A student, especially one who is interested in “getting ahead,” wants to get along with the school principal. I tried to do this with Mr. Sharp, but not always successfully. The “music fiasco” was one incident. There were others.
“Youth Day” was one such incident. Every spring, all of the students elected fellow students to run the city for a day. The program was designed for us to experience how government works. Once again, I was to be the student organizer for the event.
My new problem for my Senior year began when Mr. Evans, my instructor in driving and one of the social studies teachers, gave me a lift one cold, January morning, although he usually passed me by on others. He needed to tell me about a change in the program at the direction of Principal Sharp. This year in order to be eligible to run for an elected city office, a student had to attend one of the bimonthly meetings of City Council before the March elections. Their observations were to give them some idea of what the town government was doing. There would also be two, special, daytime social study classes in February with the mayor, several council members, one of the city judges and the city solicitor giving brief presentations. The new requirements sounded reasonable, and I agreed to make a brief announcement in each social science class so that all of the students would know about the changes.
In late March, Miss Campana, my history teacher, learned that one of her pet students, Ron Nolder, had failed to attend any of the Council meetings and was ineligible to run. She told all of her classes that the rule was too strict and blamed me, as chairman of the Youth Day committee, for its implementation. She wanted me to declare that Ron should be eligible to run. I failed to convince her that if he, and others, could find time to devote to nightly gatherings at the Grill, the local hamburger-coffee hangout, they should have been able to get to one the meetings Mr. Sharp required. Her response, as related to me by those in her classes, was that no student was going to tell her what should be done in school. Although the rules were not modified, Ron did undertake a write-in ballot for his election; he failed.
The second incident was more directly involved with Mr. Sharp. On the same day that Miss Campana was telling her classes about my overly strict views, I was summoned into the Principal’s office, not to discuss the election, but rather, to be informed that the National Forensic League dinner at the close of the year could not be held at Café 422. He had learned of this venue when he was reviewing the Hi-Crier, the student newspaper, prior to its publication. Café 422 served alcohol and was off limits as a place for a banquet for a school program. I pointed out that all of the restaurants along highway 422 into Youngstown served alcohol at a separate bar and asked him for an alternative. After deep thought, he proposed Ma Perkins (where the food was considered by many to be inferior) or the Christian Parish House (which no one used) or, perhaps, the Masonic Temple (which really surprised me as being a non-alcoholic venue.)
He was adamant about the alcohol prohibition. As it turned out, we did have the NFL dinner at a place called Ali Bab. We were charged for 63 steak dinners, although only 60 people from our group ate there. Since all of the others had left, I had to pay the difference for the three extra steaks. It cost me a total of $7.00, which amounts to about $2.50 a steak or one-tenth of the price in current dollars!
Yes, there are costs associated with following principles or pleasing principals.