What they were saying

Comments from students, teachers and others

"Teachers have to make education relevant to students. They have to know what is going on in the students' world."

Ramsey English teacher Barbara Kallsen

“I don't study for grades. What I get, I get, but I'm not going to kill myself.”

Steve Wood, Ramsey’s only National Merit Scholarship semi-finalist
Oct 20 issue

“I guess I can't really get excited about it…. If I don't hear I will feel fortunate. It's really a lot of work and the material rewards are nil.”

Ramsey chemistry teacher Theodore Molitor on being named one of five finalists in the 1970 National Teacher of the Year award program
Feb 20 issue

"A school has to reflect the society that the student is going to have to live in and today people are asked to work together."

Ramsey social studies department chair Curtis Johnson
March 20 issue

"There are some teachers who really go all out. It depends a lot on the teacher. Some really try, some don’t, and some don't know how."

Ramsey sophomore Andi DeWahl
March 20 issue

"This is repression. It represents a question of how schools are going to teach.”

Ramsey student Bob Meek
March 13 issue

"I think that many parents would object to having their children exposed to language of that type."

Principal Curtis Johnson on a mini-course taught at Ramsey by activist David Pence
March 13 issue

"He was making education relevant and the kids were digging it. That's why they fired him.”

A high school student on Bloomington Kennedy teacher Pat Stevens, whose firing became statewide news.
March 13 issue

Ramsey librarian Esther Holste
April 27 issue

“Students who owe (library) fines cannot purchase prom tickets until all fines have been paid… (there are) people who don’t care a button whether they take care of them (the books) or not.”

“I'd cry a lot if I were a senior this year. I think Homecoming is the most important function during the year.”

1968 Ramsey Homecoming Queen Julie Johnson, as a teacher-school board dispute threatened to cancel Homecoming events
Sept 26 issue

"When this school first opened, none of my students had jobs. We were out in the country so there were no jobs to be had. Now the kids have more interests other than school."

Ramsey choir director Donald Brost
Feb 20 issue

"You give a guy a ticket, and all of a sudden you've got another cop hater."

A Roseville police officer on a ride-along with a student editor
March 13 issue

"Maybe more people come to the games but you couldn't tell by listening. You just don't hear the enthusiasm you used to... Ten or fifteen years ago, we REALLY had pep fests."

Ramsey football coach Lars Overskei
Feb 20 issue

“Oooh! That stunk. Do it over, women.”

Cheerleading advisor Willetta Brown watching a practice session
Oct 20 issue

“The reason we have tennis (for girls) in the fall is to keep out of the boys’ way in the spring… We must allow the boys use of the courts at all times.”

Willetta Brown, head of the girls’ athletic program at Ramsey
April 17 issue

“Teammates bump them, opponents push or spike them, students ignore them… kid brothers wonder at them, coaches criticize them, girls can’t see them… and fathers can’t understand why they aren’t out for football or basketball.”

Track coach Kent Smith quoting an anonymous source on “what is a trackman”
April 17 issue

"For a big game like homecoming, the boys really get up for a game like that. It means a lot to them. Sometimes you wonder if it means anything to anybody else."

Ramsey coach Ken Bergstedt
Feb 20 issue

"The draft is a poor setup. It keeps a guy sweating for six years. That's just too many years for a guy to sweat, because he's going to lose a lot of weight."

Student Fred Wolf
Nov 3 issue

“I think and wonder what is really wrong with this generation. We act as though Vietnam were the first war since the existence of man… How about George Washington and his men at Valley Forge? Do you think they wanted to fight the redcoats with bloody frozen feet?”

Ramsey senior Craig Granse in a letter to the editor
May 15 issue

"The high schools teach a certain value system and it is a value system that glorifies war. Consciously or unconsciously, the high schools keep us ignorant of the real issues."

Draft resistor and 1966 Ramsey student council president Mark Larson
Nov. 3 issue

"The change is so total. Everything is put on on you and nobody tells you what to do in college. There's nobody standing over you with a club."

Ramsey 1969 graduate John Rukavina on how college is different than high school
Dec 1 issue

“Freshman English is slowing a lot of people down… students get out of Ramsey and don’t know where the hell they’re at.”

Ramsey 1969 graduate Mark Gilquist.
Dec 1 issue

“$1 of every $6 -- one-sixth of tax dollars -- is used to get around on the ground, the most inefficient system in the Western world.”

Ralph Nader, speaking at the University of Minnesota
April issue (The Folk supplement)

"If we're the richest country in the world, we shouldn't have anybody starving."

Activist Fran Shore speaking to Ramsey teacher Ted Johnson's social studies class
Nov 17 issue

“I believe the policies (of the American Legion) demolish human liberties. I felt it would be hypocritical if I participated.”

Ramsey teacher James Warren, who declined to conduct an election for school representatives to the Boys and Girls State program. The American Legion-sponsored program refused to allow the student elected to represent Minnesota, Regina Hicks, to attend a Girls State event in Washington D.C. because “she contends in essence that the black man is in actuality not free,” said Warren.

“I don’t like pollution. If I walk maybe someone will wake up to the problem.”

Minneapolis South high school student Sylvia Green at a Walk for Environment attend by students throughout the Twin Cities.
May 1 issue

“If there was a creator, he wouldn’t let the world go to pot this way.”

A Ramsey sophomore quoted in story on students and religion
April 3 issue

“We shouldn’t try to change Christ to fit our purpose, we should change ourselves to fit his.”

Ramsey student Ruth VanAntwerp in a commentary criticizing an issue of Blueprint that compared Jesus to a modern-day political activist

“I don’t think organized religion is all that important any more... I’m sort of mixed up right now. God is more like an idea than a person or anything.”

Ramsey senior Julie Olson
April 3 issue

“This vaguely anti-war picture’s reputation far outweighs its worth… Director Robert Altman seems to go under the theory that if something is tasteless enough then you have made a meaningful social comment.”

A Ramsey editor’s review of the movie M*A*S*H.
April 17 issue

“If Alice’s Restaurant is any indication of the new American Cinema, perhaps one is better off sticking with the old school… it is tedious, dull, and at times a downright bore.”

A Ramsey editor’s review of the movie Alice’s Restaurant
Nov 17 issue

“Dudley Riggs’ ‘The Feminist Movement is Alive and Well’ is the dullest of his current catastrophes and should appeal to only those whose I.Q. is less than their chest expansion.”

A Ramsey school newspaper review
May 1 issue

“The Bill Cosby Show is a warm, human, unpretentious comedy… a simple, sincere program that grows on you.”

A Ramsey school newspaper review of The Bill Cosby Show (1969-1971 NBC series in which Cosby played gym teacher Chet Kincaid)
Dec 1 issue

Ramsey Class of 1970

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Comments from students, teachers and others