FIRST NEWSLETTER TO BE PUBLISHED

The idea of having an Alumni Newsletter was discussed at the 40th High School Reunion last summer. Many classmates agreed that two newsletters a year would be an enjoyable way of keeping abreast of news about what other classmates are doing these days.

Almost one half of the Class of 52 attended the

40th Reunion. Over 60 classmates attended the reunion held at the Lawrence Park Golf Country Club on August 29, 1992. The faculty guest speaker was Mr. Howard Mischler, now 81 years young. Bobby Oatman remembered Howard's nickname, "Money Bags." Do you remember when Mr. Mischler would walk on to the auditorium stage during a pep rally carrying money bags? He would say, "Bring 30 cents, or three dimes, or six nickels, or 30 pennies, but be sure to show up at the football game."

The 40th reunion was undoubtedly one of the best organized reunions ever. A special thanks goes to Gene and Dotti Simanowski Rochocki, Toni Marinelli Oldach, Tom Petroff, and Ruth Staynoff Demichale. Your efforts were really appreciated.

Plans are already underway for the 45th Reunion. Many of the classmates thought that the idea of having an all day Pot Luck picnic one day before or after the Reunion sounded like a great idea. It would give us a chance to extend our contact with each other.

While we are at it, do you wonder if Audrey Johnson , Peggy Lamb Toots Cooper , and Marion Hoffman could bring their batons and put on one final performance?

We are asking all '52 classmates to fill out the Classmate Information Sheet that is attached to this introductory newsletter and return it to us. There is a self-addressed, stamped envelope for your convenience. We are attempting to locate as many '52 EHS graduates as possible. By having an updated directory, you will be able to contact old high school friends that you have separated from over the years. The Directory will be available and will be mailed to you with the first formal newsletter to be published this summer.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Richard Lewis has retired from the Pennsylvania State Police. George Hahn has also retired from the Los Angeles Police Department. For a number of years, George was with the Fraudulent Schemes Department.

Tom Fischer is retired from NCR in Los Vegas, Nevada, but restless Tom continues to work as a courtesy driver for a large car dealership. He spends his weekends as a babysitter with his grandchildren.

Dr. Mary Lil Gardner Covin is a therapist at the University at Boca Raton, Florida. Mary Lil counsels with college students.

Dick Petit is the proud father of a new baby girl. Dick is the chief interior designer of Thunderrbirds at Ford Motors in Detroit. That's not bad for a kid who went from painintg Freddie Footsteps to the top designer for Ford.

Drs. Daun Battersby and Dan Conley are living in Phoenix. Daun is a chiropractic physcian and Dan is a clinical psychologist in private practice. If they decide to combine a clinic for chiropractics and counseling they agree to call it the Bones and Moans Clinic.

Bill Oesterlin is an ordained minister of a congregation in Ligionier, Pennsylvania.

IN ERIE....

Elgina Amendola Reichard is working at Horn'e Departments store.

Kathleen "Toots" Cooper Hunter is a teacher with the Erie Public Schools.

R.N. Aggie Kudlock is now working as an administrator at Hammot Hospital. Toni Marinelli Oldach works as a receptionist at St. Vincent's Hospital. She gets to meet many classmates who are visiting or admitted to the hospital.

Ray Szumigala and Bob Milller cointiue to work at Lord's Manufacturing. Both of them have worked at Lords since graduating from East.

Frank Randazzo owns and operates Randazzo's Tavern. Gene Rachocki is a consulting engineer and has a special interest in real estate.

Kevin Quinn is an administrator at Gannon University. Ruthie Staynoff Demichele works at City Hall in Erie. She said that even her dearest friends have to pay their traffic fines.

If the Southern Migration continues we may have to hold our next reunion in Florida. The '52 Grads living in Florida include:

Mary Lill Gardner Covin lives in Boca Raton, Dick Lewis lives in Citrus Springs, Patricia Dench Maurer lives in Boynton Beach, and Carol Tirak Machuga lives in Gainesville.

Jane Melnick Bennetti lives in Tampa, and Francis Kubicki, Susan Myers, and Rose Wiercinski Zmylinski all live in St. Petersburg.

The CALIFORNIA complements boasts of sunny skies and the Pacific Ocean breeze, and include:

This is going to be your newsletter. so we are going to need your ideas for what to include in it. We are considering...

¨ Feature Article

This will be a feature article written by any classmate who wants to write something special that they would like to share with others.

¨ The Mystery Classmate

We will give you enough clues, but if you can't guess who it is, we will list their name somewhere in the newsletter.

ª The GUEST of HONOR

Each issue will include a fellow classmate who will be honored. We will give you an in depth view os his or her life from 1952 to the present.

¨ An Old Photo Puzzle

Can you guess the classmate? Could you recognize John Matlak when he was six years old? If you did not make it to the 40th Reunion, could you recognizee his recent photo?

¨ Letters to the Editor

Someone suggested that we have a combined Newsletter for the Class of 1952 and 1953. What is your reaction?

¨ The BOASTING Corner (About our Kids and Family)!

(Editor:) On my fireplace is a photo of my daughter Abby Conley with President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. Abby is running for Erie City Council. My other daughter Casey has been a favorite headline stand up comic at the Comedy Store in Colorado Springs. My nephew Sean Conley just signed on with the Detroit Lyons in the NFL. My beautiful wife won the Arizona State wide Spelling Bee years ago. It may mean little to you, but this newsletter would be unintelligible without her help!

WHAT IS YOUR BOAST?

 

 

VIDEO AVAILABLE OF THE

40TH REUNION

If you were unable to attend the 40th Reunion,

there is a VHS video tape available. Just contact the Alumni News for mailing arrangements.

WANTED.............1952 YEARBOOK

THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS

----1952----

by Dan Conley

On an international level in 1952, the peace talks had started in Korea, but fierce fighting would continue for several more years. Some of us who were to graduate from East High School knew we would end up in Korea.

On the national scene, Senator Eugene McCarthy was feverishly identifying secret members of the Communist Party. We were surprised to find out that movie actors, novelists, and well known people were pinkos and sympathetic to communism. We seniors at East High, Class of '52, had never really known any real communists. That is, we really did not know any of them personally. Certainly they were out there somewhere--after all Senators Nixon and McCarthy said they were.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower was nominated at the Republican Convention to run for President of the United States

A young unknown singer from Memphis named Elvis Presley had cut a new record. His style seemed odd, but somehow it had something special. Maybe it would catch on even if he sang about odd things like hound dogs and being all shook up.

At East High a new tradition was cutting its way into the senior class. Friday was white shirt and red suspender days. The peg pants were in.

Jimmy Johnson had a pair of thirteen inch cuffs that made him one of the best dressed boys in

the senior class.

Penny loafers with white socks were popular and so were blue Swede shoes. The girls wore hose and white socks. Hem lines almost reached the floor. Marion Hoffman and Mavra Simon were poetry in motion as they walked down the halls of East High. And who could ever forget Rita Penna's graceful walk?

SADI HAWKINS DAY allowed the girls the chance to ask boys to dance. There was also the Noon Day Dances. Marion Fabin was a great dancer. Shirley Frank was a terrific dancer too.

Wednesday nights was the St. Mary's Dance. Rita Glance, Pattie Fowler, Dot Kuchar, and Jeannie McClean rarely sat a dance out. Boys had to stand in line to dance with Clara Bukala.

Catrabone's gas station was a hang out for guys working on hot rods. The '32 Ford was every boy's dream to chop and channel and put in a '48 flat head Mercury engine. Kermy Hultberg, Dick Petit, Bob McNaughton Dick Kohler, and Jim Nicholson could be found at Catrabone's on any school night.

The New York state line and twenty cent beer was only a twenty minute ride out Pennsylvania Route Five. If you rode with George Hahn, it was only a fifteen minute ride. How thrilling it was on the way back home to turn off the car lights and play chicken with on-coming traffic. Alcohol provided all of the courage and wisdom necessary to bravely act out our natural rights of the passage to manhood.

At school, little foot prints made their way onto walls, homework assignments, books, and lockers. "Freddie Was Here" seemed to leave his foot prints everywhere. Some thought of him as the classes' invisible mascot. (Editor's note: Freddie mysteriously re-surfaced briefly 30 years later. His birth in 1952 was unknown or not remembered and like a ghost he once again faded into antiquity. Who knows, one day in the future he may return once again.)

Gus Halupczynski started the Lucky "7" Band. Sammy Raica and George Hahn and Jerry Hopkins constituted the trumpet section. Thanks to Benny Preston it was all captured on film for the Warrior Yearbook.

In the Spring of 1952, love and romance was in the air. The senior prom was planned and couples made arrangements to go. Bob Trott was taking Myrtis Butler and Tommy Damico was going with Wanda Juchno. It looked like Dottie Simanowski and Gene Rochocki were really getting serious.

Romance was everywhere. Shirley Daub was dating Kenny Dash, a handsome lad from Erie Tech. Shy Tom Fischer was dating the outgoing, witty Tessie Mando, and certainly that romance would never last.

And Ruthie Staynoff was dating Pete Demichele. Our parents told us it was just the Spring of the year and young romance would most certainly fade after graduation night. After all, what do young teenagers really know about love and long term commitments anyway?

Arlene Pringle was the editor of the Tom Tom. Arlene watched the romances with a careful eye. Her juicy little tidbits in the school newspaper stirred our imaginations.

Johnny Rapp was the Master of Ceremonies that Spring for the East Capades. John was funny, quick witted, and did some great impersonations.

Some of the boys in the senior class would bend hair pins and strum and plunk them with their fingers and make the pins twang on the side of their desks. The manifested but unspoken class project was to drive Mrs. (Ma) Betts to

distraction. Bobby Oatman was able to produce a melodic low TWANG which others tried to imitate but could never duplicate. Bobby had his artistic twanging technique skillfully mastered. His musical talent was close to genius. Little did we know that he would never share his twanging secret with another mortal soul. Possibly one day he will artistically perform one more time for the Class of '52.

Mrs. Bett's class was an early version of confrontive group psychotherapy. For example, at a designated time, like precisely at 2:23 p.m. on April 17, 1952, some members of the English class would begin to hum in unison. Her pleas for mercy went unnoticed. Soon the assistant princiap, Mr. McDonald, visited the class. We all explained that none of us heard the humming, suggesting that possibly Mrs. Betts was the only one who heard it.

Several weeks later, Mrs. Betts had to go to the office in the middle of the class period. While she was out of the room we planned our final prank. Dick Lewis held on to the feet of 121 pound Carl Fetzner as he dangled nervously from the open third story window. When Mrs. Betts returned to the class someone screamed, "Mrs. Betts, Carl is trying to commit suicide!"

When she shouted, "Get away the window and get back into your seats!", Dick Lewis loosened his grip on Carl's foot. Carl turned white and was speechless, as he gasped for air knowing that the only thing between him and the ground were the unsure hands of the Center of the East High School football team.

Once Mrs. Betts saw Carl's limp body dangling in mid-air, she insisted that he be rescued immediately. Frank Randazo, Dick Polanski and Jimmy Diffinbacher helped retrieve Carl who looked rather colorless and pale as he was dragged back into the classroom. For weeks, Carl Fetzner was the hero of the senior class of '52.

Anyway, that was 1952 as I remember it. There were no color television sets yet. There were no personal computers or satellites in space. There was only the senior class that was to graduate soon. In many ways, it seems like it was only yesterday. Sometimes when I am in a quiet room and if I close my eyes and listen carefully, I can still hear our head cheerleader Aggie Kudlak's voice coming over the PA system at a pep rally, "Come on you boys. Are you going to let the girls cheer louder than you?"

I can close my eyes and hear the soft refrain of Nat King Cole's Mona Lisa. The face of the girl I am dancing with is somewhat vague, but the cologne is unmistakably Channel Number Five. I can still smell the musty gym of the Noon Day Dances. I can feel my feet slipping on the floor of the sox hop. I can see the large pile of shoes in the center of the dance floor. I can still see the wide smile on Pop Warren's face as he watched us growing up from confused adolescents into confused young adults.

My mind seems flooded with a multitude of pleasant memories. Surprisingly they do no seem remote at all. They are as clear to me now as they were then. The costumes we wore on Sadie Hakins Day are painted firmly in my mind. I can still hear Sammy Raica's trumpet hitting the C above high C. I can hear the rasping voice of coach Duke Detzel. I can taste the french fries from the Hess Avenue Bakery. The marching band with scarlet jackets and gray pants remains indelibly focused in my mind. The faded red football jerseys are still imprinted in my memory. I can see Kevin Quinn catch the pass, and in his lofty almost slow motion gait, run to score the touchdown. I can remember in minute detail the exquisite movements that Al Sherman used to score points in water polo. I

can hear Rita Glance's infectious laughter. I can

still see Dot Kuchar's coquettish smile. The echo of Dick Oless's drum solo in the East Capades lingers perpetually. Yet it is the sound of Bobby Oatman's magnificent twanging hair pin that will echo in my mind forever.

Over time each memory, like solid building blocks, has constructed a monumental edifice, a solid structure that has endured as a pilar of strength for me over the last forty years. Possibly they are the memories that have shaped all of our lives and directed us when we needed a solid anchor in life's sometime stormy sea. Those wonderful and unblemished classmates, yet untouched by life's cruel experiences, provided for us a blueprint for life. Maybe that is what reunions are really all about. It is a chance to meet with old friends and silently express our thanks. Maybe it provides a way to express our gratitude to those who shared our innocence of youth.

Some memories bring back mixed feelings of joy and sadness, because I can remember clearly the shy, reluctant and uncertain look on Tom Fisher's face when I successfully arranged his first date with Tessie Mando. It was to become a marriage made in heaven. Little did I realize then that I had been blessed to be God's messenger.

But try as I may, there are some things I cannot remember about 1952. I cannot remember ever meeting a real communist at East High School. For awhile I thought Mrs. Betts was a communist, because she often had the far away look in her eyes. After all, Senators Nixon and McCarthy told us they were EVERYWHERE..

(Ed. Note: Each issue will contain a Feature Article written by a classmate. Please submit your article early.)

WE ARE LOOKING FOR:

Graduates or any classmates who were with us during our high school years, but for various reasons did not graduate with us in '52.

We are also attempting to locate:

Don Chesario

Jerry Finster

Robert Myers

Carl Sachse

Patricia Smialek

Joe Wells

And who else?

Thanks for helping us.

The first formal NEWSLETTER will be mailed during the Summer of '93.

This Alumni Newsletter is published in honor of the Fond Memory of: