The Friendship Dance Celebrates Its 75th Dance

It is with deep irony that the Adams Road Rivalry’s (the complete rivalry between Webster and Kirkwood) two biggest negative events resulted in its two strongest traditions – the Turkey Day Game and the Friendship Dance.  The Turkey Day Game resulted after a stadium and field melee towards the end of the 1923 game caused a four-year suspension of football games.  However, when it resumed, it began a tradition of playing the football game as the last game of the season on Thanksgiving Day – causing the game to be named the “Turkey Day Game.”   For the first eleven years of the Turkey Day Game, no event significantly tainted its image until 1938. 

In 1914, the Young Men’s Christian Association began a high school related group in America that it dubbed the “Hi-Y.”  The Hi-Y first organised at Webster for the 1924-25 school year, following its mission to “create, maintain, and extend throughout the school and community, high standards of Christian living.”  In autumn 1934, the Webster Groves Hi-Y sponsored its first Turkey Day pep parade and, the day after the Turkey Day Game, held its first “victory dance,” named Tacky Dance – in which “many of the Kirkwood students showed their friendly spirit by attending the entertainment.”  In autumn of 1935, the dance was named the Hi-Y Football Dance; in 1936 there was no pep assembly, parade, or dance; and in autumn of 1937 it was named the Turkey Truck.  In 1938, the name returned to being called the Hi-Y Football Dance and it coroneted the first Webster Football Queen, Jane Clements. 

1939-1963  The Friendship Dance and the First 25 Years

In the autumn of 1938, there were heightened hostilities between the schools which originated, according to 1941 Webster alumnus Bill O’Herin, as the result of a “word-of-mouth” exchange of threats and challenges.  Some of this animosity was fostered by graduated members of both schools.  On the day of the challenge, somewhere between Tuesday, November 1 and Thursday, November 3, O’Herin described a flood of students going to the grounds of Westborough Country Club, where the physical altercation was set to occur.  Webster students headed west along Lockwood Boulevard and Kirkwood students headed east along Adams Road – the two roads actually being the same road, only changing names at the western border of Glendale and Kirkwood.  According to O’Herin, Glendale, Kirkwood, and Webster police positioned cars and at both ends of Lockwood Boulevard.  Although he saw no weaponry, he did describe an instance in which a Webster student was placed into a Kirkwood squad car and Webster students grabbed the rear bumper, lifted the rear wheels of the car from the ground so that it could not drive away.  The students fled when the officers left the car.

The two groups met at the fifth putting green of the course, nearest the intersection of Sappington Road and Adams/Lockwood.  Bud Leonard, 1941 Kirkwood alumnus, and Bill O’Herin have no memory of a tradition of such fights.  Fortunately, there were no recorded injuries at the affair but the school administrators, James Hixson of Webster and I. J. Deck of Kirkwood, announced that if anything like it ever happened again, the football game between the schools would be forever cancelled.  Leonard remembering an old lyric from a song that he wrote about Kirkwood’s old principal, referenced the fact that he was originally from Texas, “The eyes of Texas are upon you, the eyes of old I. J.!”

While not at the fight, Bud Leonard was a Kirkwood student who had attended Webster schools from seventh grade through ninth but his family moved to Kirkwood during the summer of 1938, just before his sophomore year.  Regardless, Leonard refused to transfer to Kirkwood and daily walked from Kirkwood to Webster to attend school… until authorities learned of his transgression and forced his transfer during the semester to Kirkwood. 

Determined to never have the game cancelled, and because of close friendships he had at Webster, Leonard used his influence with the Kirkwood Hi-Y to expand the Webster Hi-Y Football Dance into a joint Hi-Y dance between the schools.  After much fret over its name, Leonard and members of both school Hi-Y clubs settled on the name “Friendship Dance” “due,” according to Leonard, “to a complete lack of imagination.”  Webster had elected its first queen in 1938 but this year, in 1939, both schools elected the first joint queens of the dance – Barbara Ramsay of Webster and Jeanne Jordan of Kirkwood.  The queens, Leonard confides, was nothing more than an excuse for the male leadership of the Hi-Y clubs to get a dance with the prettiest girls of the schools.  In 1940, Leonard and his good friend Al Gruer were the presidents of each respective school’s Hi-Y clubs.  The friendship between the two caused them to invent a consolation award for the game, in which no award had ever been given since 1914 – the Little Brown Jug – which became traditionally exchanged between the Hi-Y presidents at the Dance.  The idea of the Jug was borrowed from the tradition held between the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota but with a twist – it was the loser of the game that was awarded the Jug and the Jug must be kept in the trophy case of the school for the year until the next game.  The back of the Jug kept a painted record of years and scores for the schools.  Until 1986, the Friendship Dance was held the first Saturday after Thanksgiving Day. 

By the end of the 1940s, the back of the Little Brown Jug, a one-gallon jug, was filled and the Jug was replaced with a larger five-gallon version which held the past scores of the game from 1940 to 1959.  In 1955, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against school segregation and Kirkwood immediately integrated black students into its school in that year.  Webster, having the only black high school in St. Louis County, allowed the school to remain open for one last year, closing its doors at the end of the 1955-56 school year.  After the closing of Douglass High School, all high school matters at Webster and Kirkwood were considered desegregated. 

In 1960, the Little Brown Jug was again switched to Jug No. 3, a three-gallon jug and, in 1963, the unheralded twenty-fifth Friendship Dance was held. 

1964-1988  Minority Queens and the Next 25 Years

Thirteen dances after the end of desegregation (twelve at Webster), the Friendship Dance had its first black queen with the election of Faye de Clue of Webster in 1968.  After the 1974 Turkey Day Game, the Little Brown Jug #3 was stolen after the game.  The theft occurred when a recent Webster alumnus took the jug from a table at the Webster Groves swimming pool and submerged it in the shallow end of the pool, whose locker rooms were used by football players and restrooms used by the public.  Later that night, the alumnus returned to the pool, climbed the fence, and retrieved it.  After holding a party at his home, in which the Jug served as its centerpiece, no school administrator later came seeking to retrieve it.  The Jug found its way into a bag and was stored for twenty years in the attic of the alumnus’ parent’s home.  Also, as part of counter-cultural changes initiated in the 1960s that continued into the 1970s the “Football Queen” changed its name to the “Friendship Queen” in 1976. 

In 1979, the Friendship Dance was held at the Webster Groves YMCA, which had been a longstanding tradition to hold at the YMCA of each community.  When this tradition started is unknown and in the early years, especially before it became a joint dance, there was at least one reference to the Webster dance being held at the Monday Club, located in Webster Groves.  Traditionally, the Friendship Dance alternated annually between the  cities, being held in the city that did not host the game.  In 1980, the tradition moved to the Kirkwood High School gymnasium, because the low numbers attending the dance by this time caused the YMCA to not want to host it.  After 1980, the dance was permanently relocated to the school gymnasiums and, in 1981, Kirkwood elected its first black queen, Sherry Fantroy. 

In 1986, due to a scheduling mistake by Kirkwood principal Franklin McCallie, the Friendship Dance was moved for the first time to the Saturday just before the game which caused the surprise result of the attendance increasing drastically.  Apparently, students were more willing to attend the Dance when they did not know the outcome of the game.  From 1986, until present day, the Friendship Dance is now held on a Saturday before the game, which has caused much larger numbers of students to attend the dance.

In 1987, Little Brown Jugs #1 and #2 were found at the Webster Groves YMCA, presumably left there in 1979, and were returned to Webster High School.  Their use at the YMCA was that of decorative doorstops.  For years the rumour existed that Webster coach, Jack Jones, had hidden the Jugs but the discovery discredited the rumour.  In 1988, the unheralded fiftieth Friendship Dance was held – without a Turkey Day Game – due to Webster’s appearance and win in the Show-Me Bowl Game.  The cancellation of the Game was the first to happen since 1928.

1989-2013  Friendship Kings and the Last 25 Years

By 1989, both jugs were missing again.  The location of Jug #1 still remains unknown but it is now known that the Webster-Kirkwood Times newspaper borrowed Jug #2 to take photographs for a story they were writing and forgot to return it to Webster High School.  During its time at the newspaper, the Jug served as an ashtray. 

In 1991, two Kirkwood students tied for Friendship Queen honours and the decision was made to crown two Kirkwood Queens that year, Beth Giuntoli and April Schenk – serving as both the first and last time there was a dual crowning.  In 1992, the “missing jug” rumour finally reached the Webster-Kirkwood Times and the Jug mysteriously appeared on the counter of the main office of Kirkwood High School – the year’s host of the Jug.  In 1996, with the opening of P.J.’s Tavern in Kirkwood, an anonymous person walked into the tavern and placed a duffel bag onto the bar, uttered “you never got this from me” and departed.  In the bag was the Little Brown Jug #3 and it remained there for fourteen years. 

In 2006, the first Friendship Kings were crowned as part of the Friendship Dance, Ned Stevens of Webster and Scott Jones of Kirkwood.  In 2009, the Turkey Day Game Organisation had four new Centennial Jugs created with the idea of retiring the first three Jugs from use and instead use something that could represent the next 100 years of the Game.  Instead of the years and scores from the Turkey Day Game appearing on the back of the Jug, a list of the head coaches and the years of their services appears on the back from 1898-2006.  Three of the Jugs are five-gallon jugs and the fourth is a miniature, purchased to curry the favour of a five-year-old.  The four Jugs also have names which appear on them:  Bud, named for Bud Leonard, the person responsible for the Friendship Dance and the exchange of the first Jug – donated to the Turkey Day Game and currently exchanged between the schools; Gang, named for John “Gang” Greene, the grandfather of the Turkey Day Game historian – maintained as an extra Jug by the Turkey Day Game Organisation; Rich, named for one of the sneakiest pranksters in the Turkey Day Game’s history – made with the intent of trading it to P.J.’s Tavern for Jug #3; and Daddy, the person who wanted to curry favour with a little girl – owned by a little girl who wanted a Jug too.  As part of ongoing alumni betting between the schools, coins between the alumni for varsity Turkey Day Games is kept in Bud, each bet being a coin from the year the game was played.  Gang has a collection of bets pertaining to the outcome of the alumni football games – including a quarter from the first alumni game in 1930.  In 2010, Jug #3 was taken from P.J.’s Tavern at the end of the football season and its whereabouts remain unknown.

Since 1934, the Dance has crowned 73 Football Queens, 77 Friendship Queens, 14 Friendship Kings, and exchanged four different Little Brown Jugs – with two more Friendship Queens and Kings yet to be crowned in 2013.  Despite growing student sentiment to dissolve the joint school dance in favour of separate homecoming dances, the Friendship Dance still holds firm this 75th year.  May the Bell ring for you, this November! 

By Shawn Buchanan Greene

1987 Webster Alumnus