Joseph Frederick Foster

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07/09/08 - My last two years of HS were at Byrd in Shreveport so you must count me as a "friend" rather than a member of your class, but El Dorado is still my home town and I remember you fondly.

Am retiring next year after 40 years at U of Cincinnati. I will continue to write for "Ask-a-Linguist" (access via Google).

Wife Linda & I've been married 42 years -- we met on a blind date while undergraduates at LSU (but I can still call the Hogs!) Though blessed with no children of our own, we were blessed with the ability to love everybody else's and borrowed our friends' kids and have been host parents to high school students from Japan, Korea, and Germany. 
   Am also an Auxiliary Division Commander in U S Coast Guard -- evolved in Hurricane rescue along Gulf Coast for which we got the Presidential Unit Citation.  Also a (bag)piper in the Coast Guard Pipes & Drums and play viola in community orchestras and pit orchestras for community theatre.

05/04/07 - Count me as a Friend of the Class; I moved with my family to Shreveport in the Fall of 1959 so did not have the honor of graduating with you all. I was at Hendrix with some of you for two years before transferring to LSU. But I have remembered you fondly. And I regret how many of us are deceased -- most recently my old hunting partner Billy Burns. And another old hunting partner Mike Monk some years ago. But it is gratifying to see how many of you are still alive and, I trust, well.

Biography:

You all must count me as a Friend rather than a Member of the EHS Class of '61  because my family moved to Shreveport in Sept '59 and I graduated from Byrd.  But then went to Hendrix two years so was like old home week with all the El Dorado students there.  But Hendrix didn't have enough of what I was really getting interested in so I transferred to LSU and got an A B there in '65 with a major in German and  courses in French, Russian, Old Norse,  and in Social Sciences.  Also studied at the Middlebury College Language Schools in Vermont.  Was awarded a Ph D in Linguistics and Anthropology from the U of Illinois (Main Campus @ Urbana-Champaign) in 1969 and went to the U of Cincinnati that Fall and remained at U Cincinnati on the active faculty in the Anthropology Department for 40 years.  I retired 2009 so am now Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Linguistics.  Most of my research has been in Linguistic Typology--what you can predict about how a language will work if you know something else about it and why.  I taught all our Linguistics courses and also Religion in Culture, Archaeo-and Ethnoastronomy, and ethnographic area ("Peoples and Cultures of...") courses on the Balkans, Central Asia & Siberia, and Japan.

My wife since 1966 is Linda Secrest, from New Orleans.  We met on a blind date (yes, sometimes they do work out!) while we were both juniors at LSU in Baton Rouge.  We have no chlidren but have borrowed our friends' children and have been host parents for several high school students, both girls and boys,  from Japan, Korea, and Germany.  And we have two nieces, one grandniece, and three grandnephews.

Am an auxiliary officer (Division Commander) in the U S Coast Guard and also a bagpiper in the Coast Guard Pipes & Drums.  Also play the viola (and violin under duress) in Community Orchestra and play in pick up pit orchestras for shows.   Also playing the lever, or "Celtic" harp.  Classmates may recall that I had a rather low voice even as a youth, and it just got deeper and deeper, and now when they need a bass, I'm usually the bassest person they can find!  Not singing currently in a choir but have sung in church choirs in the Episcopal Church and in the Orthodox Church in America, where those 5 part harmonies in Russian and Rumanian liturgical music use a lot of low voice.

Best wishes to the EHS Class of 1961 and you all have a spudnut for me.

Joe Foster

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