Fred Shotwell    28 May 1944 – 19 May 2020      What does one say about a friendship that has lasted 65 years?  Ever since we were 10-year old’s building forts in the woods across from Fred’s house until as recently as an email exchange a week or so ago. We shared many fun adolescent adventures as well as some stupid ones.  At 14 or early 15 we once went midnight joyriding in his dad’s new car having purloined it from the garage and pushing it out to the road, reversing the process upon return.  Amazingly, we never got caught or killed anyone! By the time we were 16 we had discovered the alure of girls.  This caused us to embark on an ardent study of human biology and female anatomy.  We regularly conducted research sessions at the local drive in or in the back seat of my ‘54 Chevy!  I’ll not divulge the names of our fellow researchers since they are not germane to this tale. At this point I had a blow-u with my dad and my solution was to run away from home an join the Army.  After my mom consulting with Mrs. Palmer, my SHS councilor, she gave the required parental consent.  So, at age 17 years and 15 days, I entered the US Army and began a 25-year hiatus in communications with my best buddy Freed.  At that time, Fred’s everchanging post SHS plans were to attend Western Michigan and become an English Teacher. After a couple of years Fred also enlisted in the Army and was placed into the Military Intelligence branch.  At the time I was still in Germany, or on the boat to my first Vietnam tour, and did not know that he had joined.  We both stayed in for a career and we never once crossed paths.  Not so surprising since Fred was in Military Intelligence and I went from Infantry to Special Forces and eventually into the medical department as a medical technologist, having finely achieved my bachelors the hard way.  Fred served overseas in Turkey and had several short “spook” assignments as well as several stateside postings, and luckily never got tapped for Vietnam.  At some point he received an appointment as a Warrant Officer and retired at 20 years of service as a Chief Warrant Officer 3. , which is quite an accomplishment. I stayed 30 years and was still in when Fred retired and went to work as a counselor at a junior college in central Texas.  His younger brother, James, came across my name somewhere and contacted me to see if I was Fred’s old HS friend.  Bingo!  I called Fred and we found the lost years.  Ever since we have stayed in relatively close touch via face to face meetings, telephone and now email. Fred was a wonderful guy with a great sense of humor.  He was a lot brighter than many gave him credit for, but he liked it that way.  We could discuss anything without rancor or pretense, even when our views were diametrically opposed.  He was my friend in the truest sense, a real class act!  That’s why he referred to me as “Airborne Puke”, and I labeled him “The chair-borne Oxymoron”.  Or, is that too Army for civilians to discern? Arthur Juntunen, SHS ‘62 Master Sergeant, US Army Retired

I remember Fred as always being a gentleman.  I enjoyed spending time with Fred and Cecilia at our 50 year reunion. They enjoyed it as well and made the drive back to Michigan from their Texas home to spend time with us at our mini reunion at the Moose Preserve. I enjoyed having them spend the night at my home before they headed north to explore camping in northern Michigan. I am so glad to have spent that time with them and so sorry he us no longer with us for a future visit. RIP Fred and heartfelt condolences to Cecilia. 

Back in the day, I remember Fred as always being nice to everyone. My family knew his family. My Dad was his Dr. years ago. Condolences to his family. Susan Gourley Bullivant