SJHS Class of 1970

The only story I can think of is sitting in Mr. Bennett’s classroom. Several of us boys would bounce our feet up and down until the wood floor would start to move up and down until desks would bounce up and down on the floor. I don’t think we did that when Mr. Bennett was in the room.

We also enjoyed him pointing at something with his index finger that was missing a part so he was always giving the finger to everything he pointed to, including students.   - Neil I

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I got a nickname from Denakas, "Ajax" cuz of the commercial on TV of a knight riding a horse for Ajax Cleanser.

Summer time vs school time: I said "HI Chuck" to Chuck Salvano in one of the stairways. He stopped and said, "In school it's Mr Salvano" in a a very stern voice making sure I remembered. He was my swim coach at Berrien Hills during the summer and "Chuck" was ok during the summer.

And one more: Brian B was picking on me after school one day and I had enough. I picked him up and said stop doing that. He never picked on me again.   - David K

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I painfully remember Coach Powell delivering justice on those who would dare walk on his gym floor with hard shoes by bending over and receiving the “shoe”! He would also threaten to make us wear “Sally Sues” if we did anything against gym policies. Since my cognitive skills aren’t what they once were, I should provide the disclaimer that this is what I recall.   - Garry A

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This is great! Ironically, with the stay at home order here in Maine, I was cleaning up my study at home and discovered both my Jr. High Yearbook and my St. Joe High School yearbook from 1970. So I have both. I even found my old Psychology notebook from Mr. Bruno's class in High School. Jay Schadler and I had a contest going through the semester to do these 'crazy' myths at the start of each class period. For instance he started it off one day by saying this:  "Did you know that if you took an infinite amount of monkeys, gave them infinite time, with infinite paper and infinite pencils one of them would eventually write the declaration of independence." Mr Bruno said that if Jay could come up with a new one each day in class he would give him an A. After protests from some of us, it became a contest; Jim Bartley joined Jay, and I had a team mate and we wrote and made up a new "myth" to say each day, then the class voted whose was the best. It soon got labeled as the "MYTH AMERICA" contest, and I think it was Lynn Owen who made an actual flag for the contest. I found in my notebook this week a bunch of Jay Shadler's hand written "myths" and some of my own hand written ones. Don't know how I got some of his in my notebook, but was fun reading them again this week.  Jay lives only about 45 miles from me here in Maine, he has an art studio in Portsmouth, NH, I stopped by since I travel there frequently with my church related jobs, we have a large Assembly of God church in Portsmouth, but Jay wasn't there the day I stopped.

The one weird  memory I have of Jr High School was taking Latin, several of us guys took it because the teacher was a good looking gal, and she seemed a bit flirtatious with the guys .. I think she was single, but don't recall her name.   - Dennis M

Ryan standing in the hall in front of the office with his arms folded inspecting students during class change for dress code violations.  One I heard his deep, booming voice after I passed in front of him “Moe, tuck in that shirt”   - Mark M

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We used to have pea shooters and would shoot them as we went from class to class. I can remember the hallways had lots of peas on the sides.

 Mr Wetters class. We would fire spitballs at the clock when he wasn't looking, trying to cover of the clock. Also on nice days when the windows were open we'd fly paper airplanes out the window. some days there were hundreds of paper airplanes on the lawn out side.   - Paul W 

I remember those guys cuz I'd have the class afterwards and there would be spitballs all over the place.   - DK

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One of the main social lines us teenage girls had in Jr. High, was passing notes written in our girly squiggles to each other in class or quickly on the sly in our hurried hallways  between classes. The trick was to get our most pressing news (gossip) at that minute, or so we thought, of who did what to whom & when & where. Ha! Or any scandalous info about our teachers true or not that we would pass around.

We would be mortified to be summoned to Principle Mr. Ryan’s office. We learned later as we matured, that he was a great & fair equalizer .....chuckling knowing we were all good kids no matter what we did wrong.  

Us girls had our phones ringing Monday thru Friday each night before class making BIG decisions on what we were going to wear to school the next day. We felt cool decked out in our wool, pinned,  pleated kilts & knee socks & sweaters all matching of course. Home number: 983-3082. Kids line down the hall was: 983-0987 - Tom & Peg never answered that one. Cudo’s to them for the privacy.   - Jan K-N

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Mr. Ryan used to keep a recipe card file on his office desk. If one of us delinquents were sent to the principal’s office for an infraction, you would take your verbal beating and then he would write your name, date and describe your infraction on an index card, then read it back to you. If you were like me and too dumb to learn and continued to be sent to the principal’s office, he would sit you down and pull your card from his file. He would then commence to recount the date and nature of previous infractions, to provide you some extra shame and suffering, before getting to the current infraction. He would calmly describe the current infraction as he best knew it to be as you set there just waiting and praying for it all to be over. Then he would say, “do you want to tell me why you thought that would be a good idea?” and then sit back in his chair with that stern look we all knew and wait, while you squirmed and hemmed and hawed. I recognized later, not at that time, that the sitting back in his chair, watching you squirm and waiting for your explanation was in the end, his real punishment. During the whole meeting he was stern but he was calm, which was pretty smart on his part and he probably got some entertainment value out of it too. Waiting to see Mr. Ryan was “wait till your dad gets home” on steroids.   - Randy P

Stories (Any resemblance to the truth  is strictly coincidental)

Some one (maybe Tom K or Bill P) invented some stink spray and sprayed it in the hall out side Mr Zick's class room.   Rumor was it was just practice   The big event planned was that weekends B Ball game.

Marvin Dietz morning weather reports.

Mr Sexton used to always lean back in his chair during class one time he went to far and put his elbow thru the window.

Peter Thomas got caught acting up in the lunch room. Mr Ryan made him get up and sing "Rabbit Ain't Got No Tail At All"

Billy Kelly trying to put some hot plastic down my shirt in wood shop and I ran up to Mr K to save me. He just looked up and shook his head and went back to grading papers.

A few stories I'm not going to share to protect the innocent.

Billy Kelly (leather jacket, slicked back hair, cigarettes in the pocket)

Barracuda jackets, Chinos, Platform shoes for the boys.

Stand Out Student

Teachers... Pat Ryan  Principle, Mr. Zick: Science, Mr. Sexton: English, Little Hunt - Big Hunt - Ted Kilty - Lloyd MacTavish - Mr Kalnaraups: Wood Shop   - Jim B

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Definitely remember the fun trip with Ted K to NYC and the Worlds Fair!  C. Case and B. Williams and maybe C. Carlson were my room mates...along with my cousin Janice.  I think Herman the Hermits were actually staying at the hotel across the street from us...because we made signs for them and put them in our hotel window for them to see! ❤️ (DK- Yes, NYC trip where we went to the Worlds Fair. I wish someone had photos from that trip so we could post them)

I remember someone in class made teacher Velma Rittums get so upset she started crying! 😳 And big Mr. Baker leaning back his chair and falling asleep during study hall...snoring so loudly his chair fell backwards!  Definitely woke him up!!! 😂 Also a talent show? we did...and I think it was one of the home ec teachers that was getting married, and a bunch of us did a skit to the song...Going to the chapel...gonna get married! 😉“Sneaking” out for lunch and going to the Dairy Isle/Korner...😊Lots of great, fun memories! 😊   - Sandy G-P

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At track practice, Mr. Ryan yelled at me "Ruth, you run so slow that you look like you're  running on your left foot half the time!" I was crushed, until some time later I realized that everyone runs on their left foot half of the time. 😂

Practice for the football teams were held at Wells Field.  We all hated the walk to and from practice, but it was even worse when I realized that Big Hunt and Little Hunt drove to the field instead of walking. 😊   - Derek R

DK - I remember walking to Wells Field and thinking it was twice as far going back to the Jr High after practice.