MARILYN Monroe married baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, RCA manufactured the first ever colour TV set - a 12-inch screen priced at $1,000 - and Bill Haley & The Comets recorded Rock Around The Clock to kick off a little known genre called "rock 'n' roll."
It was quite a year, 1954; it also produced a seemingly endless stream of graduating talent out of Richmond High, including a supreme court judge, surveyors, professors, accountants, school principals and teachers.
They were the first grads to emerge from the new Richmond High at the time, and the remnants of that vintage crop of six decades ago reconvened last week at Richmond Country Club for what was bound to be their final Class of '54 reunion.
For many people, it's a massive undertaking to organize, contact and corral grads for 25th, 40th and, on rare occasions, 50th reunions. But a 60th anniversary? "We got 32, which was pretty damn good considering we're all in our late 70s," said one of the reunion organizers, Ray Gora, 77. "But I tell you what, many people have health and other issues, so to get 32 out of the 67 who graduated is a job in itself.
"But a lot of the credit should go to Bruce Hawboldt, who did all the donkey work, all the emailing and calling for the last year or so."
Gora helped pull off the 25th, 50th and 55th reunions, which attracted 100, 108 and 40 grads respectively.
"For the 50th, it was a real challenge but we managed to get hold of every single student who was alive, except one," added Gora.
"We scoured phone records, talked to friends to get a lead, studied phone books. It took about three years to put that one together.
"Thankfully, we only had to start this one last year." However, with the inevitable passage of time, Gora conceded last week's trip down memory lane may well be the last for the "Class of '54."
"I'm not sure whether we'll have another one," he said. "It's getting tougher and tougher to pull people in."
Blade bummer
Within seconds of him doing it, Jim Akizuki knew what was coming next.
In Akizuki's woodwork class run, by teacher Mr. (Bernie) Reid, it was a cardinal safety sin to leave your plane blade-side up when you weren't using it.
"One day, I was planing this piece of wood and I guess I was just lazy or forgot, but I placed the plane blade-side up," said Akizuki, now 78.
"Within seconds, Bernie was right there and said, 'OK, bend over.'"
In those days, corporal punishment, whether that be the belt, the cane or whatever, was a legal recourse for teachers to restore order, administer punishment or set an example.
Reid's "tool" of choice was a paddle, a three-foot long plank of wood resembling a cricket bat.
A couple of smacks on Akizuki's backside was all it took. "I never did it again, that's for sure," Akizuki laughed, as he joked and shared a beer with the now 91-year-old Mr. Reid in the restaurant at Richmond Country Club.
Reid taught woodwork and drafting at the time and was also Richmond High's baseball coach. He went on to become the school's vice principal in 1974 before taking the principal roles at Cambie and then Hugh Boyd, where he retired.
"There are some pretty sharp characters in this room, so you had to have your wits about you back then," said Reid.
"They were a great bunch, but once in a while, one or two needed to be brought into line when they started horsing around. One on the backside, that's all it took."
Reid said he rarely resorted to the "paddle," noting that he used it maybe three times in an entire school year.
Asked if he thought classrooms would be a better place if corporal punishment was still around, Reid said, "Yes, I definitely think there would be less bullying for a start; it kept most of them in line."
"I wasn't that keen on school, too many rules and regulations," are not the kind of words you'd expect to hear from a man who graduated from Richmond High to become a supreme court judge.
"I enjoyed the sports, but not much else," added Allen Melvin, who now lives in Victoria. "I was at the 50th reunion, but many of us still get together every September. We should still have one for our 70th reunion."
A happy teachers' re-"union"
Eileen Aderneck, Sylvia Vasel, Trudy Tenford Roberta Black and Donna Krog have more in common than being from the Class of '54 - they all became teachers.
Vasel and Krog taught physical education, Tenford taught a "bit of everything" and Black taught elementary.
"This was the best class ever," said Vasel, who now lives on Hornby Island.
"It really was the best student body and most of the teachers were great as well. I say most of them, because there was one or two who, well, that's all I'll say."
Tenford and Black have been friends for 71 of their 77 years and Krog just "loved" school to bits. "I missed school for a week one time because my sister got scarlet fever and we were all quarantined," recalled Krog.
"I cried for the entire week."
Calling it a Richmond High career
Roy Akune graduated from Richmond High, did his stint as a student teacher at Richmond High and was the school's principal from 1986 to '90.
If anyone deserves the tag, "Mr. Richmond High," it's Akune, who was Steveston born and bred before, as a five-year-old, he and his family were interned to Alberta during the Second World War, only to return to Richmond and Richmond High in 1952 for Grade 11.
"(The class) all got along very well; there was no real hierarchy and we all grew up in Richmond," said Akune, who also went on to become Richmond School District's deputy superintendent from 1979-85.
"I remember a very strict French teacher called Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Ethel Wright," said Akune. "I wasn't a very good French student and she was very aware of that! "In those days, (teachers) were allowed to be very strict, it was almost expected." Later, as the principal at a different school, Akune was asked to come back to Richmond High to assess and inspect some areas of his former school, including Mrs. Wright's French class.
"I remember feeling very, very uncomfortable," Akune said with a knowing smile.
"I don't know how she felt; I didn't ask her."
