First Mount Greylock High Class Planning 50th Reunion

By Phyllis McGuire
Special to iBerkshires
11:31PM / Monday, September 03, 2012

Maureen McGuire, left, Peggy Wyers and Caroline Martel display some of the yearbooks featuring a two-page picture of Mount Greylock from 1962. The classmates are planning a 50th reunion for the school's first graduating class.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Fifty years ago, the brand-new Mount Greylock Regional High School graduated its first class.

The class of 1962 would spend only their senior year there, overcoming the challenges of being uprooted from the schools they had attended for years to be bused to a new building that still wasn't finished.
   
"We loved the Williamstown public schools and had been together all our school years," said Maureen McGuire, one of the 78 seniors who made up the class of 1962. "And there we were with all these new kids. But we meshed very well.  We were a congenial, cooperative and hard-working class."

Built at a cost of $2 million, Mount Greylock opened in the fall of 1961 to serve some 800 students from Lanesborough and Williamstown in Grades 7 through 12. Williamstown High School closed and Lanesborough students who had been attending Pittsfield High School were bused north to the new building situated on the long stretch of highway connecting the two towns.

Nearly half the 78 seniors who receved their diplomas on June 21, 1962, are expected to attend their reunion this month, traveling from their homes in Ontario and across the United States, including California, North Carolina, Indiana and Kansas.

The event will start Friday, Sept. 28, with a get-together at the Williams Inn, which will also host a banquet on Saturday. On Sunday, the class will visit Mount Greylock High for a tour and brunch in the cafeteria.

"We expect 40 classmates," said McGuire, a member of the reunion planning committee. The other members are Caroline Martel, Peggy Weyers, Mary Ellen Donna, Kathy Zoito and Ken Howard.

At one of their planning meetings at the Milne Public Library last week, McGuire, Martel and Weyers reminisced about the their short time at Mount Greylock.

The hardest adjustment for Weyers in attending Mount Greylock was the change in her routine. "I lived on Water Street and used to walk to school. It gave me quiet time to get ready for the day. But I had to take the school bus to Mount Greylock with a lot of talkative kids," she said. 
 
Unluckily for students from Lanesborough, major road construction was under way on the bus route, making it necessary to use a detour over Brodie Mountain. Thus what should have been a 25-minute ride was much longer.

The students also needed to become acclimated to the layout of the new school. "Everyone got lost in our first few days there," McGuire said.  
 
A pleasant surprise awaited the students from Lanesborough with regard to the cafeteria. 

"They were amazed that boys and girls were mixed," said McGuire. At Pittsfield High School, boys and girls were not allowed to eat together.
 
"Cafeteria food was good," continued McGuire. "My favorite was American chop suey. If I didn't like what was to be on the menu, I would bring lunch — a peanut butter and jelly or a bologna sandwich."
 
Martel said she brought her lunch from home, except when her favorite meals — hot turkey sandwiches or roast turkey dinners — were on the menu.

"The selection was not as large as schools have today, but everything was prepared at school and was nice and hot," she said. "The cafeteria ladies were friendly, and we knew them by name."
 
When the planning committee visited the school a couple of months ago to make arrangements for the reunion brunch, they noticed changes made since their school days. McGuire pointed out that the gymnasium has moved from one side of the building to the other, and the cafeteria is in a section that was added on to the school around 1969.
 
As students in 1961, they found that Mount Greylock was still under construction. The auditorium and gymnasium were not completed, nor was the football field ready to be used.

The 1962 Cornerstone was the first yearbook from Mount Greylock, which opened in 1961 for students in Williamstown and Lanesborough.

"Football games were still played at the Williamstown High School field in town. No night games, as there were no lights on that field," McGuire recalled.
 
Weyers and Martel were in the school band and played at all the home games.

"The band sat in the bleachers, and I always kept my trumpet mouthpiece in my pocket so it would be warm when the boys made a touchdown and we would play a special tune with a drum roll," said Martel adding that prior to the games they had rallies and bonfires. "The cheerleaders and coaches would lead the chants and yells. The coaches and teachers were very supportive, as they wanted us to learn to be well rounded."
 
During the school day, students were introduced to what was a new program at that time: team teaching.

"We would sit in a large class of students listening to (English teacher) Mr. Norton and twice a week break up into small groups and really discuss the literature with (English teacher) Mr. Dushanek," Mary Ellen Donna wrote in her reflections on the class of 1962.
 
As Martel remembers it, the late Mrs. Monahan, a class adviser who also taught business, was a favorite with all students. "Even if you were not in her class, she knew who you were," said Martel. "Always a lady, composed and dressed appropriate, she commanded respect."
 
Some teachers have been invited to the reunion, where a 50th Reunion Book, put together by the planning committee, will be given to each of the celebrants. In addition to bios and photos, the book contains a tribute to the 11 deceased members of the class.
 
In addition to a banquet and other fun events, the class also chose a selfless way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their graduation: They established a 1962 scholarship to aid a student in pursuing an education at a community college or technical school. The first recipient, Katherine Elizabeth Guitard of Lanesborough, was presented with the award on class night this past June.
 
"Our classmates were very generous," said McGuire. "And we hope to continue awarding scholarships in the future."