“I didn’t want to miss anything,” said the 1960 Springfield High School graduate.
But classes didn’t interest her nearly as much as other things — things like being in the Block S cheering section, taking bus rides to football and basketball games, and going downtown after school to mingle with the Catholic Central students in the basement at Wren’s or Jim’s Sandwich Shop.
She remembers the “wrath of God” in the eyes of Principal Charlie Fox and secretary Rosella Martin as part of those times. But to Helfrick, they just brought order to a world dominated by letter sweaters, class rings and dancing to 45 rpm records in one another’s basements.
It’s hard for her and other members of the last Springfield High School graduating class of the 20th century to fathom they graduated 50 years ago.
They will gather at the Quality Inn on Leffel Lane on Aug. 6 and 7 to celebrate that different time. (Classmates interested in attending should call Beverly Owen Sagraves at (937) 322-4811.)
Bulging at the seams
The phone exchange was Fairfax. Homeroom included Bible reading and the Lord’s Prayer.
Prescriptions came from Fireoved & McCann, cars from Baker & Ice, rented tools from Rit’s Hardware and high-end fashion from Thornton’s Clothiers and Percy H. Rosenfield Jr. at the Vogue Shop.
In the Springfield of the late 1950s, the demographic bump called the Baby Boom crowded 2,600 students in the three grades at Springfield High.
SHS Class of ’60 member Vic “Butch” Gran recalled his first day there in late summer of 1957.
“We all assembled on Clifton Avenue and walked down to Evans Stadium and had a convocation,” he said. “The auditorium wasn’t big enough to hold the sophomore class.”
Gran knew there couldn’t be a swimming pool in the high school dome as some claimed (Gran had belonged to the YMCA and knew the smell of chlorine). But in the midst of all the rumors foisted on sophomores, he was reassured by the presence of homeroom teacher Charles Milligan.
“He was so kind to a bunch of people coming into a new building,” Gran recalled. “It was just a joy to have him as a teacher.”
Expectations and gum
“All the teachers acted like they really knew what they were doing and wanted to teach you something,” said Beverly Owen Sagraves.
Although the knuckle-smacking ways of Miss Fitz, a Latin teacher, have not faded from memory, most of the expectations teachers had for students were communicated more subtly.
“We worked hard,” said Polly Percival Ricketts. I can’t remember anybody saying to me, ‘You have to have good grades.’ We knew it was expected, and we took pride in getting good grades.”
Ricketts said there was scuttlebutt in the school about some of the guys drinking beer and playing poker, “which we would have been killed for.” She said “the worst offense was to be caught chewing gum.”
Extracurriculars
There were, of course, all the out-of-school activities, among them pickup games of tackle football without pads at the Lagonda Fields, where softball is now played.
“Nobody was allowed to have shoes on or anything,” recalled Joe Norman, whose favorite memories include heading to the fields for games with friend Fred Frazier.
Going through the vocational program at Springfield High, Norman was a co-op worker at Robbins & Myers, where he got a job drafting after high school, then — with the help of the company — got his degree at Wittenberg while working, raising a family and attending 11 years of night school.
Ricketts was involved in the Girls Y Teens as a senior and in the Boosters.
She also had a role in the junior class play, “Time Out for Ginger,” “which I never heard of before or since.”
But she does fondly remember director Lloyd Lewis is “the most wonderful teacher to all of us. I can remember, he sent a me a rose on opening night.”
Lois Mumma Stroble remembers band and marching band director Philo Botsford in much the same way.
“Our cadences were all military,” said Stroble, a field drummer in the marching band.
“We were called the Marching 100. We weren’t always the greatest,” she said, “but every home game, we had a new show.”
“We also got to go to all the football games,” a particular pleasure in the fall of 1959, she said. The basketball and track teams were good that year. The football team went undefeated.
A rank result
Some remember the game against Dayton Chaminade as the highlight of the season, a 60-0 thrashing of a perennial power the Dayton newspapers declared would beat the Wildcats.
Players Ansel Markin and Joe Nourse best remember when Lima High came to town and led 6-0 at halftime.
“They were quite abusive. They had a lot of stuff to say to us during the game,” said Nourse, an offensive end, defensive halfback and all-league player.
At halftime, the Springfield coach, Lowell Storm “didn’t say a word to us,” Nourse recalled. At break’s end, “He came out of the office and said. ‘Let’s go.’ ” With high school All Americans Dennis Carter, Richard Evey and Howard Murphy and a line that outsized the Wittenberg University team, Springfield High won 22-6.
The season’s closest game was a 38-26 win over Middletown. Its most disappointing game is the one that never was played.
Ranked first in the state after their 59-0 blanking of Taft High School, Springfield High slipped to number two the next week when Massillon played one more game and came out on top.
There was no playoff system to resolve the question of which school was best.
Fair and unfair
As much as the coaches were revered, the school’s undisputed leader, was Principal Fox.
“We’d be in an assembly or something, Charlie would walk up on the stage, wouldn’t say a word, and everybody shut up,” Nourse said. “He was good, but he was fair.”
As for plans for the fall of 1960 to split their high school in two?
Many class members thought it was not fair — particularly to the members of the junior class who were their friends.
“I think there was a sadness for us, but the juniors and sophomores and a lot more than we did,” said Sagraves.
There was some concern, too, that the split might widen already perceived differences between the city’s north and south ends.
Juniors had the choice of whether to finish at the Springfield High School that would become South High or to go to the new North High School on Home Road that opened the fall of 1960.
As they did, demographics and time marched on.
The numbers game
To boost attendance for their 50-year anniversary, class members started getting together three years ago to organize.
Although “there were always cliques,” said Stroble, years later they “don’t mean a thing. And the ones you thought were most popular, they don’t always end up the best in life.”
Butch Gran said that after talking with Frank Adams at a reunion, the man who hadn’t been a close high school friend insisted that Gran and his wife stay at the Adamses’ home three days on a visit to Kingsport, Tenn. The Grans are hoping to return the favor at the reunion.
Jane Durstein Cole has had fun just trying to track down classmates on the Internet, making connections again and even running into people who have no connection with the class.
“Some of them have asked if they can come anyway,” she said.
Missing in action
Carol Helfrick, who finds it hard to hide her frustration that people who live in Springfield sometimes don’t attend a reunion that draws other classmates from California.
Putting her frustration aside, she’s extending a special invitation for her Springfield classmates to make an appearance at this year’s reunion.
Just as she didn’t want to miss a day of high school, she doesn’t want to miss a classmate, if she can help it.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0368
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