Gangsters

Fifty years ago

While I was at Stadium from 1950 to 1953 I did a number of comedy acts for the assemblies, Football Night and other events and the graduation 1953 Tahoma has me listed as the
"Class Cut Up".

A story some may remember is this. During 1951 and 1952 while the band met on the top floor, after band practice, I would hang over the blue pipe railing a floor or two down, then go down the railing on the outside (a 2 or 3 story drop) hand over hand till I got to the first floor or basement floor. If it was crowded on the stairway, it was faster. But it got a rise out of the kids.

One day during band when we were up on the top floor, we had a fire drill and the whole student body was filing outside into the street. As the band was filing out down the old fire escape from the fourth floor near the street, before I went down the stairs, I hung over the railing with one hand and hollered like I was going to fall and gave the kids down on the street a show. I guess I must have been either fearless then or crazy.

I was always doing practical jokes. One of my tricks was that I had a fake phone under the hood of my car and I had installed a door bell inside under the dash board. It was a 1938 dodge that looked like an old gangster car. I would get my buddies to wear big overcoats with the collar turned up and 5 or 6 of us would cruise by the school at times of large events, or put on this skit in front of the Rialto just as people were leaving the theater.

We would pull up to a crowded corner and screech on the brakes as the "phone" doorbell was ringing. I would hop out of the driver's seat and open the hood and pick up the phone and at that point someone inside would stop the door bell sound. I would yell into the phone:

"We can't talk now, Joe, the cops are after us. We’re bringing the stuff and we’ll be there in 10 minutes. Bye"”.

Then we would tear out of there with people’s mouths open (and of course, a number of folks would know it was a joke and enjoy the laugh). Well, one day after doing that skit a few times around town, someone had reported my license number to the cops, so they came up to the school and took my phone and door bell out of my car so it would not happen again.

We also had a skit with that car and other car’s I had. As we drove up to a crowded street corner at night, I would have a guy in the font seat pounding quickly on the inside metal of the car that would sound like an engine rod knocking (bang, bang, bang….!!!). I would hop out of the car with the rod knocking sound still going on and lean over and hit the top of the hood real hard and the banging would stop; then we would drive off, usually with the crowd cheering or being befuddled.

Jay Grimstead
Class of 1953

Memories@CelebrateStadium.com

CelebrateStadium.com

A Tribute to Ray Fussell

Let the Band March on!

Dr. Richard Fussell, Class of 1951, has recently contributed a significant amount of money through the Stadium Centennial Foundation, to purchase a sousaphone for the band in memory of his father, Ray Fussell, who was Stadium’s band director from 1935 until 1948. A brief background of his contribution and his father in his own words:

“If I hadn’t received a copy of the recent Castle Courier, I would not have known there was a need. My first thought was, of course let's help because I spent all three years at Stadium with a sousaphone wrapped around my neck. That was with band director, Dr. Del Jones.

My next thought was that my dad, Raymond C. Fussell, was there longer than I was (he died in 1972), so I really would like to honor him with some type of contribution. He was band director at Renton High School for 7 years before coming to Stadium in 1935, where he taught band until 1948.

My dad taught band in an era when bands had to be flexible in changing from merely putting on concerts during the year to doing both concerts and marching on the field at football games. Seeing a need, he collaborated with his brother-in-law, the band director at the University of Minnesota, in developing and designing patterns and methods of band marching. While at Stadium, he wrote one of the first practice books for the whole band, called Ensemble Drill, which is still being used today 70 years later!

He was also at the forefront of starting the women’s marching group – the Tigerannas - in 1937.

An interesting note to those who never took band at Stadium: it was a long way and a whole lot of stairs from the band room on fourth floor to the bottom of the stadium for practices!. I was co-band manager with Bruce Fox. We got to load all the instruments in the trailer every time we went somewhere.

After graduating from WSU I spent the next 40 yrs. in private veterinary practice in San Jose, Ca. I am now doing part time wildlife rehabilitation in Lynnwood, WA. My family and I are looking forward with anticipation to the old brown castle’s 100th anniversary celebration.”

Dr. Dick Fussell '51

Memories@CelebrateStadium.com

CelebrateStadium.com