Update from the McCurdy Family

Bill and I and our three children moved to Houston from Irving in the Fall of 1972 when Jan was a freshman who entered J. Frank Dobie High School, and the twins, Brent & Beverly enrolled in 6th grade at Thompson Elementary. We visited Sun Valley immediately at the encouragement of a couple at our church in Irving who knew their friends Jack & Leita Rue Baten were members there and in the area near where we were moving. The Batens invited us over to their house that Sunday night along with several other couples. The youth group was so friendly and came to visit our kids and asked them to sit with them during class and services. These friendly gestures helped us to make the decision to place membership at Sun Valley after about a month of visiting back and forth between Sun Valley and Southeast.

Bill is retired but continues to work part-time for Jeter Funeral Home in Friendswood. I started filling in as a part-time secretary at Sun Valley beginning the following year and that resulted in working there for the next 13 years. I retired at the end of 2004 after serving as one of the full-time secretaries at Southeast for the past 18 years. My years of serving as church secretary totaled 31 years.

Jan and her husband, Dennis McBee, and family all live in Houston and are members at Southeast. Their son, Chris and Josie have a one-year old daughter, Aubrey who has been the light of Jan & Dennis’ lives the past year. Their daughter, Amber is in her second year at San Jac.

Brent and his wife, Mary Ann, and son, Lucas live in Selma, while Beverly and her husband, Gary Shuck and their two sons, Danny and Dylan live in Schertz - both cities are located near each other in the northeast edge of San Antonio and not far from New Braunfels. Beverly and her husband have one grandson, thanks to their son Danny and his wife Kim. Their younger son is a freshman in high school. We are very happy to have and enjoy our five grandchildren and two great-grandbabies.

Joyce

The following photo was taken at Joyce and Bill's 50th wedding anniversary celebration in May 2005.

Update from the Rainwater Family

We moved to Houston after Randy's graduation from Harding College in Searcy, AR. Mike and Debi Kirksey had a lot to do with us considering the move to Houston (and Randy's 1st full-time job). We became friends with them our sophomore year in college, when they were Mike Kirksey and Debi Baten. After their marriage, we lived in the same married student apartments on campus (you'll have to ask Debi about the contact paper in their apartment and the cinder block walls). Through Debi's dad, Randy learned of an opening in the accounting department at Champion Papers where Jack Baten was employed. Long story short, after graduation, we loaded all our prized belongings in the smallest enclosed U-Haul trailer available and headed to Houston with the Kirkseys. Thanks to the hard work of Leita Rue Baten and Virginia Kirksey (who did the apartment hunting for both couples), we moved into brand new apartments near Hobby Airport and that's when our history began with the congregation at Sun Valley Church of Christ!

While living on the south side of town, we managed to buy our first house, had two children (Stephanie, now 31, and Keith, now 29), and made some wonderful friends and memories at Sun Valley. With a change of jobs for Randy (from Champion Papers to Dailey Oil Tools), it made sense for us to make the move to Kingwood to cut down on Randy's commute to Conroe, TX. While it was very hard to leave our family at Sun Valley, we have enjoyed living in Kingwood (known as the Liveable Forest) and being members at Kingwood Church of Christ. It was helpful in that we knew one family, when we started attending Kingwood--Ted & Carol Poe and family.

Randy currently works for American Bureau of Shipping next to the Wyndham Hotel near Greenspoint Mall (about a 20 minute commute from our house). He is a director in the financial side of the company and has been with them for 10+ years. He doesn't travel as much as he use to, but will be going to London the first of September for a director's meeting.

I work two days a week (T & TH) in the church office at Kingwood Church of Christ. My job responsibility includes typing, formatting, and printing the church bulletin. It's been an interesting job and working part-time has afforded me time to run errands and do things with friends. We live less than 5 minutes from church.

Stephanie is back living in Kingwood with her son, Lincoln. Unfortunately, on December 1, 2006, her husband (Keith) died of melanoma cancer. He was 30 years old and left Stephanie, 29, and Lincoln, just 6-months old. At the time, they were living in Greenville, TX near the Mesquite/Garland area, where Keith had an excellent job as a programmer with L3 Communications and Stephanie was planning to be an at-home mom (retiring from teaching) to take care of Lincoln. After Keith's passing, she and Randy worked on getting her home ready to put on the market (I got the fun job of babysitting!). It went on the market in mid-March and sold in July (making her a profit in the short time they had lived in the home). She and Lincoln moved in with us in July of '07 until she moved into the home she is currently leasing. They live less than 5 minutes away from us, attend church with us, and I'm able to help her with childcare. She easily secured a job teaching kindergarten at the Oaks Elementary School and will be there again this year (her 8th year of teaching). She is a super mom/daughter and we continue to be amazed at her strong faith and all that she does as a single parent. She has a blog that she continues to update. Take a look for yourself...if you go back to the beginning and read forward, you'll learn her inner thoughts, struggles, and hopes for herself and for Lincoln (http://www.mccordfamilytx.blogspot.com/). Our hope and her prayer is that God will put a Christian man in her future!

Our son, Keith, lives in Michigan where he works for the University of Michigan. He is single. Unfortunately, we haven't seen him in a while.

For fun (besides being Pops and Meme to Lincoln--which we love!), Randy and I belong to a GWRRA chapter where we enjoy riding our Honda Goldwing motorcycle. With over 54,000 miles on our bike, we're seen a lot of the south; have flown out to CA twice to rent bikes and ride along the coast and through the Redwood Forest; up to Michigan to get Keith settled into grad school at the University of Michigan to work on his doctorate in political science…just to name a few. As a member of GWRRA, safety is first, so we wear all the proper gear when riding. We just recently purchased a camper that we can pull behind our motorcycle. Several years ago, we rode with Dennis and Jan McBee in a benefit ride.

We are healthy and blessed and are hoping to attend the Sun Valley reunion. The last time we saw folks from Sun Valley was at Ryan Kirksey’s wedding.

Always,
Sharon Rainwater

Photos below: 2003 Family Photo with son, Keith, and Stephanie and her husband, Keith; their pride and joy, Lincoln, helping wash his Pops' truck; and the last picture is what Randy and Sharon do for fun--

Road Trip to the Races

Although I obviously wouldn't have been allowed on this road trip and Jack didn't go since we were living in Palestine, Texas, a group of the guys took at least one trip to the Indy Races (1985?). From the looks of the photos, a RV was rented and some of the guys were involved in a serious game of Trivial Pursuit while they left the driving up to someone else. Perhaps those of you who actually went to the races could identify yourself and share some memories from this trip or previous ones. These photos can be viewed larger on the Sun Valley Picture Spot, but I will have to upload them again from the original scan since the quality currently isn't very good.
Ken Berry and Lance White

(L-R) Jim Kimbrell, Lance White, Alan Elliott, and Kent Vinson is driving.

Others in the group: Jack Baten, Mike Cooper, Mike Kirksey, and Robert Illgen is on the far right closest to the RV.

Introducing...Mr. and Mrs. Alan Pearson

Megan Case and Alan Pearson were married in Long Beach, Mississippi on August 2, 2008. They will make their home in Mc Rae, Arkansas while completing their education at Harding University. Alan is the son of Janice (Priestley) and Ricky Pearson. Congratulations! May the Lord bless your marriage together and strengthen your love for one another with each passing day.

Reunion Draws Closer

We are eagerly anticipating our reunion which is now only a little over a month away (36 days). Our reunion "postal workers" prepared 416 invitations that were mailed to former members we were able to locate. A self addressed stamped envelope and a response card was enclosed in each invitation requesting a reply by August 31. To date, over 100 people have already responded that they plan to attend and we are only half way through the month! Are we still waiting to hear from you? If you haven't mailed your reply card, go find it in the stack of papers and mail on your desk, refrigerator or kitchen counter. Don't forget to check the box regarding publishing your contact information in the directory and mail your reply today!

We have a fun program planned for the afternoon which will include fellowship, refreshments, special recognition awards, and reflections by former members. A photo slide show in addition to a special song presentation is being "produced" in DVD format to be shown at the reunion, and each family in attendance will receive a Directory of Former Members. We hope to have a few extra DVDs available for those who might be interested in purchasing a copy.

DVDs and Directories will hopefully be available upon request after the reunion for those who were unable to attend. Price (including postage) information and other details will be posted at a later date, but you can leave your comments or contact us at thesunvalleyconnection@gmail.com to reserve your DVD/Directory set so we will know how many copies to prepare.

Pulpit/Youth Ministers (Part 2) - Personal Favorites

To the best of our ability and recollection, we listed the former ministers in a previous post (June 17): Don Humphrey, Chester Grimes, Ron Hill, Don Dye, Sonny Todd, Bob Grigg, Gary Richards, Winston Atkinson, Leonard Driskell, Steve Shannon, and Coy Day.

Now although this post may cause some controversy, we would like to know which minister you considered as your personal favorite and why. I will start off by listing Brother Grimes and Ron Hill. Brother and Sister Grimes were such a sweet couple and so dear to my family. Although they were no longer working with Sun Valley at the time, Brother Grimes baptized me at the Heights Church of Christ when I was nine or ten years old.

Pat and Ron Hill and their "children" have been friends of our family since Sun Valley began. We have many great memories of times shared with them at summer camp as well as at the Monday night youth devotionals when Sun Valley had a friendly competition with Hidden Valley to have the largest group in attendance. My parents also drove me to Hidden Valley many times to see a particular young man who attended there. Last but certainly not least, my best memory is of May 12, 1978, when Ron married Jack and I, and Pat sang with a group at our wedding.

What favorite memories or stories do you have about any of these ministers? Who made the greatest impact on your life or was a part of your family in a special way?

Kylee Madison Kenney

Kylee Madison Kenney was born to Kelsi and Derek on August 5. She weighed 6 pounds 10 ounces and was 20 inches in length. Kylee was welcomed into this world by her big sister, Karlee. Her proud grandparents are Pam Aaron and Leon and Janette Aaron.