MEMORIES OF LAKEWOOD’S NAVY BASE SCHOOL, THE TACOMA GIANTS AND MORE

MEMORIES OF LAKEWOOD’S NAVY BASE SCHOOL, THE TACOMA GIANTS AND MORE

By Tim Marsh, Lakes High Class of 1966 

(Updated 3/29/2024)

In the early 1950s, my Mom, Dad and sister and I moved from North Dakota to Lakewood.

We arrived before Allied Van Lines brought our household goods and before our Lakewood rental house was available.

 

Our temporary housing was the Oakwood Motel on South Tacoma Way. The motel room had a pay radio - a nickel a listen.

After Cheney Stadium opened in 1960, our family enjoyed attending Tacoma Giants games. Dusty Rhodes, formerly of the New York Baseball Gaints, was my favorite player. I loved watching him throw the ball in from the outfield.

Our family segued from the rental into a house we owned on Bridgeport Way in Lakewood. It was not far from Lakewood Square and an Albertson’s grocery store.

Giant players came to the store to sign autographs and visit with fans. Those appearances might have happened because the store assistant manager -- who lived next door to us in a rental -- had been a professional ball player in the St. Louis Browns organization.

Mom sang in Lakewood’s Little Church on the Prairie choir. She liked choir member Blanche Perry, Gaylord Perry’s wife.

After World War II, the Naval Depot – located at what had once been was the Tacoma Speedway, a wood board automobile racing track -- was used in a variety of ways. The Clover Park School District had its administrative offices there and the district’s Navy Base School was there, too.

My sister (Clover Park High grad) and I (Lakes High grad) were “schooled” in the district. As “Baby Boomers” we were among students in the district who attended Navy Base, across the street from Flett Dairy and nearby Mountain View Cemetery.

Navy Base School was an overflow school. For example, if there were not enough classrooms for seventh graders at Hudtloff and Mann junior high schools, the overflow of seventh grade students studied at Navy Base. It was a regular school -- activities, assemblies, etc. -- in an interesting environment.

The school was in what apparently had been the supply depot’s administrative offices. Walls were paperboard and the halls were narrow, as if we were walking in passageways beneath deck in a naval ship. I recall being in a giant safe in one of the Navy Base School rooms. During the war the safe probably held important papers. I was in it to get my school crossing guard crosswalk flag.

History says the Clover Park School District occupied most of the seven concrete block Navy Base buildings which included the steam plant with underground power and heating “designed to withstand aerial bombings anticipated during World War II.”

That helps explain part of the reason why, periodically, we students practiced fire, earthquake and air raid (“The Bomb”) drills.

My Navy Base time was when corporal punishment with a wooden paddle was condoned. I never was paddled, but the Navy Base teacher with the paddle was well known and a concern.

Research shows over the years Navy Base had baseball for boys and girls and basketball, apparently just for boys. I recall none of this. It was in the school years before I was there.

My forte was playing saxophone in the band. Band and orchestra concerts in the Navy Base cafeteria at night meant smelling cow manure as it wafted across Steilacoom Boulevard to noses of musicians, parents, siblings and friends walking from the parking lot to the cafeteria and back.

In Lakewood I tried to be an athlete. With no athletic talent, I was an outfielder on Lakewood Recreation Association softball teams. I was an outfielder with hopes the ball would never be hit to me.

My schooling started at Park Lodge School. I attended Navy Base School for sixth and seven grades. Eight grade for me was at the “new” Hudtloff (near Custer) and -- after we moved from Bridgeport Way to American Lake – to the even newer Mann for ninth grade. At the time, Hudtloff and Mann were both junior high schools.

I arrived at the new (it opened in 1962) Lakes High as a sophomore in 1963. As a sports fan it was a wonderful place to be.

There were great boys Lakes teams, with Rick Austin, who went on to pitch in the Major Leagues, among super student athletes.

Lakes High School had girls and boys on its very good tennis teams. Sue Colley was an excellent tennis player. Lakes High likely had many other great girl athletes, but Title IX came too late for them.

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