Crimson Eagles' Blood Runs Through Family as 50-Year Reunion Approaches for Class of 1960 Product

Allan Shumofsky was a pioneer at Andrew Warde High School in more ways than one. He was the first of three siblings to attend the sparkling new high school on Melville Avenue as a freshman when it opened in 1956, and he was a member of the first class to attend all four years at Warde.

His sisters, Mady (Class of 1963) and Laura (1969), and his daughters, Julie (1985) and Nina (1986), also attended Warde. In fact, Shumofsky pointed out that "of the 30 Flame yearbooks (from) 1957 to 1986, my sisters and daughters edited a total of five of them." Naturally, he is looking forward to his 50-year reunion next month.

"It wasn’t particularly important at the time," admitted Shumofsky about being a pioneer at Warde, "but became more so when my younger daughter graduated with the (next-to-last) class to graduate from Andrew Warde, prior to its becoming Fairfield High School."

Shumofsky, a lifelong Fairfield resident who was a manager for the Crimson Eagles' soccer team for all four years in high school, is looking forward to his 50-year reunion at the Heritage Hotel in Southbury, Connecticut, on Saturday, June 12. He vividly recalled the high school's early days.

"It was interesting to be pioneers in a building still under construction," wrote Shumofsky, who earned a degree in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University. "When we started, there was no gym, library, or cafeteria kitchen. There were no clocks or bells. The gym teachers went into the halls and blew whistles to signal the change of classes."

Shumofsky, who managed the track team for two years and was part of the drama group for three years, was impressed with the school in its early days. "As we matured, so did the school as an institution. We finally achieved accreditation and then were visited by a Harvard dean (I believe) writing about high schools," he wrote.

"When he published his findings, we found out that, in his opinions, Andrew Warde was one of the best schools in the country. When I went to college, I found myself well prepared, much better than many of my classmates."

The success of the 1959 Crimson Eagles' football team has been well-documented in this corner over the last year, but it was a defining achievement for the Class of 1960.

"Having the undefeated football team in our senior year was another important milestone in the maturity of the institution, made more meaningful to me as I had Coach Russ Dobelstein as a math teacher at the time," wrote Shumofsky, pictured in the soccer team photo below. "He was only one of several teachers from my Fairfield public education that I still remember with great affection (frequently more affection now than at the time)."

Warde was truly a neighborhood school for Shumofsky and his siblings, which enabled them to take part in many after-school activities and fostered a sense of community for his family. "My family moved from the Gould Manor area to a new home right behind Warde while I was a freshman," he told me. "First me, then my younger sisters could 'roll out of bed' into school every day, which made participation in activities very easy.

"My daughters started school at North Stratfield and soon discovered that their principal, Peg Nemec, knew their father as she had been my 7th & 8th grade social studies teacher at Grasmere School. They frequently were taught by teachers who had taught their father or their aunts, or were my, or my sisters’, classmates."

Shumofsky also worked when he was in high school. He was employed in the family business, the Bamby Baking Company in Bridgeport. "Though I continued part time at Bamby, I worked for three years at Avco Lycoming in the late 1960s until I returned to Bamby full time," he said. "I remained there until it closed in 1983."

He eventually returned to school a generation after graduating from Warde and received an MBA from the University of Bridgeport in 1985. Shumofsky has been practicing public accounting ever since, first in Darien, and currently with Reich, Schweitzer & Weiss in Bridgeport, just a few blocks from where Bamby had been located.

Naturally, Shumofsky is eagerly looking forward to the reunion. "I am curious to see who will be there and how we have changed. There were many years when I did not think that many of my classmates were still around the area," he wrote.

"However, after about 20 years, as we matured and started 'making names' for ourselves, I started to see familiar names in the newspaper and realized that more classmates were in the area than I had realized."

How has Fairfield changed since he was a student at Andrew Warde High School a half-century ago? Shumofsky feels there is less 'community,' and that's not good, in his opinion. "We do not send our children down the street to the park to play unsupervised," he wrote. "Everything must be organized and supervised."

Shumofsky added, "Children cannot go to the corner to catch the school bus. They must be picked up and dropped off nearer the house so that parents can watch all of the time. We cannot send our children – or walk ourselves - to a convenience store for milk. We almost always need to take the car. Some will see this a result of 'effective' zoning. We want convenience, but not 'next door.'"

Here's hoping that Shumofsky and his classmates have a wonderful 50-year reunion next month. Just think, next year his daughter will be attending her 25-year reunion from Andrew Warde High School.

Andrew Warde High School's Class of 1960 is planning its 50-year reunion, which will be held at the Heritage Hotel in Southbury, Connecticut, on Saturday, June 12. For more information, contact Peggy Quinn at 203-259-0956 or by email at pquinn2322@gmail.com or peggy.quinn@ge.com.

Paul