Small Town Times
May 2018
Today, Jack Fread lives in Billings, Montana and has a family
of two sons and a daughter. He graduated from Litchfield in
1958 at the age of 16.
A high school love story fulfilled. Douglas Mills and Dianne
Bacus both were in the class of 1961 and married each other
in January 1962 and have remained together since. They cur-
rently reside in Hastings, Nebraska.
Douglas resided in the town of Litchfield as he studied high
school, the town at the time he recalled, “was only 6 blocks big
and that everyone knew each other and was related to each
other somehow”. He stated that he went to school along with
family and friends. School work was the same as today, but he
got the chance to work with a manual typewriter as part of the
curriculum. Everything else however, revolved around his
highschool sweetheart, Dianne Bacus.
Dianne resided on a farm four miles from Litchfield with
her parents and a sister back during her high school
years. She stated that “back then, the lower grades had
to share rooms and there wasn’t any foreign languages
available” and that “there wasn’t any rifle clubs, one-acts
or speech”. So what did she do af-
ter school? “He (Douglas) played
sports while I kept score”. The cou-
ple also did fundraisers for charities
together and were in youth group
together.
After graduating, Douglas completed his military training.
They married each other in Litchfield in January 1962 and moved to Salinas, Kansas
for four years, before Douglas served three tours in the Air Force in Germany and the
couple moved there for 12 years. They finally moved back and settled in their current
home in Hastings, NE since 1983. The couple have three sons and one daughter.■
Hoops for Heart Raised $1,424.81 from 28 Students
Top fundraisers in each class, who get to teach one
day of P.E. are:
Hunter Sweely—Overall Top Earner
Jimmy F, Ava P. Gracie R., and Topanga B
Taryn Cole
Braxton Flethcer
3rd and 4th grade was the highest earning class
2