Published Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Over several years, I have shared stories and information about my very active high school graduation class. The Southport High School Class of 1960 loves to get together and enjoy remembering wonderful events and sharing new adventures.

One of our groups enjoys a lunch every month. A different classmate is in charge of each month and we generally visit a different restaurant each month. Our December lunch was held at Red Lobster on Thompson Road.

After we were seated, we began visiting and getting caught up. Our waiter introduced himself and started taking drink orders. When he arrived at my seat and I had ordered my iced tea, he looked at me and asked if my name was Fred. I nodded and then he asked my last name. 

I was then asked if I wrote a column in The Southsider Voice. Over the years of writing this column, I have occasionally been recognized. This time was considerably different. He started telling me about articles and stories that he really enjoyed. It didn’t take long for me to understand that he probably knew quite a bit about me. He also spoke of Stuart and Simon, our therapy dogs that I have talked about on occasion.

My classmates that were sitting close to me were also very surprised and interested as our waiter remembered some of my articles. One of us asked his name. He replied that his name is Erich Hibner. 
Several of us were very familiar with the Hibner name. We remembered Marty Hibner from Southport. She was a few years behind us.  We tossed out her name to Erich and he replied that she was his aunt.
Her father owned a drive-thru retail dairy located on US 31 just north of Hanna Avenue. My good friend Mickey Johnson worked there and that was where I had first met Marty. Several years later, she married Louie Dampier and they were together for several years.

As I was sitting there listening to all of this, it occurred to me that the Hibner family, the Dampier family and my family were all involved in the milk business. There was the Hibner drive-thru dairy. Louis’ brother, Bill had a couple of retail home delivery milk routes and my father had a country pick-up milk route. He would drive to the farms and pick-up 10-gallon milk cans and deliver them to a dairy for processing.

We asked Erich to please tell Marty that we all said, “Hello” when he spoke with her again. He provided us with great service during our lunch and the General Manager, John DeRoss even stopped by and visited with us a couple of times.

I have stayed in contact with Louie Dampier over the years. He was inducted into The Perry Township/Southport Historical Society Basketball Hall of fame a few years ago. It was great to see him and visit a bit.

While we were talking with Erich about my articles, he explained that he also had a connection with Kelly Sawyers. She, as you all probably know is the publisher of this dandy weekly newspaper. I believe Erich told us that he attended school with Kelly’s brother, Sean Collins, Southport class of 1986.

Near the end of our lunch, some of the Red Lobster staff showed up at our table and showed us several gift baskets that they were selling. Our gang recognized a great deal and several were purchased. I went back a couple of days later and purchased one for Lyn.

Shonk is a 1960 graduate of Southport High School, a ’63 grad of Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) and a retired bus driver from Beech Grove Schools. He can be reached through email at [email protected].

From Wednesday, December 7, 2022 edition ...

​I lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from the mid-1970s until the mid-80s. I was a sales district manager for a large industrial supply company based in Ohio. I hired, trained and worked with about 30 independent sales agents. I worked in all of the lower Michigan area except the Detroit area.

I met a couple of guys that were high school basketball referees. They told me about refereeing, and it sounded interesting. After thinking about it for a while. I applied, passed all the requirements, and became a referee.

I began working some local games and I would provide the referee assignment folks a copy of my work schedule including the city I would be visiting. Sometimes they would contact me to substitute for a referee that was injured or sick.

A few years later, I started my own company and eventually moved back to Indianapolis. Starting a new business kept me very busy, but I felt that I had time to continue refereeing. I applied and received an Indiana Referee License. I started working some younger boys and girls’ games for a Center Grove league. These were elementary school students. Several of the girls’ teams had some very promising players. It wasn’t surprising to me when several years later the Center Grove girls basketball team won the state championship. I believe that was 1996.

During my time in Michigan, I met Scott McNeal (aka Gus Macker) and his brother. They both had launched a three-on-three outdoor basketball tournament in 1974 with 18 players in their parent’s driveway.

The tourney is still in existence and has been played in over 972 locations. There have been over 2.2 million players – male and female from 7 years old to 50+ – and more than 23 million spectators. After returning to Indianapolis, I worked with the Gus Macker program for several years when it came to central Indiana.
It is very enjoyable to me when I take time to reflect on some of my teams and players from Center Grove and the weekends working with the Gus Macker tournament.

Southport High School Girls’ Basketball team won a state title in 1980.

Beech Grove High School’s girls’ team won the 2003 3A State Championship behind the leadership of Miss Basketball, Katie Gearlds. She went on to play at Purdue and in the WNBA. I believe that in 2013, Katie became the women’s basketball coach at Marian University.

After several years and some wonderful years at Marian University, Katie was named Women’s head coach at Purdue University last year. Her team has started this year and at this time they have an 8-1 record.

We all have had a lot going on now. Winter, Christmas and New Year, getting together with family and much more. I enjoy watching local basketball games and visiting with friends.

Enjoy the season and enjoy going to games. Basketball is such a large part of Indiana.
​
Shonk is a 1960 graduate of Southport High School, a ’63 grad of Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) and a retired bus driver from Beech Grove Schools. He can be reached through email at [email protected].

From Wednesday, November 30, 2022 edition ...

Last week, Simon (our new dog) and I visited some friends over at Beech Grove City Schools. We missed seeing several folks because they were in meetings or attending programs at other facilities.

A couple of times, while visiting with friends, they brought up some memories of things that I was involved with while driving my school bus for Beech Grove City Schools.

During the years that I drove in Beech Grove, I really enjoyed having fun with my student bus riders. It also helped the students to understand the bus rules while I gained their respect. I generally had a plan for several of the holidays and of course, April Fools Day.

I had routes that connected with two different schools. Hornet Park Elementary School works with kindergarten and first grade students. South Grove Intermediate School housed 4th, 5th and 6th grade students.

We celebrated birthdays and holidays with both groups of students. Even the school bus (Named Ursula) had a birthday and we always celebrated it. I would pass out Twinkies to the students on her birthday. Twinkies have the same color and shape as the school bus. It was the only time during the school year that I was able to send some students into school with a small sugar high because of birthday treats. School bus drivers receive sugar highs from birthday parties that are held near the end of the school days several times a month.

On a few occasions, I gave the South Grove students the opportunity to participate in a Thanksgiving Turkey Gobbling Contest. I would explain to all the riders that each class could nominate two classmates to be contestants in the contest. There would be two students from each grade participating.

On the last morning before the Thanksgiving break, the contestants would come to the front of the bus and gobble like a turkey. Some would put their whole hearts into it and others just mumbled, “Gobble Gobble”.
All of the student riders were provided with voting ballots that they filled out and handed to me as they exited the bus. I had totally explained that the winner from each class would receive a major prize. They would receive a family size, full course turkey’s dinner. This would be for the winners to take home.

I always announced the winner that afternoon before we drove away from the school.

It was always exciting when the winners were named. Sometimes we had very shy winners and other times we might have very outgoing winners. When the winners were all standing at the front of the bus with me, I reached down and lifted up the prizes.

I presented each winner with a large, clear plastic bag filled with turkey food, which included corn and various seeds. I always got puzzled looks from the winners and I’d have to explain that the prize was a family size, full course turkey’s dinner…. A Turkey’s Dinner.

I could only do this contest every three years, and even then I knew that a few of the students might remember an older sibling telling them about this contest.

We always had fun and the winners always took home their prizes and helped their neighborhood birds celebrate Thanksgiving.

I can still close my eyes and remember the looks on the faces of those winners when I handed them a bag of seeds.

Shonk is a 1960 graduate of Southport High School, a ’63 grad of Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) and a retired bus driver from Beech Grove Schools. He can be reached through email at [email protected].