Una Belle's Fun Facts
When my children were small, I took a cake decorating class. It was fun, and I dreamed of making cute, little cupcakes and my children's birthday cakes. A few months after taking the course, I was asked to make a 50th anniversary cake for my in-laws. It was for a couple of hundred guests. I had little experience, but made hundreds of yellow roses to put on the 4 tier cake. It leaned a little, but my husband said it was good and went fast.
I've made other kinds of cakes including one with a backhoe on it. And, in the past, I've been asked to decorate cow patties as gag gifts. Have you ever seen a cow patty decorated as a Christmas cake?
My husband is a pilot/instructor. He's taught our two sons how to fly. You would think that because I am around pilots, hangars, and airports that I would like flying. I don't. I usually get "air sick" and it's not pleasant to be 9,000 feet up and cruising along at 150 miles an hour.
When a plane crashes in this area, we can expect many calls asking if my husband or boys are home. People are really nice about it, though. They're just checking to see if all three are okay and on the ground. Nice people!
I always enjoy going back to Marshall, TX. I grew up in Marshall, and have always enjoyed visiting friends and relatives that I still have there. Can you believe that Marshall was once the capital of Missouri? Strange, don't you think?
Susan Howard who starred in "Dallas" is from Marshall. Bill Moyers, of PBS fame, attended the same high school that I attended. We were there at different times, though. He was Press Secretary for Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson for a few years. We both feel that Selma Brotze, who was a fantastic high school teacher, helped us with our writing endeavors.
Marshall has two colleges. I graduated from ETBU. The other college is Wiley College and was recently depicted in a movie called The Great Debaters with Denzel Washington.
George Foreman was born in Marshall, and has had a boxing camp there. Football great, Y.A.Tittle, who played for the Colts, 49'ers and Giants was from Marshall.
Also attending Marshall High School long ago was Lady Bird Johnson. Although she was from the town of Karnack, it's said that she drove herself the fifteen miles from Karnack to Marshall to attend high school there. She graduated at 15. I didn't.
In August, I was named Canadian County's "Citizen of the Year". It is quite an honor. A few years ago, the National Ag in the Classroom conference was held in Oklahoma. I was named the first Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom Teacher of the Year. Also, a nice honor.
Sometimes, it pays to eavesdrop. At our rehearsal dinner 36 years ago, we heard of a bride and groom who had been detained during their honeymoon because a note had been found near their gas tank that said she had been kidnapped. The parents of both the bride and groom had been requested by local authorities to drive several hundred miles to identify the couple before they could be released. One of my husband's nephews heard the story. Guess what? We found a similar note on our wedding day. Whew! I'm glad we found it first.