Keystone Oaks celebrates half century as district
In fall 1964, the cheerleaders at Dormont High sis-boom-bahed at football games in maroon-colored skirts and sweaters. But by basketball season, they were wearing the gold and white of Keystone Oaks.
“We never knew whether to say we were from Dormont or Keystone Oaks,” recalled Mary Ann Sandora, who was a senior during the 1964-65 school year when the district officially merged the three non-contiguous communities of Dormont, Castle Shannon and Green Tree.
Halfway through senior year, Ms. Sandora and her classmates went from supporting the Dormont Bulldogs to cheering on the Golden Eagles. They stopped reading the Dormonitor and turned to The KeyNote for school news.
And even though Dormont was embossed in their class rings, purchased as underclassmen, the students’ new identity was sealed in 1965 when senior Thomas Clark won a $50 savings bond for creating the district’s catchy new name.
Officials decided that a “key” to open the door in Dormont, the “stone” for the castle in Castle Shannon and the “oaks” of Green Tree paid appropriate homage to all three communities of students who attended the redbrick school on Annapolis Avenue in Dormont.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Keystone Oaks district, the school is holding an Alumni Reception and Tour May 7 at the high school.
Already a cohesive group by their senior year, students from the Green Tree portion of the class of 1965 started attending Dormont as freshmen — before then they attended school in Carnegie, where the Carlynton School District is now located. The Castle Shannon students — many leaving Bethel Park High School — arrived the next year as sophomores, said Maureen McGrogan, also from the class of ’65.
The consolidation occurred at a time when districts were merging because of legislation passed to reduce the number of school systems.
“Mt. Lebanon and Bethel did not want to merge with any other district. Whitehall was with Baldwin. Scott went with Chartiers Valley so that left Castle Shannon, Dormont and Green Tree,” said Castle Shannon Mayor Donald Baumgarten, who has lived in the borough since 1956.
As enrollment grew, so did the need for a new school. In 1969, Dormont High School closed and a new high school was built on McNeilly Road in Mt. Lebanon.
Since those days, the student population has dropped from over 2,300 to today’s 660 students, said Donald Bowlin, a high school teacher who began in Keystone Oaks with student teaching in 1970 and has spent his entire career with the district.
“The students are more connected to local, national and world events. Prior to the mid-1990s, students would rely on books, magazines and TV for information. Today there are many different electronic options for them,” said Mr. Bowlin.