A Lifetime of Memories

Al Hayes

From the time I was born, my dad, Albert Hayes was sure that my blood ran blue and gold.

He was an integral part of Stadium High School since 1954. He began as a teacher, progressed to a counselor, vice principal and principal where he retired in 1978.

Within a year of my birth back in 1958, Dad would bundle me up and take me in his massive arms and parade me through the halls as the proud father of a future Stadium Tiger.

Throughout the years, I would occasionally spend a Saturday mornings roaming the castle while Dad caught up on work in his office overlooking Commencement Bay. I eventually explored every inch of that building from the spires on the roof, to the depths of the basement.

My imagination ran wild as I walked the hallways. The only sound was my PF Flyers squeaking on the waxed floors. I skinny dipped in the girls pool, jumped in the trampoline, shot arrows across the gym at straw targets, and slid down the banisters near the front offices.

Times were good and this was MY school. I felt like a king. No other kid had the opportunities for exploration. Every door and every nook was an invitation to my curiousity. But it was not all fun and games.

My dad taught me to weld and fabricate in the metal shop. My personal instructions were from the top. I learned the to turn a perfect bowl on the wood lathe in the woodshop.

When I started my Sophmore year at Stadium, Dad was on top of the world.

In 1976, Dad had a heart attack that really put things in prospective.

He had put virtually his entire adult life into the advancement of education for the students at Stadium and it almost cost him his life.

He returned vowing to lower his stress levels but he couldn't stand by and just watch from the sidelines. He, along with Vice Principals, John Buffaloe, and Vern Wheeler, made a threesome any school district would envy.

In 1977, I was the last person to walk across the stage and receive my diploma. Imagine the inner satisfaction of giving your own son his high school diploma. It was like a lifelong journey had come to an end.

Dad stayed at Stadium one more year and then retired.

Thousands of students were touched by my father and his caring ways. I heard him explain to many people, while he was employed by the school district, he really worked for all the students of the old brown castle.

Jeff Hayes, Class of 1977

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