July 2021 greetings, classmates! After we ran out of money for movies, we usually turned to our televisions during our summer breaks. Those television “sets” of the early 1950’s were actually large, heavy pieces of furniture with a little 12-inch or so squarish hole cut out and replaced with glass and a “picture tube” bulging behind it. A corner of the “living” room (most houses didn’t have “dens” or “family” or “game” rooms yet) was the best place to put it to accommodate the bulge or the TV would sit far out from the wall.

In addition to the picture tube, it had many little tubes. We often knew when a little tube was going out. The feather look? That’s the horizontal tube AGAIN! A picture rolling upward over and over and then faster and faster? That’s the vertical tube AGAIN! Just a snow blizzard scene? I don’t remember the name of its culprit tube or glitch. It took two people to lift the TV set into the back of a pickup to take it to a shop AGAIN.

Our TV monster stopped working AGAIN, and my Dad declared that was the last of TV for us. I turned it on occasionally just to see if it chose to work that day. It didn’t. During a long boring Sunday afternoon when even “Industry on Parade” might be better than nothing, I turned it on and kicked it as hard as I possibly could. It came on. My parents rushed to the room and asked me what happened. I merely told them I fixed the TV. They were surprised but not as surprised as I was. (I remembered this incident decades later when my ice maker stopped working for a couple of weeks. I hit it as hard as I could with the side of my fist. It immediately started popping out ice and never gave me grief again!)

Unless we had a second antenna that was sky high and could access the Muskogee station, we were stuck for years watching just one station in Fort Smith. They decided which network shows to add to their programming, and we didn’t always agree with their decisions. But, I have fussed about this before and about the Fort Smith station not beginning their day until 11 am and with the Love of Life soap opera.

Different claims are made about coordinating the conversion of TV sets and network programming to color. It was a slow process. An early 50’s Rose Bowl Parade was broadcast in color, but who could watch it in color? Those color sets were expensive and with few shows available in color. $200 to $300 in in the early 1950’s had the buying power of about $2000 to $3000 in 2021. I won a 5” screen color TV in a drawing—one of the highlights of my life for a few days. I couldn’t find much to watch except in black and white. My first Dallas color set was 13” with rabbit ears. I had to keep moving them around for the best reception of the various stations’ transmitters.

How convenient it is (for writing this month’s greeting page) that the television seasons are usually September through May, the same as our school terms. The summer months were for mostly reruns to catch up on shows we might have missed because we were so busy doing homework and diligently studying for tests during the school year, right?

Here’s a list of Nielsen #1 rated TV shows for each of our grades. Noted also are programs that first aired during each school year if they ranked in the top 20 their very first season. These were selected from the Nielsen ratings although other rating companies existed but varied.

1st grade 1951-52: #1 Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts on CBS

(and #6 was Arthur Godfrey and His Friends—must have been a popular guy)

First season: I Love Lucy, Red Skelton Show, and Dragnet

2nd grade 1952-53: #1 I Love Lucy on CBS (the season Little Ricky was born)

First season: Gangbusters, Red Buttons Show, Life of Riley

3rd grade 1953-1954: #1 I Love Lucy on CBS

First season programs didn’t produce any instant hits.

4th grade 1954-1955: #1 I Love Lucy on CBS

First season: Disneyland, Martha Raye, George Gobel, December Bride, Millionaire

Was it Monday nights we watched I Love Lucy and then December Bride and then Liberace?

5th grade 1955-56: #1 The $64,000 Question on CBS (bumped Lucy to #2)

First season: the one-hour version of The Perry Como Show.

The Lennon Sisters made their debut on Lawrence Welk Show December 1955.

Gunsmoke aired its first of 635 episodes during its 20 season run.

6th grade 1956-57: #1 I Love Lucy again on CBS

First season programs didn’t produce any instant hits.

The Perry Como Show was one of the first to broadcast in color every week.

7th grade 1957-58: #1 Gunsmoke on CBS

First season: Have Gun-Will Travel, Restless Gun, Wagon Train, Sugarfoot

Here came the TV western craze.

8th grade 1958-59: #1 Gunsmoke again on CBS

First season: The Rifleman, The Texan, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Peter Gunn

9th grade 1959-1960: #1 Gunsmoke again on CBS

First season: Dennis the Menace

“Rising star” Carol Burnett joined the Garry Moore Show

10th grade 1960-61: #1 Gunsmoke again on CBS

First season: Andy Griffith Show, Jack Benny, My Three Sons, Flintstones animated

11th grade 1961-62: #1 Wagon Train on NBC (Gunsmoke to #3 and with Bonanza #2)

First season: Hazel, Dr Kildare, Ben Casey, Marshal Dillon (reruns of Gunsmoke)

12th grade 1962-63: #1 The Beverly Hillbillies on CBS, it’s first season

First season: The Lucy Show with Lucille Ball without Desi Arnaz

Click on the Senior Year tab in the left margin and scroll down to the top 20 TV rankings and winners of the Emmy awards during our last year at Northside HS .

As you can see above, CBS had a stronghold on number one programs. NBC had many shows in the top 20 throughout these same years. Where was ABC? The first ABC show in the top 20 during our school years according to Nielsen was Disneyland’s first season when it placed #6 for the year we were in the 4th grade, and #4 when we were in 5th grade, and down to #14 in 6th grade. ABC scored another top 20 ranking that same season with Wyatt Earp’s second season at #19.

ABC scored better as they followed the viewer’s sudden intense interest in Western themed TV shows. Gunsmoke was the leader of the pack, so to speak, and many such TV shows followed. We no longer had to go to movies to see Westerns. Rawhide with Clint Eastwood became very popular when we were in high school. Do you remember who sang the theme song?

In our elementary school years, we kids had our own shows, too, both early evening and afternoon. Lassie and Roy Rogers and Superman were only three of our perennial favorites. Oh, Howdy Doody with Buffalo Bob! The Mickey Mouse Club was a hit for kids able to access the Muskogee station. We loved our cartoons, too. Remember Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear? We were too old for Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, and Mister Rogers Neighborhood, but it was fun to watch the shows with our own kids!

According to the number of Lone Ranger lunchboxes, he and his 221 episodes were a must watch during our elementary school years. Can you name the classical music piece that provided the show with its well known theme tune? One 5th grade teacher in Fort Smith introduced classical music to her students by playing that tune from a classical record. The students did not want to listen to classical music. The teacher told the kids to raise their hands if at some point they thought they had heard it somewhere. They were certain there was no chance of that happening. During the long boring beginning, their eyelids were drooping. Then, all of a sudden—out of nowhere—here came the Lone Ranger, and their eyes popped wide open and hands went flying! I don’t know what the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini would have thought of this Lone Ranger use of his circa 1829 composition he wrote as an intro for an opera. His opera wasn’t popular at the time, but the overture is now very well known.

I’ve heard that the Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy (another popular show and lunchbox) shared the same horse! Silver and Topper the same horse? Could it be?

I continue mentioning the 1950’s lunchboxes. If you have a metal one in good shape and with any former childhood idol’s picture on it, don’t throw it away! Many of them are now collector items and some are worth a lot of money. One of the most expensive is a 1954 Superman metal lunchbox that might fetch over $15,000 if in mint condition. Maybe it’s time to revisit the trunks and boxes in the attic.

No, we haven’t mentioned the commercials yet, but we will some day. There were some good ones and some really bad ones. A good one was the laundry detergent ad that taught the 5th graders more classical music. In a bad one because we tired of her, remember Mrs. Olson, the coffee lady? Remember the popular movie she showed up in later for a bit part as a contrary woman and the entire theater cheered as Katharine Hepburn told her off in grand style?

Do you know the top rated shows right now? I don’t either, and I don’t care. Just give me live baseball games and live football games and some of the reruns of The Golden Girls (which I didn’t even like during its seven seasons), Andy Griffith during the Barney years, and a little Everybody Loves Raymond if the storyline is about Marie, my personal guide on how not to be a mother-in-law. Plus, I watch hilarious show snippets on YouTube such as the I Love Lucy foursome leaving the apartment for the baby’s birth, Tim Conway’s full dentist sketch on The Carol Burnett Show or his Siamese twin elephants story with Vicki Lawrence’s famous shutting-him-up line, and, of course, Barney Fife’s funniest scenes.

June 2021 Greetings, Classmates! Summertime again, and here we are—still stuck in a pandemic. At least it is abating somewhat. Some of the movie theaters have re-opened even though many of those have restrictions. Attending movies on a weekend during a school year or anytime during our summer break was always an enjoyable thing for us to do.

Temple or Malco? Did you have a favorite? Both were single screen theaters and could show only one movie at a time. Temple was farther away from a bus stop but had a tad more parking because of the adjacent Masonic Lodge. Malco was downtown for easy access from the bus stops but had to share parking on the streets with the other businesses in that area. Temple had many steps to climb to get to the ticket window. Malco had a long walk once inside to get to the ticket window. But, most of us didn’t mind long walks and could quickly trot up concrete steps (well, once the early teen girls adjusted to high heels.) At night for sure, we dressed up to go to movies.

Another option was the drive-in movie theaters. I remember three existed in different parts of Fort Smith in the 50’s and early 60’s. One was in the southernmost part of town where the K-Mart store and parking lot were later built, east of the curve that ended Towson Avenue. The so-called favorite among teenagers during the early 1960’s was in the east part of town on Rogers Ave/Hwy 22 or whatever the number was back then. When going to visit a relative in Van Buren, I remember seeing a third one near the northernmost part of Midland Blvd.

Do you recall the very first movie you saw at the Temple or the Malco or a theater in another town? I was lower elementary school age when a friend of my mother’s took her nephew and me to see an animated Walt Disney movie. I remember only it was about lots of dogs.

I couldn’t find anyone in the family or among the neighbors who wanted to see two must-go movies with me. So, I slipped off on a Saturday afternoon when my mother was working and caught a bus into town and watched The Searchers with John Wayne. Also, I slipped off and went to see Bundle of Joy with Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds who were still married when the movie was made. I thought the movies were great. Both were released in 1956, but there’s no telling when they finally arrived in Fort Smith. Now, I have The Searchers on VHS but have zero interest in the other. Eventually, I had to buy a combo VCR/DVD player for the TV.

One major problem with the Temple and Malco theaters’ availability of a newly released movie was waiting and waiting for a “reel” to come in so the theaters could show it—no digital or computerized help in sending movies to theaters across the country. We had to wait our turn, and often our turn was long, long after the Oscar awards had been presented. An Oscar winner could really boost ticket sales in Fort Smith when the reel finally arrived. One boy a year ahead of us at Northside touted his theory: Hollywood sent out reels first to the biggest cities in California and New York where the most people were. Then, those western reels crept slowly eastward across the country as the eastern reels crept slowly westward. He said we were “smack dab” in the middle, so we got them last.

Here are the movie Oscar winners during our Fort Smith school years. Do you recognize any of them? Did you go to one of our downtown theaters to see any of these when they became available in our city? Did you wait to see it until it eventually arrived at the drive-ins? Or, was your first viewing via VHS tapes, a DVD, a CD, or a television network or cable station? If you haven’t seen one yet, you can probably catch it someday on the classics movie channel—even from release dates in far past decades! How many of these are in your personal library stash on any gizmo in any format?

Oscar awards were presented for “best” movies that had been officially released the prior year. For example, when we were in 1st grade, the March 1952 24th Academy Awards recognized outstanding movies released in the entire calendar year of 1951. All of these were Oscar winners and are listed by the grade we were in when the Oscar for “best of the previous year” was presented.

1st - An American in Paris

2nd -The Greatest Show on Earth

3rd - From Here to Eternity

4th - On the Waterfront

5th - Marty

6th - Around the World in 80 Days

7th - The Bridge on the River Kwai

8th - Gigi

9th - Ben-Hur

10th-The Apartment

11th-West Side Story

12th-Lawrence of Arabia

Do you recall the popular actors of our school years? Here are some of the top winners for “best” actor Oscars during our Fort Smith school days:

Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, William Holden, Marlon Brando, Ernest Borgnine, Yul Brynner, Alec Guinness, David Niven, Charlton Heston, Burt Lancaster, Gregory Peck.

What about the popular Oscar winning actresses during our school years?

Shirley Booth (yes, better known to us as maid Hazel on TV), Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Anna Magnani, Ingrid Bergman, Joanne Woodward, Susan Hayward, Simone Signoret, Liz Taylor, Sophia Loren, Anne Bancroft, Patricia Neal.

Other well-known actors and actresses didn’t win an Oscar during our school years, such as Katharine Hepburn, who won four Oscars during her long career and was nominated twelve times between 1934 and 1982. John Wayne was popular for decades but was nominated only three times and won just once (1970). Ditto for James Stewart except he was nominated five times for an Oscar while winning only once (1941).

Of course, some of the “heart throbs” and “idols” of our teen years aren’t on these lists because some of their movies were more of the beach and surf or of other teen interest that didn’t necessarily inspire Oscar voters as much as they enthralled the teenage girls.

Remember these guys? Fabian, Ricky Nelson, Bobby Darin, Frankie Avalon, Tab Hunter and yes, Elvis.

Our own favorite female stars we would have ranked high included Ann Margaret, Connie Francis, Connie Stevens, and the greatest of all, Annette Funicello, whom we admired from her beginnings on the Mickey Mouse Club and continued into her brief movie career.

The “heart throbs” and “idols” were often singers who lapsed into acting roles in movies with mixed results. Some could sing much better than they could act. But, their movies brought the teenagers to the theaters, boosted the sale of tickets, and skyrocketed the sale of popcorn.

Do you still go to movies in theaters? A man two years behind us in school and his wife still do not miss a new release that has good reviews. Then, he tells me, “Oh, it’s great! You should go see it.” Should? I think not. If I were to go to a theater after the pandemic, it would be packed. Just as the movie started, an ultra tall person would plop down right in front of me. The person on one side of me would constantly jabber and/or cough. The person on the other side of me would get up frequently and traipse over me to go for more snacks and later for pit stops. Then ask people around them after retuning, “What did I miss?” The person behind me would be a wiggler and would frequently hit the back of my chair with a foot. Remember those people?

One of the last two movies my husband and I saw together in a theater was an animated kiddie movie when we took our little boy on a Sunday afternoon. When we left the theater, my husband muttered, “That was the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen in my life.” I told him the same about the other movie. Our young son (now 46) thought both were great. That was years ago! But, I did enjoy taking him (alone) to the Muppet movies, the Walt Disney remakes, and the musical Annie. His dad enjoyed taking him (alone) through the Star Wars series.

These days, I rely on old VHS tapes and some DVDs plus movie purchases for my iPhone and computer from iTunes and now from other sites, but I have never watched a movie at home all the way through from start to finish in one sitting.

Note: In the left margin of this web site, click on “SENIOR YEAR” and scroll down for a list of movies released during our senior year at Northside High School.

May 2021 Greetings, Classmates.

When we started first grade in September 1951, the number-one songs that month were Rosemary Clooney’s “Come on-a My House” and Tony Bennett’s “Because of You”. When we graduated from high school in May 1963, top songs were Little Peggy March’s “I Will Follow Him” and Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party”. How did we evolve to that?

We started 7th grade in 1957 with Jimmie Rodgers’ “Honeycomb” and The Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Susie”. Soon, along came a guy named Elvis Presley with his “Jailhouse Rock” although radio disc jockeys were still clinging to Johnny Mathis’s “Chances Are”, which can now be interpreted as chances are that big changes are taking place!

The biggest news all 7th grade school year was Elvis Presley coming to Fort Chaffee (known as Camp Chaffee until March 21, 1956) for his famous Army haircut which occurred on March 25, 1958. We ended our junior high career of sorts in May 1960 still stuck on Elvis Presley and his 1960 “Stuck on You” which was his first hit single after his two-year stint in the Army ended and when he was touted as having 50,000,000 fans all over the world. Another hit at that time was The Everly Brothers’ “Cathy’s Clown”. We entered 10th grade at Northside High School with Chubby Checker and “The Twist” as the number one single.

The television show “Your Hit Parade” aired throughout most of the 1950’s. It was a must-watch show sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes and sang only the top ten songs of that week. YouTube has lots of options for re-visiting their shows. Some of the singers were Dorothy Collins, Gisele MacKenzie, Snooky Lanson, and several others during its run. The top hits each week in their early years included Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa” but in their later years were more of the Danny & the Juniors’ “At the Hop” genre. Supposedly, rock ’n roll contributed to the show’s demise because the show’s singers were more geared to the ballads that the older watchers liked, but it was teenagers who were buying the most records that took over the Top 10 hits. I guess Snooky Lanson singing an Elvis song didn’t appeal to teens and didn’t appeal to older adults who didn’t like rock ’n roll. It was a “no win” situation for the show. Bring on Dick Clark for the younger group and Lawrence Welk for the older group so everyone could be happy.

Somebody somewhere invented a new dance for each stage of new style songs. At our junior high sock hops, the rock ’n roll dance was the craze. Do you remember the steps? For a while (probably when we were in junior high) our local television station aired a show live each Saturday afternoon with teenagers doing these new steps. Were you ever on that show? (Hey, Marsha?) Can you remember the foot work involved in the rock ’n roll dances? It’s trying to come to my mind as my feet start moving side, back, forward, side step the opposite way, back with opposite foot, etc. Help me out here! My Mother wouldn’t allow me to attend the sock hops, and I missed out on our junior high most popular events.

By the way, who thought up the term “sock hop”? Simply stated in a condensed form, the term actually started before we were born when the American Junior Red Cross raised funds during the World War of the 1940’s. The sock part was because the dances were usually held in the gymnasium or cafeteria of a school, and dancers had to remove their shoes to protect the floor. (The teens didn’t run around in Nike type shoes back then, and those two-toned Oxford shoes were not very flexible.) The “hop” later was associated with the various dances invented to match new styles of moving to whatever music was popular at the time. Yes, teens sometimes were slipping and sliding, so the “sock hop” moniker changed to “dance” which meant—keep your shoes on!

And talk of feet still moving these years later! My number one song of my junior high era was “Little Darlin’” sung by The Diamonds in 1957. One of their videos on YouTube is with the group as older men and having fun. The current video is called “The Diamonds - Little Darlin’ (Live in Pittsburg)” and includes Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs (who wrote the song, plus his own backup singers join in at the end.) A better quality of the same performance isn’t always available, but I hope it will be posted again. Their videos such as “Little Darling—The Diamonds 1957 & 2004” and “The Diamonds Little Darlin’ Live on PBS” come and go on You Tube. Check again sometime if you don’t find a good quality or the one that includes Maurice Williams at the end. The videos seem to re-appear. I dare you to turn up your volume while watching any of the “Little Darlin’ videos and even try to keep your feet still. Also, be forewarned that the song might keep playing in your brain for a while.

During the early 1960’s I went through an Alvin & the Chipmunks stage, thanks to my oldest nephew who was a toddler and who liked them so much. Actually, I liked them, too, but he gave me an excuse to buy their records and play them. My ancient record player “gave out” finally. So, what was I going to do with all those old LP’s and 45’s from my youth, throw them away? Of course not—I bought a “nostalgia” record player, and now it is ailing, too. So, I’m shipping the albums to the toddler nephew who is now in his early 60’s in age and also in 60’s era music.

I told this same nephew I was writing about the music of my Northside years and asked if he had any suggestions. Yes, he did. The following is what he quickly wrote:

1962 was a hugely important year in music and it gets no credit because the big things happened in 1963 and 1964. Bob Dylan released his first record in 1962. And no one noticed. Then he released Blowin’ in the Wind six months later and that changed everything. In 1962, John, Paul and George hired Ringo. And the rest is history. Also in 1962, a band called the Rollin’ Stones toured the UK for the first time and were locally more popular than The Beatles. Aretha Franklin released her second album that launched her career. Ray Charles released his first country and western records and it turned into the first crossover mega hit and paved the way for many more to do the same. Carole King had her first song writing hit with Loco-Motion sung by Little Eva. Carole went on to become the most successful female song writer from 1962 into the 2000’s. Good stuff was going on that would change music and culture.

End of the nephew’s input. Amazing how different his age group opinions vary from our own. He was born soon after we started 9th grade in 1959. Our own age group prior to 1959 has different memories and likes and dislikes. Yes, that the 1962-1963 school year was indeed a pivotal time for music is a clear cut agreement—for the great to come for his group but the end of the great for some others.

My former boss in the corporate office in southwest New York state and his wife are a year or so older than we are. They preferred the music of the late fifties. He wrote that the worst day was when Buddy Holly died and then everything “went south” when the Beatles showed up. He, too, just as many of us do, has a huge collection of 33-1/3 LPs, cassette tapes, and CD’s of the music they want to hear, including his later find of old style bluegrass, one of my favorites. I am very thankful for YouTube where I can find what I want to hear and I can clear out my stash of LPs now by dumping it all on the welcoming nephew lest it merely be thrown away some day. People who are young now would dislike my records just as I disliked my oldest brother’s (born 1933) collection of Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, Andrews Sisters who were very popular during the 1930’s and 1940’s.

In the left margin, select the next to last tab “Senior Year” that I created when Cissy was setting up this web site before our 50th reunion. I included a list of some Billboard #1 hits during our 1962-63 school year. Also, scroll down to the “News then, history now” section of “Senior Year” to note my mentions of the Beatles: Sept ’62 Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best; Oct ’62 Beatles released their first record “Love Me Do”; Mar ’63 Beatles released first album “Please Please Me”.

I just now accessed Billboard’s top songs this week. Oh, please! I didn’t last more than ten seconds when watching brief snippets of those “songs” and “performers”. Never heard of the “singers” or their “songs”. Statler Brothers, Charley Pride, Elvis, even Lawrence Welk, where are you? YouTube, here I come.

Let’s revisit my cracked crystal ball which predicted major success for K-Mart over Walmart in the July 2020 greetings. During my freshman year of college (1963-1964) at Fort Smith Junior College, I met a part-time student who was a nighttime radio disc jockey and who played the popular records of that era. While I was listening to his radio program one night, he said he was going to play a song sung by a British foursome who had taken England by storm. He said this song had hit New York City and was immensely popular there. He predicted this song and this group would become very popular all across the USA. I listened to the record and was appalled! I told him the next day at school the group with the bad name they called themselves couldn’t sing and the song was terrible. He smiled as he disagreed, but he didn’t say much. I didn’t convince him of this sure flop. Hmmmm, what was the name of that group and that song? The cockroaches? The grasshoppers? No, the Beatles, and the song was “I Want to Hold Your Hand” known also as “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”. Go to Wikipedia on the internet if you are interested in the formation of the Beatles, the various members coming in and going out and eventually finalizing with the foursome we knew plus why and who finally settled on their name “Beatles” and that particular spelling. There was a Buddy Holley and the Crickets influence combined with a new type of music when making those decisions.

From the World War I songs and then the Roaring Twenties and all the way to this 2021 year, each generation for over a century has styled its own kind of music. What’s next, pray tell!

April 2021 greetings, Classmates. This is the month most likely to have the Easter holiday, which is always between March 22 and April 25. The Easter Bunny has been around for a long, long time—probably over 500 years. He has been known by different names over the decades and centuries and in various countries, but I knew him best in my childhood as just Peter Cottontail, thanks to Gene Autry’s 1950 popular record. Legends created him from a variety of sources. I’m no Wikipedia, so I’ll just say he brought us kids a fun time when we were preschool and in elementary school and again after we grew up and had kids of our own.

Thanks to Irving Berlin for the title song for the 1948 musical film “Easter Parade” with Fred Astaire and Judy Garland, the Easter bonnet became popular. During my childhood, the bonnet even became a semi-required fashion statement for Easter Sunday church services. I noticed, too, that if a girl or a lady was to get one new fancy dress a year, it most likely was for Easter Sunday. Of course, it was co-ordinated with the new hat, or sometimes vice versa.

Get out the Crayola crayons again in elementary school! I never figured out how to color an Easter Bunny, but I had the eggs down pat. By 6th grade, one girl, Karen, really got fancy with hers in multi colors and designs. Then, we all started trying to do that, too. We wound up with some wild looking Easter eggs which then became a silliness competition among us.

At home, I never had good luck with dyeing eggs in anything but one color at a time, even when I was an adult. The first Easter after my husband and I married, I bought eggs and a coloring kit. My husband exclaimed, “WHY? We don’t have any kids!” I told him I was doing it because it’s still Easter, kids or not. (Well, like he had said, this was going to be a long haul.)

This tradition was ingrained in me because our elementary school had a big event every year. We walked almost a mile from the school to a local dairy. The owner gave us a tour and showed us how the machines milked the cows. At the end of his annual speech, he then offered each of us our choice of a little carton of milk or of orange juice which was a sideline product. We were cut loose from the milking barn and ran out to the big pasture. Older kids had been there beforehand and hid seemingly zillions of eggs, and we were supposed to go find them. Great fun! Great years! Mother Nature never dared rain on our special Easter Egg hunt.

One boy at school announced to the rest of us that there is NO Easter Bunny! He had the audacity to tell us it was just parents who put out those baskets by our beds on Easter morning, and he thought the whole thing was stupid! He didn’t make any converts, probably because we didn’t want to risk not getting all that candy. However, he told his mother his theory and was adamant that she not treat him like a baby and put that stuff out for him. So, she didn’t, and he thought he was the smartest kid around until he ate Easter dinner at his Grandma’s house and all his little cousins had fancy baskets filled with small toys and lots of candy. That was his first hint that he might have messed up.

The next school day, first order of business was for each student to stand in front of the class and tell what the Easter Bunny brought them. DUH! The other kids told what they got, and some gave a long list of items. He stood up there with woe in his heart and had to say, “I didn’t get anything.” Who’s the smarty now, Kid? Don’t you know that the purpose of such antics is often more for the parents having great fun and in the process we get stuff? Play their game!”

Now, we revisit our December WhoDunIt:

“Here comes stupid cottontail, hopping down the stupid trail;

Hippity Hoppity—OOPS! Here comes Santa Claus!”

The boy (an only child) then applied his learning experience to Santa Claus. To make a long story super short, he pretended to believe in Santa Claus through his senior year in college!

I have a question: During our twelve years in the Fort Smith school district, did we ever have a week-long Spring break? I remember in elementary school we were out for Good Friday and for the Monday following Easter. When did the Fort Smith schools start having a week off called a Spring Break and not associated with Easter? For Thanksgiving in 2020, the Fort Smith school calendar showed their pre-pandemic plan to be closed all week, but I think we were off only two days. Are the schools closed longer for Christmas break now (two full weeks pre-pandemic plan for 2020) than when we were students? We used the break for writing term papers and studying for semester tests. Now, the schools end the semester just before their “Winter” break. Are such closures and changes the reason schools usually start in August now (planned for August 13th in 2020) instead of right after Labor Day?

I have written the monthly greetings pages since May 2000 (a full year) and would love to read YOUR memories for a change. Any volunteers? Even one month would be welcome! Even one paragraph would be welcome if you don’t want to write a full one. I have written and have at least started several additional greetings pages for the future if needed, and I could easily insert your one or two or more paragraphs in an upcoming greeting and give you credit for your contribution. Future topics I have already started include our music and its changes throughout our school years from first grade to graduation, our school playgrounds, games we used to play outside or inside on rainy days, sports games such as baseball or track we played in elementary school against other schools, our school-related trips whether local or afar during any grade level. Think about your years in the Fort Smith school system and your growing up years in Fort Smith and share your thoughts with us on any topic you choose, whether the topic is listed above or not. Volunteer or contribute by writing to me via the Contact Us tab in the left margin. I cannot access your messages on the NHS ’63 Facebook page. Also, please continue to send me your confessions and your tattles for our WhoDunIt section.

March 2021 greetings, Classmates. Since the temperatures are ordinarily on the rise this time of year, this means little leaves will soon be popping out and our drab winter landscape will “spring forth” in greenery. It means also that bugs, insects, lizards and other critters will soon be making their appearances in abundance unless they didn’t dig down deep enough and froze during the extraordinary winter storm in some of our states that usually have milder winters than we just experienced.

We were taught at an early age to leave crawling things alone. We didn’t always heed the advice. Some of us actually liked certain types of critters. Did you ever start a bug collection? Lady bugs were pretty. Lightning bugs and grasshoppers were fun. Caterpillars were amazing to watch creep along, especially because we knew they would mature into beautiful butterflies if we left them alone. Cockroaches are terrible and don’t deserve a collection. Whatever we saved in glass jars with holes poked in the lids didn’t survive long and even less if our parents saw our collection inside the house. In my olden years, I like my “pet” lizards that live in the flower beds in front of my house. They are good zappers of crawling critters. I hope they survived the cold.

If you did have a bug collection, I would like to hear about it. How did you preserve them? How did you identify them? How did you hide them so your parents wouldn’t freak out? If you had a spider collection, please spare me the details. Ditto for snakes!

Then there are ants—big, little, almost invisible, fiery, hard workers, and a variety of colors. I never had an ant farm but think they would be interesting to watch as long as they are behind glass. They aren’t so fun in my kitchen or in mounds in my yard. I have been bitten/stung by different types in both those areas in recent years. Fire ants are properly named. I spent 2017 Christmas Eve night soaking my hands in very warm Epsom Salts water. Was that your family’s cure-all, too, for whatever bit you, stung you, or stuck in your foot or hand? I thought it was an old-wives’-tale that it “draws the poison out”, but it somehow does give pain relief for a while.

I eventually found out that science wasn’t just about bugs and insects—whether crawling or flying critters or mean bacteria that made us sick and that required a shot at a doctor’s office. I had the impression that all bacteria were bad. Let’s compare our 1950’s to early 1960’s school science options with those available in Fort Smith now. First, let’s reminisce about ours.

Unlike the norm today for science curriculum in the lower grades, my elementary school first and second grades had no regular science lessons except to brush our teeth twice a day and to tell our parents if anything was crawling around in our hair. Instead of science, it was called Health. Our library was a small bookcase of two shelves of books and included one science related book. It was about stars, planets, and the moon. I wonder how much they knew about the moon back then, especially since the copyright date was probably before we were born. I’m not sure when I finally learned that the sun doesn’t move—it was the earth and me that did the twirling and orbiting. That was scary! I didn’t feel like I was moving. I was always right side up. I thought only the people in China had to live upside down. After I learned how this universe operates, a man at church asked a group of kids before Thanksgiving what we were thankful for. I blurted out, “Gravity!”

I complained to Mother because she never let me check out children’s science books at Carnegie Library. She said (and I quote), “Science is for boys.” Actually, she kept saying this throughout my college years. I took an upper level college course in human physiology and became a self-proclaimed expert on blood coagulation after a cut. When I came home for college break, she told me all I needed to know was to put some of that stinging red stuff on it plus a bandaid.

A bookmobile used to come to our elementary school occasionally and lend us books of the teacher’s choice that supplemented the boring Dick and Jane reading books. I don’t remember one, but perhaps she included a science book once in a while. The “bookmobile lady” provided us in first grade with our one and only live science demonstration (of sorts) that year. Her hand and wrist were swollen and well bandaged from a spider bite. Our teacher gave us such terse warnings while holding up the lady’s hand for all to see that it instilled in me an intense fear of each and every spider I encountered until I was in my 30’s.

This fear was revived in recent years during an encounter on a closet floor where I was sitting. The nursery rhyme (or Mother Goose rhyme) about Little Miss Muffet now has a second verse. The new title is “Little Miss Muffet was Lucky”.

Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey;

Along came a spider who sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away.

Wobbly old Flo sat down with a plop, cleaning her closet floor dump.

Along came a spider who crept up beside her and bit old Miss Flo on her rump.

Actually, it bit me twice. The photo of its damage makes readers go, “Ewwww!” I will spare you. Yes, I grabbed a glass jar with a lid without holes in the top and saved it in case I became ill. It didn’t move. It either suffocated or had poisoned itself by biting into me.

Our late 1950’s junior high 9th grade science class talked about critters and helped identify them from pictures and drawings only. These lessons included the warning about stings and bites, and especially from spiders. Mr. Gene Maddox at Ramsey even told us the value of certain spiders that kill other bugs and insects. Before his 9th grade class, I didn’t know there was value in any of them. I liked Mr. Maddox very much, but I still was not convinced.

Last year, I saw a huge colorful spider in a bush near my front door. It was weaving an orb-like spiral web, and I freaked out. I took a picture of it and then sprayed it until it shriveled. I sent the picture to two people. Both of them texted me back and said I shouldn’t have killed it. They were right per a web site I accessed. It kills many bugs and insects. It seldom bites people. “Seldom”? If chances are one in a million, who wants to be that 1? It would feel like a bee sting for a couple of hours (or possibly require an ambulance ride to the hospital with a heart attack in my case.)

The science classes available to us during our years in the Fort Smith school system were the standard for the times: a mention here and there, mostly as Health, in elementary school in the early 1950’s, a couple of general science courses (and one alternated with art) in junior high in the late 1950’s, plus several options in senior high in the early 1960’s, including Coach Thompson’s 10th grade Biology, Mr Grace’s two years of Chemistry, and I can’t remember the Physics teacher’s name or the other science courses. But, these days, the school district has a course catalog (such as we had in college) for options in all their high school offerings. Per the current 2020-2021 course catalog, Northside has thirteen (yes, 13) science classes available including some that are advanced placement. Southside High School has an additional course called “Oceanography”. You can see the options for science courses on page 35 of the current course catalog on the district web site. The chart is followed by details of each class. Very impressive!

Would you have taken a course in oceanography? It depends. If the lab work included jumping off a ship in the ocean and looking around, forget it. On the internet, National Geographic explains the sciences (in the plural) that are involved in such a study. It is rather complex, and as I was reading about it, I quickly got in over my head, no pun intended. In our day, I would consider such a course to have been offered in upper class college or graduate school. Now, it’s in the Fort Smith school system at Southside High School! Fort Smith has come a long way since our 5th and 6th grade greenish aquarium.

The course catalog I mentioned includes all choices of all subjects offered by the high schools. I thought we had a good high school education in the early 60’s until I looked at this chart. Today’s students benefit from all the research, discoveries, medicines, and inventions during the past 57 years. And I bet every first grader knows that the sun doesn’t circle around us.

Elementary schools today have bonafide science classes but are altered somewhat during this period of virtual learning. Same is true for the junior highs. We will have to revisit those levels of science classes when school attendance and course work are the norm again after the pandemic. The same is true of the junior highs. Of course, by the time school activity gets back to normal, the grade levels probably will have changed and so will the science opportunities. This will be the result of construction finally being completed and the grade levels will have changed for elementary (PK-5), junior high (6-8), and high school (9-12). The staff at the administration building have a lot of work ahead of them to make these science curriculum changes.

Remember the stinky rotten egg odor of the second floor of the east side of the main building at Northside? Yes, lab experiments were taking place in Chemistry, and the rotten egg smell was the result of one of the experiments. There were others. A list of “9 worst lab smells” explains these on the internet. Most of these odors stick to you—hair, clothing, olfactory system—even after bathing. I wonder how the schools handle such lab activity during the pandemic virtual learning. A lot of education is being lost when not participating in person at the lab, whether chemistry or the other science courses. However, when Coach Thompson circled us 10th graders around his huge work desk while he dissected something, was that really a cow’s eyeball? He said it was. It stunk! It looked gooey! It was gross! I didn’t need that demonstration in person or virtual.

In an upcoming greetings page, we will compare technology learning options in today’s schools as compared to the 50’s and 60’s in our computer-less life plus our ventures in being late-comers in learning what some kids now learn in kindergarten about computers. My first experience with computers was with my then second grade son’s Commodore computer—and HE taught ME. Now, he tries to teach me the new update features of smart phones. Does anyone still have an old black phone with a dialing wheel? Stay tuned for more ego-bursting jaw-dropping learning opportunities of this current era’s education system. “Et tu, Brutus?” no longer qualifies us as a speaker of the Latin language.

Who Dun It? Actually, there’s a good side to going on a backyard safari to collect critters. It could give us something to do other than implementing a dumb idea and getting ourselves in trouble. A boy who was one of our classmates was alone on his Fort Smith elementary school - DuVal -playground one boring evening. He decided to see if he could throw a rock high enough and hard enough and far enough over the top of the two-story school building so it would land on the other side. Well, that rock wasn’t thrown high enough to go over the school but it was thrown hard enough to burst through a closed window on the second floor. The boy was certain no one saw him do this, and he didn’t tell anyone. However, as soon as he arrived at school the next morning, he was summoned to the principal’s office about that broken window. He was amazed they knew it was him! (I wasn’t told what transpired in the principal’s office or later at home if/when his parents found out.) Decades later, his wife said to him, “What amazes me about that story is that you didn’t keep throwing rocks until one finally DID go over!” He replied, "I would have if it hadn't been the window of my own classroom that I broke!" Who dun it?

…….Contributed by his wife

Happy Valentine’s Day 2021, Classmates! Remember what a big deal this was in elementary school? Bring out the crayons again along with construction paper and glue or paste and the rounded-end scissors that couldn’t cut us, our classmates, or much else—often the beginning of a big mess, but we didn’t care. We cut out construction paper to make a pouch or to cover a box or decorate a small brown paper sack for all the cards we hoped to receive in them. Of course, we had to add our first name one way or another. Fortunately, my name was short, and I had plenty of room to make my name really “can’t miss” big.

Drug stores and Kress, McCrory’s, and Woolworth stores sold large packs quite cheap—the cheaper the better for our limited budgets. Quality didn’t count—quantity did! And, we counted in another way, also. We wanted our containers full! We knew how many students were in the classroom, and we expected our received valentine number to match. At the end of the school day, we took them home and looked at them one by one. Who knows what eventually happened to them. How long did we save them? You wouldn’t happen to have any stashed away in a trunk in the attic, would you? Not even a “special” one at the time but would make you laugh now?

Until I saw some in a magazine just now, I had forgotten about the tiny candy hearts in different pastel colors that had words or short expressions stamped on them such as “Be Mine” or….I don’t remember. What else did those slightly flavored chalky hearts say on them? They came in little boxes and were popular at elementary schools but were better to look at than to eat. As much as we all handled them, it was probably best that they weren’t good to eat.

By the time we entered junior high, we were too old for such childish activity. If we did receive a valentine from the opposite gender, it was a significant moment for us whether it was intended to be or merely what we hoped it was intended to be. We were thrilled with chocolates in a heart-shaped box. Once we were in high school, we probably preferred jewelry.

Kids can become quite ingenious when trying to impress a classmate of the opposite sex on Valentine’s Day. I know for a fact that a boy at my elementary school tried to out-do all his competition by giving a girl roses—not one, not a dozen, but a WHOLE rose bush, roots and all. He delivered it in a big bucket to the girl’s house on his way to school. He was in tremendous trouble with his mother when she discovered her front yard rose bush was missing and only a hole in the ground remained with clumps of dirt scattered around it.

Many, many years ago (before our time), a young orphaned boy moved in with his grandparents and entered one of our elementary schools. A little girl named Mary in the class immediately caught his eye. She ignored him, but another girl in the class swooned over him. He ignored her just as Mary was ignoring him. Valentine’s Day was coming up, but he had no money with which to buy a card for anyone. The other girl gave him a small folded card that was store-bought and quite elegant. On the back, she wrote “To” followed by his full name and “From” followed by her full name. This didn’t sway him toward her, but he had an idea. After school, he borrowed an eraser and tried to erase the “To”, left his name intact, and tried to erase both the “From” and the other girl’s name. (He was almost successful in this erasure attempt, but under a good light and with your strongest Walgreens reading glasses and a magnifying glass, a snoop can still decipher it.) He then walked at least two miles to Mary’s house and gave her the card. He moved away but didn’t forget Mary. He continued to woo Mary whenever he was visiting relatives in Fort Smith. After about ten years, she realized he wasn’t ever going away completely and leaving her alone, so she married him. She saved that old vintage card for the rest of her life and their many years of marriage. His was puppy love that lasted!

Hmmmm…..Is there a puppy love story among our classmates that lasted from elementary school through high school graduation and now many years of marriage? I can think of one couple still in Fort Smith who probably fit in this category. Can you?

I married on February 19, five days after Valentine’s Day. Bad timing! That’s like being born on or near Christmas Day. Every gift is dual coverage. My husband claims he planned ahead that our anniversaries forevermore would fall in the same week as Valentine’s Day because it would be less expensive over the long haul. Makes me wonder where we’ll celebrate our golden wedding anniversary this month—a candlelight lobster dinner at an elegant restaurant or the Friday night special at the local Sonic Drive-in. With this ongoing pandemic, it probably will be the latter or perhaps carry-out pizza. No shindig for us! Bah Humbug to this pandemic!

Where’s the boy with the rose bush now? If he’s reading this, I want him to know that was a sweet, though not very bright, idea and I’m really sorry about the wrath he caught from his mom.

WhoDunIt:

First date was their last date, for sure! Two 6th grade boys invited two 6th grade girls to a movie on a Saturday afternoon. They met at the bus stop, and the boys paid the dime fare for the rides to downtown Fort Smith, the movie tickets, and all the popcorn, etc. The girls thought this was grand—boys with money in their pockets. After the movie, they stopped in Kress’ new expanded soda fountain area with booths to wait for the next bus and ordered whatever the girls wanted. Big spenders! After they ate and the waitress brought the bill, OOPS! The boys didn’t have enough money, and the girls didn’t have any at all. No, they didn’t skip out or have to wash dishes. The mother of one of the girls worked nearby, and the girl left the deer-in-the-headlight kids and rushed for her Mom who thought this situation was a hoot and came and paid the entire bill for all, which embarrassed the boys even more. It was a quiet ride home on the bus with the boys together on one seat far away from the two girls on one seat. Who dun it?

……..Confessed by one of the silly girls

Happy New Year, Classmates! When we replaced our 1962 calendar with a new one, it finally showed in big numbers across the top 1963—the year we had been anticipating for almost two-thirds of our life! It was time to order graduation announcements, caps and gowns. But, there was a lot of work to do over the next few months to make our dream a reality. Our first semester didn’t end until later in January—semester tests ahead of us, research paper to write, a few more sentences to try to diagram, then more semester tests in May! This wasn’t going to be a downhill slide. I feared someone might have thought up a new math function and announced it as a required course for graduating seniors and that I had somehow overlooked.

Otherwise, January sometimes seemed like a rather dull month after all the Christmas holiday hoopla was over and the decorations were put away. The outside looked bleak and barren as well and often was very cold. One weather event that could perk us up was snow. One of my greatest joys was waking up to the radio announcing “NO SCHOOL TODAY” because of snow accumulation. It wasn’t because I wanted to go outside and build a snowman (per Mother, might catch a cold or if I already had a cold, then per Mother, would turn into pneumonia.) I just liked to miss the daily grind of a school day without the Campbell's chicken noodle soup and green jello diet that I have mentioned before as Mother’s combo cure for all diseases.

January was the most likely month to miss school because of snow. For example, we welcomed 6.3 inches of snow in January 1954 when we were in 3rd grade. In January 1955 (4th grade) we had 5.5 inches. We hit the snow jackpot the first three months of 1960 (9th grade) with over 17 inches. In January 1962 (11th grade) we had 3.9 inches and only traces for the rest of our Fort Smith school life.

So, as we sat at home on our free “off days” what could we do? Two things quickly come to mind. One was watching TV, but what could we watch on TV in January? During its early years, the local channel didn’t start programming until 11 am with the “Love of Life” soap opera, played the national anthem as a sign-off around midnight, and in between aired only the station’s choice of programs from that era’s three networks. Remember the second extra high antenna some lucky kids had on their houses so they could pick up the Muskogee TV station for extra program choices, including The Mickey Mouse Club weekday afternoons? Those were popular houses in the neighborhood.

However, a big event was televised on January 20, 1953, when we were in second grade. Dwight D. Eisenhower was inaugurated as this country’s 34th President. Our teacher marched us several houses down the street to a first grade girls’s home with a tall antenna, and we sat on the floor in front of the TV set (a large piece of furniture with a small screen that made everything look various shades of gray) and watched….ummm, watched what? I don’t remember. I guess we saw the swearing in ceremony and perhaps his speech. I doubt we could sit still much longer than that. I was so enthralled with our having a new President that I decided to keep an Eisenhower scrapbook of all articles I saw in the newspaper. I cut them out for about two weeks and then gave up. It was obvious that multiple articles would be written about him every single day. Good news! Later in this greetings I will tell you how those same newspapers will soon be available on your computers. No scrapbook needed!

In January 1963, NBC began airing “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom”. Johnny Carson took over the Tonight Show during the first semester of our senior year, and future late night talk show host Conan O’Brien was born during our second semester.

Could we watch college football playoffs? No, national champions were named before the end of December before the four major New Years Day bowl games. Outcome of the bowl games did NOT have an impact on the already-declared national rankings. That meant if the #1 team played the #2 team in a major bowl game and #2 won, the losing team would still be #1. (Try that on a Razorback fan if this scenario had ever occurred and they were the #2 team!)

What about the Super Bowl? We didn’t have one until 1967. Pro football teams were ranked at the end of December except for occasional playoff games such as in January 1963 for 3rd and 4th place. NHL hockey? The league’s total of only six teams (2 in Canada and 4 in the USA) in 1962-63 were not widely televised in our part of the country, if at all. During baseball seasons we had to follow our beloved St. Louis Cardinals on KWHN radio. Harry Caray taught me most of what I know about baseball. (And Tim McCarver is still cute.) Now we just want ALL our sports back on our TV and with fans packed in the stadium.

By the way, when was the first time you watched TV in color instead of the gray on gray? A store on Rogers across from the back doors of Hunts and Kress had a new-fangled set on display in a curtained room. I stood there and watched part of the Perry Como show on a Saturday night. I was probably in the 6th grade. It was a long time before we had a color TV at home. Long time before cable with multi channels became available to our area and budgets, too.

The second activity that comes to mind for a snowy day (or a pandemic day) is reading a good book. But, where did we get our books? My elementary school didn’t have a library, I vaguely recall Ramsey’s and know nothing about Darby’s, but I do remember the one in high school. The Northside library was geared appropriately for high school level. It would be great if some of you would write your memories of the Northside library and, if possible, compare it to the school’s current library or to the one you visited during the 50th reunion in 2013. Email your memories to me, and I will include them in a future greetings page.

My prominent library during the years I lived in Fort Smith was Carnegie Library. How and when was it established and why was it called Carnegie? Ironically, this leads us to another January weather event.

January 11, 1898, was a warmer than usual day for that part of the country. Around midnight, a tornado hit Fort Smith, killed 55 people, injured hundreds, and heavily damaged many buildings and homes, including the former home of Judge Isaac Parker and the newly built high school, both near downtown. It is still the second deadliest tornado on record for the entire state of Arkansas, but at least one source lists it as tied for first place. Do you know what happened to the land where Judge Parker’s house had been?

Before his death in 1895, Judge Parker resided in a house on North 13th St located just north of the far east end of Garrison Avenue, a few blocks from the Catholic church building. The church was merely an 1867 white frame building before being hit by the tornado, and it was then rebuilt in red brick and cut-stone and completed by early summer 1899. It is the one that still can be seen straight ahead all the way from the far west end of Garrison Ave. Meanwhile, the Judge’s land was cleared and was vacant.

Judge Parker’s widow eventually sold three lots where their house had stood for a total of $4,750 to a library-planning committee. The brand new Carnegie City Library in Fort Smith was commissioned by a $25,000 grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation in 1906, and the cornerstone was set in place in March 1907. Opening day was January 1, 1908, and the dedication day was January 30, 1908. The design was similar to the 1902 Carnegie Library in Guthrie, Oklahoma. The final cost of Carnegie library in Fort Smith, including the land and books, was $37,933 and opened with 3,200 books. The head librarian was paid $500 a year, and her assistant was paid $400 a year. It wasn’t the first library effort in town but was by far the grandest at the time.

Oh, how I loved that building, inside and outside even with its strange fragrance/odor/stink, depending on your own detection and description. My favorite room was on the south end—the kids’ room with little tables where we could sit and peruse the books. This was an oasis for me because I had one book at home. (Yes, I still have it.) When I was a freshman at FSJC and taking a course in juvenile literature, I had the perfect excuse to return to that room often and spend more time sitting at those little tables and reading the books.

Soon after we graduated from NHS, the city realized the need for a larger library with all new construction, and a modern style was built several years later at a different location—actually, two new locations and buildings since Carnegie plus three branches now. The Carnegie name did not follow the moves to the new buildings known now as the Fort Smith Public Library. The first move was to South 8th St in 1970. The second move was to an “architecturally stunning” building (and now considered quite a landmark itself) on Rogers Ave at Free Ferry in 2001. I did see the outside of this library in 2009, and I was impressed. This is the area of the old “Y” drive-in eatery that was popular with teens when we were students at NHS. (Remember the best fries in town because of the seasoning they sprinkled on them?)

What eventually happened to our old Carnegie Library building? During my last visit to Fort Smith in 2009, I wanted to show it to my husband but didn’t recognize it as we drove by. I thought at the time it had been torn down. I was very disappointed. However, for close to 50 years the greatly remodeled building was
used by a TV station for their headquarters and studio. The building was still standing, but I didn’t recognize it because it doesn’t look the same from the outside. What is its current use and future fate?

The usefulness of the Fort Smith library system continues even more so than ever. Long ago, I heard variations of “When in doubt, ask a librarian.” This old saying still rings true. Thanks to helpful information from Jennifer Goodson, Library Director, I now know for sure that the Carnegie building does still exist and the TV station still owns it, although it is no longer their primary location. Whatever the station’s future plans are for the building, I am anxiously awaiting the next chapter in the history of that dear old building’s future. (Please don’t tear it down.)

For more information on Carnegie Library and the current libraries in Fort Smith, Ms Goodson suggests
https://www.fortsmithlibrary.org/about-the-library/about-us/fspl-history. That’s an excellent site!

In the mid 1990’s, my California cousin flew to Fort Smith to visit relatives and went to the library to do genealogy research. I was amazed by all he found! I think the records were on microfilm at that time, and he sent copies to me. Ms Goodson gave me great news I want to share with you because some of you have said you are interested in genealogy and local history. The library is in the process of converting their old issues of Fort Smith newspapers from microfilmed to digitized and then uploading to
http://fortsmithlibrary.advantage-preservation.com/.
At this time, the years 1848-1938 and 2012-2019 are available, and the library plans to add more in the future. What a great service for all genealogy and history buffs, especially for those of us who live far away or who threw away our scrapbooks. A contact tab is included if you need assistance.

The same scenario as my searching for but not recognizing the Carnegie building applies to many of the buildings on Garrison Avenue, the downtown of our childhood and teen years. If you moved away after high school or college and if you haven’t been back recently, take a tour of that area on Google “street view” maps on your computers. The most recent views shown right now are from August 2019. About the only building I recognize is the large 1899 church building at the far east end! What are in those buildings now that used to house Kress, Woolworths, McCrory’s, Hunt’s, Boston Store, Tilles, Sears, and others we frequented? For many buildings, “what is it now?” is more of a “where is it now?”

I suppose some of us will feel the same way about the Northside High School building after the updating and expansion construction is complete. If the construction crews remove bricks, they shouldn’t merely haul them away. The PTA or a school club or class could sell them to alumni to benefit their programs. Would you buy a brick that had been part of Northside High School? I would. I would buy one from Carnegie Library, too—even a small chunk of concrete to add to my collection from a couple of other special places in Fort Smith.

So, there’s your January weather report, some ideas for a snowy or pandemic day, a history lesson, a little geography thrown in the mix, current events and, as usual, a few unsolicited editorial opinions.

Now it’s time to say good bye (and good riddance) to the year 2020. Let’s hope and pray that the year 2021 is a happier, healthier, and safer one than 2020.

Who Dun It? Just how bad and to what great lengths and lies will a kid go in order to miss a day of school? A scheme might backfire! An elementary school girl (a ’63 classmate of ours from 1st grade Ballman through 12th grade NHS) was aware that an outbreak of chicken pox was keeping lots of her classmates home. Every morning, she looked at her belly and hoped she had spots, too, so she could stay home. Finally, she saw one tiny light red dot and summoned her mother. The girl was an only child and was her mother’s only experience with children and their diseases (and their little games.) The mother decided to play it safe and kept the girl home. Oh, how smug the girl felt about outsmarting her mother like this! However, by noon that one little pale red dot had burst forth into a multitude of—chicken pox, and she was so sick and miserable that she believed God was punishing her for telling such lies! She never feigned illness again because she was afraid she would wind up with whatever illness she was faking! Who dun it?
……. Contributed by an anonymous tattler who found out about this many years later when they were in college and who hopes that girl reads this!

I don’t have a Facebook account and can’t access the NHS ’63 Facebook page. My email address is in the “Contact Us” section in the left margin of this web site.

December 2020 greetings, Classmates. Unlike our Christmas seasons now that might start as soon as we finish handing out Halloween candy to trick-or-treaters (if there will ever again be such an event), when I was a child the Christmas season didn’t begin until we came to the day on the December calendar that had two numbers side by side and the first of the two numbers was a “2”. That’s probably because our thirsty tree was always more of a scrawny bush that somewhat resembled a tree and that my brother found in a nearby pasture. Give it a week and there were more leaves on the floor than on the bush. No wonder Mother gave up and bought one of those shiny silver aluminum trees that became popular when I was in junior high. Did you have one of those or did your family prefer the fuzzy pink or the light blue?

The downtown Fort Smith parade during my early years was usually the last Saturday before Christmas Eve. This was a must-go event, partly because attending was the only method of viewing it. The one local TV station wasn’t capable of televising it, and no network expressed interest in coming to town for our parade. Does anyone remember anything about the floats or bands or other entries? I just remember that I enjoyed it every year and that Santa Claus ended the parade. Then, I headed to my beloved Kress dime store to do my Christmas shopping.

When in elementary school, did you have a favorite store for your Christmas shopping? Did you ever buy for your teachers? Did your classrooms have a name-drawing event, separate for boys and for girls? Or, at your school did girls merely buy for GIRL (on the name tag) and did boys buy for BOY and with a price limit of 50 cents max (or less)? I recall a lot of Old Maid cards were exchanged. I remember a fifth grade boy complained that he received a new deck of Old Maid cards every year!

For my own wish list for Christmas morning, I relied primarily on the “Sears Roebuck” annual Christmas toy catalog. Many of us were born in 1944 when Army toys were the rage or in 1945 when the most popular toy was a Slinky. Must-have toys while we were in elementary school included the 1951 (Christmas 1st grade) View Master (especially with slides of Walt Disney characters); the 1952 (Christmas 2nd grade) Mr. Potato Head; the 1953 (3rd grade) Whiffle Ball; the 1954 (4th grade) pistol sets with air noise or caps; the 1955 (5th grade) Betsy Wetsy doll; the 1956 (6th grade) Play-Doh. Other popular Christmas “wants” in the 1950’s included Silly Putty, Colorforms, and then along came the Barbie dolls, Pogo sticks, the Hula Hoop craze. Eventually, everyone just had to have a transistor radio, 45 rpm records, and, of course, a record player—truly a status symbol. Charm bracelets were popular for girls at Darby, Ramsey, and Northside, and new charms for these bracelets were always a welcome gift. How old were girls when a new doll was no longer welcome under the tree unless the doll was a Barbie? When were boys no longer thrilled with the matchbox cars and cowboy-themed lunch boxes? When did all sporting equipment have to be the real stuff and not the kiddie versions?

Be honest, when did you stop writing letters to Santa Claus? Or, have you stopped yet? Perhaps you helped your kids and then grandkids write to Santa and put in a good word for yourself, too. One radio station program in Fort Smith in the 1950’s (the moniker “Uncle Ray” comes to mind for some reason) used to read Santa letters written and mailed to him from kids. I remember he read my letter one Christmas season along with many others—probably some of yours. These days, we can still write Santa because USPS gave Santa his very own zip code in 1989. Last year, he even had an email address! He seems to keep up with the technology as it develops and appears to be quite savvy, especially for his age, an estimated 1749 or 1750-years-old. (A fantastic web site “yessantaisreal” answers all questions you or your grandkids can imagine. Do you know why he doesn’t look his age and why he doesn’t look any older now than he did when we were kids? The web site explains that.) He has a telephone number we can call (probably an iPhone hooked up to satellite, don’t you suppose?) I’ve heard that he gets behind in answering the phone but does have voice mail. Google and Siri can help you get the phone number and addresses if you want them. These methods of contacting him are timely, too, because of this pandemic. No chance that Santa will catch Covid-19 by having germy little kids sitting on his lap all over the country this year. Some recent news reports are claiming that he is immune to Covid and therefore will not spread any such germs on the toys he delivers to our houses. That’s a relief!

What seasonal activities, if any at all, are going on inside the Fort Smith classrooms these days? From what I’ve heard about modern day observances, or the lack of them, I realize school activities during the Christmas season were handled quite differently when we were students. From our first grade through graduation, the students who wanted to participate were welcome to do so. Those who didn’t want to participate were not required to do so and could enjoy their choices of other activities. Perhaps there were complaints, but I never heard any during my 12 years in the Fort Smith school system.

In elementary school, each classroom had a Christmas tree, and the students made most of the decorations and had fun hanging them on the tree. I guess this doubled as art lessons. We used our leftover green and red crayons (after using most of the brown and orange for Halloween and Thanksgiving) and colored pictures of trees, and we colored pictures of Santa and his elves, and we sometimes had weird colors of reindeer. Our primary goal was staying within the lines. We were taught to outline the picture with the chosen color first and then fill it in. That helped keep us within the lines, and I do believe I would automatically do the same today.

We put away the school song books and gave “Home on the Range” and “Oh, Susannah” a rest and sang Christmas songs of all types. I guess this doubled as music lessons.

I remember one elementary school Christmas play at night with parents and grandparents crowded in the classroom that included a stage, a make-shift auditorium for such a grand event. We girls from all six grades were mostly angels draped neck down in old white sheets. (That group picture was actually posted in this web site’s photo section for elementary schools!) I guess that doubled as drama instruction and a PTA meeting. I felt bad and didn’t want to go, but Mother said I was just mad because Sherri was lead angel and got to carry the stick with the yellow star glued to the top. The teacher scolded me because I was sluggish. I was a drooping, wilted angel with wet-looking hair and on the end hanging back from the other small girls in that photo. I had 103 degrees fever when I finally got back home that night. Mother then declared me sick, and I spent much of the Christmas break in bed and eating only Campbell’s chicken noodle soup along with green Jello, Mother’s combo cure for all diseases.

Northside had a classroom door decoration contest when we were seniors in December 1962. I guess the “homerooms” were the contestants. Contest entry fee was 50 cents, and first prize for winning room was $9. Room 207 won for their representation of “The Three Wise Men Coming to See the Christ Child at Bethlehem”. Does anyone remember what class was in the winning room? It was a large class with possibly combined subjects and two teachers. They spent the winnings in February. All 58 students in the class and two teachers ate breakfast at Jan’s restaurant (near the school to the east) on 15 cents each. If you were in that class, please tell us what you ate for 15 cents! I’m not sure it could buy a cup of coffee even in 1963.

Northside’s Christmas assembly when we were seniors included scripture reading and a prayer plus Christmas songs performed by both the choir and the band, according to the school newspaper, The Grizzly, which has its own feature section on this web site. You can find it among the tabs in the far left margin.

Even though the State Fair of Texas was cancelled this year, they did erect the 55’ Big Tex inside the fairgrounds—but put a 7’x 4’ mask on him! Next, I expect to see drawings of Santa Claus wearing a mask. Why would someone put a mask on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? That would cover his headlight! Santa could get lost! So much has been taken away from us this year, please don’t mess with our beloved icons, too.

Here’s wishing all of you happy holidays. Keep in mind that families and friends can be together without masks and can social distance—not in feet but in miles, meaning the distances between our houses via Zoom gatherings on the internet.

Please share your memories through the Rememberies Blog, “Contact Us”, or Photos tabs.

Christmas WhoDunIt:

“WhoDunIt?
Who was the spoiled brat (boy) who pretended to believe in Santa Claus through his senior year in college so he would still get the “big good stuff “ under the tree on Christmas morning? We will explore this further in April to discover why he did this, if that gives you a hint.

……..Contributed by a tattler who prefers to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, meaning getting tattled on himself for several “misdeeds”. Write to me! Confess or Tattle! We need your tales for this WhoDunIt feature. I don’t want the name of the culprit, but he/she must have been one of our classmates. Also, I won’t mention your name as contributor if you wish to remain anonymous.

November 2020 greetings, Classmates. Well, it is Thanksgiving time again, so let’s give thanks. It has been a tough year, but we still have abundant reason to express our gratitude for our blessings.

The following is what I had hoped to write for November 2020. It never occurred to me a few months ago that this might not be appropriate in many parts of our country! “I suppose this year’s students in Fort Smith and around the entire country are thankful for a full week off at Thanksgiving instead of the two days we used to have. Perhaps in Fort Smith they are thankful, too, that they are away from the noise and the inconvenience of all the construction around them. Some are probably thankful that the school year actually started inside the school buildings instead of relying on their home internet and their computers for online instruction. Also, surely they are thankful to be free from isolation and of being back with friends, classmates, and even the in-person teachers! Let’s hope it’s never a repeat of last Spring Break that lasted through summer vacation and beyond.” That was my plan, but now we know many students in Fort Smith and around the country are still relying on computers and internet connections and Google and Siri. Even students back in school have restrictions and fears that we never even imagined. Who ever thought of social distancing at Northside! Moving their desks far apart (just as we occasionally did when taking a test) is routine for them now. Who ever thought of requiring us students and our teachers to wear face masks! However, this year so far at Northside High School, whether in-person, online, or blended, at least education and a few sports do continue, and that is reason to be thankful!

I read recently that the Spanish Flu pandemic a hundred years ago lasted over two years. Schools were closed statewide in Arkansas but were allowed to reopen on a per district basis. Keep in mind they didn’t have computers and internet for online learning, so education was at a standstill. In a recent edition, the Fort Smith newspaper online carried an excellent account of school life and of all other activities during those years. The article is still available through their search option. I wonder what the world will read about us one hundred years from now. It could be interesting to write it ourselves plus add a fictional end to this pandemic, whatever and whenever that might be—somewhat like the biography of ourselves we had to write in 6th grade. It was a true autobiography up to that point of our age but then continued into the future as if were written by a third party and told what we “did” after that point and for the rest of our lives all the way to old age. Did you have to write one of those? One boy even included where he was buried. I wish I still had the one I wrote just to compare it to reality—no doubt way off base. However, I really did make it to this age and so far have eluded Covid, and for that I am very thankful.

Here is one story of many across the United States, and your families might be experiencing the same. My son and his wife teach in a large school district in Texas. He and many other teachers chose to teach online from their classrooms instead of from their homes, but five staff members tested positive for Covid-19 and several were quarantined even before students started filtering back inside grade by grade (despite county health officials denouncing the district’s plan because of a recent spike in cases countywide.) Their 17-year-old is a senior in that same district and in an honors engineering and math program. Because of Covid issues at his school, he is still sitting at home alone doing his course work on his computer, not playing in tennis tournaments because there are none, not attending Friday night football games because of attendance number restrictions, not attending school club meetings, not eating out with or going to movies with the friends he has known since kindergarten but hasn’t seen since Spring Break. He and his girlfriend “date” through their interactive computerized video game gizmos. (A gizmo is any modern day electronic thingamajig that I don’t understand.) Think about what all you and I would have missed during our senior year at Northside if a pandemic had occurred in 1962-63! Revisit this web site’s Grizzly section (the school newspaper) for highlights of our busy and active school year. My memories of each month’s activities when we were seniors instill within me a sorrowful empathy for any current senior affected in Fort Smith and much of the country whether in-person, online only, or making tough hybrid decisions.

So, with all that is going on (and not going on) in this country and the world, what can we ’63er’s consider our blessings for which we are thankful other than our family members not testing positive for Covid? The earliest blessing we had was when we were born into a free country! Most of us were born during or just after the last year of World War II. Men and women left their homes, their parents and grandparents, their spouses, children, extended family, and friends. Some didn’t return. We should be very grateful and humbled that their sacrifices ensured that you and I would be born into a world of peace and into the strongest country in the world. There were at the time, and certainly still are, more improvements to be made here, but their sacrifices paved the way for improvements to be possible by protecting our freedom to do so in a democracy instead of in a dictatorship where there are few, if any, rights and changes at all. For this, I am very thankful—and not just on Veterans’ Day November 11.

If the late Miss Irene Barnwell (whom I adored by the way) will forgive me for writing this, the path for improvement especially for rights are explained better in a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special (no, not the popcorn one) than in our history books. He explains in his fashion the departure of the Mayflower ship full of of unhappy people from England and their struggles for their freedom and survival in a new land and what they hoped to accomplish toward equality for all once free from the dictates of their old country’s government and its fixed-class culture. Well, Charlie Brown, we’re still working on it now from within, but we’ve made much progress and will continue to do so. And, for this I am very thankful.

On a Friday in November 1963, I was sitting in Lucille Speakman’s Western Civilization history class at Fort Smith Junior College when Mr. Runner, another history teacher, entered the room and told us President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas and his injuries were severe and were believed to be life-threatening. We were stunned. Nothing like that had happened in our country during our lifetime, and recent reports of such had occurred only in far away less civilized countries with different types of government. I wish I had a text of Miss Speakman’s impromptu speech to all of us. Perhaps some of you were in Miss Speakman’s class that day in November 1963, also, and can remember her amazing spur-of-the-moment, unrehearsed oration during this time of shock. A compilation of her remarks plus those of commentators on television and radio talked about our democracy in which we have the right to our varying viewpoints but without violence or malice; that we must maintain respect for each other; that we must maintain respect for this country’s constitution which established the executive, legislative, and judicial branches with their check-and-balance system; that we must maintain respect for the positions the constitution set up within those branches. Adult citizens are included in this check-and-balance system by voting which sets majority rule in motion. The remarks included our country’s system for changes to the constitution through amendments including the Bill of Rights and, yes, first and foremost, by our voting for our choices of leaders and representatives who make the change decisions. Mr. McAlister at Northside drilled in us that our opinions expressed by our eventual voting DO count, and he encouraged our discussions, not heated arguments, of issues in class. For educators like Miss Barnwell and Mr. McAlister and Miss Speakman with their knowledge, wisdom, and teaching expertise, I am very thankful.

Northside High School had some very good teachers and very good curriculum, and we were usually taught what we needed to learn at each level. We made friends along the way but might not stay connected as we have spread out around the country and have been involved with our own families and careers. But, isn’t it great to hear from one of those long ago friends once in a while! Isn’t it great to be able to share our memories of those teenage years through this web site that Cissy Crampton Rose set up and the Facebook page that Donna Davis Beneux set up and they maintain for us? These venues bring smiles to my face and even a few giggles sometimes. Feels good! For the opportunities their web site and Facebook page have given us to reconnect and reminisce, I am very thankful.

Have a safe, enjoyable even though social distancing, and virus-free Thanksgiving holiday this year.

Now, we will continue our WhoDunIt series. Be sure to email me and confess or tattle any quirky act by you or one of our classmates and who preferred not to disclose it way back then. This month we have a confession! When one of our female classmates was in junior high, her mother took the ham out of the oven Thanksgiving morning and later left to go to a relative’s house nearby to pick up something she needed to borrow. The ham was still sitting on the countertop. The girl walked in the kitchen, and lo and behold, her cat was up there licking the ham and nibbling on the top crispy fat edge! She threw the cat out the back door. She couldn’t find paper towels or anything to clean off the ham. So, bright girl went to the bathroom and took some toilet paper off the roll. As she was trying to clean “cat germs” off the ham, she heard her mother return and crammed the greasy toilet paper in her pocket. Needless to say, she didn’t eat ham that day. On the first day back at school, her mother put a ham sandwich in her lunch sack. She traded it with another girl for a sandwich of some type. (Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the other girl was trading because of a similar reason?) Many days followed with ham as an ingredient in whatever dish her mother could create, and she was sick of ham even without eating any of it. WhoDunIt?

…..Contributed by a classmate who begged to remain anonymous in case her “queasy, cat-hating little brother” reads this.

Check out the Welcome Grizzlies page for the latest Newsletter!

October 2020 Greetings, Classmates. What October events and special gatherings occurred at your elementary, junior high, and senior high schools during your years in Fort Smith?

Some of our elementary schools in the 1950’s held Fall Festivals or Halloween celebrations. In my early days, my school’s event was a “chuck wagon” meal (someone’s version of BBQ and heavy on the beans) and with the entire crowd singing songs such as “Home on the Range” and “Red River Valley” as led by a teenage alumnus (who just happened to be my big brother) of the school and his guitar.

Perhaps the schools would have a “Fall carnival” with various games with dinky prizes and the popular cake walk—cakes baked by mothers plus a few from bakeries and contributed to the cause. Walking the chalked oval-shaped numbered squares around the room usually cost a quarter or fifty cents and sometimes even more if the next prize was an extra-large or extra-fancy cake. When the teacher lifted the needle off the record player and the music stopped, whatever number a designated person pulled from a fish bowl matched the number a paying participant was standing on determined the winner. Oh, what fun! It was a big deal to win a cake! I never ever won one but could have gone to a bakery and bought several with all the quarters I blew while trying over the years.

A few elementary schools even had “King and Queen” contests during these Fall festivals. So, how were the King and Queen of the school selected? Students in each grade voted for one boy and one girl to represent the grade—thus a prince and a princess. Then, those twelve kids hit the streets and knocked on doors and solicited cash donations for the school. On the night of the big crowning event, all monies were counted for a grand climax to the evening. The duo who had collected the most money won! What did they win? A crown, of course—cardboard covered with thin gold paper plus a few moments of glory. My one crown sat on top of a corner bookcase in our living room until I needed some gold paper.

I wonder how the schools spent the money. Our head teacher, who was considered the Queen, said the money would be spent on things the school needed. Well, Queen, your palace needs a throne, so maybe my school was saving for indoor plumbing.

I don’t recall a single Fall event at Ramsey Junior High! Someone help me out here, please. What, if anything, did Ramsey or Darby Junior High celebrate during the Fall season? I just remember being in junior high but returning to the elementary school each year to try again to win a cake and to play the mysterious “Go Fish” game for a dime. That hook always somehow knew the gender and approximate age of the kid holding the fishing pole.

Of course, we all know what the big event was in October at the high school! It most likely was the biggest event of the entire school year. Do we hear the drumroll? Homecoming, of course! Get out your three Bruins (lest we forget, that means your yearbooks) and search through the multiple pages—football players and the Homecoming Queen and her court who represented each high school grade level. Oh, also, there was a football game that night, and it was a MUST WIN game, and it was so sad if the Grizzlies didn’t win the “big one”.

Who was Homecoming queen our senior year at Northside and who comprised her court? Who were the escorts for the honorees? Which team did the Grizzlies play that night? Did the Grizzlies win the game? I think I know who the homecoming queen was that year, and if I’m right I can safely guess her football player escort because he is still escorting her wherever they go these many, many years later!

Send us your memories and your thoughts! Let’s keep those years in our minds and our hearts!

Confessions and “Who-Dun-Its”?

With this Greetings issue, we are starting an ongoing game for us to play. Probably during my junior high days, I discovered the murder mystery board game called “Clue”. Three or more players tried to figure out “who dun it” (Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum, Mrs. Peacock, etc.) and “in which room” (ballroom, library, kitchen, etc.) and “with what weapon” (candlestick, iron pipe, wrench, etc). Even though it sounds gruesome if you have never played the game, it actually was fun to be a sleuth and try to solve the mystery.

At the end of some of our monthly greetings, we are going to play our own version of “Who dun it?” Instead of looking for a bad guy, we are looking for long ago classmates who sometimes had more nerve than good sense or sometimes enjoyed a little mean streak or sometimes were just plain dumb. There are two options: 1) This is your chance to confess your sins publicly or anonymously or 2) This is a great way to tattle on someone, which was always fun to do.

If you like this feature, YOU are going to supply the mysteries by confessing or by tattling. Do NOT reveal the culprit’s name! The only requirement is that the culprit is one of our former Northside 1963 classmates but the onerous deed was committed when they were any age or grade level. You may send these to me by accessing my email address on the “Contact Us” tab in the left margin of this web site. If you want your name to be included as the contributor, say so. Otherwise, it will be identified only as contributed by anonymous—well, unless the police start banging on my door—but we weren’t THAT bad.

WhoDunIt #1:

At the end of our 10th grade, three kids talked an adult into driving them to the bridge over the Arkansas River between the west end of Garrison Ave and Moffett, Oklahoma. The driver pulled over onto the narrow shoulder and stopped (illegal and dangerous). The three kids got out of the car (illegal and dangerous) with their geometry books, tore pages out a few at a time, and threw the pages (and with much gusto) over the railing into the river (illegal and just plain dumb). How many laws were broken here in two states plus littering a river? I know for a fact they actually did that because I saw two of them doing it. Who dun it?

Contributed by anonymous

September 2020 Greetings, Classmates. It’s back to school time again! At least, it was for us. We usually started right after Labor Day, but school years 1918 and 2020 belong to pandemics.

The start of school in September 1962 was special because we would be the top dogs—SENIORS AT LAST! And if we behaved ourselves, we would be finished with this school stuff forever—maybe. At least, we could console ourselves with that thought for a while. (I often thought that about math, too, but colleges actually required it. Even now, it keeps cropping up. Ever tried figuring that IRS worksheet offline for Social Security recipients? I fear if my doctor ever wants to give me a brain function test, he will just hand me one of those.)

After our 1963 high school graduation, many students who planned to attend college were bombarded with the question, “What will be your major?” Did people really think that we at the age of 18 were rock solid in our choice of career for the rest of our working life?

Some students did know what they wanted and didn’t waver from it. The rest of us shouldn’t have felt like oddballs. We weren’t the only ones who might have been clueless in this regard or changed our minds later. Actress Teri Hatcher chose math and engineering as her major. Former Attorney General Janet Reno chose chemistry initially. Sally Ride, astronaut and first American woman in space, chose English then added physics. Former Today show weatherman who was the 1963 Ronald McDonald, Willard Scott, chose Religious Studies and later added Philosophy. Musician Art Garfunkel (of Simon & Garfunkel fame) chose architecture, switched to art history for a B.A. and earned an M.A. in math education, all while becoming popular with his music duo. Does that qualify for “talented and gifted”?

If we decided to attend college, we were entering a whole new phase of emotional quandary in September 1963. But, if we think about it, so was going off to an elementary school for the first time. In college we experienced a new set of turmoil which had its own upgraded variations of our 1st grade “Where’s Mom? Where’s Dad? Where’s Howdy Doody? What’s an outhouse? They really expect me to sit still and they’re going to ‘paddle’ me if I don’t?” (Colleges don’t paddle; they just expel.) One of the first things I saw that 1st grade school year was “the paddle” hanging on the wall by the teacher’s desk—a constant deterrent to wiggling, among other sins. I wondered just how she planned to hit us with that board—on the head? It didn’t take long for her to demonstrate its use on a little boy who just couldn’t stop talking. I didn’t say another word in there the rest of the day. I worried I might start itching somewhere but not be allowed to scratch lest it be considered wiggling and I would get bopped by her board. During my first recess, I was introduced to the outhouse. I actually asked a 5th or 6th grade girl, “How do I flush this?” She said I was stupid. I hated school and wanted to drop out after the first day of first grade. Disclaimer: Please keep in mind I am describing this day from the perspective of a six-year-old which is the same age when we were convinced that monsters lived under our beds.

After rising to top dog status at the elementary school, meaning 6th grade, they sent us off to a bigger school called a junior high where we were the lowly 7th graders. The former Darby building was multi story, and the students probably were up and down stairs throughout the day. The Ramsey building was one-story with rooms sprawled far apart across the land. It was hard enough to find where I had to be at the beginning of the school day, but I had to keep roaming around every hour or so to find another classroom. “Why do I need a whole bunch of different teachers and rooms instead of the just one for all subjects in elementary school? Why do I have to take Math again? I already know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. You mean there’s more to it than that? Where do I eat? Where are the outhouses? (Yes, to this question a girl told me I was stupid.) They put me on a bus to get me here. My late afternoon classes are as far from the bus area as is possible. Hope they don’t leave without me this afternoon! How do I know which bus to get on to go home—they all look alike!” So many questions, so many fears, and all these new kids I’ve never seen before! I was scared and wanted to drop out of school. Disclaimer: Again, please keep in mind I am describing this day from the perspective of a twelve-year-old, which is also the age when our bodies were bursting forth in all directions except in self-confidence, which was shrinking with each snub or new pimple.

Let me figure out my new 7th grade morning routine: I get up in the mornings and take a bath and dress and fix my hair and apply some of my newly discovered big girl product, mascara. Very first thing I am to do when I arrive at school is go to the gym, undress and don a different outfit, get sweaty, take a shower, dress again and run off to math class with half wet, half frizzy hair and mascara streaking. The zombie has arrived. Such was my 7th grade school year with first period P.E. class.

Seventh grade introduced us to the latest fashion trends. A very popular and fashion savvy 9th grade girl showed up at school one day with a new purse called a bucket bag. Soon Fort Smith stores had trouble keeping them in stock. Did you get yours? What other fads and phases did we go through during junior high besides our rock ’n roll craze, sock hops, poodle skirts, cancan petticoats, wearing half-hearts even without a single date, hula hoops, a new princess style phone for our bedrooms, and a transistor radio that went with us just about everywhere away from school. Going through seventh grade opened the doors to a whole new world for us—the bridge (rickety that it was sometimes) between our childhood and our teenage years, and I was ready for it as I turned 13 just as the 7th grade school year ended.

Eighth grade girls were required to take a semester of cooking (fine), and a semester of sewing (not so fine). I made a blouse. It didn’t fit. I wanted to donate it to a clothing drive, but Mother said she doubted anyone was shaped quite like that blouse, so I threw it away. Eighth grade boys had their own 1950’s gender-related required courses—drafting and woodworking. Carl Rose made a gun rack in his woodworking class.

Carl took the gun rack home and proudly hung it above his bed. It was the perfect spot for the 22 rifle that his grandfather had given him. Shortly thereafter, he was home alone one afternoon and was lying in bed and listening to a Cardinals baseball game. He casually reached up and touched the gun. Wrong spot to touch—the trigger! That loaded gun blew a hole in his bedroom wall all the way through to the outside of the house! The hole in his bedroom wall was small where the bullet went in, but where the bullet had exited outside was a different story! “For some reason his memory of what happened after his parents found out has faded……..”

After enjoying living big 9th grade status for a year and with renewed self-confidence, we were sent off to that even bigger school called Fort Smith Senior High where they accumulated even more students into seemingly gigantic rambling buildings, and we were the peons again, the lowly 10th graders. There went the self-confidence again. How many times a day did you have to traipse back and forth through the crosswalks between buildings to beat the bell to your next class? (Many!) Did you ever have a class on the first floor of the east wing followed by a class on the second floor on the far west side? (I did and then back again.) Was your locker ever in a convenient spot when you really needed it? (Mine rarely was.) “At least there’s no math on my schedule, but what’s this ‘gee-oh-me-try’ class?” (Yes, that was my pronunciation for geometry when I first saw it. Three people told me I was stupid.) Geometry was the best reason of all to hate school and want to drop out, and it proved what people had been telling me since first grade—that I really was stupid.

When we left home to attend college away from Fort Smith (whether a freshman, sophomore, or junior), instead of roaming around one big building like Northside High School, we were roaming around a big campus of many buildings and trying to find the right ones for the right days and the right hours. Instead of seeing new faces from Fort Smith, we saw new faces from around the state and from around the country. “Who’s the weirdo hanging out in the dorm hallway? My roommate?!?!” Do I get a refund if I drop out?

Every stage of this upward crawl was a “Yikes!” moment for me, beginning with my first day of 1st grade at my neighborhood elementary school. How were your first days?

August 2020 Greetings, Classmates! When we started our learning voyage by entering first grade in 1951, Fort Smith Senior High School was welcoming new students who had completed the ninth grade at only Darby Junior High. The incoming 7th graders at Darby were arriving from a multitude of lower grade schools in various parts of the city. I don’t know how many elementary schools existed when we started first grade—but not as many nor as large when compared to the current elementary schools in the Fort Smith school system.

During a quick look through the “Elementary” pictures in the Photos section, I counted names of eleven Fort Smith public elementary schools attended by our eventual class of ’63 members. If yours is not represented in the following list, please DO let us know: Duval, Rogers, Ballman, Cavanaugh, Mill Creek, Parker, Belle Point, Albert Pike, Peabody, Sunnymede, Trusty. Not all of these had completed indoor plumbing when we were students during the 1950’s, which meant some schools had their own version of “little houses” on the prairie.

The elementary schools (K-6) as of 2020 end of school year? The district website lists 19 elementary schools. Some of ours have been replaced by nearby newer schools, renovated and/or expanded—some more than once. For example, the one I attended for 6 years was built in 1916 (my Mother started first grade in the brand new building) as a replacement for the one built in the late 1800’s long before it became part of the Fort Smith district. She attended all 12 grades in that building and graduated alongside two classmates and with a ceremony, a multi-page diploma booklet and an engraved gold ring. “Mine and Mother’s” school was torn down in 1968 a few years after a new modern school was built behind it, and the “new” one was later expanded—all using the same basic “Cavanaugh” name for well over a century. Just one school story of several and can make comparisons of the “then and now” quite complicated. Look for yours on the web site. You might be surprised!

Some of our older schools now serve other purposes for the district. Belle Point Center (former elementary school building) on Dodson Ave is “A new tech academy” and “alternative school”. The Fort Smith Adult Education Center on South 20th St (within walking distance southwest of Northside High School) is a free service to residents over 18 years of age. In 1963, this former Peabody elementary school building was being used for overflow from the high school and for storage and unofficially for student parking. Details of these two and other re-purposed buildings, including the Parker Center on North T Street, are explained on the district web site.

In 1954 an additional junior high school, Ramsey, opened and boundaries had been set by the School Board to split attendance at Darby with Ramsey. These two junior highs eventually moved students after 9th grade onward to Fort Smith Senior High, which was renamed Northside High School in ’61-62 after Southside High School was planned.

From 1963 to 2020, the city population jumped by about 35,000 residents. As of the end of school year 2020, the Fort Smith high schools have consisted of Northside and Southside with their traditional grades 10-11-12. Feeding into these two high schools have been four junior highs—Darby, Ramsey, Kimmons, Chaffin with their traditional grades 7-8-9.

Now, big changes are in the works for the high schools, the “junior/middle” schools, and the grade levels schools will teach. I am very grateful to Dr. Ginni McDonald, Director of Secondary Education and a former principal of Northside, for her time and her information about grade level changes planned for the near future: Elementary Pk- or K-5, Middle 6-7-8, and High Schools 9-10-11-12.

The Northside HS building that opened in 1928 has had additions as needed in the past but now is awaiting a major overhaul. Construction has started! Stay tuned for a new look, outside and inside, for our Northside High School and with a “Freshman Center” for future 9th grade classrooms.

You’ll recognize the front of the building from the old, old towers that will stay and with the iconic grizzly bear still in place, but that’s about all after an estimated 38.1 million is spent on the Northside campus. Great for future students but kinda sad for us oldies. Thus the purpose of this NHS ‘63 web site and ’63 Facebook page—to help us share and preserve our memories of our Fort Smith school days.

There are various city and state historical web sites that detail the start of public schools in Fort Smith—the first school (Belle Point) in 1885 and its early fate; the original purpose and early fate of the 1897 Darby building; the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic closure of schools in Arkansas; the 1928-1950 Fort Smith Junior College connection to the high school campus. Also, the Fort Smith school district web site includes a history page on most of the current schools and adapted buildings plus information about the planned Peak Innovation Center.

July 2020 Greetings, Classmates. As we were near the end of our junior year at the newly-renamed Northside High School and starting our senior year, two giants were emerging in the retail/discount business world.

The 1st Kmart-named store opened March 1,1962, in Garden City, Michigan, and was an extension of the already well-established S.S. Kresge variety stores. The most prominent of the Kresge stores in Fort Smith during my childhood had been my beloved Kress five-and-dime store on Garrison Avenue and to which I wrote several years ago a “Tribute to the ultimate shopping experience anywhere, of any time”.

During the summer before our senior year at Northside, the 1st Walmart store (as we know it) opened July 2, 1962, in Rogers, Arkansas, and was a grassroots venture by Sam Walton. The first Walmart in Fort Smith was in an old, dilapidated looking building on Towson Ave maybe a mile or so south of Dodson Ave.

About the same time, the first Kmart in Fort Smith opened and was a new, spacious, attractive building just east of the southern-most end of Towson Ave on the highway.

KMart sold many nationally recognized brand names. Initially, Walmart did not, most likely from lack of bulk buying power that the Kresge well-known prior business successes had earned. The smart-looking and clean new Kmart store was popular with shoppers. Walmart was popular only with customers who dared go in lest they be seen there but were willing to risk it for a good bargain.

Oh, how I loved KMart in Arkansas and then in Texas and was thrilled to find one in Minot, ND, as I drove through that city one day in the summer of 1971. So far away, but felt right at home.

As of the end of their fiscal year January 31, 2020, Walmart had a total of 11,501 stores throughout the world, is one of the largest retailers in the world, and is one of the largest employers in the United States. Every state has several, and Texas has the most with 563 locations. Their Sam’s Club Warehouse stores are just one of their expansions.

As of the beginning of July 2020, Kmart will have only 43 stores remaining in 11 states plus Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and just recently closed its last one in Texas.

Not all goes as planned (or as expected). My personal crystal ball is obviously cracked.

However, these additional large stores gave us high school and college students in Fort Smith more part-time and summer job opportunities beginning in the early 1960’s.

What kind of jobs did you have in high school? My $1 an hour earnings started as a cashier at TG&Y in Phoenix Village while in high school. I had to be there by 5pm on four school days until 9pm and all day Saturday noon until 9pm plus Sundays from noon until closing time at 6pm. One summer in college, I switched to the nice Kmart on the highway in a leased clothing department. All college off days and breaks became full work days.

My Social Security records show those early years. I knew I would get the income tax back in each following year, but I absolutely hated paying that SS tax! I wanted it THEN—not to wait until I was OLD! And, it didn’t even count in their final figuring, so I didn’t get it back at all!

Please contact us (see the left margin) and tell us your money making ventures while a student at Northside High School and summers. Not all were at stores; some were lawn mowing, babysitting, dog walking, whatever we could think up to make some cash.

June 2020 Greetings, Classmates. Just as we are adjusting now to getting on with our lives after being isolated for so long during the coronavirus pandemic scare, we were adjusting in June 1963 to getting on with our lives after graduation—but doing what? Did a “DUH” moment set in when we realized our future of “school, school, school” was no longer mandated for us and we were now in charge of our destiny—including what we were going to do beginning tomorrow and through the rest of our lives? Was a kinda scary realization setting in?

What did you do immediately after leaving the confines of Northside High School? Did you vow to sleep as late in the mornings as you desired? Did you go on a long vacation? Did you already have a full time job lined up, or were you “about to start looking for one real soon”?

If you were one of the 311 NHS ’63 graduates who planned to attend college, did you have a college selected? Did you have a summer job to save some money for college expenses including personal spending money in case you already knew that one could not live solely on college cafeteria food 3 times a day, 7 days a week and that the dorms had vending machines that took real money instead of always having Mom’s free snacks awaiting you in a kitchen?

Or, were you still looking in the mirror and asking yourself, “What do I do now?” If so, your parents might have been asking you the same question! Turning 18 years old puts one in an odd position of still being their child even though you are no longer a child. And, we all know by now, we never really outgrow or “out age” that position from parents’ viewpoint.

June is known to be a popular month for weddings. Surely some graduates chose that big event but maybe not if they had been in Mr. George McAlister’s economics class during the 1962-1963 school year. One of his special projects for the students in that class was to pretend to marry straight out of high school. He mandated certain financial expenses (rent, used car, food, etc.) for us to pay by typical wages of that era from jobs for which we might qualify. Good things happened initially because we received wedding gifts including a little cash, and we thought this would be a breeze. What could possibly go wrong within this bliss!

Of course, Mr. McAlister wasn’t going to show us how easy it would be to travel this young marriage route! There were no credit cards back then, and in our project parents could not help us monetarily. We were on our own. From the beginning, he had strongly suggested that we budget to save money in case we needed it for a “rainy day”. I assure you, not just rain but severe thunderstorms and even a tornado (meaning a baby) were a-comin’ in the true-to-life experiences he had in store for us. For many of us, our budget had run dry by the end of that project. I was afraid I would be living in the old broken down car.

I still think about that class sometimes since I started trying to live within a Social Security budget. There are a lot of similarities between marrying too young and retiring too early.

A question for you: Was there ONE subject and/or ONE teacher at Northside (in any grade level) which in some way influenced you greatly and taught you something you found useful in life beyond high school? Was there one class you are very thankful now that you took in high school “way back then”? Sure there was! (No, I don’t expect it was trying to learn how to diagram sentences, although I would be thrilled if it were.)

Did you learn a cake recipe in a Home Ec course that has become your family’s favorite and that your grandchildren want you to bake when they visit? Did you take a Home Ec sewing class that came in handy to make face masks to stave off the coronavirus? Did you take first year Latin and thought you learned nothing until years later you read Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” and were thrilled when you understood “Et tu, Brutus”?

Write us and tell us about it, please, using the 'Rememberies Blog' or email us using the “contact us” link on the left margin. Flo Rainwater Chism

May 2020 Greetings, Classmates.
As we near the end of another school year, this will mark our 57th anniversary since we graduated from Northside High School in 1963.

There was a time when I thought surely I would never get out of that school! As I trudged day by day through the 10th grade (finally got that one with geometry behind me), then I suffered through the 11th grade with its American History, and finally was merely crawling through my senior year with my unwise elective choice of Chemistry and its overwhelming stinky lab.

Back then, Northside was the largest 10th-12th grade high school in Arkansas with 2,300 students in Fort Smith, a city with a population about 53,000. In 2020, the city population is around 88,000, and Northside has 1,725 students.

In May 1963, we were scrambling and worried about the upcoming finals and afraid our brains might crash before or during the tests. This year, the isolation era of the coronavirus pandemic, the students are probably more afraid that their computers or internet providers might crash and they won’t be able to finish their online-only end of school assignments. (What was an internet provider in 1963? What was a computer except for gigantic machines that whirled on TV shows such as “Industry on Parade”? And, please do get rid of the card catalog and give me Google! )

However, we made it, so it was time to celebrate with parties and dances and dinners and to end our time on those premises with a grand celebratory event called a graduation ceremony.

In 2020, such parties will be limited to a bash for no more than 10 people. I bet it’s hard to dance while staying at least six-feet apart. (Our parents would have liked that in 1963!)

Wonder how different our graduation was from 2020’s eventual graduation ceremony? The main difference is that we actually had one in 1963. This year they might be able to have a graduation ceremony in late June. If not, they are hoping for early July.

Some of this year’s graduates will already have college credits from their Advanced Placement courses or credits for a multitude of vocational class options that prepare them for at least apprentice work in their fields of interest. We had options in vocational and office training, but the best we could do on the academic side was to take an “honors” course which sometimes translated only as twice the work and with an “H” by the course name on our transcripts, but who ever sees that?

So, after our 12th year of school and with diploma in hand, were we ready to land that great job and begin making our fortune? For some graduates, yes. For me, well, I’ll put it this way: If I could have made a living diagramming sentences, I would be a wealthy person now. I saw no help wanted ads for a sentence diagrammer, so I went to college and continued diagramming sentences and hoping that some company somewhere someday would need one. It never happened, and I never got rich. By Flo Rainwater Chism

For you alumni who took regular 12th English classes, please email us and tell us:

“What was the topic of your senior English term paper?”

We would love to hear about your experience with that school requirement, and we will post on a future greetings page. We had to tell the teachers in advance what our topic would be and proceed only with their approval. I still remember the quizzical look on Mrs. Miller’s face when I told her my topic! After a very long pause, she finally said, “OK.” If you’ll tell me your topic, I will tell you mine. Take care during this pandemic and visit this web site again soon as we continue posting new items.

JUNE 2015 FELLOWSHIP

If you know of a classmate that doesn’t have e-mail, please let them know of our meeting times. Hope to see you there.

Along with eating and fellowship of our classmates and friends, we have invited our two recipients, Bryce Geels and Grace Featherston, of the 2015 NHS $1,000 scholarships that were presented in a special ceremony conducted by Northside High School.

Just a reminder that the next meeting is set for September 29 with the place to be discussed at our June meeting. If you want to keep up with all the updates/news just log in to our facebook page “Northside HS Class of ’63 or go to our website fortsmithnorthside1963.myevent.com.

Since we have had more donations to the Scholarship Fund, we will be continuing our Alumni Fund-Raiser for those who may still want to donate for the 2016 graduates of Northside High School. Please send you contribution to: Class of ’63 Memorial Scholarship Fund, % Diana Baker, 812 Angela Cr., Barling, AR 72923. Please make out your check to “NHS Class of ’63 Alumni Fund-Raiser.” Just a reminder that this account is for the purpose of scholarships only. It is not connected to the Class Reunion account.

A Better Class There’ll Never Be, We’re The Class of ’63!!

December 2014 Newsletter

To: NHS Classmates of 1963

Our next class meeting will be Monday, 6:00 pm, January 5, 2015 at Calico County, 2401 South 56^th St., Ft. Smith. We discussed at our last meeting to try and meet on a Friday or Monday every now and then for those who live out of town and could come on a day before or after the weekend. We hope this January date works for some of you who want to come join us for a meal and fellowship time. If anyone has another preference, please let one of us know so we can make arrangements. Our plans are to meet on the 5^th Tuesday of March 31, June 30, September 29, and December 29. We will also meet at different places as well, so be sure to read your newsletter for the time and place. As always, we welcome any suggestions you may want to share. Also, if you move and have an address change or e-mail change, please let us know that as well.

2014 is soon coming to a close and looking back throughout the year we have seen many changes in our country, as well as losing a few of our classmates. Gone but not forgotten: Regina Ann Sanders Foliart April 16, 2014 and Carolyn Lemmons Harrell October 9, 2014.

God Bless America

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer

God bless America, land that I love
Stand behind her and guide her
Through the night with a light from above
From the mountains, to the prairies

To the oceans white with foam
God bless America
My home sweet home

In 2014 the class of ’63 was able to recognize two deserving students with $1,000.00 each of scholarship money. As we look forward to 2015 the Scholarship Fundraiser will continue to be promoted for two Northside High School graduating seniors. The students would surely appreciate your generous gift. If you would like to be on the Scholarship Committee, please contact Marilynda Green Farris at 479-650-3412.

Please make your tax-deductible donations, payable to “Northside High School” mailed to: Joe Edwards, c/o Benefit Bank, 8300 Phoenix Ave., Ft. Smith, AR 72903 (Class of ’63 goes in the memo).

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a

Blessed New Year in 2015!

September 2014

A reminder that we will be meeting at 6:00 p.m., September 29, 2014, at Western Sizzlin on Rogers Ave., Ft. Smith (Just thought we’d try out a different place this time). If anyone has a particular place they would like to meet in the future, please let me know. We will be making plans for our December Get-To-Gather and hope many more will be able to come and join us.

Our July meeting was well attended and we were able to present our two $1,000 scholarships (Phase 3) to Jade Espina and Christopher Welch. Also attending was Lynn Wasson, Managing Editor of Entertainment Fort Smith. Lynn wrote an article “Northside High School Class of 1963 is actively creating a legacy” in their September edition (to read her article see attachment). We are very thankful that she is helping us promote our continuing Scholarship Fundraiser. Thanks also goes to Robert Marley and Marilynda Green Farris for dedicating their time in choosing these two fine NHS students from the class of 2014.

Thank you, thank you to our classmates and friends who gave to the NHS Class of '63 fundraiser! Although we have not yet reached our goal, we are still looking forward to receiving the promised pledges and donations from those whom have not yet given. The three-phased fundraiser for Northside has been completed and we are hoping to continue to raise funds for a perpetual scholarship to go toward two deserving students each year. Please know that your gift big or small will make a huge difference in the lives of this and future generations of Grizzlies. We hope you will think it is well worth giving to the school that gave us so much.

Please make your tax-deductible donations, payable to “Northside High School” and mail to: Joe Edwards, c/o Benefit Bank, 8300 Phoenix Ave., Ft. Smith, AR 72903 (Class of ’63 goes in the memo). We now have a scholarship account at Benefit Bank so all future contributions will go directly to that account.

A Better Class There’ll Never Be, We’re The Class of ’63!!

The Class of '63 was written up in
Entertainment Fort Smith!!
September '14

(Sorry it is a little blurry, hope you can read it!
it was the best I could do! - CR)

SECOND GET-TO-GATHER

Mark your calendars for the Class of ’63 second gathering on Tuesday, July 29, 2014, 6:00 p.m. at Western Sizzlin on Towson Ave., Ft. Smith. The other times to meet this year will be in September and December. Check out our facebook page and keep up with what’s happening. Just go to “Northside HS class of ’63,” or go to our class website and leave your remarks at fortsmithnorthside1963.myevent.com.

Along with eating and fellowship of our classmates, we will also be presenting two $1,000 scholarship checks to two deserving recipients funded by Phase 3 of our Class of ’63 Alumni Fund-Raiser. Hope you plan to be there and meet these two students from the NHS graduation class of 2014. We will also have an update on the progress of our class project.

A Better Class There’ll Never Be, We’re The Class of ’63!!

Classmates Attending First Get-Together

FORT SMITH NORTHSIDE HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1963

MAY 2014 NEWSLETTER

FIRST GET-TOGETHER

Our first Get-Together was well attended by 18 fellow classmates and a few spouses at Western Sizzlin in Ft. Smith on April 29. It was nice getting together again after our 50^th Reunion and we hope more will be able to come to our next dinner meeting on July 29, same time - same place (unless you have a better choice). Do you recognize everyone in the attached photo? If not, let me know and I’ll send you our names. We’ll be wearing name tags at our next gathering for sure. Reminders for future meeting times will be on facebook and e-mails closer to the time (no mail-outs for the time being). Check out our facebook page at “Northside HS class of ’63” or our class website page at fortsmithnorthside1963.myevent.com.

We discussed our fund-raiser update and decided to wait and see how the funds come in before making a final decision on continuing the scholarships for next year. It was also discussed to join in with the NHS Alumni Association for future scholarships. Hope you can make it to our next gathering and give us your input. If you have suggestions, questions or concerns, please call Mack McKinley at 479-719-4397.

ALUMNI FUND-RAISER UPDATE
Yea to the Class of ’63 for completing Phase 1 and 2 of our Alumni Fund-Raiser. Our goal is to continue raising money for Phase 3 for one or two deserving graduating seniors. If you would like to contribute toward the scholarship fund (phase 3), please make out your tax deductible check to “Northside High School,” put in the memo “Class of ‘63” and send it to: Joe Edwards, % Benefit Bank, 8300 Phoenix Ave., Ft. Smith, AR 72903.

The application for a graduating senior to fill out has been posted on Northside’s website with the deadline of May 16. If you are interested in checking it out, go to: http://www.fortsmithschools.org/nside/home.aspx; Click on “Guidance Office” for drop down and then click on “Senior Wiki Page”; click on “Scholarships” (on the right); click on “Northside Class of 1963 Scholarship”; click on “DOWNLOAD” to see the full application. Marilynda Green Farris and Robert Marley head up the scholarship committee. If you would like to be a part of the committee that selects a recipient, contact Marilynda at 479-650-3412.

ALUMNI FUND-RAISER BUDGET
* Total money received for Fundraiser
       (30 participants - includes $1,200 from Silent Auction)                                                     $9,725.00
* Price of Sound System (phase 1) installed in February 2014                                                $6,239.09
* Balance as of April 29, 2014                                                                                                        $3,485.91
* Two digital TV monitors with Smart CD ordered from Monty’s TV:
              60” for Cafeteria; 32” for Main Office   (phase 2)                                                         - 2,008.40
* Total amount left for scholarships   (phase 3)                                                                       $1,477.51

NOTE: If you know of a classmate that hasn’t been receiving our class information, please let them know, and if they have e-mail, let me (di-nana@sbcglobal.net or 479-414-6612) know that so I can add them to the newsletter list. If your e-mail (or address) changes, please let me know that as well so you can stay informed of our class news.

A Better Class There’ll Never Be, We’re The Class of ’63!!

Meet your Classmates at Western Sizzlin' Soon

FIRST GET-TO-GATHER

So we can keep in touch more often, our class committee decided to have get-to-gather meals every 5^th Tuesday in 2014 for anyone that wants to come and join us. Mark your calendars for our first meeting on Tuesday, April 29, 2014, 6:00 p.m. at Western Sizzlin on Towson Ave., Ft. Smith. The other times to meet will be in July, September and December. If you aren’t on facebook, check it out and keep up with what’s happening. Just go to “Northside HS class of ’63,” or go to our class website and leave your remarks at fortsmithnorthside1963.myevent.com.

The new sound system is being installed

March 2014

Great Job class of '63!

The following article written by Pam Cloud appeared in the Times Record recently.

While celebrating their 50th reunion last October, the NHS class of 1963 decided to sponsor an alumni fundraiser to help support its alma mater. After heading a fundraising drive, the class has been able to give $7,000 to NHS to be used for the purchase and installatiion of an outdoor sound system. The fundraiser, which committee members hope will raise approximately $15,000, will continue, with future phases raising funds for other items to enhance the school property and for a scholarship fund, according to Diana Ray Baker, member of the NHS Class of '63 committee.
Baker said $1,200 of that came from a silent auction the class held during its recent reunion, which included among its auction items an original John Bell painting that he donated before he died. Another $1,000 was donated by the class of 1962.

"Several of the people on the committee met and evaluated everything," Baker explained. "The $1,200 came from our class and we talked and felt like we could do more."

More money continues to trickle in for Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the fundraiser, which will provide funds for a rotating digital picture frame to be placed in the NHS hallways and a scholarship fund, respectively.

Chris Carter, NHS assistant principal, said having an alumni class take such an interest in the school and its students is part of the Girzzly legacy.

"One of the things we try to do at Northside is...respect the building and the nostalgia of the building," Carter said of the 86 year-old structure that was first the home of Fort Smith High School before becoming Northside high in 1961. "These students today realize that a lot of successful people have walked the halls before them.

"We love the fact that alumni come in and look around and take an interest," added Carter, who was recently named the 2014 Assistant Principal of the Year by the Arkansas Association of Secondary School Principals.

With the first $6,000 from Phase 1 of the fundraiser, Carter said the school has installed an outdoor sound system that can be used during pep rallies, during weather emergencies or other events.

"Before and after school, we can play different genres of music, for instance during Black History Month or Cinco de Mayo or the Christmas season," Carter explained. During emercency evacuations, students are evacuated to the front lawn, and the outdoor address system will make it easier to communicate with 1,500 students, he added.

Carter sees flat-screen television monitors in the hallways as part of Phase 2, which will allow digital photos of current students and former students - to rotate onscreen.

"We love to celebrate what our kids are doing around here," Carter said. "We have to reflect on our past to celebrate our future."

In Phase 3, the scholarship fund will allow at least two deserving 2014 NHS graduating seniors to recieve funds for future education endeavors.

Ray said the class of 1963 wanted to provide a way for a couple of excellent sutdents who "possibly fell through the cracks" to get some scholarship money.

"We were hoping to raise at least enough for $500 each or more if we can." Baker added.

Tax-deductible donations, payable to Northside High School should be mailed to Joe Edwards, c/o Benefit Bank, 8300 Phoenix Ave., Fort Smith, AR 72903. Baker said all funds donated will be in memory of NHS deceased classmates.

The Class of '63 is proud to be able to help our alma mater achieve this funding and show the next generaltion how much we love and support Northside High School." Baker said.

December 2013

Greetings Classmates,

We want to update you on how the Alumni Fundraiser is coming along. Mack McKinley, Joe Edwards and Diana Ray Baker presented a $6,000 check to Northside High School Assistant Princpal, Chris Carter and Principal, Dr. Ginni McDonald. Thanks to all who have contributed to this fundraiser, including the NHS Class of 1962 that donated $1,000. These donations have given us enough money to have the new Outdoor Sound System installed all around the school campus. Assistant Principal, Chris Carter has contacted Sigler Music to start the process of installation. NHS has been working the last few years to try to find funding for this type sound system, but money just wasn’t available. We are proud to be able to help our Alma Mater achieve this funding and show this generation how much we love and support Northside High School!

Mission accomplished for Phase 1 of our fundraiser and a few dollars left over to start Phase 2, which is the Rotating Digital Picture Frame. This picture frame is one that will greatly be used each school year while allowing students involved in various school activities to be seen by their peers. I can only imagine how much encouragement that will be to each and every student, as well as the teaching staff.

Phase 3 is the scholarship fund, of which we have some money already designated and earmarked for that purpose in the fundraiser account. Anyone that wants to may specify their donation go to the scholarship fund. We will have a committee that will oversee the regulations of those who will receive these two scholarships when enough money is received, hopefully by February.

Thanks to Mack McKinley's family for making the check so special with details of all the numbers. It will stay on display at the NHS Library for a couple of months.

The NHS Class of ‘63 wants to set an example to this graduating class, hoping they will be involved in their Alma Mater after they have their “50^th” Class Reunion (2063)!

We also want to remind you that we will continue raising funds the next few months with hopes that donations for Phase 2 and 3 will be received. If you know someone that doesn’t have e-mail, please share this newsletter with them. Also, please let us know if you have a new e-mail or mailing address. We will continue to have our class website updated - fortsmithnorthside1963.myevent.com and facebook – “Northside HS class of ’63.”

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a Blessed New Year in 2014!

November 2013

We have reached the $6000 Donation mark !! - We have $9000 more to go if we want to reach our goal!

FORT SMITH NORTHSIDE HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1963

NOVEMBER 2013 NEWSLETTER

To: All Fellow 1963 Classmates

From: NHS Committee Members

REUNION UPDATE: Well it has come and now gone, but the memories made were wonderful!! We hope everyone who was able to attend enjoyed the events. Don't forget if you have pictures you'd like to share, you can add them to our website (fortsmithnorthside1963.myevent.com). Just send them in and we can add them to our photos page. This website is ours for the next six years so please continue to visit it, as we will try to update from time to time. A facebook account, “Northside HS class of ’63” has also been created for you to join and keep up with other 1963 classmates.

Please contact us with any and all information on classmates that you might have in order for us to keep our database updated ......that is very important to us all. Thanks to all who came and made this a most memorable occasion!!

COMMITTEE UPDATE: The committee met shortly after our reunion to evaluate all the events and then discussed future gatherings. There were very few glitches, but most all agreed it was one of the best reunions ever. It was discussed to have another reunion in 5 years, but on a much smaller scale. We would love to have feedback if you think this is a good idea or any other suggestions you might have. A blog has been established on our website to make comments.

So we can keep in touch more often, we decided to have get-to-gather meals every 5^th Tuesday next year for anyone that wants to come and join us in our time together. Mark your calendars for the first gathering on April 29, 2014, 6:00 p.m. at Western Sizzlin on Towson Ave., Ft. Smith. The other gatherings in 2014 will be in July, September and December (since December 31^st is New Year’s Eve, we may decide to have it another day). Check out our website for updates on times and places we’ll be meeting or you may keep in contact by e-mail.

All future correspondence until our 55^th Reunion in 2018 will be by e-mail, facebook or on our class website.

BID AUCTION: Suzy Stosberg donated a framed John Bell print of Fort Smith worth $600. The money received from this will be given to Northside High School in memory of our classmates who are deceased. The print is called ‘The Hayride’ and features Garrison Avenue and is the view looking east on Garrison Avenue from the 1922 bridge over the Arkansas River. The horse drawn hayride wagon is headed across the bridge to Oklahoma. Seasonal Garland is strung over Garrison Ave. John Bell passed away from gastric cancer on November 8, 2013. The Hayride by John Bell

Donald Sanders bid won this print! Thank you Donald! Your bid enabled us to give Northside High $1200 in memory of our deceased classmates.

REUNION BOOKLET UPDATE: If you didn’t get a Booklet, there are still some available for $10 each if you want it mailed to you. You can e-mail Marilynda Green Farris at marilyndafarris@ yahoo.com for your order and mail your check (made out to ”Class Reunion Booklet”) to Joe Edwards, % Benefit Bank, 8300 Phoenix, Ft. Smith, AR 72903. Thanks to Calvert McBride printing for this very nice professional looking 80 page booklet. All classmate pictures from our 1963 yearbook are included, as well as bios and “now” pictures in color. Also included is our Alma Mater, Fight Song, motto and pictures of those who are deceased.

NHS ALUMNI PROJECT: The Reunion Committee has voted to take on an enormous project and raise money for a much needed outdoor sound system, digital rotating picture frame, and scholarships. The projected goal is $15,000 with $1,200 already being raised. Even though this is a big undertaking, we are confident that our fellow classmates will get on board and commit to helping meet this need. If you would like to make a donation, please fill out the form below and mail it back with your contribution.

NHS CLASS OF ’63 NEWSLETTER: Check our website fortsmithnorthside1963.myevent.com and/or your e-mail for future newsletters updating the progress of our “Alumni Fundraiser,” future get-to-gathers and any other information pertaining to the class of 1963. If you have questions, please contact Mack McKinley at 479-719-4397.

Sincerely, Class of 1963 Committee

- cut below line and mail with donation -

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Alumni Fundraiser Form

Make check payable to: Northside High School

(Memo on bottom of check: Class of ‘63)

Hopeful “Target” date to reach our goal is December 31, 2013 Tax ID: 71 6020978

Questions? Contact Joe Edwards at 484-7000

Mail to: Joe Edwards

% Benefit Bank

8300 Phoenix Ave.

Ft. Smith, AR 72903

DONOR NAME: ______________________________________________________________

ADDRESS: _________________________________________________________________

PHONE: ___________________________ CELL: __________________________________

E-MAIL: ___________________________________________________________________

AMOUNT ENCLOSED: ____________________ CHECK #: ________________________

OPTIONAL DONATIONS: □ In Memory □ In Honor □ Other

(Please print name(s) below)

_________________________________________

Northside High School

“Alumni Fundraiser

WHO: Anyone who wants to donate to this project!

WHAT: Northside High School Alumni Fundraiser – Projected Goal $15,000

Outdoor Sound System – Digital Rotating Picture Frame - Scholarships

WHEN: Donations are being accepted NOW!

WHERE: Send your donation made payable to “Northside High School,” Joe Edwards, % Benefit Bank, 8300 Phoenix Ave., Ft. Smith, AR 72903 [Tax Id 71 6020978] (since the website takes a little of your payment, we decided to to this by check, so all your donation will be given to Northside)

WHY: ‘Northside Alumni’ wants to make an impact on our next generation by setting an example of true commitment and support of Fort Smith Northside

High School!

HOW: Join with us as we work together to raise money for Northside High School.

Make a donation in memory/honor of your

loved one who attended Northside High School

October 2013

New Leaders for the Class of 1963!!

Diana Ray Baker and Mac Mckinley have graciously agreed to be the leaders for our next reunion in 2018! Thank you Diana and Mac!!!

To: NHS Classmates of 1963

From: Class of 1963 Committee Members

Thanks to Mack McKinley's family for making the check so special with details of all the numbers. It will stay on display at the NHS Library for a couple of months.

The NHS Class of ‘63 wants to set an example to this graduating class, hoping they will be involved in their Alma Mater after they have their “50^th” Class Reunion (2063)!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a Blessed New Year in 2014!