High school is death. The worst four years of your life. Once you graduate, you’ll spend years trying to block them out.
At least, that’s how miserable it was for some of us.
It’s a much different story for a certain alumnus of Woodrow Wilson High School and many who are like him.
Kyle Rains of Lakewood graduated from Woodrow in 1976 — the best year, he’ll have you know — but he never really left.
“I have never seen him without a T-shirt or a sweater or something with Woodrow on it,” says Don Autry, class of ’63. “You won’t talk to a bigger fan than him.”
Rains took theater in high school, which he says pulled him out of his shell, and he had a part in the spring musical his junior and senior years.
He hasn’t missed a spring musical at Woodrow since his older sister had a part in the late ’60s. But that’s not all. He attends football games, basketball, softball, volleyball, tennis matches, swim meets.
He’s there when seniors paint their parking spaces in an annual ritual. He’s at open houses, cheer camp and the homecoming parade.
“We call him ‘Mr. Woodrow’ because he’s the hub of the alumni,” says Kathy Moak, class of ’67. “He knows the families that have gone there and the years they went. He knows where people work and how to get a hold of them. He’s a fountain of knowledge about that school.”
Rains was born and raised in the neighborhood, and he loves it here. But … why is he such a super fan for a high school where he spent four years?
He doesn’t know.
Maybe it’s timing.
When Rains was in school, integration was a big problem for DISD. The schools were too segregated racially, according to the Department of Justice. So the district was considering busing at Woodrow.
“Our school was already pretty well integrated, and we didn’t want [busing],” Rains says. “We wanted them to leave us alone. We had a good mix.”
Rains and his classmates fought busing, and a legal battle ensued. It would last more than a decade, and Rains says no one ever was bused to or from Woodrow. Rains was there through it all.
He thinks that’s part of what made him such a diehard for his school.
Rains might be at the pinnacle of super-fandom. But many Woodrow alumni say their alma mater is super special.
Autry, who now lives in Lake Highlands, says he’s never used Facebook to look up former classmates. He still knows them all.
“It’s sort of like the high school version of Aggies,” he says. “If you’re an Aggie, and you meet another Aggie, you automatically already have a connection with that person.”
Autry has an aunt who graduated from Woodrow in 1928, the very first class. And he says he’s met Woodrow Wildcats from the 1940s on up through the present, and he can always find something to talk about.
If nothing else, alumni say, the unique and stately building is enough for most to feel some nostalgia. It has a historical designation and not a few quirky features.
One that is mentioned again and again is the third-floor lunchroom.
Autry and his classmates used to take the stairs two-by-two to get to the head of the line, he says.
“I’ve never heard of a school anywhere that has a lunchroom on the third floor,” he says. “I don’t know why it’s like that, but I’m sure the architects had some reason for doing it.”
Moak, who attended Woodrow in the mid ’60s, says she remembers the cafeteria was segregated by gender. Boys were on one side, and girls were on the other. An imaginary no-man’s land at the water fountains separated them. They could see each other, and even holler across occasionally, but there was no mixing.
Another special quality is the school’s first name. Colloquially, it is always “Woodrow”, like someone’s good old dog, and never “Wilson” or even “Woodrow Wilson”.
Autry’s aunt, who graduated in 1928, told him they always called it “Woodrow Wilson”, but he thinks “Woodrow” caught on around 1930, when a student published a poem in the annual and referred to the school that way.
In the mid ’60s, the Lakewood Shopping Center was the “center of the universe” for Woodrow kids, Moak says.
They all hung out at Doc Harrell’s drug store at Gaston and Abrams, and saw movies at the Lakewood Theater. But if you had a car, you could go to Charco’s, the hamburger drive-in, at Hillside Village Shopping Center, she says.
At school, kids got away with a lot. There was no dress code, no metal detectors. You didn’t have to sign in or out or wear an ID badge. They got into some trouble, but mostly, they were good.
“Even as teenagers, we felt the pride the community had in that school,” Moak says. “The tradition and pride was just there from the get-go, and it still is. I think anyone who graduates from there feels it.”
