As 1975 began, so did the second semester of my sophomore year at Raymond Central High School.
The school curriculum for sophomores required taking speech one semester and driver’s education the other semester. Since my 16th birthday wouldn’t arrive until July 1, 1975, I enrolled in speech the first semester and started driver’s education in January 1975.
I spent the first two months in class learning the rules of the road from a textbook and Mr. Al Henkel’s lectures and then spent the next two months driving.
While it was supposed to be a driver’s education class, Mr. Henkel didn’t have me drive as much as I thought would be needed to pass my state test, so Mom and Dad allowed me to drive while they coached me from the front passenger’s seat.
I was confident I would pass my driver’s test on the first try and anxiously waited for July to arrive.
My enthusiasm about driving dampened considerably when two Raymond Central High School boys were killed in an automobile accident on March 31, 1975.
Paul Nicholson and John Rosenquist were traveling near Valley, Nebraska, when an oncoming semi-trailer came unhitched from the tractor and hit their car head-on.
The deaths of the two boys paralyzed the student body for two or three days, but classes went on as usual.
The school’s administrators shied away from offering any counseling, and the teachers kept everything hush-hush.
Paul, who was two years older than me, had been in my business math class, so his empty chair was a painful reminder.
The day after Paul’s death, our teacher, Mr. Leo Jelinek, allowed us to use the class as a study hall.
However, no one felt like studying.
To Mr. Jelinek’s credit, two days after the tragedy he stood in front of the class and told jokes for an hour, and it lifted everyone’s spirits.
It was the closest thing to crisis counseling that any of us received.
As springtime matured, Dad began his annual ritual of using the Bobcat loader to remove spoiled hay out of the new hay sheds we had built during the summer of 1974.
It was Tuesday, May 6, 1975.
Nary a cloud dotted the blue sky at our farm located about 50 miles southwest of Omaha.
Dad was loading the spreader, while I was sitting on the Farmall 560-diesel tractor with the radio volume turned relatively low when I heard the voice of KFAB news icon Walt Kavanagh. Hearing Kavanagh in the late afternoon was extremely rare, as he usually announced his first newscast at 5:30 in the morning. I turned up the volume and heard Kavanagh reporting that a tornado had stuck Omaha and caused extensive damage.
I didn’t know a lot about Omaha, but I knew the Ak-Sar-Ben racetrack held thousands of people and that the tornado has passed by the track and was moving north.
That night, the Omaha television stations offered film of the horrible destruction. In those days, remote television broadcasts were rare. Reporters filmed the aftermath and then had to develop the film for the TV anchors.
Hundreds of homes had either been destroyed or severely damaged. The amazing statistic was that only three people were killed.
My math teacher (Leo Jelinek) was a member of the National Guard and spent the remainder of the week in Omaha patrolling against looters.
Our principal, Mr. Rolland Fenster, and Superintendent Jerry Mullins were Jelinek’s substitutes.
I didn’t learn much about mathematics that week.
It’s been 50 years, and my mind’s dim lights still find a way to illuminate those dark memories.