CURRENT ADDRESS:
William Tindall
210 Orchard Rd
Cosby TN 37722-2913
423.487.3925
Greetings classmates,
For the first few months after graduation I worked in construction. In October I signed up for
active duty in the Navy. Our routine was mainly two to three weeks at sea and a weekend in some
port. Thankfully, we did spend our winters in the Caribbean.
After my Navy service I returned to Arkansas and worked in Little Rock for a few weeks. Then
I headed back to Helena where I worked in Quality Control at Mohawk. After about a year I got
itchy feet and decided I was going to Central America. (I don't remember why.) I made it as far as
Monterrey, Mexico and after about a week there decided that maybe going to Central America
wasn't such a good idea after all. At this point it occurred to me that I should get serious about a
career. So I went to Memphis and worked two jobs in order to save for college.
In January 1960 I enrolled at Arkansas A&M (now UofA Monticello) to work toward a degree in
Electrical Engineering. While there I received a letter from Jerry Malone (Class of '55) informing
me that he and Doug Hill were working for the Department of State as members of the Foreign
Service. He advised me to deep six my plans and submit my application for employment to the
State Department, which I did. Since the pre-employment process could take up to two years, I
went back to Helena at the end of the semester.
In Helena I went to work on a line crew for AP&L. In April 1961, while we were working in the
boonies below Elaine, we received a radio message from the office that I needed to call a certain
operator in Washington. I went to a nearby country store and made the call. At that time I was
offered a job in the Foreign Service. The next Monday I arrived in Washington to begin my
career with the State Department.
After several months of classes I boarded PanAm for a flight to my first assignment, Helsinki,
Finland. The word must have gotten back to Washington that I was having more fun than one is
allowed because after seventeen months into my two year assignment I was notified to pack my
bags and head for Moscow. This was in January 1961 and the temperature in Moscow was 40
degrees below zero. Thank goodness I was coming from Helsinki where the temperature was
only ten degrees warmer. My tour in Moscow was supposed to be for one year but State
conveniently overlooked my transfer date so my tour was extended by two months. They
probably couldn't find anyone willing to transfer to Moscow in January.
My next assignment was to Vientiane, Laos. Just a jungle village but lots going on. Ever see the
movie "Air America"? This was one of my more interesting tours.
In 1966 I transferred to Geneva, Switzerland, where I met Margaret Wine who was also a State
Department employee. We were married in January 1967. This is a great place to live if you like
to snow ski. We skiied some of the better slopes in France and Switzerland.
In 1968 we left for Guatemala City. After about a year we decided that it would be best if our
kids grew up in the U.S., plus I had this growing curiosity about what made computers tick. I
resigned from the Foreign Service and enrolled at the Control Data Institute to study computer
technology. Upon completion I went to work for GE as a computer field engineer. After six
months of schooling in Phoenix, AZ, I was assigned to the Air Force Data Processing Center in
the Pentagon. In 1971 I transferred to Memphis to install computer systems at the new IRS
Service Center. I remained stationed at the Service Center until 1977 when my wife and I decided
to return to the Foreign Service.
Our first assignment after our return to the Foreign Service was Colombia. This was followed by
tours in Japan, Switzerland, Venezuela and Germany. I retired from full-time employment in
1992 and accompanied my wife to Mexico, Indonesia and Austria. During that time period I
worked part-time on an as-needed basis and had temporary assignments of two weeks to two
months in Costa Rica, Colombia, Latvia, Slovenia, Algeria, Turkey, Israel, Pakistan, China,
Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, The Philippines and New Zealand.
After my wife retired in 2001 we went to Cosby,TN with the idea of building a house on some
land that we had purchased in 1977. The land had been used as a nursery and still had gobs of
plants on it, but it had sat idle for four years and had become a ten acre briar patch that would
have sent Brer Rabbit into ecstasy. I couldn't bring myself to bush hog everything down and I felt
clearing it with a brushwhacker would be more work than I wanted to do. So we put the land up
for sale and looked elsewhere for a place to retire. We lived for several months in Fort Myers,
Las Vegas and Waikiki but finally decided that Cosby was probably still our best choice.
Fortunately, no one had made an acceptable offer so our land was still in our hands. In the
summer of 2002, we signed a contract to have a house built and started the task of clearing
blackberries, wild roses and poison ivy. Our house is now completed and most of the unwanted
plants have been cleared. It was a lot of work but it has made me physically fit.
My wife is from West Virginia. After completing business college she went to work for the FAA
in Washington. Upon learning that an official from the Weather Bureau was looking for a
secretary to work with him in Geneva, Switzerland, she went for an interview and was selected.
She arrived in Geneva in 1965 and in 1966 she met and later married a dashing young man and
has regretted it ever since. Just kidding!! Margaret was an office manager with the Department of
State. She has worked for several Ambassadors and was assigned to be George Bush's secretary
during his visit to Switzerland while he was Vice President.
All of our children were schooled K-12 overseas.
Our eldest, William Roger (Skip) Tindall was born in Geneva, Switzerland in October 1967. He
graduated from high school in Caracas, Venezuela. After completing one semester at Central
Arkansas, he enlisted in the Air Force. He now lives in Marshall, VA and both he and his wife
work for FAA.
Our second child, Gerald Lance Tindall, was born in Guatemala City in August 1969. He also
graduated from high school in Caracas and served in the Air Force. He has degrees in Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science from Texas Tech. He, his wife and daughter live in Lubbock,
TX and Lance works in microwave transmission.
Our daughter, Michelle Kay Mitrik, was born in Memphis in December 1974. She graduated
from high school in Bonn, Germany where she was elected Class President in her junior and
senior years. After receiving degrees in Biology and Spanish from Arkansas Tech, she
accompanied us to Jakarta, Indonesia while she was waiting to start her two-year tour with the
Peace Corps in Bolivia. After her service in the Peace Corps she taught high school science in
Hickory, NC. Realizing that teaching at the high school level was not for her, she applied for and
received a scholarship at the University of Tennessee. After two years she received her Masters
Degree in Spanish and now teaches Spanish at Walters State Community College. She lives with
her husband and two daughters in Morristown, TN.
I am a sports fan but not as avid as I once was. I like to watch the March Madness, baseball
playoffs, World Series, NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl. I especially like to watch college
football. I gave up on the Razorbacks when Ken Hatfield left to coach at Clemson. I figure that
any program that gets rid of two of the best coaches in college football, Holtz and Hatfield, is
destined to mediocrity at best.
If someone had looked into a crystal ball during our days at Central High and told me that my life
would unfold as it has, my response could have been "Yeah, in my dreams". I feel really blessed.
Looking forward to seeing everyone. Best Regards.
Bill Tindall