Hi, Boys! Gbye, Boys Hi! Hi Girls!
This is friend Pigeon Lobien's story on dear old SLU Boys High which graduated its last all-boys batch this year. It is now co-ed.
When Sam enters school this June to kick off the 2006-2007 school year, she is actually making history as one of the first female graduates of what was once a very exclusive school in the city.
It is ironic though for the 15-year Samantha Ramirez to be one of the close to 700 students who will graduate next year from the Saint Louis Laboratory High School, more popularly known as Boys High and one of the most recognizable intermediate educational institutions in the city. It is also the training ground of some of the city’s leading male citizens.
It was just recently that the last all-boy class had been graduated even while Baguio-Benguet Bishop Carlito Cenzon and more than 20 others celebrated their 50th reunion as graduating class of the Boys High School.
Cenzon was joined in by his co-graduates who themselves have distinguished themselves in their respective chosen careers. A co-graduate is now a priest, a parish priest of a church here (four others have taken the vow), one is a retired military general, two went on to become secretaries to mayors and one is a distinguished contractor.
It is more ironic for Sam that her father, Noel, is also a graduate of that same institution when a concrete, iron railed 100-meter wall divided that institution with another exclusive high school adjacent to it. Noel’s only other brother graduated from Boys Hi while their two sisters (one of them married to Cordillera Today cartoonist Hubert Cabanban) are from across the wall.
That wall literally started crumbling down when the Saint Louis Center High School or Girls High was relocated in 1995 to Saint Vincent and merged with a “rival” all girls high school, the Holy Family.
I remember that “wars” waged by these two all girls high school as a high school back in the 80s when most of us from a public high school dreamt of dating one of those girls from the exclusive schools and when being seen in public with those blue and white uniform wearing girls (not the white and maroon) could make you a hero among your school mates.
The move to have the two all girls highs together left the old Center for the elementary students who still have to look past the iron railings to see fellow pupils from the Laboratory which will be deprived of high school students later on after Boys High was removed to its new campus at CM Recto St.
In 2003, Boys High started removing its all boys tag when it accepted the first female enrollees which included Sam, who just graduated from the SL Laboratory Elementary School.
As a high school here, I waged a tough competition against Boys High students in various school competitions. I remember the Laras, the Sos of Lab Science Class who were my toughest rivals in quiz shows.
There were the Padillas who went to moviedom, one was a toughie (who did not graduate), while the other was rather effeminate who recently admitted that he is of the fairer gender.
While it was an all-male school, some students feel that they should belong to the school across the wall that also earned the school the monicker Hi Boys not Boys Hi.
As a graduating Psychology students in the late 80s, I had my guidance and counseling practicum at Boys Hi (as well as in the SLLES) and handled a third year regular class. The adviser was a stern one and the boys were all behaved everytime that she was there for our monthly homeroom activity.
During one activity, one of the students said that he wanted to be an actor, as well as an entertainer then went on to grab an imaginary mike while a fellow student mimicked that of a cameraman and he went on to sing slowly shedding of his masculinity. Years later, I see him wearing make ups and sometimes dressed as a female. He never went to show business just like Rustom.
That “very stern” teacher resigned after her “well behaved” class started calling her as the primeval man, since her name is the same as the monicker given by anthropologists to what is said to be the first human.
Surely, Boys Hi is gone but the spirit of those who were products of this one proud school remains strong.
When Sam enters school this June to kick off the 2006-2007 school year, she is actually making history as one of the first female graduates of what was once a very exclusive school in the city.
It is ironic though for the 15-year Samantha Ramirez to be one of the close to 700 students who will graduate next year from the Saint Louis Laboratory High School, more popularly known as Boys High and one of the most recognizable intermediate educational institutions in the city. It is also the training ground of some of the city’s leading male citizens.
It was just recently that the last all-boy class had been graduated even while Baguio-Benguet Bishop Carlito Cenzon and more than 20 others celebrated their 50th reunion as graduating class of the Boys High School.
Cenzon was joined in by his co-graduates who themselves have distinguished themselves in their respective chosen careers. A co-graduate is now a priest, a parish priest of a church here (four others have taken the vow), one is a retired military general, two went on to become secretaries to mayors and one is a distinguished contractor.
It is more ironic for Sam that her father, Noel, is also a graduate of that same institution when a concrete, iron railed 100-meter wall divided that institution with another exclusive high school adjacent to it. Noel’s only other brother graduated from Boys Hi while their two sisters (one of them married to Cordillera Today cartoonist Hubert Cabanban) are from across the wall.
That wall literally started crumbling down when the Saint Louis Center High School or Girls High was relocated in 1995 to Saint Vincent and merged with a “rival” all girls high school, the Holy Family.
I remember that “wars” waged by these two all girls high school as a high school back in the 80s when most of us from a public high school dreamt of dating one of those girls from the exclusive schools and when being seen in public with those blue and white uniform wearing girls (not the white and maroon) could make you a hero among your school mates.
The move to have the two all girls highs together left the old Center for the elementary students who still have to look past the iron railings to see fellow pupils from the Laboratory which will be deprived of high school students later on after Boys High was removed to its new campus at CM Recto St.
In 2003, Boys High started removing its all boys tag when it accepted the first female enrollees which included Sam, who just graduated from the SL Laboratory Elementary School.
As a high school here, I waged a tough competition against Boys High students in various school competitions. I remember the Laras, the Sos of Lab Science Class who were my toughest rivals in quiz shows.
There were the Padillas who went to moviedom, one was a toughie (who did not graduate), while the other was rather effeminate who recently admitted that he is of the fairer gender.
While it was an all-male school, some students feel that they should belong to the school across the wall that also earned the school the monicker Hi Boys not Boys Hi.
As a graduating Psychology students in the late 80s, I had my guidance and counseling practicum at Boys Hi (as well as in the SLLES) and handled a third year regular class. The adviser was a stern one and the boys were all behaved everytime that she was there for our monthly homeroom activity.
During one activity, one of the students said that he wanted to be an actor, as well as an entertainer then went on to grab an imaginary mike while a fellow student mimicked that of a cameraman and he went on to sing slowly shedding of his masculinity. Years later, I see him wearing make ups and sometimes dressed as a female. He never went to show business just like Rustom.
That “very stern” teacher resigned after her “well behaved” class started calling her as the primeval man, since her name is the same as the monicker given by anthropologists to what is said to be the first human.
Surely, Boys Hi is gone but the spirit of those who were products of this one proud school remains strong.
posted by Unknown at 2:02 PM
5 Comments:
Frank, check the "her"....to "his"
Cenzon was joined in by her co-graduates who themselves have distinguished themselves in the respective chosen career.
in that same sentence...
"themselves in THEIR"
Hahaha. Even very good writers need editors. :-)
i did not edit the story but then i should
well...going thru the article....i just let the errors slide by...nice reading though. hmmmm. pwedeng mag-apply na editor? hehehe. nice blog, really, frank. now it's the first thing i check in the morning....move aside, PDI!
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