Canton High grads reunite for tour of alma mater

L-R: Jill Taylor (Class of 1972), Guy Barra, Bill Panciocco, Barbara Buchanan, Susan Digirolamo, Georgia Patton, Beverlee Braconi Vidoli, Debi Minkwitz and Bill Dooley. (Colleen Brown photo)

Eight members of the Canton High School Class of 1970, along with a 1972 CHS grad, returned to their alma mater May 20 to tour the building and learn how things had changed for present-day students. While stepping into classrooms and looking at display cases, the group found connections to their past as well as a school that has been updated to meet the needs of the newest generations of students.

Bill Dooley is a member of the CHS Class of 1970 and organized the tour. “Our committee thought it would be profound to tour the CHS campus and observe the changes,” Dooley said.

Colleen Brown, administrative assistant to CHS Principal Jeffrey Sterling, led the group of former students, which included Dooley, Susan Digirolomo, Georgia Patton, Guy Barra, Barbara Buchanan, Bill Panciocco, Beverly Braconi Vidoli and Debi Minkwitz, and 1972 CHS grad Jill Taylor.

“We were all connected,” Dooley said of the years the Class of 1970 spent together. “We felt part of the high school community.” The Class of 1970 has maintained that early connection, with a planning committee scheduling events. As Brown unlocked doors and explained new facilities and locations, the group chatted and reminisced about their own high school days, remembering that female students needed to stop at the principal’s office to have their skirts measured to make sure they weren’t too short.

The group also recalled the uniforms they wore for gym class, noted that they used calculators but not computers in classes, and visited the classroom of longtime math teacher Martin Badoian. They recognized the areas and the hallways that were part of the building when they were students at CHS and marveled at both the changes to the facilities and the new additions to the curriculum.

Brown started the tour at the auditorium and ended at the Main Office, which is new and not the one with which the CHS Bulldogs of 1970 are familiar. They visited the fine arts and performing arts area of the building as well as the Innovation Lab and the Distance Learning Lab and the high school’s library, which used to be the CHS gymnasium. They wandered through the library, reacquainting themselves with a room they all used and remembered.

They enjoyed seeing the classroom where the Life After Canton course is taught, a class in which students learn laundry skills and how to cook, comparing it to the Home Economics class of their days. One change they noticed is that the curriculum departments are assigned to specific hallways. Some of those hallways have AED equipment for use during an emergency.

There were surprises, too. When one student said that he wanted to see his old locker, for example, Brown told the group that today’s students no longer use lockers since their Chromebooks provide them with direct access to curriculum and they carry very few textbooks.

As they entered C Building, they recalled that there was a driveway that went around the building at that point. A roof covered the crosswalk that students used to get to the other building, but it was open on both sides, leaving them to face the elements. The driveway now ends at the completely enclosed hallway leading to C Building.

The Class of 1970 was the largest class to enroll at Canton High at that time, prompting some to suggest that the addition of C Building had been prompted by increasing enrollment.

They walked through the TV production classroom and looked down into the present gymnasium from the Eye in the Sky to see how student crews can film sports events from their upper level studio.

Students who attend Canton High School these days can join a Robodogs robotics team which has competed successfully in meets in the last few years, take classes in Italian, yoga, and oceanography, and find support if they have emotional or academic challenges.

Dooley said that by the time they graduated, he and his classmates experienced the passing of Kennedy brothers John and Robert, and Martin Luther King, the effects of the war in Viet Nam, the changes brought by the civil rights movement, and the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which seven members of the Class of 1970 attended in August of 1969.

They have now seen the important role of computers and technology in daily life, the work to save the environment, the election of the first African-American president, an increase in career opportunities for women, and support for gay rights.

The tour of CHS and their conversations with Brown led Dooley to reflect on the changes to his high school.

“The 1970 classroom was about learning and memory skills,” he said. “This contemporary setting appears to be about education and applying this knowledge to real life endeavors.”

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=125004

Posted by Mary Ann Price on May 31 2024. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.