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Chapel Hill Junior High School 1962
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.
Comments:
Charly Mann
2:49 PM Fri 4/30/2010
Hey Clinton,
Please e-mail me at chmemories@gmail.com. I have several questions to ask you.
Charly
Clinton Kelly
2:20 PM Thu 4/29/2010
Charly -
My oldest brother Tommy (now Tom to the rest of the world) found your site; I doubt I ever would have. Just finished going over (almost) every nook and cranny. Absolutely terrific for all us who find out about it, not to mention our progeny.
Clinton
Joanne Falconer Perry
2:40 PM Mon 1/18/2010
In regard to the notes from Judy Gouger, the Chapel Hill Elementary School
on Franklin Street was still in existence as of 1957. My family moved to CH in 1957 and I attended 5th grade there and my sister, Cathie Falconer, attended 3rd grade there. Then in 1958, we moved to the Glenwood Elementary School area and I attended 6th grade at Glenwood. As I recall, I felt pretty cool because when I went back uptown to the old elementary school, which was by then the CH Junior High, I knew so many people and my friends from Glenwood were jealous that I knew all these other students.
I have fond memories of absolutely loving the skating rink out back of the old school.
So many of us would come early and roller skate before school opened and then during the recess. It was great fun!
What a great site this is!
M CHHS66
5:09 PM Mon 12/14/2009
I think I remember Kat McKay as best basketball player on the CHHS girl's team in 1967. Do you know if she played basketball in college?
Kat McKay
9:23 AM Fri 11/13/2009
My name is Kat McKay - but it is not my birthname. I was born and raised in Montana, and just googled myself to see what is out there. SHOCK. You always think you're the only one! Best of luck finding your friend, and greetings from the treasure state!
Sue Whitaker
6:12 PM Wed 7/22/2009
I remember attending both elementary & junior high school in this dreary building. The cafeteria was in the basement & there was a roller skating rink behind the building & a jungle gym on the side. During breaks we would go down to the playground & the boys would chase the girls & try to kiss them. Great picture!
judy gouger
2:47 PM Tue 7/7/2009
This picture is of the old chapel hill High School buildt after the 'NEW" HIGH SCHOOL burned down on south C.olumbia. street across from what was to become the hospital . I think the first graduating class was in the late 1920's maybe 1927. Members of that class included Jim Fowler the founder of Fowlers Food Store along with his brother. In the late forties and early fifties this school was the Chapel Hill Elemetry School. All children who were white and lived in Chapel Hill attended this school. There was bus service. All chilren who lived out of the city limits were able to ride the school bus. The buses were driven by high school students. I attended this school from grade 1 to grade 6. When I was in 5th grade the children who lived near Glen Lennox were sent to the new school Glen Wood.The Jr. High was then in the basement of the New new high school where University Square is now . The high school students were up stairs. then both were torn down in the 60's.
ILoveKat
8:57 AM Tue 3/17/2009
Kat, I love you! You were my secret love in HS. Tell us where you are (and then I'll tell you who I am!) :-)
Tarheel Fred
11:02 AM Mon 3/16/2009
I remember Kat McKay from high school. Do you know what she is doing now?
G-Boy
6:06 PM Wed 3/11/2009
Middle School Students looked like the age of college students today. I guess they must have been more mature too. I'm in the 11th grade at Chapel Hill High School.
Marge Clark
1:40 PM Wed 3/11/2009
I recall that the high-school, which was next door, was a newer building. Do you have a good photo of that?
SultanofLove
11:35 AM Wed 3/11/2009
Chapel Hill has really changed. I went to Phillips Middle School in the 80s, and most of my teachers were black, as were at least 30% of the students. I really think the Chapel Hill School system is excellent.
Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.
-- Charles Kuralt
Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".
Check out Charly Mann's other website:
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.
The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.
The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.
William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.
The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.
Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.
Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.
The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.
Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.
Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.
I knew the McKay family and loved most of them. Kat's father (known as Hutch) died in the late 1970's. Then we subsequently lost Bryan, Alex, and Martha. Sad stories, for the most part, and I don't think that Kat, wherever she is now, is doing much better.
They were all rather stunningly beautiful. Drugs play hell with beauty.
Do with this information as you will...
Kay