Burt Newton & Donna (Merrick) Newton

Sadly Burt Newton died on Friday, May 30, 2003. Please visit his memorial page.

 After 1960......Burt went South from Hialeah to complete his schooling at U of M and Donna went North to complete hers at U of F, they kept in touch during summers. Both married someone else, going to each others wedding.

In 1967 Donna became a widow with a baby girl, five horses, a dog and a parrot! In 1968 Burt divorced with custody of two cats! In 1969 Burt and Donna got married and moved to Miami Lakes, in 1971 added a baby boy, and the rest is history! The menagerie continued to grow!

1997 status....We own a business that we have built together that deals in sporting goods and law enforcement distribution, government contracts, military contracts, etc. We have been fortunate to have our children both join us and turn it into a family business that will be carried on hopefully by the next generation. Our son, Ben is a systems analyst and has created websites, online info for our customers that are overseas so that we basically operate on a 24 hour basis thanks to computers. Our daughter got her degree in communications so that she handles all our advertising, catalogs and p.r. work from her home in Phoenix, where her husband is in computer R&D for American Express companies (so we are always aware of the newest data info out!). Ben is engaged to Audrey (after dating since they were 14) and they have bought a home together in Broward. (Hopefully, they will decide to get married soon!)

Audrey is our network administrator for our business. We have had our business in Hialeah since 1971, but we are in the process of building a new facility in Sawgrass Corporate Park off Sunrise & I75 in Broward County. It will be a year before the new warehouse and offices are done. When Audrey & Ben bought their house and we became "emptynesters", we said goodby to Miami Lakes and moved North to Broward, moving into Windmill Ranch, in Weston last September. Now it's just us and the cats! Our hobby is just relaxing at our house in Key Largo when we can, Burt reads and Donna cooks!

We know many of you remember Janie Long, the art teacher at HHS. Burt and I remained in touch with her throughout the years and in 1981, "adopted" her when she became wheelchair bound and moved her from 1947 apartment that was slowly falling down around her to a condo we owned in Miami Lakes. She will be 88 in February and her health is just now starting to deteriorate but can she still put you in your place! One of the people who helps us keep an eye on her is Coach Susi (you guys remember him) and Miss Berrys (you girls remember her from PE) daughter, Jennie Susi,who went to school with our daughter and lives in the same building as Janie. We remained in touch with some of the teachers from HHS through Janie.

The BEST thing that has happened to us in these 37 years is our grandson, Nicholas, and though he lives in Phoenix, we manage to see him every other month or so because we travel so much in our business. In "our" opinion he is the brightest three year going! He sends us email with Mom's help and we see new pictures of him all the time and he send us drawings thank to the wonderful world of computers and scanners!

Since the 10 year reunion, we never made it to any of the other ones as they were always scheduled during the second week in August which is one of our busiest months. But now, we have to decided to hand the reins over to others and relax a little more so we are looking forward to any functions that you all may come up with in the future. There will still be trips we have to make but hopefully we can re-arrange some so we can participate.

We look forward to hearing from all of you and we can be reached at burt@valorcorp.com or donna @valorcorp.com via email. If we can help in anyway, please let us know.

Sincerely,

Burt and Donna