October 14, 2001
 

BHS Class of 1946
 

The Bridgeville High School class of 1946 held its fifty-fifth reunion
recently, at Peter's Place. Thanks to Nancy Lasota, who loaned me her
sister's program, I was able to bring back many memories from long ago.
 

The program actually got to me via my wife and her association with Nancy at
Pittsburgh Vision Services (PVS) where they both work. The two of them and
Lil Ozanich are perennial competitors for Most Valuable Employee at PVS. By
coincidence, Lil's husband, Bob Ozanich, is a member of the BHS Class of
'46.
 

According to the program there were an even one hundred students in the
class, twenty nine of whom are now deceased. Even today this group of "kids"
seems particularly special to me. They were Seniors the year we were
ninth-graders, and the list of names still rings with heroes and role
models.
 

We were thrilled with everything they did -- their athletic teams, their
dances, their plays, their Class Night -- and wondered if we would ever be
able to accomplish the things they did.
 

The class included "Rum" (Bob) Rothermund and "Slugger" (Bob) Bailey, the
heart and soul of our Hilltop Hellcats gang and sports dynasty. Rum was the
older brother of my best friend, Dick Rothermund, and acted as of he was
also my older brother and role model. He especially enjoyed giving us advice
regarding our forays into the social world.
 

Rum had a part in their Senior Play which required him to be a corpse. He
was supposed to be "stone cold dead" and leaning against the inside of a
closet door. When the door was opened, he was expected to fall flat on his
face. He practiced this fall, catching himself on the palms of his hands,
until it was quite realistic. Unfortunately the night of the play, when the
door swung open, he had both hands in his pockets. Trouper that he was, he
fell forward and took the impact on his body. The show must go on!
 

Slugger was a passionate statistician who kept meticulous records of every
game we played and generated batting averages for all the members of the
team. Because the Hellcats regularly dominated their opponents (teams from
other Bridgeville neighborhoods), the averages were absurdly high. To make
them comparable to those reported in the daily papers and the Sporting News
for the "big-leaguers", Slugger would divide them by two. Unfortunately the
performance of our two alternate right-fielders -- one of whom was the
columnist -- was so poor that he had to double our averages for them to be
respectable. Very strange behavior for a young man who eventually became a
minister!
 

The class also included two boys who had been active in Boy Scout Troop 245
when I first joined it -- "Hipper" (George) McCoy and "Nimmie" (Norman)
Kreiger. Both were good friends to this Tenderfoot, and legitimate role
models. I was saddened to read that Nimmie is now deceased. I think that
another classmate -- Paul Schmidt -- was also a Scout at that time.
 

Also deceased are siblings Charles Banks and Sheila Banks (Orient) --
"Hilltop" neighbors of ours who lived on Elizabeth Street, close to its
intersection with Chartiers Street. Actually I knew their younger brother
and sister, Ray and Kay, better than Charles and Sheila. Kay was easily the
best athlete in our neighborhood -- it is a shame that the emphasis on
women's sports occurred too late for her. Jean Godwin (Troutman) and Mary
Lou Barziloski (Lineman) also lived in our neighborhood in those days.
 

On several occasions in past columns I have written about my all-time
favorite BHS basketball team (1944 - 1945 season) and its two stars -- Sam
David and "Dreamer" (Tom) Lytle. The rest of the team that year were
Juniors, members of the class of 1946, and outstanding hoopsters themselves