High School Years

Ed was always the life of the party. He had something going all the time and it was so fun to be around him. I remember being excited when Candace (his 1st cousin) would say he was coming to town. It was party time. We got together, played games and loved our water bottle and buckets of water fights as we drove around town trying to find eachother and attack!

By 8th grade we heard that Ed was moving back to St. Johns and Candace and I were delighted. I remember cheerleading out at the old fairgrounds. I was up in the stands and seeing him walk around the corner and knowing he was home to stay was the best part of the night. It didn't matter if we won the football game or not. We were all merely friends, but loved being together as a group.

He was able to graduate from St. Johns. His goal was to home and march down the graduation isle with the St. Johns 8th grade graduating class and that he did. He was home.

In his Freshman year of High School, it wasn't hard to rekindle all the friendships he had before leaving St. Johns and from his visits of coming home often. Everyone seemed to be delighted he was back, but most of all him.

From his Freshman year through out High School we dated oft and on. My cousin Garth Drain and I were fast friends and usually walked home from school together for years playing basketball, football or whatever sport we could talk our parents into letting us play before time to do chores or homework. Garth and Ed became best friends and it made it easy for all of us to hang out with one another. Garth and Ed had pleasant personalities so of course the girls liked them. Well everyone like both of them for they had a good sense of humor and were nice guys. They didn't act like they were better than any one. By the time Ed was a senior he had achieved many things, but becoming Student Body President was that suited him well. He loved to be in charge of things. Of course, it was a land slide election raise.

During our senior year we were going "steady"....wooo!....... So I was wearing his class ring which was a big deal back then.

I was one year in class older than Ed, so after graduation I headed for college at Mesa Community and he continued. I really do think he loved High School.


Whitings owned and ran most everything in town. There weren't many that were not benefited by them through employment or some other business way.
Ed's father was killed in a plan accident when he was a boy of age 7 along with Far Whiting, leaving two families without fathers and no Whiting son's left to E.I Whiting. This was a tragidy to the family as well as the town. Not much remained the same after that.
Ed left town not long after that and moved to Mesa, Arizona. We didn't know much about eachother at this time, but Candace Gibbons was not only my cousin, but best friend from 2nd grade throughout High School and she was close to Ed, so every time he came to St. Johns, we all enjoyed one another.