Tributes from Members of the Class of 1956

My main memory of SHS is a teacher, I cannot remember her name, but she had us write an essay when we were either Juniors or Seniors and she was going to send it to us 10 years later.   We wrote about what we would be doing 10 years from then and I could not wait to get this but I heard that her automobile burned in a garage and our essays were in the automobile.  Don't know if anyone else remembers this but if they do, please let me know because I remember spending so much time and thought on this essay only to have it burned---but life went on!!!  

I also remember this teacher because we wrote other essays and one of mine was about going to a dance when I was too young actually to go but trying to play a "big girl", My dress kept falling down in front because I was not "endowed" enough to hold it up.  She picked this fictional essay out and had me read it to the class and I nearly died---yes, I can actually remember being shy when I was in high school---don't know what happened when I got out of school because I certainly changed.  (Ed. Note:  June Holmes remembers this teacher:  Miss Sallie Daves.)

                                                                Patsy Bell

Miss Sallie Daves – The Lost Future

Reading Patsy Bell Congleton’s write-up reminded me of my disappointment at not receiving my future from Miss Sallie Daves.  She had us write the essay on what we would be doing in ten years.  How sweet it would have been to have had a computer or copier to have saved that priceless essay.

Priceless?  For me yes, as I too put in perhaps more effort on that essay than anything I had written before or since.  I suspect that my concepts of the future possibilities was very constrained.  I labored and dreamed over that paper considering all the wonders I would be able to accomplish in those ten years.  Of course I was going to go play football for the Green Bay Packers which was where Bart Starr from the University of Alabama had gone.  Ah, rich and famous, the world would be my oyster!

So much for teenage dreams!  However, Miss Daves did inspire me over the years to write down my plans, dreams and future hopes.  It gives me pleasure to look back at those papers and see that some dreams were realized as well as having others which are left as future potential.  An interesting window on who I once was!

I was sorely disappointed when I didn’t get that essay back and I didn’t know why. I never would have thought of a fire causing my Future to be Lost! Now this is one more mystery of youth solved!  So I lost that teenage future but found a more realistic one in a life filled with many blessings!

Thanks Patsy,

                                                                                         Bucky Locke

                                                                     Sandra Maclin

She, along with other teachers prepared us well for college.  I remember in Biology class at Florence State, that our professor stated in front of the class that she could tell the students that came from Sheffield High and Coffee High because they were so well prepared.  I know that my freshman year in college was a lot easier than my senior year at Sheffield.

                                                                         Edna Earle Harrison