Friday Football Fun

Its 1985 and its Football Friday. I was on the JV Cheer leading squad. Marilyn Clayton, our sponsor, assigned each cheerleader a football senior whose locker you had to decorate. It was a thrill... super exciting... you actually got the key to get into their locker. You made posters and left them cookies... etc... what an ego trip. No wonder they had such an attitude. I had a super crush on the player that i was assigned.I remember when I would pass him in the hall he would acknowledge me, I would be rendered speechless, butterflies and everything. (You have to right? I mean he got cookies, and balloons, and posters)

When we would get to cheer the second half of the game with the varsity squad i would stare at him and hope that he too would be staring back. No such luck for me. Today i can picture his face but for the life of me not his name. Young crushes fade but the memories of Football Friday will live forever.

Hurricane Pride

Yes I'm back! I was going to blog about favorite 80s movies and how much I loved "Sixteen Candles" but nothing I could say would top Brooke Keton's blog! So as I scrolled down some more, I saw the blog and comments that Coach Coleman was wanting the band to learn "Rock You Like A Hurricane" for Homecoming. Every time I hear that song, I think about high school. A friend of mine down here (in Hot Springs) has the Scorpion's Greatest Hits and plays that song frequently and every time he does, I sing it loud and think of dear old JHS. My daughter started school this year at Lake Hamilton and and friend of ours commented that I would have to start getting Lake Hamilton gear and wearing it to the football games. I went to a few of them this year because Brynna was a Little Steppinwolf and I must admit, it didn't seem like a hometown football game. (Shhh don't tell these people I said that!) I'm a Hurricane. Always have been. Always will be. You would think 20 years would diminish the pride you had in your school (especially when you went to college and became a Bison for three years) but the smallest things throw you back to that time when we were all carefree and cra-zee! So I was wondering what are some of the small things in life that stop and make you think about our fabulous three years at...JONESBORO HIGH!!!!

My Baby's Daddy

Sixteen Candles.....One of my favorite movies from my adolescent years. Everyone remembers that Claire falls in love with the cute, older, poplar guy.... Jake Ryan. He was so dreamy. Remember at the end when she walks out of the church and he is standing there with his arms crossed against the sports car? They kiss over the birthday cake.... he was so cute.

Fast forward to 2006 ,I'm pregnant and i just cant decide about the baby's name. I float the idea of Jake Ryan past my husband, miraculously he agrees. Mistakenly i just assume that he has watched Sixteen Candles 50 times the same as me and he knows about the dreamy Jake Ryan.

So its official... the baby is named. My husband is a proud father for the second time. He goes to work and shows off the pics. When the women down the hall ask the name he replies, Jake. Jake what they say. Jake Ryan. "OH MY GOSH, I love him and i love that name! He was my favorite." Now let me tell you it took me a good 2 months to convince my husband that in 2022 no 16 year old on the football/baseball/basketball team (they always think their boy will play it all) will know who the hell Jake Ryan on Sixteen Candles is. And Ill bet that if your a male that graduated in 1988 you don't either. But the girls.....they know.

A Little JHS Deja Vu...

So the other night I went up the JHS track to exercise with a friend and we were finishing up and almost ready to leave when we heard voices from above. I looked up and saw about 5 teenagers on top of Hurricane gym and one was waaaaaaaaaaaaay up on the tip-top of the dome. It was only 9:30 pm with plenty of cars still in the parking lot from people walking and they were not being too stealthy or quiet I might add. Why they couldn't wait until midnight was beyond me. Of course I made sure to call the authorities and make sure these thugs were apprehended. Then the irony of the situation fell upon me. The summer after my first year in college some fellow classmates and I decided we were going to climb on top of the gym to sing the alma mater. Yeah, I know. No sooner than we swung around the chain link fence, we hear "STOP, GET DOWN!" We ran as fast as we could and jumped down the short side of the roof along the back and escaped being caught. Or so we thought. One of us got apprehended as she tried to do a "drop and roll" kind of action. To make a long story short, the rest of us turned ourselves in. Unknown to us was the fact that some hoodlums younger than us (and STILL in high school, I might add) had gotten on top of the gym and vandalized the roof with graffiti that past weekend. It's funny how it all comes around full circle isn't it? (For those of you that found my actions a little out of line, I'm pretty sure they got down and away from the scene before the police arrived.)

JHS Class of '88, the Final Edition!

“JHS bids farewell to 310 seniors.” – May 20, 1988, Golden Times front page

Sweeter words have never appeared in a headline in the “Golden Times.” Though something similar is written every year, this was special, because JHS was bidding farewell to us, the Class of ’88, the greatest class in JHS history! (a totally unbiased opnion, of course) And though I’m sure even then we knew we’d miss each other, I’m guessing every single one of us was ready to graduate.

The big day was June 3, 1988. It turned out to be a picture-perfect, unseasonably cool evening for an outdoor graduation ceremony.

Back to the May 20, 1988 issue of the Golden Times:

Prom had happened, and photos from it filled the center spread under the headline: “Seniors are in ‘Heaven’ at the Prom”. The prom queen, Tara Clark, and her date, Scott May, are pictured at left.

JHS’ golf team won the state championship, shooting a record score on its home course to culminate the event. Our classmates Steve Tricarico, Todd Darouse and Brian Fulkerson each shot 1-over-par 72s in the state final.

The class of 1988-89 named its class officers … but did we really care? They were just lowly juniors.

The most painful part of reliving these Golden Times issues for me has been recalling these hideously awful so-called “satire” pieces I sometimes wrote, published on the back cover. But I will leave you with part of my column in the final issue, a slight parody of our class chant:

“Parting’s harder than rock and roll,
“We’re the class that took its toll,
“We had a blast, we had a ball.
“We’re the class that really did ‘have it all.’”