I was forced to apologize to the entire Murrah High School Student Body during morning assembly on October 18, 1968, FOR SOMETHING I DID NOT do!
That Friday morning began as just another day during the fall of my senior year at Jackson Central High. I parked my hand-me-down 1959 Ford Fairlane, dubbed “The Blue Bomber” because of its massive size and distinctive navy-blue paint job from Fact-O-Bake body shop on North Mill Street.
It promised to be an exciting day. Central was playing our arch-rivals, the Murrah Mustangs, that night in a much-anticipated contest at Newell Field. Our Tigers were enjoying a successful season and looked forward to upsetting the Jack Carlisle coached Mustangs. I was looking forward to an exciting pep rally during Friday assembly. Homeroom doors had been carefully decorated for days, and the excitement was palpable.
I had the great privilege to serve as Student Body Vice-President my senior year, and one of my duties was reading the morning announcements over the intercom system. After finishing and walking out of the small broadcast room, I was met by one of the office secretaries and informed that our Principal, W. J. Pleasant, wanted to see me.
Mr. Pleasant was a retired military officer and ran a tight ship. He didn’t put up with insubordination, fighting on school grounds, and made a big deal out of representing Central in a positive manner.
Walking into his office, I found that Fred Davis, our Student Body President, was already there and sitting in a guest chair. Fred, in addition to being President, was a gifted athlete, star quarterback of the football team, straight-A student, and a member of the command staff of our ROTC program.
“Boys,” Mr. Pleasant began. “We have a major incident that some of our students have perpetrated last night.” “Someone unloaded a truckload of cow manure at the main entrance of Murrah.”
“You boys know anything about that?”
(For some reason, Mr. Pleasant was peering into my face much harder and barely glanced at Fred. I think he knew a lot about my running buddies from my Doodleville neighborhood.)
He then reared back in his chair and said, “we’re going to take a little road trip, and you guys are going to apologize to their student body on behalf of Central.”
Mr. Pleasant commandeered one of the driver’s education cars and we headed up Northwest Street, hung a right on Woodrow Wilson Drive, and pulled up to the main entrance to Murrah. Their custodians had cleaned up the mess, but the stench of cow manure was still prominent. (It reminded me of my many trips as a child to the Jackson Zoo.)
We were escorted to a backstage area in their auditorium, where we awaited the bell that would summon the Murrah students to assembly and hear from their hated rivals from downtown Jackson. At the appointed time, we strode onto the stage, where four chairs were strategically placed…one for Murrah Principal, one for Mr. Pleasant, one for Fred, and one for me.
I should mention that on Fridays I normally wore jeans and a casual shirt, or a Central sweatshirt. Fred, however, was attired in his “dress green” ROTC uniform, replete with his award medals and chevrons pinned on his left chest and hanging to his waist!
Me? I looked like the ringleader of the delivery team for the cow manure and had been yanked out of detention hall to come and face my accusers.
Mr. Pleasant stood and briefly addressed the students and then motioned for me to come to the podium.
All I could see through the glare were the faces of the well-dressed Murrah crowd, with their starched, button-down blue shirts, pressed khakis, and Bass penny loafers from The Rogue, Ed Helm’s Men’s Wear, or other high-end North Jackson clothiers.
I mumbled through some nonsense to the effect of “we don’t do this kind of stuff down at Central.” “We’re really sorry about this.”
“Yeah...right.” That’s what they thought, and that was EXACTLY what I thought, too.
Fred never liked to speak in public, so he just sat there looking “Presidential” and let his VP make a fool out of himself.
I did learn one very valuable lesson that day which has served me well over my life. Sometimes it is just best to say you are sorry, even if you didn’t do anything wrong.
Like that pile of cow crap at Murrah’s front door. Sometimes it is just best to do whatever it takes to get rid of the mess and move on.
(By the way, Murrah won the game later that night by a score of 25-14.)
And, 57 years later, I STILL don’t know who the culprits were…..but I have some ideas!
Kendall Smith is a Northsider.
