In 2014 Norma Stern Hoff started this website. Unfortunately, shortly after doing so she became ill and passed away in 2017. As a consequence it never did get off the ground. In mid 2019 Kay Yoxtheimer Shelton, SHS '60, and I, Fred Bock, SHS '58, opted to bring the site to fruition so that Norma's effort could be realized. 

We've let those of her classmates for whom we had contact information know of the site. We're hoping that they will join and spread the word to others who will do likewise.

This can be a good way of keeping in touch with high school friends and it's also a great tool for planning a reunion.

Thanks to Catherine "Caye" Nemkovitch Ellison an enlargeable version of the senior pictures composite photo can be seen by clicking on the tumbnail below.

Visitor Locations

Truly the end of an era. Historic tie to Springfield’s affluent past to be demolished. Thanks to Tom Chase, SHS '57, for the heads up.

Springfield's Main Street Master Plan can be accessed by clicking on the picture below:

The following was included in the July 26, 2019 issue of a newsletter received on a daily basis. Food for thought.

Andrew Cockburn in Harper’s:

A generation ago, Seymour Melman, a professor of industrial engineering at Columbia, devoted much of his career to analyzing this very subject. He concluded that defense spending’s impact on the broader economy was wholly harmful, a consequence of the bad habits injected into the bloodstream of American manufacturing management by a defense culture indifferent to cost control and productivity.

The U.S. machine-tool industry, for example, had powered postwar U.S. manufacturing dominance thanks to its cost-effective productivity that in turn allowed high wage rates for workers. But, Melman wrote, as more and more of its output shifted to defense contracts, the industry’s relationship with the Pentagon…

became an invitation to discard the old tradition of cost minimizing. It was an invitation to avoid all the hard work… that is needed to offset cost increases. For now it was possible to cater to a new client, for whom cost and price increase was acceptable – even desirable.

In consequence, as Melman detailed, the U.S. machine-tool industry gradually ceased to compete effectively with nations such as Germany and Japan, where cost control still reigned supreme.

A very interesting article about the rise and fall of the machine tool industry in Springfield was posted on FB by Jerry Dopp. You can see it here.

Links are provided to Springfield High School yearbooks for the years 1950 through 1990 on the class of '58 site. You can go to that page by clicking here. All but two of them are posted on the Classmates.com website and may require a free membership to access.