More than 40 Wiley H. Bates High School alumni attended the Annapolis Senior Activity Center’s Bates Alumni Day on Feb. 24.
They drifted in by ones, twos and threes. Some wore purple jackets with their class year on the front and their school song on the back. Some wore purple T-shirts with “1933 – 1966” (the years that the school was segregated) on the front and “Wiley H. Bates High School, Annapolis, Md., A Tradition of Pride” on the back. Others wore yellow T-shirts with the class year on the front or special class T-shirts.
Alumni represented classes ranging from the Class of 1937 to the Class of 1966. Becky Batta, center director, gave all the alumni purple chrysanthemums with a yellow center to represent the school’s colors. She also brought three dozen donuts from Carlson’s Bakery because she had heard how the high school students sometimes snuck out of the school and across West Street to buy donuts.
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About 10 alumni stood up and shared their memories of their days at Wiley H. Bates High School. They remembered showing their school spirit by singing their school song during assemblies. They talked about how they launched successful careers with the job skills they learned at Bates.
They thanked their teachers for all that they had instilled in them and resolved to “Keep on keeping on” and “to keep the Bates name in front.” They also recalled mishaps and how their parents made them toe the line.
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Most of the alumni were very active. At Bates they took music classes, held leading roles in plays, did some cheerleading and dancing, and one was even homecoming queen.
Best of all they said the school taught them to be “worthwhile citizens” and most of them said they remained active in class meetings.
Before getting down to the serious business of catching up with fellow alumni and eating donuts, Bea Smith, Class of 1937, led the Bates alumni in singing their school song.
After the event was over, many alumni approached the center director to thank her for organizing the event and to ask her to have the event again next year.
“With the response we had this year, it looks like this may become a yearly event,” Batta said. “This year we had more than 40 alumni. When the word gets around, we’ll probably have more next year.”
