Dana's Jr. High Days - Voted Most Lovable

[TJ]

This was sent to me by a man name Phil awhile back:

I met Dana at John A. Sutter Jr. High. We attended from 1977 - 1979, although we did not see much of her in school during the year of 1979 due to her filming of "Diff'rent Strokes". Dana and her mother, Kay, founded and hosted a girls club called "TheCupids". This is where myself and others in school became friends with Dana and her mother. There was a group of about twenty four junior high students who all hung out together. We all took great pride in having one of our friends as a celebrity, and when "Diff'rent Strokes" came out we were thrilled for her. Her mother, Kay, was just as much a friend to us as Dana; we held many partys at her house. They even kept a Christmas tree up for a whole year because Kay loved Christmas. I can honestly tell you that all the years of knowing Dana I can not remember a time when she was ever cross or upset with any of us. This would be the primary reason she was voted "Most Lovable" in junior high. In my opinion junior high was probably one of the happiest times of Dana's life since she had many new friends and her career was just starting to peak. I remember
the times she would ask us to write letters to the studio so her "Kimberly" character would receive more air time. Dana and her mother have played a big part of my teenage year memories. I was even fortunate to have kissed her once during an innocent game of spin the bottle!

Once the "Diff'rent Strokes" series took off we rarely saw Dana and she stopped attending public school in 1979. I would occasionally run into friends who saw her but eventually we all lost touch with one another and only heard about Dana in the media. I felt awful years later when I heard that she had held up a Dry Cleaners in Las Vegas. I knew then she was headed
for big trouble. I remember telling my wife that I wished I could somehow contact her. Dana was always used to being the center of attention, and when the focus was not on her she did things to draw attention. I actually cried when I heard of her death and wondered why she never contacted any of us when her troubles began; we were all so close. Remember, she stopped
attending public school in 1979, so we were the only school friends she had, any one of us would have helped her. I was looking through my old school books, and Dana came to mind, so I thought I would look for a web site of her. When I saw her son Tyler's name I felt compelled to give some additional information on his mother's teen years that he may not have heard.

Warmest Regards,
Phil

[ThomasE]

I think that was a good article to post. TJ was this B4 Dana's death or after?

[Curtis3331]

Thanks for sharing this with us TJ. I thought that was kind of cute how she wanted her friends to write to the studio so we could see more of Kimberly. Man, she is missed by many.

[JethroSimpson]

That was interesting to read, it's a shame Dana didn't think of contacting her old school friends then maybe should could have felt a lot happier.

[TJ]

This was sent to me in late December.