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A Social History of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School1925-1980 |
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The history of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School (B-CC) is filled with triumph, humor, controversy, sadness, and spirit. It is a story of unforgettable moments, inspirational people, and exceptional periods in the history of the nation. Since its beginnings in 1925, B-CC has grown from a little brick schoolhouse to a prestigious and culturally diverse high school. The school has reflected decades of change in America as it created its own remarkable history . . . The Early Years The World War II Era The Fifties The Sixties The Seventies
Written for the 1999 Lazarus Leadership Fellowship Program by Rebecca Regan-Sachs (B-CC class of 2001) The Early Years "We were a small group, but we had fun!" --1929 alumna Goldie Shoemaker A new school opened in 1925 in a small wooded suburb of Washington, D.C. called Bethesda. With 14 classrooms and 388 students (grades one to eight), the brick schoolhouse of the Bethesda school stood two stories high on Wilson Lane. World War I had ended just seven years earlier, and Charles Lindbergh would not fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean for another two years. It was the height of the Roaring Twenties, and the beginning of an era for what would eventually become B-CC High School. In 1926, a young man from Delaware named Thomas W. Pyle became principal, bringing a fierce love of learning and academics to the school. The next year, a ninth grade was added, and the older students started soccer and basketball teams, a drama club, and a school newspaper, The School Tattler. Two years later, grades seven to ten moved from this school to a new school on 44th Street in Chevy Chase. The first group of students graduated from there in 1929: six boys and eight girls. Four months later, the stock market crashed, and people scrambled to save money. When the Board of Education stopped hiring new teachers, class sizes almost doubled. The class of 1932 got a scare when the banks began closing--the students couldn’t print their yearbook without any money. After school hours, some students could be seen sweeping the halls and washing desks to earn extra money. In spite of the Depression, a new school building on East-West Highway was completed in 1935. Built on the former site of a farm, the new school had three stories and a spacious cafeteria on the top floor. Tenth through twelfth graders from the old school moved to the new location in the fall of that year and called themselves the "Highwaymen."
More on the Early Years
"The ideal student believes in his school and always does his best, and tries his best, by his attitude and conduct, to constantly improve it. "If he possibly can, he subscribes to the school paper." --The School Tattler, October 1926 The World War II Era "It took over everything." --1944 alumna Eleanor Raley The next few years were eventful. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt addressed B-CC’s graduating class in 1937; the school adopted a new nickname, the "Barons" in 1940; a B-CC senior set fire to the roof of the school one night in 1941, the same night B-CC’s first graduate was killed in a related incident. But December 7, 1941 was a day no one would forget. The bombing of Pearl Harbor, and America’s subsequent involvement in World War II, greatly affected life at B-CC. The school year was shortened so students could sooner enter defense jobs. Boys practiced military drills during gym class; all students practiced on B-CC’s custom-made commando course in the quad. B-CC teachers and volunteers taught classes in mapmaking, navigation, Morse code, and electricity and radio, among others. The school raised enough money selling defense stamps to buy an amphibious tank for the army. The war claimed the lives of 43 B-CC graduates, among them Bill Guckeyson, perhaps the school’s greatest athlete. Many military men returned, however, and sought to finish or continue their education. Montgomery College was founded on the B-CC campus in 1946, using B-CC’s rooms after school hours until the College moved in 1950.
More on World War II at B-CC "We were just stunned. Absolutely stunned. Nobody expected it." --1942 graduate Carolyn Burbage, on hearing about the bombing of Pearl Harbor
The Fifties "We were the Elvis Presley generation" --1959 alumnus Roger Parkinson Long-time principal Thomas W. Pyle retired in 1949, much to the disappointment of students and teachers alike. The new principal, William G. Pyles, took over a school of national prestige and reputation, where most students were clean-cut, well-dressed, and college-bound. Sororities and fraternities, officially forbidden, nevertheless thrived. Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and James Dean became the new teen idols. In the mid-1950s, the first African-American students arrived at B-CC. Largely unnoticed by their white counterparts, they felt isolated and unhappy for much of their high school career. Fear of Communism and the atomic bomb also pervaded the school system. B-CC held "civil defense drills" in case of atomic war, and started "Rapid Learner" (or Advanced Placement) classes in science and math to try to catch up with the Russians. In 1959, future president John F. Kennedy delivered a stirring commencement address to B-CC’s graduating seniors, the last class of the ‘50s.
More on the Fifties The Sixties and Seventies "The students really reflected social unrest." --Eugene "Chip" Smoley, B-CC principal, 1967-70 Four years later, Kennedy’s assassination marked the beginning of an age of social turmoil and disruption. The start of the Vietnam War outraged many teenagers, who began to lose respect for authority. Soon, B-CC teachers noticed more and more students skipping school, coming in late, or failing to do their homework. The invasion of the Beatles in 1964 greatly influenced the growing hippie culture among teenagers. By 1969, almost a third of the B-CC population had tried marijuana, and a smaller number smoked it habitually. Political assassinations in the late ‘60s led to increased unrest; even B-CC teachers went on strike in 1968 over a wage dispute. In the early ‘70s, students held anti-war protests and marched on the Bethesda draft board. Boys signed "We Won’t Go" petitions and mailed their draft cards back to the Senate Armed Forces Committee. In May 1970, B-CC students reacted to the Kent State killings by skipping school, triggering a false fire alarm, setting off a smoke bomb, and attempting to lower the American flag on the school lawn to half-mast. The disruption calmed when President Nixon began pulling troops out of Vietnam, but the subsequent Watergate scandal only deepened students’ distrust of the government. Some classes watched the Senate hearings on T.V. and discussed the scandal in class. In 1976, Montgomery County started one of the few voluntary busing programs in the country. B-CC now achieved greater ethnic diversity with students from Silver Spring, Takoma Park, and Chevy Chase. The old building had to be renovated to accomodate the new students, and construction finished in 1979. That same year, the first ninth graders attended classes at B-CC, bringing the total school population to 1,700. It was yet another step towards the B-CC High School of today.
More on the Sixties and Seventies The Early Years One year after the opening of the Bethesda School in 1925, English and history teacher Ludelle Hinaman started B-CC’s first newspaper, The School Tattler. The first editor, John Adair, had black hair and glasses, was outspoken and intelligent, and would be killed several years later on the grounds of his old school. Adair worked closely with Ms. Hinaman to produce a well-written school newspaper paper in those defining years. "We had everything happen to us that could possibly happen in the first two trying years," said Hinaman. "Usually the assignments weren’t turned in until five minutes before deadline . . . by the time the papers got back to us [from the printer’s] and were distributed, the news was at least two or three weeks old." In late June of 1927, builder Alfred Warthen got permission to build a school specifically for high schoolers on 44th Street in Chevy Chase. The eight classrooms were finished the next year. In March 1928, grades 7 to 10 from the Bethesda School, and the 6th graders from crowded Chevy Chase Elementary moved into the new "Leland High School," also known as the Bethesda School. The first students graduated in 1929. "We were a small group, but we had fun!" said ‘29 alumna Goldie Shoemaker. "I was very happy there." Shoemaker later returned to teach in Bethesda for 30 years. John Adair, the first graduate to receive a diploma from the school, became a member of the Chevy Chase Fire Department.
Four months after the 1929 graduation, the stock market crashed. Guy E. Jewell, history teacher and principal at Damascus High School from ‘29-’38, remembered its effects on teachers: "When the banks started closing, we received a notice from the Superintendent of Schools telling the principals to make any cash at school, from the cafeteria or anywhere else, available to teachers and students on a loan basis. Also, the Board of Education didn’t issue paychecks for a month in 1933. Teachers had to get along with whatever spare cash they had." A typical teacher’s salary was $98 a month in 1934. Because the county could not afford to hire new teachers, class sizes rose. "I can remember classes of 45 to 50 students," said teacher Kenneth W. Frisbie, who taught at B-CC from 1934 to 1964. The hard times also affected the B-CC students, as former Montgomery County councilman Neal Potter (‘33) remembered: "The Depression hit about the time I went to school there. 1929, of course, was the stock market crash, which set off a lot of other economic complications . . . So when we got this [1932] yearbook, we had the money in the bank (all the students had paid their dollar and a half), and then in March, I think it was, the banks closed. All our money was in the Bank of Bethesda . . . So the printer says, ‘With no money, I can’t print the book!’ "We could only hope the bank would be opened in the first wave of openings, and it was. The Bank of Bethesda was one of the first that was allowed to re-open. So the printer got to work, and we got those books on the last day of school." Although "there was no money then," as George Mishtowt (‘34) noted, the times were such that the people of Bethesda would leave their doors unlocked and their windows open. "Weapons in school were absolutely, absolutely unheard of," said Mishtowt. "You just can’t picture how different society was." Mishtowt and Haylett Shaw, president of B-CC’s 1933 graduating class, were given cleaning jobs by Principal Thomas W. Pyle. "I was very happy that Mr. Pyle found some type of work that I could do around school . . . janitor work," said Shaw. Mishtowt remembers earning 30 cents an hour after school, working from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. every weekday and from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon on Saturdays. "I was considered a rich kid ‘cause I always had money in the pocket," said Mishtowt. Although Montgomery County was one of the most affluent areas of the country at that time, the Depression nevertheless affected everyone. Students often drove cars, but now everybody in the car chipped in to buy gas. Dances were still frequent, but girls bought only one evening gown and wore it every time. Teenagers continued to see movies, but now they went in the middle of the day, when it cost a quarter, instead of at night, when it cost $1.50. Some students even skipped school in order to see the cheaper, mid-morning feature.
Despite a nationwide Depression, things were busy at B-CC. There was an orchestra, debating club, French club, cheer club, astronomy club and model airplane club. The movie club produced its first picture, Peppy Preps, in 1929, starring Betty Jackson and Walter Johnson, the pitcher’s son, who was also voted "best-looking boy" of the ‘33 class. In 1931, grades 11 and 12 were added, and the school was now known as "Bethesda-Chevy Chase Senior-Junior High School." That same year the Pine Tree, the B-CC yearbook, debuted as a 4-page supplement to the school newspaper, now known as The Tattler. "The newest fad in B-CC is appendicitis. If you can’t get it naturally you stay out a week just to keep up appearances." --The Tattler, 1934 In 1931, B-CC won its first basketball tournament, led by young athletic phenomenon Bill Guckeyson, whose name was later given to B-CC’s sports stadium. The largest class yet, comprised of 83 students, graduated on June 14, 1934. The seven-grade school at Leland was quickly becoming overcrowded. The Montgomery County School Board began to eye the stretch of farmland on East-West Highway owned by the Watkins family as the prospective site of a new school. Where so many students and teachers would walk and teach and learn over the next several decades, then stood a spring house, frame house, animal barn and vegetable garden. In the spring of 1934, the school board hired the Morrison brothers to construct a new school on that land. Architect Howard Cutler planned a three-story building with classrooms and offices on the first floor, and a library, teachers’ room, and music and domestic science room on the second floor. The third floor was a spacious cafeteria and kitchen. Grades 10 to 12 moved into the new building in September 1935.
"It is said that whenever there is a depression, skirts are longer and they definitely rise with the financial climb. Just to affirm this statement, skirts are 15 inches from the floor." --The Tattler, October 1, 1937
By 1937, the 10th to 12th graders were comfortably settled in their new building facing what is now Chelton Road. They had selected the name "Highwaymen" for their sports teams and planted pine trees in front of the school. There was now a "B" building, which held 20 classrooms, and a new gym that also served as an auditorium. "We were just getting out of the Depression," said Elise Brownell (‘37). There were sororities and fraternities, and students attended dances at the Bethesda Women’s Club, the Congressional Country Club, and the Naval Academy. There were movies at the Hiser Theater and the Borough Theater, although B-CC kids termed it the "Bore-o," because of its B-movie fare. School started at 9:00 a.m. with a ten-minute homeroom, during which there was roll call, a flag salute, and the Lord’s prayer. There were generally 28 to 30 students in each class. Girls wore dresses to school, and boys wore long pants with flannel or sports shirts; no one wore shorts. During lunch and after school, the students who smoked flocked to a cluster of trees between the school and East-West Highway, popularly called "the grove." Since it was against state law to smoke on school grounds, Principal Pyle set aside the special area and had teachers patrol the grounds. "The grove" was B-CC’s most popular meeting place from 1936 until 1950, when part of the land was used to build the Administration Building. Ever since B-CC had moved into the new school on East-West Highway, the students had been known as the "Highwaymen" in school cheers, newspaper articles, and other publicity in the Washington, D.C. area. B-CC was also recognized as a highly prestigious school, due in part to the affluent, educated community from which it drew its students, as well as the lack of many other high schools in the area to divert B-CC’s talented teachers and scholars. The Tattler pointed all this out in an article on October 24, 1940: "For several years the many athletic teams, and the student body for that matter, have received a great deal of publicity in the Washington papers, and in every paper they have been referred to as the Highwaymen. "The students of Bethesda-Chevy Chase believe that a more pleasing and appropriate name would be more descriptive for a school of such caliber and ranking." So The Tattler sponsored a nickname contest, in which all students could submit their ideas. Out of 40 or 50 suggested names, The Tattler nickname committee selected six and put them up for a school-wide vote. If the students had voted differently 60 years ago, B-CC’s sports teams and mascot might have been called the "Buccaneers," the "Bulldogs," the "Highwaymen," the "Blue Devils," or the "Blue Satans." But the name they chose out of the six options was student Carolyn Martin’s entry, the "Barons." "Barons" received 266 votes, 46 more than the 2nd place finisher, the "Highwaymen." For her winning entry, Carolyn Martin received a prize of $1.00.
The World War II Era Before Franklin D. Roosevelt ever won the national presidential election in 1936, he was first chosen by B-CC High School students. FDR won a student straw poll with 252 votes a few months before the national election. His Republican opponent, Governor Alfred M. Landon, netted 191 votes, a Unionist candidate won 13, and a Communist, nine. The most interesting news of the year, however, came in December, when the British King Edward VIII abdicated the throne to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson. Although this news titillated students for a while, they were also becoming increasingly aware of the ominous situation in Europe. America was five years away from involvement in the Second World War, but students who had been to Europe knew something was going on--even if they grossly misinterpreted what they saw. In a series of articles for The Tattler, a 16-year-old student named Richmond Paine described his travels in Europe the summer of 1936: "In Berlin there is no evidence of either Jew-baiting or Heil Hitlering," he wrote. ". . .National Socialism, or Naziism, I heartily approve . . ." He also warned: "Don’t believe all that you read in the papers, and nothing that you read in the New Republic, for more falsehoods are published about Germany than about any other country except, perhaps, Russia." Most students were generally aware of overseas conflicts from news reports. "I knew Japan and China were always fighting," remembered Brownell (‘37). And in the words of Henri Bernard (‘37): "Things were coming to a tremendous boiling point." On June 9, 1937, the energetic wife of the "tyrant," the "socialist," or the "savior" (as FDR was known to different students), delivered the commencement address for B-CC’s graduating 12th grade. The largest class yet to graduate the school, 109 seniors listened "absolutely in awe" to Eleanor Roosevelt speak on the problems of youth, recounted Henri Bernard (‘37). Sixty years later, it was not so much her words that the ‘37 alumni remembered, but the way she carried herself, her charming demeanor, and the fact that "she wore rings on every finger of her hands," said Bernard. Brownell noted that the First Lady was better-looking in person, and that she wore a long chiffon dress that came just above the ankles. Henri Bernard spoke to Mrs. Roosevelt after her speech, and she asked what he was going to do after high school. He would attend George Washington University, he told her, and then would "probably be drafted." Which branch of the army would he prefer? she asked. "The Air Force," he responded to the woman whose husband would one day send him overseas as a pilot in the Air Force, where he would fly 75 missions over the European Continent in World War II.
The Fire of 1941: "A spectacular blaze razed the upper story of the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School . . ."
Many of the students had known, one way or another, that it was coming. Hitler was insatiable. Great Britain was desperate. America was worrying about Japanese attacks near the Philippines, and wondering how long England could hold out now that France had fallen. But the students of B-CC, studying for tests, attending dances and teas, never expected what actually happened. It was a Sunday afternoon when the first reports came over the radio that Pearl Harbor in Hawaii had been bombed by the Japanese. The attack, on American soil, was unthinkable. Carolyn Burbage (‘42), was dating a boy from the Mallard military school. "I was with some other guys from Mallard," she remembered. "We were up in Mother’s bedroom, it was a kind of sitting room, and it came over the radio. We were just stunned. Absolutely stunned. Nobody expected it." Joseph Gardner, (‘43), had been watching planes fly out of National Airport with a classmate. As they drove back along Rock Creek Park and Massachussetts Avenue, they saw smoke rising from the chimney of the Japanese embassy, where documents were being burned. Later that day, they heard the news of the attack on the radio. Marion Baldridge Tholen (‘42) listened to the news on the radio with her parents. Her brother, Doug, was then attending school at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. After the reports aired, the radio station began playing patriotic music. As the strains of "Anchors Away" came over the airwaves, Tholen remembers, her mother began weeping. John H. Fenton (‘44) came home from a fishing trip and was told the news. In a state of disbelief, he thought: "Well, I guess we’re going to war."
More Pearl Harbor stories
School Life During the War There had been some controversy before then about entering the war. Burbage (‘42) remembers fierce isolationist sentiment in Congress, led by Senator Robert Taft of Ohio. But from the moment the Japanese planes dropped the first bombs on American sailors, opposition to the war dissolved. "That united us," said Burbage. "You hit us, then we’re all in it."
B-CC students and teachers immediately prepared to help the war effort. However, they did so with the assumption that "it would be over quickly," as Marion Baldridge Tholen (‘42) remembers. "We thought it would last maybe a year." Students were asked to join the Volunteer Messenger Corps and encouraged to buy defense stamps and war bonds. The Red Cross Production Unit filled 50 hospital bags for soldiers, containing cards, combs, and cigarettes, by the close of December 1941. In February 1942, the Montgomery County Board of Trustees voted to eliminate all holidays, including winter and spring break, so that students could apply for defense jobs as soon as possible. One day, there were rumors that enemy bombers were flying over New York. At B-CC, students were informed that there was a "possibility of an air raid," and that everyone should go home. The kids streamed out into the streets, some confused, some scared, some jubilant. "It was almost like a lark," said Tholen (‘42), adding that many students simply didn’t believe it could happen. It didn’t. The rumors proved untrue, but all that spring there were more air raid drills. Sirens wailed from the tops of buildings, and Bethesdans pulled down their black-out blinds and waited in the basement until the all-clear sirens sounded. Former B-CC boys signed up for military service in droves, and a "Service Banner" was mounted at the school with a blue star for every alumnus in the Armed Forces. They came home on their furloughs, walked around their old campus, talked with Principal Pyle. Entering a new world, they also tried to maintain contact with the world they had just left. "Hello, Mrs. Black," wrote recent B-CC graduate Irving Bragg in 1942 to speech and choir teacher Florence Massey Black: "I enlisted in the U.S. Navy on January 26 and am in training at Norfolk, where I am becoming a ship’s operator. I hope you have been very well. This life is O.K. except we have to get up at 4:45, and that’s bad. Give my best regards to all my friends you run across. Please drop me a line and tell me how you are[;] after all, you were my favorite teacher." The first B-CC class to graduate during a war held its ceremony on June 9th, 1942. The last day of school for those students was June 2nd, due to the shortening of the school year. The rest of the school got out on June 10th. Two hundred and twenty seniors listened to Dr. Paul Douglass, president of American University, deliver the commencent address at the Leland Junior High auditorium. For the first time, the graduating class sang not only their school song, "Blue and Gold," but "The Star Spangled Banner" as well. Some of the girls went on to college, and many later became nurses, teachers, secretaries, or housewives. Boys more often attended universities, later entering professions such as business, law, or medicine. But most boys 18 years and older went on to fight in "the war"-- coming back different, coming back much older, and some never coming back at all.
The World War II years were also the years of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, "hepcats," saddle shoes, and swing hops. Everything was "swell." B-CC, according to several alumni and former teachers, was then academically one of the most prestigious high schools in the country and, despite the trials of wartime, "a very social high school," as Carolyn Burbage (‘42) remembered. Students formed sororities and fraternities, officially forbidden by the school but prevalent nonetheless. They held dances at country clubs and organized parties with other fraternities (or sororities) and volunteered with charities. After school, B-CC students hopped in their cars with friends and drove to someone’s house to gossip or "argue over some political issue." They went to the Hot Shoppes on Wisconsin Avenue, and frequently visited the A & W restaurant on Connecticut. "After you went to whatever, you went there for a hamburger and Coke, and you saw everyone you knew there," said Burbage of the A & W. There were parades and dances at the Naval Academy, Saturday night movies, and stage shows at the Earle Theater in Washington. And no matter what you did, it would be duly reported in the next issue of The Tattler’s gossip column.
But the war overshadowed all. "It took over everything," said Eleanor Raley (‘44). Even The Tattler succumbed to paper shortages, and mimeographed copies were the best the school could do for the duration. Gasoline was rationed; tires, conserved; and people avoided driving simply for pleasure. In the classroom, some teachers required any student caught chewing gum in class to buy a defense stamp. One day, remembers Dean Martin (‘44), every single student walked into Mrs. Black’s class loudly cracking gum--and cheerfully paid the penalty. The school eventually raised enough money selling defense stamps to buy a $69,000 amphibious tank for the army. The next drive netted close to $6,000, which bought five Jeeps. Between January 21 and February 29 alone, B-CC sold $30,050 in war bonds to help the Allied soldiers win the war. And they won the war. But the elation at B-CC was dampened by the 43 gold stars on B-CC’s service banner, each star representing a B-CC alumnus who had been killed in service. School-wide assemblies were held for each boy who never made it back. As the fatality list mounted, some teachers stopped coming to the assemblies altogether. It was too hard to take.
The Tattler was back in 1945, once again in print and not mimeographed, with articles jubilant over the victory of "our boys" overseas, confident in the future, and mournful of lives lost in the past. "In this reconstruction era, we need to build on those sacrifices," read one editorial: " . . . Earnestly, sincerely, we need to evaluate ourselves, to accept the opportunities awaiting us and to use them to the best of our abilities. We must keep faith with those who died, even though it means no more than doing a particular job just a little bit better than it has been done before." Some of B-CC’s old students were back, too. Former military men who had graduated early or wanted more education, now roamed the high school’s familiar halls, delighted to return to the old way of life. A "Service Log" appeared in every issue of The Tattler, detailing the doings and whereabouts of the B-CC alumni still in service. A cataclysmic four years had scattered the boys to all corners of the globe, and now that the dust was settling, the school was glad to see many of its old students, back at home. The ex-GIs poured into colleges, and in 1946, the Montgomery Junior College (now Montgomery College) was founded. Without facilities of its own, it used B-CC’s classrooms after 4:00 p.m. The next year, it moved into two surplus Army barracks on the B-CC campus. When the college changed location in 1950, B-CC took over the extra classrooms. There was now a football team at the high school, the first one in the county. There had always been vague opposition to the idea; there was a story that a governor’s son had died playing football, and the governor had banned it. The only real obstacle, however, was a general policy against football by the County Board of Education. B-CC’s coach of five years, Ray Fehrman, got the Board to abandon this policy, and organized the first team in 1944. Soon, other high schools in the area followed suit, and B-CC had three opponents that year. The Barons beat all of them--Landon, Sherwood, and Mount Vernon--for an undefeated first season. In order to play, Fehrman had his gym classes and football players clear the rock and garbage-strewn area behind the school, former site of the community dump. It was made into a regular field in 1947, and the next year a track was completed, running for one fifth of a mile around the field. In June of 1949, B-CC’s principal of 23 years, Thomas W. Pyle, retired. The Board of Education was reluctant to see him leave, however, and persuaded him to serve in the County’s administrative offices until 1958.
Principal Thomas W. Pyle
The 1949 school year ended. B-CC had now existed for 23 years, growing from a small neighborhood school with several grades to a nationally recognized high school with keenly motivated students and staff. In the next few decades, tumultuous social change and two more wars would forever alter B-CC High School. The students would never again unite in such unquestioning patriotism; the school and community would never again be so close-knit. Women would challenge their traditional roles; African-Americans would challenge prejudice and apathy as they struggled through the first years of school integration. At B-CC, things would never be the same.
The Fifties --"Invisible": Integration at B-CC The scene at B-CC in the 1950s closely resembled that of the movie, Grease, with an added atomic bomb scare, anti-Communist paranoia, and a historic racial integration process. The faculty, led by principal William G. Pyles, was outstanding. B-CC was ranked one of the top high schools in the country by Time magazine. And the students were generally clean-cut, well-dressed, and college-bound. "I think everybody behaved pretty well," remembered Peter J. Messitte (‘59), now a federal judge in Maryland. "I think people were essentially respectful of teachers, no backtalk . . . And there were morals, I mean, people had reputations. If you were fast or slow that got around, that was known." Ann Fullerton, B-CC teacher from 1947 to 1957, concurred: "I never really had a disrespectful student." The kids in her advanced biology class, she said, were "very challenging" and asked good questions. On the whole, she remembered, "It was very much a pleasure to teach at B-CC High School." In that relatively carefree time, social clubs met regularly and fraternities flourished. The decades-old Chi Alpha fraternity was gradually replaced by the Saints, who had a sponsor (Pumphrey’s Funeral Home in Bethesda), and their own jackets. Other fraternities also sprung up: the Lords, the Deacons, and the Nobles (or Sabers). The kids threw parties on the weekends and danced to Elvis music. They watched movies starring Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, everyone’s favorite rebel. "We were the Elvis Presley generation," summed up Roger Parkinson, (‘59) today chairman, CEO, and publisher of the Toronto Globe and Mail. Girls wore pleated skirts, blouses, and saddles shoes. Boys wore pink shirts and black pants with the buckle in back, letter sweaters and khakis. Then there were the "hard guys and girls." This group, the un-Saintly "fast" crowd at B-CC, hung out at the Hot Shoppes down the road. The guys wore leather jackets and ducktails, and were among the first in the school to wear jeans. As Messitte (‘59) recalled: "I remember some guys wearing Levis, and not looking quite like John Travolta in Grease." The school administration also disapproved of such attire. Principal Pyles forbade students to wear jeans at all, citing the fact that they were too tight. He also punished any students found belonging to a fraternity, since "secret societies" of that sort were against school policy. According to former Mongtomery County district attorney Andrew Sonner (‘54), Mr. Pyles once punished a whole legion of fraternity brothers by barring them from participating in school activities. But other strict procedures had more to do with health risks. Polio was a constant threat. Ms. Fullerton remembers that one student died from it--and so children were told to wash their hands frequently and not touch anyone who wasn’t feeling well. If someone complained of neck stiffness, or ran a high fever, they were sent home for exhibiting early signs of polio.
Another concern was Communism. "If the Russians believed in milk for babies, then if you believed in milk for babies, you were a Communist," said Sonner (‘54). "I think people were very hesitant in the fifties--everywhere, in high school and in college--to talk about Communism as an alternative ideology," said Messitte (‘59). "Because if you talked about Communism as an alternative ideology, you could be suspect with some people . . . It was not the kind of topic that you would openly say, ‘Communism is better,’ because you could get in hot water if you did that." B-CC started Advanced Placement (or "Rapid Learner") classes in 1954, which gave college credits in the fields of physics, biology, and chemistry. The new classes were part of an attempt to "catch up" to the Soviets, who were working on advanced technology of their own. In 1959, the Russians launched the first satellite into space: Sputnik. "There were definite efforts made [after Sputnik] to improve the curriculum, to compete internationally in the fields of science and math," said Nicholas Guidara, math teacher at B-CC from 1948 to 1975. With anti-Communism and the advent of the Cold War came the fear of an atomic holocaust. "That clouded everybody’s life," said Sonner. Unlike during World War II, families now built bomb shelters, expecting to have to live in them in the years following a nuclear blast. Atomic worries pervaded even the school system. "Back then, everybody was talking about their air raid shelters," said Dr. Carl MacCartee (‘59). "As we went through school during the 50s, we would have things where they’d sound an alarm and everybody had to file out of class and go downstairs and get in a shelter area and put their heads down." B-CC held "civil defense drills," in which students would line up in the hallways and face away from the windows. Dominating the headlines, as Roger Parkinson recalled, were the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the crisis in Egypt over the Suez Canal, and Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver’s Mafia hearings, among others. Dwight D. Eisenhower ran for a second term as president, and B-CC held mock campaigns and an election. The Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson camps squared off with posters, slogans, buttons, rallies, and announcements over the public address system. B-CC Republicans touted "Ike" as the candidate for "Peace, Prosperity, Progress." Voting for this platform, as the rest of the country had done, B-CC students re-elected him. Three years later, another presidential candidate actually visited B-CC to deliver the commencement address for the class of ‘59. No one gave him a chance for the Democratic nomination; he was just a junior senator from Massachussetts: John F. Kennedy. The graduating seniors were nevertheless impressed by his persona. Nancy Browne (‘59) remembers the future president as "very charming, very attractive . . . He didn’t sit there like he was afraid to be there." The class later donated a plaque to the school commemorating the event. Messitte organized the effort, motivated by reading a copy of Kennedy’s commencement address that had been recently rediscovered. He realized what an inspiring speech the candidate had delivered. "It was a wonderful speech, I mean it really was . . . It was very lofty," said Messitte. "It was a very, very moving speech that he gave," concurred Browne. The last class of the 1950s departed B-CC, leaving behind them a high school and an era.
"Invisible": Integration at B-CC You know something? They were invisible. There were so few black students that I don’t think we paid any mind one way or another. . .They just existed apart. I think they probably felt like Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man: I’m here and nobody sees me. --Peter J. Messitte, 1959 B-CC graduate B-CC’s first black graduates remembered their experience at high school as one of the most difficult times of their lives. "I don’t look back on high school with a lot of fond memories," said Nancy Browne, an African-American graduate of 1959. "It was a really tough time," said Betty Holston Smith, also an African-American 1959 graduate. Before 1954, B-CC was a segregated school. African-American students were bussed from all over the county to an all-black school in Rockville, where students from several different grades gathered in one room to learn. Some children spent an average of four hours each day riding the bus. But when the Supreme Court ruled that such "separate-but-equal" schools were unconstitutional, everything changed. And the black students themselves were not necessarily happy with the mandate. "We really cried and cried and cried to our parents to not send us to the community schools," said Betty Holston Smith. Her parents allowed her to continue attending her old, all-black school, but in 1956, "my father said, ‘forget it, you are going.’" So with no orientation, and "no idea what to expect," young Betty Holston arrived at B-CC on the first day of school, terrified and alone. She walked up the steps of the front entrance and entered a school where whites outnumbered blacks roughly 200 to one. She later recalled: "That was the toughest thing that I’ve ever done in my entire life." In class, Smith and Browne sat in the back of the room and rarely participated in discussions. Some students threw spitballs at them. Other times, kids called them names, or even spat on them. In the halls, black students were generally overlooked. "People could just ignore you because you didn’t exist," said Nancy Browne. After gym class, many whites avoided showering near the black students. They also avoided sitting near them. At lunch one day, recalled Betty Holston Smith, she entered the cafeteria-- "a very scary place for me"--and took an empty seat at a table. After she sat down, "everyone scrambled away from the table." Lunch time off-campus also presented problems. The Hot Shoppes and Little Tavern restaurants down the road refused to serve blacks, and so African-American students would go around to the back of the restaurants and knock on the kitchen door. They would then place their order, pay for it, and eat their food outside "in the elements." Even some teachers seemed "resentful" of their presence, said Browne. Most offered no encouragement and were "not helpful at all." Teacher prejudice often translated into unfair grades for the African-American students. As Browne recalled: "You were set up to fail." For Smith, the unfriendly new environment was enough to affect her grades. A straight-A student in Rockville, her first report card at B-CC came back with Ds and Cs. "I was completely derailed emotionally," she explained. The first year was the hardest. After that, said Smith, "I decided I was going to fight back." One day she and Browne were sitting below the breezeway between "C" and "A" Building, which at that time was not covered. Two boys standing on the breezeway threw a Coke bottle down at them, sprinkling glass in their hair and on their dresses. But the girls caught up to them and told them off. She soon found that no one would "gang up" on her, as she had feared, if she stood her ground. There was one teacher, remembered Smith and Browne, who did reach out to them. He was a young English and drama teacher named P.J. Dalla Santa, and he seemed "more relaxed" around them, more "giving." They felt, said Smith, like they could talk to him about their problems, "and he would not make a judgement." Other teachers tried to be helpful, but often only caused more problems for the African-American students. When Nancy Browne’s typing and shorthand teacher treated her differently, Browne felt singled-out instead of more comfortable. "We just wanted to be treated like all the other students," she said. At the end of their last year came another challenge: the senior prom. "It wasn’t anything that we were looking forward to," said Browne. The prom was being held at an all-white country club in Silver Spring, and Browne intended not to go. But when her typing and shorthand teacher heard of this, she insisted that Browne attend; the teacher even called her father about it. In the end, Browne and Smith attended their senior prom, after the school got special permission from the club for blacks to be present. The two girls were not invited to after-prom activities. Forty years later, it was still difficult for these first few African-American graduates of B-CC to talk about their time at the school. But they had both gleaned something positive from the experience. "Down the road, it made me a much stronger individual," said Nancy Browne. For Betty Holston Smith, whenever a problem or task seemed too difficult or daunting, she would think back to that first day at B-CC, and was able to put everything in perspective. "I have measured my entire life, with all its challenges, against walking up those steps that first day," she said.
The Sixties --The Montgomery County Teachers’ Strike There was no hint, in the early sixties, of what the rest of the decade would be like. America’s president, John F. Kennedy, was young and attractive, and high school students found they could relate to him much better than to Eisenhower. B-CC students concerned themselves with friends, sports, and clothes. "We didn’t wear jackets and ties every day, but we did for special occasions," said former Tattler editor Eric Easton (‘64). He explained that although those early years were technically the sixties, psychologically, "it was a little closer to the 50s." "The Vietnam War was a remote possibility," said Easton. " . . . We were seniors when the Beatles came to the U.S." But by the close of the decade, things were drastically different. Margaret Casey, a B-CC English teacher from 1945-1968, called what happened later: "a breakdown in society." It all started one fall day in 1963.
Lester Olinger had been a teacher at B-CC for little more than one and a half years in 1963. He would later teach Advanced Placement history classes during his 34 and a half years at the school, but in those days he was an economics teacher. That November day he was explaining about the stock market. He had just finished saying that the stock market could be influenced by "sudden, unexpected events," when history teacher Robert Appleton, visibly shaken, burst in on the class. "The president’s just been shot," he announced. There were tears in his eyes. The students were shocked. Not knowing if the wound was fatal, Mr. Olinger turned to his class and said: "Now this is an example of how the stock market might be affected." Although, in exception to the rule, the stock market hardly "flinched," as Mr. Olinger remembered, the students and teachers at B-CC were devastated at Kennedy’s assassination. "It was a somber day," said Mr. Olinger, as were the subsequent days. With Kennedy gone, Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president of the United States. He was older than Kennedy had been, and seemed coarser and less charming to the students. For millions of Americans, as well as B-CC students, Kennedy’s death signified an end to the innocent "Camelot" years, to which they could never return. As the new president, Johnson inherited a worsening political situation in Vietnam, and the United States soon became involved in the subseqent war. Although the government promised a quick victory, young men continued to pour into southeast Asia, many of them never returning from battle. After every defeat, remembers Jonathan Groner (‘68), the government would call for more troops to be sent to Vietnam. Eventually, said Groner, kids began viewing the draft as a "deeply personal affront." "It was a war that made no sense to many of us," said Judy Erdheim (‘69). "Vietnam just became a flash point." Students now increasingly distrusted the government, a lack of respect that filtered down to other authority figures. "The Vietnam War brought a great deal of unrest," said English teacher Margaret M. Casey. "Students didn’t have the same respect for the classroom." They often came in late, were absent more frequently, or failed to do their homework, she said.
In 1964, a group of long-haired musicians from England invaded the United States with a new, catchy rhythm that the parents hated and the kids loved. The Beatles were cultural leaders of their time, and their 1967 album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band all but acknowledged that the band members were now part of the growing drug culture. In the mid-60s, a few B-CC students were using drugs surreptitiously. By the late 60s, said Erdheim (‘69), "It was incredibly obvious that people were dealing marijuana out of their lockers." A 1969 Tattler poll revealed that 31% of student respondents had tried marijuana; 14% had used hallucinogens or barbituates; and 11% were habitual pot smokers. The kids who used pot were usually proud of it, said Groner (‘68). He described this group as a "social and intellectual elite" at the school. "There were two kinds of people," explained Groner, " . . . psychedelic and soul." The contrast was apparent at school dances, where organizers had to play an equal number of songs by Aretha Franklin and James Brown as those by the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, and Led Zeppelin. But while an increasing number of students wore their hair long, sported bell bottoms, and experimented with drugs, most B-CC students remained clean-cut and college-bound. Principal Chip Smoley estimated that a "militant 100" were behind most of the demonstrations at the school. Dr. Eugene "Chip" Smoley became principal of B-CC the same year the Beatles’ Lonely Hearts Club Band album came out. At 31, he was the youngest principal the school had ever had, and B-CC was his first school. He quickly recognized that traditional values and standards were changing. "The students really reflected social unrest," he said. As high school principals across the country tried to understand what was happening to their students, Dr. Smoley responded by giving students the chance to express their opinions openly. He oversaw debates, discussion groups, and all-day symposiums in which students and teachers could discuss current social issues. One such issue was the growing use of drugs. "We heard a lot about it--we worried a lot about it," said Dr. Smoley. In 1969, he allowed senior Mark Schwartz to organize a series of seminars on drug abuse problems, inviting students, parents, and guest speakers to attend.
Drug problems in the school coincided with troubling events both at home and abroad. The Vietnam War continued to ignite controversy, and split the B-CC faculty who were either for or against it. The war divided B-CC students in a different way. As a general rule, kids in lower-level classes fought the war, and kids in higher-level classes protested it, remembered ‘68 graduates Neil Martin and Jon Groner. Living in an affluent, "extremely politically aware" suburb of Washington, most B-CC kids did not actually serve in Vietnam. Advanced Placement students were usually able to secure educational deferments by going on to college, an option not everyone was suited for, or could afford. A far greater number of students from Washington, D.C. went into the service, according to Neil Martin. In April 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, and Washington erupted. Rioters burned and looted the downtown, turning 14th Street into charred-out ruins. "You could see smoke rising in Washington, D.C. from the suburbs," said Martin. There was one particularly uneasy afternoon at the school, Jon Groner remembered, when "we felt that the city was out of control." Kids feared that the rioting would escalate into something worse, and "whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good." African-Americans, a decided minority at the school, became a target of resentment for certain students. "It brought out an ugly racial bigotry," said Judy Erdheim (‘69). She heard comments and epithets unfamiliar to her before and was appalled. Yet most students regarded the death of Dr. King as an immense loss. An April 22 editorial in The Tattler read: " . . . In 1956, in Montgomery, Alabama, a 27-year-old Baptist minister re-lit the flame of civil rights, of equality, of freedom, for all Americans in this country. On April 4 part of that flame was extinguished. It is up to us now to make sure that that flame is rekindled, for it is the glow from that fire which must light our lives." Two months later, just weeks before the seniors graduated, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was also assassinated. It was a shocking year for the country, and B-CC had already experienced more than its share of unsettling events. That February 1968, Montgomery County teachers went on strike. School was cancelled for more than a week as several B-CC teachers picketed in front of the school for a wage increase. As Dr. Smoley conceded, seeing their teachers on strike may have sent students the message that it was "okay" to protest against authority. And in the next several years, that is just what many B-CC students did.
The Protests Continue . . .
The Seventies Anti-war protests continued into the ‘70s, with 100 B-CC students marching on the Bethesda draft board in May 1971. "This was a time of great polarization between the old and the young over the Vietnam War," noted Andrew Marton (‘75). The "young" found other ways to express themselves: through clothing, music, and drug use. There was no longer a dress code, and more and more girls appeared at school wearing pants--an unprecedented sight at B-CC. "Women wore hip huggers, beads . . . sometimes even halter tops," recalls Marton. "We were all wearing long hair." Bell bottoms and tie dye clothing were popular with both genders. Students listened to bands such as Grand Funk Railroad, Three Dog Night, and the Rolling Stones. "Marijuana was fairly plentiful," said Marton. The end of the Vietnam War in 1973 did not signal the end of this "hippie" culture at B-CC. The ‘70s scene at the high school would become the setting for new indignation over government affairs--specifically, the Watergate scandal. "It was a pretty big deal," said William "Biff" Umhau (‘75) of the developments following the 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters. "People were stunned." By 1973, even former supporters of President Richard Nixon began to believe he was somehow involved in the break-in and subsequent cover-up. "My belief in the President’s non-involvement in the Watergate scandal, until now, was complete," wrote Michael Ostmann, president of Montgomery County Teenage Republicans, in a letter to The Tattler, October 12, 1973. "However, as the [Senate] hearings have progressed, I realize their implications . . . I must now renounce my support of President Nixon." B-CC history teacher Katherine Lynch showed the ongoing Senate investigative hearings to her classes on T.V. If her students "weren’t sure what to think," said Umhau, Ms. Lynch had strong opinions of her own. "Miss Lynch hated Nixon and let everybody know about it," said Umhau. "She thought he was a real crook." As the class watched the hearings, Ms. Lynch sometimes made fun of the witnesses, or interjected her own comments into the proceedings: "Oh, this guy’s not telling the truth." History classes discussed the Watergate scandal, but the number of debates decreased as the evidence against the President mounted. "Most kids believed the information regarding Nixon," said Andrew Marton. "B-CC was a pretty liberal school." "As hard as he tries, for Mr. Nixon, the end is near," wrote B-CC senior Ben Murphy in a letter to The Tattler, March 22, 1974. At the end of that year, the class of 1974 listened to none other than Samuel Dash, Chief Counsel and Majority Staff Director of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, deliver the commencement address. His daughter was in the graduating class. When President Nixon resigned that summer, he left a feeling of "instability" behind him, said Umhau (‘75). "The feeling was a lot of disillusionment," he said. "It really did sour a lot of people on politics."
In 1976, Montgomery County instituted a busing program, designed to bring greater racial balance to its public schools. The program was one of the few started voluntarily instead of by court order. Buses now carried minority students from Silver Spring, Takoma Park, and Chevy Chase to attend school at B-CC. The controversial measure brought increased ethnic diversity to the school, but as Tracy Mitchell (‘78) noted: "It was not as diverse economically." There were different cliques around campus: jocks, preps, "smart kids," "middle people." Cliques also reflected the pervasive drug use on campus. "There was a lot of pot," said Mitchell. "And there were groups that you knew moved on to other things." "There was one school monitor, but he was kind of oblivious," said John MacArthur (‘78). As Tracy Mitchell recalled: "Kids smoked on stairs in between classes." In 1978, a reporter working undercover for The Tattler found he was able to purchase $75 worth of drugs on-campus. "While we realize that $75 is not a vast sum, it was estimated that the reporter would need at least a day to exhaust his cash supply," read the April 21 article. In four hours, the reporter returned having made transactions for six to eight bags of marijuana and two "lines" of cocaine. (He turned down every transaction once it had been arranged). That same year, two drug arrests were made in front of the high school, and a few dozen B-CC students turned out to protest the arrests in front of the police station. Seven were arrested. Drug abuse problems would continue to plague B-CC High School, as it did other county schools, over the next few years. B-CC’s 50th anniversary year, 1976, marked the first year of a disruptive renovation of its first building (called "C" building). The $4.7 million renovation would last three years, but for B-CC students, it seemed endless. As a class prank and a vent for its frustration, the 1978 senior class swiped a pile of bricks from the renovation and returned them the day of its graduation. Each graduate handed one brick to principal F. Thornton Lauriat as he or she they mounted the stage to receive a diploma. Dr. Lauriat had had enough troubles before the missing-bricks incident. In 1977, he pleaded guilty to a charge of shoplifting and was sentenced to six months unsupervised probation. He was put on indefinite leave without pay, but ended up keeping his job as B-CC principal, largely due to the outpouring of support he received from B-CC students, staff, and parents. Students petitioned the School Board to let Dr. Lauriat keep his job, and parents and teachers wrote letters to School Superintendent Charles Bernardo, lauding Dr. Lauriat’s administrative and leadership skills. Looking back on it, Tracy Mitchell (‘78) said: "We [students] thought it was kind of funny." "I guess we all laughed about it," said John MacArthur (‘78).
As the decade drew to a close, senior John MacArthur started to notice a difference between his senior class and the sophomores. "The 10th graders had more school spirit," he said. The first graduating class of the 80s seemed somehow more clean-cut than his class, the seniors who had entered the school in 1975. "The hippie culture was fading," said MacArthur. In the fall of 1979, the first ninth graders entered B-CC’s newly renovated, 44-year old halls. The onslaught of new students brought 20 to 25 new staff positions, several new courses in the curriculum, and expansion of B-CC’s activities and clubs. "B-CC is now filled to capacity, 1,700," read a September 21 article in The Tattler. At the end of that school year, principal F. Thornton Lauriat would receive a requested reassignment as Supervisor of Secondary Instruction for Area 3. His replacement, Carl W. Smith, took over as principal in the fall of 1980. In an interview in the September 19 Tattler, Mr. Smith expressed optimism for the future of the school and the community. One of his comments referred to changes in the B-CC faculty, but it also seemed to apply to the entire history of B-CC, from the spirited years of the 1940s to the turbulent times of the 1960s and ‘70s, and to the uncertain path of the future. It was very simple: "As circumstances change and as times change," said Mr. Smith, "schools have to change, too."
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Bill Guckeyson (‘33) "I’d say he was one of the greatest athletes of his time." --Jack Hoyt, classmate at West Point John William Guckeyson (pronounced GUY-kih-son) excelled at everything he tried. He was captain of the basketball team for two years and the varsity soccer squad for three. He was an outstanding baseball and football player, but did especially well in track and field. "I remember once he went to a track and field meet in the District," related Neil Potter, who was in Guckeyson’s high school graduating class of 1933 ". . . He came out second in the javelin throw and shot put. We’d never practiced that in the county. I mean apparently he just picked it up and threw it." At the Maryland State Track Meet in 1932, Guckeyson threw the 12-pound shot put 50 feet, setting a state record that would stand for 28 years. He won the 100-yard dash with a time of 10.2 seconds, and set another state record in the 80-yard dash. His parents were circus acrobats, and he lived with his grandmother in Chevy Chase. "He pretty well kept to himself," remembered Potter. "He was a reasonably good student, and a bright, nice guy, but not very outgoing. Not, shall I say, the athletic hero type, but he was a hero because of what he could do." Although B-CC did not have a football team at the time, the University of Maryland awarded him a football scholarship based on his ability on the soccer field. The University considers him "one of the finest grid runners and kickers in Maryland’s history." In one game against the University of Florida, Guckeyson punted the ball three times for a total of 210 yards. During his sophomore year, he was a unanimous All-State halfback, and continued to excel in basketball and track, breaking the college’s javelin record with a throw of 204'5". His senior year, he won All-Southern Conference and honorable mention All-American honors for football, and was also elected president of his class. After graduating from the University of Maryland in 1937, he received several offers to play professional football, but turned them down to attend West Point. No longer eligible to play football, Guckeyson played soccer instead and became an All-American. Again, he was elected president of his class. One year, he won an annual horse show competition after riding a horse for the first time only a few weeks before. "Bill was simply a great athlete . . . one of the greatest, that’s all. Everything was a challenge to him," said his high school coach, Anthony Kupka. When Guckeyson graduated West Point in 1942, Washington Senators pitcher Walter Johnson and Senators manager Clark Griffith urged him to join the major leagues. Guckeyson turned them down, and went instead to fighter school in Texas. He received his wings and was assigned overseas in December 1942. Again, as he had throughout his high school, college, and military school, Bill Guckeyson excelled. He became flying leader of the P-47 Thunderbolt squadron and won two Distinguished Flying Crosses, three Air Medals, and a Purple Heart. At the end of May, 1944, he shot down his seventh enemy plane, and officially became an "ace" pilot. That June, he was assigned as a bomber escort for a raid over Europe. He never completed the mission. Some pilots reported seeing a parachute from his plane after it was shot down that day, but his capture was never announced. He was declared missing in action on June 26, 1944. The war ended a little more than a year later, but Guckeyson never returned home. His wife, Mary, his mother, and his grandmother lived without him in the house where he grew up, in Chevy Chase. In 1955, Student Government Association corresponding secretary, Priscilla Wilbourn, wrote a letter to Principal William G. Pyles. She requested permission to name B-CC’s athletic field after Bill Guckeyson, "because of his most outstanding record as an athlete and scholar and his qualities of leadership, courage and unselfishness." Pyles agreed. Since then B-CC has honored Guckeyson’s memory with each game, sporting event, and athletic triumph played out in Guckeyson Memorial Stadium.
The Fire of 1941 "Nearly three thousand people watched the fire which was visible for miles around." --The Tattler, March 4, 1941 On the bitterly cold night of February 26, 1941, senior Wilson Everhart broke into B-CC High School through an open window and made his way to the cafeteria on the third floor. Finding some old newspapers, he gathered them together and stuffed them under the eaves of the roof, almost directly under the cupola of "A" (now "C") building. He took out a match, set the newspapers on fire, and left the school. It was just around midnight. In the days when "everybody belonged to something," "Willie" was a loner. The only club he joined his senior year was the Izaak Walton League, and he didn’t socialize much with other students. His New Year’s Resolution as reported in "The Tattler," was "to learn more about hunting," and part of his yearbook profile read: "If you ever need a gun, see Wilson--he collects them." He spent most of his free time volunteering at the Bethesda Fire Department, and had occasionally set other buildings on fire so that he could be one of the first to arrive at the scene. By the time the first fire engines arrived at B-CC that February 27th, flames were licking the third floor windows of the building, and Bethesda residents started emerging into the streets to watch the action. "People would hear the fire engines and, if it was in your neighborhood, you would hop in the car and go," said Marion Baldridge Tholen (‘42). Tholen was among the students standing in the frigid air and watching the school burn, wondering if it would burn all the way, and if so, "where would we go?" The flames now attacked the roof, and the Bethesda and Chevy Chase fire departments had to call in for more help. Soon, clanging fire trucks and support units arrived from Silver Spring, Kensington, Cabin John, Takoma Park, Glen Echo, and two District companies, nos. 9 and 20. Water seeped down into the floors below, and English teacher Leland Williams grew concerned about The Tattler records, kept on the second floor. He entered the building and gathered up the files, but slipped on the wet floor as he was walking out, and dislocated his knee. History teacher Raymond Dugan helped him to an ambulance, and rescued the rest of the files. The ambulance arrived back from Georgetown Hospital just in time to receive another man, this time in grave condition. John Adair, 28, had been rolling hose lines when a car driven by a Washington dentist ran through the warning flares and smashed into him. Adair was hurled 75 feet past the front of the school and impaled on a telephone pole. B-CC’s first graduate was rushed to Georgetown Hospital, where he was immediately pronounced dead. The doctor, whom some police believed had been driving drunk, was later acquitted of manslaughter charges. Adair was survived by his wife, the former Anne Bosworth, their two-year-old daughter, Anne Regina, and his parents. B-CC students awoke the next morning to find school cancelled. They also stayed home Thursday and Friday, but student clean-up crews under shop teacher Al Bender’s direction got the school ready to open by Monday, March 3rd. The roof was ruined and the cupola was singed, but the biggest concern was water damage from the hoses of the firemen fighting the blaze. Students ate lunch in their homerooms for the next few days, and were encouraged to bring their own lunches. A message from the editor in the next week’s Tattler was optimistic: "Fellows and girls, let’s stop a second and think how fortunate we really are. I mean it . . . Over in Europe, kids get ready to go to school, but on arrival they may find their school completely demolished by bombs from enemy bombers . . . Let’s thank God that we live in America where we can rest assured that our lives, homes, and public buildings are free from the merciless reign of bombers." That April, after being informed of the evidence against him by police sergeant James McAuliffe, Wilson Everhart confessed to starting the fire. He was indicted on May 21 and charged with setting fire to two other buildings as well as B-CC High School. Everhart pleaded guilty at his June 9th trial, maintaining that he had set the fires to impress a former girlfriend. The judge sentenced 19-year-old Everhart to four years in the Maryland House of Correction.
Dean Martin (‘44) was going for a Sunday drive with his family. "We heard it on the car radio," he remembered, and his father commented that the news did not sound good. Nobody was too sure where Pearl Harbor was. It took President Roosevelt’s somber "date of infamy" speech to drive home the day’s real meaning. James Heffernan, (‘44), hadn’t been listening to the radio--he first realized the country was going to war when newsboys started peddling ‘Extra’ editions of the paper declaring the raid on Pearl Harbor. "We were stunned," he said. "It wasn’t expected." Jeanne Lowe, a ‘43 graduate, was attending the Sunday matinée at a Bethesda theater on Wisconson Avenue. She was talking with some friends in the back of the theater when suddenly the movie was interrupted, and the announcement came on that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Martha Ann Nystrom, class of ‘44, was at first unaware of the gravity of the news. "I was in the living room at my home and tuned in the radio," she said. "It didn’t mean much to me at that moment." It sunk in during the following weeks, she said, as President Roosevelt called for war against Japan, boys started going into service, and rationing began. For those who lived through World War II, December 7, 1941 remains forever seared in their memories. On that day, B-CC students and teachers joined the country in shock, horror, sadness, and a unifying determination to fight back.
In November 1942, the "Victory Corps" was organized at B-CC. Courses were offered in five special divisions: Air, Land, Sea, Production, and Community. The classes were open only to seniors and juniors, but almost every student eligible took them. In the Air, Land, and Sea divisions, students were taught Morse code, navigation, blueprint reading, mechanical drawing, mapmaking, navigation, photography, and electricity and radio. Students volunteered with the Red Cross, repaired old library books, and trained to substitute for elementary school teachers who left to join the war. They helped clean up the school when B-CC’s janitors left for the military or higher-paying jobs. The school also cultivated a "Victory Garden" on campus, growing beans, beets, and carrots, which were used in school lunches. In Al Bender’s shop classes, students built miniature planes out of wood to practice aircraft identification, took apart engines and re-assembled them, and learned how to repair bullet holes in airplanes. The boys practiced military drills during their gym period. They also used a commando course that Mr. Bender’s students had built in the quad, consisting of 20 obstacles. Every physically-fit high school boy was required by the county to practice at least one hour a day on the course. Girls used the easier obstacles for their workouts. There were morning exercises once a week in the old soccer field. Students and teachers performed stretches and aerobics to condition themselves for a war emergency. The best part for many students was watching out-of-shape teachers struggle and pant to complete the workouts.
Thomas Pyle could have taught almost any course in the high school curriculum: Latin, English, physics, math, history, wood shop. He was a serious, intelligent man who could play the piano and build one, too. When he dropped in on Latin classes, he posed questions in Latin, and asked shop students, "How old do you think this piece of wood is?" To clarify points, he quoted ancient philosophers or used biology and math analogies. For almost a quarter century, he led the school with trust, discipline, and faith in his students and teachers. Former B-CC teacher Katherine Greaney said: "He epitomized the humanist and the intellectual in his love of people and in his breadth and depth of scholarship and interests." The announcement of his retirement in 1949 greatly saddened the school community. As B-CC’s first principal, Mr. Pyle had guided the school through some of the most difficult periods in its history. His commitment to the highest academic standards and the educational welfare of his students profoundly influenced the future of the high school. "Leaving Bethesda-Chevy Chase means pulling many a heart-string," read the last part of Mr. Pyle’s farewell address in The Tattler, June 10, 1949: "I shall miss you more than I can say -- Sophomores, eager and energetic; Seniors, graduating; Juniors, in between; change of classes; Assembly; conferences; publications; Christmas carols in the halls; boys and girls all about engaged in sports; cars that somehow we dodge. All of these things I shall not forget. They symbolize my happy association with you. You have been grand to me -- better than I ever deserved. I shall carry you in my memory, gratefully, always." The seniors of 1949, who, like most B-CC students, had found Mr. Pyle more a "friend and counselor" than a principal, decided to dedicate their Pine Tree yearbook to the man who had originated the pine tree symbol.
The Montgomery County Teachers’ Strike
The Montgomery County Education Assocation (MCEA), representing the teachers, and School Superintendent Homer O. Elseroad could not reach an agreement over how much to raise teachers’ base salaries. On February 2, 1968, school was dismissed an hour and a half early as teachers from B-CC and other county schools left the classrooms for the picket lines. The next week, school was cancelled from February 5 through 8 as the MCEA and the superintendent remained at an impasse. Superintendent Elseroad obtained an injuction to end the strike on Friday, February 9, but only 42 of B-CC’s 89 teachers showed up for class that day. Chaos reigned as the 1,650 students who had come to school left after homeroom, joined the picket lines, or tried to carry on with as few as four students in a classroom. For Principal Chip Smoley, it was a "logistical nightmare." Officially a member of the MCEA, Dr. Smoley was caught between protesting for higher wages and reporting for duty at school. He decided to report to school (Walter Johnson High School’s principal went on strike). There, Dr. Smoley found the school massively understaffed, with volunteers and substitutes trying to run classes. No one knew from day to day which teachers would show up at school. The faculty was divided. Some, like Lester Olinger, Katharine Lynch, P.J. Dalla Santa, and John Preston, felt an "obligation to the students" to report to class. Others, such as Robert Appleton, Bert Damron, Robert Brodie, and Justin Wasilifsky, felt it was more important to stand up to the Board of Education. Students made coffee and sandwiches for the strikers, and created posters and fliers in support of the MCEA. Some even staged a sit-down demonstration in front of the school, in support of the teachers. The next Monday, school opened one and a half hours late, but by February 11, the MCEA and the Board of Education reached an agreement guaranteeing teachers an across-the-board pay increase. By February 13, teachers were back in school and things returned to normal. But the strike left a lasting impression with the students. About the same time as the teacher strike, 500 high school kids formed the Montgomery County Student Union. Their first meeting was held roughly one month after the faculty strike began.
During the 1960s and early 70s, many B-CC students became involved with social movements of the time. They joined protesters outside A&P and Giant Food Stores in support of the California grape boycott. They picketed T.V. station WDCA Channel 20 when it refused to allow a black boy and white girl to dance together on the air. They would not stop picketing until the station had issued a written statement permitting blacks and whites to dance together. In 1970, B-CC student representatives attended "Government in Action," a mock student Congress held in Cedarhurst, New Jersey. In the middle of the party caucus, the B-CC delegation walked out of the proceedings and formed a rebel group. Joined by other schools from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, the group declared that conscience should be the main guide in political decisions. As the Vietnam War escalated, so did protests at the school. Students observed the October 15, 1969 war moratorium with panel discussions, movies, memorial services, and black armbands. A month later, 29% of the student body skipped school to march in an anti-war demonstration from Arlington Cemetery to the Capitol. In mid-March 1970, boys signed "We Won’t Go" petitions, refusing to fight in Vietnam, and mailed the petitions--with their draft cards--to the Senate Armed Forces Committee. In May 1970, the disruption reached a fever pitch. National Guardsmen had recently shot and killed four college students in an anti-war demonstration at Kent State, and about 40 B-CC students skipped school and encouraged their classmates to walk out. Someone rang a false fire alarm, and students poured outside the school, some blocking traffic on East-West Highway, others running through the halls yelling: "Strike!" Some students attempted to lower the flag to half-mast; another group of students quickly came in to oppose them. Principal Smoley found them arguing fiercely around the flag pole, and brought both groups inside. After discussing the problem with them, he consulted school superintendent Homer Elseroad, who dictated that the flag remain at full-mast. The next day, Dr. Smoley held a series of seven seminars about the issues at hand. A smoke bomb was set off in "C" Building, and the classes there had to be evacuated. On May 7 and 8, unprecedented numbers of students skipped school. On the 8th, a large anti-war protest was held, and 580 students were absent from class; another 500 reported to school and then left. Demonstrators marched from East-West Highway to the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Recreation Center on Wisconsin Avenue, where they listened to anti-war speakers and sang folk songs. To the surprise of many teachers, the march was well-organized and carried out peacefully. One year later, in 1971, 550 students again missed school to mark the anniversary of the Kent State killings. One hundred fifty kids marched down to the local draft board office to protest the draft. But by the close of that school year, the student protest movement lost steam. President Nixon was pulling troops out of Vietnam, and the 1972 Watergate break-in led to developments that would engross the nation for the next few years.
B-CC graduates and teachers interviewed for this history are listed below. Included are the: Name of person interviewed, (graduating class or years taught), date interviewed.
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