1963 Memory

That Friday in November

Those of us in the Classes of 1964, 1965, and 1966 will always remember we were at Stadium.

Mr. T.R. Brown was not in the room when the bell rang. My third-period chemistry class had been warned to expect a quiz. We assumed Mr. Brown was still mimeographing the test. We were using the time to review our notes. Occasionally I looked out the window on a sunny and clear Fall day.

What followed is as etched in my mind today as it was almost 43 years ago. It has its own name – "flashbulb memory."

Mr. Brown walked into the room. Mr. Brown put his papers down on his desk and said there would not be a test today.

Mr. Brown said, "The President's been shot."

I remember feeling overwhelmed. Would the President be OK? My thoughts went back exactly eight weeks to another Friday - September 27, 1963. Another sunny day. I sat at Cheney Stadium. I heard the President speak words aimed directly at me and my classmates:

"I ask particularly that those of you who are now in school will prepare yourselves to bear the burden of leadership over the next 40 years .... That is a wonderful challenge for us as a people."





Then came the announcement we didn’t want to hear. The President hadn't just been shot; he had been killed. I remember a tear. We tried to comfort each other. We didn't know what to do.

I remember walking downstairs in front of the office. Mr. Mazzei (Vice Principal) was telling everyone that school was being dismissed. I slowly walked home, even though I was lost.

From time to time I still hear President Kennedy in my mind's eye. His words still inspire.

That day divided my years at Stadium. Before we were filled with ideals and optimism; after we were somehow older.

I have often told my children about Stadium High School and that Friday in November. I was in Mr. Brown's chemistry class, waiting to take a test, when I heard the news. I told my children how it was, and that, ever since, nothing has been quite the same.


Harold G. Friedman
Class of 1965

Kennedy's speech at Cheney Stadium

(photo from PLU - PLU Timeline 1960-1964)

(I was driving a civilian canteen truck on McChord Air Force Base)

Memories@CelebrateStadium.com

CelebrateStadium.com

Bricks in a "strange" land

An early recycling

Thanks for all the wonderful info on the celebration of Stadium High School.

My parents and my aunt graduated from Stadium in 1936 and my two brothers and I also graduated from Stadium. I am looking forward to seeing the remodel and the Old Brown Castle after 46 years as I graduated in 1960.

I was in Wallace, Idaho on my way home from Montana several years ago and stopped to tour the old train depot there. When I drove up to it I thought there was something very familiar about it.

Inside the depot I found the answer. It was built from the same bricks as Stadium High School in Tacoma, Washington.

I don't remember all the details but your mentioning the building of railroad stations from the materials after the fire in the late 1800's tweaked my memory of that coincidence.

Thanks for all the great info.

Penny Lightfoot ‘60

Memories@CelebrateStadium.com

CelebrateStadium.com

Mother was an accomplice

A partner in crime

Jennifer Burklund (Youngman), Class of 1951 tells a funny story.

She and a friend planned to stay overnight in Stadium after an Opera rehearsal. They slipped into one of the bathrooms and hid till everyone left the school, and spent the night staying one or two steps ahead of the custodians.

About midnight one of their moms drove to the back of the school, the girls dropped a long rope, and the mother fastened a basket of food to it and they hauled it up.

In the morning they walked out of the school (no alarms then) and discovered it had snowed the night before. As they walked towards Ranko's Drugstore they passed a teacher on her way to the school. They were scared to death that she would get down there and seeing the footprints, discover what had happened.

To their relief, no one ever said a word.

From Chellis Smith Swenson '53.

Memories@CelebrateStadium.com

CelebrateStadium.com

Stadium (1943-1947)

A Couple of Remembrances of my years

World War II dominated my first two years at Stadium. We had gas rationing; only teachers had cars. We walked or rode the bus. Students seldom traveled to any away sporting events. Football games were held in the daytime to save electricity and Tacoma had night blackouts to confuse possible incoming bombers.

Tacoma was crowded with soldiers and sailors from Ft Lewis, Camp Murray and the Todd Ship building yards on Commencement Bay. The Stadium study hall and library windows allowed us to see small “Jeep” Aircraft Carriers being launched and checked out in the bay almost every day of 1943 to1945.

Many of us had parents or brothers working at Todd. The twin boom Army-Air Force P 38 fighters stationed at McCord Field and B 17 Flying Fortress Bomber aircraft built at Boeing Field in Seattle flew over head daily.

Every once in awhile one of our Junior and Senior classmates would disappear from school and later we would learn later that they had joined up. Patriotism was the call of the day and some of our boys just had to join up.

The Japanese surrender in August 1945 changed our Fall Stadium School life dramatically. Ships arrived at the piers in the Tacoma water front and train depots were filled with servicemen coming home from overseas.

Many servicemen returned to high school to finish their education. Stadium football team benefited with a couple of big ex-Marines that beefed up our line and helped give us a winning 1946 season. Stadium High won the Cross State Football Championship that year. Also it helped that we had a future NFL star on our team in Junior Sam Baker. He played fullback and line backer for Stadium and later starred at Oregon State. Professionally he played for the N.Y. Giants and later punted for the Washington Redskins. Sam Baker was number 50.

Bill Kowalski and Bill Greco were the “big” 200 pound tackles in the picture.

The whole athletic program at Stadium in those years was dominated by Coach Heinrick especially in the big sport of football. He had turned out some great teams in the past but the story was that 1946 was his best. Although according to the 1946 Lincoln /Stadium Turkey Day Program still in my possession his teams won the '37, '38, and 1939 Cross State Championships

With all the returning veterans the 1947 graduations was one the largest graduating class in the schools history and filled the National Guard Armory in Tacoma.

Bill Marr
Class of 1947

Memories@CelebrateStadium.com

CelebrateStadium.com

Remember when

Bridges and Books

A page from the class of 1943's 60th anniversary booklet:

Do You Remember?

• Your first day in the Old Brown Castle
  
  
• Standing on the bus all the way to school
  
  
• Trying to find the "up" elevator at school
  
  
• Football games played in fog, rain, & mud
  
  
• Our traditional Thanksgiving Day game
  
  
• The words to our school yell "Fidata"
  
  
• The post-game climb out of the bowl
  
  
• Miss McMurphy's stern manner
  
  
• Crises on the Virginia V
  
  
• Cord pants, bobby sox, & saddle shoes
  
  
• Riding in the rumble seat in a Model A Ford
  
  
• Gasoline rationing "A" stamps
  
  
• Plastic, paper, & aluminum tax tokens
  
  
• Air raid drills at school
  
  
• Study hall in the auditorium
  
  
• Pencils/coins down the spiral fire escape
  
  
• Sock dances in the gymnasium
  
  
• That special person you admired from afar
  
  
• Meetings with Mr. Leatherwood
  
  
• The old swimming pool in the basement
  
  
• Five cent candy bars
  
  
• Coffee & doughnuts for only ten cents
  
  
• The long climb upstairs between classes
  
  
• Sunny noon-hours in the courtyard
  
  
• Long lines at the Roxy Theater
  
  
• Midnight "Hoot Owl" shows at the movies
  
  
• Watching "the submarine" across the bay
  
  
• Galloping Gertie and its fall
  
  
• Mr. Cousin blinking at you in French
  
  
• Ski trips on the train to Hyak
  
  
• Watching basketball games from the balcony
  
  
• Reading "Silas Marner" in English class
  
  
• Memorial Day ceremonies in the courtyard
  
  
• Graduation night at the Armory

Glenn Perry '43

Memories@CelebrateStadium.com

CelebrateStadium.com

Books and Fala

Words that last a lifetime

I have so many beautiful memories of my Stadium days, but those which I have recalled and related the most over the years involved teachers.

I remember the first day in 10th grade Biology when Mr. Prentice told us,

"Matter can neither be created nor destroyed."

That astounding law of the universe was new to me and has stayed with me all these years. I have used it occasionally to impress people, mainly my children, with my knowledge of science!

Then I learned so much about writing from Mr. Hoffman, Journalism teacher. He wrote the textbook we used, "See, Know, and Tell -- Well." It was used in high schools throughout the U.S.

And I'll never forget dear Miss D. Celia Burgess, Civics teacher, who loved her country and President Roosevelt with all her heart.

How fortunate we were to have these dedicated professional teachers who taught us well and shaped our lives more than we realized.

Janice Lindeman Perry
Class of 1942

---

Ural Nathaniel Hoffman was the author of:

See, know and tell—well
A complete textbook of the principles and practices of journalism for newswriters in the high school
(1934)
ASIN:B00088ZGYY

Student journalism
(1946)
ASIN: B0007FGJTE

Student newspaper advertising:
A practical manual of salesmanship and staff management
(1947)
ASIN: B0007FPTUY

Memories@CelebrateStadium.com

CelebrateStadium.com

An Explosive Education

Phosphorous 1, Car 0

I remember the time I was in high school, Stadium High in Tacoma, where we had a good teacher, Miss Campbell, who taught chemistry. Of course all teachers seem ancient to their pupils. (I dug out my copy of our yearbook and she must have been all of 40.)

Miss Campbell had a very raspy voice caused, I suspect, by having to put up with the noxious fumes generated over the years in her classroom, which was really a laboratory.

Unlike most high school teachers of that era she had a master’s degree and had a somewhat arch accent, sort of like the ones movie stars had at that time. The degree, along with her raspy Hollywood voice, set her a bit apart from the rest of the faculty.

She encouraged experimentation, watched carefully as we mixed elixirs, potions and brews, at the ready to jump in if things got out of hand. We learned and had a lot of fun at the same time: a time-proven formula to inspire students. And she was the adviser to the science club of which I was a member. Wherein the tale.

One of us, I don’t recall exactly which but I suspect it was Harvey Wegner, decided that we could create a real good bang out of materials at hand. One afternoon we raided Miss Campbell’s cupboard and made a witch’s brew consisting of, among other things, a very volatile phosphorous, aluminum nitrate (and God knows what else).

We tried it in the teachers’ parking lot, putting the mixture, without the catalyst, on the hood of Miss Campbell’s car where, to our delight, it exploded. Unfortunately it blew out nearby windows and summoned the principal, who was not amused with the experiment.

In retrospect I wonder how we escaped unharmed. It was a hell of a bang.

Miss Campbell took full responsibility. And marveled how the explosion had not only dented her hood but had actually stretched the steel.

Oh yes, we all got A’s.

We graduated and after a year or so in the military went on to science-related careers.

Merle Legg became professor and head of the department of pathology at Harvard Medical School, Harvey, director of the Brookhaven National Laboratory. WOW! All of us at least partly inspired by Miss Campbell.

Who, had she been teaching today, would probably have lost her job…

Bob Winskill ‘43

(this was taken from an article written by Bob in the "Marin Scope" a newspaper in Marin county California...the article was entitled "An Explosive Education")

Memories@CelebrateStadium.com

CelebrateStadium.com

Life's a Novel

What page are we on?

From the rolling 30's and hip 60’s to the New Millennium what a ride it has been!

It is hard to consider that 2006 marks 100 years from the time Stadium High School first opened. That would be 59 years prior to MY class. We went on after graduating like those before us, to explore life on our own. Some of us "original baby boomers" went on to college, a few of us married our high school sweethearts and some had to learn to cook or -- eat out a lot.

Scores of us married later, had children or not or remained single. And some adopted. While a few traveled to exciting lands for their education, or employment some of us nailed down intriguing or boring jobs in the good old USA.

A great many before my class saw action in World War two, the Korean "conflict" (war) or Viet Nam in the 1960s and 70's or other lands thanks to Uncle Sam.

Every one of us is different today because of life experiences both enjoyable and regretful, however the bonds of our friendships made at the Castle are still intact and transcend all else.

Sad to say, a number of our classmates are no longer with us. And since we’re not getting any younger it would be a real pleasure to really enjoy the 100 year celebration of Stadium September 15-17, 2006. I know that I am looking forward to being there and I hope you will as well.

Please don’t pass up the "golden" opportunity to being there as we will not see another celebration of Stadium like this one being planned for 2006. Besides Stadium was more than a chapter in our life it was the beginning of a great novel of our being.

And it does not matter if you have gained weight, gone bald, gotten gray or have wrinkles or any other lame excuse not to join your classmates for an enjoyable time. So, jump into the time machine and journey back for an exciting reunion of reminiscing and renewing our friendships as the remodeled stadium begins a new millennium.

Sincerely,
Edward J. Hawkins
Class of 1965

Memories@CelebrateStadium.com

CelebrateStadium.com