By Katiana Colon

            One thing you can never take away from Clearwater High is their tradition, honor, and pride. In fact, they’ve been an on-going high school for over 100 years! It all started when they opened their doors in 1906. Believe it or not, the school started with a ninth grade class only consisting of three people. Over a century later, now they have more 2,100 students attending to Clearwater High! Pride really does run in Clearwater High. Students that graduate from there became to be very successful people. For example, Bruce Melnick graduated from the class of 1967 and he became to be a NASA astronaut. Hassan Jones graduated from the class of 1982 and he grew up to be an NFL football player for the Minnesota Vikings and Kansas City Chiefs. The list goes on, but those are just some that caught my attention. Some other graduates decide to come back to Clearwater High and work at the school that they adore so much.

                  Sometimes, people wonder how the past used to be. At the most, some get flustered over that topic. I mean it’s hard not to wonder about how everything used to be back then; the people, society, and mainly the culture. Luckily, I got the chance to interview a fellow alumnus that used to attend to Clearwater High. Her name is Bonnie Martin. She graduated from the class of 1970. Bonnie went to Clearwater High just for her senior year. Today, she works as a bookkeeper at Clearwater High. Maybe we can’t see a perfect scene of how life used to be back in the decades, but at least we can see it through it someone else’s eyes; someone that lived through it all. Thanks to Bonnie, I got the privilege to get a glimpse of what Clearwater High was like back in the 70’s and what life in general was back in the 70’s. A few things changed, and a few things continued to remain the same over the years. One huge difference that Bonnie noticed is that there are more bullying, fights, and constant teasing than there was back when she was in high school. It’s as if people got along better before because they either knew better that fighting wouldn’t solve anything, but make matters worse, or they just weren’t interested or saw that fighting was the solution. She also noticed that students hardly have any “school spirit” or attend to any of the football games or any other sport games. When she was a senior at Clearwater High, from what she said, she remembers everyone always going to the football games and pep rallies and they had much more school spirit compared to the kids now. On a good note, Clearwater High is in fact more advanced that what is used to be. During its first few years, Clearwater High didn’t offer as many programs or opportunities for scholarships, as much as they do now. Before, you would just take the basic subjects that your grade level required. There was no such thing as AP or honor classes. Today, they have rigorous programs that you could take like the AICE program (The Advanced International Certificate of Education) which is an international diploma, the CASA program (Clearwater Aeronautical Space Academy), and the list goes on. One thing she mentioned that never really went away, were the cliques. Apparently, even today, everyone has their own little group, but we all know the main groups are the “jocks”, the “preppy people”, the “geeks”, etc. Just like today, there was homecoming, prom, and all the other hullabaloos. Bonnie recalls students being deeply involved with clubs or any school activities or events. Now, not so much kids are in to joining clubs. Clearwater High in general was involved with the city itself. Their marching band would attend to the Clearwater parades, clubs would help decorate floats for the parade, and it was very popular for them to go to the Clearwater Beach. Even though the beach, at the time, didn’t have many shops, restaurants, or hotels like they have now, they still went because they could just simply park their car or just walk there and take a walk on the beach. It wasn’t too crowded and especially there wasn’t as much traffic as there is now whenever you go to the beach. The “style” then was having long hair that went for both girls and boys. Bonnie mentions that British music was very popular at the time. I guess you could say that Clearwater High was pretty unique and interesting back in the 70’s.

                  Besides all the fun times and memories, Clearwater High went through interesting and frightening moments through the years. On April 18^th, 1957, there was a telephone bomb threat. It’s bizarre to hear that such a thing could’ve happened. It turns out to be that there was an anonymous call that had threatened to bomb the school at 1:45 P.M. They had to evacuate every single person from the school and go to somewhere far away safe. Thankfully, nothing happened. Detectives and polices went to the school to find bombs, and they find absolutely nothing. The students returned to their classes later that same day. Twenty years later, a tornado struck the school gym and it was later redone and reconstructed (how ironic). Apart from all the life-threatening experiences that Clearwater High experienced, they also had good times.  The information that I’m about to provide is all from Jim Carlisle who was a graduate of 1965 and the Co-Chairman of the Bobby Walker Memorial Pool Fund Committee. Bobby and Kay Walker were very close friends and pretty good swimmers as well. So many people were affected by the tragic death of Bobby Walker. So a bunch of students (mainly swimmers) came together and made a fundraiser called the Bobby Walker Pool Fundraiser. Their committee was named after the fundraiser. Within six months, they were able to raise $56,000 (that was quite a lot of money back then)! Robert Glenn, the principal at the time, trusted Jim to take care of raising money by concerts. Jim had met with the promoter of “Star Spectacular”, Paul Cochran,  (concerts that the city held). He managed to make a deal with Paul took book different types of bands that would suit his classmates and school better than what the concerts would usually have. He also got the City Council to agree with matching any funds that they could. With the concerts, they raised $28,000 and another $28,000 that the City Council contributed AND they also promised to help with the pool maintenance for 12 years. The concerts they organized were: The Four Freshman (CHS gymnasium 1964), Jay & the Americans, Manfred Mann, & The Catalinas a local band with Jay Pellechia ’65 (CHS Football field 1965), The Beach Boys (Jack Russell Stadium – April 12, 1965), & The Rolling Stones (Jack Russell Stadium – June 5, 1965). Jim got to pick up the Rolling Stones at the Tampa Airport when they had arrived for the concert. The Rolling Stones concert was so popular that they raised more than $25,000! Construction started in November 1964 and was later on completed in May 1965. At that time, the pool was filled and ready to go when the Rolling Stones performed there. The pool was officially dedicated in March 1966.

 

                  Above is a newspaper article of when the Bobby Walker Memorial Pool Fundraiser had started and below is a picture of the memorial service in March 1965.

After all these years, Clearwater High really did keep their motto in play; Tradition, honor & pride. So many moments and achievements that may have happened took place years ago, but will never be forgotten.

I would like to give a special thanks to Bonnie Martin, the bookkeeper of Clearwater High, for letting me have the opportunity to interview her.

Sources:

http://www.clearwater-hs.pinellas.k12.fl.us/History%20of%20Bobby%20Walker%20Pool.html