When Watchung Hills Regional High School opened in September 1957, students who had previously attended North Plainfield or Bernards High School were undoubtedly dismayed to find themselves transplanted to a strange, uncompleted school sitting in the middle of a muddy construction site. They were probably even more dismayed to find that the plumbing had not yet been hooked up, and that the bathroom facilties consisted of the woods to the north of the school for the girls, and the woods to the south for the boys. These are but a few of the memories that Guidance Counselor David Peterson recalls on the 20th anniversary of the opening of Watchung Hills. Peterson, along with seven other faculty members, has been at the high school since it opened 20 years ago. The other "old timers" who still remain, according to Peterson, are industrial arts teacher Raymond Kovonuk, physics teacher Mason Logie, athletic director Frank Matullo, history teacher Warren Ruff, physical education teacher Ruth Schoenborn, guidance counselor Arthur Smith and business teacher Adah-Grace Vollmer. Two other veterans of 20 years are Board of Education Business Administrator George Wilson and Cafeteria Director Elizabeth Reinman. The Board of Education for the new school consisted of Clifford Warren, Edwin Lebright, Dr. William Ganss, the late Howard Krausche, Frances McKinley, Andrew Reid, John Shive, Robert Slorah and Percy Young, Jr., many of whom still reside in the area. Current Board President Frank Salvato was elected to the Board in the spring of l958, and has been a member since. The high school principal in l957 was Dr. A. Gordon Peterkin, and the vice principal was Joseph G. Newlin. Peterson said that the high school was rather lacking in rules and regulations when it first opened, and that policies were often formulated on a trial and error basis. Student leaders helped set policy that first year. One of the first to be put on paper was the dress code. "It goes without saying that girls will not wear slacks or shorts...and boys will remember that long shaggy hair belongs in the jungle and that dungarees and T-shirts are for work only," the dress code read. "Collarless V-neck sweaters must be worn over a blouse with collar; for boys, no more than the top button of a shirt may be unbuttoned. On shirts where the top button does not occur in the normal position, no button may be unbuttoned." Peterson said that many of the first year disciplinary problems stemmed from the button regulation. The student body in l957 was also very concerned about morals. One regulation suggested by the students and implemented by the administration stated that "no bombing is allowed at any time in the halls." Some faculty members were a little confused by the wording until it was explained by the students that "bombing" is also what is known as necking. Hand-holding was permitted for a while, but Peterson said that as the year went on, "hands came to be held in such suspect positions that this clause was deleted, and administrators were seen patrolling the halls and disengaging even the most platonic clasp." In l957, Peterson said, the course listings available were very limited compared to the hundreds of courses offered now. The school was run like most colleges, with major courses meeting only three times a week for 85-90 minute periods. However, Peterson said, "the daily schedule was unfortunately quite rigid; no student could take fewer nor more than four majors and one minor, and the patterns of time offerings were such that no student in grades ll or 12 could take a subject normally offered in grades nine and 10, or vice versa. There were no study halls, so no student could leave a course until the year's end, however poignant his dilemma at staying in the class." The high school's first dance, dubbed the "Regional Rock," was a very memorable event, according to Peterson. "The regulatory style of this event can best be generalized as anarchy," he recalls. "The chaperones, all single teachers (average age, 23), arrived from their own dinner party mid-way through the evening, to be greeted by a principal in a state of near apoplexy. Couples wandered in and out to the parking lot at will, unknown and unidentifiable persons appeared and disappeared through the various unattended doors of the cafeteria-patio, and the character of the punchbowl's contents appeared to undergo a change in the course of the evening." Peterson danced at the Regional Rock with a young single teacher named Jeanette Nitrauer. They later married, and their first child is this year entering Watchung Hills as a freshman. Peterson said that in the last 20 years, the school and its students have become increasingly more sophisticated and urbanized. Clothing regulations, discipline and course offerings have become more liberal, but Peterson believes that the same high standards of education that the school aimed for in l957 haven't changed. [From the Echoes-Sentinal, September 29, l977] |