By Kathy Buie Vance.
I loved school. Wagram was a 1-12 school, so the same kids were together for 12 years. Pat and Flora Jane were my best friends in my class, and I was also good friends with the boys – David, Johnny, Cal, Thomas, Billy, and Johnson. Also I had dear friends in the class behind me – Gwynne was like a sister and there was Margaret Elliott, Alice, and Katherine. Olivia Womble and Vince Nelson were friends too who were also neighbors. We were like one big family. When I was a senior, Mother joined the faculty, so we were all there under one roof with Jim in first, Celeste in 4th, Ann in 10th and me in 12th. There were 18 in my graduating class.
At Wagram School, you could sign up for anything. You didn’t have to try out. So I signed up for it all, including basketball and I was terrible at it. Mostly I sat on the bench, but I loved riding the activity bus with my friends to the out of town games. One time I accidentally grabbed Ann’s left shoe and my left shoe and put them in my gym bag. Wouldn’t you know – I got put in the game that night due to several teammates getting sick. So I limped out onto the court in two left shoes. Since we were out of town, the spectators didn’t know me and sympathized that a disabled girl was out there bravely playing.
Ann was an excellent basketball player and was on the first string all four years in high school. She was fast and could shoot. I was slow and made a total of four points the whole four years. But being on the team is one of my favorite memories of high school. Mr. Parker was our coach and we loved him. He was also our biology and chemistry teacher and the principal. I knew he cared about me even if I couldn’t play basketball.
I got my driver’s license on December 5, 1959. I was assigned to take Olivia home every day. Olivia McCoy had come to work for us a few years earlier. The first day, everybody (siblings and friends) piled into the station wagon. We got to Olivia’s house and realized that we had been so excited that we forgot Olivia so we had to go back home and get her.
Mother and Olivia McKoy in the 1980s.
My twin friends Johnny and David Memory were turning 16 on December 28, so I rode by their house and honked every day for 23 days when I had my license and they didn’t.
In high school, we didn’t date exclusively much and most of our social life was in groups. I went out with Billy Monroe during my junior year and with Danny Smith sometimes too. Jim was 5 or 6 and loved Danny as he was a family friend and did not like seeing Billy come to the front door. One time Jim beat me to the door and greeted Billy with “Why do your teeth stick out like that?” Another time he ran to the door and when he saw Billy, he said “Aww! I thought you were Danny!”
Mother would not let us go to unchaperoned parties a teenagers. She would host the parties at our house and plan them in detail. Everybody loved her, so she got away with it. We had dance cards with specific times and dance partners. Some instructions would say, “Walk around the block with Billy” and designate a topic of conversation. By the time the party was over, no later than 11pm, we had danced and conversed with everybody. We thought our friends might think this was over the top, but a wonderful time was had by all.
Other activities we enjoyed as teenagers were playing bridge, going on hayrides, and square dancing on Friday nights in the high school gym. There was even live music (fiddles) with local musicians, and we wore big skirts with crinolins underneath. Ann and I would go up to the mic and sing Lennon Sisters songs like “Honey in the morning, Honey in the evening, Honey at the suppertime.” We’d also do some Connie Francis hits like “Among My Souvenirs” and of course the Everly Brothers’ “Devoted to You.” We thought we were great!
The Junior-Senior prom was a big deal every spring. My freshman and sophomore years, I went with older boys – Danny my 9th grade year and Raiford in 10th grade. Pat and I were on the planning committee our junior year and transformed the gym into a Southern plantation and were very proud of the way it turned out. I went with Billy that year. Ann and I were part of the entertainment and sang our duets. Senior year I went with David Memory. In the spring of 1961, I graduated from Wagram High School with my 17 classmates. We had been together since first grade – 12 boys and 6 girls. I remember each one with love and affection and was certain that we’d be friends forever.
Brother Jim didn’t like first grade and kept running away, mostly escaping to my chemistry class. Mr. Parker would go to the door and yell to me “Buie, it’s your brother again!” I would take him back to Mrs. Murray. One day, Jim left campus and ran across #401 and went to see Charles Murray who ran the local garage business. Jim loved Charles Murray and would watch him fix cars. He didn’t make the connection that Charles Murray’s wife was his first grade teacher. Charles took him back to school. Jim probably got a spanking for this; I don’t remember. I do remember everybody telling this story over and over and laughing.
Jim is now an eighth grade history teacher. To hear him talk, I bet he’d like some of his students to run away.
Jim’s first grade picture. A too-big smile hiding tears at being forced to go to school.
Playing girls’ basketball could be intense.
1961 graduating class at Wagram High School, with two mascots.
Wagram School faculty for a 12-grade school with about 200 students.
Several years after I graduated, the Scotland County high schools consolidated into one, called Scotland High School, located in Laurinburg. Celeste and Jim graduated there, and Mother taught there until she retired in the early 80’s.
Next;
Exploring North, Central, and South America 
Leave a comment