My grandpa, Steven Flanders, was in the eighth senior class at Sahuaro High School. He would have graduated in the class of 1976 if the principal at the time didn’t expel him. Despite being kicked out and forced to transfer schools, my grandfather loves Sahuaro and tells me all the time about what it was like to go to Sahuaro in the 70s.

In the first years of Sahuaro’s opening, it was an unwritten rule that boys had cut groomed hair and girls had modest skirts and pant lengths. As my grandfather said, “hippies and rockers” were not treated nicely by staff members. “The principal really didn’t like me because I wouldn’t cut my hair; he only liked the jocks and nerds,” he said.

At the end of his senior year, his family moved from the Sahauro to the Sabino jurisdiction. At the time, open enrollment wasn’t a thing, and moving out of a school district meant you had to move schools no matter what time it was in the school year. His parents never reported the move to a new jurisdiction because there was only half a semester of the school year left. However, his neighbor was his biology teacher who was quick to report to the principal that the Flanders family had just moved into Sabino’s district. This meant that my grandfather was kicked out and received his diploma from Sabino High School, though he refused to walk because, “I didn’t even want to go to school, because I was not a Sabino kid!”

Besides the dress code, sports were also very different. In my grandfather’s freshman year, he was on the wrestling team. Back then mouthguards were not something that was required for anyone. The only athletes required to wear anything in their mouth were people with braces, who had to wear wax on top. “The coach would rub his fist against my mouth to see if I was bleeding. If I was, then there wasn’t enough wax.” This was apparently a common protocol for sports teams at the time.

Sahuaro has been around for over 50 years and is constantly changing. Rules and regulations change with the times. Even though my grandfather didn’t get to graduate from Sahuaro, he still loves our school. He has countless memories and friends he kept from Sahauro: old band members, athletes, and friends he’s kept for years. His older sister went to Sahuaro and can say the same – our school is on top.