Bloom High School - Bloom Yearbook (Chicago Heights, IL)

Page 20 text:

Then Blend inlo Now gnd... The Seventies brought both change and reward for many Bloom Trojans. The big- gest change for Bloom students was the opening of our sister school, Bloom Trail. in l976 as a four year institution, the first year that the new school was used as a four year high school. But the old Bloom had already made many great achieve- ments, especially in the sports arena. ln l974 the basketball team was the State Runner-up. ln l975 the basketball team made a repeat performance in Champaign with the same outcome: State Runner-up. The cross country team made a very fine showing in l974, coming home with the state crown. They made a repeat lperformance in I975, again winning the state championship. The wrestling team also did the double-take by taking the State Championship in I975 and l976. The track team was the last in the line of re- peat performances when, in l976, they were State Runner-up. Doing themselves one better in l977, they came home with the state trophy. All these teams made Bloom a school that one could not be prouder of. Among the events that were happening outside Bloom in the Seventies was the Watergate Scandal and the eventual res- ignation of President Richard Nixon in I974. ln l976 the United States celebrated its 200th anniversary. Similarly, Bloom celebrated its own Diamond Jubilee in l975 as it marked 75 years of providing an education to its students. Birthday music changed to Disco music toward the end of the decade and a number of Bloom stu- dents got into the Disco act. Sung to any tune, though, pride in Bloom continued in this decade, just as it had in every pre- ceding onel I, 5-' jf,. ':' p f mm' 17,3 as N T K' 4 lb Ev. 1.14

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4 Through Sevenlies ' ,ssl K.: 3 l Q. 6 . ! A x N 1 'ff .. Qjf , 'hom farm ' fa E-I ' K? gb:-, .1 Y. i9.:,,r ata.. m ' as 4, .c , ,M- 'On ' w xv.-,av Misery IS . By Michael Haley in a I972 issue of The Broadcaster spending two weeks studying for a test on Biology and on the test day you find out the test is on Algebra. ...having the prettiest girl in school in one of your classes and finding out she's your first cousin. . . .cursing out a teacher and destroying her room on the last day of school of your sophomore year and finding out that as a junior you have her for three classes. . . . being all-conference, all-state, all-area and all- American for your school in basketball, football and baseball and being ranked number one in smarts at school and your school gives you a scholarship to Prairie State College. And to top that, you flunk the entrance test. . .. spending forty-dollars on a pair of pants that you think are really cool and wearing them to school and everybody laughs at you. ...walking on the stage graduation day to get your diploma with seventeen of your relatives waiting to take your picture and you trip and fall down and roll off the stage on top of the organ player and turn over the organ player, too. 6

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As the saying goes, We've come along way, baby. From the Bloom of I934 which included fifty classrooms, science labs, two gymnasiums, a cafeteria and a tower and from the Bloom of the eighties which includes the Jean P. Workman Audito- rium, the Nelson Fieldhouse, and the James D. Steckel Library comes a school in which every hall, every classroom is filled with tradition, a tradition which makes Bloom a school to be. proud of. Some traditions never die-the ex- changing of class rings or the young ladies wearing the football jerseys of their fa- vorite stars, new traditions are founded. But there has always been one stable fac- tor which has held the city of Bloom to- gether-the undeniable spirit of its stu- dents. There is more to our school however, than just students, or a tower, or tradition. There is our future. And as you look through this book, think of where we have been and what we can become, for this is only the beginning. l Q F? J ,Www-..