King vs Clothesline

Gale Lundberg + 1958 = senior graduate at Revillo High School. Currently Lundberg is Deuel's high school math teacher.

Lundberg had three close friends, one of which lived only two miles from him. They enjoyed riding horse together, and occasionally they would ride bikes into town. Lundberg said, “one sunday afternoon we rode into town with my friend's dog and were fooling around under the elevator. We went under the elevator and into a tunnel. There was a trap door so we climbed into the elevator. When we got inside we decided to get on the man lift and pull the lever that operated it, but when the lift began to move up we jumped off, and it shot to the top of the elevator and went through the roof. When we had realized what had happened we ran as fast as we could to get home. The next day at school, the sheriff called us to the office. He knew it was us because we forgot the dog at the elevator, so our dads had to pay for the damage.”

Boys State, athletic awards, and homecoming king were all honors Lundberg received in high school. There was an Indian theme for homecoming in 1958 at Revillo. When Lundberg was crowned king, he wore Indian clothes and a full headdress for the homecoming day and dance. Lundberg said, “It was kind of fun being the highlight of homecoming, and when I lead the snake dance through the town I ended up getting clothes lined by a clothesline.” Deuel senior Eric Lundberg, Lundberg's grandson, is the third generation in the family to be crowned homecoming king.

Even though Lundberg didn't participate in any of the Halloween pranks with some of his classmates, he could clearly recall the event. The pranksters would haul a load of hay into town and dump it in the middle of the street or even tip over outdoor toilets. “I didn't participate in events like that because my parents didn't allow me to run around on a night like that,” said Lundberg.

Trends of the the late 50s were crew cut hairstyles, jitterbug dancing, and V neck shirts. Lundberg said, “I had a crew cut, but as a senior I let it grow out, so I could comb it back to a duck tail.

When Lundberg was a senior, he worked a creamery. Every Wednesday and Saturday he would work for about three hours cleaning cream cans and candling eggs. During the time Lundberg wasn't in school he enjoyed participating in school plays, football, basketball, and track. He even got to start on the varsity basketball team his sophomore year and continued as a starter through his senior year. Other things Lundberg liked to do with his friends were ice skating, swimming, playing pool, and going to movies. “We used to like going to the drive-in movie theaters,” Lundberg said. Some of his favorite music was Elvis Presley, but Lundberg's favorite song was by The Everly Brothers entitled “All I have to do is Dream”. Even with an interest in music, Lundberg said, “I wish I would have gotten involved in some music activities in high school.”

A lot has changed in high school since the 1950s. Lundberg said, “There wasn't quite so many activities going on. During the winter there were just basketball games, and there were no girl athletics. My school didn't have wrestling or cross country, we weren't quite so busy as students are now. When we were in school we weren't gone every night to activities. It was a much slower pace than high school now.” Also one could say there wasn't technology in that day and age. They didn't even have calculators.

It's no surprise that math was Lundberg's favorite subject. “My teacher was really nice, and I enjoyed being in her class,” he said. English seemed to be the most difficult class for Lundberg, though. “I wasn't as interested in it as I was other subjects,” he said. Lundberg didn't have just one favorite class, in fact he had two! “Another favorite subject was biology because the teacher was my basketball coach. He made the biggest impact on me. He was a good coach, and he really cared about his players. I think I modeled myself after him, because I always tried to do the best I could for my players,” Lundberg said. He even named his son, Tom, after his coach.

As a junior in high school Lundberg knew he wanted to be a teacher. “After being around my basketball coach when I was asked to help with the 7^th grade basketball team I knew teaching would be my career choice. I really think the influence of my high school teachers was the reason I chose teaching. I don't recall that there were any diciplin problems. Everyone seemed to be very cooperative,” said Lundberg.

The best part of school for Lundberg was his friends and teachers. “School was fun and I enjoyed it. I think summer was the worst part because I had to work on the farm, and I didn't get to play as much baseball with the town kids as I would've liked to,” Lundberg said.

Revillo's 1958 graduating class was reunited last summer for their 50 year reunion. 19 of the 25 students attended.