Bloomfield, NBC: The Class of '63

For the Sept. 21 edition of the Herald, Linda Williams wrote an excellent overview of the formation of the Northern Bedford County School District. If I may, I’d like to add a few words about the place that the Bloomfield school and the class of 1963 occupied in that process. I have often stated that I grew up in the northern suburbs of Flitch, which, technically, is the southern portion of Bloomfield Township. The Bloomfield school, on a rise just south of Bakers Summit, had three classrooms with the potential for four. There were three teachers for grades one through eight. Why eight? I don’t know. Allow me to be clear. Everything stated here comes strictly from my own memory. If a minor detail or so turn out to be in error there is no intent toward deception, and I believe the key points will prove to be accurate.

In the fall of 1951 seven of us, two boys and five girls, began 1st grade at the Bloomfield Twp. Consolidated School. On that day, I am reasonably certain, each one of us knew exactly where we planned to attend high school one day. No one would have considered me foolish for thinking that in the fall of 1959 I would walk through the creaky old doors of the Replogle High School. Almost all the others in that Bloomfield class would choose between the Roaring Spring High and the Morrisons Cove High. At least that is what we thought. That is the way it had always been. I recall my father taking me down to the Robert P. Smith School near Yellow Creek one afternoon to watch a football game between Replogle High and Smith High. From the sidelines that day my eight or nine year old self would never have considered it conceivable that one day I would attend the high school at my back or spend many delightful gym classes on that very same football field.

Then came the fall of 1959 and like hidden acres on a mountainside waiting for a surveyor to claim, the Bloomfield school sat at the apex of a watershed both geographically and historically, awaiting one of the new jointures to gobble it up. At that point the Bloomfield school rested, both literally and figuratively, all the way up every crick in the neighborhood. At least one school director firmly insisted that we “must” become part of the new school district recently formed to our north. That district lay entirely in Blair County. That may have had something to do with what came next.

When I transferred from one bus to another at the bridge over Potter Creek that first day of our new adventure, I actually was destined for those creaky old Replogle High School doors. However: all nine of my Bloomfield classmates were on the same bus. From that first grade class we had lost one and added four.

Roaring Spring and Morrisons Cove High Schools no longer existed. Together they had become the Spring Cove School District. Of course, the Replogle High that I thought I would attend no longer existed either. The rickety old yellow bus was on its way to the Replogle High building to drop us ninth graders off at what had become the NBC junior high building. Although, only the ninth grade portion of the junior high actually fit there. The seventh and eighth grades had been sent to the repurposed Woodbury school. No one I knew had even heard of a middle school at that time. For a while, and I don’t recall how long, the Bloomfield school continued with six grades.

Also, I’ve either forgotten or never knew why the Spring Cove School District refused to accept new Bloomfield students starting with the fall of 1959. So alas, our tiny Bloomfield class, destined to become a part of the NBC class of 1963, remained unscattered.

And so; for a short time The Bloomfield school situation remained in the limbo of no-man’s-land and may have continued in that position indefinitely. Until! With the Spring Cove district out of contention the new Northern Bedford County school board held all the cards. It has never been a pleasant experience to be called to the principal’s office. I speak from experience. However: after a week or so of getting all settled in that is what happened. Only, it wasn’t just me that time. As ten bewildered ninth graders, all from Bloomfield, gathered at the door of Mr. Snavely’s tiny office at the top of the stairs early one school day we were told to go down and wait for the bus that was coming to take us home.

Wow! Barely two weeks in and all ten of us got thrown out of school. That might be a record. The NBC school board had decided to put an end to the silliness and lay down the law. Either Bloomfield Township joined the Northern Bedford County School District or we could stay home and build our own high school. It would not have been very big. We missed school the rest of that day and the next. The day after that we were back on the bus and hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to NBC we go.

One year later we transferred buses at Replogle and set out for our next three years, minus a bit, at the Smith school building where we confidently expected that we would one day graduate on the stage beside the basketball court in that undersized gym/auditorium combo. That also, was not to be. In the spring of 1963, on a hill along route 36 between Waterside and Loysburg, the last door was hung; the last paint was painted; backboards and baskets were hung in the gym; spiffy new upholstered seats were anchored to the auditorium floor, and the brand spanking new NBC High School was ready for business. It lacked only one thing. Us.

There are theories why the entire school system needed to be uprooted that close to the finish line. My wife, also a member of the class of ‘63, believes the move was one month prior to graduation. I think it was six weeks. The exact number, which I’m sure someone knows, is really a moot point. The point: should a class that had spent all but a particle of its high school years and experienced all of its experiences except the very last one, be put on show for the bragging rights of being the first class to graduate from the “new” building or should we have been granted the right to be the last class ever to graduate from the “old” building. Opinions run both ways and that’s okay.

The new building smelled of newness throughout. The floors shone; the walls were unblemished, pristine. The gym had a host of brand new gymnastic apparatuses. We weren’t allowed to touch them. The shop was a dream of shiny new tools and equipment. We were not allowed to use any of it. Open house was more than a month away and heaven forbid that we should get dust or scratches on anything. The restrooms sparkled. Thank you; we were allowed to carefully use them. Classes were disrupted and very little genuine learning was accomplished.

Then came the evening of the 28th of May, 1963. One by one, we marched in precise step, the four who remained of that original Bloomfield class from 1951. There was one young man and three lovely young ladies, along with three young men who along the way were added to our ranks. We were accompanied by 63 dear friends. The long, long aisles of that new auditorium were washed over with the wispy aromas of new paint, new upholstery, and our mother’s cologne. Once each had been handed their diploma we became forever, “the class of “63.” Our tiny remnant from Bloomfield had, over the years been pulled and tugged hither and yon, but in the end, with heads held high, we made it.

The building where we spent our ninth year is gone; replaced with tennis courts which then fell into disrepair and were abandoned. The Smith building where we spent all of our high school years is there no more; a mere wasteland. The gym and stage where we did not graduate vanished with the rest of the building. Only memories remain. Not so many years from now there will be no one left who remembers, or even cares. For anyone who cares yet; that was our story.