1924 - 25
The Year
Cathedral High School had its first graduating class of 10 students, five girls and five boys. The inaugural graduation class included future Bishop Robert Dwyer, Louise Lawson, James O’Leary, Grace Rieley, William Friel, Marguerite O’Neill, Jack Cook, Bernice Pittman, Hazel Hefferon and Arthur Connole, who went to Regis College in Denver. The high school had 29 students overall.
When ground was broken for a new auditorium in 1986, one of the invited guests was Bernice Pittman, said then to be the oldest living Judge graduate. She told the Bulldog Press that “parents just paid what they could afford” to send their kids to Judge. “We had to fight for recognition as a Catholic school,” Pittman added, contending students were well disciplined, studied hard and behaved themselves at outside activities “so it would be known they were Catholics.”
Not that they were always saints. Pittman also recalled in a 1986 Salt Lake Tribune article how all 10 class members skipped school late in their senior year to party in Parleys Canyon and then hit a “nightclub” later on. They were chastised by the nuns, she recalled, “for setting a poor example for the rest of the school.” Pittman said the nuns provided individual attention to their students, offering “strict but kind instruction. ... They were just the most wonderful teachers.” Ellen Meehan Wood, Class of 1929, said she was prohibited from participating in school events for two months because she got caught skipping a class when a boy offered to buy her an ice cream cone. The nun branded her “boy crazy.”
Sports
A football team was formed as the school’s only sport. Still known as Cathedral High School, Judge finished third in its region, playing against Grantsville, Tooele, Bingham and Westminster High School. Players often had to make their own uniforms or use hand-me-down gear. “Poorly equipped as the teams were, the shortage in equipment and funds was balanced by spirit and overall individual effort to succeed,” wrote future Coach Frank Klekas in his 1967 University of Utah master’s thesis on sports at Judge Memorial. The football team won two, lost two and tied once, wins coming against Bingham and Westminster. Judge participated in a parochial championship football game against St. Joseph Catholic High School of Pocatello, and lost 12-0. Coached by Bob Gorlinski with help from Fr. Joseph Keefe, members of the first team were Dan Connole, Arthur Connole, William McDougall, Jack Cook, John O’Neill, John Fanning, Larry Riley, Joe Lynch, Bill Briel, Mel Condi, Tom Smith, John Doran, Joe Bircumshaw, Warren Paddock, Joe Birk and John Atkins. Runt Smith was the “yell leader.”
John Peake helped Gorlinski, coaching the freshmen and sophomores. Gorlinski graduated in 1919 from East High School, where he played football and basketball and ran track, and studied engineering at the University of Utah. Judge had 10 different head coaches, all volunteers, in its first seven years. Without a football field or basketball gym, teams practiced at Westminster College, East and West high schools, Municipal Park on 700 East and Cummings Field at the University of Utah.
