Senior year started with our senior pictures. This was one of the last things that the class of 1966 would do together as a class, other than the senior play and the trip after graduation, and we intended to enjoy every minute of the day together. We were allowed to take the whole day off for the photos.
MARQUISE PHOTO STUDIO from Enid, Oklahoma would arrive around 10:00 in the morning to set up for all the class pictures. It would take them the rest of the day to take the six poses of the twenty class members.
The photographer set up all his lights and cameras on the stage in the auditorium so we had a small amount of privacy from the rest of the school hustle and bustle. The girls had their photos taken first in their favorite sweater and we shared a set of pearls that some of us wore in each of our photos.
Once the three poses were taken in our sweaters we could choose one of the four drapes for the next three poses. There was only one or two of each drape so it was a constant exchange between the thirteen girls.
The four drapes: black velvet and a black lace, both formed a “v” on the chest with the shoulders bare. One was light pink feathers and one was black feathers. The pink and black feather drapes lay straight across the chest and shoulders, exposing the shoulder. The four styles of drapes were held in place with a couple of clothes pins in the back.
The seven boys in our class wore suits and ties for their pictures so it didn’t take the photographer very long to get theirs finished. Of course they didn’t go to class after they were finished, they hung around to tease the girls while we had ours taken.
A few weeks later our photos arrived so we could choose which one we wanted to go on the class photo board that would hang in the school and go in the annual. Then we had to decide which ones we wanted to buy for our families and to trade with the classmates.
About the same time that the proofs arrived my dad came home and announced that he had accepted a job with the Co-op in Sharon Springs as the credit manager and that we would be moving within a few weeks.
He would not let me stay in Mullinville to finish school. I had plenty of offers from friends parents to stay with them but he kept saying he wanted me home with them my last year of school. A decision I am sure he regretted many times that year.
When I arrived for my first day of school in Sharon Springs I was surprised to see the MARQUISE PHOTO STUDIO there to take the pictures of the seniors. I told him I had mine taken in Mullinville. The photographer wanted to know if I wanted to have mine taken over for the class board out there.
I told him no just use the one I had chosen for Mullinville. I had chosen one of the poses in the pink feathers for the class board in Mullinville. He said they had already put the board together for there so it would be on the one down there too.
The girls in Sharon Springs didn’t do the feathers or drapes; they took theirs in sweaters. I thought that was boring and I didn’t have mine redone. So you could walk into that school and pick me out without ever looking at names. I was the only one in a pink feather drape.
The rest of my senior year was not what I had expected and I could hardly wait to finish and get back to home base. I came back to Dodge City shortly after Christmas the following year to go to Cosmetology school and was glad to be back near home.
The highlight of my senior year was racing my dad’s 1964 Pontiac Tempest Station Wagon and not losing a single race. It could whip any hot rod car in the county.
While my senior class friends in Mullinville were enjoying a two week trip to the west coast, I was on a 3 day trip to Colorado Springs. A trip I had made many many times with my family.
If I had known that I could transfer my credits from my senior year back to Mullinville and graduate with my classmates there I would have done that so my diploma would have come from my hometown. So senior year for me was not what I had expected nor would have chosen. To contact Sandy: [email protected]
