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40th Reunion (1995)
Visit to the Burlingame Historical Society Archives
Located in the Gunst Mansion Carriage House in Washington Park
Marilyn Dickman Short was the principal archivist at that time.

Jayne Wright Lasley, Carol Alexander, Marilyn Dickman Short, Maren Browning, Dee Williams Ropers (seated), Mike Langston, Jain Fairfax Langston, Elaine Bjorgan.

 

Jain Fairfax
Autobiography

After graduation from BHS, I enjoyed a year at San Mateo J.C. Then to New York and a dance career on Broadway in "Bells Are Ringing" with Judy Holliday, Sydney Chaplin, Jean Stapleton, Hal Linden...a lifelong dream come true, studying at the American Ballet Theater, Ballet Ruuse de Monte Carlo, and New City Ballet School. New York was so exciting to a teenager all alone in the big city. A fall onstage stalled my professional career, one that had begun while at Pershing School at age 6.

When "Bells" ended, I moved (limped) on to voice lessons and studied with a teacher at the San Francisco Conservatory. At the same time, a marriage that didn't go well, but, thankfully, we had two beautiful girls, Melissa and Jenna. Melissa is in Los Altos - married to a survivor of Silicon Valley who is vice president of a computer company in Palo Alto - I can't understand what they do. Jenna is in L.A. - an artist and performer who is married to an orthopedic surgeon. Both daughters are successful and very busy with raising amazing children.

In 1966, an unfortunate divorce made me find work, so I taught dance, and lived in several places, using my skills as a singer/dancer in Denver as a teacher on children's TV and with the local PBS station, choreographing musicals for local high schools. To make a living, I learned a new field, medical management for the Denver Rio Grande Hospital Association. That training led to a transfer to Portland, OR, again, the same in Portland, OR - working and teaching/choreographing, and raising two young, ambitious girls.

My "real" job was a vocational rehabilitation counselor and benefit consultant, counseling severely injured workers through the claims process for a private work comp company. Through that work, I found I wanted to be a psychotherapist so I went back to college - BA from Maryhurst College in Oregon.

During that time, two major things happened. The 25th reunion arrived and Mr. St Helens blew up in 1980. After the reunion, Michael Langston called me, and we were married in 1983. I continued my training, earning a Masters in Counseling Psychology from Univ. of San Francisco in 1986.

And - amazing! - Michael and I are still together. In fact, in 1993, we created a nonprofit corporation, Faire Advantage, Inc. and revved up our old theater skills to produce and perform a children's show I wrote; "Mrs. Twizzleton & the Magic Songs", a musical fairy tale for the whole family.

That has grown into a television series, "Mrs. Twizzleton's Magic Gardening", a show to get kids excited about gardening. (Go to www.MsTwiz.com to learn more about it.) It uses all my training and skills -- music, dance, psychotherapy, as ways of passing on the lessons I have learned about life and taking care of our environment.

I am on the Board of Directors of the local Public Access TV station and counsel at-risk children at a school for homeless kids. Michael can share his own history, but we are both still working and having a ball."