Brief Bio for Denny Walden

C. D. Walden
240 Dominion Drive
Newport News, Virginia 23602
Phone: 757-249-2277.

After my sophomore year at Central I spent the summer, as I usually did, with my grandparents in Canalou, MO. When I arrived home for the school year to begin I found that my mother had married someone who was working at the Pekin Mill, and it was announced that they were not only moving to Suffolk VA, but also that the bags were already packed. I did not have a chance to say goodbye to many of my friends that I had made while in the schools in West Helena and at Central.

After graduating from High School at Suffolk, I got a scholarship offer from William and Mary College. But after I went to sign up for the scholarship they advised me that it could not be a football scholarship, which I was expecting, but would be something like a grant in aid. I declined the grant in aid and signed up for 5 year Shipyard Apprentice School. I graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. I went to work with the Newport News Shipbuilding Company.

I worked for them for about 17 years and did a lot of traveling for the company. After I left Newport News I went to work for the Northrup Corporation. I worked for Northrup then for about 12 or 13 years.

After that I went to work for CACI which was owned by a friend of mine. It was a Computer technology company. I worked for them then for about 8 to 10 years. After that I had a wife at home and two small children. My wife was ill. So I came back home and talked to a friend at Management Consulting, Inc. They hired me and I started working for them. I traded worldwide travel for a daily commute through the Hampton Roads Brige Tunnell, a daily traffic jam.

I worked with them until about two years ago when I suffered the first of two strokes. I decided then that I needed to hang it up.

I have been married two times. My first wife, Kathy, was a Virginia girl. We had 2 sons and a daughter and were married for about 12 years. I was traveling all the time and really did not have a close relationship with my first family. We were divorced and she has remarried. My second wife, Sherry, came to work at the ship yard when she and her mother moved here from the old Pulp Mills in Franklin,VA. She wanted to get out of the Pulp Mills. So she came to Newport News. She was quite young and was a beautiful lady. We had two sons. She was really a kind of health nut. She worked out all the time and ate healthy foods. But at age 40 she was diagnosed with cancer. Our sons, Wesley and Jared, were 11 and 7 years old at the time. By the time her cancer was diagnosed she was quite advanced, and she did not live very long after the first diagnosis.

I have often thought about my old class mates at Central High School. I know that I had to leave very suddenly, and was never able to properly say goodbye to my friends.

In West Helena I had lived with my grand father, J.W. Denison, who was one of the founders of the town of West Helena, and was West Helena's first Mayor. I have gone back and visited HWH a few times and have been very discouraged by what I have seen there. I drove up on Beech Crest Hill and the old school there seemed so pitiful, I almost wanted to just put a match to it.

I will try to get a current photo made and send it to Jim for posting. The only photo that has been made is on my driver's license, and it is in an orange color. I will try to get one of my sons to make a photo. I would be happy to talk with any classmate who would like to call me.

--Denny Walden