Send in your contact info!

Hey Guys!

An easy way for us to collect your contact information and updates is for you to email it. That way, the information won't be posted on a blog site (like this one) unless you choose it to be.

My email address is ken@kentillman.com. Feel free to shoot me your email and any additional information you feel led to provide!

Cheers,

Ken

BETA Club Conventions Revisited

Everyone has a "coming of age" story. Mine occurred in stages and certainly some were during the annual BETA club trips to Little Rock.

Growing up in Rison in the '70s meant that I didn't get out much - at least outside of Cleveland County. Now, I realize that Melinda Wilson was driving a car (a Mustang?) in the 7th grade, but little Kenny (Tiny) Tillman did well to borrow the family wheels as a senior! And even then, I had to be home by midnight - or at least before the weird strains of music came over my AM radio as "Beaker Street" came on the air. I always knew I was in trouble if the car wasn’t in the garage before Beaker Street started – which happened all too often.

So, when we all boarded our frosty-windowed school bus in January of 1973 to attend my first annual BETA convention in Little Rock, I could just as well have been headed to the moon.

Little Rock, Arkansas was a foreign country to me. It was where only adults and porkchop-sideburned seniors dared to tread - and then only on special occasions. I remember my amazement from watching Mr. Jones (Jimmy Jones, remember?) navigate the busy streets of Little Rock, let alone chauffer around an entire bus-load of pimply-faced, hormone-laced kids from Rison. To my shock, he even shuttled us from the Convention Center in Little Rock to a new thing called a "shopping mall" in yet another town - North Little Rock!

At the time, McCain Mall was relatively new (certainly to me) and I remember someone exclaiming that "there's like a hundred stores - all under one roof!" It could well have been the 7th wonder of the world as far as I was concerned.

We were daring souls in those days! Having the stamina (we thought) of teenagers, most of us forfeited sleep on the first night in our hotel, choosing instead to play poker (penny-ante) and running the elevator from floor to floor like a carnival ride. Funny, but I don't remember much of the next day’s convention business sessions...seems like most on my row were snoring - including Mr. Jones! (By the way, what was the name of the hotel next door to Robinson Auditorium?)

Most of us attempted and succeeded in gaining entrance to the movie "Deliverance" that was playing at a downtown movie theater (now long gone). That was our mission that weekend (or at least one of them): to sneak into an R-rated movie! Later in adolescence, I recall that our goals changing a bit, but at the time, successfully displaying a fake driver's license was a rite of passage. My own fake ID showed me to be around 19 as I recall. (Mind you, I didn't look 19 until I was probably 30 years old!)

In those days, theater managers would actually check ID's, remember? So, when the manager came down the line checking 'America’s future leaders' (wielding mostly illegal identifications I might add), he only "glanced" at mine (without slowing down at all), chuckled a little, and then sternly advised me to leave.

Maybe I should have warned him that I was also a duly-elected Student Council member from Rison High? I guess the eyebrow pencil I used on my upper lip didn’t help any!


-Ken

Where are you now?

1975? Is it just me, or does 1975 seem like, uh, yesterday? No, I'm aware that it can't be, because I'm 50 years old! I take comfort, however, in the fact that although I'm making that admission, you too are old like me if you were a 1975 RHS graduate!

So, the thing is, a few (very few at the moment) of us are talking about a 2010 reunion! Where? We don't know...but we want to hear from you! We'll need your input and help to make this work out!

My personal request is that we get outside the boundaries of Cleveland county! Let's not get crazy, but let's stretch our thinking a little bit, because a picnic at the "roadside park" just doesn't create a lot of excitement, you know??

By the way, be sure to SUBSCRIBE to this blog! That way, when I update it, you'll get an automatic email!

Let us hear from you!

Ken(ny) Tillman