From the 1960s and into the 1980s, the IBM corporation had a near-monopoly on the sales of the mainframe computers that powered US business. IBM's largest mainframe manufacturing plant was located in Poughkeepsie, NY, the capital of Dutchess County. A significant percentage of the county's population either worked at IBM or benefitted from the large impact that the company had on the local economy. The presence of IBM meant that the county was somewhat insulated from the process of de-industrialization that was occurring throughout much of the United States in the 1980s. Illustrative of this "glory days" environment, all families of IBM employees were members of the well-endowed IBM country club in Poughkeepsie and high school students that maintained high GPAs were given well-compensated summer internships at one of the company's multiple facilities.
The large tax base that the company created meant that the public school system in Dutchess County was generally well-funded, attracting excellent teachers and providing academic and sports programs perhaps only seen in private schools in many communities today. The presence of IBM at John Jay High School could not be avoided as the school grounds were literally surrounded by the IBM East Fishkill semiconductor complex!
John Jay High School in East Fishkill and Roy C. Ketchum High in Wappingers Falls served much of the southern part of the county. They were both fed by common junior high schools in the Wappingers School District -- and as such, long-life friendships were often split up as students entered high school and were sent to one of the rival schools.
Fortunately for the trajectory of the Vagodas, three of the founding members, Joshua Cohen, Tim Classey and Bill Cummings -- all graduates of Fishkill Elementary School (here seen on the same page of the 1982 year book!), were not split up and came together again at John Jay. [True fun fact: the official school mascot of Fishkill Elementary were "Frogs". When ever this author went on vacation wearing a Fishkill Frogs sweatshirt, the response was shock! "Fish do what?!"]
The 1980s in Dutchess County was a time of general enthusiasm and relative prosperity. The 1980s in general saw an easing of the tensions of the cold war, an explosion of the home computer market, a boom in video game arcades and shopping malls, the emergence of synthesizer-based pop music and greater application of computer technologies to special effects in movies. Developments in national marketing lead to increased focus on teen markets and cultural -- leading to many of the national hit movies to be focus on teenage life and coming-of-age themes. Top movies of the times included Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Stand by Me, Better off Dead, the Goonies, and the Karate Kid, among many others.
The film Breakfast Club, in its examination of teen social groups, does a particularly good job of describing many of the dynamics occurring in high schools across the county in the 1980s. To some degree the movie encapsulates the zeitgeist at John Jay High School at the time, with students falling into social categories such as: the Heads (short for "pot heads"), Jocks, Preps, Geeks and Punks. In Breakfast Club, the different groups reconcile when they are forced to go to detention together where they come to realize that they are not that different from one another. It is the adults in their lives that are behind many of the challenges and social divisions that they confront. At John Jay High School in Dutchess County, it was the Vagodas rock band that provided the resolution to the existing social divisions. Students came together at the Vagodas' various performances finding common ground in their love of music.
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