I've received more help with identifying people in the 1947 Employee Awards Banquet. Betty Sue Douglas Lubajosky (SLHS '49), Jackie James (SLHS '57) and Carla Daniels Meuth (DHS '72) have identified David Enquist, Andy Anderson (SLHS '49), Jack Addison, and (possibly) Paul Schumann. Thanks for the help.
Here's a link to the entire photo. Unfortunately, it doesn't magnify as much as I'd like. If I can find a print (or better yet, a negative), I will rescan it.
Here is a link to the program for the event. It was the first Awards Banquet, and for the first few years it included Imperial and Industries employees. The first was in the refinery complex. A couple of years later it moved to Kempner Field. One year it was at the Shopping Center, but for many years it was in the cafeteria on the Lakeview campus. In later years it was in the Sugar Land Community Center on Matlage Way.
Travis Gandy (DHS '64) is a former Imperial employee with sharp eyesight. He pointed out that the man I identified as Joe Ruzicka is actually Chuck Vastine. Travis pointed out his name on his helmet. (I never thought to look.) Thanks, Travis.
Mary Jo Patterson reminded me that an effluent tunnel ran from the Imperial refinery under Highway 90A and the sidewalk on the west bank of Oyster Creek (where the homes have Venice St. addresses) and empties into Oyster Creek at a little concrete culvert under Guenther St. I remember it well because we lived on Guenther St. until I was 10-years old, and the periodic smell of molasses is a permanent memory from those days. The water was very warm and aromatic.
Finally, Frank Lampson (DHS '68) said his father attended the opening of the 'new' Highway 90A bridge in Richmond in 1925. Mark Schumann has told me his father was there, too. I'll have to check on the details, but I'm certain several people attended its opening and its demolition many, many years later.
