach country in Texas, and Carolyn's family ran an orchard between Stonewall and Fredericksburg that my parents frequented, often seeing Carolyn there helping out when she was home visiting her family.

That was enough to keep us in touch, and when I was in Texas from Seattle for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary in September 2004 (and also here for the start of my library school program), Carolyn and I got together in Austin for lunch, pictured below.

Click on the links for the underlined names to find out what some of my old friends have been or currently are doing.

© Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.

Sibling Saturday: Karen, Brian, Mark, and Me, ABT 1965

Counterclockwise from me (I'm the tallest and age 7 here) are my sister Karen (6) and brothers Brian (2) and Mark (4) at our maternal grandmother (Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald)'s home, 1118 Bay Oaks in Houston, Texas.  The slide this image comes from was stamped March 1965, so the photo was taken in or before that month.  Our mother, Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape, made our jumpers of velveteen.


© Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.

Friday's Faces From the Past: TAMU RPTS Stories - Spring BBQ, May 1976

On April 13, 1976, elections were held for Texas A&M University's Recreation and Parks Club officers for the 1976-77 school year.  Yours truly was elected Reporter-Historian (I'm pretty sure Mark Gray nominated me).  According to the Club's By-Laws (Section 2f):

It shall be the duty of the Reporter-Historian to handle publicity for all Club meetings and activities, and to produce a report of the Club's accomplishments and activities.

Well, I'd already been doing the first duty through the "Park It Here" newsletter.  I decided to fulfill the second duty by creating a scrapbook, the first pages of which appear below.  Since Section 3a of the By-Laws specified that the new officers assumed their duties at the close of the election meeting, our first task was to plan the annual Spring semester end-of-year event, which was held on May 2.

Betsy Paez '76 in white shirt in background, Walt Hood '76 in dark tank top

Steve Schroeder and incoming Social Secretary Bob Lisauckis '77 cook the chicken.

Ronnie Brown '76 dives into the pond

Incoming President John Kibler '77 presents outgoing President Joe Bihon '77 with a gift.

Trips Committee chair Ken Bible '77 pitches to Intramurals Committee chair Russ Tillman '78.

1975-76 "Best Prof" winners Jim Stribling (Recreation & Resource Development MS '69, PhD '76) and Dennis Howard.

"Best 305 Prof" B. Dan Kamp (Recreation & Resource Development PhD '73) - who else?

"Long-Standing Student" winner Hap Weaver '76 gets a kiss from incoming Vice-President Deb Cleland '78.

Department chair Dr. Les Reid presents the Spring 1976 Silver Chaparral Award for outstanding senior to Kay Evans

© Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.

(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: TAMU RPTS Stories - Somerville Weekend, April 1976

Near the end of the 1976 Spring semester, the Recreation and Parks (RP) Club at Texas A&M University had a campout at Yegua Creek Park on nearby Lake Somerville.  A bunch of us pitched tents at a group site and stayed the weekend of April 9-11.

A highlight of the weekend was when faculty member and soon-to-be Dr. Jim Stribling (who earned his masters in recreation resource development in 1969 and his doctorate in 1976) stopped by our peninsula in his fishing boat and dropped off a number of white bass he'd just caught.  Some of the guys prepped them for baking over the fire for dinner that night.


At right, RP Club Vice-President Mark Gray does some of the prep work on the fish.  

Below, Clyde Howard watches as Mark Gray starts baking the fish.

Above is the article from a late April 1976 issue of the Park It Here RP Club newsletter about the Somerville weekend.


© Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.

Talented Tuesday: TAMU RPTS Stories - The Newsletter - "Park It Here"

As an undergraduate, I attended Texas A&M University in College Station, and majored in Recreation and Parks.  Now the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences (RPTS), it is celebrating its 50th anniversary this spring.

In preparation for an upcoming banquet on April 22, the department has asked "alumni to share memories and stories of your time invested as an RPTS major and celebrate the influence that RPTS has had on your personal lives and professional career."

Given that I was extremely involved in the department, I have quite a bit to share.  As a freshman, I jumped in right away, and started a newsletter for the majors club (Recreation and Parks Society, later Recreation and Parks Club, often abbreviated to RP Club).  I used my electric typewriter to put together the master copy each week, then copies for distribution were made at the department's office.

Here are the mastheads for six of the first seven issues, stacked one on top of each other, showing the progression from "Still Nameless!" to "Newsletter Needs a Name!" to "Newsletter's Gonna Get a Name!" to "No-Name Newsletter (but not for long!)" to the winning name, "Park It Here," suggested by the RP Club secretary, Tomye Folts ('05, Master of Natural Resources Development '08).

By the beginning of the following year, 1976-77, we had a logo too:

I continued to serve as editor for this newsletter through the 1977-78 school year, my last full year in the program, as I graduated in December 1978.  The newsletter logo continued to look exactly the same as it does above (despite what the article says) during my term as editor.  By the second issue of 1976-77, however, we were reproducing the newsletter on goldenrod-colored paper.


© Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.

Sentimental Sunday: TAMU RPTS Stories - Liaison Committee, 1975-76

As an undergraduate, I attended Texas A&M University in College Station, and majored in Recreation and Parks.  Now the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences (RPTS), it is celebrating its 50th anniversary this spring.

In preparation for an upcoming banquet on April 22, the department has asked "alumni to share memories and stories of your time invested as an RPTS major and celebrate the influence that RPTS has had on your personal lives and professional career."

Given that I was extremely involved in the department, I have quite a bit to share.  I'll start with my freshman year, which was 1975-1976, about 40 years ago.

Shortly after the term began in the fall, I received a letter from the department head, Dr. Leslie M. Reid, who had started the Recreation and Parks department ten years earlier.  I had been recommended by fellow freshmen majors to serve on the Liaison Committee, a group of students that met with him to "seek and define those improvements which will foster the advancement of both educational goals and professional involvement of the students in this curriculum."

The group met regularly with Dr. Reid to "discuss student problems and praise and complaints and criticism," as described in the September 14, 1976, issue of our student newsletter, "Park It Here" (more on that newsletter in a future post).  The group had a mailbox in the basement of the department's then-building, Goodwin Hall, where students could leave their input anonymously.

The photograph at the beginning of this post is from one of the meetings of the committee when I was on it.  Clockwise from left, the members are senior Mark Gray '76,* Dr. Reid, senior Everett DeWolfe '76,* junior Robin Pfannstiel '77, senior Don Harris '78,* fellow freshman Lynn Timken '79, and (back to the camera) senior Joaquin "Jack" Cervantes '76, the chairperson (the asterisk designates members who served the previous year or years).

Here's the letter I received inviting me to join the committee:

And here's a full list of the Liaison Committee members in 1975-76 (from the newsletter I'll be talking about in my next post).  I was designated a sophomore representative because I started the year with 19 hours credit by examination.

Stay tuned for more posts from 1976 through 1979.


© Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.

Matrilineal Motivation Monday: Blurb Book for Mom

Really, it's a Blurb book out of blog posts from 2014 and 2015 that I made for both of my parents, as it does not include the posts relating to Dad's military service that are in a separate book I recently finished.

ABT UNK 5 by Amanda Pape

If the link above doesn't work, try clicking HERE, and then on the blue "PREVIEW" button.

© Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.

Wordless Wednesday: Blurb Book for Dad

The Blurb book I made for Dad (Frederick Henry Pape), out of blog posts from 2014 and 2015 relating to his military service from 1951 through 1955:

Fred Pape's Military Service by Amanda Pape

If the link above doesn't work, try clicking HERE, and then on the blue "PREVIEW" button.

Plan to give it to him at his upcoming 87th birthday in February.

 © Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.

Military Monday: Pictures of Dad's DFC and Air Medal

I have written before about my father, 1st Lieutenant Frederick H. Pape, receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal when he served in the Air Force in the Korean War.  Below are photo collages of the actual medals and their cases.

Above:  The Distinguished Flying Cross.  Below:  The Air Medal.

© Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.