A few months ago, my wife and I stopped by the estate sale of Ms. Hortense Overton.  “Miss Overton” taught school at Westmoreland Elementary School for many years, was a lover of local history, very active in the churches of Macon and Sumner Counties, and was known and loved by many in this area.  While browsing through some of the items for sale, I landed upon a copy of this:  

The May, 1968 edition of the school newspaper was the final one for the school year 1967-68, and it contained much information about the departing Senior Class of Westmoreland High School. Though every senior class enters the real world with the promise of opportunity, few senior classes have entered a world filled with as much upheaval as that of the Class of 1968. The Eagle Spirit, Vol. 1, No. 6 of May, 1968, was filled with the joviality and spirit of the promise of summer, but the comments of some in the “Senior Sketches” belie the undertone of concern shared by many at the time.  

Lest we forget, American involvement in the conflict in Vietnam was in its fifth year and the shock of that February’s Tet Offensive – a massive and unexpected counterattack by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces that was eventually beat back by US and South Vietnamese soldiers – caused many to rethink their support of our continued presence there.  It was a time when most Americans watched the news nearly every night, and a majority of those viewers were fans of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. After the Tet Offensive, Cronkite went to Vietnam and returned a few days later with a shocking assessment for his viewers:

“To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. . . . But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.” 

The video that follows, starting at the :46 second mark, is Cronkite’s broadcast in its entirety. At the 26:29 mark, he began his assessment of the condition of the war and ended the broadcast a minute later with a chilling prediction of its possible outcome:

The presidency of Lyndon Johnson had become cloaked in the war efforts and upon hearing Cronkite’s views, Johnson was said to have uttered, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” A little over a month later, the President spoke to the nation:

The WHS Class of 1968 took note of these news stories. Most had relatives already serving in the military in some capacity, or they knew of students who had once walked the halls like them who were now serving in combat. Care packages were often assembled by the students and sent overseas to the soldiers. Because of this, most would continue a solid support of America’s fight against the spread of communism, as would Sumner County and the South in general.

And all were aware the Draft, which had begun in 1964, loomed after graduation.

The nation was shocked at the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis on April 4th, an occurrence that sparked widespread rioting throughout the country in the days that followed. At first glance, the event would seem to have not had any direct influence in Westmoreland and at WHS owing to the demographics at the time, but the assassination of the civil rights leader would, in fact, bring a stark consequence to the Class of 68. The eagerly anticipated Senior Trip to the nation’s capitol was cancelled by Principal James Anderson. Though the riots in Washington ended on April 8th, Anderson, fearing his students might be caught up in any lingering or future violence, was not willing to take a chance. His decision was not popular with the Seniors, but when asked if he would make the same decision if his daughter, Susie, had been a senior, Mr. Anderson sternly answered, “Yes!”.

Though the plans for the Class of 68 in Washington were cancelled, they were not left without a trip. Plans were quickly adjusted and it was announced a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains might prove to be a calmer destination. As a part of their “Senior Week” of activities in the third week of May, the Seniors gathered in the school parking lot and embarked on their trip to East Tennessee. In the change of plans, however, the use of a charter bus had been abandoned. Instead, the trip would be made on a school bus and Clarence “Kitty” Huntsman was the driver. Once in the mountains, excited shouts of “Look at that!” were repeatedly followed by Mr. Anderson stating, “Not you, Kitty. You keep your eyes on the road!”

The trip to the mountains proved to be significantly less costly, thus leaving funds in the Class of 68 account. After much discussion, it was decided the remaining funds would be used to purchase and install a new fence to go around the football field. Class President Larry Overton presented the donation of $1,000 at the school’s annual Alumni Banquet. The total cost of the fence was $1,350. In his advice to future seniors in the May school paper, Overton wryly noted, “Don’t plan a trip to Washington.”

In 1968’s final edition of “The Eagle Spirit“, a section called “Senior Sketches” offered a glimpse of each of the departing graduates. Here, they shared their favorite food, pastime, song, color, and favorite television program. Sherry Bentle (Stone), Myra Gregory (Simons) and Judy Jenkins (McClure) all cited Mission Impossible as their favorite show, while Ronnie Wainscott, Teresa Eddings and Kenneth Borders, along with future wife, Trphyenia Boze, were fans of the Marlo Thomas comedy, That Girl; though declining in popularity, Westerns were still the rage with some: Gail Shrum (Eller), Eddie Cook, and Dorothy Whited (Carver) noted The Big Valley, Bonanza and High Chaparral as their favorite shows. Mike Kennedy declared that he watched Bozo in the mornings before coming to school while Roger Borders claimed to be a big fan of Captain Kangaroo.

“Laugh-In“, the emerging show that would become an icon of the 60s with its scathing mockery of anything it wanted to mock, was cited as the favorite of Claude Bradley, Brenda Eden Davis, and Robert Hesson. It was only a few months later, and just two months before election day, 1968, that candidate Richard Nixon would stare into the camera on Laugh-In and quizzically state, “Sock it to, ME?”

Many of the songs that provided the soundtrack for the Class of 1968 remain popular today. Whether on 45s, 8 Tracks or Top 40 radio, the strains of “Hey Jude”, “Daydream Believer”, “Judy in Disguise”, and “Harper Valley PTA”, mixed with the likes of “Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay”, “Love is Blue”, and “All Along the Watchtower” in 1968. Songs reflected the changes coursing through the country. Witness the contrast in tone and style with the following two songs by The Rascals with the first being extremely popular near the date of graduation for the Class of 1968, while the second was wildly popular by the end of the summer:

But, perhaps in an effort to set aside the events swirling in the world outside the community, none of the aforementioned songs were listed as “favorite song” by those in the WHS Class of 68 – not even the iconic “Mrs. Robinson”, Billboard’s #1 song the Sunday following graduation. Instead, “Young Girl”, “Let It All Hang Out”, and “I Will Always Think About You” were among the favorites. Bobby Goldsboro’s mournful homage to a lost wife, “Honey” was selected the most, garnering eight mentions as “most favorite” among the WHS Seniors.

Lester Blankenship and Mike Kennedy listed “poker” as their favorite pastime, while Roger Borders and Jerry Owen enjoyed “shooting dice” and “playing marbles”. Jerrie Dodson said his favorite pastime was “making girls mad”; Kenneth Borders and Larry Overton enjoyed watching them.

Among the girls, several listed dancing as their favorite pastime – American Bandstand was at the height of its popularity – while Sherry Bentle, Teresa Eddings, and Wanda Harrison (Dobbs) indulged in “gossip”. Peggy Suttle liked “working on cars”.

For the Seniors of 1968, the last two weeks of May were full of activities. Exams had to be taken, and passed. The Baccalaureate was to be held on Sunday, the 26th (Wayne Meador, a teacher at WHS and minister of the Westmoreland Church of Christ, would offer the Benediction). The graduation ceremony would be held the following Wednesday at 8:00 pm with Mr. Clyde Riggs, Superintendent of Sumner County Schools, presenting the diplomas.

And, the trip to the mountains had taken place the week before graduation.

When the Seniors began boarding Kitty Huntsman’s school bus on Sunday afternoon, May 19th, word had not yet been received as to the events involving a former fellow student, Jerry Hammock, on the other side of the world.

Jerry Wendell Hammock would have been a member of the Class of 1967 had he not chosen to depart the building earlier. Such a choice made him easy pickings for the draft and he entered the service in August, 1967. His tour of duty in Vietnam began on February 12, 1968 as an infantryman. Officially, he was a member of Company A, 47th Infantry, 3rd Battalion of the 9th Infantry Division. Much of his time in Vietnam had been spent in the Long An province southeast of Saigon, in and around the Mekong River. On Friday, May 17th, Hammock’s Company continued what they had been doing since the start of what had come to be called the Mini-Tet offensive of the Viet Cong: wading through the rice paddies and endless canals in search of the enemy. The firefights had been numerous and May of 1968 would turn out to be the deadliest month of the war for the US. Jerry Hammock was shot that day during an assault on an enemy position. News of his death in the rice paddies of the Long An province in Vietnam would take a few days to reach his folks near the Providence Church, and it would not be announced in the local papers. But he would receive an honorable burial in the Rippy Cemetery beside the little Union Chapel Church just off Fairfield Road. It would be a military burial with full honors.

Private Jerry Hammock would posthumously be made a Corporal and have a bridge named in his honor that crosses the Middle Fork of Drake’s Creek not far from his house and a portion of Highway 386, the “Vietnam Veterans Boulevard”, would be named for him. His family and neighbors would be left to occasionally remember the boy who could always be depended upon to cut and hang tobacco or to haul hay and then run the roads around Providence with his “ramblin’ buddies”. His parents, Jess Willard Hammock and Lois Ruby Graves Hammock, were offered a measure of solace in the form of a letter received from the soldier who was by Jerry’s side through much of the war. Signed “One of Jerry’s Buddies, Ed”, the letter began,

“I wish to extend to you my deepest and sincere sympathy in the loss of your son and my comrade and friend.”

The war and the specter of the draft loomed large over the Class of 68. Most of the boys were resigned to the possibility of their number being called and they all knew of friends or family that had received the letter in the mail that contained the terse “Greeting” from the President of the United States, followed by the orders to report for induction.

The Draft – the Selective Service – was a mixture of fate and luck. Lester Blankenship, Roger Borders, Kenneth Borders, Jerrie Dodson, Ronnie Wainscott, Donald Lawson and Mike Kennedy were all destined for induction into the military. Some were drafted and some volunteered. Some went to Vietnam while others remained stateside. War leaves an impression on those who are in or near combat, often haunting them the remainder of their days.

Others wondered why their name wasn’t called. Jerry Owen made several trips to the bus station in Nashville with friends and many of them were “called up”. Jerry was always sent home, being informed that he was not selected. Years later and long after the war, he was told that the moving of a storage cabinet in the basement of the Draft Board had revealed a file containing the list of soldiers all having the same birthday as Jerry. His name was also on the list. The file had apparently slipped behind the cabinet and lay hidden for several years, inadvertently sparing those men from the draft.

Bonita Henson (Akins), in her Senior Sketch, listed “the Draft Board” as her Pet Peeve. Like many of the girls, she feared the drafting of her beau and she perceived the Draft Board to be a threat to that relationship. The death of Jerry Hammock, Wendell’s cousin, made Bonita’s fears a palpable sense of dread. She and Wendell Akins were married just a few days after graduation, on June 1st. The starting of a family removed the Draft Board as a threat and Wendell did not have to serve.

The realities of war aside, the WHS Class of 1968 had lots of enjoyable moments, as do all classes. Sherry Bentle (Stone) sent Band Director and Beta Club sponsor Al DeLonibus into shock when, enroute to a district meeting in Hartsville, Sherry, who was driving the lead car, pulled into the parking lot of the notorious “Golden Bubble” on Highway 231. The cars that followed did the same and “Mr. D” hurriedly approached Sherry’s window, asking for an explanation, to which Sherry playfully replied that it simply looked like a nice place to stop for a visit. The Golden Bubble had a stout reputation among the area’s beer joints and dance halls.

Just a few weeks prior, “Mr. D” led the concert band in its first public performance. The band and its 65 members crowded onto the stage and made music for an audience that packed the auditorium. The concert was free “but the audience donated liberally and the Westmoreland Lions Club presented the band with a check for $500” as reported by the Gallatin Examiner in its May 6th edition. The money would go toward the purchase of uniforms for the marching band.

Mike Kennedy’s father, who would later be noted for his many walks around town and always with a slingshot in his back pocket, loved to work on cars. He built a reputation among the local boys for dropping the spindles on their cars and raising the backend, hot-rodding them. Mike had a ’57 Chevy hardtop and he and his dad dropped a 396 engine in it. Jerry Owen drove his mother’s ’60 two-door Catalina until his parents bought him a ’68 Chevelle SS, Grotto Blue. Lester Blankenship had a ’64 Corvair with the engine in the rear and the trunk in the front. “It was great in the snow!” he said.

Like most of the Class of ’68, Lester had to work to help his family make ends meet; his father had passed away when he was eleven. He pushed a lawn mower around town, mowing the yards of anyone who needed it until James Anderson helped him secure a job at the “blouse factory on the hill”, the site of the old Hilltopper school on Bledsoe Street. His junior and senior year, Lester worked five hours each evening and on most weekends and any snow days that might occur. He continues to credit James Anderson and Walter Tanner, the plant manager, as helping to boost him into a proper manhood.

Others in the class worked in the many stores that occupied Westmoreland’s flourishing downtown area, or in the stores that lined Old 31-E and Old Hwy 52, including a particular favorite, the Town Square Drive-In, which sat just up the road a bit from Calvin Miller’s Garage. This was the forerunner of the popular Dairy Dip that many remember in the downtown area.

Many a weekend night was spent dancing to music at Bob Perry’s “Teen Town” or roller skating at Portland’s P&J Skating Rink, which offered bus service to and from Westmoreland each Saturday night. There wasn’t a single McDonald’s Restaurant anywhere in Sumner County and the nearest Krystal’s was in Madison. But Fred Cannon had his Eastside Pool Hall which served to provide an education of a different sort to the scholars of the Class of 68, along with their friends.

Just a few weeks before graduation, the Senior Play, “Where’s Grandma?” was held in the auditorium. And in a time when more than just friends and family attended such things, the play was, as noted in later reunions, “the talk of the whole town.”

On the night of Wednesday, May 29th, the Class of 1968 listened for their name to be called and the diploma certifying the culmination of their studies to be placed in their hands. Like most of us during those moments, many of the graduates that night wondered what life had in store for them.

The Class of 68 left the stage of WHS that night and stepped out into the real world with varying degrees of success. There were children and grandchildren to raise, jobs to hold and lose and to retire from, storybook marriages and a few divorces, moments of great joy and others of significant sorrow, and some deaths along the way. Exactly one week later, Bobby Kennedy lay on the kitchen floor of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, another of the tragic events of that year so full of turmoil beyond the relative safety of Westmoreland.

And, some of them gather together, still, the Class of 68. The reunions of the past have given way to breakfasts of the present where they swap tales of the misty yesteryears and tell of the trials they face in the present.

And they laugh a lot!