Welcome to the Justin F. Kimball High School Class of 1966 35th Reunion web site

Diane Lorraine Day Willeford
Diane Lorraine Day, 1966
Diane Lorraine Day, 1966




Diane enrolled at Arlington State College (ASC) in August, 1966, and married Jimmy W. Willeford in February, 1967 ("We met while we were both working at Six Flags".) After Jimmy graduated from UTA and took his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the US Army in May, 1968, they moved to Ft. Benning, Georgia for his Airborne and Ranger training. The Willefords' son Sean was born in March, 1969, while Jimmy was in Florida attending a Ranger camp. They then moved to Ft. Gordon, Georgia for several months, then Jimmy received his orders for Vietnam. As part of 101st Airborne Division he was promoted to First Lieutenant. He received the Bronze Star Medal while in 1st Corps, South Vietnam. He died there in November, 1969.

"I lived in Germany and England with our son for the next two years and finished my graduate degree work. Upon returning to the States, I lived in Washington for a few months, then came home to Texas." Diane worked for a large Dallas law firm, then managed several departments in the Navy Exchange at NAS Dallas. In 1975, Diane started her own businesses and sold both business services and artwork (stained glass and pottery). She also taught Ceramics at Mountain View College. In 1979, she moved to Colorado and taught at a small college while studying Japanese wood-fired kiln building and teaching Oriental Glaze Calc. Diane lived quite happily firing pots and looking at beautiful mountains every day. "In 1982, the Art Department was given an Apple computer and I was instantly "hooked" on the technology. That was my only exposure to Mac's and I started building PC's in 1986 since I could not afford the requisite $2k for an 8088 XT."

After living in New Mexico and Arizona for a while over the next years, in 1987, she moved back to the Dallas area to care for her mother after a fall. Diane ran a FidoNet Bulletin Board, one of the first women to do so in the metroplex. "I was totally fascinated with the net and its possibilities."

"My son married in 1987. In 1988, I moved to Ohio and worked as a metallurgist (the chemistry of metal is close to the chemistry of clay) in a steel plant." After 3 years there she was buying the steel and dealing with the larger mills as the Steel Purchasing Agent for a hot-rolled and cold-rolled steel processing plant. During that time she also kept up with Fidonet and some shopfloor data-collection software interfaces. "The TQM movement in business was driven by our automotive customers (GM & Ford) and my involvement in those processes was very heavy. My eldest grandson was born in 1988, and his brother was born in 1994."

Diane says that she moved back to Texas in 1996, "mainly to be with my grandchildren and to help care for my mother." Since then she has worked in the technology field as an IBM Business Partner doing the e-commerce thing, and providing 80% of IBM's e-business course instruction managing a team of 16 instructors. "Our company also helped develop some of the most exciting sites on the web, Lands' End and Kozmo in NYC. I also teach Art and Computer Science at the private school my grandsons attend. The youngest, 4, is the most recent student there. My 13 year-old grandson has lived with me since 1997, and we have recently moved back to Arlington."

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Last updated August 26, 2004