Scores turn out to urge retaining East High name

People are uniting under the East High banner, alumni say.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- If East High School alumni respond Tuesday to a city school board meeting as they did to a recent alumni picnic, school officials might have to find a new venue for the board meeting.
About 65 people, most of them East High alumni, attended a meeting Saturday at East Middle School to discuss the issue over the name for the new high school to be built on the East Side. The alumni group wants the school to be named East High School. Others have expressed interest in the school's being named P. Ross Berry Central High School, after a man who built several well-known buildings in the Youngstown area.
Several people expressed their views in an hourlong meeting. They want the unity shown at the recent alumni picnic -- attended by an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 East High alumni and their families -- to carry over into the fight to save the East High name.
Gerri Sullivan, a board of education member, said she did not realize the depth of support alumni would show for their school name. She urged the alumni at Saturday's meeting to attend Tuesday's board meeting wearing the blue-and-gold T-shirts they were sporting Saturday.
"Once a Golden Bear, always a Golden Bear," the shirts proclaim, with bear paw prints on the back and a bear-head logo on the front.
Support from councilman
Councilman Rufus Hudson, D-2nd, whose ward includes the East High neighborhood, said he would not support any movement to name the new school anything but East High, and is urging other council members to take the same position. He said his wife, Sylvia, is an East High graduate and concerned about the loss of East High's identity.
Alumni said they are not opposed to recognizing P. Ross Berry, a black 19th-century brick mason and architect who designed and laid bricks for many of Youngtown's Civil War-era buildings. They do not, however, want that recognition to come via naming the new East Side high school P. Ross Berry Central High School.
They said they did not learn about Berry in school and suggested adding his story to Youngstown schools curriculum. Alumni said although recognition of Berry's accomplishments are long overdue, Berry, who was born in Lawrence County, Pa., had no association with East High and in fact, died before the building was constructed.
Feeling of community
Alumni spoke of East High students' persuading school officials to start a varsity baseball program in 1944 -- a monumental undertaking in the midst of World War II -- and of countless stories that could be told of East High graduates who went on to greatness.
Harry Meshel, a former Ohio legislator, spoke of sharing his lunch at East High with 1940s football standout Talmadge Jackson because his family didn't have enough food.
Others shared memories of pep rallies and school assemblies, of sliding down the East High Street hill to the school on icy mornings, and of people of all races and faiths uniting under the banner of the Golden Bears.
"We were taught school spirit right along with the geometry, science and home ec," said alumna Jaladah Aslam. "Our feelings today are a direct result of what we were all taught at East High."
Alumna Paulette Smith was in tears as she spoke her piece at the end of the meeting.
"We don't want this to be political," Smith concluded. "This is not a black issue. It is not a white issue. This is a Golden Bears issue."
tullis@vindy.com