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Alumni Spotlight
The mission of the PBL Education Foundation is to solicit funds that can be used to improve the educational opportunities for students enrolled in the Paxton-Buckley-Loda Unit #10 School District.  We know that students who have graduated from the Roberts, Buckley, Loda, Paxton, and PBL schools received a firm educational foundation at the elementary and secondary levels.  The alumni of those schools then used that educational foundation to enter a vast array of careers.  The Board of Trustees of the Foundation thought it would add interest to our website to share information about a successful alumnus each month.  If you would be willing to be a featured alumnus, please contact us at the address given in the upper left corner of this page.  Share your story with other alumni so that your fellow graduates from Roberts, Buckley, Loda, and Paxton can see where your career has taken you.

 

Featured Alumnus
duaine Woods
Loda Township high school
Class of 1941
The PBL Education Foundation received the following email from Duaine "Smoky Joe" Woods in response to our 2008 mailing:  "Thank you for your informative letter.  As a graduate of the class of 1941 from LTHS, I am forwarding my contribution to this worthy cause.  I think there are only three of my class still kicking around, so good luck on your project."

Since one of the subsidiary goals of the Education Foundation is to maintain an up-to-date listing of the alumni from all of our schools, we promptly sent Duaine a list of the 1941 LTHS graduates with mailing addresses for 7 other classmates.  We also asked him to provide us with his "career story" so that we could share it on this website.  In addition to sharing his story, he asked his daughter in Tennessee to copy pages from the 1941 yearbook.  Above you will see Duaine on the left and Duaine with his friend Darrell "Dean" Jennings on the right in their basketball uniforms.  Click  LTHS Class of 1941 to see a page showing all the graduates from the class.  The following is Duaine's career story:

"A short resume of my many years after graduation, I moved to Chicago after graduation because I lived with the Matheny family my senior year.  Jan. '42 I entered service and was in pilot training and was a B-25 pilot.  After the war I went into meteorology training and was a forecaster and I briefed aircraft crews for their national or international flights which included Air Force One.  I did those activities until retiring from service Jan. '75.  I did that here in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.  I married in '44 and have 4 daughters.  My wife passed away in '85, but I remarried in '86 and have lived in Colorado Springs since '56, although I was in and out because of being stationed in various locations around the world.  I was lucky enough to be re-stationed back here in Colorado.  So basically that's my story.  Another tidbit for you is that James Wood, the actor (Shark) is my nephew."

The  PBL Education Foundation sincerely appreciates Duaine's support for his alma mater and also thanks him for sharing information for the Alumni Spotlight page.