Great Falls schools changing with the times

Great Falls High School was crammed in 1965, and students endured double shifts.

"I'll never forget running to catch my bus at 5:30 in the morning and watching the sun come up in Mr. Hanson's Russian history class," recalled Candy Wagner of Great Falls. "The dark before dawn made Ivan seem all that more terrible, and the golden glow of sunrise smiled on Catherine's (the Great) enlightened despotism."

The student body was split in two — the first shift began at 6:30 a.m., and the second around lunchtime — so school administrators planning graduation for nearly 800 seniors that year decided graduation would be split, too.

But this was the '60s, after all, and students protested.

"Several of us went to bat against the administration, and pleaded our case so strongly that we won the concession to have a united graduation in the (Memorial) stadium, with one caveat: 'You'd better pray for good weather,' " Wagner reported. "June 1, 1965, was one of the most beautiful summer evenings I've ever known. We sat under a cloudless sky, only a gentle breeze blowing, and didn't mind the length of time it took to get everyone from Aafedt to Zuleger across the stage."

So it was a happy ending for these early baby boomers. In the fall, brand-new C.M. Russell High School opened on the West Side, and double shifts ended.

The opening of Russell High in the mid-1960s marked an end to a flurry of school construction for the Great Falls Public Schools. The newest school building in the system opened in 1970, Skyline Elementary.

Now, the district's collection of school buildings is showing its age, and the Great Falls school board is considering spending tens of millions of dollars, perhaps more than $100 million, to repair its structures. A school bond issue could be offered to voters as soon as later this year. School officials might even decide to close a few schools.

It's decision time for school administrators and the public, but it's also a time for readers to look back at schools they attended in Great Falls over the years.

Here are some tales recounted by Tribune readers, who generally praised the quality of their teachers and the education they received:

Round and round

Helen Wilson, born in 1913, attended the northside McKinley School after World War I ended.

"They had that old-type fire escape that had that great big tube on the outside of the building," Wilson said. "You went round and round from the top story down to the ground level. It was kind of frightening." She later attended a few years at Washington Elementary School, closer to downtown. Her mother was pleased with Washington School because she knew Helen's fourth-grade teacher. Now 101, Wilson says, "Well, I feel fine."

A couple of firsts

Kristina Newman (now Thompson), and her identical twin sister, Karin Newman, were the first to use a new kindergarten addition to the northside Roosevelt School, but the addition was not ready for the start of school in the fall of 1950. Seventy kindergarten students were signed up to attend Roosevelt School that year.

"All Roosevelt kindergarten students attended classes at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, 14th Street and 1st Avenue North, until the new kindergarten wing at Roosevelt was completed a few months later," Thompson said. "I remember car-pooling with a few of our close neighbors to go to school at Our Savior's Lutheran Church. Members of this kindergarten class are now 70 years old."

Thompson said her class attended seventh grade in the old Paris Gibson Junior High School, now Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art, and then the youngsters were part of the first class to attend the new East Junior High School in the late 1950s.

Hectic time

"It was a bit crazy, mostly hectic, in 1965," said Greg Cuniff, a Great Falls High School graduate of the Class of 1965. "The biggest problem was the logistics. The school and its support facilities were not constructed for the number of students in the school. For example, there was not enough parking for all the students and the teachers at the same time. The district had two complete teaching staffs. This was the case because when C.M. Russell High School opened (later) in 1965, there had to be a complete staff for the school already hired and trained."

Wagner believes Great Falls High ran pretty well in 1965 with all the pressure everyone was under.

"Thanks to Robert Swarthout and Nobby Johnson, with the help of secretaries like Betty Pichette, everything ran like a well-oiled machine," Wagner said.

No fences then

Jon Nitschke of Great Falls attended Longfellow Elementary School in the 1950s.

"Students who went there were from the South Side (except those who went to Emerson), Chowen Springs, Sunnyside, Prospect Heights and Meadow Lark (areas)," Nitschke said. "Three of the sixth-grade teachers later became principals: Margaret Adams, Roger Larson and my teacher, Tug Ikeda. In those elementary days, most of us walked to school both ways. There were no fences around the playground."

Abandoned pool

Ronna Christensen Sundell, now of Boise, and a member of the Great Falls High Class of 1968, recalled attending Paris Gibson Junior High in a building added onto what today is Paris Gibson Square.

"At Paris Gibson Junior High, before the demolition of the newer building on Central Avenue, students passed through 'the neck' between buildings. As a ninth grader in George Wray's art class, my friend, Sheryl Hanson and I were sent to the abandoned swimming pool in the old building to paint on very large canvases. We had to climb down a rickety wooden ladder to reach the bottom of the pool. It was rumored to be haunted by the drowning of a student. The pool wasn't used since 1938, when my dad attended the school."

Added Homer Christensen, from the GFHS class of 1941, "At the time I was in high school, the education received by Great Falls students prepared them for careers, as many pre-World War II families could not afford college. I graduated and got a machine shop job at Strong Scott Co. (now Gerber's of Montana), making a glorious wage of $5 a day, (which was) very good for the times."

In the blood

Some area families cite close connections to a school.

"My grandparents were in the first class to graduate from the current Great Falls High School building," said Tara Frandsen. "My aunt, uncle, and dad followed in the 1960s, and then my brother and I graduated in the '90s. GFHS is in our blood!"

This looks familiar

Heather Florendo offered these remarks:

"I went to Franklin Elementary (for) kindergarten and first grade. Then, later in life, I ended up living in an apartment there!"

Mum's the word

At Valley View School in Great Falls in the 1970s, students were prohibited from speaking while eating in the lunchroom, according to former student Dennis Martin.

"If you were one of the many (students) caught moving your mouth for activities other than eating, you would soon hear: 'Checkmark; next one, tables.' It was his (then-Principal Duane D. Dockter's) way of moving lunchtime along and getting us on the playground. Basically, you got one warning, and if you kept talking, your lunchtime was spent washing the tables. It was effective. So effective that when we moved on to North Middle School, we had absolutely no clue how to react to a lunchroom full of unmonitored talking. We grew up thinking no one could talk during lunch, so that first day of vocal lunch freedom was odd to say the least. I've never seen a group of people so happy to be able to talk at lunch as we were that day."

Richard Ecke can be reached at 406-791-1465, or follow him @GFTrib_REcke on Twitter. Dennis Martin is a Tribune advertising department employee.

To find out more

For more about the GFHS Class of 1965 reunion this summer, visit www.gfhs1965.com.