The speeches were great and so were the memories sparked by the 75th Anniversary celebration of Fort Smith High School/Northside High School last month.

Before the new senior high school at 23rd and B streets opened its doors on November 19, 1928, classes for the city’s senior high students had been held at Belle Grove and Darby. The formal dedication for building, which was designed by a Chicago architectural firm to accommodate 3,000 students, was held Feb. 15, 1929. It was a major milestone for the Fort Smith Public School District.

The planning committee invited representatives of classes spanning several decades to speak during the anniversary observance in the auditorium, and they were fun to hear.

Mayor Ray Baker, class of ’57, said that the "mark of a school" is the memories one has associated with it. School was the center of everyone’s activities in the 1950s, he recalled, and noted that his mother was a FSHS homecoming queen, and that his sister and his children were also FSHS/NHS graduates.

J. Fred Patton, 97, FSHS Dean of Boys and a teacher from 1934-48, gave an example of "things that happened then that couldn’t happen now."

There was one boy a teacher couldn’t get to behave, so he was taken to the dean’s office. Patton said he looked the boy in the eye then opened his desk drawer and pulled out a rubber hose – hoping and praying he could bluff the boy into behaving.

"I told him you can either straighten up or get this rubber hose used on you, and thank goodness the bluff worked," Patton recalled.

The boy did straighten up and went on to graduate high school and UofA law school. Then 34 years ago he called Patton out of the blue and sent him a ticket to the National Prayer Breakfast. Patton attended and was inspired to start the local annual Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast. This year will the 33rd consecutive year of the event.

Dr. Cole Goodman, the class of 1965, said he was honored to represent his class and invoked his class motto – "We’re the greatest class alive, we’re the class of 65!"

His class was the greatest, at least in numbers – 1,400 strong. It was the last graduating class before Southside High School opened and Fort Smith High School became Northside.

"There were 970 of us who graduated and I didn’t care if I ever heard Pomp and Circumstance again,” Goodman said.

“Mr. Grace was dean of boys. Mr. Farnsworth was the principal and he opened school every morning with a devotional over the PA. We affectionately called him "Fuzzy" except to his face," Goodman recalled. "He was the man I feared most other than my father and Coach Stancil."

"We had discipline and good teachers," he added. "J.W. Calvert was a great teacher. The methods of dissection I learned in high school were skills I carried with me to UofA med school and still use in my surgical practice."

Benny Shepherd, class of 68, was decked out in a red, red suit and fine red shoes to match. He admitted his high school experience was mostly about "football, and sweat."

"I drove up here on my Cushman Eagle, wearing a pair of white Levis, to meet Coach Stancil. I asked a man where I could find coach Stancil and that I wanted to play football.

He kept looking at my scooter. Then he said, ‘I’m Coach Stancil. If you want to play the first thing you need to do is get rid of that scooter. The second thing is we have principles. We don’t drink or smoke. To say I’m going to be hard on you is an understatement. But if I can’t put my arm around you when you come off the field, I haven’t done my job.’"

Instead of a longer speech, Shepherd used his time at the podium to read a long and touching list of unforgettable friends, teachers and others who made a difference in his life.

Ann Patton Dawson, class of 1955, daughter of J. Fred Patton and a Fort Smith Public School Board member, noted that her daughter Courtney Beland, who graduated from Southside, now teaches at Northside. Ann read her own brief commencement speech. She was 17 when she wrote "One God, One World, One Brotherhood."

Thomas James, youngest graduate on the podium (Class of 1999), was the last to speak. In a poised and polished voice he said, "I’m still in school. I’m not a mayor. There was no dean of boys for me. I have no clue where my high school commencement speech is,” he quipped. “I’m still too poor to afford a red suit and matching shoes and before I say anything else, I plead all acts of immunity for everything I ever did."

James recalled getting a zero from one of his teachers for writing on the wrong line of an exam, learning to make fake blood in chemistry and several other harmless pranks.

But he was very serious in saying that Northside had given him a "great foundation.” He shared his personal ABCs of success, which were very impressive, and so was his stage presence.

Like all the others who spoke, James was an excellent representative of FSHS/NHS students from the past 75 years.

 

Linda Seubold, editor of Entertainment Fort Smith Magazine, can be reached at lindaseubold@efortsmith.com. Read her archived columns and articles online.

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