When the reunion organizers proposed a tour of the “new” Central High School, there was a clamor for a tour of the “old” Central High School, because that’s where we built our memories. The Class of 66 scheduled a breakfast in the cafeteria at 9 Saturday morning. They and the other classes got to prowl the school later.
Table-dancing skills prove useful
Vicky Seabaugh asked me to shoot a photo of the Class of 66 after breakfast.
Some of the students are partially hidden because they didn’t heed my admonition, “If you can’t see ME, my camera can’t see YOU.” Some of the folks with apparent prior table dancing experience used their skills to become more visible. (No hips were broken in the making of this photograph.)
That’s my locker
Bill Stone said he was lucky enough to share a locker with a small-time local hoodlum. “Nobody messed with MY locker,” he said. Our old tan lockers have been replaced by spiffy orange ones.
Auditorium seats have been recovered
I don’t know if these folks are looking for their initials or what. The auditorium looked as serviceable as ever.
Terry Hopkins shows his prowess
I kept telling Terry Hopkins that I needed him to do one more rep to make sure I got a good picture, but he finally wised up.
We got to walk across the gym floor
Walking across the gym floor was taboo when we were in school. You just didn’t do it. Not more than once, at least.
Standards must have been relaxed, because Terry Kitchen led us right on to it. (Go here to here Terry’s account of the Ghosts of the Trophy Case.) He’s the fellow in the orange and white shoes at left.
The ADA brings elevators to CHS
Janet Zickfield had to depend on other students to carry her up and down the many stairs at Central High School when we were there. Today’s students can use an elevator.
Photo Gallery of CHS tour
Here’s a photo gallery of our tour. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left of right side of the photo to move through the gallery. We’re not done yet. More photos are coming.
Fantastic job as usual.
Thanks, Bill. It just goes to prove the old adage that if a photographer takes an infinite number of photographs, at least a few of them will turn out good.
Ken, The tour and breakfast photos are fantastic. I dont think you missed anyone. We really appreciate your documenting our great weekend. We will be talking about this until the next one rolls around. Again a big thanks.
Thanks Ken, it was great seeing you again after all these years. We were practically neighbors when the Stones lived on Grandview Dr. The photos were great!
The photo you took at my sophomore locker #19 near the old chemistry room, had yours truly in the bottom of the shared locker. My locker mate was in trouble and as I recall did not attend school after the first few weeks, having been sent to the Boonville Reformatory School. As noted, nobody bothered my locker that year. Although these are the kind of stories legends are made of, I can not recall another locker number that I had during my four years at Central.
Well if I knew you were going to use that weight lifting picture I would have sucked in my double or is it triple chin…
Nice job as usual…very good work.
I just shoot ‘em as I see ‘em.
I quit trying to suck it in a long time ago. I just consider my ab to be a counterweight.
Kenny–One word-WOW-The pics really add to the memories of Central and the reunion–Thanx
The “old” school still looks really good. My class was the first class to graduate from that “new” school in ’54, R.L. Sheets was the principal. You ’60-ers are looking good too!
We were in one of the first homes to be built on Themis. My mother remembers when Central was nothing but an empty field with a dead horse in it.
It is astounding how well the old school has been kept up. The maintenance staff has done a great job.
(I wonder if that’s what kept some of the members of our class looking so good, too. Heavy maintenance.)
How did Rita Robertson Slinkard get the nickname ‘Ticket’? There has to be an story there, right?
Or am I misunderstanding her name tag…
http://www.capecentralhigh.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Tour-of-Central-High-School-06-26-2010_5652.jpg
Cheers,
Matt
I’ll have to ask your mother. She used the nickname right away, but I don’t remember anything about her background.
Wow! I know I requested a tour of the OLD or former CHS, but I did not realized the tour changed from the New CHS to the Old CHS or we would have attended!
Lila (and I suspect others) contacted Mark Stuart to argue that most of us have no interest in the new building, so a tour of our Alma Mater was arranged.
I suspect that’ll be what happens in the future. Some things were instantly familiar; others were as strange as when we walked into the joint as confused freshmen.
WE ARE STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS! THANKS, KEN, FOR BEING AN ABLE AND ARTICULATE ARTIST IN OUR AGING MIDST! SEE YOU IN 5 YEARS? HOPE SO! PEP
Pep,
We’re like road construction going through Atlanta: it’s a work in progress; you can’t judge when it’s gonna be finished; it starts and stops without warning, it’s broken before it’s done and it backs up frequently.
I don’t know if I’ll be there in five years, but it won’t be for lack of trying.
Ken, there should be some kind of Tiger Award for all the enthusiasm you generated for this event for those of us far and near with your photo journalism. It is great … it is fantastic …. thank you so very much.
I tried to save some of these photos and to copy others. Do you have some kind of code to prevent this … or is it me and or/my computer?
Again thank you. So happy you all had a good time. I had a good time with you through Ken’s photo len.
Does any one feel energetic to go through the photos and label them for those of us who weren’t there? Just asking… I know it would take time out of busy schedules. Thanks for considering.
Hats off and a written ovation to our own photo journalist! And to Lila too.
Prudy,
I don’t have anything that I went out of my way to keep people from downloading the photos, but I think the gallery program I use may keep you from doing a right-click, save-as.
Once I get back to Florida, I’ll post all of the photos at another site we control that WILL allow you to view the photos and download them in high resolution.
Give me about a week to get home, unpack, set up all of my equipment and upload everything. Better yet, give me two weeks.
I’ll post links to the site when I get it up.
I wish I had some way to let you tag photos like you can on Facebook, but I’m limited there. In the interest of speed, I opted for generic titles on the photos.
Thinking out loud, I might set up a CHS Class Reunion Fan Page to upload the pix to. That was they COULD be tagged.
Let me think on it.
You did a wonderful job of capturing memories, as usual, Ken!
Sheila