Fame (Prompt #3)

By Steve Gallup

Some time during the week of May 22, 1980, I found out I had been accepted to become a member of the first class of the NC School of Science and Mathematics. It was less than a week after my 16th birthday.  Best birthday ever!

Later that summer, before classes began, I was contacted by a reporter from The Raleigh Times, an afternoon regional daily paper, serving primarily the citizens of Wake County.  The reporter, Mary Burch, wanted to interview me about my admission to the School of Science and Math.  Naturally, I agreed.

So Ms. Burch came by my house and brought a photographer.  It was a pleasant, sunny day, so we talked outside, where the photographer could get a few shots.  I spent a long time answering the interview questions.  At least, it seemed like a long time.  A day or two later the story came out on the front page of the paper.  It was the lead story; right below the banner.  There are five head shots of rising 11th grade students, including a picture of me right smack dab in the middle.  The headline read, "Science-Math Hi -- Wake has five in cream of crop".

This was my 15 minutes of fame!

From my wide ranging interview (which I like to imagine was full of wit and wisdom), the writer took the following quote, and the layout editor put it in a caption right beneath my grainy black and white picture: 'I think it's a real honor to be chosen, because if you knew the other people going, they're such good students' -- Steven Gallup, from Broughton.  

Ugh!  What a horrible quote.  What a horrible picture.  If this is what fame looks like, I don't want it anymore.

But we all became a little more famous that summer; the summer of 1980.  We became members of the first class of the widely anticipated public residential high school for gifted students in North Carolina.

I don't really remember much about that summer; but I do remember watching an unheralded film about another group of high school students, coming from dissimilar backgrounds to apply for and attend a specialized high school in Manhattan.  Although the storyline was fictional, the high school was real. These students were from New York City; and the school was the High School of Performing Arts at 120 West 46th street. The movie was "Fame"; and it was released across the country on June 20th, 1980.

Here is the Wikipedia description of the characters, as they are introduced during auditions for the school, at the beginning of the film:

"Accepted in the Drama department are Montgomery MacNeil, son of a well-known actress; Doris Finsecker, a shy Jewish girl with an overbearing mother; and Ralph Garci, who succeeds after failed auditions for Music and Dance. In the Music department, Bruno Martelli is an aspiring keyboardist whose electronic equipment horrifies Mr. Shorofsky, a conservative music teacher. In the Dance department, Coco Hernandez coolly hints at how she could join any of the three departments while Lisa Monroe is talkative and nervous. Leroy Johnson attends to perform his part of a dance routine for an auditioning friend, but the dance teachers are more impressed by his talents than his friend's."

As the plot unfolds, the students advance from year to year in their education and in the daily struggles of their lives.  Montgomery discusses his homosexuality and comes out to his classmates.  Doris overcomes shyness and blossoms, away from the hovering of her helicopter mother.  Ralph experiences the highs and lows of life on stage, while also dealing with an attack on his little sister (and the magical thinking of his mother).  Coco finds herself unwillingly undressing on camera for an amateur film maker's "screen test".  And Leroy is dealing with illiteracy that could spoil his chances for graduation and future success.

The stories in the movie are actually deep, frightening, complex, and messy.  For every jubilant and spontaneous "Hot Lunch Jam"; there is a moody and sobering "Dogs in the Yard".  The songs that accompany the action, span a range of emotions.  One of them, "Out Here on My Own" was sung at the talent show held on the campus of NCSSM, later that fall.  I think we could all identify with the struggles and the stress of the characters in the movie, even though we were only beginning our own transformative journeys.

In the movie finale, all the characters come together for an end of the year performance of  "I sing the body electric", a song based on the poem by Walt Whitman.  In the scene, parents and faculty look on, in a supportive body, as students from all branches of the school rise to sing enthusiastically:

"I sing the body electric

I celebrate the me yet come

I toast to my own reunion

When I become one with the sun"

That part always makes me cry. 

The full article:

{Raleigh Times - Monday, September 1, 1980; "Science-Math Hi; Wake has five in cream of the crop" - by Mary Burch; Times staff writer}