Mechanic Arts alumni fight to keep St. Paul high school's memory alive: 'It was a special place'

To many of the 120 or so former students and teachers who gathered Monday night, the best way to keep the name of their long-closed high school alive is by planting seeds for the future in its name.

In a packed banquet room at Mancini's Char House in St. Paul, graduates of the defunct Mechanic Arts High School continued their annual tradition of awarding scholarships and other grants benefiting St. Paul students and youth sports. Closed in 1976 and torn down a few years later, Mechanic Arts lives on thanks to the school's M Club.

"It's probably mostly a pride thing," Bobby Lyons, Class of 1963, said of the financial awards the club of former athletics letter-winners started giving graduates in the 1960s.

Said Sue Vogelgesang, Class of 1970: "There is a need, and we have the money — and this keeps our legacy alive."

Mechanic Arts graduated its first class in 1896, its last in 1976. For 80-plus years, the school focused mostly on teaching a trade to generations of students just blocks away from the State Capitol.

At a time when much of America was struggling with racial segregation and intolerance, Mechanic Arts' racially and economically diverse student body mostly co-existed peacefully, said John Brodrick, a former Mechanic Arts student, athlete, teacher and coach.

Brodrick swelled with pride Monday night as he extolled the school's history, noting that former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun and the late civil rights champion Roy Wilkins graduated from Mechanic Arts.

"It wasn't perfect. But I think it's very clear that something right happened at Mechanic Arts from the 1890s to 1976," said Brodrick, who went on serve on the St. Paul School Board.

"Mechanic Arts was the right school at the right time for the right kids with the right teachers for many, many years," he continued. "We got along … except when we were fighting."

Lyons, one of 11 kids in his family, remembers walking to the nearby YMCA to take weekly showers because his house had no bathtub or hot water. To outsiders, he said, Mechanic Arts had tough kids and a tough reputation — one its students didn't try to dispel.

"People used to say, 'You go to Mechanic Arts?'" he said. "And the comeback was 'Yeah, what about it?'"

For a time after the school's closure, its torchbearers held out hope that a new Mechanic Arts would someday rise from the rubble. When the St. Paul school district was getting ready to open what would become Arlington Senior High School in 1996, Mechanic Arts alumni lobbied the school board to give it their school's name and focus.

Instead, the school board named the new high school for the street on which it was built. Later, the building became Washington Technology Magnet School after Washington Junior High relocated there. That name had carried over from the former Washington High School on Rice Street.

Lyons said he still holds out hope that if St. Paul opens a new high school someday, Mechanic Arts will be reborn.

"It's so historic. I have a diploma of the very first graduate. She graduated 1896. There were three or four women and two guys who graduated," said Lyons, who joined the U.S. Army right after graduating and went on to a career as a machinist and millwright. "I think it was a starting point for a lot of people who wanted to get into the trades."

In the beginning, Lyons said $300 scholarships were given to any Mechanic Arts student who planned to continue their education after high school. On Monday, scholarships were awarded to Highland Park student Zhara Christopher and Como Park student Charles Power-Theisen. School district officials now choose the recipients.

In all, the M Club on Monday awarded $9,500, including $3,500 in grants to community organizations. It raises money through raffle ticket sales, a fall golf tournament and other fundraising, Lyons said.

Even if there will never be another Mechanic Arts, Vogelgesang said the M Club — of which she was the first female president — will keep giving. It's one way her school can live on, long after most of St. Paul will have forgotten.

"It was a special place," she said. "I don't know many people who look back on their high school years fondly. But most of us do."