We Were First!

All this week at Father Ryan, final exams are being given to those enrolled in the school's Advanced Placement (AP) courses.

The wonderful drawing above, from our senior year PANTHER YEARBOOK (and done by our own Dr. Bob Campbell),is of Mrs. Joan Wallenhorst, who taught the first AP course in Father Ryan history (English Literature-AP-Honors Class) when we were seniors back in the 1968-1969 school year.

From that humble beginning, and based on the 2007-08 school year, Father Ryan now offers 19 AP courses,involving 181 students or almost 12% of the entire student body. And more than 81% of our students pass their AP courses (making a 3 or more on the national AP exam for that subject to qualify for possible college credit).

The AP classes cover a wide range of disciplines including AP U.S. Government & Politics, AP European History, AP English Literature, AP Computer Science, AP Studio Art Portfolios, AP Psychlogy,AP Calculus, AP Statistics, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics, AP Spanish, AP French, AP Latin, AP Music Theory and AP Environmental Science.

And the legacy for all this at Father Ryan, dates from a lady who once rode a pogo stick down the middle of the hall on the first floor or our Annex Building, with our PANTHER photographer Bob Cook (and editor-in-chief Terry Shelton) there to capture the moment.....

I know I am a bit biased, but our 1969 PANTHER YEARBOOK was clearly the best one produced during the four years we attended Father Ryan.

Editor Terry Shelton and his entire staff deserve all the credit for how great the Yearbook is, even forty years later. The drawings by Bob Campbell, the hilarious photo of Mrs. Wallenhurst (and others photos and items from the yearbook that we will be spotlighting here on the blog between now and our Reunion) are just a couple of examples of why this PANTHER is so great.

By the way, the Alumni Office doesn't have a copy of our 1969 Annual. So if anyone wants to share theirs, please contact Alumni Director Angela Mills at the school.

Meanwhile, I hope Terry Shelton, who I know is reading this blog, will take a moment to explain in the comment section here,just how he managed to talk Mrs. Wallenhorst into getting on that pogo stick and have her picture taken. I am sure it will be a very fascinating and funny story. And anyone else who has the inside story, please feel free to chime in. That includes Pat Cook, who I understand used up an entire roll of film for that shoot.

I was one of those in the Senior Honors Class who took the first AP class, although I am not sure we were aware that we were making history. I remember late in our junior year, Mrs. Wallenhurst asking us if we would be interested in taking an AP class in English Literature, and we were like OK, I guess so.

I remember I did get a 3 on the AP exam and got 6 hours credit at Peabody. But my luck didn't hold, when I transferred to Vanderbilt, I had to take some English courses anyway to meet the school's distribution requirements for graduation. Oh well....