(PHS - click to enlarge) 		Payette High School Class of 1966
 Payette Idaho
Pirates 

Reunions: 40th  35th  30th  20th  10th
acebook profiles Recent photos The Way We Were Yearbook photos Grade school photos
Old Payette photos Payette history Memories Links In Memoriam Class info

  Hi everybody, Eric Pence here. I created this page several years (and reunions) ago and I will try to add to it when I have new things to show. It started out as a page devoted to my PHS class of 1966, but I have broadened it to cover all things relating to Payette.  Email me if you have any suggestions or requests.

The next reunion of the PHS class of '66, the 45th, will be held  October 7- 8, 2011—mark your calendars!

In October, 2005, I attended (as did several others from our class) the 40th reunion of the class of '65. Their reunion committee—Nancy Iseri, Wanda (Swigart) Newton, Ron White, Anita (Fallon) Smith, Clint Selover—deserves a lot of credit for doing a real outstanding job. Everybody looked wonderful and it was a blast for me to visit with so many people I hadn't seen since we were at PHS! I was told I am welcome to attend their future reunions and I want them to know the invitation goes both ways. Some of the members of the '65 class have regular outings in the Boise area on the 3rd Tuesday of most months. I keep hoping to get to one of these. They have an open invitation to PHS graduates of other classes.

Class Reunions – I got this cute poem from Sandi (Anderson) Krasznavolgyi, PHS class of '65

  Skip Cockerum's high quality bird food manufacturing business in Payette was featured on the TV show Dirty Jobs on February 10, 2009.
Check it out!

Click on any image on this page to see fullsize.   Some will look better if you have automatic image resizing turned off.

Armory dance reunion, 2009

  When we were in high school there were dances at the Ontario armory every Saturday night put on by Bob Dye. Live bands played at these dances, something you don't see anymore. Many of us attended these regularly and they were a memorable part of going to PHS in the 60s. In August, 2009, Bob hosted a 40th Armory Dance reunion and had some of the bands from those days play for us again (Crystal Ship was excellent!). Before the dance there was a "Meet & Greet" gathering in the park across the street for a couple of hours which was just like a class reunion with many people seeing each other for the first time in years. Those of us who attended went on a major nostalgia trip!

Bob Dye, Ontario Armory & 60s Rock & Roll – the "official" site with a message board and many photos
Ontario Reunion 2009 Pics – photos of the entire event
Armory Dance Reunion photos – Idaho Press Tribune's photos can viewed or purchased here

 
Doors songs by
The Crystal Ship
Crossroads
The Crystal Ship 		         

  Here are some photos from Mike Blacketter and Jan Jarboe (Janet Seaweard)—hover mouse for descriptions (high school names for women).
 
 
  Sandi Krasznavolgyi's photos – you have to be on Facebook to see these
  Bob Dye with a friend – Bob sent me this

Monthly no-host dinners

  Some PHS graduates from the Class of '65 who live in the Boise area have a monthly "no-host" dinner at various local restaurants every month. All other classes, and sometimes teachers, are invited. Sandi (Anderson) Krasznavolgyi is one of the organizers and sends out an email announcing the next upcoming dinner. I am on her mailing list and I always hope to be in Boise when one of these occurs but so far have struck out.
  September, 2009, dinner outing – you have to be on Facebook to see these photos taken by Sandi.
Kenny Winther (remember our band director?) attended this outing.

The school demolition, 2005

The school had been condemned for awhile and was finally torn down. My thanks to Ron Shurtleff for these photos.

What that location looks like now
(from Google Street View¹)

40th reunion, 2006

  Our 40th reunion was held August 4th & 5th. Maggie did most of the work herself, with a little help from Skip and others. The Friday night registration was held at the Scotch Pines Golf Course clubhouse (like previous reunions) but the clubhouse was booked for a golf tournament on Saturday so the Saturday night banquet was at the Nichols Steak House in Fruitland. One of our favorite teachers, James Johnson, attended with his wife, Leora, and they were welcomed by all of us. Several of us went to the Ontario Armory on Saturday afternoon and reminisced about those great dances and took some pictures (see below). The PHS class of 1971 had a reunion dance. What a great idea! There is also a great website with lots of photos of those dances, Bob  Dye's 60s Ontario Armory Album. Also on Saturday we attended a tour at the Four Rivers Cultural Center in Ontario where we learned a lot about the multi-cultural history of the valley.

Put the mouse over the following pictures to see the names of who's in the photos (high school names for women).
Friday night...

Saturday...
    At the Ontario Armory

Saturday night...

 

Several of us had cameras and I will post more pictures as I receive them!

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35th reunion, 2001

  Our 35th reunion was held the weekend of August 4th, 2001, at the Scotch Pines Golf Course clubhouse. It was organized by Maggie (Snook) Heide, who did an excellent job, and it consisted primarily of 3 events—the traditional Friday night social, the Saturday night banquet, and the Sunday brunch. At the banquet Maggie entertained us with a program of trivia questions about our high school days using her usual charming wit!  Thanks again, Mags!  We were having so much fun catching up with each other's lives that on Friday and Saturday nights some of us didn't get to bed until after 2:30am (I heard even later for some)!  On Saturday we had a tour of our old high school, now a middle school, during which we sat in the bleachers in the gym and sang (with a little prompting) the school fight song, amazing many of us that we still remembered the words after 35 years!  We had a good turnout—I think Maggie said 45 of our graduating class of 99 came to the reunion, some for the first time. Many photos were taken, and I will try to post them here as I get them.

Here are some reunion photos from Kathy Watanabe's digital camera...

Here are Skip Cockerum's photos.

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30th reunion, 1996

  I went to this reunion without my family, so I spent lots of time catching up with my classmates' lives. This was the first reunion where several of us exchanged email addresses, and we have continued to stay in touch, which really helped in the planning of the next reunion.

These are some snapshots I took at the Sunday brunch...

  More coming...

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20th reunion, 1986

  This was the first reunion I attended, and I was unprepared for the emotional impact. I had not realized the deepness of the bonds I shared with many of my classmates – going through adolescence with them, and even 12 years of public school with some. I moved cross-country several years after graduation, and my parents moved to Boise, making my ties to Payette pretty remote, so I had lost touch with pretty much everybody. I had a smile on my face and tears in my eyes for pretty much the entire weekend of the reunion. Patti went with me and we had our 9-month-old, Alex.

These were taken at the Sunday picnic in the Kiwanis Park...

  More coming...

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10th reunion, 1976

  I didn't attend this reunion but I did get the reunion booklet from Terry Adams. I lived 2,500 miles away in Boston, and it also seemed that I had recently seen many of my classmates anyway. I want to thank Mollie (Davidson) Minow, one of my regular email correspondents, for sending me this scanned picture.

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Many of my PHS classmates have joined Facebook and have added each other as Friends.
In Facebook there are a couple of things that old friends would like to see in your profile...

   A recent photo
   Where you currently live
   List Payette High School in your profile to help other classmates find you

You can log on to Facebook by clicking on the logo above.

Facebook Annoyances read this and show some restraint in your Facebook postings

     Class of '59
Deana R Long
     Class of '63
Danny Davis
     Class of '64
Rod Debban
Rhodonna Roberts  (Rhodonna Warner)
Gary Schrecongost
     Class of '65
Nancy Iseri
Ron Gilster Price
Sandi Krasznavolgyi  (Sandi Anderson)
Margaret Pruitt  (Margaret Davidson)
Linda Barrie
Verna Nelson
Anita Smith  (Anita Fallon)
Keith Watson
Jim Christian
Betty Scott Flaherty
Clinton Selover
Sharla Weber  (Sharla Anderson)
Gary Dennis
Albums
     Ontario Armory Dance reunion photos – Sandi's album; see more photos above

     Class of '66
Eric Pence
Mollie Minow  (Mollie Davidson)
Karen Cartwright (Karen Bates)
Vera Swei  (Vera Morgan)
Janet S. Jarboe  (Janet Seaweard)
Marlena Harper
Kathy Handley Wagers
Bonnie Reinke  (Bonnie Hathaway)
Wynn White
Ron French
Jane Blyseth  (Jane McHaffie)
Mike Blacketter
Juanita Thomas  (Juanita Worley)
Suzie Fenicottero Banner
Rosie Gabiola-Debban  (Rick Debban's wife)
Tony Nesbitt
Jim Stroud
Rollin Gratia Hasness  (Gratia Washburn and hubby)
Cheryl Shurtleff
Catherine A Taylor  (Cathy Wiens)
Susan Perry  (Susan Sellers)
Dave Oglesbee
Melanie Turner  (Melanie Glover)
Linda Van Camp  (Polly Nicholson)
John Rogge
Darlene Fine-Cannon  (Nick Cannon's wife)
Gerri Scott Bishop
Daniel Ortega
Jan Rogers-Levy  (Janice Rogers)
Joyce Ann Anderson  (Joyce Ann Reed)
     Class of '67
Jan Bitney  (Janeen Watts)
Lyla Graden Aldrich
Tom Zumwalt
Lois Sundquist
Paula Harwood Anderson
Bob Moreland
Tom Rogers
Karl Kotas
David Downing
Suzanne Walker (Suzanne Debban)
Charlene Wimpy
Jan Tarter (Jan Cockerum)
Kathy Spaulding Jones
Albums
     Payette Class of '67 turns 60/61 years old birthday party – put up by Lyla Aldrich
     2007 Class Reunion – put up by Tom Rogers
     Class of '68
Dan White
     Class of '69
Scott Massingill
     Class of '70
Steve Rogers
Jody Kail
Michael Schroeder
Nancy Akers Chambers
     Class of '72
Barbara K. Wilson
     Class of '73
Roy Rogers
     Class of '00
Desirée Heide
     Class of '59
Deana R Long  (Deana Watts)
     Teachers
James R. Johnson  (taught Chemistry, Physics, and for some of us, Advanced Math)
Dan Pero
     Fruitland '65
Blake Borup  (a friend of many of us at PHS)

    These are mostly people I knew in high school. If you are a PHS grad and wish to be listed here contact me on Facebook.

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Recent photos

Mike Blacketter *

Lyla and Mike Aldrich *

Jan Rogers-Levy and husband, Stew *

Terri (Whiting) Lawrence – found on Classmates.com

Eric Pence and Skip Cockerum at Riverside Cemetery in Payette, 2009

Janet (Seaweard) Jarboe and her grandchildren

Wynn White in Rome *

Karen (Bates) Cartwright and husband Ron

Wynn White and his children Weston & Flora visit Skip Cockerum in Oregon

Eric Pence and Mollie (Davidson) Minow, at the old Davidson homestead on 1st Ave. S.
(now refurbished and lived in by Mollie's brother, Roland)

Mollie (Davidson) Minow, Melanie (Glover) Turner, and Melanie's son, Jason

Maggie (Snook) Heide, Skip Cockerum (with Ernie), and Kathy (Handley) Wagers

Wynn White, taken by his son Weston in front a gallery in Japan

Daniel Ortega, with his sons Jordan and Tyler

Jane (McHaffie) Blyseth, with Carina and Elizabeth on a trip to Turkey

Polly (Nicholson) Van Camp, and granddaughter Malea Rose

Dennis Carson and family, Thanksgiving 1995

Bill Chalke and his mother

Mike and Lyla (Graden) Aldrich

Mr. & Mrs. James Johnson's 50th wedding anniversary, October, 2001.

For my photos see the Gallery page.

* Photo from a Facebook profile

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The Way We Were...

  Photos (and above title) from Marlena (Harper) Bertholl.

Here we are on the steps in front of the gym, 1966
A group of us in the Kiwanis Park, 1966
8th grade band, also on the steps in front of the gym

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Yearbook photos

Here are our senior pictures from the 1966 yearbook, "The Axe," and our 7th grade pictures from the 1961 yearbook, "The Treasure Chest." We were so young then! They are scanned in a page at a time.
For best viewing make sure your automatic image resizing is turned off in your browser.

  View 1966 Axe photos   View 1961 Treasure Chest photos   (Thanks to Karen Bates Cartwright for these!)

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Grade school photos

Eastside
  I have scanned in my class pictures from my years at Eastside, 1954-1960. Sadly, the building is gone now. I will put other class photos here if anyone has them.
Thanks to Janet (Seaweard) Jarboe for her 2nd grade photo of Mrs. Schwartz's class.

 
  1st grade
Miss Hisa		 2nd grade
Mrs. Hickerson		 2nd grade
Mrs. Schwartz		 3rd grade
Mrs. Barrett		 4th grade
Mrs. Hill		 5th grade
Mrs. Betts		 6th grade
Mrs. Williams

Westside
  These photos are from Marlena (Harper) Bertholl.

   1st & 2nd grade      3rd & 4th grade   


5th grade

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Old Payette photos

  Many of these are from postcards I picked up at the Payette County Historical Society museum (their website was on the now defunct Geocities), which is located at the corner of N 9th St. and 1st Ave. South, across from Central Park. The museum occupies the building that was the First Methodist Church when I was growing up. It contains many artifacts of my heritage that bring back memories of my childhood.

Payette high school, pre-fire, when it had a full 3rd floor
Payette high school, before the gym was added
Eastside elementary school, now gone
looking up main street, 1920s
looking up main street, 1940s
looking up main street, 1960s
the old library
the old Town Hall
Bancroft Hotel, now gone
Union Pacific railroad depot, now gone (the statue went to Central Park for awhile)
Central Park
Harris Kiwanis Park
the Post Office
the Charm Theater – I saw many movies here
YMCA building, previously located catty-corner from the Post Office
Old, old Payette
the old Ritz Theater
1924 May Day parade (note the flagrant display of KKK marchers!)
Payette National Bank, 1910
Peter Pence, my great grandfather, a Payette pioneer
Albert Lloyd Pence, my grandfather and a Payette resident, who died when I was 5

Payette County Photo Album – more old photos of Payette

Index of old photos – 6 pages of photos, click on Image 125K to see a photo

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Payette history

    Here is some information I have collected that I thought belonged on this page. See more below under Links.


The City of Payette is located in Payette County at the confluence of the Payette and Snake Rivers, approximately three miles north of Fruitland and ten miles south of Weiser (in Washington County) at an elevation of 2,150 feet. 		 
"Payette" is named for Francois Payette, the good-hearted postmaster for the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Boise, which was just upriver on the Snake. He was known as a generous friend to Oregon-bound emigrants in the 1840s.2
 

In the 1800s, Payette was a panorama of sagebrush and bunch grass covering rolling hillsides. The first white man to settle in the region was Francois Payette, a French Canadian, who came from Quebec in 1812. In 1867, James Toombs established the first principal settlement, the Payette Store, and from this small beginning a thriving town began to develop. A few years later, Peter Pence [my great-grandfather] brought the first cattle to the area, introduced hops to Payette, and grew peaches, and built dams and irrigation ditches. A. B. Moss arrived in the valley in 1881. He supplied ties to the Union Pacific Railroad and shipped the first fruit from the area in 1891. Thus began the long history of Payette as an agricultural center.3

In 1891, the City was incorporated and became the Payette County seat in 1917. Today, Payette is home to 7,434 (2005) residents with anticipated growth to a thriving City of over 12,700 (2030).


2 Bill Loftus, Idaho Handbook, February 1992 (page 157)
3 "Payette, City Center Plan", Planmakers, November 1985, page 4.
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Memories
  These are some of my memories of growing up in Payette in the 50s and 60s.

Privileged
My dad was the manager of the First Security Bank, the only bank in town until I was in high school. When I was a little kid, other kids were under the impression that as manager he owned the bank and that we were rich. Perhaps in the 1800s the banks were owned by the people who ran them (see my clock story) but by our time most banks were owned by corporations. Or course I didn't try to correct this misconception.

May Day
My dad's bank used to team up with American Fine Foods (the cannery) and enter a float in the May Day Parade every year. When I was little I used to ride on this float some years, and later I remember driving the station wagon that pulled the float. Many years I was in the band and we used to March in the parade. And of course, a big event that happened every May Day was the Inland Empire Carnival that used to set up in the Kiwanis Park every year. I used to spend several days there going on rides, and trying to win a prize at one of the booths for whatever girl I had a crush on that year (whom shall remain nameless here!).

PHS
A crazy incident that happened to me in high school involved Mrs. Inez Driscoll, whom most (all?) of us had for English as Sophomores. One time she sent me to the principal's office as discipline and forgot she had done so. Mrs. Driscoll was explaining synonyms and antonyms to the class and she said, "Write this down. Synonyms are words which mean the opposite, and Antonyms are words which mean the same." I immediately knew she had said it backwards, so being the bold, argumentative student that I was I said, "Mrs. Driscoll, you said it wrong. Synonyms are words which mean the SAME, and Antonyms are words which mean the OPPOSITE." She said, "Eric, be quiet. I am teaching this class." We went back and forth a few times and she finally said, "Go to the office! Now!" I left the classroom and went to the principal's office, and when I walked in Mr. Todd (the principal) said, "Eric, now what are you in here for?" (Mr. Todd and I fought many battles!) I expained how she had said it backwards, and he agreed with me so he and I walked back to Mrs. Driscoll's classroom to straighten it out. When we walked in she said, "Eric! Where have you been?" (She had forgotten the incident already.) I reminded her that she had sent me to the office and she said, "Sit down. OK class, let's continue." Mr. Todd (in one the few instances of him EVER being on my side) said, "Mrs. Driscoll, Eric says you and he disagree about the definitions of Synonyms and Antonyms. Can you give us the definitions please." Mrs. Driscoll says, "Well of course, Synonyms are words which mean the same, and Antonyms are words which mean the opposite." Mr. Todd says, "That's right. Eric, sit down." I am very exasperated and I say, "That's not what you said last time! Class...I know you all wrote down what she said in your notebooks and I know you will have it backwards. Would someone please repeat what she said the first time." I got no response from my classmates (nobody was going to stand up to Mrs. Driscoll), so I had to humbly sit down and pretend that I was the one who was wrong.

Football
I played football for several years in high school. I was a 2nd string center. I remember one game we had with Fruitland where we had practiced a trick play where between plays 3 people would run to the sideline to confer with the coaches, then only 2 would run back to the huddle, and the 3rd guy would stand just inbounds. When the ball was hiked the 3rd guy, whom nobody saw, would be in the open to receive a pass and be undefended for an easy touchdown. We rehearsed this play several time during the week, then when we played Fruitland they pulled this same play against us on the first play of the game! We should have been very disappointed for their easy touchdown, but the poor guy (whom many of us knew and shall remain nameless) dropped the ball. I think that play is illegal now (perhaps it was then also).

The cannery
I worked at the cannery several times during the corn season in the fall. The first year I was in the little lab in the back that tested the loads of corn that were brought in, primarily for moisture content to see if the load would be used for cream style (water was added so the dryer corn was used) or whole kernel (no water was added so the more moist corn went here). One year I was the "Retort  man," the guy who cooked the corn in these giant retort steam cookers. I remember a friend of my dad's (dad grew up in Payette) saying the Retort man was looked up to by the other cannery workers (huh?). It required you to stand over the cookers where the temperature was 20-30 degrees hotter so I wasn't sure why anybody envied someone with this job, but status is status.

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Links   (see more at Idaho links)
     Class of '66
Wynn White Photography – Wynn White
     Vandyke Notes – Wynn's article on using the Vandyke process
     Wynn's Gallery at Profotos.com
     Wynn's albums at Clubphoto.com – some family photos here
Skipio's – Skip Cockerum
ART in FLUX – Cheryl Shurtleff
     Cheryl's faculty page at BSU
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall – Make a virtual rubbing of Scott Flint's name
Health Enhancement: A Journey to Wellness – Mike and Lyla Aldrich
Curb and Vent Manufacturing – Mike Frazier
Cheryl K. Shurtleff – Cheryl Shurtleff
PENCELAND.com – Eric Pence (you are here now)
     Other classes
Payette Class of 67 – this reunion site was created by Tom Zumwalt and has many great photos
Payette High School Class of 1982
L and S Enterprises (fun·and·fab.com) – Linda Barrie (class of '65)
     Payette
City of Payette – the town website
Street map
     Looking up main street ¹
Payette Chamber of Commerce
Payette High School – the current high school link
     Payette History
Payette County Idaho GenWeb Project – great site with lots of historical and current information
     Boomerang – about the founding of the town
     Early Mayors of Payette
     Payette County Photo Album – more old photos of Payette
     Peter Pence biography – my great grandfather, a Payette pioneer
     McCain Student Articles – the work of former 7th and 8th grade students from McCain Middle School
     Payette High School Fire of 1956 – this event caused many students to attend school in other locations one year
     McCain Middle School History Quiz – many of these questions relate to our old high school building that became the middle school
     Payette High School Class Lists 1960-1970
     Other
Bob Dye's Ontario Armory Album – 60s Rock & Roll and lots of photos
City of Fruitland
New Plymouth, Idaho
Presque Isle High School Class of 1982 Reunion Site – the best reunion site I have seen
Wy'East High--HOME – another great high school website
Payette on AmericanTowns.com
     Payette Video Clips – people have added videos here, some that play larger on YouTube if you click on them

  Also see Childhood associations on my Friends page.

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In Memoriam

  Several of our classmates have passed away since high school.
If you have further information you wish to contribute, or you want to write something about any of them here, please contact me.

 

Janice Adams 		2004*
Janice attended the 35th reunion. 		 
John Brotherton

Letha Brown 		1990*  
Frank Crowder 		1981*

Stacey Dewey 		1972*, car accident, McCall
Stacey was a good friend of mine in high school.
He is buried at the Payette Riverside cemetery. 		 
Scott Flint 		1967, Vietnam
Scott is listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC,
  at Panel 19E - Line 117 (here is a pencil rubbing I made),
  and on the VVMF Virtual Wall (his profile with photo I uploaded).
He is buried at the Payette Riverside cemetery.

Warren Meador 		 
Keith Reitz 		1970, Vietnam
Keith is listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC,
  at Panel 13W - Line 101,
  and on the VVMF Virtual Wall (his profile).
Finished high school in Stotts City, MO.

Tim Moss 		1989, Loma Prieta earthquake
Tim was in the class of 1968 but he was one of my best
  childhood friends and I want to honor him here.
This photo is from our 1966 yearbook when he was a sophomore.
 
* I obtained some of the dates of death at these sites
    – SSDI
  – FamilySearch.org

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Classmates' information

  Here is a list of the people in the PHS class of 1966 and some additional information. Please contact me with any updates you want to make.
I am trying to present the info in a way that won't violate your privacy or get you spammed.

¹ Click on Street View to see actual location.