Fort George G. Meade: The First 100 Years

182 THE FIRST 100 YEARS
Bruce Hopkins
Learning Manners
Annually, retired officers’ wives held a
cotillion at the old wooden WWII Officers
Club for kids 10 to 13 years old. My mother
forced me to go along with all the other
boys. We were taught manners (table and
polite, social and behavior). We also learned
all the various ballroom dances. When the
big final formal dance was held, my friends
and I snuck downstairs to the bar to drink
Coke and smoke cigarettes. Needless to say,
one of the retired wives found us.
Lida-M H Payne (Ret.) Division Chief CYSS
(Above photos) Officers Club c. 1950.
From a teen's eyes the Teen Center was wonderful, from a management’s eyes we had a lot of work to do! By the time I
was hired we were now located in the temporary WWII structure, the old printing plant. It was a great facility to expand
our program from just dances and sports. I was up for the challenge, however, I began to navigate the ins and outs of
what was and wasn’t funded and how important the program was in the big picture. It wasn’t high up there. We were not
given the right to custodial cleaning. My Commands idea was, have the teens clean it! Oh yes, that’s a marvelous idea.
Our teens did come through with painting the entire facility with very modern colors of the 70s.
In 1983 the White Paper came out which in a nutshell, threw away the old theory of the military, “If we wanted you
to have a family we would issue you one,” and gave the child program standards, funding, and the new philosophy “take
care of a soldiers family.” The Youth program wasn’t as well defined but we were able to piggyback off the child’s
regulations. Fortunately, we were approved for a new Youth Center which broke ground on Sept. 2, 1987. Easy for me
to remember because my son was born on that day and I missed the ceremony, for a very good reason!
The new Youth Center was the birth of fantastic programs and activity expansion to benefit our most precious
children with educational, recreational and developmental programs. The Youth Center was highlighted on the cover
of National Recreation and Parks professional magazine in 1988 as a model for youth recreation facilities. Participation
quadrupled in the first year. From the Youth Center came the renovated school-age facility and then the stand-alone
Teen Center. The Meade Youth program is a program to be proud of.