When I wrote about our high school graduation, it didn’t occur to me to check to see if there was an article about it in the Lebanon Daily News at the time.

Duh!

Well, now I did, and I discovered, much to nobody’s surprise I’m sure, that I got a few things wrong.

So here come the corrections.

I said that I didn’t recall the graduation ceremony itself, other than the thunderous applause when Ken Graver walked up to receive his diploma, which was correct, but I went on to add that  “We didn’t have a valedictorian or any member of the class give a speech” which was not correct. I should have stopped while I was ahead!

As it turned out there were 149 members of our graduating class and the lead speaker was a Dr. Aaron G. Breidenstine, state deputy superintendent of public instruction.

And there were three speakers from our class as well. If you were a member of our class, you can probably guess who they were, assuming you don’t remember them outright from nearly 60 years ago, so I’m going to keep you guessing for another paragraph or two. Just pick the most obvious three and you’re sure to get them right. Two girls and a boy.

In addition to the speakers the commencement program included a two-piano-and-organ concert performed by Cindy Keller (naturally!), Elaine Dubbs, and faculty member Richard Kline on the organ. The invocation was given by Tom Seubert, and Jill Christener welcomed the guests.

Norman Sanger put his clarion tenor voice to good use as he sang accompanied by Cindy Keller. Cindy also played the piano for Doreen Koller’s clarinet solo. (The article spelled her name wrong. She was probably used to that.)

An overflow audience watched the show via closed circuit television. I definitely did not recall that.

OK, did you guess the three speakers from our class? Sure you did. Pam Barry, Maryann Shelhamer, and Allen Maurer.

But what about the all night party?

Well, that was held at Host Farm Motel, just as Cindy Behney informed me after I wrote my first piece. 

Henry Homan, a local radio personality, was the master of ceremonies. That was a detail I had completely forgotten.

And the singing group that I had incorrectly identified as the Jordan Brothers?

As it turns out, it was the Del-Chords, which a quick search of the web informs me was an interracial group based in York, PA. So at least my memory that it was a couple of Black singers seems to be in tact. According to what I’ve found out about them, the members changed fairly frequently, and the Del-Chords was the singing group and they used a group called The Dogs as their backup band. 

There is even a very poor quality video of the group made in 1964:

Now that I’ve seen that video, I’m wondering whether there may have been three or four singers at the party rather than just two. Could be. I definitely recall they were very high energy all night long.

Oh, and I was also correct that it was Paul DeLong’s dad who was in charge of the parents’ committee that organized the party.