Royal Reunion glitches phase no one

ROYAL CITY - As usual this time of year, The Royal Register is loaded with coverage of the SummerFest and, this year, it includes the 50-year, all-classes reunion of Royal High School.

As I said when we launched, I believe small town newspapers should reflect the community as much as possible. There is nothing more reflective of this community than SummerFest.

I'd heard of SummerFest before coming here. It was a big-sounding name for a small town. Then I went to the 2011 edition and was hooked.

SummerFest is an old school celebration. Everyone comes out - to participate or observe. This was the best of the five I've attended.

Friday you couldn't help but have fun at the reunion. Everyone I asked said: "This is great" or something similar. Saturday you couldn't walk through the park without bumping into someone, literally.

I had fun meeting people I hadn't met before. The group representing the class of 1965, the first graduating class, was delightful. We took the first picture with five. Then we took one with six. We finally got all eight at the parade.

Two fellows stood out for me, and they took time to chat. The first was Carmon Collins of the class of 1966. I met him within 15 minutes of arriving. He told me he had come all the way from Arkansas.

The second was Calvin Allred, the oldest of the Allred kids who grew up here in the early years of Royal High. He is the Allred who got away, living nearly his entire adult life in Arizona.

After the preliminary questions, Carmon told me he had driven four days on his motorcycle to make the reunion. He was going to get here, no matter what.

Well, I said, we need to get a picture of you and that bike. He smiled broadly.

We walked to the parking lot between the middle school and the administration office. There he sat on his shiny, well cared-for motorcycle. We got pictures and chatted. He had played halfback and linebacker on the first two football teams.

"We weren't real good the first year," he said, "but we've been on a roll ever since. We have some tough farm boys."

Carmon drove through thunderstorms on two of those days. Right at the moment he said that, there was a thunderclap. We looked to the heavens and wondered if he'd brought the storms with him.

Carmon moved from Arkansas to the Royal Slope in 1959 after his parents took jobs on the hydroelectric dams. The parents eventually went back, but Carmon stayed out west.

Carmon stayed in this area for 16 years after graduation, managing the service station at Vantage. In 1982, he moved to western Washington, where he had a lengthy career in business.

In 2000, Carmon retired and moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. His mother and a brother were ill, and he decided to help care for them.

Carmon ended up at the reunion because of a hunch earlier this year. Believing there would be some kind of celebration for Royal High's 50 years, he typed "50-year reunion, Royal City, Washington" into his computer.

When the website SummerFest Chair Cara Holt created came up, he was elated. Still, it took Carmon a long time to get on that bike for the 2,100-mile trip. He was thinking of reasons not to come.

"The day before I left, my wife told me to go," he said. "So I came."

After taking the picture of Carmon on his bike, we walked back to the middle school gym. He had not seen many of his old friends since high school.

"I'm really excited," he said.

He was also excited to see the old stomping grounds. He wishes he could live on the Slope again, but his wife, who was raised in humid India, likes humid Little Rock.

Yes, a happy wife, a happy life.

I ran into Calvin because I spent a lot of Friday evening and Saturday morning chasing after the class of 1965. I didn't want to miss any members who were at the reunion.

I took two pictures on Friday, and Calvin was in both. But not everybody present was available for the pictures. So we took another at the parade and got everyone.

Listing the names after the first picture, Calvin Allred came up. Of course, my first question was: Are you a brother to Wiley?

"I'm the oldest," Calvin said.

Then he named off his siblings.

Calvin was the valedictorian of the first Royal graduating class. He grew up as a farm boy, like all of the Allreds, but he went off of the farm for his career. He was a general law private practice lawyer in Arizona.

After high school, Calvin went to Big Bend Community College for one year. Then he went on a LDS mission to Bolivia. He solidified the Spanish he had learned during three years (ages 9-12) when his family had lived in Peru.

There was a family by the name of Rodriguez at the same park table as us. I asked Calvin how well he spoke Spanish. "Bastante bien," he said as clearly as any native speaker here or south of the border.

"Why don't you conduct the interview in Spanish?" Mr. Rodriguez suggested.

It's not easy to switch languages lest you fall into Spanglish. So Calvin and I continued in English

First, Calvin had a brief conversation with Mr. Rodriguez in the Spanish of champions. When Calvin left the table, he looked at Mr. Rodriguez and said: "Que le vaya bien."

Mr. Rodriguez responded: "You have a good day too."

After his mission, Calvin returned to Big Bend for another year. Then he went to Utah State for an undergraduate degree and Utah for a law degree.

He hooked up with a legal firm in Phoenix and headed for the Southwest. After four years, he tired of the city. So he signed on with a one-man legal firm in Willcox and worked there the rest of his career. Some of the work was done on behalf of Hispanic clients.

Calvin is pretty much retired from legal work now, but he hasn't quit working. He dedicates most of his time to raising pecans and pistachios on his Willcox farm.

After all was said and done, he was still a farm boy.