John Shearer: Visiting With GPS Class Of 1974 Following 50-Year Reunion

Martha Ann Bass enjoyed a career as an outstanding tennis player at Girls Preparatory School before getting to see the world from above for 40 years as a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines.

But she perhaps even more cherishes the grounding experiences she enjoyed as a GPS student before graduating in 1974, including the strict expectations of the teachers.

“It was the best time of my life, and I would go back tomorrow,” she said. “I don’t think I can ever remember a day when I didn’t want to go to school.”

Although her job and living out of town kept her from attending a lot of the class reunions over the years, she was able to attend the 25^th one in 1999. And she remembers saying then that if she ever moved back to Chattanooga, she would help coordinate one.

After deciding to retire from Delta during the pandemic, she found herself living back in downtown Chattanooga and kept her word, just as her GPS teachers would have expected. She helped plan the 50-year reunion along with fellow co-chair Peg Palmquist Wahl, Aimee Campbell Lurie, Mary Moncure Watson, Pamela Brown Wilson, and Kerry Fuge Wood.

As Ms. Bass recently sat outside the Frothy Monkey coffee shop at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo complex and looked back on the reunion, she said it was a great time. A special gathering was held at the school during the day on Friday, Oct. 4, where she noticed the students still wearing the same familiar dresses but no longer having to wear just loafers or saddle oxford shoes. That night, a champagne toast reception was held at the school’s Founders Home, and then the main evening class reunion was held on Oct. 5 at the STIR restaurant in the Choo-Choo complex.

“One lady had come from double knee replacement surgery, but everybody was totally mobile. Some were in three-inch heels, and more power to them,” she said with a laugh. “Everybody looked really good, and I was more than happy.”

She said that about six or seven classmates of the approximately 91 who graduated are unfortunately now deceased, but about 47 classmates, including one or two who attended the school for just some of the years, came along with 11 guests.

“I think it was one of the largest we have had,” said Ms. Bass, who said she kept busy greeting guests as they came and handed out gift bags as they left. “Numerous people came up to me saying how nice it was. And everyone said the food was good. Now, when people ask me how nice it was, I say that it was amazing. I just wish I had more time to talk with people.”

She said that some graduates, like Audrey Weill from Seattle, came from far away.

Julie Moore said via email that this was the first reunion she had attended and called it a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“It was amazing how some of us were easily recognizable and others were not recognizable at all,” the former professional photographer and electronics tech said, jokingly adding she was thankful for nametags. “There's a big difference between an 18-year-old kid and a 68-year-old woman. Most of us are grandmothers now.”

However, she quickly realized the young girls she remembered were still there in many ways after some quick conversations. “Some of the women I had not recognized initially once again became familiar due to mannerisms and/or voice,” she added.

Pamela Brown Wilson, who went on to become an artist and conducts the Heart and Soul art show, said she also attended the Baylor 50-year reunion activities of her husband, attorney Randy Wilson, on the same weekend as the GPS gathering.

But she said it all turned out well and she was able to visit plenty with her classmates. “It was good to see some of them I haven’t seen almost since GPS,” she said.

She even had classmates Mary Moncure Watson and Mary Katherine Klose stay at her house with their husbands, which at least partially brought back memories of her girls’ slumber party days at GPS.

Part of my interest in this class and doing a story on their golden anniversary reunion is that my sister, Cathy Shearer Morris, was also a member before transferring in the ninth grade and graduating from Hixson High.

She actually decided to go to both 50-year reunions and said she had a great time at both. That is, even though they were a little different, with the Hixson one held in the afternoon also in the early fall and in a less formal setting at Camp Columbus on Lake Chickamauga.

Perhaps due to all this and the fact that she was not around some of the GPS girls regularly as they grew into high school students, Ms. Morris said she was impressed at how they all handled themselves as people now in their late 60s.

“It was wonderful to see all these beautiful girls turned into polished women,” she said. “It was quite encouraging and inspirational. It was so precious.”

She also talked with some of them about their parents she fondly remembered, and she even heard a story about two of them going off to college in Nashville, with one of their mothers helping them find a place to live.

“It was just such sweet conversation and great how they had all evolved into wonderful women,” Ms. Morris added of the overall visiting.

She was not the only one who transferred from GPS to Hixson before graduation. Another classmate at both was Gwen Randall, who became future Criminal Court Clerk Gwen Tidwell.

Ms. Morris saw her at the Hixson reunion and noticed she also had a self-confidence following decades of various experiences. And that was demonstrated by driving a nice convertible to the reunion, she said with a laugh.

It was a confidence she saw at both reunions, including with the GPS graduates.

“These are confident women, and confidence comes with age, and it was awesome,” she said. “At both places, they have turned into self-sufficient adults, just wonderful people who have grown into their true selves at this age.”

Although the GPS students might not have been fully aware at the time, the year 1974 when that class graduated was certainly the beginning of more opportunities in America for women. Title IX had just been passed, Gloria Steinem was busily pushing for more equal rights for women, and even Helen Reddy’s female-inspiring song, “I Am Woman,” was still fresh off the charts. And, of course, Billie Jean King had beaten Bobby Riggs in tennis the fall of their senior year in the “Battle of the Sexes.”

Several members of this GPS class did follow this trend by going on to become accomplished in several fields. Alumna honoree Jane Carter, Jeanne Scanland, and Mary Katherine Lawrence became doctors, Ms. Wahl became an accountant in Memphis, Ms. Watson helped head Merrill Lynch in Atlanta, and Cathy Landis has enjoyed success as a published author in Knoxville, among several other distinctions by other class members.

Ms. Bass, whose own mother, Martha Bass, was a pioneering local women’s swim coach and teacher, said that collective change around them seemed to come slowly at that time, even though GPS was very pioneering in telling women to be all they wanted to be. “That was always the GPS bent to have a real career,” she said, jokingly adding that she does not remember the school emphasizing any typing class, perhaps as a subtle hint for women to go beyond a more stereotypical female career of the time.

GPS did offer limited interscholastic sports at that time among several other intramural ones and numerous fine arts activities, but she remembers GPS did not always have a formal tennis coach. Despite that, she and underclass star Kappie Clark won a state doubles crown her senior year. The four courts at that time were where the upper parking lots are now, she said.

Southern Methodist University, where she also played, was also slow to develop equal training room resources for women, she added, remembering once having to track down a trainer for help.

Ms. Wilson, who also put together the gifts for the reunion, said she remembered one outlying teacher who openly supported the pro-choice political viewpoint at that time, but the school was still conservative in being slow to have numerous interscholastic sports. She said she might have played basketball if it was offered at a varsity level, as it had been years before, but instead focused her physical education efforts on the Terpsichord dance troupe. The school did uniquely offer intramural field hockey, she added.

A glance at the GPS yearbook, the Kaleidoscope, from that year shows that the new GPS headmaster was Dr. Nat Hughes, and Latin teacher John Orders was apparently the only male faculty member.

Among the class of 1974 superlatives, Susu Davenport Brock was the class president, Mary Moncure Watson and Gini McCormick served on Student Council (with Ms. Watson president), Cathy Landis was Most Likely to Succeed, Patti Stephenson was Most Respected, Barbara Smith was Most Talented, Bobbie Boyd was the Cutest, Lisa Longley was Most Congenial, and Kathleen Robinson Darnell was president of the National Honor Society. At the May Day festivities, Kim Lupton Strang was the May queen and Harriette Benson Hill the maid of honor.

And at their reunion 50 years later, apparently all the class members enjoyed a regal time -- and were thankful for their education and time shared as students.

“GPS prepared us very well. All of our class has demonstrated that,” said Ms. Wilson. “GPS gave us an education second to none and we owe a great deal of gratitude to those who took it upon themselves to send us to GPS.”

Ms. Bass simply summed up her school experience by saying, “I wouldn’t trade anything for my time or education at GPS.”

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Jcshearer2@comcast.net