August 2005 Newsletter  Edited by Terry Ratliff

Return to San Tome' Web Site

Lili Mayorca

Richard Bills

Emails:

Raffaella De Angelis

Keep up the good work. You can submit your news bits on the Newsletters page.

News:

Submitted by: Karen Miller Russak
Date: 7/31/2005
The years you were in Venezuela: 1954 to 1963

Year graduated from Staff School: would have been 1971

City and State you live in now: Denver, Colorado
Graduation Announcements: MBA 1981
Your Other News: I am the the 4th child from the left (with pigtails in back) in the photo of the San Tome Staff School kindergarten class on the fire truck in pictures (pics-04) section of the website. The picture would have been taken about 1960.

Submitted by: LiLi Mayorca
Date: 8/8/05
The years you were in Venezuela: 1965 to 1990

Year graduated from Staff School:1972

City and State you live in now: Pompano beach, Florida

Birth Announcements: My birth date 10/15/58

Submitted by:Richard Bills
Date: 8/10/05
The years you were in Venezuela: 1954 to 1965

Year graduated from Staff School: Left in 8th grade 1965

City and State you live in now: Houston, TX
Your Other News: It was great fun to go to the San Tome/Anaco reunion for a short time on Saturday afternoon. I saw a few old friends like Johnny Howland, Jimbo Bowersox, Bill Yingling, and Gary Henderson. There were a group of the "older" kids there like Nicky Ryder, Lonny Wehmeyer, Christi & Spike McMillan, and even mean old Tommy McCaleb.

Jim Bowersox and I reminisced about the time that I broke his arm. Johnny is still living in Okinawa and was going to cook a paella which I hated to miss, but from looking at the pictures, he did a great job. Bill Yingling is still commuting to exotic area of KakaKastan or somethi9ng like that. Gary has recently relocated to Houston with Chevron.
 

I had an interesting visit with Lonny Wehmeyer. He had a slide show of old San Tome sites. He said that Frankie is in New Orleans (I think). He had had a fall from a stool a few years ago and seems to suffer from memory lapses so requires care. Richard, who I ran around with a lot, is in Memphis doing home health care, and had donated a kidney to his son the past year. I was asking him about the San Tome School, because I remember seeing old yearbooks which had the Venezuelan kids and American kids in the same class, but when we were there, we were separated. He said that when he was in the 8th grade in 1955 or so, the Venezuelan military came onto campus one day and lowered the US Flag, raised the Venezuelan flag with the US flag underneath and said that from here out, the classes would be separated. However, those students in the 8th & 9th grade could finish with their US classmates since they were already brainwashed.
 

The Bumpasses had brought some photos from their visit to San Tome in 2003, Their daughter, Cathy was living with her husband in Puerto La Cruz at the time, and they were able to make the rounds of the old camp. By and larger, things seemed to be in pretty good shape except for the school which was abandoned and trashed. It was really sad to see the pictures of the old school in disrepair. I was later looking at some photos on this site, and saw one of the water tower lying in pieces on the ground.
 

Carolyn Lowrey from Anaco has picked up the reins of organizing the annual reunion, and she did a great job. She introduced me to a website called http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Venezuela_Oilbrats/ It is pretty interesting, and while predominately inhabited by western Venezuealans, you might want to consider joining.
 

I am currently living in Houston where I have mostly been since 1984, except for a sabbatical in Scotland with Compaq for a couple of years. I'm currently building a CVS Pharmacy on a corner near you somewhere in Texas. I've been married to Nancy for 32 years and we have one son and two grandkids (19 months & 6 years). Mom & Dad are well and living in Kerrville, as does my big sister, Sharon. She has three kids - two are married and one a senior in college. My younger sister, Kathryn is in Ft. Worth and has two daughters.
 

Emails:

Sent: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 01:53:00 +0200
Subject: San Tome Add

I'm looking for an old friend. I remember his father use to work in San Tomé at the end of the 70s. His name is Rafael Chacín Páez. Can you help me, please?
Thank you,

Raffaella De Angelis
raffaella_1@tiscali.it

Kathleen (Clifton) Royal

John & Judy Carmichael

Mabel (White) Rostant

Johnny Servello

Mr. & Mrs. Joe Hammer

Ben Bonham

Liz Rosso

Travis Gover

Harlan Kent

Jodie Sigala

George Clifton

Chuck LoPresti

Charles McMillan

Mirtha Enet Sauve

Karen Miller Russak

Juan Chacin