Alum Commentary on Picture of the Old School

Input of memories invited: dmdavis@acm.org

Comments by Barry Smith:

I love the (look of) that picture of the back entrance of our old school on our site. That picture brings back so many memories: that parked '57 Chevy facing away from the school, then the Jeep parked the other way (I think some girls drove that jeep), then that white Ford Falcon. Whoever owned those cars (I don't think I knew who they were.), seemed to almost always park that same way. Then on that dirt road where they're parked, they would periodically "re-gravel" that road, which made things dusty for a while. Remember? One day two kids put two cars head to head on that dirt road and both put their pedals to the metal. Quite a roaring dust storm for a few minutes.

Then there was the Junior High section - the newer building across the yard to the left as you face the back entrance. Wasn't there a low (about two feet high) stucco, somewhat irregular wall on either side of the sidewalk leading up to the back entrance of our building? Kids would sit on it during good weather, doing last minute homework, eying the girls and such. I think that was the last year ('62) they had our old school, before tearing it down and making the "new Junior High," which was still there last time I was in The Springs - about 6 years ago.

The new one (High School) over in Skyway opened up that next fall. Ours was the last class to graduate from that old school, and the first I think, to hold our graduation exercises in the then-new International Center in Broadmoor (second year it had opened I think).

It's heartbreaking to know quite a few of our classmates have died, many from cancer. Even if some of us didn't know them all that well, these were kids we saw most every day, kids we grew up with, kids who influenced our growing up. As I think about it, I can clearly see them all - what they looked like then, as we all passed each other in the halls and such, going from class to class... so many years ago. We were all so young, and so innocent.

ENOUGH FOR NOW.

Barry

Written for the 30th Reunion, 1992

Raye Smith Wilson contributes this old photo from Kindergarten. She remembers the kindergarten building as being on the grounds where the original high school and elementary school were, but it may have been across the street. Dr. Lloyd “Pappy” Shaw was the principal at that time. She remembers trips to the Nature Preserve, the Christmas play, “The Littlest Wiseman”, and a wonderful, not-so-safe in today’s culture, playground. There were several Indian paintings scattered through the school and, of course, the statue of the Indian on horseback in the high school. There was quite a doll collection. There apparently was also a kiva located at the west end of the activity field which was a replica of a real one. She doesn’t remember it, but her brother (eight years older) does. Note: a kiva is a circular ceremonial room found in Southwestern pueblos.

Click on Photo to See the Names we Have so Far

Any of you who were in Cheyenne Schools from K through 12 are welcome to let Raye
or Dan Davis know if you are in this photo. Please tell us which one you are and
please help us identify anybody else in the photo you remember.
Raye is third from the left, in the front row of the girls.

Barry remembers the Public Address Speakers in the old building:

There were those brown colored boxes in each classroom - up where the ceilings met the walls. These were the school Internets of our time. Almost daily, sometimes several times a day, various announcements were made. Seems like there was some sort of static/white noise that pre-announced the announcements. Wasn't there a way for our teachers to talk back to the office by aiming their voices back at the speakers up on the walls? But this part of the apparatus didn't work so well, so often our teachers would have to leave the classroom and deliver their responses to messages in person, to the office staff. Nowadays probably most all the kids (& teachers) have laptops or some such, instead of our old PA's.

Comments by Dan Davis:

The thing I remember about this area is from our Sophomore or Junior Year. Dan Miranda was still our Principal. One day, he was out in this area south of the building, the side shown in the photo, talking to some of us after we had exited the building for a fire drill. As some of you may remember, he "had issues" that weighed heavily upon him, but were the proverbial "red flag" to us, not atypical teen-aged boys. We had not taken kindly to whatever it was he said to all of us and we were still rankling when he drifted the 50 or so yards down to Cheyenne Road, where many of us had to park, and was looking at something down there. About then, the "All Clear" bell rang and we started to crowd back into the building. Chuck Remmel was there and had been absentmindedly forming a snow ball. Just before we got to the door, Chuck spun around and hurled the icy missile at Mr. Miranda, a long throw. It went whistling past the Principal's right ear, just clearing his shoulder. In a flash, we all turned back around before Mr. Miranda could react, look back at us, and see who had thrown it. I never knew whether Chuck meant to hit him and missed, meant to miss him and almost hit him, or meant to have it fly just exactly where it had flown.

Sheri Davis McLaughlin remembers some drivers of the cars,

The green Jeep belonged to the Sheldons, Duffy and Doug ( I think). My Jeep was white with white fringe. I wish that had been a picture of my jeep. I don't know who the Chevy belonged to. I love that picture of the old school too. As for parking on the school grounds, I don't remember any restrictions, I always thought it was first come, first served. I always parked on Cheyenne Boulevard. You could get to your car faster, so you could get your cheese burger and fries at McDonalds or Howdy Pard faster. I just remember zipping over the hill with our skirts flying on 8th Street, where the drive-in theater was, and my dad was in a car coming the opposite direction. There was a lecture that night on speed and responsibility. I really enjoyed Cheyenne.

Barry Smith has a very good memory and recalls a troubling event at the old school:

How 'bout the time they canceled school for a whole day (or was it several days?) due to some vandals which totally trashed our school. They got in at night (or was it over a weekend?) and pushed the lockers over, threw the library (librarian was Mrs. Campbell), books on the floor, tossed desks all over the place, etc. It was rumored to be by vandals from Main High, though I don't think they ever caught whoever it was. Anyway our teachers in a grand team effort, went home, changed into their grubbies, got paint, rollers, mop buckets and such, and cleaned up the whole school. When school resumed, all was once again in order.

Donna Johnson helps out with where the Kinder would have had their Garten.

The Kindergarten was, as you look at the High School picture, to the left and closer to Cheyenne Road. Not far from the school. A flat roofed adobe building. Just north of Cheyenne Road and west of Cañon.

If you have a 1961 yearbook, there is a color picture of the kindergarten on the front piece and back. That is Cheyenne Road running by it. The photo would have been taken from the upstairs of the high school building, looking southwest with Cheyenne Mountain on the next to the far left.

The trees we stood in front of for kindergarten pictures are gone in favor of a parking lot. Cañon would be across the Road and to the left. That is the playground, across the Road. See the basketball standards? Then I also found a picture of the kindergarten in the 1961 yearbook, on about page 4, where it is called the Science Building. Versatile place.

Scans Courtesy of Raye Smith Wilson

Donna also has given us some old class photos: Click Here

Susan Feldt weighs in on the Kindergarten photo from Raye above:

I loved Mrs. Johnson. She was a great teacher, and amazingly enough, I was shy at that stage of my life. One of the first days of kindergarten, I got hit by a baseball while walking across a grassy area to reach the little kindergarten building. It was located in front of what is now the junior high. I wasn't hurt, but just scared. A little boy in the class, named Stephen Roten (sp) felt sorry for me, and for weeks thereafter, he met me at my car and walked me across the field. I believe he is the one to the left Andy Love. And Andy bought me my first corsage. It was made of white carnations, but I can't even remember what he took me to in seventh grade.

Barry Smith reminds us of the old Auditorium:

Now and then they stopped the classes and treated us to a full length feature film in our old auditorium which had movie-like fold-up seats - plain wood though I think. We saw The Glenn Miller Story a couple of times. Many years later, I saw that movie again, this time with my son at The Glenn Miller Ballroom at CU. Enjoyed it as much as before.

Barry and Dan also remember that we could drive motor bikes at age 14:

In 1958 motor bikes and scooters of all types became very popular among the boys, as you could drive them at age 14. The power of the motor bikes was pretty limited for 14-16 year-old riders, but you could own a MoPed from Sears or even the small Vespas; for a young man, that was Freedom! It started with 2 or 3 guys getting some sort of motorized two wheelers. As the year wore on there got to be so many, that they made a parking lot just for us - it was directly East of the old kindergarten building, though that building was simply a storage building by then. Soon we had two lines of motor bikes lined up - one next to the old Kindergarten, and the other a few yards East of that line.

A kid named Darryl Dalremple had the first "Tiger Cub" (by Triumph) that many of us had seen. I think Lucky had one after that. There were quite a few of the popular maroon colored "MoPeds," made in Austria. They retailed at Sears in Southgate for I think about $150. Two horsepower - got something like 192 miles per gallon. Then there were "Quicklies," about the same thing but they were all gray. Charles Greene had a one of a kind "Wizzard" which had an exposed flywheel, clutch or some such. There were a few "Cushmans" which had centrifugal clutches. Chuck Armstrong had an extremely yellow "Vespa." Cy Dyer at first had a regular "Vespa," but later got the more deluxe model - a "Grand Sport Vespa," which had a bigger engine plus more gears. There were a few Lambrettas - similar to the Vespas.

Eventually that year there were probably a good 30 "bikes" as we called them. Before class we all lined up and inspected the latest additions to our "bike collection" (when we weren't smoking across the road by picturesque Cheyenne Creek). Before and after class when we all fired up, we made quite a racket with our bikes, each tuned to a different pitch. Then we would cut wheelies, do rear wheel skids, stands, and various other acrobatics. Great fun. We got through it pretty well, but the state-wide carnage was so great they changed the law a couple of years later, so we were the lucky ones to have a couple of years of being mobile before the State of Colorado got cautious again.

Karen Edwards tries to get her children to understand what it was like at Cheyenne;

Also, do they still have freshman initiation? Remember walking up North Cheyenne Canyon to the amphitheater for Kangaroo court . Also, taking field trips on the school bus (a real bus, not the yellow ones) It was great to be able to go to a small school. I remember in the fall during the world series running outside between classes to see whose transistor radio would pick up the score of the game. I remember crossing the creek and walking up to the little cafe near the Broadmoor stables for lunch and the "boys" trying to get us to fall in the creek.or throwing snow balls at us. Thank goodness, I never fell in the creek.

My kids do not understand sock hops at the gym or hockey games. Then our junior year we were introduced to football (which I knew well moving from Texas). Lots of firsts in our class. I loved the old school building with all the different levels of classrooms. It is really hard to try to describe it to someone.

Barry Smith, being a musician, remembered some of the old songs the pep band played and researched one of them;

          Cheyenne will shine tonight, Cheyenne will shine.
          Cheyenne will shine tonight, all down the line.
          We're all dressed up tonight, don't we look fine. 
          When the sun goes down and the moon comes up, Cheyenne will shine.

Click here to hear a pep band play the tune:

Here's the deal: "Cheyenne Will Shine Tonight," is a take-off on a Civil War song entitled, "Our Boys will Shine Tonight." Origin - Civil War days in Georgia. (Same melody as our song). The song has been adapted by many High Schools and Colleges - even some dorms, halls, 4-H clubs, modern military units, and the like. There are many many verses which have been adapted from the original, and modified so as to fit the particular unit, school, etc. Apparently our adaptation, has the one verse only, though who knows what may lurk in archives as yet unknown.... There you have it!

Yes, "All down the line" could mean many things going way back to the Civil War days when advancing troops proceeded in well ordered lines as they approached the enemy. Maybe we need to work on some additional verses so we can give tribute to our next reunion, those of us that are still around, those of us that aren't, how we've all aged, etc.... Then we can pass out the "new verses" along with our original verse, and we can all sing it somewhere or another....