Today's Featured Biography

 
Kenton Hamaker Jr

After graduating from W-L I went to Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. I was joined there by Don Richbourg, Don Campbell, Mike Ives and Bill Weaver. Paul Rosenberger, Bob Clements and Jack Dempsey were some of our upper classmen who were already there. I finally got a degree in Business/Ecomomics in 1963. I met my future wife, Peggy Oden, while there.

I went to Navy OCS in Newport. R.I. and received my commission as an ensign on November 22, 1963 - the day President Kennedy was assassinated. I was scared. I thought we were about to enter WW III! I asked for, and got, an assignment to a ship out of Pearl Harbor because Peggy was going to the University of Hawaii at that time. The ship was a Destroyer Escort Radar Picket ship. We patrolled the North Pacific as part of the DEW Line. Boring duty!! I married Peggy on Jan. 28, 1965 at the Pearl Harbor Naval Chapel (a large Quonset Hut).

Within six weeks the ship was assigned new duty patrolling the coast of Viet Nam. We (my shipmates) were really excited about the new duty! We had two tours to Westpac lasting about 6 to 8 months each. On the second deployment we had a new ship's captain. He did a lot of off beat things and was relieved from duty as our captain after just 99 days. A book about the incident, titled The Arnheiter Affair, was written by Neil Sheehan, the author of the Pentagon Papers. The book describes our 99 days under Captain Marcus Aurilius Arnheiter. It makes great reading - especially for military types. I got out of the Navy in November 1966 and returned to Northern Virginia.

We lived an apartment at Fairfax Circle for about a year and a half. We bought our first house in Falls Church City in 1968. We sold that house in 1973 and moved to new house in Burke, VA. We lived there until 1982 when we moved back to Arlington to my family home on N. Ohio Street. Upon retiring in 2015 we sold the family home and moved to Liesure World, a 55 and older community near Leesburg, Va. The community changed its name in 2016 to Lansdowne Woods of Virginia. This has turned out very well for us. We are active by being on committees and taking advantage of the many programs/activities offered. We are about to take a Viking river cruise in August, 2018 from St. Petersburg to Moscow.

When we first got back to NOVA I tried selling real estate but didn't make a dime. So, I went to work for the Boeing Company working on the Apollo TIE Program to put a man on the moon. That was a neat place to be. I left them in 1971 and went back to the real estate field. I became the property manager for Long & Foster Real Estate. I left them in 1979 and and went into partnership with another property manager. We were Mosdale-Hamaker Real Estate. That lasted five years. We broke up and I formed KDH Properties, Inc. This is a family real estate business. Peggy came to work for me in 1989. My son Delk came to work for us in 2001. Our daughter-in-law came to work for us in 2007. We had a couple more sales agents at our office on Lee Highway right next to the old Giffords Ice Cream Shop.

Our first child, Kenton III, was born in 1968. He is married and lives in McLean with his wife Donna. Her three children are now out on their own. One daughter is married and has produced our first great grandchild. He works for the Association For Healthcare Foodservice as their Director of Education, Communications, and Benchmarking. Our second child, Christian, was born in 1970. He is married and lives in Fairfax City. He has four children fifteen and under - lots of fun for us grandparents! He is the publications manager for a telecommunications coop in Arlington. Our third child, Delk, was born in 1975. He lives in Arlington with his wife Jill and their two children - 6 and 3.

I have been reviewing the pictures you classmates have been sending in. Don't most of us look marvelous! I look forward to the reunion and seeing all of you!

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