Well here we go with the bio,
Terry you wore me down........
After Suitland I did a stint at PGCC, I
just wanted to Cheer. Made the squad and became Capt my next year while
waiting for the Nursing program to open. Never happened so I enlisted
in the Army. The Army did me well. Matured me and I got to travel. Went
to Basic training at Ft. Jackson SC and AIT for Medical Specialist to
Ft. Sam Houston Texas. The next 20 years took me to Ft Lewis, WA, Ft.
Dix, NJ, Ft. Meade, MD, El Paso TX, Hawaii, Walter Reed Wash DC , Korea
and finally back to WRAMC. I retired from the Army in 1994. During my
Military Career, I managed to get married twice. I gave birth to a
beautiful baby girl named Tracee in 1982. Married my 2nd Hubby in 1992
and became a home owner in Beltsville, MD. Got divorced in 2001 and
this is when my dreams and my life really started to take hold.
I always dreamed of living in Hawaii so I just dropped
everything and moved to Honolulu Hawaii in January 2002. Sold or gave
away everything I owned and moved to paradise. No job, no home, just two
suitcases and one box. Ohh I almost forgot my sister came with me too (
I am too big of a wuss to do that move by myself.) Everything just fell
into place. I have the best no stress job. I get to travel to places I
never heard of with this job.I have been to Saipan, American
Samoa,Palau, Pohnpei, and Majuro. Who could ask for more? The last 10
years have been the happiest years of my life. I realize now that I was
meant to be..........and that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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Bio for Donna Weeks Bender
My adventures began just shy of turning 50. Life is what we make it, and I decided I had not been making enough of mine. Maybe it was a mid-life crisis, but my "aha" moment came when Friends went off the air a few months before I turned 50. I felt like I had lost real friends. That's when I realized I needed to go and do things that I had watched people do on TV and in movies, and stop living vicariously through them. The best part about my life, though, isn't the things I've done and seen, but the people I love and who love me back. That's what an exciting life is all about, and it doesn't matter whether you are sitting in a rocking chair on your front porch, or climbing a mountain.
At age 49 years, 11 months, I jumped out of a plane at 15,500 feet. It was on the list I made when I was 25 of things I wanted to accomplish before I turned 50. Just squeaked in under the wire. Going to Paris before I turned 50 was on my list, too. I didn’t make it before I was 50, but did go 3 weeks after I turned 50. I rode a motorcycle at night in the mountains around Lake Atitlan, Guatemala in November 2004; met the love of my life in September 2005; went to Guatemala again in Nov. 2005 to help dig-out and rebuild after the devastation from Hurricane Stan. Also at age 50, I auditioned for and was hired to sing with a 17-piece swing band, which was so much fun. I have always loved music from that era.
At age 51, I landed a job as the assistant to the head of the Energy Practice in a large international law firm. It’s exciting, interesting work in the field of nuclear energy. I am very fortunate to love my job, have a great boss, and terrific coworkers. I enjoy going to work every day. Never thought I'd be able to say that.
I went whitewater kayaking for the first time in June 2006...didn't drown and had a ball. Survived my second whitewater vacation in June 2007. That time I did single kayaks on two rivers and class 4 rapids in a raft for 6. In July 2008, we did an 8-day whitewater rafting trip down the Colorado River, through the Grand Canyon.
My son has turned out to be a great guy, and we enjoy each other's company very much. He is a police officer in Washington DC, and makes his mama very proud. He and my daughter-in-law, Emily, gave me my first grandchild, Isabelle, in March 2007. My second grandchild, Maddy, was born in May 2008. The are two sweet, beautiful little girls who are the delight of their grandmother's heart.
Ed and I got married on April 19, 2008. I got my fairytale wedding, and a happy beginning, not happy ending. He still calls me his princess, too. Ed is a wonderful man. I didn't know that men like him really existed, and I still don't know how I got so lucky.
With all the happy events of 2008, I had three very sad things happen which serve to remind me that life is very short and very precious, and not to take anything for granted. My mother died very suddenly, and much too young and healthy, from medical malpractice in November 2007. My grandmother, who was 100 years old, passed away on May 4, 2008.
They say that death comes in threes. Well, I got my three within 9 months of each other...my Dad died suddenly on August 25, 2008. I hadn't seen him since my wedding in April 2008, as he lived in Florida, but I spoke to him on the phone every morning. I had just talked to him the day before he died. His last words to me were, "I love you, sugah."
However, even with losing my parents and grandmother so close together, my life is still very full and rich, and I am blessed with a wonderful husband, terrific son, two beautiful granddaughters, and great friends.
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Bio For Diana Young Stewart
A nun or a nurse is what I would have been;
Both were honorable professions, I thought suitable for me.
But alas, instead of my dreams - circumstances would see;
That I would marry not once but twice in this life; While living and traveling in this beautiful country extensively; I have enjoyed all 4 coasts, encountering various cultures and personalities.
Our family began just as I was nearing 30;
Two years apart, great blessings came in the form of children, Ian and Sean;
Our great group of friends also began having children close to the same ages;
Then very sadly my closest friend died leaving her husband and children behind.
There was an immense emptiness absolutely nothing could fill;
When my heart heard an undeniable voice full of love calling my name;
Thus began a seeking of God most diligently with wonder and joy;
Life was not much easier but I had hope and assurance that it would be each day.
I proved quite a catch for my employers and none ever wanted me to leave;
Though I felt the greatest job was to lovingly raise children;
Not perfect ourselves, we truly did the best that we could;
With a better education, preparation and knowledge of God;
We sent them both off to college in their chosen professions.
Neither sons have yet married – I’m sad to say;
No daughters-in-law or little grandbabies yet about me;
But I trust in God that one day my hopes will be fulfilled;
While I smile, yearn and endure a little jealousy over yours.
My husband is not well - pancreatic cancer they say;
So get your affairs in order and be thankful for each day.
We’ve been through this before – I’ll mention;
Just 13 years ago now ovarian cancer was threatening.
Troubles and struggles have continually come and gone;
And I assure you that without God - I would not have survived;
From birth to 18 was not as I would have wanted - so powerless to control;
Years 18 to 58 have indeed been exciting and challenging, joyous and sorrowful;
Though now I am willing to live as God would have lovingly wanted all along, fully in His care.
Both were honorable professions, I thought suitable for me.
But alas, instead of my dreams - circumstances would see;
That I would marry not once but twice in this life; While living and traveling in this beautiful country extensively; I have enjoyed all 4 coasts, encountering various cultures and personalities.
Our family began just as I was nearing 30;
Two years apart, great blessings came in the form of children, Ian and Sean;
Our great group of friends also began having children close to the same ages;
Then very sadly my closest friend died leaving her husband and children behind.
There was an immense emptiness absolutely nothing could fill;
When my heart heard an undeniable voice full of love calling my name;
Thus began a seeking of God most diligently with wonder and joy;
Life was not much easier but I had hope and assurance that it would be each day.
I proved quite a catch for my employers and none ever wanted me to leave;
Though I felt the greatest job was to lovingly raise children;
Not perfect ourselves, we truly did the best that we could;
With a better education, preparation and knowledge of God;
We sent them both off to college in their chosen professions.
Neither sons have yet married – I’m sad to say;
No daughters-in-law or little grandbabies yet about me;
But I trust in God that one day my hopes will be fulfilled;
While I smile, yearn and endure a little jealousy over yours.
My husband is not well - pancreatic cancer they say;
So get your affairs in order and be thankful for each day.
We’ve been through this before – I’ll mention;
Just 13 years ago now ovarian cancer was threatening.
Troubles and struggles have continually come and gone;
And I assure you that without God - I would not have survived;
From birth to 18 was not as I would have wanted - so powerless to control;
Years 18 to 58 have indeed been exciting and challenging, joyous and sorrowful;
Though now I am willing to live as God would have lovingly wanted all along, fully in His care.
____________________________________________________________________
Bio For Donna Jo Young
Engaged at sixteen, my dream after high school graduation included marriage, moving to Roanoke, VA, a home with the proverbial white picket fence, and having a large loving family. I married in 1972 just weeks after graduation. Our son was born two years later. Within the next three years I learned “life is what’s happening when you are planning other things”. Since leaving Maryland in 1978, I have traveled to, though, visited, and or vacationed in 37 of the United States, in Mexico, the Bahamas, in both the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. I have resided in FL, NE, NC, and CA. I married again in 1981, and then yet again in 1993, and happily divorced since 2003. I raised a son and two stepchildren. Always employed, career choices were as diverse as my interests and included (yet not limited to) 5 years with a private for profit psychiatric hospital for long term treatment resistant patients, and a combined total of 21 years with NASA’s space shuttle program contractors. Various volunteer activities; hospital auxiliary, middle school mentor, and local playhouses filled remaining niches. In a nutshell, the aforesaid is yet a brief synopsis of the last 40 years. I have loved, laughed, cried, and survived with appreciation and gratitude as I credit faith, and the understanding that emanates in the noted elegy “Friends for a Reason, Season, or a Lifetime”. Read on for an expanded version of some select moments during the last 40 years that I’d compiled into that nutshell and segment with one coma after another; with heart pounding I summed the needed courage to rise from my desk, approach and sit aside to talk privately with Coretta Scott King (who had arrived early for an appointment with then AFSCME’s President Jerry Wurf), jumping out of an almost stopped U-Haul truck along an albeit deserted Texas highway to run off into a huge expanse in acreage of overgrown fields after my cockatiel who had suddenly been carried out on the wind of a unexpected opened window, being grossly mistaken for a high price call girl in conversation between a stranger to a friend during my momentary absence and waiting for my return in a posh Church Street Station club, sitting atop the abandoned concrete structure site at complex 34 (that had contained an Apollo spacecraft command module that during a launch pad test resulted in a flash fire resulting in the deaths of NASA astronauts Chaffee, White, and Grissom) I ate a bagged lunch while dangling my legs over the side looking out to the ocean contemplating life, burning raked piles of leaves in a sparsely graveled driveway with water hose in hand becoming increasingly alarmed and then terrorized by fear that I was about to burn the entire mountain down, magnified horror in finding out that my very first vegetable garden was situated just above the septic tank, using just my hands I emphatically dug rubble from a collapsed opening under a decades old abandoned out house to rescue one of my dogs as he had become trapped beneath it, engaging in quantum physics denying time and space as I sat in my car to my abrupt appearance by my son’s side as 3 older boys gravely erred in taking the opportunity to bully not just a child but my child, standing with my hands clenched tightly behind my back during a walk down inside the Vehicle Assembly Building on an open gantry (used for inspection and maintenance) just inches away and alongside the orbiter (after the external tank and solid rocket boosters are attached it then becomes a space shuttle) as it stood vertical hoisted atop the mobile launcher platform being readied for its next flight and mesmerized by the white dime sized quality assurance stamped approvals dotted sporadically on the black tiles of its underside and reflecting how this close up the remaining expanse of white tiles appeared much like a homemade quilt fitting snugly and tightly against its frame, still partying and more shockingly still vertical after a variety of delightfully alcohol enhanced samplings from a still to date undisclosed number of bars that were quite comfortably situated on either side on the French Quarter’s Bourbon St. in New Orleans, overwhelming onslaught of anxiety fraught with tears of fear the second after my son left (home) for basic training in the military, learning after decades and with sheer joy a secret crush had been mutual and then the subsequent devastation of the knowledge that it was admittedly withheld all the while from both by another who had been entrusted, delighting in the tranquility and natural splendor of Big Sur, giggles of vanity shared between older sisters while donning just the right costume be it feather boas and tiara’s, swimsuits and sunglasses, PJ’s and stuffed animals, or mardi gras masks for what became an annual themed portrait event, looking up wide eyed with great trepidation from the viewing platform of the Hoover Dam’s power plant to the gargantuan expanse of its cement wall wondering tongue in cheek how Superman was able to repair such a brake within just mere seconds, being married in the sand on Cocoa Beach as the sun rose on Valentine’s Day, tears of immense gut wrenching laughter aboard a raft unable to row in-sync causing haphazard drifting in circles carried by the current in Yosemite, surprised by an indignant armed guard through a Rodeo Dr. window at Tiffany and Co., the inability to describe using mere mortal words the seemingly unlimited expanse of nature’s beauty within the Grand Canyon, surviving the heartbreaking flood of emotions after leaving my son at the airport and he on his way back to Germany to complete a military tour of duty, an unexpected adventurous ride on a horse named Harley amidst the Grand Tetons who preferred forging his own path, overwhelming reverence for life standing in the presence of the unfinished Crazy Horse memorial, astonishment of witnessing from inside a vehicle and within mere feet a herd of bison with young alongside crossing a wide creek of torrential water in Yellowstone, driving alone with my cat across country and witnessing at dawn from the highway outside of Phoenix the intermittent yet graceful rise of a multitude of colorful hot air balloons, watching a baseball game in season ticket holder seats directly behind the visiting team at Wrigley Field, taking a college class with my son and purposely not divulging our relationship to either fellow classmates nor professor, enjoying a horizontal sunset in Key West after having spent an afternoon in Margaritaville, experiencing twilight zone bewilderment after gaining access to crossing the Bay bridge en route to Ocean City while all other vehicular traffic was halted and then realizing we were gravely mistaken as part of an undercover entourage as only like town cars sped pass us as we’d adhered to the posted speed limit, stationed in the ICU waiting room promoting courage in the hearts of concerned friends and families of patients, authoring a husband and best friend’s eulogy and it having been received with love, laughter, and tears, astonishment in receiving an unexpected personal handwritten note of thanks from Sylvia Browne, savoring not once, not twice, but three visits among the vortex and red rock splendor of Sedona, witnessing the undeniable brilliance of luminosity that came to Loren Shriver’s (retired astronaut who’d piloted the first shuttle military mission and commanded two other flights including the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope) eyes when he said “awesome” to my asking him “what would be the one word he would use to describe what it felt like to be in Space”, witnessing the love in my son’s eyes and actions toward his wife on their wedding day, ornamenting an entire Christmas tree with an array of 3 to 6 inch dolls that spanned 20 years in collecting, escaping midway intact yet frazzled from a turbulent hand-in-hand human daisy chain guided tour in Dunn’s River Falls, ecstatically surviving without electricity or running water after a particularly busy hurricane season, finally seeing my first shooting star in the midst of a cell phone call from Otis Williams (of The Temptations), diverted to the island of Grand Turk and through happenstance discovered a stretch of beach literally strewn with Conch shells, knowingly expressing a final goodbye to my Dad, overcome with happiness for my son as he received his master’s degree, finally making contact in Iraq with a long lost yet not forgotten nephew, and a repeated adamant lifelong refusal to set aside my Pollyanna rose colored glasses, …
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I
was an Air Force brat who went to a high school in Maine and one in
Texas before I came to SHS. My parents moved again right before my
senior year, so I should have gone to yet another high school. I refused
to graduate with strangers, so I
commuted illegally to Suitland my last year. I didn't have a lot of
friends, but the ones I had I still cherish. I joined so many clubs--pom
poms, French Club, National Honor Society to name a few--because I was
desperate to fit in. It's amazing that my Senior picture lists me as a
teacher as I now am an English professor at PG Community College as well
as a published author. My two sons, Bryan and Evan, are the loves of my
life.
Update 2022
Michelle Y. Green is a published author of historical fiction and biography for children and young adults.She graduated from the University of Maryland and has a Master of Arts degree from Johns Hopkins. She has two grown sons. Bryan, an Independent filmmaker, and Evan, a recording artist.
