Summerlin Institute, a.k.a. Bartow Sr. High School, my alma mater, is being demolished, and a new teaching complex is being built in the place of those 80 plus year old classrooms.
To be fair, the former Jr. High Building is being left intact, as is the band room, and the old gymnasium; (which had long since been converted into a two story classroom multiplex).
I attended junior high and high school here from 1962-1967, and (obviously) have mixed emotions about the demise of these hallways and classrooms in which I lived, and moved, and had my being during such a crucial season of my life.
To be sure it has little or nothing to do with the brick and mortar which surrounded our educational process, though the inanimate structure which surrounded us allowed for the education and socialization we received there.
Since I live in the neighboring city of Winter Haven, I have often driven past the old high school, and reflected on that little season. Interestingly enough, I subbed at my old school multiple times, a full forty years after my graduation; (and I am happy to say that it was among my two favorite schools in which I taught during that particular decade and a half of my life).
And when I served in this capacity, I could not help but share some of the memories which now exist only in the hearts and minds of myself, and my fellow classmates; (and which, when we are gone, may quickly fade from the consciousness of our local community).
Pt. 2
Just two weeks after President John F. Kennedy was so rudely gunned down in that infamous Dallas motorcade, the little town of Bartow, and its high school students, in particular, were visited with an equally traumatic, though admittedly local, episode.
School let out at 3:15pm on a daily basis. And on this memorable day David and I headed down that same familiar walkway which led to Bus 149, and took that same familiar ride to our homes; a few miles east of town.
As we reached the end of the cement, and prepared to step out on the asphalt, and navigage the twenty yards which separated us from our yellow conveyance, it happened.
A car veered off South Broadway, which ran along the west side of my alma mater, struck the right read end of one of the school buses, and accelerated towards David and me.
Ten yards, five yards. There were only milliseconds to think. I chose the only course which might possibly save us. I grabbed David’s nearest arm with my left hand, and simultaneously jumped to the left of the approaching automobile. The right front bumper of the vehicle missed us by inches.
As I looked to my right I saw the offending car speed up. Students were being catapulted into the air. Diverting my gaze, I ran to my bus. I later learned that about 15 students had sustained non-life threatening injuries, while one young man was drug beneath the automobile; having sacrificed his life to save two teenaged girls; whom he pushed out of the pathway of the car.
As it fell together, an elderly citizen of Bartow had momentarily lost awareness of her surroundings, drifted into the rear end of the school bus, and panicking, hit the accelerator, instead of the brake.
The rest, as they say, is history. As I have inferred, I almost always told this story when I subbed at my alma mater. The young man who offered up his life for other students that day is worthy of this admittedly insufficient honor.
Pt. 3
Decades later my wife, also a graduate of Summerlin Institute, told me that she had just been released from class that day, and somehow, perhaps due to the sound of metal against metal, became aware of some sort of disturbance along the roadway.
Mrs. Belflower, my 8th grade English teacher, walked quickly past her, and asked Jean if she knew what had occurred. Receiving a negative response, she continued towards the scene of the accident.
The previous Ms. B. was my favorite teacher of all time. Like me, she tended to remind students of people, places and things of which they had no personal knowledge, such as having won the Miss Georgia Runner Up title of 1949; (which is, incidentally, the year I made my entrance into the world).
I found an old report card a few years ago which bore her familiar handwriting, and a poignant message.
“Royce, stay with it. You might discover you like literature!”
(Well, I did and I do)
Dear Mrs. Mary Duncan Belflower left us far too soon, as she contracted cancer and passed away at the age of 50. I still visit her final resting place, ‘spruce up’ the general area a bit, update her on my progress, and always make her aware of the inestimable role she played in my life.
Miss Clark, who graduated from Summerlin Institute in the early years of the 20th century, and who never married, was a choral teacher of magnitude. Our glee club never failed to earn ‘Superiors’ at state contests, ‘put on’ many operettas, and performed “The Messiah” each Christmas at one of the local churches.
She also died of the dreaded ‘Big C’ during my Sophomore year of high school, and was replaced by Mrs. Fishback.
I recall a couple of things about this much younger lady.
She and three other female teachers once dressed up as cheerleaders and performed some sort of athletic routine in the old gymnasium; much to the delight of the student body. I have a memorable photograph of the unlikely quartet in my computer files.
During the initial performance of “Bye, Bye Birdie” (of which I was a part) Ms. F. had, apparently, been reprimanded by the principal about, what at the time might have been considered a suggestive scene, and as a result, I heard her tell her husband that she might submit her resignation.
As I recall, however, the gifted lady continued to teach at Summerlin long after I made my way into the world.
Pt. 4
Then there was the day that one of my male teachers found my wallet; which I had inadvertently left under my desk. It seems I had a somewhat suggestive photo of Robert Mitchum and a topless female starlet inside; which bore the caption, “I was just helping her career.”
Having found the wallet and its accompanying contents, Mr. H. gave it back to me at the end of the class period the next day, along with the statement,
“Only helping her career, huh?”
Embarrassed, I acted like I had no idea to what he was referring, thanked him, and made a beeline to my next class.
A science teacher, Mr. Myrick, who also taught in one of the hallways which has recently been leveled, shared the shortest of stories one day which, for whatever reason, I have never forgotten.
“As a young man, I lived in New Jersey near Princeton University, and would sometimes see Professor (Albert) Einstein walking down the sidewalk. I never approached him, nor said a word to him, but I will never forget his rather bedraggled appearance. He wore clothing which seemed much too large for his small frame, and he just presented an unkempt sort of look about himself.”
Of course, I remember the names and faces of my fellow 201 Class of ’67 classmates; names which have substantially remained the same, but faces which have developed significant wrinkles, heads which are populated with gray hair, and the absence thereof, and some who have gone on to their proverbial rewards.
While several of my student body left us before their time, one, in particular, is most memorable to me.
Pt. 5
Beth’s mother wrote a small volume in which she alluded to her daughter’s untimely demise. While I will not trouble you with the details, suffice it to say this young lady was a senior, and nearing graduation when the automobile accident occurred.
I was a year ahead of Beth in school and had graduated the previous June. I had the privilege of knowing her, from a distance at least, since we were both members of the choral group. Odd, I don’t recall exchanging a word with Beth during those two or three years we sang together. But I knew her father was a music pastor in a nearby church in which we performed “The Messiah” each Christmas, that she was a person of great potential, and that she was a devout Christian.
A few years ago, I made up an online memorial page for Beth, and included the following words as a tribute to her.
"Beth, so utterly sad that you were taken from us before your time. It always seemed to me that your friends lingered, and were reticent to leave you. (I think you knew how to be a friend). And it always seemed to me that your smile betrayed some hidden secret that begged to be found out. It is a privilege to caretake your headstone, to pull a few weeds, to keep your name legible, since you deserve an identity; even in death. You had such inestimable potential. Oh, the dreams that were never realized. May you Rest in Peace, dear friend. May our Father hold you in the very hollow of His loving arms."
My granddaughter and I stopped by Beth’s grave site a couple of years ago, and I was surprised to see something which had not been there on my previous visit. Lying next to her headstone was a newly placed flat, pink granite marker, perhaps 20 inches square, and inscribed with the words,
“IN MEMORY OF BETH”
Of course, I immediately wondered who might have ordered it, and had it installed there.
However, more crucially than any tangible tribute such as this, it seems to me that our very lives should reflect the message on that stone.
That we should live every day with gentle spirits like Beth in mind, they who were denied long and fulfilling lives, and that we ought pursue the sort of impact that this young lady would, no doubt, have made.
Afterward
Just a sample of persons, experiences and memories surrounding a school, which like its former students of over half a century ago, continues to metamorphose and undergo change.
The choral room in which I felt my best was never quite good enough, the track in which I competed in the quarter mile sprint, the gymnasium in which I so often climbed a stout rope to its ceiling, the chemistry lab where we raised a whole new generation of fruit flies, the wood shop where I built a rather shabby shadow box; students and teachers whom I have only, in my old age, adequately appreciated and remembered with more than passing fondness.
I drove past the beloved old place yesterday, and it is just a shell of its former self. A construction tractor and a bulldozer fill up an empty tract of land where my life was irrevocably changed, and might well have prematurely ended.
The classrooms to which I alluded have been razed to the ground, the hallways I meandered are a fading memory, and the old choral building is a heap of stones.
They say change is inevitable and, more often than not, bears rich dividends.
Well, I honestly don’t know about that.
By William McDonald, PhD. From (Mc)Donald's Daily Diary. Vol. 83. Copyright pending
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