Jerry Acton and Judy (Record) Acton
Judy and I have known each other for 62 years (although not in a biblical sense all that time). We met in Miss Overbee’s first-grade class at Wilson grade school. We dated in High School and married in 1959.
We have lived an ordinary life (at least compared to the overachievers in our class). Our main contribution has evidently been procreation. We have four grown children, twelve grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
After high school, Judy attended Enid Business College. I took a more circuitous educational route. I attended OU, Texas A&I, San Diego CC, Central State (Oklahoma), ultimately graduating from Phillips University after a mere eleven years. A lot of the schooling took place while I was in the navy. Following that I attended law school at Oklahoma City University.
My work history is somewhat similar to my checkered educational experience. After the Navy, I worked at Aero Commander in OKC until the obligatory annual layoff. I then worked for IBM Corporation in OKC and Enid for a few years. I was always active in the boy scouts and became a professional scout executive while we were living in Enid. The scouts are not different than most corporations and we were moved from place to place. First we were moved to Cherokee, OK, then to Albuquerque where I was a Field Director, and Director of Finance & Program. We were then transferred to the council in Austin. After 13 years in the scouts, I finally got sick and tired of all the little pecker-woods and their parents. I entered the insurance business. I spent several years at the Texas Attorney General’s office as litigation manager before heading up the proceedings team at Texas Mutual Insurance Company where I retired two years ago.
Judy has also had a checkered work experience as a day-care worker followed by a day-care owner. She has also worked as a telephone operator, a security central station operator, a workers’ compensation adjuster, and Patient Financial Counselor at a cancer clinic where she retired three years ago.
All things considered, we’ve had a good life. We are disappointed that we will not be able to make the reunion, but we’ll probably get over it in time.