Lewes High graduates 26 seniors 75 years ago

This year’s senior class is entering the final stretch, with just a few months remaining until graduation in early June. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Lewes High School Class of 1951. Those students attended classes in what is now Lewes Elementary on Savannah Road. The class featured 26 seniors, including William Hearn Beebe, Victoria Kinikin Davidson, Virginia Lee Deale, Donald Dillon, Frank Joseph Dodd, Gertrude Jeannette Elliott, Donald Kelly Foster, Margaret Hastings, Bettyann Hazel, George W. Hopkins, Albert C. Joseph, Alfred Lynch Joseph, Mervyn Lewis Lafferty Jr., Phillip Henry Melson, Leah Elizabeth Millman, Lawrence Joseph Mundy, David Scott Peck, Irma Frances Pettyjohn, Margaret Fisher Plummer, James Pratt, Grace Elizabeth Ritter, Richardson Smith Roberts Jr., Eston Lane Shaffer, Paul David Wilson, Mary Catherine Wolfe and Virginia Constance York. 

Irma Pettyjohn and Margaret Plummer wrote the class history in the 1951 yearbook: “There were 64 of us who ventured into the world as first-graders in 1939 and 1940. Years passed rapidly through the elementary grades, and soon we were in high school. In the junior year we had the great task of sponsoring the junior-senior prom, which was held May 26. We were the first class to use the May Pole scene. It will always linger in our minds as one of the splendid occasions of Old Lewes High. Our school days are drawing to a close with baccalaureate service and commencement. There are 26 to receive diplomas. We have lost from our ranks to other schools, to the service, and marriage. We shall bid goodbye reluctantly to Lewes High School and prepare to take up our life’s work.”