Thanks for the memorabilia

In the summer of 1953, before the days of color television and Elvis, when teen-agers spent Friday nights at sock hops, life was simple and Cape Girardeau was proud of the new high school that stood at 205 Caruthers Ave.

It was just a gleaming new building until, on Sept. 2, students, traditions and dreams of things to come transformed it into a high school.

But as the decades passed and the popularity of soda shops and drive-ins faded away, so did the luster of the school that was once the talk of the town. In 2000, Cape Girardeau voters approved a bond issue to cover construction costs for a new high school.

Joan Stehr, who was part of the class of 1954, the first to graduate from Central High School at 205 Caruthers, said she is excited that the students are going to get a new building.

"Central as a building is getting old and beginning to show its age," Stehr said. "I hope the kids will be as proud of their new building as we were of ours."

Calling on alumni

The building and classrooms will be new and different when Central High School opens on Silver Springs Road next fall, but librarian Julia Jorgensen hopes the five-decade-old spirit and traditions from the school on Caruthers remain.

She is calling on Central alumni from the 1990s back to the '50s to donate memorabilia and share stories of their time at the school for a farewell celebration scheduled for March.

Already Jorgensen has put together a large box of items she found inside Central, including old yearbooks, newspapers, photos and letter jackets, but she wants more. Jorgensen is asking alumni to send pictures, stories, old buttons and any other memorabilia to her for the celebration.

The farewell celebration will take place from 1-3 p.m. March 24 at the school. Jorgensen plans to have a room or two set aside to be decorated for each decade from 1950-2000. In each room, students and faculty will wear clothing representative of the time and take visitors on a tour of the past.

When the celebration is over and everything has been moved to the new school, Jorgensen plans to make a permanent display of some of the memorabilia in the new library.

'A certain ambiance'

A lot has changed since the class of 1954 graduated, but, Jorgensen said, "there is a certain ambiance you can still feel here, no matter what decade you're from." And that is why she thinks the celebration to bring all of the alumni together is so important.

"We've had a lot of people go out and make a difference across the country," she said. "But it all comes back to the education they got in this high school."

Winning the state championship in football, basketball and baseball in 1954 was memorable, alumnus Stehr said, but the No. 1 memory she has from Central is the fine education she received.

"We had outstanding faculty," she said. "And when we went on to college, we knew we had gotten a really great education."

Stehr, formerly Joan Porter, married her high-school sweetheart, Paul Stehr, after their senior year in college.

C.W. Suedekum, a classmate of Joan and Paul Stehr's, has kept in contact with the couple over the years and said when the old group from high school gets together, they sit around and remember the glory days.

"Most of the kids went away to college," Suedekum said. "But basically all of them returned to Cape. We try to get together every year now."

Like Joan Stehr, Suedekum vividly remembers when the teams won the state championships. And for him, that was the most memorable moment from his time at Central.

"I can still see it in my mind," he said. "We played in the afternoon, went to graduation and then went to Busch Stadium in St. Louis the next day to play for the championship," Suedekum said. "And we won."

'Seemed so much smaller'

But not everyone ended up near their alma mater.

Tanya Sue Kuehle, now Tanya Hartman, moved to St. Louis after graduation in 1965, married Don Hartman and settled in St. Peters, Mo., where she now lives. Hartman said she last visited Central in 1985 and was surprised how much things had changed.

"When I came back, I was struck by how it seemed so much smaller," Hartman said. "And things had moved -- the library wasn't where it was supposed to be and the Tiger's Den was gone."

The Tiger's Den, one of the most memorable spots for Hartman, was a building on the north side of the campus, where students went to dance after lunch each day.

Hartman said the girls from the class of 1965 are planning a reunion for February, and she hopes they will all be able to get back together in March for the celebration.

hkronmueller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128