VIDEO: Class of 58 tours old school

Meadville Tribune

July 20, 2008 12:41 am

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Class of 58 reunion tour from The Meadville Tribune on Vimeo.

By Mary Spicer
MEADVILLE TRIBUNE
What a difference 50 years makes. But then again, maybe not so much.
Topping off a busy morning at the high school with lunch at Eddie’s Footlong Hot Dogs — and a stop at Hank’s Frozen Custard for dessert, of course — would sound like a perfectly fine day to any number of today’s high-school students.
That’s how members of Meadville High School’s Class of 1958 spent a large part of their day on Saturday. (Note to alert readers: The reference to Meadville High School is correct. Members of Meadville Area Senior High School’s first graduating class received their diplomas in 1959.)
After a Friday-night “Get Reacquainted Party” at Day’s Inn in Vernon Township, members of the Class of 1958 started the Saturday portion of their 50th Reunion with an 8 a.m. golf outing.
Starting at 11 a.m., a tour — in a pair of yellow school buses, of course — focused on two sites that had played important roles in the celebrants’ younger years.
Their home football field, which now bears the name of their principal, Albert J. Bender, has been renovated and is now part of MASH’s Barco-Duratz Athletic Complex. That was the first stop.
Their second stop, the building at the north end of Diamond Park that ceased to be a high school practically the moment they left — and then embarked on a long career as Meadville’s junior high school — has also been dramatically re-done. Now known as Parkside Commons, the historic building provides living and working space for both residential and commercial tenants.
“We are really inspired with everything the community has done,” said Joy Link, a member of the reunion committee who also taught in the building during its days as Meadville Junior High School.
Classmate Gordon Miller, who now serves as Crawford County Court of Common Pleas’ president judge, agreed.
Saturday marked Miller’s first post-renovation visit to his former school. “It’s really well done,” he said. “It’s a great use of the space — and a great thing for downtown Meadville.” Although his first choice would have been for the county to purchase the building and use it for offices, “I think it’s super the way it turned out,” he said.
The ending of an era for Meadville High School was duly marked in its 1958 yearbook. The inside front cover features a photograph of the Diamond Park school, while the inside back cover shows the North Street facility still under construction. Inside, in true high-school yearbook style, a quote from “Morte d’ Arthur” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, noted that “The old order changeth, yielding place to new.”
Diane Shafer Domnick graduated from the new MASH two years later, but she was on hand Saturday to tell the visitors about the 2008 Preservation Award the building received from Crawford County Historical Society.
Theo Rowland, who taught French in the building’s basement for 25 years, returned Saturday to serve as a tour guide. Rowland hadn’t been inside the building for a decade — not since the junior high was replaced by the new Meadville Area Middle School on North Street.
“Walking in, I just kind of got chills because it seemed just as if I’d never left,” she said, although one thing did catch her a bit off guard. “I couldn’t figure out why the halls were so wide,” she said, speaking of the hallways that had been left their original width. At first, Rowland found herself a bit disoriented, but after a moment, it came to her. “No lockers,” she said.
The Class of 1958 continued its celebration Saturday night with dinner and dancing at the Iroquois Club at Conneaut Lake. The party winds up this morning with a farewell brunch at Perkins Family Restaurant in Vernon Township. The group of almost 100 Meadville classmates — who gathered from as far away as California and even Switzerland — was joined by approximately 10 1958 graduates of St. Agatha’s High School.
“We’re just celebrating that we’re still here,” Link said with a grin. “We’re alive — and we’re enjoying every day.”

Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com

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