1960 (June-December) ~ First half of Sophomore Year

June 10 1st Domino’s Pizza opened in Michigan.
August 1 Chubby Checker recorded and released “The Twist.”
August Echo I, 1st communications satellite, was launched.
October 3 The Andy Griffith Show debuted on television.
November 8 John F. Kennedy was elected president.
Oscars Burt Lancaster, Elmer Gantry; Best Actress: Elizabeth Taylor, Butterfield 8;
Best Picture: The Apartment
Grammys Record of the Year: Percy Faith’s “Theme from a Summer Place”; Album of the Year: The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart; Song of the Year: “The Theme from Exodus”
Emmys Art Carney Special; Playhouse 90; The Garry Moore Show
Sports AFL was formed with 8 teams.
Military There were 900 U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam.

1961 ~ Second half of Sophomore & first half of Junior Years

January 1 First AFL championship game: Oilers
March 29 23rd Amendment, giving Washington, D.C., representation in Congress and letting D.C. citizens vote in presidential elections, was ratified by the states (had been proposed June 17, 1960).
April 17 Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government began. The invading force, trained & funded by U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was defeated within 3 days.
May 5 Astronaut Alan B. Shepard became 1st U.S. man in space (rocketed 116.5 miles up in a 302-mile trip).
August 13 Berlin Wall was built.
September 21 Peace Corps wes established.
October 1 Roger Maris broke the single season homerun record, hitting no. 61 in 4th inning of season’s last game.
  Ray Kroc bought out the original McDonald Brothers and began the McDonald’s as we know it today. (In 1962 he introduced the Golden Arches and in 1963 Ronald McDonald, the red-haired clown.)
  Sprite was introduced to compete with 7Up; Coffee-Mate non-dairy creamer was introduced; Adult Tylenol was introduced.
Oscars Best Actor: Maximillian Schell, Judgment at Nuremberg; Best Actress: Sophia Loren, Two Women; Best Picture: West Side Story
Grammys Album: Judy (Garland) At Carnegie Hall; Song: “Moon River” & Record: “Moon River”
Emmys The Jack Benny Show, Hallmark Hall of Fame’s Macbeth, Astaire Time
Sports
December 24		 Second AFL championship game: Oilers

1962 ~ Second half of Junior and first half of Senior Years

February Francis Gary Powers, whose U-2 Spy plane had been shot down over Russia on May 1, 1960, and who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison, was freed in exchange for a Soviet spy.
February 20 Astronaut John Glenn became 1st American to orbit the Earth, made 3 orbits in 4 hours, 55 minutes.
March 1 First Kmart opened in Garden City, Michigan.
March Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain scored 100 points.
March 31 Cesar Chavez resigned from Community Service Organization to begin organizing farm workers.
  Boston Celtics won 4th NBA crown in a row.
April 26 Ranger 4 touched Moon for 1st time.
July 2 First WalMart opened in Rogers, Ark.
August 5 Marilyn Monroe died.
August 27 24th Amendment, which allowed all citizens to vote without restriction, was approved by Congress and sent to the states for approval. It was ratified Jan. 23, 1964.
  ABC and NBC started partial color broadcase.
Oscars Best Actor: Gregory Peck, To Kill a Mockingbird; Best Actress: Anne Bancroft, The Miracle Worker; Best Picture: Lawrence of Arabia
Grammys The Defenders; The Bob Newhart Show; The Garry Moore Show
Emmys Album: Vaughn Meader’s The First Family; Record of the Year: “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”; Song of the Year: “What Kind of Fool Am I”
Sports When we started our senior year, our class had a member who was the second best golfer in the nation. Our Melissa Ann Baker was runner up in the finals of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Golf Tournament at the Country Club of Rochester in New York in August 1962.
August 31 Football Rebels beat Lenoir City 28-6.
September 4 Embarked on our senior year and we worried about getting a good seat in assembly, talking on the phone, going to slumber parties, hearing the boys’ band play (Brickey Sturgeon, Butch McDade, John Kerr, who else?), rolling yards with toilet paper, cruising The Dwarf (meant more than Snow White) and Glco’s and Zesto’s, doing parallel readings and taking 6-weeks tests and other fun activities.
  Ours was the last segregated class at MHS.
September 7 Beat Holston 21-0 in football. Other football scores: Beat Madisonville 21-7, lost to Porter 7-20, lost to Morristown 0-20, lost 0-19 to Sevierville, beat Everett 14-7, beat Fulton 13-0, lost to Loudon 18-20 and lost to Alcoa 14-19 for a 5-5 record for the year.
September 10 Received class rings (which, I discovered after our reunion, featured a Rebel flag on one side).
  Band won a first place Blue Ribbon in competition.
September 30 First convention of Cesar Chavez’ National Farm Workers Association convened in Fresno, California
October 1 First black student, James Meredith, enrolled at Ole Miss.
October 6 Band received Number II rating – Excellent – at Bristol Marching Festival.
October 13 Band earned Number I rating – Superior – at Tri-State Marching Festival.
October 14 U-2 Spy Plane photographed Soviet nuclear missile sites in Cuba.
October 16 San Francisco Giants, who had won the National League Pennant, lost to the American League New York Yankees in the World Series.
October 19 Homecoming at MHS. The senior float lost to the junior class and a sophomore got Homecoming Queen. But we beat Fulton, so all was not lost.
October 22 President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation on television about potentially lethal weapons in Cuba (MRBM — Medium Range Ballistic Missiles) and announced the U.S. was going to search all ships going to Cuba and intercept any offensive weapons. The blockade of Cuba lasted until The Cuban Missile Crisis ended October 28 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced he would remove missiles from Cuba.
November 7 Eleanor Roosevelt died.
  Baseball teams the Mets and Colt 45s were formed.
  Henry Ross Perot founded Electric Data Systems, a data processing firm.
November 10 ACT test (4 hours at UTK)
November 17 Band & choir taped the “Talent Showcase” TV show at WATE Channel 6 in Knoxville.
November 27 Men’s and women’s basketball teams went to Pikeville, Tenn., to play Bledsoe County and won both games:
Men, 72-41 and women, 65-38.
December 7 Beat Alcoa 3 games in basketball (B-team, girls and varsity).
December 11 Snowed 2-4 inches; got out of school at 2 p.m.
December 17 Macbeth test
December 19 Classes ended.
December 24 3-5 or 6 inches of snow—a white Christmas
December 28 Lost to Knox Young 51-60 in Maryville Alcoa Jaycee Invitational Basketball Tournament.
December 31 U.S. Military Personnel in South Vietnam: 11,300 (From 1960 to 1963, U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam rose from 900 to 15,000.)

1963 ~ 2nd half of Senior Year

January 2 ARVN units equipped with U.S. helicopters and armored personnel carriers suffered first major pitched battle defeat by the Viet Cong forces.
January 2 School began at MHS.
January 8 Football Banquet
January 22 Got measured for our caps & gowns.
January 25 Sock hop
February Began making college decisions.
February 19 Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, which played a key role in the women’s liberation movement, was published. (Marty L. Black told me that she and her Dad had to go to Nashville to find a copy of the book to buy for her summer reading prior to entering college.)
March 2 Men’s Basketball team lost consolation game, and finished fourth in tournament.
March 5 Choir sang in the East Tennessee Chorus festival at UTK and got a I rating – Superior – and it rained continuously. At the Solo Festival on March 4-5, Bonnie Jane Jackson, accompanied by Suzanne Campbell, got a Superior rating.
March 12 English speeches began!
March 14-16 Band participated in the East Tennessee Band & Orchestra Festival.
March 18 Annuals came.
March 29 Basketball banquet
Oscars Best Actor: Sidney Poitier, Lillies of the Field; Best Actress: Patricia Neal, Hud; Best Picture: Tom Jones
Grammys Record of the Year: “Days of Wine & Roses”; Album: The Barbra Streisand Album; Song of the Year: “Days of Wine & Roses”
Emmys The Defenders; The Dick Van Dyke Show; The Andy Williams Show
April 1 Tryouts for senior play
April 5 Spring break began.
April 5-6 At the Tennessee High School Press Association meeting in Memphis, the Red & Black newspaper was awarded a rating of Excellent.
April 11 Nuclear submarine USS Thresher was lost in the Atlantic Ocean, feared sunk; 129 lives lost.
April 12 Martin Luther King was arrested in Birmingham and held for a week. While there, he wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail.
April 21 Dr. Michael DeBakey implanted artificial heart in a human for the first time at a Houston Hospital.
April 27 56 MHS band members participated in the Solo & Ensemble Festival at Maryville College, earning 17 Superior and 6 Excellent ratings.
April Also in April, Civil Rights activists in Birmingham were sprayed with high powered water hoses and attacked by police dogs.
May Coca Cola rolled out its newest product, TaB, the first suger-free diet soda (had bottled it first on Feb. 14 to be test marketed). Also this year, Weight Watchers was founded.
May 2 Teenagers and children as young as 6 years old marched in Birmingham to protest segregation in what became known as the Children’s Crusade March. They returned the next day to protest and white policemen, under the leadership of Bull Connor, ordered the fire hoses turned on the children and released attack dogs.
May 3 Senior Play, The Campbells Are Coming
May 4 Band Banquet at Green Meadow Country Club
May 8 Buddhists in Hue demonstrated against recently imposed ban on public display of religious flags. When government troops failed to disperse the crowd, they fired on protestors, killing 9 and wounding 14.
May 10 Junior-Senior Prom; Patsy Birdwell reigned as Prom Queen.
May 14 Seniors had pictures made for the newspaper.
May 15 Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper orbited the Earth 22 times.
May 28 Classes ended.
May 31 Senior banquet at Holiday Inn Chapman Highway
June 2 Baccalaureate service First Baptist Church
June 3 Senior Day program at 9 a.m. in the MHS Auditorium
June 3 Commencement Exercises at 8 p.m. in the MHS Auditorium

After graduation, the MHS Class of 1963 went off to college or to pursue jobs and life after high school.
June 11 Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door opposed to integration. Under orders of the President of the United States, he stepped aside and the University of Alabama was successfully integrated.
June 11 Thich Quang Duc, a Buddist monk, burned himself to death to protest the Diem government of South Vietnam. Soon more U.S. military advisors would be sent to South Vietnam and the war there would escalate.
June 17 Supreme Court ruled prayer in public schools was unconstitutional.
June 22 Martin Luther King Jr. met with President Kennedy in the White House.
July U.S. Postal Service introduced the Zip Code. First Class postage cost 5 cents. Gasoline was about 29 cents a gallon. New Hampshire established the first state lottery.
Auugust 28 Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at a Civil Rights Rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., before 200,000 blacks and whites.
November AT&T introduced touch-tone telephones.
November 22 President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. I was a freshman at UTK and just walked out of the P.E. Building heading for my English class when Kristine Lakey, my MHS classmate, told me the president had been shot. Ironically, we were studying Lincoln in my English class and all the similarities of those two assassinations were in the forefront that day and for days to come.

50-plus years ago, but it seems like only yesterday in so many ways.

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Updated December 14, 2013

Updated May 21, 2013