Vineland High School - Record Yearbook (Vineland, NJ)

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One of the most memorable assemblies was the one in which the blind Carmelo Cascio moved each of us with his inspiring renditions on the piano. The girls of 103 held a baby picture contest that evoked a chuckle from almost every teacher and student who entered the room. Markham’s and Myer's homerooms, as well as the fellows of Chem. Lab. held Who's Who contests, and Miss Rieg’s girls entertained themselves one bright morning with a talent program. Our pet name for the Biol- ogy Lab was. of course. The Snake Pit . . . One unforgettable event of that happy year was The Challenge. The JAS Boys claimed that they would buy more Hi-Spots subscriptions than would the girls of 103. Bravely accepting the chal- lenge. Durand's girls agreed to the designated pun- ishment for the losers—the consequence of wearing their clothes backwards to school for one day! The fight was on! For a week the battle raged! An then —miracle of miracles—the girls were victorious. The head of every JAS Boy bowed in humble defeat. The Chem Lab was silent as a tomb and the black curtains were drawn for the solemn occasion. The day arrived, ancj a funny thing happened—it wasn’t so bad after all! In fact, it was lots of fun! The boys showed themselves to be good sports as they ambled about V.H.S. in their weird-looking outfits. Many of us still have snapshots of them—lasting reminders of that unusual event . . . Those were the days when we flitted about humming tunes like It’s Magic . My Darling. My Darling . Buttons and Bows , Lavender Blue , and ' Again . . . And likewise those were the days when the girls looked pretty in old-fashioned Gibson Girl blouses and circular skirts . . . and when tele- vision was just starting to become popular . . . Now the memories are coming back in multitudes, aren’t they? . . . We have a faint recollection of the Chess Club under the direction of Mrs. McMicking . . . and another of a trip to the Franklin Institute by the Latin II classes to see Classical Mythology in the Stars at the Planetarium (remember the model train we scrambled onto . . . and the driving tests some of us took . . . and the airplanes . . . and the huge pendulum that intrigued us . . . then. too. remember the fun we had on the bus trip—the songs we sang and the food we ate?) . . . Now. automatically, we are reminded of Latin class itself —the pretzels, the hidden lunches, the paper hats, the orange that mysteriously rolled in the door one day—oh. so many little things—too funny and too precious ever to forget . . . Then there was the Sophomore Party . . . Perhaps what made even more of a lasting impres- sion on us than the dance itself was the fun we had while preparing for it—that Friday when we came to school in dungarees and old shirts . . . when we toted buckets of water (some with holes in the bot- tom. much to our dismay) . . . when we boldly tramped into the woods to chop forsythia and wild pear blossoms, hauled them onto trucks, and ar- ranged them around the gym as best we could . . . when we covered old umbrellas with pastel crepe paper to carry out our theme April Showers . . . and when the band members upset our plans for a

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Reminiscing The class of '51 ... there is pride in every syllable . . .there is pride in every heart . . . There's a little sadness, too ... a funny sort of wistfullness as we go back over the years ... as we remember . . . It was September. 1947. A freshman class —a very special one—became a part of the great V.H.S. On that first day. so easy to recall now. we pattered timidly through the corridors with bewil- derment on our faces and a queer uneasiness deep inside. We beheld the almighty'' seniors with awe and fearful respect. Some of us fell for that elevator gag. and almost all of us went to the wrong room sometime during that first week. It was all so confusing! But we banded together, and in unity, gradually overcame our tribulations........... It was nice of them to let us attend every alternate assembly, wasn't it? Remember the way we had to crane our necks around the pillars in the back of the auditorium, and even then the stage seemed miles away? . . . And we could never un- derstand why the seniors were always selling things, but four years later we knew the answer . . . And that frightful day when we lined up for the T.B. Patch Test, our innocent minds filled with visions of long, treacherous needles jabbing into our arms . . . that's what the upper-classmen had told us . . . the following year we took our revenge . . . Most of us were avid football fans that year and wore the red and gray conspicuously so every- one would know that we attended high school . . . Julie Mullen brought honor to our class by winning first prize in the talent contest sponsored by the Grand Theater . . . and HoHo walked off with several awards at the Cumberland County Fair . . . Martin Cline, to whom we sadly bid goodbye the following year when he moved to Philly, ex- celled over all in the Boys' Public Speaking Contest and won first prize with A Madman's Manuscript . . . We were proud of our Goody . too. already a high scorer on the girls' varsity basketball team . . . It was the first year at V.H.S. for some of our favorite teachers, too—Mr. Astor. Miss Adamo. Miss Rieg. Mr. Leeds. Mr. Krepf. and Mr. Kammer. and they certainly set things ablaze with activity ... all the music organizations were joined together to form the Music Club ... a baton was placed in the capable hand of leader Astor, and a great thing happened—the lilting strains of Stella by Starlight” were heard, and the Dance Band made its debut, with our own Julie as one of the vocalists . . . Mr. Krapf introduced tennis, a sport which became popular in a very short time . . . Mr. Kammer be- came the competent yearbook advisor . . . Miss Durand's active homeroom composed a Code of Ethics, and set a record with seventeen girls on the Honor and Merit Rolls at the end of a marking period . . . Remember Gym Night, when the girls demonstrated American Folk dances in typical freshman style, and the boys showed their skill in marching drills and elementary tumbling? We smile now. as we think of it. . . And our smile lingers as we recall some of the tunes we were singing that year— Near You , How Soon , Civiliza- tion . I'm My Own Grandpa , and Hooray, Hooray. I'm Going Away! . . . that last one was a favorite with us . . . Eisenhower for President was a commonly heard phrase those weeks, and along with everyone else, we expressed our views concerning the election in the near future . . . Then, before we knew it. the month of June was upon us and we knew that we had cleared the hurdle! Sophomores now—the upper half of the lower half as we called ourselves . . . We had regu- lar seats in asembly. and we participated in far more activities than we had during the previous year . . . We started off with a bang by helping V.H.S. top Toms River in the 1948 Magazine Drive and win the state championship. Our popular class president, Jean Carnegie, was the second, highest salesman in the school. We all trooped down to the Grand, where we stuffed ourselves with popcorn and watched Two Guys from Texas . . . And wasn't that the year when the girls almost went mad bandaging each other for Sopho- more Health? We looked like characters from a Frankenstein movie, but, oh! what fun it was! . . . And say. weren't we proud of Saint when he made his debut as an end on the varsity football squad, and of Joan and Phyl when they were chosen to be cheerleaders, and of all the soph twirlers. Drum and Bugle Corps members, and Band mem- bers who looked so snappy out there on the field? . . . Goody. Dolly, and HoHo showed their stuff on the girls' basketball team, as did the popular Jimmy Reaves in wrestling . . .

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 jelly-bean counting'' contest by eating all the jelly- beans before we arrived. Just to be different, we chose a king. Hubert Wand, and everyone certainly had a good time at that party, our very first class project . . . Saint again brought honor to our class through his ability on the baseball team ... We were equally proud of Mike Daugherty, fondly known as Mahoney . the champion tennis player ... of Laura who was chosen for All-State Orchestra ... of Clariese and Julie for making All-State Chorus . . . Many of our classmates joined the Hi- Spots Staff, and some of them were elected to club offices for the following year . . . The first Red and Gray Day was held in the spring and proved a tremendous success . . . The friendly rivalry it produced was not only fun for everyone but it achieved the primary purpose of promoting school spirit . . . We remember, too. when the Biology Club travelled to Glassboro to enter a live exhibit in the Science Fair . . . And again it's the little things that happened which we now recall fondly—the walks around the campus . . . the little luncheonette where we fed the juke-box and had a gay time jitterbug- ging . . . the model home and our little escapade . . . even the Virginia reel we did at the train station . . . As a perfect ending to a perfect year, the soph homerooms took class trips—Rieg's. Myer's. and O'Kane's went to Woodside (that missing per- sons hunt). . . Typing, to Atlantic City, (braving that icy water . . .those kids that almost didn't make it back to the bus) . . . Chem Lab. Snake Pit, and 103, to Riverview. (the roller coaster, the Fun House , the Old Mill , the ferry ride across the river and back, the airplane rides, and the bus trip—Mike begging for alms , Jean and the cigar, everybody and the peanuts) . . . It's wonderful to be able to remember, isn't it? Another long year stretched before us. and with it the thrill of being upperclassmen . . . Privi- leged people now, we started receiving the Guid- ance Headliner, and began thinking more seriously about the future. Our wonderful Mr. Matlack had left in June, but this September brought Coach DiTomo to V.H.S. . . . That was about the time that South Pacific” and canasta were sharing the spotlight for main topics of discussion . . . And wasn't it then that we were singing I Can Dream. Can't I? , Some Enchanted Evening , You're Breaking My Heart . There's No Tomorrow , and Mule Train ? . . . Our movie treat for the magazine drive that year was shown in the auditorium. Supplied with candy and pea-shooters, we had loads of fun watch- ing The Fleet's In (or at least the first part of •♦) • • Remember those parodies we wrote on Paul Revere s Ride for U.S. History II. and the contest in Hi-Spots that featured baby pictures of the fac- ulty? . . . French and Spanish students surely recall practice teachers Miss Dallago and Miss DeMaio . . . And who can forget the tuning forks, Mr. Krapf’s jokes, and those experiments that didn't work in physics? . . . Then came our junior play. The Inner Willy —103 and Typing homeroom collaborated on pub- licity and had everything from sandwich signs to white-washed sidewalks . . . Dick Shindler made a perfect impish conscience, with Nicky Possumato as Willoughby, and Peggy. Joan, and Lynn as the three maiden aunts, Hester, Louise, and Olga . . . Remember Dick in the long white things . . . Sherry when she walked in on Nick and had the entire cast in stitches . . . the lemon juice backstage . . . the twins Phyllis and Sylvia, and Sylvia's forgotten lines ... the party afterwards? . . . The class was proud of Jimmy Angelucci when he won first prize in the South Jersey Arr Contest ... of Ruth Weitzman who copped third prize in the girls' public speaking contest ... of