You and me and PE
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of articles marking the 50th Anniversary of Hartselle City Schools.
The Hartselle Histori cal Society hosted its monthly Lunch and Learn at East Highland Baptist Church last week and, together with approximately 25 history-lovers from our community, I learned more about the history of Hartselle’s schools.
Though it happened before 1975, it was discussed on that day that swimming was once a part of Girls’ PE at Morgan County High School. This is verified by the August 2024 obituary of one-time PE teacher Mary W. Rodgers which boasted that Rodgers introduced to MCHS “an innovative girl’s intramural physical education program including swimming, diving, bowling, volleyball, basketball, badminton, and tennis.” Retired Hartselle Junior High School teacher Jimmy Yarbrough recalled that, when the school originally opened its doors on Petain Street, there was no gym. When the weather called for students to hold PE classes indoors, male students would change clothes in the high school stadium’s football dressing rooms and then board school buses to the Morgan County Training School gymnasium on Georgia Street. Yarbrough and I estimated that there could not have been more than 12 to 15 minutes of actual physical activity built into that plan, but the school was accommodating its students as best it could during the time its gym was being constructed.
I can recall square dancing as part of my own PE experiences at HJHS and learning the England Swing dance from teachers Jean Screws and Kay Parker. I think I could still do the England Swing. Or maybe the England Sw. Not sure I could hold out for the entire swing. Feel pretty sure I could not do any of it wearing one of those 1976style gym suits with my name emblazoned across the chest in black, iron-on letters.
I can also recall being introduced to soccer by Coach Durham Bracy. To say I was never an athlete is to severely under-state my lack of physical coordination, and I remember running around the practice field on Karl Prince Drive trying to kick that soccer ball. Bracy was calling out to us, “Use your head! Use your head!” when a boy in my class used his head to bat the ball toward the goal. I remember thinking, “Good grief! He meant ‘think about what you’re doing’ and did not mean for you to literally use your head!” Guess who was wrong about that one?
In addition to gyms and tracks and courts and fields, Hartselle’s elementary students have benefitted from balls and scarves and cones and scooters and noodles and parachutes and other accessories designed to make PE time engaging and fun.
Lots of Hartselle’s elementary students can recall learning to bowl in their PE classes and then field-tripping to Hartselle’s or Decatur’s bowling alley once they had honed their skills.
50 years ago and today, Hartselle’s PE teachers have worked to provide students with physical experiences that keep them healthy while they are in school and introduce them to activities that can keep them healthy for years to come. Fifty years from now, one of those healthy students can write this editorial!
