Bay High Class of 2011 Graduation

What a graduation Bay High had at Tommy Oliver stadium under a black sky last night. About halfway through, the principal announced that the violent front had just moved through Pier Park. Graduating seniors were to go to the gym. We should go to our cars or take shelter under the bleachers. We took shelter but still got wet as lightning flashed mightily and rain poured. It was over in a few minutes and everyone moved to the gym for the completion of the program. The gym bleachers filled quickly and half the basketball court was filled with folks sitting on the floor as diplomas were presented. Bay High class of 2011 had a graduation to remember.

Graduation ceremony details of the class of 1953 have slipped my mind except that it was a clear night and we had it in the old Tommy Oliver stadium that was on Harrison Avenue. Brick buildings are there now. School Superintendent Tommy Smith and Bay High principal John M. Johnston awarded our diplomas. 

About fifty years later Tommy Smith was visiting us at Holy Nativity Episcopal School, where I attended Cove School first through eighth grades 1941-1949. Tommy recalled that one summer a Cove School teacher had painted her classroom walls purple, there was a commotion about it, and he had required that the room be repainted white. Our HNES teachers love decorating and freshening their classrooms during each summer, but I don’t know that anyone ever painted, purple or any color. 

It was my privilege that day to show Tommy around HNES and I told him that he had awarded my Bay High diploma over fifty years ago. In typical Tommy Smith style he said, “Oh, I remember you well. I stayed awake all night worrying about whether to hand you that diploma or not.”

Tommy Smith was a Bay County institution and we all loved him dearly.

TW+