LANCASTER − As the old Lancaster High School is set for demolition and the new school will open in August, many former students are no doubt looking back at their past high school years.
Paul Jassogne is one of them. The host of the local current event program Fairfield Today started his junior year of high school in 1963 on the first day the old school opened. He graduated from the school in 1965.
Jassogne has also been involved with the Kiwanis Club, Maywood Mission and the Lancaster Chorale. Additionally, he has been in local radio for most of his life.
“We went to this new high school, and it was just amazing,” Jassogne, 78, said. “Every desk, every supply, every floor, every light in there was all pristine. It was beautiful. Probably a lot like these kids in Lancaster will get this fall. It was pretty exciting. Everybody was in awe of that new school.”
Jassogne’s first high school building was the Stanbery building on Mulberry Street, which is still standing.
“That was the old high school,” he said. “So our class got to go there as sophomores, then move to the new high school when we became juniors.”
That then-new school had a senior courtyard just off the library, which Jassogne called “pretty awesome.”
“And I was involved myself with the band,” he said. “So that wing of the school down past the auditorium, that was where the band and the music rooms were. They were awesome. All brand new, all beautiful. At the old high school on Mulberry, we had practiced on the stage because it didn’t have a band room. Down here (new school), we actually had a practice room to practice in. And we had that beautiful LHS auditorium where we would play.”
But newness eventually wears off, and Jassogne said that probably happened during his senior year.
“Because we’d already been there a year and we’re coming back and we kind of know things as we head back,” he said. “This is ’64 now and it was here we are back in school. It’s just another day.”
Jassogne said the principal, Fred “Moose” Lowry, was a strict disciplinarian.
“If you were wandering down the hall and it looked like you were lost, he would call to you and say, ‘What are you doing? What’s up? Where are you going?'” Jassogne said. “And he would direct you to there. They didn’t want you wandering around very much being lost. They directed you to where you were supposed to be. The faculty was on top of that.”
The 1960s were a volatile time in the United States, with political assassinations and Vietnam War protests. The high school was not insulated from those events. Jassogne was in school on Nov. 22, 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated.
“I was in the band room when Mr. Lowry made that announcement,” he said. “Everybody in the school was just in shock over that. It was just a horrific moment. That’s probably the worst moment I ever had at Lancaster High School. You’ll never forget where you were.”
Jassogne said there were Vietnam War protests all across Ohio and the country in 1964 and 1965 when he was at the new school.
“And as high school kids, we thought we knew something when actually we didn’t,” he said. “But we thought we did. I can remember us having what we called sit-in protests. We would sit down in the corridor and kind of block traffic. I think we thought we were protesting the war.
“I don’t know what we thought we were doing. We were just being idiots. We were sitting there and Mr. Lowry came through and we couldn’t scatter fast enough. It scared us to death.”
Jassogne said he still thinks about his high school days decades later.
“I do, because I really enjoyed high school,” he said. “I thought it was one of the great times of my life. It was a real time of innocence. We had the new school and we had great teachers.”
Those teachers include band director Gene Teachout, whom Jassogne planned to have lunch with recently.
“Now 62, 63 years later, we’re still friends,” Jassogne said. “He just turned 90. We’ve remained friends this many years. He’s a terrific guy. He was a wonderful band director for us at Lancaster.”
He said another teacher from the ’60s, Dee Mowry is also still alive.
While he said he hates to see the old school get demolished, he said the opportunities the new school provides students are astronomical.
“It’s a state-of-the-art school, and they will just thrive in this new environment,” Jassogne said.
jbarron@gannett.com
740-681-4340
Twitter/X: @jeffrey_ba7142
This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Paul Jassogne remembers the first day at LHS in 1963
Reporting by Jeff Barron, Lancaster Eagle-Gazette / Lancaster Eagle-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jeff Barron, Lancaster Eagle-Gazette | USA TODAY Network
