Forever Ro-Hawk!
By: Jerry Ball, Class of 1965
The year was 1962.
John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.
Marilyn Monroe raised eyebrows and male blood pressure with
her breathy birthday serenade to President John F. Kennedy.
Marvel’s Spider Man made his first appearance in a comic.
The Soviet Union and United States faced off in the Cuban
Missile Crisis – often described as the closest the world has ever come to all
out thermonuclear war.
And, on Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, a rare kind of
secondary school program was launched – a high school specifically created for
sons and daughters of Air Force members assigned to the base. Over the next six decades, thousands of
students attended the unique school and acquired the title of its even more
unique mascot – Ro-Hawk.
The mobility of Air Force families meant that not many
students spend an entire four-year high school program on the campus. Some passed quickly through the halls, having
been uprooted from schools where they had been happy and delivered to a place
where they knew nobody. But that was
just part of life growing up as an “Air Force brat”. Still, whether at RHS for long or short
duration, the uniqueness of the school, its special character, causes many to
consider themselves to be “Forever Ro-Hawks”.
On the 22nd and 23rd of September,
some of those individuals gathered to commemorate the 60th
anniversary of their alma mater’s founding and to celebrate memories with other
brother and sister Ro-Hawks.
Originally planned for a one-night event, it acquired a
precursor evening due to the special effort of Mike Scott, one of those who
left Randolph High School before graduating due to his dad’s transfer but who
epitomizes the spirit of those who are “Forever Ro-Hawk”.
So, part one was an informal gathering at Krause’s in New
Braunfels. Mike initiated the event with
a known “calling card” for those who watched Ro-Hawk football in the fall of
1964. Art Nigro was the quarterback of
that squad so Mike’s announcement e-mail had this subject: “60th Homecoming and
a Beer with Art Nigro - September 22nd and 23rd”.
A couple dozen Ro-hawks plus partners showed up at
Krause’s. It was a bit like the first
day at a new school. You found yourself
wondering – Will I know anybody? Will
anybody know me? And the truth is that there weren’t that many people who knew
each other – at least right away. Who
looks like their high school self decades after graduation? But, gathering along the sides of the long
tables, even those who had been strangers a few moments before began to
talk. And to share stories of the common
experience that had brought them together – being a Ro-Hawk.
The following day, the turnout was much larger. For those who had not been on the campus for
many years, there was some curiosity about what had changed and what remained
the same. The indoor portion of the
gathering was supposed to be a small part.
But the planned “Tailgate” yielded to better discretion as temperatures
hovered around 100 degrees in the late afternoon.
There was a lot of interest in looking at the old yearbooks
on the tables in the hallways. And many
wanted to see where the Ro-Hawk mosaic had been relocated when the building
that had housed it for more than half a century was taken down. AF Junior ROTC cadets served as guides to the
new building and also provided hot dogs – sometimes looking curiously at the
old folks claiming to be Ro-Hawks but more closely resembling grandparents.
Football players got to see trophy cases with awards going
back to the beginning of the school’s history.
Basketball players were not as fortunate, but there was one very special
trophy for the 1964-1965 school year.
During that time, RHS swept every athletic competition in District
27AA. That trophy, preserved in a case
by itself in what used to be the high school gym, listed the names of all the
athletes who competed in football, basketball, track, tennis, and golf.
Of course, in the early years, there were no girls’ varsity
sports. But, on the night of the
homecoming football game, the girls’ volleyball team was hard at work in the
new high school gym. They were good,
probably not even aware of the athlete participation benefits given to them by
Federal law but too long denied to their predecessors.
As the time to kickoff got closer, the alumni Ro-Hawks
seated themselves in the “cafetorium” to facilitate talking with each other and
to listen to three speakers Mike Scott had lined up for the night: Art Nigro, first Ro-Hawk to attend West
Point; Steve Swinney, quarterback of the 1967 RHS State Finals Team; and Robert
Mickler III, son of the legendary RHS football coach Bob Micker who had coached
both Art and Steve.
Each man had a different focus to his remarks, but even
without collaborating in advance, they evinced a common theme: the uniqueness of Randolph High School. Most of the people who came to RHS had had
the experience of being an outsider in some of their previous schools. In many schools, military kids were just
transients, not worth spending a lot of time getting to know because they were
not likely to be there long. At
Randolph, a new student walked into the school where, probably for the first
time in his or her life, there would be classrooms full of students who had
come from that same mobile lifestyle.
While each speaker brought a
different facet to the jewel of attending Randolph High School, Art Nigro’s
prepared remarks reflected their common themes.
Art’s words follow:
60th Reunion talk
59 years ago, I was sitting in bleachers in this high school
just as you are today. Not on the varsity football team as I had to play JV’s
for a year due to transferring. Not fair for the military, but sometimes life
isn’t fair.
I sat there thinking that my life was totally ruined.
Two weeks earlier I was surfing big waves in Hawaii. My dad
was stationed at Hickam AFB on the Island of Oahu. I had a glorious existence
there, football in the fall, baseball in the summer and surfing all year
around. Got my driver’s license on my 15th birthday and my dad let me and my
surf buddies use the car for going surfing. We sometimes completely circling
the Island looking for waves from sunup to sun down. I had my first true love girlfriend.
All was more than well. Then, one day, my father strolled into the house and
said we were moving to San Antonio and my world came crashing down.
What I didn’t realize is what a fantastic school I was
moving to. There were so many students in the exact same situation as me, that
it was very easy to make friends. I guess you have two options when confronted
with a traumatic experience like moving after your sophomore year. Either
“Carpe Diem”, seize the day, or go into a shell. Well, I highly recommend the
Carpe Diem route. If we stayed in Hawaii there was no way I would be at the
60th reunion at St. Louis High School (same school that Marcus Mariota and Tua
Tagovailoa went to). Making friends at St. Louis HS was extremely difficult as
you were cast as an outsider, even though I was on the football team.
So, from a school standpoint, the move turned out to be the
best ever. Sports certainly helped me make friends but there are lots of
non-athletic activities that one can join in on. I was a thespian as well,
which is great for making friends and having fun. I suspect ROTC would be a
fabulous friend making organization as well, just like joining the band.
I better talk a little about West Point. When I was there,
we used to say, “Over 200 years, unhampered by progress”. It was a great place
to be from. And, while I didn’t enjoy it, I did meet my second true love there
during my senior year, and we celebrated our 52nd wedding anniversary last
June. However, West Point is not the same as it used to be. In my day we had
one Major, Bachelor of Science in Engineering. We took lots of fun stuff like
“Fluids and Dynamics”. Now they have 36 majors including English and History.
They have some cool ones too, like Space Science. Harassment of Plebes (first
year students) is way down, they don’t even have 5:45am reveille anymore.
Like this high school you make lifelong friends at West
Point as you are all in the same boat for 4 years. Just last week I had 3 of my
roommates in Company C-3 staying with me at my house during our Class of ’69
golf outing at my golf club. We had a blast to say the least.
. . .
In ending, I would just like to thank Mike Scott for his
tireless efforts to put this program together, and thank the school
administration for all their efforts on behalf of the old grads. It is a
wonderful thing that Mike and the administration have done and a perfect
example of why this high school is so special.
After the speakers, there remained one more big-ticket item
– go to the football game.
For Art and Steve, it probably felt odd to be in the
bleachers instead of on the field. But
for most of the alumni, the experience of cheering on the team was almost like
a time machine. It brought back the
excitement of those long-ago times when Art and Steve were setting school
records.
Walking along the front of the bleachers and glancing upward
into them, an observer could see current Ro-Hawk students and their parents, as
well as alumni. Those who once walked
the halls and those who support those who do or did. Ro-Hawk t-shirts of myriad vintages adorned
the rows of spectators awaiting kickoff.
The feeling of community that most former students felt is still
there. And that is a great thing for
those who share part of six decades of legacy.
It is a heritage well-deserving of the affectionate acclamation –
Forever Ro-Hawk!
