Vickie Danuser Swinger’s mission: 50th reunion for Baldwin and GMC

Published 4:00 pm Saturday, March 28, 2020

Vickie Danuser Swinger is on a mission. 

She has taken command and has her team focused on its goal.

There have been some bumps in the road, one huge one, but none that can’t be overcome.

Swinger is well qualified for her job as head-honcho for the 50th reunion of the Baldwin High and GMC Prep Classes of 1970.

She has been in the U.S. Army, and she heads a volunteer army for Mary Kay Cosmetics.

She served four years in Germany after joining the Army in 1977.

“It was on a whim that I went into a recruiter’s office,” Swinger said. “It was like, ‘My God, this is something I was supposed to do because all the doors opened.’

“I have four brothers, and none of them served in the military. I was the only girl, and I did. My daddy was a Navy pilot during WWII and then in the Naval reserves. My parents were like, ‘I think that’s good.’ I guess they didn’t think that I would really do it, but they never discouraged me.”

Then she joined the business world in Jacksonville, Fla., working for Mary Kay. In 30 of the past 37 years, she has been a director and has 185 consultants in 19 states working under her. 

“I’m their business coach,” Swinger said. “I’m the leader of a volunteer army. They are independent contractors like I am. They don’t report to me; they don’t really have to do anything I say. But I have to figure out a way to motivate people to do what they need to do. I find out what they want and try to help them get it.”

That’s helped her qualify for five Mary Kay pink Cadillacs.

REUNION POSTPONED 

Vickie’s “goal in life” has been to have an address for everybody — all her Baldwin classmates and all the classmates of her husband, Gary Swinger, who is a part of the GMC Class of ’70. That’s more than 200 at Baldwin and more than 40 at GMC.

“I kept assigning people to find addresses,” she said. “I didn’t want to just send invitations to an old address. I wanted to have updated addresses, and we’ve done pretty good.”

The invitations were sent out earlier this year and the reunion was set for mid-April. But then the coronavirus pandemic came along, and it was time to ponder Plan B.

After some debate, Swinger and her trusted advisors, Gail Lane Thomason and Debbie Bloodworth Wilkinson, decided to postpone the reunion until Sept. 11-12. Louise Hall Layson and Anne Buckner Burgamy also were regulars at the planning meetings

“We struggled with it,” said Thomason, the group’s treasurer. “Then, Bam! Things got worse. So we went ahead and made the decision to postpone it until the fall.”

The Friday and Saturday night events will be held at the same venues.

“Vickie’s the one who organizes us,” Thomason said. “We chip in with our own ideas and do what needs to be done. If we didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done.”

Thomason said the planning meetings are very entertaining. 

“If you’re not there, you’ll get talked about,” she said, laughing. “We’ll be talking about a person, and have to get out the annual. We’ll look at their picture and say, ‘Oh yeah,’ and somebody usually has a story.”

Wilkinson said she’s been involved with planning the reunions since the five-year one, when Charlene Minter Mathis, Gay Hattaway Morgan and the late Bubba Shell were among others involved.

“Every planning meeting is like a mini-reunion,” said Wilkinson, who hosts the meetings. “I clean up and stay out of the way. I put in my two cents worth as merited. Once, I want to be just invited like everybody else.”

VICKIE’S CAREER

Vickie Danuser Swinger knew going into the Army was “totally out of my element” after working at Central State for six years, the last part as a social work technician. But she was adventuresome.

“If I had stayed in Milledgeville, I think I would have been stifled,” she said. “Getting to go to Germany was a highlight for me because my ancestors were from Switzerland — my daddy’s family, the Danusers. We got to visit the mountain where the clan lived. My parents came over and visited there, too. My daddy was like a little boy.” 

After the Army, she moved to Jacksonville, where she had two daughters and her career with Mary Kay took off. “I met some amazing people and my life was great,” she said. “It was a defining moment, totally changed my life.”

But after being away for 24 years, the pull was strong to return to Milledgeville. 

“I wanted to move back before my parents got too old, because I knew I’d be the one to care for them and I wanted to enjoy them,” she said.

Back in Milledgeville in 2000, she could continue working for Mary Kay and reconnecting with old friends.

“Somebody else asked me recently when I was going to retire, and I said, ‘When I die.’ Why retire? These women, a lot of them are doing their business and don’t have anything to do with me, but I’m still getting my commission,” she said. 

Besides, it gives her husband something to do. 

“After I retired, my job became Driving Miss Vickie,” Gary Swinger said, laughing. “It’s a good job.”

“I’ve had a free car from Mary Kay every two years since 1989,” Vickie says. “He says I’m spoiled, but I say I earned it.”

“She did earn it,” Gary says. “She hasn’t paid for an oil change or a set of tires in 30-something years. So when I come home and say, ‘Honey, I need some new tires,’ and she says, ‘And it costs how much?’ I say, ‘Honey, I’m out here in the real world.’ “

Vickie and Gary had a lot of mutual friends but didn’t really get to know each other until preparations for the 40th reunion.

“A group of us were talking about high school and the Teen Club, and everybody said they loved the Teen Club,” Vickie said. “But I didn’t really love the Teen Club. I loved the idea,  but I’d stand there and nobody would ask me to dance. You just felt rejected.

“Then Gary said, ‘Well, uh, would you put me on your dance card?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, how sweet.’ “

They’ve been married for almost 10 years.

THE BALDWIN BOND

But back to the reunion planning.

“We didn’t have a 30th class reunion,” Vickie said. “Nobody wanted to do it. But for 35th, I’d been back (in Milledgeville) about five years, so I said I would help. I like to organize and have events, that’s what I do in Mary Kay all the time. It comes natural for me, and I love getting people connected. I love that part.”

In addition to trying to make sure everybody got an invitation, Swinger said she has “reached out and talked to people I never hung out with or who maybe were in the not-so-popular group, to try to encourage them to come, just come because we have a history together. 

“A lot say, ‘Oh, I hated high school and I’m not going to come.’ But I still try and I can understand because some things in high school were not all that good for me, either. It’s been really fun to be on this side of it and to see people’s worth in a different light. Now, it’s not a popularity contest, or what they look like or the brand names that they wear.”

Vickie particularly remembers the 20th reunion.

“We came from Jacksonville and we were staying at Mama’s. I asked people what they were doing, and let them tell me their stories. And when I went home that night, I told my brother that nobody asked me my story. 

“And my brother said they probably went away from that reunion saying how good it was to talk to Vickie Danuser because she was listening to their stories. I have remembered that because it makes me know people want to tell their stories.”

It’s just part of her mission.