Monday, January 23, 2023

ESSAY BY JERRY BALL, CLASS OF 1965 - 60TH HOMECOMING STORY

 




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!


                                                                Jerry Ball and Art Nigro
                                                                    Class of 1965


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