Hinesburg High School Class of 1956 celebrates small class with big heart

SCOOTER MACMILLAN

Staff Writer

In 1956, when Charlie Bissonette graduated from Hinesburg High School, he was one of a class of 13 students. This year, a Hinesburg senior graduating from Champlain Valley Union High School was one of more than 300 students from the largest high school in the state.

Bissonette thinks about what his children and grandchildren are missing.

“I feel fortunate,” he said. “I feel blessed that we grew up at that time when we did, in the little town of Hinesburg, where we knew everyone.”

The classmates will be back in touch once more as the Hinesburg High Class of 1956 holds its class reunion this Saturday, Aug. 24. It’s a private celebration at one of their homes. A while back they decided that the group was small enough and they preferred gathering in different homes so that they could talk more easily. After all, the point of reunions is swapping stories.

The 13 graduates are Virginia Chambers Paquette, Virginia Carter Prescott, Bob Casey, Charles Bissonette, Dorothy Thorpe Sain, Mike Hart, Barbara Bryant Bissonette, Edith Richardson Corse, Donald Palmer, Eldrich French, Ronald Mashia, Richard Lyman, Harry Martin and Loa Jane Palmer Dragon. They expect that seven of the original 13 will attend the reunion, more than half, a pretty good average for people in their 80s after 63 years.

All of the class members this reporter talked to were thankful that they were part of such a small and tight-knit class. Barbara Bissonette calls her class “a very faithful class.”

She likes how many of them have attended reunions, and after all these years, kept in touch. Some years ago, Bissonette heard someone at her front door and when she opened the door, there was Martin.

“I almost fell over,” she said

But time evokes changes. Bissonette said it’s gotten so hard for her to get around that she doesn’t plan to go. Casey and French have passed away. Martin moved to Alaska and worked on the pipeline and he hasn’t come to the reunions.

Traditional day for truancy

Charlie Bissonette, Dottie Sain and Barbara Bissonette all recalled that Hinesburg High had a tradition of Junior Sneak Day, a day when the junior class would skip school. But by their junior year, principal O’Brien, who had only been at the school for a couple of years, had decreed that Junior Sneak Day was defunct.

Nonetheless, when the designated day for truancy rolled around, the juniors left school and went to Burlington for the day, “which was a big deal for us,” said Barbara Bissonette.

A teacher went with them. Dottie and Barbara couldn’t remember the teacher’s name or all that they did on their “day off,” but they do remember going to the museum at UVM.

They had to make sure they got back to campus before school was out. But, when they got back, O’Brien was waiting for them.

“We certainly did get a lecture,” said Barbara Bissonette. “The teacher didn’t come back the next year. Teachers weren’t like they are now. They were very strict.”

Their senior year the class took a trip to New York City.

“That was a big deal for all these kids from a little town. It was an exciting experience, even though the bus broke down three times,” she said.

Among other things they did during their week in the Big Apple, the students went to a television studio for a taping of “Queen for a Day” and attended the musical “Damn Yankees” on Broadway.

Barbara Bissonette said that she thought the only sport at Hinesburg High that traveled to play teams at other schools was basketball. For some schools, including Hinesburg, the town hall doubled as the school gym.

Charlie Bissonette played on the basketball team and he remembers that there was a heater grate in the middle of the Hinesburg Town Hall floor that they tried to avoid.

“It was hard to dribble on the grate,” he said.

Hinesburg High’s rivals included Bristol and Jericho. Charlie Bissonette said that their biggest rival was Shelburne, which he finds ironic since he’s spent 52 years there after he and his wife bought the Dutch Mill Restaurant on Shelburne Road.

“Anything that needed any room was at the Hinesburg Town Hall,” Charlie Bissonette said.

The Hinesburg Town Hall was also the venue where the senior play was produced. On Nov. 4 and 5, 1955, “Everybody’s Crazy” was performed by actors from the senior class.

“It was kind of apropos because we were,” said Charlie Bissonette.

The Town Hall was also the venue for their graduation.

After the ceremony, Charlie Bissonette said the boys gathered at a camp he’d helped build on Lake Iroquois.

The girls went to Al’s French Frys in South Burlington. Barbara Bissonette said that was a pretty big way for them to celebrate.

Annual alumni banquet

For the first couple of decades after graduation, the classmates didn’t hold a class reunion per se. In those days, there was an alumni association and people from different classes celebrated together at the annual alumni banquet. The alumni banquet ended after CVU opened.

“It was just too big to honor 300 graduates,” said Charlie Bissonette.

The class of 1956 celebrated their 25th reunion as a class, and after that they celebrated their own class reunion every five or 10 years.

For their 50th reunion, they had a dinner cruise on the Spirit of Ethan Allen, and it was at that reunion they decided they needed to have a reunion every year.

“It’s just too special not to,” Charlie said.

Classmates Dottie Thorpe Sain and Barbara Bryant Bissonette both said the 50th was one of their favorite reunions. It wasn’t just the cruise that kindles their feelings – their memories are warmed by remembering Principal Joseph O’Brien and coach Roland Lafayette, who joined them.

Barbara Bissonette attributed to O’Brien the physiological phenomenon that many generations have assigned to teachers – eyes in the back of his head – with an uncanny knack for knowing when they were misbehaving. But she said, “Principal O’Brien was a terrific principal.”

Sain agreed: “He was a wonderful man. He maintained good discipline.”

Barbara Bissonette said she’d loved going to school. She joined the class late because she’d been attending Bristol High School, but when the Hinesburg school bus was routed close to her home, she switched to Hinesburg High School her sophomore year.

“Back in school, we were much more serious,” she said. “We thought we were serious, but we were nuts.”

She said the reunions have always been a great time.

“We would laugh until we cried.”