The big change
In my senior year of high school, I had to leave boarding school and come home to help my mother with my younger siblings. My father had passed away two years before and then my grandmother the year after that. Taking care; of our grandfather, my younger siblings, holding down a job, and still trying to hold on to the family farm got to be more than she could handle. The head of the convent school I was attending said I needed to go back and help with the family. To ease the stress on my mother and my concern for them was hampering my studies; she said I could come back when things were better at home.
It was a momentous change from boarding school life to public school. I had been in training to go into the medical field and be a missionary. My studies were all focused on that final goal. The public school only required 18 credits to graduate, I had 34 as we went to school 12 months out of the year. I only came home at Christmas time and a couple of weeks in the summer. I had to have a work permit to get a job during school hours but lacked a few months being old enough to get one. So my senior year of school consisted of art, home economics, theater, and several study halls.
I only knew a few kids from the farming community I lived in. So it was pretty lonely, to say the least. There were four groups of kids in our school. The rich town kids, the poor town kids, farm kids, and the kids that were bused in from the nearby military facility. They didn’t have a high school yet on base. This made for a distinct class system of individuals. The rich kids seemed to have all the advantages. From being chosen as the heads of all the sports teams, winning all the class offices, to any events that had a king and queen in it, homecoming, proms, winter social, etc.
I was teased a lot because I wanted to be a missionary, I was called churchy or nun, but mostly because I had never dated or had a boyfriend. I was accused of being a goody-two-shoes, because I had gone to a boarding school or even being gay, because I didn’t date. Eventually, I made a couple of friends and got involved with the theater group designing and making sets for plays, I knew how to sew which led to making costumes also. Living out in the country I only got to go to school events once in a while. I would usually spend the night with one of my friends when there was a school event.
When it came time for Basketball Homecoming, they call it court warming now, some of the rich boys nominated me as a joke. I was devastated when the candidates were announced over the loudspeaker. I could hear the laughter as I walked to the principal’s office. By the time I got there, I was practically in tears. But our principal said I should run anyway to let the jokesters know I wasn’t going to give in to the bullying. Besides he said, “There are a lot more country kids and military kids than town kids, you might just win.” He said that we had to campaign for a week and the student body would vote the next week. If it got to be too much for me I could quit.
I talked to my friends and my mom about it. They said I should do it and they would help me with the posters and stuff. Mom said we could come up with something for me to wear. So the week of campaigning began. At first, I got a lot of ribbing from the boys that had nominated me but I tried to ignore them. We had pictures taken, were introduced at the school rally, and interviewed by the school paper. I had to have a formal for the crowning ceremony and the parade, a dress for the dance after the game, and an escort for the dance. Mom and I found a formal on the clearance rack at a department store I could wear with a few did alterations. I made a dress for the dance after the homecoming game. I was supposed to get an escort for the dance but didn’t. I didn’t know any boys I felt comfortable enough with to ask. If I didn’t win it wouldn’t matter anyway.
By the end of the week, most of the farm kids and military kids were on board and I was actually making friends and having fun. The day of voting came; we were in the cafeteria when the winner was announced. I was shocked when my name over the intercom. The other candidates were announced as my court. Now I had to think about an escort. The captain of the basketball team would be the escort for the parade but I was supposed to have one for the dance. After school, the captain of the team said he was proud of me for sticking with it and offered to take me to the dance. His girlfriend didn’t like it much but he said she would get over it.
It was the first time I had ever been in the limelight, or even noticed for anything special, my first parade, my first dance, my head was spinning. When I was introduced at halftime of the game all the farm and military kids stood up and cheered. The dividing line between the different groups of kids wasn’t so wide anymore. I didn’t get teased as much, even got asked out on a few dates after that.
What I learned most was not to give in to bullying. That class distinction in school is a real thing, and kids can be cruel when they think someone is different. I learned that you can’t let your circumstances define you. That you can do whatever you put your mind to.
It has been 55 years since I graduated high school; I went on to college, worked in Europe for the military, owned a couple of businesses, and raised a family of my own. But when I attend alumni events I am still introduced as basketball queen.
Leave a Reply