Where Are They Now? — Tony Dodds

Wow it's been 20 years already! It was funny I hadn't even thought or realized it was 20 years until I ran into Sam Knight the other day and he asked me what year I graduated, I got home that night and there was my invite in the mailbox. It's funny though when I look back on high school because although I was pretty shy I wish I would've been more social and outgoing, I guess it didn't help that most of my best friends where all in the Alpine School District since the neighborhood I grew up in was a dividing line between Provo and Alpine School Districts. For those who remember me I wasn't around much our Senior year as I was spending as much time as possible at Mountain View since my best friends and girlfriend at the time were all there. I can't believe it's been so long ago, I honestly don't feel like I'm almost 38!!


So anyway after we graduated I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. My family is originally from the Louisville, Kentucky area and all of my relatives still live back there, a few months after graduation I decided to go back there and see how things panned out, I guess the plan was to eventually go to the University of Louisville??? Hell I'm still not sure if I even had a plan actually?! I was skateboarding a lot and getting pretty good, I ended up just skating a lot back there and it didn't take me long to realize I really had no desire to jump into college...about that time I was really starting to miss my friends so after 3 months or so I was back in Utah. I was basically skating 24 hours a day, me and my friends were driving to Vegas a lot for competitions and I was able to get a few small sponsors, not making any money for it but having a great time and doing what I wanted...it's amazing when I look back because I swear I could live off of $10 or so a month back then! I didn't need money anyways and I was having the time of my life. I eventually realized I was never going to be nearly good enough to make money skating so as that dream started to slowly fade I decided to go on a mission which was weird because I never was and never have been a religious person, it was a good choice for me though and I went to the California Ventura Mission Spanish speaking, it was a good call for me as it helped me grow up a lot not to mention all the great and interesting people I met.


So I came home in 1992 and after 2 knee surgeries from skating injuries I had decided I wanted to be a Physical Therapist specializing in knee injuries, the plan was to get my general stuff out of the way at UVSC and then transfer to the U, I don't know if PHS killed me or what but 2 years into school and in the middle of an amazingly deep winter I found I was skipping school and skiing almost every day (as much as I loved skating skiing has always been the love of my life and always will be) about that same time I had realized I just wasn't programmed to spend the next 6 years or so of my life in school so I basically dropped out of college because my addiction to deep Utah powder is just that strong!!! In the middle of all that schooling I had met this amazingly beautiful and funny vixen from American Fork named Maegan, we met through a friend and it was basically love at first sight, I had sworn I'd never get married or have any kids but this girl changed all that. We dated for over 2 years then married in March 1995 and have been happily married ever since. During the 2 years we dated I was working at Sundance, I loved working there but as we were thinking about getting married I quickly realized $5.00/hour wasn't gonna be quite enough to pay the bills so I applied at Electrical Wholesale Supply in Orem, I got on there in July 1995 and have been there ever since, I've worked my way up through the company over the years and am an Outside Sales Rep for the company now. I love it and I feel very fortunate that despite dropping out of school things have worked out for me and my family. Must be all that good karma from being such a nice quiet guy all through school? I just got Provo School District added to my account base so who knows I may be wondering around Dixon and PHS sometime soon? Now that I think about it maybe I'll hit Dixon early one morning and see if they still have those big chocolate
chip cookies!


Not long after Maegan and I got married I started racing mountain bikes and did that all through the 90's, I had a few really good years in the late 90's where I finished top 5 for the season in my category. Maegan's a peach, most of our weekends for years were spent at races and she loved it, she's a social butterfly so you put her in any setting and she's making friends instantly. It was a great few years! I haven't raced since 2002 but still bike constantly and plan on racing a lot this year.


Not long after we got married Maegan was diagnosed with indometriosis, we were told our chances of having a child were about 10% which was a huge bummer to the both of us! After many surgeries, a miscarriage and many Lupron shots we were finally able to get pregnant and in August 1999 we had our one and only child Hannah. Despite coming 2 months early she was perfectly healthy and she is the absolute joy of my life!!! I'm amazed by her every single day, she's the greatest thing to ever happen to me and she really has no idea how happy she makes us. She's 8 and into the girly girl stuff with mom and into the boy stuff with dad. She started skiing when she was 5 and is one of the most rippin' little skiers out there. She has my love and passion for skiing and there's absolutely nobody else I'd rather ski with.


I better wrap this up...we live in Spanish Fork, we live up by the canyon, we built our house here in 2003 and absolutely love it! As long as we live in Utah County we'll always live here. It's been a crazy but good 20 years. It's fun reading about everyone on the website...still not sure if we'll be able to make the reunion, we have a prior engagement in Park City but would love to try to get there. Oh ya my most emberrasing moment would probably be in Mr. Zupan's class I had to sit and stare at Karen Olsen while she drew my face, I kept sweating and twitching my nose because I was so damn nervous, she got mad at me for twitching my nose, sounds dumb but it was emberrasing at the time. If anyone wants to email me shoot me a message at prov1puff@yahoo.com.