Rayen, Wilson teachers look back with fondness

Teachers who made careers at Rayen and Wilson are sad to see them close.

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Donna Downie doesn’t seem to be a person who easily gets teary-eyed and emotional, but ask her about her years at Woodrow Wilson High School and she gets a lump in her throat.

The 1968 Wilson graduate came back to the school as a teacher 11 years ago.

“My fondest dream was to come back here. My dream came true,” Downie said.

Wilson and Rayen high schools are closing permanently at the end of this school year and will be razed to make way for new middle schools on their sites.

“It’s like home to us. We’ve been here so long, we all thought we would retire from here,” said Henrietta Williams, principal and dean at The Rayen School. She’s spent 30 of her 32 years in education at Rayen and became one of the city’s first female athletic coaches in 1976, handling basketball and track duties.

“It’s going to be hard. We’ve spent over half of our lives here,” added Susan Loree, an English teacher who has spent her entire 35 years in the profession at Rayen. “There were so many good kids that have gone through here.”

She’s never wanted to go anywhere else, she said, explaining that she felt needed at Rayen, and that parents appreciated her efforts.

High school memories

Deborah Smith graduated from Wilson with Downie in 1968 and came back to Wilson as a teacher in 1992.

“We enjoyed it while we were here [as students]. I wanted to come,” she said. She is teaching advanced placement English and senior English and is yearbook adviser.

Downie is teaching just English this year but has taught speech and drama at Wilson as well.

She said she was a very shy, introverted child, and it was a Wilson drama teacher who introduced her to theater.

“It opened a whole new world to me,” said Downie.

“I’ll miss the [Wilson] stage — I will. That is where I found Donna,” she said.

John Turco, a coach and social studies teacher who also teaches work-related classes for “at risk” children at Rayen, came to the school as a football coach in 1978 and has been there ever since.

He’s enjoyed his years at Rayen and said his only regret is the loss of a number of children to violence over the years.

It was in 1992 that a couple of his players were murdered.

“That really, really affected me,” he said, noting that he dropped out of coaching for a year as a result. He returned to coaching, but not at Rayen. He has been at three schools and will be offensive coordinator next fall at Chaney High School.

Lifelong effects

Turco’s fondest memory of the school came at last fall’s final homecoming when hundreds of alumni showed up to mark the occasion.

There were so many of his former players and students wanting to talk to him that he missed the homecoming football game, he said.

There is fierce loyalty to the two schools, not just among students and alumni, but among the teachers as well.

“I think it’s just the general nature of the teachers here,” Smith said. They help each other and want the school to continue to be successful, she said.

“Kindness, caring, supporting, laughing,” were words Downie used to describe the Wilson faculty. “The staff tries to have a spoonful of laughter,” she added.

“We have a very close-knit staff here,” Williams said.

There’s been a lot of negativity reported about Rayen in recent years, but the reality is a different story, she said.

“Youngstown is the best-kept secret, academically, around here,” Turco said. “This is a good place to send a kid.”

Moving on

The closing will be bittersweet, Williams said.

“We know to have the best education involves a new, high tech school. It’s what our children deserve. You have to let go to move forward,” she said.

“It’s going to be hard,” Loree agreed.

The juniors would have liked to finish at Rayen, Turco said.

The Rayen seniors are very excited about being the last class to graduate but are sad to see the school close, Williams said, adding, “They’ve come to accept it.”

The closing of Wilson will be a hardship for the kids who will have to adapt to a new school, Downie said.

Nearly all of Rayen’s students will go to the new East High School, while Wilson students will be split about 50-50 between East and Chaney.

“They feel like outsiders. They said they’re going to be like freshmen again,” Downie said.

Some entire families have graduated from Wilson, Smith said, noting that’s a tradition that current students won’t have.

The schools may soon be gone but the teachers said they will take a part of their school with them, wherever they go.

“Once a Tiger, always a Tiger,” Turco said, referring to the Rayen mascot.

“It’s a building. It will be gone, but memories live on. I can close my eyes ... ” Downie said, as she did exactly that, smiling as she recalled happy times at Wilson.

gwin@vindy.com