Hi Marcia,

We have all been in Vegas for going on 8 years.  Prior to that, we lived in Birmingham.  My husband, Barry, was a manager at Embassy Suites in Homewood.  We had our son, Seth, in 1995 who was followed in 1998 by our daughter, Melissa, who was stillborn.  We were all living in a funk of depression (my Mom had just died unexpectedly in February of 1999 as well) and in March of 1999 decided that we needed to make a change or we would not survive as a family.  Also, for my husband to progress in his career, we would soon need to start moving all over the country every two years or so and I did not want to do that to my son.  We started researching and decided that either South Florida or Vegas would be our best choices for Barry to promote without having to move around all of the time.  Since I am an accountant, I knew that I could find a job almost anywhere that we ended up.  We visited out here, fell in love with the area and have been here since April of 1999.

I am hoping that everyone stays active on this site as well.  It is really nice touching base with the past.  I have been in some contact with Brenda Johnson for the last few months.  (It is so hard for me to remember and refer to everyone by their married names, so I have just about quit trying.)  I had gotten Karen Crockers' e-mail address just before my son was hospitalized and haven't taken the time to e-mail her yet.  

I have two sisters and one brother still living in Centreville.  The other three have moved away... two still in Alabama though (Gordo and Dothan).  The other in Baton Rouge.  My neices' and nephews' wedding are when we all get together.  It will be my great-neices' and great-nephews' starting up soon as well.  The last gathering was for a neices' wedding in Baton Rouge.  I was back in Centreville in the summer of last year for a few days, but I have a hard enough time getting around to see all of my family.  The only time I would see someone from our class was just a chance meeting in Wal-Mart or something.

I am working as an accountant for a government DOD contractor.  We have major contracts with NASA and some minor ones with the Air Force, Navy, Marines and other governmental groups.  I handle the books for our company and a great deal of the cost reporting to the Feds.

Wow, did this ever get long?  Didn't intend to write so much, but it is hard to pack 20 years in a few sentences.  Hope I didn't bore you to tears, and if you ever want to come out here to visit, let me know and Barry can get you set up nicely at the MGM.

Let's talk again soon.

Traci