Shades Cahaba Oral History Project

In 1942, with the country fighting wars in Europe and the pacific, Homewood could no longer ignore the fact that Shades Cahaba was getting a little old in the tooth and it would have to be replaced in the next decade. Not to mention that it was very crowded. It was time for a new Shades Cahaba.

This will be the last regularly scheduled episode in this series. My goal was to continue at least through the end of the school year but with coronavirus and with the social isolation, it is making it harder to interview people. This seems like a good place to stop.

The school opened it’s doors 100 years ago this September so I plan to post stories on the blog leading up to that day. If an opportunity comes up for a good interview I will certainly do them and you will see them in your social media feeds.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to and supported this podcast. I have a more extensive thank you at the end of this episode.

ShadesCahabaHistory.com

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As soon as the school was built, teams were formed and Shades Cahaba entered competition with other Birmingham area high schools, which had already been competing for a number of years. This was no small feat. You only have to listen to the episode with Michael Gross about the beginnings of Homewood High School to understand that. That Homewood High School won a state football championship in its third year was remarkable. 

Shades Cahaba has had a distinguished record in athletics during its 29 years of existence. Football and Baseball teams existed the entire time. Basketball was started in the 1920s and seemed to have disappeared within a couple of years. 

Shades Cahaba also had the first lighted field in the state of Alabama. 48,000-watts of floodlights were dedicated on October 27, 1939, during a game with Jones Valley. Electronic speakers and a scoreboard soon followed.

Football Coaches (and most were the baseball coaches) at Shades Cahaba

Arthur Acton - 1921, 3-3 record
W.A. Reeves - 1922, 0-4-1 record
Sump Clarke - 1923, 6-2-1 record
Aubrey Alfred Miller - 1924-26, 10-7-5 record (he left for Greenville)
Sidney Malloy - 1927-1928, 1-15-1 record
Robert R. (R.R.) Hardy - 1929-1933, 21-16-6 record (was called HammerHead Hardy in the yearbook)
Piggy Mitchell 1934-1949, 100-47-6 record (1950 Shades Valley in 1950 and then Hewitt-Trussville 1951-1964).

For game scores and records, visit the Alabama High School Football Historical Society website at http://www.ahsfhs.org/. All the Shades Cahaba Records are listed under Shades Valley. Look for the team then games by year.

Make sure you follow the blog at https://shadescahabahistory.com/blog/ to see photos of teams and read other stories not covered on the pod.

SPONSOR

The Shades Cahaba Oral History Project is sponsored by ShawWright Art.com. When you go there, look for the link to Shades Cahaba and you will find shirts and accessories featuring the exclusive Shades Cahaba Centennial logo. This logo is based on an image on the cover of “The Owl” yearbook back in the 1920s. It has been updated to celebrate the 100 years of the school and it helps us to offset the cost of producing and publishing this podcast. Visit the store at https://www.shawnwrightart.com/product-category/shadescahaba/

When I recorded this episode, it was the second day that Shades Cahaba and other schools around the state had been shut down due to the state of emergency declared by Alabama Governor Kay Ivey. Coronavirus COVID-19 has been quickly spreading around the world and is now in our community. To help slow the spread of the coronavirus we have been asked to actively participate in social distancing. Staying at home, not visiting with other people or being in large crowds. The idea being that if we avoid public spaces and generally limit our movement, the virus will be slowed and our healthcare system will be able to better handle the situation. 

I was working on another episode when I remembered a conversation that Sheryl Summe and I had when I interviewed her in episode 12. This is not the first time that Homewood, and the rest of the nation, has participated in social distancing. During the hot summer months of the 1930s and 40s, infantile paralysis struck thousands of children each year nationwide. Three different highly contagious polioviruses began with cold or flu-like symptoms and could permanently paralyze or kill infected children.

The disease hit its peak in the U.S. in 1952. It was at its worst in Jefferson county during the 1930s and hit epidemic proportions in 1936. As a parent, I can only imagine how terrified parents were that their children would be crippled by the disease or worse, die from it. 

Parents would do their own version of social distancing. Not letting their children play with others or the lucky ones would be left at rural camps such as Camp Winnataska for the summer. But children are ingenious and have their own priorities. Here is my conversation with Sheryl where we talk about it.

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We talk about Shades Cahaba a lot on this podcast for obvious reasons. With a school that taught grades 1-12 you get a little tunnel vision and start to think this is all there was in Homewood. Not true. There were other schools and we are going to talk about a few of those on this episode of the Shades Cahaba Oral History Project.

A special thanks to author Sheryl Summe for doing all the hard work in her book “Homewood: Life of a City.” I really leaned on the information in the book for this episode and it wouldn’t have happened without it. I left out a ton of information. 

If you can get your hands on a copy of the book, take a deep dive and read it from front to back. I guarantee you that you will learn some things you didn’t know. 

SPONSOR
The Shades Cahaba Oral History Project is sponsored by ShawnWrightArt.com. When you go there, look for the link to Shades Cahaba and you will find shirts and accessories featuring the exclusive Shades Cahaba Centennial logo. This logo is based on an image on the cover of “The Owl” yearbook back in the 1920s. It has been updated to celebrate the 100 years of the school and it helps us to offset the cost of producing and publishing this podcast. You can find a link to the store on the podcast home page at shadescahabahistory.com

But what if you didn’t go to Shades Cahaba and don’t want a Shades Cahaba item. There is plenty of artwork and accessories to choose from. Just visit Shawnwrightart.com.

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This episode is about the Shades Cahaba building. How it grew over the years. What changed and why. This podcast is audio-only but there is a version with pictures and an overhead view of the building to better illustrate what I am talking about. You can watch it on my YouTube page.

This episode is about the Shades Cahaba Underpass. Some of you may call it the tunnel but from the time it was conceived in the early 1950s and for the next 40 or 50 years it was called the underpass. I had actually forgotten it was called the underpass until a school mate of mine reminded me of a social media post. No matter what you call it, it has been a favorite of Shades Cahaba students for close to 70 years.

In this episode, we talk about the growth along Montgomery Highway which was the driver for creating a safe passage for students as they walked to Shades Cahaba School. 

We also share a few memories of the tunnel and art projects to help clean up the tunnel. 

If you haven't been to the underpass in years, there are two opportunities to relive the feeling. At the very end, I have an audio recording of me walking through the tunnel. If you would like a visual, check out this video I took in 2010. https://youtu.be/K7zvPUoUyl8

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This is the second episode of my conversation with former Homewood High School Principal and Superintendent Michael Gross. In the first episode we talked about the beginning of the school system, opening of the high school and the unique challenges he faced. 

We had a long conversation so I took out all the mentions of athletics and have produced an episode with those outtakes. We talked about the first coach and were Homewood played their first football games. 

Money was tight but there were people in the community that made things easier. From a benevolent sporting goods dealer to a super fan to a booster club and community that rallied around the school to start things off the right way. 

Finally we talk about how the championship football team had to win in court before they could ever win the championship at Legion Field. 

This would be a good time to remind you to keep an eye out for the book “Fighting Patriots. The first three years of Homewood High School Footbal” which will be published this spring. You can listen to my episode with Wade Kirkpatrick to learn more about the book at https://shadescahabahistory.com/podcast/wade-kirkpatrick-fighting-patriots-special-edition/

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We have talked a lot about the beginnings of Shades Cahaba High School and the beginnings of Shades Valley High School but now I want to talk more about the beginnings of other schools in Homewood and the beginning of the Homewood School System. The Board of Education was established on December 22, 1969, but they assumed authority on July 1, 1970, making 2020 the 50th anniversary of the Homewood School System.

A lot went into establishing the school system including working out ownership of schools with the Jefferson County Board of Education, distributing students among the schools and having high school students attend Shades Valley High School and Homewood Junior High while a new high school was being built. The man who was at the center of this change and a major influence on the school system we have today is my guest, former Homewood High School Principal and Superintendent Michael Gross.

I noticed a similarity between the beginnings of Shades Cahaba High School and Homewood High School. It’s the community gathering around and making the sacrifices needed to create the best school they could for their children in Homewood. 

Mr. Gross and I talked for a long time so I have broken his interview into two episodes. This first one, which is still long,  focuses on creating the school system and building the high school. The second is a shorter one that talks about creating a successful athletic program. 

This episode is a Special Edition of the Shades Cahaba Oral History Project. We talk with Homewood High School Alumnus Wade Kirkpatrick. Wade played on the first Homewood Football team to win a state championship in 1974. He wrote a book about it called “Fighting Patriots, The First Three Years of Homewood High School Football" which should be out this spring. Proceeds of the book go to a great cause. I’ll let Wade fill us in the book as we discuss that special football team.

If you have been a listener to the podcast then you know this is the 100th Anniversary of Shades Cahaba as a school. The first day of school was September 19, 1920. There was a dedication held a few days before and It was on that day that the two large bronze plaques were unveiled by the auditorium. We talked about that on our Veteran’s Day episode.

I had a great time interviewing people in 2019 and sharing their stories. Before I get into the new year, I wanted to look back at the 13 episodes we have produced so far.

Episode 1 featured current Shades Cahaba Elementary Principal John Lowry. He gave us an update on what Shades Cahaba is today. The size, what they are doing and how they are impacting the students that are there now. We finished the episode with a history of how the school started. It didn’t just magically appear, it took a community to build it.

Dr. Lowry has been big help to me and the podcast. I appreciate all the support he has given me so far.

In Episode 2 we talk about the 1920s at Shades Cahaba. Big things happened during this decade including the first graduating class, adding the elementary school students to the school, and expansion of the original building. So much of the growth of the school came because of the help of the Shades Cahaba School Improvement Association, the precursor to today’s PTO. 

My guest was current PTO President Alexa McElroy. Alexa shared with us what the PTO has been doing for the school and she announced the 100th Birthday Celebration at the school that kicked off the year-long Centennial Celebration. 

Despite the rain, the party was a great success. You can see images of the historical banners used at the event on the blog page at shadescahabahistory.com

Episode 3 introduced us to Don Harbor. I have known Don a long time and it was a pleasant surprise to find out he went to Shades Cahaba. Don was in Elementary school at the end of Shades Cahaba’s time as a high school and he shared his experiences with me.

Don had written his memories of his time growing up in Homewood well before I had contacted him. I will be sharing his Shades Cahaba stories on the blog so make sure you lookout for those

Bill Cleveland is an alumnus and the current Homewood Board of Education Superintendent. It was only a matter of time before he showed up on the pod. I interviewed him in Episode 4 and we talked about the Homewood school system today, what it is like coming back and leading a school system where they know all your history. We also take a look at what was going on at Shades Cahaba during the 1930s.

In episode 5 I talk with former principal Sue Grogan about her time at Shades Cahaba and what the school was like in the 1940s. I met her when my oldest son first started kindergarten. She is known for many things but helping establish the Shades Cahaba Way is a legacy that will last. 

If you want to know anything about the history of Homewood, you have to talk to Herb Griffin. Herb is a lifelong resident of the town and his family was one of the original settlers in this area. In episode 6 we talked about his time at Shades Cahaba High School and being a member of the class of 1948. 

From the beginning of the podcast, I was looking for the story of the owl on the building. Someone told me that I needed to contact Laura Estes. It seems that she grew up next to the owl on Wellington Road and might know the story. Episode 7 was planned on being about the owl but I had a great time talking with her about her time as a kindergarten teacher at Shades Cahaba Elementary. Not only did Laura teach there but her mother, Kernie Ardillo was a P.E. teacher in the 50s and her father, Nick Ardillo, was a 15-year member and chairman of the Homewood Board of Education. 

Episode 8 was

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