Article on Wilson High School                          Home
from the Northwest Current Newspaper
Volume XXXIX, No. 8, 2006

     Something about attending Wilson High School must be conducive to professional writing.  Set up as a glass display case in an old schoolhouse turned museum on 17^th Street, more than a dozen books serve as silent testament to the many writers who matriculated at Woodrow Wilson.  Among the more famous author-graduates are Judith martin (Miss manners) and renowned film critic and New York Times columnist Frank Rich.
      "Hundreds of authors and journalists went to Wilson," said Damon Cordom, class of '50, who has been president of the school's alumni association for10-plus years.  Cordom has two children who attended the school in the 1980s.
     The books are in just one display case, among several that occupy a quiet gallery space at the Sumner School Museum near Dupont Circle.  Earlier this month, an exhibit tracing the history of the 71-year-old Tenleytown high school opened to the public.  The permanent exhibit joins three others already on display in the museum that are devoted to the now-closed Central, Western, and Armstrong high schools.
      "The organizers wanted to create an exhibit which exemplified the city's diverse population," said Cordom.  "Also, unlike the other schools on display, Wilson is still going strong.  We wanted to make it more of a living exhibit, which can rotate and be added to through years."
     About a year ago, Sumner Museum director Nancy Suggs and chief archivist Judy Capurso called upon Cordom and the alumni association to add to the materials the museum already had in its archives and work with the staff to develop the displays.
     In the show, photographs, athletic gear and trophies, large banners, event programs and military cadet awards fill the display cases, which are divided according to decade.  Additional items, such as framed diplomas and senior class photos - including a giant one from the class of '39 - line some of the walls.
     One of the most interesting items is a 1940s souvenir program of a school memorial service given in honor of the nearly 70 Wilson graduates who perished in World War II.  There are copies of the student-run newspaper, The Beacon, spanning the decades, their headlines evoking the issues and emotions of the time in which they were published.
     There is a small display detailing the origins and early history of the school.  Simple frames contain grainy black-and-white photos and text with rich nuggets of information - such as tidbits that part of the school's land was once a slaughterhouse that for decades served neighboring farms, and that the tiger mascot was modeled after Princeton University's.
     Probably the exhibit's most compelling element is a video history chronicling 65 years of the school's history.  The 37-minute piece is an abridged version of a 90-minute program produced by Cordom and the alumni association several years ago and narrated by newsman Derek McGinty, class of '77.
     There are more than 800 images (mostly taken from yearbooks) in the video, beginning with Wilson's roots and capturing telling fragments of students' lives decade by decade.
     It also calls attention to the impact of the major news events of each era.  Dramatic changes that occurred in the racial make-up, as well as in the gender of the faculty, are addressed.  Whimsical and social moments are captured as well, such as a mini-obsession of bowling in the 1950s and the long fascination that some students had with forming ultra-organized social clubs.   (From the early 1930s to the late 1970s, Wilson had dozens of social clubs modeled after college fraternities and sororities.)
     The exhibit and the video are interesting to Wilson graduates especially, said Cordom, "but there is something here for the school's neighbors and for anyone who wants to take a look back at the history and evolution of a fascinating American high school."
     The Sumner School Museum, at 17^th and M Streets NW, is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.  Admission is free.
     For more information or to donate items or money to the alumni association, call 202-966-6793.  To obtain a copy of the video, "A History of Woodrow Wilson High School," send checks to WWHSAA, P.O. Box 151511, Chevy Chase, MD, 20825.  Checks should be written to WWHSAA for $25, which includes $20 for the video and $5 for shipping and handling.

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