Elementary school assemblies as my pea brain recalls were some form of puppet show in the kindergarten era. I was too young to know what was going on within the Watergate hearings so I doubt they had those on for us. I recall one of the space landings being televised at school but no details besides that.
The assembly entertainment value was kicked up a notch in junior high as I recall a talent show in 6th grade where an 8th grade girl (Janine Perry?) was doing the robot to "Runnin' with the devil" and I was in awe. Puberty was just starting so that might have had a bit to do with it as well. She rocked it though.
Another junior high assembly happening was the intermural basketball league championship that was played in front of the entire grade class. My team took the title in 7th grade and that was one of my funnest experiences of youth.
We had a cover band come through in junior high who nailed every tune they played and have tried every avenue to try and remember their name without success. I even contacted the classmate who introduced the band at the assembly and she couldn't recall either. Un-named band, you played well.
The assembly process turned a bit weird in high school; some good-weird and some just weird.
Every high school, big and small, has the pep assembly, usually during homecoming week. Our school mascot was the Redskin (now Maverick) and our principal used to don the war paint each year and get the students (try to get the students) excited for their crappy football team. He tried, I'll give him that. The football team usually lost.
The Christian youth group Campus Life used to put together an assembly and recruit some new members. I recall some enjoyable music within their presentation but just wasn't into the scene as I was too busy being afraid of women at the time.
The last enjoyable assembly in high school was a basketball trick shot shooting elderly man. I don't recall him making that many but he had the crowd on his side so the rare makes were reason for a celebration.
From trick shot shooting grandpa, the scared straight assemblies took over. High school might be a little late for it but the administration did try and warn of the uses of illicit drugs via the assembly. The only thing I took from the first guy was Busch beer's tag line of "head for the mountains" was subliminal for "get high." Boone's Farm had no subliminal tag line but like Busch, it was cheap so we didn't need a subliminal message.
The second scared straight assembly was in the form of a former New Jersey detective who did quite well yelling at his crowd. They even bussed everyone from my school to the cross town school (and sardined us in the gym) to hear him yell. He made a few examples of kids not paying attention and kicked them out but looking back, the kids he was kicking out were the ones he should have been trying to help rather than trying to set the tone.
Trail Head
