The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 340

Our Century 119 The Palm Beach Post Sunday, December 19, 1999 MM Wl I tin, I Viii fMtfw'ititliiFntii iVritlirti-tirii rl rfh, fi 1 -V 1 lima 4 rjjr'J mm f''-r i 7 f- -L 1 7 I if tX IbJ FROM LEFT, FRONT ROW: Robert C. Davis (Class of '48), Marilyn Stone (Class of '43), Betty Jane Williams (Class of '47), Pearl Messer Callaway (Class of '38), Mary-Jo Hartwell Horton (Class of '47), Lois Garland Phillips (Class of '47). Back row, from left: Reginald Stambaugh, Bill Miller (Class of '47), Mary Anne Riggle Wandelt (Class of '57), Donald Ayers (Class of '47), Steve Newell (Class of '62), Bobby Riggs (Class of '43) and Julian M. Rowley (Class of '29). PALM BEACH HIGH SUPPORTERS: Dr.

Reginald Stambaugh (Class of 47) led the fight when it looked like the high school would be torn down and replaced with a modern school in 1992. Alumni lobbied the school board. "We found that many people have emotional attachments to Palm Beach High memories, family, tradition, community," Stambaugh said. They won. Palm Beach High and the older buildings to the south, Central School and the old junior high, were restored.

Now it's the campus of the Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts. And now, said Stambaugh, "It's a jewel. a i fr i a ft a 1 -i i a --if- UAhXL. ljJlA True to their schools THE ALUMNI WHO SAVED THEIR ALMA MATERS Because when it looked like the old Palm Beach High, founded in 1908, and the old Lake Worth High, built in 1922, would meet the bulldozer, a passionate group of their students rallied to prove that memories can be as important as money.

Because their push for preservation has rubbed off on alumni of other schools, including the old Industrial High School, which got a last-minute reprieve from the wrecking ball in 1999. Because they believed in the words of West Palm Beach architect Leslie Divoll, who said the historic buildings represent "one generation speaking to another. -JANTUCKWOOD FROM LEFT: Dennis F. Dorsey (Class of '53), founder and president of the Lake Worth High School Alumni Foundation; Mac McKinnon, longtime athletic director; Eldene Spriggs of the Alumni Foundation and Lake Worth Dollars for Scholars Foundation; Rock Tate (Class of 76); Arby Bankhead, longtime teacher; Virginia Sullivan Thomas (Class of '45); Charlane Finch Macon (Class of '48); Ann Hoffman Harvey (Class of '46); David D. Cantley, former principal; Al Elam (Class of '52); Gail Paglialungo (Class of '67); William C.

Jenner of the Palm Beach Community College Foundation; School Board member Jody Gleason; Tom Vaughan (Class of '61). LAKE WORTH HIGH SUPPORTERS: In the early '90s, it looked like Lake Worth High might be closed and a new school built in the western suburbs. But principal David Cantley and School Board member Jody Gleason got influential grad Dennis F. Dorsey and civic group Project Lake Worth involved, and they turned the tide. More than $30 million in renovations began in 1996.

Four generations of Dorsey's family have gone to Lake Worth High..