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Thursday, January 31, 2008
Calling all memories of South Gwinnett High
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
During South Gwinnett High School’s first year, Sputnik orbited the Earth, ushering in the Space Age. South Gwinnett students built rockets in science class and ignited them in pastures. Kids hunted opossum at the principal’s farm. They toured Buford Dam before it generated hydroelectric power.
• Photos: Memories of S. Gwinnett High
The South Gwinnett Class of 1957-58, which included the likes of Wayne Mason, John D. Stephens, Clark Britt and more than 50 others, is reminded of those days as the school celebrates its 50th anniversary.
The school, formed through a marriage of rival institutions in Snellville and Grayson, opened for the 1957-58 school year as part of a consolidation of Gwinnett’s schools. Its attendance zone included what is now Parkview, Brookwood, Shiloh and Grayson school districts. Still, there were only 300 students in the entire school. Today there are more than 3,000.
“It was just a great bunch of people,” said developer Wayne Mason. “ …. Everybody knew everybody. Everybody knew everybody’s mama and grandmama. …We weren’t as transient in those days.”
Former Snellville Mayor Emmett Clower, who graduated in 1960, was the manager for the football and basketball teams. He recalled the county basketball tournaments — girls and boys — which South Gwinnett won in its first year.
“It was a big deal. There were capacity crowds,” said Clower.
The boys team that year went on to win the regional championship and play at the state championship, said Kenneth Hughes, now the pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church in Lithonia. Hughes, a 6-foot-5 center on that team, also played left tackle on the football team.
The half-century has brought South Gwinnett full circle in his family. His grandson, Joshua Strange, who will graduate this year —50 years after his grandfather — in South Gwinnett’s Class of 2008, was a left tackle on South’s football team. Hughes’ daughter, wife and son also are South Gwinnett alumni.
The South tradition spans multiple generations in many local families. Still others formed connections through working, coaching or teaching at the school.
Principal Berry Simmons and Assistant Principal Carla Hamilton are hoping the community will turn out for a 50-year celebration, 2:30-4:30 p.m. Feb. 10 in the school commons. There will be tours of the expanded school, memorabilia, refreshments and lots of memories, they said.
Alan Herndon, who taught at South during its early years and who wrote the school’s alma mater (and can still recite it by heart), will be attending.
“I was always impressed by the manner in which [South’s first principal Victor H. Knight] was able to conduct that first year with minimal conflict,” said Herndon, pointing out the previously fierce rivalry that existed between Snellville and Grayson schools. “I don’t remember anyone out on the ball field banging on each other because one was from Snellville and one was from Grayson.”
That unity was not the case with all of the consolidation efforts in the county, he said. Lilburn and Dacula bowed out of their consolidation into Central Gwinnett High School, and Duluth left the former West Gwinnett High School, which converted back into Norcross High.
Although Feb. 10 is South’s official anniversary open house, the celebration has been ongoing. Christmas ornaments and throw blankets acknowledging the 50-year mark have been sold. Former football players were recognized in the fall, and former basketball players will be honored Friday between the girls’ and boys’ basketball games. About 40 people have confirmed they are coming, said Patti Stancil, who works with the school’s athletic department. Stancil, her husband Hoyt and son Preston, all are South graduates, as well.
Among those attending Friday will be the starting players of the boys 1957-58 team, said Clark Britt, who played forward. The others are Hughes, Bill Brannan, prominent contractor John D. Stephens and Hollis Reese, he said.
Britt, retired associate superintendent of DeKalb County Schools, is the son of W.C. Britt, former principal of the historic Snellville School. A local elementary school bears W.C. Britt’s name.
The 50-year celebration is not solely focused on the first class at South, however. Throughout its history, the school has produced students and been served by faculty who have made noteworthy achievements and taken leading roles in the community, Simmons said.
Gwinnett Superior Court Judge Melodie Snell Conner, Former Snellville Mayor Brett Harrell, football star David Green, basketball star Louis Williams, Atlanta Fox 5 sports reporter Buck Lanford, are just a few on a list too long to name. Familiar names in the community — including Snell, Norton, Briscoe, Moon, Britt, Nash, Hayes, Price — are intertwined with South’s history. So are students from the Promised Land community south of Snellville who were the first blacks to attend South.
Jack Britt, who coached for 12 years at South, said while some schools had tensions during desegregation, South “never missed a beat.” He easily recalls the first African-American students to attend South, citing each one’s achievements and contributions.
Growth has been the major change at South — physical growth of the buildings and campus, as well as the explosive increase in the student body. But it is not the only change.
South, which started as an all white school, has rapidly become among the most diverse in the county. During the 2003-04 school year, 62 percent of the students were white and 28 percent were black. Now 28 percent of the students are white and 59 percent are black, according to the school district. The school also has small percentages of Hispanic and Asian students.
The change reflects a shift in the overall population of Gwinnett County.
“Gwinnett’s school system is now a minority-majority school system” said Wayne Mason. “Sixty-three percent of our students are minorities; 37 percent are white. But diversity is our strength. We are a global county in a global economy.
The half-century of South history also has seen dramatic changes in technology, teaching methods and curriculum, said Simmons and Hamilton. Typewriters and shorthand are just memories.
“Obviously there have been a lot of changes” Simmons said. “but South is still a school people want to come to.”
What are your memories of South Gwinnett?
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