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Close-Knit Class Of '38 Shares Old Times

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By RAY REYES, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 20, 2008

Updated: 02/18/2008 06:13 pm

PLANT CITY - It was a class that graduated 60 seniors in 1938, and its members lived through the Great Depression and witnessed global war.

The Turkey Creek High School Class of '38 would produce successful businessmen, farmers, pastors and authors, and the majority of the class never left Plant City or returned after living elsewhere for several years.

There are about a dozen surviving members in the class, and all have remained close-knit for seven decades, said alumni James Brownlee, 88.

Nine reunited Feb. 5 in the dining room of the Red Rose Inn and Suites and enjoyed a lunch paid for by one of the members of the class, Gainesville businessman Clark Butler.

"He owns half of Gainesville," Brownlee joked, referring to Butler's investments in land and real estate in Central Florida.

Butler laughed and said, "He's exaggerating a little bit."

The Turkey Creek graduates said they have reunions twice a year and it gives them a chance to not only catch up but to reminisce. Sometimes it takes a few minutes to shake off the cobwebs on memories 70 years old.

"You just start talking to people and it all comes back to you," said Edith Hooker, 87.

Robert Cribb, 86, said there is one memory that has never faded: when he asked Louise Porter for a date.

"She had the prettiest complexion in high school," Cribb said.

Porter said she graduated in 1937 but worked at the school and got to know the Class of 1938, becoming an honorary member. "They included me in every little thing," she said.

"I thought she was older than me," Cribb said, adding that their birthdays were only a few months apart in the same year. "But I finally got the nerve to ask her for a date."

They attended a football game at the University of Tampa. A romantic relationship never developed between the two, but Cribb and Porter said they have remained friends.

Cribb said he misses the era when the pace seemed slower. "It was a different lifestyle then."

Wallace Register, 86, said he and his classmates went through tough economic times prior to World War II.

"We were all just struggling back in the Depression," Register said. "Times were hard, money was scarce."

Register worked on his father's farm, harvesting strawberries, vegetables and citrus. Then the world was plunged into war, and Register joined the Army Air Force. He served in the Pacific during World War II, stationed mostly in Burma.

Brownlee joined the Navy, and other members of the class also signed up for the military, they said. Register downplayed their role in history and the moniker newsman Tom Brokaw gave them: the Greatest Generation.

"I guess," Register said. "I guess."

The reunion also featured a surprise appearance by 2008 Florida Strawberry Festival queen Kristen Elise Smith. She was at the hotel dining room for a Lions Club meeting, but Brownlee waved and caught her before she left.

When told that it was a lunch reunion of the Turkey Creek High School Class of '38, Smith chatted with everyone around the table and told them that she attended Turkey Creek Middle School. Turkey Creek ceased to be a high school after the Class of 1972 graduated. Its former campus is now the middle school.

When Smith posed with Butler for a picture, Brownlee cracked, "Which one do you think is the prettiest?"

Brownlee, who organizes the reunions, said the class will next meet in May at BuddyFreddys restaurant. The grads told him they would do their best to make it and lingered in the dining room before saying goodbye.

"Robert, you behave yourself," Register said to Cribb before he left.

Cribb replied, "I've reached the age where I don't have much choice."

Reporter Ray Reyes can be reached at (813) 865-4433 or rreyes@tampatrib.com.

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