My senior year of high school I had the opportunity to do a German student exchange through my German class. That spring we had group of German students come and stay at our homes. My exchange student’s name was Nicole. She was a super sweet girl. We all had a great time the month they stayed here. Right after graduation our group left for Germany. We spent some time traveling through Italy, Switzerland and Austria. It was so much fun. We had a great time… Young silly Americans traveling across Europe. I look back and wish I could do that trip again knowing the things I know now. Funny story from the trip. Remember my saying in a previous post that I had a thick Texas accent at this time? Well, I was walking back to the hostel from a pub one night and these Russians guys were asking for directions to the pub we just left. They spoke broken German, as did I. They spoke no English and I spoke no Russian. So I am trying tell them where it is… Well, they all started laughing and then they asked if I was from Texas. I had no idea how bad my accent was… But apparently even when speaking in broken German my Texas accent shined through.

I have such nice memories from that trip, watching the sun rise over the Adriatic Sea, going to an all night rave (maybe that wasn’t such a fun memory, I wasn’t much of a techno girl), traveling with my best friends. I had a blast staying with Nicole and her family. She had a little brother that told me inappropriate things to say in German when I would ask how you say something appropriate. I definitely made the grandmother blush several times.

(AGAIN… STILL SICK, NO PICTURES TODAY. I’LL POST THEM WHEN I FEEL BETTER!)

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.
Population: 270,298,524

Federal spending: $1675.88 billion
Federal debt: $5750.4 billion
Unemployment: 4.5%

No. 1 Song the week of February 12, 1998: Nice and Slow by Usher

Nobel Prize for Literature: José Saramago (Portugal)

Random Facts:

• Frank Sinatra dies.
• President accused in White House sex scandal;denies allegations of affair with White House intern,Monica Lewinsky.
• An estimated 76 million viewers watch the last episode of Seinfeld.

1997 might have been my favorite year of my adolescence. My dad called a family meeting early summer and when he started it off he was looking right at me. He told us about a job offer he had in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was asking what we thought about it, specifically me since I would be starting my senior year of high school that fall. Well I was thrilled much to my parents relief I’m sure. So we planned a trip my dad and I. We flew in to Tulsa International Airport and rented a car and took out on a tour of the town. Remember the towns I’ve lived in? Tyler, Mineral Wells, Blandon, Odessa… You get the picture, very small towns. Tulsa seemed huge to me! But I was so excited, it was going to be an adventure! We ended up moving to a suburb called Bixby. I was to start my senior year at Bixby High School that fall. My first year in public school since the 5th grade. I was scared to death. Here I was going to a public school in a new state. It was all so exciting, but still I was super scared. I walked in to school that first day and here I was a girl with a heavy Texas accent that you can still hear if I’m super sleepy or I let my guard down, and I picked up my schedule and headed off to class.

This is a story that my best friends like to tell everyone we meet. My family had visited a church before school started and I had met this girl in Sunday School who I saw at school that first day. Well I sat with her and her friends at lunch on the first day of school. I sat with them for about a week when one of the guys at the table asked me what instrument I played. I told him I didn’t play any instruments. It was like the bad movies. Everyone stopped eating and looked at me, and then he said, “Then why are you sitting here? This is the band table.” I picked up my tray, waiting for someone to laugh or say they were kidding, but no one did…. So I slowly turned to walk away. The stars were aligned in my favor though. There were four people at the next table who witnessed the whole scene and felt bad enough for me to ask me to sit with them… Of course they have held that over my head since that fall day in Bixby, Ok. Those four people would turn out to be my best friends that year. And I am happy to say still to this day, I still talk to each of them. They totally saved me from humiliation and ensured that I had the best senior year that a girl could have. So thank you Sarah, Wes, Miranda and Micah! Love you guys!

(I am super sick right now and I don’t have any pictures scanned for this year, I’ll post some hopefully tomorrow though. So look back.)

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.
Population: 267,743,595

US GDP: $8,110.90 billion
Federal spending: $1635.33 billion
Federal debt: $5498.9 billion
Median Household Income: $37,005
Unemployment: 4.9%

No 1 Song the week of February 12, 1997: Unbreak My Heart by Toni Braxton

Nobel Prize for Literature: Dario Fo (Italy)

Random Facts:

• William S. Burroughs, Jacques Cousteau, John Denver, Princess Diana, Allen Ginsberg, Mother Theresa, James A. Michener, James Stewart all died this year. Big year for St. Peter.
• Timothy J. McVeigh sentenced to death for Oklahoma City bombing.
• Ellen DeGeneres outs herself. She becomes the first openly gay woman to have her own sitcom.

1996 was a year of many firsts. My first car, my first cell phone (it was big and I had to share it,) my first real boyfriend (not a random foreigner or a little boy neighbor who sang to me), my first prom and my first time being the oldest kid in the house.

We were going to Southern Oaks Baptist Church and I absolutley loved my youth group! We had so much fun. It was one of those classic youth groups. I’ll always have fond memories of those fun times at camps, 5th quarters, and all the other great stuff. I had a ton of great friends through this time… One of the most special was Kristie Banks. She a school teacher just out of college and she worked with the youth. We hung out all the time and pretty much all of my favorite memories from my time in Tyler are with Kristie. Now, I am going to have to call her because this has made me miss her so much!

Did I mention that I homeschooled this year? Yep, I spent a year at home doing my work. Basically I spent a few months completing my years worth of work and then became a fan of “The Young and the Restless” and “The Guiding Light.” It was a fun time. I could go have lunch with my beau at his school and I worked at Honey-B-Ham making sandwiches for a little while this year too.

For my 16th birthday I got my first car. It was a 1989 Cutlass Cierra. It had a little computer in it that said welcome when you started up the car… It was a hot vehicle. My parent’s bought it from my Aunt Lana for my brother for his car and then they gave it to my when I turned 16 and he took the Suburban off to college. He left that year ETBU. Let me tell you how fun it was to have a brother who was a freshman in college. He and his friends would all come to my parent’s house for the weekend… Yes, that was fun for a 16 year old girl.

My sister around this time was absolutely adorable. She was really kinda obsessed with Jan Crouch and she would have us all sit on her pretty daybed and she would dress up in a formal dress, high heels and put on a fur stole and she would preach to us at least once a week. Her dog Pearl would also be dressed up in her Sunday’s best and every week during the altar call portion of the sermon Pearl would get saved. We have some of her sermons on audio tape somewhere, I would love to go back listen to those sweet sermons. She was a precious little girl.

Mom helping me get ready for my first prom... Love the sponge painted walls in my sister's room.

Summer Camp Fun after a mud fight with Kristie & Caitlyn. I love how tall I look in this picture.

Jan Crouch

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.
Population: 265,189,794

US GDP: $7,661.60 billion
Federal spending: $1572.41 billion
Federal debt: $5207.3 billion
Median Household Income: $35,492
Unemployment: 5.4%

No. 1 Song the week of February 12, 1996: One Sweet Day by Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men

Nobel Prize for Literature: Wislawa Szymborska (Poland)

Random Facts:

• Ella Fitzgerald, Carl Sagan, Tim Leary & George Burns all died.
• Tupac Shakur is shot and probably dies.
• Clinton appoints Madeleine Albright as first female US secretary of state.
• F.B.I. arrests suspected Unabomber.

1995 was the year I fell in love with a Belarusian man. His name was Kostya and he was a dancer.

TCF participated in a National Convention every year that brought together ACE schools from across the country. I had a science project that only a child of a chemical engineer could have had that won first place. But the highlight of the convention was visiting dance group from Belarus. We met after a performance and I remember being so nervous to go up to him and tell him how much I enjoyed it. But I did… He was so dreamy in his traditional Belarusian clothes. We decided to meet up later and talk some more. He kissed me that night! That’s when I fell for that Russian speaking, square jawed dancer. We decided to write letters to each other because after this convention they were going back home, where he would finish college to become an engineer. We wrote letters for over a year. That was until my brother’s friend from college told me he would write the letter in Russian instead of English because he would totally think that was impressive. Apparently he wrote something that might have been inappropriate and I wouldn’t have known any different, because I didn’t speak the language. I sent the letter off and never heard from him again. At least that’s my story… Maybe he got tired of writing to a 15/16 year old girl in the US, I like to think that wasn’t the case though. I’d like to think that my brother’s friend ruined it for me and it had nothing to do me at all. Who knows… Maybe he died in a tragic mountain climbing accident and that’s why he never responded. Wow, I haven’t thought about him in years now, I’m going to have to go find those old letters so I can remember his last name and do some cyber stalking Internet research to see if I can find him.  I totally wish I could find those pictures of  him too… He was so dreamy.

Hanging out on Wayne & Garth's sofa. *I needed an attitude adjustment basically all of '95

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.
Population: 262,764,948

US GDP : $7,269.60 billion
Federal spending: $1519.13 billion
Federal debt: $4921.0 billion
Median Household Income: $34,076
Unemployment: 5.6%

No 1 Song week of February 12, 1995: Creep by TLC

Nobel Prize for Literature: Seamus Heaney (Ireland)

Random Facts:

• Jerry Garcia and Ginger Rogers die
• Los Angeles jury finds O. J. Simpson not guilty of murder charges.
• France explodes nuclear device in Pacific

1994 was another fun year. My dad took a job in Tyler, Texas. We moved late that fall in the middle of my first semester of my 9th grade year. Before I take you all to Tyler with me I want to close the book on Mineral Wells with a funny story. Well, maybe it’s a bit more of a morbid story. As I mentioned before we lived on a highway outside of town, which means we regularly had new pets. Cats & dogs who had been dumped by their cruel owners would wind up at our doorstep. Between my sister and myself we would adopt these pets. I even remember adopting baby rabbits and trying to hatch bird eggs. The cats ate the bunnies and I turned the heating pad up too high on the bird eggs. They all died on a Tuesday. Any dog that would wander up and I took on as my dog. I would love it with all my heart for the few days before it ran out on the highway to meet its maker, they all passed away on Tuesdays. Even our family pet Zach who sadly tried to follow us out of the gate died on a Tuesday. Our Rottweiler who was stolen, was stolen on a Tuesday.  It became a joke with all of friends in MW that you shouldn’t go to the Houston’s house on a Tuesday. Millie and I would be as dramatic as Shelby in Steel Magnolias at Truvy’s Salon each time one of these animals died. My poor parents… The drama that we created over must have been a lot to take. Tuesdays at the Houston’s… You never knew what could happen.

So the big move to Tyler, TX… As I said before we moved in the middle of my freshman year. The school we moved to was called Tyler Christian Fellowship. It was a PACE school, unlike anything I had experienced before. This might have been the worst kind of school for me to go to, because I needed a bit more stimulation, I needed to talk… I would finish all my PACES and then try to talk to other students and I would get in trouble. But it was a super fun school. Because of the awesome people I met there. I loved getting done early and going outside and sitting on the picnic tables playing checkers and chess with the guys. (Remember that Caleb?) It was a ton of fun. There were a few guys in the school that were total rockstars in their own mind. They were all super tough and oh so deep. I’ll never forget the day that Kurt Cobain died. You would have thought these guys had just received a call that their entire families had disappeared on a tour North Korea and would never be heard from again. They sat together and cried and played and sang the songs of Nirvana through those weepy tears… I cried too. I remember thinking how deep and sensitive they were at the time… Now that memory embarrasses me pretty bad. It’s funny how old we think we are when we are just kids.

My last homecoming in Mineral Wells with Holly & Perri

Hanging with Glen Campbell

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.
Population: 260,289,237
Life expectancy: 75.7 years

US GDP: $6,947.00 billion
Federal spending: $1460.84 billion
Federal debt: $4643.7 billion
Median Household Income: $32,264
Unemployment: 6.1%

No 1 Song week of February 12, 1994: The Power of Love by Celine Dion

Nobel Prize for Literature: Kenzaburo Oe (Japan)

Random Facts:

• Kurt Cobain kills himself. He was 27.
• My favorite movie of all time come out. Pulp Fiction
• White House launches Web page.
• Richard Nixon & John Candy die.

This year held a lot of fun memories, and a lot of sad ones too. After we remodeled our house, we should have put in a revolving door to save from the wear and tear of people coming in out of the house at basically all hours of the night. We lived right across the highway from our church, Indian Creek Baptist, and we had a super tight youth group that basically turned our game room and back yard in to the youth building of the church. There were kids there constantly that summer. One night after everyone already had left and gone to sleep my dad wakes up and is walking to the kitchen to get some water when he sees one of the guys from the youth group searching in the fridge for something to eat. He was like, “Hey Mr. Houston, I got hungry while I was on the computer.” My dad just asked him to lock up when he left… That basically describes that whole year.

This was also the year that Kay Bailey Hutchison won a special election after Lloyd Bentsen went to DC to be on Clinton’s Secretary of Treasury. I still am mad at my folks for not letting me be there, but they hosted a fundraiser for Kay Bailey Hutchison that year. It was party that looked like so much fun… I tried to stick around just at least look her, but to no avail.

This is the summer we lost my grandmother. Early July my Mawmaw went to be with Jesus… This was such a hard thing for me to comprehend. I remember riding to graveside service and just looking out the window when I saw this group of boys playing basketball. I never remember feeling such hatred in my heart than I felt at that moment. How dare them go on like nothing had happened… I hated those boys because their world didn’t come crashing down on them like it came crashing down on me. I will always think about those boys when I think about the day we buried Mawmaw. I’ll never forget that pain or that life lesson that, just because your world stops it doesn’t mean that the rest of the world stops with you.

Ugh… these have become a little depressing. Let me leave you with a few pictures of me a sassy, unfortunately fashion deprived teenager.

You can't have bangs like that and not have an attitude.

Making Chicken Wings with Daddy

Yes, I admit it. I was a cheerleader.

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.
Population: 257,746,103
Life expectancy: 75.5 year

UUS GDP: $6,558.10 billion
Federal spending: $1408.68 billion
Federal debt: $4351.4 billion
Median Household Income: $31,241
Unemployment: 6.9%

No. 1 Song the week of February 12, 1993: I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston

Nobel Prize for Literature: Toni Morrison (US)

Random Facts:

• River Phoenix dies of a drug overdose on Halloween.
• Federal agents besiege Texas Branch Davidian religious cult after six are killed in raid (March 1 et seq.). Fire kills 72 as cult standoff in Texas ends with federal assault
• Dizzy Gillespie, Audrey Hepburn & Frank Zappa all die this year.

The summer of 1992 my parents left us in the wild woods of northeast Louisiana while they galavanted across the Caribbean for a much need vacation. Bevan, Amelia and I stayed with mom’s mom, Mawmaw. We always had so much fun at her house, but she wasn’t like any other grandma I knew… we were 12-14 in the line of grandkids, so we weren’t able to ever pull the wool over her eyes with anything. She always knew what we were going to do before we did it, and sometimes I think she’d  just let us do something bad so she could give us swats with her switch. She lived down a winding road, across from the bayou, surrounded by cotton fields, that we would play in and try to pick the cotton, we would always come home with bloody finger tips. We would sneak down to the edge of the bayou to try to see the alligators that my cousins would tell us stories about (that’s probably all they were, “stories”). I would stand out in front of Mawmaw’s house and see Aunt Ozell’s house right next door, and I would imagine my mom

Mom when she was a little girl.

as a little girl running back in forth between her aunt’s house and her house… my dad pulling up to the house in his white Grand Prix, climbing out of that hot rod with his muscle shirt on, trying to win the love of this Louisiana girl. It was so much fun to try to picture the stories I always have heard about happening in front of me. Sitting by the tree that my mom would hide behind to try to scare my dad. I loved imagining them as kids and young adults. I loved pretending that one day I would find my true love just like they did, and my kids would love to hear the story about how we met, and how we fell in love.

Hot Rod Daddy!

I loved sleeping with Mawmaw, we would stay up late and watch movies. I would love it when everyone would always go to bed and we would stay up and watch movies that my mom wouldn’t let me watch… Like “Pretty Woman” & “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” man that woman loved Burt Reynolds. Mawmaw was an amazing woman. I only wish I had the opportunity to know my other grandparents as well I got to know my Mawmaw.

Mawmaw & Aunt Ozell at the family reunion that summer.

My summers in Louisiana were so much fun, it always felt like going home.

Really Awesome 7th Grade School Picture

President: George Bush
Vice President: J. Danforth Quayle
Population: 254,994,517
Life expectancy: 75.8 years

US GDP: $6,244.40 billion
Federal spending: $1380.86 billion
Federal debt: $4002.1 billion
Median Household Income: $30,636
Unemployment: 7.5%

No. 1 Song the week of February 12, 1992: I’m Too Sexy by Right Said Fred

Nobel Prize for Literature: Derek Walcott (Trinidad)

Random Facts:

• Johnny Carson hosts The Tonight Show for the last time. He had ruled late-night television for 20 years.
• Bill Clinton elected President, Al Gore Vice President; Democrats keep control of Congress (Nov. 3).
• Glengarry Glen Ross opened up this year… “Coffee is for f’ing closers.” That was my motto when I sold cars.
• Compact discs surpass cassette tapes as the preferred medium for recorded music.

I left the public school system in the fall of 1991 to the wonderful world of private education. This would be the first of many schools for me in my Jr. & Sr. High life. Community Christian School in Mineral Wells, TX was different from anything I’ve ever experienced. It was a very small school that I was very scared of, but turns out it was a school that ended up being filled with great people and some of the best and funniest memories ever. I figured out lots of way to have fun and how to get in trouble on a regular basis.

There were many things that I did to push the envelope, this however was not one of those time. When it came to boys, I was really innocent… Kind of like how I am now. Anyways, I would always be running late for school and one day I put on my uniform and forgot to put on a slip underneath it. Now, I was in the 6th grade… I was 11 years old. It didn’t even cross my mind that by not wearing a slip I would attract boys. At this point in my life we were still running around the playground throwing sand at one another. So this teacher made the biggest deal about my not wearing a slip that day to provoke lustful feelings in the boys at the school… She had a conference with my mom and basically told me that I was hussy. She was never my favorite teacher. Any hussy like behavior I have since acted on, I feel like I can blame solely on her. She put the thoughts in my head. Be very careful what you say to children… Very careful. When I feel like rebelling still today, you’ll probably find me walking around town with a skirt on… and no slip, like a hussy.

Fun Family Photo

Formal time

President: George Bush
Vice President: J. Danforth Quayle
Population: 252,127,402
Life expectancy: 75.5 years
US GDP: $5,916.70 billion
Federal spending: $1323.63 billion
Federal debt: $3598.5 billion
Median Household Income: $30,126
Unemployment: 6.8%

No. 1 Song week of Feb. 12, 1991: Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) by C&C Music Factory

Nobel Prize for Literature: Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)

Fun Facts:

• Nirvana, Nevermind Released
• Miles Davis & Graham Greene died
• Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman) is arrested in a Florida movie theater for indecent exposure
• Fox Broadcasting is the first network to permit condom advertising on television.
• Professor Anita Hill accuses Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment .

In 1990 our neighbors behind us had some drama. While the wife was trying burn her husband, whom she suspected of having an affair, out of their house she aparently wasn’t thinking clearly because she set the fire on the North side of their house… with a south wind blowing… Our house was north of theirs… Needless to say, she didn’t quite burn him out of the house, but she sure was successful in taking out our fields, pool house and barn, and she came close to burning down our house instead. The fire department was spraying water on our house to keep it from catching fire. It was lots of fun.

Another dramatic story… We drained our swimming pool this year to do some repairs and paint the pool. I remember having a picnic in the bottom of the pool several times before we put the water back in. I also remember my dad painting the pool and he fell in the 10-ft. deep-end and broke his wrist. I wonder if my mom was able to keep from saying, “I told you so.” I’m pretty sure she warned him and my uncle not to do the pool themselves because this would happen.

I was in Odyssey of the Mind my 4th & 5th grade year. I don’t recall which year was which theme, but it was a blast! One year our theme was Pompeii and the other year was the 7-Wonders of the World. I will tell you about the Pompeii year right now… Because it was awesome, and when I say awesome, I mean we totally won awards that year. It was done as a parody of “The Brady Brunch” we called them the “The Fraidy Bunch,”  it was the story of a family living their happy life in Pompeii before Mount Vesuvius erupted. I can still sing the theme song today if anyone wants here it, let me know. We went to nationals… That’s right, nationals. Also I was the star student of the Spontaneous Problems portion of the event. Which probably explains why I am so good at “6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon” today.

It was a very good year, a very good year for small town girls, and soft summer nights…

Christmas time!

Looking at different cameras.

President: George Bush
Vice President: J. Danforth Quayle
Population: 249,438,712

US GDP: $5,743.80 billion
Federal spending: $1252.52 billion
Federal debt: $3206.6 billion
Median Household Income: $29,943
Unemployment: 5.6%

No. 1 Song from February 12, 1990: Opposites Attract by Paula Abdul w/ The Wild Pair

Nobel Prize for Literature: Octavio Paz (Mexico)

Fun Facts:

• The Simpsons debuts on Fox.
• Seinfeld debuts on NBC.
• South Africa frees Nelson Mandela, imprisoned 27½ years.
• Yugoslav Communists end 45-year monopoly of power.
• Nobel Peace Prize is won by Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

I celebrated my last birthday in Pennsylvania in February of ’89. The April following my 9th birthday my father took a promotion back in the promise land… Texas. It was a bittersweet decision. Kind of like the end of a vacation, you’re ready to get home, but you know that you’ll not be able to do the fun vacation stuff anymore, no more weekend jaunts to NYC, no more shopping and buying fresh milk & produce at the Amish Farmer’s Market… But we were going home. And that was exciting. For me, I was sad to leave my friends and my true love, Maverick, but I even as a kid absolutely LOVE change! So it was another adventure.

We moved to Mineral Wells, Texas in April 1989. We found this house that was a dream house for kids. While waiting for the closing of this house, we stayed in this hotel for a week… All I remember from this is that every night we would eat at the hotel restaurant and Amelia would order pancakes, every night. It was a fun time… maybe it was just because we got to eat out for every meal. Well, when the house was ready we made the big move. It was perfect! It was a beautiful house on 7 acres of land… Right across the side road was a field of  beautiful buffalo, down that same road was the historic Seybold Ranch. We were about 10 miles outside of Mineral Wells. It was a wonderful, dreamy place. We jumped right back in to the Texas lifestyle by getting our cowboy gear on heading to a rodeo. (Enjoy the fabulous picture below.)

About a month after we moved back to Texas we experienced a pretty big dreadful tornado. My memory of it probably is way more dramatic than the actual event. Regardless, it was super scary. I remember falling asleep in the bathtub with a mattress over my sister and myself. Basically the tornado tore the roof off and destroyed a lot of the outside of the house, which was good, because the outside of the house needed to be destroyed. So… the big remodel started. My uncle Carl is an amazing carpenter he and my Aunt Elaine and their two sons came to stay for the summer to do the remodel. This was such a fun summer. I remember Jonathan & Carl, my cousins, teaching us how to push the envelope when it comes to adventure. I’m shocked no one died that summer. From staple gun fights, to jumping off the roof on the trampoline and in the swimming pool and much more in between… It was a summer to go down in history. We had a blast!

9-year old Birthday Party

Millie & I loving our new pool!

Yee-Haw! I am so sad I can't find the picture of Bevan, Amelia & I all in cowboy gear... I'm going to look for it some more and update the blog.

I totally don't look like I hate cats... But I do! Even then I was allergic, I don't know why I was posing with one. I must have pushed the allergies to play with him.

President: George Bush
Vice President: J. Danforth Quayle
Population: 246,819,230
Life expectancy: 75.1 years

US GDP: $5,438.70 billion
Federal spending: $1143.17 billion
Federal debt: $2868.0 billion
Median Household Income: $28,906
Unemployment: 5.3%

Number 1 Song the week of February 12: Straight Up by Paula Abdul

Nobel Prize for Literature: Camilo José Cela (Spain)

Fun Facts of 1989: (Not much fun in these here facts… Sorry.)

• Salvador Dali, Bette Davis & Lucille Ball died this year…
• Salman Rushdie’s novel Satanic Verses is published and sparks immediate controversy. Islamic militants put a price on his head.
• US jury convicts Oliver North in Iran-Contra affair(May 4).
• George Herbert Walker Bush inaugurated as 41st US President (Jan. 20).
• Mikhail S. Gorbachev named Soviet President (May 25).