South Berwick High School - Pioneer Yearbook (South Berwick, ME)

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OUR SCHOOL IS BORN This is the story of our new high school from its very conception to the end of its first school year. Its life began in March, 1956, at the annual town meeting, when a committee was chosen to discuss the planning for the new high school. This move was necessitated by Berwick Academy's reversion to a strictly private preparatory school. The planning committee later be- came the School Building Committee with the addition of several new members. The members of this committee worked many long, hard, and vexing days, months, and years to make the South Berwick High School the best the town was able to provide. Our school, designed by Alonzo J. Harriman, Inc. of Auburn, Maine, and constructed by the Sprague Brothers, Inc. of Nashua, New Hampshire, was begun when the Building Committee representatives broke ground for the beginning of the construction. On August 1, 1959, the ground was broken by Richard Lilly, Verrill Perkins, and Mrs. Aimee Schramm. The leveling of the ground, the first big step in the building program, was started three days later. This picture, taken two months later, shows the work then being done on the Industrial Arts Building. 2 In the fall of 1959, the actual beginning of the school building, the foundation, was laid.

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THE PIONEER SOUTH BERWICK HIGH SCHOOL SOUTH BERWICK, MAINE

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The coming of winter in the year of 1959 found a large section of the building, the multi-purpose room, nearly finished. - — and at the same time, the Industrial Arts Build- ing was nearing completion. In the spring of 1960, the South Berwick High School was in the last stages of its development. All through the summer, the final touches on both the inside and the outside of the school were added. The beginning of the school year marked the end of the major part of the work of the Build- ing Committee whose members were Mrs. Aimee Schramm, chairman; Richard A. Lilly, vice- chairman; Superintendent Hubert E. Redding, secretary; Town Manager Edward W. Hagar, treas- urer; Mrs. Mildred M. Flynn, F. Verrill Perkins, Cecil R. Horr, Walter E. Webster, Jr., Joseph J. Blackmore, Kenneth R. Stowe, F. Roger Miller, Harland, C. Goodwin, Miss Marie A. Dona- hue, Ralph W. Butler, Raymond A. Tondreault, and Robert I. Mclntire. Two of our former town managers, James H. Thompson and Jay Gregg, also served on this committee. The Build- ing Committee's pioneering venture had been successful. They are the unsung heros of our school and even though they will receive no awards or medals for all their toils and troubles, we, the students of South Berwick High School, are truly grateful. 3 Pictures by Oscar Michaud