When I was in the first grade, a friend and former neighbor, Bobby Adair (a 6th-grader) was chosen to be KING of the annual coronation. He chose me to be his "page" and I got my first taste of being on stage.

My earliest "public" performance was when in the fifth grade the public schools put
on a joint production of a reading of Longfellow's "Hiawatha". That morning I had to have several stitches after a head-to-head collision playing softball. I guess I stood out from the hundreds of kids that night due to the bandage over my left eye. In the fourth or fifth grade, a group picture was taken that has come to be known as the "mystery photo" because no one can remember why it was taken. There are kids from different grades in it and many people I remember from my classes at the time are not in it. I was on the front row with several other boys.

In the sixth and seventh grades we had a football team called the "Leinkauf Midgets". I played Center on the team.