District celebrates 50 years
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 red-brick 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 at 5:30 p.m. May 7 at the high
school. Cost is $10 and supports the Golden Wings Foundation scholarship, said Diane Doyle Coombs, president of the foundation.
There is also an Alumni Picnic Celebration from 1 to 7 p.m. May 9 at Hamilton Park in Castle Shannon. Cost is $20.
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.
“After a couple of months into the school year, everyone had blended,” she said.
The consolidation occurred at a time when many of the state’s districts were merging because of legislation passed to reduce the number of school districts. According to the Pennsylvania School Boards Association website, in a move to cut costs and increase student achievements through “expanded access to education resources,” the number of districts declined from 2,277 to 669 throughout the late 1960s and 1970s. That number decreased further to 501 by 1981.
“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.
Buses were available for the Green Tree and Castle Shannon students, although some from the latter took a neighborhood trolley to Dormont and walked the remaining few blocks to school, Mrs. McGrogan said.
“From what I recall, it was a smooth transition,” Mr. Baumgarten said.
“Everybody just knew everybody. We didn’t have a winning football team, but we supported them anyway,” Mrs. Sandora said.
“For many students the high school was the center of their social lives. High school dances, trips, clubs, sports activities etc. were attended by many more students in the past,” 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.
In the mid-1960s the Dormont/KO students danced on weekend nights to records spun by parent Gerry Bodine at Hillsdale Elementary School in Dormont.
The big events were the class plays — in 1965 it was “Our Hearts Were Young and Gay” — and the annual Varieties student talent show that featured “tumblers on the school mats from gym class” and the Modern Dance group. Ms. Sandora remembers the handmade gemstone dance outfit she wore in the show her senior year.
“It was a lot of fun to be involved,” she said.
“Many students today are involved in extracurricular activities and sports programs but not the degree I have seen in the past,” Mr. Bowlin said.
As enrollment grew, so did the need for a larger school. In 1969, further confirming a Keystone Oaks identity, Dormont High School closed, and the teens moved to a modern building on 43 acres outside the southwest border of Dormont on McNeilly Road in Mt. Lebanon.
Built in 1922, Dormont High School was renamed Jay Neff Middle School, for sixth, seventh and eighth grade, after the superintendent at the time of the merger. It was demolished in 1996.
Since the early days of the new high school, the student population has changed dramatically from a total enrollment of over 2,300 to today’s 660 students, Mr. Bowlin said.
“The halls aren’t as crowded as they were in the 1970s and early 1980s, and they are quieter. We’ve done remodeling, but basically it’s the same structure,” said principal Scott Hagy, who has been at Keystone Oaks for 18 years.
In the fall of 2013, the gym was christened the David D. Kling Gymnasium to honor the memory of the class of 1965 star wrestler who also coached football, track, golf and wrestling and taught at the high school from 1971 to 2003. Mr. Kling died in 2012.
Gone are the banks of lockers from the first floor. Instead, there are six classrooms, three of which are “STEAM (science technology engineering arts and math) rooms” — complete with an additional computer lab, 3-D printer, Polycom unit and MIDI setup for music composition — to encourage student collaboration, superintendent William P. Stropkaj said.
“The kids are really involved. We are getting smaller, but one of our goals for the district is to get every student involved in some sort of extracurricular activity,” he said.
“The students are more connected to local, national and world events,” Mr. Bowlin said. “Prior to the mid-1990s, students would rely on books, magazines and TV for information. Today there are many different electronic options for them to access what is happening in the world.”
But still, traditions remain strong within the hallowed halls at — as Mr. Stropkaj puts it — “this great little school district.” They just wrapped up another spring musical, “Return to the Forbidden Planet” and the Varieties are still held each year.
“When we went to school, it was a lot of fun and everyone in class seemed to get along. It was just a different life. It was an interesting year, but I think we were in limbo,” Ms. Sandora said.
Details: www.KO50.reunionmanager.com, 412-4988581