Passing of Arlington High's last principal stirs memories

The recent passing of John Rowe, the last principal of Arlington High School, struck a chord with former student Linda Chencinski, who wrote about her esteem for the beloved school leader and shared her feelings about the closing of the Arlington Heights school in 1984.

"I cannot tell you the pain we teenagers felt, especially my class, the one that should have been the Arlington High School Class of 1985," she wrote in an email to the Daily Herald.

"You can only imagine, I'm sure, being 16 or 17 and being told your last year of high school, which is usually the best, would be spent at some strange new place. And, not all of your class would be staying together even!"

Rowe died March 14 at the age of 92 in Bella Vista, Arkansas. He arrived at Arlington High in 1956 as a math teacher. A year later, he moved to the new Prospect High School, but returned to Arlington five years later as assistant principal. He took over as principal in 1980.

Chencinski said she and her fellow graduates prefer to call themselves the Arlington Class of 1985, "because none of us say we are Prospect, or Rolling Meadows, or Hersey graduates. We are all Arlington Cardinals."

She said Rowe taught the students what it meant to be an Arlington Cardinal.

"And I will tell you John Rowe cried every tear with us and for us," she wrote. "And when we knew it would have to come to an end, he made sure that each student ended their tenure at the school with their head held high and not in their hands, weeping. Oh, yes, we cried when he lowered our beloved Arlington flag on an afternoon long ago, but he made sure we looked up to that glorious flag. He wanted us to not be rebellious, but to be dignified and proud that we even were able to call ourselves Cardinals."