Mark Oldham and Libby McCluskey Oldham - 2003-08-10

What a shared history!  As some of you may remember, Mark and I have been together since we were in 7th grade.  We married in 1967 after I graduated from Mizzou and I spent the next four years teaching high school French and English while Mark completed his education:  an architecture degree from Kansas University and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania.

We spent the next 22 years in the St. Louis area where Mark worked for several architectural firms.  I spent about half of that time as a stay-at-home mom. It took me until mid-life to figure out that I really wanted to be a school counselor rather than a teacher when I grew up.  Loved the kids; hated the discipline, lesson planning, and paper grading.  I therefore went back to school in my 40’s to get a master’s degree from the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

In 1993, we moved to Rolla, Missouri, hoping for a more peaceful life.  In some ways we have found that; in other ways we miss the city.  I have been in vocational education since we moved here as the regional director for central Missouri of a special program called New Traditions, which helps adult students who have various barriers to success.  Mark was in charge of a branch of a larger engineering and architectural firm and now has his own firm here in Rolla.

Although we married in our early 20’s, we didn’t feel grown up enough to have children until our early 30’s.  We have two sons.  Neal is 25 and has recently completed a bachelor’s degree in business with an emphasis in accounting.  His goal is to return to the city, so he is currently looking for a job in St. Louis.  Nick is 22 and still has two more years at the University of Memphis where he is majoring in commercial music.

In terms of hobbies, we seem to spend most of our time “fixing things up.”  We are a good team.  Mark designs and builds things; I sew, paint, reupholster, and refinish.  We spent almost 20 of our years in St. Louis gutting and rebuilding our house, doing 90% of the work ourselves.  Mark is currently building a big, beautiful screened porch addition to our house in Rolla.

Although life is never perfect, in general the last 40 years have been good ones for us.  We have two fine sons, we are still perking along, and we are still together. We consider ourselves lucky and remember our years at Hickman HS with fondness.