Central High School Archives

March 6, 2012

1964 City Election at Central

The negative sleeve said “1964 City Election.” When I looked at the film, I couldn’t figure out why cops featured so prominently in the photos until I saw the sign “Vote YES Policemen’s Firemen’s Retirement Fund.” They must have been campaigning.

The last half of October and the first part of November 1964 was missing from the Google Archives, so I couldn’t get any details about the election. In the absence of real news, let’s look at some interesting things that show up in the backgrounds of the pictures. Click on them to make them larger. (I can blow them up larger than you can, so you might just have to take my word for some of the observations.)

The house on the corner of Themis and Caruthers has a sign in the front yard that says “Leible.” Scope out the car to the right of the policemen. It has an old-fashioned gumball machine on the roof and a big fender-mounted siren on the right side. There is no indication of what department it might belong to.

Paging Kent Verhines

Mr. Goddard wants to see you in his office RIGHT NOW. Signs on the door say “Polls close 7 p.m. Central Standard Time;” “City Election” and “School Election.” If you look just above the boy’s head (I think it might be Mike Seabaugh), you can see “KENT VERHINES” scrawled on the brick. Handwriting analysts are being dispatched to the scene to compare handwriting samples to see if Kent is the vandal or if he’s being framed.

A view up Themis Street

This is a pretty good look up Themis Street. At least one house has a tall, tall TV antenna. I guess they needed it to see over the surrounding hills.

You can hear Linda Stone and Tricia Tipton describe growing up on Themis Street in this video shot at the last reunion.

Police car full of girls

Here’s another view of the unmarked police car. The driver looks like he has a uniform cap on, but all of the passengers look like high school girls. A pickup truck with L.R. Seabaugh on the door is parked on the right.

Could it be the Folsom Twins?

I can’t be sure, but the two girls in the car look a little like Linda and Laura Folsom. Or, it could be their twins.

Track team practice?

These guys don’t look heavy enough to be football players.

Election Day at Franklin School

I also made a pass by the polling place at Franklin School. You won’t see this view long. A new Franklin School is being built behind the existing building. When it’s finished, the old building will be torn down. Here are a couple of links to stories about the school and the construction:

Election Day Photo Gallery

There are a few photos here that aren’t at the top of the page. Click on any picture to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

February 17, 2012December 4, 2021

Cape Central Evacuation

Looks like everybody has been evacuated from Central High School. I thought it might have been a fire drill, but there are photos of officers searching the building., so I’m leaning to bomb threat. Click on the photos to make them larger.

Did the lockers have combination locks?

I was trying to figure out how they would have gotten all the lockers open if every student had an individual padlock. I seem to remember that there was a round, black combination lock on the front of the door that you turned right-left-right to open the locker. They also had a key slot that the administration could use to open them. That must have been how they did it so quickly.

Leaving no place unchecked

So, why am I inside when everybody else is outside?

I’m playing the odds that there’s no bomb. Plus, it’s cool to run around in the empty building.

Bomb on an aircraft

One night in the late 70s, we got a report of a bomb on an aircraft at Palm Beach International Airport. They unloaded the plane to search it, then blocked all but ticketed passengers from the terminal. No problem. I called the travel agency that handled our business and had them issue tickets in the name of a reporter and photographer, telling them that we had no intention of actually using them. We did enough business with the agency that they were happy to work with us.

After about an hour, the photographer radioed back that the plane has been given the all clear and that they were going to start boarding passengers soon. I was all set to tell them to come back to the office when the guy working the city desk said, “Tell them to get on the plane.”

“Get on the plane?”

“Get on the plane? That makes no sense. If there is no bomb, then there’s no story. If there IS a bomb, they’re going to be dead and they’re not going to be able to file.”

He insisted. So, saying that I wanted it on the record that this was a bad idea, I broke the news to the team. “You’re going to Pittsburgh (or Philadelphia, I can’t remember).”

“We’re broke. We have no money,” he replied. This was in the days before everybody carried plastic. We quickly took up a collection and got them a handful of cash and change.

Their conversations with their seatmates was interesting. “Let me get this straight… Your editor thinks there’s a bomb on the plane and he tells you to get on it? And, you DO it?” When you put it that way, it does sound a little strange.

They arrived in one of those P-towns to find out that there wasn’t a room to be had. There was a Shriner’s convention going on. Not only were there no rooms, every eating establishment and bar in town was full of drunks wearing funny hats. They did NOT have a fun time.

It’s all over

There are folks holding umbrellas, the concrete looks mottled and the sky is overcast. It may have just started raining. I see Calvin Chapman on the right in the first wave of returning teachers. Mrs. Muegge might be in the back of the group. Typing teacher Mr. Gockel might be leading the charge, but I’m less sure about her.

I wonder who had a test scheduled or a paper due?

The Missourian, like most papers, had a policy of not running bomb threats if nothing was found. They didn’t want to encourage copycats, so these were never published.

February 6, 2012February 6, 2012

Okay, Who Did It?

I’ve already done a page on the Red Dagger’s My Sister Eileen and Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, so when I discovered these frames stuck in with a fire I shot in Ohio, I almost relabeled them and stuck them back in the file. Then I saw something that piqued my interest.

Whose car is this? Who did this nefarious deed? Their timing was good. I see one of the pages is from The Missourian’s Achievement Edition. That was usually the biggest paper of the year. Gaining entry to the car wouldn’t have been difficult. Most folks didn’t lock the doors and about half of them left the keys in the ignition.

Surely these guys didn’t do it

Principal Fred Wilferth and custodian James Criddle were on this roll of film, which means they were in the vicinity of the hooliganism, but they don’t have the guilty look of someone who has just stuffed someone’s car with a week’s worth of papers.

By the way, this film was in pretty bad shape, so I had a choice of spending hours spotting out all the flaws or pretending that the practice took place during a snow storm. I opted for the latter. In one frame there IS a cup flying through the air and water or some other liquid frozen by the strobe flash.

Gallery of the usual suspects

If I was a cop, I’d round up this gang of suspects from My Sister Eileen. I’m pretty sure that at least one of them would crack when you shined the bright light in their eyes. I bet you wouldn’t even have to bring out the rubber hoses. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo until you find the guilty person or persons.

Anola Gill Stowick was kind enough to provide a cast list when I ran the other story. I’m having the names run right now for wants and warrants. We should have this wrapped up in a matter of hours.

Chuck Dockins, Sally Wright, Sherry Harris, Larry Loos, Pat Sommers, Tom Spitzmiller, Steve Crowe, David Reimann, John Reimann, Rick Meinz, Jane Randol, Mike Daniels, Pam Parks, Mike Seabaugh, Steve Folsom, Anola Gill, Lee Dahringer, Don Mowery, John Magill, Preston Foster, Kenny Fischer, Vicky Roth, Jim Stone
============Support=========
Faculty Director – Kitty Hart, Jerrette Davis, Carl Meyer, Becky McGinty, Steve Strong, Marsha Seabaugh, Janice House, Hilda Hobbs, Martin Hente, Bill Kuster, Tom Holt, Ralph Frye, Shari Stiver, Cheri Huckstep, Tana Austin, Diane Siemers, Betsy Ringland, Francie Hopkins, Ruth Ann Seabaugh, Beth Hayden, Judy Dunklin, Peggy Estes, Judy Brunton, Terry Hinkle, Robin Kratz, Marcia Maupin, Sally Nothdurft, Toni Starkweather, Bunny Blue, Mary Sudholt, Cheryl McClard, Emma Pensel, David Stubbs Ron Hill, Gwynn Sheppard Mary Rickard, Mary Jean Rodgers, Carol Klarsfeld, Dean Kimmich, Donna Eddleman, Marsha Harris, Martha Mahy, Paul Schwab, Amanda Ashby, Della Heise, Don Sander, Anne Buchanan, Ronnie Marshall, John Mueller, Pat Johnson.

January 11, 2012March 27, 2016

New Library Not Like Our Old Study Hall

When I stopped by the new Central High School to pick up a copy of the Centennial book, I couldn’t believe I was in a high school library. It felt more like a coffee shop than Mrs. Wilcox’s study hall that served as my freshman homeroom.

The first thing you see when you walk into the library is a small lobby with a catalpa and sycamore sculpture by art instructor Robert C. Friedrich III. The work, “Mind, Body & Soul,” was commissioned by librarian Julia Howes Jorgensen “To Honor Her Family’s Three Generations of Central Graduates.”

She said that the “experts” would consider the small alcove wasted space, but she thinks it’s important to have a place where students can scrape off teenage angst and “decompress” before entering the library. “You remember all the drama, with the cat fights between boyfriends and girlfriends…”

Bright, airy, inviting

Julia said she was given extraordinary latitude in designing the space. She figured it was because she was “Old Cape;” a Class of 1969 graduate “along with Rush Limbaugh” (and, Koran-burner Terry Jones, I added), and had been librarian since 1985. “I live here. I know Cape and our students. I’ve taught here. I knew what we needed.”

It is clearly a non-shushing library. There’s enough space that students can collaborate on projects or talk quietly without interfering with their neighbors. The facility is open from 7 a.m. to 3:30. Julia says students are frequently waiting for her to swing the doors open in the morning.

Craig Thomas murals and art

She brought in local artist Craig Thomas to do paintings and murals. It was a great learning experience for the art students to see him set up his scaffolding and create his work. He was able to communicate to them that “it’s great work, but you really need a spouse with life insurance, too.”

The fireman’s pole in the corner of the room came from the Pacific campus.

The Bookend raises money for books

The coffee shop feeling is enhanced by The Bookend, a self-serve, honor system counter where students can buy popcorn, hot chocolate or cappuccino for 50 cents. The money goes to buy “extra” books. “The district buys the first copy of a book, but I use the proceeds from The Bookend to purchase the second, third or fourth copy of books that are ‘hot.'”

She also tries to stock bestsellers, when appropriate, so that students and faculty members have an opportunity to read a book by an author they saw on a late-night talk show .

Scrounging 101

Julia is an expert at scrounging useful items. Some of the tables in the library came from a Barnes & Noble bookstore that was moving. They were destined for the dumpster when she stepped up to take them.

Links to the past

She’s also rescued key items from the Pacific Street and Caruthers high schools. This artwork and books came from “our” Central. There are patriotic posters and a room directory taken from what is now Schultz Senior Apartments.

There’s a whole shelf of Girardot yearbooks. “That’s how you can tell I’m not a real librarian,” she said, “because I make them available to the students. It’s their school. If they want to look up what grandpa or an aunt or an uncle looked like, they shouldn’t have to beg my permission. They’re always available.”

Students can look into library

There are small windows set high in the room that allow students in the second-floor classrooms around it to look down into the library.

Her father’s uniform

One of the items on display is Julia’s dad’s uniform from World War II. When students remark about how small he was, she tells them that “when you walk the length of Italy, you get that way.”

Cape Central High through the years

If you want to see how the high school and the students have changed – and remained much the same – over the past 100 years, you can order the Cape Central High School Centennial book from a link on this page. Or, you can stop by to see Julia and her showcase library. That, alone, is worth the $50 book price.

Photos of Central’s library in the ’60s

Photo gallery of new library

Here are additional photos of the new library. Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.