Hall of Fame

Biographical Sketches and Photos Supplied by '60 Classmates

ON THIS PAGE

Barbara Bryant Lechner

Don McKay

David Quisenberry

Vol. 50, No. 1 FERN CREEK, KENTUCKY - Location of Friendliest School in the County October 3, 2010

PREPPY BEFORE PREPPY WAS COOL

Don McKay dressed for success. He wore tan-colored suede shoes, khaki slacks, and button down shirts with the sleeves rolled up. He was on the “A” squad of the football team and wore a coveted two year stripe on his white letter sweater. He played baseball for the Creekers and excelled in the classroom, as well. McKay was a member of the Beta Club, Mu Alpha Theta Mathematics Club, and the Pep Club. He was president of the senior class in 1960.

Don and Mary Jane Fields (Kasser) were chosen by their peers as the “Most Outstanding” students in the class. When your peers consider you the “most outstanding” member of the class, you have incentive to succeed.

“Being chosen “most outstanding” was a real honor and confidence booster,” McKay told the Tiger Gazette and he has certainly lived up to that salutation in the past 50 years, since leaving Fern Creek High School.

After graduation, McKay enrolled in Vanderbilt University where he majored in chemistry, but transferred to the University of Louisville after his junior year, where he graduated with an MD degree in 1967. McKay graduated from Texas Southwestern University in 1975, with a degree in urology.

His business and professional history include former Chief of Urology at two hospitals in Dallas, Texas where he is a partner in Dallas Urology Associates, and past president of the Texas Urology Society.

Dr. McKay has also been named by “D Magazine” as one of the Best Doctors in Dallas and by Texas Monthly magazine as one of the Lone Star State’s “Super Doctors.”

McKay fell in love with Texas while doing his internship at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas where President John F. Kennedy died after being shot in Dealy Plaza in November, 1963.

After completing his internship at Parkland in 1968, McKay served two years in the United States Air Force, as a flight surgeon in Vietnam.

“When I was an intern, the Vietnam War made men my age subject to the draft. You could take your chances or apply for the Berry Plan, which allowed you to finish the internship year, if you committed to serve for two years as a Captain. Since the draft was almost a certainty, I chose the BP,” said McKay who spent one year at Phan Rang, Vietnam.

McKay earned an Air Medal and finished his service at Hamilton AFB, California. Then it was back to Texas where he specialized in urology at University of Texas Southwestern’s Affiliated Hospital in Dallas.

“Urology is a field you go into when you can’t find an opening in any other specialty,” McKay said with a touch of humor.

“I was influenced by Dr. Bob Lich in Louisville, a real luminary in urology. It’s a great field of surgery that incorporates general surgery, microsurgery, laparoscopy, and reconstructive surgery, involving patients from pediatrics to geriatrics.”

McKay is married with four daughters who have given him and his wife nine grandchildren. In his private life, he serves as an elder at Highland Park Presbyterian Church and on the boards of “Young Life” and “Presbyterian Pro-Life,” in addition to being president of the Chaplancy Ministry at Medical City Hospital in Dallas.

When Dr. McKay hangs up his stethoscope, he plans to retire to his small ranch near Crawford, Texas where another public servant, former President George Bush, has a ranch. Like GW Don also loves working on his ranch.

BONA FIDE WAR HERO

When James David Quisenberry and his family were preparing to move back to Louisville, from a farm in Southern Indiana in 1956, the big box office hit at the local theater was “To Hell and Back,” starring Audie Murphy, a quiet farm kid like Quisenberry.

David was so quiet during high school we barely heard a peep from him. “I was shy, naive and introverted,” confessed Quisenberry, who enrolled in the animal sciences program at the University of Kentucky after graduation. In 1964, he earned a BS degree and got a job as a deputy county agent in Muhlenberg County.

As the Vietnam War heated up, David decided to do his part. Rather than wait to be drafted, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. After basic training, the Army noticed he was a college graduate, so he was sent to Officers Candidate School. Quisenberry was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in June, 1966. Shortly after Christmas that year, he found himself leading a platoon of 40 soldiers in Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 39th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division through the steamy rice paddies and jungles of the Delta in South Vietnam

It was there he and his men were baptized, or as he prefers to say, “christened” by the Viet Cong. Quisenberry lost 17 men as he moved against an enemy base camp on January 25, 1967.

“They kicked our butts,” said the retired career soldier.

The first of five Bronze Star citations he earned as a platoon leader describes his heroism in the face of enemy fire:

“In the ensuing battle, Lieutenant Quisenberry constantly moved one squad to another, successfully maneuvering his platoon against the hostile forces. Throughout the fierce fighting he showed calmness and determination, which became the trademark of his platoon. With complete disregard for his own safety, he led his men by example and became a source of inspiration for his platoon.”

But the loss of 17 men, each one of whom he knew by first name, affects the quiet farm boy even to this day. Of the 16 platoon leaders in his battalion, only three, including Quisenberry, survived their first combat tour in Vietnam.

When he returned stateside to Fort Campbell, Kentucky as a training officer, he volunteered to return to Vietnam. “I wanted some payback for the men that I lost,” said Quisenberry.

He got his revenge and also earned a Silver Star, the nation’s third highest military decoration for valor, in the first week of August, 1968 as Commanding Officer of Company A, 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, during a reconnaissance in force against a battalion-sized enemy force, east of Can Giuoc in the Delta. Quisenberry was also awarded the Purple Heart in the four-day battle.

“You’re taught never to kick a bush that appears on a trail. I stepped over one, walking up a trail, but brushed it coming back down the trail,” said Quisenberry who is lucky it contained a concussion grenade and not a fragmentation grenade or he might have lost his life. The explosion burst both eardrums and peppered his body with razor-sharp pieces of hot shrapnel.

After two combat tours in Vietnam, Capt. Quisenberry came home with a chest full of medals, including the Silver Star and five Bronze Stars, each with a “V” device for Valor. He was also decorated with three Meritorious Service Medals, three Army Commendation Medals, three Air Medals, the coveted Combat Infantryman Badge, Parachutist Badge, National Defense Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palm.

The remainder of his 23-year military career saw Major David Quisenberry assigned to a variety of posts in Pennsylvania, Germany, Wisconsin and Korea, before he retired in July, 1987.

When informed he couldn’t “double dip” as a postal worker, Quisenberry shifted gears and went to work in the automotive industry. He served at the National Training Center for the AC Delco Technical Service Education program.

His last job was business manager at the Arts and Crafts Center at Fort Meade, Maryland.

In 2005, he retired to Louisville where he was born. He has remarried and he and his wife, the former Linda G. Wilkins, enjoy their three children and four grandchildren. David’s daughter Kristin was recently named one of the top veterinarians in the United States.

Life for James David Quisenberry has come full circle. When he entered UK, he was the one with visions of becoming a veterinarian. Animal Sciences was the pre-cursor to pre-vet studies in 1960, but the Vietnam War interrupted his plans.

Looking back on the path he chose, Quisenberry says his only regret is the men he lost in Vietnam. They gave their “tomorrows,” should he could have his “todays.” And he has never forgotten their sarifice.

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FERN CREEK HIGH SCHOOL

ALUMNI HALL OF FAME MEMBERS

2017

Gordon Beck III, '96

Alan Cooper, '60

Jaime Goldsmith, '93

William Long, '65

James Lowry, '67

Cpt. John McGinty, '57

Robert Redd, '59

Jasper Thompson, '38

Pam Pope Wilson, '67

2016

Jay Yanoff, '59

Richard Schmidt, '60

Dennis Crowley, '67

Pamela Burroughs Wood, 69

Douglas Hawkins, '81

Greg Hamilton, '88

Kendrick Haskins, '93

2015

Dale Hettinger '58

Donny Hudson '85

Robyn Garrett Karrer '79

Barbara Bryant Lechner '60

Don Peterson '65

Mike Thomas '89

Paula Williams Schneider '65

Troy Stout '88

1965 Baseball Team

(State Champions Runner-Up)

2014

Majorie Bilker Graves '65

Dr. Arnold Friedman '60

J.D. Nichols '60

2013

Dr. Robert E. Arnold, '49

Jerry T. Blacketer, '65

Jim Lindsey '60

A. K. Cartwright-Wuchner ‘73

2011

Robbie Bartlett '77

Stephen Johnson '88

William Dyer Probus '61

Dr. James Savara '61

Noel Thompson '65

2010

Nevette Johnston, '64

Dr. Donald McKay, '60

David Puckett, '65

Major J. David Quisenberry, '60

2009

Robert W. Chambers, '70

Don Espy, '60

Jane Bailey Flanigan,'53

Michael Gatton, '66

Shere Powers Koppel, '68

Dr. Louis B. Nagel, '60

Paul Jerry Smith, '78

Rick Smith, '85

James L. Sullins, '60

Dennis P.Thompson, '56

2008

George Brangers, '56

Shirley Bleemel Brangers, '56

Randy S. Coulter, '87

Michael F. Eubanks, '72

Jacque Lee Hill Hardin, '59

Richard Isgrigg, '55

Andrew "Skipper" Martin, '62

Eleanor Porter Pershing, '58

Mabel Ruth Riley Weatherford, '44

2007

Peter C. L. Boyce, '60

Mary Jeanne Fisher Fletcher, '54

James B. Guffey, '57

Dr. Roger Hoagland, '72

Donald Edward Pierce, '60

Dr. Bob Rogers

Donald R. Stout, '49

2006

Clinton C. Cook, III, MD, '57

Dr. John H. "Jack" Frick, '60

Lt. Col. Jon Thomas Little, '60

Lynda Leslie Pulliam, '59

Ross W. Simpson, '60

Rhonda Lusk Tully, '71

2005

William S. Anderson, '52

James N. Birch, '56

James Allen Blacketer, '57

James W. Fegenbush, Jr., '64

Dr. Ralph E. Luker, '58

Harold Peak, '51

Michael T. Peavler, '85

Rev. Dr. Walter L. Porter, '55

Jeffrey R. Ratanapool, '88

Kathryn Badgett Rogers, '41

Daniel S. Rush, MD, '67

Neil C. Rush, DMD, '68

Ruth Evelyn Wise Ruter, '40

Deborah Chambers White, '73

Donald L.Williams, '53

Keith E. Williams, '75

John J. Wingfield, '64

2004

Dr. Marillene A. Allen, '59

Gary Daniel, '57

Sam Moody, '63

Dr. David W. Vaughn, '55

Curtis Warfield, '86

2003

Sidney J. Anderson, '57

Ron Gaddie, '59

Larry D. Hamfeldt, '66

Patricia Burch Jacobs, '71

Maurice D. Risner, '66

Edward S. Stokes, Jr., '42

William Stokes, DVM, '70

2002

Daniel Lee Arnold, '76

Robert A. Dorwart, '65

Kenneth W. Frick, '61

Gerald R. Kaufman, '64

Walden L. S. Laukhuf, '61

Lenora J. Roberts*

2001

Joey Bailey, '65

Edgar Carlos Barratt, '40

R. Ted Boehm*

Tito Castillo*

Raymond Cope*

Freida K. Eggleston, '70

Kenneth Blair Farmer, '34

Charles M. Kramer, '55

Maj. Gen. (Ret) Michael Kuehr, '66

Tommy W. Mobley, '67

Deborah Anne Murrell, '60

Brian K. Newman,'79

Kathy Vaughn Zwanzig, '72

2000

Iris Arnold, '46

Garland S.Cochrane, '32

Louisa Weeks Henson-Mussler, '66

Troy Lovett*

Everett N. Rush, Jr., '40

Evelyn Yancey Vaughn, '58

1999

Kenneth Arnold*

Paul Bates, '29

Dr. Fred Coy, Jr., '42

Jimmy Fox, '38

Beatrice Hood, '66

Arthur D. Mattingly, '32

Marion C. Moore*

Dr. Clyde Moore, '39

James Ward, Sr., '50

Ben Williams, Jr., '32

1998

Dr. Barbara Dowe Bailey, '68

Dr. Emily Surgenor Childers, '54

Dr. Harold Haller, Sr., '49

Dr. George Howard*

Ennis Johnson, '27

Ruthe Chambers Lusk, '52

S. Rush Nicholson, '32

Willis K. Niman*

John Ramsey, '36

Dr. James Ramsey, '66

Marshall L. Roberts, '56

Michael Stewart, '59

Gregory Stickler, '76

Dr. Larry Tyler, '57

* Adopted by the Association as Honorary Alumni of Fern Creek Traditional High School

Barbara Bryant Lechner joins Don McKay, David Quisenberry and 11 Other Classmates In Fern Creek

High School Alumni Hall of Fame

2015 Induction Banquet on Homecoming Weekend

Class of '60 member Barbara Bryant Lechner was inducted into the Fern Creek High School on Sunday, September 26, 2015. Barbara joins 13 other 1960 Classmates in the Hall, as seen in the listing to the right.

Barbara began her college years at the University of Kentucky, but eventually reveived her degree from the University of Louisville. Her entire career has been with Jefferson County Public Schools, although it was interrupted when she took a nine year break to focus on raising her children. Her periods of work are 1968-1976 and 1985 to the present.

Positions:

Classroom Teacher, Grades 1-3

Reading Specialist in the “Reading Recovery” Program

Collaborative Language Arts Teacher

Reading Support Teacher, Literary Immersion

Instructional Support Resource Teacher, Gheens Academy

Mentor, New Teachers

While Barbara’s early classroom experience was fulfilling (“I loved it,” she says), she discovered it especially rewarding to work with other teachers in enhancing their skills, making her contributions to children felt throughout the school district. In a wide variety of leadership assignments. consistent with her high energy and wide-ranging interests, Barbara has supported, trained, counseled and mentored thousands of JCPS teachers, helping to improve the education experience for tens of thousands of students.

As a cancer survivor, Barbara devotes many hours as chief fund raiser to the Friend for Life Cancer Support Network this Louisville-based group that pairs cancer survivors with newly diagnosed cancer victims and their loved ones, to offer them help, encouragement and mentoring throughout the treatment and recovery process.