by Charly Mann

Even though high school is not always the best part of our lives, it is a time many former Chapel Hillians look back on nostalgically. While some of us focused on academics, the majority of people I have spoken to from Chapel Hill High School classes between 1948 and 2006 recall their high school years as a time they were most concerned with just enjoying life, which included the pleasures of the opposite sex, music, alcohol, drugs, and just hanging out with friends. I also found a minority who said their time in high school was hard and they suffered because they could not fit in. While they had some good times in those years, their overall experience was not happy. Thankfully all of the members of that minority who went on to college said that was where the fun began in life for them. Several of these people went on to say that the only reason they look forward to their Chapel Hill High School class reunions was to see if they still hated the same people they did in high school. High school was a wonderful time for me. It was the easiest time for me to make great friends, and I had a lot of time to socialize and not take life too seriously.

This is an aerial view of Chapel Hill High School in 1964 which was located downtown. The high school in Chapel Hill was located on this property for fifty years. The building in the rear of the photograph was Chapel Hill Junior High School then, but had previously been the high school. For many decades Chapel Hill High School sport teams were allowed to practice and play their games at UNC facilities and fields. 

Over the course of the next year I plan to write a series of articles honoring one of Chapel Hill High School's great classes; The Class of 1972, which will be holding their 40th reunion next May. The primary purpose of these pieces will be to recreate what Chapel Hill was like in 1972.

Chapel Hill High School is the Home of the Tigers.

Chapel Hill Memories welcomes anyone with Chapel Hill High School connections to share their high school memories as well as to post information about their former and upcoming class reunions.

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by Neal Furr

I moved with my family to Chapel Hill in early June 1961 from a rural Cabarrus County area not far from what is now the Charlotte city limits. We ended up living in the Colonial Heights neighborhood that first year. Much to my great disappointment, I soon discovered that we had arrived too late for summer league baseball tryouts. So that summer, I spent a lot of time riding my bike down to the Little League field at Umstead Park to watch. I quickly associated players’ names with faces, so once school started, I realized who some of the boys my age were even if they didn’t know me.

Estes Hills Elementary School Chapel Hill soon after it opened

The 1961-62 school year and my experiences as a new sixth grader in town soon began. I was assigned to Estes Hills Elementary, north of town and the newest of the elementary schools in Chapel Hill at that time. The school was growing in student population, therefore, three new classrooms were hastily assembled and partitioned off in what had been a downstairs storage room. Downstairs classroom #1 was one of two sixth grade classes and was being taught by veteran educator Ms. Elizabeth Seawell. In the middle was classroom #2, the other sixth grade class with Ms. Mary Henley as the teacher, which was her first year back after several years away from the profession. This is where I was assigned. Next door in classroom #3 was a room of fourth graders, being taught by Ms. Helen Furr, who just also happened to be my mom. So when I got into trouble (which happened quite often that year), it was often double trouble. The principal at Estes Hills was an experienced administrator named Ms. Mildred Mooneyham, a lady short in stature with a very firm walk. Nobody crossed Ms. M. – not faculty, not staff, not students, not parents, nobody!

Ms. Henley was a widow who had grown children and lived on a farm south of town. She had no idea what she had got herself back into re-entering the teacher workforce. She had inherited a handful – make that several handfuls! It was a tough year for the teacher and some of the students as well. The best thing about our downstairs location was that it opened directly onto the playground. My first inclination was that maybe I could establish myself at recess since the classroom environment looked to be pretty tough. It turned out that some of my best memories of that year occurred on the playground. Although somewhat overweight, I did have a level of ball playing ability which I believe served me well in being accepted fairly easily. Other new kids were not always so lucky.

The rambunctious ringleaders (and all good kids) among the boys in my class were Mike Preston, Eddie Whitfield, Jimmy Vine, Jack Wilkins and Buzz Anderson (who moved away the next year). These were the guys you had to impress on the field of play. It didn’t take me long to figure out that we had some VERY smart kids in the sixth grade that year. Among the young ladies that were exceptionally bright were Sybil Wagner and Judy Schonfeld in my class well as the Kip sisters, Betsy and Nancy in Ms. Seawell’s class. Then there was Henry Hobson in my class and Walter Carter in Ms. Seawell’s class. They had only been in town a couple of years – their dads had been moved to Research Triangle Park in the late ‘50’s with The Chemstrand Corporation, one of the first major businesses to establish residency there. Now that I think about it, I had Ms. Seawell as a teacher as well since we switched up a few times each week for Reading class.

Estes Hills Elementary School First Grade Class 1966:  in this photo are Gus Jerdee, Susan Cohen, Robbie Conley, Wilson Daughtry, Myra Powell, Ruth Aiken,Kim Williams, Mike Riggsbee, Vail Cart, R.L. Bynum, Robin Huffines, Blair Tindall Sara Edmonds, Mark Masson, Kristy Klatt, Dorothy McNeill, Mike Hampton, Drake VanDeCastle, Drake Van De CastleKristi Klatt, John Anderson, Billy O'Neal, Liz Curtis, Liz Holm , Chris Penny, Sue Brickhouse, Natalie Harris, Jim Manahan, Jud Worth (Photo submitted by R.L. Bynum - the photographer was his father,Rupert Bynum Jr.)

For the first time in my educational matriculation, I struggled somewhat academically. Moving to a new school environment was much more of an adjustment than I had anticipated. That seemed to kick off a long line of teachers over the next several years telling me that I should be doing better in the classroom. I guess my interest in school continued to wane somewhat as I got older, I often just did enough to slide by.

It was an exciting time in the world we lived in that sixth grade year. The Roger Maris/Mickey Mantle race to break Babe Ruth’s single season home run record happened that fall of 1961. I got to watch Tar Heel football live that year for the first time. President John F. Kennedy came to Chapel Hill to speak in Kenan Stadium in October – they bussed all of us students over to attend. I got to witness Dean Smith’s first game in Woollen Gym as the new Tar Heel basketball coach in late 1961. I played organized (somewhat) basketball for the first time that winter as part of the Chapel Hill Recreation Department’s program. Years later, it became the game that I had a true passion for - although never a great player, I thoroughly enjoyed playing and coaching basketball until well into my fifties. U.S. astronaut John Glenn orbited the earth three times in February 1962 – we were allowed to watch on TV in the classroom. And in the spring of 1962, The Chapel Hill Little League expanded from six to eight teams. I played on one of the new teams, the Colts, and a couple Colonial Heights neighborhood friends, Tommy Roberts and Andy Skakle, were my team mates.

Front entrance of Estes Hill Elementary School in Chapel Hill

Ms. Mary Henley went on to teach several more years in Chapel Hill. She was a conscientious educator who genuinely cared about her students. Several years later, an elementary school was named for Ms. Elizabeth Seawell. And Ms. Helen Furr taught at Estes Hills, Lincoln and Guy Phillips before becoming the librarian at Elizabeth Seawell Elementary, retiring in 1994.

That year at Estes Hills has never quite left me. I moved to my current Raleigh N.C. neighborhood in 1992. Where do you think the neighbor currently living right behind me and the one across the street when I moved in attended elementary school? Why Estes Hills, of course!

Neal Furr has enjoyed a long career at IBM in the RTP, and has a passion for Beach and Soul Music. He wrote a column for the The Beach Music Reporter magazine from 2001 to 2004, and now writes CD reviews at the website www.beachmusic45.com. He also writes a monthly called Southern Soul Corner.

Chapel Hill Memories is looking for class photos from Estes Hills Elementary School. Please send any you have to chmemories@gmail.com.

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by Charly Mann

Growing up in Chapel Hill and living there most of my life afforded me a wide array friends and wonderful memories. I often hear from many of my former Chapel Hill friends and several encouraged me to join Facebook so that I could be in contact with even more of my former cronies. I did reluctantly join Facebook, but have spent less than two hours using it. What most overwhelmed me about Facebook was that many people I knew had more than a thousand "Facebook friends." I have five close friends, most of whom I have known for more than 30 years, yet not one of them even has a Facebook account. So I remain a Facebook wallflower and contemplate the meaning of friendship.

From Mr. Duncan's 1965 9th Grade Class at Chapel Hill's Guy B. Phillips Junior High School
Top left: Lennie Jernigan, Fred Johnston
Bottom Left: Watts Poe, Donnie Ray

As humans we are social creatures who naturally want to form friendships. When I was in the tenth grade I was assigned to read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. In it, Aristotle discusses what he believes are the three kinds of friendships we can have. The first and most common form is utility friendship. This is a friendship that we form because it is advantageous to us at that time and place, but is in reality quite shallow and can easily be discarded as we grow, change, or relocate. As a 15 year old then, who had already had at least six best friends and several dozen good friends who were no longer part of my life, I immediately related to what Aristotle was saying. Aristotle believed that people like this we should not even call friends, but more accurately describe as acquaintances. The second kind of friendship Aristotle said is one of pleasure, and it is primarily characterized by passionate feelings between two people. Unlike the more common utility friendship that seeks a long term benefit or advantage in the relationship, this kind of friendship seeks to establish immediate pleasure between the friends. Unfortunately, a relationship based on pleasure is built mostly on passion, and that is usually fleeting. In both of the previous types of friendships we can become friends with someone very quickly, and just as quickly end it. In reality most of our friendships are one of these two kinds, and are therefore unstable and subject to abrupt termination.

Jenny McClamroch Chapel Hill High School 1967

To Aristotle the highest and rarest form of friendship is true friendship which is between people with shared values and principles, and who have selfless love for each other. In this case each friend wants what is best for the other and works to cultivate and stimulate the friend's potential.

Chapel Hill High School Sophomores: Top left: Robert Varley, Bottom left: Skip Via and Jimmy Vine

Real friendship is beautiful and is the glue that has made my life wonderful. Even though the majority of my childhood and college friendships are over, they do endure in my memory, and I am thankful for them all.

Mrs. Peiper's 1965 8th Grade Class from Chapel Hill Junior High School: Top: Susan Colewell , Anne Creech, Bottom: Mason Dorr, Dick Geary

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By Sarah (Sally) Geer

Glenwood Elementary School is the oldest school in the Chapel Hill school system, but it was almost new when we arrived. The building is hard to see now, but it was highly visible when it was built in 1953. A new road had been cut to the crest of a small hill at the intersection of the bypass and the Raleigh Road, across from the new Glen Lennox apartment complex. The hillside was an open meadow, which we used for kite flying. That meadow is now the site of the Harris-Teeter shopping area.

Glenwood Elementary School students including Charly Mann (white t-shirt next to left most pole) at front entrance in 1956

Until Glenwood was built, all white children went to the old brick elementary school downtown. Black children attended Northside Elementary School. The post-war baby boom made new schools essential.

Sally Geer (the author of this piece) in back playground of Glenwood Elementary School Chapel Hill in 1960

Buses and carpools served Glenwood, but neighborhood children walked or biked to school from Glen Lennox, Oakwood/Rogerson Drive and Greenwood. Highland Woods kids walked on a path through the woods and across a creek. Mrs. Webb was the crossing guard who shepherded us across the highway. Walkers would sometimes stop at the filling station at the corner or at the Dairy Bar in Glen Lennox for ice cream or potato chips, and to browse the comics at George Harris’ pharmacy. Walking home usually felt very safe, although I clearly recall tension while walking home in October, 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We feared annihilation at any moment, and I felt especially vulnerable when outdoors, between the safe havens of school and home.

Mr Kiddoo, the principal of Glenwood Elementary School in the 1956-1957 school year

The school was originally just one long corridor, with the principal’s office and library in the middle and a cafeteria on one end. Younger students were in classrooms at the back of the school, with individual bathrooms and doors that opened directly on the playground. Older classes got the front classrooms. It wasn’t fancy. The floors were green and beige linoleum squares. The custodian would clean them by sprinkling green pellets on the floor, then sweeping the pellets down the halls.

The playground was a large, raw space at the back of the school, with two broad terraces. Although a new primary wing cut into the playground area by 1959, we still had plenty of room for several simultaneous games of kickball. Kickball ruled the playground at recess, and the boys sometimes intimated any girls who tried to join the pickup games. Before school and during recess, we swarmed over the playground relatively unsupervised. We played jump rope, Chinese jump rope, hopscotch and dodge ball. There were usually several circles of kids playing marbles or jacks. We played marbles for “keepsies,” so you had to choose your opponents carefully or your marbles pouch would be empty quickly. During the hula hoop craze, a few of the girls were lucky to own one, which they brought to school to share at recess. Small groups gathered around each hula hoop bearer, all of us eagerly waiting for a shot at gyrating our hips and keeping the hoop going as long as possible. The best spinners could move the hoop from waist to knees, or waist to chest, then back again.

In February of 1952 the site is selected for new elementary school in Chapel Hill which would become Glenwood.

We wore “school clothes” and changed into play clothes when we got home. Girls wore skirts or dresses, often with a sash tied in the back. The skirts hung down over our heads when we hung from the jungle gym or did cartwheels. In cold weather, we were allowed to wear pants under our skirts, but girls were never allowed to wear pants alone. Boys usually wore shirts with collars and buttons rather than t-shirts. There were few t-shirts with any designs or lettering in those days, other than Carolina sweatshirts. Our shoes were usually leather lace-up saddle shoes, mary-janes or Weejun loafers (sometimes with a penny in the little cut-out on the strap). We carried our books in our arms or in satchels. Since we didn’t have backpacks, teachers would pin notes about PTA meetings or field trips to the coats or shirts of the younger children.

Glenwood Elementary School 2nd grade pictures,1957. Charles (Charly) Mann at 7 years old is on the top, and Joe Phillips is on the bottom.

Glenwood had six grades, 1-6. There was no kindergarten. The sixth grade was moved to Lincoln (the former black high school) in 1966 when the school system became fully integrated. Primary students were treated a little differently from the rest of the school. First graders got out of school earlier, and younger students took a brief afternoon nap, heads down on desks, room darkened – although I doubt if anyone ever slept. We would also bring in “milk money” for a morning snack of milk and crackers.

The cafeteria line at Glenwood Elementary School in 1956. Milk was the last thing everyone put on their plate.  After lunch you could go back into the cafeteria and get a piece cake.

No one went home for lunch. The cafeteria on the south side of the building served good hot lunches cooked in the kitchen. The cafeteria served some mystery meats, but there were also staples of old-style southern cooking, such as cornbread with honey and butter, collard greens, hot rolls, and white navy beans, into which we swirled excessive amounts of ketchup from squeeze bottles arranged up and down the long tables.

Mrs. West’s third grade class, December, 1959. Class members include: sitting: Prue Arndt, Robert Varley, Julia McCutcheon, Peter Kirkpatrick, Pad Wales, Bob Cherry, Dick Geary, Steve Piantadosi. Standing: Lane Crawford, Sally Geer, Louise Pettis, Stephanie Sugioka, Liv Taylor. Leslie Decker, Kathy Shinahan. Sarah Craige, Ditty Thibaut, Chris Hill, Brenda Marks, Jewel Hayman, Sarah Kreps, Biff Bream. Mollie Clark, Jack Spitznagel, Mrs. Sarah West, Ricky Barnett, Frieda Ellis.

We had excellent teachers at Glenwood and were held to high standards. Our strongest memories are of Mrs. Fitzgerald and Mrs. Glasser (first grade), Mrs. Mary Frances Green and Mrs. Coleman (2nd grade), Mrs. Sarah West and Mrs. Brown (3rd grade), Mrs. Pepper (4th grade), Mrs. Blaine (whose snowy white hair was often compared to George Washington’s wig) and Mrs. Dixie Weir (5th grade). Mr. Jerome Stern caused some excitement when he arrived to teach sixth grade, the only male teacher at Glenwood. Mrs. Barbara McCallister took some students for advanced math and reading in a make-shift classroom in the basement under the cafeteria. Many teachers stayed only a year or two while their husbands were in school, and any teacher who got pregnant resigned well before the pregnancy was visible.

 
1957 second grade classmates Glenwood Elementary School Chapel Hill, NC

Mr. Battle was the principal when I started school, and I remember him wandering around the building whittling on a piece of wood. It’s hard to imagine a principal carrying a knife around a school today! He was succeeded by Mrs. West.

There was no gym, music room or art room. Our classroom teachers taught PE, art and music. PE took the form of organized games, often played on the paved parking lot in front of the school. I remember a lot of dodge ball, red rover, and relay races. The teachers would name team captains, who would then call out their first choice, second choice, etc. while we all waited impatiently and probably heckled or cheered those who were chosen. We did have a special music teacher, the legendary Mrs. Adeline McCall, who would push her piano from room to room, always accompanied by a sock monkey puppet. Mrs. Weir started a popular chorus for boys and girls in the 5th grade.

The classrooms were plain, but teachers put up new decorative bulletin boards every month. The light fixtures were large light bulbs, surrounded by concentric metal rings. Teachers wrote on chalkboards, and it was a great privilege to be chosen to clean the erasers by clapping them together outside at the end of the day, creating a cloud of chalk dust. Teachers drew parallel lines for neat handwriting by sticking three pieces of chalk in a wooden holder. When that chalk squeaked, our teeth were set on edge. There was no air conditioning, of course, and the louvered windows were inadequate for ventilation, so the classrooms had large rotating fans. The windows also had long, long shades, and teachers used a pole with a nail in the end to pull them down.

This is from the Dick and Jane book every girl and boy in Chapel Hill learned to read from. In those days many thought little sister Sally was based on Sally Geer.

Wooden classroom desks were arranged in rows (not the clusters of desks kids use today). The desks had lids that raised to reveal a storage area, with a hole cut in the top for an inkwell. I don’t think anyone brought in bottles of ink! We used “fountain pens” with plastic ink cartridges, which were small cylinders that fit into the pen and were pierced when the nib was screwed back on. There was no public address system, and the only audio-visual tools were movie projectors and film strip projectors. Threading the film through the projectors and onto large metal spools was the height of technology. However, on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, Mrs. West set a small black and white TV set on a chair at one end of the lunchroom. 6th graders and their teachers sat together and watched the unfolding coverage of the assassination of President Kennedy.

Mrs. Peacock and students in Glenwood School Library 1957

I loved our library time in the Peter Garvin Library. Girls would race for the Nancy Drew mysteries when the class filed in the door, hoping to find one they hadn’t read yet. Other favorite series for girls were the Cherry Ames nursing books, the Bobbsey Twins, the Happy Hollisters, and for me, anything about dogs by Albert Payson Terhune. Many of us loved the set of orange biographies with silhouettes on the covers called Childhoods of Famous Americans (Amelia Earhart: Young Aviator; Davy Crockett: Young Rifleman). We also read Beverly Cleary (especially the Henry Huggins and Beezus and Ramona stories), and the stories about the inventions of Homer Price. Chapel Hill had no public library until 1958. My recollection is that the elementary school libraries were opened one day a week in the summer, so we could check out children’s books.

This is a 1956 Dick and Jane book which was read at Glenwood Elementary School in Chapel Hill

We learned to read with the Dick and Jane readers (Dick and Jack, Baby Sally, Spot and Puff). We also had a formal phonics program of mimeographed work sheets. Book reports and other “reports” started in the 3rd or 4th grade on topics such as Great Inventors. We used the World Book and other children’s encyclopedias for these reports, and we had to copy any illustrations and maps by hand since there were no copier machines. “My Weekly Reader” covered current events, such as the space race and news about the addition of two new states, Alaska and Hawaii (which required the country to adopt new flags in one year, first with 49 stars, then with 50). We also did a lot of memorization. We had to learn the Gettysburg Address for Mrs. Weir, and some of us memorized a poem a week in the sixth grade. We would recite a poem orally on one week. On alternate weeks, the poem had to be written out, including correct punctuation and spelling. We picked especially short poems on those weeks!

1958 Weekly Reader featuring article on exploring the moon before the United States had even sent a rocket into space.

Because of the school connection with the UNC Education Department, we also got some interesting student teachers and some unusual and progressive programs. For example, my class went to the library in 5th or 6th grade for “speed reading” lessons, probably based on the work of Evelyn Wood. A machine projected text on the wall in chunks of words, which would gradually be speeded up until it looked like a blur.

Although we had traditional arithmetic, we also got “New Math.” No New Math textbooks were published yet, so we used draft books that had been typed and printed on cheap paper. As part of New Math, we learned to handle numbers in systems other than Base 10, which was a puzzle to our parents.

Mrs. Green’s second grade class, 1958 , Glenwood Elementary School. Class members shown include Julia McCutcheon, Prue Arndt, Bobby Andrews, Sally Geer, Ditty Thibaut, Bob Cherry. Second row  Mollie Clark, Sarah Craige, Stephanie Sugioka, Chris Hill, Sally Morgan, , Ricky Barnett. Billy Palladino,  Carol Mann, Claudia Harris, Robert Varley, Beth Crawford, Christy Prange, Peter Kirkpatrick.


We had some excellent hands-on experiential education as well. When Mrs. West’s third grade studied the pioneers, we made soap outside the classroom by dripping lye through ashes. Mrs. Pepper organized mock debates and voting for the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon election. A 6th grade science experiment about water pressure ed in some flooding in Mr. Stern’s classroom.

We took field trips to the new Planetarium and to Raleigh. I seem to recall that we would take buses to the train station in Durham, then a short ride on a train to Pullen Park in Raleigh, where we would have a picnic. There was probably a visit to the Capitol or the NC Art Museum in there, too, but all I recall is the train and the park!

We also took an annual trip to hear the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra (led by Benjamin Swalin), either at Memorial Hall on the UNC campus, or the auditorium of the high school downtown. The program was called “Symphony Stories.” Mrs. Swalin would introduce the instruments and their sounds. A highlight of the concert was a song we would sing with the orchestra. I remember singing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” at least a thousand times with Mrs. McCall, in preparation for the concert. Sometimes we learned pieces on plastic “tonettes” in preparation for playing along with the symphony.

 
Mrs. Dann, Glenwood School second grade Elementary School teacher 1956-1957

The Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, one year after Glenwood opened, but Chapel Hill schools remained segregated until a progressive group was elected to the school board in 1961. Glenwood was integrated in the early 1960’s, belatedly but peacefully, beginning with first graders and a few older students whose parents requested assignment to Glenwood.

Mrs Dann's Second Grade Class 1956-1957, Students include Elaine Blyth, Mike Fields, David Kohn, Charles (Charly) Mann, Kate Taylor, Nancy Nottinghan, Mike Earey, and Elizabeth Alden.

Every spring the school had a potluck picnic on the grass under the pine trees at the front of the school. All the families would gather and sit on blankets, and the younger siblings would get a look at the great school they would be attending. It was a terrific place to begin school, and a wonderful group of kids. We were proud of being at Glenwood, and felt like a real community.

Several people helped me in collecting these memories of Glenwood School: my sister Anne Geer, her husband David Scott, Frieda Ellis Harden, Laura Gaskin, and Nora Gaskin Esthimer. We all entered Glenwood between 1957 and 1960.

Pictures for this article supplied by Charly Mann and Sarah Geer

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1981 was the year that IBM introduced the personal computer. It cost $5000. Dynasty was the top television show in the United States, and the most popular songs were Superfreak by Rick James and Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes. Included in Chapel Hill High School's Class of 1981 was the distinguished group seen below joined together for an impromptu mini-reunion at Bailey's Pub and Grille. 

Ladies left to right: Angie Jones Smith, Michelle Council Brooks (Class of 1982), Letitia Jones Davison. Gents: Richard Sanders, Danny Williams, and David Brooks.

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by Charly Mann

  
Martha Mullen                                                      Steve Mayberry

The 1968 Chapel Hill High School Class was the first fully integrated class that had attended all three years of high school together. The class was made up of an array of exceptional individuals who had endured and enjoyed one of most turbulent and revolutionary years in history.

  
Bill Bischoff                                                          Donna Huff

Just months before the graduation, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. In the Vietnam War, which every male attending CHHS graduated faced serving in, North Vietnam had launched the Tet Offensive in January which turned the tide of the war for the North.

  
Rodney McFarling                                               Dockery Roberts

1968 also marked the beginning of something called the Generation Gap. Never before had there been such a wide difference of tastes in music, politics, fashion, and culture between the youth and their parents. This diversity was magnified because this was also the largest generation in American History, known as the baby boomers. A significant part of these baby boomers rebelled against the social norms of the previous generation, and that was seen on a daily basis on the streets of Chapel Hill.

  
Saundra Farrington                                              Ron Mayse

1968 was personified by The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album which was released in the early summer of 1967, and became the must revolutionary and influential album in history. It was the top selling album in Chapel Hill for the rest of 1967 and early 1968.

  
West Mattis                                                         Macneil Poteat

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These are the Guy B. Phillips Junior High School of Chapel Hill Cheerleaders of 1965 to 1966.
From left to right are: Ann Holland, Debbie Moss, Missy Julian, Becky Fuller, Betsy Huntington, Settle Roberts, and Becky Riggsbee. Standing is Sue Donovan.

Mrs John's 9th Grade Home Room - Room #109, Guy B. Phillips Junior High School of Chapel Hill 1965 - 1966
Top Row l to r: Fred Croft, Wendy Daniel, Alice Dawson. Middle row: Becky Fuller, Kirt Gestsinger, Christine Gierasimowicz, Richard Harned. Bottom Row: Fran Head, Missy Julian, Kathy Kemp, Abby MacKinney

Mrs Abernathy's Eighth Grade Homeroom - Room #118, Guy B. Phillips Junior High School of Chapel Hill 1965 - 1966
Top Row l to r: Beth Neville, Craig Newman, Debbie Padgett, Johnny Parrish. Bottom Row: Settle Roberts, Lynn Silver, Al Smith, Zorie Smith

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by Charly Mann

Little Red School House Kindergarten Class photo from December of 1952 (Class of 1953). Chip Clark, is in the 2nd row, next to last on the right, wearing a horizontally-striped shirt.  (Photo submitted by Peyton Clark)

 For many young Chapel Hillians The Little Red School House on Dogwood Drive in Westwood is our first memory of school. Even though many of us also attended Mrs. Wettig's nursery school next to the Porthole Restaurant, most of us were too young to recall that experience.

Little Red School House first grade class of 1955 – 1956 class photo
Front Row – left to right – Bill Patterson, Rob Patterson, Martha Houck, Posey Henderson, Candy Foxworth, Cely Carter
Middle Row l to r – Barbara Thomas, George Steel, Tommy Harriss, West Mattis, Dianne Gooch, Carl Tyndall
Back Row l to r – Jay Josselyn, Charles (Charly) Mann, Margaret Holman, Ronnie Justice, Harriet Good, Bruce Whitcher

LIttle Red School House Class of 1957 (photo from collection of Deborah Miller)

1st row: Andy White, Annis Arthur, Susan Jane Curtis, Claiborne Jones, Connie Jo Clifford, Chuckie Oberleitner, Julie Harris, Jay Cole
2nd row: Teresa Gerrity, Mary Mac Cox, Liv Taylor, Gail Basnight, Brian Seff, Johnny Lindahl, Debbe Wagoner Jimmy Vine
3rd row: Jane West, Jimmy Hunt, Katie Reed, Dewitt Ashby, Robbin Andrews, Askold Boretsky, Steven Chapin and Scott Klinghorn

I entered kindergarten at the Little Red School House in September of 1954 when I was four years and nine months old. (I recently found out the entering age of most students that year was between five years four months and six years old.) Even after nine months at the Little Red School, I recall having difficulty holding a pencil correctly which made it hard for me to draw or write, but I loved the songs we often sang together especially, Row, Row, Row, Your Boat and Frère Jacques which we did in three and four part rounds. I also loved my carpool from Greenwood each day because it contained most of my friends who were then in the first grade.

Charly Mann, in dark outfit with Davy Crockett coonskin hat, and Dianne Gooch, first girl to my right in kindergarden at Little Red School House Chapel Hill, NC 1955

Charles (Charly) Mann - rendition of Little Red School House (age 4)

The Little Red School House was a small private school that only offered classes in kindergarten and first grade. It was a throw back to education before the Depression, when most schools had total local automy and all grades were educated in a single classroom. By the time I started there, kindergarden was held on the lower level, while first grade was taught upstairs. The Little Red School House was praised by many Chapel Hill parents because their teaching system emphasized individual attention and recognition for each student in contrast to the Dewey system of education used in the public schools where everyone was taught as a group. At the Little Red School House every student was supposed to be taught at their own pace.

1954 – 1955 Chapel Hill Little Red School House Kindergarten Class
Brook Barnes, Bucky Barnette, Craig Barton, Dick Blum, Ruth Bowers, Stephen Creamer, Cyntia Davis, Timmy Edney, Walter Fields, Buddy Fine (now Bob Jurgensen), Cathy Goldsmith, Dianne Gooch, Harriet Good, Tommy Harris, Robby Hawkins, Martha Hill, Gwen Hyman, Margaret Holman, Warren Hook, David Jenner, Barbara Jones, Allan Josselyn, Shaun Julian, Charles Lanham, Marshall McIssac, Charles Mann, West Mattis, Robert Patterson, William Patterson, Louis Perlmutt, Bobby Perry, Claude Piantadosi, Dirk Schenkkan, Ross Scroggs, Anne Thomas Smith, William Sprunt, Carl Strowd, Barbara Thomas, Bruce Whitcher, Lucie White, Bobbie Whitehill

 
Little Red School House Graduation 1956

The Little Red School House was built by Walter Geddie Fields, Sr. His son, Walter Geddie Fields, Jr., and granddaughter, Patricia Fields Neubert, lived on Dawes Street, in Forest Hills. As a five year old girl, she would walk to The Little Red School House by herself up Dawes Street to Smith Ave, and then through the woods to the school house.

 
Little Red School House Class of 1958
Jim Baucom – Stagecoach Road, Bill Daniel – 30 Davie Circle, Lloyd Davis – 11 Lea Court, Gary Garrison,– 412 Westwood Drive, Laura Sue Gaskin – Farrington Road, Charity Hardison – 179-A Jackson Circle, Lee Harris – 113 Maxwell, Vicky Hearn – (lived in Carrboro), Anne Huskey – 403 McCauley, Kris Jurgensen – 410 Whitehead Circle, Pat Kenney – 11 Hamilton, Roberta Layman – 404 Westwood Drive, Dee Ligon – 9 Powell Street, Donna Lynch – 132 Mason Farm Road, Tom Marshall – 64 Barclay Road, Pam Martin – (lived in Carrboro), Susie Mattis – 204 Friendly Lane, Rusty Mead – Church of the Holy Family, Martin Myer III – 50 Hayes Road

The Little Red School House building is now a private home and the playground is a forest.

Little Red School House Chapel Hill Class of 1953
On front row Alex Taylor is second from the left, Bobby Cadmus is forth from left, Danny Caston is next, and Victor Vance is third from the right
On second row Andy Julian is first on left and Arthur (now Dan) Gifford is second from the right in stripped shirt, next to Arthur is Gail Poe 
On the third row Grove Burnett is in stripped shirt fourth from left, Gloria Burnett is sixth from left,  and Joe Diconstanzo is on the far right

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by Charly Mann

The University of North Carolina began holding classes in the summer in the late 1870s as crash programs to train teachers. The session was not called summer school, but was labeled as Summer Normals.

When Reconstruction ended, North Carolina's public schools were barely functioning. The state had stopped funding education because the federal government had required that both whites and blacks had to receive the same educational benefits. As a result, by 1877 illiteracy in North Carolina was widespread and the ignorance of the white lower class was considered a potential threat to social order. The legislature decided in 1878 that the University of North Carolina would be the training ground for a massive crash summer program to train teachers for the public schools. At the time most North Carolina school teachers were teenagers who had little or no formal education and only rudimentary knowledge of the subjects they were teaching.

The entire University of North Carolina faculty and President Battle (center) at the time the summer "normal sessions" started in 1878

The idea of having these normal school sessions to train teachers was highly controversial at this time. Prior to the Civil War teachers in North Carolina had been male, white, and from upper and middle class backgrounds. They were also primarily young men who would only teach for a few years while they looked for a higher paid profession or became a school administrator. The shortage of qualified teachers was so severe by 1877 that lower class men and even women were admitted into the UNC normal sessions. The admission of women into teaching was as controversial at that time as offering education to North Carolina's black population. Middle and upper class whites were then part of an aristocracy, and felt threatened that both the expansion of women into teaching and providing schools for the lower classes would dilute their privileges.

UNC Chapel Hill women students during the summer of 1917 enrolled in a teaching program

Becoming a teacher in the late 19th and early 20th century was about the only work a woman could get in North Carolina outside the home. The University's teaching program was also the only means a woman had for attending UNC.

Not until the late 1890's did UNC offer summer school sessions like we know today, where courses were offered in a wide variety of fields.

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by Charly Mann

Orange County Training School 1949 Band, Chapel Hill, NC

Orange County Training School was the first black high school in Chapel Hill. Unlike the all-white schools in town where the land and funding for construction came from tax revenues, OCTS was built in 1924 on nine acres of land donated by black businessman Henry Stroud, and much of the construction costs were funded by the black community as well as a grant from Julius Rothenwald, a Jewish businessman who was president and part owner of Sears. Chapel Hill began funding the school in 1930 after the black community held a special election allowing their homes to be taxed at a higher rate than white homes. Nevertheless, Chapel Hill's black schools never received comparative funding to the white schools.

Lincoln High School Senior Prom 1954, Chapel Hill, NC

In 1950 the black community voted to change the name of the school to Lincoln High School because they felt Orange County Training School sounded like a juvenile reformatory. The school was located on Merritt Mill Road near the railroad tacks, and is now used as the administrative offices for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.

Lincoln High School Chapel Hill Class of 1962

From 1951 to its closing in 1966, Lincoln High School provided the black residents of Chapel Hill and Carrboro a great sense of pride, community, and tradition. Academic excellence was instilled by its teachers and principals, and the its football team and marching band were the best in the state. In 1957, 1961, and 1962 its Lincoln High School Tiger's football team were the state champions. (I often heard that any Lincoln team at this time could decisively beat any UNC football team). Almost all the parents knew every teacher because they not only attended the same churches, but were also involved in raising funds for the school to buy library books, team uniforms, and band instruments.

Lincoln High School's 1950 Girls and Boys Basketball Teams, Chapel Hill, NC

Alberta Jones, Lincoln High School Senior, Chapel Hill, Goodbye Poem 1955

Special thanks to Stephanie Scott for supplying the photos for this article

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This is the first public school in Chapel Hill. It was called The Chapel Hill Grade School. This is because it had adopted the then new concept of dividing students into grades. The school was located behind where the Carolina Inn is today. It was built in 1898, and this photograph was taken about 1904 by Adam Kluttz who was Chapel Hill's primary merchant in those days.

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by Charly Mann

This is Chapel Hill Junior High School in 1962. It was located at 123 West Franklin Street, occupying half the area that is now University Square and Granville Towers. It was a cold, crowded, and dilapidated building. The school was actually heated by a coal furnace. I do not recall a school bus system in those days. I usually got to school by going in with my Dad when he went to work at the University. I had to walk home, which was quite an adventure through downtown, across campus, through the Gimghoul neighborhood, down a half-mile, poorly maintained wooded trail below the castle, and then into my neighborhood. The journey was three miles, and usually took an hour. Before the trip I always stopped at Sloan’s Drug Store, at the corner of Franklin and Columbia, to get a cherry or vanilla coke.

This is an eighth grade class that includes my friends Joe Phillips, Sandy Little, Clinton Kelly, and Claude Piantadosi. You will not see much ethnic diversity in Chapel Hill during this time. We did have a single black student in my class, a brilliant girl, named Sandra Fe Farrington.

This is a picture of Kat McKay. I am posting it only because several people over the years have commented about her unusual pose – in profile. Her parents, I believe, had a business making sandwiches that were sold at local snack bars. I believe she was in the ninth grade.

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From 1904: Note that Ardell was in Philantropic, and Archer was in Dialectic. Almost every student at that time was in one of these groups.

by Charly Mann

It was not brawn, but brains that gave the University of North Carolina its colors. At one time intellectual sport was much more popular in Chapel Hill than athletic challenge. From almost the beginning of University the Dialectic and Philanthropic Literary Societies were competing debating organizations. The Dialectic or “Di's” color was light blue, and the Philanthropic or “Phi's” was white. During debates, social events, and commencements, students wore the color of their group. These groups held regular debates against teams from universities like John Hopkins, Vanderbilt, and Georgia.

Almost every student belonged to one of these societies, so to remain impartial at formal University events, professors and school officials wore both colors. It was almost ninety years after this tradition started that in 1888 UNC had an athletic team that competed against another university. By this time the combination of light blue and white already were entrenched as representing the University, and was the obvious choice of colors for the school’s athletic teams.

        This is the room on campus where the debates were held at this time

In some way we have progressed a lot in the last two hundred years, but I think it might be better to be known as the University with the best debating team rather than basketball team. Even up to 1910, the school’s debating victories were more a source of student pride than its athletic success.

              This is the group that gave Carolina its light blue color

          This is the group that was represented by white

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I have spent more than 35 years studying the classes at the University of North Carolina. The 242 members of the Class of 1927 are my favorite. They were the most creative, sophisticated, cordial, and lighthearted in school history. They exhibited this is their writing, poetry, art, and extra-curricular activities. The great bandleader, Kay Kyser, was a member of this class, and personified their wit, enthusiasm, and charm.

Floyd Gooch  died on  May 1,1938. He was the son of James and Amelia Gooch, and the uncle of Cindy Cross and Dianne Shaw.

Senior Class History

In the fall of 1923 the Class of '27 entered the University; since that time we have led a checkered career. The Campus first knew we were here when our class, perfectly organized and led by President Jimmie Williams, won a crushing victory over the Sophomores in the annual snowball fight. In the winter quarter the basketball team won the Southern Championship, and the Campus went wild. Few of us will forget the bonfire at the Old Well, and the march to Durham afterward. It was indeed a picture for the farmers to view, as students, clad only in pajamas and bathrobes, headed by the University Band walked to the neighboring city "to let the world know." The partial burning of Swain Hall cast to the winds all our ambitions for a smoker, as well as our visions of future meals. Only the kitchen burned, however, and not the storeroom where grits were kept. The Pick was burned ,by another fire, and Gerrard Hall was utilized as a Theatre, its staid old walls resounding with the applause for Gloria Swanson, Jack Holt, and others. This year saw the fall of the Boll Weevil before the faculty opposition, and the birth of the Carolina Buccaneer. It also marked the first anniversary of the Publications Union which has now grown into a lusty infant. Virginia was handed two shut-outs here, and the student body moved over to Greensboro to witness the third, and to attend N. C. C. W.'s reception. We set a precedent by having money in the treasury at the end of the year, and electing a class president who was not an athlete.

Bunn Hackney led the class our Sophomore Year. The Tin Can had been completed and was ready for use, and Intra-mural athletics were well under way. The Di and Phi reformed, the Di becoming a Senate. The Co-ed house burned, but, as fate would have it, the new one was under 'construction. The Glee Club, through the efforts of Mr. Weaver, went to Kansas City. Dr. Greenlaw was elected president of the American Association of Universities-and left the University for Johns Hopkins. The basketball team won the championship again and Tulane was burnt in effigy. Mr. Poole became angry in a stormy session of the Legislature and threatened to abolish the study of science at the University with his bill. The dormitories in the triangle were occupied for the first time this year, and Dr. Coker began his program of beautifying the campus. The Playmakers progressed, securing the old Law Building for a theatre. It was a large gift: the first threatre in the United States to be set aside for the development of folk plays. Rameses I made his first debut this year and accompanied the athletic teams on their trips. His first appearance in the Tin Can, however, was marked 'by an incident which required the extinguishing of the lights.

Our Junior year was indeed a busy one. Bob Sides was our president. Cameron Avenue was paved, and mud-slinging was stopped-at least literally. Old South was doomed, and plans made to remodel it and use it as an administration building. President Chase went to Oregon, but, after giving us a big fight, decided to remain at Carolina. The basketball team won the Southern Championship for the third consecutive time, amid much rejoicing on the campus. Bunn Hackney was chosen as one of the members of the All-Southern team, and was elected captain of the 1926-27 team. "K.O." Warren represented the University, and won the Junior National Amateur Heavyweight Championship. Fleet-footed "Gus" McPherson lowered the State record for the 100-yard dash to 9.8 seconds. At the 'initiation of Phi Beta Kappa a large number of men were elected from the Junior class. Virginia was tied in the annual football classic, and took two out of three in the baseball series. The celebration of the Semi-centennial of the opening of the University since the Civil War was celebrated this year. Two Co-eds were given a separate cheering section of their own, and during the year more boys than usual were seen wending their way toward the Cooed house.

The last lap of our college career awaited us on our return to the "Hill" in the fall of 'our Senior year. "Red" Smith was elected to bear on his shoulders the burdens of the class presidency. A new system of athletic coaching was introduced, and some of the younger sports were brought to the front. Mr. Kenan solved the problem for a new stadium- by his substantial gift of $275,000. Work was begun on the new stadium immediately after Christmas. Dr. Workman was elected head of the School of Religion that was opened for registration in the fall quarter. The 'class exhibited its conservative element strongly by voting overwhelmingly for the retention of the Senior write-up. Quite a bit of oratory was displayed in the process, however. More than the usual number of dances were held on the "Hill" this year, and many of our number figured prominently in them and in the other social activities.

And now we draw the curtain on the history of our college career, and turn to view the prospect that lies before us, which is cur Real History. One thing more, may the ties of friendship which we have formed during these four years remain ever true. 
 

CARL W. KELLY, Historian of Class of 1927
 

                  There were seven women in the Class of 1927

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by Charly Mann

Chapel Hill High School Principal & Amazing Human, May Marshbanks

May Marshbanks was the principal of Chapel High School from 1955 to 1970. During that period she was the only woman high school principal in North Carolina. Since she retired she has been Director of the Department On Aging for Harnett County, NC. She is now 92, and the last we heard was still working full time.

Chapel Hill High School on Franklin Street during the 1950s and early 60s

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by Charly Mann

Many people think of the 60s as the heyday of non-conformity and social progress. This is Chapel Hill in 1965 when I was 15. As you can see most guys, including myself, wore madras shirts.

Top Ten Songs of 1965

#1 (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (The Rolling Stones)
#2 I Can’t Help Myself (The Four Tops )
#3 Wooly Bully ( Sam The Sham and the Pharaohs)
#4 My Girl (Temptations)
#5 You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ (Righteous Brothers)
#6 Downtown (Petula Clark)
#7 Help! (The Beatles)
#8 Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat (Herman’s Hermits)
#9 Crying in The Chapel (Elvis Presley)
#10 You Were On My Mind (We Five)

If you were a member of a UNC sorority or fraternity this is how you dressed. Male clothes for this group came from Julian’s, The Hub, The Varsity Men’s Shop, or Milton's. These women were probably outfitted at the Fireside. All these stores did a booming business, and were located on central Franklin Street.

Top 10 TV Shows of 1965

● Bonanza (NBC)
● Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (CBS)
● The Lucy Show (CBS)
● The Red Skelton Hour (CBS)
● Batman (ABC)
● The Andy Griffith Show (CBS)
● Bewitched (ABC)
● The Beverly Hillbillies (CBS)
● Hogan’s Heroes (CBS)

The Civil Rights Act ending all forms of segregation, including in college admission, was enacted in July of 1964. As you can see the 1964-1965  University of North Carolina basketball team had no black players, and would wait three more years to have one. Billy Cunningham, #32, was the star of this team.

Facts of 1965

● Average Teacher’s Salary $5,174
● Minimum Wage $1.00 

 

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