Memories

       The following pages contain memories students have of their time at Dulles High School: good or bad.  If you have a memory you'd like to share, please send it to: alumni@rtbrandon.com.  Be sure to include the year you graduated.
       If you want your memory to be posted anonymously, please note this on your submission, otherwise your name will be included. 

     During my three years at Dulles the football team made the playoffs every year and the basketball quintet went to state in 1964.   At that time, JFD was the largest AA school in the state, and 1964 was its last year in AA.  As the managing editor of the Viking Shield, I was privileged to be able to attend and write of the football team's many victories.  We were leading in the state finals at Baylor Stadium in Waco over Rockwall 6-0 until the final 37 seconds of the game, when a fluke pass play to Rockwall's Marc Noel yielded what was said to be a touchdown (film replays showed it wasn't).  The extra point was good, and time ran out with the score 7-6.  That was perhaps the most heartbreaking sports loss of my life, and even now over 35 years later, I replay that ersatz touchdown in my mind on every biweekly drive through Rockwall.
      In those olden days, we published the Shield as a full page once a week in the Fort Bend Mirror. With an enrollment of only about 475, and a newspaper staff of only 3 to 4 reliable contributors, news copy would occasionally be scarce and there we would sit on Thursday evening at 5 p.m. --with a 7 p.m. deadline--with up to 20 blank column inches to fill and no story.  Then it was time to be creative, and we often were, writing, typing, and proofing feature articles on students or faculty as time flew by.  Nevertheless, we always were able to successfully put the Shield to bed, although more than once in just the nick of time.
      The first fiberglass Viking mascot, then called "Leif," (I believe) was purchased through a student fundraising campaign initiated by the Shield's Editor-in-Chief, Charlotte Hancock.  The mascot, accompanied by an honor guard, traveled in a pickup truck to every football game.
      I was in Mrs. King's Civics class on Novermber 22, 1963, when Mike Munch came in and announced that JFK had been shot.   At first he wasn't believed, but the teacher used the then new telephone intercom to call the office to confirm it was true.
      The move in the autumn of '62 to the new school from the old one in Missouri City was like moving to a palace.  We thought air conditioning in the classroom to be an amazing life enhancer.  No more having the paper stick to your sweaty forearm as you took notes or responded to test questions.  The gym and PE dressing rooms were also uptown by comparison to our former digs.

      I, too, was a member of Mrs. King's Civics Class on 11/22/63 and have never been able to block the memory of the confirmation of Mike Munch's report being broadcast over the school intercom.  The other really big world event that I remember is the absolute terror I felt that we might at any moment be bombed into oblivion during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  My memories of the fateful game at Baylor Stadium against Rockwall are a bit different.   As a member of the Viking Band, we were used to playing the fight song and others throughout the game as well as marching during halftime.  The weather was so cold and wet that we had to keep our instruments in their cases for protection.  Perhaps more songs could have had a positive influence on the outcome.

      1959-1960 was a very good year for us.  Made the move from Sugar Land High School after the 1958-1959 year.  I never thought the school much less the district would get so big.  Great sports teams at our school.

     Tranferring from a large Houston school in the fall of 1964, I was a bit surprised to find Dulles High School so small in comparison to my old school.  From a distance it appeared even smaller because there were few houses and trees surrounding the campus.  It's not that way any longer.

     Johnny Harris {me} and Larry Warmke decided to get some beer and drive around Sugar Land on a Saturday night...so we get the beer and put it on ice in the back seat of my little Triumph auto and head out.
I go the bright idea of going by the policeman's {there was ony one} house to see if his patrol car was parked in his driveway.  While we were both stretching our necks to see if he was home, we hit a car in front of his house...no one was hurt so we took off and finished the brew at the football stadium.  I had to pay Justice of the Peace Gandy 25 bucks for leaving the scene and of course, pay for the other guy's car...my parents took the keys away from me.....
     We were preparing to do the Show "South Pacific " at Dulles when the music teacher asked me and Moon (Gilbert Mundkowsky, Class of '65) to go to the funeral home and bring back some of the artificial grass they use at gravesites so he could use it as part of our scenery ... Well, of course he screwed up by picking Moon and me to begin with cause it was 9:30 AM and we had no intention of coming back to school until 3:00 PM. ...  When we returned the music teacher was hot as hell and wanted to know why it took us so long to get the grass ...  Our answer: "They were using it at a funeral, so we had to wait" ...  He called the funeral director and of course we got our butts handed to us ...  Nice try I thought.

     In January 1967 I was in the Regional Band.  We always rehearsed for two days and gave a Friday night concert in Bay City, Texas.  I always enjoyed it because it meant we got out of school for two days.  (We stayed in the Oasis Hotel in Bay City.  It had a sauna which we used, of course.)
     On the night of the concert I got my band uniform out of the hotel closet and try to put it on.  It was about 5 sizes too small.  (I think it was probably Donald Meyer's.)  It was too late to get someone from Sugar Land to bring another, so Mr. Gary lent me his suit and tie.  It wasn't the best fitting suit I've ever worn, but it passed.
     To this day, I don't know whether I pulled up the wrong uniform from the rack in the band hall, or whether I was the victim of a good practical joke."
     I guess it was the late fall of 1966.  The coaches had just given us our lettermen jackets, so we were wearing them all the time.   One Friday evening in late November Sam McJunkin, Jim Highsmith, and I drove in to Joe Kelly Butler Stadium to see Lamar Consolidated play somebody in a Bi-District game.  (Lamar had won our District Championship that Fall.)  Before going to the game we stopped to buy cigars - we were big cigar smokers in those days.  (Most of us smoked Garcia y Cleopatras.  We could always get them at Alfred's Deli on Stella Link.)  Anyway, we were smoking cigars as we bought our tickets and went through the gate at the game.  The next Monday Coach Hopson called Sam into his office.  He said, "Sam, I saw you smoking a cigar in your letterman's jacket.  I'm going to have to give you a lick."  Jim and I were standing there when Coach Hopson said this to Sam.  Of course, we didn't say a thing.  To this day, I don't know how he missed seeing Jim and me smoking too -  but he must have.  And to this day, I still regret letting Sam take the licks by himself.  (Just a note to the youngsters - we used the term 'licks' for swats or pops teachers and coaches gave us with a paddle.  There was nothing salacious meant by the term.)

     It was April of 1962 when the new highschool opened.  They moved all the students by bus on a Friday to the New Dulles High School, and classes stared on a Monday Morning.  I was a Freshman (1961-1962) that year, and yes we thought it was heaven. There are a lot of memories from the Old Missouri City High School as well as moving over to the New Dulles High School.  I believe it was the biggest thrill for each student that year.

    The first Dulles golf team was created in the 1961/62 school year when Dale Coffman, Mike Douglas, Kirkie Kuykendahl and I (Roger Howard) convinced the coaches to let us form a golf team.....  Coach John Allen agreed to be our faculty sponsor since he was an avid golfer.  The 4 of us junior students then met with the Riverbend Country Club Pro about letting the Dulles Team use its facilities for practice.  The Country Club members voted and agreed to let us play there at no cost.  That first year, Dale, Mike, Van Brock, and I won District at the West Columbia CC and then played at the Regional tournament.  The following year, Boling won District at the Newgulf course.

     We moved to West Colombia for my senior year.  Some may recall that I designed and coordinated the first Jr./Sr. prom at Dulles HS.  Some may also remember the Prison Farm Band (Clemens Unit) my dad helped me round up to perform at "intermission." They sounded like "The Coasters."  Guards brought them in a cattle truck, and I remember well that people weren't happy when they had to leave.

     On Mondays Coach Hightower would enter the classroom, shut the  door & play the tape of the Friday night football game.  Everyone knew that Mondays, you did not have math class with Coach Hightower.  He would also show us tapes of the basketball games when our boys went all the way to state.

     I remember my first day at Dulles in 1967.   I dropped all of my books (I didn't have a locker yet) in the hall and Gordon Marcy stopped to help me pick them up.  It was one week after initiation (wasn't I lucky?) and just a few weeks before Homecoming.  I transferred from a junior high to high school, which was really a big change, but everyone was so nice to me and made me feel so welcome.  The friends I made at Dulles will be friends forever.  Those were the days.....!!!

      Sometime in the mid 1960's, volleyball replaced basketball as the girl's sport option. However, since it was a spring sport, as was tennis, girls had to choose between tennis and volleyball. Coach Carolyn Conrad was the varsity volleyball coach, and Glenda Zaruba was the junior varsity coach. We had some very good volleyball teams, with our team losing in regional in 1970 and playing in the state tournament in 1972. I played all four years of high school and had lots of wonderful memories especially winning the Lamar Consolidated Tournaments!!! Since my younger sister, Carla (Daniels) Meuth, class of 72, was also playing volleyball, we go to play together when she played on the varsity team. It was nice to have shared some great volleyball times with my sister.
      Three of us, Barbara Bartosh, Darlene Surguy, and myself were selected to play on the South Texas All-Star team in the summer of 1970, and it was the first time that the South All-Star team had won in the many years that the all-star teams had played. I was also voted to the AAA-All State team my senior year which was especially surprising since our team lost in the regional round, and we didn't get to play in the state tournament.
      I continued to play in USBVA volleyball and had the honor of playing with Olympian Flo Hyman when the USA team was housed and practiced at University of Houston. I was on the practice squad but not a member of the USA team.
      I actuallycontinued to play competitively on various club teams in Texas, Wyoming, and Colorado until two years ago when I moved to the Rocky Mountains. Between my job and the distance to gyms, I have "retired" from volleyball for now. However, I'll soon be eligible for the "Seniors" category, so who knows!

      I remember Mr. Abercrombie would single me out from across campus and bust me for wearing (too short) dresses - or chewing gum in the hall or for whatever! Several years later I went to court for a speeding ticket and thought I was going to DIE when I saw Judge Abercrombie sitting behind the Bench!!! That was the first time he cut me some slack. ....LET IT BE...
      We would like to pay a tribute to our Mom and Dad; Esther Montemayor and the late Ruben C. Montemayor, for always putting our education first. Ruben Montemayor II (class of '69), Marvy Montemayor (class of '70), Patsy Montemayor (class of '77), Ray Montemayor (class of '78), Tamy Montemayor (class of '82), Esther Montemayor II (class of '82), Marc Montemayor (class of '89). All graduates of John Foster Dulles High!!!