Mike+Dunnigan+Interview+Transcript

Interview with Mike Dunnigan 1. During your time at West, what was your most enjoyable moment or moments? Can you explain? **Mike:** Yeah, I would say Taylor that everything about high school I really enjoyed. There was nothing that really wasn’t good for me. I enjoyed sporting events and playing sports and being involved in school. We had a big school. I guess the activities with the sporting events was the most enjoyable. Everything about the school was good. I got a good education. I was prepared for college, and I really enjoyed those years at Belleville West. 2. What are some changes that the school made during your four years that that you approved of or disapproved of? **Mike:** I don’t remember a lot of changes. I remember the school being so large that I think we had over 800 kids just in our class. We had 32-3300 kids in the school. The school wasn’t big enough for that. We had many temporary buildings. There was trailers in the back that we would have classes. Moving in the hallways was a big deal. I remember that certain hours that you could go up the stairs one way and down the other way the next hour. Sports standpoint, right before I started school there or during my high school years, football went to state playoff system and lot of a lot of traditions that Belleville West had before that were changed because of state playoffs. 3. Did you participate in many of the school’s traditions during your four years? **Mike:** Yeah, I think I pretty much did everything the school had to offer. I went to homecoming dances and Christmas dances and Proms. They had homecoming week which we called hobo day and hobo week. They had tug of wars and dress days, which was a day which everybody dressed up as a hobo and participated in the parade. I think I pretty much participated in all the traditions that they had. 4. What was your West hobo day parade like? Can you explain a little? **Mike:** I know that it was a big event. Kids dressed up as hobos. Each class made a big float and they spent a lot of time. The parade was a big deal. The students really got into it. Each class had their own pride and activities and wanting to be the best class in the school. In the parade, we would just march down west main street. Little kids would enjoy stuff. We would throw candy and so on. The kids really enjoyed it. I think it was good for the school. The community got involved in it also. 5. What were the activities that occurred during your hobo day week? **Mike:** I know there were certain dress up days that were involved. I know there were pep rallies and assemblies. The football team was introduced in front of the crowd. I remember the field events like tug of war. What comes to mind, whoever wanted to participate and when you have 800 kids in a class, getting a long rope and tug of war that was a big deal. I know a lot of activities that had each class against each other and that was enjoyable. 6. What was the East St. Louis/Belleville West rivalry like back then? **Mike:** It was a big rivalry. It kind of went back before Belleville East and Belleville West, when it was just one high school. It changed a little bit either right before I got to school there or during my four years there. I can remember getting up in the morning as a kid and the game was always played on Thanksgiving Day so, you would get up in the morning, go to the football game and there would be huge crowds and you probably couldn’t get into the stadium. We would watch the football game and then come home and have Thanksgiving dinner. The football game was so important to people in the community that they would pretty much move their Thanksgiving around that football game. They had like a bell that was in the end zone and whoever won the football game was allowed to keep that bell for the entire year until the next football game. The rivalry was big and it changed a little bit when the state tournament system came into being but still was a really important game. 7. What clubs/sports did you participate in? Can you explain? **Mike:** I was involved with varsity baseball and a lot of intramural stuff and I was involved with different academic clubs. Fellowship of Christian athletes. I was involved with math and science clubs. I think they had a chess club there that I participated in a little. I didn’t do a lot with the arts but there was plenty of activities that everybody could participate in. I tried to get in as much as I could. 8. What were the qualifications of National Honors Society during your four years? **Mike:** I don’t know Taylor that I remember the exact qualifications. Umm it was probably maybe a 3.5 GPA. If I could recall, there was probably 10% of our class was in National Honor Society. I would say we probably had 75-100 students. I would say that it was probably 3.5 GPA. I don’t know that if there were any requirements. As for ACT score or class or anything like that. It was still an honor back then. 9. What was it like playing varsity baseball for those three years? Can you explain? **Mike:** It was really enjoyable. I enjoyed playing for coach Hasenstab whose in the high school hall of fame and had a very, very successful baseball career there. I enjoyed all three years. I didn’t start out on the varsity team as a sophomore, I played one game on the sophomore team before I was called up. We had good teams every year. We had some very good players, some players that went on to play ball at college. Baseball wasn’t as a big of a deal from a fan standpoint as football or basketball but it was good program and very successful coach. It was very much a big part of my high school career. 10. What was your most memorable moment playing varsity baseball? **Mike:** Probably the game I remember the most was my sophomore playing Belleville East for the regional championship. We ended up losing that game 2-1 in extra innings. I pitched seven innings and one of my close friends today was on that Belleville East team. Belleville West and Belleville East were both coached by two very good coaches and good programs. That game sticks in my mind as a game that we had a very good chance to win and didn’t win and it seems like that is the game that I probably remember the most. 11. What did you think about the school welcoming a soccer team your senior year? **Mike:** I think it was good that the soccer team was added. I think football was certainly a big sport at Belleville West but when you have 800 students not everybody was necessarily fit to play football and so they added a soccer team my senior year. Obviously, anytime you start a program there are some challenges but they competed pretty well. Soccer was just beginning to get into the high school level and there were some teams that had played before west that had added it in 1978. I had some close friends, some people, that I went to church with that played on that first soccer team. I think for them it would be a great experience at least for one season they got to play a varsity sport. 12. On the weekends, what activities did teens do that were popular during your four years? **Mike:** Probably the biggest activities were centered around a sporting event somehow. Whether if it was football or basketball. The sports were very well attended and people, large crowds, at the football and basketball games. Back then they would have dances after every football game. They would go to the cafeteria after the football game. If you went to the game and wanted to stick around and they would have a dance. They would bring in a band, so it was. They tried to keep the students there to give them something to do so there were plenty of activities if you wanted to. Outside of sporting events, pretty typical, found a movie or fast food place to go out to eat. For the most part, sporting events were the big activities on the weekend. 13. Where was the common hangout during your high school days? **Mike:** There was a fountain area right in the middle of the campus in the courtyard that was brick. It was in the middle of campus. People would hang outside, standing around, talking even if snow was on the ground and 20 degrees. Just kind of hang around in the middle and talk and whether it was on your way to class, you would just kind of hang out in the middle of campus. There was also back then that probably would never happen today but if you wanted to smoke, you could go to the stadium and you were allowed to smoke as long as you were inside the stadium. For some kids, pretty popular hangout place was to go to the stadium and smoke for a while and hang out with their friends. For the most part, if you didn’t want to do that you just hung around in the middle of the campus. 14. What was the old campus like? Can you explain? **Mike:** I really liked the old campus and certainly now that it is Lindenwood University there are lot of things that have changed but a lot of things haven’t changed. The campus was really spread out. You would have to walk outside to get to most of your classes to get to your classes which was a good thing. Earlier the school was pretty overcrowded and we had times when you weren’t up certain stairwells until. Some stairwells were one way going up and others were one way going down. We had temporary buildings out by the stadium since we didn’t have enough classroom space, you would have a little trailer or building in the back where you would have certain classes. So although the campus was neat. I enjoyed being able to walk between classes to the gym outside. The campus wasn’t quite large enough for school we had at that point in time. There were a lot of things that we had to make due to have enough space from all the students we had there. 15. What was it like sharing the football stadium with two other rival schools? **Mike:** It was interesting because Belleville West had the only stadium so Belleville East and Althoff and Belleville West all played their home games at Belleville West stadium. So usually every weekend either Friday night or Saturday night game. You would have each school bring their own banner when they were home team. You would see East banner up or West banner and of course Belleville East and Belleville West played each other and East and Althoff played each other and West and Althoff played each other. There would be a football game which was for some schools a road game but they played in their home stadium so if you had an away game against East or Althoff, you might have two away games but play both in your home stadium. It was probably difficult, I cant remember, when you have 3 high schools playing all their football games at the same stadium with rain and so on. After a while those fields got pretty tore up. I think each school even though it was Belleville West stadium felt like it was their own home stadium and they took a lot of pride in it. They always made it work but I’m sure it was challenge scheduling wise and so on. 16. Outside being the common hangout at the campus, what was the common hangout around the community during that time? **Mike:** Most of the hangout was the McDonalds on West Maine that still exists. I guess there wasn’t a whole lot to do outside of hanging outside some place at people’s houses. Kids would just kind of drive up and down West Maine and drive through McDonalds, honk, and talk to someone and stop or just drive around up and down Maine street and it was kind of a cool thing just to hop into your car and drive. Every once in a while, you would actually go in McDonalds and order something to eat but lot times you just roamed around. 17. What was the open campus like? **Mike:** I don’t really remember Taylor if it was open campus just for upper classmen. It seems like I just remember juniors and seniors but as long as you didn’t have class you could go eat at McDonalds or go to pizza hut or wherever you wanted to go. As long as you left campus and hoped in the car and take off and as long as you were back for your next class, everything was fine. I think I spent a lot of my time, certainly my senior year, going to different places to eat and not always eating on campus. It was good to just to be able to get away for half an hour, 45 minutes to an hour and sit someplace else away from school and relax. I enjoyed having open campus, the freedom it gave us. I think it was something that was earned but very much appreciated by the students. 18. Who was your favorite teacher and why? **Mike:** My favorite teacher was probably Dennis Schuzenhoffer. Although I only had him for a couple classes it seems like the things I remember the most is his enthusiasm for teaching. He was a new teacher. I think our Freshmen class may have been first year teaching. Dennis went on to have a long career not only at Belleville West but Belleville East. He was very enthusiastic and he knew what the students were doing, knew pretty much everything the students were doing whether they had a ball game, how they did. He encouraged them. He always talked to them about their future and certainly, Dennis had a great influence. We are still close friends even though we have a student-teacher relationship. I think he kept that enthusiasm his entire career because when you talk to students who he had 30 years later, they say the same thing. 19. How many dances did the school host a year? **Mike:** It seems like I remember Taylor that we would always have a homecoming dance around the football game, have a Christmas dance a week or so before Christmas break, and then Prom in the spring. Prom was a little more formal. Kids would get tuxes and dresses but they would even dress up for the other dances. As I mentioned before, often times they would have a band come in and have a dance after each home football game and it wasn’t a dress up kind of game but it was something for the kids to do so they would stay on campus so I guess not get in trouble, have something to do after the football game. I remember those three big dances in particular. Of course prom being the one that is most important. 20. How did the voting process of Prom King/ Prom Queen work? **Mike:** Seems like I remember Taylor that there wasn’t necessarily a separate vote for king and queen. The queen picked an escort and you voted for the prom queen only and that of course translate to whoever was the escort prom queen was the prom king. I don’t remember their being a separate vote. There would usually be 5 candidates for the prom court in the senior class and of course there would be a junior and a sophomore and freshmen attended also but it seemed like I remember voting for the prom queen. Our prom queen was Stacy Lesley. That’s was I remember. 21. What were the lunches like in the cafeteria during your time at West? **Mike:** Probably typical lunches. There was certain entrees that you would have. Certain things on a particular day. I remember always being able to get a hamburger everyday in the cafeteria. There was also in the corner of the cafeteria a snack bar that sold chips and hotdogs and snack sandwiches and stuff like that. The cafeteria was usually pretty crowded. It took awhile to get your food but you could usually go to the snack bar to get your food or something, 22. What were some subjects that were taught during your four years? **Mike:** I think subjects were probably pretty similar. We had what we called honor courses but there was English, biology, chemistry, physical science, physics, algebra, geometry. I can also remember like a woodshop class and welding classes. You could take a lot of mechanics. They would have short hand in typing courses for people that wanted to go into that type of career. Not only the core subjects, reading, writing, and arithmetic, but also occupational classes were pretty popular. 23. What were your AP (college-credited) courses like during those days? **Mike:** I can remember that there was AP English, history, there were algebra, geometry, some of the sciences. Also biology and chemistry. Back then I can remember the opportunity, you could take certain courses and if you received a certain grade in those courses and took a test that you would actually get college credit. I was able to start college with about 12 hours of college credit. Certainly makes it easier to have to take less hours in college but also helped during sports seasons. But also saved money and so on. The ability to get college credit it high school was a neat thing. 24. What was your favorite class and can you explain why? **Mike:** I guess my favorite class would have been again the classes I mentioned earlier, physical science class my freshmen year and a chemistry class with Dennis Schuzenhoffer. I liked my math classes and I went onto college and got a math major. Obviously my math courses had a great impact on me. But it seems like I can remember my science course with Dennis Schuzenhoffer and just enjoying his teaching style and his enthusiasm that he brought into teaching. I didn’t really care for English to much so my least favorite subject was my junior year I had a course with the varsity assistant coach, an English teacher, and the varsity head coach was an English teacher so I had both of them in class but didn’t really enjoy English that much. 25. What were you P.E. classes like at that time? **Mike:** Freshmen P.E. was just boys had P.E. separate than girls. After my freshmen year I had a thing called sports P.E.. anybody that participated in a sport during that semester they would take 7th hour P.E. which allowed us to get another hour of baseball practice. Instead of a P.E. course we would instead go to our sport and obviously gave us an advantage to have an extra hour of practice a day. It helped us get out of P.E. so we didn’t have to take it as a separate course. 26. During your time at West, was there any type of dress code that you guys had to obey? **Mike:** No Taylor, we didn’t have a dress code, we didn’t have uniforms. We used discression to make sure you dressed appropriately. Most kids just wore blue jeans and we didn’t have dress code to adhere to and never was that big of an issue back then that I could remember. Just dressed like most high schools would do, pair of blue jeans and a t shirt. Most kids didn’t dress up. They just dressed considerably well. 27. What was your remembrance of the donkey basketball game for seniors? **Mike:** My remembrance of donkey basketball everybody enjoyed people being knocked off the donkey. No body scored very much. There weren’t a lot of points and you probably didn’t want to be the one that had to do clean up afterwards. Obviously getting a donkey to do what you want to do is pretty difficult but not a lot of points scored and a lot of messes on the floor and a lot of bodies flying onto the floor. As far as I remembered, no one got seriously injured but you took some pretty good falls. 28. What was the parking situation like having over 800 kids in each grade? **Mike:** Parking was a disaster. You had to get there early to get a parking spot. There was some parking on campus which was over by the cafeteria. The biggest parking lot that people used was the church across the street called West View Baptist Church. During the school week, we were allowed to park in that church parking lot but if you wanted to park on campus or close to school, you had to get there early because there just wasn’t enough parking. There was some spots by the football stadium but it was pretty tough. When I drove there was a person from church across route 13 so I could park in their driveway and walk over to school. Parking was just very difficult. 29. What was it like have the school mascot as a devil at that time? **Mike:** Obviously we were still the maroons. We really didn’t think much about being a devil. I don’t think it was anything or meant anything. Obvisoulsy to have a mascot maroon, you really don’t know what a maroon is. I can remember in my class ring, inside the maroon stone there is a picture of a devil. I don’t think we thought much about it but it was a mascot that was used. Didn’t mean a lot. We wanted a mascot of course. 30. Did anyone ever dress up as a devil for a sporting event? **Mike:** I don’t remember Taylor somebody dressing up having a mascot as a devil. I don’t remember that. If it was I don’t remember but I think everything we talked about being a maroon but I think the devil was just an emblem that we used.