Cordova Chronicles: Is it time to bring back the Spiritometer?

Saluting a resurgence of school spirit at Cordova High

Replete in white lab jackets, from left, CHS Voc Ed instructors Don Morgan and Tom Trani, unveil the famous Spiritometer at a Pep Assembly at CHS Court. Guess who was inside? (CHS annual photo)

In case you haven’t noticed, there has been a resurgence of school spirit at Cordova High. As always, success breeds an upswing in enthusiasm, and Cordova’s volleyball squad and now its basketball teams are on a roll.

But it isn’t just that. Second-year high school Principal Kate Williams and new activities director Kayti Ammerman have been encouraging its growth. For example, the lively Cordova Pep Section that cheered and stomped their hearts out during District Volleyball Playoffs was inspired by their leadership. Members of the Cordova boys basketball squad, joined by others, donned blue and white face paint ordered by Ammerman, and shouted through megaphones and waved pom-poms that had been discovered in storage.

Music teacher extraordinaire Chelsea Corrao has the Pep Band fired up, and plays whatever instrument is needed as it cranks out up-tempo classics from the far corner of the bleachers.  During the recent series versus SuValley and Tipoff, it happened to be the trumpet. Is there anything she cannot play? And Principal Williams sat in on the clarinet. Alumni, dust off those old instruments. 

Cheerleader advisor Carmen Anderson had a talented and happy-go-lucky group performing entertaining routines and getting the crowd involved during the junior high basketball season, and has developed more of the same with a lively varsity squad. Chester, the furry Wolverine mascot, has resurfaced, and can be seen dancing about the sidelines, much to the particular delight of younger fans. Somehow the long dormant critter squeezed into an old blue CHS basketball uniform, with a hole cut out in the trunks for his tail. Typically, the bigger the jersey number, the bigger the size, but even No. 50 was a stretch.

School spirit and school pride go hand in hand, and this is a wonderful thing. How often has been the lament: “Where is the school spirit, like the good old days?”

The 1989 CHS student protest over cuts in ferry service included five students jumping off the dock in wet suits in preparation for swimming to Valdez if necessary. (CHS annual photo)

Ah, the good old days. Yes, things always seem golden in hindsight. But there was a stretch in the late ’80s when Wolverine Fever was off the charts. Coaches Bob Lenz and Virginia Anderson had CHS teams that were phenomenal, routinely winning Districts in a wildly competitive 3A Aurora Conference and advancing to State; the CHS student body was almost twice its current size; and a creative and spirited lot they were.

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One time the students were so upset about the impact a cut in ferry service would have on the activities travel schedule that they held a protest rally down on the dock. Five students in wetsuits jumped off the pier to indicate they would swim to Valdez if they had to. 

During those days, Valdez basketball Coach Dan Eide was cast in the role of arch-villain, and one year he was greeted at the CHS front entrance with an old hearse that the CHS Vocational Education students had rebuilt and named the Eidemobile.

In the late ’80s, arch-rival Valdez Coach Dan Eide was greeted at the CHS entrance with a rebuilt hearse that Cordova Voc Ed students had named in his honor. (CHS annual photo)

Voc Ed was a big program back then, and teachers Don Morgan, Tom Trani and John Goodridge cranked out marvelous students while having a grand time in the process.  Their shops were so lively and entertaining that Principal Chuck Taylor was afraid to venture down the hallways to their lairs at the far end of the school, where sparks and shouts went hand in hand.

CHS Principal Chuck Taylor was the boss in his office, but what happened down at the Voc Ed end of the building was often a mystery. (CHS annual photo)

Perhaps their crowning achievement was the Spiritometer.

Back then, Pep Assemblies always included the cheerleaders teaching the student body, arranged in sections by classes 7-12, a new chant. Then each class would yell the cheer, with the teaching staff on the opposite side deciding who was loudest, and hence winner of the coveted Spirit Stick.

Good-natured accusations of bias by teachers toward the class they advised arose; so over lunch in the teachers’ lounge one day, the math and science department suggested to the voc ed boys that perhaps an objective measure of noise level could be created. 

Oh my. Two weeks later the voc ed geniuses beckoned the head of the math department, who also happened to be the shortest person on the staff, down to the shop, where they proudly unveiled the Spiritometer. It was basically a large enclosed wooden box on wheels, with 4-by-8-foot sheets of plywood for the front and back. Painted white, it featured a huge needle and an arched gradient of numbers on one side, plus all sorts of wires, lights, knobs and other dials.

When asked how it worked, I was told “Easy. You crawl inside and we close the door. There’s a little handle on the inside, just jiggle the needle up and down as the classes yell. We’ll roll it in and out of the gym, so no one will know what powers the needle.”

One could actually hear a hush fall over the student body the first time the Spiritometer was rolled into the gym. It elevated spirits to a new height, and the needle bobbed in delight at the loudest cheering ever.

In 1989, with school spirit at an all-time high, CHS students held a dockside protest over cuts in ferry service. (CHS annual photo)

However, by appearance No. 3, enthusiasm had waned, so the V.E. Boys decided to up the ante. All three also served as advisors of the popular Rifle Club that routinely blazed away in the basement of Mt. Eccles, which by today’s standards seems a bit incredible.

Anyhow, the threesome came up with a design modification that included a metal pan atop the Spiritometer that would hold “a little bit of black powder.”

Say what?

“It’ll just make a flash,” said Hand Loading Specialist Goodridge. “When you hear the loudest cheer, light the fuse that hangs down inside. It will be awesome.”

Indeed. It was well beyond that. Seconds after lighting the fuse, there was a loud whoosh and screams. Fire alarms sounded, and students scrambled out of the gym while I was wheeled, inside the Spiritometer, at maximum speed out of the gym and into the nearby wood shop.

Teacher John Davis described a flame that went several feet in the air. 

“It was pretty spectacular,” he said. And filled the gym with smoke.

Fortunately, the sprinkler system did not activate. It was last period in the day, so school was over, although students had to exit around fire trucks that had arrived on the scene.   

The next morning, promptly at 8:30 a.m., using the intercom, high school secretary Barb Hanson beckoned a number of staff members down to the principal’s office.

Trani, Morgan, Goodridge and I lined up in front of Chuck Taylor’s desk. Barb closed the door.   Now I know what students feel like when they get called to the office, thought I.

Chuck had been gazing out the window and swiveled in his chair.

“Well, at least we won’t have to have a fire drill this month,” he said.

Next to me, Goodridge start to giggle, and before Chuck could say anything else, we were all bent over in tears of laughter. As we tumbled out the door, his parting words were, “No more Spiritometer!”

Which there wasn’t. 

In the late ’80s, from left, Don Morgan, Tom Trani and John Goodridge, supervised Rifle Club shooting in the basement of Mt. Eccles. They did a great job of teaching marksmanship, but proved to miss the target when estimating the power of black powder. (CHS photo)

But maybe it is time to bring back a safer, more high-tech model, for thanks to the students and staff at CHS, school spirit is back at levels that deserve to be measured and applauded. 

Excerpts and photos in this feature are from Dick Shellhorn’s recently released book, Balls & Stripes: A Lifetime of Sports Adventures, available at shorn@gci.net or 907-424-3543.

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Dick Shellhorn
Dick Shellhorn is a lifelong Cordovan. He has been writing sports stories for the Cordova Times for over 50 years. In his Cordova Chronicles features, he writes about the history and characters of this Alaska town. Alaska Press Club awarded Shellhorn first place for Best Humor column in 2016 and 2020, and third place in 2017 and 2019. He also received second place for Best Editorial Commentary in 2019. Shellhorn has written two books about Alaska adventures: Time and Tide and Balls and Stripes. Reach him at dshorn44@gmail.com.