On December, 21 1955, Pat and I got married in the judge’s chambers at the courthouse in El Dorado. That same, special room became my office when I was a county commissioner. The first of our two children is Robert Gregg Woodall, born on May, 4, 1958. In grade school he took classes to learn to play the guitar. He was a good student in high school, and participated in debate and played bass guitar in the pep band. He loved the theater and was a talented actor. His sophomore year, he was in Finnian’s Rainbow; his junior year, he gave a terrific performance as Ali Hakim in Oklahoma!; he had the role of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof his senior year. Circle High School had borrowed the backdrops for the Fiddler sets from McPherson. Their instructor came to watch the performance and confided in Circle’s drama coach that he wished he’d have had a Tevye like that!
Gregg was involved in a band with some Potwin and Whitewater guys, including a character named John Resnik. John and Gregg worked together well and sometimes gave concerts in area cities, including Wellington and somewhere in western Kansas.
He got a degree in manufacturing engineering, working as an employee of Boeing for a while. He later went out on his own as a consultant and contractor. Gregg married Diane Kessler, and they had three boys, Jimmy, Michael, and Mat. (Mat always said his folks didn’t know how to spell.) They all live around the Wichita area. Gregg has six grandchildren.
Our second—and last—child is Jayme Lyn Woodall, born May 22, 1961. As a little tot, she took dancing lessons, mostly tap as I remember. When she was about two years old and couldn’t really talk very well, she loved to follow Gregg around the neighborhood to visit the elderly couple next door—Grandma Dodd—and the elderly widow lady across the street—Grandma Hoag. Gregg would be telling them a story or talking about what was going on; Jayme was always nearby, jumping around, and never could stand still. She’d listen, then chime in, “Me too! Me too!”
In grade school, it seemed she just went to school to have fun. She was a cheerleader; she was also a fast runner and did broad jump in track. In maybe sixth grade, she could outrun every kid in the school except one boy, so she did well in track. Once a boy in her class came along behind her and pinched her on the butt. She said, “Don’t do that!!” “Stop that or else!” Unfazed, the guy came up behind her and pinched her on the butt again. And the race was on! He was not the one faster boy in the school. He found himself on the ground with her sitting on top of him, beating the heck out of him with her fists. The teacher came over, picked Jayme up by her collar and asked, “What’s going on?” Jayme said, “He pinched me on the butt. I told him to quit and he didn’t!” The teacher asked the boy, “Have you had enough? Have you learned your lesson?” “Yeah, yeah!” That ended their little fight.
During high school, Jayme wanted to be involved and have fun, but she found out that her studies came first, or she couldn’t be active in anything else. She started studying and got her grades up. Anything she could join was in her wheelhouse and she wanted to be involved in everything, which kept her really busy. She was a cheerleader and homecoming queen. She did some acting, but found it hard to follow Gregg and his reputation as an actor.
Jayme married John Resnik, and they have two children, Victoria—better known as Tori—and Alex. Both were really active in sports and leadership in high school. Tori played basketball and had a beautiful long shot with a good arch. She was senior class president and was busy doing other things, including taking college classes that put her ahead when she started college, and didn’t play basketball her senior year. She was a homecoming queen.
Tori has risen to the top at every job she’s had and has a great reputation in the Kansas City area. Right now, she works for a sporting group that puts on baseball and softball tournaments all over the Midwest. Tori married What’s His Name, as I call him. The first time I met Jake Blake, he and his mother were at Jayme’s house in Minneapolis looking at Tori’s prom dress so they could get her corsage. He was her prom date, or she was his. I started asking him questions. “What do you do for work around here?” He was a shy guy and couldn’t get an answer out. “How much money do you have in the bank?” I could tell his mother was building steam and was about to blow while I picked on him for about 20 minutes. Finally, they left and I’m sure she had some negative comments about me, but since that time, she found out I was just teasing him the whole time. And I’m an okay guy now.
Alex played baseball and basketball; his basketball team went to state both his junior and senior years. He was a ham, into acting and singing. We enjoyed traveling the six hours from the lake to Minneapolis, Kansas, to watch his ball games and tournaments. Now Alex lives in Pontiac, Michigan, and is the president of The Flagstaff Strand Theatre for the Performing Arts there. He does their bookings and that kind of thing, although they are slow because of the virus. Alex married Lindsay, a girl from Michigan. She is an RN and is just about one year from getting her nurse practitioner degree. She works in the coronary Stent unit at a hospital. They have two boys. Jonah is interested in dinosaurs. I really don’t know what Arthur is interested in besides fun. He always has a smile on his face. I call him Smiley and I call Jonah, T Rex. I tell Jonah all the time to get that T Rex out of my area because he walks in the lake, gets mud on his feet, and then makes the water muddy. “Grandpa, T Rex and dinosaurs have been gone for millions of years!” He’s a smart kid, too.
John is the CEO of a company in Lawrence, Kansas, that buys businesses with management troubles and turns them around. When the business becomes successful, they keep or sell them. They build machinery for railroads, for making repairs or building new tracks. They own Diamond Coach in Oswego, Kansas. The coronavirus in 2020 has slowed operations to a standstill, but hopefully this next year, business will build back up again. Prior to his job in Lawrence, John was president of Champion Bus in Michigan, and ElDorado National, a bus company from Salina, Kansas.
Jayme is involved with PEO, on their international STAR board and as past president for Michigan. She likes to be busy and does a lot of volunteering.
Tori’s boys, James and Landon, do well in their sports. Her daughter, Thalia, does gymnastics and plays basketball. She’s good at whatever she undertakes. Her two big brothers have taught her all about basketball. After attending a dance performance recently, she was fascinated with ballet and told her mother she wants a tutu.
The story of another boy needs to be told here, too. His name is Richard Sisson. He was in the same class as Gregg and his family—mother, two sisters, and Richard—were our back door neighbors in Towanda. His mother was divorced and the children weren’t involved with their father at all. One of Richard’s sisters was developmentally disabled, and the other was a wild child. He had spent time at our house with Gregg; he and Gregg were getting ready to go on wheat harvest the summer between their junior and senior years of high school. His mother had told Richard that when his 18th birthday came in January, he would be too old for her to get any financial assistance for him. He would need to drop out of school and go to work. When Pat and I found out about this, we discussed it and told Richard to bring his clothes and all his belongings to our house, so that when the boys got back after the wheat harvest, Richard could live with us. That’s what he did. He finished his schooling at Circle while living with us, and we took care of his expenses, clothing, everything. He and Gregg worked at the turnpike restaurant near Towanda on weekends and occasional evenings during their senior year. Richard wanted to attend Washburn University. We did not claim him as a dependent on our income tax, so he was able to get financial aid.
Richard went to Washburn to study science and biology, but he wanted to study nuclear engineering. A professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City had been recommended to him to study under, so he went there to get his degree. While there, he joined the army reserves. After graduating, he began working for the army, neutralizing and destroying chemical warfare bombs stored in the desert near Salt Lake City. Next, he went to work for a company that was doing the destruction and neutralizing of the chemicals; he was sent to the country of Georgia, a part of the former Soviet Union, and to another foreign country. He then worked for companies in Louisiana and Ohio, doing the same type of work. He bought his own airplane so he was able to fly to and from Tulsa where he and his wife lived. We enjoyed a visit with him when he was visiting Branson. He told us that “if it hadn’t been for you guys, I’d probably be pumping gas at some QuikTrip.” He appreciated what we had done and had made something of himself. Richard’s son, also a brainy person, got into the same course of study as his dad and works in Albuquerque, New Mexico, associated with Los Alamos nuclear facilities. His name is Richard Woodall Sisson
