|
|||||||||||||
Printer-Friendly
Email this Story
Post a Comment (0)
History of HHS validates urban legend
When the best stories about a town's history are closely examined, many are revealed as embellished at best – and completely fabricated at worst.Fortunately for Herndon High School, one of its most storied senior pranks is in fact true: The class of 1977 disassembled a Volkswagen Beetle and put it back together on the roof of the high school.
Lisa Lombardozzi told the story when she presented a researched history of Herndon High to the Herndon Historical Society last month. Apparently, the graduating class of 1977 made use of a parent's construction equipment to hoist the heavy frame to the roof, while other students carried smaller parts through the building and onto the roof.
The VW story is just one of many gems Lombardozzi was able to unearth in her research. Her curiosity grew after she served as Herndon's PTA president.
“I started it up a couple years ago as a way to enhance the PTA meetings. I thought it would take a couple of hours, but it's taken a lot more than that,” she said.
Along the way, audience members who lived through the events described in Lombardozzi's presentation have been able to correct or add information to the stories.
The project begins with Herndon's first public school, built in 1869 at 810 Monroe St. The building had no desks, only slates and benches for the students.
The first version of Herndon High School that mirrors today's model of four grades began in the 1914-1915 school year, and Lottie Dyer Schneider was its first graduate in 1919.
The school wasn't absorbed into the county system until 1932, and in 1942 HHS became the first school in the county to have a cafeteria. The school organized its first football team in 1945 and played its first game against Leesburg High School. The school's colors – scarlet and black – and its mascot – the hornet – were the same as they are today, although the hornet was a gentler incarnation in his earlier years.
As the timeline eases into the 1950s, some Herndon residents may see in the pictures themselves, friends or even “my first husband,” as one audience member exclaimed.
Pictures of the high school in the 1970s are studies in contrast with today's school, as students made use of a smoking area and seniors were allowed to leave campus for lunch. Despite its laxer rules, that decade was a difficult one, said many audience members, because of racial and political tensions. Herndon was still a sleepy town compared to today.
“Students remember hearing lowing cows on their way into the building,” from a dairy farm directly behind the football stadium, Lombardozzi said. Despite the bucolic setting, students also heard the Concorde jet screaming overhead on its way out of Washington Dulles International Airport.
Lombardozzi's presentation is a visual way to see the milestones Herndon has hit in the past two centuries, from desegregation in the early 1960s to the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.
The project will likely be an ongoing one, Lombardozzi said, as other historians keep adding insight.
“It will probably never be finished,” she said.
You must be logged in to post a comment.