Imagine being in high school during the start of World War II or the sock-hopping late ‘50s or during the Energy Crisis of 1973. One Renton family has experienced that and then some.

The McLendon family of McLendon Hardware has produced 11 graduates of Renton High School, spanning 1942 to 1980.

The McLendon family settled in Renton in 1926.

Bob McLendon, son of founder M.J. McLendon, was the first to graduate from Renton High School in 1942. There were 110 students in his graduating class.

“We lived right downtown, so I walked to school all the time, walked home for lunch,” said Bob.

In those days, he said he really didn’t pay much attention to school work and adults and children had a different dynamic.

“My parents didn’t push me. Parents were different in those days; they didn’t mix in with the kids’ schooling,” Bob said.

He said teachers didn’t push students back then like they do now or take a personal interest in them.

Calling himself bashful, Bob said he didn’t participate in sports formally, but he did participate in intramural basketball, baseball, tennis, the Pep Band and Boy’s Club.

He said he was a quiet student and didn’t get into trouble, but he didn’t grow up until after high school.

The United States entered World World II his senior year at Renton High.

“I was six years in the Navy after that and that’s when I grew up,” he said.

Bob and a lot of his friends enlisted before they were drafted. In the Navy he was stationed on a floating dry dock and repaired ships that had been hit or needed repair.

“There’s still a few of us left of this class and since we have a store they usually come in and I can see them and talk to them,” Bob said.

At 87, he socializes more now with his former classmates than he did in school.

In 1961, Bob’s nephew Dave Thompson, son of Dorothy McLendon Thompson, graduated from Renton High with 522 classmates. It was the year that John F. Kennedy was inaugurated president, the Berlin Wall was constructed and the movie “West Side Story” won the Academy Award.

But to hear Thompson, now 67, tell it, life was all about music, cars and girls for him and his friends at RHS. He said he might have been a mediocre student, but he had a really good time. He was known amongst his peers as the joker.

“Those Friday nights cruising the Loop, awwwh, after a football game, it was such a kick,” Thompson said.

The Loop, he explained, was a place to cruise and be seen in souped-up cars  on Third Street to Wells Avenue to Rainier Avenue.

“The kids would circle that and do a little quick race between the stoplights and somebody would inevitably get pulled over,” he said.

Then after the Loop got it’s reputation it slowly went away due to un-synchronized traffic lights. And, cruising was outlawed.

But there was still fun to be had in town for Renton High Schoolers.

Popular hangouts included Dag’s Drive-In and the Triple X.

“That’s where you had car hops; they would come outside and wait on you,” Thompson said. “You would pull up – it had a big long roof that you would pull into and they had like speaker phones. You gave them your order through that.”

He said the car hops experimented with roller skates or they just walked out to you with a tray full of burgers, fries and shakes.

“It was a kick,” he said.

Thompson had his requisite blue-suede shoes and boys wore low pants and Levis at the time.

“Every Thursday we had to wear our red sweat shirts that said ‘Renton High,” but you wore them inside out,” said Thompson. “You had to be cool; cool was where it was at.”

During this time in 1961 in parts of the country race relations were very volatile. The Freedom Riders, a group of black and white volunteers trying to defy Jim Crow laws in the South, were attacked and beaten.

To Thompson, race was a non-issue at RHS; he said there were “more Asian kids than either Black or Hispanic.”

Renton High would get its first black homecoming queen in 1986.

In the late 1950s, relationships with teachers changed, Thompson said, as some treated students like adults.

Gail McLendon, cousin to Thompson, appreciated RHS’ teachers too. Now president of McLendon Hardware, she still sees one of her former teachers in the store from time to time.

She graduated in 1973 with 501 of her classmates.

Gail, 55, thinks Renton High back in her day had more school spirit than it does today.

“Everybody was really into that, like everybody went to the football games, everybody went to all the dances,” she said. “We didn’t have iPods and phones and all of that, so everybody really participated in the activities that were going on.”

Gail regularly attended sporting events as a member of the drill team, that competed during half-time. She also hung out with the band as her boyfriends were often a part of it.

Girls wore their hair long and parted down the middle. Wide belts with big buckles were popular, so were Navy bellbottoms called swabbies and high-waisted pants.

1973 was the year Gail bought her first car and it was also the year of the Energy Crisis.

She said gas was about 75 cents a gallon, but they had to line up for a block and a half to two blocks to get it.

“I had an acquaintance who worked at a gas station and he let me know when they were getting gas so I could line up before anyone else,” she said.

1973 was the last big year of graduates for a while, as the 1970s included the opening of two additional high schools in Renton: Hazen and Lindbergh.