WELCOME
to the website for
TECUMSEH HIGH SCHOOL
CLASS OF 1966

Our old Tecumseh school building is totally gone now - but check out the Tecumseh High School Tribute 2007  (YouTube video), posted by Brian DeBoard, class of 1992.
Click here for a site that might bring back some memories!

If you attended the 40 year class reunion on Saturday, August 5th, 2006, THANK YOU for coming and we hope that you had a wonderful evening and you took away many special memories of old friends and "the good old days" at THS.
 
If you were not able to attend this reunion, we hope that you will resolve now to come to the next one because we missed you! The next reunion will only be better and more special for all of us if YOU are there too.

There are now over 80 photos from the reunion, thanks to the efforts of Gary Sanger, on this site for everyone to enjoy. And Cindy Myers Bench and Carol Wolford Whitaker also contributed some of their photos too.

And we hope that you will continue to use the information on this site to  renew old friendships, find lost friends, make new friends and remember our THS classmates who are no longer with us. And please sign our Guestbook so your THS friends can contact you.

Also in the links section you will find other websites that we hope you will find interesting and useful. Plus there are now some additional links on the 'Remember when' page.

This site will be changing regularly with updates, including additional information about former classmates, and additional links, so please bookmark this site now and check back regularly.

We hope that you will find something on this site that will bring back some fond memories of our younger days in the 1960's.

Remember when...

MAY 1966
The first big event that May was the Prom, of course. It was an evening of music, dancing, fun, and maybe a little romance, all set with a backdrop of an oriental theme. And many couples extended the once-in-a-lifetime night by taking a boat ride down the Ohio river.

While we were all learning about check writing and bank accounts in Mr. Chaffin's or Miss Shipman's Civics class (hardly anyone had a credit card back then) and counting down the days until June 1, we were also listening to Gene "By Golly" Barry on WING play the newest hits: Soul And Inspiration by The Righteous Brothers, Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones, Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind by The Lovin' Spoonful, Bang Bang by Cher and Time Won't Let Me by The Outsiders. (And isn't this exactly what we all wanted for Graduation to play our music?)

On May 1st, Tecumseh senior Nancy Maupin's picture was in the Springfield Daily News along with a story about her being selected as the 1966 recipient of the John Philip Sousa Band Award. (And Nancy made a career as a music teacher. Way to go, Nancy!)

The THS baseball team was defeated in the sectional tournament by Urbana on Monday, May 2nd, and went on to finish the year with a 6-7 record, but had a 4-2 record in MRVL league play. Among the highlights of the season were the 2 no-hitters thrown by senior Larry Robertson.

At the MRVL track meet on Saturday, May 7th, Tecumseh came in second, led by senior Rick Shelley's winning time of 4:48 in the mile run. Rick set a new THS school record for the mile too, while Derry Ray in the pole vault and Bill Jarrell in the long jump also set new records. Later in district competition Randy Trostel had a 3rd place in the 100 yard dash and Steve Kraus finished 5th in the pole vault. The track team's 4-1 record in dual meets was its best ever.

In local news, possibly the thing that most affected everyone was the weather, as the first part of the month was one of the coldest ever on record. There were scattered snow flakes on May 9th, the temperature dropped to a record low of 25º on May 10th (breaking the previous record set in 1906 by 5º!), and there was sleet the next day on May 11th. But by May 20th the weather had completely changed with temperatures in the upper 70ºs, only to turn cool again by the end of the month with highs in the low 60ºs. (That's Ohio for you!)

In other local noteworthy news, on May 3rd local voters passed a $775,000 school bond issue (by a vote of 1459 to 581), which would help fund the construction of a new gym, auditorium, and additional classrooms at Tecumseh, plus other construction and improvements in the school district. On May 5th, there was an explosion that started a fire at Shakro Buick Sales in New Carlisle, which caused $25,000 in damage but no serious injuries. And the Springfield Daily News urged everyone to "keep your windows closed" as they reported another UFO sighting in the Springfield area on Thursday, May 26th. And on May 28th, the News-Sun also reported that the state was beginning to issue plastic Ohio driver's licenses, in place of the paper ones that had always been issued before. (That change might have been caused by some people trying to change the birthdates on their paper licenses.)

Some of the movies at the Park Layne Drive-In that month were 10 Little Indians, Tickle Me with Elvis, The Hallelujah Trail with Burt Lancaster and Move Over, Darling starring Doris Day. Other movies that debuted at other local theatres were A Patch Of Blue starring Sidney Poitier, The Ghost And Mr. Chicken with Don Knotts, Elvis' newest movie Frankie And Johnny, Viva Maria starring Bridget Bardot, and the comedians Marty Allen and Steve Rossi in The Last Of The Secret Agents.

Sohio had started its contest where you had to check for your Ohio license plate number at their stations to win prizes (it seemed like the closest thing to gambling in those pre-lottery days - the Ohio Lottery didn't start until 1974). Trostel's Furniture in New Carlisle advertised Simmons twin or full size mattresses for $49.95. The Boston Store had women's summer dresses on sale for $6 to $9. And Fulmer's had Diet Pepsi Cola on sale for just 19¢ for a 6 bottle carton and 2 loaves of bread for 33¢. (Even with all of the changes in grocery shopping, some things have rernained the same as 40 years ago!)

On May 4th Willie Mays hit his 512th home run, setting a new National League record for most career home runs, and a News-Sun story speculated that he could break Babe Ruth's all-time record of 714 by 1971. (Of course he never did, ending up with 660 home runs, while Hank Aaron passed Mays and then did break Ruth's record in 1974. And Willie Mays has also since been passed by his godson, Barry Bonds.) In other sports news, Kauai King won the Kentucky Derby on May 7th. And Graham Hill from Great Britain won a crash-filled Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day, May 30th.

In national news, on May 6 General Motors, the world's largest automaker, announced the layoff of hundreds of workers as they cut their auto production for the first time in 5 years. And in related news, 32 year old attorney Ralph Nader, author of Unsafe At Any Speed which detailed the unsafe engineering of many American autos, testified before House and Senate subcommittees investigating auto safety in an effort to reduce highway fatalities. And in a sign of the times, women jurors in Rhode Island requested a panel to be placed in front of the juror's box because of the short skirts that they were wearing.

But if you wanted to buy one of those "unsafe" cars, Davidson Chevrolet had new 1966 Chevrolet Biscaynes (without seat belts or air conditioning) on sale for just $2099 or $14.11 per week. And Airway Lincoln-Mercury on W. North St. advertised a "loaded" (still no seat belts) '66 Mercury Premier Coupe for just $2887. And on TV, CBS (Channel 7) tried to do their part to make us better, safer drivers when they aired The National Driver's Test on May 24th, when you could assess your own driving knowledge and compare it to the national average (which, by the way, was 51 - one point above "poor").

Somehow we made it through final exams that last week of May, and then it was time for Graduation practice and a class picture taken with all of us sitting on the football field bleachers that appeared in the Springfield Daily News on Friday, May 27th. That was also the same day that a lot of THS seniors gathered at Snyder Park in Springfield for a self-proclaimed Senior Day. And the reality finally began to sink in that we were almost at one of the most important milestones of our young lives. WE WERE GRADUATING!!!

Click here for more Remember when