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DISD High School Graduates


TwiceHorn

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So I was driving by Hillcrest "get" High School the other day and it occurred to me that I know almost no one that graduated there.  Or any of the other northern Dallas DISD schools:  White, TJ, Woodrow, or BA.

I think I have probably come across more people from some of the more southern schools like Skyline and Carter, even SOC, than the northern schools, if you are going to point to "self selection via education and affluence."

I guess I'm a product of the white flight 70s and 80s, where people in those attendance areas went to private schools, and I have known and encountered people from every suburban district in the city, but almost no DISD people.

I think mdmost went to Skyline, and bozo one of the magnet schools, but I can't think of anyone else on here.  Strange.

DISD graduates, post up.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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@BurntEyes went to a big public. Not sure which - maybe Skyline.

I have a cousin with disability that went to Hillcrest. He did theater and I went to a couple plays and it seemed like a very diverse, normal, middle-class high school. I guess it pulls some of the non-private Preston Hollow kids (all 12 of them) and some kids from across 75.

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44 minutes ago, ztejas said:

@BurntEyes went to a big public. Not sure which - maybe Skyline.

I have a cousin with disability that went to Hillcrest. He did theater and I went to a couple plays and it seemed like a very diverse, normal, middle-class high school. I guess it pulls some of the non-private Preston Hollow kids (all 12 of them) and some kids from across 75.

Preston Hollow is a huge area.  Assuming a goodly portion of those peeps have kids, they can't all go to private schools.

I think at one time it was mostly people from east of 75.

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One friend who went to Hillcrest.  She was going to Hockaday until her RE developer dad started to like the nose candy a little too much and all the money went bye bye.  Another friend went to Woodrow by choice, her parents could certainly afforded the private route.

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58 minutes ago, HRSchenker said:

My ex-girlfriends parents went to high school with Russ Martin.

W.W. Samuell was not a northern DISD school.  I graduated from there, also, but five years after Martin was born.  I was long gone to Austin before he was a radio personality.

 

I did meet two Bryan Adams graduates in my work career.  They were about six years different in age and did not know each other in high school.

I did meet John Colley (later John Ford Colley) in high school.  He wasn't in Samuell yet, but was in a friend's band.

 

Edited by abuelo gringo
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3 hours ago, abuelo gringo said:

W.W. Samuell was not a northern DISD school.  I graduated from there, also, but five years after Martin was born.  I was long gone to Austin before he was a radio personality.

 

I did meet two Bryan Adams graduates in my work career.  They were about six years different in age and did not know each other in high school.

I did meet John Colley (later John Ford Colley) in high school.  He wasn't in Samuell yet, but was in a friend's band.

 

Never met anyone that went to Samuell, either.  Until now, assuming this counts.  Spruce either.

Kid on my block had a babysitter that went to Bryan Adams.  Close as I ever got.

I wonder if any of the people that live in Kessler Park send their kids to Sunset.

 

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I wonder if any of the people that live in Kessler Park send their kids to Sunset.
 

Nope. I live here and they send them to Booker T(if admitted), the private schools in North Dallas, the magnets, I’ve seen a few Bishop Lynch signs, and I think the predominant one is Bishop Dunne.
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Brother had a longtime co-worker/ friend who was Spruce grad.   Dude looked like Dave Grohl, partied like Charlie Sheen, was smarter than fuck( but stuck in a dead-end job because of drugs,) and about lost his mind when they changed their mascot from the Apaches.

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14 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Never met anyone that went to Samuell, either.  Until now, assuming this counts.  Spruce either.

Kid on my block had a babysitter that went to Bryan Adams.  Close as I ever got.

I wonder if any of the people that live in Kessler Park send their kids to Sunset.

 

I had a history teacher, Dr. Talmadge White, that once said that most of us would graduate from HS, stay in what he called "Peasant Grove", marry a high school sweetheart, and live the rest of our lives in PG. Maybe that's why you never met any.  I, luckily, escaped that, but many I went to HS with didn't.

 

However, the Director of the Briscoe Center of American History at UT Austin and a former Democratic Party Chair of Fayette Co were co graduates of mine.

Edited by abuelo gringo
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32 minutes ago, abuelo gringo said:

I had a history teacher, Dr. Talmadge White, that once said that most of us would graduate from HS, stay in what he called "Peasant Grove", marry a high school sweetheart, and live the rest of our lives in PG. Maybe that's why you never met any.  I, luckily, escaped that, but many I went to HS with didn't.

 

However, the Director of the Briscoe Center of American History at UT Austin and a former Democratic Party Chair of Fayette Co were co graduates of mine.

That probably became progressively more true into the 70s and 80s.

Oddly enough, I have been hiking and biking and discovering more about SE Dallas than I ever have.  There's some cool trails near Keeton Golf Course.

And the "Great Trinity Forest development" is really cool, but surrounded by some desperate areas.

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12 hours ago, Stunns38 said:


Nope. I live here and they send them to Booker T(if admitted), the private schools in North Dallas, the magnets, I’ve seen a few Bishop Lynch signs, and I think the predominant one is Bishop Dunne.

Well, BD has been the "third tier" private school for a pretty long time.  It's good that some educational boat is being lifted by the gentrification.

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15 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

My mom graduated from Kimball in 1966 (she had gone to McCallum in Austin before he dad relocated to Dallas) Mike Rhyner was a sophomore.  His yearbook picture is a fucking hoot.  

haha, dude!  my dad is kimball class of ‘66!  I bet our folks knew each other.  and here is rhyner’s photo. 

E237068A-A158-4DA9-AA54-8C34CCFBB7DB.jpeg

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I went to Hillcrest my freshman year. We called it Hebrew High back in the late 80s as many Jewish kids went to school there. Seems it was a first choice for Jewish families who did not want to put their kids into private Christian schools. I think there were about 5 or 6 buses of kids that were brought in from South Dallas somewhere.

Enjoyed my year there. Back then Vickery Meadows was still single white apartments and the kids attending from the Dan D Rogers zone was minimal at the time.

A lot of students from the Pershing and Preston Hollow attendance zones. Very few from north of LBJ where the Hillcrest attendance zone stopped at Arapaho.

During this time Kramer Elementary and Dealey were mothballed because there were just so few students. Same with ED Walker Middle School which was closed. Just not a lot of kids around at the time.

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19 hours ago, CHEF DIESEL said:

I went to Hillcrest my freshman year. We called it Hebrew High back in the late 80s as many Jewish kids went to school there. Seems it was a first choice for Jewish families who did not want to put their kids into private Christian schools. I think there were about 5 or 6 buses of kids that were brought in from South Dallas somewhere.

Enjoyed my year there. Back then Vickery Meadows was still single white apartments and the kids attending from the Dan D Rogers zone was minimal at the time.

A lot of students from the Pershing and Preston Hollow attendance zones. Very few from north of LBJ where the Hillcrest attendance zone stopped at Arapaho.

During this time Kramer Elementary and Dealey were mothballed because there were just so few students. Same with ED Walker Middle School which was closed. Just not a lot of kids around at the time.

We shared a tent block with Hillcrest guys at a high school ROTC camp at Camp Wolters TX back in the sixties.  Some called it Hebrew High.  One guy (goy) said it was great going to school on Jewish high holy days.  So few students and teachers were there, everybody roamed the halls and hung out.

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51 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

My dad graduated from Hillcrest in ‘69 and UT in ‘73. He grew up in Preston Hollow and went there when it was all white and 50% Jewish. Demographics have changed. If you live in the Preston Hollow area, there is a 10% chance or lower you go there. I have some older friends that graduated from WW, but not many. I’m 42, and most everyone I know now went to HP or private school. Some from suburban areas of Dallas like Plano, Southlake, Richardson, Lake Highlands) and some of us from out of town (FW, Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Beaumont, west Texas). I know a lot of people in PH area and they ALL send their kids to private school. It’s not even a consideration. 

Ha.  My dad will tell me stories of over half of his class being out various days of the year due to them being Jewish holidays. 

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23 hours ago, CHEF DIESEL said:

I went to Hillcrest my freshman year. We called it Hebrew High back in the late 80s as many Jewish kids went to school there. Seems it was a first choice for Jewish families who did not want to put their kids into private Christian schools. I think there were about 5 or 6 buses of kids that were brought in from South Dallas somewhere.

Enjoyed my year there. Back then Vickery Meadows was still single white apartments and the kids attending from the Dan D Rogers zone was minimal at the time.

A lot of students from the Pershing and Preston Hollow attendance zones. Very few from north of LBJ where the Hillcrest attendance zone stopped at Arapaho.

During this time Kramer Elementary and Dealey were mothballed because there were just so few students. Same with ED Walker Middle School which was closed. Just not a lot of kids around at the time.

80s?  Early 90s?

I played kid soccer at Walker and Kramer and they were still active in the 70s.  I didn't know they actually shut down.  I think I might have recalled seeing Dealey mothballed rolling down Walnut Hill.  I did sense that attendance was way the hell down in the 80s when I was in HS.  I think it was a class down from HP in UIL.

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On 1/16/2021 at 2:00 PM, ztejas said:

@BurntEyes went to a big public. Not sure which - maybe Skyline.

I have a cousin with disability that went to Hillcrest. He did theater and I went to a couple plays and it seemed like a very diverse, normal, middle-class high school. I guess it pulls some of the non-private Preston Hollow kids (all 12 of them) and some kids from across 75.

Yup @BurntEyes went to Skyline.  

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

80s?  Early 90s?

I played kid soccer at Walker and Kramer and they were still active in the 70s.  I didn't know they actually shut down.  I think I might have recalled seeing Dealey mothballed rolling down Walnut Hill.  I did sense that attendance was way the hell down in the 80s when I was in HS.  I think it was a class down from HP in UIL.

Walker shutdown in the mid-80s and everyone moved to Ben Franklin. Walker became a special needs school. Which is a shame because Walker was 10x nicer than Franklin. I think DISD tried to turn Franklin into a GED hub for messed up flunkies in the late 70s and early 80s. That failed and they discontinued that program. Not sure when that happened exactly. In late 80s and early 90s Hillcrest was  Class 4A.

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11 hours ago, Orale said:

My grandparents too late 30s, early 40s. They lived near the fair grounds. 

That was the fanciest part of town in the early 20th, moving north into Lakewood, it wasn't just Swiss Avenue.

Some younger folks probably don't realize how beat down southern Lakewood got, I guess partly because of white flight, but also just that unnatural progression of people bolting a decent middle class hood for further and further out suburbs.

Like the Dan D. Rogers hood being the bad part of the Hillcrest attendance zone.  It's probably even priced out of starter homes by now.

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3 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

When I was in HS in the mid-80s, some friends and I stumbled in to the greatest house party I have ever attended that was all WT White students.  And they were mostly white.  

456b257660cc00009d6bbdf12e92c6f7.gif

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It's interesting reading these stories of those of you who grew up just after DISD became a big city district and many of your parents found alternative schooling opportunities.  We're seeing the first phases of this with AISD now.  I once thought that it would take one more generation before the district is completely gutted, but covid is speeding up the process.

Anyway - sorry to divert from the Dallas talk.

Edited by Samson's Wig
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I don't think I've ever met anyone actually from Dallas ("I'm from Dallas", "nice, what part?", "oh Plano/Richardson/Allen/Arlington etc")

But since I don't really know any of the DISD schools outside of the famous for sports ones like Carter/Skyline/SOC/Kimball/Lincoln this thread inspired me to look some up. Apparently Molina HS has a 36% ESL student body. For comparison my HS in the valley was under 10%. That's nuts for a school that far north. 

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1 hour ago, Samson's Wig said:

It's interesting reading these stories of those of you who grew up just after DISD became a big city district and many of your parents found alternative schooling opportunities.  We're seeing the first phases of this with AISD now.  I once thought that it would take one more generation before the district is completely gutted, but covid is speeding up the process.

Anyway - sorry to divert from the Dallas talk.

Depends on how you define "big city school district."

White flight in the face of desegregation and busing in the 70s drove the decline of the bigger city school districts.  That's how they became "shitty, large, big city ISDs."

That era was before my time in Austin, but I suspect that the extant segregation of the city in that timeframe meant that there wasn't as big a white flight and deterioration until maybe more recently.

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5 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

When I was in HS in the mid-80s, some friends and I stumbled in to the greatest house party I have ever attended that was all WT White students.  And they were mostly white.  

White had a good baseball coach in the 80s and some pretty solid teams.  So did TJ and the Mexican-American population in its attendance zone didn't hurt.  White's attendance zone includes western and northern parts of Preston Hollow that probably didn't feel sufficiently elite or wealthy to make private schools other than maybe Jesuit or Trinity Christian big alternatives, and those cater to a segment.

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Growing up in the burbs and lived/ate/breathed basketball and I was borderline obsessed with DISD basketball.  I had the pleasure of guarding Quinton Ross in a tournament my freshman year which was fun.  I remember the Carter-Kimball and Lincoln-Madison battles featuring the Sasser brothers, Andre Emmet, and Chris Bosh among others.  Duncanville (obviously not DISD) was probably the best of them all led by Brian Boddicker and Roosevelt Brown.  My junior year we beat Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Lancaster in the playoffs to go to state where we lost to PA Lincoln.  Opening the DMN every Saturday morning to check out the scores always made my sports pants go crazy.

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