Columbia Through The Ages

David Ferruggiaro, Staff Writer, The Columbian

Founded in 1885, Columbia High School is among the oldest high schools in the United States, and a fascinating history of the school has developed as the years have gone by.

It is common knowledge among most students that many famous people have attended and graduated from CHS, including Zach Braff, ’93, and Lauryn Hill, ’93. However, they may not know that Braff and Hill were good friends at CHS and worked together at the Columbia Cable Network (CCN).

In addition, most students may also be unaware that former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt once visited CHS to honor a student for his exceptional community service through an organization she fervently supported.

Adding to the school’s accolades, CHS was also recognized in the Encyclopedia Britannica as an exemplary model of school architecture in 1929 because of the superior structural design by the firm of Gilbert and Betelle. This original design consisted of only the A-wing, but additions of the B, C, and D wings were made to accommodate the large student body. Many students at CHS believe that the additions were named in the order in which they were built. “I always thought the D-wing was the last to be built,” said Jessie Matalon, ’12. However, this is not the case. The C-wing, built in 1956, was actually the first addition to the school. The library, TV studio, and the rest of the B-wing, were added last in 1974 along with the D-wing.

As the student population grew, these additions became necessary. This broader range of students transformed the school. Different decades have certain traditions and customs that evolve with time. Joseph Lucchetta, a math teacher at CHS, graduated from the school in 1985 and remembers a common room where students were allowed to go smoke inside of school, a feature that CHS does not have today.

In such a diverse and growing student population, there were customs and traditions that came and went. A particularly ambitious group of students, including Andy and Kim Jacobs, Linda Karlin, and Greg Ellison, started their own underground school newspaper in 1981 and 1982, to counter the CHS newspaper The Columbian, called The Spark. The Spark was similar to The Columbian in the respect that it reported news about the school and included opinions pieces by the different writers. One major difference, however, was the inclusion of comics in The Spark. Each issue contained at least one page of comics and in some cases more. The Spark also included advertisements for local businesses, whereas The Columbian is ad-free. With no such paper in existence today, The Sparkrepresents one of the traditions of CHS that has faded with time.

Lucchetta remembers another such tradition; in the 80s, CHS was divided into three separate houses: East, West, and North. Each one was run by a Dean who had administrative duties. For classes, students remained in their house and did not have to walk all around the school. “What it did was essentially break up a really big school into almost three smaller ones,” Lucchetta said. “Physically, the school was exactly the same in the 1980’s and there were around the same number of students attending as well.”

Another feature of CHS that has faded with time was certain classes, such as woodshop, auto shop, metal shop, sewing and cooking. Michael Novemsky, ’85, a physics teacher at CHS said, “I really liked those classes as a student. I didn’t particularly like school as a student, but I looked forward to these classes.”

However, these courses have been cut from the budget in the years that have passed. “I think this is a big problem,” Lucchetta said. “For kids who didn’t want to go to college these classes were able to prepare them for a job after high school. Now, almost all classes prepare students for college, but some students don’t want to or are not going to college.”

Lucchetta also recalls the fantastic athletic teams the school had during his years as a student. CHS won numerous state boys soccer and lacrosse championships in the 1980s. In addition to coaching soccer, CHS physical education teacher Gene Chyzowych also led the volleyball team on a ten-year winning streak, with a 227-0 record.

Although the physical appearance has been consistent since the 1980s, there have been plenty of changes inside of the school. As technology has advanced, CHS has had to make a few adjustments. Terry Woolard, who is currently in charge of the school’s archive room, explained some of the changes.

“We used to have Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) that were used to help students for various subjects. Now PDAs are obsolete and we had to replace them all with iPods.” Other changes include the addition of various computer labs as well as the vast number of databases that students can access. “The new Mac lab in the TV studio is also a major addition,” Woolard added.

CHS is a special place for those long-time teachers like Chyzowych as well as Lucchetta and Novemsky, who loved it enough to come back and teach here. “As a student I thought the same thing every student thinks today, I’m never coming back to this place,” Novemsky said. “But after being away for a number of years, I realized how much I missed being here and really what an awesome school this is.”

This article appeared in the February, 2011 Volume 99, Issue 3 edition of The Columbian, the student newspaper of Columbia High School. David Ferruggiaro is a Columbia High School Junior and The Columbian Staff Writer.