It is hard for me to believe the 50-year (!!!) reunion of the Fort Smith High School class of 1960 is coming up this month – that’s my graduating class.

Our graduation day here in May 1960 was as hot as all the scorchers we’ve been having this summer, I think every one in my graduating class of about 500 or more would agree. We were sternly warned not to wear shorts under our graduation gowns that day, so most of us obeyed and just baked in the bleachers of the Grizzly football stadium while waiting to receive our diplomas.

Fort Smith High School would be renamed Northside High School when the city’s new Southside High School opened in the fall of 1963.

I moved to the Midwest just seven months after graduating and for the next 23 years,my husband, Frank, and I were too busy with work, college and raising five children for me to make it home for a class reunion. Since we moved back in 1983, I’ve been able to make it to at least some of the activities for nearly every reunion.

Anticipating this year’s upcoming big event prompted me to spend a couple of hours looking through my three Bruin yearbooks. I’ve never browsed the entire collection of my alma mater’s yearbooks, now housed in the gorgeous, brand-new library at Northside. (You can read all about the new library in Lynn Wasson’s story on page 26.)

The yearbook collection dates back to 1904, according to librarian Robin Hughes, when the high school was located in what is now Darby Junior High, and the yearbook was called the Sounder.

But my recent review of my Bruins convinced me that my class can boast of having produced some of, if not THE,best of the school’s yearbooks.

My sophomore year’s (1958) Bruin featured 13 pages of unique, oriental-themed, original art created by Johnny Bell, a popular senior whose art many of his classmates and
teachers suspected would someday make him famous. And it has.

But John Bell is now best known for his paintings of landscapes and historic scenes of Fort Smith and other Arkansas cities. Even his most avid fans and collectors might not
guess that John Bell created the stunning, highly detailed pen and ink drawings that
distinguish the 1958 Bruin.

Six of those drawings can now also be seen in a new soft-cover book of his paintings and
prints recently produced by Stan Kujawa. It can be previewed and purchased online at www.camelot2k.magcloud.com.

No other Bruin artwork that followed has compared to Johnny Bell’s, in my estimation. But the cartoon-style, space age-themed drawings in our 1959 Bruin seemed right on target for the year that NASA was created and America’s first seven astronauts were chosen.

The 1960 Bruin has the distinction of being the first to have a full-color cover and section fronts (if our high-tech-oriented teen-agers and grade school kids of today can imagine such a thing). So, our class is very proud of that. I also love this Bruin for the wit its staff exhibited in staging the Who’s Who photos – especially the ones depicting our “Wittiest” classmates, Martha Barham and Jim Presley, and our “Most Intellectual,” Carol Swift and
Bill Kidder.

I also love the fact that my best friend from the time we were 4 years old, Linda Scott, was chosen to be the 1960 Bruin Beauty. The Bruin Beauty judge was none other than television’s variety show king, Ed Sullivan. It’s still fun to read his decision in a note that said, “It was a ree-ely hard choice to make, but my selection is Miss Linda Scott.”

I wish Linda and some of my other classmates that I haven’t seen in years and years were coming to this year’s reunion Sept. 24-25. But reunion committee member Janet Wyatt Wilson hasn’t heard from Linda yet.

Nearly 20 of our classmates will be attending a reunion for the first time, Janet said. More than 100 are expected to attend.

Lots of fun events are planned, and committee member Larry Ruth has gathered photos for a DVD that highlights Fort Smith and FSHS in 1958-60.

Planning a successful high school reunion is no small task, and each one I’ve attended has been a big success – thanks to a small, dedicated group of classmates. In addition to Janet and Larry, this year’s committee includes: David Hubbard, Mike Linimon, Nancy Newlon Wells, James Priest, Carl Riggins, Patty Westmoreland Treat, Sherill Stallings Buchanan,Frances Beckman Willis, Carolyn Schneider Hubbard, Barbara Price Coleman and Patty Jones Carroll.

Many others have helped over the years, too, so I hope all of you will consider this a thank you from me and all the rest of your classmates who have enjoyed the fruits of your labor every time we’ve made it to a FSHS Class of 1960 reunion.

Linda Seubold, editor of Entertainment Fort Smith Magazine, can be reached at lindaseubold@efortsmith.com. Read her archived columns and articles online.

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