MONONGAH HIGH HAS ONLY ONE SWEET CAROLINE! NEIL'S DIAMOND

 

I attended a Neil Diamond concert at Blossom Music Center and the final song, “Sweet Caroline,” first introduced in 1969, was sung by Neil and the audience under the roof and on the lawn. That got me to thinking. Any sweet Caroline graduates from Monongah High? Plenty of sweet Carolina girls but that’s not the same thing.

So my research began for Sweet Carolines who graduated from Monongah High.

Lo and behold: Caroline Corbin Brown Suplita, Class of 1938. I even found of photo of her at the Class of 1938 honor class 50^th anniversary reunion in 1988!

Before “Sweet Caroline” showed up in 1969 so that’s not how she got her Caroline name.

Not the Caroline Corbin, Connecticut advocate for women’s voting right who, after chatting with Karl Marx’s daughter, Eleanor, became an opponent of women voting.

Jim McDaniel, Class of 1960, provided more information about Caroline Corbin Brown Suplita:

 

“The Corbins lived in Worthington. Father was a barber and Mom worked at Jones in Fairmont. House was beside the old Methodist church. Believe she had 4 children.”

In Class of 1938 photo for 50^th anniversary reunion in 1988:

Clarence Bradley, Jr.

Quintin Farrance

Thomas Ammons

Loretta Lee Malcolm

Caroline Corbin Brown Suplita

Helen Heltzel Hay

Doris Jean Menear Basnett

Nellie Demus Bailey

Julia Osco Shaver

Eva Mae Brown, class advisor

Wilma Louise Currey Johnson, Class of 1944, had a granddaughter named Caroline Johnson Hamilton, married to Carson Hamilton.

Another Caroline but not a Monongah High grad to my knowledge is Ursula Shipco’s daughter Caroline Shipco Kasper, mother of my best friend for 84 years till he passed away Bob “Satch” Kasper and the late Evelyn Kasper Boggess. Lawrence Kasper was Bob and Evelyn’s father.

Monongah High graduate Dave Carlot, son of Julie Carlot and Gene Loss Carlot, married a Caroline Pellillo. They lived in the house once occupied by Tony and Rose Tropea, who operated the Tropea Grocery next to Carlot’s Grill.

Susan Staron Sanders, Class of 1971, vacationed in marvelous Deep Creek Lake, Maryland (I’ve been there several times) with her cousin, Caroline Sparks, a Pentagon retiree living in Falls Church, Virginia.

Susan also persuaded Carolyn Tice, who moved to Monongah with husband Chuck Tice, to join her legendary Monongah Christmas Lights Committee that lights up Monongah every December holiday with huge street lights in various shapes from angels to my pearl in a seashell light next to my Church Street home.

Caroline McVicker Haught is a daughter of Pat Levelle, Class of 1971, and Cindy McVicker Levelle.

Clarice Oakes Hobbs, Class of 1920, Clarice Paxton Annan, Class of 1935, Clarice Riggs Phillips, Class of 1940, Carolyn Grubol Jackson, Class of 1943, Carolyn Conley Lawson, Class of 1949, who married Dr. Bill Lawson, also Class of 1949, Monongah’s drummer boy at MHS concerts, Carolyn Shaver and Carolyn Suplita Gearde, both Class of 1958, Carelyn Jean Satterfield, Class of 1962, Carolyn Elizabeth Caffee Roach, Class of 1964, Carolyn Sue Dalton, Carolyn Marie Prahl Mikulski and Carolyn Sue D’Amico, all Class of 1966, Carolyn Chenoweth Littleton, Class of 1976, came close phoenetically but not enough to make Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” list.