Lewis Holloway:  

I went to the public schools in Erie from the first grade through the tenth. Erie had an extremely good school system in the 30’s and 40’s, but by the time I started school the system had started to deteriorate. As the mining industry collapsed so did the school system. The children were being cheated out of a good education. It seemed that good students, with the help of dedicated parents, got along, but still were lacking the education they needed to pursue higher studies. Few succeeded in going on to colleges and universities, but a very few. I grew up in the Erie Telephone Office. My mother was the telephone exchange manager. The Erie telephone office was closed in 1955. The old magneto “Number Please” phone system had been replaced with dial. My mother was transferred to Broomfield, Colorado to manage the telephone office until it also went dial. Living in Broomfield, I had several choices of high school to attend, Thornton, Arvada, Louisville and Lafayette. The three counties, Adams, Jefferson and Boulder all meet at Broomfield. The football coach at Lafayette (Tom Sutak) was the most persuasive. Tom had knowledge of my football experience at Erie. Lafayette was known for exceptional football and Tom was one of Colorado’s premier coaches, (Later he would be selected to Colorado’s Hall of Fame.) Lafayette was a good choice for me when it came to school studies. I had to learn how to study and was expected to have passing grades, nothing at all like Erie. School was hard for me coming from Erie poor schools. We had extraordinary football teams the years I was in Lafayette. In fact, my senior year we were in the state play-offs. After football season I became a wrestler. Wrestling was an entirely new sport for me. I did well both years attending Lafayette High School. Both years I wrestled, I was conference champ. In 1956, At th...Expand for more