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College Years

In May of 1954 high school was completed and now it was time to prepare for the future. I said good-bye to my friends and teachers. My higher education was begun at Bluefield College in Bluefield, Virginia in a curriculum of pre-medical education. I lived on campus my freshman year but by the second year, in order to save money, I commuted from home with Dad since he was still working in Bluefield, now at General Mills . I was fortunate to remain on the Dean’s List for academic achievement for four semesters. In those days the Bluefield College was a two-year school and in May of 1956 I graduated with an Associate Degree of Science. To my surprise the college awarded me a $500.00 scholarship toward furthering my education at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. While at Bluefield I developed a close friendship with Bradley Finley who was a business major. We roomed together the first year but parted ways upon graduation. He entered Virginia Tech in Blacksburg while I went further east to Richmond. Brad introduced me to peach brandy one evening, which created a memory that lasted a lifetime. That cured me early on of the strange maladies that too much peach brandy can impose on a human being. It took an entire weekend to recover from the illness that befell me that Friday evening. Brad married Joan Bloomquist and they had four children named Pamela, Stephen, Stephanie, and Kevin. I was best man at their wedding. My son, Tim, and Stephen grew up together and became close friends. They acted as best man in each other’s weddings. There continues to be an annual Christmas reunion of our families thus carrying on a lifelong tradition. Brad and I remained close friends until his death. He was a heavy smoker and being an accountant with its stress took its toll on heart disease and lung cancer. By the fall of 1956 the University of Richmond brought a new experience in education. It was much more difficult. We had been spoon fed at Bluefield in comparison. Now, the professors were tougher and expected a higher degree of performance. I majored in biology and these classes went well but foreign languages played havoc with me. I didn’t like French and it was a chore to study. In order to graduate on time I needed another language and the only option left in this short time was La tin. I’d for gotten all my high school Latin and I was a senior by now. The freshmen were reading Cicero and Homer, which made me look bad. I obtained a “Pony” translation and memorized great portions enough to get me through my final semester of my senior year. My biology and comparative anatomy at Richmond prepared me well for the medical college the following year. There’s another event that took place in college that would change my life. In high school I met a young lady whom I would date through high school and college. There was little doubt when I first met Janet Elizabeth Bird that she would be a perfect mate for life. She too liked farm life being a prominent farmer’s daughter. She was born and raised in Bland County and is the oldest child of Daniel Woodrow Bird and Elizabeth Kegley Dunn Bird. Jan was

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