RON RIDLEY 1953

I was born at a very tender age in Sheridan, Wyoming in 1933 . Two Sisters, Phyllis and Elaine, preceded me. My father was Elvin E. Ridley, later known as "Al" and my mom was Helen Josephene Coulson Ridley. My dad owned Ridley's Repair Shop, which he purchased from his dad in about 1926. The business ended in about 1951. My mom was a registered nurse. She was Swedish and a staunch Lutheran, and so I was raised in the Lutheran Church.

The first years of my life were spent with five of us living at 336 West Burkitt in a two-bedroom house with one bath and no central heat. My two sisters and I shared a bedroom until it was unappropriate. ThenI slept in the dining room until my sisters both moved out. My grandparents lived next door at 346. I saw them daily until their deaths. My grandfather had a great influence on me as a boy. He had a small shop in the back of his house where he and I spent many hours together. He had a foot powered metal lathe (which I pumped while he worked) and hundreds of hand tools. In the basement he had a large homemade table saw and a forge. He taught me to use all these tools and I have used these skills all my life.

My dad and my uncle built a log cabin on Sheeley Creek just South of Bear Lodge. It is in a shallow canyon with lots of trees and bushes. We spent almost every weekend, when we could get in, at the cabin. One year I was diagnosed with polio and so spent the whole summer on top of the mountain. The cabin was an ideal place to grow up. I love it there.

My work career started by working at our repair shop at age seven. My jobs included: scraping paint from bicycle frames with a dull linoleum knife, tearing old typewriters and slot machines down for parts, and working at other jobs. I worked there after school and weekends until the shop closed. When I was sixteen my dad, who had broken his back, had to spend an extended period of time at Mayo's in Minneapolis. While he was gone, my mom and I ran the business. Our main business was vending machines. We owned phonographs, slot machines, pinball machines, cigarette, candy, etc. I'm the one who had to clean the salt, pepper, sugar, and coke out of the phonograph wall boxes in the booths at the various restaurants that some teenagers put there as a joke. If I found out who did it, we would have a "chat". Of course I had to repair slot machines, phonographs, etc. from Buffalo to Birney to Bear Lodge up on top. I was on call at all hours of the day and night. Our customers included the bars, restaurants, and "other" night time businesses in the area such as the Rex Hotel. In addition to supervising our employees, I changed phonograph records, counted money, cut keys, picked locks, opened locked doors, sharpened skates and lawnmowers, fixed bikes, and all the other jobs in the business.

I came along before Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.) was invented so I thought I was really dumb. My first seven years of school were spent at Linden School, which was about a block and a half from our house. When I was in the first grade my mother had the opportunity to drive a blind couple to Chicago. That trip cost me a half semester set back in school. I really enjoyed Linden and the teachers and kids. I lost some friendships when I was held back two more times and they moved on. I didn't pass the sixth grade and was held back again in the seventh. By this time, because I didn't read well and my attention span was so short, the only way I thought I could get attention was to act out. I became the class clown.

Eighth grade at Hill school wasn't much better. I had some interesting problems. For example, one day in Social Studies, Mr. Beck asked the class if there was anyone in the class who had never used a cuss word. My hand went up. It was the only hand in the air! Kids started making fun of me and challenging me, as did Mr. Beck. Then Donna Doyle and some others spoke up for me. It was a shock to me that I've never forgotten. I was dumb and didn't swear! I passed eighth grade on probation, and I still don't swear.

High school was one big party to me. I tried to study, but my A.D.D. really gave me fits. I remember one time staying up most of the night studying for a Spanish test only to find out the next day I had studied incorrectly and failed the test. I spent many hours in the school office and was always surprised that in spite of my acting out, the teachers seemed to like me.

It seemed that I couldn't stay out of fights. My nose was broken seven times! I was on the Golden Gloves boxing team and fought two bouts with a broken nose. I won the first one by a TKO in the second round and lost the second in Billings by one point.

In my junior year I played football for the Colts which was the 'B' squad. I did a pretty good job but when I tried out for the Bronc's, the 'A' squad, in my senior year, I really bombed and didn't get to play in one game. I don't know if having my hand bandaged played a part or not, but it was one of my most humiliating experiences!

Between my junior and senior year, Larry Markley, John Crawford, and I were working at the box-cross ranch picking up hay bales. One morning I had just fueled the tractor which had to be hand cranked to be started. It is in was in gear. It pushed me through a barb wire fence, then through an irrigation ditch. My right hand was mangled pretty badly. When I got out of the hospital, Larry Markley and I wrangled a job on a highway construction crew on top of the Big Horns. Larry drove a truck, and I was a flagman until the boss fired the 18-wheel truck driver. I inherited that job and drove trucks for the rest of the summer. My hand was still bandaged when I went out for football that fall.

I was not passing in the second semester of my senior year. I couldn't stand the shame of coming back again in the fall. I would have been a twenty year old senior! So I quit school and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Mr. Robinson, our principal, later awarded me my diploma for enlisting in time of war. I will always appreciate that act of kindness. Even though I think he knew that it was I who tossed the cherry bomb into the office while riding a bike down the hall, and that I was one of those who turned a porcupine loose in the library. I doubt that he knew I was one of the guys who rode the horse in the hall or put Miss Wallace's little car on the second floor landing.

We were still at war in Korea in the spring of '53. It provided me with an honorable way out, so I enlisted in the Marine Corp. I went through Marine boot camp at MCRD in San Diego, on to Camp Pendleton for individual combat training, and back to MCRD for Sea School. My assignment was to be an admiral's orderly, which in the old days was the job of being a bodyguard. We accompanied the admiral everywhere including driving him when he went ashore. I served three different admirals, on three different ships, in several oceans, and several countries, from Hong Kong to the North Pole.

Having learned martial arts while in the Far East, I also served in the military police and as a hand-to-hand combat instructor. I was honorably discharged in 1956.

Upon my return to Sheridan, I worked for Lee Johnson, who owned Johnson Novelty Company. Lee was my dad's main competitor and had bought my dad's vending machine business. I again serviced vending machines all over the northern part of Wyoming and Southern Montana. In the fall I entered what was then Sheridan Junior College. It was located in the old hospital off fifth street in North East Sheridan. I had art appreciation in the room where I had surgery on my hand, and I studied public speaking in the room that was the ward where I was after surgery. I had social studies in the room where my grandfather died.

My second year was at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. I found a job as a pathologist assistant doing autopsies and working in the lab. I assisted with the heart pump during one of the first open heart surgeries. I later secured a position in a psychiatric unit as an orderly.

The next few years were spent drifting around the country like a modern day saddle tramp, going from one job to another. It was not unusual for me to quit a job, pack my car, and move on down the road. Although I never graduated, I have attended seven colleges.

Eventually, my opportunities included a great position as program director with Boys Clubs of America in Cicero, Illinois. I really loved the job and working with young boys in the inner city of Chicago. A promotion allowed me to move to Pekin, Illinois to be the executive director of the Boy's Club there. I was dating Brenda McWilliams at the time, so we decided to get married. We were married in May of 1960. The next day I reported for work in Pekin.

Job and career changes found us in Washington D. C. where our first child, Rory, was born in 1962. While in D. C. John Crawford and I renewed our long friendship. I regretted leaving him when I transferred in my job to Denver, Colorado. John and I continued our friendship until his death. My little family moved to Arvada, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. It was there that our second child, Rick was born in 1964. I was offered a position in Fort Worth, Texas, as manager of a speed reading school. We moved to Texas in February of 1965. In the next few months, I became the owner of Educational Consultants and moved the family to Dallas where our third child, Ronda, was born in 1969.

When we closed our business fifteen years later, I became a sales manager in the office supply business. Leaving a position supervising 22 outside salesmen and six retail stores, I opened Ridley Office Store, a commercial office supply company. After struggling with our marriage for twenty-five years, Brenda and I divorced in 1985. After struggling with a new business for three years, the pain of my divorce, the oil crunch that year, my business and I were done in. I was forced into bankruptcy.

As general manager for several small companies in Dallas I've had some really interesting experiences. Most recently I was general manager for a Dallas pianist, Newell Oler. We marketed his music on CD's and audio tapes to several hundred gift shops all over the country. Newell played concerts in these cities and as his business manager, I traveled with him.

Many years ago, I was commissioned as a Stephen Minister. We are assigned by the pastor to people who are in a crisis.

While married to Brenda, we went on a World Wide Marriage Encounter weekend, which by the way, I really recommend. There is a spin-off weekend called The Beginning Experience. It is a weekend for widowed or divorced folks to close out their past relationship and get on with their life. Although it had been several years since my divorce, I went on a B.E. weekend in October of 1996. It was a weekend to change my life forever. One of the volunteer staff members was Shirley Farrar (pronounced "Farrah"). After the weekend we started dating and three weeks later I proposed. To my astonishment, she accepted! Her minister and my pastor married us in my church, Bethany Lutheran in Dallas, in January 1997.

Shirley is really a wonderful and loving lady. She is a Master Social Worker and is a licensed psychotherapist with an "ADVANCED CLINICAL PRACTICIONER" (ACP) license. This is comparable to a Ph. D. She worked for Easter Seals as a therapist for brain injured people and their families, helping them learn to cope in their new world. She left Easter Seals for a position with Vitas Hospice company. She visits patients and their families in hospitals, nursing homes, and their private homes. Shirley works on a team with aids, nurses, a doctor, a chaplain, and a social worker. It's very rewarding and she is great at her work. I am now a licensed Vitas Hospice Volunteer. I sit and talk to patients, "baby sit" patients while their caregiver takes a break, and other tasks. I, too, go to their home, hospital, care center, etc. or where ever they are. For the last several years I have been ”Santa Claus” to many Hospice families.

One of Shirley's requirements on the job is to conduct a grief recovery program, which is a six sessions, two-hour classes spread over six weeks. She and I took the training for this program and are both commissioned by The American Cancer Society as grief counselors. The ACS has a program called LIFE AFTER LOSS for bereaved people. We've facilitated several courses together and Shirley has done some within her job along with the chaplain on her team.

In January 1998, I retired. I now have time to pursue some of my ministries. One of the most rewarding is my prison and jail ministries. I have been in over 50 prisons and jails in three states with the Bill Glass Ministries organization.

A friend from church, Stan Klir, has been doing a Friday evening worship service for fifteen years in the county jail. In the summer of 2001, I joined him for two years. Also, at that time, I was recruited by the jail chaplain's office to teach a four-week course in ANGER MANAGEMENT.

Some of the counseling is not just spiritual. I've worked with suicidal inmates and other problems. Prison and jail ministries are extremely rewarding! There is no way to describe the experience of looking into another person's eyes as they make that life-changing decision! Many inmates accept Christ as their personal savior while incarcerated. They realized that what they were doing wasn't working and decided to make a change.

From time to time the chaplains office assigned an inmate to me for counseling. People in the free world have asked me to visit their loved ones. It goes on and on. There are over eight hundred stories in the Denton County Jail!

Shirley and I joined a congregation just a few blocks from our house. It is part of the Evangelical Free Church of America, which is a small denomination. About a year after joining we learned that our pastor is a pedophile and is now in prison. That's a whole story in itself! We are now members of a Church of Christ.

Our home is in a rural part of the metroplex. There are three ranches across the road to the West that raise quarter horses, so we see horses all the time. Our house is on a gentle slope toward the East so we enjoy a clear view of the sunrise and spend time on our deck watching the grass grow and the clouds pass by.

Shirley has two sons, Jim and Chad. Jim is married and has three children. Chad was married in 2009 and has no children at this writing.

My oldest son, Rory, has two children: Rion, our oldest grandson, had some problems at home, and moved in with us for nine months. He returned to live with his dad in Austin, got his life straightened out, and graduated from high school a semester early! Renee is a beautiful young lady who graduated college as an "A" student. She was married in 2010.

My middle "child" Rick, lives in Ruidoso, NM. He has a daughter, Sabine. She and her son Jimmie, live in Phoenix Arizona. Sabine is an R.N. in medical school to become an M.D..

My daughter, Ronda, lives here in Denton and is a single mom with three children.

That’s where I am in the spring of 2011.

Ron Ridley ‘53

Ron