While walking down Main Street the other day, I passed by one of the city’s cornerstones and it fired up some 40-year-old memories. I’m talking about 131 West Main Street, which since 1992 has been occupied by Bridgeport Fire Department. But prior to that time, the building housed Bridgeport City Hall, sandwiched right between the fire station and Bridgeport Bank. 

 

During the 1977-1978 school year, I spent a lot of time there. I was a senior at Bridgeport High School. I was involved in a few organizations, but with my afro-wearing boyfriend having just graduated, I had a little extra time. I decided it might be a good idea to get a better handle on a future career by getting some work experience.

 

I had previously taken typing and shorthand from the dynamic duo Carolyn Burnett and Kris Stanton, respectively, and had already claimed a future in the clerical field. So when scheduling for my senior year, I signed up for distributive education – a vocational marketing/sales program in which schools worked with employers to provide students on-the-job training.  The class was being taught by brand new BHS faculty member Mary Kay Maxwell, who would go on to become an iconic member of the staff. She also became one of my favorite teachers, helping me take what I learned on-the-job, evaluate that experience and decide if that was the career path I wanted to take.  My fellow DECA students and I all became members of the Distributive Education Clubs of America “DECA” and we had our own little chapter at BHS.

I was placed at the City of Bridgeport where City Manager Bill Spears and the rest of the gang took me under their wing to teach me the roles of city business - at least as much as a 17-year-old needed to know. I did a little secretarial work and a little bookkeeping and as it was the pre-computer age, we’re talking electric typewriters, carbon paper, adding machines and actual accounting ledgers. But perhaps most importantly, I got to know all the awesome people who then made up “City Hall.” Besides Mayor Jack Hodge, Bill Spears and Finance Director Keith Boggs, it was Debbie Kinney, Norma Duez and Judy Lawson who gave me my first glimpse into a professional office setting and behind-the-scenes look at the city where I had grown up with and loved being part of.  

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Mrs. Maxwell (pictured right) was part of BHS faculty for many years. Twenty years after I graduated, our daughters cheered together for the Bridgeport Indians. And almost 40 years after my high school graduation, DECA – now under the direction of my friend and Connect-Bridgeport freelance writer Trina Runner – is still going strong as Trina helps prepare students for their future vocations. As for City Hall, it moved to Thompson Drive, in an office complex past Gabriel Brothers in 1992 and then in 2002 moved into its present space on West Main Street in the former Rish Equipment Company building. From a handful of employees, the municipal office now employs a couple dozen. Roll on Bridgeport, roll on.

Julie Perine can be reached at 304-848-7200, julie@connect-bridgeport or follow @JuliePerine on Twitter. More "It's Happening" HERE.

 

Circa. 1977-1978, pictured are BHS students Don Babuschak, Kim McGinnis and Carl Furbee with Mayor Jack Hodge outside "old City Hall" at 131 West Main Street. Pictures of this era are welcome and appreciated. Please send to julie@connect-bridgeport.com. Thank you.