From: "Kent Watkins" kenmar@ix.netcom.com

Date: Tue Aug 21, 2001 4:12 am

Subject: My Brief Report on Weekend Trip to S.C.

Here's a short report on my three days in Sioux City and some Central updates.

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1. The Film Shoot. Sat., I had Bob DeLoss, '58, and his film crew shoot an hour and a half of two scenes with Don Jensen and Mark McLarnan. It mostly consisted of them in the auditorium reminiscing and then we moved them to the Abe Lincoln statute and ran them through some scenes several times. Mark had just played 18 holes of golf and we tried not to have him climb too many stairs, but he didn't seem to mind. We'll probably get about 30 seconds of real footage out of that, depending on where we go with this. I am still mulling that over in my mind. If we go for submitting a documentary to the Oscar committee, it will have to be in 35mm as I remember it when I helped on the one in D.C. that featured Sherrill's restaurant on the Hill. It would be much cheaper to think about doing it in digital camcorder and submit it to one of those film festivals that abound. There is also the alternative of submitting it to certain websites that specialize in documentaries, I am told but have seen the actuality of this. Then, there is continuing to figure out the script itself, how to open the film, etc. I asked Beth Miller to come up with something and she brought that out with her, which Bob DeLoss liked very much. The three of us are continuing to mull this over. What is the principal POV (point of view) or views. The building itself - maybe (death and re-birth theme); the memories of the people who went through there (38,000 of them); a specific person or persons like Mark and his daughter and son (probably not); a love-sex theme would get the usual attention, but don't think that will work We looked at the two videos that were done for the bookshop. One was technically quite good but sounded like an engineer and had no people in it at all. The second one was done in 1972 and was mostly slides with some good theme music and capture of some of the last days of the school with the classrooms intact and the lockers looking as they did then. Anyway, I need to refresh my mind on the Documentary genre and see where to go with this, if anywhere. Thanks to Bob for his help to date. He wants to get the still-alive teachers together and film them. More power to him if he does. We shared something in common which is that we both filmed the Serengeti in Tanzania recently, but he is going on the lecture circuit with his film and I am not!

2. The Room by Room documentation. On Sunday, Beth and I, with Don's concurrence and support, armed ourselves with 12 throwaway cameras and started on the "5th" floor to take pictures of each room on down to the 1st floor where it became too dark to do much good, for example, Room 133 on the way to the tunnel to the annex, and where Miss Sullivan taught me Latin, "your own language"! I also did some digital camcorder recording of the observatory as well as straight shots. Beth tried to index where I was shooting so that when the film is developed, I will know where the hell I was shooting - some of the rooms were look-alikes. I zoomed in on as much graffiti as I could in the observatory, including Charles Larimer's aunt's name, as he requested. I suspect all this will be painted over when NuStyle takes over, although they are open to suggestions (see below). I saw rooms that I had never seen before, including ones that I probably was supposed to have been in for classes, but also those that were the club rooms in the rafters, such as Hep, Philo, Elite, etc. I should have tried to do it with a wide-angle lens but if wishes were elephants... I wondered at how wide some of the corridors were and how NuStyle would handle them, probably restricted by the historical preservation people there.

Anyway, I would take pictures of the door if there were a number on it still (some doors had been shifted to other floors, so that was tricky). Don gave me a floor plan with teacher assignments at one point in time. I'll let Beth sort out some of this back in Nevada as she is doing her research of the Annuals, etc., where the rooms sometimes are referenced.

The aim of this is, I guess, to have on the Virtual History site, a list of rooms and you can click on any of them (e.g., Room 314 (was that Mona Redmond's study hall?) and you can see the door as you would be coming into the room, and then a shot or two of the room. Nothing fancy, but You Were There! And the room itself will be bare of furniture, blackboards, etc. But, it will be Central as it was before the restoration, and so historically, I guess it has some cachet.

One interesting item, I left my cell phone behind somewhere on Sat. On Sunday, I was outside the auditorium balcony doors talking to Don and Beth and a cell ring came on. Don looked at me and said, I think it's your phone ringing. I said, I don't think so, I can't find mine. And so, we went on talking. On Sunday, I still couldn't find it, when, Eureka, I thought, hey, I bet that the cell phone was downstairs in the auditorium somewhere and I had laid it down while we were doing the shoot. I went back today and got in, through Paul, the phantom of the opera caretaker, and there on a seat in the auditorium was my phone. The point of this shaggy phone story is that the acoustics once again proved themselves out in that auditorium by being as clear as that when we were standing well outside the hall upstairs.

3. A Class of '41 small-world story. I pulled up as I usually do, in the alley of my house at 2929 Jackson St., because I like to see if the basketball ring that my father had put up in 1944 was still there. It was, but more importantly, this time, there was great activity going on with re-doing the house. I got out of the car and introduced myself to the young man who was working on the house and he in turn introduced me to his father, Clair Blair of Myrtle Ave., who said that he was a grad of Central and had been the president of his class as well as a member of the unbeaten football team of '41, the only time it had ever been done, at least, up to that time. He also said that he had something interesting to show me if I stopped by his house. Before that, they invited me into the house and I marveled at how well they had done to make it look new.

One of the former owners after the parsonage was sold was John Saymore, an attorney and CHS grad who turned it into a duplex, making some alternations and generally letting the house run down completely. To finish this part of the story, I videotaped throughout the house to show my sister that we could now 'let go' and to completely to do that, I asked that they take the basketball ring down for good and I would give it a decent burial somewhere - nameless for now - with some fitting ritual of closure.

The next day, I stopped by and said hello to Marge Delzell - married to one of the former East High coach's sons - who was showing the house and thanked her for finding someone who would be a good owner. As I went to the backyard to shoot inside the garage, a small boy about the same age as I was when I moved in was climbing the tree by the garage. He said, 'hey, mister, what are you doing?" I replied, "I used to live here and climbed that same tree," and I had to admit there was a small tear but of joy in my eye to see the past and future together in that scene. "I hope your parents buy the house," I gave as my last salvo, "and be sure to go upstairs to the attic and write your name next to mine, when I first moved in."

Anyway, the next day, I picked up Beth Miller and we drove to Clair Blair's house on Myrtle Ave. He was a super host and hauled out his find, which was a set of CHS Records for the year of 1941. His son was not happy to see him part with them, even temporarily, but Clair said that he trusted me and wanted them to be preserved in the computer, as he conceptualized it. I leafed through the issues and was amazed to see teachers that I had, like Miss Sullivan just starting out, and Vera Banks, but the stories about them gave me much more texture and multi-dimensional-ness than I had had before. I realized how much fun it would be to read the Record beyond what my years were. As we left, Clair said, I know where you are in D.C. and you had better send them back or I'll send my son out!"

4. Speaking of Records, Don presented me with the year of 1954 when I saw him, as well as some of the 1890 ones. He had feared that that year was lost. Now it isn't. I don't know about some of the other years of the 50's, but will continue to press for an indexing to be done as soon as possible by any and all institutions that might own any of them. And next weekend, I will hopefully start on the project of scanning itself. Don and the Gift Shop are to be commended for their perseverance through all this. Apparently, Don will have some free space for his activities while he is out of the building. The Gift shop is still looking. There may be an auction of some of the stuff in the near future. Keep tuned if you are interested in any of the desks, which seem to be most of the inventory. The slate blackboards that are lying around orare on the walls still are supposed to be integrated by NuStyle into the construction of the apartments. Don is starting to dismantle his printing equipment and take it to the scrap metal dealer. He seems resigned to this, more than I thought he might be.

5. Sat. afternoon, after the film shooting, I went to the annual picnic of the class of '54, which had started a few years ago. About 40 persons there - Ray Isaacson, Pat Ralph, Terry Lau and wife, Jerry Gardiner, Diana Nesbit and husband Bud (East Higher) from California (who had stopped to see Barb Coates and Marlene Bomgaars in Colorado), Carla Ashman, Stan Rich, Chuck Hanson and wife, Paul Kaiman and Suzie, Jim Compeau from Oregon on his way to D.C. to spend two weeks just going through the Smithsonian museums; John Anderson, Charlie Weas and wife, Nancy Osgard, Dick Erickson (a first at any reunion for him, he has added many inches to his height since high school) and wife; Bruce Hardy and friend, and probably some I will think of tomorrow, so pardon me. Chuck and Diana wanted a current photo of them, to contrast with their Homecoming King and Queen accoutrements as they stood on their dais then, so once we figure out where we are going to post these photos, I can supply some of the picnic for those who are interested, as well as some of the above incidents.

6. I walked across the street to the Follett House and took some pictures, around the building. It has been altered considerably and no one was there when I knocked on the door (now a realty company after being a funeral home). I also went to the library briefly but the reference librarian could find nothing much about it. Will have to find that Journal article that you told me about, Beth Tice, and call your husband's Follett relative back. I did find a picture in one of the School Board booklets in the library of when it was being used for Central (actually Sioux City High School) after it had been moved from the site where CHS now stands, and while Central was being constructed.

7. Finally, today, I met with the NuStyle people in Omaha before heading to the airport. I was very impressed at their attitude and enthusiasm and approach to the project. They are doing some super stuff in Omaha with refurbishing a number of old warehouses and have had much success with renting them up, 300 units here, 100 units there. Old schools, too. And office buildings near the Orpheum theater in Omaha. Having an auditorium and a gym will be an interesting challenge, but they are very sensitive to everything, and of course, the historical tax credits come with certain restrictions. The parking seems to have been solved, without a great sacrifice to anything esthetic or historic. They will be meeting with COHA on Thursday to begin in earnest on design and construction. COHA is a .1% non-profit partner, which is actually an important arrangement for the Iowa historical preservation people. I have other information but will stop here as this note is already too long, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

In conclusion, lots of fun things going on, finally. Oh, I talked to the son of the Coney Island founder on my way out of town, had to stop and get my loose-meat, right? Asked him if the rumors were true about the big neon sign outside had been stored in a warehouse somewhere when it was taken down as I would like to buy it and present it to the Museum. He looked crestfallen and said, "well, I screwed up on that. I kept it in the back room for about two years and then we were doing some remodeling and I had to find some room for it, so I just took it apart and threw most of it away except for some of the neon tubing, which I had remade and it's hung behind you wall there." I turned around and it said something like "redhots," but wasn't the same. Well, what's done is done, at least we can sample his handiwork in the kitchen every day!

Buenos noches, a bientot, etc.

Kent Watkins '54