For the final story in this series, we return to where the Class of 1976 began: one year together as Gonzaga Prep’s first coed graduating class. Fifty years later, more than 70 classmates came back to campus carrying different memories of that year and a deeper appreciation for the people who shared it with them.
Last weekend, 75 members of Gonzaga Prep’s Class of 1976 returned to campus to celebrate 50 years since graduation — the largest turnout for a 50-year reunion in recent memory by almost two dozen classmates.
By numbers alone, this class has always stood out. Fifty years ago, their numbers caused logjams in the hallways and stairwells during passing periods. Lockers were shared by two and sometimes three Bullpups. Last weekend, those numbers told a different story: Five decades later, they still wanted to be together.
That desire wasn’t necessarily a given. The Class of 1976 had only one year together at Prep.
As the school’s first coed graduating class, they brought together boys who had already spent three years at Gonzaga Prep with young women arriving from newly closed Holy Names Academy, Marycliff, and elsewhere. There wasn’t enough time for everyone to cross paths that year, much less understand how differently their classmates might have experienced it.
Fifty years have provided more chances.
Several classmates admitted they were nervous about attending the reunion. Some stepped outside their comfort zones Friday night and came back Saturday, when conversations continued, and more stories emerged. Classmates who barely knew one another in 1976 have gotten to know each other through reunions and the passing years.
“The thing that people often forget is the relationships that you have and when they wane over time. Then you come, and they come right back,” said Molly (Lordan) Schemmel. “It kind of transports you back to fond memories and feelings about that time in your life.”
Several women who had been wary of attending because they had spent only one year at Prep found themselves reconnecting with classmates they had barely known. Schemmel knew one woman who planned to attend only Friday but decided to return Saturday after connecting with people.
“And people who are really shy before aren’t now,” Schemmel said. “So I think that affords people the opportunity to connect in a different way. People are really cherishing their time together.”
As those conversations unfolded last weekend, so did memories of 1975-76. Some recalled vividly the division between the boys and girls and the improv required to make a school built for boys accommodate young women. Girls basketball players rode a bus to Mt. Saint Michael’s for practice with the freshmen boys—not ideal in the wake of Title IX, but they made it work. Even finding enough restrooms required some creativity during the opening weeks.
Tammy (Thornton) Jones remembers the boys complaining through much of the fall about how the girls had “ruined their school.” Looking back, she understands some of the resistance as a sense of loss. Seniors had traditions they had anticipated, and now facilities, locker rooms, and gym space had to be shared.
“I realized it was from a sense of loss,” Jones said. “I mean, it wasn’t us personally, but you get tired of hearing that month after month after month.” Then came Christmas break.
When students returned in January, Jones remembered the sentiment changing. Suddenly, some of the same boys were saying the school year was almost over, they didn’t know half of the girls and wished they had more time to get to know them.
“And I was like, ‘Yeah, we hadn’t wasted all those months.’”
Some alumnae remembered being ecstatic about coming to Prep. Others remember feeling like second-class citizens.
Colleen (Casey) Collison was among those who couldn’t wait. After three years at Marycliff, she remembers her mother, who was raising her on her own, finding the money to send her to Prep when coeducation became an option.
“I don’t care how much it costs me, I’m sending you to Prep,” Collison remembers her mother telling her. But Collison also noticed something happening among some of the girls she had known as confident students at Marycliff.
“Girls you knew who were smart as a whip, you’ve been in classes with them for three years.” She says. “Now they get in a class with the boys and all of a sudden they don’t know anything.”
Cindy (Clarkson) Silliman remembers the divide more literally. She walked into humanities class with Fr. Perry on the first day of school and found all the boys sitting on one side of the room and all the girls on the other.
“No, no, this won’t do,” she remembers him saying. He had everyone get up and rearranged the class boy, girl, boy, girl — an arrangement he kept for the year.
“It was hard,” Silliman said. “I think everybody wanted it to stay the same, but things never stay the same. Sometimes it turns out for the best, like it has.”
There were also those who stepped forward and tried something that hadn’t been done before.
Mary Kay (Pickette) Razey remembers hearing the school president tell students they were there to serve one another and would have opportunities to do so. So Razey approached the basketball coach and asked if she could be a manager. When he assumed she meant the women’s program, she corrected him.
“No, not the women’s. I want the men’s varsity team.”
Razey became one of the team’s managers. That year, the Bullpups went to state.
The boys brought a different perspective to the year. After three years at Prep, they had established friendships, routines, and relationships with teachers.
For Pete Tormey, memories of Prep are connected with the people who helped draw him out of himself. He remembers a book cover from religion class taught by Fr. Craig Boly, S.J., "In the stillness is the dancing." That has stayed with him ever since.
Tormey remembers himself then as “kind of a little bit of a shy kid.” Athletics helped him get to know people, but so did being part of the larger school. Tom Simpson’s memories also return to his teachers: Fr. Fitterer, Fr. Zehnder, and Jack Delehanty among them. One of those memories still sits in his home—a wooden box crafted by Fr. Victor Zehnder, math teacher and legendary woodworker. Fifty years later, Simpson still has it.
“I know there are a lot of other people that have them too, so I feel like I’m part of a kind of a club.”
The stories shared last weekend weren’t all the same, and that’s one of the gifts of gathering 50 years later. Classmates could remember the same year differently, listen to experiences they might not have understood as 17- and 18-year-olds, and recognize how much both they and the school have changed.
Tom Dawson remembers wondering what it would be like after three years at an all-boys Gonzaga Prep to suddenly have young women “roaming the halls with us as well.”
“It turned out to be fantastic,” Dawson said. “I’m so glad that we were the first co-ed class.”
The Class of 1976 has long taken pride in being Gonzaga Prep’s first coed graduating class. Their year together included growing pains, adjustments and a willingness to try something new. In time, what was new became familiar, and coeducation simply became part of Gonzaga Prep.