Languages and Art

I shot the Language Department for the 1965 Girardot. The teachers are Dan Moore, Spanish; Charlotte Malahy, Latin; Susan May and Mary Sivia, French. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

With the demographic shifts we’re seeing, it’s interesting that Central had two French teachers, but only one Spanish teacher. I guess French might have helped me communicate with the Haitian Creole speakers who have migrated to Florida and some of the Louisiana backwoods Cajuns I ran across covering hurricanes, but parts of South Florida speak more Spanish than English.

Other language stories

Senior Moore and Spanish class

Miss Krueger’s retirement party and other CHS teachers who were there when Dad was in school.

Edna Glenn, Art instructor

I managed to dodge art class until I got to Ohio University. All photo majors had to take Art 101. Here’s an account of the experience.

I knew I was in trouble from the first day when the instructor said we were to fill a sketchbook with renderings of common objects we encountered  every day.

The first problem was that we weren’t on the same page when it came to defining “rendering.” He was thinking, “picture: show in, or as in, a picture; “This scene depicts country life”; ‘the face of the child is rendered with much tenderness in this painting’.”

My work came closer to “melt (fat or lard) in order to separate out impurities; ‘render the yak butter’; ‘render fat in a casserole.’”

There WERE some Central High School students who did Mrs. Glenn proud.

Central Majorettes 1964-65

I may have run one or more of these photos before – it’s getting harder and harder to remember what’s run and what hasn’t. Well, if I WAS going to repeat something, I can’t think of anything better than this. Click on the photos to make them larger.

This is the photo that ran in the 1964 Girardot.

Kneeling: Pam Parks, Ann Seabaugh.

Standing: Becky McGinty, Linda Maddux, Susan Seabaugh, Robin Kratz, Vicki Berry, Della Heise.

Alternate shot of the 1964 Majorettes

The order is slightly different, but you should be able to figure out who is who.

1965 Girardot majorette photo

This is one of those groupings that make it difficult to write a caption. Do you list them by row, by clockwise or do you do what the editor did and punt and just list the names.

Jane McKeown; Gwen Petty; Della Heise, drum major; Phyllis Metzger; Ruth Ann Seabaugh, head majorette; Toni Grose, Nancy Swan.

1965 majorettes in gym

We must have wanted to hedge our bets by taking a second shot inside the gym. Note: don’t shoot flash directly at a shiny ceramic brick wall. The light will bounce right back at you. Somebody must have helped line up this shot. I could have gotten them lined up, but I wouldn’t have come up with that toe-point thing.

Leading band down Broadway

Ruth Ann Seabaugh is in the lead. It must have been a day that warmed up. I see lots of folks in the crowd holding their coats and jackets. The boy second from the left seems to be checking out Toni’s ankles pretty closely.

Other majorette photos

’64-65 Guidance Counselors

This is the official photograph of the guidance counselors that ran in the 1965 Girardot. It was hardly comforting that the most prominent poster on display was explaining “Military Service and You.”

The yearbook photo caption said “Especially with the increasing number of students in each of Central’s classes, it is necessary to have a Guidance Department to aid in the counseling, testing, scheduling and orientation. The counselors advise students on which college to attend, which occupations to follow, and which classes should be taken in high school.”

Norman Schwab, left, was the Senior Counselor; Grace Miller, center, guided the sophomores, and Thomas Cushman worked with the juniors. Click on the photos to make them larger.

Counselors encouraged student ambitions

After shooting their formal portrait, I took opportunity to share with them my career plans. I told them I had picked Bill Hopkins to manage my run for Student Body President. With that experience on my resume, I planned to go to law school, then get involved in some local political races until I was positioned to run for President of the United States in 1984, the first year I would be constitutionally qualified to serve.

You can tell that they were confident that I could accomplish all my goals.

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.