Memphis is located in the southeastern panhandle of Texas, a community of almost 3,000 at the time (early '80's). A lot of people went through there, being situated alongside highway 287 between Fort Worth and Amarillo, but not many stopped because there just wasn't much to it unless you had to get gas. It was just another in a string of nameless towns along the highway.
And it was no doubt for that reason that they had a time recruiting teachers. Well, up there in Michigan Jon and Betty saw something about the district and decided to check it out by looking the town up on the map. They loved water sports, and when they saw the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River running just south of it, represented by a nice blue line, they thought, Hey at least we'll have a place to go canoeing when we need to get away. They placed a phone call and were hired on the spot, the both of them.
It's fun to imagine their reactions when they got to the Fork and discover that, instead of water, it was nothing but a riverbed covered with a crust of salt! It only had water a few days out of the year.
I'm sure glad they ended up there, though. They made the most out of it and Memphis enjoyed one of the best science teachers they'd ever seen in the person of Jon Mayer. And Betty was a hard worker who cared very much about her job and the kids. She added a multicultural element too, as she was Indian (from India). An awesome, very spiritually-minded couple that I hope to see again on the "other side of the veil", as they say...
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