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Date: 5/2/2023
AGAWAM — Lawrence “Larry” Scherpa recently produced a comprehensive report that could end a longstanding controversy about whether Agawam High School’s first graduates were the class of 1923 or 1924.
Scherpa, himself a 1965 AHS graduate, credits two other alums — Walt Willard (1963) and the late Mike Marieb (1961), who have been at the forefront and on opposite sides of the debate — for starting him on his quest for answers.
“They introduced me to the topic. I was a casual reader of newspaper columns Walt wrote saying the Class of ’23 was the first, and Mike responding that it was the Class of ’24. And this would go back and forth, back and forth,” said Scherpa.
After creating a database last year of all AHS graduates from 1924 to 2022, he dived into this project.
“It didn’t take me long to realize the class of ’24 was the first class. But when I read in the paper that the Class of 2022 was being acknowledged as 100th graduating class, my heart sank,” he said.
“My primary objective was to identify and honor both the first and 100th class to graduate from the high school that opened in 1922,” Scherpa said. Completing his research earlier this year, he published a nearly 60-page booklet, “The Case for the Class of 1924,” in March.
The first high school in Agawam opened during the 1922-23 school year, in the Main Street building now occupied by Doering School. What’s at question is whether the school had a senior graduating class that year. Before Agawam High School opened, teens from Agawam attended neighboring towns’ high schools, principally West Springfield High School.
Scherpa documents what he said is “compelling and convincing evidence” that the Class of 1924 was the first class to graduate in Agawam — making this year’s seniors the actual 100th graduating class, though “the Class of 2022 will always have the distinction of graduating during the 100th anniversary of AHS,” as he wrote in his introduction.
Research became “a bit of an obsession” for Scherpa, who spent “countless” hours — he estimates at least 50 to 100 — on his project. At the Agawam Public Library, he read old town reports, reviewed yearbooks (the “Sachem”) and the high school’s former student magazine and newspaper (“The Mirror”) for references to the graduates of 1923 and 1924.
During one library visit, Scherpa saw a reference in the 1931 yearbook about the October 1924 “Mirror” dedicated by the Class of 1925 to the first graduating class — the Class of 1924.
“They would know — they were juniors the year before,” he said.
He later found a single page from that issue of the school newspaper that included a picture of the Class of 1924 identified as “the first graduating class.” It was tucked away in a 1930s yearbook. The photo was so significant to Scherpa, he used it on the cover of his report.
Assistance from Agawam’s library staff — particularly Jerome Walczak, Cher Collins and Maria Yacavone — was essential, he said.
“I couldn’t have done this without the help of all the people in the reference section,” said Scherpa.
He also spent time at the Springfield and West Springfield public libraries searching for newspaper articles and old class records for the time when Agawam students transitioned from neighboring high schools to their new hometown school. Scherpa said he wanted to make sure what he produced was accurate.
He knows there likely will be questions from those who don’t believe the Class of 1924 was the first. As part of his painstaking research, Scherpa debunked a critical sentence fragment from Edith LaFrancis’ book on Agawam’s history that many people have used to claim 1923 was the first graduation year.
Scherpa explained that what she wrote — “1923: Twenty-five in first high school graduating class” — was reworded from the school superintendent’s section of the 1923 town report. This was LaFrancis’ source, and the superintendent’s report actually stated that the Class of 1924 would be the first class to graduate from the new high school.
He also cites contemporary newspaper articles and yearbooks, as well as a photo of the Class of 1925 cited as the second graduating class in “Agawam and Feeding Hills Revisited” by David Cecchi, as evidence the Class of 2024 was the first. Additionally, there are two newspaper accounts about the 60th reunion of the “first AHS class” in 1984.
Conversely, Scherpa couldn’t find any records for a 1923 AHS class. He did find that LaFrancis graduated in 1923 — but from Springfield Technical High School. He wrote that LaFrancis knew from “direct personal knowledge” that there was no Class of 1923 in Agawam, since she would have been in it.
According to Scherpa, there are no records for the “phantom” Class of 1923 — no newspaper articles, class lists, class photos, references in annual town reports. the school newspaper or yearbooks.
“There’s nothing at all to say that they existed,” said Scherpa. “In the booklet, I list of 10 kids from Agawam who graduated from Springfield and West Springfield in 1923, including LaFrancis. It was all part of the period of transition to the high school opening in September 1922.”
In addition to gathering and presenting facts, Scherpa said he designed the booklet to present his information in an interesting way that doesn’t look like a term paper.
“I want people to turn the page. It’s written in paragraph form and I tried to find powerful photos that would add to the content to make it an attractive document.”
Scherpa said it was important to publish his research by this spring, before the real 100th class graduates.
“If I put this on people’s desks six months from now, nobody would care — it would be too late. It would be meaningless,” said the retired East Longmeadow middle school teacher.
More important, he wanted to set the record straight to ensure the accuracy of which class was the first to graduate.
“Except for having captured the interest of a few old men. why does it matter? It matters for the following reason: to ensure the accuracy of the historical record,” said Scherpa.
Scherpa recently recorded an interview with Mayor William Sapelli, who serves as chair of the School Committee, to be broadcast on the town’s Comcast Channels 15 (standard definition) and 1074 (HD). Those interested in reading the booklet can find it at the town library or contact Scherpa at lscherpa@comcast.net.