Cheryl Henke (now Lila Kingfisher)

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Please provide your name as it appears in our '73 yearbook, and add any other name(s) you may go by now.

Cheryl Henke (now Lila Kingfisher)

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Relationship status - husbands/wives/domestic partners/divorces/deaths/children/grandchildren? Tell us about your other family members we might know.

Divorced – more than once, less than Elizabeth Taylor. Single and happy for the last 20+ years. No children, no grandchildren. I currently have two cats and of course those are my babies…  I had three half siblings by my mother and her first husband, and two brothers by the same set of parents. My oldest half-sister passed first, then my oldest half-brother, whom you may remember was Mike McCormick, who pitched for the SF Giants and was a Cy Young Award winner. Last year I sadly lost my full brother, Chris Henke (Class of ’69), to cancer, and this year his wife, Sandy, passed this year after suffering a debilitating stroke a few years ago. I’m happy to say my brother Bob (Class of ’67 I believe) is still alive and well and has two grandchildren by his stepson and wife. His son, my nephew Ed, is single and living in the Bay Area. I also have one older half-brother, Pat, who is doing well and enjoying his beautiful family. I have several half-nephews & nieces, and now I am a great aunt to some pretty adorable little ones. And, of course, there are still several cousins out there. One great thing that came during the pandemic was a discovery that I have a younger half-sister by my father! I always wanted a little sister, and though we’ve yet to meet, I’m looking forward to it. In the meantime, we’ve talked on the phone and are working on getting to know each other. Turns out we grew up living in the same vicinity – me in Duarte, and her in Huntington Beach. Although she’s eight years younger, so I probably never actually crossed paths with her at the beach. 

Please upload a few recent pictures here. Family pictures are of course welcome!

Me in 2020

Job history? What jobs have you had over the last 50 years?

Ha! What jobs haven’t I had… My first job was at McDonald’s, as you may remember. Great training for the future! “If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean.” When I moved to San Diego to go to SDSU, my first job was at the Ace Drive-In in Lemon Grove. Perfect job for a college student – we could eat all of the popcorn and day-old pizza we wanted. Then I got an office job as an assistant secretary to a CLU. That was when we still used carbon paper and didn’t have computers. I used a lot of white-out. The dream job was when I began working at the Top Shelf Restaurant in La Mesa, where I met my first husband. I was a waitress at lunch, wearing polyester leiderhosen short-shorts and white knee socks, serving mostly the businessmen in the area. Women weren’t allowed to wait tables during dinner at that restaurant at that time. When I turned 21, I ‘inherited’ the lounge and started working as a cocktail waitress. That’s when I started making the big bucks. ;-) I had so much fun, that I took my last semester of college off and never went back. To this day, I need 21 units to complete my BS in Sociology. Maybe when I’m 80… Having waitress experience served my lifestyle well, and I waitressed in Hawaii and Northern CA. When I moved to New England in ’84, I tried to waitress, but the lobster dinners delivered on trays was my undoing. So, I got a real job working at the Norwich Savings Society, one of the oldest financial institutions in CT. I started as a switchboard operator and moved up to Executive Asst. to the VP of Marketing, and then to the VP of Sales. I loved the job and the people I worked with. It also began my career in banking, which carried over to San Diego when I returned in 1989. During my last year in New England, we moved to New Hampshire and I worked in retail at a JC Penney there. I went from part-time holiday help to being a Merchandising Assistant in the Intimate Apparel Department. The challenge there was not spending all my paycheck on merchandise. :-) I worked in Commercial Lending at the Bank of CA as a loan administrator. They acquired Union Bank and we changed our name and location. Unfortunately, I got into commercial lending right as the market started to drop and went from bank to bank as departments downsized their commercial lending departments. Banking led to quality assurance work at a major software company that built commercial lending software for the likes of Bank of Tokyo and other biggies. This was a totally new field to me and was somewhat fun learning how to communicate with the developers. That job led to working in the corporate meetings & events industry, where I enjoyed 15 years in sales, making budgets for large multi-day corporate events. The best part was when I got into doing the site selection for the events. I was blessed to travel all over the world, being wined & dined by hotels, resorts, and cities that wanted our business. I experienced things I would never have been able to do otherwise. Some of the places I went include Beijing, China; Iceland; Spain, Germany, Italy; Ireland; a couple of cruises to USVI, and more. It was very stressful and the trips were whirlwind, but wow – how lucky I am.  I lived in Montreal for approx. 8 months in 1980. There I worked at an english-speaking travel agency under the table as I couldn’t get a job legally. They were over Americans after the Vietnam war and you had to have a skill that a Canadian didn’t have. It was a fun and enlightening time living and working there. Such a beautiful and cosmopolitan city. And the food!

Are you currently working, retired or somewhere in-between?

I moved to New Mexico in 2016, after having a stroke on my 60th birthday in 2015. I wasn’t able to stay in the meetings industry because it required a lot of multi-tasking, and my brain needed some time to heal. I had been working part-time at an adorable historical museum in Encinitas, CA, as an activity coordinator and assistant to the head of the museum. I supplemented my lower income with my retirement funds. I started to realize how much I disliked having to plan everything around traffic, and also how much it was costing me to live in a granny-flat. I started to look at other options and selected New Mexico as my next home. When I arrived, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to work in an office any longer, but I didn’t have any other skills. One thing led to another, and I discovered the New Mexico School of Natural Therapeutics, where I enrolled and obtained my massage license in 2018. I love my work as a massage therapist, and also work with essential oils, making healing salves, room sprays, and roll-ons for friends and clients. I love working part-time and have in the last six months or so started working for an estate sale company. I love this work! It satisfies so many of my interests – learning about the people who lived there, learning more about New Mexico, learning about jewelry and art, getting to do staging and organizing…ticks all the boxes! Oh, and there is a bit of shopping and getting great deals, too!

Did you pursue any further education after High School?

Right out of high school and as soon as I could, I left my grandparents and Duarte and headed to San Diego. I attended San Diego State from 1973-1977, majoring in Sociology. I’ve taken lots of classes in various interests since then. I love to learn!

What hobbies/interests/pastimes have you engaged in?

I love to explore, especially now that I’m in New Mexico. I have a buddy who goes on day trips with me and we just saunter and see the most amazing things. I learned how to make salves and balms and other things using essential oils, and that’s really fun for me. Cooking has always been a hobby and I really ramped up during the pandemic. I have been in a book group for a couple of years, where we started out reading books on non-violent communication, worked our way to racism, and are now reading Michelle Obama’s newest book. This has been such a great experience, and I highly suggest it for you avid readers out there who also want to expand their social consciousness. Every night, I’m reading a novel and have had the pleasure of having a friend with whom I share books. He passed away in September of this year and I will miss him. I also love decorating and organizing. Isn’t life grand?

What city do you currently live in.....for how long? Where else have you lived?

I’m currently in Albuquerque, NM and have been here seven years. I don’t know if this is where I’ll spend my final time, but it’s already been seven years and that just surprised me. New Mexico is beautiful and full of cultural diversity. I’ve learned so much here. But Albuquerque is a very crime-ridden city and I may venture farther out from here. But I never tire of seeing our beautiful Sandie Mountains to the east and the volcanoes to the west, every single day. And the sunsets, the four seasons – watching the cottonwoods change to brilliant yellow and getting light dustings of snow, you can’t ask for better. And Santa Fe is only 45 minutes north for a quick getaway. So far, I’ve lived in San Diego, CA; Honolulu, Hawaii; Northern California; Quebec, Montreal; Connecticut and New Hampshire; and now here in New Mexico.

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