She has played a large part in Forney area history and has always stayed a part of the 1969 FHS Graduating Class as we have had various gatherings. Let me begin to “fill you in” about her exploits and influences, mostly using her words and some from other friends and me.
1951 marks her entry into the world as Janie Ann Lewis in Kaufman, Texas, and her proud parents were Cleon and Wanda Colquitt Lewis. We will not hold her “foreign” birth against her, as she had no choice, but she became a “Forneyite” not too much later. In Forney High School she was often known by the nickname of Janie Lou and says that a few classmates who have not seen her in quite a while still call her that! Thinking back over the years, I remember calling her that at informal get-togethers.
The Cleon Lewis Family moved to Forney for some of Janie’s “grammar school” years (Janie remembers it as being 5th Grade.) but later not too long after moved to Jacksonville, Weatherford, and Breckenridge. I think I remember the day Janie got into the family car, and as they drove off to Jacksonville, several of us guys told each other, “I am going to miss her; she is my girlfriend!”
Our way of saying that in those days was, “I like her!”
Janie says she thinks she moved back to Forney during 7th Grade and gladly stayed with the class and graduated from the old 1938 WPA-constructed high school with the familiar gym, football field, and corner brick markers out at the Bois d’Arc roadway. The band hall, agriculture shop, and tax building were across the gravel parking lot, and we used them for classrooms as the student population grew.....(Don’t forget that Sunnyvale students attended Forney High in those days, and many of them were named “Duckworth.”) Janie Lou’s four high school years, leading to graduation in 1969, were filled with many activities, and I will get to those and other events next week!
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