Boca Ciega High School's 50 years mirror the times
In the decades since it opened, it has gone from rock 'n' roll to racial strife to a respected medical magnet.
By SCOTT TAYLOR HARTZELL
Published September 3, 2003
GULFPORT - In the 1950s, military communiques captured the attention of Boca Ciega High School students.
"Now hear this," former Navy Ensign and principal Richard Jones would bellow over the intercom. "We thought it was great," Currie Patton said.
When "Bogie" opened in 1953, Patton and other students sported penny loafers and crew cuts and cruised to rock 'n' roll. Racial strife in the 1960s and 1970s changed the beat.
"(Officials) locked down classrooms," said Piper Pritchard, a 1971 graduate. "A girl was once beaten in the bathroom."
In 1990, Bogie introduced Early Graduation Option, its first magnet program. It established its Center for Wellness and Medical Professions four years later.
This month, Boca Ciega enters its 50th year. "We have had a historical presence in the community," said current principal John M. Leanes, 55.
On April 9, 1952, officials unveiled plans for a school on a 36.6-acre marsh. Construction began that year along 58th Street S, between Ninth and 11th avenues.
The lower county's first new high school in 25 years featured open-air, one-story wings. Full-length windows presented "illumination without direct sunlight," said a school history compiled by 1955 graduate Pam Lanning.
A huge panorama room - one of Bogie's 41 instructional areas - allowed multiclass viewings of education films. A teacher's lounge, an all-electric home economics kitchen and air-conditioning were educational innovations.
Bogie was "originally called either 58th Street School or Southwest St. Petersburg High School," Lanning's history reads. "The School Board settled on Boca Ciega. The motto became "Deeds are ours - results are God's.' "
Students selected Rebels as their team name; Jones balked. "He wasn't going to be principal of a bunch of rebels," said Currie Patton, 66. Bogie became the Pirates.
On opening day, Sept. 8, 1953, Bogie welcomed 962 students. (Today, Bogie's enrollment is 2,205.) Both the intercom and class bells failed; nonbudgeted operational costs left the air conditioning still.
"Freshmen were given gold and white beanies to wear, to get them into the spirit of their new school and its colors," said Lanning, 65. "We were so proud to have been able to help create traditions."
Heavy rains at Bogie sometimes left the grounds and hallways flooded. "We just rolled up our britches," said Pritchard, 49.
"Kids brought canoes to campus," and home games were played at rival St. Petersburg High School, said Gerald Ramsberger, 78, former coach, teacher and athletic director (1956-1965).
In May 1967, the stadium was named for Bogie's Charles Beauchamp, who a month earlier had died from injuries suffered in a collision during a baseball game.
In 1968, Jones retired and integration cultivated unrest.
"Students started shoving each other," principal Gordon Young said then. "A mob of about 100 students formed." Conflicts continued into the 1970s.
In 1971, Bogie opened a new library and crowned its first black homecoming queen. The first black king was chosen in 1984; African-American History appeared on the curriculum eight years later.
In 1992, Bogie named its new music building in honor of its first choral teacher, Christine J. Baker, who had died two years before. A scholarship in her name followed in 1996. "Strict, but (Baker) gave us the guidelines for which we live today," said Noreen Hodges, 62, a 1959 graduate.
In 1994, Bogie established its magnet Center for Wellness and Medical Professions. "The feedback we received from students is that it really gave them a leg up," said Barbara Paonessa, Bogie's longest-serving and first female principal (1987-2003).
As Bogie enters its 50th year, its alumni include Senate president Jim King, actor Angela Bassett and baseball's Hal Lanier.
"Maybe the next person to discover a cure for a disease will be a medical magnet graduate," Leanes said.
