Q. Were you excited about attending a brand new high school?

Very excited, for a lot of reasons. The first one, that many of us shared was that South Miami was going to be the first 'windowless' 'all air conditioned' 'CARPETED' high school in the county. Pretty modern stuff back in 1971. That, and I was excited to be able to meet 'new and different' kids who would be feeding in from a lot of different high schools and (as they called them back then, junior high schools.

Q. What was the process like of choosing the school colors and mascot for SMSH? Was the student body heavily involved in this?

Absolutely we were involved. We were going on a split shift to Coral Park High school for the first several weeks of that first school year since SMSH was not quite completed on time as they thought it would be. We split the Coral Park with their students, with the C.P. kids going early in the morning until noon, then the SMSH kids would show up at noon until dinnertime. That really doesn't have a lot to do with picking out the colors except for the fact that I remember sitting in an assembly in the Coral Park Auditorium having a big forum discussion about the mascot and colors. (School had obviously, already started at that point) We narrowed the choices down to a few that were voted on in homeroom the next day ... I can't remember the 3rd one, but I do remember that besides the Brown Orange and White Cobras, the other possibility ... and very close runner up was the Black and Silver "Saints". There was a contest that any student could enter to write the Alma Mater, and I think the faculty voted on that. PS We all 'tried' to sing it at our reunion in June ... a few of us came close to remembering all the words, while most of us 'butchered' it badly.

Q. What teachers or other school staff do you remember fondly from SMSH?

Always, my #1 fondest memory was of Coach Yanda. He was our head football coach, and a guidance counselor, for whom I worked in 3rd period of my senior year. He came to our 35th reunion in June and even wore a brown suit with an orange shirt !!! Coach Newmeyer was great .. he taught US History as well as being a football coach ... He was not long out of college at that time, and so he wasn't all that much older than we were. Coach Newmeyer came to our reunion breakfast too ... it was so much fun to see him .. we all decided that NONE OF US had changed one bit in 35 years. Both Coach Yanda and Coach Newmeyer remembered all of our names and told fun, old stories on all of us. THere was a member of the front office staff who came to the reunion too ... I can't remember her name. Coach Colzie was a favorite as well as Mrs. Norton... the "typing" teacher ... everyone loved her and fought to get in her classes. Our Principal Warren Burchill was very well liked by the students and tried to come to our reunion, but had a previous family commitment that weekend. Coach Ragozzine and Coach Scarneccia were very liked by all the students too ... everyone was very 'caught up' and bonded by the fact that we were all starting this great new school and all it's traditions together.

Q. I was reading about the 'open classrooms' they had here at the school; what was that like and do you think that worked well for students and teachers?

We called them 'fluid spaces' . I remember, even with some classrooms only separated by a folding, vinyl panel, it was much quieter than my 10 grade high school was (I went to Southwest in 10th grade ... back then high school was only 10, 11, & 12th) I guess the quietness" was due to the usual noises being absorbed by the carpeting in this cool new building. Also, I can remember that sometimes we would do joint projects with other classes, in which case the teachers would just walk over and 'open the wall' and presto ... another class a full of students joining us.

Q. Any particular recollections about the media center/library? (I had to ask; my favorite part of the school of course).

THE SMELL OF ALL THE NEW BOOKS ! I remember thinking how 'high tech' the library seemed, although I'm sure we didn't use that phrase .. more like "modern'. There was not a whole lot of other 'media' other than books, encyclopedias etc ... I also remember thinking how new and clean the "card catalog" files looked ... not the usual beat up tall wooden school library file cabinets, but sleek modern units that housed the cards.