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Lehigh Elementary Celebrates '50s: School's Half-Century Fest Involves Former Students and Teachers.

Posted on: Sunday, 14 May 2006, 09:04 CDT

By Michael Duck, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

May 14--The Egyptian pyramids, the Roman Colosseum, Lehigh Elementary School: those structures must all seem ancient to fifth-grader Emily Wright. From her point of view, her 50-year-old school was built more than four lifetimes ago.

"I wasn't born then, so it seems like a long time ago," said 11-year-old Emily.

But Emily got a bit closer to Lehigh Elementary's not-so-ancient history Saturday, as she joined current and former students, teachers and administrators to celebrate the school's 50th anniversary.

"This is sort of like a homecoming, like Lehigh Elementary's family reunion," said Linda Firestone, Northampton Area School District's superintendent.

Lehigh is not the district's oldest school: Washington, Franklin and Wolf elementaries in Northampton Borough were all built between 1904 and 1914, according to Bob Yanders, district operations director.

But prior to Lehigh Elementary's opening in 1956, children in Lehigh Township were still going to one- and two-room schoolhouses, said Sarah Pagotto, the school's former librarian and its unofficial historian.

Many of those schools lacked conveniences like indoor plumbing, she said.

Students back then were mostly "rural farmers' kids" or the children of slate workers and immigrants, Pagatto said. "In some cases, the [then-new] school was in better shape than any of the houses the kids were in."

Former Lehigh teacher Virginia Kleintop added, "I remember them calling it the Taj Mahal of school buildings in Pennsylvania."

Kleintop, 86, of Lehigh Township, said she taught for six years in a two-room schoolhouse in East Allen Township. Tapped to teach at the new Lehigh Elementary in its first year, she stayed at the school for 24 years.

But as the local population grew, that "Taj Mahal" quickly became too small. The school had three major expansions between 1962 and 2002.

"I had gym in what is now made into two classrooms," said Denise Straub, a Lehigh Elementary student in the late '70s and early '80s and now a second-grade teacher at the school.

Students today can't believe there was ever a gym class in a space that small, she added.

Leading up to Saturday's celebration, Emily and her classmates marked the anniversary by learning about life in the 1950s. To create posters now on display outside the school library, students wrote out "Facts of the '50s," such as "The Frosty the Snowman song was made in the 1950s" and "Curls were all the rage."

Pagotto, who was a sixth-grader at Lehigh well before her more than 30 years as librarian, also taught the children about their school's history during an assembly Thursday, which was followed by a "Sock Hop" featuring '50s music.

Third-grader Taylor Reed, 9, wore a blue poodle skirt to the dance as part of her '50s outfit. Though few other students dressed up, she said, "it was fun. ... You could dance with your friends."

A handful of students participated on Saturday, as Emily and other Student Council members helped lead guests to the school library. There, in addition to a video on the building's history, a glass case displayed items from the school archives, including a photograph of more than two dozen young people in blackface for a 1962 minstrel show.

The adults spent most of Saturday reminiscing. State Rep. Julie Harhart, R-Northampton, said she remembered coming to the school's cafeteria as a teenager to attend dances sponsored by the Lion's Club.

Burt Coffman, now 86 and living in Virginia near Washington, D.C., described one of the Lehigh Township School Authority's first tours of the building. Coffman may be the School Authority's only living member.

Former Lehigh principal Bill Conner, now a district assistant superintendent, also recalled members of the school community who have died, including students and beloved Principal G. Edward Corle.

The school community doesn't intend to forget its history, said current Principal Karen Fleming. The school's lobby soon will showcase photographs illustrating how the school has changed over its 50 years, along with a quilt, sewn by Straub and others, featuring 50th anniversary logos drawn by students.

"There's so much history," Fleming said. "It's something I think we should celebrate and share with the students."

michael.duck@mcall.com

610-861-3637

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Source: The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania

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