A time to remember

Culpeper County Public Schools began a new era by opening a spacious high school, alleviating overcrowding.

Sound familiar?

The year was 1969, and the current Culpeper County High School had just replaced the former location at what is now Floyd T. Binns Middle School.

Forty years later, as the school system prepares to graduate its first class under a two-high-school setup, the Star-Exponent thought it fitting to take a trip down memory lane.

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Culpeper native and local businessman Steve Southard (CCHS class of 1970) and Leonard Richards Jr. (who graduates tonight from Eastern View) made similar moves as seniors.

Back then, Southard, now 56, was among 163 grads receiving their diplomas from the new CCHS.

Richards, 18, is one of 235 seniors slated to graduate tonight at EVHS. At CCHS, 257 seniors will do the same Saturday morning.

Richards is Eastern View’s first senior class president and president of the National Honor Society.

“It’s great to be part of the first graduating class,” he said. “I’m happy to leave a school and start my own traditions. It’s a great feeling being the first one. You’re always going to be remembered as the first.”

Richards, who plans to study architecture at James Madison University, initiated the idea to adopt a stretch of highway on Route 666 near Eastern View.

“All of the activities that I’ve participated in were a great success and very fun,” said Richards, son of Leonard Sr. and Carolyn Reaves Richards of Culpeper.

Southard was among 1,020 students who moved from the old high school (the Binns building was built in 1949) to their new digs featuring air conditioning.

In 1970, Randolph Hoffman was the class valedictorian and Rebecca Bailey was salutatorian.

This year, school officials did away with naming a valedictorian, salutatorian and honor graduates; instead, students are ranked by percentages based on their grade point averages.

One of Southard’s fondest memories includes the new state-of-the-art gymnasium.

“We won the Battlefield title that year,” Southard said of the 1970 boys basketball district tournament. “We didn’t have much else to do back then, so playing sports really was the thing to do in high school.

“The funny thing was, any time an opposing team came into town, they teased us about living in the country. They knew they were coming to the country when all they saw were the trees.”

Nevertheless, Southard loves his rural upbringing and hometown.

“Most of my graduating class just about came up together from grade school,” said Southard, who attended Ann Wingfield Elementary on East Street and Floyd T. Binns before the new high school opened. “That made it much easier.”

The new CCHS building featured a cafeteria and spacious hallways, Southard remembered.

“It was real exciting going to a brand new facility,” said Southard, who also played baseball and ran cross country.

CCHS cost $4.6 million to build in 1969 (about $27 million in today’s dollars). Eastern View cost $53 million.

Southard, senior vice president and senior loan officer for Virginia Community Bank, pointed out the biggest difference between the opening of CCHS back then and the opening of Eastern View in August. All of the former Floyd T. Binns students, he said, moved together into one school.

That wasn’t the case last fall when Eastern View opened. The student body was split, with about 1,170 students attending Eastern View and about 1,120 going to CCHS.

Southard also remembers the way students’ dress has changed over the years. “On game days, we had to wear a coat and tie to away games,” he explained.

Indeed, times were quite different — and a bit more tense. As reported in the June 6, 1970, Star-Exponent, one student in that year’s graduating class was forced by CCHS administrators to remove a peace sign on his gown.

In recent times, the only thing that compares to that is when a student speaker mooned the crowd with fake buttocks a few years ago.