Re: Last but not least! Thanks!! Posted by Kenny Vaughn on 7/12/2001, 1:53 pm
I hope everyone who attended the reunion will see this message because it needs to be stated and well understood. What took place on Saturday, June 30th was the essence of why Neosho is such a special place to be from. I could never explain to you the feelings and emotions I personally felt about attending the Class of ’71 Reunion Event, but I can tell you it will always remain at the pinnacle of my life experiences! In fact I am still on somewhat of a high now, even as I type this email message. But I also must admit that last Saturday I told my wife Virginia that I am starting to feel some sort of bizarre post rock n’ roll depression! Playing rock music has always been the love of my life and it was amazing how good it felt to be back there doing it again where it all started for us so many years ago! By the way, Virginia was very impressed with everyone’s warmth and friendliness as she truly enjoyed meeting so many good people.
(Meeting good people in L.A. is much more of a challenge) Here are some facts and thank you’s that absolutely need to be recognized:
- A million thank you’s to Charlie Neidert for not only coming up with the original concept but for his many hours of planning, organizing, making endless phone calls, gathering information and simply bringing it all together. I know that Debbie Whelan deserves a ton of credit as well and we all need to remember how hard they worked to make it happen!
- Again thank you to Dave Crocker and his willingness to support the event. I would bet dollars to donuts there just aren’t that many towns you can go back to after 30 years and get total carte blanche on amplifiers, guitars and drums without at least signing some sort of contract or agreement. Logistically and financially speaking, I highly doubt that we could have pulled off the band reunion thing without Dave’s amazing assistance. At least not with any level of quality!
- Thank you must also go to Gary Lohman and Candy who opened up their home for our two rehearsals (plus) and let us use all of the equipment they had available!
- Thanks to Rick Hair who took an extra week off from work and his family in Utah just to be part of one more Mizzouri Foxx experience! It was amazing how quickly 19 years can vanish when you get with the same guys to brush up on some old tunes again!
- Thanks to Randy Butler for helping us get the most out of our set with so little time to prepare and working closely with Gary on so much of the behind the scenes band logistics!
- Thanks to Dick Keezer and Harlan Stark for their time and effort to capture some very special memories on video tape. This will be only the second video tape of Mizzouri Foxx performing live and the first one is a black and white version with terrible sound quality that was made by some high school students back in the late seventies!
- Thanks to Ken, Tim, Sammy, John, Greg Stephens and his band and any other musicians that I forgot to mention for some good music and reminiscing.
- Thank you Steve McGinty for your unforgettable versions of Gloria and Hang On Snoopy as the Outcasts once again played some old standards. ( I wonder if any of that got on the tape!?)
- Thanks to every person who took the time to come to Neosho and be a part of the full Class of ’71 Reunion experience. Obviously Charlie’s intention was to create more great memories for each of you. I think he succeeded!
- A personal thank you goes out to Mike Deaton and Russ Walker who were much more than the Sound Company’s first light show that we named the “Light Brigade”. They were my closest college friends that in quieter moments I wondered about how their lives turned out after we lost contact about 28 years ago. Thankfully we will not lose contact in the future!
- One additional very special thank you must go out to Chuck Neal. Thank you so much Chuck for bringing your voice, energy, pure love for music but most of all for bringing us on and dedicating our performance to Chuck Stillman, who as you well know, was the single most significant reason for the success of Mizzouri Foxx and our opportunity to pursue a dream that very few people ever really get to do. I “guarantee” you that Chaz was in the Municipal Auditorium with us that night!!
I simply think we all need to acknowledge that again we are lucky to be from a small town like Neosho. All of our memories and experiences have bonded us like a fraternity so when we run into long lost friends we can step back in time and relate to so many of the good things in our life. Now, thanks to Charlie we all have one more good thing to remember. In the big picture it may not mean much to the rest of the world but when you break it all down to the lowest levels, life is nothing more than a succession of moments. As Virginia and I were leaving the Auditorium late that Saturday night and I shook Randy Butler’s hand and we gave each other one final hug, he looked me in the eyes and said we “definitely captured a moment”. That is EXACTLY what we did. Thanks to each of you for being a part of that moment!
KV