Charlene Kerr
Charlene Kerr
Class of 1980
Charlene Kerr was born in Fresno, California and moved to Everett, Washington during her years of high school education. She attended Cascade High School and graduated from the Class of 1980. She had two kids named Gary Grey (24) and Casey Gary (25). She is now living in Pullman, Washington. She double majored in history and english at Washington State University. She was employed in many places like Geary Partners, and has many different jobs like a systems analyst, (Sep. 2008 to Nov. 2010 in California, Los Angeles.) and a business systems specialist. Currently, she is employed at CRK, LLC and has been the owner since January, 2009. Her intellect has made her a very important member of the community.
In her early years at Cascade High School, she was really involved in dance. “I was doing a lot of extracurricular activities. I did plays at the community college. I danced and I taught dance at a dance studio downtown, so the minute I left school I headed downtown and I was there until midnight so I didn’t have time for extracurricular stuff at school. It was all outside,” Charlene said as she laughed at the memories.
Not only was Charlene into dance, but she loved politics. She was part of a convention and a campaign. “Yeah I went and there was just the one in Portland that year. It was a big deal. We were actually the state of Kansas and we had a candidate, who happened to be Candidate Baker and were promoting his campaign at the convention. We got to meet Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the original.”
Her life at Cascade High School also made a high impact on her. “It was very, very open time and I enjoyed that. You know leaving anytime and coming back anytime, that I almost made it into the honor system, but I think that was what I appreciated most about it.” In Charlene’s years at Cascade High School, getting accepted to universities was very easy. It wasn’t hard to pass classes. “It wasn’t that hard to get into a good school back then. I got into every school I applied for and I didn’t know what to do. Cascade High School was completely different back then; in fact I never once actually spoke to my counselor in high school.”
Also, Cascade High School was a very open school during 1979-1980. “School was never serious,” she tells, “all you had to do was show up and you were most likely to pass. School wasn’t serious, football wasn’t serious, nothing was serious, but my kids who are 20 they had to study really hard to get into a good school.”
The fashion trends and music in the 80’s determined people and their cliques. Most memorable to her was having the battles between disco and rock n’ roll. “Have you seen the 70’s show? Well they nailed it. You had people who liked disco or you had the rockers.” Her entertainment and technology were not as developed as they are today, but she had many other things to preoccupy her mind. “I think there were 12 channels. There was one TV in the living room and it had an antenna on the on the roof and that was it, and we also had a VCR, but that wasn’t until I graduated.” Charlene’s favorite teacher at Cascade happened to be Mr. Chase. “There are several in the running; I’d have to choose Mr. Chase. He was a history teacher and a political action teacher, which is actually my absolute favorite class ever. It was one semester or on year for four years, right before they nominated for different parties and the candidates for presidents.”
During Charlene’s time at Cascade, some of the most important historical events were Ronald Reagan running for president and the oil crisis. Carter was president, Ronald Reagan was running for office and he was elected the year I graduated. That was a pretty big deal; we had the right wing as conservatives, which never happened before and that was the whole new ultra conservative movement. No one ever thought about putting religion into writing and politics, so it was a brand new thing. Earlier in the year, we had an oil embargo crisis and that’s when gas went from 33 cents to a ridiculous dollar. Also the Vietnam War had already started. I remember that there was no ROTC at Cascade and no one ever came like they do now to recruit people to be part of the military and no one was really involved in the war. The ROTC building at Washington University was burned down.
Class of 1980
Charlene Kerr was born in Fresno, California and moved to Everett, Washington during her years of high school education. She attended Cascade High School and graduated from the Class of 1980. She had two kids named Gary Grey (24) and Casey Gary (25). She is now living in Pullman, Washington. She double majored in history and english at Washington State University. She was employed in many places like Geary Partners, and has many different jobs like a systems analyst, (Sep. 2008 to Nov. 2010 in California, Los Angeles.) and a business systems specialist. Currently, she is employed at CRK, LLC and has been the owner since January, 2009. Her intellect has made her a very important member of the community.
In her early years at Cascade High School, she was really involved in dance. “I was doing a lot of extracurricular activities. I did plays at the community college. I danced and I taught dance at a dance studio downtown, so the minute I left school I headed downtown and I was there until midnight so I didn’t have time for extracurricular stuff at school. It was all outside,” Charlene said as she laughed at the memories.
Not only was Charlene into dance, but she loved politics. She was part of a convention and a campaign. “Yeah I went and there was just the one in Portland that year. It was a big deal. We were actually the state of Kansas and we had a candidate, who happened to be Candidate Baker and were promoting his campaign at the convention. We got to meet Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the original.”
Her life at Cascade High School also made a high impact on her. “It was very, very open time and I enjoyed that. You know leaving anytime and coming back anytime, that I almost made it into the honor system, but I think that was what I appreciated most about it.” In Charlene’s years at Cascade High School, getting accepted to universities was very easy. It wasn’t hard to pass classes. “It wasn’t that hard to get into a good school back then. I got into every school I applied for and I didn’t know what to do. Cascade High School was completely different back then; in fact I never once actually spoke to my counselor in high school.”
Also, Cascade High School was a very open school during 1979-1980. “School was never serious,” she tells, “all you had to do was show up and you were most likely to pass. School wasn’t serious, football wasn’t serious, nothing was serious, but my kids who are 20 they had to study really hard to get into a good school.”
The fashion trends and music in the 80’s determined people and their cliques. Most memorable to her was having the battles between disco and rock n’ roll. “Have you seen the 70’s show? Well they nailed it. You had people who liked disco or you had the rockers.” Her entertainment and technology were not as developed as they are today, but she had many other things to preoccupy her mind. “I think there were 12 channels. There was one TV in the living room and it had an antenna on the on the roof and that was it, and we also had a VCR, but that wasn’t until I graduated.” Charlene’s favorite teacher at Cascade happened to be Mr. Chase. “There are several in the running; I’d have to choose Mr. Chase. He was a history teacher and a political action teacher, which is actually my absolute favorite class ever. It was one semester or on year for four years, right before they nominated for different parties and the candidates for presidents.”
During Charlene’s time at Cascade, some of the most important historical events were Ronald Reagan running for president and the oil crisis. Carter was president, Ronald Reagan was running for office and he was elected the year I graduated. That was a pretty big deal; we had the right wing as conservatives, which never happened before and that was the whole new ultra conservative movement. No one ever thought about putting religion into writing and politics, so it was a brand new thing. Earlier in the year, we had an oil embargo crisis and that’s when gas went from 33 cents to a ridiculous dollar. Also the Vietnam War had already started. I remember that there was no ROTC at Cascade and no one ever came like they do now to recruit people to be part of the military and no one was really involved in the war. The ROTC building at Washington University was burned down.