Kevin Dickerson - The Update

My family moved from Riverside to Pleasant Grove Utah during Christmas break of our Junior Year. That reminds me...I never picked up my yearbook from that year. I guess I'm going to back up some before that so I can maybe remind some of you who I am.

I went to Monroe and Chemawa. I played on the basketball, flag football, and my favorite...PUSHBALL TEAM for the Junior high. I played little league for "Arlington Little League". I played for 3 years on the Orioles. I got the opportunity to be the President for Mr. Mussof's club at the Junior high the year we went to the beach and to Disneyland for fieldtrips. He was to only teacher to ever pick me up by my hair.

When I first went to Arlington (summer school as I remember), I was a massive 5'2" so I changed from basketball to wrestling. The first year I was J.V. under Art Fierro. During the middle of the year, I got the chance to take his spot on the Varsity team. I was @ 103 lbs. I got my but kicked! Sophomore year went better. I wrestled between Donald Ciota and Mike Helm (still weighing a massive 103lbs.). I was having a great season my Junior year when I moved. It was sure hard telling coach Gibson that I was moving in the middle of that season. He was a great coach for me and I was heart broken when I got sent the news about his tragedy.

I wrestled here in Pleasant Grove and played football. I still loved to play basketball and to all my friends that I hung around with at Monroe and Jackson slam dunking after school...yes, I could slam. I played in our church league and could dunk when I got to be 5'10". Who said all that time hanging on those rims after school never paid off. By the way, to all of you guys (and especially girls) who made fun of me for being so short, I got to 6'2". I was just a late bloomer.

I kind of turned into a country boy here. I did a lot of hunting and mountain stuff. I had (still do) an 11,000 ft. peak (mt. Timpanogas) in my backyard.

I really missed the beach and the only thing I could do to kind of help that craving was to get a lifeguarding job our local pool. From that, the swim team recruited me, I started teaching swim lessons. and I ended up playing water polo (Tim should love hearing that) for BYU and I've been coaching swimming along with a little polo ever since. In fact, our club team (Hilltop Aquatics) just won the state championships a month ago.

I made it out of high school and went to a Junior college (Snow) in a little country town here in Utah for one year. I then spent 18 months serving a mission for my church in the swamps of Louisianna.

When I got home, my high school sweatheart was still available and a few months later, we did the marriage thing. We now have 3 kids and we live in a home next door to my parents (yes, it works out great).

Here's the shocker...I am a Junior High Science teacher!!! I've always wanted to get back to Mr. Munoz and see what he thought about his class goof-off teaching Junior High. Looking back in my Chemawa yearbook, everyone called me the "spitwad" king of the school. I still remember us breaking "Good 'ol Mr. Griffin's" clock with spitwads several times during the year, so when I come home after dealing with a few butt heads in my class, my wife just laughs and tells me to get out my yearbook to remind myself of how I used to be. Anyways, I love teaching!! We have several fieldtrips a year and lots of dissections. We did one just last week (squid). We have a rule in my classroom...no dissecting unless you eat it when your done. My Calimari is awesome!

I also work for Pleasant Grove Ambulance as an EMT and have been on our County's Search and Rescue Team for 8 years. My specialty is Cave Rescue but we also do Mountain (vertical ice and rock), Swiftwater, Open water (Utah Lake is in our County), Dive recovery, etc. This takes a lot of my family time but I love it.

I am a Varsity Scout Coach for the church kids. This year I am taking them into the Black Hills of South Dakota for a 50 miler hike.

My family is quite active. We usually rock climb at least once a week. We can also be found in several of our local caves or diving in our lakes.

My best friend at Arlington was Clete Hudgens. Other great friends (from '81) I would like to hear about include (in alphabetical order from the yearbook): John Aleman (our backyards were together), Allan Barclay (how tall are you now?), Chris Camacho, I've already heard a little from Wampie, Jeff Chebahtah (I've heard a little about), Bob Collins, Norman Cox, the Dankos, John Diebold, Darla Dugal, Diana Fleischer (my Junior High Crush), Al Fullingim, Marcelo Garcia, Mark Green, Lynn Hall (lived in my neighborhood), Wayne Hamptom, Chuck Harris (disqualified in a wrestling match for biting), Rudy Harris (the first on in our class to have his voice change), Ron Henderson (another lefty), Ken Hennessy , Ron Hoquist (fellow team mate from the wrestling mat and baseball field), Paul Horton (longest hair at school), Shelly Joslen, Larry Main (cool letterman's jacket), Paul Maltzberger (awesome mustache in Jr. High), Renee Martino, George McKinley, Roxanne Ortiz, Mike Rogers, Jackie Silvas, Rusty Skaggs (friends ever since 1st grade @ Monroe), Gordon Stanley (the one who blew the dynamite in front of the auditorium during lunch), Henry Velasquez, Shari Warrick (great Chemawa "bud"). Any info on any of these people would sure be fun for me to hear about.

We'll, that's a bit about me. I have to say you all really let the city change after I left. I came back about '94 or so and couldn't even find my way from my old house to school. Where did all the orange groves go? Thanks for putting this together. I have had terrible "Riverside Cravings" over the past few years. I've kind of just lost those 16 years of my life so this has been fun.