Joni Tickel DID Have Big Hair; PE Uniform Girls Identified

When I ran the photo of Coach Jane Womack and two girls in Central High School PE uniforms, I said I didn’t know who the girls were and asked for help identifying them.

The electrons had barely enough time to go squirting down the Internet pipes before the answer started coming back.

I was right about Coach Womak, said Libby Koch, who had her for PE and Government.

Bill East said the girls were Rosanne Hecht (center) and Joni Tickel.

I made the mistake of questioning his judgment by saying, “I’ll concede that MIGHT be Rosanne, but I don’t recall Joni ever having Big Hair.

Almost immediately he fired back, “Check out 1964 Girardot, p. 106, bottom, and p. 107, top.

Bill East must have the doggone Girardot memorized

Joni looks more Frizzy than Big Hair in this homeroom picture, but her hair color looks close to the PE photo. It certainly moves her into the realm of possibility, particularly when Sally Bierbaum Dirks chimed in to support Bill.

Patti fisher Caid, who was a Notre Dame student and shouldn’t have a dog in this hunt, posted, “There you go Ken, two against one! The odds are not looking good.”

By the time Jane Neumeyer and Sheila Hopkins Phillips weighed in on Bill’s side, I gave up.

Here’s Page 107 of The Girardot showing Roseanne Hecht

I ran the bottom of the page because it has a picture of Bill and Terry Hopkins on it. Both of them are frequent contributors to this site, so you might want to know what they looked like. OK, and the Barringer Twins are in the picture, too. That, of course didn’t influence my decision to run the picture.

Bill’s easy to pick out. He has the same expression in the picture I shot of the Teen Age Club dance that was moved to a bank parking lot. He’s in the right center of the first picture at this link.

Joni Tickel and Bill Withers as Royalty

I checked my 1965 Girardot and Wife Lila’s 1966 yearbook without seeing this picture, so I don’t know what the event was. Since she’s wearing short sleeves, I’m thinking it may have been a spring event that happened too late to make the yearbook. Ideas, anyone? Bill?

11 Replies to “Joni Tickel DID Have Big Hair; PE Uniform Girls Identified”

  1. This is the reply I got from Bill Withers on the pix of him and Joni:

    Maybe it was the King & Queen of the Senior Class, or, class spirit recognition? If it wasn’t in the year book then it probably something not too significant like Bo and Daisy Duke of Hazard County ceremony

  2. Hi Ken, I just read the March 2011- 1960 Tigers newsletter from: ’60, Jerry & ’61, Margi Stout Whitright. The Bill and Joni picture is “Mr. CHS and Miss CHS- 1966” which was voted on late in the year and usually never made the yearbook. And, yes, the phys-ed uniform picture is Joni and Rosanne from the class of ’66 when they were either freshmen or sophomores. Rosanne did not graduate with us from CHS; I think she went out of town to a private prep school for junior and senior year.

  3. I have authenticity about this photo of the gym teacher Donna Needham, the two gals, on the right, Judy Ellis Wellshear, the middle is an unidentified person. My classmates and I are trying to identify the middle person. This was taken in Hutchinson High School in Hutchinson Kansas in 1961 or 1962. I remember they bringing the fellow to take the photo, and it was requested by my future sister-in-law Ann Moore, who was the head journalism of the senior yearbook. Therefore, this photo was never in the yearbook, unless it was in the weekly school news.

    1. Sorry, Judy. I’m the photographer who took it; the print was made from a scan of the original 4×5 negative. It was taken in the Cape Girardeau (MO) Central High School gym and appeared in the school yearbook. Jane Womack, the PE teacher in the photo, is still in the school system.

      It just goes to show that all those Midwestern towns looked alike. I tell folks who read my blog that Cape is the town you grew up in or WISHED you had grown up in.

  4. The gym photo was taken at St. Scholastica High School in Chicago, Illinois in 1961 or 62. I am the girl on the right. I remember it being taken. I think it was just one of the stills taken for our yearbook. Actually, I liked our gym uniforms at the time. They were a dull banana yellow.
    Martha Bernacchi Olivier

    1. You are wrong in almost every respect. I was the photographer who took the photograph and still hold the original 4×5 negative. It was taken in the gym at Cape Girardeau Central High School, and I can assure you that you are NOT in the picture.

      I’m always amazed at how many people claim it was shot in another town at another school.

  5. This is so weird, Ken! Now I have to see if my sister has our old yearbooks. Everything about that photo I remember. Did you ever shoot photos in Chicago at that time? I don’t doubt you have the negative, but I don’t know why my memory is so strong. Even the stairs where the photo was taken are the stairs in our gym that led up to a stage.

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