LHHS CLASSMATE SPOTLIGHT

MARCH 2007

 

Sandy Laurini Burdine

 

Photography by Joe Torres www.flexphotography.net

 

QUESTIONS

 

  1. What do you remember about your last day at LHHS?

        Jim Reeves riding his motor cycle thru the halls during finals.

 I was glad classes and test were over, but I cried at Graduation because I knew it was the end of the a wonderful time in my life and time to enter the   real world.  I knew I would miss my friends too and never be able to go back to the way we were.  

  1. What did you do in the summer of ’65?

I worked as one of the first female Life Guard’s in Richardson .   I also taught twirling at SMU summer camp.

  1. What did you do the next school year?

I attended North Texas State University majoring in Marketing & Art. 

For my spending $ money I had a twirling group of 30 little girls I taught every Sunday afternoon for $1.00/hr. before returning to UNT.  We marched in every parade I could get them into.  A couple of the girls went on to become majorettes in high school and college.  Melinda Schulanger from LH calss of 66 or 67 went to Texas Tech to become a majorette and another Sheri Croslan became a twirler for Farmers Branch RL Turner.

  1. College?

I graduated from University of Texas at Dallas BA in Arts & Humanities

  1. Were any other Wildcats with you?

Yes, at North Texas – Sue Soles was my first room mate, Carolyn Payne Matthews and I were roommates too.  Suzy Englegow was also at UNT as  were many others from LH.

  1. Military service? No
  1. Did you ever get married?  More than once? Yes – I married Mike Connors from RHS – you may remember the 6th grade teacher Mr. Winston Connors, was his father.

Then I met the love of my life Larry N. Burdine, the most understanding,  loving, caring, fun loving, sexy man I know.

  1. Children?  One wonderful son Zachary Alan Burdine, AU working for Bass Underwriters married one year 3/4/06 to Kimber – they met at Baylor U.

  1. What did you do for a living for the first ten years after LHHS?

 

I was a model and showroom manager at the Apparel Mart as well as working for Howmet Corp – Key punch Operator, Eastman Kodak – Data Processing Dept., Associated Springs – Inside Sales  and Texas Federal Saving and Loan – Executive Assistant to VP of Data Processing.

 

  1. What did you do for the second ten years?  I met Larry in 1975.  My room mate worked with him MicroDisplay Systems.  We got married in 1976.  We had our son in 1980.  I worked full time then part-time for a while, but found out I was needed at home to raise our son.

 

  1. Where do you live? (city and state)  We have lived in the Metroplex, Richardson , Flower Mound and now our address is Wylie.  We live in a gated community close to Lucas and Lake Lavon just east of South Fork Ranch.  We have about one acre and have been there for 23 years.

 

  1. What do you do now?  I have been working at UT Dallas for the last 8 years in the Engineering Computer Science School recruiting students.

 

  1. Do you stay in contact with any LH classmates?  Yes, but not as much as I would like.  I hope to change that after things settle down following Daddy’s death in October 06.  As many of you already know how much there is to do to help the surviving parent.

 

  1. If you could change anything about your high school experience, what would it be?  

 

It wouldn’t be just high school, but if I knew what I know now, I would have graduated with the class of 66.  We moved to Dallas when I had only 1 semester of first grade.  In Houston there was Low first and High first grade depending on your birthday.  Since my birthday was in December I started low first in January when I turned 6yrs old.  We moved to Dallas that summer so, I was put up to 2nd grade and of course parents trusted the judgment of teachers and school administrators expectedly.  I could only print and barely read, so it was very hard to play catch up most of my school years.  This is the one thing I would change, but then I wouldn’t have had the great experiences I had with the class of 65, so guess it was meant to be.

 

  1.  As you approach retirement age . . . are you ready?  I don’t like the word retirement because it makes me think of someone old and I’m not old.  So, I would like to just stop working and play around doing whatever and have another fun job that I love until I couldn’t do that any longer. 

 

  1.  In your opinion, what is that “certain something” that has kept so many of our class so connected for so long?

 

As my parents always said about our community of Lake Highlands, you are the pioneers setting precedence for all to follow.   Do your best and don’t disgrace the family name.  There was a lot of responsibility put on us to live up to what was expected to produce one of the best high schools in the Metroplex.  When my parents moved to Dallas the realtor took them to Highland Park , Oak Cliff, Irving and East Dallas .  My Dad said that he wanted to move where the new homes were being built and good schools for his children, so that’s how we landed in Lake Highlands. 

 

We lived in the 3rd house built on Linkwood Dr. with no telephones, only a telephone booth around the corner on Lanshire which had no houses yet.  We could see Downtown Dallas from the corner of Linkwood and Ferndale .   I was bused to the red brick administration building in Richardson – for 2nd grade.  It was a 12 grade school house with a large football stadium.  I was scared because there were so many big kids.  First thru sixth was on first floor and 7th – 12th was on the second floor.  Every year after that I went to a new school until I graduated from LH Jr Hi.  It was an unusual way to grow up.  I’ve met a lot of people from LH who cannot believe I was one of the people who picked the colors and school song.  One young man works for me thinks the school colors are red and black.  I showed him our website and he knew the school song, but not the fight song. 

 

  1.  If David Wise would share his “Wayback Machine” and take you to 1962, would you go?  Yes and No.  Yes, because I would have liked to dated some of the good looking guys at LH. And No, because it must have happened just the way it was supposed to happen. 

 

  1.  Anything you want to ramble about . . .   Not really.  I’m glad we all keep in touch because if you know where you’ve been then you know where you’re going.  What a great bunch of people we grew up with at LHHS.

 

I’m always proud to say I went to LHHS.  See you at Lone Star Park !

 

Love you all,

Sandy

 

Sandy's Men: Zach and Larry Burdine

 

Zach and Kimber Burdine