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Bob Fleming, Sherman Mead are last remaining male members of Class of 1937

Bob Fleming, of Dallas, and Sherman Mead, shown here, of Tobyhanna, are the last surviving males of the 1937 graduating class of Dallas Borough High School. At 89, Mead recently became a first-time published author. His book, “From Guadalcanal to Tokyo Bay – A Destroyer Sailor’s Story” contains 128 pages of Mead’s journal entries and stories while he served on the Fletcher Class Destroyer USS Nicholas during World War II.

Bob Fleming looks over a Dallas Borough High school yearbook.

Charlotte Bartizek/ For The Dallas Post

Bob Fleming and Sherman Mead lost touch after graduating together from Dallas Borough High School in 1937. The men went their separate ways in life and didn’t have contact for over six decades.
It was at their 63rd anniversary high school reunion in 2000 at the Castle Inn in Dallas when Fleming and Mead not only reconnected, but realized they had both served in the United States Navy in the area of the Solomon Islands during World War II.
“That immediately sparked an interest on both his part and mine,” Fleming said. “We decided then we better stay in touch with one another. And furthermore, our classmates were starting to die off.”
Fleming, of Dallas, and Mead, of Gouldsboro, are both 89 years old and the only surviving male members of their graduating high school class. There were 22 students – 11 boys and 11 girls – in their class. The men meet for lunch twice a year at a Perkin’s Restaurant halfway between Dallas and Gouldsboro. Sometimes Fleming takes his wife, Eleanor, along.
Mead recently became a first-time published author. His book, “From Guadalcanal to Tokyo Bay – A Destroyer Sailor’s Story” contains 128 pages of his journal entries and stories while he served on the Fletcher Class Destroyer USS Nicholas during World War II.
Mead got the idea to write the book after reading an advertisement from Trafford Publishing in “VFW Magazine” that called for a person who served in World War II to tell their story by writing a book.
Mead is especially proud that his unit won the presidential unit citation in 1944, which he discusses in his book. He also mentions that he legally changed his name from Francis Sherman Mead to Sherman Francis Mead when he was in his 50s. Mead made the switch because his wife, Alice, was tired of answering calls for “Francis,” “Frank” and “Frankie” when everyone called him “Sherman.”
“It’s a rather interesting book to anybody who has an interest in World War II,” Fleming said. “Sherman is not a well-educated man. Sherman was not a good student when he was in high school, so he never went on to school. It’s written by an ordinary American, working man who volunteered to serve his country.”
A story on Mead’s account of the war and presidential unit citation appeared in a 1944 edition of The Dallas Post. Mead is also proud of an article in The Dallas Post in 1939 that featured him for shooting a bear in Noxen. He has original copies of both articles.
“We’re the last leftovers,” Mead said of Fleming and himself. “We’ve known each other all our life, but we’re good friends because we’re the two remaining graduates.”