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East Bay Turning 50

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By ELAINE MARKOWITZ, Tribune correspondent

Published: October 6, 2007

Updated: 10/04/2007 06:33 pm

GIBSONTON - Graduates of East Bay High School in Gibsonton are gearing up to celebrate the school's 50th anniversary Nov. 9-10 at several venues. Old friends will have a chance to relive the fun of their youth as they watch a football game between the East Bay Indians and the Spoto Spartans, feast on chicken and yellow rice and dance to music spanning 50 years.
Recent graduates of the highly populated high school may be surprised at the innocence of their predecessors, whose pranks seem minor by today's standards. Graduates through the years, however, all share a treasure of rich memories.

'We were in awe of the new school,' Apollo Beach resident James Franklin said recently. One of 50 members of the first graduating class in 1958, Franklin had lived a small-town life.

'I'd been in Wimauma my whole life and East Bay looked so large,' he said. 'In Wimauma School, we had grades 1-12 in the same building.'

Edward Sheffield of Apollo Beach also was a member of that first class, which was made up of students from Ruskin, Gibsonton, Riverview and Wimauma.

'Apollo Beach was just in its infancy then,' he said, adding he was raised in Ruskin. 'The developers were just coming in 1957.'

Now retired from the shipping industry, Sheffield said he found the new school exciting.

'I loved meeting new friends from Gibsonton and Riverview,' he said.

One of the most active and popular members of the class of 1960 was Alberta 'Bertie' Hagin Killebrew.

'I don't remember ever doing anything that wasn't fun in school,' she said.

Featured each year on the old East Bay High School annual calendar, Killebrew also was a cheerleader, member of the student council and sweetheart of the Future Farmers of America.

Her memories smack of the innocence of yesteryear.

'We ran our underwear up the flagpole and put an outdoor toilet in front of the school,' she said. 'No one ever got caught.'
Killebrew recognizes the old pranks for what they were - harmless.

'We could have fun in those days because we had freedom,' she said. 'Parents chaperoned our dances and not police officers.'

Frances Pettigrew Hereford, a 1959 graduate, grew up in Ruskin, and owns Southern Grace, a home accessory and gift shop there. She, too, was an active student.

'I was a majorette and played in the band,' she said. 'There were only 88 kids in the senior class, so you knew everyone.'

Hereford also remembers high school mischief.

'The first day East Bay opened, six or eight of us girls wore gray Bermuda shorts with red tights and red shirts,' she said. Back then, she said, girls couldn't wear shorts to school, even in the school colors.

'We were sure we'd be sent home,' she said, 'but the principal and teachers liked our spirit and we stayed.'

James Franklin's daughter, Shelly Alfonso, and granddaughter, Jessica Pyke, have other kinds of memories of the days they spent at their family's alma mater.

Alfonso, a longtime real estate agent in the Apollo Beach area, graduated in 1981. She said her memories reflect those of a typical teenage girl - boys, pep rallies and being with friends.

Among the memories shared by Alfonso and Pyke, her daughter, who graduated from East Bay in 1999, are annual school events: spirit week, toga day, pajama day, hat day and other spirited activities surrounding homecoming each November.

Some specific events evoke the clearest memories.

'One of my most vivid memories is the year it snowed,' Alfonso said of the 1977 snowfall in the area. 'Teachers had a hard time controlling us and eventually let everyone out to play in the snow.'

By 1980, the growth of the school necessitated double sessions, which Alfonso remembers with some displeasure.

'Some of us started school at noon and didn't get home until after dark,' she recalled.

Now a deputy sheriff in Lakeland, Pyke said she remembers having fun in a general sense and admitted the innocence of earlier days was well gone in her time.

Pyke said Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies supervised dances and other events.

'Even at football games we had them,' she said.

Her class will hold a 10-year reunion in 2009 and she said she is eager to go.

'Now that I live in Lakeland I haven't seen friends in years,' she said.

In recent years, a group of former students decided to form the East Bay High School Alumni Association, incorporating it as a nonprofit organization in 2003.

Killebrew, who is president of the association, said it was formed to help the school with things the county didn't provide.

'We went to students and teachers and compiled a wish list of things they needed,' she said.

The association has granted many of their wishes, among them a portable speaker system, DVD players, televisions and a poster-board maker.

The group sponsors an annual golf tournament, often held at the Golf Club at Cypress Creek. Killebrew said the tournaments are the association's largest fundraisers.

'Now we're in the process of putting together a scholarship program for East Bay grads,' she said.

Killebrew's pride in the high school's graduates is evident.

'East Bay has produced really successful people,' she said. 'They include a school superintendent Earl Lennard, engineers, business leaders, architects, doctors and even a shoe designer.'

For information on the celebration, call Donna Allmond at (813) 645-1668, or Alberta Killebrew at (813) 672-4659.

EAST BAY REUNION

WHO: All East Bay students from 1957 to present

WHAT: Social hour, 6 p.m. Nov. 9 ; football game, East Bay vs. Spoto, 7 p.m.

WHERE: East Bay cafeteria and stadium

COST: $7

WHAT: All-You-Can-Eat Barbecue, 7 to 9 p.m. Nov. 10

WHERE: Lupton's Boggy Bottom Ranch, 8407 Lupton Place, Plant City

COST: $20; cash bar

RESERVATIONS: Oct. 13 deadline; call (813) 672-4659 or e-mail akillebrew@tampabayrr.com.

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