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Today's Featured Biography

Jeffery Sparks

My Dad used to tell a story when he was a kid, sub-teen I'm guessing since he "joined" the Army Air Corp @ 16 and got kicked out sometime later only to rejoin, of going to southwest Oklahoma to pull "bows" (sp?) aka cotton. Since it was the Great Depression, the 1930's, they (him, his older brother and Dad Joe) were doing this to survive and make a little money and according to him living on sweet potatoes 3 times a day. So during the late 50's when he felt frustrated with the civil service job he held at Tinker and we were living in Midwest City and the Air Force made him an offer to "reup" he said if you give me Altus AFB I'll sign, knowing my Mom wouldn't live any where outside of Oklahoma, me and my two sisters, Mom and Dad sold our acre and a quarter with Bill Atkinson "buildout" house and concrete garage for a 38' New Moon and moved to Altus in the middle of my 4th grade... fast forward 7 years.

After 3 years in Puerto Rico, having tried to sincerely grow gills, I returned to my home Oklahoma and previous school system, if you don't count 9 weeks at Stigler OK high school, waiting on a little event called the Cuban Missile Crisis, which we found out later was the closest we ever came to a nuclear war, to finish my senior year and graduate from high school.

Coming back to Altus was bittersweet for a 17 year old who thought he could only express himself in the ocean swells, I was helped by a nice "little old lady" named Ruth Farris get a handle on life in the hot southwest corner of Oklahoma by loaning me her "old" press camera, a TLR Rolleiflex complete with large flash gun to cover local high school events and learn to express myself photographically and contribute to the high school newspaper and earn money by sacrificing Friday and Saturday evenings, a big deal to a teenage boy by reading proof for the local daily newpaper, the Altus Times-Democrat.

I did graduate, not a given with my performance in PR, I played the bass drum for that Altus band, bowlegs and all, didn't make Mr. Leavitt mad too many times and traded an old Austin Healy 100-4 for a bright yellow 1938 Dodge sedan delivery that became my summer fantasy to try (unsuccessfully) and live the surf bum life in Oklahoma.

The friends I made there, actually mostly in grade school, going to grade school 4th-6th as a Eugene Fields squirrel, (always the squirrels), they remain the some of my best friends in life and the best of 63 years on this green and blue earth. If life's success and wealth is measured by the number of friends then I got most of mine in Altus.

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