06/15/2025
Today Firey Trails hosted the 68th Annual Sissom reunion. This was the first time this reunion was held at our venue. Last year they said they had it at the Cleveland Community Center and only about 25-30 showed up. So thinking it might take a while to get used to a new location, plus the fact the daily Oklahoma monsoon season started up again today mid morning (it started pouring down rain around 11:00 after they get here to set up at 10:00), expectations weren't too high as to that many people showing up based on last year and the pouring rain (we got an inch). My goodness, I'm over with all this rain! All the reunion coordinators and we were highly surprised that the reunion total was around a grand total of 93 people. People were doing activities in the rain and later when it quit raining from feeding the animals, volleyball and even fishing. We were even able to offer puddle-jumping in the parking lot and Stuck-in-the-Mud Car Removal-ha ha. So nice to know interest of the younger ones is up and everyone had a great time.
Background on this Reunion: The Sissom Reunion is tied in with the Carter Reunion to be held at Firey Trails next Saturday. (Sissoms is 2nd Saturday and Carters is 3rd Saturday in June). Many years ago, Mildred Carter, daughter of Alvie Finley Carter married Alvin Sissom and Granville Sissom, their son (Diana Dunn Firey's first cousin once removed), still goes to both reunions. (So do his siblings Kenneth Sissom & Naomi sissom Turner when they can.) Both reunions go way back and both used to meet 2nd and 3rd Saturday at Feyodi Park near Cleveland. But in both reunions, the older attendees that remain and even the newer ones require more pampering nowadays in the way of AC so our Firey Trails venue is able to offer that, a full kitchen, plus a few more things to do. Uncle Ivy Dunn from San Antonio TX, my dad's brother, would always spend several nights with us attending both reunions as he always felt close to Uncle Alvin Sissom. Our who we called our "mail lady", Rhonda Whittenburg, for 25 years (now retired), is directly related to the Sissoms and she and I became good buddies by the time she retired - but never knew the Sissom-Carter connection until after she'd retired. Heres some activity photos provided by Rhonda and some ones I took of the good crowd in the pavilion. A fin (i mean fun but might want to keep it "fin" with all this water falling daily-ha ha) time was had by all!
