Broward County School lunches: then, now and WOW

FLHS 2022, a retro look

 

By Jane Feehan

Many at Fort Lauderdale High and other Broward County schools during the 1960s and 70s turned up their noses at cafeteria food. So, students often lunched at nearby burger joints. Menus have changed since then. Below are menu items from 1970 and 1974 followed by choices offered in 2022. 

1970 Lunch Items

Fish squares, tater tots, broccoli

Hot dog on a bun, hamburger on a bun (both steamed)

Egg salad sandwich with kidney bean salad and potato chips

Salisbury steak with rice

Ham and cheese sandwich

Mashed potatoes, buttered carrots, lettuce and tomato salad

Chocolate cake and ice cream

 

1974 Lunch Items

Meat Loaf

Turkey Sandwich

Sloppy Joe

Chicken Chop Suey

Baked Ham

Beef Stew

Peas, tossed salad, cabbage slaw

Applesauce, yellow cake, chocolate pudding

 

2022 Lunch Items

Cherry Blossom Chicken

Vegan Lentil Pasta

Asian Kale Chicken Salad  

Yogurt cup and cheese stick

Brown rice, wheat roll

Steamed edamame

Combo sub

Fresh Zucchini and Yellow Squash Salad

Pepperoni pizza

Pineapple tidbits or fresh fruits

Prices: As far back as I can remember, lunches were 35 cents at FLHS (different prices at some schools). Today, lunches for FLHS high school run $2.50. 

Broward County Schools now provides breakfasts with a choice of eggs, sausage, pancakes, waffles and cereals. Menus for those with allergies or other special needs are available in several languages. For all current choices for all meals, see: https://www.browardschools.com/me . Schools are presented at different tiles at this site. For the Fort Lauderdale High School menu, see: https://schools.mealviewer.com/school/FortLauderdaleHigh. Would high school students still scorn school lunches or prefer to dine off campus?  

Tags: Broward County School menus, Fort Lauderdale High School cafeteria, Fort Lauderdale history, cafeteria food, Vroward County history

Fort Lauderdale High School known as Flying Ls 1918

 

Fort Lauderdale Herald, Apr. 21, 1922

Bottom row: Students Burwall, Baker, Marsha II, Matthews, Johnson

Top row: Stuart, Clinton, Gordon, Dichtenmueller and Coach Prescott

Fort Lauderdale High, founded in 1915, became known as the "Flying Ls"  when its track team uniforms first displayed the name in 1918. The photo above is from the Fort Lauderdale Herald in 1922 when Flying Ls regularly earned front page coverage. The school retains its 1918 moniker today.

For more on Fort Lauderdale High School and how they got the name, Flying Ls, see:

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/10/fort-lauderdale-flying-ls-fun-facts-and.html

First WWII Medal of Honor awarded Fort Lauderdale grad who made the most of his opportunities.

By Jane Feehan

 Lt. Alexander (Sandy) Nininger, Jr., a graduate of Fort Lauderdale High School (1937) and West Point (1941), was killed in action January 12, 1942 on Bataan, a little more than six weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack. 

For his valor in attempting to thwart a Japanese assault, Nininger was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the  first of World War II. Nininger was laid to rest in a church cemetery at Abucai, Province of Bataan, the Philippines.

Nininger had been an honor student and star football player at Fort Lauderdale High. His father, Alexander R. Nininger, Sr., a manager at a Lake Worth theater, said Sandy decided when he was 11 years old that he wanted to attend West Point.

"He never quit anything he started," said Nininger, Sr. while  awaiting the medal to be posthumously awarded in 1942. It was an honor recommended by Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Sandy was invited to a Rotary Club meeting in Fort Lauderdale months before he died. There, he explained he volunteered for service in the Philippines because it offered "the best opportunity for an officer eager for action and hard work."

He also volunteered for the battle that ended his life. His body was found well within Japanese lines with those of a Japanese officer and two enemy soldiers. He had been wounded three times.

Among many tributes was the naming of a drive off Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale to the War Memorial Auditorium as “Sandy Nininger Drive,” and the establishment by the Kiwanis Club of the "Sandy Nininger Medal" to honor high school students who have made the most of their opportunities. 

Official site of the Congressional Medal of Honor: www.cmohs.org

Read these links about his burial controversy:

 http://bataanmissing.com/2020/05/05/medal-of-honor-goes-mia/

https://www.stripes.com/news/family-suing-for-dna-testing-of-possible-remains-of-wwii-medal-of-honor-recipient-1.470367

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 29, 1942

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan 30, 1942

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia (2004).

Weidling, Philip J. , Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, history of Fort Lauderdale,  Medal of Honor, WWII in Florida, WW2 history, Fort Lauderdale World War II

Fort Lauderdale High Flying L's: Fun facts and notables through the years

FLHS 2022, a retro look

By Jane Feehan

The cornerstone of Fort Lauderdale High School, known first as Fort Lauderdale Central, was laid in 1915 on land donated by the pioneer Stranahan family. A Mediterranean Revival structure designed by Miami architect August Geiger, the school drew students from Pompano Beach, Davie and all the unnamed rural areas that are named municipalities in Broward County today.

More interesting facts:

Track team uniforms of 1918 served as inspiration for the school’s student body nickname, the 

Flying L's. Uniforms with the Flying L logo were provided free to students beginning in 1922. In 1934, during one year of the Great Depression, there were only 16 members of the graduating class. Times were so tough that they were unable to publish a yearbook. 

During World War II, diplomas were given to male students who completed one semester and enlisted in the military. 

The school band, before Castro took over Cuba in 1959, made yearly trips by boat to Havana (see photo at right from a 1948 yearbook). The school building closed in 1962 and relocated to the current site on NE Fourth Avenue. The Class of 1962 laid a commemorative plaque at the old site, now the site of a bank.

Notable graduates:

C.M. Newton, former athletic director of the University of Kentucky; 
Sandy Nininger, the first soldier of World War II awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor; 
Rita Mae Brown, author and women’s rights activist; 
Peter T. Fay, senior judge of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta 



Sources: 
Sun-Sentinel. Telling Tales Out of School by Jane Feehan. April 11, 2004
Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia (2004). 
For more information about Fort Lauderdale, visit: www.oldfortlauderdale.org


Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Florida in the early 1900s, Fort Lauderdale High School history

"A magnificent event": thousands at opening of Fort Lauderdale High School, 1915

FLHS circa 1940s

By Jane Feehan

The opening of Fort Lauderdale Central High School* on Sept. 17, 1915 was a big deal. So much so, keynoter Governor Park Trammell told his audience dressed in holiday garb he would forego political chat for the day in honor of its dedication.

It was reported thousands came on horse, mule and foot from near and far to participate in opening ceremonies, a “magnificent event,” which included the raising of a flag to the roof of the school, a speech by the governor, patriotic music and a roster of city notables. Many local businesses closed for all or part of the day. A parade commenced at 2:30 p.m. from the “city square” to the school built on property donated by the Stranahan family.

The Patriotic Order of Sons of America took place of honor at attention by the entrance and inside a large room decorated with flags for the event. Also on hand was presenter Col. Robert J. Reed, president of the city’s Board of Trade, Rev. Dr. Usleman from the M.E. Church, James Rickards, principal of the high school, the Fort Lauderdale Woman’s Club, retiring County School Superintendent R.E. Hall and the man to follow him, James Holding.

In his dedication speech, Gov. Trammell said “today may well be recorded in the annals of Fort Lauderdale … a live and wide-awake town.” In a patriotic setting punctuated with martial music, Principal James Rickards pledged students would be true to the principles of the flag. “I pray with you that war may never descend upon us, for peace has done as much for the flag as has the bloody battlefield … boys and girls of the school will be patriots in war as in peace.”

Festivities, including music and singing continued into night in anticipation of the doors opening three days later. Enrollment at opening was reported at about 75. By January 1916, the end of the school’s first semester, music could be heard, courtesy of its new choral group, throughout the new $50,000 building.** Also, the newly chartered Literary Society established its debate club, a collection of the “efficiently speaking.” The close of that month marked the end of the first 16-week semester and the first final exams of Fort Lauderdale Central High School.

Broward County had been established April 30 that year and Fort Lauderdale was, indeed,to quote the governor, “a wide-awake town.”

*Later named Fort Lauderdale High School

** Original building demolished 1970. Fort Lauderdale High School relocated to NE 4^th Avenue in the 1960s

Sources:

Miami Metropolis, Sept. 17, 1915

Miami Metropolis, Jan. 21, 1916

Tags: history of Fort Lauderdale High School. Fort Lauderdale history, Broward County history, Florida history, Jane Feehan