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Published: September 15, 2008 09:32 am    print this story   email this story  

New London class recalls times of 50 years ago

By B.J. Drye, Managing Editor

Sunday, September 14, 2008 — After 50 years of spreading their wings all around the world, the New London Class of 1958 returned to the school it cherished for a tour, then gathered for food and fellowship last Saturday evening.

There had been 41 graduates and on this celebration night, 52 attendees joined in the laughter, sharing moments of that simpler time and their life journeys that brought them back to this place.

They’d come from all around North Carolina and from as far away as Georgia, Maryland, Louisiana and Washington to remember back to the days of their youth.

As he toured the old school with his wife, Sheila, Donald Britt, who had been valedictorian, remembered taking solid geometry by correspondence to be admitted into the mechanical engineering program at N.C. State.

“There were seven girls in the entire school when I enrolled,” Britt said.

But when Britt helped move his grandson Brett (Jackson) into Wolfpack Country recently, he found that his old dorm, Owen, was now a girls dorm.

“Things have really changed,” said Britt, as his mind raised back and forth from his college days to years in California and its earthquakes and his return to Stanly County, all the while using his carpenter’s hands to feed his family.

For George Swaringen, those changes over the years had taken him from starting at Alcoa to 20 years in the Army Reserve to currently being pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Woodbury, Ga.

On this night, he would take to the floor and share his poetry and the faith that directs his everyday.

For Barbara Harwood Barringer, there was the incredible transitions created with the rearing of five children and being blessed with eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, all of whom live in Stanly County. All the while, she was an inspector with the USDA and was assigned to Morning Glory Eggs when the aseptic, liquefied egg processing was perfected by three N.C. State researchers.

As the classmates had gathered for a class picture on the school steps Saturday afternoon, five members of the ‘58 Owls basketball team joined to relive stories of their 17-1 season in ‘58 that culminated in a loss to Norwood in the tournament.

For one of these five, Roger Aldridge, it was his overtime, buzzer-beater from deep behind the foul line, a shot that beat Norwood the year before, that is indelibly printed in his memory.

“I can remember it just like it was yesterday,” added John Wayne Lentz, another of Coach Joe Kelly’s players.

But on that night 50 years ago when Norwood defeated New London, Owls Class President Jackie McSwain Russell, was sitting with the Norwood fans and cheering on her special fellow, Tommy Russell.

Saturday night when the old teammates kidded Russell about her school loyalties back then, she just smiled and proudly showed the words Coach Kelly had scribbled in her ‘58 annual: “One thing I didn’t understand, you always pulled for Norwood. Why?”

For these from the Class of ‘58, their journeys to all reaches of the globe have seen many of life’s “why’s” answered ... and Saturday night was a fun time to share and reflect on how these answers had played out.



Contact Jim Lisk at snaponline28@carolina.rr.com.

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Photos


New London Class of 1958 reunited on the steps of the school that was home to them 50 years ago. None/ (Click for larger image)

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