Class of 1963: How Did JFK's Commencement Speech Affect You?

JFK Comes to SDSC: When President John F. Kennedy came to San Diego State College on June 6, 1963 to give a stirring commencement address and receive an honorary doctor of laws, 21 Lemon Grove students received their degrees alongside their president.  

Before an audience of some 30,000, JFK called for "a massive attack on illiteracy by an expansion of university extension courses" and a major effort to improve community, school and college library facilities. He urged the graduates to adopt "responsibility toward education, toward those who should follow in your footsteps."

Five months later, on Nov. 22, as all the world knows, JFK was assassinated. At the time of his SDSC address, his killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was living in New Orleans, working as a machine greaser at the Reily Coffee Company. He was fired in July for poor work habits, including reading rifle and hunting magazines on the job.  

In March, 1963, eight months before shooting JFK, Oswald bought two murder weapons by mail order: the Carcano rifle used on the president and the Smith & Wesson revolver used to kill Officer Tippit, the alert Dallas patrolman who died trying to arrest Oswald at a bus stop.

Where are the Lemon Grove students who graduated on June 6? How did JFK's message affect you? Sing out, grads, and let us know.  

You were: Jan Baxter, Donna Bell, Barbara Blake, Emily Burke, Rose Chassy, Richard Chatham, Thomas Cruse, John Giesing, Roger Herchenroeder, Dwight Horner, Ronald Humphrey, Timothy Layson, Lowell Lampman, Clare McMahon, Jean Nesheim, Patrick Roberts, John Sievers, Virgil Trammell, Buddy Wilderson, Victoria Williams and Karl Winchell.

GC Gets An Auditorium:  On June 4, 1963, Grossmont College approved a 1,500-seat auditorium costing $944,000. The combination of instructional and audience space was needed by the rapidly expanding college. The architect, Richard George Wheeler, son of the legendary William Wheeler, had designed the college—one of hundreds of distinguished buildings and homes countywide that the father and son designed.

AFS Hails Students:  Rosemary Putnam, Lemon Grove's fabled leader of the Friends of the Lemon Grove Library, launched the local chapter of the American Field Service, the program that promoted international understanding and cultural enlightenment through student exchange.

Putnam and other volunteer parents hosted many foreign students over the years. In 1963, Noemi Chang of Panama and Mykko Pyhala of Finland had spent the academic year at Mount Miguel High School and were set to return to their homelands following a holiday bus tour of the U.S.  

Mount Miguel High School senior Ray Whitmus, newly returned from Buenos Aires, wrote this touching farewell to Chang and Pyhala:  

"We of Mount Miguel have come to love Mikko and Noemi. You have met and surpassed the hopes of an idealistic organization. You have gifted Miguel with a year of your lives as her exchange students for 1962-63. We are really sorry that we must give you back."

LG Bids Aloha to Grads:  In elaborate ceremonies accompanied by the district's band, orchestra and glee club, 436 eighth graders graduated from Lemon Grove and Palm Junior High Schools. District superintendent Byron Netzley presided and Warren Buckner accepted the class of 1963.  

Valerie Cremer, of the Lee House Cremers, was the valedictorian, Thomas Higdon won the music award from the Lemon Grove Women's Club (and later became the school's music director for 25 years), while Sandra Stokes and Tom Evans won the athletic prowess awards.  

Top scholarships were awarded to Kathy Powell, Karen Gates, James Christiansen, Daniel Gord and Jerry Van Vleck.  

Citizenship, essay and curriculum awards were given to scores of outstanding students.

LG Co-Eds Cross the Pond: Jo Ann Kozicki, Bryan Court, and Judith Peirce, Crestline Drive, left for New York and Europe on a grand tour of historic universities in Great Britain, Scandinavia and France. San Diego State College Humanities Study Tour sponsored the trip and the Lemon Grove Lions Club assisted with costs.  

Kozicki, a junior at the University of San Diego, majored in History and English, while Peirce, a sophomore at SDSC, focused on Spanish and French. Both young women had participated in the Experiment in International Living in Switzerland, also sponsored by the Lions Club.

Rollarena Queen Quest:  Nine beauteous maidens competed on rollerskates in the Skyline Rollarena Dance & Figure Club in Lomita Village. Mysteriously, skating ability was not required, only "poise, personality and beauty."

Contestants had to be "at least 16, single, in good health and of good character" and wear fetching outfits. In other words, you could slip and fall over and still win if you hit the rink with sufficient poise in your eye-poppingly abbreviated garb. But skating virtuosity was apparently verboten. Oh, well, what do we know?

Sox 'n Mugs for Dad: A & S Liquidators, 7975 Broadway, offered a Father's Day Sale featuring three pairs of "dress sox" for a buck, $2 swim trunks, Blue Bell khaki shirts for $1.88 and plaid jammies for $1.99.  

Not to be outdone, the new Grove Discount Mart, 7825 Broadway, "the most fabulous discount center you have ever seen," offered Dad fans monogrammed mugs for 33 cents apiece, 10 pounds of genuine hardwood charcoal for 39 cents and free ice cream if you bought Pa a new, 23-inch Emerson console TV for $100, paid off over 36 months ($2.78 a month—wow).

NASSCO Wins Big: The National Steel & Shipbuilding Company, a leading area employer, was awarded $37 million to build three cargo ships for American President Lines, San Francisco. The huge contract provided for more than 2,000 jobs constructing ships weighing 12,393 tons with speeds up to 20 knots.