For The rest of the story

Here is a great story for you that is documented in the 1965 Monticello if any of you have access to it. I learned about this fun story when I was asked if my younger brother was involved in it. My brother’s name was Bob or Bobby, but he graduated in 1961 so is innocent. Here is the story.

On the night of the Junior/Senior prom, three Senate members managed to place a Lone Star quart bottle, “empty of course,” as related by one of the three. That picture of the bottle is in the yearbook, but not very clear, as telephoto lenses were not commonplace then. How they achieved the feat was not disclosed.

I was told that the then-sponsor of the Senate was a teacher named Lionel Gregory, who was a Jeff student during the ’40s and a teacher from 1958-1988. He is now 91. I called Mr. Gregory. He acknowledged the antic but claimed he does not remember who the culprits were. He thought one of them was short and slender. My suspicion is that he is still protecting the guilty, although the statute of limitations is long past. His memory was otherwise crisp and sharp, and we shared some good recollections of years gone by.

Now when I first went out to view the bricks laid around the flagpole at Jeff, I saw two bricks with Stutts names that were unknown to me. A few months ago, I found that these two, father and daughter, were distant cousins I never knew. That connection yielded two more cousins from the classes of 1965 and 1967, and one was named Bob or Bobby.

The rest of the story…I asked my new-found cousin, Bob, if he were the culprit. I will quote his reply.

“And, yes I will own up to the story – it was NOT me.  It was a Lone Star bottle, and there were, I believe, various members of Senate involved (ZZZ – class of ’65 who was not short, but slim and/or XXX – who was short and slim – both might know much more about the incident).  The incident did occur during the 1964-65 school year and is immortalized in that year’s yearbook.

My only involvement was Dave Bamberger and I attempted to retrieve the bottle when the contractors who’d been hired to do so told the administration is was too dangerous and would need a day or so to gather more equipment.  We did climb the exterior window bars of the library – walked across the tile roof to the cafeteria roof, crossed over the cafeteria roof to the far end where we could climb (with ropes) to the top of the second floor and, then to the top of the third floor (again a tiled roof) where we made our way to the least high side of the tower (assault on TJHS tower).  We did make our way into the dome’s interior, pulled the ladder up thru the trapdoor, then stood the ladder on the ledge of the window – at which time it was almost 90 degrees – straight up.  It was at that point both Dave and I concluded we were neither stupid nor drunk enough to climb up, lasso the pinnacle, crawl up and retrieve the bottle.

That was the sum total of my direct involvement with the bottle on the dome.”

If you click on the site above, there are some great photos of Jeff, and if you look closely at those which feature the dome, you will see an object at the top of the dome that is presumably the empty Lone Star bottle.

The rest of the rest of the story…from an anonymous source:

OK…. I confess.  It was the night of the Jr/Sr Prom….  It was XXX, YYY and myself….  XXX was the President of the Senate, YYY and I were members.  XXX is about 5’6″ so I’m sure that is who Mr. Gregory was referencing.

It was a Lone Star quart bottle and it was empty (of course;).  It is immortalized in the 1965 yearbook, but the picture is not that good (evidently they could get close enough?)

Thanks for bringing it up – fun to reminisce.

I hope you enjoyed learning about this escapade from the long-ago past.