Dear Friends in the Class of 1962,

I think we are supposed to begin these sagas at the point at which we graduated. I “stayed over” a semester and instead of graduating mid-term in January, I joined you as a spring graduate. It has been a little odd being the new kid on the block in your class but always felt like you welcomed me and besides, we had been friends anyway.

I attended University of Houston, then went to work for National Car Rental at the International Airport, now Hobby Airport. During the following ten years, I also worked for Avis in Dallas and National at the home office in Minneapolis as I was trying to find out where I belonged. There was a time when I lived in Dallas when my phone rang and this gentleman who was the new City Manager of National at the new Intercontinental Airport, asked me if I would consider moving back to Houston to go to work for him as his Regional Training Instructor. The next day, we met at Love Field for an interview and shortly thereafter, I was “home” again with my office in Houston. I had the Southeast Region of the United States to interview, hire and train the car rental agents. The gentleman who had called was Mr. Jim Harder. By the time a year had gone by, we were very interested in each other and in June 1973, we married.

Our son, Lane was born in 1976 and we began to look for a way out of the corporate rat race and while we were expecting our daughter, Lana in 1978, we found the perfect solution to that and to even escape the big city while they grew up, another dream. We purchased a Chevrolet-Oldsmobile dealership in Mineola, Texas near Tyler. Jim had always wanted a business of his own, in a small town in Texas, involving cars. (He had gone to work for National in Memphis at exactly the same time I did in Houston!). We have been in Mineola ever since and love the pines, hills, lakes and dear hearts and gentle people. Our children have made speeches during their lives about their early years in East Texas and how much that meant to them.

Both of my children graduated from Southern Methodist University. Lana is finishing her second year in a Ph.D. program at University of Texas, Austin in Developmental Psychology. Lane lives in Dallas and is preparing his applications for Masters’ programs in Music Composition. He writes, performs, records and teaches all manner of music and plays many instruments as well as composing. They, as yours must be, are precious treasures from God. I wouldn’t change a thing about either one and still can’t believe I have them.

From 1973 until 1990, I was involved in community, school and church work, including youth ministry, East Texas Association for the Gifted, Drug Free Youth, Miss Mineola Pageant, wrote a gardening column for our community newspaper in Houston, wrote How to Cope, Over 1,000 Tips on Life with Small Children and Housework, volunteered at Presbyterian Hospital, Chamber of Commerce, Meals on Wheels, Friends of the Library, Boy Scouts, Brownies, led Gourmet Friends Club, La Leche League, Bible Study Fellowship, exercise classes, danced with the Lake Country Cloggers dance team, and taught Sunday School all those years. That is only a small part of my “stay at home mom” life – I always thought that was a funny term. Also during that time, I traveled the world with Jim through our dealership.

Jim also jumped into life head first in Mineola, serving on 12 or 15 boards of directors including being our church chairman, president of the Chamber of Commerce, school board president, is a bank director, church deacon, and was named Man of the Year! Who said small town living is slow?

When Lane started high school and I wasn’t needed to be the room mother or make party favors anymore, I signed up to “sub” and fell in love with it. I soon was subbing every day in high school and junior high, Betty Barrett, spending time with the same kids that were in my classes at church, as well as my own kids and their friends – an education in itself. Shortly after that, I became the aide to the Special Education Department Head, then was hired as the Office Manger of the high school. Soon after that time, Lana decided to follow in Lane’s footsteps and enroll at the very expensive SMU. (I just knew one of my children would go to a state supported college.)

While getting her moved in, I learned that staff members at SMU receive free tuition benefits for their children. I dropped off my application, was called to interview and within a very few days, I was commuting from Mineola to work in the Dean of Students Office. (I soon discovered that Cash Birdwell, Jones ’59, and Judy Ellis Parsley, Jones ’61, also worked at SMU.) It wasn’t long before I took an on-campus apartment for weekdays. When Lana graduated, the plan was for me to go home to stay, but by then, I had become Assistant to the Vice President and just couldn’t imagine giving this up. Working is sort of new to me and at a time when my friends are tired of working and trying to retire, this is exciting so I will stay a while longer. I have carved out a life in Big D, attend a prayer group, craft classes, serve on two executive boards, and have made some life-long friends. I drive in on Mondays and can’t wait to get to Dallas. On Fridays, as I head east, I can’t wait to return to Jim, my home on Spring Lake (which Jim developed), Ruffles, and my East Texas friends and neighbors. Everything in Mineola just makes sense. I can’t imagine how things could be any better.

God has blessed me beyond words and I marvel at His grace and goodness every day. It has been awesome discovering how many in our class have a close, personal relationship with the Lord. It is so obvious in the emails you send and in your biographies. May He bless each one of you and bring us all together in April!

Til then, Carol Mixon Harder