Sunset Stories

For Sue and Dave Erickson, memories of Sunset School are tied to growing up in Carmel in the late 1950s and early 1960s — going to school, walking into town, spending time at the beach and being part of a small community where everyone seemed connected.

Sue moved with her family from San Francisco to Carmel before sixth grade. Sunset School served sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students at the time, bringing together children who had attended schools including Wood School and River School.

Sue and Dave met in sixth-grade band. Sue played the flute and Dave played the baritone horn.

They were members of Sunset School's final eighth-grade class in 1962, just as Carmel's schools were beginning to change.

Their memories of Sunset are filled with the everyday details of being students there.

They remember principal Orville Rogers and music teacher and PE coach Art Holman. They remember the music, art and shop bungalows, along with separate boys' and girls' PE fields.

Music was a big part of the campus. Sue remembers brass musicians performing during the Bach Festival from an upper window that had once been part of the auditorium's exterior wall. The performances became known as "tower music."

The auditorium itself was very different from the Sunset Center audiences know today. It had open-beam ceilings and even a few bats. Students gave one of them the memorable nickname "Johann Sebastian Bat."

Dave also remembers the attic above the auditorium.

Outside of school, Carmel was simply home.

Sue and Dave remember walking into town, going to the beach and stopping at local businesses. Dave remembers having lunch at the Rinky Dink. Sue notes that girls weren't really encouraged to go there at the time — it was the 1960s.

Those small details help paint a picture of what it was like to grow up in Carmel and attend Sunset School during that era.

Sue still has three years of Sunset School yearbooks, including photographs showing the campus and auditorium before later additions and renovations. She is also helping locate letters and materials connected to former principal Orville Rogers through his youngest daughter, Diane.

As Sunset celebrates its Centennial, memories like Sue and Dave's help preserve a part of the campus history that can't always be found in official records — what the school looked like, where students gathered, the teachers they remember and what everyday life in Carmel was like more than six decades ago.