Rock Island High School - Watchtower Yearbook (Rock Island, IL)

Page 8 text:

ALBERT SCHWEITZER GAVE of himself. School year 1965-66 saw his passing —but also, through his selflessness, saw a hope in the triumph of the qualities he epitomized. A year, in passing, should need no defin¬ ing. Progressing or regressing, it simply is. Yet, there is time now to pause and reflect —to deepen understanding, to snatch a fresh perspective. Three humanitarians stirred the world last year. One worked quietly in a remote hospital compound splattered in thejungled maze of Equatorial Africa. He made a won¬ derful adventure in just living his ideals. When Albert Schweitzer died in Lamberene, an era of noble simplicity died too. Another, shorter, more urbane life was spent in treading diplomatic corridors. It ended there. Former Illinois State Governor Adlai Stevenson died in August of 1965. A man often misunderstood, and all too often maligned, the sensitive, intellectual states¬ man exemplified the honorable, the model man amid the miniatures. Pope Paul VI did not die. He set a pre¬ cedent by winging across the Atlantic and alighting on American soil. Addressing a United Nations session, he sounded an eloquent plea for peace, humanity and understanding. He verbalized what Dr. Schweitzer and Ambassador Stevenson had, indirectly, lived and died for. Schweitzer, Stevenson, Two Great Men, Die VIETNAM IS NEITHER A DIPLOMATIC interlude or police action, but war with all its tests and hardships. Islanders knew of it. It was discussed in the classroom, at athletic events, at social functions. It took on a present and a future reality. 4 News

Page 7 text:

We Plan, We Grow, We Learn . . . of Identity Looking at Rocky, we see ourselves. Symbolically, physically, realistically. Rocky is students-2300 of them-all seeking an “I”, an identity What do you remember? Twisting and stuffing the reams of paper napkins on the acres of chicken wire-or later, the Homecoming jubilance, the jostling? Was it the exchange assemblies, the service projects, reading Lord Jim. hearing the strains of Christmas carols? Per¬ haps it was those six weeks of wet hair, the night you got your license, the tired eyes after the ACT. Or maybe the flurry and fluster before, or the morning after, the Prom. Who hasn’t burned the midnight-oil, sunk to his seat just as the bell rang, felt the sting of losing to Moline, known the glow of achievement? In all that we have and haven’t done, we are Rocky. Absorbed in just being, we plan, we grow, we learn through experiences, from others, of identity. If this Watchtower can depict and confront, it will have served its purpose. If it can convey the significance of the present moment, not only as the bridge between past and future, but by reason of its contents, it will have succeeded. In looking at ourselves, we will have seen Rocky. Table of Contents Identity in ACTIVITIES.6 Identity through ADMINISTRATION.34 Identity with ACADEMICS.58 Identity through ASSOCIATIONS.138 Identity in ATHLETICS.198 Senior Activities.239 Index.248 Contents 3

Page 9 text:

The year of humanitarian concern was also one of terrifying holocausts. In a war- scarred Vietnam and on a swollen Missis¬ sippi, man and element vied in intensity and ferocity. Spring brought a wake of flooding along the mighty Mississippi. Under shadowy lengths of street lights, against a broad ex¬ panse of innocuous, clucking water, man and nature-like two grapplers - watched each other’s every move, probed each other’s weakness. A sandbag barricade, ugly but sufficient, held at bay a record-breaking crest of 22.5 feet, seven feet over flood stage. But escalation in Vietnam monopolized the news media, the minds, the hearts, the tongues of America. It was the “news of the hour—yet it was also the news of hours to come.” Students, perhaps more than others, were touched by the grimness, the reality of war, having lived so long merely under its shadow. For them, it meant a promise of future obligation. LATE FALL SAW Pope Paul VI make a whirlwind visit to New York. In so doing, he became the first Pontiff to set foot on New World sod. Flood of ’65 Passes; Vietnam War Rages NATIVE SON ADLAI Stevenson displayed before an often critical world a prowess and sincere devotion to world equilibrium. HERE CAN BE SEEN THE LAZY, decadent youth of the simmering 1960’s busy at play. The Great Flood of ‘Old Man River’ brought to front stage a picture of united effort by the teenagers of the commun¬ ity. News