The 1970s are famous for disco music and bell bottom pants, the resignation of a President of the United States, and the end of the Vietnam War.  As the decade turned over from the 1960s, the Beatles broke up, and The John Carroll School had already graduated two classes.

Longtime JC Patriot Gary Scholl has been involved In the John Carroll community since joining the faculty in the fall of 1974 as a Western Civilization teacher. Throughout his time at JC, he has bounced around in different roles including teacher, Dean of Students, Assistant Principal, and Acting Principal.

Mr. Scholl said that one thing that sticks out to him in his early days at JC is “that first group of students I taught. I taught half the freshman class, so I was able to know them well. I got really close with that class, the class of 1978, and they were really a wonderful group of human beings.”

His first experience here was welcoming, and that part of the school community has continued today.

Mr. Scholl made it his goal to help better the school community and enforce the rules and teachings of the school. He said that he and another young teacher in the building made it their mission to eliminate the smoking in the boys’ bathroom.

Through the years, he has witnessed the different changes that have occurred at John Carroll.  Mr. Scholl cited technology is a big thing as in the 70s, computers were just coming into existence. In classrooms, the technology that teachers had were overhead projectors and film strip projectors.

One thing Mr. Scholl recalled was that once a week all the social studies classes would gather together in the auditorium and would have a lecture-form type class. Occasionally guest speakers would come in and give lectures to the students.

Over the years, school activities have expanded. In the 70s there were not many clubs or outside school activities. There was still prom and homecoming, but there was not a spirit week leading up to it. They did in fact have Powderpuff, and the boys would dress as cheerleaders and stand on the sidelines.

The 1970s at JC had a daily all-male or all-female homeroom where students would gather together each morning for announcements. While the group would be together all four years, they would change homeroom teachers each year. In the afternoons, members of the homeroom would have to spend time cleaning the homeroom teacher’s room.