TYLER, Texas — When the first class of Robert E. Lee High School students arrived on campus in 1958, it was soon discovered a very important object was missing.
Bill Burt, now 78, of Tyler, remembers Principal Ed Irons pulling him aside from class to ask him to fill a pivotal role.
“He said, ‘We don’t have our bells yet,’” Burt recalls. “He said ‘Can you take your trumpet and every hour on the hour go out into the quadrangle behind this building and play a bugle call?’
“That’s how we changed classes for the first two weeks,” he added.
Others in the first class of seniors at the school recall being impressed that the new campus had air conditioning, though there is some debate on if it was only available on some parts of the campus or on how frequently it was actually used.
These memories were just some of what was shared at the school on Saturday, as 21 members of the Robert. E Lee Class of ’59 gathered to take a photo at the campus.
The building where they congregated will be demolished as part of the next phase of construction at the school.
Read more from CBS19's newspaper partner, the Tyler Morning Telegraph.
