Those of us who attended High School have some sort of memories of the experience. They may be good times or bad times, happy times or sad times. Today’s schools are extremely large, graduating hundreds of seniors each year, even called campuses. The only students you really know are your friends, each group of friends forming cliques. I was fortunate enough to attend a small school. We knew almost very student in the four high school classes, if not as friends we at least knew who they were. You even knew every teacher, if you had them for class or not. Also you knew the staff from the Supervising Principal to the janitors. Each class was a clique, maybe even the whole school was a clique. These schools are a rarity today; too bad.

Beaverdale schools were located in Summerhill Township in Cambria County Pennsylvania. The schools got their start in 1895, in the town of Lloydell when it was founded, with a two room building that served the towns of Lloydell and Beaverdale and the surrounding area. The high school opened for the 1911-1912 term and graduated the first class in 1913 with five students. The high school was closed in 1914, 1915 and 1916 because of World War One; when it resumed, 9 students graduated in 1917. In 1954 the Beaverdale and Wilmore schools combined to form the Beaverdale-Wilmore High School. The Beaverdale schools ended with additional jointures in 1961. In fifty years of operation 1,475 students graduated from the Beaverdale school system. The smallest class was in 1920 with 3 students, the largest in1959 with 70, my class had 41 students.

Beaverdale schools provided a good education but there were shortcomings . Football was the major sport followed by basketball then some track and field. During my time shop class was not available, nor were sports for girls. Football was played behind the school on a dirt field with no seats. Gym was also conducted on this field except in winter when it was held on the second floor of the fire hall. Basketball was played in a church hall with a ceiling so low it bounced most long shots. There was one row of benches along the sides. When a ball was taken out of bounds spectators on the benches had to move their knees to provide room for the player.

Later football was moved to the community baseball field and played on grass but still no bleachers. A closed movie theater was converted to a gym to accommodate basketball and gym classes; there was more room but still no bleachers.
Even with these shortcomings Beaverdale was a great place to attend school because of the town, teachers and the class mates.



by George "Sonny" Stupi