A Great Sense Of Belonging (Part 6 of 8)

I was in charge of setting up the seminary’s extemporaneous speech competition. There were two seminary teachers who taught six classes each during the school day. Brother Segmiller taught the early morning seminary class which brought the total to thirteen classes. Each class had their own competition and produced one winner. I didn’t make it for my class, which was probably good since I was in charge of arranging the judges for the school competition. Those judges were, Mrs. Lloyd, the speech and drama teacher from the junior high, my own grandfather, William Duncan Loveless the third, and my neighbor, Leo Hansen. All thirteen of the class winners came after school on the designated day. Each drew numbers to determine the order they would go in. The first person went and had five minutes to prepare a talk on a particular assigned gospel topic. When he or she was ready, the next person would draw a gospel topic and then go prepare the talk in another room. We kept up this procedure until everyone had spoken. Everyone did very well. After that the judges compiled their individual scores and then announced the winner as Robbie Berrett. A few weeks later, Brother Steele picked up me and Robbie one night and we traveled to the seminary for Granger High School where we had the district extemporaneous speech competition. Robbie didn’t win that, but we sure heard some good talks.
Probably the greatest benefit of being on the seminary council was the chance to associate with very fine people our age and older. There were some fantastic guys, but lots of knock-out girls! These top-notch people were from the other seminary councils, both junior high as well as high school. And there was also a district seminary council. One of the district council people was JoDee Healy, and my friend, Roger Lobrot, who was on the junior high council with me, and I, were absolutely in love with her. She was a Senior at Cottonwood High School and she drove a light blue Mustang. On Valentines Day, 1977, Roger and I even took her some roses. His grandpa drove us clear out to her house and couldn’t believe that two guys would take roses to the same girl, at the same time. JoDee knew of our admiration for her, but was sure surprised when we showed up on her door step with red roses for her. She was over come and told us we had made her day. At the end of the year we had a social at the park for all the seminary councils. We played a game were the girls chased the boys and if they caught them, Brother Masters performed a mock marriage. JoDee caught me and everyone cheered as Brother Masters performed the “marriage.” For a long time I dreamed of really marrying JoDee, but I knew I’d have some fierce competition. I dated her once and later went to her wedding reception. She ended up marrying, the president of that district seminary council, Brad Barham, who we were all very impressed with right from the beginning.