Skipping School

I wonder whatever happened to Wayne Wagner, class of ’67, Wichita High School Southeast. I never knew or even met him, but for one class period in the fall of 1965 I stole his identity. At the time, I was attending East High School, though most all of my friends, including my girlfriend, Terry, at the time, were at Southeast. So I spent a good deal of that first semester of my junior year skipping school – 37 times until finally caught. (My senior year I was granted transfer to Southeast, East wanting to be rid of me and Southeast not knowing of me.) The first time I skipped that fall was during the first week of classes. I spent the morning listening to music (Rolling Stones as I recall) at a friend’s house; she had a boyfriend also at Southeast, and we had thought it would be fun to go there and meet up for lunch with our respective girl/boy-friends. So we did. That early in the semester it was easy to slip into the school and blend in with the student body. I met up with Terry and we went through the lunch line without problem. Her class after lunch was art and she suggested that I join her. The art teacher called roll and I was hoping he wouldn’t notice me in his class which was meeting for only the second time, but when he got to Wayne Wagner and no one responded – Wayne was absent – he made an assumption that I – who apparently bore some resemblance to Wayne, who he had only seen once – was Wayne. I did not correct his error.

The lesson that day was in perspective. We all collected drawing pads and charcoal and went out into the hall to sit and draw the line of lockers disappearing into the vanishing point. I was given particular encouragement by the teacher, who apparently saw promise in my rendering. When I finished, I signed the drawing “Wayne Wagner” and handed it in. I never heard what happened the next day when Wayne presumably was back in class and had his hallway perspective drawing returned to him. I like to think that he got an A.