Diane Day, Richard Woods, Eileen Lyman?, William McKenna, Leslie Hatch, Stewart Weymouth, Elizabeth Egan, Frank Carp
Gary Candia?, Dorothy Cahill, Barry Beverage, Kathleen Cronin, ? , Barbara Shaw, Barrie Wagenfeld, ?
Margaret O'Neil, Daniel O'Brien, Frances LaVacca, Boyd Doty, Linda Gerniglia, William Dolan
Marie Buckless, Earl Gowell, Linda Ross, Robert Serozynsky, Joan Ward, William Bilodeau, Cheryl Briggs
Richard Weddle, Jacqueline Weller, Janice Dancewicz, Francis Mascianica
Jane Noseworthy, Stephen Carlson, Jeannette Eichel, William Newman, Jane Alexander, Bruce McPhee, Elizabeth Hester
Steven Craig, Linda Clark, Samuel Donato, Sheryle Barber, Jane McClintock, Nancy Dellagatta, Kathleen Maher
Missing from picture: Shirley Davidson, Marty Saulenas
Our Photos & Memories
Saugus High School Class of 1966
Sachems
Priscilla (Strout) Fagan
I remember being at the old high school before I was old enough to go to school and watching the janitors shovel coal into the burners. The grown up baton twirlers watched me while my Dad made ready for the fall classes. I decided then that I'd be a baton twirler when I grew up. Didn't happen although I did take lessons at the Town Hall.
I remember the Roby School . We walked the mile down Winter Street every day in rain or snow. Then there was the time I walked to school wearing pedal pushers in 4th grade for our class trip only to learn it had been canceled. The teacher told me I hadn't listened.. I wanted to hide. We seemed to have more snow back then. The Town blocked one side of the Riverside Park streets so we could sled. The hill seemed so steep but now it's barely a hill.
Sanborn's was my after school stop, where my Mom worked.. Shoes were always bought at Bob's Shoe Box. I liked looking at my skeletal feet in his machine that measured your foot. In the Spring we could always stop at the grain store and bring home a baby chick. I did that once and got away with hiding two chicks for a week. Saturdays we were given fifty cents and sent to the movie theater. That got us in, food, and several hours of entertainment.
We were allowed to watch Allan Sheppard launch into space in 7th grade.I know I was scared for him, almost sick to my stomach. I remember the ballroom dancing classes when we were twelve or thirteen at the Austin Dance Studio. Miss Austin was the instructor, her mother collected the money from us and took care of the record player. She also stopped our giggles with a stern look. .After the class some of us would walk across the street for a lime ricky while we waited for our parents. I guess this prepared us for the dances at the Hurd Avenue School and the Armory in Cliftondale.
The fire at the old high/jr. high school and at the new high school caused chaos. It pushed us into split sessions for four years. Coming home in the dark, Freshman year, going to school in the dark the others. We were in the band room when we heard JFK had been shot. Rehearsal was canceled. Several of us ran across Route 1 to Sears where my mother worked.
Exchange concerts were always fun as we waited in the auditorium to meet the person who would be our guest for the weekend. Our trip to the Amish country caused a problem when the majorettes weren't allowed to wear their racy uniforms on stage. Concert season was my favorite, especially at Christmas. We could always get out of study hall by going to a band room to practice.
Our Junior year we finally received our class rings. I remember getting my license with Mr. Bennanatti on the Chevy with the 3-speed standard shift on the wheel. He must have had nerves of steel. I was just fifteen.
For years, since I was a child, I had said good bye to my father over Spring vacation as he took the seniors on their class trip. In 1966 it was my turn. I remember being sent home to change clothes because I wore a granny dress to school for a history project my senior year. Graduation was the last time I played in the band. We had been a family for many years most since junior high or earlier and it was bitter sweet to have it end.
I remember the heart aches, the joys, and most of all the people I grew up with who made up the class of 1966.
Left to right. James Russo, John McKenna,
Frank Gross and Danny O'Brien. 1959
Photo courtesy of Diane Hascall Riggillo
Frank Gross
Saugus was a treasure, a wondrous place for a childhood to happen. I grew up just outside of the center across from Saint John’s and very near the Iron Works. Bob Richardson lived around the corner (or through a couple of back yards) and that’s where my circle of friends began. The Roby School was two streets over and three steps towards independence. We walked to school together every day; parents didn’t walk with their kids back then. This was Saugus; we didn’t even lock the doors when we went on vacation.
We picked up a few cohorts along the way as our territory expanded beyond Saugus Center and up towards Stackpole Field, Pranker’s Pond (or what was left of it) and Appleton’s Pulpit. Skip Kingman’s neighborhood was a forest and Chucky Marino’s neighborhood was a working farm. Stackpole Field had wooden bleachers with the base enclosed and doors that opened to an infrastructure that was a 300’ jungle gym. Pranker’s Pond had just been drained but a few water filled sand pits were left behind. They were mini ponds with clean water and just the right size for boys to swim in and build rafts for.
By this time the core group had rounded out to include Bob, Ronny Coron, Rick Berry, Shawn O’Brien and myself. We hooked up later with John McKenna, Boyd Doty, Chucky Marino and the group was essentially formed. There were others that came and went: some to prep school, some moved away, some lived on the outer limits of our boundaries and some just weren’t interested in the things that interested us. At this time, girls weren’t part of the mix.
The Saugus that we explored and conquered enlarged with every grade. By our 5th school year we had widened the circle of freedom to include Donkey Hill, Round Hill and Cliftondale. It wasn’t long after that that a bus ride for a nickel would take us to Malden. With three movie theaters, that was a big city. Grades 5 through 8 were over the tracks past the State Theater in the Junior High building. That section of town included a bowling ally/pool hall nicknamed ‘The Rat Hole’ and a soda shop across the street called the ‘The Weirdies’. This is where the older sibs hung out and it was straight out of Happy Days. It was Saugus’s entertainment district: Sears was yet to be built.
Above the Rat Hole was a dance studio where our parents sent us weekly to learn how to dance with girls. My God, that was painful. We were at least four years away from seeing any value in dancing with girls (or them with boys).
Junior High came and went in a flash. I remember some dances called ‘canteen’ at the Armory in Cliftondale. The boys stayed on one side and the girls stayed on the other and everyone needed deodorant. Those were the wonder years. I moved to a suburb of Utica, NY for the duration of the 8th grade but was back in town to pick up with the crowd heading to SHS.
High School was great fun but I remember being very tired most of the time. I worked at Godfried’s Deli and hung with the guys. We were a precocious group and our basement chemistry labs had evolved beyond fireworks and rockets as we turned our attention to the distillation process. Alcohol was probably more dangerous than fireworks but our neighbors were darn tired of us blowing things up in our backyards.
I also spent a lot of time with my high school sweetheart and her home became my home away from home. She was a wonderful young lady and I hope that time has treated her kindly.
What I treasure the most is the memory of growing up with such wonderful classmates in a town like Saugus in the 50’s and 60’s. We were bright, we were well mannered, and we were respected as good kids because we were good kids.
