As discussed in Part 1 of this story last week, Thomas Carr Howe High School is turning 75 this month and will be celebrating with a birthday party at the school this weekend, on Saturday, September 14 (see details later in this article).
Unfortunately, this isn’t the 75th year that students were able to attend Howe, as IPS closed the school in 1995, much to the distress of alumni and the community. However, Howe reopened as a middle school in 2000, and became Howe Academy in 2002, adding high school classes year by year, first allowing its 8th graders to stay as freshmen, then as sophomores, eventually serving grades 7-12. Starting last year, Howe returned to being a high school only, Thomas Carr Howe Community High School, and is currently in its second year of a five year contract with Charter Schools of USA.
The TC Howe Alumni Association was created in 1996 with the purpose of reopening Howe as a high school. The alumni association meets on the second Thursday of each month, except for December. The meetings are held at the Media Center at Howe.
The Howe Alumni Association recently voted to make the class of 1996 official alumnus. All of the class of 1996 had to spend their senior year at other schools after the closing in 1995 — however, many of them still wore brown and gold (Howe’s colors) to their graduation ceremonies from Tech, Arlington and other high schools. Members of the class of 1996 made a request to the Howe Alumni Association to be considered alumni. “It was only fair,” said Dan Kaga, TC Howe Alumni president.
Seventy-five years ago, Howe’s official dedication ceremony was on September 29, 1938 (which was a few weeks after classes started). At that event, Howe principal Charles MacKay Sharp signaled the start of the tower clock, signifying the symbolic beginning of the high school. (That clock was symbolically turned off at the end of what was thought to be the last graduation, on June 1, 1995, when the school was closed — luckily only temporarily).
Sharp was a much respected and beloved principal; he had previously been the vice principal at Emmerich Manual High School. Howe’s Media Center is named after him. Howe has had a long history of respected and tenured principals, with only three principals in the first 50+ years of existence: Sharp was principal until 1959, followed by Thomas Sterling (for whom the auditorium was dedicated to in 1963) and then Frank Tout, who was principal through spring of 1992. Assistant principal Bruce Beck was acting principal in 1989-90, and Madora Walker was principal until the school was closed in 1995. Since reopening in 2000, principals have been John Takacs, Anita Silverman, Robert Berry, Stephanie Nixon, Teresa Ezell, Agnes Aleobua and the current principal is Keith Burke.
Despite recent changes in management, the alumni associations’ official stance is to remain supportive of the current high school. “Howe is a building. It is still Thomas Carr Howe High School. They still have a graduating class that is graduating from TC Howe,” said Kaga.
Kaga went on to say that despite initial misgivings, he believes the takeover of Howe has turned out to be a good thing. “Kids are graduating; they are getting an education,” he said. “They are learning something more than taking a test.”
The current school maintains a lot of the same Howe traditions. Before taking over, a representative of Charter Schools USA contacted the alumni president and asked about old traditions, hoping to keep Howe much the same. The colors are still brown and gold, the mascot is still a hornet, the fight song is the same, and the yearbook is still named the Hilltopper (after the school’s location on what was called “Violet Hill”).
Most Howe yearbooks are available for viewing at the Irvington Historical Society, housed in the Bona Thompson Memorial Center. Also, most yearbooks (prior to 2001) have been digitally scanned and are available on microfiche at the Indianapolis Public Library, or can be viewed online at the IMCPL Web site.
Howe memorabilia will be available for sale at the Howe birthday party, which will be from 2-5 pm on Saturday, September 14. The event will begin in the Howe cafeteria (northwest corner of the first floor of the building) and will include cake and punch. Attendees will be able to tour the building, located at 4900 Julian Ave., including recent renovations and the first floor of the tower, which most students over the years have never had the opportunity to see.
Recent renovations to the building have totaled more than a million dollars and include removing the remaining asbestos tile, adding air conditioning to the entire building, consequently replacing the windows and the removal of the smoke stack.
Present at the event will be Beatrice Whittaker Cottom, class of 1941 (the first graduating class of Howe) and a current member of the Howe alumni board. The alumni association also hopes that Jane Howe, granddaughter of Thomas Carr Howe and a professor at the University of Indianapolis, will attend. She spoke at last year’s commencement. She was present at the groundbreaking ceremony in 1937. She was 4 years old.
The event is open to the community and is kid-friendly. “Come see where Daddy went to school. See where Grandpa went to school and it is getting to the place where you can see where Great-Grandpa went to school,” laughed Kaga, class of 1957.