Center High School - Yellow Jacket Yearbook (Kansas City, MO)

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Sitting behind the back 40, the practice field torn up for reconstruction, is Center High School under an early morning sky. Photo: Gabe Vleisides To understand the events of the 1987-1988 school year, you had to look deeper than simply scratching the sur- face. For instance, in july, many of us watched on our televisions as a joint Con- gressional panel tried to get to the bottom of the largest political scandal since Wat- ergate: the lranfContra affair. One witness in particular, Lt. Col. Oli- ver North, not only performed well under pressure, but also drew a large following of supporters, even though most people weren't sure what he still might be cover- ing up. In the months to follow, Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg also went under close scruntiny before being rejected by the Senate judi- ciary committee. The Constitution celebrated a birth- day, too. However, the dignified ceremo- nies in comparison to recent celebrations of the Statue of Liberty and Spam sort of understated the significance of this par- ticular anniversary. Meanwhile, on Octo- ber 19, the stock market closed 508 points lower than the day before, forcing some investors to go under, while the U.S. also retaliated for lran's underhanded behav- ior in the Persian Gulf. The south part of town was springing up, too. 103rd was widened, more office complexes appeared, and ground was broken on a new Taco Bell on Bannister, practically the same distance from school as McDonald's, but easier to sneak away 2 Design. . .Matt Haun -IE U DERLYING MEANING to. Out on the west coast, California's un- derground alarm clock, the San Andreas fault, rocked Los Angeles with a series of medium strength earthquakes and after- shocks and in Washington, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbechev made some waves of their own as they undersigned the first nuclear arms reduction treaty in the histo- ry of the world. Here at home, school got underway before Labor Day this year, though few of us actually understood how Center could be an agricultural district. Some state leg- islators didn't understand it either, and threatened not to underwrite our first four days. Also as the year started, the building and grounds underwent numer- ous changes. As the sounds of bulldozers and tractors wafted into our classrooms, all of us were forced to take the 89th street detour into the parking lot while layers of dirt were removed from the south field. In December, some students had to think twice abouttheir weekend plans as the state legislature enacted a strict new policy to reduce underage drinking and driving. Inside the walls, things were differ- ent, too. We swapped administrators with the junior High, adding Assistant Principal Dick Bueker to the staff. jerry Culver jumped from the first floor to the office and became our fourth counselor. The secretaries returned to a remodeled of- fice, including an attendance center for those who didn't make it into school un- der the wire, and the return of Dr. john Burke marked the first time in three years that CHS was under the direction of an in- cumbant skipper. ln the world of sports, the Royals turned into underachievers, despite the amazing accomplishments of Kevin Seit- zer and Danny Tartabull. Out at Arrow- head, non-union understudies undermi- ned the efforts of the underpaid strik- ing football players. In our own stadium, our numerically undersized team held their own against big teams like 0'Hara, Parkview and Kearney. On our free time, we flocked to movies about undercover law enforce- ment officials, as Stakeout, The Untouch- ables and Beverly Hills Cop 2 hit it big at the box office. Scenes from FatalAttrac- tion sent some under their seats, while a scarce number of tickets for the big U2 concert were kept under tight controls. Most of us underprivileged fans had to settle for listening to their smash The joshua Tree album in its recorded ver- sion. But in all, different events will under- score the memories of '87-'88 school year. To find your underlying meanings, you sort of have to dig deeper and do a little bit of investigative reporting of your own. From our perspective, headquartered in a tiny room underneath the action, we've given you a springboard to start scratching the surface and uncovering a multitude of personal memories. To undertake your own mental recollection, just start by flip- ping a few pages and find out what you discover . .. UNDERNEATH IT ALL! - - jeff Field

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o hear some adults talk about kids today, it's as if we were as easily classi- fied as a species of insect or a model of automobile. All too often, we hear ourselves labelled as those Center students, stupid freshmen, or adolescent subculture , as we would learn in Dan Creasy's Sociology class. But it's not all that easy. Though we may sound easily classified as a group, individually, it's clear that we're all very different. ln a high school of nearly 1000 students, we've got nearly 1000 different li- festyles. So how do we represent these thousand different viewpoints un- der the generic heading of Student Life? That's All Things Considered. lt's Ken Hughes 4121, whose obsession with After football practice, Kevin Bunting 491 sips a Sprite and waits for 3 ride home. Photo: Craig Peltzie 4 Design. . .Matt Haun sports dictates his TV viewing habits and choice of fash- ion. lt's jerry Ru- nyan 4101, who goes to Bi- ble Study classes once a week. lt's all of us in our own celebration of uniqueness. nd we're as dif- ferent as the ob- jects we possess. You can learn a lot about a person by the kind of things they carry around. A simple thing like a key- chain can represent a per- son's attachment to their car and their home. Backpacks and purses are loaded with statements about the people who carry them. My purse is a memory book, said Kim Silverman 4121, I carry everything that's sa- cred to me in my purse. One ofthe most impor- tant possessions are pic- tures. Gineane Vieux 4111 says she carries photo- graphs of her friends be- cause my friends are LL THINGS coNS1DERED very important to me and my pictures reflect that. In addition, pictures also help students remember special events. So as we consider the many things that mean student life to the typi- cal Centerite in this part of our memory book, we have to be able to narrow these differences down into a few basic catego- ries. To help, we've load- ed you a diversity pack, classifying the uniquen- esses under different stu- dent possessions. And of course, we've also includ- ed plenty of pictures to put these differences in focus. I After all, things are pretty blurry in the ado- lescent subculture. - - leff Field Netty Borbely 4121 puts up movie posters for the Homecoming dance. Photo: feff Field fl i P i