1970s Hamilton High School: A Look Back

Mr. Brunner pictured here as a high school student. All photo submitted by Mr. Brunner.

Maggie Kidd

The year is 1966, and the Billboard top hit was “Good Lovin’” by The Rascals. The top movie of the year was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and Hamilton High School wasn’t even 10 years old. Founded in 1962, Hamilton, along with the student body, classes, and social scene, has changed immensely in the past 60 years. Hamilton, throughout its history, has experienced periods in time ranging from the Vietnam War to the 2020 pandemic.

In an effort to learn more about our school, I had the opportunity to speak with a Hamilton alumnus from the class of 1970. Mark Brunner graduated from Hamilton with a class of about 250 people. In the four years he spent here, he recalls experiences like the clubs, classes, and student body that were the largest part of remembrance of his time at Hamilton.

Mr. Brunner working at the radio station.

Mr. Brunner was part of The Troubadour and the Shield, Hamilton’s newspaper during his time. “The writing, the printing, the staff meetings, that was for me the highlight of my four years,” states Brunner.

Many students look back and remember sports highlights, but Brunner notes that this has changed significantly over the course of Hamilton’s history. He was not a participant in sports, but he remembers football being the biggest sport, and basketball to a lesser extent. “There were a lot of pep rallies and they usually took place in the gym, occasionally in the cafeteria, and especially during football season. There was a lot of school spirit, but in those days the Chargers weren’t very good from a sports perspective, so it was difficult sometimes to get a lot of school spirit going.”

In the 1970s, girl’s sports were not as prominent as boy’s sports. Brunner recalls girls cheerleading and golf, but not much more than that. “We didn’t have soccer teams in those days, and there weren't a lot of girl’s athletic programs. There was a girls golf team, but beyond that I don’t remember if there was a girls basketball team. It was pretty much a male dominated sports menu at the time. And of course girls cheered things like that.”

This image shows the commencement booklet of Mr. Brunner’s graduating class of 1970.

As far as classes go, Mr. Brunner took Latin all four years of high school. It’s interesting to hear about Latin being offered, especially because that is no longer a class anymore. He mentioned that other students chose to take German or French as language electives. He also said that there were two main paths you could derive your high school career from. You could take the shop route, or you could take the writing route (“for boys, anyway,” added Brunner). Mr. Brunner chose the writing and elective classes and spent most of his time in the newspaper and literary publications. He recalls having conversations about planning his schedule with guidance counselors, which is still relatable to many students. “There were some more advanced classes. My counselor in our junior year sat down with us and said, ‘Okay are you going onto college? If so you really need to take a path this way with these types of electives because it is the pathway to get you into a college.’”

Apart from just classes and clubs, events that were prevalent at the time feed into his memory of Hamilton–the Vietnam War being one of those events. He says, “Well at the time, you’ve got to remember that the war in Vietnam was going on, so that was a huge topic in the high school. There was a lot of conversation about the war. There were two sides. There were the folks that were pro military, and then there were the folks that were not.” The prevalence of the Vietnam War was something that almost no one in the student body today could even fathom worrying about in their day-to-day lives.

Another interesting fact that Brunner remembers related to the Vietnam War conflict is that Hamilton High School had a section of the Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, remarking, “Hamilton at the time was one of the only high schools in the area, in fact one of few in the U.S., that had an NJROTC. I was a member of that and I was the student commander of the NJROTC when I graduated. Thursday was uniform day, so we had to wear our dress blues, and then another time we had to wear our khakis. But we were targets sometimes from the folks who were anti military, so it got interesting at times. Never violent, just interesting.”

While the Vietnam War was a large part of his life, a lot of events happened within Hamilton. In terms of the student body, there is a lot of overlap with the current student body and from 50 years ago. In addition to the pep rallies, Brunner remembers prom as a big tradition, including prom court. He also has fond memories of big events like Homecoming as “the highlight of the year.”

Hamilton has changed in so many ways from when it started. From world affairs, to the classes offered, Hamilton has gone through significant changes throughout the years.

Check out Charger Press’ interview with Mr. Brunner as he gets a tour of Hamilton and talks about how the school has changed since 1970! Video filming and editing credit to Violet Rhoades.