The Woodbury Page

Woodbury Avenue Elementary School

Woodbury Road at Soundview Road

Huntington, L. I., New York, USA

1923-1987

(Now easily accessible at www.woodburyavenue.org)

Welcome to the Woodbury Page, which is dedicated to the memory of a fine old educational institution, its faculty, staff and alumni. Although located on Woodbury "Road" in Huntington, our elementary school was called Woodbury "Avenue" School (or, "Woodbury Ave. Grade School", as inscribed on the cornice of the building). Woodbury was constructed in 1923-24, as reflected by the 1923 cornerstone date on the northeast corner of the building. It had classes from kindergarten through 8th grade from the 1924-25 school term until Robert K. Toaz Junior High School opened in 1939; thereafter, it had K through 6. (School photo taken by Laurie Lucey, Class of '71.)

Woodbury's first principal (1924-1926) was Miss Morris (Mrs. Albert Cantrell), followed by Donald Smith (1926-1930) and J. Taylor Finley (1930-1943), who later served as principal at Toaz Junior High, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, and Superintendent of Schools. The next to serve was John Black (1943-1951), who was followed in the job by J. Allen Matthews (1951-1962). Jack Abrams, a 6th grade teacher at Woodbury and the district science coordinator, assumed the principal's chair for three years (1962-1965) before teaching for a year in England as a Fulbright-Hays exchange teacher. Jack Whitney was a 6th grade teacher at Woodbury (1957-63), a social studies teacher at Toaz (1963-65), and principal at Woodbury (beginning 1965-66). Mr. Abrams subsequently administered the school until the conclusion of its final term as part of Huntington's Union Free School District #3 (1970-71).

Following the 1970-71 school year, the building was leased by Western Suffolk BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services), then known as BOCES III, from 1971 through 1973, as a pre-James E. Allen special education learning center. After BOCES moved the Woodbury Learning Center to the old South Huntington High School building on Walt Whitman Road in Huntington Station, the West Hills Baptist Church bought the building and set up the Huntington Christian School there from 1975 through 1986. After 64 years of service, the facility was finally demolished in 1987, and a townhouse development was built on the site.

(Historical overview courtesy David Jackson '78, Laurie Lucey '71, Joanne Ahern-Senk '70, Jack Abrams, and Huntington Union Free School District.)

 

 

Contributions are Welcome

Any photos, scannable memorabilia, movie clips, or sound recordings of the school building, playground events, plays, concerts, teachers, students, classroom activities or class portraits - from ANY class year - can be submitted for addition to the page. Just e-mail them to me as .jpg, .wmv, .mov, .mp3 or .rm attachments, or provide links to existing home pages or YouTube posts. (Class portraits especially needed from my own Class of '61 [HHS '67] are Mrs. Sherman's other half-day kindergarten class, Mrs. Read's first grade class, and a photo-quality picture of Mr. Whitney's 6th grade class.) And any help you can provide with respect to misspelled, missing or erroneous name identifications for any of the pictures, of any year, would be most welcome.


T e r r y V a l e n t i n e, Woodbury Class of '61 (HHS '67)
E-mail: t e r r y v 1 2 3 @ y a h o o . c o m

(Last updated on December 10, 2011 with a name identification for the Class of '62, courtesy of Charles Vogt '62.)

 

 

Class Photo Albums & Memorabilia Scrapbooks

 

 

 

 


Faculty and Staff


Movie and Sound Clips

Movie clips of Woodbury (and Huntington High) school activities, taken circa Fall/1967 on 8MM movie film by the late Emily Belle, first grade teacher, are now available, courtesy of her son, Bob Belle (HHS '68). They are edited into four separate movie clips, each with a choice of three media player options. Additionally, there is a 42-second sound clip (in MP3 and RealPlayer formats) of the infamous "Oscar Mayer Wiener" prank from the Huntington High School Class of '67 graduation ceremony. Also, Jeff Baker '59 has furnished a QuickTime movie clip from the August 2006 Woodbury alumni/staff reunion.

 

I also have an amateur recording of almost the entire HHS '67 graduation ceremony (complete with the "Oscar" prank), recorded from within the audience on 6/25/67 by Robert F. Valentine. (Some of the speeches are not entirely audible, and only about 2/3 of the 507 graduates' name-readings were recorded.) I will mail a duplicate CD of this recording to anyone requesting it, at no charge.

In addition, I have a 2-DVD 2-hour video of the 1987 20th-year HHS '67 reunion party. I will mail a free duplicate set to anyone who would like one.

 

 

Other Links of Interest

Additional Woodbury pages:


Some links of related interest:


Long Island & New York area newspapers:


Acknowledgements

Many thanks go to Alan, Alex, Alice, Allen, Andy, Art, Barry, Bill, Bob, Brian, Bud, Caryn, Cathy, Charlene, Charles, Charley, Chris, Christine, Chuck, Colleen, Cynthia, Dan, David, Donna, Doug, Ed, Ellen, Emily, Gail, Gale, Georgia, Hazel, Helen, Howard, Huntington Union Free School District, Jack, Jane, Jeff, Jim, Joan, Joanne, JoAnne, John, Judy, Julia, Kathy, Ken, Laurie, Leona, Leslie, Linda, Lisa, Liz, Lois, Louise, Lynn, Marcia, Margaret, Mark, Mary, Meg, Michael, Mike, Nancy, Pat, Paul, Peter, Rich, R.J., Robert, Robin, Ruth, Ruth-Ann, Shirley, Skip, Steven, Sylvia, Teresa, Theresa, Tommy, Vicki, Virginia, Warren and Winnie for your creative, technical, archival and name identification contributions to this page.