Kathy Wright Savage: Stories of Home, Heart, and Adventure

Kathy Wright Savage’s life is full of stories—some funny, some bittersweet, and all deeply connected to the small town she calls home. Growing up in Fairmount, Indiana, she was part of the last class to graduate from the old high school, surrounded by a community that still means everything to her. Kathy loves to read, especially autobiographies, and has always been drawn to music, even though she claims she can’t carry a tune or play an instrument. Travel has been a big part of her life too—from a month-long road trip to Alaska to trips abroad in places like Vietnam and Europe.

Her personal journey includes marrying young, her husband and her going their separate ways, and then reconnecting 20 years later to build a life together in a marriage that has lasted over three decades. Along the way, she worked in banking, helped with her husband’s business, and became involved in managing rental properties in Fairmount. Through it all, Kathy’s kindness and outgoing nature shine through, as does her love for community events like the local car shows and concerts. Her story is about family, adventure, and finding joy in the everyday moments that make a place feel like home. Here is her story in her own words.

I like to travel. I like to read. I love Nascar.

I love music, so that's probably my favorite relaxing passion. Mostly, I love autobiographies, so often I read autobiographies about music artists, but I love to read about anybody who has an interesting story. I like a romantic novel just to escape. Beach novels are great.

I don't play music. I wish I did. I can't carry a tune, and that's really sad. Yes, I love music, but I can't play and I can't sing. I have a guitar now: I have wanted to play the guitar all my life. I want to take lessons, but I just haven't done it. My mom played the piano, and I so wish she'd have made us take lessons but, you know, you can’t go back.

Travel

My favorite trip was Alaska. We drove to Alaska and were gone 31 days. We had a friend that was in the Air Force up there, so we stayed in Anchorage for 10 days. She took us all around to the places that you probably wouldn't know to go unless you were from the area. There's only one road up there once you get into Canada. We drove through British Columbia, and it was one of the most amazing and beautiful places.

I've been to England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Vietnam. I always had a love-hate relationship with Vietnam. I grew up during the Vietnam War, and my husband had a classmate who was killed in the war, so I had a hate relationship. Then I was invited to a wedding to accompany a lady whose son was marrying a Vietnamese girl, so we went and experienced all the traditional things. It was amazing, and they were the most kind, nice people.

We’ve done some cruising, and we have a place in Florida, so we're down there a lot. We don't leave Fairmount long enough to winter in Florida.

Marriage and Family

Rick and I have been married 31 years this time. We married right out of high school, but it didn't last. There were 20 years between when we last saw each other and when we got back together.

I suppose you could say we never really got over each other. We were high school sweethearts. We were way too young when we first married. I graduated in May and got married in October. Okay, now that's really dumb in today's age–It was dumb back then too, but that's what everybody did. It just didn't work. Then 20 years later, we ran into each other at the James Dean festival, and here we are today.

Career and Work

I lived here in Fairmount from the age of 7 or 8 until I left when I was 20. Then I came back when I was 41.

When I was younger, my parents owned a laundromat here where the Fox Appliance Store is now, so when I got out of school, even while I was a senior, I worked there for a little bit. And I could pretty much tear apart a washer. I don't know if I can do it now.

When Rick and I got back together, I was working in Muncie at a bank. He wanted me to come work at the company. I left the bank and went to work with him in ‘93, and I’ve been here ever since.

Rick had an oil company, where he delivered fuel to stations and farmers. He then bought a convenience store, which is now Hometown Express, but when we had it, it was called One Stop.

We’re retired now, and we’ve gotten into renting houses. We bought our first rental house here in town around 1997. We have around 15 houses and one apartment building. When we bought the first house and renovated it, we had planned to put our daughter in it, but she ended up moving, so we rented it out. We then began buying houses, refurbishing them, and renting them out.

From the beginning, we’ve known almost everybody we rented to. We do nice rentals. I'm not bragging, but we do have a reputation for having nice houses people want to rent. We have people that have been with us for 10, 12, 15 years.

Challenges

The remarriage thing was a bit of a challenge. Divorce, whether you want it or not, is an awful thing. It makes you feel like a failure. And blended families present some difficult moments.

And it really never ends, you know, because those people are always in your life. And then you think, “Oh, when the kids get grown, it will all be okay.” Then you have grandkids, and now we have great grandkids. It's fine now, but for a while it wasn't. So that was hard.

The death of my parents was also difficult. You don't ever think they're going to get old. I still can't believe my mom's gone, and that was February. When I go to Marion, sometimes I angle off to go to the nursing home. So that's hard. You don't ever get over it.

My dad's gone. He was a teacher at Madison Grant: Charlie Wright. He taught government and econ, required senior classes that were the most dry, boring classes. Oh, my gosh. Everybody loved him, but you thought, “Oh, I'm not gonna make it through this class!”

It was a bit strange having my dad for a teacher. But we never really talked about it at home. I mean, if I had a problem or question, he was fine, but it was kind of dysfunctional back in the '60s. And yeah, I sometimes hardly remember him because he was gone a lot. There were six of us kids, so he always had a second job because teachers made very little back then.

School and Growing Up

I went to Park Elementary, and I want to say we didn't even have a cafeteria at that time, because we would walk to the high school on Fridays to go to their cafeteria. Then I went out to the old Fairmount campground, where the old junior high was, Fairmount Academy. It was a big old building, very similar to the old high school. I loved it; we went to sixth, seventh, and eighth out at the old Academy.

It was a social time. We'd all walk to school. We could leave every day at lunch at the high school and go to Hackney's little grocery store. Fun times.

I graduated from Fairmount High School in 1970. We were the last class to walk through that gym for the last time. They used the building as a junior high later. The new school opened in the winter of 71.

It was getting really bad, but we loved that old school.

They actually changed the school name to Madison Grant in our senior year. It wasn't popular; it was horrible. It was kind of a sad year because they changed the school song, everything. But, we were still Quakers in our minds. Fairmount Quakers.

The whole James Dean piece of it, well, I'll have to say, back when we were in school, we had Adeline Nall for a teacher (his drama teacher). So, every year on his birthday, we would sing Happy Birthday over the intercom, and we thought it was the stupidest thing on earth. You know, when you grew up here, it didn’t mean as much. I hadn't been to his grave until I was out of school. I mean, yeah, we knew about him. We knew all the history and everything. But because we were here growing up with him, it wasn't a big deal to us until later.

Then we began the town festival and the car show. The car show got me really interested because we had old cars back in the day, and we would come over to the festival. It was a car show that just kept getting bigger and bigger to the point where our little park couldn’t handle the cars. They were turning people away.

Adventures

I had always wanted to jump out of an airplane. I'm not sure why, but it was always on my bucket list. When I moved back to Fairmount in 1993, a bunch of new friends and I were meeting at the American Legion regularly, and several of us decided to jump out of a plane. This took place in Eaton after a very short training session. Three people and the pilot were all that could go up at a time based on weight. My group was the last one up. We jumped one at a time, and I was the very last jumper. I thought I surely would die of fright before I ever jumped.

Long story here, sorry, but we had to inch out on the wing and hang there flinging ourselves back. Our chutes were attached to the plane, so the rip cord was opened automatically. That was a blessing!

Once I landed, I really thought I wanted to be a jumper. That lasted about one day!

The other crazy thing I did was whitewater rafting, another item that had been on my bucket list for years. We rafted in West Virginia for seven years in Class 4 and 5 rapids. My brother-in-law was filming a TV Sports Show and went straight to the experienced level, the Gauley River. Another time in my life when I thought I was going to die every year for seven years!

I guess I was a bit adventurous.

Personality and Faith

I used to be very shy. People thought I was snobby because it was hard for me to start and carry on a conversation. I can be outgoing once I get to know somebody or when I'm comfortable in a situation.

I love to be kind. I’d give away the shirt off my back. I'm more that way than Rick is, so people would probably not think that of us. I want people to think I am a kind person, and I think they do.

I'm also more of a doer than a delegator. I like to be optimistic. I like to look at the good side instead of the bad side. I like to do good. I have faith, but I don't belong to a church. I grew up at Fairmount Friends. Every Sunday, I say I will go back…and maybe I will Sunday. I believe. I've always thought you didn't have to go to church to believe. But I think maybe you would have a stronger faith if you went to church. It gives you a community. I like to listen to messages online, but it's not the same.

I can be pretty outgoing. I like to have a good time, to do things and be involved. I love to help. I don't so much love to be in charge. I love to be involved in Main Street Fairmount. Like I said, I always wanted to come back to Fairmount. I guess it's the people, the little community, the more laid-back, not-so-busy atmosphere. This town is unusual: you know everybody, you wave you, you say hi, we have little concerts at the park. It’s like a town reunion. It's just, I guess, community.

The weekly summer concerts are great. Sometimes the bands are really good: Some of them are better than others, but it doesn't matter. You’re there to talk and have a good time. Take your lawn chairs or golf carts and enjoy time together.

People love the small town. Ride a golf cart. Wave at everybody. Everybody's nice. Everybody speaks. It’s more laid back, easy, and safe. I guess it's just all about community. If something goes wrong here in Fairmount, everybody rallies around.