Cleveland Heights High School 1901-1966 page 8
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In 1938, free textbooks were introduced to Heights High School for the first time. Committees for the faculty worked hard in choosing modern well-constructed text-books for use in all courses. Through the efforts and cooperation of the Managers Club of the high school, a course of lectures was maintained featuring such celebrated speakers as Ford Frick, president of the National Baseball League, Cornelia Otis Skinner, the actress and author, and Victor Heiser, author of An American Doctor's Odyssey. The baseball team further highlighted the Heights year by winning the LEL championship and reigning as city co-champion. This immediately followed the success of the Tiger Swimming team which ruled the LEL again.

A driver's education course was introduced in January of 1939, only to be discouraged three years later by appeals to save gasoline.

Some of the more interesting aspects of driver's training

In March, 1940, it was announced that the Athletic Board voted unanimously to drop interscholastic hockey. Lack of practice time and location were given as reasons for the move. Spring football was also discontinued at this time.

A significant high point in the history of Heights High School occurred on June 1940. The school year had closed on the proceeding day, but it was felt that the appropriate exercises in observance of Flag Day should be held. More than 95% of the student body and almost 100% of the graduates who had received diplomas the night before came back to Heights in response to the invitation of the school to participate in the Flag Day program.

In 1940, also, fifteen new machines for metal and wood shops were installed. Lathes, drill presses, and tool sharpeners costing $10,000 were needed to cope with the growing interest in the industrial arts.

The Tiger swimmers continued a domination of that sport by clinching the LEL and City crowns in 1941. Only a few months later, the track team would overshadow the efforts of the swimmers by clinching the state championship in May, 1941.

Over two hundred men and boys attended the first annual Men's and Boy's Party in the cafeteria on November 7, 1941. Roy Flint was in charge. The purpose of the party, stated Mr. Morley, was to "promote better fellowship between Heights boys and their dads." In later years, this party became the Father-Son Banquet.

Signs of the coming war were becoming quite evident. As early as October 16, 1940, the following public address announcement was made to the school: "Today is one of the most meaningful days in American history. All over the country today approximately 16,000,000 young men between the ages of 21 and 35 years are registering under the provisions of the draft law passed a month ago. It is the first time in American experience when we have been called upon to conscript young men for military service while the country was not at war. This act of conscription is maintained to be one of the steps necessary to make America's defense impregnable. It is also an unequivocal answer to everybody everywhere to agree on the one great issue of the moment, namely, the importance of defending America."

By the school year of 1941-42, the students of Heights were ready to agree. The surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor came on December 7, and by January, 1942, Heights was active in the war effort. Mr. Morley struck home the reality of war: "We are in a real war, not just a play war, and whatever we do here in this high school will be done in the spirit of actual war, and not in play."

Girls' Assembly - 1942

A Civilian Defense committee was formed to take charge of the war effort at Heights and of evacuation plans. First aid classes were begun for faculty and students, the sale of defense stamps and bonds was stepped up, sugar was rationed, and students were asked to walk to school to save rubber and gasoline.

The war affected every phase of Heights activity. Reinduction courses in signal code, preflight aeronautics, electricity, refresher mathematics and typing were given for boys, as well as a physical education program stepped up to five days a week of strenuous physical fitness work-out. Even homeroom bulletins bore the caption: "Remember Pearl Harbor!"

Two thousand medical bottles and four thousand silk stockings were collected for hospitals and the Red Cross in a drive in May of 1943. Collections of this nature continued throughout the war.

Harold K. Taylor was the first Heights alumnus to die in service - at Henderson Field in the Philippine Islands. Over 140 Heights students followed him to their graves in World War II fighting. On April 2, 1943, a plaque was dedicated to the war dead by the senior class. "We honor those from our school who died in the service of their country."

In the fall of 1943, Heights' interest in the war effort was illustrated by a sale of war stamps and bonds totaling over $45,000 in one semester. Furthermore, activities of Heights High students in the Junior Red Cross reached a new high during the year.

But Heights' sports activities continued. The Tiger basketball team enjoyed a successful season clinching the class. A championship and finishing in the runner-up position in the district tournament.

Jobs failed to entice Heights pupils away from school; more pupils enrolled during 1943. The Heights High choir appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, at the Public Hall during 1944. The group was directed and featured by Howard Barlow, Gladys Swarthout, and Jan Pierce, as soloists.

The football team regained the LEL crown in November, 1945, for the first time in almost a decade by defeating Shaw 13-0 and Shaker 7-0 to finish an exciting sea-son.

But 1945 promised success for the free world as well. The war was still raging, although the tide of victory had decidedly turned. As late as May of that year, the final Black and Gold issue of the school term prophesied that "Peace is only a prayer away." The newspaper was not far mistaken for peace in Europe was resolved on May 8, and the war had ended in the Pacific before school opened again in September. With the end of the World War came the end of another period in the history of Heights High. The war years perhaps were the most trying and unhappy for the students of Heights High School, but for the progress of Heights High, these years marked one of the most productive decades in the history of the school.

At the beginning of the school year in 1949 the principal announced the plans to open the new wing. The addition to be opened before the 1950-51 school year was to feature a social room, twelve class rooms, and a ticket booth. The 80' by 60' social room was planned to accommodate student parties, club activities, adult meetings and community functions. A snack bar, stage, table tennis tables, and a coke machine would be the main features of the party room.