It`s not far, something less than 4 miles, from the corner of Roosevelt Road and Main Street in Wheaton to the corner of Weisbrook and Butterfield Roads, also in Wheaton.
The first corner is home to Wheaton Central High School, which graduates its last class of seniors today. The second corner is where the 118-year-old institution will re-emerge this fall as Wheaton Warrenville South High School. But the journey between those two corners has been a long one, at times a bitterly contested one and, today especially, a sentimental one for the graduates, the alumni and the community.
”We`re looking at graduation, the event itself, as being difficult from an emotional point of view,” Wheaton Central principal Charles ”Chuck”
Baker said several weeks ago as he sketched the plans and predictions for today`s finale to the school`s rich history at that site.
The ceremony, he said, will be long on tradition and short on hoopla. As always, the 376 or so graduates will wear black mortarboards with orange and black tassels and black gowns.
There will be no famous alums to grab the spotlight: ”The focus will truly be on the seniors,” Baker said.
No lengthy speeches: ”We`re still going to go for the record: In and out in under an hour.”
No shortage of spectators: ”We pack 3,000 people into the gym; we expect to fill it big-time this year.”
And no breaks from Mother Nature: ”We inevitably get the warmest day in early June. It`s a tradition to sweat at graduation.”
Holding fast to traditions, sweat and all, is just one of numerous strategies devised by Baker (with plenty of help from students, faculty and staff, he said) to smooth the bumps on the road to a new name and a new location.
”People had kind of forgotten this building was just a symbol of a high school that had existed long before at another building, that had moved here and was successful,” said Baker.
School success, in Baker`s terms, means the usual achievements such as Wheaton`s No. 2 spot in the state football championships for the past two years, speech teams that have won three state championships and go to the finals almost very year, and composite school ACT scores of 23.1, nearly three points over the state average.
But even more impressive, he said, is ”the immense variety of talent inside this building. Talk about accomplishments: We have National Merit Scholars, and a couple of years ago we had the state champion in residential plumbing. If you`ve got a state champion in speech and a state champion in plumbing, I think you`ve got the world pretty well covered.”
Another bit of Baker diplomacy is the spin he puts on the coming changes when he talks to students or community groups: ”This is not the end of anything. A family does not stop when it moves to another home; this is just another move. We`re taking all the pictures, all the furniture, all the traditions. Only the address will change.”
Baker makes a convincing case for the simplicity of it all, but the relocation and renaming of Wheaton`s oldest high school has been anything but simple, churning as it has the tough realities of population growth, budgetary restraints and community pride.
The school has weathered earlier changes, of course. It first opened in 1874 on the top floor of Central School, serving elementary and secondary grades. Known as the Old Red Castle, it was located at Union and Wheaton Avenues and drew students from Warrenville and other surrounding towns as well as Wheaton.
According to Alberta Adamson, director of the Wheaton History Center, it was one of the first high schools in Du Page County. As other grade schools were constructed, the high school took over the entire building.
In the spring of 1925, students and faculty of the Old Red Castle moved into the newly completed facility at Roosevelt Road and Main Street, which was named Wheaton Community High School.
R. Lowrie Wheaton of Wheaton was a senior that year, and he recently recalled the move: ”They gave us plenty of notice. We had watched the building being built, and we were all aware. It was getting near the end of the year, so we thought it would probably not be finished until the next year. But they announced at the end of one day that the building was finished and we could move in right away.”
The next school day, he said, students carried their personal effects from their desks (there were no lockers) to the new building, and classes continued as usual.
He said, ”It was a very small school then, but we thought it was very big. Everybody knew everybody else. Everybody went to every game. It was all very exciting. For them today, of course, the school is very old, but for us it was very young.”
Graduation that year was held outdoors on the football field.
Margaret Peironnet Rathje, Class of `28, also made the trek from the Old Red Castle to the new building in April of 1925. She recalled that
construction was not completed, and there were wooden steps, but the sewing and cooking classes had all the newest equipment. The following year, as a sophomore, she felt honored to help prepare and serve the food for the junior- senior prom, held in the building.
For graduation, she said, there were no caps and gowns: ”I wore a white dress made by the dressmaker and also a white wool coat. I was really spiffed out.”
Lucille Hahn Carlson, Class of `37, remembers the football games and pep rallies: ”There was this song: `Hubba, dubba, dubba, dubba, sis boom bah.` ” She also remembers dressing up for school in high heels and silk stockings. And a favorite prom dress: ”It was long, a pretty greenish blue, with puffed sleeves, a peter pan collar and smocking on top.”
Her date, she said, picked her up, and they walked to the dance at the school.
Student populations grew steadily, and the building was enlarged in 1938, 1952 and 1962. By 1963, more than 2,000 were attending on half-day schedules to ease the crowding. In 1964, Wheaton North was built at Thomas Road and Papworth Street, and the Roosevelt Road school was renamed Wheaton Central.
Again in 1973, District 200 responded to over-crowding at its two high schools by opening a third, Wheaton Warrenville High at Weisbrook and Butterfield.
Ten years later the high school was converted to a middle school during budget cuts, leaving a residue of bitter feelings in Warrenville and south Wheaton.
Dwight Lund, Class of `42, is a Warrenville resident who rode the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin daily to attend high school in Wheaton. He has served on the District 200 board several times and is president of the Wheaton Community High School Men`s Old Timers` Club.
Lund observed that, although as a youngster he frequently felt like a
”poor cousin” attending Wheaton schools, the two communities in fact have always had a synergistic relationship.
He said, ”It was mutually beneficial. The smaller community could not support high schools, so they added their tax bases to Wheaton to do a better job.”
When Wheaton Warrenville High closed, he said, ”It left a very, very bad feeling in the south end of the district. Warrenville and the south part of Wheaton made a strong effort to detach, which the court would not permit. It ruptured the district badly.”
But time heals, and in 1987 the voting taxpayers of Wheaton and Warrenville approved a $20 million proposal in a referendum that, in effect, mandated the new high school. When it opens next fall, the building on Weisbrook will have gone full circle: from high school to middle school and back to high school. The formerWheaton Central on Roosevelt Road will become Edwin Hubble Middle School.
”We went from `83 when the district really almost split apart to passing this bond issue,” said Lund, who actively supported the inclusion of Warrenville in the new school`s name.
Ah, the name. That has been a prickly problem. Some wanted to call it Wheaton Central. Others hit the stump for Wheaton Warrenville. The most alarming contingent, according to Baker, talked of restoring the 1973-83 Wheaton Warrenville High Wolverine mascot-green and gold colors and all.
This loosed a fury among the orange and black Tiger fans at
Wheaton Central. Baker said, ”That`s when I had to dig in my heels a little and say no. That`s not the direction we`re going. We don`t want to abandon a hundred-some years of history for a 10-year history. But we do want to recognize that 10-year history and give it all the dignity it deserves.”
The new school will have a permanent exhibit of Wolverine memorabilia, he said.
In the end, concessions were made: The long awkward name of Wheaton Warrenville South High School was agreed upon and emblazoned on all official surfaces.
Unofficially, South is emerging among the students as the name of their new school.
”It`s kind of the clearest way to say it,” said sophomore class president Andy Rowell, 16, as he sat in Baker`s office recently for a relaxed chat with the principal and another student leader about the move.
”South campus. That`s how we`ve been talking about it lately,” agreed Christie Mathieson, 16, of Wheaton. She is president of her junior class.
”But I`m not real sure yet,” said Rowell. ”I don`t think you can really tell. We might call it Whe-Wa.”
Mathieson and her classmates have known about the move since their freshman year.
She said, ”At first, everyone was real bitter. Then it was, `I guess this is the best thing we can do.` And then, as we talked about it more, it was like `This isn`t that bad. The Tiger will still be there. We`re just moving, with all the things.` And now there`s getting to be more and more excitement.”
Baker has relied heavily on Rowell and Mathieson to provide liaison between students and the administration.
”Christie`s class is the key,” he said, ”because the senior year is important and we don`t want to deprive our seniors of anything. They really became the main players, and then Andy`s class, because they have the greatest investment in the change.”
Rowell and Mathieson in turn have supplied input on many details of the transition, from locker placement to the issues of senior privileges to fielding rumors about multiple gyms and a non-existent pool.
Baker consulted with them about naming the pod-like halls of the new school for famous graduates. After feedback from their classes, Rowell and Mathieson made a counter-offer.
Baker said, ”They came back and said, `We`re choosing not to name any of the areas for individuals. But in the school crest are the words
”Scholarship,” ”Commitment,” ”Integrity,” and they wanted to add
”Tradition.” They`ve named three of the pods Scholarship, Commitment and Tradition. They chose not to name any hall for integrity, because their thinking was that everybody who comes into the building should have integrity. That`s from the minds of 16- and 17-year-olds. I`m very proud of them.”
Baker`s pride extends as well to the graduating seniors. Last fall, he said, he told teachers and students that ”our goal was to make this move with dignity, style and grace.”
Recently he added, ”The senior class has exhibited that the best. They haven`t asked for anything special. There was no big deal about being the last group.”
”It really adds to our graduation,” said Luke Anderson, 17, a Wheaton resident who is president of student conference, a student governing body.
”You could think of it like: Everyone is graduating. The town in a sense is graduating from this facility, moving on to something more modern, bigger. The focus will be on us because we`re doing that for real.”
Baker has planned a couple of surprises for the occasion. There will be specially minted medallions given to everyone who participates in the graduation.
And shortly before the processional begins, he will meet with the seniors and make one last request of them: That before they toss their mortar boards and march from the auditorium, they stand and sing with him a song he has selected especially for this memorable day.
Just what the song will be remains his secret until the right moment, but he said, ”It will be a thank you to this building and all that it has represented. I`ll tell them, `This is where we deliver on our promise to leave here with dignity, grace and style.
” `Perhaps the best way to honor the building is to demonstrate to this community, which will be watching you, that you have grown beyond (the controversy). So let`s stand together and see if we can sing that song, throw our hats and we`re out of here.”`
