One of the traditions at Ravenna High School was a staff luncheon held each year on the last day of school at a local restaurant and bar. This was an event where the staff could relax and wind down from the year’s stresses. The entertainment consisted of an “End of Year Roast” where the year’s outstanding goof-ups were mentioned and an appropriate award presented to each unfortunate individual who was involved.
When I was first employed at RHS, Harry Gilcrest was the emcee for this roast. Harry, at various time in his career, was football coach, English teacher, olympic archery coach, glider pilot, kayaker, big band musician, and many other things. He was well-respected by the faculty and throughout the community, and was a very capable emcee. He was extremely funny, had unlimited nerve, and would not hesitate to embarrass anyone, from the superintendent on down. He would often have the crowd in stitches and this event was always anticipated as the highlight of the year.
When Harry retired from teaching I somehow inherited this emcee job. Harry was a hard act to follow but I was well received and quite successful with it. I must admit that entertaining a crowd of teachers who had just downed a couple of drinks on the last day of school was not extremely difficult.
After doing this for several years I decided to share my emcee duties with Helen Pfender, an English teacher with an ornery streak. We made a very good team and both had a good time with it.
When talking over the program for the roast one year we decided that something was needed to liven it up. This was the year when streaking was in vogue, and we discussed the possibility of having a streaker break into our faculty dinner.
First we had to find someone willing to do the dirty deed and not tell anyone beforehand. I looked through the faculty list for a likely victim and came upon the name “Howard Herendeen”.
Howard was our new Industrial Arts teacher, young and somewhat reckless. I approached him with the streaker idea one day after school while he was sitting at his desk. He sat there, thought about it, then laughed for over 10 minutes. After some convincing he finally agreed to do it provided we could find a way that he wouldn’t be completely naked.
To do this and still preserve the “streaker image” would prove to be somewhat of a challenge. I went to the local drug store and bought a pair of “big-mama size” panty hose for Howard to wear.
The party that year was to be held at Baxter Weidner’s restaurant. Baxter was the president of the Ravenna School Board so we saw that as a possible problem. Howard and I went to the restaurant to float the streaker idea to Baxter, who said it would be OK as long as Howard wore the panty hose and stayed away from the regular customers. This would be possible since our party was in a separate room from the main restaurant. Baxter even showed us a little dressing room where Howard could “suit up”.
Over the weekend Howard went home and told his wife about our plan. Since Howard didn’t as yet have tenure, and since this event was to be held in the school board president’s place of business, and since wives tend to be somewhat realistic about these matters, they decided that Howard had better not do the streaking because it might cause him to lose his job.
Now I was without a streaker, so I talked to Larry Fisher, another faculty member. Larry was a young bachelor recently graduated from college, and he immediately agreed to do it.
Larry didn’t have a wife so he didn’t discuss it with anybody – or so I thought.
Larry and I went through the plan and everything was set – or so I thought.
The roast was held as usual. Helen and I were handing out awards, equally insulting just about everyone, and doing quite well. Everyone was having a good time.
When it came time for the streaker, there was a loud noise at the back of the room. In tumbled some guy wearing a ski mask, playing a kazoo, naked as a bird’s butt!
No. Panty. Hose.
The streaker swiftly ran back and forth among the tables and through the audience with the whole works bouncing up and down in plain sight! As he approached the front door he wrapped himself in a curtain, ran through the door onto the sidewalk, jumped in a waiting car, and was gone. The whole event was over in seconds!
The crowd went absolutely wild. Helen and I just looked at each other in dis-belief, wondering what had just happened, and where we were going to work next year.
Larry Fisher was still sitting in the room wearing a sly grin.
It turns out that Larry had enlisted the services of his college roommate to do the streaking.
When I saw Larry later, I commented that He had really ripped us off. He said that since I had been doing it to the others for years, it was about my turn to be ripped. I couldn’t disagree. It was all done in fun and everyone took the event with humor and all were quite entertained.
In November, 1980, there was a strike at Ravenna Schools that lasted 5 months. It was the longest teacher strike in the country and still holds that record today as far as I know. It was very bitter and divisive. After the strike there was no longer the feeling of camaraderie among the staff and closeness with the community that we had before, and no longer could anything like the year-end roast be done for fear of someone taking it personally. I was still able to teach and still enjoyed being with the students, but to me and many of the others, after that strike the feeling was no longer the same, and teaching was now just another job.