For the past couple of years, several of us Academy Alumni have been working on recovering and restoring the history of Academy ISD and its predecessor schools that were consolidated into Academy ISD.  

 

Several of you have shared scanned photos, articles, helped identify students/teachers/coaches in the photos and as you’ll see in the attached link, we have accumulated quite a bit of information.  Of course, there are errors in some of these, and should you recognize an error or errors, I will appreciate you emailing me the correct information along with the full title on the photo or month/day/year that will enable me to find and correct the error(s).  After I correct the error(s), I will update the iCloud Photo Sharing Link which you can open/view/print, or share the iCloud Photo Sharing Link with anyone simply by forwarding it via email, text, and probably adding to Social Media. 

 

There are 280 photos/articles/maps, and history of all of the schools that is now Academy ISD.  The link is organized primarily by the oldest month/day/year to the latest month/day/year.  There is a lot of history recovered; however, there is hopefully much more history than can be shared and your assistance in emailing me scanned photos, articles, etc will be appreciated as I will incorporate them into the iCloud Photo Sharing Link for everyone to view, print, or share with others who are interested in learning more about Academy history.

 

The link starts in the late 1800s and basically stops with graduating year 1966.  The first Academy yearbook was done by members of my 1963 graduating class and you’ll notice there is a lot of information for years 1961 through 1966 as I grew up with those students.  

 

There are few photos of years after 1966; however, this has turned into a fairly large project and my primary focus will be to continue securing and updating information for years 1966 and prior.  Should anyone wish to take on similar work for years 1967 through present years, that would be wonderful.  I just cannot take on that additional work

 

A couple of interesting inclusions in the link is scanned copies of a publication called The Bee Hive which was done by students in the mid 50s for about 3 years.  Not necessarily in exact sequence and some bit difficult to read.

 

The other highlight is Academy football teams 25 game winning streak 1960/61/62 with sheet having all games/scores along with most all articles pre and post game from Temple Daily Tekegram. 

 

Thanks to attendees at the 2024 Academy reunion on April 28 sharing their email addresses as you will be receiving all emails I send out pertaining to news I share with Academy Alumni.  If you know of any Alumni who are not in my group email list that are interested in receiving my emails, you can email me their email address or have them email me directly.    As information, I only send group emails as blind carbon copy (bcc) and never share anyone email address/contact information without their approval.

 

A few years ago, there was an Academy Alumni who made presentation about our Bumblebee history and he did an excellent job.  If you recall who made that presentation, I would appreciate you letting him know I’d like to visit with him.  Thanks

 

 

To view/print/download any or all information in the iCloud Photo Sharing Link, just click on the link below and your screen will have some photos on it.  Click on the Bumblebee and you will then have the option of clicking on the > to move to the right or click on the < to go backward.  As mentioned, you can do anything you wish with the information contained in the link.

 

One last thing, please help dig up more group photos and other history news of Academy schools (1966 and prior years), email me and I will incorporate it into the link for all to have.

 

Thanks again to all who have and all those who will help uncover more Academy Bumblebee history.

 

Richard Lesikar - Class of 1963