In our last issue of Scene, we posed the question “Do you know these fly-boys?” The question should have been, “Do you know these parachute jumpers?” A short time after the issue was mailed, we received a wonderful phone call from Frick Smith, now living in Marble Falls (he’s second from left in the dark topcoat) who first identified his chums in the photo, and told us some pretty interesting things about life at Schreiner in 1967-68.

“Dr. Edington was president of the school then, and he taught the weekly Bible study classes—which, incidentally, we all really enjoyed,” said Frick. “But we were always glad to see the class end because that was when we’d take off for San Marcos and our sky diving. We knew no fear then!”

“Schreiner was known as the ‘country club of military schools’ then,” Frick recalled. “But it was a great education.”

Frick and his classmates occasionally “pushed the envelope.” For example: “Every night, a recording of Taps was played at bedtime,” said Frick. “Well, one night, my younger brother crawled in a window at Weir, found the record player and put on a Beach Boys record instead of Taps. And he turned the volume way up. You could hear that Beach Boys song all over Kerrville! We were grounded—made to stay on the campus—for a month.”

In the photo, left to right are Schreiner freshmen: Bruce Bennett, Frick Smith, Randy Barnes, Terry Harden (kneeling), Russell Daves and Mario Valerio.