Happy New Year! It’s now 2018 which means that it has been fifty years since we were seniors at Burbank High School! (Yikes, can you believe it!) With a New Year, it’s a chance for a fresh start, a new beginning, time for a New Year’s Resolution. Oh, you can always resolve to watch what you eat, exercise more, take up a new hobby, etc., but perhaps you can put this one on your list:
In the last post, “Inquiring minds want to know,” you’ll see that we’re posting the results of the questionnaire on our website. There simply isn’t enough time to talk to each person individually at the reunion, so the questionnaire is a way to help everyone “catch up” with what’s been going on in your life. We all want to know the answer to, “Hey, whatever happened to _____ (fill in the blank)?”
In case you won’t be able to come to the Reunion, the questionnaire is also a way to communicate with your classmates when we post your answers on the website.
You can download the Reunion Questionnaire by clicking here. We have also placed it in the Header:
Because the post was written in December, when people are distracted by the holidays, only a few brave souls sent in their questionnaires.
Randy Prescott, 1968
But now, we’ve had our first response in January 2018, and it has come from Randy Prescott! For a long time, he was one of our “long lost” classmates since we had no current address or email for him. No wonder—he has moved from Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Costa Mesa, and now lives in Alexandria, VA. He has been married to Diane Marie Prescott for 30 years—they met at Jet Propulsion Laboratory where she was a CalTech Software Engineer. Altogether he has five children: four daughters and one son. His oldest daughter, Tracy, received a PhD in PT from USC. His second daughter is in Georgetown Law School and working for the US Department of Education as a congressional liaison. His other children are at George Mason in Washington DC and Virginia Tech. (Hmm… that makes how many kids in college at the same time?!) Plus, they have a mini Australian Shepherd and two Maine Coon cats!
He retired at age 65 and finds himself volunteering a lot: dog therapy, Mexican Embassy host, MS Office Instructor and PGA Scoreboard supervisor. His latest volunteering gig is at the Office of Presidential Correspondence—that means if you write to the President of the United States, the response may be written by Randy!
Randy with his dog, Josie.
His greatest accomplishments since high school include: (Lockheed) Wrote all RADAR and IR control software for F-117 Stealth Fighter; was the Team Lead on Stealth Cruise Missile. At Jet Propulsion Labs, he wrote Spaceflight Operations Center software to support Voyager-2 at Uranus and Neptune; and pointed antennas at quasars. At Boeing, he wrote software for Spacecraft, Satellites, and Aircraft. His last assignment was at Missile Defense National Team in Washington DC, integrating top-level control programs.
Another photo of Randy.
His favorite memory at Burbank High, Randy says: This one is easy. Back in 12th grade, I had Ms. Scott for English. One day she assigned us another “girly” book to read—something like Scarlet Letter. I couldn’t resist and questioned her judgment. She in turn made me move my desk out into the hall and sit there for the rest of the class. It was actually fun out there, I was very popular with passerbys. Well, later in the day, I was notified to visit the Principal’s Office. When I arrived, the Principal and the Vice-Principal started to shake my hand. As it turned out they had called me down to congratulate me for some worthless award. Of course, I didn’t know that and I responded with “What happened? Did she quit?”
Randy has some advice to his classmates: Don’t go to law school. Law is good; lawyers aren’t.
Thanks so much, Randy, for sending in your questionnaire!
Now for the rest of you, get busy and fill out the questionnaire!
Burbank High Class of 1968 