You might find it all rather confusing, but we don’t. We, the State College High School Class of 1970, are holding our 50-year reunion this spring—51 years after we graduated. And though we’re celebrating our high school experience, we’ll hold our major gatherings at a Penn State facility.
But, hey, we’re OK with a little bit of oddity. We came of age in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s when change was constant and chaos became the norm. Back then, everything on the national scene felt topsy-turvy—from fashions to civil rights discussions to Vietnam War perspectives. The Woodstock music festival took place shortly before our senior year began, and the Kent State shootings happened a couple weeks before we graduated.
Meanwhile, our local loyalties were never really defined. If someone mentioned “school colors,” we’d probably reach for a blue and white T-shirt before grabbing a garment in State High’s maroon and gray. Yes, we were Little Lions, but we often identified more strongly with the Nittany Lions.
Come May 28 and 29, a crowd of us with gray hair or no hair will gather, and we’ll tell the stories of a discombobulated adolescence that people from other towns or other generations wouldn’t understand.
Says Andy Ramsey, our one-year exchange student from Australia, “Our class had great intellectuals like Francis Fukuyama, and there was the hippie group, the sporting group and the Future Farmers of America. But not only was there great diversity in our class, but it (1969-70) was a year of great transition. I arrived thinking I had entered the set of ‘Leave it to Beaver,’ and I left thinking I was on the set of ‘Easy Rider.’”
HOW ABOUT THE MUSIC?
America’s differences in viewpoint led to variances in music, and our class will enjoy the entire gamut of tunes at the reunion. Classmate Barbara Reeves Neumuller has assembled a playlist of 53 songs that were released in 1970, and they represent incredible variety and quality.
“I’m extremely grateful that I grew up with all these wonderful artists,” says Neumuller, who enjoyed all things musical at State High and then earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Penn State in musical disciplines. “It’s such a colorful and broad spectrum of music.”
Her list contains a bit of everything—hard rock, pop, soul, protest music, R&B. And her playlist is highlighted by multiple 1970 hits from such iconic groups as The Beatles (including “Let it Be”), The Carpenters (“Close to You”), Creedence Clearwater Revival (“Who’ll Stop the Rain”), The Guess Who (“American Woman”), The Jackson 5 (“I’ll Be There”) and Simon & Garfunkel (“Bridge Over Troubled Water”). Such tunes, says Barb, “will bring back memories because music has a way of transporting us back in time.”
HAPPY MEMORIES
Speaking of memories, if you talk to a Class of ’70 “kid” you might hear a story about “The Purple Pocket,” a recreational drop-in center located one block south of Memorial Field. Or, more likely, you’ll hear about State High’s 19-7 football win over Bellefonte in the Iron Kettle game. (According to Ralph Gray’s book, “The Battle of Benner Pike,” our guys were so excited by the victory that they skipped their bus ride and ran the mile from Memorial Field to the high school locker room.)
But for sheer, unbridled fun, no memory can touch the “Greasers,” an amalgamation of crazy kids who foisted their fun on opposing basketball teams. At first, the Greasers showed up only at away games, dressed in all kinds of wacky attire and ready to make lots of noise. But as the word got around, the group grew and made its presence known at home and away.
It was hard to miss the Greasers due to our numbers—often exceeding the rest of the crowd—and our clothing creativity. “The Greasers were extraordinary,” Ramsey recalls. “We would dress up and drive to away schools, absolutely freaking them out with our outlandish behavior.”
“We were wanting to present a certain persona when we went to away games,” says John Robison, a 1970 classmate and Greaser who is now a well-known State College dentist. “We weren’t rowdy (maybe he wasn’t, but some of us were), but we wanted to look different.”
Suddenly, as I’m talking by phone with Robison, he begins singing—something he never does when I’m saying “Ahhh” in his office. And I quickly realize he’s vocalizing the opening lines of the Greasers’ theme song, set to the tune of “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” Alternating between music and laughter, Robison sings, “Greasers grease, we’re gonna win tonight. We’re here with love, not hate, but if you want to fight…”
POSTPONED, NOT CANCELLED
No doubt, The Penn Stater Hotel will be filled with music, laughter and comparisons between Pfizer, Moderna and J&J during the May 28 happy hour and the May 29 dinner. But such would not be the case without the determined leadership of reunion coordinator Patti Wilson Spicer and her co-leader, Ellen Herman Campbell.
After COVID-19 arrived in State College last March, just two months before our 50th reunion, it would have been easy to just cancel the reunion. Instead, Spicer, Campbell and others on the reunion committee chose to postpone until this year. Of course, certain cautions will be observed such as the wearing of masks (maroon and gray, of course). But nothing will get in the way of the memories.
Says Ellen, “There’s something in you that comes out when you talk to your high school friends. They’ve been your friends for so long, longer than anybody else.”
Adds Patti, “My husband (Mike Spicer, Class of 1967) kind of laughs at me and says, ‘It’s just a high school reunion.’ But these are people that I’ve known all my life. So I really want to see them have a great time and make some new memories.”
A FAVORITE STORY
If our 51st reunion is like the 45th, certain class members will remind me about the fast-paced rides we took in my father’s Camaro RS. (My high school nickname was “Wheels.”) But my favorite story from the Class of 1970 has nothing to do with me. It involves two Andys—the jaunty Ramsey and the thoughtful Pigott—the only seniors on the cross country team.
For Homecoming during our senior year, each fall sports team was to be represented by its captain who would escort the team’s nominee for Homecoming Queen onto the field at halftime. Andy Pigott was captain of the cross country team, but being a bit shy around girls, he opted out. Ramsey, meanwhile, possessed enough joie de vivre to supply our entire class, and he was delighted to accompany Sue Lippincott onto the Memorial Stadium field.
The cross country team had competed that day near Wilkes-Barre, and Ramsey hurried his way back to State College for the parade and football game. His teammates did not arrive until halftime of the game and took the only empty seats—temporarily available because the Pep Club girls were appearing on the field. When halftime ended, those girls squeezed back into their seats, and Andy Pigott found himself smack dab beside Janiene Doran, a classmate he’d never met.
“It was an exciting game,” Pigott recalls. “And whenever the crowd did this one cheer (“Lean to the left, lean to the right, stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!”) my cross country buddies would push us together. I think she ended up on my lap.”
The couple began dating soon thereafter and continued their romance throughout four years at Penn State. They were married in 1975, and after finishing post-graduate studies at Alliance Theological Seminary, they took their love for God to Taiwan as missionaries. Today, having spent more than 25 years in Taiwan, the Pigotts live in the home where Janiene grew up, and Andy is associate pastor of the State College Chinese Alliance Church.
Not long ago, I was reviewing my double-Andy story in a phone call with Pigott. I asked if he would agree that his shyness around girls made it possible for him to meet his wonderful wife of 46 years. “Exactly,” he said. The Lord truly does work in mysterious ways.
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The late May reunion will be a special occasion, just as you’d expect from a bunch of high school friends who waited 51 years for their 50th reunion. Many of the out-of-towners will stay in The Penn Stater, also the venue for Friday night’s happy hour and Saturday night’s dinner. Barb Neumuller’s slide show—packed with old photos—will be shown both nights, and a topflight DJ will play Neumuller’s list of songs. On Saturday night, a special visual presentation will honor the memory of deceased class members. (Of the original 525, at least 60 have passed away.)
Class members also will enjoy a Saturday look at the new high school building, although COVID-related uncertainties may limit them to an outside-only tour. Class member Mike Leibowitz has offered free flights over Happy Valley in his private airplane, and local pedicab operator Todd Miner is available to give rides throughout campus.
Registrations are arriving steadily, yet the passage of 50+ years means that current addresses are unavailable for some classmates. Patti Spicer ([email protected]) and Ellen Campbell ([email protected]) are available to answer questions or to facilitate registrations.
Although many of our class members will make their way to State College, at least three will be recovering from hip replacement surgeries and may not be able to travel. And as for State High’s version of Crocodile Dundee, Andy Ramsey is effectively barred from international travel because of Australia’s COVID-19 policies. Too bad, I would have paid good money to hear him say, “G’day, mate!”
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SUCCESSFUL INDIVIDUALS
One of our esteemed faculty members offered an assessment of the Class of 1970 during our junior year. She said something like, “Your class has a lot of well-rounded people, but you don’t have the exceptional talent that other classes had.” In other words, we weren’t going to produce topflight politicians, famous scientists or Super Bowl champions…but we might produce some candidates for Miss Congeniality.
Alas, I think the record proves her wrong, especially if academic achievements are considered. How ironic that when this woman made her statement, our classmate named Francis Fukuyama was almost certainly in the room. Fukuyama is now an internationally-known political scientist, political economist and writer. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Cornell, did some graduate study at Yale and then transferred to Harvard where he received his Ph.D. in political science. Fukuyama has written a bunch of books, and he currently directs a master’s degree program in International Policy at Stanford. Not a bad academic pedigree—Cornell, Yale, Harvard and Stanford.
Others in the Class of ’70 did well for themselves. For example, Bill Murray, recipient of a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in Ancient History, has served on the faculty at the University of South Florida for nearly 40 years. Throughout his career, he has specialized in Greek history and in studies that relate to ancient seafaring.
And then there’s my close friend, Alexander “Sandy” Johnson. I can’t tell you how much fun we had while endlessly playing pinball and eating donuts at Playland, State College’s arcade center of the past. I’m happy that Sandy upgraded his pursuits after high school by earning a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Vanderbilt and then a Ph.D. in the same field from Harvard.
Today, my old buddy heads up the Johnson Laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco, where he supervises graduate students and post-doctoral researchers while churning out important research papers. I’d like to say that Sandy’s research pertains to the health effects of consuming massive quantities of donuts, but that would be lying. Actually, his studies center on “a species of fungus that typically resides asymptomatically in the gastrointestinal tracts of humans and other warm-blooded animals.”
ANOTHER KIND OF SUCCESS
Pat Austin Steele has not gained the kind of notoriety that those classmates have earned. But I would defy anyone to say that her brand of success is less important than theirs.
Pat and her husband, Bob, had largely finished their work of raising two biological daughters, Leslie and Lori, when they got the itch to add more kids. Or as Pat says, “We started feeling a tug on our heartstrings.” The eventual result was that the Perry County couple adopted four children, all from Asia and all with special needs. Their ages upon adoption ranged from nine months to six years.
The Steeles’ adopted children are all now in their 20s, yet they continue to battle various challenges. Kayla, born in China, faces some sensory processing issues and ADHD. Micah, born in Thailand, is deaf, is measured on the autism spectrum and has suffered educational setbacks due to language transitions. Anna, from Vietnam, has faced a spinal deformity and various afflictions that stemmed from her prenatal exposure to Agent Orange. Hana, also from Vietnam, deals with the most significant limitations as she has cerebral palsy, cannot talk and needs a walker for mobility.
Despite such individual challenges, Pat says, “I think we are a pretty typical family. There are squabbles with the kids and there are issues between my husband and me and the children. It’s pretty much your typical American family, I think.”
Asked why the Steeles adopted children with such profound needs, my classmate gives a simple and powerful answer. “If I may say ‘God,’ I will,” says Pat. “We just feel so blessed that we were chosen to raise these four.”
Does she consider herself a hero? “No, I don’t,” answers Pat. “I’m an ordinary person that God used to rescue these kids. He calls the ordinary to do the extraordinary, I guess.”
