7/19/01
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PHS Bulldogs On-Line Jul 19, 2001
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3 Bulldog alumni notes today:
Irma Kulp Zacher (60)
Janice Woods Ehrke (60)
David Blevins (62)
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From: Irma Kulp Zacher (60)
In response to 7-17-01 comments from Tom & Carolyn Brandon, Rick Givan and Ron Dupuis...I remember you, Ron!
Bill Dendurent was an awesome lifeguard, also. He and his wife Carol continued to life guard in Moses Lake, summers while going to college at Central. It's hard to believe that Bill, Clair Foley and Ray Amstadt have all passed away. Those school bus riding days were monumental memories. The C.B.C students were allowed to drive the busses. Oh horrors! We were within a year or two of their ages and it was hard to take them seriously. I remember Craig Carl ('57) as a bus driver, too. I remember projectiles flying in all directions. Craig ignored the noise and confusion and drove on. I was amazed that he would become a teacher, then a principal, after the bus driving experience. Now he is retired from Kennewick School District and his son Doug Carl is principal at Edison School, Kennewick. You would think the nightmare of being a bus driver would have sent Craig into another career. Craig's discipline style must have changed to accommodate the students of the past 35 years.
Often our busses were a war zone. I do remember a few drivers stopping the bus out Court Street and putting the wise guys off the bus to walk the rest of the way home. In today's world, the liability is too great to put kids off the bus. The driver might turn the bus around and bring the kid(s) back to school. Then parents have to pick them up or the principal would take them home. Kids also get suspended from riding the bus. That really 'ticks' the parents off.
Tonight on the news there was talk of designating the Blue Bridge as a historical landmark because of its impact on Hanford traffic in the 50s onward.
The Moore Mansion is still in limbo as to whether it will be preserved after the big fire this spring. The owners have been given a 30 day extension for restoring if they so chose to do so.
Remembering the Memorial Pool. We had great times swimming there every summer. I took my Junior Life Saving Classes there while in High School...also C.B.C. P.E. swimming classes with Mrs. Racy as P.E. Teacher. I remember we had to pass the test to be able to swim the length of the pool three times without stopping to gain entry to the deep end. It was next to impossible to swim that amount without drowning ones self or the hundreds of other swimmers in the way.
Loved the past comments on the Pasco City Library on 4th street. The old library was awesome. I remember the librarian "shushing" our study groups many times. The decor, walls and book shelves were of old traditional dark woodwork with very, very high shelves. The windows were very high up by the ceiling. The lighting was quite poor. I'm sure I've seen that library in some of the old mystery and horror story movies, where the secret doors fold in or the walls open up. Nothing like our current Pasco Library . . . with shelves painted in light colors and low enough to reach the books without a ladder. Daylight coming through the windows, much better lighting, and well equipped media center with videos, movies and technology of various sorts and lots of helpful workers.
The Franklin County Historical Society is now housed in the old library. It is really an interesting place to browse. Lots of early Pasco information including a bundle on the early railroad. They also have a Class memory book usually near the front door. It has information in it about our PHS Classes including some memorial information. They welcome contributions in the name of classmates or classes, should you be so inclined. Russell and Helen Wiseman are helpers in the museum as are many other local people. Russell taught Biology at PHS, and Helen was an elementary teacher and principal before retiring.
My Dad, Elmer Kulp helped Adam Zacher (my husband's father) repair the St. Pat's bus on occasion. My Dad also drove the St. Pat's bus as a relief driver, but he mostly drove for Pasco School District as did my Uncle and Aunt, Alton and Gwen Kulp. Mr. Byrne also drove the St. Pat's bus. Mr. Byrne had several children in the St. Pat's & Pasco Schools. His daughter Alice was in my class of '60, I think she had a class of '58 sister Patricia.
I have great admiration for bus drivers. When we teachers turn students out at the end of the school day . . . the kids are ready to whoop it up, after a long day of house (school) confinement trying to contain their wild whims and be super students. The bus drivers get the "fall-out" impact of energy release.
Good luck to the Class of '61 in pulling off a successful reunion in August. That is a humongous undertaking. I applaud the Brandons and their committee for coordinating it. I know that it takes many attendees to make a reunion successful.
Class of '60--we have a reunion every 5 years and we seem to have more fun with each succeeding reunion. We also learn from the classes before us. They share information about what works and what doesn't. We usually have around 120-130 people in attendance. A nice amount for a fun party. Classmates come from a long ways away for a homecoming reunion. We local people need to really get in and set up a glorious homecoming for our classmates. Anyone remember the Dew Drop Inn in East Pasco? Picnics at Sacajawea Park and its Native American Artifact museum with a wonderful display of arrowheads? Horn honking while going through the Lewis Street underpass? Watching the trains at the roundhouse or the hump yards? Dances at Columbia Valley Grange Hall on Court Street? The three movie Drive-ins, one in each city? Pasco 'Riverview', Kennewick 'Highland', Richland "Skyview'. They sure beat the price of today's movie theaters. What great memories. How many bodies can you get in one car on 'Buck Night'? Wanted to ice-skate . . . had to go to Yakima or Walla Walla rinks in the late 50s. Bowling? Remember when we had to set our own pins before automation kicked in?
Irma Kulp Zacher (60)
Pasco, WA
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From: Janice Woods Ehrke (60)
Had to laugh about the golf ball search; my brother Ken Woods ('59) bought our first television with the proceeds of his findings at the Kennewick course. When I was in 3rd Grade, my family moved from Richland to Pasco, with a brief summer stop in Kennewick, our house being directly across the street from the (new?) Golf Course. Up in the rocks on that bluff was prime ball hunting!
When the house on Hopkins Street in Pasco was finished we were delighted (the Park with the Pool was only a block away) and my brothers and I swam there everyday. In the evening, my parents would join us, our whole family swimming to relieve the heat, the wind, and the sandstorms. I believe it was there at the Pool and Red Cross lessons where I met most of the neighborhood, Tommy Louise Warren from down closer to the River, Judy Geil up on Shoshone, Karen Rinker, was that Bonneville St?, Ed Treebosser sp?, next door to Karen. The Shorthills, David and Roger? on Olive, Dr. Linda Williams almost directly across from the Pool. Bruce and Larry Ransier up closer to Sylvester. Marie Allman and Sammy closer to ballpark, Terrell Westberg, down from Karen.
Wow, lots of kids, believe we all went to Longfellow for the most part. Ohhh, I forgot Char Peot, she was close by as well, before she moved on up to that house by the high school. I have always been grateful that I survived Jr. LifeSaving after the Instructor tried to drown me in the final test. Maybe some of you had that same awful experience. I don't remember the instructors name, but he was a big fully grown male and he didn't want to be SAVED.
Kenny and I both had paper routes, Columbia Basin News, and later the Tri-City Herald. It was pretty cold in that Park at 5 AM in the Winter, we would put those warmer things right down in our galoshes to keep our feet warm, guess that's why I remember some of the Streets. Is the C & H Market still there? I remember when it opened, my Mom and I had Chocolate Sodas at their Fountain.
Oh, yes, and on down right at the approach to the Bridge, the Nageleys lived, Larry and Linda and Ken and I shared some happy times in the neighborhood. Got my first kiss from Larry in a fort we had built out of an old discarded refrigerator box in the parking lot at Sears Roebuck. On to Jr. High, what was the name of that burger joint right across from the school, yeah, the one we could not go to at lunch, they had great hamburgers! I remember that place and the school store and not much else about Jr. High, guess I was hungry. More later.....
Janice (Woods) Ehrke, '60 Bulldog, from Cold and Foggy San
Francisco.
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From: David Blevins (62)
Hey, there, ole Bulldogs. Nice to read some of the notes coming in. Had the pleasure of meeting Paul Case today in a business meeting at work. He filled me in a little on Linda and Dave and it was really good to hear about them. I remember Paul as about 10 or so when Linda would bring him to basketball games when she was a cheerleader. We talked for awhile and started to kindle some good memories. One of these days I will take more time and try to share some of them.
A group of us from the Class of 62 have started to get together each summer for a weekend so I'm sure many memories will come flooding back. In the meantime, let's try to make this thing GROW...... It was great to hear from Rick(Y the RAT) Givan. It has truly been decades since I have heard anything of him.
Take care all of you.
David Blevins (62)
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