Rockville High School Alumni

The snow is over and all is well. I'm still stranded at work (been here since 4:40 pm friday). The power was out in this building from about 5:10 am saturday untill 9:49 am sunday, it got a little chilly in here, but I survived (I'm a surviver). I'm looking forward to getting home a little later this evening. Still God is in control!

11/30/2009 - 12:15:12 AM

Wayne Stamper

1971

I’m writing this to memorialize my late friend & old roommate Kenny Edwards, who passed away October 11 of this year from a cancerous tumor on his liver. This tumor was most likely caused by Hepititis ‘C’, which he contracted during his drug addiction days, shortly following his graduation from high school. Kenny was one of those rare individuals who had earned the title of being my best friend. Only six other such people have earned this distinction. Three of them have now passed away, w/ two of them succumbing to Hepatitis. Kenny’s passing has had a profound effect on me. More so than any other person, I’ve cared for, who has died & this includes my own mother. It’s not so much Kenny’s death that has affected me so much, but more so, it was his life! The more I ponder his life, the more I’m convinced that I have witnessed a miracle. This miracle I speak of is how our GOD can change even the most hardened & stubborn at heart to the degree that they eventually bow their knees & accept JESUS as their SAVIOUR & LORD. Kenny’s life journey was unique. In high school he was a drug addicted drop out. Yet he would rise in his chosen profession to become well respected by not only his peers, but by those Academics he worked for & with. He & his team @ NASA won many awards & commendations for the work they performed in support of the Space Program. By the end of his short life he had attained such a level of respect, that the Director of the Kennedy Space Flight Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida ordered all the flags on the facility to be flown @ half mast for the week following Kenny’s passing, in memory of him. Kenny’s family life was one of success too. His long & happy marriage to his wife Claudia produced two fine young men, Alex & Devon. While I was attending his Memorial Service I heard m any heart felt tributes given about how great a husband, father, brother & friend, Kenny had been. All things considered, Kenny led a beautiful & productive life. So I’m sure you wondering why I feel that his life was a miracle. When Kenny & I lived together he was an atheist or @ best, an agnostic. He believed that GOD was a construct of man. Created by man to help him cope w/ things when they got rough. A crutch to lean on. Kenny joined me in attending a Christian coffee house my father & some other young Christian brothers & sisters held in the cafeteria of Broome Junior HS, in an effort to minister to the gangs that roamed Rockville. While there we would discuss his beliefs. During one discussion told him to challenge GOD w/ a task. To lay out a fleece before the LORD, then wait & see if the LORD would answer. After a few weeks Kenny called & told me that he’d met the girl of his dreams. He also informed me that he was going out to California w/ her. I questioned him as to whether he should be doing this. His response was that he’d done as I told him to do & he asked GOD to bring into his life the girl he’d spend the rest of his life w/. Upon hearing this I told him that GOD had just proven himself to Kenny &that he should @ least acknowledge this fact. But he resisted & shortly after this, he left for California. The girl ended up his wife, Claudia! I lost all contact w/ him when he went to California until 2001 when I found & posted my info to our class alumni site. Shortly after doing so, Kenny sent me an E-mail & we began to reconnect. He convinced me to attend our reunion that year. He told me that he’d married Claudia & to my surprise he also told me that she had become a born again Christian. It was @ this time he also told me that he had Hepititis, but he was doing OK. After the reunion we stayed in touch. One day I get a call from Kenny. I could tell by his voice he was in some distress. He then informs me that Claudia had just collapsed & was on her way to the hospital. He asked me to pray for her, something he’d never asked me to do before. I agreed to do so as well as contact those I knew to enjoin our prayers for her. Later that day he calls back & informs me that Claudia had suffered an Aortic Dissection & was in critical condition. I told him we were all praying for her & to keep me appraised as to her condition. A day or so later the news came out that the actor John Ritter had died, almost instantly, from the same condition as had befallen Claudia. All the news doctors stated that this condition is almost always fatal, as the Aortic Artery tears open & the person bleeds to death or suffers a coronary seizure due to the lack of blood flow to the heart. After a few days Kenny calls me back to inform me that Claudia was doing fine & would be coming home in a few days. Again I pointed out to Kenny that GOD had heard the prayers for her & delivered her from death. I asked him if he’d prayed & he admitted yes. I then responded that of all the prayers GOD heard & responded to the most, was his, for his was the most earnest & from the heart. As before, he stubbornly resisted the truth, giving the doctors the credit. Some time after this I had a phone call from Kenny. After talking for some time he told me that he’d begun to attend church w/ Claudia & finished the statement that he’s accepted JESUS as his SAVIOUR. Something came up & he had to get off the phone before I could get him to elaborate on his commitment to the LORD. Then shortly after this phone conversation I fried both me computer & telephone, losing the contact info I had for Kenny. The beginning of this year I bought another computer & opened a Face Book Page. Shortly after having done this I received a message on my face Book page from Kenny’s wife, Claudia, asking me if I was the Wayne Stamper that lived in Twinbrooke. I immediately responded, telling her about frying my computer, thus loosing all contact w/ Kenny. I asked her how he was doing & if he could call me or write me ASAP. It was then that she informed me of his condition, leaving me in shock! I asked her to get Kenny to call or write me. She agreed, but I never received any mail or calls from him. Each time I received a message from her & responded, I wouldn’t get any response back from him. I called him several times & left a message in his voice mail to call me back. But he never did. I was @ the point that I was going to call him & leave a message that whether he liked it or not I was coming over to his place that next weekend & he’d have to see me then. However prior to making this call I received a call from Bonnie, his sister, who informs me that Kenny had passed away. I was devastated! I felt as though I’d let him down, by not being there for him. By not joining in prayer w/ him & seeking GOD to heal him. By not being w/ him to insure he stayed true to his commitment to JESUS in his last moments & to be sure he wasn’t lost to eternity. I was filled w/ fear & doubt as to whether he’d found his way home to the LORD. I then attended his memorial service as I have written above. After all the tributes paid to Kenny, the Associate Pastor of their church stood up & told us that he’d visited Kenny the Monday prior to his passing upon the request of Claudia, Kenny’s wife. He said that during their time together Kenny told him that he’d asked JESUS into his heart, but didn’t feel as though it had taken. The Pastor asked him if he’d like to rededicate himself to JESUS. Kenny responded yes & the Pastor then led Kenny through the sinner’s prayer, surrendering his life to the LORD’S will. The pastor then asked Kenny if he’d ever been baptized. Kenny responded no, but he wanted to be. It just so happens that Kenny has a swimming pool. So they asked Claudia to hustle up some swim suits & the Pastor Baptized Kenny in his own pool, that same day. Kenny passed away the following Sunday, peacefully, in his own home w/ his wife holding his hand. Upon hearing this from the Pastor, I felt the weight of guilt lifted from my shoulders. Here I was worried that Kenny may not have made it home to the LORD because I’d failed to visit him. But where I had failed, GOD didn’t fail Kenny. He provided another to minister to him & to insure that Kenny would indeed make it home to the LORD. I know that Kenny is there in heaven waiting for me to join him there some day. I can imagine the moment when I see him, he smiles that big smile he always had & w/ a laugh say’s, “Wayne what took you so long getting here. It looks like I beat you home!” In the weeks following Kenny’s departure, the LORD JESUS via his HOLY SPIRIT has shown me so much about how HE works & how faithful HE is. You see GOD was going to save Kenny regardless of how stubborn he was & regardless as to how unfaithful I could be. He wasn’t going to let Kenny get away from him. The scriptures teach us that one will sow; the LORD will bring the rain, which in turn, brings forth the seed & the fruit, while another reaps the harvest. This was Kenny’s life. GOD had used me in earlier years to sow the seed of faith in him. Then over time GOD provided the rain which caused the seed to germinate, springing to life & bearing fruit. The pastor was the one GOD used to harvest that which had been sown earlier, w/ GOD calling Kenny home shortly after that. As I look back @ Kenny’s life & his success in both his personal; life, as well as his professional life, I can see the hand of GOD gently leading Kenny along the way. Slowly melting the stony, stubborn heart that was in him & replacing it w/ a heart of flesh, seeking the truth that lies only in JESUS& to whom he found in the end. Some of us, like myself, have to go a hard route to salvation, but there are some GOD brings along more gently because their faith is so fragile. Regardless of how one comes to the LORD, all that matters, in the end, is whether we make it or not. God saved Kenny in spite of himself. Now I know that there are some of you who will scoff @ what I’ve written & I can accept that, especially when I know that just as GOD saved Kenny, he CAN change your heart & save you too. There is no one on earth that GOD can’t save! As resistant as Kenny was, in the end he did bow his knee & w/ his tongue confess that JESUS is LORD! You might say that he did so for fear of his impending death. In other words, he was hedging his bet. To this I reply, good for him. For it was by that small measure of faith, that caused him to hedge his bet. Kenny wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. So he hedged his bet & won life in eternity w/ our LORD. See it takes only a small measure of faith & a moment to be saved, if one acts on that faith. The thief who died on the cross w/ JESUS asked the LORD only to remember him when HE entered HIS kingdom. But JESUS replied that this day we will both walk in paradise together. The thief registered only enough faith to ask to be remembered & acknowledged JESUS as LORD. This action bought the thief his redemption. I ask you this, will you tempt fate. Will you go to eternity chancing the fact that JESUS is a construct of the human mind? What hope do you have if you believe that this is all there is to life & once it’s over, it’s over? Lights out, that’s it! That to me is a hopeless life. Believing in JESUS & the after life he has prepared for all of us is far more hopeful! There is more to life than this existence! You to can hedge your bet, just as Kenny might have done & guarantee your place in GOD’S glorious kingdom. Test the LORD & see if he is good! See if he doesn’t answer your test. But when the answer comes, don’t try to explain it away. Push on w/ other tests, seek the LORD & for he shall be found! Those of you, who wish to take me to task about what I have written, feel free to do so, I relish the opportunity to sow some more seeds of faith that the LOORD can water & some one, some where can harvest later, to the glory of JESUS! To those Brother’s & Sister’s in the LORD I would love to hear from you soon, so that we can share the goodness of the LORD w/ one another as well a beginning to pray for those in our Class that are lost. I would also hope that Kenny’s life will encourage you as it has me, knowing that our GOD has the power to transform even the hardest of hearts. I’m sure there are people in your lives who seem lost, but GOD can overcome their resistance, changing their heart & saving them. So continue praying & fasting for them, placing your trust in our LORD, that he will do for them as he did for Kenny. Let me close by offering a prayer for all my fellow Classmates. Lord God I pray for my fellow Classmates, that all would come to the knowledge of the saving grace that comes through YOUR SON JESUS, for we are all sinners, but through the sacrifice that JESUS YOUR son made on the cross & HIS resurrection, we can be saved from that sin which separates us from YOUR love & delivers us to death. I ask THEE oh LORD to open the eyes of the blind & the ears of the deaf, in the SPIRIT, to the revelation of YOUR SON JESUS. That we would all acknowledge our fallen state, our need for HIS salvation & would be saved. May we all meet in the life to come, in the glorious place you have prepared for those who believe. A place where we can all unite our voice w/ the rest of creation in praising & worshiping YOU for eternity, while we bask in the love & peace that emanates from YOU. Let THY glory be manifest throughout all of creation & throughout eternity. Amen

08/16/2009 - 10:37:51 PM

Joe Carignan

1971

Terry, what a great get together. .thank you, Steve F. and anyone else who took the time to put this on.. ... I am glad I came... Many of Betty Weatherby's classmates and friends approached me to express their condolencese regarding her untimely death and shared their love of Betty and stories about her... it meant a lot to me -- Thanks to everyone... It was worth the trip from Tennessee!!

08/07/2009 - 8:27:37 AM

Buddy Vickers

1972

Our next Alumni dinner is set for 16 September, 2009 at Out Of The way Cafe. We start these things at or about 7:00 pm, and they go until 9:00 pm, or we get kicked out, wichever comes first. Hope to see you there.

07/06/2009 - 4:51:53 PM

Bob Bamford

1973

i am heartened to see old freinds in photos, saddened to see those passed and realize just how special a time RHS was for me. enjoying life in the desert and my career in mental health. still can't figure that one out but i wouldn't change it.

06/26/2009 - 4:24:47 PM

Sherry Haire Rosenberg

1973

Hi classmates, I was so sorry to miss the '73 reunion last Saturday night. Sounds like it was a wonderful time. Hope most of you can make it to the August multi-class gathering! A couple of months ago I heard from a former RHS Ram - Billy Clem - (now Bill). Class of '72. Guess What???? He is an author and writes medical mysteries. Check out his accomplishments at billclem.com

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