This is a blog for old timers, plus their friends and families, who are linked by memories of Sugar Land and its schools or have an avid interest in the history of Sugar Land.
I've posted an 11-minute film clip from the 1956 Regional Championship Game between Sugar Land and Barbers Hill High Schools. Sugar Land won 46 - 13. Sugar Land is the home team in the dark jerseys, but I'm not sure where the game was played.
(Update) Leon Anhaiser sent me a note saying they played this game in Rosenberg. SLHS played other post-season games in Rosenberg to take advantage of their larger stadium. They played the '52 Regional Championship against Hempstead in Rosenberg, as well as the '53 Bi-District Championship against Chester and the '53 Regional Championship against Magnolia.
Here's a picture of the Gators plus their record that season. As far as I know, the 1953 and 1956 teams are the only Gator teams to go undefeated and untied in a season.
T.C. Rozelle's memorabilia included a program from the 1963 graduation ceremonies of M.R. Wood High School. He attended the ceremonies that night to present the Imperial Scholarship. As President of Imperial Sugar Company, Mr. W. H. Louviere would normally have made the presentation, but he could not attend. T.C. substituted for him. I've included T.C.'s speech.
Imperial awarded scholarships to deserving students at Sugar Land and M.R. Wood High Schools every other year.
Back in the 1930s the US Department of Labor provided new mothers with an instruction booklet on how to 'manage' their new borns. They were formatted as time cards indicating what should be done at regular intervals throughout a 24-hour day. Mothers were instructed to hang the cards where they could see them every day. The series of cards covered the child through its first two years. I thought they were amusing.
I've posted the first three cards in the series. They come from Ernie Layton Wood's scrapbook. Many thanks to her daughter Susan.
Linda Hagler Mosk is a member of Dulles High School's 1968 senior class. A former Sugar Land Junior High teacher, Miss Swogetinsky (Mrs. Collins), sent Linda a card congratulating her on flying the coop in May, 1968. I know all the girls in my class thought very highly of Miss Swogetinsky.
The picture included with the card is a real treasure. The date is February, 1964. It shows the Sugar Land Junior High School 8th Grade Girls Basketball team.
Here's an article from the H.L. Jenkins family scrapbook. It's a newspaper photo promoting the Third Annual Fort Bend County Youth Rodeo. The date is April 28, 1955. Gary Olive looks pretty excited about it.
Another picture from Dot Hightower. It shows Sugar Land school faculty members who volunteered to play in a charity basketball game. Pretty funny. Dot identified the women, but I failed to write down their names, so I've tried to figure them out using old annuals. Here goes from left to right:
Carolyn Baker, Eleanor Berry, Dot Hightower, Ida New, Joyce Ledger, Dorothy Grimes, and Clifford White.
I got this picture of Mrs. Brown from Dot Hightower. It shows Mrs. Brown with a first grade class in the 1959/60 school year. Most of these kids were in the 1971 senior class at Dulles High School. Notice all the children standing with her are boys. I'll bet she's lining them up for a paddling - especially Ray Babineaux.
Here are a couple of articles from issues of The Fort Bend Mirror published in October, 1962. Note that Sam Carver wrote them, so they may have appeared in The Viking Shield. The JV team's coach, Chuzzy Jenkins, saved these clippings in his scrapbook. The JV team looks like a tough bunch to me, especially number 12.
Notice the picture of the freshman team. I assume they are practicing on the old Missouri City football field. They look like a vicious bunch of thugs.
Thanks to Linda Hagler Mosk (DHS '68) who let me scan her scrapbook and her sister Dian's scrapbook. Dian was in the Class of '65. The following is a story she wrote for her English IV class back in March, 1965. I thought it was pretty good. I don't know who taught English IV back then.
Anyone else have some old homework they want posted on the Internet?
Thanks to Janice Jenkins Girard for letting me scan her father's scrapbook. The first two pictures are undated. I can't identify the other boy in the first picture. The newspaper article appeared in The Fort Bend Mirror (The Viking Shield) when Chuzzy became a teacher and coach at Dulles High School in 1959.
This is another item from T.C.'s archive that Marjorie Rozelle let me scan. I see that White's catered the event. I also noted that 206 people were served in the hall. I presume this refers to the large hall in the second floor of the Salvage Building.
Janice Jenkins Girard let me scan this item in her father's scrapbook. I believe this edition of The Viking Shield (published in The Fort Bend Mirror), was the first issue after Chuzzy was appointed Principal of Dulles High School. (Isn't there a mistake in the photo with the two students? Isn't that Cindy?)
In the last couple of weeks I borrowed a DVD from Dot Hightower and her daughter. It had film of two games from the 1956 football season. I'm not sure, but someone may have shown this DVD at last summer's reunion. (I didn't see it.)
Anyway, there are two games on the disk. One is the Barbers Hill Regional Championship Game. (It is clearly labeled.) There's another game which is unidentified. At first I thought it was the Orchard Bi-District Championship, but I know it's not because Dot has a program from that game, which I've posted below. As you can see from the program, the Orchard game was played in Sugar Land, but the unidentified game is an away game. I'd be curious to know which game this is. (Could it be Friendswood, the final game of the regular season?)
Here is the first 8 minutes of the game film.
(Update) Carlos Tarver is correct. This clip comes from the 1956 Missouri City game played in Missouri City. The Gators won that one 32 - 0.
I found another nugget in the Chuzzy Jenkins family archive. He'd saved the program for the Dulles Powder Puff Football Game played between the Junior and Senior Classes in the spring of 1969.
All I can say is some of those girls got pretty husky after I left school. They were probably using HGH.
I found this item in T. C. Rozelle's archive. The caption explains that the photo was a promotion for the Alligator Reunion in the summer of 1984.
I assume they intended to sing the old Sugar Land High fight song that night because T. C. also saved a handout with the lyrics on it. This is the fight song students played and sang until Jim Gary wrote a new one in the early 1950s.
The old fight song was sung to the tune of the Washington & Lee Swing. (My brother pointed out that Ike Kempner, Sr. attended Washington & Lee College.) I've included a link so you can hear the tune.
Funny thing - as soon as I showed this to my mother (SLHS '49), she began singing it right away. She remembered the tune, phrasing and everything. We may need to record some old-timers singing this. (I'll have an update on this topic next week. Another old-timer remembers an 'unofficial' fight song that was sung to the tune of the Notre Dame Victory March.)
I found this picture in the Chuzzy Jenkins family archive. Chuzzy was principal at Dulles High School in 1967, so he accepted the car donated by White Pontiac of Rosenberg.
If I've calculated correctly, members of the Class of 1970 may have taken driver's ed in this car. (I remember we had a Chevrolet.)
Here is another issue of the Texas Commercial News - this one published on December 13, 1924. Like the previous issue I posted, this one came from T. C. Rozelle's archive. I want to thank Marjorie Rozelle once again for letting me scan T. C.'s archive. I'd also like to let everyone know that the Rozelle family donated T. C.'s archive to the Sugar Land Heritage Society, which plans to open a museum devoted to Sugar Land history. I don't know any details about their plans, but I'm sure they will announce details in the future. I will pass them along when I hear them.
