Bruce Hicks

Graduated from Texas A&M in 1973 with a BS. Member of the corps and Aggie Band 4 years as snare drummer. Married my first wife in 1971 and moved to Houston. Began working for a consulting engineer, drafting and learning commercial HVAC and plumbing design. Our two children, Amber & Justin were born there. In 1976 I came to the end of myself, quit drinking and began a spiritual journey in earnest. After a few years, in 1981, my wife decided not to take that journey with me, returning to her home state, California. That was a tough time for me but I managed to maintain my relationship with my kids during the summers. I met my present, and last, wife in 1983. Laura is an Iowa girl who had just recently moved to Texas. She has shared my faith and values and being 9 years younger than I am has done her best to keep me young and busy. Her idea of relaxing is to work only one job not more than 60 hours a week while spending the weekends and evenings cleaning house. This wouldn't bother me but she expects me to do the same. Some days I am so stiff and sore I can scarcely stand up straight and walk. I stay busy maintaining all the cars, the appliances and the house. We have raised our 3 daughters and had custody of my son through high school. Laura has been a gracious step mother to my first two children and done a yeoman's job balancing work and motherhood. We moved to Dallas in 1983, and then to Garland in 1987 where we bought a house.

Amber served in the Marine Corps for two years (despite my protest) but found her Savior there and then her Marine Corps husband. Kent served in Desert Storm as a helicopter mechanic. They are now raising and home schooling their 2 terrific boys, Gage and Elliot in North Carolina (they have lived in Puerto Rico, California, Colorado, Arizona).

Justin became a computer programmer. The day after he graduated from HS he found a job and worked his way through college at the University of Dallas, earning his BS and MS in computer sciences. While working at Southwestern Medical in Dallas he met a young Greek graduate medical student. He followed her to Greece where they soon married in the Greek Orthodox Church (think big fat Greek wedding without the fat or the Windex) in a ceremony that must have lasted 2 hours. The dancing lasted much longer. This past February they had a beautiful son whom they named Michael Demitris Hicks (Mickey D?). Laura and I are looking forward to our first trip to Greece to visit them (That happened in 2009).
All 3 daughters sang in the All-city girls choir as teens. Whitney plays keyboard, Kelsey played French horn and Lindsay played flute in the Garland Owls band.
I have enjoyed a number of hobbies in my life-model trains, planes and cars, collecting coins and stamps, pen & ink drawings and genealogy. I build computers for fun and enjoy watching Monk, Psych, CSI, Life, In Plain Sight. I have learned the value of friendship and believe our best investment in time, money and effort is in other people.
I can truly say my quiver is full and God has given me purpose and meaning in life.

Track initiation:
As Jr. High kids we had to run from the school down to Salado creek after school for track. Upper classmen hidden in the under brush ambushed a few of us on one occasion and stole our gym shorts. So 4 or 5 of us were standing around in our under wear wondering if we would have to wait until midnight to sneak back to the gym. Then we figured out that our t-shirts made acceptable emergency shorts.

World's record High Jump:
I had dreams of becoming a successful high jumper.
Richard Fletcher and I used to tie weights on our legs and jump for a couple of hours after school each day. We called it training like the Russians. Only problem was I could never get very high. Coach Johnston even had me demonstrate my technique to the team, saying "Bruce has perfect style, I taught him every thing I know. He just can't jump very high". Maybe it was my flat feet, not really sure.
One late afternoon, we walked over to the pole vault pit to visit with the vaulters and we placed a sand bag at the point where we normally planted our left leg to jump. We were just goofing around and thought we'd try to jump off the sand bag. We found that the leverage we gained from the bag enabled us to high jump 7 to 8 feet. Time after time we lined up as we normally would, ran at the bar and cleared the bar at heights higher than olympic champions were clearing.
Across the field, Coach Johnston happened to look up as I sailed over the bar at about 8'. He ran all out across the field, thinking that we had finally made a miraculous break through. When he got about 50' away he saw the sand bag, stopped running and starting (thank goodness) laughing. I always felt badly that I couldn't do better than I did. I thought he was a great coach.

Kennedy Assasination:
I was in Miss Smith's science class, right after lunch, when (I believe it was) the Principal came on the intercom system and announced that the President had been shot. Miss Smith teared up as she cautioned us not to think the worst. Then a few minutes later came the announcement that Kennedy had been killed. It didn't seem possible to me. The rest of the day we crowded around what ever TV set we could that was broadcasting non stop coverage trying to get some details on what had happened.

My senior year I decided I wanted to be in the Aggie band. The only problem was I didn't know how to march and I didn't own a snare drum to practice with. Ken Turner was kind enough to loan me a school drum to practice with that spring. I was not a great musician but I did make the A&M band and marched in every halftime except the very first one and every parade and played at every game from 1964 to 1968. Thank you Mr. Turner for your help.

Mrs. Waskow, for math.
Mrs. Shelper for home room