We’ve picked up a new advertiser, Ken McMahan, who is an award-winning graphics designer and who just happens to be married to Jane Rudert, Central High School Class of 1966 and a buddy of Wife Lila.That’s Ken and Jane with with their granddaughters Averi and Arielle. The buildings in the background are downtown Sarasota, Fla.
Click on his ad on the page or follow this link to see his custom work.
Ken grew up in St. Louis and attended Southeast Missouri State College for about a semester. He marched with the Golden Eagles (played sousaphone); spent some time in the Florida Keys; married Jane; moved to the Vermont / Canada border; had Son Zachary; founded and was Creative Director of First Impressions, an advertising and graphics design firm in the Northeast in 1978, and semi-retired to Siesta Key on Florida’s west coast in 1997.
You can tell that Ken is a laconic guy who spits out facts in a Joe Friday fashion.
His First Impressions company worked with a wide variety of national and regional clients and hundreds of small businesses and individuals. It wracked up an impressive list of awards, including Best in Class in Financial World Annual Award competition 11 straight years; winner in the National Restaurant Association’s Great Menu contest; winner in the National Packaging Association’s International Letterhead Design contest, and picked up Best of Show in the Advertising Federation of the Suncoast. He’s done some cool stuff.
I remember Jane as Tiger Editor-in-Chief
I knew Jane as editor of The Tiger. Here’s a shot I took of the staff for the 1966 Girardot. Left to right, Claudia Modder, Mary Baker, Don Call, Jane Rudert, Nanci Cagann, Prudy Irvin and Gail Tibbles. First semester editor-in-chief was Jane Rudert, and serving as Co-Editors second semester were Claudia Modder and Nanci Cagann.
Jane wrote she met Ken when she was sitting on a picnic table in Capaha Park with the “7 Teens,” a folksinging group she was part of. The other members of the group were Vivian Walton, Gwen Beaudean, Cheryl Welter, Mary Tenkhoff (all CHS ’66) and Pam Beard and Carole Walton (both CHS ’67).
“We had a brief career playing a few gigs, including the talent show at Central in 1966, mostly just having fun in matching flowered suits.” She doesn’t think there are any photos to the “7 Teens” in existence.
Bob Wolfenkoehler’s Morris Minor
“Anyway, we are sitting around in Capaha Park waiting for something or someone to happen, and here comes Bob Wolfenkohler, CHS ’66, in his tiny Morris Minor with a lot of new friends from the Golden Eagles Band Camp stuffed inside. They were all very flirty except for Ken, who went and stood aloofly against a tree. Being that opposites attract, he was the antisocial renegade of my dreams, and the rest is history, as they say. We got married in Sarasota in 1968 (after I discovered he was not 22 years old as his driver’s license maintained, but only 19 years old!)
“Before he left SEMO, his favorite pastime was walking around campus with his shirttail untucked (those were definitely different days), always hoping President Mark Scully would spot him and give him grief over it, which happened fairly often; I guess this was one of Ken’s first attempts at “questioning authority,” and he actually hasn’t stopped since.”
See if you can spot Ken
“He does, however, swear that he had nothing to do with the water balloon tossing from the Marquette Hotel upper floors (where he lived – they housed some freshman boys there that year due to overcrowded dorms, can you imagine?) down on the 1966 Homecoming Parade.”
[Can you spot him in this photo I took of the 1966 Homecoming parade.]
Beach Bum Prophesy comes true
The May 26, 1966, Tiger contained a class prophesy compiled by Barbara Hobbs and Linda Stone: “LOOK OUT for that garbage truck (driven by Shiela Blackwell and Mike Herron), they’re probably in a hurry to get down to the big party on the beach given by beach bums Margaret Ritter, Jane Rudert, Lila Perry, Elizabeth Ridings, and Allene Phillips.”
The Class of 1961’s reunion bulletin in 1991 said that Jane and Ken “made their dream come true with a place in Florida to get away from this cold Northern weather whenever possible!” Lila Perry Steinhoff was living in West Palm Beach, Fla, and Margaret Ritter Ueleke had logged beach time in Hawaii and South Carolina.
Jane is working at Sarasota Memorial Hospital as a Medical Transcription Editor. Son Zak lives in Colorado with his wife Desiree and their daughters, Arielle and Averi.
When I did the piece last week on Trinity Hall, formerly the George Alt House, I said I knew there were photos somewhere of the actual demolition. Well, here they are. The wrecking ball on a Superior Concretors crane hit the building on December 23, 1967. By Christmas Day, all that was left was rubble. The photos reveal details of the attic that I always wanted to see, but never did.
In order to spot out dust specks and other flaws, I have to blow up the images much larger than you see them here. My eye was drawn to what looks like a row of white specks on the wall of the brick school building on the right behind the crane. They are to the left of and below the white downspout. The white specks are a row of four drinking fountains mounted in a trough-like affair. I can recall slurping hot water out of those during many a recess. Funny how little things will catch your eye and bring back memories.
