I was involved in several different organizations in high school. I was a member of the Pep Club all four years. I loved going to the games and cheering with the cheerleaders. We had special outfits in the school colors to wear. I belonged to the Future Homemakers of America. We had fundraisers to raise money to put on a Christmas party for underprivileged children. I was in the Girl’s Athletic Association, and on the volleyball team my freshman and sophomore years. I was also in the Girl’s League. I was the vice-president my junior year and the treasurer when I was a senior. I was on the Student Council when I was a senior and in the Honor Society my junior and senior years.
When I was a junior and about to be inducted into the honor society, I didn’t know it was going to happen. My mom had been told, so she could be there. That morning I decided I’d be different and do up my hair in a whole new way and wear a weird new outfit. Mom tried to talk me out of it but for once I wanted to look different. It was kind of strange because I could kind of sense that something was going to happen that day.
I was in the Spanish Club my junior and senior years. I was the vice president my junior year, and then the president when the current president moved away. I was a representative for the club when I was a senior. We raised money in the club to send a student on a four day trip to the Shakespearean Festival in Ashland, Oregon. We raised money by making and selling wreaths at Christmas and by putting on the play, “Harvey”. It was a lot of fun to be in the play. I was Aunt Ethel!
The organization that benefited me the most when I was growing up was 4-H. I think I joined when I was in the third or fourth grade and nine or ten years old. By the time high school came around I’d learned what I wanted to and wasn’t involved in 4-H any longer. I belonged to a sewing group, a cooking group, a baking group and a knitting group. This was how I learned to cook, to bake, to sew and to knit. I loved doing all of those things and it kept me busy. Every summer I sewed most of my clothes for the next year. I made my skirt and blouse in this picture. One year the cake I made and entered in the Lincoln County Fair won first place. I got to enter it in the state fair in Salem. It won a ribbon there, not first place but I was very proud. Organizations are great for giving experiences and knowledge in things you want to learn and for making friends.
Mary Lou
If you look me up in my high school senior yearbook, it will list as activities: Swimming 1, 2, 3, 4; Water Polo 3, 4; Block L 3, 4; Key Club 3, 4; Spanish Club 1, 2, 3, 4.” If you look closer at the club pictures, you’ll notice me in the group shots and listed in the captions of the German Club and Nurses Club. I am also in the background of many other club group pictures. I just happened to be walking somewhere in the background, or having a deep conversation with a friend.
The day that club pictures were to be taken for the yearbook, just happened to be a day that I had a swim meet. On swim meet days, the team wore a tie, and I usually wore my letterman’s jacket. This particular swim meet was in another town, so we had passes to be out of school after lunch. As it turned out we didn’t have to leave until after 1:30, so we had some free time. The morning announcements included a schedule of where and when the club pictures were to be taken. My friends and I got the “great” idea to show up for these club pictures and see how many we could sneak into. The photographer began to get suspicious when I showed up for the Spanish Club photo just after getting my picture taken with the German Club. I actually was in the Spanish Club, but it was hard to get people to vouch for me, being as I didn’t really actually attend their meetings. Finally, the photographer had it with us when we showed up for the Nurse’s Club photo shoot. On our way to the Nurses’s Club classroom, we stopped across the hall at the Chemistry lab and donned white lab coats. The future nurses were overjoyed to have the attention, and the photographer made a deal with us to not bother him any more that day if he took our picture with them. We eagerly made that deal, being as we had to gather soon to attend our swim meet.
All kidding aside, the high school organizations were a life saver for me. I joined Spanish Club so that I could get extra credit in Spanish class. I needed all the help I could get. As you can see, I had four years of Spanish; however, it was four years because I took Spanish I, twice and Spanish II, twice…four years of Spanish! All I remember from Spanish Club was going to a Spanish restaurant each year in the southern part of Stockton, and attending a Calypso concert at the Civic Auditorium. I’m afraid I got a lot more out of it than I put into it.
The swim team, however, was another story. Swim team was a spring sport. Our high school didn’t have our own pool when I was a Freshman. We practiced in the evening at the University of Pacific swim pool. This was several miles away from our school campus. The UOP pool was so old that it required two garden hoses, running full time, to counter the leaks. These hoses were nice, because the pool was kept at a pleasant temperature for swim lessons. This wasn’t so pleasant if you were working out. We used the hoses to cool down during our rest intervals. Anyway, these adverse conditions bonded us as a team. You had to be motivated by something to come out for the swim team when I was a freshman. It helped that our team was really good, and that I was one of the fastest swimmers on the team. From that first year on the swim team, our coach invited four of us to join him on a city water polo team. He would pick us up on game day or night in his Chevrolet Corvair. Three of us would be pretty crammed in his back seat, but we all bonded and became great friends. We would become the core of our school water polo team when it became a sport our junior year.
As for the other clubs, I joined the Key Club because our swim coach was the advisor. It was a service club that was connected to Kiwanis. I remember coming to the school campus on a Saturday and we planted some flowers and trees.
I joined the Block L club my junior year. You had to have a varsity letter in order to apply to the club. An unwritten rule on campus was that you didn’t put that letter on a jacket or sweater unless you were a member of the Block L Club. I, of course, wanted very badly to be a member. This club was dominated by football and basketball players. Swimming and now water polo weren’t highly regarded at the time we applied. My swim team friends and I were accepted into the club, and we wanted to put swimming and water polo in a more prestigious position. It helped that the football team had losing records during this time, and the swim team was dominating the league and section. The water polo team was undefeated the two years I played and for several years after that. We knew we were successful in our popularity endeavors when the swimming pool stands filled with fans and the cheerleaders started coming to our water polo games.
The clubs and activities I got involved with in high school brought me out of my self-conscious depression. It wasn’t my intention, but I found friends and a self-confidence that would have been hard to develop on my own. The extracurricular activities that are offered by schools are so important to the development of the whole person. The more we design activities that get children to interact with each other outside of the classroom, the more well-rounded they will become. We need to offer many avenues for children to find success. Schools should be so much more than what they scored on the latest standardized test.
Brian
Swagerty-Aldrich Family Web Site 