With teamwork, we can conquer what seems impossible when faced alone. One significant event of my high school experience exemplifies the true essence of Generation X. Before the internet and cell phones took over, we took decisive action. When adults claimed we were squandering our time, we defied expectations and loved to prove them wrong. This embodies the spirit of the movies we grew up watching; films like The Breakfast Club, The Goonies, and Revenge of the Nerds became iconic because they showcased misfits uniting to achieve a common goal—and magic happened.
A Legendary Year
The year was 1988. My class had just spent most of our Freshman year at Spotswood High School starting a new life and meeting new friends. School sports made it easy for freshmen to get to know each other. Guys who played football got a head start during summer double sessions and practicing in the blazing summer heat. For others it was band and scholastic clubs that did the trick.
Even though Spotswood High was made up of three towns: Spotswood, Milltown, and Helmetta, we were quite small with only 546 students [taken from the yearbook]. Today, their enrolment is around 775 students school-wide. Still, for a tri-state area school it is tiny in comparrison.
The Contest of a Lifetime
One morning the news spread like wildfire that the local NYC radio station, Z-100, was having a metropolitan area-wide contest to have America’s hottest band, Def Leppard, play at your high school for free to kick off their “1988 Hysteria Tour” and promote their brand-new album. The catch: the school that fills out the most index cards with information like your name, address, phone number and high school—won. My buddies and I gathered at our regular table in the library, we laughed at how impossible it would be to pull off. But if we did, how epic it would be. The amount of work needed would be insane. Every student in the school had to participate. No slackers, because some of the schools entering were three to ten times our size.
So, for a month, this student-led campaign made up of jocks, burn-outs, nerds, band-geeks, and everyone in between, worked like crazy before school, lunch, study hall, and even afterwards. Everyone was a part of it. Parents, teachers, and staff bought cards, with some delivering them in person to the radio station. Students filled them out and collected them in boxes ready to be processed. It was crazy. Some of us were filling out hundreds of index cards, others just a few. But the reward would have been the same. Everyone encouraged each other to keep going, and it really brought the whole school together. It didn’t matter who started it, we finished it together, and all of us took part.
When it was time for Z-100 to announce the winner of the contest, staff played the broadcast over the loudspeaker for all to hear. All of us were at the edge of our seats, leaning on every word. And after a fierce competition, they announced our name as the winner; the whole school uproared and cheering filled the halls and every room. Spotswood High School emerged as the winner by collecting over 50,000 cards. The only other schools that came close were Clifton High School—a school with enrolment between 3,000-4,000—came in second with 48,000 cards, and an all-girls school somewhere in the state, came in third with about 46,000. Because our assembly hall didn’t have the capacity to fascilitate the event, and other high schools came in very close, they chose to have the event at the Capitol Theatre in Patterson, NJ and allow all three schools to participate.
What Made This Even More Amazing
Looking back at this moment, I wonder if we really understood how amazing it was and why it was so successful. Was it because we didn’t have our noses in our phones, sending selfies, and killing noobs on Fortnite?
It was student led
Being that it was student led, most of the work was done by them. It was organized and managed by teens. To be honest, I don’t remember any one person taking ownership of it; but what I do remember is that we worked together, volunteered our time, and willingly took up the slack when needed.
And why was Gen-X so different? Well, for starters, divorce rates were skyrocketing, and it wasn’t abnormal to hear of parents separating. With that, and the rise of women in the workforce, many of us were “latchkey kids,” the first generation to let ourselves in after school, doing our homework, and eating dinner alone before our parents got home from work. Also, many of us had jobs; guys had a paper route, girls pierced ears at the mall. I mowed lawns and made way more money than my parents ever could have given me as an allowance. So, we were independently charged, powered by cynicism, and not knowing what tomorrow would bring because of the looming fear of nuclear war from the ’80’s.
It was faculty supported
Even though our generation was skeptical of adults, entering the contest had to be faculty supported. We knew this, and I don’t know who talked the staff into doing it, but kudos to you. The faculty could have easily shut the whole thing down when they found out how much added work it would have been for the adults. They could have said:
- We need how many busses to take the whole school to the concert?
- How are we going to get all these cards to the radio station in the middle of downtown NYC?
- Where are we going to get all these index cards?
- Who is this leppard person, and why is he deaf?
But they didn’t. I would hope to think they realized the value of an event like this for the students to experience, and the lessons learned transcended the classroom. And guess what? The staff also enjoyed the concert just as much as the students did and celebrated the win just as much.
Crossed social barriers
Even though we were a small school, and most of us got along, we still had groups that didn’t. We had the preppy rich kids who cared more about their appearance and what people thought of them and turned up their noses to everyone else; and the burn-outs who really didn’t care what anyone thought about them and were decent to everyone. Did they interact at all? I’m not sure. It would have been great if they did. But once we were at the concert, we all sat with our friends and celebrated the win with the people we really cared about. So what if we remained in our “cliques?” At least we tried, and you can’t fault teens in trying.
Looking Back
I look back on it now, and it seems like such a blur, but many epic funny moments. Today, those freshmen past their 50’s having kids that just graduated high school themselves; the seniors—well, they’re approaching their 60’s and looking forward to retirement. None of the faculty are there anymore, but either retired or left this world completely.
We are the last generation to know what it was like without the internet and cell phones; but we were the first to have Atari, the home computer, and MTV. We were just children at “Hands Across America,” and watched in horror as the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. There was nothing like Generation-X, and I wonder if there ever will be.
We knew the value of teamwork. We worked together to fix cars, bummed cigarettes off of each other, and together even stole the Science Teacher’s Red Mark Book. We didn’t care if anyone else was in front of us; we knew we’d get there eventually.
This contest was one of the most iconic promotions Z-100 ever did. At the time, Def Leppard was at the peak of their career, and Hysteria had become multi-platnum. The chance to have them play live for your high school was a dream come true for many rock fans, and also helped cement Z-100 as a powerhouse radio station in the New York area even to this day. Many of us still talk about it and met with skepticism from those who weren’t there. But it happened, and a testament to what you can do when you work together for a common goal.
Pens & Wrenches 
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