It was late 1974 and the falling oak leaves began to form little rows as they drifted across the campus of Rison High School. A handful of teens were working after school, huddling together and feverishly debating the design of the upcoming 1975 RHS yearbook. It was this yearbook staff - our classmates - headed by Elizabeth (Leopard) Johnson and Kelley (Cathey) Smith that insisted on the 1975 version not following a run-of-the-mill design. Any class could do that, they agreed. "But ours," they said out loud, "wasn't just any class."We were the class of 1975...and we weren't normal.
Amid corn chips and Cokes our little team brainstormed through the chilly week nights of that fall and winter. "Do we have to use school colors for the yearbook binder?" they asked. Can't we instead conduct a school poll and figure out the most common favorite color and use that?" And, speaking of color, "are we required to publish in black and white only? Why can't we add color pages?" Regarding pages, "can we have a fold-out section? And since the theme was 'the show must go on," why not have the yearbook team dress in clown-face with color portraits for the fold out section?
I'm certain our sponsor, Mr. Lynn, was slowly losing his mind. His comments to all of these questions were typically, "Okay, but we've never done it that way before" or "Why do ya'll want to do it differently now?"
Because we were different Mr. Lynn. We weren't normal.
So, the resulting design of the 1975 yearbook yielded a cover that wasn't the traditional black or gold (our school colors). It was, in fact, blue. Blue, as we discovered, was the most popular color among RHS students that year. Also, the 1975 design contained several color photos and illustrations (as well as black and white black like most yearbooks). And, it included a fold-out section as well, adorned with the staff's made-up clown faces. And in lock-step with the theme, we presented the new yearbooks to the entire student body with Three Dog Night's "The Show Must Go On" blaring over the school PA system.
We were typically untypical. We were different and not normal. Our parents probably agreed.
Fast forward to a sticky August 2019 afternoon in Staves, AR (the "Y") at Joyce and Jewel Wilson's house. It's our 44th class reunion. Not the 40th or 45th, mind you, but the 44th. Everybody holds class reunions in 5 or 10 year increments, right? Not us.That's too ordinary.
Gwen Roberts Paul, Melinda Wilson McKnight and Ed Wilson put together a stellar event that included Whole Hog Barbecue from Little Rock - and indeed there was a 'whole hog' spread across one of the serving tables. (How'd they get that thing in a van?) Sure, every class has food at their reunion. But not every group has a broiled hog sprawled across a table top, with two hired hands serving up plates heaped with tasty pork and beef.
We weren't your average class of seniors in 1975. We still aren't ordinary... and we still aren't finished.
We are the Class of 1975.
