Rockmart Class of ’67 celebrates 50th reunion
A group of alumni from Rockmart High School gathered over the weekend to celebrate a big milestone for a class which cemented their place in history during their senior year. The Class of 1967 was known f or many t hings, but the one milestone they achieved no other class before or since has accomplished is bringing together two communities who previously were separated by race.
That graduating class in the mid-1960s was the first to be integrated, with a dozen diplomas handed out to students who had previously attended Elm Street School prior to 1966.
One of those students to break the color barrier at Rockmart High School was Mike Linley, who was part of a group of 15 students who were chosen based on grades and their personality to be the first black students to join the student body. He said he went through his time after attending Elm Street School without much trouble.
“When we got here, we were a little uneasy at first,” he said. “But after time it got better. I played basketball, and the guys on the basketball team and Coach Keller made it easier for me. And in the classroom I didn’t have any problems. But there were a few incidents, and it all worked itself out.”
Linley was on the basketball team, and using his talents got a scholarship to Memphis State ( now the University of Memphis) and eventually went on to the working world, moving for more than a dozen years to Chicago before returning home in recent years to Rockmart.
He said he formed lifelong friendships during his time as a Yellow Jacket, friends like Greg Stewart and Bob Culver.
Stewart lives in Ringgold now, but said he was glad to come home to his friends like Linley, and to get to see those who live further away now like Class of ’67 president Jimmy Smart.
Smart, who was class president that year, remembers those days well. He recalled the experience as one that provided him with lifelong friends and positive memories during a tumultuous time in both his young life and for the rest of the world.
“There was a lot going on, integration just being one of them,” he said. “The Vietnam War was going on at the time, and the presidential administration at the time was very tumultuous. But what I recollect that of the personalities of the young girls and boys we were at the time, they were very steadfast. We had goals, and were going to meet those goals, and take care of the community and each other at that time regardless of what was going on around us.”
Smart was one of many who traveled from near and far to take part in the 1967 Class Reunion, coming from Durango, Colorado, to participate. After graduation and serving in the Army until 1969, he and his friends moved on to Denver and he eventually moved on to Durango and settled down in the 1970s.
Smart also lived in Washington state, and eventually moved back to Colorado.
He said when he thinks about his time at Rockmart, he thought back to the students who integrated and their transition into Rockmart High School as much as he does the personal memories he holds dear.
For Cathy Matthews, it was hard to decide on just one thing but she did believe the memory of camaraderie around sports was a unifying area for the entire class. Rock- mart athletics was on the beginning of a new rise at the time, and that year was one that class remembers in particular when it came to the annual rivalry between Rockmart and Cedartown on the gridiron.
Cedartown, who dominated most of the game and held a 14-0 lead in the fourth quarter. Rockmart was able to come back to tie it up, and then Culver was able to kick a field goal in the final seconds to pick up the first win in nine years over the Bulldogs.
“Everyone wants to talk about the kick and they want to make it longer and longer and longer, like it was 54 yards or something,” Culver said.
He for the records said that it wasn’t as long as people have made it out to be over the years — only 37 yards — and that the kick through the uprights was memorable because of the win over Cedartown ending a nineyear drought in victories over the Bulldogs.
“We were just tickled to be able to come back and tie Cedartown at the time,” Culver said. “At the time I was worn out because I’d gone both ways during the ball game and didn’t get off the field except for at halftime, and it was a tough ballgame for us. Cedartown is always a tough for us. And so when I kicked it, I gave it everything I had and it barely crawled over the cross bar. If it’d been another yard, it would have been short.”
Culver, like many from the class, went off to school and came back home.
He eventually opened Culver Insurance with his wife, Joy, where his son now works along with Jeff Lange, and served the community on the City Council, the development authority and many other local groups and organizations.
He said his hope is when the Class of 1967 gathers again, people will come back to Rockmart and see the changes the town has gone under since they made history of their own.
“I want them to see the changes for the good, but also to recognize there are still changes that need to be made for the better,” Culver said.