ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 6, 1996 TAG: 9605060081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MONTVALE
SOURCE: JENNIFER MILLER STAFF WRITER
MORE THAN 700 FORMER CLASSMATES, their teachers and spouses reunited at a nostalgic homecoming Saturday at Montvale High School.
Montvale High School alumni cheerleaders didn't wear thigh-high skirts, and they refused to do flip-flops.
"I've never done [a flip-flop] and I certainly couldn't do one now," 1955 graduate Dorothy Ward Salyer said. "Most of us probably would have worn [the skirts] if we had them, although our sizes probably have changed a little."
Salyer teamed up with a handful of former cheerleaders from various classes to root for their alma mater Saturday night during "The Homecoming" for Montvale High School classes 1923 through 1964.
Their audience included more than 700 alumni, former faculty and spouses who made the trip to Bedford County to visit the school one last time. The building, now Montvale Elementary School, will be closed this summer; a little more than a mile down U.S. 460, a new $4.3 million elementary school will open in the fall.
Alumni began gathering at the school's doors almost three hours early, waiting patiently to take a nostalgic trip back to their teen-age years. Once inside, they slowly toured the halls, stopping often to study old photographs, to flip through student scrapbooks, or to hear the greatest music hits of the past.
Sandra McKee Jones, class of 1957, laughed at a picture of herself when she was on the basketball team.
"I thought, send this girl to summer camp," she said, referring to how young she looked.
Annie Pollard, class of 1959, had a similar reaction when she held up the old basketball shorts she had worn her senior year. She couldn't believe her waist was once that small.
Even though the students' appearances have changed over the years, the school building looks almost the same, with the exception of classrooms that were added at the rear. The principal's office is still tucked into the right-hand corner of the building, and the center of life is the auditorium, which is also used as a cafeteria and gym.
Marvin Leftwich of Bedford County, a 1940 graduate, pointed out his old classroom.
"That's where I first saw [my wife]. She was sitting in the auditorium outside my classroom," Leftwich said. "I stood up to see her, and my teacher, Mrs. Ruff, told me to sit down. She might as well have stuck me with a pin ... 'cause I wasn't listening."
Former major-league baseball pitcher Bobby Humphreys graduated from Montvale in 1954 and went on to play for several teams, including the 1964 world champion St. Louis Cardinals. He remembers his senior year when the World Series was on. He was in the last-period bookkeeping class, and his teacher wouldn't let him listen to the game.
When she momentarily left the room, Humphreys pulled out a radio he had hidden in the coat closet to listen to the game.
"You could hear this long flyball over center field. Mantle catches it," he recalls. "[My teacher] comes in and looks out the window. With the windows open, it sounded like it was over a sound system."
His teacher eventually found the radio and sent him to Principal Hugh D. McKee's office. Luckily for Humphreys, McKee also was a firefighter and had been called off to a fire.
Not all of the alumni at the homecoming could show you their classroom or where they used to sit during lunch period. The classes of 1923 through 1929, in fact, never set foot in this building.
Montvale High School originally lay just northeast of the Montvale railroad station on what is now Virginia 612. It opened in 1909 as part of an effort to consolidate a number of single-classroom "free schools" in the area. Consisting of four rooms and an auditorium, the building packed both elementary and high school students. Only three years of high school were offered until 1923, when the school received accreditation.
By 1930, Montvale's enrollment had expanded so much that the school had to relocate to a then state-of-the-art building about a mile away. The building, which cost $45,500, had running water and furnace heat throughout its six rooms and auditorium.
Virginia Boyd Noell, class of 1930, was one of the first students in the new building.
"Mr. McKee was determined that my class would graduate in the new building," she said. "So, in our [graduation] robes, we walked the mile from the old school to the new one, carrying the American flag. The stage was roughly fixed, and they put planks on blocks to sit on. The floor was dirt."
Last February, masonry workers uncovered a time capsule that the class of 1930 had stored in the building's cornerstone. Inside the capsule were various documents, including a list by Noell of all of the students and teachers. There also were two May 1, 1930, editions of the Bedford Bulletin and the Bedford Democrat, individual wallet-size photos of the 70 students attending the school in 1930, and ads from papers offering one-pound jars of peanut butter for 22 cents and summer school sessions for "backwards grade scholars."
The items in the capsule were restored just in time for the reunion. Alumni streamed by the display cases, awed by the time that had flown by.
In keeping with tradition, a new time capsule is being prepared to be laid in the brickwork of the new elementary school. It will include memorabilia from the reunion.
Homecoming chairmen Annie and Bobby Pollard, from the classes of 1959 and 1956, respectively, deserve most of the credit for the success of the reunion.
For the past 18 months, the Pollards have put their life on hold to organize the event. Starting only with memories and memorabilia that they had saved, they managed to bring together 41 years of Montvale High School history under one roof.
But the Pollards' work is not over yet. Along with other members of the homecoming committee, they plan to set up archives at the new elementary school to house some of the memorabilia collected over the weekend. And although the fate of the building is still undecided, the group plans to approach county government about converting it into a library or some type of public facility.
Alumni were grateful to the Pollards for giving them the opportunity to come together one last time as a high school.
"They have done a wonderful job," said 1946 graduate William "Jack" Burkholder, who read the school's history to the crowd Saturday night. "It was a major undertaking for them. But it was really well set-up and organized."
Alumni seemed sad to say goodbye to old Montvale High School, but they also seemed to know that it was time for a change.
"If progress is to occur, change must take place," Burkholder said. "We should know the past and learn from it. We should live in the precious present and enjoy life to the fullest. And we should look forward to the future, full of hope and promise."
LENGTH: Long : 138 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. 1. Katie Metz Wright, ofby CNBVinton, class of 1937 (left), and her sister, Virginia Metz Smock,
of Califon, N.J., class of 1935 (right), look over the Montvale
School homecoming reunion program Saturday in the gymnasium at the
old school on U.S. 460 in Montvale. 2. Betty Harris Slusher of
Lynchburg returned to Montvale with her husband, Terry D. Slusher.
Here, they thumb through memorabilia at the class of 1957 table,
complete with music and prom dresses from their era. color. 3.
(headshot) Humphreys. 4. L. Marvin Leftwich, class of 1940, and his
wife, Martha Leftwich, (in photo at left), live in Bedford. He was
the class agent who gathered all the materials for his class's
display table at the Montvale reunion. Bobby Pollard, class of 1956,
and his wife, Annie Pollard, class of 1959 (above), organized the
Montvale School reunion held Saturday. 5. The original Montvale High
School was little more than a large house. It offered only three
years of high school until it received accreditation in 1923.