I’ve made that entire wing of school (where the art rooms and the theater and music rooms are) a comfortable place for me to be.

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But the art, theater and music building wasn’t always a comfortable place for everyone at John Marshal High School.

That was a good thing as far as many were concerned. They thought it was a good thing for “certain people” to be quite uncomfortable in “our” little domain. Most of “us” were anything but comfortable in the areas of our school, dominated by “those types”. Those people who’s domain just happened to be riding high on sweet success that year. Our senior year of 1977. Many of “us” in the arts had our own successes that we saw as not at all appreciated the way every little thing “they” did was heralded as the greatest thing ever.

Many of course, would have liked to say otherwise. They wouldn’t have liked to hear of such devision. The school administrators and town politicians of Rochester, Minnesota loved to tout both our high schools as among the finest in the state, and Rochester had recently been dubbed one of the best places to live in the country.

After all… JM and Mayo had unique educational opportunities shared by all. JM had a state of the art greenhouse and Mayo had an equally impressive planetarium. I imagine there were few high schools elsewhere at the time, that offered such advanced classes in both horticulture and astronomy. In addition, the “Rochester Better Chance” program sponsoring underprivileged youth from struggling urban neighborhoods in Ohio, was considered a big success (more on that in another story soon) and on top of all that, The John Marshal hockey team won the state championship in an against all odds victory that is still remembered fondly. Even now, forty years later (as mentioned in this news story) many of the jocks from my graduating class (of over six hundred) are still riding high.

Yea… the jocks.

I’m sorry if this is an old saw, but the art snob/jerk jock conflict was just as big a factor in my school as I imagine it was anywhere else in the country.

And that year, my senior year… some “us” in the arts decided to stand up to the jocks. It didn’t last, and I doubt anyone remembers it now, but I do.

It was the time a few of “us” decided to have our own “Stud Bench”.

To be continued…