Memories of Spaulding High

Alex (Smith) Steelsmith has asked that I share his story of the image on the cover of our yearbook. I never knew this. Thanks for sharing it, Alex!

From @Alex S:

Seeing the yearbook on the reunion website reminded me of an interesting story about the cover from 50 years ago. I recall that one day Mrs. Anne Smith, the art teacher, suggested that we paint an image of an Indian for a potential yearbook cover.

I was honored when my painting was later chosen, but when the yearbook came out I was surprised that the image had somehow gotten “reversed” (like a photo negative). I never found out how it happened, but I assumed it was an accident.

Back then, reproductions were often made photographically, and it would’ve been an easy mistake to make—to use a negative of the photo rather than the correct image.  I’d like to send you a scan of the original artwork to show you what I mean, but the original is somewhere in my storage, among thousands of my other early efforts, and finding it would be quite time-consuming. So instead I just took a screenshot of the cover from the website, and used my computer to reverse the lights and darks. The result is the attached image, which shows you what the original artwork actually looks like.

As you can see, it’s much more clearly visible than what was used on the cover. The second attachment shows the entire cover as it was intended, and the third shows it next to the actual cover so you can see the difference.

Please feel free to share this with any of my old classmates if you think it would be of interest. They might enjoy seeing how the yearbook was supposed to look 50 years ago!