Four Generations of Memories of Point Loma High School — Now 100 Years Old

By Lynne Clark Miller

My granddaughter, Petra, just graduated from Point Loma High School. Watching the ceremony, I remembered my mother, who graduated from PLHS in 1936. I didn’t expect to get a lump in my throat or tears in my eyes when I heard the Point Loma School Song.  But it happened.  Memories surfaced as I watched the 2025 graduation. Four generations walked to Pomp and Circumstance across the football field. Dorothy Gage, Jon, Lynne, and June Clark, and my children, Mark and Cory Miller walked in my memories this June, 2025.

I lived in OB, spent my summers at the beach with friends, and walked home with a sandy towel, and a chocolate bar from Paras Shop. Those days of sun and salt air rest in my DNA and ignite memories of youth.  I rode my bike to OB Elementary, car-pooled and walked to Collier, and took a bus or walked to PLHS. When I went to Collier there was no Nimitz Blvd.  There was just a canyon ribboned with dirt pathways that we explored after the final bell. I remember the excitement of seeing guys who we knew cruise by in their very cool cars.  Sometimes my friends and I would get a ride home with Tim or Curt.  Getting to and from school was part of the whole adventure, wasn’t it?

When Petra Lynne reached out and got her diploma this year, all of the family hands who were PLHS grads were there, reaching across time– at least from my vantage point. Maybe that lump in my throat was encouraged by my Pointer memories!  The first day at PLHS, my way too blue contact lens looked into the mirror at my very tan face with white lipstick, sunbleached hair and an anxious smile.  Walking through the halls over the years was a hormone high.

Teachers, I remember some of them, the colorful ones like my French teacher, Ms. Reid, who was a poet, and we had to ‘group read’ her poems that taught us verb conjugation.  “The first is the worst, to say it parle it, and all of give the with present the present indicative.”  You get the idea. The intimidating teachers like Mr Ryan, who had a flat top, big blue eyes, and had a unique way of intimidating students into paying attention to lessons. There were fascinating teachers like Coach ‘Punky’ Freestrom who taught an excellent English class where he brought classics to life. The teacher on the Pointer Staff, who was she? I forget. But I remember I was on the Pointer Staff and wrote articles, sometimes off campus.  We had passes that allowed us to go ‘chase’ a story, usually in Jan M’s antique, but very cool car.

Sadly, a memory that is imprinted in my brain is November 22nd, 1963, the day JFK was killed.  I heard at lunch time that he had been shot, and I went to the phone booth that was on the patio in front of the admin building, and called home.  Yep, it was true.  5th Period Art with Mr. Demetrius was grim, and school was cancelled.

Ah, but there was so much high school to live; dances, football games, daily PE, with showers and towels, and shower checks.  Was Mrs. Dykstra at PL, or was she at Collier?  Time just keeps on, and after SDSU I taught with some old PLHS teachers like Bob Minnich and Nick Dionosopolis.

Names of friends and not-quite-friends run through my mind.  My best friends were Rosie, Louie, and Diann–if we were lucky we all had the same lunch! I often wonder what school would have been like if it was not so fractured with cliches, egos, and insecurity.  Maybe high school can’t escape such conditions, but maybe our grandchildren have a healthier sense of self and community. That has been my observation.

The Zeiger tradition did not exist when I was a student.  But as a parent, I watched both of my children in the Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance Zeiger production.  I remember sitting in the audience at each of their last performances knowing that their upcoming graduations would mark the last time they would all be together, and probably the last time they would see most of their classmates.

As my mind returned to the 2025 graduation ceremony I heard”  “Here’s to you Point Loma High School. . .’ and the lump in my throat tightened, tears flowed quietly, and I said a silent good-bye to the school that guided four generations of our family to graduation day.
“Hail Point Loma High!”

The PLHS Centennial