SHAWN RAPPLEY

Shawn is a guy I met in freshman year. He was probably a product of the catholic schools.

Shawn and I had each other in Mr. Heuer's algebra class that year. He sat in the front row, right in front of Jeff Bodwin. The two of them talked a lot. I eventually moved close to them as well. So the three of us gabbed the entire year.

I'm pretty sure that Shawn had been friends with Al Wegner prior to high school. But I got the impression that Shawn wanted to try to crawl his way up the social ladder. I think he dumped Al in the process.

If memory serves, Shawn hated his stepdad. He talked bad about him all the time. Apparently the guy way very strict as well. It seemed like Shawn was happier being in school than he was at home.

Shawn had a Beta VCR, just as I did. I loaned him some movies from time to time - on nights when his stepdad wasn't home. But Shawn always wanted more. So a deal was struck. Near the very end of the first semester, Heuer passed out a paper to each student, letting them know which assignments they had failed to turn in. I had about 25 of them. If I didn't turn them in by the next day, I would fail the semester. I had no intention of even attempting to do them. It was algebra. And I was already lost. Once you're lost, you're sunk. You can never catch up. So I told Shawn that if he did those assignments for me, I'd loan him any of my movies, anytime he wanted them. Shawn thought it was a good idea. I was sort of surprised at that. Truth be told, I would have loaned him the movies anyway. But man, if he'd do my past due work, that'd be cool!

Anyway, Shawn literally stayed up until something like 3:00 in the morning doing my work. The next morning, I met him at his locker. And he turned over a huge stack of papers. He had managed to do all but one or two of the assignments. And did he look tired! Shawn wanted me to redo them in my own writing. I made a half-baked attempt to do so in study hall. But there was nowhere near enough time. So I didn't even finish one of them. I simply turned them all in as is. Heuer apparently never noticed the difference in writing. I got credit for all of them, and passed the semester. Without Shawn's help, I had a zero percent chance of doing so. Thanks Shawn!

I can recall Shawn and Jeff talking one day. Shawn mentioned something about a name change. Apparently in grade school, he had a different last name. Jeff remembered it too. But for whatever reason, Shawn told Jeff not to tell me what it was. Was it a secret of some sort? I don't know. I assumed that his mom remarried, and that he took his stepdad's name.

At some point in high school, perhaps in our junior year, Shawn began dating Cindy Hayes. I never understood that. She seemed out of his league. But, so be it. Lucky guy.

I ran into Shawn many times at the video store. He and Cindy came in a lot. I also had both of them in a math class at UW Manitowoc. I think I had them both in a history class as well. I'm pretty sure they were engaged at some point. When I got to UW Green Bay in the fall of 1994, I had Cindy in a class. I believe she mentioned Shawn. And I think she still had a ring on her finger. But the marriage never happened. They parted ways at some point.

I believe in the late 1990's, Shawn changed his name. He became Shawn Engleman. I suspect that was his birth name, and he wanted to go back to it. Shawn went on to marry a woman named Sandra. I believe they have three kids. Shawn also became a police officer. Today he works as the liaison officer at our old high school. Below are two pictures of him.





UPDATE - 6/18/07 - Thanks to Shannon Koch for providing this photo of Shawn from graduation day, June 4th, 1989.