The following is the second part of a three-part series of stories about the evolution of a Sheboygan South student. From the opening of South High School to now, many things have changed—the Vietnam War began and ended, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, the Panama Canal was opened, technology exploded, and America elected their first African American president. However, many things have stayed the same. Students are still plagued by the same pressures—homework, athletics, career paths, and many more still cause students stress. The purpose of this three-part series is to explore the similarities and differences of each generation of Redwings and Redmen from the opening of South High to the present.

From about 1980 to the early 2000s, the parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and older siblings of our current South High Redwings walked South’s halls. During this time, Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), George H. W. Bush (1989-1993), and Bill Clinton (1993-2001) all served as President of the United States, the wreck of the Titanic was found (1985), the Berlin Wall fell (1989), Dolly the Sheep was born (1996), and South’s mascot underwent a change. From 1961-1993, South’s mascot was the Redmen. However, the mascot was switched to the Redwing, and from 1994 through to the present, South’s students were known as Redwings.

At that time, there was a big push for students to go to college.

“I didn’t realize until I started working in the Counseling Center how big the push for college was! Sometimes parents were pushing their kids into going to college even if the counselors weren’t,” exclaimed Mr. Kevin Heling, Class of 1982. Heling came back to South High in 1991, working as an English teacher before moving to the Counseling Center in 2003.

According to data from the SASD Director of Student and Instructional Services, in 1997, 76.6% of South’s graduates intended to go to either a two-year or four-year college. 18 graduating classes later, in 2014, about 59.2% enrolled in a two-year or four-year school immediately after graduation.

“When I was in high school, I had to fight my counselor to make her let me go to LTC instead of a four-year college,” stated Mr. Keith Mathes, Class of 1991. Mathes’ counselor tried extremely hard to convince him to go to college instead of tech school, but she did not succeed.

“She told me I might as well quit school if I was just going to be an HVAC technician,” said Mathes, “With my test scores, I was ‘supposed’ to be an engineer or architect, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do.”

“There was definitely a huge push for college,” agreed Mrs. Debra Mathes née Welsch, Class of 1991. “It didn’t matter what you were going to do, so long as you went to school.”

One student who did want to go to college, though, was Mrs. Jennifer Scapellato née Ryskoski,

“The practical reason I became a teacher was because I believed I was good at English and teaching was a field I could apply that skill– thus I majored in English and Education in college. As I continued to take classes in my field and take part in field experiences I realized that a large part of what motivated me was the I belief I could make a positive difference in someone’s life.”

Outside of the college versus tech school struggle, high school offered many other pressures for its students. One such pressure was the extracurriculars that had increased dramatically in number.

“I played football, basketball, and tennis, I was in debate and Student Council, and I was a class officer as well,” stated Mr. Peter Govek, Class of 1989. With the busy lives this generation led, it was harder to focus on getting married and having a family, which would’ve been normal in the past, as Mrs. Tracie Govek née Thorson explained,

“Some of my classmates graduated high school, got a job at a local company, and got married, but a lot more of them pursued their college education before anything else. I, for one, didn’t have children until I was 28.”

For the middle generation, many aspects of high school were similar to the current high school experience. College and extracurriculars dominated the pressures of being a high school student as the next generation of Redwings moved in.