Stuart High School

who says being the president of a organization gives you power it doesn't it doesn't uh it gives you responsibility gives you opportunity gives you heartburn gives you sleepless night sometimes but it also gives you a lot of reward you know and that's what I get back out of all of this uh the opportunity to join the opportunity to join with you guys share stories learn more about the community and um hopefully grow the community and keep our Roots deep within the soil here um tonight we're going to have uh Nancy Terell the executive director from Martin ARS give us a little information about what's going on over at the old Stewart High School Martin County

High School we had we talked about it at our board meeting the other day and we couldn't figure out whether it was Stewart high school or Martin County High School yes so so we will find out tonight um we're we're also going to have uh some of my dearest and closest friends from Old-Timers which is at the Museum every Wednesday morning uh and some folks who don't make the meetings you know participate in a round T discussion and they're going to tell us stories that they recall about steart high school you are free to call them out on lies because I know that W on Wednesday mornings at the at the Museum they're all telling

lies uh couple things well I've got your attention we do have some things going on uh this summer but it's not going to be any more meetings like this until next September we anticipate being on the ballot with a resolution to authorize the city to lease us the uh old Feed Store uh on an ongoing basis you'll be hearing more about that we'll be sending out notifications to you uh we go before the city Commission on the 22nd to get their head going up and down I know not all our heads are going up and down but we need to get their heads going up and down at the same time so uh we'll be

asking for all the support we can get and notifying all your friends and neighbors who live in the city of Stewart because that's who has to approve us doing this um but you will be getting where we won't be having meetings like this we will be communicating with you with what's happening uh with our Lea situation um we are proud to be participating with the uh Martin County Historical preservation group they're kicking off preservation month on May 1st and they're kicking it off again right behind the museum where the county is providing tent and refreshments and we're going to share uh information about preservation month uh there is a whole series of events that take

place during preservation month and we will have that up on our website on our Facebook page uh probably in the next day or so one other quick thing that we've had that I've had going on I had the opportunity to meet with uh the Martin County model railroaders Association I've never gone to their display at the fair uh we had a a setup donated to us and we have no room for it and I thought it was huge then I went down and saw what they had going on but they were still interested in incorporating it into what they've got going on and I'm trying to build those relationships that one organization can reach out

to another organization and help guide them in their projects and they can help guide us in our projects so uh I did tell them I would make announcements that they have a open house on May 4th down at the fairgrounds if anyone cares to go in and be amazed at what model railroaders can do have ADD it have at it it it's I walked in there was just man you guys are nuts but uh it was quite quite an impressive uh event at with this I'd like to ask Nancy Terell executive director woman of the day come up and help us get this get this rolling thank you thank you um I'm so happy to

be here a lot of familiar faces I think I saw many of you when we celebrated the 100th birthday or anniversary of the high school building last September so it's it's nice to see you again um I'm going to give you a little bit of um background why about why we're doing what we're doing leading up through where we are today and what we need to do next um to answer and I'm not the historian in the room there's other people in the room that are the historians but the whole room is exactly Sandy um the it still is engraved and above the front door shs so it is steart high school I think it

became Martin County High School probably in 1937 when we became Martin County and separated from Palm Beach County would be my assumption and then it went away again when Martin County went became Martin County High School on caner I'm getting an OB I taught Martin Johny high school and I was the first class to go through it for three years and that was 1967 when I graduated okay so Martin County High School was built on the dump right highway I know and we're out there but I I was in the first class to go all three years Murray was a ninth grade at the time so it was always Stuart high school and my dad

taught there and my mom taught at Palm City Elementary and uh we're both teachers too the I you know never taught at he's a librarian but I feel like I have seen some signs where they put put words over the Martin County High School became Martin County High School when it was new out there it was T when it was in here we'll leave this for one of the Wednesday morning talks right um so it was several years ago um because none of these kinds of projects happen quickly we were in a strategic planning session with our board so we have been the local Arts agency working in this community since 1980 trying to make

sure that Stuart in Martin County grew up as a vibrant Arts Community um so we were doing a strategic planning session with the board uh lee Roberts was in the room and um we were we drew these beautiful Visions on a wall saying what do we all want and it kept coming up we want a building we we need more space we need more places to do more Arts and Cultural things in the community the courthouse Cultural Center which is where we live now live feel like it where we are housed now um is great and it's been wonderful for the community but more spaces Meed because there's more things happening that need a home

and so Lee piped up and commissioner Doug Smith piped up he was in the room too saying the school board has just moved its employees out of the old high school maybe that would be a space and you know all the eyes in the room kind of lit up and said this is the perfect place for that it extends the sort of the eastern boundary downtown Stewart as Stewart sort of comes out of the core downtown we can move a little East and bring a good anchor to that side of downtown Stewart so we were working forward there were some slow years in there um I'm not going to throw anybody under the bus but

I could um but there was some Administration in the school district that didn't seem very interested in moving the project forward and having those conversations um so things changed right around coming out of Co coming into coming out of covid covid time um when Dr Malay was hired as a superintendent and all of a sudden we were getting moving paperwork and conversations forward and we were able to secure a 5 V vote from The Martin County School Board to have an intent to lease to move forward with our plans and vision for the high school project we have done Structural Engineering reviews we've had um all kinds of different experts U one of the questions

I get all the time is about asbestos uh they're very tiny little pieces they found on the outside of the 1922 High School building um and some in the flooring and the 1950s buildings that his father designed um so you know we we've been doing all that very due diligence work to make sure that if we were to raise a capital campaign money to make this into an Arts and Cultural Center for the community that we would be making a good investment because nobody wants to move forward not making a good investment so we've been raising the money that we need to do the planning we have an architect who had to create the as

built drawings because none of the original drawings existed from the building so we started there we got a grant from the division of historic resources um did a historic structures report which is one of the very first steps and Julie priest could back me up on that that's one of the first things you need to do when you start to go down this path and things have been moving forward since we have held a bunch of meetings with the artists the musicians the authors all of the people in the community who want to have this be a new home for arts and culture in the community and so we have a pretty good idea what

that needs to look like um on the board over there at the entrance table uh there are some small drawings of what each level so there's the daylight basement there's the main main floor and then the third floor on top of that um we will be bringing the uh Auditorium space back to life it will be a Recital Hall with 295 seats in the theater uh there'll be lots of multi-purpose rooms and classrooms downstairs on the main floor and up on the third floor there will in addition to the multi-purpose rooms there will be an event rental space so you could have you know dinner or lunch in for 200 people move them downstairs and

have some sort of production in the theater when we were getting all of the reviews by the um experts and Engineers they recommended that we build an additional structure AC on the back of the building to house all the uh mechanical equipment that they recommendation was that it not be located inside the building and the acou acousticians like that too uh for all the work that we'll be doing to make sure that all the rooms are acoustically sound and you're not having sound carry from one space into the other space and that you can hear each other speaking when you're in one of the rooms uh so with that we just we asked the school

board for permission to do a building across the entire back of the building so we will be expanding the stage as a result of that and providing for and this is something I'm learning I'm not a theater person but full fly space does anybody know what full fly space does for a theater the backdrops the backdrops and if we you know did a production of Peter Pan or something you could have Peter Pan flying through the through the stage but you can do a lot more with backdrops and you know this is an example of the work that we're trying to do to make sure that we're enhancing and expanding what's happening in our Arts

and Cultural Community we're not just duplicating what's here already The Lyric Theater is magnificent as it is they don't have full fly space and neither do any of the other theaters in the community so that means we can bring different kinds of things to the table if you will at the steart high school School Arts Center than you could somewhere else and the non- duplication is something that's really important to us that we're again expanding enhancing um this has been way longer of a project than I thought but we're continuing to move forward the drawings are essentially done we're working on a very solid business plan and profor a budget so that we can see

once it's up and going that there's enough annual operating income to sustain the facility and we'll be wrapping things up here shortly to start in Earnest the capital campaign for this we just two months ago got new um estimates on the construction project and you know all of that so it's been a quiet slow methodical project but I think we will end up with a much better product at the end of the day for having taken our time and really made sure that we were turning over every leaf to make sure we weren't missing something along the way um um so that's where we are today you know the next steps will be the capital

campaign we will be looking for significant donations they'll be naming opportunities all the way down you know major naming opportunities all the way down to you know bricks of some or you know the smaller Community gifts that will happen because it will have to be built and supported by the whole Community for us to be successful so I hope that we can count on your involve in some way shape or form moving forward I think to me after the 100th um anniversary the comments that stood out most to me were the fact that the alumni that spoke that day and shared their experiences about being able to give this back to the community Community as

a community Gathering Place like it was when they were in school and I think really that is at the heart of our vision and our goal for this project so with that I'm sort of happy to take any questions or comments that you may have before we turn it over the panel what will happen to the courthouse courthouse will we have a five-year management agreement with the county to continue to do exhibitions in that space um they still want us to continue to offer that programming to the community so that will continue to happen did they do tours of the old high school at all we do um the elevator has not been repaired so

you have to be able to go up and down the stairs but um oh well there wasn't an elevator when you were there I know um but we are giving tours just about twice a month um so please if someone's interested how do they I will give you my phone number and you can call the office um you also can go to our website which is Martin arts.org and right on the front scroll there's a button to push to say that you're interested for a tour and then um Tor of the school this is of the old high school yes yep would' love to have you anybody that hasn't spent enough time there triy to

get out exactly but um it's a really exciting project I hope you think so too um it's really going to engage the community at all levels I didn't really speak to some of the programming but we already have agreements with Stuart Middle School the Boys and Girls Clubs to make sure that we're engaging the youth in the project as well throughout our community there'll be plenty of educational and summer camp opportunities um and you know kids of all ages um working artist studios in the west of the two modern classroom buildings and the other building a maker space and Cafe so it really will be a fully enriched Campus of opportunities um inspiring next Generations

and preserving the past so it really does all of those things so again thank you for your time and attention tonight and any more questions otherwise we'll hear from the alumni Sandy started it seemed like it was a local contractor that had experience with who was very interested in help so our our biggest our biggest supporter today and the only reason we are still talking about this project uh Jeff Harden who owns stratacom construction has donated so much labor and time and expertise from his office um covering all the costs of the structural engineering reviews and and all the work that we've done today are thanks to to Jeff he's very he's very much following

through yes thank you thank you Nancy thank thank you for being with us tonight and sharing what's going on over at the high school um before I Wrangle my guys up here to do you know to share stories uh I want to acknowledge a couple people who are here with us uh Ula from the city commission thank you thank you for being with us today Vicki Davis with the as supervisor of election dudy priests uh of everything and Sandy thurlo great supporter of the museum who Le Roberts School Board okay also want to mention on the table over here we've got a number of yearbooks from the 50s we have a astounding collection of Martin

County School yearbooks in the library uh we always have people coming through look oh there's grandpa or there's mom you know and it's great fun uh over the years many of you including myself have lost our yearbooks and we do have duplicates on some years and some at the Museum so if you don't have your yearbook and you would like to have one check with the museum see if we have an excess copy and we will be happy to uh make a reason with a reasonable donation turn it over to you reasonably open to interpretation at this point I'd like to ask my fabulous panel of of alumni including B joh L Don Armstrong Hudson

D Hudson D Hudson you're not a lum I don't think but we're putting you up here Bruce Stellar Nancy I'll take it she's on our board she's going to she's lni uh there we go Joe Joe it's a long name there there there's three okay Joe yeah as I said earlier not joke but some of these guys are prone to exaggerating oh I don't point over here others will deny they were there at the time but they know about it so I'm going to suggest that instead of sitting here with your backs to everybody why don't you come up front here where we where we can see your lips moving cuz that's how we know

if you're telling the truth or not and we'll get started with some questions and carrying on my vice president of the steart Heritage Museum is Gloria and she is going to Pepper them with probing questions and hopefully they will grab it and run with the ball from that point Bo Lowry let's start with you what year did you graduated in 1959 no all right give us a memory of high school I'm the principal he didn't really like me who was the principal when you were there John C John Cay what is one of your best memories graduating okay anyone going to call him out on that one all right after grad graduation did you leave

Stewart or were you did you remain here um I've been here by all the time all the time I went I did go to Junior College and then University of Florida until they told me not to come back okay all right d what year did you graduate from Martin County I graduated in 1952 and Stuart high school was built in 1922 and I became a first grader in 1940 so I spent all 12 years at the uh D high school now it was called SP High School when you went when I went and I graduated in 57 we referred to it as Martin County High School that's how strange it I mean it it was

like some people said Stuart High School some people said Martin County High School well when we were seniors or few years before that we had a principal named John Wick and we were probably 8th grade or something like that nth grade and he says when you guys graduate you're going to graduate from a new high school well he lied when it was called sart High School it used to have over the doors there steart High School and Grave I think they put a plaque over it for Mar County High School right but we always Al we were Martin County High School in 52 legally we U referred to it in my class and all the

other classes steart High School all the football yells and all that was steart high school and songs we used to sing steart high school what did you do after high school did you leave and then come back or did you just stay here I uh left Stewart and went to Gainesville University of Florida spent two and A2 years there and uh four of my friends who we graduated with we're in the naval Reserve and we W on active duty because the GI bill was going out so we joined a active uh Navy and then I when I got out of the Navy I came back and uh started in a bank in 1957 okay um

do you have a special memory of Martin County High School store High School anything special that sticks in your mind well the one thing I really I'll never will forget is every morning out in front of the school those two little low buildings are they weren't there then nor were the big old oak trees or you can't see the school but there's a flag pool out there in my class of 1952 ladies who were in The homeade class built a great big class flag and we got out there one morning before the uh rising of the breger flag and John Gray was the principal at the time and we had Buddy Hayes who played the

trumpet in the band and he played the uh music going going up and believe me Mr Gray was very unhappy with this I was going to bring that flag tonight as a show but I couldn't find it we've always had uh reunions our class and I'd always take it and hang it up there and everything but anyway that was just one of my favorite remembrances of the school okay would you pass that on John Leighton what year did you graduate 1960 do you have a favorite episode or a story which one you want no names Johnny well not the worst one something in between well Mr Gray didn't have much sense of humor with our

class because somebody got in trouble with telling well we all did it we knew he couldn't pick out the whole football team or the basketball baseball whatever and so we got away with quite a bit of stuff when you um graduated did you stay in steart or did you leave and then return no I stayed here went cut F business okay all right let's try Mr Armstrong there um well I didn't graduate from the old high school but I I graduated I apologize for the mask by dear wife Jessica who's here has a chronic health condition and we try real hard not to bring Bugs home with us so I I'll try to make sure

everybody can hear me um the um but I did go to the campus and I think probably a lot of us here went to that General campus it was on East Ocean um it was about two blocks long and that's where I went to elementary school in about 1956 57 and jud's not in our head cuz we were in the same class um and um the buildings had just been built um and my dad uh Donald D Armstrong senior was the Schoolboard architech back when they had such a thing and so every classroom I ever sat in was designed by my dad because they were part of this you know the baby boom generation come

along and all these new school buildings were being built around all over the county so um Dad really lck out into that he he was uh he grew up here too and I do the Hudsons very well and and a lot of the founding families here um but when I came along and went to school on that campus where the old high school building is and I went to first grade there through um I guess fourth grade then they they uh bust us over to Parker and we went that that just opened up and D had just finished designing that too and um and then we went back for uh from Junior High School back

to the old campus and the thing I remember the most about the old high school building and I don't know whether you guys remember any of these or not but they would have the all of the um kind of Public Safety movies in that old Auditorium so I remember there was one called Death on the highway anybody remember that U just God awful Carnage teaching little kids not to be don't drink and drive don't even get in a car don't even think about it um and so that was that was one of the main things I remember the AUD that old Auditorium is what I really remember and I remember um if you can believe

it or not we still had minstral shows uh back in the late 1950s 1960s I remember going to one of those there um back when I was in kindergarten our kindergarten class put on a uh Uncle Sam pageant for the community in it so that was The Lyric Theater was only a movie theater at that time so any sort of you know public Community the things you associate with a small town at that time those sorts of um Productions were all at that old High School auditorium I mean it it just um had all kinds of things that were produced there um and then but I um they then moved us again to the new

high school um at on canner Highway and that's where I actually graduated I had very fond memories that that old High School building Nancy what year did you graduate I graduated in 1955 talk into the I graduated in 1955 did do you have any significant memory of something special that uh happened or you were a part of during your high school day my class was busy but one of the things that some of us did the football team was not too good we never won any big games we could beat okobi but we could not beat Fort Pierce because that was our rival so my year we tied Fort Pierce zero to zero it was

like winning the gang so we decided that we were going to paint the score the score on the back of the gym because the back of the gym faced the football field so we got some black paint one night and we went over there and we just went through the gate and a deputy came up and we thought oh boy we are in trouble so he said what do you think you're doing here and we said well we were going to paint the score on the back of the gym and he said oh okay I'm here because somebody's sieling gas for the buses so you go right ahead and do your job so we did

painted the zero to zero on there so that was one of our big accomplishments well after graduation did you remain in Stewart I went to FSU FSU not Florida and uh then I came back here and taught in Martin County by any chance do you remember who your first grade teacher was Mrs Harold and Mrs Larry was my second grade teacher right and we probably all remembered M yes and uh but I went first grade through the 12th grade at the old high school and um and it's you know I have fond memories of it I think we all do so I don't want anything to happen to it okay let's see what Bruce has

to say Bruce what year did Bruce what year did you graduate I graduated in 1969 okay so you're a spring chicken kid you're a kid I'm a kid you're a kid after graduation did you leave Stewart or did you remain here I went to college okay on a football scholarship to Memphis State okay and they finally figured out Memphis wasn't EST state so they changed the name Memphis University okay I went with Jeff Bruner went ahead of me to the same school oh okay okay and our football changed a little bit from the time that Nancy was there Jim nisy showed up he was a special coach he was my coach and we won a

lot of games whenever that man's nose is an inch away from your nose and he's fing at the mouth you better not ever have another day like you had today one of those days when everything hurtt you that's the kind of day I had but he taught me a lot and he's an amazing man he's next next to my father where I stack him up when you returned to Stewart what did you do I've always known what I was going to do I tell my friends when I was in school I'm working on my second occupation because I know what I'm going to do I'm going to be a fisherman and I fed thousands of

people that's my claim to fame and I had a lot of fun doing it it wasn't with a rod re either just saying that my family the Stiller family they love to fish and produce fish for people to eat for the guy that doesn't have a boat that's who we work for and they were fortunate enough to have a very large partial of property my dad told me a lot of times we're working today for the property taxes there a lot of taxes on that property for a lot of years for the Stiller family to hold it together and today it's the yach and Country Club of Stewart and the Mariner K that's where I

grew up that's what my family name represents it was called stewville it was in between Port slno and Goldie gate and Stewart I'm proud of it can you tell sounds fishy it was and it smell like fish it didn't stink my dad made that clear more than once here what Joe Marine Jo Marie Ashley Paradise right Joe Marie I graduated I actually I was born here in Stewart so I've seen all kinds of phases in Stewart and Stewart is really hopping along out there I'm coming down here tonight and been downtown long time wall toall people wall to wall cars trains all over the place I would like to thank steuart Heritage I'd like to

thank Mrs Thor for what you folks are doing to preserve Stewart because there was a time when we there wasn't much at all going on here we had to go to West Palm Beach if we wanted a new outfit to get a pizza seems to me we went to West Palm Beach also and to get the the newest movie West Palm Beach also but um I okay class of 58 all right 72 in the class we graduated from the band shell and that's another thing you ought to remember to do take care of these old landmarks I can see somebody mentioning let's put up Apartments there be a nice place for Condominiums so don't let

them take the Band Shell down thank you all of you people who have written and uh made an effort to keep store store my mother graduated in that b yes sir did she graduated my class I graduated in 58 I'm not sure when she graduated she she died passed away at 83 10 years ago and then she was before me Joe did you stay in Stewart after graduation or did you leave and go away to school okay I went up to Stetson University and here's another thing let me mention this back in that time anytime somebody asked where you are from Stuart you say Stewart and so many times I'd have to tell people where

was Stewart so finally I said you know I'm from West Palm Beach knew that was so anyhow so I'm I'm graduating from Stuart I I see they had uh superlatives back in those days that they put in the annual I was not the prettiest I was not not the smartest I was not voted the most likely to succeed I was not the um the gossip but I was the class clown okay so another thing I can say there is something about the high school that I don't like I don't have a good memory of this maybe some of you others can hook into this but I went by the high school grounds Saturday just to

make sure and I walked around the place they've taken all those old buildings out back there back when I was in first second grade those all bu buildings are gone but anyhow I'm I'm walking around and there was something that's still there that I never liked when you went to school in the morning and they dropped you dad would drop me off so you had to walk down the gauntlet which was about an 18 ft cement sidewalk right up to the doors and they were lined with benches and the people you know the other people they were sitting on the benches the remarks they would make as you walk forward they would say things to

you they they didn't like your outfit they made remarks if they there were some days where we had to wear certain colors like Thursday remember Thursday we had to wear certain colors huh and if you didn't have those colors on God help you remember Jack Stewart Jack Jack always had a lot of things to say you get my point but this was like the Trail of Tears this was like going to the temple of do it was a lesson in true humility they don't have the benches there today but they do have the C anybody else have that experience I Joanne says she did I remember remers uhuh you were maybe you were one of

the ones sitting on the benches sounds like would be sitting on the bench I love I love Stuart was a great place in which to grow up I love the high school I like I say again I thank you guys for trying to preserve that building and I thank you didn't you have something a lot to do with Rio doing things in R so you get a round appuse you taking care of that so anyhow Gloria that's all I got to say do you remember any of your teachers like oh yeah like favorites maybe uh you that's another thing uh my first grade teacher Mrs Harold I still don't like the lady you you know

why she spanked me I mean I was only six little kid she took me in the bathroom and spanked me and you what did I do didn't do any good I did not throw spitballs I did not do other unmentionable things but I scribbled on Brooks bridges of paper you know what kind of I've never forgotten it either is Brooks do you have you have a favorite teacher maybe that you remember you know I like Mrs Brock I thought she was very interesting she was a good historian I always loved history and I can still remember when we were learning about the Spanish exploration conquistadors and she would help us try to pronounce their names

I remember Pon de Leon and we had to pronounce it we pronounced it Pon de Le on and I remember anytime I'm talking about this Explorer I remember her walking us through the pronunciation of that you know teachers have a huge impact on kids out there huge and and Mr Wells Mr Wells is one of my favorites he knew how to explain math I particularly love geometry so you guys got a good Heritage there I had Mr wells in plain geometry too we had him for about 20 years do you have any favorite teachers Bruce I do my first grade teacher was a beautiful lady named Miss OG I had Miss Brock okay Miss Prairie

favorite teachers and Joe McCoy yeah that's right right was our principal and he's the only guy that ever gave me licks I was a bad boy in the seventh grade and I I couldn't play football my dad didn't let me start till the eighth grade and I was angry little guy and so but I got over now Nancy do you have anything to add to any of this any favorite teachers or teachers you disliked or I can't say that I really disliked any of them uh Fanny Jackson was one of my favorite teachers in high school uh Mrs Reen we had a way of getting her off her sub and on something else so we

didn't get a whole lot of history and uh but they were they they were real all real good teachers elementary teachers and everything okay and uh and even Mr Gray had his his good days and good bad and bad days and with our class it was a lot of bad days when you were in there Don do you have have any favorite teachers or who who was your first grade teacher uh my first grade teacher was my aunt Eddie Lee Smith if any of y'all had Eddie Lee and um have no doubt my mom arranged for that to happen probably um and she was a great teacher I mean I really um just being objective

about it she was uh a really excellent teacher and uh but I think my favorite was Mrs Lowry oh yeah and I think a lot of I remember a lot of kids felt that way because she just had so much heart she was just a very warm loving person that made kids really enjoy being in class and wanting to come to class that was very that was kind of unusual you know for a teacher and that was um she was always uh special to me for that the Rhythm band remember that was oh right yeah the band Mrs Keller when I was there it was Becky Keller was the the band person the music person

we have a a really nice picture in the Museum of the Rhythm band oh great yes and Mrs Lowry you I'll have to come in just to see that that only brings back memories Eddie LE Smith was my third grade teacher oh yeah I had her too she was wonderful she was yeah just a little firecracker oh boy she really was she was small but yep you a tough one but uh yeah a lot lot of uh let me say let me say my mind went all blank a minute ago but miss well sitting right there was a special teacher to I had I had her husband and I had her in the fourth grade

in the old high school the one we're trying to save so I didn't ever want to leave that out but I had a little Rin freezer okay John how about you do you have any favorite teachers name name a couple of your teachers well start out Mrs L not Mrs L Mrs Harold okay then Mrs lri uh I can't remember the third grade Mrs Orman was the fifth grade Mrs uh no Otto was the oh H Hut was the fourth grade then Mrs Sims was the sixth grade and then we went into uh junior junior high which was all up in the old high school is there anything that you could uh finish up with

that something good or bad well I worked out where I went school one day a week of my senior year I'd get out a half a day to go play sports baseball or golf or uh run track in the springtime okay and in the winter we played football basketball with that that didn't get you any special privilege in it no no none at all Dale can you remember any of your teach who was your first grade teacher Kitty Ford oh my gosh and I have a and Mrs lar is my second grade teacher really one of my favorites oh she must have taught all of them think she did she was like Dr Parker but

I have uh compos the pictures of the first and second grade all all the kids in there yeah and still remember of you know it was a lot of fun yeah I would like make you want to add that you might have forgotten to mention well I just want to make a point uh you're talking about having these high school annuals there's a site called uh classmates.com if you've ever heard of it uh you can get copies of uh University of Florida or any University all the high schools all around the country it's pretty big uh about business but ours are in there I sent my 1952 yearbook in and they they copied it and

sent it back and now it's available for anybody who wants to buy it you can get 51 or you know all these things but I was curious what they would produce so I bought one but it's a little company called um classmates.com and you can go back to their history of all you your classmates in your different schools in different years and everything it's quite interesting I think it costs so something like $30 a year but if you're interested that's a good way to get a class yearbook but um another one of my favorite teachers was uh of course Fanny Jackson and U Lulu Roth that was Sarah Lou 's mother she was a wonderful

lady oh I had do and I remember going back to Memories We we spoke about Sports football basketball and all that but when I was a junior I was on the basketball team as a team three I think but we played The District tournament and won it we have a little gold basketball engraved in there and then I played football too for a couple of years and any it's a lot of fun and we took up tennis and things like that but it's a lot of fun uh we' take the bus and go to different uh cities we'd spend the night in like frost proof over in middle part of the state we stayed with

some families there Richard uh Richard steel from hopes sown he was a year older I and uh we had a lot of fun on the bus trips of course the band had their own bus that's where all the girls were on in the band so we couldn't get around them um do remember going back into the old Main High School the auditorium we'd have a assembly meeting every Friday usually a program by by some Outsider giving something about and they make all announcements and everything but on the stage there where we had a big blue curtain and up top had a thing shs so that was in 52 so we always thought we were stent

High School even though we were Martin County high schools according to John Gray at a reunion we had down in Port Sala we had a three-day reunion just like the conventions are for the businesses and fact we rented a school bus and took us over to the Log Cabin it's another thing we haven't talked about over in in Rio and U Barbara's mom Jean was there and Jean's a Kind of a Funny gal but she had a we were having a lot of fun there but she had a a skirt on and I guess her underwear kind of pulled up or something so she made a funny little move I think we took a video

of it too it's always big fun fun thing to remember about CH great lady but we had we our class was only 39 graduating and we also graduated from the van shell down here Ros gold Rollins was the superintendent of Public Instruction and um during my senior year uh he took three of us up to Tallahassee for boy state it was U Al Henry myself and I think Lee johnes and I just came across a certificate where says I attended It Whatever year it was probably 52 but we had had a great time everybody knew each other everybody pretty much stayed out of trouble so but those are day is gone that's be nice to

have a high school fixed up like it was as much as you can the first second third grade route and little out buildings out back and the homech uh building been torn down I guess that's where you're talking about adding on on a backdrop but that's where the homic classes for the ladies uh used to be then we had long field the old football field named posum long and so we play a lot of football on that and you're talking about beating okobe Joe Murray our class we we were kind of a losing team we won about three four games but we got to ok's last game of the year and we whooped those suckers

like 58 to nothing or something like that and that stood as a record up until about seven or eight years ago when the Stewart News had an article that they that had been beaten by a whatever year football team played them but we beat okobi up good oh it was it was fun going to school there really is anything that you've remembered you'd like to add to yours I had M Harold Miss har grandmother and M Smith and Miss wrote her she didn't like me I read her report card she wrote some funny things down it wasn't true she wrote on your report card you know she put on there I don't remember you know

who was Dale Park Dale Clark yeah Mr Clark but in high school I like M Jackson Mr Clark uh Mr Wells and I never had trouble with the teachers it was just Mr Gray buddy tman sitting right back there and I really got into trouble probably why Mr Gray hates us the most we we went um we went to a football game it was ch's homecoming and Buddy and I sat right next to the band up there and it was cold and the band all went down to do something before they went out to play and we we sat next to the tubas and the the big horns and we stuffed their jackets in the

if any of y'all in the band it was his idea so the next next Monday they couldn't play during half they out the field so we got had to go to Mr Grace on Monday morning and he was going to suspended so I told him he couldn't do it that he wasn't responsible well he said he was responsible for everybody when we're in a school event so I told him if we have a wreck and kill somebody if he's going to be responsible and then then he said well you're expended anyway so I I knew Mr crook he was the superintendent and so I went and saw Mr Crook and told him and he thought

it was funny so he called Mr Gray up told him he couldn't suspend us so that's one of the things there's a lot more but that's that was one me I just remembered another funny thing you talk about Mr Gray he wasn't really liked by too many of the students some of them liked him and I guess the girls did but boys didn't but his office was in the bottom it's kind of a six foot drop where the cafeteria and everything was and some of the guys who really were up to Mischief they would take a hose and they open up the windows a little bit and that would run all night into his office

I wasn't involved in that but that was way they got what you do about it that was wicked we had the first class in 1960 they graduated over 100 students there was 103 wow we were Sun Coast Conference Champs and football we were conference Champs and uh golf and baseball we did pretty fair track we were we won that when I was in the sophomore year 57 we were Comer Champs year play a few Sports I think we'd all agree all of us sitting here tonight that we had some great years and memorable times and I think that we all also want to save the building and have it used for a multiple type of

Arts building I think it's definitely worth saving just think our great great grandchildren will have something to talk about maybe anyway I want to thank you all for participating is there anyone in the audience that might have a question or a story or a story that might relate how about you Gloria I don't have any story I got one more I got one more story which I think is funer in a Dickens but we had a teacher named Mrs ly and we had a my classmate Bobby Longbottom his father was one of our two barbers in town and he made her mad at something on the second floor remember the big wooden stairs I guess

are still there by that elevator they put in but she jumped all over him and she had a big wooden purse made out of wood about a foot long each all around and she took that thing and hit him knocked him all down the stairs forget they got their they got their Revenge too oh good good does anybody have any great stories they'd like to share yes sir I got a couple uh your name please my name is Jan IA I went to Martin County High School graduated in 1966 graduate 66 okay well front can be video okay uh I remember the gym and the gym was amazingly small compared to the gyms in other

schools the gym was so small how small was it it was so small that you had to cross the center line and come back across and then you could shoot a basket on Friday nights after the football games would hang up the jerseys and the stuff inside the gym on Monday morning when you walked in that place smelled bad I mean real bad and uh the when I was going there and I was in the junior high school the only time I had played organized Sports I actually got a a uh letter which I brought here I'll show you don't move because you find all junk so uh this was the only organized Sports I

played in school and it when looking back on it it really wasn't very organized so what swimming that's a swimming no I know we never swam this was for Stewart what's it Stuart Jr I think it was for track but I'm not really sure cuz I went to college in the 60s so thank you does anybody else have something they would like to add no not I'm EXC me I'm Chuck Haw I graduated of Johnny in 1960 we moved there in 55 so I didn't have the pleasure of some of your grade school teachers So I entered 8th grade here and I was the new kid on the Block and they organized your class rings

every year youd order your class rings and they decided they wanted to have uh same design a pattern and be used for 5 years it would save money on the dies and everything so I was selected to represent the eighth grade Gerald Brown was he president of the seniors or student council student council he was in charge of the committee so he was class of 56 so this was going to be a 5year ring 56 57 58 59 55 50 I was educated here let's see 56 57 58 59 anyway I was the end of the thing we met in um uh HF Jones um Joselyn the ring companies they would come in herf Jones

and there was a third one I think and we going to come up with a pattern it was going to be used for 5 years and mine was stolen in a burglary so if you've got your class ring what does it say on it Stuart high school or Mark howy High steart steuart what year did you graduate 56 it said Stuart mine said Stuart High School okay well we had the fiveyear plan there and for the standard uh pattern and I was the representative our class sorry we we couldn't didn't have any choices because Gerald Brown he's going to tell you hey you're going to do this and this whatever why did have a blue

stone in it but anyway so really really it was blue and white wasn't it white they're educated here they know thank you folks y'all have been very very generous to them I I really expect you know then they called out on some of these stories but y'all are not y'all are obviously were brought ight had the right teachers taught you how to behave in public uh perhaps better better than some of the later classes uh again I want to thank everyone here we do have a 5050 drawing someone to give me take it before you do the 50/50 the gentleman in the red jacket did you want to say something yeah youve come you've come

a long ways to be with us I flew in here yesterday uh my name is Jim Boyd I graduated in 1957 I went through first through the 12th grade at Stewart or Martin County whichever it is I also have the distinction of being uh kicked out of the Le Club I was kicked out of a band finally Mr Gray kicked me out out of school one thing I wanted to mention that we a lot of people forgotten on Friday Night Football games we would stand up and they' play Dixon and we put our hand over her heart and they play Dixie y then at the end of the game or during the game as soon

as over those of us who wasn't playing football we go to the back of the football field and the black kids that wasn't allowed in there they were on there and so we' sit there and talk to them the minute the game ended they went over their side we were our side would have a great Rock by you we throw rocks like crazy nobody ever got hurt it was a great time thank you family found this this is a this is a a textbook from Stuart High school and it's uh from the 1936 37 school year evidently um may have been my dad was a geometry teacher he was not teaching in 36 or 37

he would have been about 12 years old but anyway we'll pass that along to you all for may have been the same book yeah may I say that Minnie Louise went chaperon to Cuba with the class of 1954 didn't you speak up not the year that everybody it was just the highlight of my uh husband's life to go to Cubo with the Stuart high school and to think that his chapero is right here T the last class to go yes of course we got we got a question here I'd like to say something about that we had to earn money all through high school to go on a senior trip and it was kept in

the Treasure and so the class before mine which was my husband's class uh went to Cuba and when they came back nobody was allowed to have a class reunion I mean a class trip after that and we had earned all of this money and saved all this money so John Gray thought we should donate it to the school and we said no so we had parties we had cookouts we had beach parties we had a fun time with all that money which wasn't as much as they would have gotten today but we had a good time with that he got our last few dollars in our account too yeah well he didn't get a penny

out thank you for to everyone for participating tonight especially thank the board for standing up coming up here and supporting us and and telling their stories even they're even if they're not all true Ely would Nancy thank you for being here and for all the effort you put into the community know Judy you you all of you guys you know it's great we appreciate the support of the museum uh we too hope to keep our Roots firmly planted in this fertile soil of of Stewart and continue to be here for the generations to come I would I would like yall to know that her mother graduated from Stuart High School also long time ago you

did ago you taught there your husband taught there uh too many to c i I'm too young for that no I'm much younger than that I got 39 years in at Martin County High School okay I was a track coach for a 30 and freshman football and and this is to everybody who is a is you know I don't know how you do it yeah I I've raised one son and that was that was too much for me uh but you know for those of you who have the heart and the passion to guide our youth you know God bless you you you're going to remember May for historic preservation month yes brought it up

earlier but need to be brought up again um May 1st all of May the steart preservation month uh May 1st they kick off behind the museum at 5:30 uh the county uh preservation board uh provides Refreshments y all put up a tent for us and uh we hope you all come out and participate as I mentioned we will get their agenda of other events up on our website and hope everyone will take advantage of the opportunity to hear what's our history is based off of thank you speaking up your website it'd be good if this kind of an event Were Somehow listed on your website or some place good if it was people I I

agree we we part part of our part of our mission is getting word out and it's not something we've been extremely effective at but we are working on it you we now have a uh YouTube channel which we'll have this up on in a in a few days we have our other events up on on the YouTube channel we we are moving into the well really we're moving into the 20th century kicking and screaming I know we're half we're quarter the way through the 21st century but we're trying we're trying you have Facebook don't you and you posted on Facebook Facebook so people become friends message very good see I need uh if if you

find us on Facebook and become friends it does a couple of things it keeps you informed to what we've got going on and also if more people who friend us bring us up high on the whatever the magic that makes it pop up uh so please see us on Facebook on Facebook and like us also if you become a member you get a new okay let's see you tomorrow really just as a side plug here the museum is a 5013c are a nonprofit organization we survive on the donations and memberships to our humble little organization uh with the membership you do get a newsletter uh we will be we're still doing mailing newsletters we are

also going into email so if you haven't given us your email address please do uh if you haven't made a donation in membership form to us please do that uh we're Fair we're really quite reasonable and we don't like to done people for money uh though like any organization the electric bill has to be paid yeah we have to it to no take care of expenses along the way so please support us can I just say one one quick one quick thing I don't think Gloria you me I don't think Don answered the question about what he did when he came back from has he been in Steward all his life he went away I'm

Jessica Armstrong's wife I'm G to his for okay um after he came back from architecture school at University of Florida he really was one who spearheaded the revitalization of the downtown he created Ste Heritage and Wasing some of you might not know that great guy and I'm proud to be married to him well you're going to have some roses way when we get um yes I I um after I graduated and my dad was an architect as I mentioned and and um then I I got a degree in architecture and came here and practiced for about 10 years and um the the uh downtown uh was uh revitalization was just getting started and there wasn't

none of us was assured I mean it was it was just a kind of an idea that was starting to kind of fill her out on a grap Vine that that the downtown at was really at a a make a break point because there was just businesses had been moving out the malls and shopping centers are kind of taking all the business out of downtown the uh excuse me the post office had moved and everything was just moving out way from the downtown and but there were some real die hards that were here in the city at that time and um I hope there's a plaque somewhere with their names on it but um uh

the lck family The Jeffersons um who had real vision and real hope for what could be that inspired a lot of us s of the Next Generation that came along so as soon as soon as I graduated I moved back to Stewart and um had um had already become I was still a Gainesville I was starting to get involved in some of the Committees that were starting to um try to get some Community consensus together on what to do about the downtown and I I became you know right out of college you know what it's like you're ready to change the whole world and uh I had my you know perfect place to come home

to and and try to make that happen but there were a lot of us and we were just the community was just lucky there were just sort of the right people all came together at the right time and the we had good people on the city commission and so we had um just really all the the right ingredients and U it was a blast it was just great you know watching it happen and you know there were there were people that were against it there were people that were for it a lot of battles and fights and um so it's just a really cool stretch of time and a lot lot of activity and exciting

things happening but um it was very gratifying to me to to see um all all the things that have happened since um you know I that can be another conversation I have you know lot of issues with how how things development has occurred over the last 20 years or so and unfortunately it's I think it's gotten away from the the vision that that we had um you know in the 1980s and and uh we had a really strong um the city commission was really behind us in in in regulating uh the development in a way to to be complement generate to the old downtown and to keep the the scale and the feeling of buildings

but that somehow that uh kind of got out of control a little bit I'm really hoping things will get reeled back a little bit and and uh before it's too late you we can those of us that can squint our eyes and have those memories from the 1950s and 40s of what downtown Stewart was like we we know what a wonderful precious thing is that we have here and uh really want to do do everything we can to try to help help those that the sort of Next Generation now has come along that's been working so hard to make this out but Don is the founder of steart Heritage for the first years the address

was his home address that's right that's correct I don't know if everybody in this room knows that he was instrumental very instrumental in putting us here tonight right steuart Heritage can thank that man right there a lot of good we had we had a fantastic team but thank you I I really appreciate that and and um it's just remarkable to me how you guys have kept it going I I moved away we we were away for about 20 years and then moved back about 5 years ago and and uh it's it was just so cool to just see how far student Heritage has come and and it's just such a strong thriving operation it's just

fantastic you know thanks to new leadership good good people doing working for a good cause state two more little things here I thought of Don's father Donald Armstrong senior designed our bank we were one of the people that moved out of city of Stewart down to the US one and Colorado Avenue we were First National Bank of Steward at those days and now we're we seos but uh don did that and I had to travel out to Texas he and I uh to get some plans of a little Bank my dad had seen out there but you're talking about advertising the U Alumni Association of the school has a website and we get a like

a monthly type thing and they look for people and you know have you seen Joe Smith might get a little interested in that and put some information in about these meetings love to reach out to them what me again well yall have been very Gloria nobody asked her about her school and her teachers and what she did I think back on Gloria that's for another night she she wants to do that over cocktails yeah the blue Marin awaits right again everyone thank you so much for your support thank you for being with us tonight uh we will endeavor to say keep you all informed as to what we have going on during the summer and

we'll be back in September with a presentation which we do not know what it's going to be yet but stay in touch thank you