Were you at Northland during the 1989 school year? Back then, 35 years ago, the US population was 246,819,230 and the average life expectancy was 75.1 years. The median household income was $28,906 and the average new home cost $148,800. A gallon of gasoline cost you $1.12 to get to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk ($2.34) along with a dozen eggs ($0.96), all totaling less than $3.50. A postage stamp was only $0.25.
At the Academy Awards, the “Oscar” winner for Best Actor was Daniel Day-Lewis (“My Left Foot”), and Jessica Tandy (“Driving Miss Daisy”) won for Best Actress. What movie won Best Picture for producers Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck? Oliver Stone won Best Director for “Born on the Fourth of July” and the two top money making movies were “Batman” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”
The top rated television show was “Roseanne,” with “The Cosby Show” second. The Emmy Award for best Drama went to “L.A. Law,” the best comedy award was won by “Murphy Brown” and the award for best variety show was won by “In Living Color.”
Over at the Grammy’s, album of the year was “Nick of Time” by Bonnie Raitt, who also won Best Pop and Rock Female Vocal. Bette Midler won Record and Song of the Year with “Wind Beneath My Wings”, while the Billboard top song was “When I See You Smile” by Bad English.
In the world of sports, the San Francisco Forty-Niners won Super Bowl XXIV, the Calgary Flames won the Stanley Cup, the Detroit Pistons won the NBA championship and the Oakland A’s won the World Series. The winner of the 115th running of the Kentucky Derby was a colt named Sunday Silence, who also went on to win The Preakness but fell short of the Triple Crown when he was bested by Easy Goer. (That horse won it by 8 lengths!) To see what else was going on in the world during 1989 click the link below.
What was happening back at old Northland High in 1989? Well the 88′-89′ school year saw former vice principal, Robert Stamps return to Northland, this time as Principal Stamps.
The drama department put on two plays, “California Suite” 
and “Ordinary People” and also 
entertained students throughout the school for 5 minutes in the mornings before homeroom with episodes of the student written and produced soap opera “The Morning Show.”
Shelly Graves and David Dennis were voted Homecoming Queen and King.
And as for sports, well, let’s just say 1989 was a rebuilding year for many of our teams, but that didn’t limit great experiences at Northland
