highline56 Vignettes

Remember how years before we got to high school, Highline had won the state basketball championship? During a pep rally afterward, an excited girl had fallen from the balcony in the auditorium and a photographer in the front row snapped the picture and sold it to Life Magazine?

David McElroy was running for senior class treasurer, but we couldn't think of anything for him to say in his speech at the candidates' assembly except that he would work hand in hand with the student body treasurer (me). Finally we decided to have everything go wrong--the microphone would squeal, the curtain would go up and down as he spoke, etc. The highlight would be that I, sitting in the front row of the balcony, would scream "Oh David, you're so wonderful. Perfect for class treasurer!!" and throw a dummy over the railing. David was to yell something like "I'll save her. I'll save Highline High" then run forward and pick up the dummy from the aisle. It went perfectly except no one realized it was a dummy. Amid the chaos, no one could hear David and he couldn't get up the aisle. My mother was substitute teaching that day and was sitting next to Miss Cope, the biology teacher. She said Copey almost fainted.

David got elected. Neither one of us did a thing in our respective treasurer jobs, but we did hold hands a lot.