(This is a short piece I wrote for the program of the Johnstown High School Class of 1973’s 50-year reunion, held the past Friday and Saturday)
The mountain of our alma mater lyrics still casts its shadow, and the stream continues to meander by. But the majestic Johnstown High School building that spawned the Class of 1973 long ago had a losing date with the wrecking ball.
And yet, class members gather once again for a reunion, this our 50th. Memories are made of sterner stuff than wrecking balls.
An abundance of analysis has been written about the reasons for the enduring recollections of one’s high school years, both pleasant and painful. Psychologists posit that our tendency to recall most vividly memories from ages 10 to 30 is due to a combination of genetic hardwiring of our brains and the social bubble of the high school years.
We were a transitional class for JHS, beginning the experiment to bring about half the 10th graders to the high school, while leaving the other half at their respective junior high schools until Grade 11.
We also had many would-be members of our 1973 graduating class opt for Johnstown Vo-Tech instead.
All these years later, most of the schools we attended, from elementary onward, either no longer exist, or have been repurposed for other uses.
We can’t go back and visit our old schools, sit in the classrooms, gyms or auditoriums. Physical touchstones of our Greater Johnstown School District experience are gone, but oh, the memories..
Over the years since graduation, I’ve had more than one former teacher or school administrator tell me ours was the last great class of JHS. Is it self-serving to believe that? Yes. Is it true? Arguably so.
Ours was a class more than 500 strong. The class produced an abundance of academic achievers who would go on to successful lives. The scholastic quiz team made it to the semifinals of that competition, then taped during the week and televised Saturday nights on WJAC-TV.
Our athletic program was strong across the board, headlined by the boys basketball team that went undefeated in the regular season, won the War Memorial Tournament and the District 6-A championship – the last ironically at the expense of a Vo-Tech team starting five Johnstown players. For a time, the JHS team was ranked No. 1 in the state.
The JHS band was award-winning. Our theatrical people put on high-quality productions such as “The Skin Of Our Teeth” and “Fiddler On The Roof.”
To name individual names here is to make this recollection read like a phone book, and risk unfair omissions. Suffice it to say, our class was blessed with an overabundance of talent, on various fronts.
That’s not to say all was Camelot. We learned hard lessons of life when some classmates fell by the wayside, when the basketball team was eliminated short of a state title, when hopes and dreams in general could not all be achieved.
Our high school years occurred against a backdrop of economic decline in Johnstown, a result being that so many of us had to leave the area to pursue careers.
But many remained, and some of those who moved away will be back for a day or two, to relive high school and celebrate the ties that still bind five decades later.
To paraphrase the closing line from the movie “Stand By Me,” “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was (in high school). Jesus, does anyone?”
Sam Ross Jr's site 