When was the first time you started to school in Plano. Was it in the 1st grade or as a senior. What do you remember about that first year? Who were your friends. Who was your first teacher?
Tell us when you first became a "Plano Wildcat".
If you have a topic you want posted for people to comment on, let me know.
Danny
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
My family and I came to Plano in the fall of 1954. I didn't start my first day of first grade there but it was only a month or so into the year. My teacher was Mrs. Rogers and my classroom was the first one on the right when coming in the west door. At recess Jimmy Reed and I would play the Lone Ranger and Tonto and ride our "horses" all around our are of the playground. Of course we stayed away from the east end where the big kids were. I also remember the playground. The boys and girls had separate jungle gyms back then (probably because girls wore dresses in those days) and we alternated periods where the boys used the merry-go-round while the girls played on the slide. I'm not sure about the see-saw. Mrs. Rogers embarrassed me once on an art project so she wasn't ever my favorite teacher. I was fortunate to be able to go all 12 years with many of the same friends. It was fun.
ReplyDeleteDanny Minton
My mom and I came to the Plano area when I was about 2 years old. We lived first off of 289 (Preston) on a farm owned by Harvey Woods, then moved out near a little settlement called Lolaville and finally to a house just west of the Shepton store. We lived there when I turned six and started to school at Mendenhall. Ms. Evans was my first grade teacher. I loved her.
ReplyDeleteMy best friend was Kent Stout. We had much fun using Popsicle sticks to flick pebbles usually at others.
Like Danny I was fortunate to go to Plano schools for all twelve grades. I have forgotten the sad(the beauty of our mind's design) and think on Plano as the best place for a kid to have grown up. I love it yet.
Ken Bangs
We lived in California in '59 while my dad was in the Navy. I lived with my grandmother in Plano that summer, across the street from Carl Grey. He would pump me on the handlebars of his bike and I would throw papers on his route. He showed me where people lived and introduced me to folks along he way. I also played little league baseball that summer and spent lots of time at the park.
ReplyDeleteWhen dad retired in May of '60, we moved to Plano. I started 7th grade.
The first day of football practice, Coach Harris stuck me on defense. Gail Gibson ran a right 33 and his helmet hit me just under the chin. He knocked me straight back so that my feet and head were both parallel to the ground ... about 4 feet off the ground. I saw stars ... big, big stars. Gail turned me into a wuss.
In January of that year, I was nominated as King of the 7th grade class. I had my first date ... with Pat Rush. She told me that she would be staying in town at her cousin Judy Anderson's house. My dad drove me to pick her up.
I got mixed up and had my dad drop me off to go check the address on a house. It had no numbers on the porch so I motioned that I was going next door. There was a gap in the hedge between the houses so I took off trotting through the space.
It seems that the gap was there because someone had dug a hole to do some sewer line repair. I did not hit bottom until I was about chest deep.
My dad tells me that all he heard was a loud "Ooooooh Nooooo!".
As I climbed out, all I could hear was my dad laughing uncontrollably. He wrapped me in something he got out of the trunk and made me crouch in the rear floorboard with all the windows down.
I had to strip naked on my grandmother's porch and tiptoe to the bathtub. I announced that I was not going to the dance. My only sport cost was ruined.
My mom called Charlie Dunn's mother and my dad went and borrowed one of Charlie's coats. We picked Pat up about an hour late.
The word spread rapidly. Everyone I walked up to would grab their noses and turn their heads. Hail to the King!
To this day, at family reunions, I have old aunts that just grab their noses when they see me. It gets old.
I have so many fond memories of growing up in Plano ... the community club dances, Saturday movies, church hayrides. We were so lucky. I would not take for any of it.
I moved to Plano in 1963 when I was 15 from Oklahoma City. The city was small in comparison to Oklahoma City and the high school was big with many new faces. I remember being shy and withdrawn. My Journalism teacher whose name escapes me brought me out of the shyness by encouraging me to write. I was an Editor of the “Wildcat Tales” and remember fondly editing stories and giving my energy to writing headlines and placing stories in the appropriate places in the newspaper. I also remember drawing and painting the break-through banners for the football team which was very fun and an expressive outlet. We lived on Janwood Drive next to Johnny Pool where my mother still lives to this day. This fun thought is from Wikipedia. “In 1964, Plano High School integrated with the Frederick Douglass School (formerly Plano Colored School), and the integrated football team won the first of the school's seven state championships in 1965. The football team made its first run at the Texas state championship in 1965. Most of the town shut down to make the drive to Austin and see the Wildcats win their first state championship. After the Wildcats won the championship again in 1967, the team was voted Texas Outstanding Football Team.” I faintly remember integration which I am sure was a very big deal then but I do remember winning the 1965 state football championship. How could I forget!
ReplyDeleteGail Rushing Brigham
(This was emailed to me)
ReplyDeleteI think I was in the 3rd or 4th grade. I remember my mother putting pink on me and everyone called me pinky. I was a Wildcat in the 8th grade. I had a very nice teacher but I don't remember who it was.
Joyce
(This was emailed to me)
ReplyDelete1 st grade, teacher Jolly. My first day at school, I left about mid day because being their was not for me. I received 3 licks with the big board the next day. That ended my going home during school hours.
Gale Gibson
(This was emailed to me)
ReplyDeleteGood Day!! My first day at PHS was Oct 63 > I had the honorable distinction of being the first YANKEE in the Plano School system. I remember that I thought everyone was a bunch of hicks.They all thought that I was a real piece of work because I couldn't even pronounce properly the place where I lived. Canyon Crick. Ha We all mellowed out and with the help of my friends John Johnson,Pete Cox,Steve Landers,Carl Grey and a few others I was soon one of the good ole boys. My first day of football they lined me up across BIG Dick George. I thought if I lived through that day with this Yankee was going to make it.Ihave a great many memories The teachers I remember were Mrs Scaggs and John Clark.John ended up being one of my biggest inspirations and I still carry his coaching philosophies and motoviational lessons with me. Thanks for all the good memories. We really had it made back then . Thanks for keeping us all connected Danny. Best wishes to ya-all. Neal Olson
(This was emailed to me)
ReplyDeleteI started to school in Plano at the fairly recently opened Plano Elementary School in September of 1956. (I had gone to kindergarten at age five for one year at Mrs. Roger's "private school.") Miss Evans was my first grade teacher. Memories from that time include taking a nap on the towels we brought to school (our "palletts"), learning to spell, and Davey Crockett. A little read-headed boy named Rusty had a coonskin cap and a Davey Crockett rifle. I envied that, because all I had was a Davey Crockett pistol.
I remember playing at recess on the playground and--on wet days (I think) on the long driveway in front of the school. Also, I had the distinction of playing George Washington in the school play. I brought a hatchet to school for the play to cut down the cherry tree, which was a small branch of a tree or plant stuck in a can with dirt or gravel in it. In any case, I knocked it over when I struck it during the play. However, the worst part was that my white wig was not made of cotton like the other kids'. My mother got a real (blonde) wig from her friend (Flossy Neely) who owned a clothing store. I didn't have the sense to recognize that this was a pretty bad idea... Embarrassing.
Fred Griffin
We came to Plano mid term of the 7th grade and Pop Rodgers was the math teacher. Plano was more advanced in all classes than the Gainesville, TX school I transferred from. Pop Rodgers helped me out allot.
ReplyDeleteIn high school there was only one teacher that was my all in all, Betty Mischen. From the 9th grade through our senior year, she always told me I could do anything I wanted with my life. I got to attend her retirement party many years later and was able to tell her how great she was. What a blessing.
Johnny Pool
Spent the summer of '59 at my grandmother's in Plano. Her house was across from Carl's. Carl would pump me on the handbars of his bike and I would throw his paper route. He introduced me to everyone and showed me where people lived.
ReplyDeleteThe next summer when my dad retired from the Navy, we left California and moved to Plano. I started the 7th grade in the same building where my mother went to school. She had Bill Williams and Ms.Skaggs as teachers, too.
Ms. Lewis, Coach Moore, and Mrs. Moore stick out in my mind. Friday night football games at the old field and gatherings at the Community Center afterward I remember well.
Pete somehow setting off a 22 shell in class caused some commotion, and got him some licks ... which was to be repeated many times over.
Grades 7 thru 12 in the same building. It's hard to imagine that today. We had it good.
John Johnson
I am not Class of 1966, so please just delete this if you wish. Unfortunately, there are just no nostalgic Plano sites/blogs to be found. I wonder why that is?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I spent my entire childhood in Plano. I went to kindergarten at Happy Time, across from the old Cox School. I went to Meadows Elementary, Bowman, Williams High School, and PSHS ( PESH had not been built yet).
I lived within walking distance of Plano High School (when it was THE high school), and as a child my Dad and I would often walk to the stadium on Friday night to see the Wildcats.
I am so fortunate to have gone to all 12 grades; there were not many during my time that did - Plano had become much more transient than it was for most of you guys.
Scott