Introducing the newest little Blackburn...

Josiah Andrew Blackburn was born to Jamie and Jay on October 16 at 11:30 p.m. Needless to say it was a very long day for Jamie and the rest of our family as we anxiously awaited Josiah's arrival. Josiah was a petite bundle of love at 7 pounds 4 ounces and 19 and 1/2 inches long. Proud grandparents for the first time are Debbie and Jack Blackburn. Ecstatic great grandparents for the fourth time are Betty and Tom Richter.

REUNION RESCHEDULED for February 7, 2009 (Update #3 After the Storm)

It's been three long, busy, and very tiring weeks after the storm, and I pray that all of you survived and are on the road to recovery. I know when I was making last minute phone calls of the reunion postponement, several still had not had their power restored. After talking with some, I think we could all survive a few days without power, but when you don't have running water, that is a totally different story! Anyway, I pray that none of you have family members that are missing or were lost as a result of the storm and that you will soon be able to recover from any damages sustained to your personal property.

Our reunion has been rescheduled for Saturday, February 7, 2009, same time (2-5 p.m) and place (Clear Lake Church of Christ) as our original plans. We want to get through the current hurricane and holiday season before we send out "Save the Date" postcards and start the invitation and reply process all over again! Hopefully we will not have an unual winter blizzard or storm to preempt our date again, but that's why it will be even more critical for everyone to reply and provide an email address if possible for any last minute information or changes.

As I mentioned above, it has been a very busy and tiring three weeks, but in a good way. Clear Lake CofC members sprung into action the Sunday after the storm to begin mopping up the water in our auditorium that had rained in where the shingles had blown off of the building. We made an effort to contact every member of our congregation to see what their situation was and find out how we could help. Chain saw crews were dispatched to cut trees that were down and clear yards of limbs and other debris. Generators, gasoline, and food were taken to those in need. We also unloaded and distributed a semi truck of food and other supplies from the Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Inc. out of Nashville, Tennessee.

With the immediate needs taken care of, we have now partnered with Hilltop Rescue and Relief who will be helping those who sustained more serious damage to their homes. This organization has provided relief to victims of hurricanes, floods in the Midwest, and fires in California. Hilltop volunteer workers will be sleeping, showering, and preparing/eating meals at our building when they are not assisting and ministering to families suffering after natural disasters. In the coming weeks, we will be welcoming relief workers from outside the Houston area as well as local workers. If you have a week or even a day or two to help, go to http://www.hilltoprescue.org/ to find out how to get involved or to volunteer. If you are physically unable to directly help with hurricane relief, you may send monetary donations of any amount to Clear Lake Church of Christ at 938 El Dorado Blvd., Houston, TX 77062 if you feel called to help support our relief efforts. Please be praying that God might be glorified through this effort and that many needs will be met in the name of Jesus.

SUN VALLEY REUNION POSTPONED (Update #2 After the Storm)

Please let me know if you have been notified by email, a phone call, or have kept up with this blog that the reunion has been postponed.

I had told you that Clear Lake Church of Christ went through the storm never losing power; well, it seems we all spoke too soon! Today we apparently blew a fuse and our building is half "on" and half "off." We do not have internet service and because we have been up to our necks in hurricane relief, I haven't had any time to focus on making personal calls about the reunion being postponed. I need your help in spreading the word so that people don't make the trip in vain.

We have received two 18-wheeler truckloads of relief supplies from the Church of Christ Disaster Relief organization out of Nashville, Tennessee and have essentially become a small distribution center for our members, other Church of Christ congregations, and a neighborhood apartment complex for which we serve through our outreach ministry. Our Family Activity Center (aka GYM) is full of water and all kinds of supplies. Several individuals and congregations have also brought supplies and or are supporting our relief efforts by sending donations which will be put to good use. Many homes extending from Galveston to northeast Texas are still without power. Gasoline supply is limited and grocery stores are still trying to stock their produce and perishable items.

I realize Hurricane Ike is already old news for some cities and states, but it is going to be many months before the Houston-Galveston area and beyond are going to be able to get back on their feet. Please pray for the many families who have suffered complete devastation of their homes or lost a loved one as a result of this storm; be thankful that even as bad as it was, it wasn't worse. For me, this is definitely a lesson not to take things for granted. We really are so blessed!

Anyway, bear with me concerning the reunion as it's not cancelled, but postponed. I guess another waiting period will make our reunion celebration even sweeter.

SUN VALLEY REUNION POSTPONED (Update #1 After the Storm)

For those of you that are living someplace other than Houston, Texas, and have Internet service, we are unfortunately going to have to postpone the Sun Valley Reunion which was scheduled for next weekend. With one week left, Hurricane Ike decided he had other plans for our area.

Although Clear Lake Church of Christ never lost power at the building and was very fortunate in that we just had some water damage in the auditorium due to a leak in the roof and not flooding, many of us are still without power at our homes. With the wide spread devastation, it is going to take many months for clean up and at this point in time, I would venture to say that the reunion wouldn't be rescheduled until after the first of the year with the holiday months quickly approaching.

I regret having to make this decision, and for those of you that will have to pay a penalty fee due to canceling reservations at the last moment, I am so very sorry. Please spread the word to all that you know whether they intended to attend or not, and I just pray that we can notify as many people as possible so that they don't travel here in vain. Please reply that you have been notified of this change by posting your comments.

As soon as I am able to post another update and or have a tentative date to work toward, I will let you know. Much work on clean up, restoring power, rebuilding, and recovery from this storm will now begin throughout this region and your prayers are appreciated. A good number of our members will be camping out at the church until power is restored to our individual homes.

Again, I'm so sorry for any inconvenience this poses for you and your family, but I just don't see any way to pull this off especially with the situation with the gasoline shortage and the current crises.

Weather Update: Workday Cancelled

I appreciate those of you who may have considered helping assemble programs, directories or whatever on Saturday morning, September 13, however due to the unknown strength and impact of Hurricane Ike as it approaches the Houston-Galveston area, we are cancelling our workday.

Once the storm passes and everyone can assess their situation and or any damages, we will make a decision regarding the reunion on Saturday, September 20. At this point, we plan to hold the reunion as scheduled.

If you are evacuating, be safe.

Update from the Morris Cherry Family

Claudia and Morris Cherry and their four daughters, Kathi, Karen, and twins, Tammy and Lynda, (photo 1) were members of the Sun Valley congregation when it began. Claudia and Morris now reside in Lindale, Texas and photos 2 and 3 were taken when they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2001.

Kathi has been married to her husband, Malcolm McGregor, for 20 years, and they live in Dallas, Texas with no children. She is the president of her own company, Novo 1 Market Research (www.novo1research.com/bios/kathi.htm) Kathi and Malcolm are a part of a church plant in Rowlett, Texas (http://www.lakecitiescommunity.org/) and will be unable to attend the reunion due to a church outreach event on the same day.

Karen and her husband, Wayne Threadgill, still live in the Houston area. Karen has two sons: the oldest, John Kelley, and his wife, Crissy, live in North Carolina, and John just returned home from Iraq; her youngest, Daniel, is single and lives in Texas.

Tammy Keller is a single mom and lives in Plano, Texas. She has worked for her sister Kathi at Novo 1 for the past 4+ years because they are truly good friends--even taking "girl trips" together once or twice a year. Prior to Novo 1, Tammy worked for Target for 21 years.
Her daughter, Samantha, and her husband, Aaron, live in Greenville, Texas and have one son named Ian. Tammy volunteers at the annual Plano Balloon Festival and will also be unable to attend the reunion not to mention that her grandson is having his first birthday party on the same day! Need I say more?

Lynda is currently single and lives in Lindale with their parents. She has worked for Wal-Mart for the past 17 years. Lynda's daughter, Rebecca, recently married and she and her husband live in Tyler. Lynda's son, Glen, is single and also lives in Texas.

Pauline & Trevor Williams Celebrate 40 years of Marriage

Pauline and Trevor Williams celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary on September 2. They are currently living in Bristol, England and pass on their kindest regards to people who know them here. Their email address is Williams285@hotmail.com .

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.