ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 5, 1996 TAG: 9612100073
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
MEMO: NOTE: Also ran in December 8, 1996 Current.
Each has a special place in the history of the old William Fleming High School.
They're the first and the last graduates of the school when it was located at what is now Breckinridge Middle School.
Yet, they had never met until recently.
Harry Burnette finished in 1935, the first member of the first graduating class to be given a diploma at William Fleming after it was built on Williamson Road.
Gale Zimmerman graduated in 1961, the last senior to be handed a diploma in the last graduating class before William Fleming moved to a new site on Ferncliff Avenue.
William Fleming was a Roanoke County high school when Burnette graduated. It was a Roanoke school when Zimmerman finished 26 years later. The city annexed the school during the 1940s.
Burnette, 79, and Zimmerman, 53, were brought together by members of the class of 1961 who invited Burnette to attend their recent 35th reunion.
"We thought it would be nice to invite him since he was the first graduate of the school," said Ellsworth Snyder, a 1961 graduate. "It's not often you can get the first and last graduate of a school together."
Many William Fleming graduates have a special feeling for the school because "it was a unique place with many memories," Snyder said.
Burnette and Zimmerman met at Burnette's home in Roanoke County a week before the recent reunion. Each had a yearbook from his senior year. They talked and compared notes.
The yearbook name had changed. It was "The Beehive" when Burnette graduated 61 years ago, and "The Colonel" when Zimmerman finished.
The first yearbook in 1935 was a handmade version. The students made each copy individually. They took the photographs, pasted the prints on the pages and typed all of the written material in each copy. No copies were printed.
The 1961 yearbook was a printed version, similar to those that are produced by schools today.
There were 19 graduates in Burnette's class and the school's enrollment was less than 200. There were 193 in Zimmerman's class and the enrollment was more than 1,000.
William Fleming had no cafeteria when Burnette graduated and its sports teams competed against small schools. By 1961, Fleming had a cafeteria and a successful sports program.
When Burnette attended the school, there was a lot of vacant land in the area. By 1961, the school was surrounded by residential and commercial development.
Burnette, a retired executive with the former Johnson-Carper Furniture Co., was president of the class of 1935, which has held reunions regularly. Several members of the class are still living.
He recalls that William Fleming was "kind of conservative" when he was a student there.
"Very few students smoked, and those who did, had to go down under a tree away from the school building," he said. "They wouldn't let you smoke in school."
Burnette grew up on a farm near the Botetourt County line about six miles from the school. "I caught the bus about 7:30 after I had gotten up, helped milk the cows, feed the chickens and hogs and do other chores on the farm."
He couldn't participate in sports because he had no way to get home after team practices in the afternoon and he had to help with the farm chores.
In the 1935 yearbook, Burnette was described as "gentle, truthful, studious and kind." His classmates said he was a friend "to whom our troubles we always carry."
He represented William Fleming at the Junior Red Cross Conference in Washington, D.C., in 1935.
Burnette has fond memories of the school because that is where he met his future wife, Corinne. They were married in 1941 and celebrated their 55th anniversary this year.
Zimmerman, manager of administration for Norfolk Southern Corp., recalls that William Fleming had good sports teams and was crowded when he attended.
Fleming was smaller than Roanoke's old Jefferson High School, but it competed against its crosstown rival.
"There was a lot of school spirit and we had excellent football and basketball teams," Zimmerman said. "One of the main things I remember about my last year there was that the school was so crowded."
Zimmerman said he didn't have sentimental feelings about the school until he went back last spring before most of the building was razed as part of the renovation of Breckinridge Middle School.
When Zimmerman was growing up, his family lived in Craig County and other states most of the time. He didn't have a close attachment to Fleming because he didn't move to Roanoke until he was in high school.
At the gathering for all former students of the school in May, before the contractor began tearing down the building, Zimmerman said he saw many people whom he had known when he attended there.
"I really didn't appreciate Fleming until then," he said. He hadn't planned to attend his class reunion this year, but he changed his mind.
Neither Burnette nor Zimmerman has strong feelings about the razing of the building. The historic front was saved and will be incorporated into the reconstruction plan, but the rest was torn down.
Zimmerman doesn't think the school system should have made a special effort to save the front facade, but some alumni wanted to preserve. Architects said the facade could be saved without significant additional cost.
Burnette said he walked through the school last spring before it was torn down.
Breckinridge, which is closed for reconstruction this year, will reopen next fall.
"It's progress. That's about all you can say," Burnette said. "They needed a better building."
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. The yearbook name is not the onlyby CNBthing that changed between the time Harry Burnette (right) was in
the old William Fleming High's first graduating class in 1935 and
Gale Zimmerman was in the school's last in 1961. It was "The
Beehive" in Burnettte's day and "The Colonelo" when Zimmerman
attended the school, which is now Breckinridge Middle School.