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Reunions unnecessary for Clark County High School's class of 1948

July 21, 2012|By Rachel Gilliam | The Winchester Sun

James Mann/jmann@winchestersun.com

The Clark County High School class of 1948 had a lot of fun at its 50th reunion in 1998. So much fun, in fact, that they decided to extend the festivities.

Fourteen years later, the party is still going strong.

“We just are close friends, and we like to keep in touch,” Eunice Anderson Yarber said of the 60-member class.

Each month, 10 to 20 classmates meet at various restaurants in central Kentucky for lunch and reminiscing. At the most recent meeting at J.K.’s Cafe in downtown Winchester, 10 class members and a few spouses recalled everything from their senior trip to Cumberland Falls to the 1948 state high school basketball tournament.

“We’ve never been average. We’re not average people,” Betty Ratliff Smith said.
Although the majority of the class members attending live in Clark or a neighboring county, classmates now living out of state make it point to come whenever able. Larry Stone, now living in Lebanon, Tenn., has made an appearance at several lunches, and members of the 1946 and 1947 classes have been known to show up on occasion, too.

Sisters Betty Green Bailey, class of 1948, and Kate Green Rye, class of 1946, have lunch together every Wednesday. Because the class of 1948 lunches are also on Wednesdays, Rye often attends. In 1948, “all the girls were beautiful,” according to class member Frank Vermillion. Few students had cars, and Clark County was considered a state basketball powerhouse. “It was good clean fun. We all had a time to be home, and we best be home,” Nell Snowden Orme said.

Both Orme and Vermillion were members of the cheerleading squad. Vermillion and Don Ross were two male students selected for the squad because cheerleading sponsor Nellie Adams wanted to add acrobatics to performances, something females were not permitted to do at the time.

“Every game, I lived in horror that Don would flip me into the balcony, or somewhere else,” Vermillion said.

There were no football programs in Clark County at the time, and basketball became a major source of entertainment for local teens.

“We were such basketball fans,” Vermillion said.

Still, the teens were expected to work hard at home and school, and there were no school dances or proms to attend.

“There was more discipline,” Orme said. After some rowdy behavior on the senior trip to Cumberland Falls, the school never permitted another class to take a senior trip.

At the July lunch meeting, class members said they couldn’t remember the specific offenses, and all said they weren’t involved.

Their fun memories also include trips to the skating rink, or the old Dailey’s Restaurant, across from the school on Lexington Avenue near Rees Office Supplies.

Because the lunches have kept class members in touch for so many years, no plans have been discussed for any future reunions, although 2013 will mark 65 years since graduation.

“If we thought about it, then we’ve forgotten it,” Smith said.

Contact Rachel Gilliam at rparsons@winchestersun.com.

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