Belmont Hill School - Belmont Hill School Yearbook (Belmont, MA)

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much cheating going on and that for the good of the school the honor system ought to be abolished. After several furious and unorganized debates and as many more polls, ballots, and showings of hands, it was finally decided to forget the whole thing. Thus passed the quaint custom of taking exams at Homestead. When the class President lost his little brown book and made an announcement about it at lunch, the whole school started a careful search. It was later discovered that someone had just hidden it as another, albeit a sneaky, joke on gullible lovable Togneri. While on the subject of Togneri, it is well to record here that this was the first year of the Sixth Form Advisor system inaugurated by him and Mr. Funk. General opinion holds that the system was a great success. Several other hot issues have come up in the past year and some were dealt with adequately. There was, for example, the debate over whether to have Mr. Keller's traditional talks on the mem- bers of the Sixth Form or not. It is too bad, at least from the point of view of source material for this History, that these were rejected as too stupid, a waste of time, and completely in- ane. Among the questions which have not been satisfactorily answered is: What was Hugh Mac- Mahon sloshing through the marshes near Logan Airport on New Year's Eve for? His answer, looking for a friend seemed a little incomplete and leaves the matter somewhat up in the air. A far reachin principle was involved in the answer to: Why did Bill Griswold nearly drown when Mr. Mattladge put a piece of cardboard over a glass of water and then turned it upside down over Bill's head? All the Newtons and Einsteins of the Phys- ics classes are still stumped and suggestions have been made about submitting the problem to the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. Another stickler, Who put the sign saying 'Town of Lin- coln Water Supply' in the lagoon, was finally an- swered but no names will be mentioned here in or- der to protect the guilty. Many projects were inaugurated or continued by the industrious Class of '55. After many years of fretting and fuming over the necessity of start- ing some kind of conservation project at Belmont Hill, Mr. Downes' dearest wish came true. After 10 cents had been collected from everyone in the class, Denny Corcoran was appointed head of the committee to buy the tree. The resulting sugar maple was planted alongside the Lower School driveway, a spot which later proved to be very vulnerable as it has been hit by several cars since. In spite of an adhesive bandage around its mid- section, which does hold it up, careful study this spring produced no evidence of even a single bud. A qualified T.D. CTree Doctorj has pronounced its chances for next year as hopeless. Another project involving Mr. Downes is the production of the monstrosities called Creative Art. Many people moaned over the prize winner, Dave Sumner's Leg Segments in a Garden, say- ing that they could have done just as well if they too had the raw material to work with. An attempt early in the year to get suggestions for a second Class Project, in addition to the stone wall, Hubbed out when there was only one volunteer to chop down trees in the swamp. The stone wall, however, under the leadership of Animal and Pear Shape progressed famously, although we did not quite succeed in carrying it all the way around the school as was originally planned. We did, never- theless, finish as much of the wall as any previous Class had, and much more than several did. As we leave the Sixth Form now, and become alumni, let us briefly remember such innovations as fall tennis, charm bracelets for the football- soccer dance, J on Shaw's motor scooter, Dick Fogg's awakening when he received his hockey numerals, Math VI classes in which marks were drawn from a hat, the chopping of panels in Cole's Hole, the pills and bricks in Dave Taber's locker, various automobile accidents Calways a favorite subject for conversationj including the burning oil truck which everyone went to see, and last but by no means least, the round of parties after the Prom which found several potted boys playing tennis at four o'clock in the morning and Foggo drinking beer out of a bugle. When the party making finally died down and each new graduate went his way, three or four of the loyal literates remained behind to carry on and finally to finish the copy for this handsome Year- book. In spite of sweet rumors to the contrary, only 30 out of the 136 pages had been completed by commencement time. It took more than two solid weeks of working from nine in the morning till eleven at night on the part of the two top edi- tors, not to mention the in-and-out assistance of a few others, to clear up the myriad tasks still re- maining. Pictures? Wow! Has this yearbook got pictures CD-more, we believe, than any other in the long line of Yearbooks to issue from Belmont Hill. And, alas, it wasn't until we had pasted up montages till the rubber cement was coming out our ears that we discovered that this task had been farmed out to a commercial studio in previous years. It seems to all the members of the Class of '55, who without much surprise, awe, or regretvwalked up to receive their diplomas on Commencement day, that the total amount of money they had shelled out for various contributions during the year must run into three-figure numbers. At the request of several boys, a Certified Public Ac- countant is calculating the exact amount, but un- fortunately the results cannot be printed here as the job is expected to take several months to complete. CP.S. Class Agent Eaton is prepared to accept from anyone the first contribution to the Alumni Fund by a member of the Class of '55.j And now, without further ado, let us say good- bye to Belmont Hill, confer our praises and grati- tude on the School as a whole rather than on cer- tain individuals, knowing that without everyone, the School could not function, and then move that this history come to an end. Anyone second the motion?

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scene, and Goldberg Qof the Goldberg-Hunt De- bates fameb arrived just in time to alter the history department at Belmont Hill. To make a place for him, Mr. Ryerson moved down to Shady Hill. Crazylegs M. Forman, H. Bolan, Leech, Scoop Sumner, Charles Ashley and the News, and even J. Havice Qfor a whilej, added greatly to our herd. So too came Harold Estabrook who brought us Arlmont and 5 years, 2 months, and 17 days Debbie. Many new things were experienced as the Fourth Form year got under way in the fall of 1952. One of the most inspiring experiences came as a few lucky souls underwent an uproarious year in the clutches of Smiley,s Spanish I. How- ever, the year on the whole was a quiet one, if one can judge it by the scarcity of material produced for this summary by the foremost brains of the class, and eventually the year drew to its end. We got through the exams with few casualties, re- ceived our share of prizes on Prize Day, watched the graduating class get their diplomas and clapped till our hands were sore. Then we sat back to prepare for what was supposed to be the tough- est scholastic year of all-and we'd like now to think it really was since nearly half the class was destined to win a Fifth Form Honor Pin! As the class moved on to the Fifth F orm, there were a few personnel defections. Buzz Miner, George Ekwall, and John Havice abandoned us in favor of the Class of '56, and Thug Clark, Binx Carrier of questionable repute, John Gan- son, and the famous Joe Dow all departed for other institutions of one sort or another. Garry Paine also left us, advancing remarkably to the Class of ,54. Replacements were at hand, however, in the persons of Pete Beacham, Kraut J aspert, Nate Pusey, and Pete Cole who promptly left again for Venezuela and points south thus making room for the one and only Foggo. In the Master's department, The Moose Mulliken, beloved by all, left the Lower School while Ned I will be down in Cole's Hole this aft- ernooni' Ryerson also left following the havoc wrought by Send a blotter to Ned week. The supply of masters was soon replenished, however, by the arrival of Mr. Morton, Mr. Tibbetts, Mr. Woodward, and Mr. Tuplin Csoon to be known as the one-armed banditwj. This was the memorable year when Mr. Test drove the crew bus through a red light at the bot- tom of Clifton Street and was stopped by a cop, when there were several raids on the Sixth Form room, all of which ended in failure, when Animal', Taber chased Mr. Tibbetts around the desk in History class, and when signs of stoutness first began to appear on The Beak Togneri. The PANEL began to flourish in these days and the memories of many Thursday nights are still fresh. The fund for the pitching machine got started but quickly struck out when only seventy-three cents were collected and this was lost. The Lagoon League, with one or two football stars from the Class of '55, flourished well into the lagoon, the night, and the month of January. Mr. Max taught us all how to gamble mathematically under the thinly disguised front of pretending to teach something called Permutations, Combinations, and Probability , and we are still anxiously wait- ing for the publication of Mr. Croke's promised book on how to be a good spectator at a tennis match. Denny Corcoran's morning showers to avoid the 4:30 rush became so popular that there wasn't any more 4:30 rush. The dance committee elected Dave Canneld chairman, a job that soon succeeded in getting on his nerves so much that after producing four dances, he has falmostj de- cided to try a different career. ' The year finally did come to a close, and once again we sat through the commencement speeches. en we were Sixth F ormers, and almost everyone laid plans to get out at once and earn some money to spend on cars and girls. Only Pete Beacham de- cided to repeat the fifth form and some accused him of doing it just so he could give another party for fifth formers after the Senior Prom. Among the masters, unfortunately, we lost some of our best. Messrs. Loomis, Whittier, Test, and Smith from the Lower School, all departed much to the regret of Belmont Hill. The fall found four new faces in our midst: a new Mr. Smith for the Lower School, Mr. Wright, Mr. Aloian, and Peeps Mason who just barely survived the '54- '55 open season for masters and then left again. It wasn't such a surprise-but it was impressive -to find ourselves Sixth F ormers at last. We took over the hole outside the chapel as if we had held an option on it for years. The Form behind us even had some respect for our physical prowess and we were forced to defend our domain only twice in the whole school year. The pent up wrath of the Form did descend on some of its own mem- bers, however, and Arthur Murphy's clean white bucks weren't white very long, especially after he was dropped in the mud of the soccer field. Charlie Ashley was forced to cut off his tie when he found he could no longer breathe after vain struggles to free it from the grasp of a window in the Sixth Form room. But the pride and joy of the F orm, in fact of the school, the model Belmont .Hill boy, Robert Charles President of the Class of '55 Togneri, affectionately known by such names as Slobby Bobby, Pear-Shape, Cyrano, and The Beak, was the object of so many Scoff Togneri Days that it might as well have been called Scoff Togneri Year. The leaders of this campaign were Chris Benda and Ted Davis, who had by then, aided by the tutelage of Thug Clark, ex-955, become full fledged hoods them- selves. In fact, Itch found so many references to himself and his Billerica friends in the column of the PANEL known for various obscure reasons as 57,,' that the PANEL nearly had its first law- suit on its hands. Very early in the year there came the annual argument between those who like to take their exams wherever they feel the urge to go, and those conscientious students who feel that there is too

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EDITORIAL AFTERTHOUGI-ITS The school year 1954-1955 has seen a great many things unfold that we think have helped to raise the standard of the Belmont Hill School a notch or two. The Class of 1955 in the pages of this book, reviews the past school year and its events, but many intangible things cannot possibly be included in the regular sections of a Yearbook. Sp geg this page be the Brag Sheet of the Class o ' . Belmont Hill athletics took a sudden turn this year. Many will agree that this turn was for the better and that the whole school profited from it. The Graduating Class-that's us-didn't have any real athletes to compare with some in the past few years. More often than not, a team mem- ber's prowess consisted mostly of determination The football team, for example, had little to work with, and yet with a couple of small breaks at the right time they could have produced a winning season rather than one that came out 2-3-1. The soccer team also showed fight, and though not studded with stars, they too could have improved their record easily. The basketball team was a shining standout in what was billed as a meager sports year, and compiled the finest record of any basketball team in the School's history, miss- ing a league championship by only a single point. The hockey team also had lots to show for their building yearn and under Mr. Walworth gained a tie for the league championship with Middlesex, a team they had beat soundly at mid-season, 5-0. The baseball season was miserable as the record runs, but again, with better than the worst of breaks, they would have or could have won easily four or five more games than they did. The crew did very well, and after sweeping St. Marks, they went on to win the Consolation Prize in their climax event at Quinsigamond. The tennis team, with the best record of all the spring sports, 5-6, showed the same spirit as the other teams. Of ALL these teams it can be said that they fought hard and scrapped all the way. They may have played lousy ball at times but never for lack of trying- in fact, sometimes because they tried too hard. The Sixth Form has shown this spirit in all its attitudes throughout the school year. They made every effort to cooperate with the rest of the stu- dent body and with the faculty, and did much, we think, to propagate the same spirit throughout the School. It is this contribution, perhaps more than any other, that constitutes our legacy to the School. Our Form voted in the advisee system and on the whole we know it has done some positive good. It can and should be improved in the future but the idea, at least, has been proven sound. In the same meeting at which the advisee system was approved, the Honor System was turned down. The Class of '55, which has been called the best scholastic class in the School's history, chose to refuse this system on the basis of the well-known past failures of the system, the fact that no honor system yet proposed offers advantages that suffi- ciently override its disadvantages, and the serious doubt that any of these systems could properly be called an Honor system in the first place. Our class actually built a stone wall this year! We think this is quite an accomplishment in view of the failure of all previous graduating classes to make more than a feeble start on this undertaking. It may also be worth noting that this class- though no richer than other classes before it-has never run a dance in the red, but has instead al- ways made at least a tiny profit. Furthermore, enough effort was finally mustered to insure that the publication of this yearbook not lose money for the school this year. These two statistics, while not vital in themselves, are still a measure of the spirit the class was able to arouse among its own and the responsive spirit it could evoke from its fellow students. The record shows that the class was indeed studious, and that it produced a greater number of honors graduates than any previous Belmont Hill class. The year had its humorous times too, Foggo's sauntering to the fore to receive his ,I.V. hockey numerals to a standing ovation from the attendant chapel throng, and ,Iohn I'Iurd's glori- ous slouch in the Glee Club's front row. All these incidents and many more contributed to the year 1955. The SEXTANT was improved and spawned a fine new column, Short Sightings, and turned up a wealth of fine writers on its staff. The PANEL continued to rank high as the Class of '55 won it another medalist rating. The Student Council accomplished more and better things with its toy drive and its 100 percent charity drive, as Well as in carrying on a Disciplinary Committee which could point to its proven success and progress in many boys. Our Panels are now collecting dust on the posts in the dining room-somebody's cleared up after the Prom, and the trophies are back at school, so the Class of 1955 can say at last We made it! Our grateful thanks go to the younger formers who backed up our efforts this year, may they have as good luck.