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Tigers still roaring 40 years later By Felix Hoover
Photo provided By East High School Class of 1969 1969 State Champions East High Tigers: Larry Walker, Ed Ratleft, Nick Conners, Dwight Lamar and Roy Hickman.
Columbus City Schools students who aspire to athletic and academic
heights should have dropped by the Lincoln Theatre Saturday night.
If they had, they would have met the East High School Class of 1969, a
living roadmap for success.
The class held a dinner at the Lincoln, which like the high school,
recently reopened after extensive renovation. The Saturday event was
part of the group's 40th Anniversary Class Reunion, which had begun with
a fish fry on Friday at Wolfe Park.
Some members have stayed in constant contact, others have attended most
of the decennial reunions, yet others hadn't seen one another since they
picked up their diplomas. Regardless of which category they fell into,
members consistently expressed pride in one another, the class, the
school and the community.
East High and the Lincoln are a couple of the landmarks in what many
people still regard as the emotional core of the city's black community.
That connection was in no way lost for class member Jean Harper, a
former superintendent of schools in Elyria and Springfield, who now is a
department head and associate professor at Central State University.
"I think that every African-American needs an African-American
experience; I treasure it," she said.
Her experience at East included being a majorette and a member of
"practically every organization there was," Harper said.
A recurring theme was that the class produced achievers in all walks of
life. Several alums acknowledged that their accomplishments were a
logical result of the commitment to excellence demanded by Principal
Jack Gibbs, the faculty and the staff.
Before Friday's meet and greet, Ellis Witcher of the South Side hadn't
seen some of his classmates for four decades.
He was drafted into military service and lived out-of-state for many
years before returning to Columbus about 20 years ago.
Witcher, who hoped his classmates remembered that he sang
Impossible Dream
at graduation, almost wasn't part of the 1969 class.
"My last year I had enough credits to graduate, but had to stay around
to take POD (Principles of Democracy)," he said.
Denise Scott was a cheerleader for the Tigers in the day.
"Now I'm a cheerleader for Christ," said Scott, an ordained minister
who's an elder and prophetess at Grace Christian Center in Athens.
She pointed to a display of photographs of deceased classmates and
expressed a sentiment shared by many, "It's a blessing from God that we
are here."
Among those pictured were Phil Miller, a member of the championship
In the Know
team, and Nick Conner, a star on the basketball team that won state
titles in '68 and '69.
Betty Cupoli, a teacher and coach of speech activities, chuckled when
she reminisced about Conner.
"I remember him sitting stretched out with his legs in the aisle. He
didn't have room under the desk for his legs."
It means a lot to be invited back for class reunions.
"It keeps me young," said Cupoli, 90, who retired in 1980.
Emcee Ilester Bailey hushed the crowd at various points to make
announcements and to recognize the planning committee headed by Sandra
Montgomery.
Deejay Jim Henderson supplied music for the night. Several tunes
prompted line dancing apropos for the second floor of the Lincoln, which
serves equally as performance space and banquet hall.
Ed Ratleff of Long Beach, Calif., a proud star on the basketball squad,
was the featured speaker.
He said he prefers the old court/stage in the auditorium to the new
stand-alone gym at East.
"On the stage we knew we weren't going to lose," said Ratlett, who went
on to star at Long Beach State University before playing five seasons
with the Houston Rockets of the NBA.
Ratleff, a pitcher on the baseball team, said he was even more proud of
that state title than the ones in basketball. Basketball was a foregone
conclusion, but the baseball crown came as a surprise, he said.
Local lore perpetuates the athletic accomplishments of his era at East,
and classmates preserve memories of excellence in academics and the
arts. The intangible that makes the school's Class of '69 a roadmap to
success is the belief in one another that enables lifelong friendships.
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