125 Years And Going Strong: Toms River South Marks A Milestone

When the Toms River High School South Class of 2015 steps onto the turf at Detwiler Stadium tonight to accept its high school diplomas, the 352 graduates and their families will be far from alone.

They will have the ghosts of 125 years smiling down on them. One hundred twenty-five years of academic achievement and athletic prowess. One hundred twenty-five years of tradition, pride, excellence and spirit.

“Those are the four things that define Toms River South,” said Dave Correll, a retired teacher at the school who has become the embodiment of all things Indian. “Once an Indian, always an Indian.”

“When I need to know something about the school, I call Dave,” said Tammi Millar, the district spokesperson. ”If anyone will know, it’s him, and he usually does.”

That’s because Correll has been a part of the Toms River schools for more than half a century.

A 1957 graduate of then Toms River High School, he remembers Nathaniel Detwiler, the principal who retired in 1960, but not before he had set the tone for much of what Toms River South is today, Correll said.

“He put us on the right course,” Correll said Thursday. “He gave students responsibilities that would be unthinkable today,” including setting up the student government, and then having those student leaders dole out punishment to truant classmates.

It sent a message of respect that still holds on.

“It’s the best-kept secret in the Shore Conference,” Correll said.

“We can put up decorations in the school for the holidays, and the students leave them alone,” he said, a practice abandoned by some schools because students tear them down or otherwise damage them.

Detwiler also infused the student body with school spirit.

“He was the originator of the ‘Grrr-Fight’ cheer,” Correll said. Detwiler was so passionate about school spirit that during pep rallies he would yell, “I want you to cheer until the light starts to shake” -- and when a group of students tied a string to it one year to make it shake, Detwiler appreciated the joke.

That spirit is celebrated in the Detwiler Victory Bell that gets rung any time the Indians score at their football games. And it is that spirit that draws alumni back year after year to visit.

“That bell was cast the year the first class graduated,” Correll said. Five students made up that first class of graduates receiving state-certified diplomas (Correll said the school had been open longer, but received its first state accreditation in January 1891).

“We have 40 percent of the diplomas from that first class,” he said, explaining one of those original diplomas is in the principal’s office at Toms River South, and the other is in the possession of the town’s historical society.

And while the school has undergone many changes, moving from the single room it occupied in a wood-frame building with one teacher teaching all of the subjects, to a second home on Sheriff Street (“I think,” he said, ”but I’m sure the old-timers will correct me on that”) where school was conducted from 1901 until 1951, when the current school was built.

“They felt this would be the building forever,” Correll said, but when the doors opened in 1951, the townspeople had no inkling of the changes that were coming, thanks to the Garden State Parkway.

“Homes were cheaper, property taxes were cheaper and you were only an hour from the city,” Correll said. It wasn’t long before the school that had grown slowly for decades was bursting at the seams.

They expanded the school, adding the two-story D wing (“I call it the D for Dave Wing,” he said, joking, because the wing has been around almost as long as he has). The rest of the school remained one wing because it wasn’t built in a way that would allow it to be built up to a second story.

“It does have a bomb shelter, however,” Correll said, a vestige of an era long gone. Now the shelter, in the school’s basement, is used for storage.

Toms River High School was long considered one of the best in the state, Correll said, with programs it offered becoming a model for other schools across the country, and it had people whose influence only made South that much stronger.

There was Elizabeth Force, whose Family Living course covered everything from cooking to caring for a baby to running a household. “That became a nationwide course,” he said.

There was Lucille Miller, who was integral in bringing girls sports to Toms River High School, including through a huge intramural program.

There was Dr. Edgar Finck, the administrator (back before they called them superintendents) who was instrumental in starting the football program, Correll said.

There was Ethel Lewis, whose efforts to have students paint the downtown shop windows for Halloween -- something she started during World War II -- became the ongoing tradition that survives today.

All of those people had a major impact on what South is today, Correll said.

In the 1968-69 school year, Toms River High School’s population peaked at more than 3,000 students walking its halls. Correll was a teacher there then, and said that despite the cramped conditions -- classes spilled over to the old high school, the old elementary school and to three cottages, one of which had been the superintendent’s office -- Toms River High School remained on one session.

Toms River North opened the following year, taking 60 percent of the student population at South. But because the town was still growing, it was just 10 years later that district added Toms River East, which opened in 1979. “We went on split sessions then,” he said.

Though change has continued over the years -- the view of downtown and the Toms River itself from the football field has long been obscured by the county jail, and bleachers and press box that were built by the Works Progress Administration in 1939 under the New Deal, (and used by the Civil Air Patrol in World War II to watch for enemy planes) were removed this spring to make way for a safer, more accessible modern structure -- the essence of the school remains.

“Over the years the administrations have hired professional teachers, caring teachers, and those teachers and the staff promote those four core values,” Correll said. “On School Color Day, everyone wears the maroon and white. The kids buy into it, and they respect what the school is about.”

“They have a lot of love for those traditions,” Correll said.

“This year’s class had a lot of good leaders and a great personality,” he said. “They promoted a healthy attitude of school spirit, and they contributed much to the school.

“They will be missed,” he said.

And just like that first graduation ceremony, at the old First Baptist Church at Main and Broad streets, was held before a packed house, tonight’s ceremony will be packed too -- with families and friends filling the east stands and lining the fence to send off the 125th class in style.

The spirits of the Class of 1891 -- and all the years in between -- will be smiling.

Once an Indian ... Always an Indian.