Former students share memories, experiences

This past weekend, GCSU hosted activities for its former students ranging from the class of 1970 to the local Peabody High School’s class of 1955.

“A lot of the same people come every year to these events,” said alumni director Herbie Agnew. “A lot of them, especially those from Peabody, are a very close-knit group.”

Although time is known to draw people apart, it seems that the bond of the classmates has gotten stronger and stronger as the years have gone by. One group of four women at the Peabody reunion still remains close friends. Pat Pettigrew Simpson, who still lives in the area, is one of those four women.

“We get together for lunch about every six weeks to catch up,” Pettigrew said.

The whole class was very close, as it was composed of just 17 girls.

“We were the next to the last class to graduate from Peabody before the school combined with Baldwin High School,” said another of the women, Jean McCullar Niblett.

The women said they took pride in their education and appreciated the dedicated teachers they had.

“We had one of the best home economics teachers, Mrs. Abercrumbie,” Annie Weaver Wright said. “She taught us our manners, cooking and how to sew.”

The women said they learned how to work long and hard to achieve the goals that they made for themselves.

“We saved up money for our senior trip by selling sandwiches in the cafeteria. We did that from the eighth grade until the twelfth grade,” Wright said. “So we went on a trip as seniors to New York City and to Washington, D.C., for seven days and we had the best time.”

The other classes for Georgia State College for Women, now GCSU, had great stories and traditions to tell, from having white tablecloths in the dining hall in Atkinson to the archery range where the MSU building is now located.

Peggy Eubanks Salvesen was the former student body president of GCSW from 1959-60.

“We were modest,” Salvesen said. “It was strict here in that we were not allowed to wear shorts on Front Campus; so the changes I have seen are all great changes for progress.”

Other changes over time include fashion and the cars students drive.

“Over the shoulder purses, you couldn’t have those until you were a senior. That was a status symbol for being a senior,” said the committee chair for the class of 1960 reunion, Shirley Ann Mell. “Only the seniors were allowed to have cars, but they couldn’t drive it during the week.”

Each class at GCSW had its own colors and a name. The class of 1960 was the Elephants and its colors were red and black. Being an elephant was similar to being in a sorority now. The overall program that encompassed every class was called the Golden Slipper.

“I found a replica of a golden slipper, then I made a pillow with our different class ribbons on it and we presented it to the archives this morning,” Mell said. “(GCSU President) Dr. (Dorothy) Leland said she is going to put it under lock and key in the library.”

According to Susan Stewart, a former member of the Junior Advisory Board, a lot changed just between the classes of 1960 and 1970.

“This is the class that was freshman when they changed it to a co-ed institution,” Stewart said. “Some people liked that change and other people didn’t, but overall it was a good thing. ”

As many of the class members of 1970 move to different parts of the country it can be difficult to keep in touch with one another.

“I haven’t really kept in touch with my classmates. For the longest time they had been sending my invitation to a Susan Jackson in Arizona and they finally found me so this is the first time I have gotten to see anybody,” said Susan Nance Jackson, the former student body president of 1970.

Although the years have gone by and the former students have grown up, some feel like they were just at GCSU yesterday.

“Some of these people I haven’t seen in 50 years,” Mell said. “It’s just like we all went to class and now we’re back in the rec hall and now we all just have different stories to tell.”

Posted by Joanna Sullivan on Feb 26 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry