A new school in 1969

A new school in 1969

The year was 1969 the world was at conflict American Pres. Richard Nixon ordered the bombing of Cambodia to cut off supplies from Cambodia to the Vietnamese communists. On March 3, 1969 to 1971 Egypt and Israel fought a war supported by the Soviet Union and the United States respectively. There was some good going around in 1969 American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to land on the moon and a young boy was glued to his TV set listening to every exciting second that Walter Cronkite was relating to us you could hear the countdown to the landing that we later found out was the amount of fuel that was left in the tank of the lander.

I had a brand-new tape recorder taking the entire landing for prosperity and as usual I have no idea where that tape is. The greatest music festival ever took place in Bethel New York and it was attended by more than 400,000 people the Woodstock music festival ran from August 15 to August 17, 1969. The influx of this many people into the small community of Woodstock were overwhelming, but it was three days of peace love and music. One of the greatest events in our lives was the opening of Airways junior high school to all three grades, seventh, eighth and ninth. The group of young people that entered the front doors and into the hallways of Airways junior high school for the very first time have, felt a bond with each other that has lasted these many years. It has been and will continue to be a hallowed place in our heart. We have lost teachers and fellow students to the ravages of time and age, they are not forgotten they walked the halls in our memories; they sit and talk to us in the lunch room as they once did in our private thoughts. Our teachers still go over today's lesson plan just as they once did.

I've had many people tell me that they don't remember much about their school days because they hated it so. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones that loved it and want to keep it in my mind forever even though I know the ravages of time will soon take even the most embedded memory from me. That building on Ketchum is much more than a building it was much more than the people and the children that attended it it was an idea, it was the hope of all of our parents that with that new school we would get a better education than they did. The planning of Airways junior high school goes back further than us, it goes back to the planning of the community it goes back when the developers of our neighborhoods trying to figure out the best place for the schools they knew they would have to have a junior high school first and then a high school and where was there enough land usable to build both of these buildings the land adjacent to the park known as Charjean was an abandoned orchard and farmland and would be perfect for the community city planners adopted the idea in principle but it lay dormant from the mid-50s to the early 60s

when some members of the community started pushing the idea of having a junior high school and high school closer so that their kids would not have to go all the way up to Fairview junior high school or all the way over to Mesick high school. There were some in the community that fought this idea tooth and nail, but those that were working hard to get the junior high school started won out with the city Council and the school board and they ordered the planning commission to present a feasibility study having a junior high school in the location adjacent to charging Park the land was plotted out in bids were taken for a modern and up-to-date junior high school to be billed no later than 1968 as in any building there were delays and the kids that were scheduled to move in the eighth and ninth grades did not do so until well after school had started and they were still attending the temporary facilities at Charjean elementary school.

Those of us attending the sixth grade at Charjean were dying to see the facilities at Airways junior high school but even though the students were in their classrooms work was still continuing on this school it was not completed until almost the end of the school year. We were given a rare treat one without warning we were given permission slips to be carried home to our parents and brought back the next day and on the following Friday we loaded up the buses and went to see our brand-new home for the next three years. I was excited back then, but I really didn't think that much about it, but now the thought of the first time seeing the insides of our wonderful school brings me to tears not because of all the money not because of those that pushed to have this junior high school built, of course not, it was all of the people that I met there, it was because of all the memories that I made there. I cannot help to this day but wonder where I would have been if I had not had the teachers and the friends that I met at Airways junior high school in 1969.