Silly Stories (Memories) of George Rogers Clark High School
Susan Hmurovic
November 2021
Do you have memories of your school days in Whiting-Robertsdale? Or, maybe memories of some of the people, places, and events of the past? Share them by sending them to whitingrobertsdale.history@gmail.com
Students gather outside the 119th Street entrance to George Rogers Clark High School in 1968.
With the closing of George Rogers Clark High School, I’ve been inclined to reminisce about my high school days and my graduating class of 1968. Our graduation ceremony took place on Thursday, June 6, 1968, the day Robert Kennedy died in California. Martin Luther King had already been assassinated in April, and protests over the war in Vietnam were heating up. I often look back at those days as the end of innocence, not only for the students, but for the country.
I must admit, my high school memories are mostly the mischief my friends and I got into. The most damaging events I remember are TP-ing teachers’ houses, and a friend’s hair spray can explode when her purse sat too close to the radiator in class. It ripped the side off her purse and almost torpedoed a student in its path. Today, she probably would have been in a lot more trouble than she was then, just a reprimand from the instructor.
We had no swimming pool at Clark in those days, nor even a gym in which to play the Sectional Tournament games. We had no computer lab, in fact, no computers! Some of our teachers were old enough to have taught our parents, and some surely continued to teach the next generation. Students didn’t go to the prom in groups (a great idea today!). Usually, the girls waited for a boy to ask them.
Located at 1309 119th Street, Neal Price’s sold sporting goods, cameras, and television and radio sets. But for many of Whiting and Robertsdale teenagers it was the place to listen to music and buy records. Even more than a decade before the class of 1968, it was a popular destination for the young. This photo is from 1951.
Saturdays usually involved a trip to Neal Price’s Firestone Store on 119th Street to pick up a WLS Silver Dollar Survey and listen to the new records in their soundproof booth for as long as we could before getting chased out.
I do remember the auditorium being filled with parents, students, and community members when plays were staged or concerts were held. The crowds were just as large for football and basketball games.
One football game at Hammond High was especially memorable. Sometimes, we had access to a family car, and there were a few students who actually had their own wheels. In this case, wheels were about the only thing her car had. A group of us rode to see Clark play Hammond High at their homecoming game. The backseat of my friend’s car had no floor, so you had to ride with your feet on the seat, lest your feet were on the road like Fred Flintstone. When the game ended, we found her car in the parking lot with a flat tire. As luck would have it, the principal of Hammond High came to our rescue to change the tire. As he leaned on the fender, it crumbled under the rust. When he eventually changed the tire, the spare was as flat as the tire he had just removed. I think he flowed us to a gas station. We were laughing so hard, I really don’t remember.
There were 240 graduates in the George Rogers Clark class of 1968. At the height of the baby boom generation, with other classes of that era similar in size, the school was not large enough to handle that many, so two portable classrooms were installed on the school property.
Our graduating class was large, especially by recent standards at Clark. There were over 200 students in the class of 1968, and we went off in many directions. Some to Standard Oil, some to Inland Steel, some went away to college to become teachers, doctors, lawyers, musicians. Some went to Chicago to begin their careers, and some went to fight in Vietnam.
Most of us had our own little group of friends, and for a long time after graduation it didn’t matter to us what the rest were up to or where they were. We were too busy living our lives. But as time has gone on, the two high school friends I do still keep in touch with, and myself, wonder where they are and what kind of lives they’ve had. We haven’t had many reunions, not even a 50th. People move around a lot, and although this group is more apt to use social media than previous generations, it’s still tough to find old classmates.
So, if any of my former GRC graduates are reading this, “Let the spirit of George Rogers Clark (High School) inspire you,” (in the words of our fight song. Share your own silly stories. We were lucky to have those days.
Wearing outfits similar to popular rock group Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Hartford Convention entertained at many Clark dances in 1968
Clark High School intramural bowling in 1966.
The Clark school library in 1965.
Film projectors were used in many classrooms in Clark High School, and a group of students in the Audio-Visual Club often operated them. They also operated the tape recorders, microphones, and other classroom technology of the time.
Members of the class of 1968 were among the first to make use of a new language lab in Clark High School. It came into operation before their freshman year.
The most modern technology for learning in 1968 included reel-to-reel tape recorders. This photo is from 1965.
Typewriters and mimeograph machines were as high tech as the newsroom of the Pioneer News student newspaper was in the freshman year of the class of 1968. This 1965 photo shows Sue Gonsiorowski and Joyce Wagner at the typewriters, Nancy Swiontek behind them, and Janellen Stipulan on the right.
One of the biggest memories of the class of 1968 was the record snowstorm that hit the area in 1967. The two feet of snow resulted in five days of unexpected vacation.
The 1968 Student Council cabinet included (in the back row, left to right) Steven Hurley, Douglas Guy, Kenneth Kessler and Jerry Banik. And in the front row, Merilee Ogren, Ronald Murzyn, and Susan Hmurovic, the author of this article.