It’s just about show time at RFH.
Fall is the time of the year that the stage is set for the first theatrical production of the school year.
This year at RFH, that production is The Faerie King’s Daughter.
But, back in 1974, something else was a stage happening besides the Tower Players’ show. It was a more, let’s say, talent diverse stage extravaganza involving anyone in the freshman class in one or a few group and/or solo acts. It was the RFH Freshmen Follies.
So, Halloween is over. But, some of the antics of RFH students of the past remain etched in our memories.
The Retro Pic of the (George) Day honors one of those kooky ghoulish guys.
We have no idea why this photo was taken or what he was up to here. And when we asked featured RFH alum Mike Grady those questions, he just shook his head.
“Goofing around,” was the basic response.
So, there you have it.
Here’s to goofing around at RFH in the late 1970s!
Nice grin for a guy playing dead, Grady! Breaking character is not allowed! Know who’s the one tending to this freak?
Thanks, once again, to George Day for this fabulous look back at RFH!
— Elaine Van Develde
It was nine days after Hurricane Sandy hit.
It was the presidential election of the year 2012. Most in the Rumson-Fair Haven area were without electricity and heat. There was a curfew.
The year was 1977. It was an RFH Halloween.
Seniors of the Class of ’78 were geared up for some ghostly fun. They gathered in the Senior Commons and paraded around, and, yes, out of the confines of the RFH campus.
Apparently, it was considered a gifted and talented trait in the early 1980s to be well-versed in the operation of a Tandy computer — or whatever you want to call it.
This Red Bank Register photo went unpublished in March of 1982.
It shows Rumson students, clad in the oh, so traditional preppie fair isle sweaters and turtle necks, gathering around the ol’ Tandy in this promo for a “conference on gifted students for elementary school teachers and administrators to be held at Brookdale Community College on March 26,” a photo caption in the archives of the 2011 Monmouth County Library exhibit entitled Red Bank Register: 40 Photographs, 1976-1985 said. “The Model 3, released in July 1980 and sold at Radio Shack, featured a 2.03 MHz processor; it predated by more than a year the first IBM PC, introduced in August 1981.”
So, the Retro Pic of the Day takes us back to that March 13, 1982 with a copy of an unpublished Register photo of that day.
The exhibit featured the work of several Register photographers. The photos came from years’ worth of preservation of negatives from the work of Carl Andrews, James J. Connolly, Carl Forino, Dave Kingdon, Don Lordi and Larry Perna.
While the records did not indicate which photographer took the RFH shot, it’s a classic, so we’re sharing it in our look back for the day.
So, have you ever worked on a Tandy? What about a word processor? Recognize anyone?
Since the announcement of New York Yankees icon Yogi Berra, it’s been all about Yogi. And, why not?
The athlete who had that special penchant for those kooky quotes dubbed Yogisms, such as “It ain’t over ’til it’s over” and “When you come to a fork in the road, take it,” died on Sept. 22 at the age of 90.
There has long been a debate in the Rumson-Fair Haven area about the merits and menaces inherent in skateboarding as a sport.
In the late 1990s and 2000, a contingent of parents and teens rallied for a skate park in Fair Haven. And there was also a group as enthusiastically opposed as supporters were supportive.
Fall is here and school is in full swing.
At Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School students are back in class, in the halls, in the cafeteria, in study hall … somewhere in that building on Ridge Road with the tower.
You get the drift.
However, on March 13, 1979, they were outside — in force.
They had staged a walkout “in protest of the Board of Education’s decision to terminate three teachers in order to stay within its state-mandated spending limit,” according to the archives of the Red Bank Register.
So, the Retro Pic of the Day takes us back to that day with a photo of an unpublished Register photo of that day that appeared in the 2011 Monmouth County Library exhibit entitled Red Bank Register: 40 Photographs, 1976-1985.
The exhibit featured the work of several Register photographers. The photos came from years’ worth of preservation of negatives from the work of Carl Andrews, James J. Connolly, Carl Forino, Dave Kingdon, Don Lordi and Larry Perna.
While the records did not indicate which photographer took the RFH shot, it’s a classic, so we’re sharing it in our look back for the day. Carl Andrews was a Rumson resident. Though it’s not clear if he took the photo.
While I was in my first year of college when the photo was taken, I do recall hearing about this walkout. RFH students were always very proactive with school politics.
“The students, who said the Board‘s decision showed ‘callousness and disdain for teachers as individuals,’ argued that the school should have waited for older teachers to retire instead of firing younger ones with less seniority,” the photo description for the exhibit said. “Tora Doremus, Board president, stated that the quality of education at Rumson-Fair Haven would be maintained and that ‘I don‘t think this walkout served the students‘ purpose.’ More than 300 students participated in the demonstration on Friday morning, March 13, 1979.”
Hey, I think that’s Erin Bell, daughter of RFH English teacher Marilyn Bell, right in the front.
The Red Bank Register Negative Collection is in the Monmouth County Archives and the exhibit featuring the 40 photos was at Monmouth County Library Headquarters in Manalapan in October of 2011.
It’s widespread area news that RFH Class of 2006 grad Brooks Robinson was sworn in as a Fair Haven Police Department patrolman Monday night.
Robinson started in the department in 2012 as what is called a special officer. Pretty serious stuff, right?
The Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair may be over, but there are always remnants of it stowed away either in memory or in print somewhere.
We unearthed a 1983 ad for the fair from the archives of the Red Bank Register.
So, the Retro Pic of the Day is an image of that ad.
There’s nothing quite as wonderful as an old friend who’s known you since you were a kid. And there’s also nothing worse than losing that friend at a young age.
The worst of it happened a couple of days ago to friends in the Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School alumni community.
A wave of shock and sadness engulfed the Class of ’78 with the announcement of the death of 55-year-old classmate Debra “Debbie” Clarke Crowell on Sept. 8.
There have been some losses of the all-too-young in the class already. This was the latest.
Continue reading Remembrance: RFH Grad Debra Clarke Crowell Dies at 55
“But I don’t wanna walk on the rope next to her!” I cried from under my fresh-cut kindergarten bangs. “I wanna walk on the rope next to Pam!”
Pam was my neighbor. She was my best buddy.
It was 1965. Our Fair Haven kindergarten class was the last to have its first year of school at what was called the Youth Center, now the Fair Haven Police Station and Community Center on Fisk Street.
We kindergarteners were also the last to be tugged down the street on a rope, yes a rope, headed by an official-looking police-type lady.
I forget what her name was, but she scared the bejesus out of us, especially a determined mini me. No, not much has changed.
However, that rope would have probably somehow been considered inhumane now, I’m thinking. Hey, they needed to keep us walking in tow.
And, guess what? They did, despite the fact that this one little girl’s small world was turned topsy turvy because she couldn’t walk next to Pam.
There were loops for our little hands to grasp onto on either side of the rope.
You see, no one drove anyone to school then.
You could say that we were more environmentally conscious. Or you could just say that we were probably poorer. Simple.
No one drove kids to school, mostly because there was only one car per family. There was no Third Street congestion problem. Nope.
Granted, a lot of moms stayed home. And when the dads went to work, unless they worked close enough to come home for lunch, mom didn’t have a car until after 5 p.m.
If moms worked, dads dropped them off and picked them up or vice versa. A lucky few had two cars. So, needless to say, the transportation for kids was that rope. That lady picked us all up, as I recall, on Hance Road somewhere.
That rope — well, that was our kiddie bus. And we liked it — sorta. We just had to.
This 1965 kindergarten class in the Retro Pic of the Day was the last to take the daily rope trek to the Youth Center.
Front and center in this photo, taken by the family of Diane Smith Carmona, are Frank Buchanan and Bobby McLellan. They’re holding the loops, but not looking all too pleased about it. I’m pitching a fit somewhere in the back. School days, rope days …
Imagine that. Mommy drops you off at the rope, not the bus, and you have to walk to school next to someone you didn’t know until the first day of school?
Oh, the trauma of it all. I guess they thought we’d be trouble makers. I wasn’t even allowed to sit near Pam in class!
Whaaaaaaa! How was your child’s first day without a rope?
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