Muskogee Central High Class of 1967

Still "Doin' It" after all these years (breathing)

Ex-MHS teacher to sign memoir Saturday

Ex-MHS teacher to sign memoir Saturday

Janis Thomas Cramer has written a book about growing up in Muskogee in the 1950s and ’60s.

If you had her for senior English at Muskogee High School, she was Mrs. Lowrance. If you went to Riverside or Alice Robertson or Central with her, she was Janis Thomas. If you learned how to teach writing from her, she was Mrs. Cramer.

Cramer will be autographing copies of her memoir, “Growing Up Thomas,” from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at This Land Press, 1208 S. Peoria Ave. in Tulsa. At 2:30 p.m., she will read “Grandma’s Panties” to those present.

“If you went to school with me or if I taught you English or creative writing at Muskogee or Mustang High School, if you were my friend, my colleague, my relative, I hope you will come to the reading,” Cramer said. “I promise you will have a laugh.”

Growing up in a family of storytellers, Cramer spent Sunday dinners with the Thomas clan in Muskogee, where she heard family lore begging to be retold — stories of the Depression, of six sons fighting in World War II, and of a tornado destroying three family homes.

She also lived fantastic stories of her own, with two brothers and an army of cousins and friends from Riverside School. In the early ’60s, she endured teenage angst with other baby boomers crowding into Alice Robertson Junior High School during the New Math, the Race for Space, and the President’s Physical Fitness Challenge.

Cramer, a 1965 graduate of Central High School, is the daughter of the late Oscar J.H. Thomas, a former Muskogee County treasurer, and his wife, Dorothy. An award-winning teacher, Cramer taught high school English and creative writing at Muskogee and Mustang for 30 years.

As co-director of the Oklahoma Writing Project for 12 years, Cramer helped colleagues become outstanding teachers of writing and developing teacher leaders across the state.

Through her affiliation with the National Writing Project, she was influential in helping colleagues districtwide, statewide, and nationwide to become outstanding teachers of writing.

Janis Thomas Cramer

http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/news/lifestyles/ex-mhs-teacher-to-si...

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