WEST SEATTLE HIGH SCHOOL


After each Club meeting of the year, we'll publish news stories and other items of interest here.  We welcome stories, anecdotes, jokes, athletic photos, and other appropriate content you may wish to send us or suggest we prepare for our members.  Please contact Dick Sleight with your content, comments, or suggestions.  Thanks. 

February 2026

Our February 5th Monogram Club luncheon preceded Super Bowl LX by three days.  It was the ideal time to have the attendees guess the score of the pending game.  Folks recalled The Seattle Times Guest Guesser newspaper football prediction game many played "back in the day."

This year, club treasurer Don Conner was declared the prediction champ.  His total points guess of 43 just missed the actual 42.  And his guess of 16 for New England was closest to the surprisingly low Patriots score, thus breaking a tie for the win. 

Let's hope our Seattle Seahawks repeat in 2027 when we play this game again.

December 2025

From the"Say it ain't so" Department

It is often our custom to sing the West Seattle High School Alma Mater at the conclusion of our quarterly meetings.  But this month we discovered that somewhere between 1973 and 1984, students stopped learning "our song."   It occurred to us to look up the lyrics via Google Search.  What we discovered was shocking!

When “West Seattle High School alma mater song lyrics” was typed into Google, we got this answer from Google AI.  (And we got a different answer each time we asked the same question.)  The lyrics of the West Seattle High School alma mater are: "Hail to our Alma Mater, Fight on Seahawks Fight!"  This is sung with the Chief Sealth fight song lyrics . . .   The school's mascot is the Seahawks and its colors are red, blue, and white."  Off to the right side of this egregious result was the West Seattle Wildcats shield logo.

It was unanimously decided at our December 4th luncheon to right this wrong.  With that goal in mind, our Alma Mater lyrics have been added to the Internet, and multiple links to it have been added to help Google learn the proud truth.  Let's see how long it takes Google to notice their blatant error!

Snowbirds Check In
 
Jerry Lawrence, a proud "Indian" from the class of '56, checked in.  A three-year letterman in baseball and two in football, Jerry spends May through October on Camano Island.  The rest of the year, he hails from Yuma, Arizona. 

While it's not Arizona, Christy (Young) Rowe, '72, lives in the South Sound area and was good enough to say hi.

NFL Trivia

On a recent Brock and Salk radio program on Seattle Sports 710 AM, guest Mark Schlereth remarked, "Their quarterback couldn't play dead in a Western!"  He was referring to undrafted rookie Vikings quarterback Max Brosmer.  (The Seahawks shut out the Vikings 26-0 on November 30th.)  But where did that prime word play originate?

This was first said by DeAngelo Williams, outspoken Pittsburgh Steelers running back, of Peyton Manning, who he said "couldn't play dead in a Western" in 2015, his final season.

Indeed, Manning's stat line for that year was 2249 yards, 9 touchdowns against 17 interceptions in nine games.  Yet he still led Denver to the Super Bowl.  In Super Bowl 50, Denver defeated Cam Newton's Carolina Panthers 24-10.

 

October 2025

West Seattle Golf Goes Back-to-Back

Monogram Club member Mike Kemppainnen shared this sports news item. 

The West Seattle varsity Golf team won the Metro League Championship in both 1965 and 1966.

Sixty years later, Mike is still an excellent golfer.


Club President Sleight had to Choose

Randy excelled at every sport he tried.  Although he switched to Tennis in his junior year, he played JV baseball as a sophomore.  In the Colt league, he batted .441.  (Click on the images below to enlarge them.)

Randy won the regional FORD Punt, Pass, and Kick competition in multiple years and was on track to become the kicker for the Indians, but when a coach insisted he take hits in practice, he wisely switched to Cross Country in 1968 and was elected XC captain of the first WSHS XC team to win the Metro League Southern Division Championship in 1970.