Two of my alma maters will soon be gone

This year, my junior high school and my seminary will both be closing.

Comstock Junior High in Santa Rosa, California, which I attended for three years, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, where I was a student for three and a half years, provided me with so many stories about gym classes and eschatology classes, dances and sermons, editing the school paper and organizing Sunday services at a rest home. They also provided countless tales about students and teachers, janitors and secretaries.

I’m going to limit myself to one story about each school, with each story involving a promotional campaign featuring popular musical artists of that era. (This will date me, but I want to salute the fine institutions that contributed so much to my life.)

Comstock Concert

Carefree Sugarless Gum decided to stage a campaign to ingrain the name of their product in the minds of teenagers, so they came up with a rather bizarre promotion. They put out a challenge through local radio stations to see which school could collect the most Carefree Sugarless Gum packages. The challenge wasn’t limited to the actual packaging, though 3”x5” pieces of paper with the words “Carefree Gum” written in ink also counted toward a school’s total.

The competition was open to any school with 1,000 students or fewer within a 100-mile radius of San Francisco. Why San Francisco? The contest was promoted by the most popular top-forty station in the city, KFRC.

And what was the prize? To begin with, $1,000 for the school. But also a concert, performed on campus, by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods.

What? You don’t remember Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods?

In the early ‘70s, they toured with the Osmonds, but eventually had some hits of their own. In 1974, their cover of a song by Paper Lace (“Billy, Don’t be a Hero”) was a #1 hit in the US and the UK.

This song was also #8 in Rolling Stone’s “Worst Songs of the 1970’s.”

Obviously, many schools were competing for such a fabulous prize, so our student body officers made a deal with the student body officers at Piner High School (where Comstock students would eventually attend high school). We would combine our wrappers. If we won, the school with the most wrappers would get the concert, but both schools would share the cash.

We chewed a lot of gum that spring. We also cut up a whole lot of paper and wore out our hands writing. We worked on them during breaks in the school day and also at home. You may be shocked to hear that some students even worked on these during class time. Local newspaper columnist Gaye LaBaron reported that Comstock students had over one million wrappers (counting both actual wrappers and hand-written copies).

So, during a lunch break in the Hilliard Comstock quad, Bo Donaldson and his Heywoods performed “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” and a number of songs I don’t remember. The important thing was that we had a rally day schedule and an extended lunch. All of that effort was worth having an extra half hour or so out of class.

Aerial View of Comstock Junior High School (from my '73/'74 Yearbook)

Seminary Vandalism

I worked in the cafeteria at Trinity. When I signed up to work, I was told that I didn’t have to be on the meal plan like everyone else living in the dorms. I could instead have free meals before or after my shifts. Turns out, that perk wasn’t supposed to be offered. The company providing meal service required that every student who lived on campus had to be enrolled in a meal plan.

I wasn’t thrilled when the administration enforced this policy.

One of my jobs in the cafeteria was filling up the cereal bins. At the time, Kellogg’s cereal was in the midst of a promotional campaign. Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies, Froot Loops, etc., all included Michael Jackson stickers in their cereals. I was able to collect a ton of stickers.

Elsewhere on campus, the Mansion was the building where the school’s president had his office. He parked his car out front, where everybody recognized his rather flashy sports car.

During my time in seminary, I learned some things, such as “confession is good for the soul.” For the benefit of my soul (and recognizing that the statute of limitations for this crime has surely run out), I will confess my sin to my Ricochet family.

One day, when the coast was clear, I snuck up behind that parked sports car, and I covered the bumper with images of the King of Pop.

I never heard any mention of this from anyone. I assume the president found a way to have the stickers removed, because none of my salute to the Gloved One remained on the bumper the next time I saw the car. I’m guessing no lasting damage was done, but the sticker removal must have been a pain.

Comstock Junior High, such as it is these days, will be absorbed by Piner. The school will become Piner Junior/Senior School, for students in 7th through 12th grade.

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School will be part of Trinity International University in Langley, British Columbia.

The memories stay with me.