Patrick County High School - Archive Yearbook (Stuart, VA)

Page 13 text:

v V ; suffer

Page 12 text:

Fuel Shortage Resulting Schedule Changes Biggest Student Problem Students returning from Christ¬ mas vacation found that the dol¬ lars they had recently paid for parking permits could have been put to better use in the palm of the local service station attendant. Area gas prices had zoomed over the holidays and more and more stations displayed signs reading “No Gas Sales” and “$2.00 Limit”. High cost and scarcity of fuel brought some significant changes in many routines. The usual nine to three school day was changed to ten to four after the nation¬ wide switch to Daylight Savings Time so that bus riders would be spared the perils of waiting in the dark. This , in turn, produced conflicting schedules for many students with jobs after or during regular school hours. Thermostats were lowered and the School Board asked that no one drive to school unless abso¬ lutely necessary as immediate efforts to conserve fuel. Those who stopped driving either be¬ cause of the request, difficulty in getting gas, or for financial rea¬ sons often founa themselves trav¬ eling back and forth under the unusually crowded conditions of the bus system as a result. Once the initial changes were made and the shortage situation was accepted, conformity came more easily. Personal sacrifices seemed hard for some, but did not prove to create a large num¬ ber of problems that could not be solved in one way or another. Many regular customers drive into local service stations only to be turned away. Proprietors have resorted to placing limits on customers and selling gasoline only a few days a week because of a sub¬ stantial cut bv distributors.

Page 14 text:

Spring Summer Spring is, without a doubt, the busiest time of year at PCHS. Even as we welcomed the ’73 session with an unexpected March snow, preparations were being made for every ac¬ tivity from baseball to graduation. As the season prog¬ ressed, much too quickly for some and sluggishly for others, many students engaged actively in sports, organizing the Junior-Se¬ nior Prom and the annual school carnival, and prac¬ ticing once again for the Miss Patrick County Beau¬ ty Pageant. In addition to these events, we were also able to enjoy PCHS Days to¬ ward the end of May in the midst of a growing at¬ mosphere of anticipating the last days of school and approaching summer sea¬ son. The pressure of many hours of studying and tak¬ ing final exams was over. With a new sense of free¬ dom, for a while at least, we said good-bye to school friends and the ’73 school year. The Patrick County student body, administra¬ tion and faculty, no longer unified by the school, plunged into the summer months as individuals with their own special plans and activities to carry out. On a typical summer day most students would be found spending lazy days at home watching soap operas and reruns of “I Love Lucy,” working in a grocery store or a nearby i f ■ v V - ' . M ' - . - . f Vf ••• ■ rf m ■ A A T A r if snow.