Memories from Lutheran High

List of 7 items.

• In the beginning . . .

  In 1939, Rudolph Kuhlmann, a member of Our Redeemer-Overland, inspired by Lutheran Hour broadcasts, donated two dollars of seed money to the LLL for the purpose of starting a Lutheran high school.

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• Purchasing the building at Lake and Waterman

  The English Tudor structure, built in 1901, served students of the Washington University-owned Mary Institute at Lake and Waterman avenues until 1930.  The building had been used by the U. S. Army Communication Corps during World War II.  It became available for purchase in 1945.
  

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• The First Day of School

  In January 1946, delegates from forty-four of the forty-eight Association congregations directed the Board to start classes that September.  The Board offered the first principal call to Dr. Paul W. Lange, a former Lutheran elementary school teacher, director of curriculum for the Gary, Indiana, public school system and one of the “founding fathers” of the LEA.

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• Facilities for the first Crusaders

  The H-shaped facility had two “postage-stamp” size gymnasiums on the second floors of the “legs,” separated into boys’ and girls’ gyms.  According to many, students rarely if ever used the showers in the locker room.  After all, the girls’ changing room only had one showerhead.  Students met in classrooms on the first floor and in the “cross” leg, while the building also housed office space, a library and a small basement cafeteria.  The entire facility had hardwood oaken floors.  The biology lab was on the first floor of the south leg while the chemistry lab was located on the western side of the “H”.  Commercial educational activities that included shorthand and typing were located in classrooms on the second floor near the boys’ gym.
  
  

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• Transportation and What to Wear

  Students did not drive to school.  They arrived by streetcar and bus, with many of the coeds hoping to wear the new “junior” outfits popularized in the St. Louis garment district.  But instead, they wore long slim skirts and bobby socks because shorts and slacks were prohibited.
  
  

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• LHS Firsts

  The Lutheran High Crusaders continued to experience a number of “firsts.”  In April 1948, the Drama Department, directed by Ann Constable, presented its first play:  We Shook the Family Tree, starring Doris Rockwell, Bob Kelpe and Martha Wolter.  Holders of the sixty-cent tickets received prime seating. The next year the first graduating class adopted the motto, “If Christ be for us, who can be against us?”  While the seniors anticipated graduation, nine celebrated charter membership in the first “L” club and could reminisce already with the school’s first Crusader yearbook.  Incredibly, the seventy-eight seniors of that first class graduated from a high school accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. It was the first high school in Missouri to be accredited prior to graduating a class.
  
  

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• Relationship with Concordia Seminary

  During these early years of Lutheran secondary education, Concordia Seminary and the high school had a special collaborative relationship.  Many students had field workers helping in their congregations.  Professor Richard Caemmerer and wife Dorothy served on the faculty, while Rev. Dr. Arthur Repp, Sr., was one of several who served on the Board.  Instructor John Hoyer’s father Theodore and brother George were professors at the Sem.  The track team practiced on the cinder oval just north of the KFUO facility and, as Lutheran High enrollment grew to 820 students in 1957, the tennis team used the Seminary courts.  
  
  

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