Jefferson alumni reflect on their teenage years amid integration in anticipation of the school’s 100th anniversary

A castle with two towers in front. Filled with “hidden and special, unique places” for students to find — that’s how Judy Harrison recalls her old high school, Jefferson Senior High in Roanoke.

Harrison, a class of 1966 alumna, takes pride in her alma mater, not just for the education she received but for the building that housed that education.

“The building was just special and still is today. There’s something that was different about being there,” she said.

Something different may be coming back to the building, now the Jefferson Center, 100 years after its opening, and five decades since high school students last walked its halls between opening and closing bells.

A new generation of students could be walking in the footsteps of the Jefferson’s alumni if the city follows through on a proposal to build a magnet school there.

Ron Arthur, a class of 1969 graduate, said he’s glad to hear of the proposal. “The bigger concern was waiting to hear that they’re going to tear it down, which would have been a major loss for the community.”

Harrison said she was upset when the school closed in 1974. “We just cared for the building so much and still do today.”

Efforts to raise money to renovate the building into a performing arts center began in 1989, and by 1997, it had fully reopened as the Jefferson Center. The center houses concerts, music education, and other small arts businesses and nonprofits.

Jefferson Center 100th anniversary celebration

Jefferson Center will unveil a time capsule at 10 a.m. Saturday as part of the building’s centennial celebration.

The unveiling will take place in Fostek Hall inside the Jefferson Center. Enter through the Luck Street Entrance by the box office.

The event is free and open to the public.

Alumni and friends will gather Saturday as the building reaches its centenary.

A ceremony and all-class reunion event will take place at the Jefferson Center. A cornerstone time capsule will be unveiled by Cyrus Pace, the center’s director.

Many of the alumni attending will know Jefferson from a time of segregation when not all were welcome. The magnet school the building could house represents an almost unimaginable change.

Those who attended Jefferson Senior High in its late years remember a time of more tumultuous change in America — integration. When it opened, Jefferson served only white students, but by the time it closed, it was fully integrated.

Integrating Jefferson Senior High School

Eula Poindexter, who now goes by Amber Waller, was one of the two first Black students to attend Jefferson Senior High School. She said she had been one of seven students who integrated all Roanoke schools, starting with Monroe Junior High School in 1960.

Tommy Long, who has since died, attended Jefferson with Waller that first year.

Waller came to Jefferson Senior High in 1963. She said she’s proud to be a Jefferson alumna and feels “blessed to have had the opportunity” to have gotten her education there.

“They emphasized education and taught in such a way that if you didn’t go to college, you would be able to have a career,” she said.

At Monroe Junior High School, Waller was not allowed to participate in band until the eighth grade because she said the school was “protecting her.” In 10th grade at Jefferson, Waller was the organist for the school’s production of “Bye, Bye, Birdie.” By then, she said, Roanoke had started to settle into the inevitability of integration.

Waller said her parents wanted her to go to Jefferson to get a good education. “We were not there to socialize.

“I am humbled and grateful for the sacrifices that my parents and grandparents and so many others made for me that gave me an opportunity that I could prepare myself and others to face life challenges, think critically, and live in a global society,” Waller said. “And today, to be able to tell my story as one of the first, is a blessing.”

Waller went on to serve on Prince George County’s Public Schools Board of Education and has worked for organizations such as the U.S. House of Representatives and George Mason University, dedicating her life to leadership and community service.

While she said the school staff was very supportive of integration and of her and Long’s success, not all students showed the same kindness.

“They said I had cooties, and I never even knew what cooties was,” Waller said. “They were not nice to me, and I had to ignore them. It was not the best, but there were other students that were very nice and understanding and everything.”

Waller said some of the students who treated her poorly have since apologized to her, and she remembers an overall good experience at Jefferson.

“I have always been a very positive person, and you know, even to this day, I don’t see color and I just see people,” Waller said. “This is the way I’ve always been and the way my mother raised me and my sister.”

The old normal is now ‘unbelievable’ to former white students of the integration period

Charlie Aird, a student at Jefferson in the first years of integration who will be attending the weekend reunion, said he didn’t realize the implications of this period until later in his life.

Aird, a white class of 1963 grad, said, “We talked about football and girls, not integration.”

He remembers growing up in Roanoke during a time when schools were segregated, as were theaters and other public places.

“They didn’t come into our area, and we didn’t come into their area,” Aird said. Looking back, he said what was the norm then is now “unbelievable” to him. He’s spent his life traveling the world as a consultant, where he had firsthand experience as a minority in an unfamiliar environment.

“Having seen that and how it can operate and how diversity helps, it’s just appalling back 60 years ago how the schools were and how they discouraged diversity,” Aird said.

Harrison remembers going to school with Waller. She said she was quiet and spent a lot of time in the library. Long, she said, was a good athlete and later went on to teach.

“I didn’t have any problem with the fact that they were there,” Harrison said.

Compared to other Southern localities, integration in Roanoke went relatively smoothly.

“It eased in through the school system. Not to say it was silky smooth, it wasn’t, but in comparison to particularly some other locations in the state and the deep South, Roanoke’s experience navigating that and implementing integration went smoother than elsewhere,” said Nelson Harris, a former Roanoke mayor and local historian.

“I didn’t see protests or national stuff showing up,” said Aird.

Other alumni still remember scary situations and unrest.

“The transition was horrible,” Arthur, a class of 1969 graduate, said. “That first year, we probably had three or four bomb threats and had to evacuate school.” He said students were evacuated to the First Baptist Church a block away. Even so, he said Roanoke’s transition was “no doubt” smoother than elsewhere.

Arthur said teachers went out of their way to make integration work at Jefferson.

Football games, city buses and morning devotions: memories of Jefferson

Bertha Blake, a class of 1962 alum, remembers riding a city bus to school, watching the “fantastic” football players win games, and having the nickname “Crystal Bell” given to her by a teacher, because she always volunteered to do morning devotions in class.

“He said I was like a clear, ringing, charming crystal bell,” Blake said.

Blake graduated the year Patrick Henry High School opened in Southwest Roanoke. She said there was “no way” she was going to transfer to the new school when it opened.

“I love Jefferson … but I think maybe about half of the class or so went. So we had a smaller graduating class,” she said.

Blake, among other alumni, credits her success in life to the guidance she received from faculty at Jefferson.

“It was several big names out of the Roanoke Valley that actually did graduate from Jefferson,” she said. “It was a name that was very respected in the Roanoke Valley.”

Some well-known Roanokers who graduated from Jefferson are honored in the Jefferson Center’s memorabilia room: Henry St. Clair, class of 1941, piloted a World War II bomber; John Fishwick, class of 1933, was the president and CEO of Norfolk and Western Railway; Warner Dalhouse, class of 1952, became a founding director of Dominion Bankshares.

Aird said his teachers at Jefferson “changed his life completely” by getting him on the path from an average student to an honors student. He got a doctorate in math, taught and became a consultant — a career that allowed him to travel the world and gain perspective on the experience of being in high school during integration.

“I went to Africa, South America, China, where I was in the minority, and it just seems so ridiculous quite frankly that there was all of the fighting going on,” he said, referring to Massive Resistance.

A centennial celebration and cornerstone unveiling

During the all-class reunion for the 100th anniversary of the building’s opening this Saturday, Pace, the Jefferson Center’s director, will unveil a time capsule placed in the cornerstone of the building when it was built.

“When Roanoke invested in building the then Jefferson High School, they knew it would be an iconic and longstanding landmark for the City and used the occasion to catalog the life of the community at that time,” Aaron Kelderhouse, Jefferson Center marketing manager, said in a press release.

Blake saves the date for yearly reunions months ahead of time.

“You know, it’s like you walk through the halls and, you know, it’s like going back in time,” she said.

Many alumni are still friends. It’s a small but close-knit community among those who remember the early days of Jefferson High. Harrison said their “camaraderie” is the most unique thing they have. “When we get together, it’s like we’ve never been apart.”

Pace said in a statement that the center “continues to focus on providing its mission of stellar concerts, great education programs and community rental space for both our leasing partners and performance partners.”

“We support anything that makes Roanoke stronger, specifically for students,” Pace said. He said he feels the superintendent is being “infinitely collaborative” about the magnet school proposal and that conversations have been “open and supportive.”

William Fleming and Patrick Henry high schools each have a capacity of about 1,650 students, and about 2,000 are enrolled at each. It estimated the magnet school, focused on arts and sciences, could open within three to six years once approved by the city council. It would be Roanoke’s only magnet school, after the division dropped 13 magnet programs by 2006.

“They need to do the magnet school so the building will be saved,” Harrison said.

According to a needs assessment in late 2023, the center needs more than $6 million to cover the needed remediation.

The school board will present a formal proposal to the city council in February.

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