Grimsley High School - Whirligig Yearbook (Greensboro, NC)

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May 23,1969 Mr. A. P. Routh Grimsley Senior High School Westover Terrace Greensboro, North Carolina Dear Mr. Routh, In a very few days we who comprise the Class of 1969 will assemble for our graduation exercises, and you will address us as the last class to graduate under your principalship. At that time we shall experience mingled feelings of joy and sorrow as we conclude a meaningful three-year association with you. For the past thirty-six years you have helped Grimsley to expand and progress. As a concerned administrator, you have been alert to every variation in Grimsley s scenes and moods. Her problems, failures, and triumphs have merited your daily attention and interest. In your earnest efforts toward “excellence in education,” you have encouraged superior standards, initiated valuable courses, and promoted worthwhile activities. Your personal demonstrations of scholarship, service, skill , sportsmanship, sociability, spirit , and success have impressed and influenced the lives of countless Whir lies. To you, Mr. Routh, as an expression of our lasting admiration and appreciation, we proudly dedicate the 1969 WHIRLIGIG. Sincerely, Uhe Calais oj 1969 Eight

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Under Mr. Routh ' s imaginative and enterprizing guidance GHS has attained an enviable reputation. For student leader¬ ship and club services; for excellence in music, publications, and athletics; and especially for academic achievements, this school is widely known. Each year hundreds of gradu¬ ates have emerged to verify its academic effectiveness and its diverse opportunties for personal growth. Mr. Routh, Miss Ida Belle Moore and Miss Estelle Mitchell —both of whom preceded him at GHS by one year—and many other veterans have seen this school grow and change. In 1940 a wooden structure that became inadequate for a shop and the band got a new floor and turned into a girl’s gymnasium; while a new vocational building provided rooms for shops, band, orchestra, drafting, and diversified occupations. In the late 1940’s scrub pines were scraped from a slope to make room for the stadium and parking lot. Next, enhancing the sports program and honoring Sigmund Pearl Jr., a field house was donated by his father. Soon afterward an old wooden boys’ gym was removed, followed by the construction of a modern plant that drew many interested observers, who joined the student body in watching seven 33-ton concrete girders being lifted into place. Trying to meet needs for space and facilities, the school board provided three more structures at GHS—in 1956 a home economics and a music building; in 1967, a library— all with the best possible equipment. The school that began as three buildings in the country’’ had become a modern ten-structure plant. Parking facilities changed from a 150-bicycle rack to a large paved area. A half dozen buses increased to a fleet of twenty-nine. Skirt lengths shifted from knee to ankle, back to knee and above, with hair styles varying just as widely. Students became better informed, more travelled, less easy to please. A succession of innovations kept GHS attuned to the times. Television history, a language laboratory, accelerated Eng¬ lish, two-hour composition laboratories, advanced placement courses, analytics, computor science—these are typical of steps taken to up-date the curriculum. The guidance pro¬ gram expanded. Various groups, year after year, won cham¬ pionships or awards. The change of name to Grimsley in 1962 was painful; but left intact, along with the initials GHS, were faculty and student loyalty to standards of excellence and Mr. A. P. Routh’s devotion to this school’s continuing worth and progress. IMPRESSIVE PANELS in the auditorium, painted in 1934, portray mankind’s eternal quest for knowledge and skill. Seven

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IN RARE MOMENT of complete relaxation, Mr. Routh enjoys conversation with a group of Grimsley students. DISTINGUISHED PORTRAIT (above) of Mr. Routh is presented (below) by 1952 graduates at Class Day assembly.