From the Vineyard Gazette edition of Sept. 11, 1959:

An estimated 200 people stood squinting in the brilliant, hot sun Sunday afternoon, and watched Gordon Kelvin White and Robert Eldridge White Jr. raise the United States flag slowly to the top of a tall aluminum flagpole set in front of the new Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. Before that Rev. Thomas H. Lehman had offered a short prayer; and after that, Mrs. Wilfrid O. White merely spoke the words that were inscribed in the base of the flagpole she had given the school, and on which her grandsons had run up the flag.

This brief ceremony heralded the opening of the new school for the first time for inspection by the public. Brief and simple though it was, the ceremony was a dramatic one, in the way that drama frequently feeds upon an absence of dramatic qualities. There could have been only a few present in those first few moments who did not hear the essence of climax in the words Mrs. White had caused to be placed on the flagpole base. The inscription says,“Dedicated to the men and women whose vision and labor have founded this school.”

There could have been only a few present who did not realize that they would perhaps never know the full extent of that vision and labor, of which the construction of a new consolidated physical plant is only the first, necessary step.

But those same people did know that the school they were inspecting then for the first time since its completion was the product of compromise. They knew that it was an edifice standing almost as a monument to the kind of democratic compromise by which, although it frequently curtails the vision and augments the labor, most of the accomplishments of Americans are effected.

These things were known if perhaps they were not thought of, when the first 200 people filed into the new building to see what it looked like. The number grew to more than 2,000 before the afternoon was over, and there were many who came the next day.

The faculty of the school was assembled in the spacious main foyer of the building, ready to act as guides to groups of fifteen to twenty people.

Following the individual tours everywhere they went in the school, were the strains of music. Chamber music in the boiler room was a momentary delight. The music came through a two-way communication system between the central office and all areas of the school. An adjunct of the system is a radio, and it was from that that the music was emanating on Sunday.

The new school also boasts a number of paintings given by Island artists — Julius Delbos, Mary Drake Coles, Virginia Berresford, Mrs. I. R. Hoxie and Ruth Vietor.

These, in addition to the bouquets of flowers sent for the opening by Bill Seward’s Seagoing Grocery, Morrice Florist, and the officers and staff of the Martha’s Vineyard National Bank, brightened the areas where they were found.

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Vineyard youth, from kindergarten age to senior high, brushed its hair and put on shoes, Wednesday morning, for perhaps the first time since summer began and sea bathing became a necessity, and so, on foot, and by bus made its way to school, chafing under its unaccustomed weight of clothing, no doubt, but revealing portions of the summer tan which all have accumulated during the past months.

“An orderly, wholly pleasing group,” according to the Island superintendent of schools, Charles E. Downs, which sentiment was fervently echoed by the regional school principal, Charles A. Davis.

Island attention was, naturally, centered upon the new regional high school, opened for use for the first time on this day, and without doubt many questions have been asked and much interest has been shown in the activities, operation of entirely new systems of transportation and general handling of the Island’s consolidated high school. To all these, the answer must be of a most satisfactory nature, a credit to the various planners and organizers of the systems, and in the words of the principle school officials, to the students themselves.

“It seemed quite clear that the student body to the last one was deeply impressed by their surroundings,” said Superintendent Downs. “The orderliness, everywhere demonstrated, both before school opening and after, was most gratifying.

“The seven school buses arrived within a six-minute span, and only one student missed the bus. That one phoned in, explained the situation and asked if it would be permissible for a relative to bring him in a private car. Naturally, it was permissible, under the circumstances, but the regard shown for rules was most pleasing to see.”

The enrollment figures by towns and by grades, present an interesting study. The total enrollment on Wednesday was 1,264, including 86 in the three kindergarten schools. This was a gain of 23 over the total enrollment at the regional school was 315, just as predicted, a gain of 13 over the total enrollment of all three Island high schools a year ago.

Compiled by Hilary Wall
library@mvgazette.com