Charly (Lovato) Arthur
Seriously, 20 years?! All I have to do is take a good look at the hair do in my senior pic (for goodness sake, is that a chic mullet?!)to grasp the reality that indeed it was 1988 and it was 20 years ago. Thankfully, I was not the only one sporting such a do.
I have great memories of high school! Hangin’ with Nikki, Selene, Michelle Brunton and Vince. Mrs. Anderson’s Spanish class with Cecilia Brown and Alex Garcia; Mr. Cook’s math class with Bennett Meade (thanks, Bennett for getting me thru that geometry!!); Mr. Bogoslawski’s English class with Tana, Stacy, Chanda, Pat Trujillo, Ed Tabor and Jennifer Martin; Mrs. Thompson’s accounting class with Nikki; Lifetime Sports with Mr. Hiller where I met Scott Arthur (my future hubby), and of course, Mr. Lange’s English class senior year! Also, mountain parties with Nikki, proms, my dad letting me drive his big ram charger (made getting to those mountain parties quite easy), my dad bustin’ me at a couple of those mountain parties with his ram charger (lucky me, dad was well versed with all the party spots from my older brother’s adventures in all the same places), and of course, one of the most fun jobs I’ve ever had – scoopin’ ice cream at Baskin-Robbins! What a fun job! Was a blast working there with Tom Blair, the Fritz girls, the Bean (Bettina Edgett), Erin McCabe, and Beth Weeks (class of ’89). Good times, good times!
After high school, I figured it was time to get a better paying job and get some experience outside of scooping ice cream, so I worked feverishly to get a job at the Lab. In November ’88, I took a job at the Lab as an undergraduate student in the Training Group. I worked with a great group of people and the Training Group was conveniently located on the UNM-LA campus where I started a degree program in computer science. I quickly learned that writing batch files and learning computer programming was not for me. I decided to work full-time during the day and enroll in the evening program at College of Santa Fe. In May ’92, I graduated with a B.A. in Business. Being the gluten for punishment that I am, I immediately enrolled in the 2-year MBA program at CSF.
During all this time I kept in close touch with Scott Arthur (class of ’89). In ’92, not long after I started the MBA program, we began dating. Scott convinced me that I needed a break from all the schooling and needed more time to date him. Admittedly, it wasn’t too hard to convince meJ Scott was still finishing his degree at ASU, so I would fly out to see him every other weekend until ’93 when he graduated from ASU and moved to Santa Fe with me.
I continued to work at the Lab, now in Finance and he took a job in Santa Fe while he went thru ASU’s recruitment process. In June of ’94 we were married and in November of that same year Scott was recruited to work at AlliedSignal in Phoenix. As his wife, I was now a part of the relocation package. So I quit my job at the Lab, packed up our little apartment and 2 kittens in Santa Fe and we headed to Phoenix.
We moved to the Ahwatukee Foothills, a suburb of Phoenix and have lived here ever since. It’s not the mountains of Los Alamos, but the foothills back here are beautiful and we get to Flagstaff to enjoy the snow, mountains and cabins in the winter.
When we arrived here, I decided I needed a career change. No more finance, I wanted to try something different, like hospitality. So I took a job as a marketing analyst for Doubletree Hotels and a pay cut from my Lab job. It was a fun group of people, but I quickly learned it was more of a social club where we all went out to expensive sit down lunches daily, frequent happy hours and didn’t come home with much of a paycheck.
Hankering for a bit of a paycheck, in ’97 I quit Doubletree Hotels and took a job as a financial analyst at Orbital Space Sciences. It was back to government proposals and the finance I was familiar with.
In ’99 I was ready for another change and took a job with Motorola. I have been there ever since. In my almost 10 years there, I have worked various positions in finance, project planning and am currently a business operations analyst in a project management solutions group. I really like the job and the people I work with are great.
We were blessed with our little girl, Sydney in 2001 and the plan was for me to leave the workforce and be a stay at home mom. Before I left on maternity leave, my manager offered me a position that allowed me to work from home. Sydney is now 7 and I still work from home a few days a week.
Sydney is a loving, fun little girl with the masterful negotiation skills of her father. Bedtime is her favorite subject of negotiation. She is determined and decisive and has already informed us that she plans to be either a veterinarian or work at Build-a-Bear. She loves animals and has played a big part in us rescuing 4 cats. I swear this neighborhood thinks I’m the crazy cat lady! She keeps me grounded and helps me to remember to never let go of the kid inside myself. And as for Scott, we just celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary and well, he still makes me laugh just as much as he did back in that Lifetime Sports class! My little family is the best thing in my life!
Looking forward to seeing everyone at the reunion. I’ve really enjoyed the bios and pics of everyone and their beautiful families! Hats off to the reunion committee, Wendy and hubby and Tana. You guys are top notch and this website is outstanding!!
Charly
chucknthesun@hotmail.com
Sydney’s 1st grade Christmas Party
Christmas 2007
Trip to Albuquerque to visit grandparents
Sydney at an Easter egg hunt
Sydney & Mom on Mother’s Day
Dad teaching Sydney how to ride her new bike
