LHS’ first grads reminisce

Published 11:50 am Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Dave Hampton remembers his last day of school in 1976 at Lynnwood High, when a teenage boy popped wheelies in the parking lot while a crowd egged him on.

They thought it was the coolest thing — and so did the principal, cheering there with them.

“High school was lot more fun,” Hampton said. “It wasn’t as restrictive.”

Students from the school’s first graduating class of 1973 still meet regularly for dinner to talk old times, along with some ’74s and ‘76-ers. And some of their children are now Lynnwood High School seniors — the last class to go to school in the old building.

In the fall, the students will move to a brand new building on North Road.

Roughly a dozen alumni met at Billy McHale’s Steak &Ribs in Lynnwood Thursday, Feb. 5, for some high-energy reminiscing about Lynnwood, which was a different place in the 1970s. Seattle folk called it “the swamp.”

“We swam naked in Martha Lake, went roller skating, went to state parks and stayed up all night,” said Mike Varriano, class of ‘73. “(We’d) talk and have a big fire.”

The town was small, with horseback riding and a hefty walk between neighbors. You’d head down 196th Street Southwest and find yourself in the woods. The streets were empty and safe.

What’s now Alderwood mall was a big patch of dirt, and students would tear it up in their cars.

Another pastime: heading off to the woods to smoke a joint.

Students used drugs, but drugs are a lot worse today, Hampton said. The marijuana, for example, is stronger now and laced with dangerous chemicals.

There was dating too, but it was strictly overseen. You had to be home by 11 p.m. or midnight, and no one had cars, said Mary Sheaffer, class of 1973.

She married her high school sweetheart in 1973. Fifteen other couples from their class of about 310 students married too.

That first class had no students older than them, which created a real closeness, said Pat Minnick, class of 1973.

There were cliques, including “the cool people,” “the drama people” and “the stoners.” But there was a lot of interaction between them and a ton of school spirit, said Denise Varriano, class of 1973.

The students chose the fight song music, wrote its words, drew up the chimera (the school’s mascot) and named the school’s areas (i.e. “the commons.”)

“People will say, ‘What are all these weird traditions?’ and I will be like, ‘Hey, my parents created those things,’” said Vinny Varriano, the son of Denise and Mike and a senior this year at Lynnwood.

One difference, he said: Students communicate online a lot more now.

“If we wanted to see a friend, we had to get off our butts and go see them,” said Kim Hollinger, class of 1973.

Lynnwood High senior Shaylee Myron’s father, Colin Myron, was in Lynnwood’s first class. She wished she could go to school back then, she said.

“It seems easier,” she said. “There were less requirements.”

There was no WASL, no senior project, and the school was in a phase where it was giving more autonomy to students, not less.

With a program called “Time Management,” you could take nine 20-minute classes a day if you wanted to and graduate early, Mike Varriano said.

But back then, there was also less of a focus on finding a career.

“They said we could get a job at the mall,” said Denise Varriano. “Such aspiring career choices!”