The WAHS Class of 1987 (Lacy class of 1981)

We fondly remember the days when we were shaped into the people we are today. The days of the “color cubes” in kindergarten with Mrs. Cogswell as we learned to recognize shapes, letters, and simple words. Remember the student teacher Miss Gilson from Kindergarten? Who still has their little Christmas stocking with their name in glitter on their tree every year??

In first grade the magic of letters coming together into words that we could read and write. We remember the newspapers that Miss Straneva (Died early 2009 just as I was planning to call her about this site) wrote on the chalkboard and we had to copy on nice yellow sheets of lined paper. Miss Straneva’s Thanksgiving feast when we dressed as Pilgrims and Indians, watching Tony Saletan and singing “Hokey pokey penny a loaf – taste before you buy – singing oh what a merry land is England”. We went to the Erie zoo for a field trip!

In second grade we had the new teacher Miss Hyatt (now Mrs. Belleau), who taught us homophones using small 9 inch paper plates!! We were now learning to spell and to write letters in cursive. Sitting “Indian style” and watching movies like “The Apple Dumpling Gang” in the multipurpose room. Seems they now call these “gymnatoriums”… or is it “gymnatoria”? Remember those cool scooters? And playing “crab soccer”??

Then Miss Baldwin’s (Now Mrs. Dey – died June 2024) class for third grade where we learned about cultures from Japan, Hawaii, Mexico and others by having special treats. We earned sharks teeth for every ten books we read! Nobody could keep up with Rick Tudor!! That kid must have read every book in the library!

Speaking of the library how about Mr. Dibble? What a wonderful old fellow! When he read to us he would scream words like “Kaboom”!!! For music we had Miss Turowski, who later became Mrs. Mead, and let’s not forget Mr. Algeir, and the guitar playing Mr. Jaynes…”Cloudy in the west, looks like rain…spent my last nickel on a subway train in New York City”, or how about “Red and yellow and Pink and Green, Purple and Orange and Blue…You can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too..” We had Mr. Brinkley and then Mr. Hill (“You bubble heads”) for art class, Mr. Brewster for gym, then we had a Mrs. Engstom later on. Remember that “Chicken Fat Song” we did? Seems like maybe there were a couple other gym teachers too… but I have digressed into the specialty classes…

Fourth grade was a challenge as we started the first semester with a long-term substitute teacher Mrs. Mosier, who I remember very little about, but she is a principal at a charter school in Texas now.

Mrs. Page (died 1983) came back after Christmas!! With Mrs. Page we learned about the stars. Remember viewing the total eclipse of the sun in February 1979 in Lacy field? We also learned to write poems and put together a book of poetry, you can read those poems by clicking here. Mrs. Page has left the world now, but her work is not forgotten. She was a great teacher and we will always remember her fondly. She made some great Sloppy Joes too!

Fifth grade was split between Mr. Cronmiller (died February 2024) in the morning and Mrs. Cogswell in the afternoon. We remember that Mr. Cronmiller’s punishment for anything wrongly done was to write sets of multiplication tables 1X1=1 to 12X12=144. The troublemakers always kept a stack of tables just in case they were needed 🙂 Mrs. Cogswell was just as nice in fifth grade as she was in kindergarten. Didn’t we get a tour of the refinery that year from her husband Roger? Nice, kind man, now gone. Wacky Cards came out this year didn’t they? And Magic Market, later called Uni-Mart opened on the site of the former Warren Dry Cleaners.

In sixth grade we were on top of the world! Mrs. Volkman (died Oct 2005) was an interesting, and spiritual teacher. We had Chris Hagberg speak to us about missionary work in Medellin Columbia. Why do I remember that? She has ties to my current church!! We put messages in the windows to mark major events on the calendar. Things like “Spring has sprung” or “In like a Lion..”. How cool to cut out the letters and put them in the window panes! Never forget the “spit wads”, or throwing our pencils up to stick in the (probably asbestos) ceiling… The McNeal Squeal! Uncle Jake! Being patrols at PA Avenue, Park Street, Marion St., and Madison Avenue. The sixth grade trip to Niagara Falls! Who did you sit with?

We cannot forget Mr. Nugent, our wonderful and kind janitor. He could fix anything and was a great friend to all of the kids. Then there’s the secretary, Mrs. Bonavita. Great lady!! Other people who were in our building with offices, like Mr. Redin, Mr. Robinson (hehe… Shakespeare to some of us later at Beaty), Mrs. Carlson the reading specialist, and the pop-in “Hello kids!!” from Dr. Blair Logan.

So ends one class member’s recollection of days at Lacy in the class of 1987!! Below are our group pictures!!!

Morning Kindergarten