�HAIL, BROADWAY, HAIL�

     Wednesday the high school stu- dents of America went back to school.  Summer vacation was a lot of fun,  but we were sort of anxious to get back and add another year of education towards our future.
     Many of the high school crowd walked through the same halls, saw the same  teachers  and yelled "Hi!" to the same kids, but a thousand students of this age bound together by the love of a dead Alma Mater, were  strangers  to  the  cheerful scene.   Like   many   of  my  friends, I was too busy remembering other days in another school to be accur- ate in filling out the  "usual form card that  was  set  in  front of me. We had a right to our memories though, for we had said goodbye to the best high school in the world when  Broadway  closed  her  doors to us for the last time.
     I tried to concentrate on answer- ing the questionnaire, but my mind kept leaving the printed page and rushing back to that last day at Broadway. It was as if something bigger and stronger than I grabbed my hand  and pulled me back through the  summer  to  the  time last spring when we received the unbelievable  news  that  the school we belonged to  no longer belonged to us. The study hall in which we received the message was usually rumbling with  the whispers of pu- pils anxious  for  the  bell  to ring, but that day as the period ended person after person passed through the doors to the hall taking the empty silence with them.
               Precious Days
     The last few days, that were so precious to us who were never to attend Broadway again,  went fast and were  filled with many good- byes.  They  were  filled  with  hours of worry,  too.  I  wondered  what next  year   would   be  like  and  if I'd ever be  able  to heal  the hurt spot in  my  heart  that  the  closing of Broadway had left. The thought that  I  would  never  be  able  to yell a football cheer  or  worship colors for a different school  kept pound- ing in my brain.
     Then the final  climax  came.  I can still  see  the assembly hall packed full of students as we raised our voices  in  the  Alma Mater for the last time. No one seemed ashamed to  cry  and as the song came nearer  and nearer to the end my voice quivered and almost stuck in my throat.  I  looked around rather guiltily for a moment, be- cause of  my  off-key note,  but  then I realized that nobody was in the mood for listening to pitch. I swal- lowed as hard as I could and strug- gled to keep  my voice under con- trol until the end of the melody.
     It was all over then, and as we walked down the steps for the last time our minds were dull from too much useless hoping.
          Thoughts of Broadway
     Suddenly I was through remem- bering and sitting back in the desk that was so new to me. I was lis- tening to a  strange  voice asking me if  I  had  filled   out  my  paper  yet. I glanced down to verify my answer and as I  removed  my  hand  from the top of the question blank I noticed some wet spots on the mid- dle of the  form.  I  picked  up the tear stained paper and handed it forward, and as I watched it being passed on I thought once more of Broadway.
     How serene  she  stood with the ivy clinging to her as it climbed toward the sky.  How strong she made us,  her students,  feel to be part of her! We've learned many lessons from our years there, includ- ing how to be good sports,  so we'll go on and become part of another school.
     We'll never forget Broadway though. I, for one, will always re- member and perhaps even sing the last two lines of our loved Alma Mater.
     "In defeat or victory, it's Hail Broadway Hail."