IC Class of ‘68 remembers 50 years ago

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. The escalation of the Vietnam War.

The year was 1968 and America was embroiled in turmoil and tragedy. It was a year of social change that would alter the course of history.

For 36 young adults living in Charles City 50 years ago, the future was bright — the outlook promising even amidst the uncertainty of a nation in upheaval.

Those soon–to–be graduates, comprising the last high school senior class of the Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Charles City, were eager to don their caps and gowns and grasp their diplomas.

But that would have to wait.

Just weeks before their scheduled graduation, Charles City experienced a tragedy of its own. A monster EF5 twister swept through the town on May 15 and leveled a significant part of the community, killing 13 people.

The IC Church sustained severe damage and was beyond repair. The classmates would not meet again until their graduation in the first week of June, which had been moved to the old middle school in town. The ceremony took place just days before the shocking assassination of Sen. Kennedy, a presidential hopeful at the time.

“The archdiocese had made the decision to close Immaculate Conception High School prior to the tornado. Some people believe that it was shut down because of the tornado,” said 1968 IC grad Frank Rottinghaus.

Rottinghaus, who will mark the 25–year anniversary of his tenure as Floyd County treasurer next month, joined about 15 of his fellow classmates over the weekend earlier this month to celebrate that historic IC Class of ’68.

They talked about old times, had chicken and pizza ordered in at the Sleep Inn after their scheduled meeting place of Party in the Park was postponed due to rain. They also gathered at the Pub on the Cedar on Saturday to socialize and reminisce about the strong bond shared through all these years.

“Most of us have remained close our entire life,” said Bill Kyle, a ‘68 IC grad who is president of Charles City Aeronautics, a business he took over from his father.

Jean Boley, field coordinator for Foster Grandparents in Charles City, remembers the chaotic time when the tornado struck Charles City and not seeing a lot of her classmates until the following month at graduation.

“It was the earliest that we ever got out of school,” said Boley. “They took over our school and made it a Red Cross station. That’s why we couldn’t go back there.”

One of Boley’s fondest memories of her time at IC — where she attended as a kindergartener all the way up until senior year of graduation — was showing her report card each year at the corner grocery store called Parkers. That would entitle any student a free bag of chips, a miniature loaf of bread and a popsicle.

That was quite a deal back in ‘68 – when gas was 34 cents a gallon and a postage stamp would only set you back six cents.

“You used to get bottles of milk for two cents. You’d take a dime to school and you’d have milk for the whole week,” Boley said.

Rottinghaus said after the IC High School closed, the school still maintained grades kindergarten through eighth grade. It wasn’t that long before the school scaled back to just K-six, which it still offers to this day.

Rottinghaus didn’t join IC School until 1961, his fifth-grade year.

He remembers the keynote speaker at the graduation, Ted Krieger, already having his speech written before the tornado rolled through town. Krieger’s house was one of the many homes that was destroyed by the powerful natural disaster. He then altered the speech in the aftermath and titled it “Gone with the Wind.”

Krieger died four years ago and is just one of three classmates who are no longer alive in the class.

“We won’t go another 50 years with only losing three,” said Rottinghaus.

Rottinghaus gave the prayer at the graduation ceremony. He mentioned in that prayer the work of Martin Luther King Jr. and the impact he had on the Civil Rights movement that was going on at the time.

One can’t mention 1968 without bringing up the Vietnam War and how it affected millions of lives in the world at the time.

That war took a major turn in the first month of 1968 when the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive — a surprise attack on Americans that tilted the war. Americans knew after Tet they might be in for a long, drawn-out battle in southeast Asia.

The United States implemented a lottery system the following year in December 1969 to select men for military service.

The higher the number received, the better the chance you wouldn’t get drafted.

Rottinghaus went to college at NIACC and received a deferment that year, which meant he couldn’t get drafted. His sophomore year of college he received his draft lottery number — 354.

“I won the lottery,” he said.

Kyle also received a deferment his first two years of college, but the number he drew was 125. Kyle was worried he might have to go fight overseas with that low number, but he did not pass a physical, which prevented him from being deployed.

Rottinghaus recalls a classmate of his at IC who didn’t graduate with his class of ‘68 but moved to Waterloo. He received the lowest number possible of 1 and was called to fight.

“He gave up his life in Vietnam,” said Rottinghaus.

Kyle, student council president his senior year at IC, was a lineman at the airport during the time the historic tornado touched down in Charles City. He would gas up the airplanes and flew people into town to find lost relatives in the days following the destruction.

He remembers the next morning after the tornado struck and the planes sitting on the ground of the airport from the three major television networks at the time — ABC, CBS and NBC.

Although Kyle said his childhood memories are good, he doesn’t have a lot of vivid memories from that time.

“It was life as it was then,” he said. “Charles City was a hard-working town. It was a really good place to grow up at that time.”