Doomed gym holds many memories for Cape graduates

Letting go is hard to do.

It's especially difficult when people become attached to a place where decades of stamping feet and ringing buzzers electrified the air.

But those sounds are almost a thing of the past for the smaller, older gymnasium at Cape Girardeau Central Junior High School, which is scheduled to be replaced by new administrative offices and other features sometime in March. The project is part of a $20 million bond issue passed by voters in the spring to fund improvements in the school district.

The 84-by-50-foot gym has stood since 1955, when the building that houses it was Central High School.

"This spot is really special to us who graduated from Central," said Terry Kitchen, the junior high's athletic director and a member of the class of 1970. "This is always going to be kind of a sacred place for me."

The Cape Girardeau Central Tigers hosts Notre Dame for a game in the old Central basketball gymnasium in this undated photo, probably the early 1960s.G.D. FRONABARGER ~ Southeast Missourian archive

During his 38 years working for the school district, Kitchen's fondest memories of the gym spring mainly from its pep rallies.

"We'd get this gym to rockin'. You wanted to get up out of your seat," he said.

For 60-year-old Dianna Clark Todt, the gym is a place that figured prominently in her romance with her husband of 40 years, 61-year-old Danny Todt. The couple got engaged on graduation night in 1973 and married the next year.

"Danny was a football player, and I was a cheerleader," she said. "We were sweethearts all through high school."

Besides helping whip up excitement during pep rallies, Clark decorated the gym for homecoming celebrations and dances, which she described as highlights of high-school life.

"Back then, everybody went to the games, and the gym was always packed full," she said. "It's just what you did."

The fact she and Danny were involved in sports helped keep them at the forefront of the school's social scene.

"I wouldn't have missed a day of school for anything," she said.

For Weldon Hager, memories of the gymnasium stretch to its earliest days.

Hager, a 1943 Central graduate, signed on as an assistant coach at the high school in 1952, before it moved from Pacific Street to Caruthers Avenue.

The building on Pacific had a cramped, inadequate gymnasium with a fire pole at the end the boys would slide down on their way to the tiny court.

In Hager's second year on the job, the new high school was built along Caruthers. Because it didn't have a gymnasium, athletes would practice at the Arena Building or nearby Franklin Elementary School.

Finally, the gymnasium was built.

"To me, it was like it was a gift from heaven," said Hager, who later became an activities director and assistant principal. He retired from the school district in 1992.

Josh Crowell, an assistant principal at the current high school off Silver Springs Road, also holds fond memories of the old gym from his days as a wrestler in the late 1980s and early '90s.

He remembers a lower tier of bleachers being pulled up almost to the edge of the wrestling mats and how enthusiastic the fans were -- yelling, screaming and cheering as he tried to take down his latest opponent.

"It was always a great feeling as an athlete," he recalled. "Even in the winter, it would get so hot in there from all the fans and bodies and all that stuff."

There have been many occasions during his career, which began with the district in 1998, when Crowell has visited what now is the junior-high building and made a special detour past the gym. He said he's tried to catch a smell, sight or sound that might trigger a happy memory, and there's always the feeling of history soaked into the room's every crevice.

"We're going to lose that. ... But, at the same time, we're going to have a great new facility to build a new set of memories," he said.

ljones@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3652

---

Last look

From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, alumni and members of the public are invited to stop by the old gymnasium at Cape Girardeau Central Junior High School to take photos or see it one last time.

---

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QqD7Vd4fr0M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>