When you’re 16 and shy (which is why your class voted you the “quietest” when you were 17), screwing up the courage to ask a girl to the Junior Prom (which also happens to be the first time you’ve asked a girl out in high school) is a monumental event. I believe it was the Fall of 1959 in Anchorage, and I was determined that I was going to ask someone who I really cared about–no way was I going to “play it safe.”

One morning in the hallway of AHS, more than two months ahead of the event, I found myself standing beside Ginger Harris and popping the the most difficult question I had asked to that point in my young life–”would you like to go to the Junior Prom with me?”
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