Contributed Photo -- John Vass Jr. as he was in his year teaching at Northside.

Talk this morning about changes at what used to be Northside Junior High resurrected memories that highlighted a year teaching there nearly 40 years ago.

For a youthful teacher just out of the University of Chattanooga, it was a big deal joining a veteran faculty that then had a fine reputation as a leading feeder school for the highly acclaimed City High School nearby.

Principal Jim Talley, Latin teacher Miss York and many other longtime educators formed a corps that made Northside a magnet of education in a different era.

That group was augmented by a few new teachers — Ted Bryant, Rev. Stone and me — who were trying to carry what they had learned in their college years into their own classrooms.

The school that was North Chattanooga Junior High or, simply, Northside, has carried other names in the years since we were there. The teacher ranks have changed many times over. And changes are now continuing with new missions, directions.

Each year probably brings more fuzziness to the recollections, but they’re still alive, in a special way. In our lives, and those who passed through the doors of the school.

E-mail John Vass Jr. at jvass@timesfreepress.com

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