Ten things.

The latest Facebook meme: Little-known facts.

1. My all-time in-person game-watching record is 157-64-2. In DKR, I’m 116-38-1. For Texas-ou games, I’m 12-14-1. Of all those 223 games, you can probably guess which one was my favorite.
2. My mom was one of my kindergarten teachers. We lived in Premont, a tiny Rio Grande Valley town, and all the kindergarten kids rotated among the three K teachers in the afternoons.
3. In addition to being a minister, youth minister, deacon and elder, my dad was a song leader at our church in Tyler. I think that’s a big part of why I’m drawn to the AV stuff at Heritage.
4. When it was time to pick teams in elementary school, I was always picked first—if we were having a spelling bee or class review game, that is! Kickball, not so much.
5. As a senior I won the UIL state newswriting contest. I came away with a gold medal and a $4,000 college scholarship. For years my winning story was in the UIL journalism handbook.
6. I graduated valedictorian of my high school class. That achievement got me the chance to lead the pledge at graduation and a year of college tuition, but that’s about it!
7. Our high school band played in the 1983 Aloha Bowl (nearly 30 years ago! WOW!). It was a great trip, made extra fun because we could share it as a band. The fundraising effort was almost as cool as the trip itself. It felt like the whole city pitched in to get us to Honolulu. Then the summer before my senior year, I joined a group of American band students and performed all over Europe. Over the course of three weeks, we played in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and the U.K. My favorite memory is talking to some Parisians after we played “Stars and Stripes Forever.” That song brought a couple of them to tears since it reminded them of when Paris was liberated at war’s end. My parents made a lot of sacrifices to pay for that trip, and I’m certain I never said thanks enough.
8. As a mom, I’m thrilled that both of our kids are in high school band. I knew that if they got half as much out of the experience as I did, it’d be worth whatever time and money it cost. And I can barely talk about seeing Ryan march in the 2011 Tournament of Roses Parade without choking up! I’m so grateful that Katie and I could be there to see them parade down Colorado Boulevard.
9. Now that my mom and dad have passed away, I’m struggling with a bit of an identity crisis. It’s like in that scene from Back to the Future when Marty starts to disappear from his photograph. There’s no one who truly shares my childhood experiences, and it’s lonely to carry those memories by myself. I anticipated profound grief, but I never expected to feel like I’m losing my history, too.
10. My husband’s my hero. But that’s not much of a secret, huh?