The poster laminated on the wall by the door of what was once Carmichaels High School Library is a loving salute to Dolores and Paul Lavins. This dynamic duo from the class of 1949 made it back to their alma mater on June 10, 2021 for the renaming of Lavins Media Center, a place of “learning that will change the world.”
School media was there to record the moment as Media Specialist Cassie Menhart and Superintendent Fred Morecraft helped the Lavins pull the curtain on the new signage above the doors as a crowd of well-wishers applauded.
Step inside Lavins Media Center today and the world of change that learning offers is on full display. Check out the islands of books and media platforms, study stations, aviation flight simulators and gaming niches, the stock market ticking away above a school store stocked with student designed and manufactured shirts, mugs, yearbooks and whatnots. A snack bar in one corner that accepts both cash and tokens earned for achievement gives Cassie Menhart the petty cash for day-to-day fun stuff. “We just got a massage chair students can use – a dollar for two minutes!” she tells me. The walls are freshly wrapped with images from every yearbook since 1923 – a shout out to all things Mighty Mike.
The photos on the poster in the hall of Cumberland High School seniors Paul Lavins and Dolores Jazwa are taken from the 1949 Cumberlander yearbook that Cassie loaned me for this story.
We did a hand off behind the school – “make a left by Dairy Queen I’ll be in a gray truck!” – and I drove home for an evening of time travelling, back to the post-World War II years of saddle shoes, penny loafers and glistening coiffed hair on nearly every guy. Change was in the air, the rock and roll 1950s were about to crash the scene and these bright eyed “Forty Niners” were ready for it. They were leaving a world of proms, football games, cheerleading and school clubs for the real world, armed with the skills they’d learned in school about teamwork, leadership, cooperation and thinking outside the box.
But first a moment to reflect – and do some bragging. There are no prom photos in the yearbook – it would happen after publication and promised to be the highlight of the year. But the sports scores were in and the Mikes were judged the “best high school football team in Pennsylvania, unbeaten and untied through a grueling schedule of eight games” against Masontown, East Bethlehem, Scottdale, Mapletown, Point Marion, Jefferson, Waynesburg and Brownsville. Senior John Katusa was voted “most valuable player in Greene County in 1948.”
I track down Dolores Jean Jazwa – a self-described coal miner’s daughter – in the senior photos. Her head is tilted, she smiles, her eyes direct and aware. Nickname Jazz. “Jazz is happy and full of fun. With a pleasant smile for everyone.” Girls “C” (sports) Club. Library Council treasurer. Yearbook staff. Gym Program. Career path: Commercial.
This is the first year the school had a full time librarian the yearbook staff noted. “We are very grateful to have Mrs. Crago for now it makes it possible to use our library any time during the day.”
The high-tech tools of 1949 were typewriters, big square cameras and microphones, and kids were making yearbooks and broadcasting sports events. The Student Council supervised school elections, football victory celebrations and were successful in lobbying for more mirrors in “both boys and girls lavatories.” The history club voted to study local history for a better understanding of “our American heritage” and the photography club sold photo postcards to raise money for darkroom equipment. The Classical League was studying Latin and Greek and the Future Craftsmen of America took a field trip to Pittsburgh to “see one of the major newspapers in production.”
Paul N. Lavins – Nickname Tojo, from Rices Landing. Career path: General. “He’s not so studious, not so bad. But what would we do without this lad.” Athletic Manager. Baseball. Basketball. Football. Track. Varsity “C” Club. His gaze is thoughtful, just as direct as Jazz, his smile just a hint at the corners. It’s a face that makes you wonder what this kid will be doing next.
Tojo isn’t listed as the senior most likely to succeed; Academic Bill “Cowboy” Doody is. In the Seniors Last Will and Testament, Jazz “leaves her flirtatious ways to James Vargo” and Paul Lavins “Just leaves.” When Class Prophecy peered into the flames on a “dark and stormy two in the afternoon”, it is revealed “Delores Jazwa and her Nemacolin Six have just taken state championship in Basketball with the help of their coach, Wally.”
Staring deeper into the flame, Propacy quipped, “Paul Lavins has lost his love for dogs after becoming bankrupt raising them. Cries he ‘Everything has gone to the dogs.’”
Later, when the neighborhood schools in Cumberland Township, Nemacolin and Crucible were consolidated into Carmichaels School District, Paul and Delores Lavins were married and busy changing the world that would come full circle with the scholarship fund for Carmichaels grads that they would set up in 1999. The Paul and Delores Jazwa Lavins Scholarship Fund has awarded two $20,000 scholarships a year to help defray the cost of post-secondary education since 2000.
Confounding the prophesy of bankruptcy, Paul Lavins served in the Korean War, graduated Youngstown University with a degree in electrical engineering then founded and operated American Induction Heating Corporation that sold its state of the art equipment worldwide. Lavins then co-founded Enercon Industries Corporation, now listed online as “a multi-discipline engineering and environmental firm focused on…partnering with our clients to support the safe and efficient production, delivery and use of energy.”
It would be international fly-fishing that replaced love of dogs when Lavins retired. For Delores Jean Jazwa “Jazz” Lavins, that dream of a championship basketball team would waken into a life of passion for grandkids, the arts and a love of dancing.
For the seniors of Carmichaels High School, a peek back into the 1949 Cumberlander offers some timely advice:
“When they’re gone, they’re gone forever
Time that’s passed will ne’er return
So there’s no time but the present
For the things which we must learn.”