The Driggs Clan
After High School, I enlisted in the Navy and ended up spending six years with them, including an all-expense paid cruise to the Western Pacific, language training (Italian), and a trip to Italy for two years on an exchange assignment with the Italian Navy. Along the way I married Alison Tippetts (most important and best decision I have made in life) and this October we will celebrate 39 years together. While in Italy our first two (Michael and Heather) of our six children were born. In 1974 I was discharged from the Navy and moved back to Ogden, where one year later I started my college education and graduated from Weber State in December of 1979. While living in Ogden, we had three more children (Danny, Shaun, and Matthew). Our last (Heidi) was found in a cabbage patch in Fort Worth Texas while we were stationed there with the Air Force. After graduation, we left for the Air Force and more excitement which included eight years in Germany and fours years in the US Embassy in Lisbon, Portugal that included another trip to Monterey, CA to study Portuguese prior to going to Lisbon. Following retirement from the Air Force in January 1998, I joined The Boeing Company in Mesa, Arizona and currently sell the AH-64 helicopter to the U.S. Army. Retirement must be out there somewhere and I still need to decide what I will do when I grow up. That’s my sweet and condensed version of the last 40 years. Attached are a couple of photos. The family picture was taken a couple of weeks ago and includes our six children, three daughters-in-law and ten grandchildren. Next to Alison, they are my greatest blessing. I will leave it up to Alison to put her spin on the last four decades.
Okay, here’s my “spin” on the last 4 decades:
While Glenn was off seeing the world with the navy, I was living at home and attending Weber State. We got married about a year and a half after graduating from high school, and will celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary in October, although we’ve actually been “together” since we first started dating during the summer of ’66, just before junior year. One week after the wedding we left for Jacksonville Florida, where he was going for school. Other than the five years we spent back in Ogden while he completed his bachelor’s degree, we’ve lived all over the place, including San Diego, Monterey, and Marysville CA…Rantoul, IL, Fort Worth, TX (where, by the way, Heidi was actually NOT found in a cabbage patch, but was born at the Carswell AFB hospital) We also spent 14 wonderful years in Europe, including Catania, Sicily—during which time, as Glenn mentioned, our two oldest children were born in the Navy hospital in Naples. We also lived in Landstuhl and Zweibruecken, Germany; Lisbon (Cascais), Portugal, where he had a 4-year diplomatic assignment. When we finally came home from Europe, we spent less than a year in Albuquerque, NM, where Glenn retired from the Air Force. From there we came to live in Mesa, AZ, where he had gotten his present job selling Apache helicopters for Boeing, and we’ve been here ever since. I like it a lot, except for about 3 months of the year…and I’ll bet you can guess what three months those are!
We’ve had an exciting life, and I still get goose bumps when I hear his voice over the phone!
We’re really looking forward to the reunion, since this will only be the second one we’ve been able to attend over the years…can’t wait to renew old (figuratively speaking) acquaintances!!
Jerald and Glenna 
