I’ve been looking for you since 5th grade!

This was the intriguing title of an email message I received recently. “Saw the 68’ Burbank blog and looked you up from Emerson Elementary … Have no idea if you remember me at all … but in the 5^th grade you were something special!!  (We moved to Alabama between 5^th and 6^th grade .. .there are a few people I remember from Emerson … John Mancini / Carol Aiken / Linda Rodewald …)”

Mrs. Morrow’s 5th grade class at Emerson.

The message was from Steve Bowers, one of our “X” graduates (went to school with us but graduated elsewhere).

This is a recent picture of Steve Bowers.

I still wasn’t sure who he was until he said that he mentioned that “we had class together with Gedda in the 4^th grade and Morrow in the 5^th … Saw the photos on the Burbank Class of 68 page … We sat out the dance classes together …” Then I remembered him, although I still didn’t remember what he looked like until Steve told me he was the only one with glasses in the front row.

Steve said that his family moved from Burbank to Decatur, Alabama when he was in the 6^th grade and he graduated from Austin High School in Decatur in 1968 … (he was born in 1949 in Athens, Alabama and his family for several generations had lived in North Alabama, so moving to Decatur was in a sense “going back home.”)

Pam and Steve Bowers

He got to West Tennessee after high school by attending Freed-Hardeman University and entered radio in 1976 and has worked media in West TN (Radio, Newspaper, Television) ever since.  For the past 22 years he has worked with News-Talk 101.5 FM in Jackson.  He has also worked in Media and Governmental relations with the Jackson Energy Authority and in that role hosts and produces shows for EPlusTV6 in Jackson, TN.

I found these online quotes about Steve: “Steve is a great guy, very professional on air. . . He is my hero! . . . Steve would give you the shirt off his back. He is a super nice, thoughtful, caring person. One of the nicest people I have ever met.”

Steve married his wife Pam in 1998 and their son Clayton was born in 2003. That means that he is the father of a young teenager! Steve is a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, TN where they installed a large pipe organ in 2001 by the Schantz Organ Company. Hmmm, maybe I’ll have to make a trip to go see it!

So good to hear from you, Steve!