15 Life History --- 1962 High School in Licking Missouri

Ken and Gary studying

I enjoyed acting and had some small parts in a couple of the Licking High School plays. The speech teacher was the director. I enjoyed his speech class and the dramatic interpretation class that I later took at Southwest Missouri State College (SMS).

12 Life History --- 1961 Licking Missouri

Mel, John, Garrett, Ken Merrick

Dad was a wanderer and in the summer of 1961 decided to become a Missouri farmer. So, we moved to a forty acre farm in Licking, Missouri. The old house had no indoor plumbing or furnace, but it did have electricity! It was my job to get up in the middle of each winter night to put more wood in the living room pot-bellied stove, so the fire could make it through the night. We still needed lots of blankets in the unheated bedrooms. We collected rainwater off the roof into a cistern for drinking water. We pumped it out with a hand pump, and occasionally added lime for purifying.                                               

16 Life History --- 1964 Graduating from Licking High

I was disappointed because Janie Ellis beat me out for Valedictorian by just a hair. Instead, I graduated as Salutatorian (2nd highest honor) from Licking High School in May 1964.

19 Life History --- Learning Short Hand

Garrett in front of house lived in at SMS

When I was a senior at Licking High School in Missouri, I took short hand because I had already taken all the classes they offered. I attempted to use it at SMS (Southwest Missouri State in Springfield Missouri) for taking class notes, but it didn’t work too well because I had to transcribe it, so I switched to fast printing. I still use short hand a little.

I took my family to Springfield in 1993. This is the apartment I lived in during my freshman year, then when Gerhard Ruf left on his mission, I moved into the Ruf home in Springfield.