First of all I would like to thank, or better yet, ask the Reunion Committee what in the world they had on their minds when they asked me to be the speaker for Rockingham High School's 50th Year Class Reunion. Most of you are mulling the same question, and I'm sure that Theo Smith, Catherine Crosland, Rebecca Howell, and Ella Mulkey are all clutching their hearts at this time.

Charlie asked me to speak about some of my high school memories, such as teachers and subjects; thus, my thought immediately turned to Latin and Miss Crosland.   My son, now 40, once asked me how many years of what foreign language had I taken in high school. Without hesitation, I said Latin, and that I had three years of it. He asked why I had to have three years. I said that I had taken Latin I, Latin, II, and Latin II. All I remember is that by my senior year, Julius Caesar, Greek mythology and I had become extremely good friends. I can still remember some of the Latin declensions and their cases; Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative, Vocative, and actually there was a seventh, the rarest, call Locative. Then there was stuff like the Present, the Imperfect, the (Act eerie). Then there were "Mooodes", like Indicative, Subjunctive, Conjunctive, Imperative and Infinative. Then there were voices like Active and Passive, and the nouns had six cases, three genders and two numbers, and...and...and..then...ugh...oooo there were weird things called articles and determiners, and personal pronouns...and there demonstratives that were sumpin' called feminated and neuterated, and proxminally neutered. There were adjectives that were possessed...there were pronouns, ordinal numbers that were cardinal, or sumpin' like that...then Adverbs...Number...Order and...and..and...the only person in the entire free world that knew the answers to any of this was Catherine Crosland. Then suddenly Latin III was over. Impressed with my knowledge my son said, "Dad, speak me some." I said, "Son, I can't. It is an unspoken language." My son: "What? Why is that?" Me: "Don't really know. I just know that the hardest teacher I had in my entire life said so." My son then made a most profound statement: "Then why in the hell did you take three years of it?" You know, he did have a good question! The only time I have ever heard Latin spoken since graduation was a "You Tube" diddie of a graduation speech at Harvard Law School, and they were too damn smart for me anyway.

My wife, Gail, has told me since she came with me to our 45th reunion that she had never experienced a high school class where the classmates were so close. She just could not understand it. As I thought how to describe it to her, it suddenly dawned on me that I could speak of all the neighbors, friends, and classmates that I grew up with, and especially the neighborhoods and communities we grew up in. Beginning in my little neighborhood, which was the block that included Deweese Ave., Surginor Road, Spencer Street, Roberdel Road, and US 1 North, there were an abundance of playmates that attended the same school. Bonnie Poplin Gainey and I were talking at our 45th reunion and ascertained that at one time there were as many as 89 children that lived within this block. Many of them were members of our Class of 1964 at Rockingham High School. Guys and gals like Bonnie Poplin, Julia Bryson, Charlie Yow, Gloria Whitlock, Toni Young, Mackey Cameron, and at one time Buddy Wester even lived in our block on Deweese Ave. Ext.

There were many other children in our neighborhood, and just as there were in neighborhoods all over our town and outlying areas, our parent's jobs were numerous. We were a small textile community with a plethora of people as diverse as any melting pot. There were teachers, doctors, lawyers, firemen, bankers, postal workers, piano teachers, choir directors, band directors, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, managers and workers in all types of businesses, mill workers, insurance salesmen, and politicians. 

I explained to my wife that the one thing that we all had in common was the fact that we all were "Rockets" to the core, parents and children alike. Our school system pulled us all together, and it mattered not that we came from places with names like Roberdel, Ledbetter, Cordova, Hoffman, Pee Dee, Five Points, and Wolf Pit. We would remain fierce competitors in any and everything while living in our individual neighborhoods or communities, but there would come a day when we were dropped off at "The Circle"...for the first time...we all would climb the front steps of our beloved Alma Mater...enter her sacred halls...and from that point on we were and would remain to this day, as our motto states, "All for each, and Each for all." We were then forever "Rockets"...our blanket of colors became black and orange, and from that day forward to her our allegiance would continually remain "always brave and true."

From then on it mattered not whether our school was represented by the football team, baseball team, basketball team, debate team, band, choir, or as Bob McDonald once suggested, even the Future Famers in a tool identification contest...oh, and especially if our Rockets football team was facing the archrival Hamlet Red Rams. It mattered not, the Black and Orange was indeed why we, as our motto stated, "All for each, and Each For All."

Buddy Wester probably knew sooner than most of us what exactly we would grow up to be, and that he one day would be a famous lawyer as he is today...but look at me. If any of you sitting here tonight had made a 100 to 1 bet before or at the time of graduation that I (Ken Smith) would grow up and become a Minister of Music for over 42 years and an assistant band director for over 36, then, my friends, this room would tonight be full of multi-millionaires.

It took my wife now of 44 years to settle me down. I went from starting college two weeks after graduating from high school. I immediately pursued  and double majored in partying and minored in girls and I made an "A" in both. Needless to say, my college education, at the time, suffered to almost failing and having to enlist, then return to college, which is where I met my bride to be, and finally settling down. It was fast too, and our courtship went something like this.

Now everyone, I'm gonna' read this fast...ya'll listen fast..and it'll be over fast. I saw her walking across the student union...I told my friend I was sitting with that I was going to marry her... he said I was crazy... I told him to go to the college president's office where she worked and tell her that I was going to date her...he did...he came back to the student union... I asked what she had said...he said you knew where she worked...I went to the office...I met her once...asked her for two dates...she said yes...we went on those two dates...she went home for the weekend...she returned to school Sunday...I asked her to marry me...she said yes...44 years, two kids, eight grandchildren, and one great-grandchild later, she's still my best friend, my girlfriend, and my sweetheart.

We now look back and realize that we were very fortunate, and that the teachers at Rockingham  High School were some of the best teachers ever. They were hard. They demanded from us our best. We had all kinds of homework, and were expected to turn it all in. It didn't matter if Miss Crosland, Mrs. Howell, Mrs. Dockery, Coach Biggerstaff, or Mr. Stogner, etc. had assigned us homework all on the same day. They had long since set a standard for us to follow, and we were expected to uphold our end. Little did some of us realize how well they were actually preparing us for college and life in general. We were taught to respect our teachers, and if we were disciplined at school, you could count on getting something worse when you got home.

It  didn't matter if your Mom was a teacher either. I can remember Miss Crosland telling me that every day when the teachers went to the teachers lounge upstairs above the entrance to the high school, Theo would walk in the smoke filled room, take out a cigarette, and before lighting it ask, "Did Ken have all his homework?...Has he been in trouble...and has he fallen and broken something today?" If everything was OK, she would smoke her cigarette. If not, she would turn me in to Mr. Mulkey, from whom all discipline flowed. Mom's own brand of discipline awaited me at home.

The day I discovered the pictures of Rockingham High School being torn down was a very sad day for me. All I could do was look at them and cry. Suddenly, everything that I had ever learned in each room, all the talks with my classmates, holding hands and stealing a kiss with a girlfriend in the stairwells...the band...the choir, dissecting frogs, memorizing Latin declensions...trying to figure out what iambic pentamater had to do with poetry...and that fateful Friday, November 22, 1963 about 1:30 pm when Mr. Mulkey announced to the school that our President, John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Do you remember where you were? I do! I was in Mrs. Dockery's geometry class. I will always remember that she walked down the center aisle of the classroom, sat at her desk, removed her glasses, placed her head in her hands and wept. She sat at her desk and wept with her head in her hands. Finally she said, "Well class, we might as well go on home because I cannot teach anymore." I don't wish to argue whether or not our school should or shouldn't have been torn down, I just know that it ripped at my soul.

We left our old school's hallowed halls now over fifty years ago. Our lives since then have seen college, technical school, military service, marriage, divorce, career changes, new towns, new countries, new friends, children, grandchildren, and great-grand-children. Death has touched the lives of all those present here tonight. We are no longer the leaders of tomorrow but children of yesterday. Each reunion that we are fortunate to attend now has brought the loss of more classmates. Our class roll is thirty-one Rockets less than when we walked her aisles for the final time in 1964. Everything seems to have changed. Even our old high school stands no longer, but I am confident that the memories we all hold of her shall never die.

If  "All for each, and Each for all" was our motto to uphold, then I would dare say that the bond that we still share today is proof positive that we have all diligently upheld that charge. The warmth of the Rocket afterburners from this Friday and Saturday night's 50th class reunion is testimony to our continued bond with one another.

The first reunion I attended was our 45th. My lack of desire or making an attempt to come to and of our reunions prior was selfish and cost me the opportunity of not being able to reunite with each of you sooner, and not being able to fellowship with many of the thirty-one who have since left us.

If I had come to but one class reunion earlier, I would have been able to see my friend Johnny Ratliff again...shake his hand and reminisce with him all the good times we shared growing up. If I even had taken a few extra minutes at the last get together, I would have been able to talk with Settle once more...thank him for being such a good friend to me while growing up, and thank him and reminisce with him for all the good times we spent together playing golf.

Once you leave tonight, please understand that we from now until we meet again, know not for whom the bells may toll. I plead with you...I urge you...that before you leave here tonight take a little extra time and speak to those that you may not have had a chance to speak to yet...shake a hand...tell someone how much they really meant to you growing up in good ole Rockingham...get an address, phone number...email...Facebook. Please Communicate with them. Get together every chance you get.

Another excellent way to share your memories is through an excellent website, rockinghammemories.net, which is solely maintained by Joel Bailey (RHS '66). Joel bears the financial burden of this website alone and donates countless hours of his personal time in maintaining it. Per Joel, "...rockinghammemories.net is a collection of childhood memories, nostalgia, personal stories and some history of growing up in Rockingham, North Carolina, a small textile town in the South in the '50's and '60's." Check it out. You will not be sorry, and I think you'll love it as much as I do. Then after you check it out share some memories of your own. Send them to Joel to post to the website. He loves to get these memories from anyone, and he has often said, "Our classmates stories, memories, and pictures, are what keeps this site going.

I am thankful that five years ago, Charlie Yow and Donna Tuthill Cochran literally shamed me into coming to my first reunion. Had they not taken time to do so, I would never have found my best friend, Ray Williams, again. Never will I ever forget the experience of Ray calling me in my room (which I had secretly booked adjoining his room) and asking me where I was. I told him that if he would open the door in from of him that he would find me. When we both opened our doors, all we could do drop our phones, hug each other and cry. It was as if we had never left home. Our wives had never met, and all they could do was hug and cry. Today they're friends too. I have also renewed numerous friendships and made many new ones that I never had.

I say to you all, that unless providentially hindered, shame if you don't come to every get together we have from now until. Let's pledge to stay in touch with each other.

Before we leave tonight I would like to ask each and every one of you that were a member of the "Eight O'Clockers" to come up on stage. I have asked Donald Coleman, their student director, to come and lead them and all of us in our Alma Mater. (I have for each of you a copy of the lyrics at your place setting.)
God Bless one and all! I love you, my classmates more than you'll ever know! Till We Meet Again!


Alma Mater
On a circle stately standing
'Neath  the sky of blue.
Stands my friend, my Alma Mater
Always brave and true,
Sons and daughters soon must part
The future leads us on.
Knowledge, Service, Faith and Honor
Makes us wise and strong.
All for each, and each for all,
Our motto we'll uphold,
Seeking in our daily living
Ideals high and bold.
Never fear dear school of mine,
Your splendor 'll never die.
We'll protect your name forever,
Rockingham Our High.

Thanks to Bobby McDonald for his 40th reunion speech. You helped me a lot with mine, Bobby. Hope you don't mind my borrowing some of your thoughts. You are a better writer than me any day.