Freehold class of '56 to reunite

FREEHOLD - Fifty years ago the newly created Freehold Regional High School District was experiencing growing pains.

In 1956, the 2-year-old regional high school district had only one school, the then 30-year-old Freehold High School at the corner of Robertsville Road and Broadway. The enrollment in that building had grown to the point where the district was forced to operate with split sessions for its students, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, according to Sally A. Dalik, who graduated that year.

"Nevertheless, those were happy days in which to go to school and grow up," said Dalik, of Schiverea Avenue. "The split sessions meant we were separated from friends we had gone to school with for many years."

There were 182 students in the Freehold Regional class of 1956 and now a group of people from that class are planning a 50th anniversary reunion to be held on Nov. 11 at the Freehold Gardens hotel, Freehold Township, Dalik said.

Dalik, 68, and her husband, Richard, both graduated in 1956. They married three years after graduation.

Actually, the split sessions allowed Dalik to enter the work force while she was still a senior in high school, she said.

"I went to school during the morning and worked in an office during the afternoon," she said. "I got a job in the office of a young local attorney, Ken Smith, and worked for him for 40 years, off and on, before I retired."

Richard Dalik, who went to work for a local lumber company after graduation, eventually authored a book on the history of Englishtown and Manalapan.

According to Sally Dalik, the Nov. 11 event will be the first time a reunion is being held solely for 1956 graduates.

"We have been getting together every five years for the last 20 or 25 years," she said, "but we have combined with the classes of 1957 and 1958 for these events."

While the class has split up with members going their individual ways, "About a dozen or so of us girls have kept in touch and we thought it would be good idea if we tried to get as many of our members together as possible to celebrate our 50th anniversary," Dalik said.

Any member of the 1956 graduating class who wishes to attend the reunion at the Freehold Gardens should contact Sally Dalik at (732) 462-4947 for more informa-tion.

Dalik said Al Jakelis, who became a vice principal at Freehold High School, was a classmate in 1956.

She recalled that Walt Zuber, who later became an FRHSD administrator, was a history teacher at the school at the time.

"He was one of our favorite teachers in those days," she said. "We have been in contact with him."

She said organizers of the reunion have been in contact with the class vice president, Jack Scott, who lives in Virginia.

"We have been working on this reunion for more than six weeks and have contacted more than 50 members of the class," Dalik said. "We hope that we will be able to reach many more. We had so much fun together in the old days. It will be good to get together with old classmates and recall those days."