Magic words: Fair Park High School

Fair Park: A beautiful sight ... always

        The news came officially earlier this week, not unexpectedly and not satisfactorily: Fair Park is no longer going to be a high school in Shreveport.
      Aw, nuts.
      Don't like the sound of that. To not see "Fair Park Indians" regularly in stories about athletics does not seem right.
      Of course, this is much more about education than athletics, but for me and so many of my old friends -- and we're old, folks -- it was athletics that brought us to Fair Park so many times. 
      So 89 years is enough, right? So much for tradition and history. One of Shreveport's two oldtime white public high schools is going away or, in this case, being "demoted."
      C.E. Byrd opened in 1926, Fair Park in 1928 ... and, by gosh, it would be hard to find anyone in Shreveport who would dare to suggest that Byrd be closed. (No way it should be.)
      My e-mail and Facebook "friends" list includes about 75 people with Fair Park ties -- mostly former students -- and I probably know about three times as many Fair Park people altogether.
      I feel sure that if we took a vote whether or not Fair Park should no longer be a high school, it would be many-to-zero.
      Oh, there might be a few who don't care because it's been so long since the 1940s, '50s, '60s and '70s when it was the school we knew, and so many loved.
       But the only vote that counted was the Caddo Parish School Board's vote. And that was 10-2 last Tuesday to merge Fair Park High students with Booker T. Washington High students, to be housed at BTW.
       Fair Park will become a junior high -- middle -- school.
       Which is OK because -- as the lengthy discourse on the school and its history, and recent-events updates on its excellent alumni web site notes several times -- after many building renovations and some additions, "it remains both a functional and beautiful facility, standing proudly, to serve the students and the surrounding community."
http://www.fairparkalumni.com/id3_our_fair_park_history.htm
       There is going to be a middle-school vacancy in the area because the School Board also voted to close Lakeshore -- which has been one of the main Fair Park "feeder" schools for as long as I can remember.
       The other main junior high in the area -- in fact, within a mile away -- was Midway, which was moved a few blocks from its original site and is now an elementary school.
        Back to Fair Park, and what's happened. There was much anguish about this, much written in the Shreveport paper and much said/argued, pleas to the School Board, and the old-line and current Fair Parkers had plenty of company in opposing this.
        I am not qualified to make judgments on the School Board's business; I leave that to others. I read it is about financial matters, dropping enrollments and "failing" schools.

        It is also, though, about emotional ties. Obviously, I am not as emotionally tied to Fair Park as its graduates, but I do feel for them. So many made such strong efforts to convince the School Board -- and the superintendent -- how wrong this was.
         Have to be honest, when a few years ago there was talk of closing Woodlawn -- which is now labeled a "leadership academy" rather than a high school -- it did not bother me.
           That might rankle my Woodlawn friends and leave others puzzled. But I've been gone from Shreveport for so long (since 1988) and haven't even been back to our old school in maybe 15 years, and have rarely been in the neighborhood in that time.
           Our old junior high (Oak Terrace) at the southwest end of our old Sunset Acres neighborhood -- a school I attended the first year it was open (1959) -- closed long ago, and that's no problem for me.
           In fact, four of the Shreveport junior highs of our time, the late '50s/early 60s -- OT, Hamilton Terrace, Midway and now Lakeshore -- are going, going ... gone.
           This also brings to mind when Shreveport-Bossier high schools integrated in January 1970 because at that time several of the previously all-black high schools -- Union, Eden Gardens, Valencia, Walnut Hill, Charlotte Mitchell -- were "demoted" to junior highs. Only BTW, Bethune and Linear (soon to become a junior high and replaced by new Green Oaks High) remained mostly (or all) black high schools.
           Point is, it happens. Time moves on, neighborhoods and institutions change. School boards do what they think is right, supposedly what is best for students and education.
           I don't doubt that there is more to this, and maybe some selfish, or misguided, motives on the part of School Board members. Not my call, and I leave the second-guessing to others.
           I do feel for the Fair Park people who tried so hard, especially Cathy Ridley Bonds, who has been the school's alumni director for more than a decade and so instrumental in organizing projects to boost the school's physical facilities and its public image.
           And if it's any consolation, here is what I offer: Think of the memories and the people.
           My allegiance to Woodlawn, and to Shreveport-Bossier, North Louisiana and the state, is about the memories they gave me, the people I met who became lifelong friends.
          Same for Fair Park. All those memories, the wonderful people it has sent into the world, who have done so much for Shreveport and beyond.
           Thinking of Fair Park ...
           -- Black and gold -- a beautiful uniform combination.
           -- That majestic presence off Greenwood Road -- Highway 79 -- with its steeple right across from the home stadium (once State Fair Stadium, now Independence Stadium);
           -- The mosaic school logo embedded in the front lobby (don't step on it!);
           -- The turn off the side street (San Jacinto?) to park in the lot next to the gymnasium (opened in 1956, a carbon copy of the Byrd gym), the split-level gym with the dressing rooms and classrooms downstairs;
           -- The trophy case in the gym foyer with the 1952 state football championship trophy (the only one in a glorious football history), with the Nos. 10 and 12 basketball jerseys retired, with the 1963 basketball state championship trophy and then 2006, and several state runner-up trophies, plus dozens of district championships;
           -- The baseball field down the hill from the gym, where Fair Park was a powerhouse with four state titles (1957, 1963, 1965, 1970) and dozens of outstanding teams and players.
           -- A ways from deep left field in baseball, the football practice field, and track/field facility (the 1980 state track champs and, again, dozens of individual state champs).
           -- The tennis courts, in the valley just below the third-base side (the Indians' home bench) of the baseball field.
           -- Byrd vs. Fair Park, Turkey Day football. Round the Reservation week.
           -- The "Big Indian" dance.
           -- The Pow Wow (school newspaper) and the Sequoyah (yearbook).
           -- I could give you the great names of athletes -- and sportswriters -- from Fair Park, but this is already long and I could spend the next week doing that. We're talking nine decades. I have written about many of them. Better yet, I consider many my good friends.
           The place was special, still is. The building is historic, and it remains. We have the memories and we know the people. 
           Go big Indians. Forever.
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http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2015/10/at-fair-park-shared-success-story.html            
http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2015/09/two-men-one-school-one-gymnasium_30.html
http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2013/11/same-way-turkey-day.html