Muleshoe High School Class Reunion

Dan's 50th high school class reunion was this past weekend, the weekend of the 4th of July, in Muleshoe, Texas. The 50th is a BIG DEAL, so we decided to go. We left Friday morning and drove to Lubbock, where we spent the night. On Saturday morning we drove on into Muleshoe for all of the festivities.

Muleshoe is a farming community of around 5,000 people. It was named for a ranch, Muleshoe Ranch, dating from 1860. The story is that the owner named his ranch after he found a mule shoe in the soil. I've noticed that you can tell true residents of Muleshoe by how they say the name. Those of us from elsewhere clearly say, "MULE-SHOE," but the locals pronounce it "MYU-SHOE."

In 1965 the town dedicated a monument to the mule. It is a shiny, fiberglass, life-sized mule that stands on a platform, near the big grain elevators at the edge of town. He's affectionately nicknamed "The G.A." by the locals. I won't disclose what that stands for, although I will tell you that the "G" stands for "Glass" (as in fiberglass). Use your imagination.

Saturday morning we went to the Senior Center to register for the reunion events. This was a reunion for all alums, from the class of 1948 on. As Alums from the class of 1965 began drifting in, Dan found them and had a grand time catching up.

At 10:00 the 4th of July parade started. We all drug chairs out of the Senior Center and had perfect seats, in the shade, for the parade. Notice the grain elevator at the end of this street scene. It's still a prosperous business, although most of the elevators in the neighboring towns seem to have closed down.

The parade was a typical small-town parade with . . .

FLAG-WAVING

BIG TRACTORS

KIDS ON FLOATS

CLASSIC CARS

(One of which stopped running and had to be pushed!)

 

FIRE TRUCKS

 HORSES

VETERANS

CHEERLEADERS

MASCOTS

WHAT PLANET WERE WE ON???

AND HERE IS THE MEMORIAL TO THE MULE
(All dressed up for the 4th)

Lunch at the Senior Center, after the parade, was really good. Juicy, tender beef brisket, pinto beans, potato salad, corn bread and cobbler.

At 2:00 Dan's class separated out from the other classes and met together at the civic center. There was a pretty good turnout. There had been close to 100 graduates back in 1965.

(Click on the class picture below to see it at full-size.)

Now I know where Dan learned to be such a TALKER! These folks spent three hours in non-stop visiting. I was really happy for Dan to get to renew old friendships, although if I'm honest, I got pretty bored sitting and listening to and about people I never knew. I was glad when it was time for the fried catfish dinner, which was catered by a Lubbock restaurant and was really delicious. It was for all of the classes. I don't know how many folks were there, from the class of 1948 on, but several hundred, I'm sure.  Dan's class talked about having ANOTHER reunion, for their class alone, this fall . . . maybe during Homecoming. 

We had planned to stay for the fireworks, which were to begin at 9:00 p.m., but both of us were pretty tuckered out by 8:00, and we still had over an hour's drive to get back to Lubbock for the night. So we decided to say our good-byes and head back to the hotel. We got a good night's sleep, and drove home the next day, taking a couple of short side-trips, which I'll write about in the next post.