Brandon T. Babjack

John P. Baranski

Earl N. Barroso

Bruce W. Bergeron

Joe S. Bonno

Charles M. Carbone

Stephen P. Carmichael

Pete A. Cashiola

John Castellanos

Clyde P. Davison

Donald D. Dow

James L. Flinn

Thomas J. Gaither

Edward L. Garney

Richard Hiebert

James A. Jamail

James A. Kelly

John J. Knapick

Joseph A. Kocurek

Robert C. Leaman

John J. Linke (Jay)

Frank S. Lott

Luke S. Maglitto

Vincent T. Mazzola

John G. Meador

Ralph Reese

Luther K. Reeves

Duke J. Seifert

Earl H. Sequeria

Alvin R. Van Black

Anton J. Wagenhauser (Jimmy)

Walton O. Watkins (Bucky)

Stanley E. Wilson

In Memoriam

"A Tribute to Green Meador"

by: Paul Mattingly

         Green and I were the smallest linemen on the STHS football team. We also had in common our families of all-male siblings – he had five brothers and I had six. We both lived “way out” from STHS in Memorial – classmates referred to it as the “sticks.” The two of us frequently hitchhiked home after football practice.

At one time, in our early thirties, we were in business together, and I personally observed Green’s commitment to do the “right thing” in all instances. He was a true follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

    Two days before Green died, we spent a weekend together with our wives, Stuart and Carole, in West Texas. I fondly remember our wading in the crystal clear water of the Frio River. By that time, Green had already outlived his life-projection from two prior heart attacks and open-heart surgery. He had a successful career with American General Investment Company, part of a company founded by a group that included his grandfather. Life was good! Two days later, at the age of 39, Green died of a third heart attack.

    Green was a man of the highest integrity who also had a great sense of humor. He is one of my heroes.

I know that he will be with all of his classmates at our 50-year reunion.

John "Green" Meador

1940  - 1980

"Remembering Green Meador"

by: Pat Cagle

    My friendship with Green Meador goes back to the first grade at St. Anne's School. We played our formative years of football there. By the time we entered St. Thomas, we had known each other for a "long" time in kid years! We continued that friendship at St. Thomas where we played football together on the Eagle's team. Green, who was a "quiet" man by nature, became a different person in a football uniform. He was the toughest "nice guy" I ever met.

    At one of our senior-year games, Green played most of the second half with a broken arm and never told the coaches until the game was over. He was taken to the hospital where his injury was "checked out." He played the remainder of the games that season wearing an arm cast!

    Another memorable senior-year game was the one against Aldine High. Their coach, Tony Carr, was our former coach at St. Anne's. He had reluctantly taken the job at Aldine after not having gotten the coaching position at St. Thomas. He greatly disliked St. Thomas and had his Aldine boys fired up, as only Tony could do. Late in the fourth quarter, the game was tied 0-0. Green tells me to run play "32 dive right" over Andy Smith and him. Green already had a 250-pound Aldine defensive lineman completely "whooped." We ran "32" nine times in a row and won 7-0. Tony was so mad he was crying when he ran out on the field. He slammed Green's and my helmets together and howled, "You mullets beat me!" What a memory! Green and I laughed all the way home!

     Green was a wonderful young man, and, later, a wonderful husband and father.

     He died way too young! I miss him!

"A Tribute To Jim Kelly"

by: Roland White

I do not remember days or years but I do remember moments.

I first met Jim Kelly in 4th grade at St. Mary's. We were best friends from the beginning. His mother taught Piano and my brother and I failed to make her best pupil rankings. It was the end of Radio days and the dawn of black and white television. I saw the original tonight show staring Steve Allen at Jimmy’s home.  His next-door neighbor was Guy Lewis who became the legendary basketball coach at the University of Houston. We both lived on either side of the University of Houston. Jimmy and I grew up in the era when Frontier Fiesta was in full bloom and would spend the two weeks of that event as 5th and 6th graders, being snuck in to the shows for free by college kids who were cast members who adopted us as their little brothers.

Jimmy and I also lived down the street from Buff Stadium and had a neighbor who was “Wee” Dickie Kerr the legendary pitching hero of the Black Sox scandal from the 20’s who won two games for the black sox while his team threw the series. Mr. Kerr also adopted us as surrogate grand kids and would take us over to see major league games that were put on by the Buff’s major league parent, the St. Louis Cardinals at the end of Spring Training. It turned out that Mr. Kerr had helped manage a minor league team in the Cardinal organization and he had helped support a young pitcher and his wife over a critical winter when that pitcher had thrown out his arm. The player was Jim Kelly’s favorite ball player Stan Musial, who Mr. Kerr helped develop into a pretty fair hitter. Jimmy and I got to meet Stan Musial and several of his teammates each season from 1950 –1954.

As we began to come of age in our adolescence we spent countless precious hours discussing girls and girls and more girls. We also discussed the mysteries of our faith as alter boys and our evolving view of the world after WW II.

When we enrolled at St. Thomas we were pleased to find that we were both enrolled in 9C. We soon found new friends and renewed acquaintances with friends from our respective parochial schools. Soon a lunch group formed in the cafeteria that included regulars like Pat Cagle, Paul Mattingly, Green Meador,

Jim Kelly, and a few others who like me were fortunate to share their company.

In 1955 my parents bought a 1955 Chevrolet and on a particular night I got to take it out. Jim Kelly and I rolled up to a red light at main and Holcombe in front of the Shamrock Hotel. An older man (25 or so) pulled up in a 1955 yellow Cadillac convertible. We looked at each other and the 25 year old gunned his engine and the race was on. Within two blocks we were a car length ahead and two motorcycle cops pulled up beside us. Jimmy said, “Damn you got to be the one who got the first speeding ticket”.

Jimmy was a star running back for the St. Thomas football team at each level.  We went out on double dates and to parties. He was always a true friend in every respect. During 6th period English class in 9th grade the principal and Jimmy’s brother came and told him his father had passed away from a heart attack. He called me that night and asked if I would be an alter boy for his fathers funeral mass.

The years pass, season by season the friendships at St. Thomas that were forged remain as indelible memories as we approach our 50th reunion. Jimmy’s memory burns brightest for me. After moving away from Texas for about 10 years when I returned I was caught up with business and the joy and responsibility of helping my wife raise our own family. I did not reach out to old friends though I certainly intended too.

I received a call maybe from David Hannah telling me that Green Meador had died at such a tender age. At Green’s funeral Jim Kelly came and sat with me. After the service I invited Jim to come by my office to have lunch and a discussion with Pat and I. He told me that he felt that he probably had a similar heart condition in his family to that of the Meador family. (Paul Mattingly told me yesterday that Green and all of his six brothers had died of heart disease in there 30’s 40’s and fifties).

My friend Jim Kelly and I agreed to get together again soon. I wanted to meet his wife and family and I wanted to have him meet mine. I thought wistfully how wonderful it would be for my sons and daughters to grow up as close friends with Jimmy’s sons and daughters. We exchanged phone calls about getting our families together but nothing quite worked out. In all too short a time I received a dreadful call from Jimmy’s sister telling me of his untimely death. As we approach our 50th graduation I know he will be with us in spirit and I will offer a prayer tonight, in remembrance of Jim Kelly and all of our classmates who precede us in life’s final journey to be with Christ. God Bless. 

"A Tribute to Jack Castellanos"

by: Charles Molesworth

Jack Castellanos and I were close friends for our junior and senior  years at STHS, and for a while afterwards. When I left Houston in 1962, to return only frequently, I lost track of him, and have no  knowledge of his later life and his passing. But I felt I should say  something about what made him remarkable.

  

Jack was not at all involved in varsity sports, though he was big enough and fast enough to qualify, as I was not. He had several  friends who were also among the bigger guys, like Jim Roark, Jim Wagenhauser and Earl Sequeira (the latter two, alas, also passed  away). I sort of hung around on the fringes of the group, trying to  absorb some sense of "cool" by association. Jack liked motorcycles,  wing-tip shoes (polished to a mirror sheen), pizza and beer. I recall  he especially got on well with guys from the class behind us: Justin 

White (Roland's younger brother) and Steve Foote, and the two Manley  boys, cool guys all the way. Self-confident but not cocky, Jack appreciated that certain hip style that was there on the "green slab"  in some groups, and he managed to develop his own personal sense of  what mattered.

    

Not much for studies, Jack used to laugh if I said anything that sounded too serious, though a minute later he'd be willing to listen. I don't know if he graduated from college, but I recall he started for a while at the U. of Houston. Kent Bordelon knew him well, too, and maybe he can fill in some of the missing bio. In any case, I don't imagine Jack as being drawn to higher education or aspiring to be a CEO or professional. But I tell people all the time one of the most valuable things about four years at STHS was one got  to meet guys from all over the city, with all sorts of horizons and  personalities that seemed unique. After I left Houston I never again  met anyone like Jack (and that's true of countless others of my classmates, which is why I think I remember them so vividly.)

I spent an afternoon with Jack at a second-hand record store on  West Alabama, near Shepherd Drive, where I first got lost in Muddy Waters, listening to one deep blues after another. That sound was just beyond the Platters and Chuck Berry. Funny, how you can sometimes trace your love of a specific music to a single day.

   

For Jack, from a long way off, a memory from far away, and fond  feelings.                                      

"A Tribute to Jim Jamail "

by: Chuck McCarthy

My best friend of all my St. Thomas classmates was Jimmy Jamail.  He was an acolyte at my Dad’s funeral mass in 1961.  I was an emotional basket case for thirteen years after Dad’s death.  Jimmy was always there for me whenever I needed him.  In return for his favors, I became a listening post for him.  He felt that his vocation was being tested at St. Mary’s Seminary and dropped out and attended Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama.  When we would get together he would voice all the reasons for and against returning to the seminary. He finally convinced himself that he was born to serve God and the Church.  It was a magnificent privilege to be a witness to his awakening.

  

When he returned to the seminary, he arranged to spend his summers working with the Sioux Indians on the Pine Ridge Reservation at Fort Yates, North Dakota.  After his ordination, his first parish assignment was to Assumption in Houston.  On one of my visits to him there, a scruffy-looking hippy guy came to the door of the office. When Jimmy saw him, he excused himself and left the room to talk to his other visitor.  When he

returned, Jimmy explained that the guy was an undercover narcotics officer with the Houston Police Department.  He explained to me that he had made a deal with the police department to allow any people who were arrested for narcotics for the first time, to be given the option of talking to Jimmy or going to jail.  There is no telling how many people were influenced by Jimmy’s counseling.

  

On another visit, he reached into his desk and handed me an Indian tomahawk.  It was a stone attached to a wooden handle with buffalo hide and sinew.  While I was holding it, he handed me a letter.  It was addressed to him from the North Dakota Historical Society.  It stated that they were aware that “Alice Two Bears” had given Jimmy a tomahawk that they knew she had possessed.  The letter went on to say that the tomahawk had been authenticated as having once belonged to “Crazy Horse”.  They asked him to please consider the Society if he might sell it.  He later told me that he gave it to the museum at the site where they are carving the mountain into a memorial to Crazy Horse.

  

Then he explained to me that when he was at Fort Yates, he became aware that there was a young Sioux boy who had been banished from his peer group.  The boy’s parents had been killed in a car accident, and he was living with his grandmother.  Her name was  “Alice Two Bears”.  Sioux tribal custom demanded that a male child be raised in a lodging with a male figurehead.  The boy’s grandmother would not allow him to move, and he continued to live with her.  The elders would not allow the other children to talk to the boy, hoping to force his grandmother to let him move in with his uncle.  She would not do it.  Jimmy saw the damage that was being done to the boy and confronted the tribal council.  He convinced them to allow the boy to remain with his grandmother until she died.  She gave Jimmy the tomahawk to express her appreciation for his efforts.

  

Later in his life, he became angry with the shrimpers in Galveston who were barricading the Vietnamese fishermen from plying their trade.  The Ku Klux Klan got involved and blocked access, by the Vietnamese, to the fishing grounds. Jimmy got a motorboat and motored out into the Gulf, where he confronted the Klan fleet until they stopped the blockade. Later I talked to the guy driving Jimmy’s boat. He said he was scared to death, but Jimmy never hesitated.

  

I had another visit with Jimmy at St. Vincent’s.  He told me a great story.  In one of the families of the parish, there was a woman, with a husband and two young  boys, who was dying of leukemia.  He ministered with the family for a couple of years until she passed away. It was just before Christmas, and the family told Jimmy that they would rather not spend the holidays in Houston so soon after her death.  They told him that they were going to Rome for Christmas and would love for him to accompany them.  Jimmy decided that he could make the time and would love to see some of his old friends that he had met at the Vatican when he studied Canon Law there.  While he was in Rome, Jimmy went to lunch with an old friend who was on the

Pope’s staff. The friend mentioned to the Holy Father that an old friend, who was a Monsignor from Houston, was accompanying a family.  He explained the family’s tragedy to the Pope. The Holy Father loved the story.

Jimmy told me that he was in the lobby of the hotel where they were staying and there was an announcement,  “Monsignor Jamail, please come to the front desk.  You have a message from the Papal Office at the Vatican.”  Jimmy said that he literally floated to the desk and took the call.  His friend told him that he had shared Jimmy’s story with the Pope and that he was invited to bring the family and concelebrate Mass with the Holy Father. He accepted the invitation.

  

He went on to tell me that, as they entered the Vatican, because he was a Monsignor and “wore the Purple,” the Swiss Guards snapped to attention as he went through each doorway. The young boys were awed by the action of the guards.  Jimmy leaned down and whispered to the boys,  “Now I want you guys to go back to St. Vincent’s and tell your friends how they treat me over here and maybe I will get a little more respect!”  He also told me that he was in awe of the Pope’s relationship with the children. The boys will never forget him.

Jimmy would confront the devil for his flock and he had a world class sense of humor.  I loved him dearly and miss him greatly.

Jim Jamail

1940 - 2002

"A Tribute to Douglas Dow "

by: John Irwin

I first met Douglas Dow when we were both six years old, and we were enrolled in the first grade at St. Anne’s School.  By the fourth grade we were best friends and remained that all through St. Anne’s and St. Thomas.  When we started at St.Thomas neither of us had a car or a driver’s license, but Douglas had an old red Cushman, and he would come by my house each morning and give me a ride to school.  After school each day we’d stopped at the River Oaks Drugstore and each have a chocolate milkshake and discuss the day’s events.  This was an unvarying routine and kept up even after we were both driving cars, the only change being that in our junior year we switched our patronage from the River Oaks Drugstore to the Southampton Drugstore on Bissonnet on the grounds that their chocolate milkshakes were thicker and that the counterman would fill the tall glass with the milkshake and then leave the metal canister in which it had been mixed beside the glass on the counter so that we could have the last of the shake.

In those lengthy after-school conversations we’d cast the day’s events as a narrative in which our senses of humor acted as a defense mechanism against the mutually perceived injustices of being teenagers.  Everyone has or should have at various periods in their life a best friend, and in grade school and high school Douglas was mine.  For me he was always “Douglas,” never “Doug” as he was for many of his other friends.  I remember once in high school he asked me why I never called him Doug but always Douglas.  I said because I’d been calling him that since we were both six years old and that I didn’t intend to change.  That answer seemed to satisfy him; indeed, seemed to make him happy.  Even at that age we already knew the value of long-time shared experience and what it would mean in the years to come. 

After high school we went our separate ways but always stayed in touch and when we were in the same city always managed to see each other.  Douglas was a groomsman in my wedding the first time I was married, and in recent years whenever I’ve had occasion to be back to Houston we always got together, usually for lunch with John Robinson and Pat Gaffney.  I remember in particular a lunch with Douglas and Janelle, John and Joanne Robinson, and Pat and Judy Gaffney where we were all being uproarious, and someone from an adjoining table came over (we thought at first to complain about the noise, to which we would have replied, “Well, what the hell, this is Texas!), but to introduce himself, saying that he’d overheard some of our conversation, and he knew from what he’d heard that we could only be talking about our school days at St. Thomas High, which he recognized because he was a fellow alumnus though from some years later than 1958. 

When I heard the news of Douglas’s sudden death, it knocked the wind out of me, and a flood of memories came back.  There are a few people you meet during your life of which you can truly say that when you look up and see them walking in your direction, it always makes you happy because you know you’ll have a good time in their company.  That was Douglas for me.  I remember a Christmas party and dance he gave at his house in 1956; I remember that every summer we’d go to the performances of Gilbert and Sullivan at the U of H auditorium; I remember that when we were freshmen we went to a St.Thomas football game one Friday night, and when we were riding Douglas’s Cushman home afterwards, we’d stopped at a light next to a carload of students from the high school St. Thomas had beaten, that words were exchanged, and that Douglas suddenly threw a water-balloon (that I didn’t know he had) through an open window of the car into the midst of its occupants, whereupon the Cushman took off (even though the light hadn’t changed yet) with the car in hot pursuit and the Cushman (which probably had a top speed of forty miles an hour) went careening on sidewalks and through front yards and down back alleys with its headlight turned off to elude its pursuers.  I remember Douglas’s father and mother, and the fact that his mother liked me because she seemed to think I exercised a restraining effect on Douglas, whereas one of the things I liked about Douglas was that he seemed always able to resist any restraining influence I exercised.  So Douglas, my oldest friend, is gone.  I know it, but I don’t accept it. 

Douglas Dow

1940 - 2007

Please send your tributes to our webmaster @ StThomas1958@aol.com and she will be glad to add them to this page.

Jim Kelly

Jack Castellanos

"A Tribute to Alvin Van Black"

by: John McGraw

My first encounter with Alvin Van Black was in freshman year when he beat me in a speech contest.   I spoke on the fascinating subject of the “Papal Encyclicals and Socialism; he did a funny speech on clocks and time. That such a trivial speech could have won over my carefully researched talk on a vital subject really upset me at the time.  In retrospect, he had the class in stitches, while I put them to sleep.  Although Alvin and I did a lot of things together in high school, I don’t remember being that close, but we kept in touch after graduation.  So I was surprised and honored when he called me to tell me he was marrying Ann Cox and asked me to be his best man. 

Alvin started college at Texas as a journalism major — as he termed it, the “world’s second oldest profession.”  He soon dropped out to join the Coast Guard where he slipped off a rope and broke his ankle during Basic Training.  All attempts by the Public Health doctors to set the ankle correctly failed, leaving Alvin with a slight limp. His first assignment in the Coast Guard was on a weather cutter in the North Atlantic winter.  When they asked if anyone had any baking experience, probably recalling helping his mother bake cookies, he was the first to volunteer.  Later he became a Medical Corpsman assigned to the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, where I visited Alvin and Ann several times over the summer of 1963, when I was chief cook and bottle washer at a DC nightclub.

When Annie and I were dating, and after we were married, we spent a lot of time with Alvin and Ann, sometimes sitting up all night playing games and laughing at Alvin’s wit.  They seemed to be a happy, perfectly-suited couple, so I was shocked a few years later when he told me they were getting a divorce.  I moved away from Houston, but would keep-in-touch, calling him every few months.  I would also try to catch his shows when I was in Houston and business permitted.  Alvin’s gift for story telling led him to radio and television.  A talk show gave him the freedom to do his thing.  However, I was surprised when he donned a tuxedo and became  “Alvin at Night.”  It brought back memories of our wedding when wearing a tuxedo seemed completely out of character for Alvin.

Long before Kevin Bacon, in one of his daily commentaries, Alvin told one that I often use when events match the story went roughly like this:  “There are only 373 people in the entire world.  That’s the only way it works out Mathematically that if you are in Nowhere, Alaska, a town with a population of ten, you will meet someone who was a next door neighbor or your cousin Sue in Sarasota.”  If there were any more people in the world, this just couldn’t happen.

You say you’ve seen much bigger crowds at football games.  Those are all cardboard cutouts to make it look like there are more.  Trust me, there are only 373 people in the world.  ”Alvin had a true gift for seeing the humor in a situation.  I could see something and say “this happened and then that happened.”  But when Alvin related the same event, it became hilarious.  I’d think about it and realize that he hadn’t changed the facts, or exaggerated; he just saw life from a different perspective.  I always believed that he could have gone on to national fame as a comedian, but he liked Houston and was content with that.

Alvin, I miss you.  The world misses you! I hope you are keeping everyone in heaven rolling in the clouds as you describe the latest events on earth.  By the way, there is no question about who should have won the contest.  Rest in peace.

Alvin Van Black

1940 - 2001