Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

Linda Beal Walker, Class of '66 - Vic Morrow and Rick Jason starred in Combat. Another war series was The Gallant Men but I'm not sure if it was on another network or the same one. I really got into these war series, of course, it could be because my father watched them, or it could be because I like men in uniform. There was also a series, Rat Patrol, that I loved. It was probably not the same year as Combat. The Rat Patrol fought the Nazis in the desert. They drove jeeps and stood behind some sort of gun mounted in the jeeps and I loved to watch them drive/jump over the sand while the guy behind the gun maintained his balance and continued to fire at the Nazis. YA HOO!! Plus it starred cuties like Anthony George, with the neat hat. Hans Gudegast was the Nazi they were always chasing or being chased by. He looked pretty good too, which proved to be a good thing, because after changing his name he is now Eric Braeden who is Vict or on the Young and Restless.

Sorry, I got carried away with youthful memories of the good guys in uniform.

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Some Points About Five Points

by Tommy Towery

Class of '64

I really can't explain the enchantment Five Points always had for me. I don't know if it was just because it was an early form of shopping center or because it was a place where I could get something really good to eat. I know it seemed unique in a town to have five roads intersect at the same place, and for a small Southern town that was enough to talk about. We had the Big Spring, Monte Sano, the Parkway, Upside-Down Hill and Five Points as major geographic features which everyone seemed to know about without an explination needed.

Beside Zesto and the dogs on a stick, there was also a drug store that had a real soda fountain, long after others had closed up shop. I still remember going there to get a real soda as a last gesture of nostalgia when I realized that most of the other ones had gone away.

Five Points was a place where I could ride my bike to, or walk to. It was a place where we could go after leaving East Clinton Elementary School's playground in the summer. I still remember using the phone booth on the corner, and I remember when the bank was first built there. The area contained White's Printing Shop where we would take the later issues of Lee's Traveller to be printed.

All of these memories were revised when I found the following article from the Huntsville Times online.

Changing Face of Five Points

The Huntsville Times

Monday, June 16, 2008

By JOHN PECK

Times Staff Writer

john.peck@htimes.com

New lampposts, benches, sidewalks are being installed

The Five Points facelift is beginning to take shape.

Work crews have been carving out sidewalks, relocating utilities and preparing the heart of the commercial area for benches and lampposts in a $1.4 million makeover on the east side of the intersection.

Work began March 28 and is scheduled for completion Sept. 10, according to Tanika Dorsey Lindsey in the city Engineering Department.

A second phase calls for sidewalks, landscaping and traffic signal improvements on the west side of Andrew Jackson Way along Holmes Avenue to Dement Street.

Greenscape Contracting of Huntsville won the contract for the first phase. The project is being paid for with grants secured through U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville.

Andy Somers with 4Site Inc., an engineering-architectural firm that did the design, said the new look will "establish more character and identity" to the historic shopping district. Somers said improvements to traffic signals should make the area more pedestrian friendly.

"It's a beautification effort that will add aesthetic appeal from the street," he said. The benches, antique lampposts and brick-paver sidewalk will help restore the area's historic flair.

A plan to embed trolley tracks was dropped because of costs and safety concerns raised by bicyclists. Streetcars operated in Huntsville from 1901 until buses replaced them in 1931. Holmes Avenue widens at Five Points because the tracks flared there to allow streetcars to pass one another, historians say.

The city is picking up 20 percent of the total cost of the project. The money was authorized in 2004 but a legal tangle over an easement and bureaucratic red tape held the work up until spring.

City Councilman Mark Russell, whose district includes Five Points, said previously he hopes the makeover will encourage investment in the area.

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Subject:Federal Money

Polly Gurley Redd

Class of ‘66

Totally unrelated to this week’s issue I have something that might be fodder for your writing for The Traveller.

This week on the radio here in North Carolina was a news story about attempts to pass a new law to have federal assistance for school districts near bases. I will admit to not really listening with all my brain but it seems that they are concerned for the local schools in places like Fayetteville here where Fort Bragg is located. With the increase in families being affected by deployments, it seems the local school districts in and around bases are looking for federal funds to help get the needed teachers and other resources to educate the extra students coming to town. It reminded me of the little cards we filled out every year at the beginning of the year about whether or not our parents were employed by the federal government at the Arsenal or the Space Flight Center.

My father didn’t work there and I thought it was silly for me to have to fill in all the little blanks in the card every year, year after year, when his status didn’t change. Why couldn’t they just keep the card from last year? The other part of the cards that I remember was that the spaces were very small for printing all the information. They wanted to know names and employers, obviously, but they also wanted birth information. My father had been born at home in North Carolina so I took great pleasure in putting “Lick Log Gap, Rip Shin Ridge, Burke County, North Carolina” in that little space so that no one could actually read it. In all your treasures do you still have any of those federal employee cards?

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Subject:LHS Visits

Kevin Rice

Class of ‘71

Attended the Dog Classic golf tourney

(http://www.thedogclassic.com) this pass Friday. Had a great time as usual seeing a lot of LHS alumni and playing around of golf with good Friends.

So happens a classmate of mine and presently the principal at Lee, Paul Parvin , was there. He told us that if anyone wanted to visit the school before it’s torn down, to contact him and he would work with you. May be something to do during the Aug. gathering.

Also crashed the Saturday night Class of 1973 reunion event at the Holiday Inn downtown Hsv. I’m class of “71” and wife is “74” so we knew a few people. Had another wonderful time seeing old Friends or maybe a younger sister or brother of an old Friend.

Sue Faulkner , English and Beowulf mentor during my years, was there enjoying the faces of all the “young kids” as she put it. She said some teachers still get together now and then for lunch around town.

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Subject:Skip Cook Volcano / Stink Bomb

Jim McBride

Class of ‘65

Skip. Dude. That was you who caused such a stink all those years ago? Congrats. Oh, how I loved anything that altered my boring classroom routine. The smell of sulfur still takes me back to that day.

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Lee's Traveller Vol 1, No. 1

by Greg Dixon

Class of '65

I opened a dusty old cardboard box in my storage room a few days ago and found a file labeled "Lee's Traveler," (sic), containing what appears to be every copy of the paper from Nov. 1, 1961 (Vol.I, No.1) through Vol. IV, No. 8 dated May 13, 1965.....And "Traveler" was spelled with one "l" in that first edition but corrected for the No. 2 dated Dec. 19, 1961. It also called the school Robert E. Lee High School for the first two issues then changed the name to Lee High School.

Somehow, I had in mind that Tommy Towrey was the original editor of the Traveller but clearly he was preceded by Diane Briggs as Editor-in-Chief though Tommy was listed as the Managing Editor. The very first article reports on the spirited Student Council elections and notes the following candidates: Ken Megginson, Sergeant-at-Arms; Venita Boyd and Claudia Duke, Treasurer; Judye Howard, Nancy Milburn, and Connie Rigsby, Secretary; Kay Barrett, Jed Stephens, Linda Weldon, Sarajane Steigerwald, and Carol Jean Williams, Vice President; J.R. Brooks, Ginger Burrus, Richard O'Bryant, Paul Womack, and Bud Yokum, President.

A page later, the election results show Paul Womack defeating J. R. Brooks (possibly his only defeat ever), and Sarajane Steigerwald winning over Jed Stephens. This issue also credits Woody Beck with coming up with the name "Lee's Traveler", also misspelled in the text. (Who was that managing editor again?)

Another interesting feature was the "ideal girl" and "ideal boy" selection...The methodology of selection was not mentioned. For the boy the attributes read: hair, Dennis Tribble; eyes, Don Cornellius; height, James Gibbs; personality, Justin Dickens; physique, Butch Rolfe; sports ability, Billy Byrom and friendliness, Carl Scheer. The ideal girl listed features such as hair, Gale Thompson; eyes, Sandra Bulman; height, Nancy Taylor; personality, Dianne Wilbourn; figure, Alice Seymour; complexion, Ann Davis; and friendliness, Connie Rigsby. Presumably complexion was not highly valued in males nor was sports ability in females. And how tall was Nancy Taylor anyway?

Also noteworthy were the Gene Bryson's extensive reports on the first six football games of the year wherein the Generals were 6 and 0. The stars were Phil Bell and Don Cornelius at quarterback, Billy Byrom and Glenn Wallace at halfback. The big fellows on the defense were Wayne Deason, Walter Thomas, Alvin McCartt, Butch Rolfe, and Larry Wiggins.....Of course, the next year Phil Bell and Glenn Wallace (both good friends of mine in Lakewood), transferred to Butler in what was commonly but quietly known as a major recruiting scandal. Phil Bell's dad thought he and Glenn would be stars at Butler instead of having the share the limelight with Don Cornelius and Billy Byrom...What a team we would have in subsequent years had those two stayed at Lee. Both Phil and Glenn proved to be major nemeses throughout high school.

It's now time for that early Traveller staff to blow the whistle on the selection process of ideal boy and ideal girl. Did Mrs. Parks select the attributes (best height, for example)? Did the managing editor exercise his best judgement about Alice Seymour having the best figure? If so, what was his evidence? And what about those very lame attempts at humor (e.g. For that run-down feeling, try jaywalking)?

Inquiring minds want to know.

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Sarajane Steigerwald Tarter - Class of '65

I think some of this is right:

1 gym

2 equipment room

3 boys' locker room

4 PE offices

5 girls' locker room

6 library

7 office

8 auditorium

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Polly Gurley Redd, Class of ‘66 - I remember a lot of this wing, though like you I never remember if called by the letter. To the best of my memory:

1 was the gym

2 was the locker rooms, with the girls on the right and boys on the left as you have the picture

3 was an office that I only remember with both Mr. Hamilton very early and Jasper Jenkins later in it as Assistant Principal

4 and 5 allude me, but I think one of them was the school store

7 was the front office, so I think 6 must have been the library with other teacher work rooms in its area

8 was the auditorium

It is funny that I have almost no memory of the library at Lee during all my years there, yet that has to be where it was since it wasn’t in A or B and the other wings were only classrooms.

I do have memory of a wall of glass that looked out on the courtyard between the classroom wings and a glass door in the wall just where the word “corridor” comes across between 7 & 8. Didn’t someone run toward the door to go outside and hit the door just wrong, breaking it with lots of cuts and blood? I have no idea who might have done that, just memory of broken glass and lots of warnings about running in the halls.

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