Dave was one of my best friends growing up in Coshocton. We spent many Friday nights walking around Coshocton, going to the SPOT, drinking Mountain Dew and eating Pizza at the Point. When he died,I was too young and immature to know how to react to it. I was stunned and numb I think like alot of us. I never really grieved his loss. This maybe a way to do that now. To me Dave had a special charm and good looks. He definately touched a cord with women. He was fun, athletic and did not seem to take himself too seriously. I remember almost everything about his accident and death. I can relive it in my mind. I remember Bob McKee breaking down at the church. I remember Dad telling me that he had died. I especially remeber the day he was burried. It was so strange and yet magical. Never seen clouds like that. Never seen a winter morning so warm and then turn dark. Never felt a loss that personal before at that time. He was and is special and I believe he would have touched alot of lives. Truth is he has allready and will. I do goto visit him from him to time or his gravesite. There I am transported back in time and can feel his memory or essence. I highly recommend that anyone who needs to remember Dave goto his grave and just listen to your heart. He knew all about the magic and while he was here he showed it to us.

LeAnne was a wonderful person who was taken from us too early.  Being a teen ager we did not realize the empact this really had.  She always brightened my day.

Having an older sibling is always a set-up-and even more so when you live in a small town where teachers know the whole fandamily.  You will not escape comparisons, positive or negative.

My brother blazed a small path for me through the icy mazes of teacher expectations. He was musically gifted, outgoing and a real brain.  I was....not.  He was Bach-I was Beatles. He had perfect pitch-I was a perfect b...well, you know.

When his health began to fail and playing his trumpet became difficult, he used his talent to offer lessons to an aspiriing musician.  He used his gifts in the best way he was able-and I believe he would offer his heartfelt thanks to all who influenced him on his path and he would want to remind us all that it is not too late to use our gifts...and,yeah he'd pull our his Bible and tell us to start studying...

"...Praise him with the sound of trumpet...let everything that hath breath praise the Lord."  Ps. 150

I still vividly remember the day we saw the Marines arriving at our house with the news that Jerry was killed in Vietnam. Our family was proud of him when he enlisted, he thought he could make a difference. He once told our mother that he would rather be over there than someone who didn't. He was unselfish like that. Being a younger sister, I can remember the many things that Jerry accomplished during his school years.  He didn't like the recognition, as he was on the shy side, but I know he touched many lives from the amount of people who came to his funeral. Also, I still have the newpaper articles that Coach Bowman and others had written about Jerry, and the note w/marine medals from the Vietnam Memorial on the courtsquare. It doesn't seem like it's been 40 yrs ago, as I still think of him and what might have been.

Diane Snow (Heskett)'71 

My old buddy Bruce Rose passed away about six years ago from a heart attack. Bruce was the first person to go out of his way in greeting me when I was a new freshman at Coshocton High School after our family's moving from Conneticut earlier that summer. I was rather shy in those days (don't know what happened since) and was sitting alone on the old pipe fence by the entrance of the old school building during my first lunch hour. The new environment seemed overwhelming at the time, and since I had no idea what to do or where to go for lunch, I thought I'd just save the dollar mom had given me and sit watching the various student friend groups go their seperate ways. 

Suddenly I heard a voice that seemed to be addressing me, "Hey you, aren't you the new kid that just came from somewhere back east?. What are you doing sitting out here all by yourself? This is Wednesday, the day we go down to the bakery for lunch, buy a couple of doughnuts for lunch, then sit in the poolhall watching the dudes play while we finish eating".  I could hardly believe that someone who seemed to be one of the most popular kids in class was going out of his way, inviting me into his group of buddies. Later I found out that Bruce's mom and he attended the same church as we did, so we would be in the same youth group. 

Thus started a friendship that would last until the day Bruce passed. Like boyhood friends tend to do, we took turns during our Coshocton High School days spending the night at each other's house during the weekends, and passed our summer hours playing baseball, football, and basketball from morning until dark (when we weren't going to Lake Park to swim of course). 

Those who have any recollection of Bruce have no doubt that his favorite sport was wrestling, which was my least favorite. Somehow learning techniques for escaping the grasp of a half human-half ape who is actively trying to suffocate you by holding you in a position where your face is mere inches from their posterior and other intimate parts of their body was not the kind of "fun" I was looking for. Nevertheless, as anyone who has had a true wrestler for a friend can tell you, it is literally impossible for them to pass a single day without attacking their friend and twisting their arms, legs, torso and other body parts in directions God never intended them going. All this is done under the guise of improving their wrestling techniques and skills, and Bruce wanted to become the most knowlegeable and skilled wrestler ever.  Some days I felt like hiding or calling in sick.

Survival under these conditions depended on my finding a way to defend myself. So I began paying attention to all these weird contortions wrestlers call "moves" Bruce was trying to teach me (really he was just looking fo a dummy to practice on). The summer before our senior year, I accidently caught Bruce in the chicken wing-half nelson he had previously taught me, finally pinning his butt and running my life-time record against him to 1 win vrs. the good Lord only knows how many thousands of losses. Bruce got up insisting that I was going to join the Coshocton High wrestling team as well as play football (the only true sport that made sense) my last year at Coschocton High.

Those that knew him will attest that Bruce Rose was not only the captain of our wrestling team, but by far the best we had on the mat that year, always insisting that the rest of us work our tails off. His tenacity insured that everyone on our team would do well, with even a novice like myself winning the conference and region despite my lack of skill or experience. Bruce taught me to concentrate on doing a couple of things extremely well rather than trying to do a multitude of things half-baked.

When I went to West Liberty to play football Bruce went to wrestle. Even there he wouldn't allow me to "slack off", insisting that I continue wrestling, then getting the head wrestling coach (who was also an assistant football coach) to threaten me if I didn't come out for the team. 

I have no doubt that had Bruce been able to shift a wee bit of his enthusiasm for wrestling into his academic pursuits he would have remained at West Liberty becoming an all-American wrestler. You see, Bruce was the kind of guy focklore legends become loosely based on once facts become blurred by time. In fact the current wrestling coaches at West Liberty still remember him and his name is mentioned often in the sundry stories that come out when old wrestlers from that institution get together and start reminiscing, even though he only stayed one season and never wrestled in an official college match due to eligibility.

Bruce often talked of his respect for the upperclassmen he had wrestled with such as Jim Humphries, who became world renowned in the sport, Don Darr (who we both thought was really a muscle robot, not really human), as well as Bart Kistler, and contemporaries like Scot Thompson. Bruce could talk for hours about the matches he saw his teammates from Coshocton win or tell antecdotes of the extra-curricular activities they engaged in. 

If I recall correctly Bruce was voted the best athlete and the best shaped person (whatever that means) our senior year while I would have been voted the most likely to be forgotten (but they forgot to vote about that). I always admired how he made friends easily and was respected by all who knew him. But somehow when I remember his happiest days I picture him with those old Coshocton High School wrestling buddies practicing in the old gym at Coshocton High School.

Rest in Peace my good buddy until that last trumpet sounds!

Taps for my Soldier

A gentle breeze chatters the leaves
as birds sing their greetings.
The sun shines, a day like any other,
and yet like none before.

Two mirrored rows of uniforms
lined up like blue dominoes,
white gloves holding rifles at the ready.

One lone bugle cries.
Twenty-four notes,
each note, slow as a tear,
blankets ears and heavy hearts.

In the silence between,
nature holds its breath.
Gone is the wind.
Gone are the bird songs.
Gone is her hold on composure,
all lost in the bugle's lament.

Solemnly a soldier approaches,
white gloves present a tri-fold flag,

and in one final mournful note,
legions of silent voices unite
to call a comrade home
and a young wife weeps.

 I love you still ...

Hypnotic eyed wild child, free spirit, sharp witted, grace-ful, no girly girl-wise beyond her time, glow-in the-dark humor, cat like, brilliant-unique-good friend-one of our first to test the heavens-her light still shines white sun hot/ crescent moon cool

missed and loved by many

I work in a house next to the old Duling house on 6th street in Coshocton. I care for disabled MRDD clients. Jim would come out from time to time and mow the lawn. Sometimes we talked and I remembered the days in the 60's in high school. He was a good, hard nosed football player, but in school he was friendly open and popular. I liked Jim Duling and even though we did not talk alot when he was back here retired, I felt a loss when he died. He reminded me that time is short and that we have to live life fully cause we never know when the magic calls us back home.

My sister, Barb, passed away in 2002 at the age of 55.  It broke my heart.  We'd already lost our younger brother, Tim, at the age of 19.  Life can be fragile.  I am three years younger than Barb, and she always looked out for me.  It was pretty easy following her because she was a good student and was well liked.  People just expected the same of me.  Barb had a great group of friends, I think all in the class of 65.  They were often at our house on the weekends, and I loved watching them laughing, talking, dancing, and doing whatever teenagers did in those days.  They never seemed to mind my being around.

Barb married her high school sweetheart, Tim Stubbs (Three Rivers HS, Class of 65), shortly after they graduated.  They were still happily married when she died.  She was a mother and a grandmother.  Barb had a kind heart, a sweet soul, and a generous spirit.  If you remember her and liked her in high school, you would have liked her all her life.

Jay Salvage, Class of 1968

Unfortunately, I do not have all the facts related to Jay's untimely departure so I won't speak of it. I would like to say though, I can remember how shocked and saddened I was when I received the call here in Florida from my family telling me Jay was no longer with us. Jay was my classmate, and my friend. Those of us who knew him, will remember how willing he was to lend a hand to a friend. I too, wanted him to be remembered along with our other classmates who have left us so unexpectedly.