1983 - 1984

Miscellaneous 1983-84 Photos
The Big Crackdown of '83 - by Scott Bales '84
Construction Woes - by Scott Bales '84
Extreme Sports, NCSSM Style - by Scott Bales '84

The Big Crackdown of '83

The administration was busy over the summer of '83. When the third graduating class returned for our senior year, we could not begin to imagine how different it would be from our junior year.

One change that was made was to institute a mandatory in-room study (quiet) time from 7:30 to 9:30 every weeknight. Further, a weeknight 12:00 in-room curfew was added to the existing 10:30 on-hall curfew. Both of these changes, in my view, served only to isolate students from one of the most valuable learning assets the school could possibly offer - each other.

But I believe that it was the fact that the administration had taken away rights and privledges from students who had done nothing to deserve such that caused the administration to lose face in front of the entire class of '84. A dog who is beaten indiscriminately learns nothing from deserved punishment. As a class, we had been punished, and it was impossible to tell what for; as such, any punishments meted out for violations immediately lost effectiveness.

1984 was the last year of "Senior Skip Day" - for those of you not fortunate enough to be aware of the concept, that is a day late in the Spring where most or all seniors agreed to sign out early in the morning, skip all their classes, and enjoy a day in the sun at Duke Gardens. It hurts nobody, as the school knows exactly where the students can be found in case of emergency. The school actually wasted money sending letters to all seniors' parents asking them to tell their sons and daughters not to participate in this event. If this isn't a sure sign that the admin had lost control of this class, and that they were fully aware of this fact, then I don't know what is. At any rate, Senior Skip Day did indeed take place in the Spring of '84 - you can check out the class of '84 slideshow for evidence. Sadly, this yearly tradition has apparently been stamped out as another evil opportunity for students to actually spend time with each other - quelle dommage! [Editor's Note: I don't know about other years, but it did happen in at least a small way in 1985 when I was a junior. I remember Kevin Bartkovich did some "special" material that day that was going to be on the final exam for Calculus with Topics, and not covered at any other time.]

And I'll leave the story about the time the residential life staff pulled a fire alarm just to catch someone doing illegal intervisitation to someone who was more familiar with all the details... [Editor's Note: I'd love to hear this one!]

- Scott Bales, '84

Construction woes

I've got to say a few words about the construction pains the school was going through in the early years. I don't know what it was like for the first two classes, but in the fall of '82 there was major construction going on in the classroom wing of Bryan - the 4th floor was open for classes (Math, CSC, and Physics), while the 2nd and 3rd floor labs and the cafeteria were being built. Many a morning in my junior year I remember waking up to the sound of jackhammers outside my window on the back side of the Bryan residence hall (yes, it was a guys' dorm then), walking upstairs to Precal/Topics, and listening to Dr. Davis just about lose his voice trying to be heard over the construction noises (and anyone who remembers Dr. Davis knows that he was not, shall we say, "soft-spoken").

Oh, and of course, since the cafeteria was being worked on, we would have to walk up Ninth Street to EK Powe ("Icky poo") elementary school for dinner in their cafeteria. Every night. It had to be funny to an outsider, seeing a cafeteria full of high schoolers eating at tables designed for grade schoolers, or bending over just as far as we could trying to get down to the water fountains over there.

-Scott Bales, '84

Extreme Sports - NCSSM style

The talk about ultimate frisbee reminds me of another popular pastime (especially in the '82-'83 school year) - hall hockey, soccer, and/or frisbee. Especially in 3rd Bryan, you had to look out before coming out of your room to make sure a hockey puck wasn't about to go whizzing past. For soccer, we'd find a new roll of toilet paper in the custodian's closet, tape it up real tight, and voila! instant soccer ball. The frisbee tended to be more of a 2nd Bryan thing - they had a particularly nasty version of dodge frisbee that could definitely leave a mark.